Star Wars: The Last Jedi Page 2

  It had to be.

  A clunk echoed in the innards of Poe’s X-wing, but it was a good clunk. The weapons indicator on the cockpit console illuminated and BB-8 squealed in triumph. The little droid had done it. The X-wing’s power conduit was welded and stabilized!

  Poe didn’t even wait for a full charge. He fired.

  The Dreadnought’s last active turbolaser exploded.

  Straining against his seat straps, Poe wrenched his fighter around to confront his pursuers nose cone–first. So surprised were the TIE pilots by the oncoming X-wing that neither could trigger their lasers in time. Poe blasted them into stardust.

  “All clear—bring the bombs!”

  “Happy to!” Tallie replied over the comm.

  Starfighters and bombers raced toward the Dreadnought. The bombers had been whittled down to half their original number, yet if even one managed to drop its payload of magno-charges on the Dreadnought, the damage inflicted could be devastating.

  With its turbolasers disabled, the Fulminatrix’s defense rested with the TIE fighters, which increased by the minute as more launched from the Dreadnought and Destroyers. The leaders of the First Order viewed the TIEs as expendable and were willing to sustain heavy losses to overwhelm the Resistance ships.

  The First Order’s strategy seemed to be working. Screams crackled over Poe’s comm as another bomber met its end. C’ai Threnalli, the tendril-mouthed Abednedo flying Red Three, yelled out in his native language, which the X-wing’s computer translated as “We can’t hold them!”

  Poe took Black One into the fray. “Yes, we can! Stay tight with the bombers!”

  One bomber in particular, painted cobalt blue, was giving the TIEs more than they could take. Salvo after salvo gushed from its undercannon, obliterating any TIE that came too close. Poe took heart in that gunner’s dogged determination. It would spur everyone to keep up the fight more than any speech of his ever could.

  PAIGE spun in the turret seat of the bomber Cobalt Hammer, blasting at enemy fighters. Sweat trickled under the medallion on her neck. It was getting harder and harder to keep the TIEs away. Their numbers seemed endless.

  “Almost there! Bombardiers, begin the drop sequence!” Tallie said over the bomber’s speakers.

  Releasing the magno-charges was Nix’s responsibility as the bombardier of Cobalt Hammer. He was stationed at the top of the bomb bay, while Paige’s turret was located at the bottom of the fuselage and faced backward to ward off any pursuers.

  She continued firing, sending more TIEs to their doom. She didn’t revel in any of it, knowing that each and every TIE was operated by someone like her.

  The lead bomber Crimson Smiter zoomed past and opened its bomb bay door. “Sequence initiated,” broadcast its bombardier. “Payload ready to del—”

  His transmission never finished. A TIE careened into Crimson Smiter’s bomb bay and sparked a chain reaction. All the bomber’s magno-charges went off, spawning a destructive wave that swept through space.

  Paige was rocked in her seat and her viewport went white. After the brightness dimmed, she saw the explosive wave had consumed not only the crimson bomber and the nearby TIEs, but all the other bombers.

  Cobalt Hammer was the only bomber remaining.

  Down below lay the sleek chrome of the Dreadnought’s hull. But Nix would have to start dropping his payload soon. Sensors indicated that the Dreadnought’s autocannons were rotating away from D’Qar to the Resistance cruiser Raddus, on which Paige’s sister, Rose, currently served as a technician. She and thousands of others would die if the autocannons struck the cruiser.

  A black X-wing sped under them. “Cobalt Hammer, why aren’t your bay doors open?” came the voice of Commander Poe Dameron. “Nix, come in!”

  When Nix didn’t respond, Paige didn’t wait for further instruction from Fossil, her commanding officer on the Raddus. She unbelted herself and crawled out of the turret into the bomb chute. Not one of the thousand magno-charges had been dropped. They all rested in their berths along the length of the shaft, and the bay doors below remained closed.

  Smoke billowed down the chute. Paige crouched. Through the haze, she made out a body in a bombardier flight suit lying on the highest catwalk. “Nix?…Nix?”

  The pilot didn’t move. But an object in his hand blinked red—the bomb trigger remote.

  “Drop the payload,” Poe shouted over the bomber’s speakers. “Now!”

  Paige scuttled up a ladder to the catwalk. Poor Nix lay there, lifeless. The blast from the crimson bomber must have struck the upper part of Cobalt Hammer. She silently thanked Nix for managing to put the remote trigger within her reach.

  The ship shook violently and Paige lost her footing. She fell off the ladder, down the chute, and smashed into a midlevel catwalk ten meters below.

  Pain shot through her limbs. She could hardly move. The smoke thickened. She wheezed. TIEs must have hit the bomber again. Another barrage would probably destroy it for good.

  Paige couldn’t let that happen. People were depending on her. Her friends. Her family. Her little sister.

  Rose would die if Paige didn’t drop the bombs.

  Paige turned her head to look up. Teetering on the edge of the catwalk, the remote shone through the smoke like a bright star on a cloudy night. The TIE fighter attack must have jostled it out of Nix’s grip.

  Paige kicked at the ladder. The upper catwalk shuddered, but the remote remained on the edge. She mustered her muscles for another kick. Her boots clanged against the ladder. The remote bounced, but didn’t fall.

  Smoke constricted her lungs. She couldn’t even cough. “Now! Drop them now!” boomed Commander Dameron.

  Paige gave one last kick. It had much less force than her other two attempts. But it was just enough to knock the remote off the catwalk.

  It ricocheted off one bomb, then another, falling down the chute. Paige stretched out with every bit of strength left in her.

  She caught the remote. The next action came naturally, ingrained from operating the turret. Her thumb pressed the remote’s trigger.

  A warning chimed, then the bay doors opened. From bottom to top, the racks retracted and the magno-charges tumbled from their berths. Down the chute they fell, a thousand black orbs, some painted with crude smiling faces or slogans like “Hi Snoke!”, and each containing enough destructive power to level a village. They pelted the Dreadnought, erupting on contact, blasting chunks from its hull. Within moments, flames engulfed the Fulminatrix and everything around it—including Cobalt Hammer.

  As fire washed over the bomber, Paige touched the medallion that hung around her neck and thought of Rose.

  General Leia Organa did not join the cheering on the bridge of the Raddus when the Dreadnought broke apart. She couldn’t celebrate the unnecessary sacrifices Poe Dameron had forced them to make. They had forfeited all eight bombers, along with most of the starfighter corps. The small Resistance fleet might escape this time, but it would not be able to mount an ample defense when the First Order attacked again. And attack again it would, she knew. The First Order would not stop until the flame of the Resistance was snuffed out.

  Her job was to ensure that never happened. “Lightspeed,” she said.

  The bridge crew promptly resumed their duties and all the remaining ships in the fleet followed her command.

  Rey?

  Finn woke with a start—and banged his head against something hard. Wincing, he found himself lying inside a bubble bed, wearing a squishy suit from his neck to his toes. He retracted the dome and promptly fell off the bed onto the cold floor.

  He was in a sick bay, far from the snowy forests of Starkiller Base where he remembered he had been fighting Kylo Ren, the First Order’s black-garbed enforcer, in defense of his friend Rey. Relying on the advanced weapon training he’d received as a stormtrooper, he had managed to wield the lightsaber given to him by Maz Kanata and slash Kylo Ren in the arm. Incensed, Ren had lashed out with his own fiery blade, cutting deep into
Finn’s flesh before all went dark.

  Finn felt an ache where Ren’s saber had struck, but otherwise he seemed in good health. And if he had survived the encounter, it could mean that his friend had, too.

  “Rey!” he called out. But there was no sign of her. He was alone.

  The sick bay suddenly shook. Medical equipment fell off the shelves. Glow panels fluttered. Finn teetered up on uneasy legs. Sticky, icky bacta dripped from the tubes of his translucent body suit. The medicine had special properties that accelerated the healing process, but it was costly, even the synthetic blend the Resistance had acquired. His wound must have been quite severe for the Resistance to use its precious bacta on him.

  He staggered out into a corridor. The walls gleamed white and were lined with access panels to circuitry and conduits. Engines hummed in the background. Finn figured he must be on a star cruiser.

  “Rey?” he called again.

  He peeked out a viewport and the dizzying streaks of hyperspace nearly made him sick. He turned away as a squad of soldiers in Resistance uniforms rushed past, paying him no attention, even in his current state of undress.

  Finn didn’t know what was going on, but he had to find Rey before things turned worse. He also had to find some clothes.

  After landing inside the Raddus’s hangar, Poe had BB-8 run a diagnostics program. Black One had sustained some hull damage in the combat, but nothing that couldn’t be patched. Poe would recommend that the mechanics replace the power junction box, in case it failed again. As for the experimental booster engine, it had saved his skin, so he’d keep it.

  Interrupting his tests, BB-8 twirled his dome and blabbed in excitement, beeping too fast for Poe to understand. “Finn naked? Leaking bag? Your chips all right?” Poe asked. Turning his head, he saw why the droid was so animated. Finn was bumbling around near the hangar door, looking very lost and wearing a translucent bacta suit.

  Poe climbed out of his fighter and hurried over to his friend. “Buddy! It’s good to see—” He stopped before he hugged the former stormtrooper. Gelatinous fluid was leaking from Finn’s suit and had dribbled a trail on the ground. “Let’s get you dressed. You must have a thousand questions.”

  Finn had but one. “Where’s Rey?”

  HOPE.

  Of all the shared beliefs in the universe, none was as outrageous—or as powerful. Born in the heart, not the mind, it blossomed in the bleakest of moments, inspiring courage when nothing else could. Logic and reason it defied. Faith and friendship it embraced. It was the antidote to despair, a sword for the soul, the last candle in the night. It was the lone voice that said there still might be a chance. Wrongs could be made right. The future remained untold. All was not lost.

  For Rey and countless others, Luke Skywalker was the living embodiment of hope.

  Decades before, when the Galactic Empire had imposed its tyranny on the galaxy, this farm boy from Tatooine destroyed the first Death Star and dethroned the Emperor. His bravery had stirred spirits across the galaxy, demonstrating that one person could make a difference, even in the darkest of times.

  Yet as Rey looked at him standing on the cliff, holding the lightsaber she had placed in his hand, there was something not quite right about him, something profoundly sad. The blue in his eyes had faded. Wrinkles burdened his brow. His hair was unkempt, peppered white and gray like his beard, and his robes were disheveled and grimy. It had probably been a long time since he had washed them—or himself.

  His scraggly appearance didn’t trouble Rey. He was still a Jedi and could teach her more about her special talents, which she could not control or comprehend by herself. And he could help save the Resistance from the First Order, as he had saved the Rebellion from the Empire. The galaxy needed Luke Skywalker to return.

  But when he tossed his old lightsaber over the cliff without saying a word, Rey felt all her hopes fall with it.

  He strode past her with barely a look, his robes swishing about him. She stood there, confounded. Had she made a mistake? Had she somehow insulted him? They hadn’t even exchanged a word. All she’d done was present the lightsaber that had belonged to him, years before.

  “Um…Master Skywalker?”

  Rey followed him up the way she had come, then down the hill into what appeared to be a small settlement. Mounds of stacked stones formed primitive dwellings that bristled with lightning rods on the roofs. Luke walked into the biggest of these huts, then slammed the door behind him.

  Rey paused at the hut. Perhaps a more formal introduction was in order. She rapped her knuckles on the metal door. “Master Skywalker? I’m from the Resistance. General Leia sent me. We need your help. We need you to come back.”

  He did not answer. She knocked louder. “Hello?”

  Again, he ignored her.

  Leia had told Rey that her brother had become withdrawn since she’d last seen him, but Rey hadn’t imagined he’d be so plain rude. In the old stories about him, he had always come off as sunny and sociable, a person who was friendly with everyone.

  Rey remained there for some time, not knocking again. When it became obvious he wasn’t going to come out or let her inside, she tried the door handle. It was locked.

  Growing weary, she walked away. She thought about how she had gotten here, to this lonely island on this lost world. Weeks before, she had been scouring the desert for any scrap she could sell to buy her next meal. Since then, she had been on an adventure as incredible as anything from the old tales and had made new friends, one of whom she deeply missed. The last time she’d seen Finn, he lay in a coma, recovering from wounds he’d received defending her against Kylo Ren.

  Rey’s wanderings took her back to the cliff. She stopped where Luke had stood and stared out at the sea. It surrounded the island, vast and gray. Never in all her life had she seen so much water. Unlike the wastelands of Jakku, where salt burned her eyes and parched her throat, the briny smell of the sea refreshed her.

  She looked around at the island. Who—or what—had built the ancient staircase, the huts, or the stone wall that prevented the cliffs from eroding into the sea? It was all a mystery, as was most everything about this remote world, including the odd creatures on the cliff below her.

  Thousands upon thousands of a small birdlike species had turned the cliff wall into a busy breeding ground. The most prominent of them flaunted orange head feathers and strutted around as if they were on display. Rey assumed they were the males, trying to attract the attentions of gray-colored females who by and large wanted nothing to do with them. Those in the colony not engaged in peacocking bumbled from rock to rock on webbed feet or nuzzled each other with wet snouts. Some nested, others perched, a few burrowed, and a couple flew, diving into the water to scoop up tiny fish. They reminded Rey of the bloggins on Jakku, though in place of eyestalks, these avians had round black eyes and appeared smarter simply by not running about willy-nilly. She doubted, however, that their feathers made soft pillows.

  An object glinted on a grassy ledge partway down the cliff. Rey squinted. Could it be what she thought it was?

  After testing her feet on the stones, she lowered herself down the stone wall. The descent was steep, the going slow. One slip and she would plummet to her death.

  It took her a while to get down to the patch of grass. And there lay Luke’s lightsaber, surrounded by a gaggle of the little animals. By some miracle, it had not fallen into the sea.

  She gripped the wall with one hand and reached out with the other. The avians screeched and flapped away. She grabbed the lightsaber.

  Leaning against the wall, she took a breath. Her fingers ached from the climbing. She massaged them, holding the lightsaber close.

  A familiar shape caught her eye in a tide pool below. Submerged in the calm waters was an old X-wing starfighter, of the kind she had scavenged on Jakku.

  Rey guessed it was Luke’s, the X-wing he had flown during the Battle of Yavin, when he’d launched the proton torpedo that took out the Death Star. But the rust
that rotted its frame indicated he had no intention of flying it again to leave the planet.

  Rey would have to change those intentions if she was going to save her friends in the Resistance.

  She returned to the bluff where she had landed the Millennium Falcon. Her copilot, Chewbacca, knelt on the top of the ship, his long hairy arms digging inside an open access panel. The classic-model astromech droid, R2-D2, stood below on his two hydraulic legs, offering encouraging beeps. But Chewbacca wasn’t having any of it, growling in frustration.

  “Chewie, what are you doing?” Rey asked the Wookiee. “I thought you’d taken out the compressor.”

  Chewbacca grunted back at her and yanked out a bunch of shredded cables. Having spent many lonesome nights on Jakku learning languages, Rey understood the basics of what he said. A pest had somehow wiggled under the Falcon’s armor plating and was nibbling on the cables.

  “Mynock?”

  Chewbacca reached deeper into the cables and, with a yelp of pain, pulled out a member of the squat avian species she had seen on the cliff. Its feathers were coated in generator grease and it had latched its tiny mouth on to one of Chewbacca’s fingers. The Wookiee howled and waved his arm to try to shake it off of him, but it wouldn’t let go. Only when he was about to whack the creature against the panel did it release its hold. It fluttered on stubby wings and made a gentle landing near Rey. Instead of flying off, it waddled away toward the cliff.

  R2-D2 tittered and Rey laughed. But her amusement ended abruptly when Chewbacca asked if Luke was coming to join them.

  Luke Skywalker wanted to be left alone.

  He’d come to Ahch-To for that purpose, to divorce himself from the rest of the galaxy once and for all. And after years of living here, he had foolishly convinced himself he was safe.