Kylo sat on his throne with his eyes on the predawn horizon. He knew where Rey was going thanks to the dagger, but what was his next move? He had to break her somehow. He couldn't defeat Palpatine alone.

"The Jedi apprentice still lives," Palpatine's voice growled inside Kylo's mind. "Perhaps I overestimated you."

"I know where she is going. She will not threaten our plans."

"Make sure that she does not. Do not fail me again, lest I turn my fleet on you as well."

Poe leaned back in the helm chair and stared at the swirling cool colors of the Hyperion stream. He yawned and rubbed his eyes, his lack of sleep rapidly overpowering his waning adrenaline. "Anything?"

Rose read the Millennium Falcon's scryers for a third time. "Still nothing. No trackers, beetle or otherwise."

Poe blew out his cheeks. "They really must not have expected us to get this ship back. Still... I don't like it."

Chewbacca returned from below deck and started listing the issues he had found.

Poe interrupted him. "The anchors? What's wrong with them?"

Chewbacca grunted.

"They're both gone? Okay, yeah, that's an issue." Poe sighed. "Hey, when you get done with your checks, could you take over the helm? I really need to sleep."

Chewbacca nodded and returned below deck.

Finn entered the engine room where Rey silently tinkered with the pipes. She exchanged a prybar for a Harriss wrench then took a deep breath. "All that matters now is the wayfinder," she said distantly. "And finding Exegol."

Finn pouted with worry. "Rey... What happened?"

Rey lowered both the wrench and her head. "He took my parents from me... My mother... My father... They died because of Palpatine." She slowly turned her head. "I'm going to find him... Find him and destroy him."

The grim expression Rey wore and the flat tone in which she spoke scared Finn. "Rey... That doesn't sound like you."

Rey's chuckle did nothing to assuage Finn's fear. "Doesn't it?"

"Rey, I know you."

A faint sad smile crossed Rey's face. "People keep telling me they know me. I think no one does. Not even me."

General Hux limped into the Steadfast's conference room, supporting himself with a cane he had received from the ship's hospital. The first round of bacta had repaired some of the deep muscle damage, but several more rounds would be needed over the coming days.

General Pryde looked up from the damage reports with a death stare. "What happened?" His words were slow and had a full second pause between them.

"It was a coordinated escape, Allegiant General. The four Rebels simultaneously overwhelmed the guards. They forced me to take them to their ship at gunpoint."

"I see." Pryde stood from his chair and approached General Hux with arms folded behind his back. "Do you think me a fool, General Hux?"

"No, I... Why would I?"

"Perhaps you forgot that when the ship's alarms are raised that the security looking glasses activate?"

Hux went cold.

"I had my suspicions about you, so I purposely assigned you to the execution detail. I saw everything, General Hux. From the point where you killed those men to when you let the Rebels escape on their ship." Pryde turned to one of his subordinate officers. "Have we reached warm water yet?"

"Yes, Allegiant General."

"Strip this traitor of his uniform and throw him overboard. The sharks will take care of the rest. I shall inform the Supreme Leader that we've found our spy."

Rey sat awake in her bunk with her arms wrapped around her knees. Her mind was restless, filled with the anxious desire to get to the wayfinder and the revelation about her heritage. She heard one of the floorboards creak and looked up.

"Rey..."

"Finn?" She wiped her nose. "What is it?"

"I know you've got a lot on your mind, but... I need to talk with you. If that's okay?"

Rey took a deep breath and nodded. She scooted aside to give Finn room to sit next to her.

"Back in Pasaana... when we were sinking into the sand... I said there was something I hadn't told you."

Rey blinked, waiting for Finn to continue.

Finn took a deep breath. "I'm... I'm Force sensitive.

"...I know."

This caught Finn completely off guard. "You... You knew?"

Rey nodded. "Since Crait. I felt a brighter aura around you like the one Leia has."

Finn shook his head. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"I was scared. I was only just starting to learn about what I was capable of... There's darkness inside me - Kylo, Luke, Snoke, they all sensed it. I was afraid that I'd somehow... taint you. Now that I know how deep it really runs..." Rey wiped her eye. "I think I made the right choice."

"Rey... I can't say if you made the right choice or not, but you don't need to live in fear of yourself."

"You saw what I did in Pasaana!"

"I did. But I know you won't let something like that happen again. You just have to trust in yourself and trust in the Force."

Rey scoffed. "Trust in the Force?"

Finn pulled his pendant out of his shirt. "Like my good luck charm says."

Rey's eyes bulged. "Finn, where did you get a Kyber crystal?"

"A what crystal?"

"A focus for Force magic. It's what makes a Lightblade work. If you had the parts, you could make your own."

"If I did have them, could you teach me how to get it to work?"

Rey deflated. "No, I'm sorry... Rose could do it, but not me. I'm not the type to teach."

Finn nodded with disappointment. He stood and turned back to Rey. "We should reach Endor soon. Try to get some sleep if you can."

For longer than the Ewoks have lived in the trees, an ancient forest covered the Horn of Kef Bir. That changed when the Death Star was finally destroyed. The light from the explosion flashed the trees into flames and the following shockwave then shattered them to splinters. When the basalt fortress split apart, a massive tidal wave washed over the Horn and surrounding cliffs, leaving no life to speak of.

In the thirty years since that day, flowing fields of long grasses colonized the wasteland. The seabirds that once made their homes on the cliffs reestablished themselves. Perhaps the most interesting change though was a recently founded village near the tip of the Horn. Suspicious eyes watched the Millennium Falcon emerge from a Hyperion gate and beach itself on the rocky shoreline at the base of the cliffs on the far side of the Horn from the Death Star.

The colossal scale of the Death Star ruins instilled a powerful sense of awe into the Rebels as they beheld it from atop the cliffs. With the thick grey sky above it and the thrashing sea below, the titanic sundered fortress appeared almost like the corpse of some dark god of old.

Rey's diehard scavenger instincts couldn't help but wonder what hidden treasures lay tucked away within. The wayfinder was all that mattered, she reminded herself.

"What-what is that?" Dioh asked.

"It's the Death Star," Rey answered still staring at the ruins. "A terrible relic of an old war."

Poe threw his hands out. "It's gonna take years to find what we're looking for."

Threepio turned to him. "Oh, dear. I assume you need whatever it is sooner?"

Poe glared. "Yes, actually."

Rose frowned. "There has to be a way... The sanctum sanctorum, that's where Threepio told us it was, right?"

"I don't recall ever saying that," Threepio said.

Finn nodded, ignoring the automaton. "Yeah. But where would..."

The conversation faded from Rey's hearing as she reached out through the Force. The coastline was teeming with life as she expected, as was the sea. The Death Star ruins, however, felt wrong. They felt viscous and foul like tar, with an aura of bad death surrounding them. There was something else though. Among the surrounding sludge was something that while still Dark was more refined, like a piece of carved jet.

"Finn, can I borrow your binoculars?" Rey asked.

"Oh. Uh, sure." Finn opened the leather case on his belt.

Rey focused the binoculars on the northern pole of the fortress. A chill washed over her at the sight of a tower standing at the pinnacle. "There," she said lowering the binoculars. "The wayfinder is at the summit."

Rapidly approaching hoofbeats interrupted any questions that may have been had.

"Heads up," Poe said, drawing his pistol. The other Rebels drew their own weapons and pointed them towards the encroaching riders.

The riders wore rough simplistic clothing with some sporting pieces of salvaged stormtrooper armor. Each of them sat atop an orbak, the shaggy mountain dwelling cousins of the cloven hooved pulga horses of Endor. All of them were armed with painted carbines, though they did not aim them at the Rebels.

One of the riders moved towards their guests. She looked to be about as old as Rey, though her eyes betrayed a life of hardship similar to Finn's. What stood out most notably was the port-wine birthmark across the bridge of her nose. "Rough landfall."

Poe's aim did not waver. "I've seen worse."

"I've seen better. Are you Resistance?"

Poe cocked his head. "That depends."

"We received a transmission from one of our regular visitors, Babu Frik."

Threepio lit up. "Babu Frik? Oh! He's one of my oldest friends!"

"He said to expect you," the mounted woman said. "He said you were the last hope."

Slowly, the Rebels lowered their guns.

Rey stepped forward. "We need to get to the ruins. There's something in there we need."

The woman nodded. "We have boats that can get you out there."

Finn glanced back to the towering waves surrounding the Death Star. "Have you seen the water?"

"Not right now. It's too dangerous with the storm coming in. We can head out at first light tomorrow."

"No," said Rey. "We can't wait that long. We don't have the time."

"Or the choice," Poe added. "Our ship might be able to get us there, but not in its current state."

"We have shipwrights and materials in our village. I'm Jannah."

"Poe. This is Rey, Finn, and Rose. The big one's Chewie."

Mist began to fall as Jannah led the Rebels to her village. It was a modestly sized one with primitive thatched roof long houses and roundhouses. Only small smatterings of lichens grew on the stones, showing the youth of the buildings. Woodsmoke filled the air from the chimneys of each building, the smell mingling with that of the orbak stables on the edge of town. On the coast facing the Death Star, trimarans bobbed in a crude harbor protected by impressive breakwaters.

The Rebels helped Jannah and her people load carts with tools and materials. Meanwhile, Bibi-Eit and Dioh played near the stables, slaloming around the fence posts until an orbak chased them off.

Finn knew he had no reason not to trust these people, but his experience with the turncoat cracksman had made him wary of immediately trusting the help of unknown others. The unexpected salvation from Hux had somewhat restored his faith though. He reached up and grabbed his pendant. "Trust in the Force," he whispered.

Rose was in the same position as Finn in not entirely trusting their hosts. Some things about them stuck out as peculiar to her, foremost being that they were all about the same age as one another. They also worked with a coordination that was rare outside of a military setting.

The mist increased to a drizzle as the Rebels and villagers returned to the Falcon. Threepio moaned at the rain seeping into his joints. "What a dreadful situation. Is every day like this for you?"

"Some days it's worse," Poe droned.

"Worse?! Madness!"

Finn silently worked on realigning the port side capstan, protected from the storm by a hastily erected canopy. He wasn't sure what the First Order had done when removing the anchor and chain, but whatever it was had undone Chewbacca's repairs. An amused huff escaped him as he reminisced on Rey's daring action that had bent the capstan in the first place.

Jannah walked up to Finn just as he got the capstan to turn freely again. "We only have enough of the proper gauge for one side."

"One side should be enough for now," Finn replied. "Thanks."

Jannah walked over to the hawsehole and took hold of the guide rope being fed into it from below. When she started to encounter more resistance, Finn joined her in hauling.

Finn looked down at the chain and froze for a second. The graphite black color of the links were unmistakable. "This is First Order rustless alloy."

Jannah nodded. "Yup. There's an old cruiser to the south. We've been stripping it for parts."

Finn furrowed his brow. "Endor's a long way from First Order territory. What's it doing here?"

Jannah engaged the first few links with the capstan's chainwheel. "It's the one we were assigned to. The one we escaped in."

"Wait, you were First Order?"

Jannah sighed. "Not by choice."

Finn gave Jannah his full attention, eager to hear more from his fellow deserter.

"We were conscripted as kids. All of us. I was TZ-1719. Stormtrooper, Company 77."

"FN-2187."

Jannah's jaw dropped. "You?"

"I never knew there were more."

"All of us here were stormtroopers. We mutinied at the Battle of Ansett Island. They ordered us to fire on civilians. We wouldn't do it. We laid our weapons down."

"All of you?"

"The whole company." Jannah shook her head and chuckled. "I don't even know how it happened. It... wasn't a decision, really... It was like..." She trailed off struggling to find the right word.

"A feeling?"

Jannah nodded. "A feeling."

"The Force. The Force brought me here. It brought me to Rey. And Poe."

"You say that like you're sure it's real."

Finn pulled his pendant from his shirt and smiled. "It's real. I wasn't sure then, but I am now."

Jannah stared at the crystal then looked back to Finn. She gently nodded, not fully understanding but feeling a similar sense to the one on Ansett Island.

Bibi-Eit rolled over to Poe and beeped frantically. Poe extinguished his welding torch and lifted his mica goggles. "What do you mean you haven't seen her?"

The Rebels stood on the cliffs as wind and rain whipped around them. Finn scanned the choppy sea below, intermittently wiping rainwater from the lenses of his binoculars. Finally, he saw a trimaran riding the rough waves. "Damn it, Rey," he whispered.

Jannah squinted. "Did she take one of the skimmers?"

Finn placed his binoculars into Poe's outreaching hand. "That's what it looks like."

At the bottom of each wave trough, the beams and lashings of Rey's trimaran creaked in protest, though between the howling squalls and roaring sea she could not hear them. She wouldn't have cared if she had been able to anyway. The only thing that mattered was reaching that cursed fortress.

Though even the smaller waves reached ten times Rey's height, the years of navigating the rough waters of the Jakku Graveyard had prepared her. With a practiced ease, she confronted each wall of water head-on, almost daring the sea to try to stop her.

Poe thrust the binoculars into Finn's hands and stormed away in the direction of the Millennium Falcon. "What the Hell was she thinking?"

"We've got to go after her," Rose said, watching the trimaran crest another monumental wave.

Poe growled a sigh. "We're not going anywhere until the Falcon is fixed."

"If we wait any longer we're going to lose her," Finn argued, following him.

Poe stopped and turned. "Look, she left us!" As he spoke, he pointed out to sea then to the ground at his feet. He threw his arms wide. "What do you want us to do? Swim?"

"She's not herself! You have no idea what she's fighting!"

Poe sneered. "Oh, and you do?!"

Finn set his jaw and nodded. "Yeah. I do. And so does Leia."

"Well I'm not Leia." Poe resumed his march towards the Falcon.

"...That's for damn sure," Finn muttered bitterly.

Poe's pace slowed on hearing Finn's words. They cut him far deeper than he thought words from anyone could. He released a shamed sigh and hung his shoulders.