Kanan sat at the edge of the dugout in the morning. He watched as his mother and father exited their homestead, carrying equipment with them. There was something in the air, he felt it. It was almost dreadful. These things tended to happen when he focused on the Force too much. It spoke to him, it told him his parents were headed toward danger.
"We'll be back as soon as possible." Rey said as she walked past him, headed towards the ship that Jannah, Poe, and Rose were waiting in, the Millennium Falcon.
"Please." Kanan replied. He leaned down and kissed his mother's forehead. After him, Finn walked past and made eye contact with his son.
It was less emotional, not just due to the small argument that had happened the night before, but also because he was used to seeing Finn leave on his missions and for him not to come back for a while.
Finn walked up to his son, looking at him before giving him a nod and he nodded back. "Take care of your brother and sister, we'll be back soon."
"I got it." Replied Kanan. With that, they exchanged one glance once more, Finn's being that of a loving and regretful father, and Kanan's being the one of realizing his father could sometimes be an asshole.
After a few moments, the Millennium Falcon was off and they left, leaving Kanan and his siblings on Tatooine.
On the Millennium Falcon, Poe and Finn sat in the cockpit. Their old friend Chewbacca was no longer with them, having sacrificed his life during a mission in the past when Kanan was still just ten years old.
"Hey, Finn." Said Poe Dameron. It was sometimes hard for Finn to remind himself that Poe was at the very head of a military force, with Finn being his right hand man. They still acted the same way they had when they met. "We've been friends for a long time, yeah?"
"I'm willing to say you're my first friend, Poe." Replied Finn with a chuckle.
"Then can I give you some advice?"
Finn raised a curious eyebrow at the General.
"Give the kid a break every now and then, he just wants to be like you and Rey."
That sentence was very impactful. It felt like something he needed to hear, yet something he didn't want to hear.
"Are you trying to tell me how to raise my son?"
"Don't give me that, Finn, I love the kid like he was my own."
"But he's not."
"Yeah, genius, that's why I'm telling you to ease up on him before you push him away."
There was a moment of silence. Finn remembered Kylo Ren, the son of Han Solo. The man who killed his own father. It was clear, Han Solo had never been a perfect father, but he loved his son more than anything in the galaxy. How had that ended? With his sons lightsaber through his chest.
"You might be right." He said, "He's just got such a smart mouth."
"Yeah, I wonder where he gets that from."
The two friends chuckled with each other as the ship continued to fly through Hyperspace.
Back on Tatooine, Kanan Skywalker made his way through Mos Eisley, looking to get some food with the credits his parents had left him. He was not unused to being in charge of his siblings. Thankfully, Aayla was the smartest of the three and often made the work a lot easier for him. Then there was Ben, who was always eager to help.
Watching people play pazaak through the windows of the cantina, he watched for a moment before continuing on his path.
"Pondo!" He heard. "You are out of your mind if I think I'm letting you take The Ghost while I'm alive."
Turning around, he would see a man standing at the exit of one of the cantinas. An older man, about in his fifties with green hair and eyes. It was uncommon to see that in most humans unless they were mixed with another alien race.
Pondo, however, was a dark blue hutt, followed by a squad of his goons. Beginning to speak in Huttese, which was something that Kanan had managed to pick up on his years here, he raised an eyebrow as the Hutt said That ship is an Icon from the war, if you don't come up with my money soon, I think it'll fetch a great price.
The war? Kanan thought. Which war?
Whatever it seemed like, the green-haired man seemed to be at his wits end. "I promise you that you'll get your money, Pondo but if you lay one hand on that ship-"
Immediately, all the mercenaries behind Pondo pointed their weapons at him. Kanan reacted quickly, running to the side of the green haired man and waving his hand. "This is not the green-haired man you are looking for."
The Mercenaries repeated his sentence and pointed their guns towards the ground, which left Pondo confused, and in turn, confused Kanan.
"Jeedai?" Pondo asked, confused.
"Apparently not." Kanan replied sarcastically. "But I can hurt you like one."
The Hutt grumbled before turning back to the green-haired man. I will be seeing you soon, Syndulla.
As they left, the Green-haired man, who had just been called Syndulla looked over at Kanan. "That was a pretty neat trick there. Most Force-Sensitives don't know that."
"I guess I'm not most force-sensitives." Replied the much younger boy.
"What's your name, kid?" Asked the older man, curious about him. Of course, Kanan knew better than to trust a complete stranger, especially one that owed money to a hutt. Yet, the Force seemed to tell him that this man had no bad intentions with him.
"Kanan." He replied.
The man known as Syndulla was silent, as if that was not a name he had expected to hear. After a moment of silence, he broke a small grin. "Kanan, huh?" He replied. "What's your last name?"
"Why do you want to know?"
"Humor me, will ya?"
Kanan hesitated before sighing. "Skywalker."
That name definitely surprised Syndulla. "Skywalker? Like… As in, Luke Skw-"
"This is exactly why I didn't want to tell you."
"Okay, okay, I'll leave it at that." Syndulla grinned. "My name is Jacen Syndulla, nice to meet you, kid."
Kanan regarded the man for a moment before grabbing his things again. "It's nice to meet you, Mr. Syndulla, it really is, but I gotta get going."
"Alright, kid. Thanks for the help. If you ever need it, you can find me here at some point. I always come back here."
With that, Kanan chuckled and hopped onto his speeder, exiting.
In Hyperspace, three Republic Star Cruisers, all three being MC 85's travelled together. In the middle flew The Organa, a star cruiser named after the late General of the Resistance Leia Organa. On her right were The Legislator and on her left was the Holdo.
Unlike their Resistance days, in the past 20 years, they had created an armada for themselves. Of course, they didn't know what to expect when coming upon Kesh.
At the head of the stood Jedi Master Rey Skywalker, her heart beating rapidly. Finn had explained that it was upon dropping from hyperspace that they felt the freezing cold feeling take over their body. Any second, Rey was due to experience this for herself.
Next to her stood Rose Tico, putting a hand on her shoulder.
"It's going to be okay, Rey." She told her friend. They hadn't met under the most comfortable of circumstances, but once Rey had gotten to know Rose, she found a loyal friend that she loved just as much as she did the rest of her family.
Rey gave a deep sigh. "I don't know, Rose…" She began to say, staring out into hyperspace. "I'm starting to think I may have made a mistake."
Her friend raised a confused eyebrow. "With what?"
"Finn and Jannah said they felt darkness the minute they dropped out of space. What if what's down there is so strong that we can't go at it alone?" The Jedi's jaw moved slightly. "What if for the past twenty years what I should have been doing is training the next generation of Jedi?"
Rose was silent for a moment as she began to understand what it was her friend was going through. "If anyone deserved a break it was you, Rey. Nobody blames you for just wanting to live a peaceful life."
"With great power comes great responsibility." She replied.
"And you held up your end of the bargain. You killed the Emperor, you freed the galaxy." The former mechanic replied.
Rey was silent for a moment, she was still worried, but she had to admit that her friend's words eased her mind.
"Not just that," Rose continued. "But whatever it is, we're all together. If we were enough to take out the First Order, we're enough to do this."
With one last look, she regarded her friend. That was until Finn, Poe, and Jannah all entered the helm of the ship as well. "We're about to drop out of hyperspace." Poe told them.
Finn walked over, holding his wife's hand. Within seconds, the bright blue lights of hyperspace dimed as they were once again faced with the vastness of Space. Below them however, they saw Kesh, a planet in wild space. For so long, no transmission had come from there. They had been made contact with a couple times thousands of years ago, but in between the fact that Space was a large place, and the fact that it had become commonplace to not bother Kesh, there wasn't much to go off of.
Immediately the three trained force sensitives, Jannah, Finn, and Rey all felt it. It was as one of those chills that made your neck hairs stand up came from inside your own body. The feeling was not pleasant at all.
"You weren't kidding…" Rey was the first one to say, as she stepped towards the glass. Her hand touched it as she looked down at the planet.
"Right?" Jannah asked. "But what is it?"
"Nothing good, I bet." Finn answered.
"I felt this once before." She replied. "When I touched Anakin's lightsaber… But- This. This is so much more."
"That doesn't sound good at all." Poe replied.
"Turn back." Rey said.
"What?" Poe asked in disbelief. "Rey, we already turned back once we can't do it again."
"You don't understand!" Rey replied. "There's something down there, something that we're not ready to face."
"Gold Squadron's been gone for days, they have families, friends, we can't go back without an ans-"
Poe was interrupted by the sound of an explosion. The argument quickly stopped as the five turned to look to their side, the Holdo had just taken a hit but the shields were protecting it. "Did… Did they just fire at us?"
Finn stepped up to the glass. "What the-" Another hit, this time the Organa had been hit, shaking the group.
Then another hit, this time the Legislator had been hit. There seemed to be no damage to the ships, only the shields. Then there was silence for a number of moments.
"Oh no." Rose said.
"What?" Jannah asked.
Her face began to change in panic as she looked at her friends. "We have to move, NOW!" She ordered.
"Rose, what's going on? It was just three torp-" Finn began to say before he got cut off.
"Those weren't torpedo's Finn, those were ballistic SD's." She replied as she moved towards the controls.
"What are those?" Rey asked.
"Shield destroyers…" Jannah replied, then it hit Finn, who had also had Stormtrooper training. They were taught the grimiest of tactics.
All around the three ships, their shields began to come crashing down into space as if windows whose glass had just shattered. That was because SD's were infused with nanobytes that could infect a shield till it collapsed. The good thing about the use of Nanobytes was that they made the Ballistic SD's pretty rare.
Poe's eyes widened.
"Sir, something has just dropped out of hyperspace!" One of the men at the controls said to Poe.
"What?" Replied Poe.
They couldn't see, but behind them was a Mega-Class Dreadnought, ebony black, one that looked even bigger than Snoke's supremacy, and with ease sent three shots straight to the back of each cruiser, sending crashing to the planet below.
Back on the Organa, the five friends staggered to their feet. "Rey, you need to get on one of the escape pods!" Finn said, grabbing his wife's hand.
She wrestled out of his hand. "I'm not going anywhere. You need to."
"That's definitely not happening." He replied.
The two looked at each other for a moment, a loving look. "Together?" Rey asked.
"Together." He agreed.
"Don't count me out." Poe told them.
"Me neither." Jannah said.
"I'm with you guys till the end of the line." Rose joined them.
Poe looked over at the people in the command room. "Everyone who wants to escape, get in a escape pod now and get out of here. We won't judge you, if you're with us, strap in, it's going to be a rough landing."