Welcome back, my friends. I am so delighted that you wish for me to continue this tale. I also hope you found the events of the previous chapter as inspiring and hopeful as those who lived through them did. While the joy of defeating evil is a sweet one, it is critical to not become complacent, lest evil rise again.

Thirty years have come and gone since the Battle of Endor. Luke Skywalker has vanished. In his absence, the sinister First Order has risen from the ashes of the Empire and will not rest until Skywalker, the last Jedi, has been destroyed.

With the support of the New Republic, General Leia Organa leads a brave Resistance. She is desperate to find her brother Luke and gain his help in restoring peace and justice to the world.

Leia has sent her most daring sky pilot on a secret mission to the land of Jakku, where an old ally has discovered a clue to Luke's whereabouts.

In the gloom of a cloudy night off the Jakku coast, the metal prow of a Star Destroyer parted the waters before it. Its silhouette was dotted by a thousand points of light as the glow of incandescent bulbs spilled out of open portholes. The shadows of four transport airships moved out of the open starboard hangar and obscured the lights as they passed by, heading for Jakku.

Inside each airship, a score of the First Order's infamous stormtroopers stood at the ready in their gleaming white enameled armor. The interior lights of the lead transport flickered as turbulence jostled the craft. One of the troopers, FN-2187, heard his heartbeat pounding in his ears. Something about this deployment felt wrong.

At the crest of a sand dune on the outskirts of the small village of Tuanul, a white and orange micronaut pattern nautical automaton saw four dim points of light come over the horizon. He chirped and turned his domed head around before rolling back towards the village on his ball like body.

In a firelit hut near the village center, Lor San Tekka, Tuanul's elder, placed an intricately carved sapphire lens into a small suede pouch. He pulled the drawstring and placed the pouch into the outstretched hand of Poe Dameron, sky pilot of the Resistance.

"This will begin to make things right," San Tekka said, closing Poe's fingers around the pouch. "I've travelled too far and seen too much to ignore the despair in the world. Without the Jedi, there can be no balance in the Force." He withdrew his hands and leaned back.

Poe stared at the trinket in his hand and nodded. His eyes returned to San Tekka. "Well, because of you, now we have a fighting chance. The General's been after this for a long time."

"Oh? General?" San Tekka chuckled. "No. To me, she will always be royalty."

Poe smirked. "Well, she certainly is that."

The wooden bead curtain of the hut's door clattered as the micronaut rolled through. The chirps and warbles he spoke made Poe's blood run cold.

Poe looked back to San Tekka with a grim expression. "We've got company."

The shouts and cries of alarmed villagers greeted Poe as he left the hut. He pulled out a pair of tarnished binoculars and focused them on the approaching lights. They were, without a doubt, First Order transports.

Poe lowered his binoculars and turned to San Tekka as he parted the bead curtain. "You have to hide."

"You have to leave," replied the elder.

Poe's brow furrowed. The villagers' cries grew louder as more awakened. The alarm bell next to the well at the village center tolled.

Lor San Tekka pointed to the dunes in the distance. "Go!"

Poe nodded. "Come on Bibi-Eit," he said to his micronaut. The two of them rushed off, leaving San Tekka staring up at the encroaching pale grey airships.

The well at the center of the village square had interrupted concentric rings of sandstone and mud seating around it. Originally, they were built so the villagers could gather around to listen to stories or sermons. Now, they acted as makeshift cover. Every able-bodied member of the village crouched behind the seating with their wide variety of firearms at the ready.

Spotlights illuminated the entire area as the transports landed. The moment the boarding ramps opened, the villagers opened fire, but to little effect.

Four score stormtroopers poured out of the transports, advancing and returning fire. Bullets pinged off their armor while their own shots found their marks. Villagers fell by carbine and petard alike.

The screams of the dying chilled Poe as he ran as fast as he could back to his crosswing. "Come on, Bibi-Eit! Hurry!"

Crosswings were a refinement on the bladewings used at the tail end of the Rebellion against the Empire. These flying machines retained the Stirling engines and boxy fuselage of their forebears, but had wings in an X shape instead of parallel. While more expensive to acquire than arcwings, crosswings did not require all the necessary care that a living creature does and were deemed to be a better investment for the fledgling New Republic.

Poe climbed into the cockpit of the white crosswing and pressed the startup rune. The whale oil fuelled Stirling engine hummed to life and the propeller at the front started to turn. Bibi-Eit rolled to his spot under the crosswing and a mechanical cradle lifted him through the fuselage and into place behind Poe.

The sound of the crosswing's propeller attracted the attention of nearby stormtroopers.

"Shoot that crosswing!"

"Quick! Before it can take off!"

Poe swore, hoping against hope that the engine would reach its operating temperature faster. Bullets tore through the canvas and wood of the flying machine and Poe swore again.

Bibi-Eit chirped a warning.

"I see them," said Poe through clenched teeth. He wrapped his hand around the grip of his crosswing's forward facing Moze gun and waited for the troopers to enter his crosshair.

Poe pulled the trigger and an explosive core bullet hit one of the stormtroopers in center mass, sending him flying backwards with a gaping chest wound. The other trooper ducked into cover and started to blind fire in the direction of the flying machine.

Poe saw smoke coming from the front of his crosswing and he jumped out of the cockpit, grabbing his carbine in the process. He ran around to the front, avoiding the propeller and found that the fuel tank had been hit and part of the engine was on fire. Bibi-Eit lowered himself back to the ground and over to his master.

Screams of terror and the whooshing sounds of flamethrowers immediately purged any thoughts of his crosswing or escape. Poe refused to not help. He knelt down next to Bibi-Eit and pulled the suede pouch out of his pocket. "You take this. It's safer with you than it is with me."

Bibi-Eit opened a small storage compartment on his chassis into which Poe carefully placed the pouch.

"You get as far away from here as you can. Do you hear me?"

Bibi-Eit chirped and moved his head in a nodding motion.

"I'll come back for you. It'll be all right." Poe ran towards the burning village while Bibi-Eit rolled off into the cover of night.

Poe sprinted towards a dune and dove onto it before crawling to the crest with his carbine cocked. His stomach lurched at what was happening in the village.

A pair of stormtroopers held one of the villagers at gunpoint while barking questions at him, all while he screamed in a language that the troopers didn't understand. Bodies of men and women that Poe had spoken with not even half an hour before lay scattered with pools of their blood soaking into the sand. The flamethrowers he had heard were being used to burn every hut, including those with people still inside. Lor San Tekka stood in the middle of it all, the flames around him fully illuminating his expression of unimaginable grief.

Poe's blood boiled. He lined up his carbine's custom scope and pulled the trigger. The lead ball punched through the side of a stormtrooper's head. Before any of the other troopers had located Poe's telltale cloud of gunsmoke, he had recocked and fired again, hitting another stormtrooper in his neck.

FN-2187 saw his best friend drop out of the corner of his eye. The fighting around them faded to a distant hum as the stormtrooper ran to his friend. FN-2003 had caught a bullet in his neck and the blood gushed out between his fingers.

2187 held 2003 in his arms while the latter gurgled, trying to say one last thing to his friend. Realizing he couldn't, 2003 reached his hand towards 2187's helmeted face. The dying man's fingertips touched just above 2187's left eye then trailed down as 2003 lost consciousness, leaving three streaks of blood.

FN-2187 stared as the closest person he had to a family died in his arms. The shock suddenly wore off and he became very aware of where he was and what was happening. The stormtrooper stood and looked around in a panic as explosions and gunfire went off around him. Trying to calm himself, he ran to cover and hid behind a sandstone wall.

Poe saw another pair of spotlights come over the horizon, and he swore for a third time. A glossy black airship, sleek and menacing, flew towards the village before landing in front of the four other transports.

By then, the fight was over. What villagers remained had been rounded up and brought to the well. FN-2187, as ordered by his sergeant, stood in a line to prevent any of their prisoners from escaping.

Lor San Tekka, flanked by stormtroopers, stood and watched the ramp of the black airship lower. A figure clad in black robes and a black and silver helmet stormed down the ramp, hunched over slightly in clear agitation. The instant this dark warrior spotted San Tekka, he went straight to him.

"Look how old you've become," he said to the elder, his voice distorted by his helmet's enchantment.

"Something far worse has happened to you."

"You know what I've come for."

"I know where you come from," said San Tekka, "before you called yourself Kylo Ren."

Kylo clenched his fists. He couldn't kill the old man. Not yet. "The map to Skywalker. We know you found it." He started to pace. "And now you're going to give it to us."

Lor San Tekka sighed and shook his head. "The First Order rose from the Dark Side. You did not."

Kylo stopped in front of San Tekka with hardly a hand's length between them. The elder stared into Ren's obsidian visor defiantly.

"I will show you the Dark Side," Kylo growled.

"You may try, but you cannot deny the truth that is your family."

"You're so right," Kylo Ren said with mock cheer. There was a flash of red as he ignited his Lightblade. It was one fashioned after the ones used during the Old Republic, with blade vents forming a cross guard.

Lor San Tekka gave Kylo Ren a look of pity a moment before the unstable red blade cut the elder in half from shoulder to hip. Poe yelled and fired at Ren.

Kylo's hand shot towards the sky pilot and everything about Poe's carbine suddenly seemed to be frozen in time, from the smoke coming out of the pan, to the fire coming out of the barrel, to the bullet itself.

Poe's muscles and tendons strained against an unseen force, completely helpless to resist while stormtroopers jogged over to him. The troopers restrained him just as he was released from his invisible hold, but his gun and the bullet he had fired remained.

Kylo Ren watched as Poe was roughly dragged towards him. One kicked the back of the sky pilot's knees to force him to kneel. Poe glared at the black robed warrior, unafraid of the man under the helmet.

Kylo retracted his Lightblade and squatted in front of Poe and silently stared at him. After several seconds, Poe raised a sarcastic eyebrow. "So, who talks first? You talk first? I talk first?"

"The old man gave it to you."

"It's just very hard to understand you with all the..." Poe moved his hand in a circle in front of his face. "...apparatus."

Kylo stood. "Search him."

The stormtroopers yanked Poe to his feet and dug through every pocket and pouch he had. "Nothing, sir."

"Put him on board."

The troopers force marched Poe to the black airship while a caped officer in armor of mirror polished molybdenum steel descended the ramp, one hand resting on the pommel of her sheathed sword. This Captain Phasma walked over and stood next to Kylo. "Sir, the villagers?"

Ren looked to the trembling prisoners. He turned back to the captain. "...Kill them all."

Screams drowned out the roaring fires as the stormtroopers cocked their guns.

Phasma raised her hand. "On my command."

The muzzle of FN-2187's carbine trembled.

Phasma brought her hand down with a chop. "Fire."

Gunsmoke filled the air as the stormtroopers put bullet after bullet into the cowering villagers. Poe cried out in horror while he was forced into one of the airships.

2187 shook like a leaf in the wind, but could not bring himself to pull the trigger. He felt sick as he watched the unarmed civilians die in front of him, crawling and screaming as more bullets riddled their bodies. The trooper lowered his gun and just stared at the horror in front of him, even after his comrades had started to walk away.

Suddenly, 2187 felt as though he was being watched. He looked to his right and saw Kylo Ren himself staring at him from the other side of the village square. Terror gripped the trooper and he felt a strange tugging at the back of his mind.

The two men kept eye contact for several seconds before Kylo continued on his way back to his airship. 2187 jumped as the bullet that had been until then suspended in the air resumed its flight and impacted the stone bench next to him.

On the edge of the village, the fire burning Poe's crosswing reached the leaking fuel tank and the flying machine erupted into a ball of fire. Bibi-Eit, already several dunes away looked back at the flames rising into the sky. He let out a worried moan before continuing out across the desert.

Kylo Ren's black airship led the other four back out to sea towards his Star Destroyer, the Finalizer. The ship's hangar was abuzz with activity between quartermasters standing by to take possession of the slain stormtroopers' bodies, the medical crews preparing to treat the wounded, and a security detail to take Poe into custody. Poe, now with shackles on his wrists, reluctantly walked down the boarding ramp, putting up just enough resistance to annoy and inconvenience his captors.

FN-2187 panted under his helmet in the throes of a panic attack. During the entire flight back, his mind had relived what he had witnessed on a loop. He ran back onto one of the empty airships and removed his blood streaked helmet, unsure if he was going to vomit.

"FN-2187," said a voice from unsettlingly close behind him. He whipped his head around to see Captain Phasma. 2187 snapped to attention. "Submit your weapon for inspection."

2187 saluted. "Yes, Captain."

"...And who gave you permission to remove that helmet?"

"I'm sorry, Captain."

"Report to my division at once." Phasma turned on her heel and walked off the airship.

FN-2187's mind raced. The weapon inspection would prove that he hadn't fired even a single shot. That alone was cause for reconditioning. The fact that Kylo Ren had seen his hesitation in the village meant that even worse awaited him. He couldn't do this anymore. He had to escape somehow. 2187 replaced his helmet and stepped off the airship.