The floor under Lara's feet rumbled as if it was a moving tectonic plate shearing against another one, viscously throwing her backwards and away from the duel in which she had been engaged. She somehow stayed on her feet, and when she regained balance and looked down, she saw that the ground where she was standing seconds ago was ripped open, allowing her to see a gigantic gash in the ship through four decks below and into the vacuum of space.

Caine hadn't been able to remain upright, however. Lara saw him on the floor in a heap just on the edge of the hole, struggling mightily to avoid getting sucked out of the ship along with the internal atmosphere and small pieces of debris that were whipping by him into the lower levels. Just as she thought he might plunge into the newly formed metallic chasm, the ship's auto-repair systems engaged, producing numerous semi-transparent force fields to maintain the integrity of the damaged hull. The outward flow of air immediately stopped allowing Caine to briefly stop struggling. He sprung up to his feet almost immediately, gazing at Lara with a mixture of anger and confusion in his hateful eyes.

She was certain that he would have leapt over the hole to continue the fight if he could have, but the entire room was now cut in half by one of the force fields. Neither one had any possible way of getting to the other, concluding the fight in a stalemate. Lara could actually sense the rage in her brother boiling over as he stared at her. He even started to pace back and forth like a caged animal for a few seconds. Pragmatism, however, seemed to get the better of him making him come to his senses. Alarms had been howling in various auditory patterns ever since the impact of whatever had his the ship and she guessed that the ship's current condition was being indicated in the distress codes they were transmitting.


Caine turned away from his sister on the other side of the ghostly wall and sprinted to an intact data station in the corner of the room. He quickly pressed a sequence of buttons which brought its screen to life and proceeded to furiously enter command after command while diagnostic images of the ship flashed and scrolled by. When he had surveyed enough information, he switched a lever that ejected a small mouthpiece communications device.

"Spearhead crew", he barked into it. "This is your commander. We have taken heavy damage from a collision. One of the hyperdrive condensers has been ruptured and it's cascading. I'm ordering an abandon ship."

"Any crew member on decks Fifteen and below near the rear propulsion units, get to the secondary hull and prepare for separation in five minutes.", Caine continued "I am heading there and will pilot the craft away. Anyone else try to find a nearby escape pod. Rendezvous at the coordinates I will be transmitting."

He dropped the small comm unit did a quick scan of the room for his injured father. He was still laying on the floor where he fell, but Caine noticed he wasn't moving. He could feel that he wasn't dead, however, not yet at least so he sprinted over to the sprawled out body.

When he arrived, Han Solo gazed up at him with a steely, unafraid look. Caine shouldn't have expected anything less. His father was probably the most stubborn son of a nerf that he had ever known.

"You don't have the guts to put me out of my misery.", said the Admiral. "So you'd better run and save yourself. You're short on time."

With that, his father turned his head to look away from Caine as a last act of defiance.

Infuriated, Caine ignited his saber, holding it in a striking position. Bring it down, he said to himself. DO IT~!

But he only stood there, frozen….unable to end the life of one who created him. Shame rushed into every cell of Caine's being. Not shame at what he was about to do, but shame at his own weakness. Just minutes ago, he lectured his sister on how he had overcome any unneeded feelings of connection to his family but now here at the moment of truth, he was paralyzed. He simply turned and ran off into the chaotic hanger, exactly as his father predicted he would do.


Lara watched helplessly as Caine stood over her fallen father. She could see that they were speaking to each other, but the force field between them made it impossible to hear what they were saying. She was running through any possible scenario in her mind that would allow her to get over there to help, but could think of no way to penetrate the invisible wall between them. Suddenly, she saw her brother ignite and raise his saber. Her eyes widened in horror and she instinctively ran towards the force field, swiping her saber at it as she arrived in a futile effort to somehow cut through it. It was of no use, though. Lara would have to watch the murder of her father, by the hands of his own son. Her world was crashing down around her and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.

For some reason, however, Caine didn't do what she believed was inevitable. He powered off the red-orange blade of his lightsaber, stared down at his father for a few brief seconds more and then disappeared from the room so quickly it was like he simply vanished.

"Lara.", called a creaky voice.

Confused, she continued to stare at her father until she realized his lips had never moved and she wouldn't have heard him even if they did.

"Lara, help me up.", came the pained voice again. It was coming from behind her.

She turned and saw Finn struggling to get to his feet. He was seriously wounded. A long cauterized wound ran up the length of his torso starting at the frontside of his hip and continued up to his chest and shoulder. His arm hung lifelessly by his side and she suspected he had sustained some nerve damage. From what she could see, however, the wound didn't look to be life threatening.

Lara ran to Finn and immediately helped him to his feet. Another series of explosions rocked the ship just as they stood up and almost caused both of them to tumble.

"Put your arm around me.", she said. "I'll support you."

As he slung his good arm over Lara's shoulder, he winced in pain.

"You think you can walk?", Lara said. "We need to get out of here."

"Yeah, I heard the big announcement.", Finn replied. "I'm good"

"How did you get on the ship?", she asked him.

In spite of the amount of pain he was in, a smile crossed Finn's face

"With the Falcon.", he answered. "You wouldn't believe the trick you dad pulled to allow us on here."

Upon hearing this, Lara knew exactly what her father must have done.

"Let me guess.", she deadpanned. "You guys cut power right as the maglocks on the landing gear hit the hull, just like before Bespin. I've heard that story at least twenty times."

"Bespin?", Finn questioned

"Nevermind.", she snapped. "We gotta go."

Suddenly, the commlink that Han had given to Finn right after they boarded started screeching static. He reached into his pocket, brought it out and tossed it to Lara.

"Here, you're in better a condition to mess with this than I am.", he said to her.

She caught the small device and immediately changed the frequency. As she did, the static disappeared and she was able to clearly hear a voice on the other end.

"Lara", said the voice of Han Solo

She whipped her head around and looked across the room to see her father sitting upright. He held the commlink up to his mouth and he was staring right at her through the eerily glowing forcefield. She could tell he was having difficulty breathing by the way he sounded.

"Lara, can you hear me?", he said.

"Yeah, dad.", she replied. "I'm here. We're gonna get to you. Just stay right there."

"You can't get over here.", Han said with what sounded like tremendous pain in his voice. "Get Chewie and get to the Falcon. There's still time to knock out those cannons. Maybe you guys can help the fleet."

"But what about you?", She pleaded, with a bit of panic in her tone. "We're not going to leave you."

"I'm gonna go into the hangar there and see if there is something I like.", her father wisecracked. "I'll be out of here and joined up with you guys by the time you unhook. Now go help Chewie."

With that, Han slowly rose to his feet. Lara heard the click that ended the transmission on the commlink in her hand and as she stored it in her pocket she glanced back over at him. He was smiling at her and out of the blue he made a comical salute to her. She couldn't help but laugh and shake her head at him as he turned away and started to shamble towards the hangar.

"Where IS Chewie?", she questioned as she turned her attention back to Finn.

"Under that pile of storage containers over there.", he said as he pointed. "And BB-8 was with us too. He has to be around here somewhere."

Upon hearing this, the little droid tentatively peeked out from behind one of the toppled rectangular canisters letting out a set of low beeps.

"Hey, buddy." Lara said to him as if calling to a small pet. "It's ok to come out now. He's gone."

Still looking unsure, BB-8 slowly rolled across the floor to join Lara and Finn

"Can you stand by yourself?", She asked Finn.

"Yeah.", Finn exclaimed. "Go help Chewie."

Lara sprinted to the corner of the room that Finn has pointed to, stopped in front of the piled up debris and took in a deep breath. She closed her eyes and focused herself to let The Force enter and flow through her. As she stood motionless, she could begin to feel strength return to her exhausted body and mind. With the help of her long ago Jedi training, she was able to peer through the boxes as if they were transparent. Chewbacca's lower body was pinned under one of the containers, but he was alive and had recently regained consciousness. He was way too weak, however, to move any of the heavy mass that currently imprisoned him.

Lara reached deeper into The Force and with a raising of her arms, the broken plastic and twisted metal began to slowly rise into the air. With all her concentration focused on being a conduit for the greater power, she continued to raise more and more broken boxes until Chewbacca was completely uncovered. With a swift outward spread of her arms all of the levitated matter flew away in every direction, crashing into the walls and onto the floor far away from where the injured Wookie lay.

She quickly moved to his prone body to see how badly he might be injured. Behind his bright blue eyes, she could see pain and his labored breathing and soft grumbling when he saw her confirmed it. Chewbacca was a proud warrior, though, and before she could feel any pity he wanted to make sure that she knew he was going to make it. With an intense effort, he got to his knees. After pausing for a few seconds, what looked to be an even more painful effort allowed the Wookie to stand upright. Lara could see he was covered with small lacerations and he likely had a few broken bones, but otherwise, she was convinced he would be all right in time.

"You've looked better.", she cracked at him as she stared upwards to meet his gaze.

Chewbacca barked a series of Wookie words at her making her snort out a little laugh. He definitely had picked up a sense of humor from her father over the years.

"We have to get off this ship.", Lara told Chewbacca

He growled agreement and began to limp his way over to where Finn and BB-8 were waiting.

Before she followed him, Lara took another glance across the room, through the force field where her father had been. He was already gone. She hoped that he had already found something over in that hangar that could get him off this ship. Turning her attention back to the task at hand she jogged after Chewbacca.

When the small group had assembled, Finn spoke.

"I've lost track of time in all the excitement.", he said. "But I would guess there isn't much time left until those bombers can fire on the surface again."

"I know none of us feel like we can run.", Lara interjected. "But we need to get to the Falcon as fast as possible."

"BB-8", she continued. "You gotta get us there. We'll be right behind."

The droid whistled and chirped in agreement as he started to roll towards the exit.

"Do your best to forget the pain.", she said to Finn and Chewbacca "Keep up with him so we can get the hell off this deathtrap, Ok?"

Chewbacca and Finn nodded in weary agreement and they all headed out, following the rolling ball, running a deadly race against the clock.