The Force Awakens (Star Wars) (22 page)

The figure that had paused to look over a railing and down into the farther depths
of the structure was known to him.

Here
, Ren told himself with increasing certainty.
He is here
. Raising his gaze, he focused on one support column out of many. Slowly he advanced toward it, prepared for whatever might ensue.

Nothing did. There was no one behind the column.

From concealment in a narrow chamber set into a wall, Han watched the caped figure stride past. His lips moved
as he watched and he mouthed a single word. Or perhaps it was a name. As he looked on, Ren moved out onto a walkway that spanned a vast open space. Pausing there, he looked around, hesitant, uncertain, before continuing onward. The sound of his boots—the sound that had alerted Han moments earlier—receded into the distance.

Rising from his hiding place, Han looked back the way he had come.
If he left now and managed to control his thoughts and emotions while retracing his steps, there was a good chance he could make it out of the building. If he was really lucky, he would be able to slip outside without drawing the attention of any searching stormtroopers—or anyone else. Outside, if all had gone according to the hastily drawn-up plan, Finn and Rey would be waiting with transportation.
A chance, then, to make it back to the
Falcon
before everything on this planet went to hell. A chance later for another reunion, on another world. A face swam before his, its features aged but still soft, the voice that emerged from between so-familiar lips biting yet always affectionate. Forming words that lingered in his thoughts. Forming, at last hearing, a request.

A request that wouldn’t
go away, he knew. It would never go away. He made up his mind. Instead of retreating, he advanced. Instead of running for safety, he took up the challenge. There was no real choice, he told himself as he advanced to the edge of the walkway. And called out.

“Ben!”

It echoed across the gap, reverberated through the vast open space below.

On the far side, a tall figure turned and retraced
his last few steps.

“Han Solo.” Kylo Ren stared across at the older man. “I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time.”

“Take off that mask.” Han’s tone was a mix of command and empathy. “You don’t need it. Not here. Not with me.”

“What do you think you’ll see if I do take it off?”

Han moved forward slightly. “The face of my son.”

“Your son is gone. He was weak and foolish,
like his father.” Ren’s reply was replete with pity. And anger. “So I destroyed him. But such a small, insignificant request is easily granted.”

Reaching up, he slowly removed the mask. For the first time Han saw the face of his son as a grown man—and it jolted him.

Both men were so intent on each other, so preoccupied with their encounter, that neither noticed the newly arrived presence
on a railing overhead. Having slipped inside to search for Han and Chewbacca, Finn and Rey found themselves peering down from up high at the pair confronting each other below.

“That’s what Snoke wants you to believe,” Han was saying. He wasn’t pleading—just stating a fact. “But it’s not true. My son is still alive. I’m looking at him right now.”

The exchange drew another onlooker, as on
a level above, Chewie moved to watch and listen.

Ren’s eyes blazed. “No! The Supreme Leader is wise. He knows me for who I am, and who I can become. He knows you for what
you
really are, Han Solo. Not a general, not a hero. Just a small-time thief and smuggler.”

A trace of a grin flashed across Han’s face. “Well, he’s got that part right.”

Similarly drawn by the sounds of conversation
and disagreement, a third group of spectators had arrived. Held rapt by the confrontation, the squad of stormtroopers looked on as intently as did Finn, Rey, and Chewbacca. Fearful of taking an initiative that might be frowned upon, they awaited a command from Ren.

Stepping out onto the walkway, Han moved toward his son. There was no hesitation in his stride or in his voice. “Snoke’s using
you for your power, manipulating your abilities. When he’s gotten everything he wants out of you, he’ll crush you. Toss you aside. You know it’s true. If you have half the ability, half the perception that I know you
do, you know that I’m telling you the truth. Because unlike him, I have nothing to gain from it.”

Ren hesitated.

“It’s too late,” he said.

“No, it’s not.” Halfway across
the walkway now, Han continued to move forward, smiling. “Never too late for the truth. Leave here with me. Come home.” Without the slightest trace of malice or deception, he cast a dagger. “Your mother misses you.”

A strange sensation touched the younger man’s cheeks. Something long forgotten. Dampness. Tears.

“I’m being torn apart. I want—I want to be free of this
pain
.”

Han took
another step, then stopped, waiting. A decision had to be made, and for once it was not his to make.

“I know what I have to do, but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it.” Ren moved out onto the walkway toward Han. “Will you help me?”

“Yes,” Han told him. “Anything.”

Halting an arm’s length from his father, Ren unclipped his lightsaber, looked down at it for a moment, and then
extended it toward Han. For an instant that seemed to extend into forever, nothing happened. Smiling, Han reached for the weapon. Then, as the light from outside was fully blocked by the flow of descending, accumulating dark energy, Ren ignited the lightsaber—and the fiery red beam lanced outward to pierce Han’s chest from front to back.

“Thank you,” Ren murmured, and truly, the darkness above
was mimicked by the darkness in his voice.

From their perch high above, Finn and Rey gasped simultaneously.

“Solo. Solo.” Finn put an arm around the girl beside him. “Rey.”

“No,” she whispered. “No, no, no…”

Accepting without quite believing, Han stared back into the face of the creature that had been his son. There was nothing to see there. Only darkness in the shape of a face:
alien, unthinking, unfeeling. His knees buckled, the beam tilting down with him as he crumpled. Ren extinguished it. For another moment Han held on to the edge of
the walkway. A rush of memories flashed through his mind: worlds and time, friends and enemies, triumphs and failures. Words he wished he had spoken and others he regretted. All gone now, lost in an instant, like the one he would never
again be able to hold in his arms. Then he fell, to vanish into the depths.

On another world far, far away, a woman felt a shudder in the Force that lanced through her like a knife. She slumped into a seat, her head lowering, and started to cry.

Stunned by his own action, Kylo Ren fell to his knees. Following through on the act ought to have made him stronger, a part of him believed. Instead,
he found himself weakened. He did not hear the roar of the enraged Wookiee above, but he did feel the sting of the shot from the bowcaster as it slammed into his side, knocking him back on the walkway.

Hostile fire being something the group of stormtroopers could react to without having to wait for an order, they immediately blasted back at Chewie. Returning fire, the Wookiee retreated down
a corridor, hitting the switch on the remote detonator as he ran.

First one charge ignited, then two, then four, and finally the rest. Enormous, concerted explosions rocked the interior of the hexagon. Walkways collapsed, plunging to the bottom of the interior cylinder. There was shuddering as the walls trembled, held—and then began to fail as their main support and then subsidiary columns
snapped. Amid the rising bedlam and confusion, Kylo Ren struggled to stand. As he did so, his gaze turned upward.

To meet the stares of Finn and Rey, peering down at him.

The shock of recognition helped him to regain his footing. Rising to his full height, he started back along the still-standing walkway, moving with determination. Heading upward.

Taking their cue from their leader,
those troopers who were not pursuing Chewbacca began to fire at the two figures on the lower level. A crazed, heartbroken Rey returned their fire. She would have stayed there, blasting away wildly, had not Finn half dragged, half carried her away.

High above and swathed in the shadow of the curtain of descending dark energy, Poe Dameron saw something. An explosion on the roof of the
containment center. By its intensity and configuration he could tell that it was not the result of a hit from one of his X-wings, but instead a blast from within. Swinging around, he found that for the first time he could see the
interior
of the seemingly impregnable structure.

It was an opening. A small one. One opportunity, maybe. Given the way the fight was going, probably a last one.

“All units, this is Black Leader. Target structural integrity has been breached! I repeat: Target integrity has been breached! There’s an opening. Now’s our chance! Hit it hard, give it everything you’ve got!”

Led by the black fighter and ignoring both pursuing TIE fighters and arcing seekers, the remaining X-wings broke off from defensive combat and dove as one toward the hexagon. A few
strikes missed, detonating harmlessly against the still-intact sides of the building. But the others, most, hit their mark. As Poe and his comrades pulled up and away, one detonation after another shook the great edifice. Gradually, almost in slow motion, it began to collapse, the walls falling in upon themselves. More significantly, gouts of flame began to erupt from below, rising from unseen chambers
far underground.

Letting out a yell of triumph, Poe accelerated skyward, heading for the outer atmosphere. Secure in his position behind the cockpit, BB-8 emitted a steady stream of excited beeps.

“All teams, nice job!” Poe said to his fellow pilots. “General, the target’s been destroyed!”

Leia’s warm voice filled his ears, but the message she delivered was an unexpected one. “Good—now
retreat immediately! The planet could be unstable. Get out of there now.”

Even with the relay in place, it took a moment for the message to
be received. Poe didn’t hesitate to reply. “If we retreat, we leave our friends behind!”

Having anticipated Poe’s response, Leia was ready with her own. “Poe, outside of those of us here, your group is all that remains of the Resistance that’s capable
of putting up a fight. If you stay to find them, we lose you all.”

“General, with all due respect,” he said evenly, “we’re not leaving our friends behind. Teams, who’s with me?”

He expected a delayed response. He was wrong: It came immediately, from Snap. “We’re all with you, Poe. You know that.” A concurring yelp came from the ship piloted by the Sullustan, Nien Nunb, followed by the
others.

“Then let’s go do some good and find them!’

W
ITHIN THE CORRIDORS
and confines, the administrative rooms and technical control sectors of Starkiller Base, there was panic. Technicians reacted with despair as, despite their frantic efforts, one monitor after another went to red as critical systems began to fail.

“Lower-order cells are overheating,” declared one tech in the command center. “Emergency crew can’t get
to the site. Full system load shutdown.” When he turned back to Hux there was a look in his eyes that the general had never seen in any of his techs. “The oscillator is failing. We’re losing containment.”

“Oscillator has been hit.” Another officer struggled to keep the fear out of his voice. “Assessing damage. Attempting to sustain power.”

Hux watched it all in silence as he backed away
slowly. There was no point in doing anything else, he knew. The tech teams would stabilize the oscillation of the containment field. Otherwise, there would be nothing to back up to.

“Come on.” Seeking a path through the snow, shadows, and increasingly dark forest, Finn finally slowed. Where were they running to? In any event, both he and Rey were out of breath. When he looked over at
her, he knew the same realization had struck her. It was good, anyway, to stop. Even in the artificial darkness, in the shadow of the curtain of descending dark energy, the forest felt…clean.

At least, it did until a singular figure came upon them and uttered a single word.

“Stop.”

The three stood staring at one another: Finn and Rey, Kylo Ren some ten meters away. As Ren reached for
his lightsaber, Rey pulled her blaster, stepped forward, and took aim.

Before she could fire, Ren raised a hand, halting her. She strained against him, her anger giving her strength. But she couldn’t fire. He was struggling also, against her newly discovered ability, as well as the wound inflicted by Chewbacca’s bowcaster. Gritting his teeth, he flung his arm sideways in a single, powerful
gesture—and the blaster went flying out of her hand. Inhaling deeply, he gestured again, and this time it was Rey who went flying, to smash into a tree nearby and slide to the ground, dazed and hurt.

“Rey—
Rey!”

Finn started toward her, but the sound of Ren’s lightsaber igniting made him turn. In the darkness, the hum and glow of the gleaming red weapon was mesmerizing. With nothing else
to fall back on and unable to reach Rey’s blaster, Finn resorted to the only defense at his command: He pulled and activated the Skywalker lightsaber.

For some reason, the sight of it was enough to give Ren pause. He stared at it for a moment before reacting.

“That weapon—is mine.”

Finn all but snarled his reply. “Come and get it.”

Drawing himself up, a towering figure in the snow,
Ren did not even bother to gesture. “I’m going to kill you for it.”

He rushed forward.

Despite his fear, Finn raised the beam to defend himself. Ren lunged, struck—and Finn parried. Shards of light flew, illuminating the snow and the surrounding vegetation. Drawing back slightly, Ren considered his unexpectedly determined opponent, then resumed his assault with a vengeance.

Finn blocked
him again and again, once letting the other man’s beam slide against his own and harmlessly off to one side. He counterattacked, to no avail. The longer the contest continued, the stronger Ren seemed to become. It was as if he was enjoying the challenge. Feeding upon it.

At least, it appeared so until Finn parried, swung, and unexpectedly stabbed, the tip of his lightsaber beam grazing Ren’s
arm. That made it more than a challenge. Taking a step back, Ren reconsidered his opponent. When he closed the distance between them anew, it was with a purpose that had been previously lacking. Expecting an execution, he had found a contest. Now he had been touched. It was time for play to end.

Advancing relentlessly, he was driven by something that Finn could not even sense, far less counter.
Still the ex-trooper fought back, until Ren landed a blow that cut across Finn’s chest and sent the lightsaber flying from his hand. It landed in the snow six meters distant.

It was over.

Switching off his own weapon, Ren extended an arm toward the device lying in the snow. It twitched and then began to vibrate as the Force called to it. Stretching out his hand farther, straining, Ren
beckoned powerfully—and the lightsaber rose, to come bulleting toward his outstretched fingers.

And past them.

Taken aback, he whirled—to see the weapon land in the hand of a girl standing by a tree. Rey appeared equally shocked that her reach for the device had exceeded his. She gazed down at the weapon now resting in her grip.

“It
is
you,” Ren murmured.

His words unsettled her:
Not for the first time, he seemed to know more about her than she did about herself. But she had no time to ponder his comment, nor was she inclined to do so anyway; she was too consumed with rage. Holding the haft of the lightsaber in both hands, she ignited the beam—and charged.

Ren met her with his own weapon alight. Expecting weakness, he encountered only strength. Her skill with the device
was raw at best, but it was backed by a fury that was as new to his experience as it was unexpected.

When the beams of their lightsabers crossed, the resulting burst of energy lit an entire section of forest.

Within the base, pandemonium reigned as buildings began not just to crumple, but to collapse into a succession of huge sinkholes as the ground itself surrendered to the slowly
failing containment field. Observing the cataclysm out a command center window, a young tech rushed for the presumed safety of the building’s interior. A senior officer confronted him, stopped him.

“Lieutenant, back to your station!”

Fully aware that in the present situation rank no longer meant anything, the tech paused only long enough to reply.

“Look, we won’t survive here. Even
Hux has gone!”

He pushed past the dazed officer, who this time did not try to stop him.

In the darkness of the cavernous assembly room, Hux stood before the image of Snoke. Try as he would, it was proving increasingly difficult to maintain a semblance of control.

“Supreme Leader, the oscillator is failing. The collapse has begun.” He looked downward. “There is nothing that can be done.”

Furious as he was, Snoke knew there was nothing he could do. So many plans so carefully laid, so many intentions that must now go unfulfilled…

“You will leave Starkiller at once and come to me with Kylo Ren.
Leave immediately.” He added grimly, “It appears that he may have been right about the girl.”

To an observer at a distance, it would have appeared as if a series of small
explosions was going off in the depths of the forest. Blow after blow landed as lightsaber struck against lightsaber. Though Ren was bigger and stronger than Rey, their struggle had nothing to do with physical size. What she lacked in mass, she made up for in ferocity.

For a while she actually drove him backward, until he regained his self-assurance and in turn pressed her. The fight continued
to shift back and forth; first he gained the advantage, then an enraged Rey took it back.

There was a vast rumbling, as of a continent sighing, and a gigantic chunk of forest behind Rey simply collapsed downward, leaving her fighting on the edge of a cliff so high that the newly formed surface below could not be seen through the rising cloud of dust.

Ren held his lightsaber, poised to
strike. “I could kill you right now. But there is another way.”

Breathing hard, Rey looked up in disgust at the man looming above her. “You’re a monster.”

“No. You need a teacher.” He was beseeching and insistent all at once. “I can show you the ways of the Force!”

Slowly she shook her head. “The Force?” That was what this was about? Instead of moving to defend herself, Rey closed
her eyes. Ren hesitated, confused by her actions. A long moment passed, in which Ren sensed a change in the air, a change in
her
. Then she opened her eyes and attacked, viciously, in a way she didn’t know she was capable of, striking again and again as Ren was slowly driven back. The flaring energy from the interacting lightsabers was more pronounced than ever in the flurry of her attack. And—Ren
went down.

He was up again in an instant, but not in time to fully deflect a following blow from Rey’s weapon. He succeeded in blocking it, but he still took the full force of the strike against the haft of his own lightsaber. The weapon went flying into the snow. Unarmed, he raised a
hand and utilized the Force to fend off one slashing blow after another, until finally her fury penetrated
his remaining defenses. Taking a glancing blow to the head and chest, he went down, a prominent burn slashed across his face. Weakened, he reached out toward his lightsaber, trying to draw it to him.

One downward cut, she saw. One quick, final strike, and she could kill him. The landing lights of a shuttle appeared in the distance, coming over the trees in her direction. She had to make a
decision, now.

Kill him
, a voice inside her head said. It was amorphous, unidentifiable, raw. Pure vengeful emotion.
So easy
, she told herself.
So quick
.

She recoiled from it. From the dark side.

The world shook beneath her as the ground began to split. Turning away from the injured figure, she ran back to where Finn lay badly wounded. A deep gully formed, separating her from General
Hux and the arriving troopers. Utilizing the tiny position sensor emplaced in Ren’s belt, Hux had tracked him to this spot. He would have taken Rey and Finn, as well, if not for the command that had been issued by the Supreme Leader. That took precedence over everything. There was simply no time left.

The two renegades were going to die here anyway, he told himself as he followed the troopers
carrying Ren into the nearby shuttle. As soon as he was aboard, it lifted off, its occupants desperate to flee the dying planet.

Below them, Rey huddled beside the unconscious Finn. Turning him over, she recoiled from the wound Ren had inflicted with his lightsaber. The blow had cauterized instantly. In the dim light she couldn’t estimate its depth, nor if it had passed through any vital organs.
Holding the unresponsive body in her arms, she started to cry. There were worse ways to die, she told herself as the ground continued to shake and trees began to topple around her.

No, she corrected herself bitterly. There was only one way to die. She steeled her thoughts.

The glow that enveloped her and Finn did not come from the planetary core. It was too bright, too localized. Raising
a hand to
shield her eyes from the approaching glare, she squinted into the brilliant light. It took a moment to resolve itself into the scanning beams of a ship. A ship she recognized.

Rising from the vicinity of the new canyon that had appeared behind Rey in the course of her battle with Kylo Ren, the
Millennium Falcon
came toward them. Considering the general conditions and the unstable
surface, its pilot made a surprisingly smooth touchdown.

She would have thrown herself into Chewie’s arms had he not stooped immediately to pick up the limp body of Finn.

Given the chance, she would have remained in the medbay, where the Wookiee set his burden down. But despite its added modifications, the
Falcon
still flew better with someone in the copilot’s seat. In moments they were
beyond the atmosphere of the imploding planet. The jump to lightspeed was accomplished without incident, preventing them from observing the final cataclysm. Which was just as well.

A moment after they fled, Starkiller Base system became a binary.

Poe, having called in his teams in relief after spotting the
Falcon
leaving Starkiller Base, was waiting for the ship as it touched down
on D’Qar, settling into a vacant space between the remaining Resistance X-wings. Even before the boarding ramp hit the ground, Chewbacca was emerging, moving fast with the still-breathing Finn in his arms. Medical personnel and officers waiting to meet them escorted the pair inside the complex.

Following in the Wookiee’s wake, an exhausted Rey found herself greeted by a cheering crowd. Leia
Organa was in the forefront, accompanied by a pair of droids. Rey recognized BB-8 immediately, and wondered at the identity of the gleaming golden protocol droid at his side. Instinctively, she headed toward Leia.

No general now, Leia took the young girl’s face in her hands. Though brokenhearted at the deaths of Han and so many brave pilots, Leia was grateful for the deliverance of the Resistance.
In spite of the presence of the crowd that was looking on, the two women
embraced without embarrassment or hesitation. Then, with tears falling, they moved inside.

Hours passed without word from the medical center. When Dr. Kalonia finally emerged from the intensive care section, Rey nearly fainted at seeing the smile on her face. The physician’s words confirmed Rey’s hope.

“Your friend’s
going to be just fine.”

“Thank you.” It was all Rey could think of to say.

Kalonia looked down at her. “I don’t get to treat many lightsaber wounds. It’s such an old weapon. People today prefer to fight with rifles and blasters, from long range.” She shrugged. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. Death is death, no matter the mechanism that is employed to beget it.” Her smile returned. “But not
for your friend. Not this time.”

Located somewhat apart from the swirl of main activity inside the Resistance base, the conference room was perfect for a strategic gathering. Leia was there, as well as Poe, C-3PO, BB-8, a handful of chosen officers, and an assortment of equipment and gear that was considered important but was little used.

Never one to defer in the presence of superiors,
Poe spoke first.

“Kylo Ren said that the segment held by Beebee-Ate is the last piece of the map that shows the way to Skywalker’s location. So, where’s the rest of it?”

“The First Order has it.” Rey looked over at him. “They extracted it from the Imperial archives.”