"I'm going to go find Ar'tak," the Jedi declared.

The explosives were set. They had ten minutes.

LN didn't say anything as Thren swept past her, out into the hall. Jedi business was Jedi business, not hers. She had a different job to do.

"Raey included the maps to the nearest hangers," she said brusquely, turning back to her team. "Objectives: secure a ship, pick up Raey, and hope the Jedi reach us before the planet blows up."

"Got it, ma'am." The salute they gave her was unorganized, but she appreciated the gesture.

"Be on high alert for enemy reinforcements. Let's move!"

The reinforcements found them two corridors from the hanger.

LN turned a corner and saw them, a whole squad of troopers geared for combat. The purpose behind their march was a subtle change from the ordinary brisk pace of patrolling, but she recognized it in a heartbeat. These were troopers on a mission.

She couldn't assume it had nothing to do with them. Not now. Perhaps it was instinct, perhaps it was paranoia, but she knew that her bluff would not work this time. They knew there was a traitor among them.

Almost guiltily - as she ducked back behind the corner and hefted her blaster, calling out orders - she thought, At least there aren't any Jedi present.

"Hey, get out here, Resistance scum!"

And the blaster-fire began.

"The Star-Killer is doomed," she shouted, her back pressed to the wall as a bolt ricocheted off the corner. "Abandon your posts and get yourselves off planet, or you're dead!"

No answer but a shower of blaster bolts. Not that she had truly expected anything else.

The New Alderaanians dove out of cover, staying low as smoke began blurring the air. LN gritted her teeth and turned the corner with them, her finger tense against the trigger.

Nine troopers. Eight, and a squad-leader. Same as hers.

She shot the nearest one below the breastplate. The more flexible armor protecting the abdomen wasn't as resistant as the smooth plating above. He fell with a scream, his blaster firing a last wayward shot at the ceiling before it was knocked by impact out of his hand.

A New Alderaanian returned that scream with a cry of his own, then rolled back around the corner, clutching his shoulder. The back-and-forth fire was rapid, almost careless.

They know as well as we do that time is short.

It was practically a death sentence, an order to hunt down infiltrators this late in the game. The Resistance bombers would be coming within minutes, and then...

The base shuddered.

Too early. Even for their explosives.

Something is going wrong.

She sidled around the corner, ready to open fire from low, but the troopers were already in retreat. The last two backed away, weapons raised and firing at the New Alderaanians to keep them from following, but even that was carelessly hasty. She didn't return fire.

"They are going to block us from the hanger," declared one of her team, but LN shook her head.

"If they were going to pin us down then here was as good a place as around that next corner, and retreating put them in a more vulnerable position. They're pulling out."

She rose and turned the corner one last time, sprinting up to the next turn. She peeked around the corner while the rest of her team caught up, and though she could hear the pounding of boots echoing, the troopers were out of sight. They'd left the doors completely unguarded.

"Move up!"

The hanger was packed. Panicked civilian contractors surrounded an inexpertly-docked bulk transport, screaming and pounding on the landing gear in an attempt to be heard, but the engines were already heating up. A handful of First Order shuttles, guarded from the civilian horde by grim-faced officers and troopers with blasters, sat halfway through dumping cargo to make room for more passengers.

LN took stock of the situation in a glance, then pointed out the shuttle furthest from the main group.

"They are all well guarded, but that's our best bet," she decided. She paused, drawing a breath, to give an order, when one of the New Alderaanians stepped forward.

"Let me, ma'am. We didn't use all our explosives back there."

The transport began to roar, forcing those civilians closest to it to back away, covering their ears. One of the other New Alderaanians caught LN's attention when he put his hand on the demolition man's shoulder, his own eyes gleaming with an idea.

"Hey, Ked, you got any smoke grenades?"

"Of course. Why?"

"Because I think confusion would serve us better then explosions." He glanced at LN and she nodded, realizing what he meant. "Give me a second."

And he took off across the hanger towards the crowd of dismayed civilians who stood about, watching as what they thought was their last chance off the planet rose into the air.

"Quick, behind those pallets," LN ordered, pointing at a stack of cargo crates closer to the shuttle. "I don't care if anyone sees you - it won't matter once the action starts."

A shrill cry rose amid the ruckus of the panicked civilians. Heads began to turn toward the line of shuttles.

She didn't have to give the order. Smoke grenades flew through the air in a long arc, then landed with a hiss of released pressure among the soldiers guarding the main group of shuttles. Troopers began running for clear air, firing half-blind, and the civilians caught on surprisingly quickly. They knew their last chance when they saw it.

"Now!" called LN, and her team, just having gained the cover of the crates, rushed out again with guns blazing. LN herself narrowed her view, focused on the officers. They, she could shoot.

The planet groaned, the floor pitching wildly beneath their feet. LN felt herself fall, then crack against something. She rolled to the side to get away from whatever had hurt her, one hand flying to her head; it came away bloody.

Ringing in her ears.

"Move, move!" she heard someone screaming, and then a hand grabbed her arm. She lashed out and he caught her attacking hand, but then he pulled and she realized it was one of her new teammates, helping her get to her feet.

The walls had cracked.

"Shield's down!" said that same someone far too loudly in her ear. "We gotta go."

She let him tug her in the right direction. Her head was still ringing, but she became aware of the screaming and roaring of a brawl, blaster fire, engines off to the right. The ground, at least, had stopped moving.

Get it together, LN.

She steadied herself, fixed her eyes on the shuttle. The ramp was rising, but she saw grey figures struggling inside, hand to hand. One of the New Alderaanians lay among the dead and injured First Order scattered around the shuttle. The others...

Already inside. They must have overpowered the opposition - the ramp lowered again, and LN ducked to avoid hitting her head on the belly of the ship as she ran up it.

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"What about Kqel?" someone asked, and LN barely slowed on her way to the cockpit, stepping over and around injured men. Some were their's, some weren't.

"Dead."

Focus.

The co-pilot slid into one seat, and LN took the other. She didn't know if the pilot was in the other room nursing some injury or if he was among those bodies they'd have to leave behind, but there wasn't time to find out.

Skip the checks. "Start up."

"Give us another second!" called someone from the back as the ship began to awaken. "We're not all on board yet."

Her finger hovered over ignition. LN kept it there, used the other to check fuel, shield capacity.

"Go!"

The engines roared.

"Let's get out of here," muttered the co-pilot, and LN's eyebrows lowered in a stubborn scowl.

"To main communications, first."

"We've got bombers running out there!"

"I'm not abandoning Raey."

"And the Jedi?"

"Jedi can take care of themselves."

Something rammed into the side of their ship, throwing them sideways and making LN's stomach lurch. Another shuttle wobbled as it surged past them, demonstrating a kind of reckless aggression that LN attributed to barely-trained civilians sitting in the cockpit. The upper fin clipped the edge of the bay doors when they tried to fly up out, almost launching the already-unsteady flight into a crash.

LN didn't wait for them to figure themselves out. The hanger bay was large enough to accommodate cargo transports - she steered the shuttle around the civilian-claimed ship and rose steadily out of the open doors, into the dark air above.

Time to find Raey. "Bring up the sector map," she declared. The co-pilot shook his head.

"We don't have access here, and someone else has the datapad."

LN turned to shoot him a glare. "So go find it."

The New Alderaanian didn't look happy, but he rose to obey. Then he stopped dead as a horrifying rumble once again shook the air. Behind them, metal screamed. The hanger bay cracked, parts of the ceiling collapsing in.

"Hurry!"

She could see the Resistance Y-wings making their runs toward the gargantuan trench of the Star-Killer weapon barrel. Fighters, Resistance and First Order, dodged across the sky, drawing each other away from their warships and bombers and vulnerable surface installations.

Below them all, Star-Killer Base was cracking apart. Ravines opened, fires broke out, and as LN flew her shuttle over one branching crack she saw a sinister glow from deep within, growing brighter even as she watched.

"LN... communication central control is the other way."

"He's not at the center."

She didn't know how they did it... how they were able to reach her so easily. Maybe it was her conditioning and the stormtrooper mind was just more open to Jedi mind powers, but even now she could feel Raey in danger. Desperate, angry.

Alerts beeped across the board. LN ignored them. Her co-pilot did not.

"A ship is falling in behind us, ma'am." A pause when LN didn't reply, then, "Oh, force... that's not an ordinary shuttle..."

The main external communication array appeared above the trees ahead.

"It's closing fast."

"And the planet is opening," LN retorted. "Focus."

"We can't land on this."

"Tell me that when we reach the target location."

She missed the pilot. This co-pilot was twitchy, distractable. Civilian.

They cleared the trees, and the battling glow of locked lightsabers put all other thoughts from LN's mind.

"Land," she managed, dread choking the words. "Land now!"

She turned in her seat and lunged for the door, grabbing the nearest abandoned blaster on her way to the outer ramp. She passed New Alderaanians, the wounded troopers (now restrained) who had been onboard when they took the shuttle, and a group of ragged civilians who must have gotten aboard after she did, huddled against the walls as if they expected to be thrown out.

"Open it," she ordered the alien closest the ramp controls, and the pale-skinned being abruptly, nervously obeyed. Howling, bitterly cold wind blew in as it lowered, ruffling LN's sweaty hair and chilling her unarmored skin.

She judged the distance to the ground before the ramp had even finished extending, then jumped without a second thought. She landed before the shuttle, rolling in the snow to break the fall. A moment later she was up, running towards the black figures at the base of the array.

Raey was on the ground, curled in on himself, and a Knight - The Knight, she realized with a rush of horror - stood over him. She didn't see the blue lightsaber anymore... only the red remained alive and crackling.

I'm here to help, Raey, she promised silently, and raised her blaster.

The first shot would have struck true, if not for the lightsaber. It seemed almost automatic, the Knight raising his arm, turning halfway, flicking his wrist to intercept the bolt with his red blade and sending it ricocheting off into the trees. LN had fired again before she realized it was futile, and the returning deflection just barely missed her.

Fine, then.

She roared and charged.

"She's... an actual imbecile. What does she mean to do - wrestle me?"

"Shut up!" she screamed at the leader of the First Order, and threw her blaster at his smug, helmetted face.

Of course it didn't make impact, but she surprised him. He jerked back instinctively before flicking his lightsaber to slash the projectile in two, deflecting the pieces just enough that they hit into the array behind him instead of himself.

And in that same instant of distraction, Raey lunged to his knees, and the hand that wasn't pressed against his grimacing face flashed out towards LN. She saw the gleam of silver make an arc through the air and leaned toward it, her hand outstretched...

The cold hilt slapped her palm, and her fingers wrapped around it as if they belonged there. She flicked her thumb up and found the ignition.

The hum in her hands felt... good. She looked past the blue glow and met the furious gaze of her former master's master, and her pounding heart slowed. Her thoughts did not.

It's light. No weight to the blade. Stormtroopers, when they fought melee, used heavy weapons. Problem.

She didn't have time. She charged again, crossing the last dozen yards between them.

Cannot, should not, rely on the momentum of the swing to do the damage. I don't need to swing hard-

Clash. The earth trembled.

He was strong. Very strong. She jumped back, resisting the urge to assume her melee combat stance. It would leave me wide open, and I don't need the windup. He retaliated, she blocked, and she grunted at the weight of his attack.

The saber was light; the Knight's blow was heavy.

The large, heavier weapon she was used to required more effort at the front of the attack, not the follow-through. This was different.

Think like a Jedi.

She had experienced first-hand how Jedi fought - how Ar'tak fought - albeit not with lightsabers. Light, quick, then unmovable when weapons locked. The exact opposite of how she had been trained.

Now she understood why.

"How dare a stormtrooper wield the weapon of a Jedi..."

LN growled and swung. "I said," she said between gritted teeth, pushing back before disengaging suddenly and jabbing forward, full lunge. "... stop talking!"

They were so close that she saw the flash of surprise in his exposed eye as he dodged away. She heard the incoming hum and adjusted her stance, parrying - there is no weight to the parry except what you put into it! - and returning the attack. She saw movement beyond the Knight, but it wasn't until the ground buckled that she let it register.

The trembling became a violent shaking. LN jumped back a pace, to where Raey was lying silently against the base of the array. She spared a glance towards the shuttle; it was hovering, just above the ground, ramp extended and waiting. And the enemy shuttle that had been following them sat black and sinister at the edge of the forest, the red-tinged light from within revealing a line of black silhouettes...

The ground cracked between them and the forest, and the Knight glanced behind him. He saw his shuttle waiting, then looked back and met LN's eyes. She stood motionless, the blue lightsaber held ready and her gaze unwavering.

You want to fight until the world ends? she thought fiercely, just hoping he was reading her mind. So be it. We stormtroopers are good at throwing our lives away to bring down an enemy.

Then he replied, and she realized she hadn't actually been hearing his voice before.

"Next time, we won't be interrupted, girl."

The ground collapsed beneath him as he ran back to his waiting ship. LN hated to turn her back on the enemy, but there was no time left. She turned, clipping the lightsaber to her belt to leave her hands free, and scooped Raey's now-limp body up into her arms before racing the collapsing earth back to the shuttle.

.

.

Fury's black acolyte waited at the ramp, even after Kylo ordered them to take off. His eyes burned with a fire the First Knight had seen over and over again, but never with as much mad fervor.

"I could still kill them, my lord," he whispered, those corrupted yellow eyes following the two intruders across the field. "I can finish my mission, just give me permission..."

"No." Kylo dropped shards of black mask to the floor, his own blood still moistening the sharp edges.

"Please, my lord!"

Kylo Ren did not have to explain himself. He looked over his shoulder at the acolyte, and the man flinched away. There was no other answer given.

And the star inside its killer finally collapsed.

.

.

LN staggered into the cockpit, the ship pitching beneath her feet as the first shockwave hit them.

"Jump!" she screamed. "Jump now!"

The new pilot half-swiveled to face her, alarm obvious in his wide eyes. "But where? And we've gotta get clear first--"

Just below them, the forest collapsed in a towering flare of light.

"NOW!"

They hadn't cleared atmosphere, the ship was thrust out of its stable flight by the sudden pressure shift, but suddenly none of that mattered. The pilot slammed his hand forward on the panel, overriding every safety warning the shuttle tried to throw in his way.

A second lurch, even worse then the first, threw LN back into the cockpit doorframe. She didn't even have the chance to catch herself. She felt the movement, then she hit the back wall.

Blackness.