"Are the bombing cannons ready to fire?", Caine bellowed to a floating holographic image of Wolfe as he strode onto the bridge of the Spearhead with the speed and grace of a large predatory bird.

"Yes, sir. Awaiting your command.", came the reply from his lieutenant.

"Commander Khallis…" Caine said as a hologram of his other subordinate appeared in front of him. "I assume your forces are off the surface of the planet?"

"All troops and equipment are safely back aboard our ships.", the ghostly image calmly replied.

"Good. I want all traces of that Imperial garrison wiped from existence. We are not leaving until it is reduced to dust.", Caine commanded. He then turned his attention away from the holograms and towards his bridge crew. "Are my orders clear?"

The entire command crew of the ship shouted their devotion to his cause, affirming his orders.

"Palpatine's Empire is finally dead.", he continued. "Bear witness to the final destruction of the Sith and their PLAGUE on the galaxy."

Caine's soldiers were whipped into a frenzy hearing these words. They cheered and began to chant his name but he quickly silenced them by raising his hand.

"Do not chant….do not worship me.", Caine barked angrily. "We still have much to accomplish. The Last Jedi Master still lives and we must find him and end him. We can celebrate this victory in this moment, but we must be ready to push on."

"Yes SIR.", came the reply in perfect unison from each and every member of the bridge crew.

"Channel open to the fleet.", he demanded as he turned to gaze out the transparisteel windows to view the planet below. "On my mark…"

The command to fire never came, though. Caine's attention was suddenly broken and he snapped back around to face the crew. An uneasy feeling erupted from almost everyone as they saw the look on their distracted and obviously angered leader's face.

"I want a squadron of fighters launched immediately.", he exclaimed. "We have a visitor approaching from the rear."

"Sir, with all due respect.", a tactical officer spoke up, her voice cracking and unsure. "There is nothing on our sensors to the rear of the fleet."

"THE SHIP IS STILL IN HYPERSPACE.", he shouted. "BUT IT WILL BE HERE IN SECONDS. GET A DOZEN FIGHTERS LAUNCHED AND INTERCEPT THAT SHIP WHEN IT ARRIVES. IT NEEDS TO BE INCAPACITATED BUT NOT DESTROYED. I PLAN TO BOARD IT."

For a few long seconds everyone on the bridge was frozen in place, no one moving or even daring to take a breath lest they incur the fury of their suddenly crazed commander. With one thunderous command, though, the air was shattered and everyone within distance of the sound sprung to action like their life depended on it.

"MOVE-!", Caine commanded.

Move they did.


"Ok, buddy.", Lara said to BB-8 as she and Finn strode into the Millennium Falcon's cockpit and sat down. "Are the sublight engines ready for transfer?"

The droid beeped in the affirmative while he continued to jostle buttons and levers inside and out of his navigator stand.

"All right, when we drop out of hyperspace push controls over to my station.", she instructed. "I'll pilot to the surface."

"Finn.", she continued. "I need you to monitor the surface scans. Plot us a course to a nice secluded area for now. Preferably nowhere near the militia you mentioned earlier."

"Can do.", Finn replied as he switched on a display to the right of his seat and began orienting the image of the planet below. "I think I know just the place."

Lara watched the navicomputer's countdown and started counting along with it in her head. Dropping out of hyperspace always made her a little nervous, there was always that slight probability of a miscalculation that could spell doom upon entering real-space again. It was rare but had happened before, especially in the early days of interstellar travel. She had heard many a horror story from survivors of mistimed jumps. Ships ripped apart due to the strange way gravity interacted with hyperspace lanes, collisions with space matter too small to be detected by on board sensors and relative timeslips where the passengers had lost or gained years of their lives in an instant had been just a few of them. She didn't even want to imagine what some of the unlucky travelers that didn't live to tell experienced in the moments after their crafts dropped out.

"Here we go.", stated Lara as the countdown neared zero. "Engaging the sublight engines."

The bright starlines outside their hyperspace lane receded to hundreds of points of light with the ship shuddering slightly as they entered real-space again . Instead of a clear view of Anoth, however, the sight of three gigantic capital ships filled the view of the Falcon's glass panels between them and the small dark planet.

"What the…", she shouted as she threw the Falcon into a hard left bank to avoid flying directly into the engines of one of the ships.

"Is THAT the group you were talking about?", Lara shouted at Finn and she swung around behind her to face him. "That's a damn FLEET of ships."

Finn's eyes were as wide as a bright sun. "NO!", he gasped. "I've never seen them before. Get by and head to the planet before they know we're here."

"No kidding", she scolded. "I have piloted before."

"Sorry.", he murmured.

BB-8 suddenly lit up and interjected himself into the conversation by whistling loudly.

"Too late for stealth.", Lara barked while focusing her attention forward again. "They've seen us. A dozen fighters are heading towards us"

"How accurate are you with firing turbolasers?", she asked Finn.

"I've never been a gunner on a ship…..EVER, why?", came his shocked reply.

"Because SOMEONE has to do it.", she fired back. "I need to stay here and fly if you want us to live long enough to make it to the surface"

"OK…OK, I'll try.", Finn proclaimed. "Where are they?"

"Entrance tubes up and down off the main hallway". Lara replied. "Take the top one so I know where our fire is going to come from."

Finn pressed a few buttons below the monitor he was studying earlier and rose up from his seat.

"When you get us to the planet surface, there is a massive mountain range in the northern hemisphere.", he explained. "Head there and we should be able to lose these fighters. I sent you the coordinates."

"Got it ….. Now GO-!", she commanded.

As he left the cockpit, Lara bit her tongue just before she almost uttered a phrase she swore she would never say again.


"I'm here and just powered the turbolasers up.", Finn relayed to the cockpit as he put on the gunner station headphones and mic.

"Good.", Lara replied. "They're almost on us. I know some maneuvers that can get us past them, but if we push some fire at them they might keep their distance a little bit."

"I'll do my best.", he replied as he looked over the controls and grabbed the firing yoke tightly.

The ship suddenly rocked, shaking Finn in his seat. The fighters must have started firing on them. Before a second round could get to them, though, he felt the Falcon violently turn on its side as Lara accelerated to the squadron's left so as to expose the attacking ships to the topside. Multiple blips materialized suddenly on the small red and yellow illuminated grid in front of Finn's face and he immediately started blasting. The guns spit out a hail of rapid red laser blasts in beat with his button pressing and his swinging of the seat harness from left to right while following the electronic targets. The raw power of the shots erupting from the cannons in front of his seat surprised but also enthralled him.

"Whoah….", Finn yelled over the commlink.

"Stay focused and keep firing.", Lara shouted back as she pushed harder on the cockpit controls to try eluding the wave of small ships that was almost on top of them.

Lara turned the Falcon into a hard corkscrew downward to position themselves into a spot where she could eventually press forward, clearing the fighters and gaining a space to sprint towards Anoth and head to the surface. As she expected, though, a few of them anticipated her move and turned with her to make the sweeping run more difficult. They small buzzing craft were all much closer now and still raining blue bolts of blaster fire towards them. It was all she could do to make sure the majority of the shots missed, but the shields wouldn't hold forever. They needed to take a few out and get into the atmosphere of the planet quickly.

"How you doing down there?", she called out to Finn as the ship got rocked again. "I need you to knock a few of those fighters out. There are too many for me to keep avoiding completely."

"I'm trying.", he cried out in frustration as the initial excitement of firing the guns quickly faded. "They're coming in fast and I told you I've never done this. Plus we're spinning all over the place."

"You can do it.", Lara replied. "Just breathe slowly and try to be as calm as you can. It will help you."

Finn felt the ship come out of the gut-wrenching spin as she said these words, then bank hard to the right, throwing his swiveling seat forcefully in the opposite direction. Instead of fighting the controls, however, he took Lara's advice, closed his eyes for a split second and inhaled deeply. Suddenly things slowed down in his mind. So much so that when he reopened his eyes and focused on the view grid in front of him, every marker was moving in slow motion. He dropped his thumbs down on the triggers to blast a fighter in the upper right quadrant then quickly jammed his seat downward to fire on a second ship that was now in the middle of his screen.

"YEAH.", Finn cheered enthusiastically noticing two direct hits in his view.

Lara heard him holler from all the way up in the cockpit at the same moment she saw the bright flash of two darting fighters vaporize through the cockpit window.

Nice Shooting, she thought to herself as she noticed the other fighters that had broken away with her scatter to avoid the same fate as their comrades.

"Looks like he gave us the opening we need.", she announced to BB-8.

The droid whistled back while Lara swung the controls to guide the Falcon through the hole in the squadron that Finn just created. After an accelerating bank, she flew directly into the debris of the decimated ships and an instant later when they broke through, they had a clear view of Anoth with all ten of the remaining fighters scrambling furiously behind them.

"They're all behind us now.", she reported to Finn over the commlink. "Keep firing. See if you can take out more before we get to the planet. The less we get hit by their blasts, the better."

"Ok.", he answered excitedly as he swiveled to point the cannons behind them, firing again when more trailing fighters came into view.

Finn managed to take out four more of the chasing craft before they hit the upper atmosphere of the dark planet with each hit bringing the same enthusiastic holler as the first one. If they weren't in such a dire situation, Lara imagined she might be able to crack a smile at his excitement, but she still had her hands full keeping them ahead of their pursuers.

The ship plunged into the shroud of gases above the small world and the sudden drag of air forced Lara to grasp hard on the controls to keep the shear from sending the Falcon into a deadly dive. The unpredictable atmospheric forces they were feeling would be difficult to handle even without being chased and fired on, but now something new had entered the equation. There was something very large showing on the scanners dead ahead. It was definitely in their way but still invisible in the thickening clouds and most likely causing some of the disturbances they were flying through.

Finn felt the turbulence and barked over the commlink. "We ok up there?"

Lara ignored the question, turning to BB-8 instead.

"Can you tell what that is we are coming up on?", she asked.

Her co-pilot beeped a sheepish tone that meant he couldn't analyze it any better than their scanners could.

"We gotta get around it but I don't want to slow down.", she stated. "Those fighters are gaining. I'm gonna keep pushing. We should be able to see it soon and I can get us around if we need to."

BB-8 chirped a tenuous approval as they closed the gap to the anomaly.

"You guys still alive?", Finn's voice blared over the speakers

"We're fine.", Lara barked with annoyance in her voice. "There are still fighters chasing us. Keep firing at them. Let me pilot, ok?"

"Copy that.", he muttered into the commlink just as proximity alarms started blaring all over the ship

The silver-white clouds that the Falcon had been burning through ever since entering Anoth's atmosphere started to thin considerably as they approached the unknown object in their path but they were being replaced slowly by wisps of dark black that looked almost like smoke. Lara realized when she saw this that they must be approaching a large craft not some weather anomaly and by the looks of it, the vessel was probably in some distress. She turned her controls so that they could swing around the upcoming ship and as the Falcon swooped out of the trajectory of the giant obstacle in their path, the dark smoke cleared and Lara got her first good look at the craft.

It was a huge Imperial Star Destroyer and just like she suspected, it was in major distress. Only about a quarter of the ship showed any operating lights, the rest was dark and dead. All of the engines seemed to be offline and half of the bridge looked like it had been disintegrated. The smoke that they had just flown through, was pouring out of three giant holes in the hull along with debris and what looked like thin strings of fluorescent liquid coolant. The front end of the triangular beast was listing downwards as gravity slowly pulled the metal corpse to the surface and Lara estimated that in a few hours it would be impacted there as its final resting place.

"There's the group that chased us away.", came a voice from the comm. It was Finn. "Those ships in orbit must have done this."

"That's an Imperial ship-! The Empire must have had a garrison here.", she shouted incredulously. "You said a local militia chased you away-!"

"The Empire hasn't existed for nearly twenty-five years now.", he shot back. "I wasn't wrong."

"This is crazy.", Lara said, fighting the instinct to run to the gunners station and punch their new companion. "I don't know what we fell into here, but we are leaving before we get vaporized. Hold onto something. We're gonna slingshot around the hull of that Destroyer and get out of here. Start making calculations for hyperspace, buddy."

BB-8 whistled frantically at her as the Falcon executed a ridiculous upward loop, whipping around the sinking, burning Imperial hulk. His nervous chirp was actually a question.

"We're going to Nuldarra.", she replied with cold determination.

"Why are we going there?", Finn interrupted over the commlink. "That's a heavily populated system. We sure won't be able to hide there."

Lara knew she didn't need to explain her decisions to their passenger. He was along for the ride and if he didn't like it they could part ways as soon as they got there. Nevertheless, she found herself also rationalizing the choice she just made in her own head and wasting valuable seconds wondering if it actually WAS the right decision…the right time to go there.

She finally spoke not only to Finn and BB-8, but to herself. "We're going there because it's my home."


Caine had been following the disappointing progress of the chase outside on a holographic tactical display in front of him. Half of the fighters in the dispatched squadron had been destroyed and the rest were now trailing the battered freighter on a beeline into the atmosphere of Anoth. The anger he was feeling as he watched one fighter after another wink from existence in front of his eyes was now threatening to boil over into a rage. Just as he was deciding whether or not to get in his own fighter and join the chase, he had a strong feeling that something was about to change.

"Wraith Squadron Leader-!", Caine bellowed into the fleet comm channel. "You have about two minutes to incapacitate that freighter. They are preparing to jump to hyperspace."

"Sir?!", came the perplexed reply from the fighter in the lead

"DO IT-!", he screamed and immediately terminated the channel.

He turned away from his display and strode like a phantom to a different tactical station where a terrified young lieutenant cowered in fear upon his approach.

"Input this transponder code into our tracking system.", Caine demanded as he typed the string of digits for the lieutenant. "If that ship somehow gets away, I want to be able to follow them."

"Yes Sir.", said the nearly trembling soldier as he took over the control panel and started to do as he was told.

Caine quickly moved back to his position at the front of the bridge, looking out the command windows to survey the chase with the naked eye. He reached out through The Force and could sense that their prey had turned around and was headed away from the planet.

"All fleet forward cannons, that ship has reversed course and is trying to escape back to deep space.", he declared. "Prepare to fire on it if you have a clean shot as it approaches, but remember what I said earlier, I only want it DISABLED."

He had no sooner issued the command than he saw a tiny speck of white emerging at breakneck speed from the clouds of the planet. The tiny freighter was still erratically swaying and spinning as it continued to dodge the hail of fire from Wraith Squadron's remaining members. Caine watched as the ship became larger, blue laser bolts racing past it from behind. The pilot was very good, he would admit that much but he was confident that the ship's frantic run was about to come to an end.

Wolfe's cruiser was the first one that opened fire but the small craft deftly avoided it by quickly swerving, turning away from the behemoth and heading directly at the Spearhead. Cannons on Caine's flagship immediately roared to life illuminating the space in front of them with bright blue. The small freighter somehow avoided all of the blasts without slowing, however, and kept pressing directly towards the Spearhead's bridge. Caine couldn't believe the skill that he was seeing. No one should be able to make that craft maneuver so swiftly.

"Keep firing.", he roared but the ship suddenly banked upwards at an impossible, almost perpendicular angle and in a flash was gone into hyperspace.

Caine sighed deeply and stood silent for a few minutes. He could feel the fear permeating the bridge of his ship with each passing second and actually felt the fear of his subordinates all through the fleet. Now was not the time to release his anger, though. They had the ability to track the ship. It would be theirs in short order and it would also help them with their overall quest. He was sure of it. There still was an Imperial stronghold that needed to be cleansed from the surface of Anoth.

"We have a job to finish here.", he emphasized. "Resume the countdown. Wipe the surface clean."