Spark of the Resistance

by Justina Ireland

  © & TM 2019 Lucasfilm Ltd.

  All rights reserved. Published by Disney • Lucasfilm Press, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Lucasfilm Press, 1200 Grand Central Avenue, Glendale, California 91201.

  ISBN 978-1-368-05418-8

  Designed by Leigh Zieske

  Cover illustration by Phil Noto

  Visit the official Star Wars website at: www.starwars.com.

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  About the Author

  FOR MADELINE, MY FAVORITE PORGLET

  “HEY, HOW MANY MORE are there?” Rey called from inside the Millennium Falcon. Large cargo crates were stacked tightly in the Falcon’s hold, and as the service droids loaded the containers, the orange-and-white astromech, BB-8, rolled around them, beeping encouragement and helpful instructions. As the droids settled the crates, Rey strapped them down, a precautionary measure in case things shifted during flight.

  They never knew when they were going to have to fight for their lives. It was good to be prepared.

  For the past few days, Rey, Rose Tico, and Poe Dameron had been gathering supplies for the Resistance. They’d traveled all over the Outer Rim, avoiding the First Order as much as possible, and although they’d had a few near misses, they’d made it safely to Fermic, a factory planet with air that stank of the nearby fuel refineries. Thankfully, this was their last stop. Chewie and Finn had been on a similar assignment of their own, and Rey looked forward to getting the supplies back to the Resistance and seeing her friends again. There was so much work to do, especially if they were going to stop the First Order.

  And Rey was ready to get down to business.

  “That’s the last of them,” Rose called from the bottom of the boarding ramp. BB-8 rolled toward her and then back up the ramp ahead of her, beeping happily to welcome the Resistance mechanic aboard. Relief began to overwhelm Rey, but she quashed the feeling. Their supply run had gone without incident, and that was always something to be happy about. But there was still a long road ahead of them. Rey felt like every moment that ticked by was another chance for Kylo Ren and the First Order to expand their influence, and soon there would be very little left of the galaxy that hadn’t been conquered by the relentless faction.

  She couldn’t rest just yet. There was still so much work to do.

  “So, should I fly?” Poe asked, returning from the cockpit. He gave Rey a winning smile, and she grinned back. She had to admire his persistence. He’d been trying to take the pilot’s seat since they’d set out, but the Millennium Falcon was hers for now, and she would fly it, even if Poe was determined to try out the controls of the legendary ship.

  Maybe she would let him fly after they got back to the rendezvous point.

  Maybe.

  “No, but you can sit in the copilot seat if you want,” Rey said sweetly. “I’m always happy to have someone so capable navigate.” At Poe’s near pout, she smiled. “I like flying, but if I need your help I will most definitely ask.” She didn’t want to hurt Poe’s feelings. She just wanted to fly.

  “I like flying, too,” Poe mumbled, but he didn’t argue.

  BB-8 gave a series of beeps, and Poe scowled at him. “It’s not my fault the First Order blew up my ship!” Poe exclaimed. “It’s just one of those things that keeps happening. Seriously, I wasn’t even in my ship the last time it got blown up. It’s just rotten luck.”

  It was a familiar argument. Rey suspected BB-8 kept bringing up Poe’s blasted ships as a way of having a little fun at his expense, and she thought it was rather funny. Apparently, Poe didn’t.

  BB-8 beeped back and rolled past Poe into the Falcon.

  “I wasn’t saying she isn’t a good pilot, Beebee. I was offering to fly in case she was tired,” Poe said, following his droid.

  Rose closed the hatch after shooing in a few of the porgs that had taken up residence in the Falcon, so they wouldn’t be left on Fermic, and turned to Rey.

  “Do you think we’ll have any trouble on the way back?” Rose asked. As usual, the mechanic’s expression hovered somewhere between worried and thoughtful. Rey hadn’t known Rose very long. The first time Rey had seen Rose she’d been unconscious, knocked out during the fight on Crait. But since then Rey had worked with Rose quite a bit, and Rey had found her to be a really nice person. Rey could tell that Rose cared about others deeply. She was always offering to share her meager rations or let someone take a nap on her cot. She was just a very considerate person.

  Rey shook her head in response to Rose’s query. “It seems like the First Order hasn’t made it to this part of the galaxy just yet. We’ll clear the atmosphere and jump to hyperspace as soon as possible. That should help us avoid any trouble.”

  Rose nodded. “Good. Trouble is definitely something we don’t need. I wish Finn and Chewie were here. They’d be great. Not that you aren’t—great, that is. But Finn and Chewie would also be great and, well, you know what I mean?”

  Rey grinned and nodded. “I miss Finn and Chewie, too,” she said, knowing exactly what Rose meant.

  Rose blushed a little. One of the porgs chirruped loudly, a sound somewhere between a trill and a scream, and landed on Rose’s head. She waved it away. “Not now, Dita. I’ll give you snacks later.”

  “Dita?” Rey asked, glancing at the porg as it chewed at Rose’s pant leg.

  “Yes! I’ve named them all. Dita, Tessalie, Jord . . .” At Rey’s incredulous look, Rose’s voice trailed off and she blushed deeper in embarrassment. “So, about Finn and Chewie. You think they’re back from delivering that bacta Poe and Finn got from Tevel yet?”

  Rey shrugged. “I don’t know. I hope so. We have a lot of work to do if we want to stop the First Order, and the sooner everyone is back, the sooner we can get started. Supplies are important, but so is stopping the First Order from hurting anyone else.”

  Rose nodded. “Agreed. But it’s hard to fight when you’re hungry and you only have an old Corellian freighter.”

  “Hey, that’s my ship you’re talking about.”

  Rose laughed and patted the wall of the Falcon. A few more porgs scattered at the sound, running deeper into the holds. “It’s a good ship, but we’ll need a fleet to take on the First Order. Anyway, I’m sure General Organa has it well under control. I’ll finish strapping down the rest of the crates if you want to head up to the cockpit. Before Poe steals your seat.” Rose grinned.

  “He wouldn’t dare,” Rey said, laughing, but she left Rose to the last of the work anyway. The truth was, Rey was anxious to get back to her friends. Every moment they spent preparing to fight was one more moment the First Order could grow and consolidate its power. If the Resistance waited too long to strike back, it would be too late. Already the odds were decidedly not in their favor, and even though Rey hoped that everythin
g would work out for the best, she was also worried—about her friends and about everyone who had survived the battle on Crait.

  There was no telling what awful things Kylo Ren and the First Order would dream up next.

  Rey entered the cockpit to find Poe sitting in the copilot’s seat, a frown on his face. He was flipping switches and muttering to himself. He looked so utterly perplexed that Rey couldn’t help but grin.

  “Having trouble figuring out which switch starts the engines?” she teased, picking up a fledgling porg and moving it out of her seat.

  Poe startled and frowned deeper. “What? No, of course not.” He caught Rey’s grin and smiled back. “Oh, ha, very funny. You and Beebee should start a comedy routine.”

  BB-8 beeped his support for the idea, and Rey’s smile faded. “Seriously, though, what’s going on?”

  Poe shook his head. “I’m not quite sure. I was going to send a quick message to let them know we’re on our way back, and there seems to be someone already trying to send a message on the channel.”

  Rey sank into the pilot’s seat. “Do you know who it is?”

  “No, but this is a secret Resistance channel. No one should be able to hear it except for Resistance members.”

  Poe flipped another switch, and the noise on the comm filled the cockpit. It wasn’t quite static but something like scratching and chittering. It sounded like nothing Rey had ever heard before, but there were lots of different kinds of people in the galaxy. It could very well be from somewhere she’d never been, which was most everywhere.

  “What is that?” Rose asked, entering the cockpit and sitting in one of the jump seats near the door.

  “That’s what we were just trying to figure out,” Rey said. “That sounds like, I don’t know, some kind of language.”

  “Not Basic, though,” Poe said. “And most Resistance communications are broadcast in Basic.”

  “And encoded. I’m guessing this one isn’t?” Rey asked. Poe shook his head, confirming her suspicion.

  “Maybe they don’t know that,” Rose said. “Before I joined the Resistance I thought a lot of things that were actually wrong. Why not respond to them and see if they answer?”

  “If it’s missing the latest scramble code it could be a trap,” Poe said.

  “But what if they just haven’t gotten the most updated code?” Rose asked. “They could be in trouble and desperate. We should still see who it is.”

  Poe looked to Rey, and she shrugged. “Seems like as good a plan as any. It really could be someone in trouble.” On Jakku, there were a number of beings who didn’t speak Basic at all, and while Rey didn’t recognize the sounds coming across the comm, Rose was smart. Maybe she was on to something.

  Poe keyed the microphone that connected to the transponder and said, “Hello? Is anyone there?” Rey noticed that he didn’t give a name or tell whoever might be on the channel that it was a Resistance frequency. After all, they had no idea who might be on the other end.

  As Poe had said, it could be a trap.

  Everyone waited quietly to see if there would be any response to Poe’s inquiry. Just when Rey thought that maybe they’d imagined the sounds as something more than the usual planetary interference, a voice cut across the static.

  “Yes, yes! Hello! This is Jem Arafoot, from Minfar. The First Order is attempting to set up a base here. We request immediate assistance from the Resistance. We need—”

  The message cut off suddenly, and once more the cockpit was silent.

  Rey looked to Rose and then Poe. Their expressions matched her feelings of confusion and surprise. From the corridor, BB-8 beeped merrily.

  Rey nodded, her uncertainty melting away. “You’re right, Beebee-Ate. We do need to help them. But we have no idea how to do that.”

  “By getting these supplies back to the main Resistance force and then checking out this distress call with help,” Poe said.

  “What if we don’t have that kind of time?” Rey asked, thinking of the way the ships of the First Order had invaded Crait. “If they find a way to embed themselves on this planet, it’ll be nearly impossible to shake them loose.”

  “Maybe. But how many First Order personnel are there? A hundred? A thousand? If there are too many, we could end up landing smack-dab in the middle of a losing battle.”

  Poe had a good point, but something in Rey wanted to go to Minfar immediately. It felt like the place she needed to be. Was the Force guiding her way? Since the Battle of Crait, Rey had struggled with trying to figure out what were her own thoughts and what was tied to the larger, more complex workings of that magnificent power that united all life in the galaxy. She didn’t understand the Force, if anyone truly did, but even more frustrating was not being able to use it to fix everything. It wasn’t like a blaster or her staff, solid and steady in her hands. Instead, it was a bit like trying to grab a damp slugill, slippery and unpredictable. It made her doubt everything, including herself.

  And yet every wayward thought and every second guess made it even harder to reach the Force. That much Rey did know—which was all in all disheartening.

  Still, Force or no Force, it was the right thing to do to stop the First Order and help the people of Minfar. But it wouldn’t do anyone any good if they ended up trapped, too.

  Rey turned to Rose. “What do you think?”

  Rose fiddled with her necklace and then sighed. “I don’t know. These supplies need to get back to the Resistance as soon as possible. But I know what it’s like to have the First Order destroy your planet.” Rose’s gaze went unfocused. Rey had heard rumors about Rose and her sister’s flight from their home planet, and it seemed as though she was reliving just a bit of that. “I hate ignoring any kind of call for help.”

  “But what if it’s a trap?” Rey asked. She couldn’t let go of Poe’s valid misgivings. She knew how sneaky the First Order could be. She wouldn’t put it past them to create a distraction just to stop the Resistance before it could even get started.

  “We won’t know until we check it out. That’s kind of the trouble with an ambush: you never know it’s coming until you’re in the middle of it,” Poe said, running his hand through his dark curls in agitation.

  “But that distress call said they needed help fighting off First Order soldiers,” Rey said, considering as many different sides of the problem as she could. “Fighting the First Order. This could be a good opportunity to find some new allies.”

  “Or it could be a trap, like you said,” Rose said, crossing her arms. “Ugh, this is so difficult.”

  “Welcome to the Resistance,” Poe said with a rueful grin. BB-8 gave a low, sad beep of agreement.

  Rey turned to the only droid member of their crew. “Okay, so we’re stuck on whether to head to the rendezvous point directly or go and help. What do you think, Beebee-Ate?”

  The astromech droid rolled back and forth quietly, as though he was pacing, and then beeped a long, solemn note.

  “Beebee-Ate is right,” Rey said. “The right thing to do is to offer them help. Think about how we would feel if we were the ones waiting for help that came too late. We can’t do that to someone. If it’s a trap, we’ll deal with it. But I don’t think it is. That voice? That person from Minfar sounded really, really scared.”

  “So we help them then,” Poe said decisively. “And hope that it isn’t a trap.”

  “Should we call the rest of the Resistance and let them know?” Rose asked.

  Poe shook his head. “Not just yet. Let’s see what we find on Minfar first.” The Resistance pilot had a thoughtful expression on his face, and Rey wondered if he was thinking the same thing she was: it would be better to ask for forgiveness after they helped the people on Minfar than to ask for permission they might not get.

  Rey nodded her agreement to Poe’s decision and focused on launching the Falcon. Going to help the people on Minfar was the right thing to do.

  But then why did she feel so nervous?

  COMMANDER BRANWAYN
E SPIFTZ stared at the junior officer standing before him. Spiftz’s gaze was steely, his pale face expressionless. His teal uniform was pressed, his boots shone, and his black hair was slicked straight back. The only indication of his annoyance was the small muscle under his eye that twitched every so often. Otherwise, he was by every measure a First Order officer, and no one would mistake him for anything else.

  If anyone did, he would correct that assumption. Forcefully.

  Commander Spiftz’s pale blue eyes catalogued every single detail of the man standing before him, and it would have been an understatement to say that the lieutenant was lacking. Not a single crease was out of place on Commander Spiftz’s uniform, and his black boots reflected the lights of the command deck, which had also been spotless up until a few minutes ago. Perfection was the standard, as it should be.

  Which was why the junior officer getting mud all over Commander Spiftz’s command deck had a valuable lesson to learn.

  “Lieutenant Aderat,” Commander Spiftz said, his voice calm even as his face shaded to a deep burgundy of barely suppressed rage, “why is there mud on your boots?”

  The lieutenant, a pale blond boy who could’ve passed for a younger cousin of General Hux, looked down. His light gray tunic and matching pants were disheveled, but his boots were by far the grandest affront. Red mud speckled the shiny black material, and the soles were covered in a thick carmine paste.

  “Sir?” Lieutenant Aderat said, the single word more a question than a sign of respect.

  “You came onto my command deck to render a report looking as though you just came from the field,” Commander Spiftz said, lip curling as he stood from his chair and walked around the terminals toward the junior officer. The lower-ranking officers at the flight controls suddenly became very interested in their duties, their gazes locked on their displays.

  Commander Spiftz walked closer to the lieutenant, whose eyes widened with barely suppressed fear as he realized his error. “I-I came as soon as possible to render a report, sir,” Aderat said.

  “Yes, I can see your haste,” Commander Spiftz said, gaze going past the nervous Aderat to the footsteps outlined in red mud across the gleaming black deck. “Render your report, quickly, and then see to your appearance.”