"What do you mean you can't find Nyla, Braxis V'ron or the prisoner?" Kylo Ren demanded, his fists shaking. The bearer of the bad news was a nervous lieutenant who clutched at a small data pad as if it would shield her from his rage.
"Sir, some of the troopers said they saw Nyla and Braxis conversing and then Braxis took the prisoner from her cell. We haven't seen any of them since then."
"Sound the alarms and find them, bring all three of them to me."
The door opened and Nyla entered, "What's going on?" She seemed nonchalant in the face of Kylo Ren's obvious rage.
"Why did you go against my orders? Maia was meant to be kept in the cell until I said. Why did V'ron take her from the cell."
"I told him he could."
"Why?"
Rey watched this exchange from a distance, she knew from his posture that he was going to attack Rika, but Rika seemed unconcerned about it. Her arms were crossed, nowhere near the two lightsabers on her belt, one of which was Rey's. "You lied to everyone for years and told us she was dead. Imagine how surprised I was when she showed up on the planet. You didn't even try to kill her did you? She, and this girl," Rika nodded towards Rey, "Are distractions from the mission of the First Order. Your judgement, Supreme Leader, is clouded when it comes to them. I took care of one half of the problem and now, you should let me take care of the other half."
He looked back at Rey and then pulled his lightsaber from his belt, "You don't order me around Knight of Ren."
Rika raised her hand with an open palm towards them and then closed it. The ship pitched sharply to the left and both Kylo and Rey went sliding away while Rika remained standing still. Alarms blared through the ship and everything went dark.
Maia looked over the panel, none of these buttons made any sense to her, but she was sure that this had to be the right panel. She relaxed her shoulders and let the Force guide her. She managed to open a comm link to the shuttle on the planet. "Flybird, are you there?" She tried several times but no one answered, they must have left.
She thought about it for a moment and sent out another communication to anyone in the area. She got a ping back and then a Wookie started screaming at her from speaker. "Chewie, is that you?" He roared back and she smiled, he was always right where they needed him, "We're on the ship, something is wrong, I don't know what to do. Poe and the others are down on the planet." He replyed that he was going to get them. "Okay good, tell them we're here and we are going to meet you soon."
Even as she said the words, she had a feeling they weren't true. She had no idea how to get off this ship, this was not her forte. "May the Force be with you." She said before signing off.
Tel's sister had lead them through the tunnels under the city, people were streaming through, evacuating the city to avoid the storm troopers. She told them of caves in the mountains to the east that they would stay in until the First Order left. Poe tried to convince her that they wouldn't leave just because everyone was gone but she wouldn't hear it. Chewie got a hold of Finn through his communicator and they told him where to land safely so they could board the Falcon.
Tel said goodbye to his family and tried to convince them to leave the planet with them, but none of them would do it. Tel was distressed that they wouldn't listen to him but he seemed to resign himself to their stubborness. Chewie met them outside the Falcon and told them that he had talked to Maia and she was on the ship with Rey.
Poe cursed, he had known it. "We need to get them off that ship."
"Uh, guys." Finn pointed up at the ship. It seemed to have pitched downwards towards the planet suddenly, but was still outside of the atmosphere as far as they could tell. "It looks like the ship lost power, it could be dead up there."
"Let's scan it and find out. We need to get our ship back out of the city, I can slip in and get it."
"I will come with you." Rose volunteered, "You always need someone to watch your back."
"Great, keep in contact, find out what's happening with that ship and we'll come up with a plan to get our friends back."
Rey's head ached from where it had slammed into the wall as she slid away from Rika. Blinking away the spots in her vision, she saw Kylo rush up the incline, lightsaber in hand. A few storm troopers entered the room, struggling with the new angle and shot at Kylo. This wasn't just one rebellious apprentice, this was a full blown coup. Rika was fighting him with two lightsabers, Rey's blue one and what must be her own red one.
A red haired man followed the foot soldiers with a gun of his own and pointed it at Kylo. Instinctively, Rey threw her hand out and threw him away from the room. The soldiers didn't seem to notice her at all. Rika was yelling at them and trying to get them to fire at her, but Kylo was taking up too much of her energy. Focusing more, she blasted the soldiers away the same way she had the red haired man.
But one shot managed to hit its target. The laser hit Kylo in the shoulder and forced him back. Rika took this moment of weakness and snuck under his guard and quickly severed his arm from his body. Kylo let out a scream of rage and pain and Rey felt the reverberations through the Force. Rika was blasted back, Kylo lost his footing and went tumbling back down the floor.
Something in the engines kicked in and the ship started righting itself. Rey went over to him. His arm was gone above the elbow, the smell of burnt flesh was strong in her nose. He looked deathly pale and his breath was labored. He looked up at her, his eyes dark, "Ben." She whispered.
"Leave me." He ordered. He picked up his lightsaber and pressed it into her hand, "Just go."
There were a hundred things she could have done or said to him in that moment, but she knew he was right. If she stayed on this ship longer she would die, he would live to fight another day, this was his ship after all. She took off running.
There was no one in the city any more, even the storm troopers seemed to have abandoned it. Poe and Rose made it back to their ship easily and unharrassed. Rose had been keeping up commentary on what was going on with the Star Destroyer while he kept an eye on the ground. Rose said they were having some kind of engine problem and then babbled off a lot of advanced mechanical nonsense.
Poe fired up the engines and Rose flipped on the comm system to the sounds of Finn yelling at them to get off the planet. They looked up and saw that the ship had taken a very dramatic pitch downward and the fritzy engines were working again as the ship flew towards the surface. Poe cursed, their friends were still on the ship. Rose was talking quickly with Finn and he wasn't paying attention, he was just flying. Rose hit him several times to get his attention, "Finn talked to Rey, they found escape pods, all we have to do is find them."
Relief filled his being as he let out a whoop of joy. He switched the comms to hail the ship, "This is Commander Poe Dameron of The Resistance, and I just wanted to say one final go to hell."
The storm troopers were firing on each other in the halls. Something was going on and she didn't have the full picture of it. She was hopelessly lost. So she did as she always did and relied on the Force to guide her. She dodged fighting stormtroopers and stepped over dead bodies. Lights flickered and it seemed like the engines failed for a second time. What was going on with this ship?
She went through an extremely damaged door and found herself in the control room. Everyone in here had been shot and was either dead or just about. There was nothing she could do for them but continue forward. Outside was her former home world, red and dusty. From here she could see pink ice at the poles, something she could have never imagined as a kid.
"Maia." She looked over and there he was. Ben Solo. He was slumped against a station and he was missing something. The arm was obvious, but something else had gone from his eyes.
It was conciousness. His body went limp and he slid further down onto the floor. Maia looked down at him, why couldn't she just leave him here? He had ruined her life and he deserved to die on this ship, but she couldn't do it.
"Maia, where are you?" Rey's voice sounded from every communication panel in the room. She must have done something to communicate with the whole ship.
She pushed the comm button, hopefully this would reach her, "I'm close to an escape pod, don't worry about me, just get off the ship." She had no idea if she was close to an escape pod, but Rey had to leave, she knew it. She scanned the pannel and saw one labled 'SWA', Ship Wide Announcement, she had seen Leia use it before. She flipped it and repeated her statement.
"I'm going to try and contact our ship then I'm getting off. Get to an escape pod soon."
The others, the Resistance. She looked back down at Ben. They wouldn't be safe as long as he was alive, and he was still alive. Without a strong leader like him, the First Order would fall into chaos and then the Resistance could rebuild the galaxy. But she couldn't do it, she couldn't kill him, that wasn't how their story was going to end.
The Force guided her to flip switches and set the navigation to down. He was finally waking up just as the pitch of the ship pointed down.
"This is Commander Poe Dameron of The Resistance, and I just wanted to say one final go to hell."
Her heart clenched, Poe. She couldn't leave him in silence, so she pushed the comm button, "I'm sorry Poe."
"Maia? What are you doing?"
She engaged the thrusters and Ben woke up, "Murder/suicide is not how I pictured this ending." His voice was strained as he tried to pull himself off the floor.
"I love you Flybird, touch every star for me." She turned the comm off to silence Poe's yelling and walked over to Ben, the Force keeping her steady as she pulled him off the floor. She put his arm around her shoulder and stood him up.
The planet was approaching fast and the man beside her, her old friend, looked at her and asked, "Are you sure about this?"
"It will turn out for the best." She wiped at her eye with her free hand, "It will be fine."