AN: I hope that everyone had a great holiday and a happy new year. We have basically reached the end of The Rise of Skywalker which means we've basically finished the sequel trilogy! Next chapter sees some of the celebration so that's why it's not officially the end of TRoS. But don't worry there is still PLENTY left. Like I'm getting close to 40 chapters and still am not done telling Kat and Poe's story. Thank you all for sticking around this long and for all the love this story has received. It means so much. Without further ado, happy reading!

The flight to Exegol was rough. They stayed locked onto Rey's coordinates and followed the trail as best they could, jumping to lightspeed for the last time before breaking atmosphere into the Emperor's secret planet. It seemed as though the Final Order was ready for them; for once they arrived ion cannons began shooting at them.

They barely had a chance to look at the fleet but what they could see, ships went on for miles and practically filled the sky as they slowly rose to take off. With ion cannon blasts, Kat couldn't even stay close to Poe as he had originally requested, doing basic evasive maneuvers to avoid being shot down.

"Get to their altitude. They can't fire on us without hitting each other." Poe ordered.

"Don't give up. Help is coming." Kat encouraged everyone as she started to dive down to the Final Order's fleet altitude.

Just below the fleet was the navigation tower. Finn breathed a sigh of relief when he got a clear visual. They could do this. "Poe, I see it. I've got a visual on the tower." He informed them as TIE fighters began deploying from the Destroyers.

"Incoming TIEs," Snap said.

"I see them. Kat, help with coverage. We got you, Finn." Poe ordered.

Kat swooped in firing at as many TIEs as she could. It had been a long time since she had been in the middle of this heavy of a dog fight. She still did pretty decently if she did say so herself. She wasn't shot down, anyways, and that was good enough for her. As she double-checked to make sure there were no more TIEs around her, she noticed the tower starting to turn off. "The navigation tower has been deactivated."

"Those ships need that signal, it's gotta be coming from somewhere," Snap said.

Poe groaned in frustration. "They figured out what we're doing. Call off the ground invasion." This mission was tricky enough. He wasn't about to have a similar experience like above D'Qar and on Crait.

Finn looked around at the various ships. There had to be another way to complete their mission. The ships were still rising which meant the nav signal was transferred to somewhere else. They just need to know where. So when he felt a strong pull towards one that was farthest away from the action, he let the force guide him to what it was trying to show him. With it being so far away from the others it must be the command ship, which would make it the one they sent to Kijimi. "Wait, the nav signal is coming from that command ship. That's our drop zone."

Jannah looked at him concerned. "How do you know?"

He smirked at her, referencing a previous conversation they had on Endor about the force. "A feeling."

"You wanna launch a ground invasion on a Star Destroyer? Finn, are you sure?" Kat asked.

"I don't want to, but we can't take out that ship's nav system from the air. It's coming from there, Kat, I know it. I sense it."

Kat let out a sigh, never one to second guess a force user's feelings. "Alright. What's your plan?"

"Give us cover. We gotta keep that fleet here till help arrives."

"We hope," Rose said as she hurried past, getting ready to help with the attack.

"We hope," Finn confirmed, reaching out to give her a quick kiss.

"You heard the General. All Wings, cover that lander." Poe ordered.

They all flew towards the command ship. Kat gripped her steering wheel tight. Nerves were coursing through her bad, bordering on fear. She trusted Finn's judgment, of course, but there was so much risk and only so many of them and there was still no sign of Lando and Chewie.

Just then the Star Destroyers thrusters roared to life. They were getting closer and closer to take off. Kat took a few deep breaths. She still had hope. They had this, they weren't expecting them to not use speeders. They still had some surprise on their hands.

"Those thrusters are hot." Poe's voice came through the comm system. "How are we doing?" He asked.

"We're going to blow our way in and take down that nav tower," Finn said.

"All the hatches are blast-proof!" Jannah reminded him.

"All right, BB-8, you're up!" He then ordered, causing the orange astromech droid to start rolling towards the hatch that led to the nav tower with Jannah and Finn covering the droid.

The droid got the hatch open and soon Finn tossed down every grenade he carried with him which led to an explosion that climbed up the navigation tower.

"Nice one, Finn! Nav signal's down but not for long." Poe exclaimed once he saw the explosion.

They had been victorious with their first part of the plan despite some detours and yet there were still no signs of the Falcon, of help from any others, which Snap pointed out. Kat sighed, wanting to make a quip about his optimism but she had always appreciated his straightforwardness.

Apparently, Artoo had chirped in agreement for Poe answered, "I don't know Artoo, maybe nobody else is coming."

"What do we do General?" Jess asked.

"Poe, we gotta hit 'em ourselves," Kat said after letting out a sigh. She didn't like this at all but it was all they could do at the moment.

"We gotta hit 'em ourselves." He agreed with a heavy sigh, not liking the idea either but Kat would have suggested something else if there was another way. "Alright, you heard the General. Just do your best to stay alive and hit those cannons."

Even then there were far too many of them and not enough Resistance fighters. Pilots were being shot down left and right. They could barely even take out a canon. The ground team was still fighting against the Red Stormtroopers and while Finn had a plan, he wasn't sure how successful it would be. He just knew that he had to take down this command ship then maybe, that would buy them enough time for help to arrive. Things were happening far too quickly after all, or so it seemed.

When he heard the warning to Snap, Poe looked around to find his friend's location but it was too late. Snap had been hit and his X-Wing crashed into the side of a destroyer. "No!" He cried out, flashes of Muran came up, making it hard to breathe. He then looked frantically for Kat's A-Wing but all he saw was so many of his friends being taken out by the TIEs. Pilots voices were shouting through the radio connection but all he could think about is how he once again led all of his friends to a losing battle. He had brought everyone to their deaths and now he couldn't even find Kat.

"Poe, you still there?" Her voice finally came through.

He let out a sigh of relief before that same fear settled in once again. "Kat, my friends, I'm so sorry. I thought we had a shot. There's just too many of them."

Before Kat could even say anything Lando patched his way through. "But there are more of us, Poe. There are more of us."

Both Kat and Poe flew above the Star Destroyers to see hundreds of ships coming in. "Look at this. Kat, do you see it?"

Kat laughed. "Yeah, I see it."

They soon flew around so they could face the Star Destroyers once more. "Hit the underbelly cannons. Every one we knock out is a world saved." Poe ordered and the couple took off, a handful of fighters following after them.

They knocked out a Destroyer one by one. Wedge Antilles was even in the hot seat of the Falcon helping to take down the fleet. Lando had told him that Kat was a distant relative through the Metonae line and he had to admit the girl did know how to fly. He couldn't wait to meet her in person.

Everyone was celebrating as they took out each Destroyer and at one of Poe's exclamations which involved someone named Zorii, Kat grew a little curious, especially since the woman called him a spice runner. She wondered if this was his contact on Kijimi.

Then a fighter pulled up beside her just as she shot at the latest canon. She looked over and saw Wes Trelli, her contact from Naboo. He smirked her way. "Miss me, love?"

Kat rolled her eyes. Looks like she and Poe would be talking about a few things later. "Glad you finally decided to get off your ass and help us out." She quipped back at Wes before flying off.

Before she could get any further, blue lightning lit up the sky and engulfed all of the Resistance's fleet's ships. Kat searched for Poe's X-Wing as he searched for her A-Wing as they both frantically tried to get their systems back up and running. They both were yelling into their microphone, hoping someone would answer them back.

Kat saw the Tantive IV falling. All of her family's history on that one ship. All the hope that it gave them when they saw it tucked away in a cave on Ajan Kloss. "We tried mom, we tried." She murmured, sniffling.

They had almost done it but it seemed like the Final Order had one last surprise up their sleeve. The lightning reminded her of the stories she heard about the Emperor's power and then later Rey's as well. It seemed like Rey had failed in her own mission or maybe Rey had joined the Emperor. She didn't want to think that way, especially as she was falling out of the sky.

She wondered where her brother could be and just as she was about to send him a silent goodbye, the lightning stopped and her systems all came back online. "I'm back online! Can anyone else hear me?!" She called out frantically as she worked on stabilizing her fighter.

"Always good to hear your voice, General," Poe said, his relief flooding his voice. He thought that that had been it. He had focused everything on trying to get his X-Wing back up and running so he wouldn't have to watch Kat fall from the sky.

"Yours too, General," Kat replied. "Now let's take out the rest of these ships."

A large explosion deterred them from moving too far. "The command ship! Poe, these ships aren't going anywhere!" Kat exclaimed as she watched briefly.

"Finn, are you seeing this?" Poe asked, thrilled that after everything it seemed like they had won.

"Finn and Jannah didn't board the lander," Rose said.

"They're still on that command ship?" Poe asked in disbelief, pushing his X-Wing as fast as it would go to go rescue them.

"Lando!" Kat cried, knowing that while Poe was fast, the Falcon was faster.

He chuckled. "Already on it." The Falcon may have been an old ship but it was still fast. Jannah and Finn jumped onto the top of the light freighter just in time as the command ship of the Final Order crashed into the ground.

Unbeknownst to all except Finn, Rey had used up the last of her life force to finally kill Palpatine once and for all. Ben, who had been thrown down a pit by Palpatine climbed his way back out and limped his way over to her. He gathered her into his arms, holding her close. He knew what he needed to do but he wasn't sure if this would truly take everything from him; if he would make it back to his sister as he promised.

He placed a hand on her waist and let his life force flow into her. When she gasped awake, he stopped the flow but he could tell that it took a lot out of him. Rey looked at him in awe, maybe even shock. She was still reeling over the fact that he had showed up to help her take on the Emperor. She refused to call him grandfather.

In thanks, she surged forward and kissed him after they shared a few silent moments of just taking each other in. The smile he gave her made him look completely different from how she was used to seeing him. She didn't have much time to say much else because darkness took over his vision and he passed out.

"No." Rey gasped out as she slowly lowered him to the ground. She placed her ear to his chest to try and hear a heartbeat and it was the faintest of sounds. She needed to get him back to Kat, back to base, they could save him, heal them both. What she didn't realize, however, was that the kiss they shared, allowed for some of the newer life force in her to return to him.

She struggled to get him back to their respective ships. She tried to set him in the seat when he finally woke up just enough to realize what was going on around him. "What are you doing?" He groaned out.

She took a step back in shock. "You're okay?"

"I feel like absolute banthashit but other than that I guess."

She let out a sigh of relief. "That's better than bringing you back to your sister half dead I suppose. Now strap in. We've gotta get out of here."

He shook his head lightly. "She's really not all that scary."

"Yeah, okay. I'm pretty sure you're still suffering from a head injury so I'm gonna pull you behind me until you feel like you can fly again." She double checked everything and went about hitching his TIE fighter to Luke's X-Wing.

"There, look! Red-5 is in the air. Rey's alive." Finn said, trailing off a bit as he noticed the TIE fighter. "And she's pulling a TIE behind her?"

"Uh, I think that might be my brother…" Kat trailed off, unsure of how everyone would take the news.

Everyone actually cheered as if they had gotten Kylo Ren as a prisoner. Kat looked down at her lap, an uneasiness settling over her. What would they think if they knew what she planned to do once they got back to base? Would they even follow her anymore?

"People are rising up all over the galaxy," Rose said, interrupting her thoughts. "We did it."

Poe took off his helmet, looking out as the entire fleet of Destroyers crashed down around them. "We did it." He agreed. "Alright everyone let's get back to base. This was only the beginning."