Chapter Text
The Last Bastion soared across the stars, moving inexorably closer to the planet that had once been the crown jewel of the Republic. Coruscant and its towering cityscapes had spent millennia representing the very best of the galaxy, as far as anyone in power was concerned. The seat of the Galactic Senate, it had been the place where everyone and everything important had gravitated towards. Its very name meant “to shine”.
Hux had never visited Coruscant, had never been this far into the Core in his life. Born and raised on the Outer Rim world of Arkanis (though he refuted the thought that anyone on Arkanis had “raised him” in the slightest), he’d spent most of his life skulking around the Unknown Regions with the rest of the nascent First Order. It was only in recent times that they had the power and presence to rightfully expand into the territory of the antecedent Empire.
Although, he thought, staring unblinkingly out the viewport at Coruscant, I can’t imagine why anyone would want this place anymore. A token fleet of frigates, a few Golan Battle Platforms, and one incredibly dilapidated space station were all that was left of the once immeasurable Home Fleet. In one of Mon Mothma’s more inspired decisions, she’d refused to build her new Republic on the bones of the old. Hux knew the Emperor’s old vizier had surrendered, hoping for some position of comfort when the Rebellion settled in, only to be left with control of a planet and populace nobody cared about when Mothma had left the place to rot. That had been more than thirty years ago, and it certainly looked like nobody had spared the place a second thought since.
“We’re almost in range,” Lieutenant Tebut announced, pulling him from his thoughts.
“Excellent. Hail the planet immediately. I wish to speak with Mas Amedda, and I won’t waste my time with his grovelling lackeys.” He glanced over his shoulder, to make sure he’d been understood. He needn’t have worried, Tebut was utterly reliable. Still, in recent times, he found it difficult to trust anyone he hadn’t personally selected. A side effect, he knew, of their mercurial new Supreme Leader.
“I have Vizier Amedda on the comm,” Tebut said. He gestured for her to patch him through. Her hands flew over her console, and the haggard face of Mas Amedda filled the viewscreen within moments.
He looked old. Old and dessicated and pathetic. Looking at the wizened Chagrian, Hux wondered how such a tired-looking creature had ever ascended to the position of Vice Chancellor, let alone held onto it through two Supreme Chancellors and the foundation of the Galactic Empire. Right now, he didn’t look like he could stand up to a fierce breeze. The Galactic Senate was far beyond him. Hux, anticipating a conversation where he’d be free to berate Amedda for as long as he wished, put on his most condescending smile.
“Vizier Amedda,” he began, “what a pleasure it must be to hear from—”
“Where is she?”
Hux started. “Excuse me?”
Amedda leaned back in his chair, crossing his thick blue fingers together and smiling mirthlessly at Hux. “I’m not wasting my time with you, boy. I may be old and powerless, but I’ve never been stupid. ” He reached up and scratched at the base of one of his horns, an act of such contempt it drove Hux crazy. “Where is she?” he repeated.
Hux could feel his rage mounting. How dare this creature question him?! “You are speaking to General Hux of the First Order,” he hissed. “I am standing on the bridge of the Super Star Destroyer Last Bastion , the strongest vessel in our fleet, that none of your paltry defences could hope to stand against. You do not dictate to me the terms of our conversation!”
Amedda snorted. “I know who you are. You sound just like your father.” The mention was a slap in the face, which is likely how the old bastard intended it. With the opportunity afforded by Hux’s shocked silence, Amedda leaned in. “You think I don’t recognize that ship? ” His eyes flashed with the energy of a far younger man. “There is absolutely no chance your rabid dog of a leader would trust you with anything that important, and there’s only one other person in your whole Order with enough pull to command a Super-class destroyer. So stop wasting my time, and put her on.”
“I’ll have you know—” Hux began, ready to scream until his face was as blue as Amedda’s, when a clipped voice came from behind him.
“It’s fine, General. I’ll speak with him.”
Hux didn’t turn around, so he felt, rather than saw, the commanding officer of the Last Bastion step up beside him. As soon as she was visible to Amedda, he didn’t spare a second glance at Hux, which burned him more than he’d ever admit.
“Grand Admiral Sloane,” Amedda drawled. “You’re still alive.”
Privately, Hux thought that Sloane looked far more alive than weathered old Amedda, despite her face being just as shot through with lines as his. Her hair, still curly well into her seventies, was pulled back into a tight bun at the base of her neck, the way she’d worn it as long as Hux had known her. She stood ramrod straight in her crisp white uniform, hands clasped behind her back, a model for any and all her numerous subordinates. Her bright brown eyes stood out against her dark skin, still as piercing as they’d been when Hux had first met her all those years ago.
“I am,” she replied.
The corner of Amedda’s mouth quirked up. “To what do I owe this great honour, Admiral? I doubt very highly you’ve suddenly decided to start caring about Coruscant all these years later. Perhaps you miss your old Captain’s quarters? I think I could scrounge up a closet for you.”
Despite the fact that he had very publically been ignored for her, Sloane was probably the only person in the entire First Order Hux felt a scrap of affection for. He bristled at Amedda’s impertinence, and opened his mouth to deliver a blistering retort.
Sloane, without looking back, raised a single gloved hand, and Hux fell silent.
“I am here to offer you an opportunity,” she said.
“I don’t doubt it,” Amedda fired back.
Sloane’s eyes tightened, just the barest hint, but her even tone didn’t change. “The Republic has fallen, and the First Order is ascendant. We are gathering strength and power, and will continue to spread it across the galaxy. You were of the Empire, once. I am giving you the chance to rejoin its greatness again. Join the First Order, Vizier Amedda, and you will again have the power and prestige you once held so dear.”
Amedda ran his fingers along his jaw, looking like he was considering it. “What system-obliterating toy are we using this time? ”
This did get a reaction from Sloane, who blinked twice. “Excuse me?”
Amedda barked out a harsh, cruel laugh. “Don’t insult me, human! What possible use could I be to you, with or without the scraps the New Republic left me? You turned the entire Senate to cinders, along with an entire star system, and there’s no one left to oppose you. Why are you here? ”
“I seem to recall,” Sloane returned, “that you had no objections to either Death Star, or Operation Cinder. Where does this moral rigidity come from now?”
“I’ve had a lot of time by myself, Admiral. You and the Princess made sure of that. Maybe I’ve spent the last thirty years regretting my part in all of this. Maybe I haven’t, it doesn’t matter. I have nothing of worth to bring to the First Order besides a dilapidated fleet and a thriving ghost town of a planet. ” His alien blue eyes flicked briefly over to Hux, before returning to Sloane’s face. “Your Supreme Leader doesn’t care about Coruscant—he’s got Alderaanian fish to fry. So stop wasting both our time, Sloane, and do what you came here to do.”
She considered him for a long moment, and then a ghost of a smile flitted across her face. “I’m impressed, Mas Amedda. After seventy years, you’ve finally found a spine.”
“Don’t patronize me,” he snarled, then the line went dead.
Hux watched Sloane’s back for a few seconds, before stepping up to her side. “So?” he asked, more snappishly than was necessarily wise. “Are we sending in ground forces?”
Sloane looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “There is no need. Mas Amedda has been a fool most of his life, but it would appear clarity has come to him in his final days.”
“You mean—” Hux began, incapable of hiding his sadistic glee. Sloane’s eyes left his face, returning to stare at the planet much like Hux had done earlier.
“Turbolasers primed and ready,” announced Lieutenat Tebut.
She didn’t hesitate, even for a second. “Do it, then.”
Eager for the show, Hux stood next to Sloane, mirroring her stance. They stood there, together, and watched as the Last Bastion began turning the surface of Coruscant to ash.
“How much longer?!” Finn yelled, kneeling down beside her and hollering. The sound echoed through the metal guts of the console, rattling all the pieces that she was trying to work on. She held the hydrospanner in one hand, a glowrod hanging out of the corner of her mouth, and tried to grab the vibrating cables with the other hand. It would require a lot of precision to weld the two errant power couplings to each other, and a lot of time.
Unfortunately for Rose Tico, time was not a luxury she had. Finn’s voice rang in her head a second time. “You need to work faster, Rose!”
“You need to work faster, Rose,” she sneered, hitching a frayed black cable with her pinky and wiggling it towards the bulging mass hanging above her head. It was a hard enough task sitting up, let alone on her back with people screeching at her. “You ever tried to hack a Star Destroyer through its main console, Finn?” she fired back. “It’s not like modding a blaster, you know!” The hydrospanner fell out of her hand and bonked her on the nose, making her swear and waste precious seconds fishing it up from the filthy ground. “I’m working as fast as I can!”
“I know,” said Finn, biting his lip and trying not to sound needy, “but we are being shot at!”
A blaster bolt sizzled past his head, digging a furrow into the console Rose was working on. “Don’t let them shoot this!” she shouted. “This is the only one I can work from!”
“Please stop talking and focus!” yelled Major Connix, leaning out from her cover two consoles over from them and firing back into the crowd of stormtroopers pouring in the door. Her blonde hair had fallen out of the two buns she always kept it in, streaming down into her face and probably not helping her mood.
Finn cursed and hefted his blaster. They’d managed to make it into the Fondor system undetected, approached the shipyards, and even gotten to the bridge of a brand-new Star Destroyer without arousing suspicion. That’s when Poe’s voice had rung across their comlinks, telling them they’d been made. Finn was all for abandoning the mission, but apparently Rose could do it in half the time she’d said she needed, with none of the other techs she’d recruited for help. Did that mean she wouldn’t be yelling at him the entire time? Apparently it did not.
“On your left!” shouted Connix, giving him enough warning to bring his blaster up and fire at the two stormtroopers risking a dash across the open bridge at them. His shots hit their mark and the two crumpled, their plasteel armour making a dull thunk as they fell lifelessly to the floor. It sent a weird feeling through him, but he didn’t have time to deal with it. They were about to be overwhelmed.
Major Connix was an excellent shot, dropping troopers with every blast from her personalized rifle, showing why she’d earned that recent promotion. But they were two against a horde, and even she couldn’t fire in every direction at once.
Finn fished his comlink out of his pocket, thumbing it on while firing with his other hand. “We could use an assist!” he yelled, hoping his voice was clear above the fray.
“No can do, buddy, ” came Poe’s response, his strained voice crackling through the comm. “We’ve got at least two full squadrons on us, which you know we can handle, but we can’t get to you until that’s dealt with.”
Another voice crackled out of Finn’s hand. “Two bogeys on your tail, Commander! ”
“Right,” muttered Poe, and Finn thought he heard a grunt of exertion. “You got this, Finn! ” he added, then the link closed.
Finn stared at his comlink for a second. “I don’t think I do got this, though.”
Connix dropped another pair of troopers, shouting at him over the blaster fire. “Finn, focus!”
“Just a bit longer!” Rose yelled.
Finn grimaced. It wouldn’t be the worst way to die, he figured. Fighting for a good cause, alongside friends, in service to the galaxy. It’s how he’d always imagined he’d die, minus the having friends bit. He peeked around the console shielding him and Rose, firing off three quick shots at the closest troopers. He didn’t want to die, of course, but sometimes you invaded a heavily fortified system with two shuttles, a single starfighter squadron and fifteen soldiers, in the hopes of hijacking an enemy warship to replace that one you lost over a year ago, and just totally ate it, right?
His comlink crackled to life again. “I’m on my way, ” came a different voice, and Finn’s spirits soared.
“We got this!” he yelled to Connix, who didn’t quite manage to keep from rolling her eyes.
“Glad you think so,” she yelled back, almost dropping her rifle when a stray bolt grazed across her arm. “You got a timeframe for me?”
He really didn’t, but he wasn’t worried. The two of them kept volleying shots with the troopers until they heard a clanging sound above them. Everyone stopped firing, looking up to see where the noise was coming from. The stormtroopers aimed their rifles at the ceiling, trying to pinpoint where to fire, when a horrible wrenching sound tore at their ears and a huge panel fell to the floor, sending up dust and sparks.
A figure dropped down after it, landing in a crouch. They straightened up, holding something long and cylindrical in their right hand. The dust cleared, and Finn beamed at the sight of Rey, standing alone in front of the battalion of stormtroopers.
The First Order soldiers stood frozen. They knew who this girl was, and what she represented. Rey stared at them in turn, standing light on the balls of her feet, her long brown hair swaying down her back as she shifted her weight from foot to foot. It was tied back in a way Finn was pretty sure the General had shown her, but it still reached almost to her waist. She was clad in a pair of black boots that matched her shirt, and the brown vest she wore over it was stained with oil and soot, probably from crawling through the ducts. She looked fierce and terrifying, but all eyes were on that metal cylinder.
Rey tapped it on her thigh, making one of the troopers jump. “I am Rey of the Resistance,” she said. When she spoke, another four of them jumped as well. “Surrender or die.”
The squad leader pointed his rifle at her, yelled “Resistance scum!” and fired.
Her lightsaber blazed to life, a whirl of orange light as she deflected the laser fire right back to its source. As their leader fell, the rest of the troopers came back to life and resumed firing. Rey ducked and weaved, deflecting bolt after bolt and trying to close the distance between her and the enemy. There were too many, and more than a few shots slipped past her, endangering Finn, Rose and Major Connix.
Rey took a deep breath and pressed the second activator switch on her lightsaber, and a second orange blade crackled to life. Wielding her double-bladed saber in both hands, she leapt towards the stormtroopers, drawing their fire away from her friends.
In constant motion, Rey was able to return any shots that came her way. She ducked as a nearby soldier tried to bash her with the butt of his rifle and cut him down at the knees. Another three pushed to the front and she angled her swing to ensure their shots flew right back into their helmets. Someone a bit quicker than his squadmates switched his rifle to burst mode, spraying too many shots for her to properly respond to. She grabbed another trooper with the Force and yanked him in front of her, catching what shots she couldn’t answer. When the crafty trooper paused to reload, she sent the dead one flying into him, knocking him to the ground. A well-placed shot from Kaydel kept him down for good.
“Nice work, Rey!” she shouted over the din, but Rey didn’t have time to turn around and thank her. The stormtrooper horde was thinned to about half, which meant she could go even more on the offensive. With carefully timed leaps and swings, she took down another five, leaving them at a third of their original strength. They seemed to realize it as well, and turned and ran out the door. Rey went to follow them, but a bolt sizzled into the control panel on her right, and the heavy blast doors slammed closed in front of her.
She wheeled around, frustrated, and saw Kaydel give her a little wave. She extinguished her lightsaber and walked over to the main console. “I had them,” she pointed out.
Kaydel shrugged, setting her rifle down and pushing her blonde hair out of her face. “It doesn’t really matter, so long as they’re not in here with us.”
“We’ll just have to hunt them down later,” Rey retorted. She still hadn’t holstered her saber.
Her hair fixed, Kaydel clapped a hand on Rey’s shoulder. “That sounds like a problem for later. Right now, we’ve got a clear bridge—thank you, by the way—and Lieutenant Tico can work on getting this thing up and running.”
“Lieutenant Tico,” Rose scoffed in a muffled voice. Rey looked over and saw her torso sticking out from under the bridge console, lying at a weird angle and covered in dust and wires. “You save the General one time, and suddenly she’s got you bossing people around and hacking destroyers.”
“You didn’t have to come,” Kaydel retorted good-naturedly.
“Oh yeah? And where’s your engineering degree, ‘Major Kaydel Ko Konnix of the Resistance cruiser Twin Suns’?” Something sparked, and Rose let out a nasty swear.
Kaydel’s smile just got bigger. “I got my degree from distance courses with the University of Chandrila. It took a while, but it was worth it.”
Rose was silent for a minute. Then she said “oh” in a very small voice, and tried to sound very busy at her work. Kaydel winked at Rey, which almost made her smile.
“Uh, guys?” said Finn.
Rey was at his side immediately. “Are you okay? Did they get you? I’m sorry I took so long, I—”
“No, I’m fine, but—”
“I got shot,” Kaydel called, lifting up her arm to show the still smoking furrow in her jacket.
Rey fiddled in one of the pouches hanging from her belt. “I think I have one more bacta patch,” she said, “but it might be a bit crumpled.”
“Guys! ” Finn yelled, and they both turned to see what was wrong. He was pointing behind them, back towards the blast doors. “They’re not supposed to do that!”
The doors, made of hardy durasteel, were beginning to glow orange. The colour radiated out from a point in the centre that got brighter and brighter until a red blade pierced it through. The durasteel around it began to melt.
Rey’s lightsaber was back on in an instant. “Watch yourselves,” she called. “They’re here!”
He stood impatiently while the blast door fell apart around Corar Ren’s lightsaber. He could feel them behind it, thrumming with energy and fear. His gloved hand hovered over his lightsaber hilt, fingers flexing unconsciously as he thought about carving his way through the rebels in the next room.
It was taking too long. They could escape, or die, or—but no, they couldn’t escape. The only way out was through the melting slab of durasteel Corar was digging through. They could shatter the viewports, allowing themselves to get sucked into vacuum, but he knew they wouldn’t. All rebels were cowards, down to their core.
“This is taking too long,” he voiced aloud, and Corar Ren paused from her work to glance back at him over her shoulder.
Her face was inscrutable behind her thick black mask, and the same-coloured hood hid any other tells he might have gleaned from her. It didn’t matter. She was impatient and proud, but mercifully silent, and went back to work as though he hadn’t said anything. His other companion, though…
“We could blast it open,” Bryo Ren offered. She cocked her head while she looked at him. The only visible sign of her attempted mirth were the lines crinkling her eyes, the sole part of her face not covered by the cloth and metal wrapping around it. Unlike Corar and the others, who wore a similar black to him, Bryo’s uniform had chrome coloured accents in her boots and gloves. It didn’t bother him, mostly because he couldn’t possibly care any less about what any of them wore so long as they did as they were told.
“Do it,” he said. It would get him in there faster, and she would stop talking.
Corar, without a word, extinguished her lightsaber and stepped away. Cracking her neck, Bryo stepped forward and flung out her hands. The blast door, already in shambles from Corar’s work, exploded inwards with the power of Bryo’s push. He ignited his lightsaber and stepped through the debris.
Two blaster shots sizzled towards him. He deflected one, uncaring where it landed, and the other slipped past him, making Corar Ren dance around it. He reached out with the Force and pulled the blasters from the hands of those firing, who could only stare at him impotently. He scanned the mass of them in irritation, not finding who he was looking for.
“Who are these guys?” asked Bryo Ren, coming up beside him. She was untouched. “I thought the girl was supposed to be here.”
“Well she isn’t!” he snapped back, growing more and more frustrated. The rebels, a group of fifteen or so beings of various species, looked at him with fear and apprehension. They might have been with the Resistance, but they might not. It was a waste of time and a wasted effort and—
“Maybe they know something?” Bryo said, peering with interest at a human man near the front, around who the rest were unconsciously gravitating. “That middle one looks smart.”
The more she talked, the angrier he became. “Find out, then!” he hissed, infuriated that she had to be told these things.
Bryo smiled and held out her hand. The man rose up off the ground and floated gently across the room until his neck sat carefully in her grip. “Hello,” she said, calm and polite. “Do you know who we are?”
The man was braver than he looked. “Kriffing First Order!” he yelled, despite the shining silver fingers around his throat. “You’ll never take Devaron!”
Bryo’s smile got a little wider. “I think we already have, my friend. You do see the fleet out there? Who does that belong to, do you think?”
“I won’t tell you anyth—hrrgnk! ”
Her fingers pumped the man’s throat, open and closed, while her grin kept growing larger. “Try again. Your planet is lost, that’s a given, but you can at least prevent your imminent death by telling the Supreme Leader whether or not the Jedi girl and General Organa are here.” She paused. “You have ten seconds.”
Despite how his eyes bulged more and more with every passing second, the rebel commander didn’t say a word. Nine seconds in, and ready to slaughter them all instead of wasting any more time, another one of the rebels spoke up.
“Wait!” a young woman said, standing up from the floor. She was a thin human with pale skin and brown hair, and the sight of her sent rage pooling through Kylo Ren. “We don’t know where the General is! We were just told to come and help fortify this planet, in case of an attack. We hoped—” She met his eye and gulped. “—we hoped the Devaronians would lend us ships and troops if we helped them out.”
He stared at her, openly and with all the fury he’d been holding back clear to see. “So she’s not here.”
“No,” the girl stammered, “but—but we don’t know where they went! Nobody told us!”
There was a sickening crack, and Bryo threw the rebel leader’s corpse to the ground. The rest of them whimpered and cried, until Ren screamed for them to “BE QUIET!” He turned away, red fury filling his vision at the thought of another useless venture. He turned to Corar Ren and bellowed at her. “This was your intel! Where is she?!?”
Her masked face was immutable. “There were two possibilities,” she flatly replied. “We chose wrong.”
“You chose wrong,” he snarled, “and now you’ve wasted even more of my time.”
“Is it time wasted?” Bryo asked, stepping over the prone body in front of her. “We have a Resistance cell, we have a planet sympathetic to their cause, and we have a fleet of Star Destroyers in orbit with very powerful turbolasers ready to go.”
He thought about it for a second. Eliminating the Resistance was their final goal, yes, even if he prioritized eliminating the girl over everything else. They might have wasted their time with Devaron, but taking out more rebels would serve his purposes well enough. Less places to hide, less soldiers to serve as a shield, less power to fight back against his First Order.
Bryo spoke again, and he resisted the urge to slam her into a wall. “What do we do with these ones?”
Ren turned around, taking in the crowd of rebel fighters. The girl who’d spoken was silent now, staring up at him with unmitigated terror.
She looked so much like Rey.
“Kill them all.”