"I saw them both," said Rey. "They're alive."
Leia nodded and looked at each of her advisers who were gathered around the round table in the command centre of the base. "Anything else?"
Rey hesitated for a moment. "It seemed as if Ren used the Force to make Hux forget about us."
Rose's heart felt like it stopped beating. "What?"
"But it didn't take - he ordered Hux to kill Poe but he didn't do it. Ren kept looking at me, he was putting on a show again. It's just like we thought."
Rose exhaled and tried to keep her calm while her heart hammered against her chest. He was alive and well. At the same time she was angry. All this cruelty just to prove a point.
The alarm in the base went off. Leia activated the holo and displayed the orbit above the base. Several destroyers had jumped out of hyperspace.
Rose checked her pad with the tracker program. "He's on his way, he'll enter the atmosphere shortly."
Leia crooked her eyebrow and looked at Kaydel Ko. "And where is Hux's chip?"
"It's in Ren's shuttle."
Finn exhaled. "Everything just as we thought." He grabbed the blaster Poe had given him and put its setting on maximum. "This is it."
Leia straightened her back and set her lips in a thin line. "Commence Operation Skyfall."
Rose remotely activated the boarding droids, she watched with bated breath as small, red dots approached the four destroyers in orbit.
Leia closed her eyes for a moment. "Lieutenant, tell the skeleton crew to man their posts. Evacuate all non-essential personnel according to plan."
Rey put her hand on Leia's shoulder. "Are you ready to face him?"
Leia gave her a sad smile. "As ready as I will ever be."
Rose gulped. Leia was majestic and commanding as ever, but she looked greyer and smaller every minute. They all knew what Operation Skyfall was - it's plan was to stop Kylo Ren, by any means necessary.
Her mother asked her to evacuate with the others a day ago but she couldn't. Not with him still in Ren's clutches. She asked Finn to make sure that Thanya was on the list of people to be evacuated next. At least one Tico would make it out of here if they failed.
She could hear the ion engines of the troop transporters above them, soon followed by the sublight engines of a Y-class command shuttle. She didn't even need to look at her pad to know that it was Ren.
Rey was standing outside the base, waiting for Ren's shuttle to land. Next to her were Leia and Finn.
Rose stood a little back holding her pad, she would signal Chewie to commence the counter-attack once Leia gave the signal. She could feel her hands trembling slightly. It was a gambit, but it was still the best chance they had to defeat Ren.
When the black command shuttle landed, it was escorted by two troop transporters. The ramps went down and Kylo Ren marched out - he was wearing black robes and his mask, which was partly covered by his hood. Behind him red-clad Stormtroopers led Poe and Hux out of the shuttle. They both looked beat up and miserable.
Rose gritted her teeth - Ren made Hux to wear his old uniform. He looked strange, foreign even with his clean shaved face and stiff black uniform… but it was still the man she fell in love with. The man she would spend the rest of her life with.
Leia stepped forward to face her son. "This is your last chance to give up, Ben."
Ren tilted his head as if he was amused. "I'll grind you all to dust. You don't matter anymore, you and your band of misfits."
Leia chuckled. "I matter enough for you to show up personally. We matter enough for you to come here to gloat."
Ren scoffed, at least Rose thought it was a scoff. It was difficult to tell because of the mask. "There it is, the famous Organa chutzpah. I wonder… do your underlings know how much of it is sheer desperation? I know you. You're no galactic legend. You're just a lonely, sad woman." There was so much vitriol behind these last words that it made Rose shudder.
"I never claimed to be anything else but a simple woman, Ben. I made mistakes and I'm ready to own up to them." She hesitated for a moment. "Today will be the day when Kylo Ren falls. It's up to you if Ben Solo survives."
It was the signal, Rose activated the boarding droids and signalled Chewie. She looked up again and stared at Hux who was being held behind Ren. He looked pale, when their eyes locked an expression of fear was visible on his face. She held his gaze, hoping he would catch her meaning - that she had never stopped believing in him.
Ren didn't reply, instead he grabbed his lightsaber and ignited it. He glanced over his shoulder and said to one of the officers behind him. "You stay put, General Pryde. I want to finish them with my own hands."
"Yes, Supreme Leader."
Ren took a step forward, the lightsaber with the crackling blood-red blade in his hand. "You didn't want to join me, Rey. Despite everything I offered you. Now you shall suffer the fate of those who underestimate me and my power."
Rey drew her own lightsaber. "You're just a bully, Ben. There's nothing grand or heroic about your struggle."
Ren ran towards her and lunged with a mighty swing of his lightsaber. Even from the distance Rose realised that he was using his superior body strength to break through Rey's defensive stance. Their lightsabers met and sparks flew.
Rose tore her sight away from the fight and checked the progress of the boarding droids. Thirty seconds to impact. According to her sensors the remaining bombers were ready to deploy their bombs as soon as she gave the signal.
She looked up again, Ren had pushed Rey back to the treeline when she straightened her back and began to counterattack with fluent, fast strikes. Ren was obviously surprised by her and stumbled back.
She grazed his right arm and he roared in pain or anger, Rose wasn't sure which one it was.
"Don't you dare touch me!" he screamed. "Nobody is allowed to touch me!"
Rey lifted her chin. "You didn't train properly, did you? You just used the Force against the Knights, punished them if they hit you. Your technique is sloppy."
"You're just a nobody!" he continued to scream. "Your parents were nobodies! I'm the heir to Darth Vader, and the Force is strong with me!"
Rey started to run towards him and started a series of quick attacks, with a flick of her wrist she cut his right hand off. It happened so fast that Rose didn't realise what had happened until she saw the red lightsaber lying on the ground, next to the dismembered hand.
Ren fell backwards on the dirty ground. He used his remaining left hand to Force push Rey away. She was knocked backwards but quickly jumped back up on her feet.
"Pryde!" Ren screamed. "Use the hostages!"
The boarding droids arrived at their targets. Rose saw on her pad that all of them had succeeded in their task and according to her sensors there had been explosions on the ships. She gave the command for the bombers to attack.
Loud com chatter made Pryde jerk his head back to the comms officer behind him. He snapped his head back and said loudly, "Supreme Leader! We are under attack!"
"I don't kriffing care! Use the hostages, now!" yelled Ren at the top of his lungs.
Pryde pulled his blaster and held it against Poe's temple. "Stop! Or the Commander will be shot."
Rey slowed her step, staring at Ren. "Is this how you want to defeat me? By using Poe as leverage?"
"Supreme Leader," said Pryde, "we need your orders! We are under attack and the ships-"
"Silence!" hissed Ren. "The ships are not my concern. We have hundreds of them." He laboriously got up, pressing his cauterized arm against his body.
He reached up and unlocked his helmet, pulling it off with his good hand. Then he threw it away, with a silent thud it landed on a pile with snow. Rose froze when she saw his youthful face, only marred by a large scar on his cheek. He looked so much like a young Han Solo that she could feel a lump building in her throat.
"Drop your weapon, Rey."
Rey glared angrily at him but she obeyed. She let her lightsaber go. Rose's breath faltered.
"You too, Rebel scum, let go of your weap-!" yelled Pryde.
A tiny orange ball bolted towards him and burned his leg with a small torch-blow - BB-8 had used the confusion to launch an attack. Pryde was startled, losing his focus. Finn drew his blaster and shot, the single blast hit Pryde in his cheek and as if in slow-motion he fell backwards, still holding his blaster. At the same time Rebels hidden under the snow threw their cover aside and jumped up and started to shoot at the Stormtroopers.
Balster bolts flew through the air and Rose ducked behind a crate, holding her data pad tight. She could hear screaming and when she peeked to see if she could help she saw to her horror that Ren had somehow managed to take hold of Rey's lightsaber and was trying to kill her with it.
-o-
Seeing Pryde collapse with a gaping wound in his head made Hux grab Dameron and pull him down on the ground. His intuition proved right seconds later when an intense blaster battle broke out. Dameron crawled over to Pryde's body and took the blaster.
"It's genetically locked on its owner," said Hux quickly before Dameron could expose himself. "Stay down."
"Kriff!" hissed Dameron. "Can't you unlock it?" He shoved the blaster in Hux's hands.
"Theoretically yes but not in the heat of battle."
Next to them two Stormtroopers with blaster wounds in their chest-plates collapsed, he could hear screams from the Rebel soldiers too. He quickly glanced to the spot where he'd seen Rose. She was nowhere to be seen.
His attention was drawn away to Ren and Rey who were still fighting. She managed to block several attacks despite not having a weapon. When Ren surprised her with a punch to her face, she fell backwards. He let go of the lightsaber, kneeled over her and started to pound her face with his left fist.
Dameron swore and jumped up, he ran towards Ren and tackled him. He managed to push the larger man from Rey's apparently unconscious form, only to be lifted up by Ren with a Force grip.
Ren's face was oddly blasé as he looked at Dameron, as if he was a child seeing a particularly interesting insect. Dameron's face began to turn red as he desperately tried to fight off the invisible hands strangling him.
Hux started to work on Pryde's blaster with slightly trembling hands, he had to- he had to be quick. Suddenly he heard Ren swear loudly.
He jerked his head up to see General Organa holding her arm stretched out, she let go of her crane and Ren's lightsaber flew into her hand as she held Ren in place with the Force. Her face was screwed up in pain and desperation as she limped through the snow, towards her son. She didn't seem bothered by the blaster bolts flying through the air, she was focussed on Ren who was visibly fighting against the Force hold. Dameron lay on the snow, gasping for air.
Organa stopped in front of her son, her lips were moving but Hux couldn't hear what she was saying. Ren just smirked, Organa lifted her hand to strike him down but she hesitated. Just before she could move, Ren suddenly grabbed her by her throat. He looked oddly cheerful as he pushed her away. She fell down on the ground, coughing. Then he took his lightsaber and was about to behead her, but a barrage of well-placed shots made him stumble backwards as he deflected the blaster bolts with his lightsaber.
Hux gritted his teeth. For an injured man he was still surprisingly nimble.
Finn was still shooting at him when a stray blaster bolt hit him in the arm, making him cry out. Ren used the opening to hurl him against a nearby tree.
Dameron's small astro droid hurried with a loud beeping noise towards Ren, holding it's blow-torch in front of it like a tiny sword. Ren just smirked and lifted it up in the air, throwing it with a loud metallic thud against the blast door of the base.
Hux got up and hurried towards the base entrance. He was taking cover behind the tree trunk he and Rose had sat on so many times. He was still fumbling with Pryde's blaster - damn his clumsiness!
He peeked at Ren only to discover that he had lifted up Rey with the Force, apparently ready to strike her down. Out of nowhere Rose appeared behind him with a shock prod in her hand. Just as she was about to make contact with Ren's unguarded back he whipped his head around and Force-pushed her away with a single look, right into the durasteel wall of the base.
Everything seemed to slow down, Ren was turning his attention towards Rose. He would kill her! The thought flashed through Hux's mind and suddenly his hands seemed to move on their own. He readied the blaster and ran towards Ren.
"Ren!" he screamed.
"Hux…" Ren smirked, then he grabbed him by his throat with the Force. "What's this? You're trying to save her, aren't you? And with a puny blaster no less. Don't you know? You're the villain of the story and villains don't get to be heroes."
Hux threw the blaster at Ren. It missed him by 11 centimeters and landed in front of him in the snow.
Ren frowned and looked back at Hux, just as he was about to mock him for his bad aim the blaster's power-pack Hux had set to overload exploded. Hot plasma splashed on Ren's legs, arms and his chest, burning through his clothes and his flesh. Ren screamed in pain and let go of Hux.
Hux coughed and grabbed the lightsaber. But before he could figure out how to activate it, Ren recovered and pushed Hux into the same wall as Rose.
The air was knocked out of Hux's lungs when his back hit the durasteel. He almost blacked out when the back of his head smashed against the wall. Dimly he realised that Rose was lying not far away from him. He coughed again and tried to crawl towards her, his head spinning.
"That wasn't smart, Hux. I just wanted to kill you but now… I'm going to make it last. I'm going to dismember you limb by limb and I will order the medics to keep you alive." Ren stomped towards Rose, his humming blood-red lightsaber in his left hand. "But first I want to kill off this annoying rebel scum!"
Hux gritted his teeth and stumbled on his feet, trying to stop Ren. But he just threw him back against the wall with a flick of his wrist.
Just as he turned again towards Rose a sizzling sound could be heard and a cloud of blood painted the snow to Ren's left. Hux's eyes went wide, apparently Ren was confused too, as he looked at his bleeding torso. Flesh was torn out, muscles were visible under the blood and gore.
"Don't you dare touch my family!" a voice rang out.
Thanya Tico was standing at the entrance of the base, only meters away from Ren. She had a kind of air tank strapped to her back and was holding something that looked like a hose in her hands.
She cocked the metallic head of the hose again, Hux could only gape at her. The tiny woman was half the height of Ren, but she seemed determined and dangerous - her eyes were cold as steel. She took a step forward and a sizzling sound could be heard again, something hit Ren's leg despite him trying to deflect it with his lightsaber.
He stumbled backwards and fell on his knees; there was a sizable hole in his thigh, exposing his bone. He was panting and his face screwed up in anger. "This is not supposed to happen! You're nobody! You don't even have the Force, you're not special!"
"Neither are you," said she and cocked her unidentifiable weapon again.
Ren glanced at Hux who was lying near him. He looked like a wounded animal. Ren was heavily wounded, blood was dripping from his wounds and he was pale - then something like anger flashed over his face. He pressed his lips together and glared at Hux. "This is all your fault! If only you hadn't betrayed me! I may be-," he coughed, "- finished but so are you!"
Ren grabbed his lightsaber and swung it towards Hux, when another sizzling sound rang out and something punctured Ren's chest. He coughed and bright red blood seeped out of his mouth before he collapsed.
"I said: Don't touch my family," pressed Thanya Tico out and cocked her weapon again. She stepped next to Ren and shot him in the head. Small pieces of brain tissue painted a web of blood and gore on the snow. "Nobody messes with the Ticos," she said with a cold stare at the dead body.
She ran to Rose and knelt down next to her, checking her head for injuries. Hux stumbled on his legs and went over to see if Rose was alright. To his relief she seemed unharmed, she was already groaning and her eyes were fluttering open.
"Mom?" she mumbled. Then she saw Hux and she reached up and cupped his cheek. "You're back… did we win?"
Hux realised that he hadn't followed the course of the battle and took a quick look. The fighting had died down, only a few Stormtroopers remained.
He smiled and brushed a strand of her hair back. "Yes, we did. We won."
"Mom? Why are you here?"
Sergeant Major Tico opened the belts holding the tank and put it down. She rubbed her back. "For the same reason you stayed - to save the people I love."
Rose squinted. "Is that a sandblaster 900-XL compressor? Why-"
Her mother waved off. "I'm not good with a blaster. But with that thing… I'm like a surgeon." She rolled her shoulders back.
Hux gaped at her. So this was why Ren couldn't defend against it - it was an high-powered air compressor used in mining to drill holes in bedrock in order to place explosives in them. Even a lightsaber couldn't defend against air. With awe he looked at the tiny middle-aged woman before him - she really was Rose's mother, tough as nails and brilliant.
Sergeant Major Tico crooked an eyebrow and scanned Hux from head to toe. "Black really isn't your color, you know." She smiled at him and pulled him into a hug. "Welcome to the Tico family."
Hux was too taken aback to react. "What?" Only then he realised that the Sergeant Major had told Ren not to touch her family when he had tried to attack him. Did that mean-
"Well, you're the father of my grandchild, aren't you? That makes you a Tico." She pushed him away again and wiped over her eyes. "That's enough sentimentality. Go make yourself useful and tell a medic to come over here to check on Rose."
Hux blinked and got up, he wanted to go into the base only to be stopped at gunpoint by a couple of rebel fighters. "Stop you- wait, you're Hux, right?" asked one of them.
"Uh, yes - I was taken captive by Ren and he-"
"Sorry, didn't recognize you with that uniform," the second fighter said and they lowered their blasters.
Hux rushed into the base into the medbay hoping to find Dr. Kalonia. As expected the medbay was occupied by injured fighters. He realised that he had to carry Rose here if he wanted her to be checked up - after all there were people who were much more injured than she was.
"Hugs!"
He turned on his heel and saw Finn and Dameron, they were standing next to a bed where Rey was lying in. BB-8 was rolling back and forth making distressed noises. It seemed that it's server motors had been damaged. Rey's head was bandaged and a smaller cut had been taken care of.
"Ah, Master Rey. Are- are you alright?" he asked.
"I am - thanks to all you guys," she replied with a broad smile. "From what I hear the First Order ships in orbit have been destroyed or are retreating." Her smile faded a bit. "Where's Rose?"
"She's still outside, I came here to see if Dr.- well, I seems my reason is impaired. Of course, there would be a lot of injured-" he broke off. "How is your larynx, Commander Dam- Poe?"
Dameron grinned at him before he pulled him into a bear hug. "I'm glad that you made it, Hux! My throat is fine, thank you!"
Finn embraced both of them, increasing the pressure on Hux's chest. He frowned. "I can't breathe."
"Too bad," replied Finn. "You're still getting a hug."
Haltingly Hux returned the hug.