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Tell her.
Tell her now.
Tell her before it’s too late.
Tell her… Oh, crap.
The Resistance base was absolutely cascading with activity, pilots rushing to their planes, techs making checks and double final checks, commanders barking out last orders, droids lowering themselves into position, weapons being passed around… And in the crowd, it seemed Jess was the only one standing still, perched halfway up the ladder to her cockpit.
And to her, it seemed like everything was moving far too quickly. “Crap.” She wasn’t about to do this with regrets. With things left unsaid.
Ignoring the shouting directed her way from her squad leader, the odd looks from the handful of pilots already in their X-wings, she jumped down from the ladder. Rushed through the crowd, weaving around people, ducking under fuel lines, hopping over toolboxes, all with increasing speed.
“Rey!”
The brightest hope of the Resistance didn’t hear her, too focused on getting her old X-wing, some relic of the days of the old Rebellion, prepped for flight, BB-8 beeping away in the back.
“Rey!”
It was only when Jess climbed up onto her ladder, mere seconds before it was whisked away, and pulled herself up to face level that Rey noticed her. “Jess?”
“Um…” In all the ways Jess had imagined this playing out, for better or for worse, this wasn’t really one of them. But she knew that this was the going to be the final battle, that even if they won, most people wouldn’t make it back. But somehow, despite all that, the scariest thing in the world was the uncertainty in Rey’s eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
Jess kissed her.
Maybe, after the battle, she’d think that this was the wrong moment. But it felt so, so right, and the way Rey leaned in towards her erased any doubts that she wasn’t going to make it back.
“See you soon.”
*****
Kylo… No, Ben.
Ben didn’t know what to feel. Didn’t know how to know how to feel. All the clarity, the purpose, the power that the Dark Side had given him had evaporated into the mists of Kef Bir, and all he was left with was regrets. The guilt engulfing him felt deeper than the endless oceans of the moon.
So Ben did the only thing he could think of. He moved. Wandered. Through every corridor of the Death Star wreckage, every rotted skeleton and abandoned belonging, he could feel them all. The deaths and the brutality of the wars, the suffering the Empire had caused in everyone caught in its web of tyranny. The suffering he caused in his First Order.
Ben didn’t know how to begin.
It had been so, so long since he called himself Ben. Since he had a… He realised that it had been a while since he had heard from Hux. He almost chuckled at the thought that, despite all the hatred between them, the open loathing, Armitage was probably the closest thing he had to a friend. Him and…
Rey.
Exagol.
Finally, Ben knew what he had to do.
*****
Poe knew ships better than the back of his hand.
Flying had always been his dream, the son of two Rebellion fighters, growing up on stories of the heroic struggle against the Empire, how a galaxy rose up and overthrew evil, it had left one hell of an impression on him.
When the First Order rose, he felt furious, and was one of the first to sign up to oppose them. But when he heard the voice of an Emperor who was supposed to be dead, he felt something else. A knot at the bottom of his heart, a fear that he didn’t know to describe, sickening and dreadful. Flying was his dream, but it was never meant to be like this.
Especially since he found more than friends in this fight. He had found people who became family, found a person who became love.
Hurtling through hyperspace towards the final showdown, if he ever thought ships were more than just metal machines, it was then. The trip was bumpy, almost as if the Falcon was just as scared as him.
“Poe?” Finn, however, was definitely just as scared as him. Poe always loved the way Finn didn’t try to hide how he was feeling. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
“Me too.”
“A really bad feeling.” Finn took Poe’s hand, hanging on for dear life, in a way that somehow reassured them both. “And it’s more than just a hunch.”
Poe was often called charming. Even he had to admit he did have some skills. And there was nothing more he wanted to do than put those skills towards the galaxy’s greatest speech about how proud he was of Finn, who’s message of liberation had spread through the stars, through the ranks of the stormtroopers, about how brilliant and handsome and perfect Finn was. But this wasn’t the time for speechifying.
So all he did was pull Finn closer.
“We’ll make it.”
*****
It was… underwhelming.
Too underwhelming.
In the grand Sith ruins of Exagol, Rey had done everything she could. Faced down Palpatine, faced down the Dark Side within her, found a strength and hope that she didn’t know was possible. And, amazingly, Ben had too. Ben had stood beside her and faced down the Final Order. Together, lightsabers crossed, the Force acting as one, they stopped Palpatine’s lighting. Stopped Palpatine for good.
But… But it felt… “This is wrong.”
The Force didn’t feel balanced. Just the opposite. The way it flowed felt clearer than ever, but that clarity didn’t feel bright. Didn’t feel peaceful. “It can’t be wrong,” Ben replied, neither of them budging from their stance, back to back, lightsabers still held ready.
“It feels wrong.” Rey could tell by the strain in his voice that he felt it too. And she knew that, just as much as her, he had things to look forward to after the battle. She had a family, she had Jess, to go back to, he had a galaxy to discover for the first time in all its beauty, a redemption to build.
“But…” They had both seen it, both felt it – the release of energy as Palpatine fell, the retreat of the shadows, the fade of the Sith ghosts, the lull in the battle above them.
But the Force was wrong. There was no balance.
The doubts began to creep back. The more they thought about it, minds racing through the possibilities, the more things didn’t add up. Everything in the last few days had been so disjointed. Coincidences on top of coincidences, deaths popping back alive, pieces of puzzles coming together a little too smoothly. Even Palpatine. In a way it made sense that he’d return – he always a most powerful student of the Sith ways, but… hooked up to that machine, he barely seemed alive. Barely seemed to know what he was doing. In a way, it was almost like he was warning them not to kill him, not to complete the ritual.
The ritual.
“Ben!” It struck Rey that is was ironic – that the galaxy’s most feared puppet master had himself become nothing more than a puppet, that they had all been lured into the bloodiest, most evil ritual of the Dark Side. A power so terrible even Palpatine feared it.
The Sith Eternal, unleashed once more.
All they could do was steel themselves as the figure stepped out of the depths of the ruins, as their blood ran cold. All they could do was hope as it ignited its red lightsaber. Underneath the black hooded robes, they caught the glint of the most obscene smile.
“Meesa free!”