Chapter Text

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. . . .

STAR

WARS

Episode IX

A WIND TO SHAKE THE STARS

The iron grip of the FIRST ORDER has spread to the furthest reaches of the galaxy.  Only a few scattered planets remain unoccupied.  Traitorous acts are punishable by death.

Troubled by visions of his defeat, Supreme Leader KYLO REN has gone in search of an  ancient dark side power.  In his absence, The Knights of Ren have been dispatched to hunt REY, the last Jedi.

Determined to suffocate a growing unrest, CHANCELLOR HUX has silenced all communication between neighboring systems.  Meanwhile, the Resistance, led by GENERAL LEIA ORGANA, has planned a secret mission to prevent their annihilation and forge a path to freedom. . . .

Chapter One

The Moon of Kuat

Stars, seemingly receding to infinity.  That was all the small, graphite-colored astromech droid could see.  If he rolled back just a bit, he would see that he was peering out the transparisteel viewport of a starkly designed shuttle; but if he stayed where he was, he could pretend that he was alone in the inky, star-specked vastnesses of space.

At the edges of the droid’s vision, two prongs—the sharp points of a space station— drifted into view as the ship coasted into a docking bay.  The grand illusion of tranquility was broken.  Disappointed, the droid rolled towards the exit of the First Order transport.  He had a mission to complete.

He joined his companions on this journey: other droids, of diverse form and function, brought to work at the Kuat Drive Yards.  The boarding ramp descended before them with a hiss of pneumatics.  In the press to get out, the gray BB Unit swerved to avoid a hulking Hexadecimal loadlifter and scraped his spherical body against the side wall of the transport.  He looked down, examining a new scuff in his paint that revealed a flash of orange beneath the gray coating.  He chirped worriedly, and rolled until the telltale scrape was hidden beneath his domed head.

In a cramped room stacked with scavenged Imperial gear, a small comlink lay on a table.  A red light began to blink on its side in response to some signal.  A gloved hand grabbed and activated it.

“Beebee-Ate, are you in?” asked Rose Tico.

An affirmative beep came through the communications device.

“Good,” Rose said, looking through the broken roof of her hideout at the orbital ring hanging high above the surface of the moon of Kuat.  First Order Star Destroyers protruded from its rim like vicious teeth poised to crush the galaxy.  Beyond, she could pick out the planet Kuat, visible only as a pale bluish-green disc encircled by the thin metal ribbon of another, larger, orbital ring.  “I need eyes on the checkpoint,” she said.

Inside the moon’s orbital ring, BB-8 rolled out of the cavernous docking bay and into a sleek black hallway.  He wove through a forest of legs, searching for the right scomp terminal.

“I hear the T-16s are being phased back in,” a passing stormtrooper said to another walking beside him.

“Figures,” grumbled his companion.  “The T-17s are junk.”

BB-8 finally found the correct port and plugged his computer uplink arm into the round socket in the middle.  He turned his arm back and forth, searching the computer network until he found what Rose needed: access to the holomonitor system of the orbital ring complex.

On the moon’s surface, Rose strapped on a beaten, cracked leather flight helmet and flipped down the attached electrogoggles.  The heads-up display showed a grid of garbled, blurry images that resolved into dozens of live feeds of the orbital shipyard and its surrounding area.  Rose selected and enlarged a video of an outlying security station.  A boxy, dun-colored dropship descended towards the checkpoint.

“Here they come,” she said.

The dropship landed in a canyon of white and blue sedimentary rock, the wind of its passage kicking up a cloud of silver sand.  A few stormtroopers gathered around it as a batch of migrant workers trudged out of the craft, shielding their eyes from the harsh sunlight.  They comprised downtrodden humans and aliens from across the galaxy, submitting to the rule of the First Order in exchange for safety and whatever meagre scraps of food they could be spared.  The stormtroopers motioned them towards a weapons detector set into a thick border wall.  

Not all of the beings in the small crowd were migrants, however.  Among them was stormtrooper-turned-Resistance fighter Finn, disguised in layers of thin, worn rags.

“Checkpoint,” whispered Finn.  “Keep your head down.”

The man behind him nodded, his features hidden by a dusty robe and a cloth covering the lower part of his face.  As the migrants were funneled towards the scanner, a bottleneck quickly formed.  Ragged aliens barked at each other in a dozen tongues.  An immense, gray-skinned Drovian shoved Finn.

“Whoa, hey.  No trouble here,” said Finn.

The Drovian was not appeased.  It picked Finn up with a single radially symmetrical, three-clawed hand and bared its sharp teeth at him.

“Trouble. TROUBLE!” shouted Finn.

The robed man stepped forward and pulled something from a leather pouch under his robe.  “Easy, pal,” he said.

The Drovian rounded to face the man, whose face covering had slipped to reveal the face of Commander Poe Dameron.  The Resistance pilot held out a dried, three-eyed Peckto fish.

“Here,” he said. “I couldn’t finish it.”

The Drovian dropped Finn, speared the fish on one of his talons, and munched on it with a contented, nasal bubble.  Poe removed his hand from a blaster concealed under his robe.

“Thanks,” said Finn as he stood up and brushed sand off his rags.

“Don’t mention it,” Poe said as he pulled the mask back over his nose.

The stormtroopers had formed the workers into a queue before the weapons scanner.  Finn and Poe walked to the back of the line.

“How’ll we know if Beebee-Ate hacked the mainframe?” asked Finn.

The weapons scanner beeped.  Stormtroopers pulled a mangy Gotal out of the line.  The alien pleaded for his life, pointing desperately at his metallic horns.  Unsympathetic stormtroopers marched him behind a high wall, out of view of the other migrants.  The muted sound of blaster fire came from behind it.

“We’ll know,” Poe said grimly.

Poe and Finn stepped into the large rectangular detector.  As they entered, the machine gave a shudder and shut off.

“We lost power.  Hold the line,” said one of the stormtroopers.  Others re-emerged from behind the wall, their blasters smoking.  Finn and Poe looked at each other tensely.

Aboard the orbital ring, BB-8 spun his scomp link.  Down the hall, a clumsy stormtrooper dropped a crate of spanners.  They clattered noisily on the hard floor.  Startled, BB-8 nervously spun his dome to face the trooper, then recovered and concentrated on his task.

At the security checkpoint, a stormtrooper smacked the console.  The scanner powered up again, with Finn and Poe still inside.  The alarm did not sound.  The Resistance infiltrators let out the breaths they had been holding.

The stormtrooper waved them forward.  “Move along.  Move along.”

Poe and Finn passed through the wall into a vast migrant encampment.  Modular grey housing units painted with colorful geometric and organic symbols from the inhabitants’ home worlds were set at regular intervals.  Workers shuffled down the dusty streets, heads down, attempting to avoid the gaze of stormtrooper patrols.  Small animals prowled around buildings and vaporators.  A heavily robed Tusken eyed Finn and Poe as they passed.

In the distance, a towering powershaft that was plunged deep in the planet’s core soared skyward to connect with the orbital ring.  Transparisteel panels set inside a scaffolding of metal let out the blue glow of the energy mined here.  Power flowed up the shaft, destined to fuel the fleet of ships assembled on the ring above.  A pair of TIE Fighters screamed past the imposing structure and flew over the worker’s colony.

Poe locked eyes with a furry alien watching them from a nearby machine shop.  The alien, Biss Kova, tapped his cheek.

“That’s our guy,” Poe said.  He and Finn followed their contact into a hut.  Inside, a big-cheeked, hairless baby of the same species bounced inside a hanging sea cow stomach.  Its mother, Dal Kova, brushed melted fat onto an unappetizing-looking roast.

Rose emerged from behind a beaded curtain in the back of the hut.  “You said six days.  I’ve been here six weeks,” she said.

“We’ve been busy,” said Poe wearily, uncovering his face and pulling down his hood.

“Besides, this place doesn’t seem so bad,” Finn said, looking around the building curiously.

“Good people,” Rose responded.  “Terrible food.”

Rose led them back through the curtain to her surveillance den.  She unrolled a canvas map on the table and dropped a holoprojector onto it.

“This is our access point,” she said as the device projected an image of the orbital ring and the powershaft.

“This powershaft delivers raw ore to the orbital ring,” Rose continued.  “A detonation directly into the energy stream, here, will cause a chain reaction—”

“—and take the whole thing down,” Poe finished.

Finn looked up at the orbital ring, where a dozen Star Destroyers were refueling.  “Along with their new fleet.”

The baby began to cry.  Rose walked back into the main room and shook a rattle at it.

“How do we know they haven’t detected Beebee’s signature?” asked Poe as he followed her.  “There’s a lot we don’t know.  That’s why I voted for the other plan.”

Finn looked at him.  “This is when we second guess the plan? Right now?”

“We can take out the enemy’s fuel source and be light years away before they know what hit them.  But we have to move now,” Rose said as she stuck a finger in the baby’s mouth.  The alien gurgled.

Finn and Poe looked at Rose and the baby, then at each other, then back at Rose.  She really had been down here awhile.

“Okay,” Poe conceded.  “Let’s blow this thing and go home.”

Poe, Finn, and Rose emerged from the hut and walked towards the massive powershaft base, trying to look casual and unhurried.  The Tusken wandered past far behind them.

Poe spoke into a comlink.  “Beebee-Ate?  Don’t worry, buddy, I’m alive.  Unlock the powershaft doors and get ready with that shuttle.”

BB-8 gave the terminal one final crank and then detached his scomp link.  He sped down the corridor past a viewport that gave a view of the sun cresting the glowing orange and blue surface of the Kuat moon.

A trio of heavily armored, space-gray mechtroopers guarded the powershaft doors.  Poe stunned one with his blaster while Finn and Rose took down the other two with electro-shock prods.  Poe unlatched a keycard from the belt of one of the unconscious mechtroopers and threw it to Finn, who swiped it through a slot set in a wall panel.  The blast doors slid open.  Finn, Poe, and Rose stepped through and looked up at the giant cylinder of blue particle energy rushing upwards.

Poe took out three dart-like, aerodynamic thermal detonators.  “We’ll have twenty seconds before detonation.  Give or take.”

“Give or take how long?” asked Rose.

Poe grimaced and handed Finn and Rose a detonator each.  “Not long enough to be a problem.  Just take it nice and easy, like pitching a Pilmetto Stick.”

Finn said, “We didn’t have that. . .”

Poe activated his charge.

“Oh, we’re going now?!” asked Finn incredulously.

Poe tossed his detonator underhand.  It was caught by the particle flow and rocketed upwards.  Rose’s charge soon joined it.  Finn chucked his like a live grenade and ran for the exit.

Poe activated his comm.  “Beebee-Ate, bombs are away.  We’ll meet you at the relay point.”

BB-8 warbled a reply as he rolled into the droid socket of a tiny maintenance shuttle, old and forgotten.  The ship powered up as he plugged into it.

The Resistance fighters ran out the door to find themselves face-to-face with a platoon of stormtroopers and mechtroopers.

“Drop your weapons!” said one of the troopers.

Workers craned their necks at the disturbance, trying to see what was happening without getting too close.  The masked Tusken lurked among them.

Poe looked up at the orbital ring and hissed, “Distraction in three, two, one. . .now!”  He dove to the ground and rolled, anticipating the explosion.  Nothing happened.  He halted and looked up at the stormtroopers surrounding them.  “Hey, fellas,” he said weakly.

“Shut up, scum,” one of them responded.

Inside the Kuat moon Orbital Ring’s command center, a First Order officer holding a datapad rushed up to Admiral Vonn.  The Admiral was standing at the command center’s viewport in the textbook Imperial posture: back straight, hands clasped behind him, and legs slightly apart.  He turned to look at the officer with piercing blue eyes that complemented his shock of steel-gray hair.

“Blast shields have contained the explosion, Admiral,” the young officer said.  “All systems stable.”

Vonn turned back to survey the moon of Kuat glowing below, his mouth turned up in a sneer.  “Their outdated tactics are pitiful,” he scoffed.

Rose and Finn looked up at the fully intact and operational orbital ring.

“Any second now,” Poe said, tension audible in his voice.

Suddenly, the hooded Tusken ran forward.   From its gloved hands sprang two beams of bright, searing energy surrounded by light blue halos.  The Tusken slashed at the stormtroopers, dual lightsaber cutting through flesh and armor alike.  The First Order soldiers turned and fired wildly, but the Tusken weaved and dodged, scything its way through them.  Finn, Rose, and Poe ducked and blasted at the troopers.

Soon, stormtrooper bodies littered the ground.  Poe stuck his head and right hand out from behind cover, his blaster pistol smoking.  The Tusken pulled off its mask and dropped it on the ground.  It was Rey.

“Rey?” Poe said.

“Rey! What are you doing here?” asked Finn.

Rey spun and blocked a blaster bolt with her lightsaber.  The weapon was a combination of Rey’s own staff and Anakin’s broken saber.  As she moved, the tan Tusken robes fell from her shoulders to reveal a shirt, trousers, and wrappings of pure white.

“A simple ‘thank you’ would do,” Rey said curtly.

She threw the lightsaber towards an approaching group of soldiers and ducked behind a power regulator.  The spinning blade sliced through everything in its path, then returned to her as she rose to catch it.

Poe tucked his head down and scrambled behind a generator.  “I thought you weren’t coming,” he yelled as he fired on a stormtrooper that was trying to sneak up on him from the far side of the powershaft.  “Important Jedi business, I believe you said.”

“I changed my mind.  And I didn’t say that,” Rey shouted over the noise of blaster fire.

“Well, why didn’t you tell me?  Tell us?”

Finn decided it was time to intercede.  “Uh, guys?  Now might not be the best time.”

A blaster shot hit the generator Poe was sheltering behind, leaving behind a smoking black scorch mark.

“Definitely not the best time,” Poe agreed.

Rey used the Force to push back a squad of eight stormtroopers, sending them clattering.  The migrant workers pointed to Rey in awe, whispering to each other reverentially.

“Jedi! Jedi!” children cheered.

More stormtroopers flooded into the square, but the migrants blocked their path.  Some threw rocks or swung hammers and work tools.  Some stormtroopers fell under their assault, but others began firing into the crowd.

Poe shouted, “Rey, we gotta go!”

Rey hesitated. “I have to help them!” she called.

Troop transports hove into view, emerging from their docking bays beyond the migrant encampment.  Behind them, TIE Fighters returning from patrol flew towards the powershaft. 

“Not here.  Not now,” Poe said tersely.

Rey knew he was right, but hated to leave these people.  Their behavior was inspiring, a promise of revolution.  To abandon them, no doubt to First Order punishment, felt like a betrayal of their faith in her.  Nevertheless, she reluctantly followed Poe through the blast doors.

Finn moved to join them, but a fallen stormtrooper grabbed his ankle.  His left eye looked pleadingly at Finn from the wreckage of his blasted, broken helmet.  Finn felt a shock of recognition.  Memories of his stormtrooper days rushed back to him.  He didn’t know this trooper’s name, or when they had met, but those piercing green eyes still seemed familiar somehow.  Finn pulled his leg free of the wounded soldier’s grip, following his friends, but the incident still left him shaken.

An officer raced to Admiral Vonn.

“What happened down there?” the commander snapped.

“The infiltrators.  The last Jedi is with them, sir,” the officer replied.  She sounded out of breath.

The blood seemed to drain from Vonn’s face.  “Alert the Knights of Ren.”

Rey, Poe, Finn, and Rose raced towards a maintenance turbolift next to the energy channel.

Poe shouted into his comlink.  “Beebee-Ate, we’re coming up to you!  Plan’s gone sidewise.”

BB-8 beeped incredulously, his shuttle already out of the orbital ring and on its way to the rendezvous point on the planet’s surface.

While Rose sliced into the turbolift controls, Poe studied the orbital ring thoughtfully.

“We’re gonna need another ship,” he said.

His eyes settled on a colossal First Order ship docked above them.  Its design differed sharply from that of the Star Destroyers around it.  While the ship’s top resembled that of a Resurgent-class Star Destroyer, its underside swept downwards in a broad curve from aft to fore, terminating in an imposing vertical fin sticking down from the bow of the ship.  Its hull, painted a stark white still unsullied by dust and radiation, shone like a gem in the light of the Kuat system’s orange-silver sun.

Rey followed his gaze upwards.  “You’re not serious,” she said.

Finn said, “That’s an Eclipse-class Dreadnought.  You can’t fly—”

“I can fly anything,” Poe interjected.

Rose stood up as the turbolift door opened.  “We’re in,” she said.

When the group had entered the cramped space, the transparisteel door slid shut, cutting off all sound from outside.  Rose fiddled with the lift controls.  The capsule rocketed upwards.

“Too. . . fast. . . ,” Finn gasped as the rapid acceleration pressed them against the floor of the turbolift.  Rose connected a pair of wires and the capsule crashed to a halt.  There was a brief moment of weightlessness, during which Poe hit his head on the ceiling.  Then everyone was on the floor again.

Rose got to her knees and dusted herself off.  She said, “All right, let’s try that again.”

The turbolift continued upwards at a more sedate pace.  When it finally halted, its door opened in front of the Resistance fighters to reveal the kilometers-wide stern of the Eclipse Dreadnought.  A tangle of thick fuel lines were attached to the giant ion engines.

Poe was first out of the lift.  He and Finn had changed out of their migrant disguises, which were now tucked into their satchels.  Both wore a battle-ready ensemble of shirt and trousers.  Finn still wore Poe’s old jacket.  They moved into the docking bay, blasters in hand, but no enemies confronted them.  The enormous space was empty of life.

Rey asked, “Are you sure about this?”

“Nope,” replied Poe.

“We had better odds on Raxus Prime,” Rose quipped.

“That was not my fault,” Finn said.  “You need to let Raxus Prime go.”

Poe leapt into the control seat of a Glide Rover used to load supplies onto the ship.  The rest of the group scrambled into the rear of the vehicle as it sped off.

Admiral Vonn watched them race towards the Eclipse from an observation tower.

“Where are they going?” he mused.

The Glide Rover disappeared into the docked destroyer.  Slowly, the Rebels’ plan dawned on Vonn.  His right eye began to twitch.

He muttered to himself, “They can’t possibly. . .”

He seemed to gain control of himself and leaned over a First Order technician.

“How many men are on that ship?”

“Just the bridge crew and a few guards, sir,” the orange-vested tech said.  “The rest are on dock leave.”

Admiral Vonn straightened and took a deep breath.  “Rush as many troops as you can spare to that sector,” he ordered.  “If the ship leaves the dock, destroy it.”

Finn led the way towards the bridge of the ship.  As he turned a corner, two stormtroopers raised their blasters.

“Hey, you’re not supposed to be-” one said before Finn shot him.  Rose blasted the other.

Four more troopers stationed in front the bridge door at the end of the corridor opened fire on them.  Rey rushed forward, lightsaber deflecting their shots, while the others followed, their blasters spitting overheated plasma.

There were only two troopers left guarding the door when a clatter of armor sounded behind the quartet.  Another four troopers ran into the hallway and began firing up it at them.

“You take out the ones behind us!” Rey yelled.  “I’ll handle these two.”

She leapt forward and slashed through both stormtroopers’ blasters with one flowing motion, before using the Force to slam them against the walls.  The troopers collapsed to the floor.

Rey turned to see Finn and Poe shoot the final remaining stormtrooper simultaneously.  Rose hurried to the door and pulled open the control panel.

The bridge of the Eclipse swarmed with First Order crew members, most of them working at consoles on either side of a central walkway.  Set in the middle of the walkway was a raised, swiveling command seat.

A blaster shot sounded from the rear of the bridge.  The crew of the dreadnought spun around to see Rose lowering her heavy blaster to cover them.  Finn sealed the door behind them.  A hole in the ceiling sparked.

“Who’s in charge here?” Poe asked.

A gray-uniformed Deck Officer marched forward.  “I am,” he said bravely.

“Great.  I’m your new pilot,” Poe improvised.  “Where does the pilot sit?”

Rey stepped forward and waved her palm, encompassing the entire bridge crew with the gesture.  “You will set a course for the Nirauan system.”

The Deck Officer turned smartly to the crew and commanded, “Set a course for the Nirauan System!”

The crewmen turned back to their consoles and began preparing the ship for launch.

“Does she do that to us?” Poe asked.  Finn shrugged.

Poe and Rey took the helm and began pressing buttons.

“Cold start the engines.  We can jump right to hyperspace if we overheat the laser cannon drive,” Rey said.

Poe replied, “The exhaust will spill over—”

“—into the propulsion systems,” Rey continued.  “We can freeze the chamber.”

Poe looked at her with a gleam in his eye as they continued to flip switches.  He asked quietly, “Don’t you see?  You and I?  How we—”

“Not the time.”

Finn sat at a massive control board with dozens of buttons.  “Okay, I’m going to need very specific instructions,” he said.

Rose, working at the navigation console, reported, “Shields up.  Setting calculations for lightspeed.”

“Let’s go!” urged Poe.

“Don’t rush me,” Rose shot back.  “I mess this up and we’ll fly right into the sun.”

Finn tapped a screen in front of him.  The ship’s exterior lights clicked on.

“I found the lights.  I turned on the lights!” Finn exclaimed.

One of the First Order crewmen came back to himself.  He eyed Finn confusedly and asked, “Who are you—”

Finn punched him in the jaw with a WHACK!  The crewman slumped to the ground, unconscious.

Finn said, “Let’s get somewhere else fast.”

“Working on it. . .” said Poe as he eased his hands into the steering rig.  “Who uses an inverted control yoke?” he asked of no one in particular.

Fuel conduits were pulled loose, spitting blue energy, as the Eclipse scraped out of the docking bay.  The Star Destroyer’s exterior lights blinked on and off in gridded patches.  As the ship nosed into space, the orbital ring’s heavy cannons swiveled towards it and began to fire, the energy bursts absorbed by the ship’s shields.

Poe struggled with the controls.  He leaned back, and the craft’s prow began to dip downwards.

“The black empty part is where we should be pointed!” Rey shouted.

“I’m trying!” Poe yelled.  “Everything’s backwards!”

Finn looked out the window at the planet seeming to rise towards them.  “‘I can fly anything,’” he said, striking a heroic pose.

Poe gained control of the ship’s trajectory, but it began to rotate, the moon seeming to roll from the bottom of the viewport to the top.

“Okay, we’re spinning now,” Rey said tensely.

TIE Fighters converged on the Star Destroyer.  Finn found the turret controls and began firing into their midst.  Stray blaster fire ignited the fuel-soaked docking bay.

“Do we have the droid?” Poe asked anxiously.

Stray fire from the orbital ring’s cannons had destroyed the engines of BB-8’s maintenance shuttle.  His burning ship was more than a dozen meters away from the Eclipse’s hangar.

“Beebee-Ate, now!” Rey said through the comlink.

BB-8 steeled himself and ejected from the droid socket.  He floated through cold, empty space, the light of the growing fire on the orbital ring reflecting off his metal shell.  Despite his precise internal timekeeping, those moments felt like hours to the droid.  Finally, BB-8 floated into the hangar, the Eclipse’s internal gravity grabbing him as he passed through the oxygen shield.  He fell and landed with a resounding clang, his dome on one side, then righted himself and gave a triumphant whistle into the comlink.

“We got him!” Rey cheered.

Burning fuel in the docking bay behind the Eclipse blossomed into an orange fireball, touching off a chain reaction.  Explosions engulfed the orbital ring, severing it.

Rose’s console flashed.  “Good for lightspeed!” she said.

Rey leaned past Poe and shoved forward the hyperdrive lever.  The stars stretched into streaks of light before them.

The Eclipse’s engines lit up briefly as the hyperdrive engaged; then the dreadnought vanished.  The cannons on the orbital ring ceased firing. The damaged portion of the station burned briefly before the damage control mechanisms cut off the air supply, snuffing out the fire.  Then there was silence.

Suddenly, a jagged black ship dropped out of hyperspace: the Knife 9, a heavily modified transport and assault ship.  Sharp wings formed a point in front of the its cockpit, slicing through empty space as it flew towards the orbital ring.  The sinister vessel settled on a landing pad connected to the station, four spiny black stabilizer fins folding flat against the wings.  The ship’s boarding ramp descended as its occupants, the Knights of Ren, emerged from its darkened interior.

First out of the ship was Hattaska Ren, wielding a brutal war club.  Jaedec Ren skipped lightly down the ramp and leaned against his Beskar vibro-ax, the ghostly rictus of his mask turned up towards empty space.  Ott and Lorl Ren marched out and stood guard on either side of the Knife 9’s boarding ramp.  Kuruk Ren hefted his sniper rifle and stared moodily at the orbital ring.  Finally, the second in command of the Knights, Solonny Ren, emerged.  She studied the scene in silence, her gridded mask revealing nothing of her thoughts.  Then she glided towards the orbital ring, long coat sweeping in her wake.  The other Knights moved into formation behind her.

Admiral Vonn led a column of stormtroopers and officers out of a door in the orbital ring.  Some of the more junior officers nervously eyed the unforgiving vacuum surrounding them, kept at bay only by an oxygen shield enveloping the landing platform.  Admiral Vonn halted midway between the station and the Knife 9.  Solonny Ren stopped just before him and stared at him ominously.

“W-we uploaded a veil cipher to the droid,” Vonn said.  “You’ll have—her location the moment a probe is within range of its transmitter.”

Solonny Ren unclipped a thin, rectangular object from her belt.  A narrow black blade of energy surrounded by a white halo sprang from it and impaled Admiral Vonn in the chest.  The Admiral gasped and then collapsed to the floor of the landing pad, an expression of shock frozen on his face.  A few stormtroopers instinctively raised their blasters.  The Knights of Ren raised their weapons threateningly.  The officers and stormtroopers backed away.

Solonny Ren deactivated the Darksaber and returned to the Knife 9, the Knights of Ren following her.  The orbital ring personnel hurried back to the station, glad that the Knights had no more interest in them.  Admiral Vonn’s slowly cooling body lay on the landing platform, eyes staring sightlessly up at the stars.