The Force Awakens (Star Wars) (21 page)

Finn nodded. “Yeah, there is.”

The warning alert that appeared on the console in the Central Command control room was new to the monitoring technician. Though to the best of his knowledge it had never come to life previously, he knew perfectly well what it signified. After a quick check to make
certain it was neither a system fault nor a test, he felt confident in announcing its activation to those officers who were present.

“Main planetary shields have gone out. Not localized: right across the board.”

The officer who happened to be conversing with Hux narrowed his gaze. “General, did you authorize this? I certainly didn’t, nor did any of my subordinates.”

Hux turned to regard the alert. “No, I most certainly did not.” He barked at the technician. “Cause? Possibly external?”

“It doesn’t show here, sir,”
the tech replied.

Hux frowned. “Send a tech squad over to shield control. Could be something as simple as a bad relay, or…”

“Or, sir?” the officer inquired. The general didn’t respond.

In another command and control center, on another planet in another system, there was a spontaneous outburst of excitement, followed by a hurried response.

“General,” the head tech cried out,
“their shields are down!”

“Oh my.” Threepio leaned toward the relevant console. “So they are!”

“You were right,” Leia said to Statura. “Send them in!”

“Give Poe full authorization to attack,” Ackbar informed a junior officer stationed at another console. “All available ships, no hesitation. He knows he’s not likely to get a second opportunity.”

“Black Leader,” the officer declared
to the pickup that would send out the command via the identical set of relays, “go to sublight. Attack, attack. On your call.”

It was the order Poe had been waiting for. While unsure it would come, he had nevertheless run over the strike schematics in his head a dozen times. Timing was critical. Having plotted the vector to the planet that was home to the Order’s Starkiller Base as an
arc, both to
deceive any long-range sensors as well as to delay arrival and emergence from lightspeed, now they could revise the route and head straight for the target.

“Roger, base.” Hitting the controls necessary to alter course within a lightspeed run, Poe addressed the rest of his flight. “Red squad, blue squad—follow my lead.” At his touch, their revised vector entered the flight computer
of every ship in every squadron, and the X-wings promptly adjusted as a single unit.

“Copy, Black Leader,” Wexley replied, as his own craft changed direction.

Within Central Command on Starkiller Base, there was rising concern. Hux refused to pace, regarding it as a waste of energy.

“The tech squad,” he muttered. “Haven’t they arrived at shield control yet?”

“Just getting
there, sir,” replied the officer who was monitoring the situation. He went quiet, listening, and a strange expression came over his face. He looked back at Hux. “Sir, the lead technician reports that the doorway has been sealed.”

Hux grimaced. “Sealed? Sealed how? By whom?”

“He doesn’t know, sir.” The officer listened. “Heat sealed, all the way around the edge. Possibly by a blaster. Should
they get a cutter?”

Hux shook his head. “Tell them to blow the door.”

“Sir?” The officer’s reply indicated he was unsure he had heard the order correctly.

“Blow the damn door!”
Hux shouted. “Tell them to get in there!”

“Yes, sir!” The command was relayed. Moments later a reply was forthcoming from the tech repair team. The officer swallowed, hesitating.

“What?” Hux snarled.

“Sir, the team leader reports that there is—some damage to the shield control system.”

“How much damage?” an increasingly irate Hux demanded.

A longer pause this time, following which the officer experienced
a sudden intense wish to be anywhere other than where he currently happened to be.

“Destroyed, General. The tech team leader reports that the operational capacity of the entire
center has been reduced at least ninety percent by blaster fire.”

Hux had not achieved his present rank and position by deferring problematic situations to group consultation. “Bypass the shield center. Where redundancy doesn’t already exist, port all controls here.”

“Yes, sir.” The officer’s fingers flew over the console. “It will take a moment, sir.”

Hux all but scraped skin from
the palms of his hands while waiting.

“Shields?”

“Not yet,” the officer told him, still working.

“Why not?”

“Have to block any remaining possible directives from the shield center so that they can’t override our efforts here—sir.”

“Hurry. In the name of the Order,
hurry
.”

“Yes, sir. I should have it soon, sir.”

Hux knew there was nothing more he could do. Further haranguing
would only rattle the officer and the other techs in the command center. He could barely stand the silence as they worked.

Because he feared it was deceptive.

Set down on the snowy surface, two TIE fighters and a troop transport flanked the battered, half-buried disc of the
Millennium Falcon
. That the ship’s landing had been less than precise was plainly evident. Industrious troops
were cautiously concluding their inspection of the ship’s interior. One never knew when even a seemingly harmless freighter might be rigged to blow up in the face of an uninvited visitor. Eventually a noncom spoke into his comm unit.

“Ship’s clear. No one on board. No antipersonnel traps encountered.” Startled by the sudden appearance of a tall, caped figure, the trooper stepped aside and
came to attention. “Sir!”

Kylo Ren ignored him as he strode past, his eyes raking every
corner of the crashed vessel, looking for—he wasn’t sure. Something that might speak to him. Something recognizable, perhaps.

There was nothing in the deserted cockpit, but he delayed leaving anyway, settling down in the pilot’s seat. Something…

His deliberation was interrupted by a thunderous roar
as squadrons of X-wings dropped from the sky, rocketing toward the hexagon-shaped bulk of the containment field and oscillation control system. Rising from the seat, he rushed out in time to see the Resistance fighters drop toward the massive structure—and begin their bombing runs.

Within Central Command, officers looked on in horror as one strike after another shook the hexagonal structure.
Didn’t the attackers realize what they were risking? Watching the aerial assault on the center’s monitors and through its sweeping windows, a grim-faced Hux knew they probably did—and that it didn’t make any difference to them. Turning, he snapped at a mid-level officer.

“Dispatch all squadrons. Take out every attacking craft, no matter the cost. When this is over I don’t want to see a single
X-wing aloft.”

“Yes, General,” replied the officer.

“And engage seekers.”

The officer hesitated. “In an atmospheric skirmish, sir, seekers will have a hard time distinguishing between our fighters and those of the enemy.”

Hux didn’t bat an eye. “This is no time to worry about collateral damage.” His voice was steely.
“Give the order.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Almost in range!”

As he sent his X-wing into a steep dive, Poe knew this was one attack where failure could not be an option. The entire Resistance was depending on him and those following him in. One way or another,
this First Order weapon had to be not damaged, not temporarily disabled, but completely destroyed. Automatic weapons systems, trackers, and controls were all very well and good, but when it came
down to it, this kind of all-or-nothing combat boiled down to ships, their pilots, and how good both were.

“Hit the target dead center as many times as possible with as many runs as we can get.
Let’s light it up!
”

As he let loose with the X-wing’s full complement of armament, he noted that similar bursts of destructive fire came from Snap’s vessel. Rebel Alliance veteran Nien Nunb was
there, too, with him and blasting away with the full force of his ship’s weaponry.

When they finished with the building that housed the oscillator, Poe vowed silently to himself, there would be nothing left but a smear on the wintry landscape.

It was not necessary to utilize scopes within the control room to see what was happening on another, critical part of the base. Huge explosions
erupted from the top of the distant oscillator. Further confirmation of the location and strength of the attack arrived in the form of blaring alarms and strobing warning lights.

A flood of activity enveloped the base as the installation’s entire complement was mobilized to respond to the assault from above. Black-suited pilots raced to their TIE fighters as in the distance Resistance X-wings
swooped around in a tight arc preparatory to making another run. In the midst of the confusion, an officer shouted into the comm.

“Report to your ships. Report to your ships, now, now, now! All pilots and backup, get your ships off the ground!”

Walls of gray metal lit from within rose above the three intruders as they made their way down the corridor only to be stopped by blast doors
that had been closed ahead of them—an unfortunate safety measure because of the battle that was taking place above the containment control center, but one that Finn had anticipated. As Chewie began removing some small but powerful explosives from the duffel he had been carrying, Finn explained what they could expect from that point on.

“We’ll use the charges to blow the blast door.” He gestured.
“The holding cells for prisoners are down that corridor. I’ll go in and draw fire, but it’s often heavily guarded, depending on who’s being held. I’m gonna need cover.”

Han eyed him intently. “You sure you’re up for this?”

“No,” Finn told him. “But this whole gamble is my call, so taking care of it is my responsibility. I’ll find Rey.” He said it with so much confidence that Han was inclined
to believe the ex-trooper just might pull it off. “There’s a footbridge that has to be crossed. Troopers’ll be on our tail, so we should plant charges on it, too, take it down after we cross. That won’t prevent a pursuit, but they’ll have to go around to another passage and it’ll buy us some time. There’s an access tunnel that’ll lead us to the main hangar—I think.” His expression tightened.
“I just hope she’s alive.”

A movement caught Han’s attention. Squinting, he broke out into a smile and pointed. “Something tells me she is.”

And there she was, climbing up an interior shaft wall directly toward them. Finn gaped in astonishment, not quite able to accept what he was seeing. Chewbacca moaned his relief at not having to deal with detonating explosives in such tight quarters.

It took her a moment, long enough to bring to bear the rifle she was carrying, before she recognized the trio and lowered the weapon. Her amazement at seeing them was no less than theirs had been when they had spotted her. Running to Finn, she threw herself into
his arms. Neither could hug the other hard enough or long enough. The embracing pair finally separated, if only to look into each
other’s eyes.

“Are you all right?” a relieved Finn asked. “What happened?” His voice darkened. “Did he hurt you?”

“Never mind me,” she said. “What are you
doing
here?”

He smiled softly. “We came back for you.”

She tried to find something to say to that, something worthy of the sentiment and the risk they had undertaken. She failed miserably. Chewie, however, had something of his
own to add. Whatever the Wookiee had uttered caused tears to well up in her eyes. Having never found himself in such a position before, Finn was unsure how to respond. Knowing well her inner toughness, he wondered what Chewbacca had said that could have inspired such a reaction.

“What’d he say?”

She sniffed and wiped at her face. “That it was your idea.”

If he had been unable to find
the right words with which to respond before, her reply, combined with the look she gave him, reduced him to a state of temporary aphasia.

It was all very sweet and charming, Han mused as he observed the happy reunion. If only he could forget that they were stuck on a hostile world, in a First Order base, amid squads of roving stormtroopers who were inclined to shoot on sight.

“We’ll have
a party later,” he finally told them. “I’ll bring the cake. Right now, let’s get outta here.”

R
ISING FROM THEIR
base, a host of TIE fighters moved to engage the X-wing squadrons. What had been a precisely plotted sequence of attack runs dissolved into chaotic dogfights as one X-wing pilot after another was forced to break from formation to engage his or her own assailants. Where formerly the sky above Starkiller Base had been filled only with the scream of the invaders’
engines, the blueness in which they had been operating now gave way to a cyclone of streaking energy blasts and explosions.

Nearly colliding with an oncoming TIE fighter, Poe let fly at another with the full force of his ship’s weapons systems.

“Cover for each other! There’s a lot of ’em, but that just means more targets. Don’t let these thugs scare you!”

“Blue Three,” Snap called
out, “got one on your tail! Pull up and give us a view!”

“Copy that!” Blue Three’s pilot replied. Yanking back on her controls, Jess Pava took her ship up sharply—exposing the area in her wake to Poe’s fire, which immediately reduced her attacker to flaming fragments.

“I owe you one!” she called out as she sent her vessel diving back into the fray.

“Yeah, you owe me another attack
run! Try to stick close, all teams! Follow me in!”

Despite being harassed by the swerving, diving TIE fighters that now seemed to be all around them, a clutch of X-wings managed to get low enough to carry out another strike on the containment structure. A series of hits sent flame and smoke billowing in all directions, but as they pulled up and away, Poe saw that the building was still intact.
Worse than intact, he noted: It scarcely appeared to have suffered any damage at all.

“We’re not making a dent!” he yelled, confident his cockpit pickup would relay his observations to the rest of the squadrons. “What’s that thing made of, anyway?”

A telltale on his console began demanding attention. Flicking his attention to the attendant monitor, his eyes widened.

Seekers.
Hundreds
of seekers, rising from launch batteries concealed beneath the soil and snow. Rising toward him and his fellow pilots, giving them little room to maneuver—or escape.

“We got a lot of company!” It was all he had time to shout before being forced to take evasive action himself. Between blasting out of the sky everything in front of him and avoiding those seekers coming up behind him, he stayed
in one piece—barely.

Other members of the attacking squadrons were not so fortunate.

One after another they found themselves hemmed in by multiple seekers. One after another the X-wings went down, along with any TIE fighter unlucky enough to find itself in the immediate spatial vicinity.

Able to follow the battle via hyperspace relay thanks to the two reconnaissance droids still operating
above the surface of the planet,
those in the Resistance base command center on D’Qar could only exchange looks of dismay.

“We weren’t prepared for anything like this,” Admiral Statura muttered. “Our pilots will be annihilated.”

An exterior access door opened and four figures came racing out into the snow. Their attention immediately drawn skyward, they slowed to a halt. None of
them was an expert in aerial warfare. They didn’t have to be. The presence of multiple TIE fighters backed by a seemingly endless barrage of seekers allowed anyone to predict the outcome of the battle. Even the most die-hard optimist would have conceded the inevitable.

Han turned to Finn, his expression solemn. But his tone was the same as always: ready for anything. He gestured toward Chewbacca.

“My friend here has a bag full of explosives that we didn’t use inside. Be a shame to make him haul them all the way back to the
Falcon
.” The Wookiee added a curt grunt of agreement. “What’s the best place we could put ’em to use?”

“The oscillator is the only sensible target,” Finn told him. “But there’s no way to get inside.”

“There is a way.”

Everyone turned toward Rey. It was
Chewie who ventured the question that had to be asked.

“I’ve seen inside these kinds of walls,” she told them as the sky overhead continued to rain destruction. “The mechanics and instrumentation are the same as the Star Destroyers I’ve spent years inside salvaging. Get me to a conventional junction station, I can get us in.”

Han nodded and smiled at her. “Get us in. If you can do that,
we’ll be ready.”

A hasty search took them to a parking area filled with a smattering of vehicles. From the varied assortment, they settled on an isolated snow speeder. Between Finn’s training and Rey’s knowledge of machines, they managed to get it fired up. As Han and Chewie headed
for the nearest structure, Finn and Rey took off on the snow speeder. Just in time, it developed, as a trooper
monitoring the area saw them take off. When his single shot missed the accelerating vehicle by a wide margin, he followed up with a quick report.

“Speeder stolen from Precinct Twenty-eight.”

The reply contained more than a hint of disbelief. “Stolen?”

“Yes, sir. Unauthorized departure.”

A pause, then, “We’re tracking it. Sending a backup unit immediately.”

Careening over a
snowdrift as Rey struggled to maintain control of the unfamiliar machine, they scattered small local creatures in front of them as they sped toward the containment center. From the ground, the hexagon loomed ahead of them. Occasional bursts of fiery energy flowered against its roof and sides as the X-wings continued their attack. Finn could see that the number of strikes had decreased markedly.

And the sky continued to darken as the curtain of increasingly opaque dark energy was drawn into the collectors that dominated the other side of the planet, blocking more and more sunlight as the containment unit situated at the planetary core continued to fill.

“Snow is
cold
!” Rey squeezed the speeder between a phalanx of willowy alien trees. “It’s the complete opposite of Jakku!”

“Try living here,” Finn told her. “There are only two seasons: winter, and dead of winter!”

A sudden
boom
and the speeder’s course wobbled. They’d been hit! Switching systems around like a card sharp dealing on a busy night, Rey succeeded in maintaining speed. A second shot barely missed them.

A glance back showed a second snow speeder in pursuit and closing. Finn realized that the way
its driver was shooting, if he got any closer, he could take them out with his next burst. They had to do something, and fast. Rey was skilled at driving, and he was skilled at…

“Switch!” he yelled.

They made the difficult change only because they had to, with Rey still in control of their vehicle but Finn now in position to accurately return fire. Multiple blasts hit nothing, as Rey slalomed
around and between trees while Finn fought to take out their pursuer.
Damn driver knew what he was doing
, Finn thought with grudging admiration. The man might even have been a former squadron mate. He tried not to think of that as he aimed and got off another burst.

This time his shot struck home, sending the trooper flying. Whether he’d killed him or not Finn didn’t know, but the pursuer’s
speeder slammed into the trees and burst into flame.

“Got him!” As he turned forward once more, Finn’s gaze was again drawn skyward. Not, this time, to the space above the hexagon, but distant, toward the horizon. Shafts of an intense deep purple light were flowing there, a curtain of energy being drawn down by the weapon’s collectors. He leaned toward Rey.

“They’re charging the weapon!
We’re running out of time!”

“We’ll get there!” she yelled back at him, but she realized that they had only the slimmest of chances to prevent the destruction of the Resistance base and the entire D’Qar system.

Watching from cover, Han and Chewie waited until a trio of stormtroopers could be seen approaching a wide, heavy-duty service hatch. It was smaller than any of the major portals
they had seen thus far. Which meant, Han hoped, that it was likely to be lightly guarded. As the doorway opened, Chewbacca immediately took out the middle trooper with his bowcaster. Startled, the surviving troopers returned fire, only to be cut down by Han’s unerring aim. Alarms began to blare, rising even above the cacophony of the nearby aerial contest. Within the open passageway, another
stormtrooper darted back out of sight and hurriedly activated his comlink.

“Enemy sighted and engaged at Oscillator Bay Six! Three men down; send reinforcements!”

Rey brought the snow speeder to a stop beside a small black structure. To Finn it looked unimpressive. But then, he reminded himself, remove a trigger from a gun and while the trigger itself would look decidedly unimportant,
its absence would render the gun useless.

After opening a maintenance panel, Rey scrutinized the interior briefly before setting to work. One part after another was disconnected by her deft fingers.

“Been doing this all my life. Never thought about it much until now. It was just something I did every day, to survive. A routine, like breathing.” As if to demonstrate to herself that she
was more than a little familiar with the components in question, she closed her eyes while continuing to disassemble the interior of the box. When she opened them again, she was gratified to see that she hadn’t missed a single connection.

“Nice piece of instrumentation,” she commented absently. “I would have got at least three portions for this.”

“What?” Absorbed in the spectacle of the
ongoing battle overhead, the enormous streams of dark energy pouring down upon distant, unseen collectors, and a sky that continued to darken around them, Finn hadn’t been following her reminiscence.

“Never mind.” She continued with the work. “I was just pointing out how one small piece can be important. Like
this
, for example.” With her left hand she pulled hard, and a small length of brightly
colored flow fiber came away in her fingers.

Now inside the complex, an increasingly anxious Han allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief as the service hatch they had been monitoring finally parted to reveal a deserted corridor beyond. There was no sign of the single remaining trooper who had reported their presence. Outnumbered, that individual had sensibly retired to wait for
the requested reinforcements. As the two intruders rushed forward and stepped inside, Chewbacca let out an agitated moan.

“Yeah,” Han agreed. “No kidding.”

A quick check of the vicinity indicated that no one, organic or droid, was waiting in ambush. While grateful, Han knew that their surroundings were unlikely to remain peaceful for long. Hurriedly, he and Chewie divided the duffel’s explosive
contents.

“Let’s plant ’em at every other support column we can find,” Han suggested. When Chewie responded with a series of emphatic moans, Han reconsidered.

“You’re right. Better idea.” He indicated the nearest of the building’s massive support structures. “We don’t have the kind of munitions necessary to bring down more than one. I only hope we brought enough to do that much.” He gestured.
“We’ll put everything we’ve got on that one column. You take the top. I’ll go below. We’ll meet back here.”

Unintentionally, their eyes met—and the stare held. Man and Wookiee realized it might be for the last time. Nothing more was said. Nothing more needed to be. There never had been, over the years, an excess of superficial chatter between the two whenever there was work to be done. Each
knew his job and did it.

That did not keep Han from pausing a moment to look back. When he did, he discovered Chewbacca gazing in his direction.
Same ethic, different species, same thought
, Han mused.

He pointed stiffly. “Go! Before things get messy.”

Chewie complied, this time without looking back. Han watched him for a long moment. Then he, too, turned and raced off.

There was
a lot on his mind, but when one is emplacing explosives it’s usually a good idea to concentrate on the task at hand. Everything else would have to wait until they were done. He checked an install, then moved down to another level.

In contrast to Han’s single-minded efforts to place the explosive charges, Kylo Ren’s thoughts were focused wholly on locating the
as-yet-unknown intruders.
Approaching the main entrance to the hexagon, he ignored the squad of backup troopers waiting there even as they snapped to attention in response to his arrival. Without waiting for an order, one enterprising trooper hit the controls that activated the main portal. At a gesture from Ren, he and his companions followed their leader inside.

The squad’s presence was greatly diminished by the
daunting interior of the complex. Around them, instrumentation and components hummed smoothly, ensuring that the expanding mass of dark energy that was accumulating at the center of the planet continued to be held safely in stasis until it was time for it to be released.

Halting, Ren slowly scanned his surroundings. Even though they knew what he was doing, the troopers still marveled at the
display. After a long moment of deliberation, he motioned them toward the upper levels.

“They’re here. Find them. Up there.”

The squad immediately went into action, moving off rapidly in the direction he had indicated. Once they were out of sight, Ren turned slowly—and headed downward.

Weapons at the ready, the squad ascended, following prescribed search procedure and covering for
one another as they advanced. Blind corners received special attention and added caution.

From the shadows Chewbacca watched them pass, admiring the precision with which they progressed even as he kept still. Once they were out of sight, he emerged to plant another charge.

Below, Han had finished setting a charge and was preparing to climb a bit higher to place one more when a sound made
him hesitate. The working structure was full of unidentifiable sounds, but this was different. Taking no chances, he slipped behind a wide vertical support. Either the sound would not be repeated, or…

A glance around the edge of his cover revealed its source, and his countenance underwent a grave shift.