As they were marched into the landing bay, Ben nodded through the opening. The whole fleet is gathered here, Rey. All of it.
A storm trooper forced Rey down onto her knees facing Ben. Do you think we could . . . ?
Ben gave the soldier holding him a filthy stare, and he backed away slowly. He knelt as close to Rey as he thought they would allow, his eyes boring into her. We're going to die anyway . . . maybe this was how it was always going to happen. Maybe we were never supposed to live long happy lives together. The few inches that separated them felt like light years. Ben's lip trembled, and in his face and his eyes were lifetimes of sorrow and misery and regret. For the few days that you were mine, I'd have died a thousand times over.
Rey's tears spilled down her face. Not like this, Ben. There's got to be a way . . . We won't survive.
Ben leaned subtly forward, even though Ilfa Ren coiled her fingers into his hair and tried to jerk him back. It would take a miracle. There's not going to be that kind of miracle, not for us. You were the miracle, Rey. We are going to have to be the miracle for everyone else now. This is how balance will be won. Just you and me.
Rey let her love fold around Ben's consciousness. It was always going to be just the two of us.
Ben nodded sadly. Yes. I think that it was.
Hux pressed the muzzle of his blaster into Ben's temple. "Finally, this is at an end. Once and for all, the great and mighty Kylo Ren is finally brought down by his own weakness and arrogance."
Ben refused to respond, and instead gathered every scrap of his power together, focusing it on Rey. Are you ready?
"If you don't mind," Ilfa Ren mused, "I'd really like to kill the girl first. I want to watch him watch her die. He's so attached to her—it's pathetic, really."
Rey nodded, more through their bond than with her head. I'll pull them all together . . .
Ben tried to smirk back at her. And I'll tear them all down.
Ilfa Ren leaned low and whispered into Rey's ear, "I'm going to wear that little bauble he made you the rest of my life. Every time I look at it, I'll be reminded just how easy it is for a woman to destroy a man . . . even when he's the most powerful man in the universe. Believe me, it's going to be around my finger a lot longer than it was around yours." Rey couldn't see Ilfa, but she heard her ignite her saber. "Say goodbye you your sweetheart, Ben."
"I love you. I'll wait for you on the other side. The force is with us, always." NOW!
Rey had started the moment the thought had touched her mind. The entire fleet is gathered here. She had sent her consciousness out across the web of the Force, racing, racing, picking up every thread. Into a thousand tendrils, falcons chasing after prey, Rey split her consciousness. Rey hated that her consciousness was too split to answer Ben's love, but she knew he felt it flooding through their bond, and her words weren't important.
On and on her thoughts raced. It was a child's game—hop, hop, grab, a step here, slide between those two there, grab three more . . . Too many lights to count.
Hurry, Rey! She heard the old Jedi's voice, and it was as though time slowed.
In the end, she discovered that she could gather souls to her in great swaths, thousands grabbed in a single reach. By the time Ben had said his last goodbye, Rey had gathered every thread of every soul on every destroyer and dreadnaught in the fleet.
When Rey breathed, it was like breathing through motor oil with an incredible weight upon her chest. Finally the tension broke, and dozens of souls scattered throughout the quadrant breathed with her. In the next breath, a few hundred, and this time, the air was like honey. Sweeter, lighter, shot through with the light from hundreds of souls, breathing into the Force. Two more breaths, and by this time, there were hundreds of thousands. One more breath, and this time, she heard even Hux take a halting breath with her.
Rey had become a conduit, the lens at the center that tapped the Force that flowed through millions of souls, plucking away their will, drawing off their vital connection to the Force . . . and channeling it all back to Ben Solo. The dreadnaught was gone. Hux was gone. The entire assembled legion of storm troopers were gone. All that remained were millions of ribbons of light, filling her vision in every direction. She floated amongst them, and she knew them each by name, could have reached out and plucked individuals at will like the strings of a harp. Their dreams and fears and memories filtered into her mind, and for a few seconds, she was the mother of millions. Amongst them, all that remained was Ben Solo, dark, steady, and strong, and the bond between them.
Ben . . . I love you . . .
Rey held out her hands, and released the flood of power to flow through her into Ben. As it channeled through her, Rey felt only warmth and peace, and she waited patiently for the moment when their flesh would melt away and their souls could return to the Force, still linked and finally complete.
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
Ben knew that Ilfa Ren wanted him to look at her, that she wanted to have the pleasure of seeing the moment his heart shattered. Though he hated the thought of doing anything at all to please her, he knew that if he could drag out this torture just a few minutes longer, it would give Rey the precious time she would need. He hated that he would have to spend the last few minutes of his life looking at Ilfa Ren, rather than at Rey. Ben watched Rey's eyes lose focus, and when he saw that she could no longer see him, he flicked his eyes up at Ilfa Ren.
Ilfa Ren smiled sweetly, as though he had granted her the greatest pleasure of her life. "How fitting, Ben. Your story is going to end the way it began, with a Skywalker and a Kenobi against the rest of the universe." Ilfa brought her saber high above one shoulder, preparing for her stroke to murder his wife. "Who'd have thought the heart of a Solo would destroy the last vestige of hope for the Jedi?"
Ilfa Ren's stroke never fell. The decking of the hangar began to tremble, and then to shake in earnest. Ben grinned broadly. "My father's heart and my mother's strength. You don't have any idea what you've gotten yourself into."
Ilfa let her saber drop and go out. "What are you doing?"
When Rey opened her hands, Ben reached out with open palms as though to grab something from the thin air, and then pulled them violently back into his body. When his fists slammed into his chest, it pushed him several yards back, and a crater formed beneath him, glowing red. With a roar, he flung his hands out towards Urobos Prime.
Hux and Ilfa Ren followed the direction of Ben's gesture, puzzled. From the open bay doors, the first of the destroyers exploded. From between his clenched teeth, Ben growled, "Tearing the First Order down."
While Ilfa Ren had spoken, Ben had picked out the position of every destroyer and dreadnaught, locating that place in the heart of each vessel where its structural integrity was weakest. When Rey had gathered the collective power from the millions of souls on each ship in the fleet, Ben twisted it together into a single, inexorable wave of energy, and he sent it sweeping in a wide arc around Urobos Prime. The surge of raw power rocketed around the planet and sheared through the heart of every destroyer and dreadnaught in the fleet. One after another, they exploded, a chain reaction across thousands of ships.
Ben knelt trembling, every muscle in his body locked rigid as he directed the massive Force energy that soared through space, slamming into each vessel and shredding it like paper. Hux was forced to watch helpless as ship after ship exploded. Within minutes, the only ship still in orbit around Urobos Prime was the Supremacy.
Ben crawled weakly back to Rey's side. In the chaos that was ensuing outside the Supremacy, they'd been all but forgotten. As millions of souls winked out, Rey and Ben had both felt each death like a mortal wound, piercing them body and soul, and it was taking its toll on them both.
Ben pulled Rey into his arms, and she melted into his body, her head on his shoulder, her body and legs folded up within his own much longer tangle of limbs. Rey surfaced slowly from the forest of souls as it went dark around her, drawn out of her reverie by the warmth of Ben's last kiss. Ben pressed her head into his shoulder and folded his arms and legs around her with what remained of his physical strength, hoping against hope that somehow he could shield them both. It's almost over. Only one ship left. Goodbye, my love. Ben felt her sigh of contentment, the glow of her love one of the few lights that still remained in the rent fabric of the Force. With a sigh of resignation, Ben turned what remained of their accumulated power back into the heart of the Supremacy.
By the time Hux turned away from the hangar bay doors, it was far too late to save the Supremacy. He saw Kylo Ren cradling the accursed girl from Jakku and rocking slowly on the deck of the hangar. A searing light emanated from them, and within seconds, the decking of the hangar was torn away, artificial gravity failed, and when the ship's power grid collapsed, the shields that preserved the bubble of breathable air within the hangar shattered. Armitage Hux, Supreme Leader of the First Order, was sucked out into space like so much other detritus. The tiny glimmering speck that was his soul within the fabric of the Force was extinguished, as were two blazing stars, twinned and sharing the same soul.
