by Rae Carson
“General!” Tyce called. “Do we retreat?”
“What now?” Someone called.
“What’s our next move?”
His people—his friends—were dying all around him. “My friends,” Poe said, his voice tremulous. “I’m sorry. I felt we had…a shot…There’s just too many of them.” He’d learned nothing from Crait. Instead, he’d just gotten people killed ag—
A familiar voice broke through on comms: “But there are more of us, Poe. There are more of us.”
It was Lando. He was back! But had he brought anyone with him?
Poe’s heart leapt in his chest as he flipped his fighter around, swooped over the hull of a Destroyer to get a visual on the atmosphere above.
He gasped. Ships were popping into sight all over the place. Freighters, fighters, medical frigates, longhaulers, from every sector of the galaxy, from every era Poe had ever heard of. Hundreds. No, thousands. A fleet of fleets.
“Look at this!” Poe hollered, “Look at this!” as Lando laughed and laughed.
“The allies,” Aftab Ackbar said. “They’re here!”
“The whole galaxy’s here!” Poe exclaimed.
“Lando, you did it,” Finn yelled. “You did it!”
The comms erupted, as ship after ship began calling in. Thousands of resolved voices, crying out, refusing to be silenced.
“Millennium Falcon, standing by for orders,” said Lando.
“Mon Calamari fleet, standing by,” came another voice.
“Phantom Squadron, standing by.”
“Ghost, standing by.”
“Anodyne Two, standing by.”
Poe was not the crying type, but as everyone called in, one after another after another, liquid pooled in his eyes. They had done it. The spark of the Resistance had become a fire.
“Alphabet Two, standing by.”
“Zay Versio with Inferno Squad, standing by. Look at all these ships!”
“Fireball, here. Hi, everyone!”
“Cut the chatter, Kaz,” a deep voice responded.
“Okay, okay!” Poe interrupted, because they had no time for a hundred thousand ships to call in! “Just…go shoot stuff! Uh, I mean, hit those underbelly cannons with all you’ve got. Every one we knock out is a world saved.”
Lando whooped as he and Chewie charged ahead, and a thousand fighters, frigates, and even well-armed freighters swooped after them.
Within seconds, the Millennium Falcon had taken out a cannon. That ship made everything look easy.
“Nice flying, Lando,” came Wedge Antilles’s voice, and Poe realized the old Rebellion captain, and his former flight instructor, was operating one of the Falcon’s turret stations.
He wished Leia could be here to see this.
* * *
—
Finn threw his fist into the air. I knew Lando would do it. I knew it!”
Jannah was gaping at the sky, forgetting for a moment that she was supposed to be laying cover fire.
“Finger to trigger, Chewie,” came Lando’s voice on the comm.
People had come from everywhere to help them. The whole galaxy was here. Finn watched as they swooped among the Destroyers, laying waste to the hapless ships.
He shook off the moment of triumph with effort.
Jannah resumed firing, while Finn got back to work on his shifty stuff.
* * *
—
For this, Pryde had no backup plan.
“Where did they get all these fighter craft?” Allegiant General Pryde demanded. “They have no navy.”
Admiral Griss was gaping. The light had gone out of his eyes. “It’s not a navy, sir,” the admiral said, and his voice shook a little. “It’s just…people.”
* * *
—
The tide was turning. Poe’s patchwork navy pummeled the defenseless fleet. One Destroyer listed sideways, smoke rising from its hull. It collided with another, and both dropped to the surface, helpless in Exegol’s gravity. Another dropped after a pair of proton torpedoes hit it in the gut. Soon Destroyers were falling away all over the place.
But the TIEs remained viciously relentless, and they were still targeting Poe specifically.
One threatened him head-on, but he was hemmed in between hulls. He gunned the accelerator, firing. Poe wasn’t sure if he’d destroy it in time, or if he should wing away…
A Y-wing slipped into the assist position beside him—a precision move. Together they gunned the TIE, which exploded into a satisfying fireball.
“So long, sky trash!” came a familiar female voice.
He turned in his cockpit as the Y-wing screamed past. “Who’s that flier?” he muttered.
“Take a guess, spice runner.”
It was Zorii!
Poe’s relief was so huge he almost choked on it. “Zorii, you made it!”
Someone warbled at him in Anzellan, then added, “Hey, heyyyyy!”
“Babu?” Poe said, disbelieving.
This day just kept getting better and better.
* * *
—
Rey and Ben lay collapsed on the floor as Emperor Palpatine released himself from the Ommin harness and drifted down. He stood straight and strong now. Invincible.
The Emperor raised his voice to the throng. “Look what you have made,” he said. Their chanted response was thunderous, and he stood, hands slightly raised, as if absorbing their worship as power.
Ben forced his near-lifeless body over onto his hands and knees. Rey remained limp beside him as he struggled to his feet and faced his enemy.
The Emperor was not impressed. “As once I fell, so falls the last Skywalker.”
He lifted Ben with no more than a thought, thrust him away with such force that he tumbled end over end through the length of the cathedral, then disappeared into a flashing abyss.
Rey would have screamed, but she could barely draw breath.
“Do not fear their feeble attack, my faithful!” the Emperor said, Ben already forgotten. His lips spread apart into a nightmarish grin, and he lifted his face to Exegol’s sky. “Nothing will stop the return of the Sith!”
He raised his hands as though reaching toward the battle overhead. Even through her haze of weakness and exhaustion, Rey could sense him draw on the Force. The Emperor’s power was staggering now. No, their power. Hers and Ben’s.
Tears streamed down her face as he used their stolen power to create a conduit of Force lightning. Writhing, crooked tendrils of light shot from his fingers, coalesced into a thick stream of light that burst into the sky, flooding the Resistance ships. They sparked helplessly against the onslaught, tilting on their axis.
CHAPTER 18
Poe watched in horror as raw power shot up from the planet like a massive geyser, devouring everything in its path. Several fighters were suddenly adrift, their controls no longer responding. The Tantive IV trembled, as if fighting a tractor beam. It listed to the side, began to drop.
Poe wanted to look away. Leia’s ship…he clenched his jaw and stared anyway. He would bear witness to this.
The trembling intensified. One of the engines detonated. Explosions spread out along the hull, and suddenly the Tantive IV was dropping like a meteor, past the Final Order fleet and out of sight.
Poe had just lost a lot of friends. He’d known Nien Numb his whole life.
Suddenly, the console of his own fighter was sparking, shocking his hand even through his flight gloves. “Artoo, my systems are failing…”
From the droid socket of his X-wing came the sound of an astromech screaming.
Poe punched his comm. “Does anyone copy?”
No response. Beside him, a sleek Nubian yacht trembled in the throes of wicked lightning, then dropped out of view.
* * *
—
/> The Emperor would not stop laughing as he took his throne, light still shooting upward from his fingertips. Rey hated the sound—grating, smug, oddly familiar. She was near death; she knew it with certainty. She didn’t want his laugh to be the last thing she heard.
She could hardly move, but she managed to roll over onto her back. Her vision blackened with the effort.
She reached for Ben—nothing. Their connection had weakened when the Emperor stole their life-force. She’d vaguely sensed Ben falling, but it was like he’d fallen out of existence itself, leaving her carved out and broken.
Rey’s limbs refused any order to move, much less stand, so she stared at the battle above. Not that it was a battle anymore. Explosions peppered the sky. Black debris rained down everywhere, trailing smoke and fire. The Tantive IV listed, then plummeted.
She had failed so utterly.
The Emperor’s power was beautiful to behold, reaching ever higher, spreading out like a flower of light. In a way, she and Ben had made that. But the Emperor was using it for unspeakable evil. And now she was helpless. Dying.
What would Leia do?
The answer came to her gently, like a soft morning breeze.
She had to give. She had to give everything.
Rey remembered her training, and she reached into the Force. Steadied her mind. “Be with me,” she whispered.
Her true power would always come from oneness.
“Be with me. Be with me.”
The battle above disappeared. Instead, Rey saw a perfect sky, vast with stars. Peaceful. Light-filled. It was like she was staring through a window to somewhere else, a place between places.
“Be with me.”
Her body relaxed. She embraced peace and calm, the way Leia had taught her.
Through the calm, came a voice. These are your final steps, Rey. Rise and take them.
Then others joined.
Rey,
Rey,
Rey.
She didn’t recognize them all, but somehow, she knew them the moment they made themselves known to her. They’d been with her all along; she just needed to learn how to hear them. Like Leia had promised.
More voices came at her fast but gentle, as though she lay at a confluence of the Force, possibilities, futures and pasts all stretching away from her, or maybe leading toward her. The cosmos, time, energy, being—nothing was the way she’d thought it was.
Bring back the balance, Rey.
In the night, find the light, Rey.
Presences filled her awareness, some recent, some ancient, some still anchored to the living in a strange way. Rey didn’t understand. But she accepted.
Alone, never have you been.
Every Jedi who ever lived, lives in you.
The Force surrounds you.
Let it guide you.
As it guided us.
Palpatine had wanted Rey for himself. But she chose to be their conduit. Their vessel. She was a Jedi.
Rey moved an arm. Then a shoulder. She let the voices surround her, fill her, strengthen her. She turned over, placed a palm to the ground, pushed up.
We stand behind you.
Rise in the Force.
She got a knee beneath her, leveraged herself up onto her toes. Rey paused, crouched, gasping for air. Her muscles didn’t want to obey. Every movement turned her very bones to knives of pain.
In the heart of a Jedi lies her strength!
The voices were becoming louder, even more powerful.
Rise.
Rise!
Luke’s voice became deep and insistent, rising above all the others. A well of power from which to draw: “Rey, the Force will be with you. Always.”
She rose. Summoned Luke’s lightsaber, which skidded across the stone and smacked into her hand. The blade ignited, and Rey stood, full of strength freely given to her by those who had come before.
The Emperor gasped. The avalanche of light from his fingertips ceased.
He rose from his throne and stepped forward. His eyes glowed with lingering power. “Let your death be the final word in the story of rebellion.” Palpatine reached with his arms, sent Force lightning zagging toward her.
She whipped up her lightsaber and blocked it. The impact nearly knocked her from her feet, but she reached for the Force, and stood her ground.
His attack intensified. “You are nothing!” he yelled. “A scavenger girl is no match for the power in me. I am all the Sith!”
Her wrist felt like it was going to break. But it wouldn’t. Not today.
“And I,” she said, reaching for more strength, for Leia’s lightsaber. It clicked into her hand. “I am all the Jedi.”
She brought the second lightsaber to bear, crossing its blade with the first, creating an impenetrable shield.
Rey stepped forward, pushing back against his onslaught. Then again. Every step was anguish. It was taking everything the Jedi had given her, everything she had.
The lightning began to feed back on the Emperor. It ravaged his face, and he tossed back his head in agony, and in denial of what was happening. Rey pursued mercilessly, one foot in front of the other, absorbing power from the Force. Finally, she was ready. She gathered her strength, her faith in the Jedi past, her love of her friends, and she thrust it all at the Emperor.
He staggered backward, his own power reflected against him. It devoured him completely, ripping away his newly healed fingers, searing away the skin of his face, his very bones, until he disintegrated.
And like collapsing stardust, what remained of him coalesced into a single point, which then exploded with a massive shock wave that threw Rey to the ground. The Sith throne shattered. The ceiling bouldered down around her, crushing thousands of disciples in the amphitheater.
* * *
—
Poe’s nav screen cleared suddenly. He looked around. The strange power coming from the planet’s surface had stopped. Or maybe only paused. Whatever. It was time to work.
“We’re back on!” he yelled. “This is our last chance. We’ve got to hit those cannons now!”
He winged toward a Destroyer, aiming for the belly cannon. Thousands of ships corrected, some even lurched out of free fall, as everyone brought their weapons to bear.
They all understood what he did: the impasse might be temporary. They might have only seconds to act.
* * *
—
The red jetpack troopers were not letting up. Jannah was doing a great job of keeping them off his back, but Finn couldn’t help getting distracted. Focus, Finn. Rey or Rose would have had this thing rewired in half the time.
One more splice…there. “Okay, we’re hot!” he yelled to Jannah. He jumped down from the cannon, yanking a handful of wires with him. He was almost sure he had the right ones.
He handed two of them to Jannah. He would aim; she would fire.
Finn touched his wires together, and the giant cannon barrel swiveled until it was pointed directly at the deck.
He looked up at Jannah one more time. This was it. They weren’t coming back from this one. “Never another kid,” he said.
“Not even one,” she agreed.
And with that, she touched her wires together. They sparked, and a split second later the cannon fired a massive pulse blast. Finn and Jannah waited, breathed. Had it worked? Maybe Finn should have aimed for a different—
The hull came apart beneath them.
* * *
—
Pryde wasted the few precious seconds he might have had to reach an escape pod in frozen disbelief. The floor of the bridge shuddered as though urging him to run. And he did, finally, only to discover that the corridor leading away from the bridge was buckled and impassable.
Admiral Griss met him at the door that led nowhere. They exchanged
a panicked look as an officer rushed toward them. “Comms are down everywhere!” he said.
“There are attacks on Destroyers in all occupied systems,” said another bridge officer. “Overwhelming numbers of small craft!”
This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t possible. His Emperor had foreseen everything.
The floor began to slant sideways. Several explosions drew Pryde’s gaze to the viewport. He dashed forward, as though getting a better look might present him with a solution.
The hull of the Steadfast was dangerously tipped, and the Resistance ships were recovering from the strange energy that had held many of them in its grip. It seemed as though all was lost. For the first time, Pryde considered that maybe the Emperor would not restore the glory of the former Empire.
He let that possibility wash through him, absorbed it, examined it. He was forced to conclude that he didn’t care. It didn’t matter to him one bit.
In his last moment, Allegiant General Pryde finally understood that the return of Emperor Palpatine was meaningless if he were not alive to see it. All his efforts, his sacrifices had not been worth it.
The bridge exploded. Pryde fell.
* * *
—
Finn and Jannah clung to the hull together, ducking as flaming debris from the bridge tumbled past them. They couldn’t hold on much longer. They’d lose their grip and missile to the planet’s surface—if the Steadfast didn’t come apart first.
He looked to Jannah. He was so glad they’d found each other. Two former stormtroopers, together and doing the right thing in the end. “You know what?” he yelled over the sounds of destruction.
A smile like the sun broke out on her face. “I’m not sorry, either!” she hollered.
The ship jolted. Pieces of the hull broke away, and suddenly they were sliding down the length of the Destroyer. How long could you slide down a ship this size before finding open air? A couple minutes, maybe.
As Finn slid, he held Jannah and breathed. He had no regrets. It had been worth it.
