Author's Note: This was a little shorter than I would've liked, but it's also out earlier than I expected, so there's that. I'm still wondering about certain paths the narrative could take, but I'll figure that out later, until then; enjoy this chapter (hopefully)!
Part IX: In Light of the Dying Star
The snow of Starkiller Base began to frost the windows the Rogue Shadow as it made it's final descent into the forest outside the oscillator that was discussed at the Resistance meeting on D'Qar. Juno expertly lay the craft down and the ramp hissed open, letting in a burst of frost. "Proxy, you have the con. Stay out of sight, and don't die. We'll need you to pick us up when we're done here." Juno said loudly over the hissing wind.
"Also, don't jeopardize their lives to get at me," Galen quipped.
"Of course not, Master. That would be in direct violation of the programing you added after the incident on Naboo." Proxy replied with a vocal smirk.
Juno rolled her eyes, as she disembarked; Naboo had been a bloody mess, literally. Barriss simply nodded at the droid as she followed Juno out into the night. Galen quickly ran back into the cabin to grab his Jedi-scavenger hybrid hood to cover his not so insulated armour (not dissimilar fashion choice than the garb Galen Marek wore during his final confrontation with DarthVader. This was not missed by Juno's keen eyes.), smartly rethinking his approach to foul weather. Juno was comfortable in her perfectly insulated Mandalorian armour, courtesy of her cantina-owning friend Hera Syndulla who added a thermodynamic lining to adapt to temperatures very high or obscenely low. Barriss wore a combination of Clone and typical Mandalorian armour. Not to be outmatched by Juno however, since hers was partially acquired from the war chest of a Death Watch Lieutenant who survived the Clone Wars. The parts of her outfit that were Clone armour was taken from an old friend upon his departure from armed conflict, a clone commander called Cody. His helmet dyed in indigo and black was upon her head. Barriss' armour was fit with plenty of armaments, some standard like whipcord and hidden blades, some nasty toys; though her indigo flowing coat, which was impressively billowing in the wind as she secured her helmet, hid most of these instruments of combat.
"Nice coat there Barriss," Juno nodded appreciatively. "Did you make it?" The pilot inquired.
"No, I stole it from a bounty hunter with a ridiculous hat. I dyed it indigo though. Ahsoka didn't think the brown coat matched my eyes." Barriss' eyes were hidden from Juno from behind her helmet, but she narrowed them as she remembered her final encounter with the Jedi killer and abductor of Force-sensitive children: Cad Bane. She shook her head slightly, dispersing the memory of Ahsoka bleeding on the deck and subsequent carnage Barriss herself inflicted on that red-eyed monster. Remarkably, his admittedly beautiful coat fell off during their climactic altercation, thus being spared from Barriss' maelstrom and likely disintegration.
It took the three of them longer than they would've liked to reach the oscillator hub; the disappearing sun bathed the land in hues of light grey, as the sun was nearly gone. The battle in the sky was already quite fierce. Briefly looking skyward, Barriss and Galen both located the powerful Force presence in the sky coming from the Ghost being piloted by Ahsoka Tano. The Ghost was clearly more than a match for the TIE fighter pilots, though Ahsoka often had to defend some of the X-wings, she circled around a close-knit squad of three as they completed another bombing run before the fight ended up in higher atmosphere; the TIE fighters were beginning to thin out the ranks of the other X-wings.
"We need to hurry," Galen said as he increased his pace after receiving a go-ahead nod from Juno, using the Force to bolster each step to cover metres at a time. While Barriss could've easily kept pace with him and perhaps exceed him, she stayed behind with Captain Eclipse.
"How are Sabine and Hera doing?" Barriss ventured causally as the neared the hub. "Ahsoka and I haven't been as good patrons as we probably should be; at least not in the last few years. There was a while there when we practically lived with them, but that was before Ezra's death." Barriss hissed inwardly, brining up dead friends was not a good way to hold conversation.
Juno however brushed off the mention of their dead friend, "Pretty good, Hera actually modified my armour, making it perfectly comfortable in the cold. Sabine couldn't help but add a few extra personal touches to my armour as well. They are both doing well I think, Galen and I spent a week with them before meeting up with Hondo in Mos Eisley."
Barriss thought for a moment, "Is Hondo still as much a nuisance as he was when Ahsoka and I knew him?" Hondo was infamously selfish, but had in his golden years developed what some might hesitantly call a conscience. According to the late Ezra Bridger, he may have even become kind following the great Jedi Purge. "Wow," Barriss muttered almost to herself realising the last time she had encountered Hondo was now over two decades, pushing three.
Juno shrugged as well as she could sprinting at higher speeds than any normal human, she too utilizing the Force to hasten her steps. At last they reached the entrance to the Hub. But Galen was standing at the foot of the ladder, speaking to two younger humans, one of whom Juno recognized as the young man who left the Resistance Base with Han Solo and Chewbacca, the other was a girl who was just shorter than she, but even Juno could tell this young woman was something else, but at the same time exceptionally ordinary looking, other than her obviously attractive features.
Barriss looked at the girl with more kindness than curiosity, briefly interrupting Galen's conversation with the young man, "I'm terribly sorry, but I don't know your names. I'm Barriss Offee"
"I'm Juno Eclipse" the pilot directed at Rey, who had not met either of them on account of being taken captive by Kylo Ren.
The dark-skinned young man thrust his hand forward saying to Barriss, "I'm Finn! And this-" He was cut off by a swift but gentle backhand slap to his upper arm.
"I can speak for myself," the girl said pointedly, causing Finn to look embarrassed and Juno and Galen to eat their grins. Even Barriss' lip curled into a grin inside her helmet, "I'm Rey. It's nice to meet you three, but we need to be going, our friends need us." She said not unkindly, but Barriss could sense great worry in coiling off of the youth like smoke. Barriss nodded as Rey jumped onto the ladder, taking the lead with zero hesitation. As the others followed her swiftly, Barriss stood there for a moment looking at the dying star being consumed for one purpose. Turning back to the ladder and ascending as quickly as she could, she couldn't help but remember how much Rey in their very limited interaction reminded her of Ahsoka when they first met. Rey and Ahsoka had the exact same reaction to being spoken for by well-meaning but encroaching men; in Ahsoka's case it was when her master offhandedly introduced her as 'Snips' and she immediately corrected him with a smack on his arm. Barriss chuckled to herself as she remembered Ahsoka also regretted that since the arm she chose to smack was in fact metal and harder than her hand.
By the time all of them were gathered at the landing atop the ladder, they were all peering at a dark figure radiating dark side Force cloud pacing across a bridge extending from one end of the cavernous space to the other. Barriss felt Rey's worry intensify, and while she glanced back at the girl, she also began to have a bad feeling.
The woman with the antique helmet and dark blue coat whispered to the other woman and the man who they encountered first. She turned to Rey who realised she was in fact shivering from the cold, having returned Finn's leather flight jacket since he had also begun to shiver more fiercely than her. She quickly after a second's hesitation took her coat off and put it on Rey, ignoring her mutters of "being perfectly fine". Barriss, Rey totally remembered her name, leapt from where she stood with a velocity and grace that Rey had never seen before. She disappeared below them all into the light emanating from the bottom of whatever structure they were in.
Anticipating Finn's gasp of horror, Juno quickly clapped a hand over his mouth, muting her for a moment. Rey reached up and removed the hand from her friend and she recognized from its weight was artificial. Finn nodded at Juno, letting her know that he was ok now. After a silent chuckle, Galen made a similar leap towards the platform below though decidedly far less graceful, silently landing behind a few stormtroopers, breaking both their necks with horrifying ease as he dragged them behind a metal pillar and out of sight. Juno however turned back to look at her and Finn, and for the first time, Rey had properly looked at the beauty in front of her. Rey thought she was beautiful especially because she could appreciate the craftsmanship of the armour she wore.
Feeling incredibly childish, she loved how Barriss' coat seemed to fit her perfectly, and stopped in her quiet glee for a moment to absorb the fact that the woman in front of her, Juno Eclipse, had an ornate lightsaber hilt attached to her belt. Before she could say anything to the woman, movement happened in the corner of her eye which was right then looking at the creature in mask just passing the half-way point on the dark bridge. It was Han! Finn also noticed, tensing up beside her; Juno however was paying more attention to Chewbacca for some reason.
Rey's attention was focused purely on the only person who she felt truly accepted her as he sheathed his blaster on his hip, striding toward the creature in mask and let forth a wounded cry,
"BEN!"
