34 ABY
On the Finalizer,
In orbit above Jakku

There wasn't a single part of Poe's body that didn't hurt.

The interrogators had done a real number on him since he had been brought to his cell onboard the Star Destroyer. They hadn't touched him, no directly anyway. They probably thought that that kind of torture was beneath them. First Order interrogators did not resort to the beatings commonly encountered in the galactic underworld. There was something inherently evil, to Poe's mind, about the clinical way the First Order approached violence, whether in their "pacification" of conquered worlds or the interrogation of prisoners. Instead of their fists, they used drugs; they inflicted as much psychological damage as they caused bruises. It was a planned and calculated approach to torture that only twisted minds could spend time developing.

Everything that had been done to Poe since his arrival on the First Order cruiser had been designed to cause him discomfort, if not overt pain. That came later. The only physical sign of the brutal interrogation he had endured was the bruise he had gotten to his forehead when the drugs had caused a violent seizure; he had hit his head on the metallic frame of the chair that restrained him. The chair itself had been carefully designed to be slanted so he was neither standing, lying or sitting. Several needles and probes could be used for delivering anything from electric shocks to simple pricks. Monitors were hooked to the walls of the cell to show his vital signs. They couldn't kill him too quickly, could they.

Poe had never undergone torture before and it was far worse than anything he had ever imagined. All New Republic pilots were required to undergo commando and intelligence training, which included how to resist forced interrogation. Poe had thought such training had been tough, but he had had no idea how tough the real thing would be. For the first time in his career as a pilot, he was glad that his instructors had forced him through such a task.

To his great surprise (and pride, if he weren't in such pain), he had resisted everything the interrogators had thrown at him. They hadn't been able to get him to say anything, other than what protocol allowed him to say: his name, rank and callsign. But he also knew that they would not stop there: he had information they wanted, and they would return for it.

Poe occupied himself with trying to keep track of time. While no easy task, it was made easier by the presence of the armed guard at his side. Twice already, the guard had been relieved since the interrogators had left. All he could do was guess how long each stayed but it was enough to give him a rough idea of the time that had passed. But, until he found a way to escape his cell, it would not help him.

Once again, the cell door opened. As before, Poe dreaded the return of the interrogators, but it was only another changing of the guard. A stormtrooper, entirely identical to the one who had been with Poe for the past hours, entered.

But it was not for a duty shift, as he had thought.

'Captain Phasma sent me,' he said to his counterpart. 'She wants the prisoner brought to her.'

Hope surged in Poe and was strengthened when his restraints were unlocked by the stormtroopers and he was roughly taken out of the interrogation chair. This could be his chance to escape.

Pulled off the chair by the two troopers, he involuntarily started to regret leaving it when his cramped muscles started working again. Stifling a cry, he almost fell to the ground, but his captors held him up, and set stun-cuffs on his wrists, to prevent any attempt at escape.

That would make things harder.

But not impossible as he realized that only one of the troopers was escorting him.

However, as soon as they left the cell, Poe began to realize that it would be a lot harder that he thought. The grip the trooper maintained on his arm was firm and his blaster was very close to his face; set on stun, yes, but it would still stop any escape attempt. It didn't help that he would be lost in the middle of a First Order Star Destroyer, or that his captor seemed to be doing his best to take the most complex passages ever, as if he were deliberately trying to make Poe lose what little sense of direction he had in the event of his escape.

The pilot nevertheless maintained hope that he could spring on this lone stormtrooper and overpower him without activating the stun cuffs; which wasn't easy but doable; or his stunner. In what seemed like a stroke of luck, the corridors seemed to be less and less crowded, and a lot narrower the further they went. An opening was coming up, Poe soon saw, in the first deserted corridor he saw; possibly the only opportunity he would have.

'In there,' his captor said, just as Poe was about to make his move. The pilot was taking by surprise: the stormtrooper was pushing him… towards the opening.
Poe momentarily stopped, but the perfect posture of the stormtrooper had broken and he forced him into it. Soon, they were both cramped into the small opening, where it seemed no one could see them.

'Listen carefully,' the clearly-agitated stormtrooper said. 'If you do exactly as I say, I can get you out of here.'

'What?' Poe said, utterly confused about what was happening.

The stormtrooper set his blaster down on the floor and then did something that Poe had never seen a stormtrooper do before: he removed his helmet. Beneath, he saw the face of an anxious man, his black skin covered in cold sweat.

'This is a rescue, I'm helping you escape. Can you fly a TIE fighter?' he said in an urgent tone.

Poe was still trying to process what was happening; not five minutes ago, he had been a prisoner, planning an escape that had few chances of actually working. Now, his escape was being offered to him in a way he had never expected.

'Are you with the Republic?' he asked the stormtrooper. He had heard of attempts by Republic Intelligence to infiltrate the First Order's ranks, but he had never been told whether such missions had succeeded.

'What? No. I'm breaking you out. Can you fly a TIE fighter?'

Could he fly a TIE Fighter?

'I can fly anything,' Poe answered with absolute confidence.

A relieved smile appeared on the other man's face, but Poe was still confused.

'Why are you doing this? He asked.

The stormtrooper looked back at him. His eyes were steady but for a brief instant when he looked down.

'Because it's the right thing to do,' he said with seeming conviction.

Right.
'You need a pilot!' Poe guessed.

'I need a pilot,' he confirmed, conviction giving way to uncertainty.

Poe was no fool, he knew this could be a trap. It wouldn't be the first time a prisoner had been lured into revealing information by a fake escape attempt. But the concern and the desperation he saw in this young man's face was hard to fake. And if that didn't convince him, the fact that he had removed his helmet did.

The pilot grinned to the stormtrooper: 'We're going to do this.'

Relief flashed over his face as his hope was renewed.

'Okay, we don't have a lot of time. I prepared something for you,' he said, and took Poe further into the cramped space, where two alcoves were concealed in the darkness. After his eyes accommodated to the darkness, Poe saw a set of stormtrooper armour.

'You want me to get into that?' he asked, incredulous and mildly disgusted.

'You need to blend in,' his unexpected saviour answered. 'It won't be long before your escape is noticed and if you wander around the ship as you are now, it will make it easy for the First Order to find us.'

Poe couldn't deny the logic, or the preparation the stormtrooper had put into his escape plan. But the idea of putting the armour of the enemy on, one he had faced many times over the past years, made him uneasy.

Putting his misgivings to one side, Poe removed his jacket and anything else that would make wearing the armour even more uncomfortable, and placed them in the bag that the stormtrooper had also thought to bring. Soon, he was clad in the white armour save for the helmet.

'I'm ready,' he said.

The stormtrooper, who had been standing watch as Poe changed, came back to him. 'OK, we need to make our way to the hangar, get the first TIE fighter we can find and…'

Poe interrupted him. 'First, you need to tell me where they're holding Lor San Tekka.'

'What? Why?'

'I got him captured, I need to get him out. And he might have information we need.'

The stormtrooper looked like he was about to lose his composure once again. 'Do you have any idea how risky it was to get you out of your cell? Not to mention trying to smuggle you off the ship by stealing a TIE? If we try to break Tekka out, our odds of getting away will be way worse.'

Poe could understand where his fears came from, but he wasn't ready to give up yet. 'Tekka can take care of himself. If we take him out of his cell, he may even manage to escape on his own. But I can't leave him here: The First Order will do unspeakable things to him, like they did to me.'

The stormtrooper stopped moving and looked Poe straight in the eye, his expression deadly serious. 'If I stay here much longer, I am a dead man. I am sorry about your friend, but I'm not going to risk my life on a suicide mission. I need to get as far away from the First Order as I can. And you're my pilot.'

Poe hated it, knew there was no way he would ever truly accept it… but he was right: The odds of getting Tekka out were slim at best. He had been given his chance to escape, so he should take it. And, also, he still needed to find BB-8 and recover the artefact. He had absolute faith in the little droid, but he had seen the damage done to his X-Wing: too much to allow it to leave Jakku. Which meant BB-8 was still likely on the surface. He needed to find him and quickly.

'OK,' he conceded, and pulled the helmet over his face before saying in a distorted voice. 'Let's do this.'

-0-

In orbit above Jakku

All the preparations had been made, plans explained, and objectives laid out. Commander had found it necessary to amend a few items, but the Wraith would brook no opposition: things would be done the way he wanted them to be done, or not at all.

As he had ordered, two of his men would accompany him while the rest of the group would have the mission of securing the hangar to prevent the First Order from cutting off their escape. Commander had designated his second-in-command, a tried and scarred Twi'lek named Erenia, to be one of them. He had complete faith in her, and she had been with his crew for most of the past decade.

'It's time,' said the Wraith, who was standing at the back of the cabin, flanked by Erenia and the other soldier chosen to follow him.

Commander stood, immediately followed by his men. 'Weapons ready,' he said. The sound of priming weapons filled the cabin as the Wraith raised his arm, the one which bore the probe's controller.

Silently, but almost solemnly, he pressed a single button.

-0-

On the Finalizer,
In orbit above Jakku

The probe droid, still hiding in the ducks above the primary bridge of the Finalizer, reacted to the command sent to it, its red photoreceptor becoming brighter as its main protocol activated.
The ion charge tore through the bridge, knocking those closest to the actual blast to their feet, neutralizing the energy that powered command controls and all systems in proximity. The lights went out, plunging the whole of the bridge into darkness. The unexpected halt in the routine of the First Order's disciplined officers threw them into momentary confusion. Where there had once been controlled expressions and calm exchanges of information and delivering of orders in clipped, sophisticated voices, there was now confusion as several anxious voices spoke at once. Cohesion and concision had given way to panic and uncertainty. Several groomed accents had slipped as the less-experienced officers and crew members reacted to the unexpected attack.

General Hux felt a rush of disdain rise in him as he beheld the chaos that had unfolded because of a single blast.

'SILENCE!' he yelled, his raised voice cutting through the chaos like a vibroblade.

The order had the desired effect: silence returned to the bridge as emergency backup lighting kicked in. The bridge was soon covered in a red glow that allowed everyone to get their bearings again. Hux moved towards the viewport; his console's power now powerless and useless.

'Captain! Bridge officer.'

Both officers arrived swiftly, both shaken but controlling it with varying levels of success. Captain Edrison Peavey was an older officer, one who had seen action during the days of the Empire. He had already known war, so he knew how to react in such events. Mitaka was less sure and seemed to have difficulty controlling his emotions, but he put on as brave a face as he could, determined to show how well trained he was and unwilling to lose face in front of Hux.

The general might have enjoyed Mitaka's discomfort, had he not been seething with rage at the sudden attack on his battlecruiser.

'Report,' he ordered curtly to both officers. 'Are we under attack?'

'I don't know, sir,' the captain replied, before turning to the tracking technicians. 'Were any ships registered on our scanners before the blast?'

'Negative, Captain,' the senior technician said. 'No exits from hyperspace and no ships detected anywhere near the Finalizer.'

'That's impossible,' Hux said, as he tried to contain his anger. 'We were attacked with an ion charge. It must have come from somewhere.'

'The charge has knocked out all power on the bridge, sir,' another technician reported. 'But from what I can tell, most of the ship's power remains. The Finalizer is still operational.'

Hux took pleasure in the information. Decades before, the Rebels had made ion weapons the chief components of their arsenal. The Empire's Star Destroyers, for all their fierceness and technologically-advanced systems, had been easy prey for such attacks. Analysts had deduced that such an approach, partly designed by the Rebels to prevent loss of life (a meagre attempt to prevent the Empire from labelling them as terrorists), had been one of the key advantages of their fleet in engagements against the Empire.

The First Order, aware of the mistakes of their predecessors, had therefore worked hard to ensure that such weaknesses would not be repeated. The only way to prevent mistakes from being made again was to know what they were and how to avoid them a second time. Part of that strategy had been to redesign the repartition of energy in battlecruisers; each primary system had its own closed system and energy distributor. As the greatest strength of an ion charge was its ability to course through a system and shut it down further away from the point of impact, such a division prevented these charges from shutting down the whole system and neutralizing the ship. Although its primary bridge was powered out by the charge, only the functions served by its power source were neutralized. The rest of the ship was still operational.

Another mistake that the First Order had been determined to learn from was what happened to a battlecruiser when its bridge was neutralized. At the Battle of Endor, the Imperial fleet had been severely set back when its flagship's; the Super Star Destroyer Executor; bridge had been destroyed by a suicide run from one of the Rebel fighters.

Hux turned away from the viewport. 'We must reach the secondary bridge immediately and restore the Finalizer to full capacity.'

He started walking towards the exit. 'Captain, with me. Lieutenant Mitaka, remain here and do what you can to restore power. We need to recover our command ability as quickly as possible.'

The captain followed in Hux's footsteps as Mitaka started giving out orders.

Once they were out in the corridor, Hux reached for his comlink. It had also been knocked out by the blast. He needed to reach a power source as soon as he could so that he could establish contact with the secondary bridge. And he also needed to talk to Captain Phasma.

He knew that this attack, wherever it came from, was just the first shot in this engagement.

-0-

Alongside the Finalizer

The probe's function had been accomplished. The charge it had carried hadn't been designed to take out the whole cruiser, but it had temporarily blinded the First Order. This would allow the shuttle to move in and land before anyone noticed it had.

Commander's troopers were ready for battle, and the Wraith stood behind them, eerily silent behind his dark mask as the shuttle's pilots moved to land the craft in the hangar they had chosen as their landing point.

Their prize was within reach.

-0-

Aboard the Finalizer

FN-2187 felt the sudden change in the battlecruiser's rhythm. He would have thought nothing of it, had he not been worrying for his and his new companion's safety. Once they figured out that he had broken this New Republic pilot out of his cell, they would start looking for them. That was why he noticed the subtle shift in the Finalizer's movement. Something had gone wrong, he knew it.

His suspicions were confirmed by the slight flicker of the lighting. He stopped, suddenly very worried.

'What's wrong?' his companion asked, the sound of his voice distorted by the stormtrooper mask he was still wearing.

'Something's happening.'

His suspicions were confirmed a second after he spoke with the sounding of an alarm, and an announcement ordering all personnel to battle stations.

FN-2187 sighed. 'Luck is on our side.'

'Luck?' The pilot asked, incredulous. 'We're on a ship that is being attacked.'

The stormtrooper realized that he was right. The relieved smile he wore beneath his mask disappeared. But FN-2187 also knew that this was the one chance they had.

'If the crew is focusing on an attacking ship, they won't be looking for us. That makes our escape easier. We need to get to the hangar quickly, before they are filled with troops.'

-0-

In one of the Finalizer's hangars

Stormtroopers, technicians, pilots and countless personnel ran every which way in the small hangar, as alarms bells rang all around them. They all had duties to perform, and regulations to follow.

None noticed the dark shuttle that entered the hangar until it made it through the ray shield. Only those closest noticed it, at first… but all heads turned to it when the shuttle's laser cannons opened fire. Explosions rang out as the blue bolts hit the hangar floor, sending crates, droids and personnel flying in every direction. Soon, the once pristine hangar had been reduced to burning fires, piles of rubble and the bodies of its crew. Survivors were trying to escape the continued fire of the shuttle while trying to make sense of the sudden attack.

Having reeked their devastation, the cannons ceased firing and the shuttle landed. The ramp came down and several armed mercenaries, each wearing a mask with two glowing red eyes, ran forward, knees bent, and weapons primed, ready for combat should they face it. Commander was leading them and, as his team took up positions around the shuttle to protect it, he used a hand gesture and several teams of two headed towards the exits. They had their mission.

Emerging from the shuttle last, the black figure the mercenaries had called the Wraith strode forward, followed by the two soldiers Commander had designated to accompany him. He ignored the carnage around him and walked forward, unarmed, into one of the openings. He seemed to know exactly where he was going and the danger of entering the bowels of one of the First Order's Star Destroyers, accompanied only by two mercenaries, didn't seem to concern him in the slightest.

-0-

On the secondary bridge

General Hux reached the secondary bridge of the Finalizer, and found it in chaos. He wasn't surprised by this, an attack on a battlecruiser had never happened before. But it infuriated him that a crew belonging to the greatest military power the galaxy had ever seen could be reduced to a chaotic mess when confronted with such a problem. The First Order still had a long way to go.

As Hux and Captain Peavey strode onto the bridge, accompanied by a squad of stormtroopers they had requisitioned on the way, an officer stopped in his stride as he noticed them. Recognition overcoming his face, he stood at attention and turned before shouting, 'Officers on deck.'

The rest of the crew halted briefly, their faces turning to take in Hux as he strode to the front of the bridge… before the bridge officer emerged from one of the lateral alcoves.

'Back to work,' he ordered, his voice rising just enough to be obeyed, but not enough to be called a shout. Instant obedience followed while the bridge officer headed to Hux.

'We have taken full command of the ship, General Hux,' he said, falling into step beside him.

'Has power been restored to the primary bridge yet?' Hux asked.

'Not yet, sir. But…'

'That is your first priority. I want this ship to be operational in the shortest delay possible. What about our scanners? Are they…?'

'General, if you'll allow me?'

Hux stopped in his tracks, just short of reaching the bridge's viewport, and turned to face the bridge officer, his eyes showing a mixture of surprise and annoyance. Although he was one of the highest-ranking officers on the Finalizer, the bridge officer was still of a lower rank than Hux. That he dared to interrupt him as such indicated either his indiscipline, or the direness of news he may have. Hux hated being interrupted, but dismissing one's ideas just because they weren't yours was counter-productive… and could create more enemies.

'Proceed, Lieutenant,' Hux allowed.

'A shuttle passed through our defences after the ion blast disabled the bridge,' he reported.

The frustration at the interruption faded from Hux, replaced by complete surprise. 'What?'

'Reports we have received say it landed in one of the secondary hangars, one small enough that they can control. The personnel that survived their fire have only been able to provide scant intelligence.'

Hux turned away from the bridge officer and continued his way to the viewport. From there, nothing seemed to be out of place: the hull of the Finalizer remained the same as usual and no ships could be seen around it. How had they managed to gain access to the Finalizer? Even with the primary bridge disabled, most of the battlecruiser's tracking equipment was operational. An intrusion into one of the hangars would have been noticed.

'Do we know whose attacking us?' Captain Peavey asked the bridge officer.

'No. All we know is that an unknown shuttle, one capable of escaping our detection, landed in our hangar. What reports we've had suggest that it is capable of carrying at least several dozen troops.'

'Could this be a surprise attack from Republic forces?'

'Impossible,' Hux said, drawing the attention of both men. 'The Republic would not have launched such an attack.'

'How do you, sir?' The bridge officer asked.

'We have enough informers in the capital to know if any such action has been planned. Regardless, who is attacking is the least of our concerns right now.' He turned to the bridge officer. 'As I said, Lieutenant, your priority is restoring the Finalizer to full power.'

The officer nodded and returned to his work.

'Captain, put me in touch with Captain Phasma.'

A few minutes later, a miniature size hologram of Phasma appeared on the viewport.

'General Hux.'

'Captain, insurgents have seized one of our hangars. Captain Peavey is sending you the details as we speak. Gather what troops you can and retake it. And I require at least one prisoner for interrogation.'

'At once, sir.'

'And one more thing,' Hux said, before Phasma could terminate the connection. 'Send a detachment to the prison cells and secure Lor San Tekka.'

Phasma did not answer straight away, the small moment of silence the only indication of her surprise at the order. 'Yes, General.'

The hologram disappeared. Hux looked back out into space. Capturing the Explorer had been the first part of a plan that even he had not been sure would work. Now, it could turn out that his plan worked even better and sooner than he had expected.

-0-

In the Finalizer's prison cells,

No one had come to visit him since they had brought him to his cell.

No courteous interrogators and no torturers. No doubt they expected him to eventually break under the solitude and hope for the companionship of the torturers. But that wasn't in Lor San Tekka's nature. He had known solitude before. Solitude of the kind that could shatter a man. He had let it nearly break him, using everything he could to escape it even though he had known it was futile. It had taken him many years and countless mistakes to come to his realization: that he wasn't meant to escape his solitude. At least not as he had tried. Embracing it had been the sole solution.

And it had brought the companionship he had always craved. In the years following the fall of the Republic and the Jedi Order, something had been born in the underworld of Coruscant, where Tekka had spent so many years of his young life. First, it had been mere symbols adorning the walls. No one made anything of them at first, but they began to give people hope. Soon, the symbols grew into something else, a shadow of what had once been a great power. It began to attract followers who gathered in secret to worship. Not a deity, but an ideal. The ideal that had died with the Jedi. The followers themselves had given their growing flock no name, but others had: they became the Church of the Force.

In those dark days, Tekka had found the Church when he had reached his worst time. They had taught him much, but he had learnt more. And it was to those learnings he turned to when the solitude was all that remained. None of the Church's followers had the gift of the Jedi, the ability to use the Force. Not that Tekka knew anyway. But they taught that every being in the galaxy could touch it. They had taught Tekka how to mediate, to be at one with all that surrounded him. In his first tries, the young man he had been had let his impatience and his inability to focus prevent him from feeling, from hearing, from knowing. But now, he could remain in such a meditation for hours, his mind free to drift and follow currents of thought, air and feeling that not even he could make sense of. The solitude had not gone, but he had made it a part of him.

And that was how he heard them coming.

A few muffled noises from outside his cell warned him before the hissing of the door opening. The Explorer opened his eyes and beheld the dark figure that stood over him. Below the hood of his scorched and battle-torn cloak, a pitiless mask looked down on him.

'Look how old you've become,' the distorted mechanical sound that came out of the mask hid the voice that Tekka had once known.

'Something far worse has happened to you, Kylo Ren.'

-0-

The troops had received their orders directly from Captain Phasma to secure a prisoner. Not even one of them had even thought of disobeying her. Orders were to be obeyed, not questioned. It didn't matter that none of them thought the orders made any sense or went against what one individual believed. Several of the troopers had been on Jakku, others had not. But all those who would have been given the order to fire on the unarmed prisoners would have obeyed.

Most of the prison's personnel had left, reassigned to different positions because of the attack on the Finalizer. Many of the troopers wished that they had been ordered to accompany Captain Phasma to the hangar, to deal with the insurgents attacking them. Were they really insurgents or was this a covert attack by the thugs and rebels who ran the New Republic? It didn't matter. They had attacked the First Order. They were enemies to be destroyed.

They had almost reached Lor San Tekka's cell when they came across the intruders.

Both groups stopped in their tracks as they came face to face. The intruders were only three: two soldiers, fitted in armour with dark, round helmets and round, glowing red eyes. They bore blaster rifles and several other weapons strapped to various parts of their armour. And they flanked a still-captive Lor San Tekka, who seemed to be following them with little resistance.

The third was a tall figure, clad in dark robes and wearing a helmet. It barely moved a muscle as he saw the troopers.

'Halt,' the squad's sergeant ordered, as the others primed their blasters and pointed them at the intruders. 'You have attacked a First Order battlecruiser and you will answer for it.'

The soldiers prepared their weapons, but the third waved a command for them to stop. 'Guard the prisoner,' he said. 'I will deal with them.'

After a moment's reluctance, they obeyed.

The figure stepped forward, removing a cylindrical-shaped object from its belt. The sergeant's visor, connected to the battle network, rapidly analysed the object to determine what it was. It didn't take long for the results to arrive.

'All troops, kill him,' he ordered immediately.

The lightsaber came to life, a jagged and unstable blade of crimson red energy, with two crossguard points on the sides. None of the bolts fired past the blade, which the figure twirled and spun to deflect them. Several were harmlessly thrown into the wall. Others returned to the troopers who had fired them. Unlike the less efficient blasters of Tekka's followers on Jakku, First Order blaster shots could pierce most, if not all, armours. The troopers died upon being hit.

Those that remained tried to eliminate their target, but it moved too fast, a blur even for the high-quality sensors of the stormtroopers' visors. Before they knew it, he was in their midst, the blade continuing its dance. Troopers were sliced down before they could react, with such ferocity that the survivors felt their will give way.
Soon, only three remained, far away enough to not fall pray to the vicious blade and the wraith-like being wielding it. They were all afraid, but they were First Order stormtroopers: they would not run, and they would not hide. They raised their blasters, ready to open fire.

But before they could, the figure turned to them. Not to cut them down, as it had their fellow soldiers, though. Instead, a raised hand was all that happened. And all three stormtroopers found themselves up in the air… and their windpipes being crushed by an invisible force. Their blasters fell to the floor as their hands went to their throats to remove hands that were not there. The figure closed its hand into a fist and the troopers' necks broke at the same time, their now limp bodies falling back onto the ground…

…Leaving him standing alone, a dark figure among the corpses of the white-armoured stormtroopers.

'Let's move,' Kylo Ren's metallic voice said, breaking the trance of the mercenaries who had just witnessed something they had never seen before. As they followed him, they both tried to process what they had seen. Only Lor San Tekka was unsurprised at this display of power. He wasn't even afraid or in awe of it.

But it did sadden him.