Chapter Eighteen
The Stars, Shaken
Sith troopers pressed steadily down Imperial Boulevard, driving the Resistance forces back step by bloody step, dozens falling where they stood. Behind them, AT-MTs trundled forward, cannons blowing gaping holes in the street.
One of the Sith troopers used the Force to pull a Resistance soldier from behind a downed UATT. The soldier tried to scramble back into cover, but the Sith trooper held him in place and gunned him down.
Most of the Coruscanti citizens were now in open rout, rushing away from the implacable advance of the red-armored soldiers. Sith jetpack troopers landed in front of them, firing grenade launchers. A wall of flame rose up, blocking the crowd's escape. This revolution was turning into a massacre.
General Connix fell to the ground as a bolt hit her in the leg. Captain Kin pulled her up and half-carried, half-dragged her away from the battlefront.
A low-flying TIE strafed the street as Finn, Jannah, and several other defectors jogged towards the landers. "We have to evacuate!" Jannah shouted. "Get as many people out as possible!"
"We can't!" Finn yelled back. "We barely made it down here. We'll never get out under this much fire!" He looked around at the remnants of the Resistance, cut off and surrounded by enemies, firing back at impossible odds as they fought for their very survival. His eyes began to water. This was how it would all end. This was how liberty would die.
It began to rain, large drops falling from the sky like tears.
Spears of plasmic death flashed above Coruscant, illumining the grim clouds like lightning. Two Star Destroyers fired their superlasers on the Rebel Eclipse simultaneously. A red cocoon formed around the dreadnought as its deflector shields held back the unleashed energy. The Eclipse blasted at one of its attackers with its own superlaser and broadsided the other with its cannons. The Final Order ships exploded and fell through the clouds towards the planet below.
"Shields at thirty-eight percent, Vice Admiral," a technician called.
"Change our plane of attack! Don't let them line up on us!" Ackbar commanded, weary but steadfast.
Another Resurgent-class Destroyer appeared out of hyperspace, and another, the odds shifting more and more out of their favor.
Inside the cockpit of his X-wing, Poe Dameron plunged through the chaos of swarming TIE fighters and sheets of laser fire. He zipped between a pair of burning Destroyers just before they collided behind him. He watched as more enemy ships arrived and sent fighters streaming down towards Coruscant.
"We'll have no chance down there if those reinforcements make it through," he said. "We need more ships."
A trio of TIE daggers pursued an A-Wing, green fire whizzing after it.
"Vanik, they're on your tail," Poe warned.
"Yeah, I see 'em," acknowledged the pilot, looking out his windscreen.
Poe said, "No, n—no, Vanik!"
The TIEs' fire hit the A-Wing. Vanik screamed as his fighter was engulfed in flames.
"No!" Poe shouted as he watched Vanik's burning craft spin out of control and crash into a Star Destroyer.
"Alpha Three is down," reported Alpha Leader, delivering Vanik's epitaph.
The comms chatter took on a panicked tone as more Resistance starfighters fell.
"Fire's coming in, three degrees."
An X-wing pilot said, "They're on my tail, I can't get—Ahhh!" The TIEs hit him too, his wings spiraling away as he dropped towards the city.
"They're everywhere!" yelled Kallie Lintra.
"—too late. Ahhh!"
Karé Kun cautioned, "Pull in!"
Laserfire struck a Y-Wing, knocking out one of its thrusters.
"Delta Leader's hit. Who is leading Delta?"
Delta Leader, despite struggling to stay aloft, still responded. "Fickser's second-in-command. Losing altitude."
"More ships arriving from hyperspace, Admiral," Ackbar reported.
Poe's head drooped, his chin on his chest.
"Admiral, what's our next move?"
"Poe, what now?"
Poe drew a shallow breath as he looked up again, green and red light flashing across his face. He felt like crying. "My friends," he said, choking up slightly, "I'm sorry. I thought we had a shot. But there's just too many of them."
There was a peculiar buzzing crackle from his comms. Then a smooth, familiar voice said, "But there are more of us, Poe. There are more of us."
Poe jerked his control stick forward and soared upwards, past a Star Destroyer and into the upper atmosphere. He emerged from the cloud layer, and looked out at the starfield ahead. Before him was a massive fleet, thousands of ships strong, with more spilling into realspace every second. In fact, it was more than just a fleet, it was a fleet of fleets; hundreds of types of ships drawn from all across the galaxy, flown by Resistance sympathizers; planetary militias, peacekeepers and defense forces; veterans of prior wars; spacers, smugglers, mercenaries, pirates, and bounty hunters. More than a dozen bulbous Mon Calamari Star Cruisers served as rallying points and launching platforms for smaller craft. Resistance cells, Rebel veterans, and New Republic remnants contributed Nebulon-B and -C escort frigates, Corellian CR90 corvettes, Brahatok-class gunships, Hammerheads, Free Virgillia-class Bunkerbusters, GR-75 medium transports, Pelta- and Vakbeor-class frigates, and MG-100 StarFortress bombers. Scattered throughout the rest of the armada were freighters, quadjumpers, longhaulers, Pursuer-class enforcers, Guavian Death Gang ships, a whole sub-fleet of Hynestian Cruisers, an ancient Cronian battlebird, a Nubian yacht, and even a Star Tours speeder.
"Look at this," breathed Poe, astonished. "Look at this…"
As Poe scanned the immense armada, his eyes fell on its vanguard, which comprised a Durosian fighter, a Gozanti Armed Transport, a Lantillian GX1 short hauler, a Wookiee Auzituck anti-slaver gunship, and freighters from Drovan, the Mining Guild, and Coruscant itself. Just to one side was the recently reformed Phoenix Squadron: a CR90, a Hammerhead, and a Lothalian corvette; the Shadow Caster; and the Sato's Hammer, all led by the Ghost.
The Millennium Falcon swooped into view at the head of the fleet. Lando Calrissian helmed the controls, laughing with pure joy and exhilaration as the fate of the galaxy once more depended on his ship's ability to out-fly anything else in the air. Chewbacca glanced at him, an unmistakable smile on his furry face.
Lando said, "All wings report in."
"Mon Calamari fleet, standing by," said a slippery voice.
"This is the Ghost," Hera Syndulla reported. "Phoenix Squadron is standing by."
"Ryloth Defense Authority, standing by."
"Anodyne Two, standing by."
"Chandrilan Resistance, standing by."
"Phantom Squadron, standing by."
"Alphabet Two, standing by."
"Zay Versio with Inferno Squad, standing by. Look at all these ships!"
"J-Squadron, standing by."
"Shriiizzeeek'k'k'zzz—"
"This is Captain Imanuel Doza of the Colossus. We are here to help."
"—the Rand Ecliptic, standing by."
"Free Mandalore, ready for action."
"DROID LIBERATION FRONT SHIP L3-37 ARMED AND OPERATIONAL FULL STOP"
"This is Captain Fobis Doolevy of the Wattled Purrgil, standing by."
"Zorii Bliss here—"
"—Mori Mome, on behalf of the Black Sun Syndicate—"
"I am Hondo Ohnaka, pirate king, and I am here to save the day!"
Poe made a broad turn in his X-wing, dropping behind the Falcon. "Hit those underbelly cannons," he commanded. "Every one we knock out is a world saved."
The light freighter and the starfighter skimmed over the Rebel Eclipse, followed closely by a U-wing and a Victor-wing. Behind them, the rest of the fleet swept towards the Final Order fleet like an unstoppable wave of metal, opening up with a withering barrage of energized plasma.
A burning TIE Dagger crashed into the army of Sith troopers and tanks on Imperial Boulevard. Finn looked up as a battalion of unfamiliar ships descended through the clouds and joined the firefight in the sky. "What? Lando, you did it. You did it! YEAH!" He raised his rifle into the air, yelling to anyone who could hear. "We got backup!"
A Venator-class Star Destroyer hove into the thick of battle, trading broadsides with its latter-day counterparts. The vast doors atop it opened and Z-95 Headhunters, ARC-170s, and Low-Altitude Assault Transports emerged from the cruiser's hangar. Nearby, Vulture Droids buzzed out of a Lucrehulk-class Droid Control Ship, accompanying Separatist landing craft.
A Y-wing climbed towards a Star Destroyer's underside, spinning out of the path of a TIE fighter's blasts before blowing it away. The bomber poured fire into the Destroyer's superlaser, avoiding the barrel of the cannon by meters as it plunged through the flames belching out of it.
"So long, sky trash," a voice said over the comms.
Snap wondered, "Who's that flier?"
"Don't you recognize your own mother, Temmin?"
"MOM!" Snap shouted, almost blowing out his audio pickup.
Poe said, "It's an honor to fly with you, Norra."
"Is Wedge here too?" Snap asked excitedly.
"Right here on the Falcon, Snap," Wedge Antilles replied. He swiveled the turret gun to take out a TIE Brute as the freighter twirled with surprising grace to avoid turbolaser fire. "Nice flying, Lando."
The Final Order Capitol's control deck was growing increasingly chaotic. Officers and technicians sat before long rows of computer consoles, attempting to coordinate the battle.
"Another ship down. We lost a Destroyer!"
"Systems not responding."
"Where did they get all these fighter craft?" Hux demanded. "They have no navy. Not one of this scale."
"It's not a navy, sir," answered Admiral Griss. "It's just…people."
Dozens of ships descended to Imperial Boulevard and the streets around it. Resistance sympathizers from across the galaxy, with dozens of types of arms and armor, spilled out of troop transports and freighters. Planetary militias, peacekeepers, defense forces, and veterans of prior wars fanned out in tactical formations. Spacers, smugglers, mercenaries, pirates, and bounty hunters surged forward in chaotic masses or bounced from one piece of cover to another. Starfighters, light cruisers, and a refurbished Republic Gunship hovered over the street, firing lasers and missiles at Final Order soldiers and walkers.
The Meson Martinet landed on a wide road off the boulevard. Sidon Ithano, resplendent in his crimson helmet and robes, exited his ship and surveyed the battle. His first mate, Quiggold, followed, peg leg clanking as he descended the metal stairwell. Behind him marched a tan-skinned human with a dark beard, at the head of a column of other pirates.
A commandeered First Order troop transport landed on the boulevard and a squad of B2 super battle droids trundled out, opening fire on Final Order troopers with their arm cannons. A lone, battered B1 droid and a green-skinned Nikto followed them.
The bearded pirate watched the battle droids mow down a squad of stormtroopers. "Never thought I would be on the same side as a bunch of clankers," he mused.
"Aye, time makes strange allies, Kix," Sidon Ithano replied. He raised his voice. "Now, me hearties, let us have at these scalawags!"
The scrum of pirates shouted and whooped as they charged into battle. Kix looked down at the blue-and-white helmet in his hands, remembering countless brothers who had worn the same face as himself. "One last time. For all of you," he whispered. Then he put his helmet on, drew his blaster, and charged into battle, shouting, "And for the Republic!"
A pair of TIE Marauders locked on to Poe, spitting lasers from cannons on each of their three crew pods. "I've got TIEs hot on my tail. Some sort of new models, I can't shake 'em."
"Hold tight, Poe, I gotcha," said a youthful voice. Blaster fire severed the Marauders' wings, sending the pods tumbling downwards as a squadron of colorful racing starfighters zoomed by.
"Ha!" Poe laughed. "Kaz! You made it!"
"It took us a while, but we caught up to you eventually," responded Kazuda Xiono. "Couldn't let you have all the fun!"
"Aces, we've got a Star Destroyer at point-oh-two," said a deep voice. "Kaz, Tam, Torra and I will take out the cannon. Everyone else cover for us."
Poe said, "Good to see you back in the fight, Jarek."
"I didn't realize how much I missed it until I got in a cockpit again," Yeager replied as the Aces peeled away.
Poe zipped off to attack another Destroyer, followed by Norra, Snap, Hondo Ohnaka's Katooni, a U-wing, a B-wing, a Razor Assault Ship, and two gleaming Naboo N-1 starfighters.
Rey and Ben lay before the Throne of the Sith, beneath the Jedi Temple. Snoke walked past their prone forms, holding aloft the blood-stained Dagger of Mortis.
"The ritual begins," he shouted. "The sacrifice has been made, and soon, the power to alter reality itself shall be mine!"
The Sith cultists chanted in their dark tongue as Snoke waved a hand. Two figures, taller than the cultists around them, emerged from the crowd. They wore robes and reflective goggles, both deep purple. Between them, they carried a complex circular device with a hole in its center. A clamp and an articulated metal arm holding a large lens stuck out over the gap in the apparatus.
The pair of Attendants placed the device on the altar before the throne, aligning the hole in its center with a bowl-shaped depression in the stone. They carefully adjusted the lens, communing with each other by emitting electromagnetic radiation.
"The key is ready!" yelled Snoke as he stepped up to the altar and placed the dagger into the clamp. A rivulet of blood ran down the blade's edge, a single red drop falling from its tip.
As soon as the blood landed on the hollow in the stone, flames roared upwards from the altar, engulfing the knife. The runes ringing the sides of the stone cylinder glowed with unholy power. A bolt of vermillion lightning leapt from the hilt of the dagger to the glass above as the Attendants fiddled with controls on the machine. The lens seemed to redirect and focus the electricity, straightening it into a red beam of light that speared out and struck the ground near the edge of the dais opposite the throne. The crimson energy clung to the rock and then expanded outwards across it, seeming to strip away the stone as though something from a higher level of reality were replacing it.
"Behold!" proclaimed Snoke. "The portal…opens!"
A huge ring of red light now blazed on the floor, pulsing and undulating as though alive. Snoke walked over to it and looked down, into a darkness studded with points of light. Turning slowly in the middle of the blackness was a glowing orb, its surface covered in patches of white, green, and grey. It seemed to grow, larger and larger, until it filled the circle. Clouds, forests, rock, and magma became visible as it resolved into a planet.
"At long last, the time has come!" shouted Snoke. "The power of Mortis, the conduit between the Living and the Cosmic Force, is within my reach. Now, to seize it!" He extended his sinewy arms. A point of light appeared in the clouds above Mortis and grew in intensity as it drew closer, revealing itself to be a glowing stream of pure Force energy. The beam flowed upwards through the portal and into Snoke's hands.
Snoke seemed to expand. First, his hands grew fuller, the flesh expanding to fill the skin, which pulled tight. Snoke's spine straightened, drawing him to his full height, as the scars and wrinkles on his head faded. He grinned, revealing smooth, straight teeth, as the Sith cultists chanted triumphantly.
"Finally, my body has been restored, and the grievous wounds given by my apprentice have healed," gloried Snoke. "Now, to begin remaking the galaxy in my own image!" He raised his hands into the air and pushed upwards. There was a low rumble of shifting rock as the floor and walls of the shrine began to tremble.
The remaining spires of the Jedi Temple collapsed as the ground beneath them shook. A vast mountain of blackest obsidian rose out of the bedrock below, its peak pushing aside the remnants of the once-grand zigurrat. The Shrine in the Depths ascended within the pinnacle of the dark mount. Within the mountain, the dais rose even further, a column of stone carrying it upwards through the hole in the roof of the chamber.
Snoke lowered his hands. The cityscape of Coruscant opened out below him, dark and drear below the clouds.
Ben Solo's head hurt. He was lying down, hard stone digging into his back. He tried to remember how he had gotten here. After a moment, the memory came crashing back. He was in the Sith shrine beneath the Jedi Temple. Snoke had thrown him to the ground. He must have hit his head and blacked out. Ben groaned and rolled over, then pulled himself onto his hands and knees.
Snoke turned his gaze upon Ben and raised him into the air. "As my last apprentice fell, victim of his hubris, so fall you," Snoke said. He flung Ben away. Ben tumbled down the steep mountainside and into a deep fissure.
Snoke sat down on the Throne of the Sith and looked up at the battle raging above, numerous Star Destroyers burning as smaller craft swarmed around them. "Now, to crush this pitiful Resistance," Snoke muttered as he drew more power through the portal and into himself. He let it leap upwards in a massive bolt of lightning that soared into the clouds and then burst outwards in every direction. The searing electricity leapt from ship to ship, striking Resistance vessels while leaving TIEs and Star Destroyers unscathed.
A blindingly bright streak of lightning struck Poe Dameron's X-wing. Electricity danced across the metal shell of the starfighter as it spun like a wind-tossed leaf and began to drop. Inside the cockpit, alarms blared and patterns of static interference played across the dashboard console screen.
"Beebee, my systems are failing," Poe said, flicking a switch to give him full manual control over the beleaguered craft.
BB-8 screamed as the current overloaded his capacitors and taxed his dampeners to the breaking point.
"Does anyone copy?"
There was no answer from the comms. Outside Poe's cockpit, a Sullustan cargo freighter's bow dipped. Nearby, frigates, corvettes, and even a Mon Calamari cruiser plummeted planetward as they were disabled by the electrical storm.
Poe struggled to restart his sputtering engines as the ground rushed up towards him. "Come on, come on…raaah!"
The thrusters cut back in. Poe heaved the control stick back as the ship dropped into a canyon of buildings.
Finn stood near the landers, firing a heavy blaster rifle that a Resistance trooper had handed him. He looked up as an orange X-wing screamed overhead. The starfighter made a hard landing on Imperial Boulevard, knocking down Sith troopers as it skidded down the street and screeched to a halt.
"Save that pilot!" Finn shouted. He, Jannah, and her squad blasted their way towards the crashed ship.
A Sith trooper fired into a crowd of Coruscanti citizens using a tripod-mounted repeating blaster, two others troopers flanking him. Jannah lobbed a grenade at the soldiers as she passed, blowing them into the air.
Finn made it to the starfighter and climbed onto the wing. An orange and white astromech beeped at him frantically.
"Beebee-Ate?"
The cockpit popped open. Poe scrambled out. "Finn!"
"Poe!" shouted Finn. He dropped to one knee behind the wing and fired at nearby Sith troopers.
"Told you we'd meet again!" yelled Poe as he lifted BB-8 out of the droid socket and set him down on the pavement. The electricity-dazed droid wobbled and shook his dome as if to clear it.
Another ship—a freighter—fell from the sky before leveling out, buzzing over their heads. It crashed through the legs of the AT-MTs, cutting the mechanical beasts off at the knees. They toppled as the freighter ground to a stop before the entrance to Monument Plaza, the pile of metal almost blocking the street.
A Sith jetpack trooper flew by, firing down at them. Jannah produced an energy bow, pulled back the string, and sent a polarized metal arrow upwards. It buried itself in the jetpack of the trooper, who whirled out of control, trailing smoke, and slammed into a building.
"Where'd you get that?" Finn asked.
"I had to replace the gun you took from me, so I raided the armoury after I had made up my mind to defect. It had a lot of unusual weapons confiscated from across the galaxy," answered Jannah. "Incoming!"
A fresh batch of heavy AT-MTs emerged from the streets surrounding Monument Plaza, shooting down the boulevard at the landers. Cannon fire rained down from the Capitol above as lightning crackled across the sky.
Snoke cackled as power poured out of his hands. Rey lay on her side on the stone before him, blind and bleeding and utterly motionless. Then her hand moved. She pushed herself onto her back as her eyes fluttered open, staring sightlessly at the sky.
Above her, Resistance ships fell, electricity ripping through them. The Tantive IV rolled sluggishly as it sunk lower in the sky. A shower of sparks exploded out of the corvette's controls as Nien Nunb clung tenaciously to them and his copilot tried in vain to shield his face.
Rey could not see the death and destruction, but she could feel it, seemingly stronger now that one of her other senses was gone. Light flashed across her face as a single red tear, blood and salty lacrimal fluid mingling within it, rolled down her temple and became lost in her hair.
"Be with me," Rey whispered. "Be with me."
Her consciousness seemed to ascend, floating above the chaos and tumult to the unseen stars, those seemingly immutable and eternal bodies that (she knew in her head) were only balls of hot plasma, yet which still had a faint air of mystery and wonder about them.
"Be with me."
A voice spoke, softly, as though far away or long ago. "These are your final steps, Rey. Rise, and take them." She recognized it as one she had first heard upon touching the lightsaber in Maz Kanata's castle. A name floated to the surface of her mind: Obi-Wan Kenobi.
"Rey." A man's voice.
A high, light woman's: "Rey."
"Rey." A deep baritone.
Rey realized she could recognize all of them. They were the Jedi who had come before her, generations of them.
"Bring back the balance, Rey, as I did," Anakin Skywalker said.
Luminara Unduli intoned, "In the night, find the light, Rey."
"You're not alone, Rey," said Mace Windu.
"Alone, never have you been. One, we are, bound by the Force."
Qui-Gon Jinn told her, "Every Jedi who ever lived, lives in you. And we will not be broken."
"The Force surrounds you, Rey," said Anakin.
Aayla Secura advised, "Let it guide you…"
"…as it guided us," Ahsoka Tano finished.
Mace: "Feel the Force, flowing through you, Rey."
Anakin: "Let it lift you."
"Rise, Rey," Adi Gallia said.
Rey turned onto her side again and raised her left arm. It felt like lifting an agonizingly heavy weight. She slammed her palm against the rough stone in front of her face.
"We stand behind you, Rey," Qui-Gon encouraged.
Obi-Wan: "Rey!"
"Rise in the Force," croaked Yoda.
Rey grunted as she moved her leg. The pain was too much. She couldn't do it.
Caleb Dume urged her on. "In the heart of a Jedi lies her strength."
Rey gritted her teeth and placed one of her feet below her.
"Rise."
"Rise!"
Rey gasped for breath.
"Rey," said Luke, "The Force will be with you, always."
With all her strength, the last Jedi rose. Leia's lightsaber clattered across the rock and flew into her hand. She unwrapped the strip of cloth from around her hand and tied it around her ruined eyes, then ignited the energy blade.
Snoke stopped shooting lightning and stood to face the blind, bruised, determined woman before him. His mouth turned downwards into a frown. "Let your death be the final word in the story of rebellion." He pointed his hands towards her and blue lightning sprung from them.
Rey raised the lightsaber. The crackling current danced madly around the plasma blade, but was unable to pass it.
The ships of the galactic citizens' fleet stabilized as the lightning dissipated. Snap Wexley's static-riddled instrument display screen resolved into an attitude indicator. "We're back on! Poe, are you there?"
"I went down, but I'm okay. I'm with Finn and Connix. Take over for me."
"Copy. Everyone hear that?" Snap asked. "This is our last chance, we gotta hit those cannons now." His X-wing went into a climb, the Ghost, the Aerie, and a couple of Mandalorian Fang fighters paralleling his course.
"Incoming communication, sir," an officer informed General Hux.
"Who is it?"
"Lord Gherlid."
Hux frowned. "Doesn't he know we're in a battle?"
"I believe that's the subject he wishes to discuss."
"Fine, put him on," Hux sighed.
A holographic image of the warlord's hoary head flicked into existence. Hux thought he somehow looked even uglier than he did in person; but at least this way he wouldn't smell.
"General Hux!" Gherlid shouted. "You promised your stormtroopers would help me control my worlds. If that is so, why have they boarded their ships and left?"
"Lord Gherlid," said Hux, with a tranquility he did not actually feel, "I can assure you that our withdrawal is temporary. We are in the midst of a crisis. The Resistance has finally mounted a direct attack, thereby exposing themselves. After we have crushed their paltry forces, we shall restore our troop deployments in your fiefdom to previous levels."
"I don't need your empty words, Hux," spat Gherlid. "I need boots on dirt and fists in faces! My people are in open revolt. They're on the steps of my palace right now!"
Hux spread his hands in a placatory gesture. "I am sorry, Lord Gherlid, but the Final Order cannot afford to help you at the expense of the safety and security of the rest of the galaxy."
"Safety and security my twisted finduncle! I don't—" Lord Gherlid stopped and looked away to his left at something beyond the holoprojector's view. There was the faint sound of someone yelling "Incoming!", followed by a muffled explosion and shattering glass. Gherlid picked up a large, mean-looking cannon. "Die, peasant dogs!" he shouted, opening it up. Then he disappeared, his feed shifting and warping before it turned into blue static.
Hux stared for a moment at the spot where Gherlid's image had been. He sniffed. "Can't say I'll miss him." Then he winced as a sharp pain shot through his injured leg. He half-turned towards the crew of the bridge. Techs looked up at him expectantly.
"Someone get me a chair," Hux called.
Poe stood at the top of the Fortitude's boarding ramp, firing at wave after wave of enemy troops.
Connix, sitting at a comms terminal with a cloth bandage around her leg, called to him. "Admiral, our agent on the inside is contacting you."
Poe threw a brief, confused glance in her direction. "We have an agent on the inside?"
Connix activated the comm speaker. Rose's voice crackled out of it. "The Capitol is a ship!"
"Rose?" asked Poe. "Slow down."
Rose was patched into a comm terminal, stray sparks falling around her from hotwired cables strung between processing towers. "They're going to leave the planet! I can disable the hyperdrive, but I need the keycodes in Artoo's memory drive."
"Artoo's with Finn," said Poe. "Patch her through," he told Connix.
Finn had found cover behind a fallen AT-ST and was taking out Sith troopers with precise shots from his rifle. The comlink on his belt squawked. "Finn! It's me!"
Finn brought the comm to his mouth and yelled into it. "Rose? Rose, you're alive! Stay where you are, we're coming for you!"
"Great," Rose said, rolling her eyes. "Listen carefully! I need Artoo to transfer the hyperdrive keys to me before this thing takes off."
"Hyperdrive? Where are you?"
"There's a scomp link terminal at the base of the Capitol. I'll have a direct connection to him from there. Got it?"
Finn looked around frantically. "Artoo-Detoo! Where are you?"
Finn spotted C-3PO and R2-D2 hiding behind an overturned assault tank. He raced across the battlefield to them, shooting a Sith trooper and hurdling bodies as he ran. Jannah and Poe followed him.
Finn made it to the tank and grabbed R2-D2. "We need to get you to the Capitol," he said urgently.
See-Threepio ventured nervously, "Master Finn, we're more suited for rear unit duty."
R2 beeped, determined.
"For glory?" asked Threepio incredulously. "What are you saying, Artoo? There's no such thing as glory for droids!"
Finn looked down the war-torn boulevard, his eyes tracing the long path to Monument Plaza and the base of the Capitol. Final Order transports touched down, even more Sith troopers and mechtroopers spilling out of them.
"You know the odds better than any of us. None of this matters if we don't reach that terminal. Do we have a choice?"
See-Threepio seemed taken aback. He turned his head away from them and looked out at the scorched and blackened street, at the motionless forms and ruined machinery scattered across it, at the soldiers exchanging fire and scrambling from one piece of cover to the next. It reminded him of similar scenes of destruction, on world after world, down the decades. When he spoke, his metallic voice was small and pricked through with emotion. "If this mission fails…it was all for nothing. All we've done; all this time."
He turned to face Finn, Poe, and Jannah again. He couldn't let down them or the rest of the Resistance. He delved into his memory banks, bringing up images of the people he had served with over the decades. There were rebels and diplomats, soldiers and spies and Ewoks. Chewbacca, Lando, Rose, and Mistress Rey were elsewhere in this very same battle, he knew. Others faces were even dearer: Captain Solo, Master Skywalker, Princess Leia, Senator Organa; all of them gone now. Through it all, the one constant was his oldest and dearest companion, his counterpart, R2-D2.
Poe grew slightly uneasy. The protocol droid had been silently staring at them for a while now. Poe half-pointed at him. "What're you doing there, Threepio?"
"Taking one last look, sir," said See-Threepio. "At my friends."
Finn frowned, his eyes watering a little. Poe gave a slight nod of respect.
Threepio turned again, to face the Capitol. "Come along, Artoo. We have a mission to complete."
See-Threepio stepped out from behind the tank, Artoo-Detoo rolling along beside him. Their human compatriots watched them go, moved by the bravery exhibited by the two droids.
An AT-MT advanced down the street towards them, its cannons firing indiscriminately as it swiveled its mechanical head back and forth. A blast from one of the smaller turrets on the side of the walker's head hit Artoo-Detoo squarely on his dome, blowing it open. He slammed backwards into the side of the tank and then crashed to the ground.
"Artoo?" called Threepio. "Artoo!"
The little astromech lay silent and unmoving, a ragged, scorched black hole in the side of his dome.
"Jannah, cover us!" Finn shouted as he scrambled to R2. Jannah stood atop the tank, firing a hail of arrows, as Finn heaved the droid's metal shell up and dragged it back behind the machine.
C-3PO cried, "Artoo! Artoo, say something!"
Finn waved smoke away from Artoo's burnt body. The droid's circuits were completely dead, no power coursing through his kilometers of wiring.
"Those codes are in here somewhere," Finn muttered. He opened a panel and pulled out Artoo's memory drive. "I'm sorry, buddy."
Finn stood up. "We have to get this to the Capitol."
"I don't think any of us can get much further than they did," predicted Jannah. "Besides, does your arm have a scomp link?"
"I know who does," Poe said. He yelled over the din of battle, "Beebee-Ate!"
BB-8 rolled up and bobbled his dome in salute.
"You know what to do, pal," said Poe. "Just get to the Capitol and plug in."
The astromech popped open a compartment in his round body. Poe took Artoo's memory drive from Finn, knelt down, and inserted it. "It's all up to you now. Okay?"
"Rose, send Beebee-Ate the terminal coordinates," Finn said into his comm. "He's got this." He addressed the droid. "You got this, right?"
BB-8 nodded silently, focused.
"Covering fire!" Poe called. He, Finn, Jannah, and some nearby defectors fired into the waves of approaching Final Order soldiers. "Go! Go!"
BB-8 rolled into the midst of the battle, dodging around stray fire and explosions. He wove through the legs of the AT-MT that had shot Artoo, then raced past craters and fallen troopers. Poe and Finn watched the little droid from afar, inspired.
The AT-MT fired in their direction again. The tank they had been behind exploded, knocking Finn off his feet. His ears rang and his vision swam. Jannah's voice warbled distortedly, "Fall back!"
Finn got to his knees and looked around. C-3PO was still huddled over R2-D2's fallen body.
"Threepio! We have to move!" Finn yelled.
C-3PO looked up, his hand on Artoo's broken head. His voice box sounded as though it were breaking when he said, "I can't leave him."
Poe stepped past Finn and grabbed R2-D2's barrel-shaped body. Finn gently removed Threepio's metal hand and took the astromech's head. Together, they heaved up the scorched metal shell and bore it away, C-3PO following them.
BB-8 rolled through Monument Plaza past dozens of troopers rushing in the opposite direction. They swarmed out of the Capitol's central elevator onto a broad platform, then down a pair of ramps into the square. The astromech avoided them, ducking under the platform and rounding the Capitol until he spotted the circular depression of a scomp terminal, just above the clear dome the entire structure rested on.
BB-8 fired a pair of grappling hooks into a metal panel just above the terminal and pulled himself up, sliding over the smooth, convex transparisteel surface of the dome until he was at its top. He extended his scomp arm, sticking it into the terminal socket and connecting to the Final Order Capitol's internal network.
Rose grinned as BB-8's data feed reached her computer tower, lighting up its control panel with a flood of keycodes. "Attaboy," she whispered.
Star Destroyers fell from the sky like knives, trailing flames and debris. Alarms blared, worrying at the edges of General Hux's focus as he watched the destruction. Behind him, officers ran about, frantically preparing for departure.
Hux stood up, leaning heavily on his cane, and looked down at the battle still raging on the street below. Final Order troopers kept pouring out of the Capitol, transports, shuttles, anything that could carry soldiers, but the Resistance forces were now pushing them back, drawing ever closer. It was even worse in the air, as another Star Destroyer blew apart before his eyes. They were losing. The Final Order's well-maintained war machine was losing to this mob of riff-raff. He couldn't bear it.
"Bomb the city!" he shouted, spittle flying from his mouth. "Decimate every last being!"
"We can't do that," said Admiral Griss.
"Why not?" Hux screeched. "Are you going soft too? Like Sellik did?"
"No," Griss said. He looked vaguely confused. "Our forces are outnumbered, sir."
Hux seemed to collapse. "I…" he looked around the bridge, as though searching for someone to tell him it would all be all right. He saw no-one. Mustering his last reserves of willpower, he said briskly, "Prepare my shuttle. I need to rest and recover from my injury. I leave you in charge in my absence, Admiral."
Griss's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Thank you, sir."
Hux tried to think of something to say in response, but couldn't. Instead he simply walked off the bridge.
Snoke drew on more and more energy, sending it surging through his fingertips towards Rey, where it sizzled and crackled around her lightsaber.
"You are nothing," spat Snoke. "A scavenger girl is no match for the power in me. I was once Plagueis, and now am Snoke—the Sith'ari. You are no one!"
"No one is no one," said Rey. "The Force flows through all things, and I am one with it. I will not deny my anger, and I will not reject my love. I am the light…" A whupping sound, as of something whirling through the air, came from behind her. Rey opened her hand as a thin, rectangular hilt flew into it, pulled to her as though it had always belonged to her. "…and I am the darkness."
Rey brought the Darksaber up, crossing it with Leia's lightsaber. Now, the two blades not only absorbed the lightning, but repelled and reflected it. For the first time, an expression of worry crossed Snoke's face. "I am the Ashla, and the Bogan," said Rey, and it seemed to her as though she were not thinking about what to say, but instead letting the words well up from deep within her. She began to move towards the Dark Lord, one heavy, difficult step at a time. "The cosmic, and the living." The roar of the current superheating the air between them was deafening. Spiny tongues of electricity radiated from Rey's crossed sabers, pricking and burning her skin.
Snoke put more energy into his attack, but Rey gritted her teeth and pressed forward. "I am the balance. And you…are unbalanced." She gave her sabers a final push. The column of lightning completely reversed direction and shot towards Snoke. He cried out as he was blown backwards into the Throne of the Sith, his own lightning tearing through him, burning away his skin. Snoke ceased his lightning and collapsed weakly into the massive stone seat.
Rey threw the Darksaber at the device atop the altar, shearing clean through it. The red lightning died away and the portal to Mortis winked out of existence, replaced with bare stone. Rey caught the Darksaber as it spun back to her.
"The gate is closed, Snoke," said Rey. "You've failed. Give up now, and the Resistance will grant you mercy."
Snoke looked up, staring at Rey with pure hatred, his face bubbling with cankers as it repaired the damage from his electrocution. "Never," he growled. He raised his arms. Behind him, a massive block from the Jedi Temple, twice as tall as himself, rose into the air. He flung it at Rey.
Rey halted the stone in midair and then threw it aside. It smashed through a half-broken wall and crashed to the ground. Snoke raised a half-dozen more blocks and threw them at her at once. She deflected all but one of them, which she lobbed back at him.
Snoke stopped the stone, then turned his attention to one of the collapsed spires. Uprooting a long section of it, he sent it spinning towards her. She pushed back, locking both of them in a struggle to move the vast stone cylinder towards the other. Pressure built on the section of spire, fractures forming a web of cracks. Finally, the stress became too much for it to handle, and its center shattered, raining down chunks of masonry between the two combatants.
Snoke let go of the tower, letting it crash to the mountaintop, and sent dozens of boulders streaking towards Rey from all directions. There were more than she could deflect. They piled up around her, sealing her in, like a burial mound. Rey concentrated and sent a wave of the Force outwards, blowing the rocky prison apart.
Rey ran towards Snoke, who threw up a wall of Force, attempting to push her away. She halted, but pushed back just as hard, forcing him to brace himself against the throne. Snoke looked at her, stunned at the power she was wielding. She was almost glowing, near-unfathomable amounts of the Force coursing through her.
"Perhaps I do not need the power of Mortis," mused Snoke. "There is more than enough power…within you." He raised his arm, palm open, and pulled, extracting the Living Force from Rey.
Rey rose into the air as energy streamed out of her, flowing from her body into Snoke's hand. She bent her head back and screamed to the sky.
The Citizens' fleet ripped through the remaining Final Order fleet. More Star Destroyers fell, one narrowly missing the huge dome of the Senate building, shaking the ground of the Federal District as it plunged deep into Coruscant's underground. A few other cruisers and lighter ships withdrew, some even rising higher into the atmosphere to attempt an escape into hyperspace.
"All ships, continue harrying the Final Order," Vice Admiral Ackbar commanded. "We can end this war today."
Lando added his own advice. "Cripple the engines of any Final Order craft trying to flee."
Poe and Finn were both sheltering behind the bulbous cockpit of a crashed TIE Fighter, having escorted what remained of R2-D2 to a lander. Poe leaned sideways around the wreckage and blasted a Sith trooper in the chest. "The Final Order seems to be falling back," he observed.
Finn risked a look. The Final Order troopers were continuing to fire, but they were now walking backwards, slowly withdrawing. The Resistance forces, however, were advancing, darting from one destroyed tank or walker to the next.
As Poe and Finn continued to watch, the AT-MT that had been keeping much of the Resistance pinned behind cover was rocked by laser fire. Resistance AT-STs and AT-ATs shot at it from behind, taking advantage of its relative lack of rear armaments. Then an A-Wing swooped over the boulevard, firing on the war machine, followed by a bulky freighter. The AT-MT fired upwards, hitting the larger ship. The freighter's shields absorbed the blow as it flew right over the walker, a pair of canisters dropping out of its cargo bay.
Poe looked away as a massive explosion engulfed the head of the AT-MT. Finn was not so lucky, the light briefly blinding him.
"What was that?" asked Finn, blinking away stars.
"Rhydonium," answered Poe. "Usually used as starship fuel."
The chassis and legs of the AT-MT collapsed sideways, thick, dark smoke pouring out of a gaping hole in its front, its head entirely gone. A cheer went up from a group of Resistance soldiers. "Twilight Company, forward!" their commander shouted as they pelted into the open. A Toydarian flew past Finn and Poe, cackling crazily as he fired twin blaster pistols.
"We better get going, or we're gonna be leading from the rear," Poe observed. He turned to everyone behind them and waved his blaster pistol. "We have them on the retreat! Come on!"
The Resistance army surged out from behind the wreckage like a flood. They rushed full-tilt at the enemy, pausing only to aim and fire their weapons. Many Final Order troops fell, while others turned tail and fled.
Some Sith Troopers boarded their Atmospheric Assault Landers, attempting to evacuate. Resistance commandos and ex-stormtroopers threw grenades and fired at the landers' engines. A pair of the transports escaped, but three more crashed to the street and fulminated into balls of fire. Another was hit by an AT-AT and careened into a building.
The remainder of the troopers, trying to make their escape on foot, had found their way blocked by the pile of downed walkers in front of the plaza. They turned and stood with their backs to the wreckage, firing wildly as they made their last stand.
The Resistance army peppered the wall of metal with their blasters. Sith Troopers tried to deflect their fire with the Force, but were eventually cut down as the midichlorians infused into their blood were unable to keep up with the amount of power streaking towards them. Mechtroopers blazed away with their arm cannons, their armor deflecting blaster bolts, only to fall to grenades or well-placed shots from walkers. One mechtrooper had his head nearly taken off by a man wielding a shovel. A few troopers were shot in the back as they tried to tried to scramble frantically over the barrier, falling onto the growing pile of armored bodies.
Eventually, the fighting trailed off. There were no more visible Final Order troopers left standing.
"Did we get all of them?" asked Poe.
Several pairs of white-gauntleted hands appeared over the leg of an AT-MT. "We surrender!" called a voice. As the Resistance watched, four stormtroopers and a mechtrooper clambered over the metal knee joint, their hands raised over their heads.
"Send them to Rafe, in the back," Finn said. He climbed to the top of the pile of wreckage, then ducked back behind it as an energy beam sizzled through the space his head had occupied a moment earlier. He had gotten a momentary glimpse of troopers arrayed before the entrance to Monument Plaza, blasters drawn and aimed upwards. "There's a lot more of them on the other side," he called down.
"You heard the man!" shouted Poe. "To the barricades!"
The Resistance army surged upwards, taking up prone positions atop the scrap pile. They fired downwards into the crowd of Final Order soldiers, who fired back just as ferociously. The Resistance had more cover, however, only their heads and arms exposed as they slid forward to shoot before disappearing once more behind the metal shells of the Final Order's own machines. The AT-AT also reared over the fallen walkers, taking out whole squads with its batteries.
Soon, these Final Order soldiers were also retreating. The Resistance army slid down to the pavement and charged after them, fighting them in the street, in the entrance to the plaza, even at the base of the Capitol itself.
The man who had gone by the name of Commander Randsul Sellik for the past five years, and the codename of Fulcrum for even longer, hurried down a corridor aboard the Final Order capitol. Just around the next corner, he knew, was a bank of escape pods. He just had to board one of them and he would have completed another successful clandestine mission.
He rounded the bend, and was immediately confronted by the barrel of a blaster pistol. It was held by a squat figure in a uniform the color of spoiled cream, standing in the middle of the hall.
"I see…my suspicions about you were correct," Admiral Min Illuv said, just a hint of a smug smile on his usually impassive face. "Put your gun on the floor."
Fulcrum slowly pulled his own blaster out of its holster and bent over, laying it on the hard metal.
"Now step back."
Fulcrum stepped away from the weapon, then stood up and met Illuv's gaze. "How long have you known?"
"Long enough," responded Illuv vaguely, as he stepped forward and slid the blaster back towards him with his foot. "Your people were quite clever, I must admit. It would have been readily apparent if they had changed your actual record in the personnel database we inherited from the Empire…but records are being created all the time. By creating a wholly new, falsified profile of an Imperial officer with a spotless military career…halted only by the collapse of the government he served and a stint in a New Republic prison…they made you both unsuspicious and likely to be placed in the officer corps upon your recruitment into the First Order. From there you could rise through the ranks until you were in one of the most sensitive positions in our entire governing apparatus. Truly…a masterstroke of intelligence."
"Some of those records were almost true. Much to my regret."
"Indeed." Illuv picked up Fulcrum's pistol. "But I suspected; there was something too pat…too perfect about you. It took many days and nights of data conversion…of cross referencing…but eventually I was sure. You were not 'Randsul Sellik,' some competent Imperial veteran who joined us out of the blue one day. Your face, your voice, even certain peculiarities of speech, such as the colloquialism 'Core Square,' used mainly by Coruscantis who grew up before the Empire; all pointed to your true identity…" There was a note of triumph in Illuv's voice as he said slowly, "Agent Alexsandr Kallus, formerly of the Imperial Security Bureau, now an undercover operative for the Resistance."
Fulcrum nodded slightly, acknowledging the truth of the assertion. "I am." Then he shot Illuv a look. "Why don't you have any of your agents with you?"
"They are all busy with other matters," Illuv said vaguely. "I hardly thought I needed them to catch you."
"You should be careful," said Kallus, dark humor in his voice. "Someone could sneak up on you."
"Are you referring to that…Resistance rat you freed? She'll be trapped soon enough. Just as you have been."
"So you've caught me," Kallus said, raising his hands. "Now what?"
Illuv was suddenly all business. He motioned with his pistol. "I believe you have a datachip in your possession. Set it down and slide it over."
Kallus's mouth tightened, but he reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a small square of metal. He set it on the floor and slid it towards Illuv.
Illuv didn't even bother picking it up. His foot stamped down, hard. There was a sharp crack, then a series of pops and crunches as the heel of Iluv's boot ground the datachip into powder. Kallus's shoulders slumped.
"It won't be so bad. If you cooperate with us and tell us what you know, we can avoid any…unpleasantries…." Illuv's tongue flicked out, quickly licking his lips. He looked as though he would rather prefer it if there were some unpleasantries.
Kallus knew Illuv was too ruthless to actually leave him alive. He tensed his muscles, preparing to spring at Illuv and try to wrest the gun from him, but he kept his face and voice calm. "I don't know that much; the Resistance deliberately withheld information, so that I couldn't reveal it under duress. Besides, would you really believe anything I told you?"
"I…shall be the judge of what knowledge is valuable and truthful. I am the interrogator here…Kallus." Illuv cocked his head. "But perhaps you are right. If you have nothing of worth to offer…then I bid you…good-bye." Illuv raised his pistol, then screamed and fell on his face, jerking and spasming.
Behind Illuv's prone form stood Rose. She blew a bit of smoke away from the twin prongs of her electro-shock prod. "Handy device, this," she said curtly.
"Good job," commended Kallus, stooping to retrieve his blaster.
Rose smiled. "Now, shall we jump ship in this escape pod?"
"Yes, let's." Kallus turned to the nearest hatchway and inserted his remaining code cylinder into its access panel. The door did not open; instead, a red light on the panel began to flash.
"Illuv must have revoked my code cylinder's privileges," Kallus growled.
"It's OK, I can slice it," said Rose, dropping to one knee.
A clatter of armor and boots came from around the corner.
"Not fast enough," said Kallus. "Let's get out of here." He ran down the corridor. Rose got up and followed him, just as a squad of stormtroopers rounded the bend. The soldiers began to fire at them. Rose snapped off a couple of shots, hitting one of the troopers, before diving into a side passage.
Rey floated in mid-air, her arms hanging perpendicular to her body and her teeth clenched. She struggled to form coherent thoughts as her life was sucked away. "Luke," she pleaded silently. "Luke, Leia, help me."
Luke's voice spoke in her mind. "Use the Force, Rey."
Rey did as he said, pulling on as much of the Force as she could, struggling to build a bulwark around herself to keep out Snoke, but her energy was still being slowly, inexorably, drained away.
Luke spoke again. "Let go, Rey."
For a moment, Rey did not understand. And then she did.
To win, she would have to let go of herself. Make the sacrifice, as Nomi had said. She would die, but so would Snoke.
Rey let herself go. She allowed Snoke to pull away all her life force, all the energy she had built up, and to keep pulling, through her, straight into the Cosmic Force. For an instant, she became a conduit to all of existence. There was no longer just one Rey, there were untold infinities of Reys. She was a tiny, newly-hatched water insect, staring at its first dawn through compound eyes. She was an ancient tree, swaying gently in a cool, moist breeze. She was a granite mountain, a dying star, a single mote of dust.
Snoke laughed maniacally as power flooded him. The girl had given up! She was weak after all, just like her parents had been, and now his power and supremacy would never be challenged again.
Then Snoke realized what was flowing into him now was pure light side energy. He tried to bend it to the Dark Side, but he could not. It was doing the will of the Force, and would not be turned to his own purposes. Snoke tried to stem the flow, release his hold on the girl, but something was preventing him from doing so. He could feel the light burning inside him, ripping him open, lysing his corrupted cells faster than his modified midichlorians could regenerate them. He had been held together by the darkness for so long that the light was corrosive to his very essence.
Snoke looked beyond Rey, and for the first time in decades, he felt true fear. Arrayed before him was an army of ghosts, stretching away into the distance-millions of translucent, shimmering figures. More than a thousand generations of Jedi, clad in robes, tunics, or battle armor, all of them with their hands outstretched, forcing him to take in more and more of the light.
Snoke saw his life before him, then, as vividly as though it were a holofilm before his eyes. He saw his years of study in the dark side, the many masters he had sought out and subsequently betrayed, the entire governments and armies he had manipulated. He saw his vast network of influential subordinates, so many of whom had thought they were acting of their own volition, while really carrying out orders he had planted in their minds.
He saw Hego Damask, who had served him faithfully before meeting an unspeakably gruesome end. Snoke had stolen his identity with the ease of putting on a suit of clothes, casting an illusory mask of the Muun banker's face over his own visage in the sight of all who met him.
He saw the face of Breta, princess of Alderaan, her disgust barely hidden as she looked upon the unfortunates Snoke had hung from his wall, their exposed organs pulsing as they suffered through his early experiments in unnaturally extending life. Her features changed into the cool eyes, patrician nose, and deceptively benign smile of his first and most accomplished apprentice. Sheev Palpatine had thought himself the puppet master, when he had only been the chief puppet, eventually falling to his own hubris. Ben Solo's story was much the same as Palpatine's. He betrayed his master and thought him dead; he ruled for a time; and then he fell. Snoke took a bit of pleasure in that exquisite symmetry.
But now Snoke saw a new face: his own, as it had been in his long-ago youth, the mouth cruel and the blue eyes glowing with the fire of an unquenchable hunger. Those eyes had changed little down the years, always burning just as brightly, while the rest of him warped and ran, twisting as he delved deeper into perversion and degeneracy. Snoke saw himself, then, for what he truly was; a small, petty thing, always grasping, gripping, lusting for one thing only: power. Power to destroy, power to inflict pain on others, power for no end but its own propagation and enlargement. He was nothing but a parasite, seeking to suck the life out of the whole galaxy. And in that fleeting moment of clarity, Snoke loathed himself.
Snoke screamed at his fear of the abyss, his anger at the Jedi, his hatred of himself, and the pain in every fibre of his body as the Force consumed him. His skin peeled off his muscles, his flesh boiled off his bones, and Snoke vaporized, becoming nought but dust in the wind that blasted outwards from where he had stood.
Rey returned to consciousness of herself for one brief moment, just long enough to feel the last of her life force on the verge of slipping away. Then she collapsed to the stone floor and lay still.
Finn emerged, blood-stained and dirty, from the smoke of battle into the dying orange light of sunset, the dark storm clouds scudding away. Before him was a field of armored forms; behind him, his own army, of soldiers, citizens, and defectors. Poe stepped up beside him, surveying the fallen.
"Do you feel that?" asked Finn.
Poe looked at him. "Feel what?"
"It's like a darkness just lifted," Finn said, struggling to find the right words. "Or like an annoying sound just stopped, and its absence is the only reason I noticed it."
"I don't sense anything," said Poe. He spotted a fallen Resistance flag on the ground and bent to pick it up, then stood and handed the pole to Finn.
Finn took the flag, then climbed up the bow of the crashed freighter to the top of the barricade. Poe and Jannah climbed with him, then stood beside him as the wind caught the banner and unfurled it to its full length, the blue starbird revealed in all its glory.
Agent Sharp of the Final Order Security Bureau had one purpose in life: assassination. His current target was below him, in the boulevard before Monument Plaza. Sharp himself had received his orders less than two hours ago, directly from Admiral Illuv himself. That hadn't been much time to get acquainted with the mark and set up his shooting nest, at a window in the sixth floor of a building just to the left of the plaza entrance, but Sharp had managed. He always did. That was why he was the best sniper in the FOSB.
Sharp adjusted his scope and shifted position slightly. He could see the target, a former stormtrooper designated FN-2187, just below him. But there was another person walking just behind him, clad in the orange jumpsuit of a Resistance pilot. Sharp knew that the man, Poe Dameron, was a higher-value target than the defector. When presented with such a situation, Sharp had been given leeway to ignore orders and act as he saw fit.
Agent Sharp re-aimed his rifle, centering his crosshairs on Dameron's heart.
Finn's eyes widened. "Get down!" he shouted, grabbing Poe's arm and pulling him towards himself. A single blaster bolt flashed towards them, hitting Poe in the left arm. Poe cried out in pain.
"Poe!" Finn shouted. "You OK?"
Poe said through gritted teeth, "Nope."
"Where'd that come from?" asked Jannah, her bow at the ready.
Agent Sharp swore to himself. How had the defector known he was about to fire? It seemed inconceivable.
Sharp adjusted his aim and prepared to take another shot, but something large and grey moved in front of his scope, blocking his view, accompanied by a metallic screech and a crash. He looked up, directly at the head of an AT-AT Walker, level with his window. Sharp tried to leap backwards, but a red laser beam was already streaking towards him.
Dade eased his thumb off the firing stud of the AT-AT's right main battery, watching the explosion erupt out of the window where the Final Order sniper had been a moment before. He whispered, "That was for my mother, you sleemo."
"Medic!" Finn shouted. "We need a medic over here."
A man ran over to them. He took off his white and blue helmet to reveal a scruffy, bearded face and knelt over Poe. Finn and Jannah stared at him as he pulled a bacta patch out of his backpack.
"It's all right, I'm a medic," the soldier said. He pointed at a red medical sigil on his shoulder armor. "See?"
Poe squinted at him, trying to ignore the pain and figure out why the man seemed so familiar. "Do I know you? I feel like I've seen you before."
"I don't think so, sir. I just have one of those faces."
"Well, what's your name?" Poe asked.
"See-tee-six-one-one-six of the Grand Army of the Republic, at your service, sir. But you can call me Kix."
The ground shook. They all looked up as the Capitol left its moorings, panels on its underside and central spire opening to reveal vast engines rumbling to life.
Poe managed to sit up. "Everybody get back!" he shouted.
"Is Rose still on that thing?" Finn asked. He spotted BB-8 rolling towards them, fleeing from the quaking plaza. "Beebee-Ate! Where is she?"
Rose and Kallus ran across the roof of the Capitol. Behind them, stormtroopers were emerging out of an access hatch. Kallus turned and fired a few shots at them, hitting one.
Admiral Illuv emerged from the hatch and advanced, firing a pistol, his mouth set into a grim line. Kallus and Rose ducked behind a turbolaser emplacement.
The Capitol lurched and tilted, beginning its ascent. Rose and Kallus slid across the smooth metal surface. Rose crashed into a boxy protrusion covered in blinking lights and antennae, then grabbed Kallus's hand before he slipped any further towards the edge of the Capitol. Several stormtroopers were not so lucky, gravity and their inertia sending them falling over the side. Admiral Illuv glided past them on his hands and knees, trying to find purchase. He halted only a meter away from them as the fingers of his left hand found a gap between the metal plates. He still held his gun in his right.
"Give me your hand," Kallus said, extending his own.
Illuv narrowed his eyes.
"We won't hurt you," Kallus assured him. "I changed. So can you."
Illuv seemed to waver for a moment, but then pointed his pistol awkwardly at them. "Long live the Final Order," he muttered.
The Capitol shook again as more engines came online. Illuv's left hand slipped free of its precarious grip just as he fired. The bolt bounced harmlessly off the Capitol's armored roof. Illuv fell away from them, sliding down the gray metal, then disappeared over the edge of the Capitol and was gone.
Rose shouted into a comlink over the whistle of the wind. "This is Rose, I need a pickup. I'm on top of the Capitol. Does anyone copy?"
Snap Wexley spoke into his helmet pickup. "I see you. I'm going to get you." He turned his X-Wing, pointing it towards the Capitol.
"You're too far away, Snap," said Wrobie Tyce. "You won't make it."
Snap responded, "Trust me, I'm fast."
"Not as fast as this ship," said Lando Calrissian. Snap looked up as the Millennium Falcon rocketed past him, seeming to leave behind a blue trail as it streaked towards the Capitol.
"Hold on, Chewie," Lando laughed.
Chewbacca roared and trimmed controls as the agile smuggling ship slid next to the Capitol, which was now tilted at more than forty-five degrees from vertical. Lando held the freighter just below Rose and Kallus as Chewbacca rose to go aftwards.
"Jump!" Rose shouted. They both leapt off the Capitol, landing heavily atop the Falcon. The porthole atop the ship opened to reveal Chewbacca's furry face as the ship peeled away from the Capitol.
Admiral Griss looked down at the metropolis shrinking below him. Because the artificial gravity had been activated several minutes before, Griss could look straight down at it through the windows of the command deck. A massive shadow cast by the Capitol moved slowly across the cityscape, like the shadow of a marine predator on a shallow seabed.
A technician came up to him. "Ready for lightspeed, sir."
The Falcon descended onto Imperial Boulevard, its ramp springing open just long enough to discharge Rose and Kallus. Rose stumbled away from the freighter as it took flight once more, on its way to finish the air battle. Kallus calmly watched the ship go.
"Rose!" Finn called, running to her. He gently laid a hand on her cheek. "Are you all right?"
Rose smiled wanly and touched his hand. "I'm fine," she said affectionately. "Just a little tired and sore."
She looked up at the Capitol, now backlit against the setting sun. Poe (who was now standing, his left arm in a white cloth sling), Jannah, Kallus, Kix, BB-8, and C-3PO followed her eyes.
"They're getting away!" cried See-Threepio.
Finn looked at Rose. "Did you disable the hyperdrive?"
Rose blushed. "I couldn't figure it out," she admitted.
Hope fell away from them. The war was not over.
"So I made some adjustments to their navicomputer," Rose continued. "Without precise calculations, that thing could bounce too close to a supernova, or—"
The Capitol jumped to lightspeed.
A split-second later, a blindingly bright explosion lit up the sky as the Capitol collided with a distant star. The malfunctioning hyperdrive of the huge station tore a hole in hyperspace as it was consumed by the super-hot plasma in the core of a massive blue giant, sending the star's light into sub-hyperspace and allowing it to radiate across the galaxy. The massive explosion lit up the skies of a million worlds, from Lah'mu to Polis Massa and from Csilla to Eadu.
"—fly right into a star," finished Rose.
Aboard the Eclipse, Vice Admiral Ackbar shielded his eyes from the enormous explosion pulsating in deep space, brighter than anything else visible in the starry twilight on the edge of Coruscant's atmosphere—save the world's own sun. The crew of the dreadnought cheered, hugged, and slapped each other on the back.
Communications systems crackled to life as the signal blockade vanished and people across the galaxy saw the glowing beacon of hope in the sky. A cacophony of voices poured forth, urging their sistren and brethren to fight.
Hux stared out the wide window of his luxurious suite, his face frozen in an expression of shock and horror. It couldn't be possible, but it was. The Capitol had been reduced to molten metal, all but destroying the Final Order. The regime he had served, been disciplined by, and eventually ascended to the top of, the only way of life he had ever known, had evaporated in an instant.
Hux finally realized the tragic truth. He had lost the star wars. The great dream of a galaxy ruled by law and order had been crushed. Now, the forces of chaos would reign supreme. Would they come for him next? Would they beat down his door, drag him out of his chamber, and tear him apart in his own hallway? Or would they exert more restraint and hold a show trial, only to summarily and publicly execute him?
He would never find out. He refused to live in a galaxy ruled by such animals. It was better to die with a modicum of dignity.
Hux pulled his lightsaber out of his belt, examining the exquisite craftsmanship of the weapon for the last time. Then he pressed it against himself and flicked the activation switch.
The purple blade of energy sprang through his chest and out his back. Hux groaned in pain and gritted his teeth as he collapsed into the fetal position. He had expected it to hurt, but the pain was so much worse than he had anticipated. Hux had just enough time to wonder whether he had made the right decision before he lost consciousness.
Hux slumped sideways and lay still as, outside the window, the last Final Order ships descended to Coruscant's surface, wreathed in smoke and flames.
Rey felt a wave of joy wash over her, the jubilation of an entire planet, a whole galaxy. She knew what it meant. They had won. They had all won, and she could rest. Rey was at peace as the last of her life force slipped away.
In front of Monument Plaza, the Resistance army stared into the sky, awestruck. Finn could not celebrate, however, as a crushing, tremendous sense of loss almost made him fall over. "No…Rey…"
He looked at Poe. Poe looked back, his eyes speaking volumes.
"You feel it too," Finn said.
Poe nodded his affirmation. Rey was gone.
Rey awoke, as though from sleep, to find herself enveloped in darkness. She felt as though she were lying on her back, supported by a cushion of nothingness. She could see and hear nothing. Yet she was not afraid.
For how long Rey remained in absolute blackness and silence, she knew not, but slowly, points of light began to gather around her. They danced like fireflies, unhurriedly floating upwards. She rose with them, the darkness gradually giving way to light.
Soon, she was surrounded by a vast, seemingly unending whiteness, stretching away in all directions, including down. Some of the brighter particles of energy flickered around her, while many more were visible in the distance, flitting about. She floated into what she felt was an upright position and stretched out her hand. One of the little glimmers of light landed on it. As it lay in her palm, it felt impossibly insubstantial, as though it were hardly present. Rey brought it close to her face, examining it. It was an ovoid cell, its translucent membrane allowing her to see the delicate structures inside it. A diaphanous, folded inner membrane enclosed even tinier particles and microscopically thin fibers.
"Oh," Rey said, remembering something discussed in the Jedi texts, "you're a midichlorian, aren't you?"
The gossamer ellipse did not respond, instead simply pulsing slowly with light. It rested in her hand a while, then floated upwards, joining its fellows in weaving complex patterns around and above her.
Rey looked up to see three figures in the distance, approaching her. Two were around her own height, while the being between them was considerably shorter. As they drew nearer, she recognized them as Yoda, Luke Skywalker, and Obi-Wan Kenobi. The three Jedi stopped before her and looked at her expectantly.
"Is this death?" Rey asked.
Obi-Wan answered first. "In this place, there is no such thing as death—only adjustments of multiple factors to alter one's state of being."
"I can see," Rey wondered.
"Your true self is free of suffering," explained Obi-Wan. "Free of pain."
"Taught us much, you have," Yoda professed.
Rey was slightly taken aback. "I've taught you?"
"Mmm," hummed the ancient, diminutive Jedi. "Succeeded where we have failed, you did. Narrow was our point of view."
"You chose to embrace the Dark Side and the Light," clarified Luke. "To find balance within."
"Co-exist, they must; as in all of us, such feelings do. The truth of this, we now see."
"You said there was no death here," Rey reasoned, "but if I'm here…with you…"
"A choice, you must make. To return, or to remain."
"Here, there is serenity," Luke said. "Knowledge. Peace. Those lost, but not forgotten."
"And if I leave?"
Obi-Wan looked her in the eyes, an expression of utmost seriousness on his face. "If you return to where you left, you will face a galaxy in turmoil. Pain, suffering. The loss of those you love."
"But living, will you be," Yoda foretold. "Love, you shall."
Rey looked beyond them, at the shimmering flecks of energy afar off. "You said there were others here. Those I've lost. May I see them?"
The three Jedi shared a look. "This may be a dangerous boon to grant," Obi-Wan worried. "Seeing the ones she wishes could sway her to the wrong decision."
"Only she can know what the right path for her is," countered Luke. "Perhaps this will strengthen her resolve, in time to come."
"Agree with Master Skywalker, I do," said Yoda. "Hers alone, the choice must be."
"Very well." Obi-Wan stepped away from the others and bowed slightly to Rey. She passed between Kenobi and Yoda. An impossibly fine white thread seemed to hang in the aether before her.
Luke instructed, "Follow the silver cord, and it will lead you to those whom you seek."
Rey followed the string, although there was no ground for her to walk upon. Her surroundings did not seem to shift substantially, but when she turned to look behind her after a time, her three mentors had shrunk to tiny forms on what would have been the horizon, had such a thing existed here. She journeyed on, until in the distance, two beings appeared.
Rey began to run, excitement building, although she remembered to keep an eye on the string. "Mother? Father!"
She was almost to them. The faces that turned to face her were strange, yet achingly familiar. It was them. It was! "Father! Mother!" she shouted. "I'm here. I've found you…"
"Rey!" her mother exclaimed as her daughter fell into her arms. "I've missed you so much, dear."
Rey hugged her mother tightly, then pulled away and embraced her father.
"I always knew my little girl would come find us someday," her father said.
"But Dirk," his wife said, shooting him a significant look. "Does this mean…"
Rey collapsed to her knees between them. "I've been given a choice. To stay or go."
"Well, you mustn't remain here on our account," Mara Solana said.
"Yes," Dirk agreed. "You have your whole life ahead of you."
"But I don't want to leave you," Rey said, burying her face, and hiding her tears, in her mother's rough outer cloak. "I waited for you, for years. I can't just give you up, now that I've found you."
"You won't really be leaving us," Mara assured her. "We've always been watching over you."
"We love you."
Rey pulled back enough to look up at both of them.
"And we are so proud of you, our Rey of sunshine," said Mara.
"Go, daughter," her father said. "Live long and well, and when you return to us, a long time from now, you shall tell us your wonderful story."
"We will always be with you," her mother said, placing a hand on Rey's chest, "in here."
Rey smiled, slightly, through her tears. She considered the life she had yet to live…and made her decision.
"Thank you. I love you both more than I can say. Good—goodbye for now."
"Farewell, Rey," her parents said together, as they faded into the cosmic force.
The light grew brighter, overwhelming Rey. Obi-Wan's voice echoed in her mind. "You are a Jedi, Rey Solana. But you shall not be the last."
A bruised hand, skin scraped off its knuckles, gripped a lip of rock. The owner of the hand, Ben Solo, pulled himself onto the platform atop the dark mountain that had risen through the Jedi Temple. He rose into a half crouch and stumbled towards the still, white-swathed form lying near the round altar. Then he fell, barely keeping himself from landing on his face by throwing out his right arm to catch himself. He groaned.
After testing the strength in his arm, Ben pushed off the ground and stood. He continued to limp towards Rey, favoring his right leg due to a sprained ankle, while holding a wound in his left side with both hands. When he had almost reached her, he fell again. He crawled to her side and touched her arm. It was cool to the touch. Ben awkwardly shifted into a sitting position, pulling Rey into his arms. Her head lolled, and she had no trace of a pulse. She was dead. Ben sucked in shaky gasps of air, trying to suppress swelling sorrow. He looked behind him, but could see no trace of Snoke.
Ben hugged her cold body, resting his chin on her shoulder, staring unseeingly past the broken, rocky ground. He had never wanted to see her like this, even at his most selfish and angry. She deserved better than this. She had always been better than him. If anyone deserved to die, it was himself. She had even helped save his life…
A surge of hope welled up in Ben's breast. Could he bring her back to life? It would likely cost his own, but if there was a chance he could save her, he had to take it. Ben pulled back and placed his right hand on Rey's waist, then closed his eyes and calmed his breathing.
Ben let his life force flow into Rey. He could feel himself growing weaker, feel the energy building inside her. It wasn't enough, however; in his weakened, injured state, he didn't have enough reserves to bring her back, even if he killed himself.
Ben almost panicked, but forced himself to remain calm, to think. He reached out in the Force, searching for any reserves of energy he could use, and then realized that what he needed had been with him the whole time. Ben tapped this reservoir, pouring all of it into Rey.
Rey's chest rose as she breathed in. She lifted her bloodied left hand and placed it on his right. Ben opened his eyes and found himself staring into hers, completely healed save for a faint scar on either side of them and across the bridge of her nose.
Rey looked at him, an expression of surprise on her face. "Ben." She smiled with genuine affection and touched his cheek.
Ben smiled back, grinning more broadly than he had in more than a decade.
The ground beneath them rumbled.
"We need to get out of here," Ben said. They struggled to their feet, then stumbled towards the edge of the platform, half-supporting each other. As they started down the mountain, it began to quake violently. The platform with the altar sank back down into the depths, as the peak around it also began to crumble.
Rey and Ben half-walked, half-fell down the dark mountain, passing through the destroyed remnants of the Jedi Temple. If either of them had been alone, they would have lacked the strength to continue, but together, they somehow found the willpower to keep descending, though they were cut by sharp stones and thrown off-balance by the increasingly violent shakings of the ground beneath them. When they were three-quarters of the way down, the mountain began to collapse in on itself in earnest, starting from the top and continuing down. They could faintly hear the screams of the Sith cultists below as they were crushed beneath tons of rock. Finally, they reached their ships, now at the base of the mount.
Burning fragments of Final Order ships fell, trailing billowing plumes of black smoke. Between them flew a grey X-Wing and a black TIE whisper, racing away from the dark mountain as it caved in, leaving a gaping pit in the surface of Coruscant. Rey flicked a switch in her cockpit, once again wearing Luke's flight helmet, then looked out her windscreen at the angular black starfighter beside her, no longer a source of dread.
Finn, Poe, Rose, Jannah, Connix, Kallus, C-3PO, and BB-8 were being driven through the streets of Coruscant in an airspeeder comandeered and piloted by a Coruscanti citizen with a previous life as a speeder-jacker. She stayed close to the road, weaving around debris and crashed vehicles as they passed between bombed-out buildings, heading for an industrial landing strip which had been designated as a rendezvous point.
"There, look!" Finn said, lowering a pair of macrobinoculars. "Red Five is in the air. Rey's alive!"
"I see her," agreed Poe.
Connix was listening to comms chatter over a headset wired to a portable antenna and signal decoder. "People are rising up all over the galaxy," she informed them.
"Poe? We did it," said Finn.
Poe leaned back, breathing deeply, finally able to relax after years of war. "We did it." He watched as Rey's X-Wing and a TIE whisper trimmed their course to follow the Millennium Falcon. The TIE gave him pause—wasn't that Kylo Ren's ship? He was sure there was a good explanation for it, though, and right now he was too tired to worry about it. He watched as Snap's X-Wing joined the other three ships as they flew over Monument Plaza and joined the stream of others heading for the spaceport, sunlight glinting off their hulls.
A Star Destroyer fell from the sky of Bespin, smoke streaming from gashes on its top as starfighters and Twin-pod cloud cars climbed away from it. It dropped past Cloud City, the mining colony hanging in the air like a giant top, and through stratocumuli colored brilliant oranges and gentle pinks by the sunset.
In a basement in Coronet City on Coruscant, the top slicer in the Collective looked up from one of the many consoles lining the walls of the room. "The virus has infiltrated all Final Order systems on the planet and is ready for activation," he informed Nifera Shu.
The dark-skinned woman's jaw tightened. At last you will be avenged, Hasadar, my husband, she thought. "Do it."
The slicer slouched forward and pressed a key. Words flashed on his screen: Executing program…
Aboard the Star Destroyer Deconstructor, every console on the bridge lit up with an image of a serpent with white horns against a blood-red background, and the message: This ship is now under the control of the Collective. Do not be alarmed.
Technicians shouted and frantically mashed buttons, but only succeeded in making some of the recalcitrant computers shoot sparks at them. "We've lost all controls!" one tech cried.
The Star Destroyer splashed into the sea, which already held numerous TIE Fighters and shuttles which had also been taken over by the computer virus.
Over the green fields of Naboo, N-1 Starfighters wove around laser fire and engaged in high-speed dogfights with TIEs. Gungan-built Bullbabong bombers dropped round boomas, spheres of energized plasma, onto the Star Destroyer Dictator. The Destroyer began to list to one side as the electromagnetic pulses deactivated its systems. On the ground, Nabooans and Gungans cheered, some of them holding stormtroopers at gun- or spear-point.
On Thyferra, a swarm of insectoid Vratix rebels scuttled towards a bacta factory, pursued by a platoon of stormtroopers. The gray-green Thyferrans used four of their six appendages for locomotion, occasionally pivoting their surprisingly flexible bodies to fire blaster rifles with the remaining two. Finally, they reached the hulking industrial building and crawled inside, sometimes climbing over each other.
The stormtroopers followed them into the factory. "It's dark!" one perceptive soldier exclaimed.
The lieutenant leading the troopers ordered, "Use your lamps!" He fumbled on his belt for his own device, eventually pulling it out and switching it on.
He almost wished he hadn't. Rolling towards them was a towering blue wave of bacta. The stormtroopers just had time to shout various warnings and oaths before it crashed over them, slamming them against the front wall of the factory. Troopers screamed and gurgled as the viscous slime seeped into their helmets. Most were unable to even struggle when chitinous claws reached through the liquid and wrested their blasters from them.
Over the forest moon of Endor, two halves of the Star Destroyer Defoliator drifted apart, the cruiser neatly split apart by a lightspeed ram from a heavy freighter. The legendary Ewok warrior Wicket W. Warrick, chief of Bright Tree Village, and his son Pommet watched from a fern-covered clearing.
Wicket made a satisfied noise and planted his spear firmly on the ground. "See that? Our friends helped us once more, as they did so many suns and moons ago."
Pommet looked at his father. "Princess Leia? See-Threepio?" he asked, recalling stories he had been told many times since he was but a wokling.
"Perhaps it was the Princess, or the golden god. We can but speculate." Wicket ambled downhill towards the village, his son following. "There will be much rich feasting and lighting of fireworks this night."
On Lothal, the Final Order had already been all but defeated, the planet having risen in open rebellion as soon as the Resistance's message had reached it, led by the Ghost crew and Phoenix Squadron. Burning fragments of Destroyers, cruisers, and a dreadnought lay scattered across the rolling fields of grass. In Capital City, citizens marched legions of stormtroopers into detention camps.
Above Jakku, fire and smoke spewed out of the Resurgent-class Star Destroyer Revanchist as it fell towards the Graveyard of Giants, coming to rest on the sands near the wreckage of the Imperial-class Destroyer Inflictor.
"Hey look, that's a T-6 Shuttle," Poe said, pointing into the sky. "You can tell by the broad, fan-like wings. The Jedi used to fly them."
Rose chimed in, "I think that other ship's a Pelta-class."
The staff speeder passed through an arched metal gateway and sped onto the landing strip. Numerous ships were bending their courses downwards, or beginning their landing cycles. Others had already landed, arranged haphazardly on the tarmac. A Delta Squadron Y-wing pilot climbed down a ladder from her cockpit and hugged a ground controller. Throngs of other pilots, troopers, techs, and Coruscanti clapped, pumped their fists in the air, or embraced.
The driver stopped near the Millennium Falcon and a shuttle carrying many of the higher-ranked Resistance officers, just as the Ghost landed nearby. "We're here," she informed them.
They exited the airspeeder, Rose helping Connix down and half-supporting her as the recently-minted General limped towards the Falcon, a bandage around her left leg. BB-8 rolled ahead of them, weaving around starships and past scores of pilots, a gonk droid, and a meter-high Shungbeek wearing a flight suit and a globular glass helmet filled with argon.
D-O wheeled up to BB-8. The larger droid beeped a hello.
"Happy," said D-O, simply.
Finn patted Beaumont Kin on the shoulder as he walked past. Chewbacca, coming down the Falcon's ramp, saw them. He warbled something as he swept Rose off the ground in a huge furry hug. Rose squealed. A scrappy-looking soldier laughed at the sight, but then had a pilot throw herself at him, too. Nearby, a woman cried into a man's shoulder. Former stormtroopers wandered dazedly around, having shed their helmets, and sometimes the rest of their armor.
Poe pushed gently but firmly through the crowd, scanning every face for features that had grown ever more familiar and beloved over the past few years—and not finding them. Snap Wexley waved at him, then continued talking to a green Nikto and a Battle Droid. "I used to have a B1, a long time ago. I called him Mr. Bones…"
"That is a very terrifying name!" the Nikto said cheerfully before giving a strange, wheezing laugh.
A lander arrived at the airstrip, carrying Major Ranch and several other engineers. They carried a blue-and-white astromech droid out and carefully lowered him to the plascrete tarmac.
Ranch saluted Rose. "I think we have Artoo-Detoo mostly repaired. The damage looked a lot worse than it actually was. We'll have to find a replacement dome, but other than that he should work when his proper memory chip is put back."
"Thank you for prioritizing him," C-3PO said. "If you can't repair him…I don't know what I'll do!"
"It'll be all right, Threepio," Rose reassured him. "Beebee-Ate!"
BB-8 rolled up to her and opened a compartment. Rose pulled the memory drive out of it and stuck it into R2-D2, then pulled a welding torch out of her tool belt and set to work.
Beaumont hugged a limbless yellow Trodatome. Pilots and troopers laughed together. A Ground Logistics officer talked to a Caphex spy with enormous white sideburns that stuck out beyond the sides of her face like wings. Larma D'Acy and Wrobie Tyce held each other close, then pulled away just enough to kiss before falling into each other again.
A muscular purple Lasat talking to a pistol-wielding protocol droid and a pointy-chinned bounty hunter looked up to see Kallus standing nearby. He threw his arms wide and clapped Kallus on the back, almost knocking him over.
"Careful, Zeb! I'm not as hale as I once was," Kallus warned.
"Sorry," Zeb responded, running his hand behind his neck sheepishly. "Forgot how fragile humans get."
"No matter. It's good to see you again after so long, old friend."
Rose welded the last few wires in place and stood up. "Artoo should be up and running again."
A light on the front of R2-D2's dome flickered on, cycling through red and blue. He chirped.
"Oh, Artoo," See-Threepio said, bending down to hug the astromech, "I'm so glad you're back."
Artoo chirped curtly that he was glad too.
Threepio pulled back. "Your parts are showing," he chided.
Artoo burbled something rude at him.
Threepio was about to respond in kind, but then detected a whooshing noise, similar to the X-Wings that had been landing nearby, but subtly different. It was undercut by the throaty growl of a TIE model.
See-Threepio tilted his head up. "Did you hear that?" he asked Artoo.
An old T-65 X-Wing extended its landing gear and touched down on the landing strip. BB-8 rolled up to watch as the cockpit opened to reveal Rey, pulling off a battered flight helmet. BB-8 started towards the X-Wing.
Rey leapt out of Red Five and ran to BB-8, crouching down to adjust his antenna, a grin on her face. Then she looked behind her. Ben stumbled away from his TIE whisper, his face drawn and pale.
Rey came up to Ben. "Are you all right?"
"I'll be fine," Ben said. "Resurrecting the dead takes a lot out of you. Right now I just want to sleee…"
Rey caught him as he fell. He was deathly cold. She didn't know what sort of injuries he might have sustained, and the strain of saving her would only compound them. "Medic!" she screamed.
A Mohsenian with fluffy grey fur rushed over to them.
"What's wrong with him?" Rey asked.
The medic put his long white snout next to Ben and sniffed. "Some bruising," he said. "Minor lacerations and puncture wounds, but something else…he seems weak. We'd better take him to hospital." He spoke into a comms unit and a pair of soldiers arrived carrying a stretcher. They lifted Ben into it and bore him away. Rey watched them go, worry etched into her face, but then turned away. There was no more she could do for him now.
Lando had been talking to Wedge, but Wedge was now talking to Norra, Snap, and Karé. Lando wandered away and sat down on a long rectangular crate. Seeing Wedge with his family had made him reflect on his own attempts to start one. Lando was not usually a man who brooded over the past, but now he stared at nothing, thinking of a wonderful woman and a beautiful baby girl, and the terrible day he had come home from a mission to find his daughter gone.
Jannah sat down next to Lando, drawn by an impulse she couldn't explain. "Where are you from, General?"
"Socorro, in the Gold System." Lando turned to look at her. "What about you, kid?"
"Oh." She shook her head, trying to cover the hint of sadness in her face with a slight smile. "I don't know."
Lando beamed. "Well, let's find out."
Jannah stared in surprise, then slowly smiled back.
Aftab Ackbar threw up his webbed hands in triumph. Chewbacca put his paws on Beaumont Kin's left shoulder and Connix's right, Rose standing next to them. Even the normally stoic pirate Sidon Ithano hugged someone. Rey walked slowly through the crowd of people, many of them giving her encouraging words or a pat on the back.
Poe and Finn were also making their way through the throng. Poe was the first to see Rey. She was covered in blood, grime, and dust, her hair a mess, her once-white wrappings now a dingy grey. She was the most beautiful thing Poe had ever seen.
Poe came to a halt and gave Finn a slight tap to catch his attention, then pointed with his good hand. Finn's eyes widened as he caught sight of his friend.
Rey saw them, then. She pressed her lips together as her breath caught, on the verge of laughs or sobs.
All three of them came together in a tight embrace, Rey and Poe both resting their heads on Finn's shoulders. Finn fought back tears as Poe, reaching around him, clasped Rey's hand in his. They stayed like that for a long time.