╔════ 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐈𝐅𝐓𝐘 𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄
'𝐭𝐨𝐨 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞' ═════════╝
━━ -ˋˏ★ˎˊ- ━━
...THE RADDUS, CRAIT AIRSPACE
"𝐒𝐎 𝐀 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐌𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐑 and a who now are doing what?"
Holdo's voice was shrill against his ears. Around them, people were working tirelessly to get the ships ready for their ill-timed escape. Shouts echoed off the towering ceilings of the hanger, drills reverberated, and crates were already being loaded with haste. Time was running out to stop the operation, and he needed to buy Finn and Rose more of a chance to disable the lightspeed tracker.
Just behind Holdo, He had gathered the handful of people who were willing to stage an intervention. Connix and Reeve were among them, but Eleni refused to be a part of a mutiny. Mutiny was too strong of a word, in his opinion. It was simply a matter of distracting Holdo for a little while. Just long enough to completely derail everything she had planned.
"Finn is a former stormtrooper." He was growing tired of explaining the same thing for the second time. This was Holdo's final chance to make the right choice. "They are trying to save us, this is our best chance for escape. You have to give Finn and Rose all the time that you can."
Holdo looked at him with abject horror, mouth contorted in disbelief. "You have bet the survival of the Resistance on bad odds and put us all at risk," she scoffed. "There's no time now, we have to get clear of the cruiser--"
As she stepped past him, he muttered. "Yeah, I was afraid you'd say that."
Poe smiled gently and leaned back, straightening his posture. For the first time in hours, he was completely at ease. All at once, they drew their weapons and pointed them at the officers in front of them.
"Vice Admiral Holdo, I'm relieving you of your command for the survival of this ship, its crew, and the Resistance."
Her eyes bore into him, crackling with anger and still that tinge of disbelief. At this point, she shouldn't be so surprised. "I hope you understand what you're doing," was all she had left to say.
"That's the whole point, lady." Poe holstered his blaster. "I'm going to the bridge. If they move," he gave Holdo a shit-eating grin as he brushed past her. "Stun 'em.'"
Connix was at ease with the situation, but Reeve had begun to lose her original resolve. All the way to the hangar, she had pestered him with questions about his plan. Now that the issue of what they were doing with Holdo was solved, she picked right back up where she had started.
"So what do we do now?" Reeve asked as they turned the corner.
"We stall," Poe answered. "Finn and Rose just need a little more time, and then we override the controls and make the jump to lightspeed. Simple as that."
She narrowed her eyes, sputtering. "Simple? You actually believe it's going to be simple?"
"It makes me feel better when I say it. We really don't have time to keep talking about this."
"It's going to work," Connix insisted. "I've been watching Holdo for the last hour, she isn't very quick on her feet now that she has all the stress over her head. We just need to get to the bridge, and then everything will work out."
Poe prayed a silent prayer to whoever was listening that Connix would be right.
They had almost made it to the doors when he heard his com beep with an incoming transmission. "Poe, we're almost there. Have the crew prep for lightspeed," Finn's voice said. He was breathing heavily, and Poe could hear heavy footsteps echoing in the background. "We've got our eyes on the tracker, all we have to do is disable it."
Poe walked quicker down the hallway. "Yeah I'm on it pal, you just hurry."
"Don't you worry," he heard Lando say. "Everything is under control."
It sounded like a bold faced lie.
The door to the bridge slid open and the three of them stepped through. "Clear the bridge. Escort the officers down to the hangar, we don't need them," he said as he brushed past the straight-backed officers that remained, weaving through the computers and heading straight for the central command.
"On it," Reeve said. A little too gleefully, but Poe didn't have time to worry about that.
Standing in his way was a certain golden protocol droid. "Commander--Captain--" Threepio sputtered, holding up an arm as if it might stop him. "Admiral Holdo was looking for you."
Poe slid into the command chair and pulled the computer screen closer to him. "Yeah, we spoke." He pressed the button on the side and switched the camera to the view of the hangar. So far, no one had moved.
"Sir, I am almost afraid to ask--"
"Good instinct, Threepio," Poe cut him off. "Go with that."
-ˋˏ★ˎˊ-
𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐁𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐄𝐅 was really the only thing left in Lyra's mind. After Harter Kalonia excused herself, it was just the two of them alone in the medbay.
"Sit down before you fall over, kid," Leia said pointedly. Even after everything, her aunt's concern for her niece still remained.
Lyra made a quiet noise of assent as she sat down. "How are you feeling?"
"Like I just stepped out of a refrigerator. Other than the discomfort, it isn't anything you need to be worried about," Leia looked down at the floor and sighed. "Now, I know we don't have a lot of time, but I want to hear what happened from you first--"
"Everyone knows," Lyra blurted.
"You're going to have to give me a little more context than that."
"Everyone knows the truth about Skywalker. Holdo slipped up and accused you of nepotism, and everyone on the bridge heard her," Lyra explained more slowly.
Leia frowned deeply. She looked very tired again, and she sank down onto the chair behind her in one fluid motion. "Considering you lead with that, I can only imagine what else has happened." She leaned forward on the cane, bracing herself. "Tell me."
There was no way to make the long story short, but Lyra tried. The whole of it tumbled out, all of the highlights from their days floating in darkness. The empty accusation that Holdo had made, the demotion, Finn and Rose and their expedition with Lando Calrissian, and finally the fire that had almost killed Eden.
"Holdo was keeping everything close to her chest. No matter how many questions we asked, she only made more empty accusations. Finn and Rose are currently aboard a Star Destroyer gathering First Order intel on hyperspace technology--" Lyra paused, clocking Leia's reaction "--and we found Lando Calrissian at the advice of Maz. He's helping them as we speak."
The General gave a melancholy smile. "For all her eccentricities, Maz usually knows what's best in a dire situation. I can't say I appreciate you undermining your superior, but what's done is done. What Amilyn has done is unexpected, but not entirely out of character. Her ability to trust her peers has always held her back."
"I have no idea what's going to happen once we reach Crait. Holdo never said if she had any ideas or not."
Leia breathed deep, still in a state of disbelief. This last question had been saved with care. "I have one more question for you: how did you save Eden?"
She could still feel the power of uncontained flame at the ends of her hands. "A gas pipe burst above Eden when the Anodyne started to explode, and I thought that she was going to get burned alive. But at the last second I just held out my hands"--Lyra's voice hardened. "I can control the flames. They bend to my will, and it's so strange because I know it's not the Force acting as a mediator. Just me and the fire, that's it."
Leia's lips parted, but no sound came out. All that remained in the dust of Lyra's admission was abject horror and confusion.
"You controlled the fire?" Leia said, voice dangerously low. It split like sparking flint against Lyra's ears.
"Yes."
That one word aged Leia ten years. Her posture loosened, and she looked at Lyra with the grief of the bereaved. "Show me."
Lyra held up her hand and let the flames engulf her palm. It rolled over her skin in a wave of orange light. Upon noticing how pale Leia's face had become, Lyra stopped.
"You're right, Lyra. It's not entirely the work of the Force. Different cultures gave it different names, but there are things more ancient than any planet that have a hand in the Force. The Kro Var called it Shaping,
"The Kro Var–?"
"Your ancestors," Leia clarified. "The ancestry of the Grené family traces back to them."
Lyra's com started to beep with the steady pulse of alarm. She wanted to silence it, but she sensed there was a disaster waiting for her on the other end of the transmission.
"This is Lyra," she spoke.
"Hey Lyra, did you authorize a mutiny?" Eleni's voice asked.
Leia's brown eyes began to narrow, a signature look of disapproval winnowing its way onto her features. Before she could jump to too many conclusions, Lyra answered with, "I definitely did not."
"Just making sure," Eleni said lightly. "Because I'm standing in the middle of the hanger right now trying to oversee transport loading, and there's a bit of a holdup."
"I told them not to do anything stupid," Lyra hissed. "Did I not?"
"No, you definitely did say that. I remember, at least. Poe and Reeve, not so much. They've got Holdo down here at stun-point. Pretty bold move if you ask me."
"Oh boy," Lyra said quietly. Leia had yet to do anything other than stare up at the ceiling.
"Last I saw they were heading up to the bridge."
"They're trying to stall us," Lyra realized. She wished she was more surprised. "The original plan was to make a jump to hyperspace once Finn and Rose disabled the tracker with Lando's help. But that hasn't happened yet, so we can't count on that anymore. We are so low on fuel, Holdo's plan to mount a defense on Crait might be the only option we have left."
Leia stood up again. There was a certain kind of cold, calculated fury in her eyes as she looked out the window beyond. "Here, give me that," Leia held out her hand expectantly.
Lyra relinquished the com. She moved around the side of the bench and powered up the holo table, letting the room flood with green light.
"Major Dameron, I need you to help Holdo continue loading the transports. I may not like her methods, but this is our best shot," Leia commanded. "We'll take care of the situation up here."
Without hesitation, Eleni stammerd, "Sure thing, of course, General Organa. It's good to hear from you again, by the way."
"It's good to be back," Leia agreed. "Although I wish it was under different circumstances."
"Same here," Lyra muttered.
Her eyes darted across the screen. All communication access to the bridge had been blocked, which meant Reeve was also on the bridge. Anything she tried was automatically thwarted, and no matter how many times she tried to connect to Poe's com, he wouldn't answer.
"Stop looking at that thing and get moving," Leia yelled. Lyra hadn't even been paying attention, and the General was already almost out the door. She was walking remarkably fast.
Lyra glanced at the screen one more time before jogging to catch up. "They've locked down the blast doors, it's going to take a miracle to get in there in time," she warned.
Leia just waved a hand above her head. "That's never stopped me before, kid. Plus, we've got our miracle."
Lyra snorted. "Like what?"
"Not what," Leia said, turning her head with a mischievous grin. "You."
-ˋˏ★ˎˊ-
𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 another flick of a switch, Poe successfully shut down all power to the main hangar. The emergency lights flickered on as he watched through the holo vid screen; no transports would be leaving now. All of the doors to the bridge were locked down in preparation for an inevitable attack.
Smoke started to fill his view of the scene. Blasts from stun guns filled the screen with blue rings as Holdo finally fired back. Panicking, he turned his head toward the door to the command room that was still wide open. The breaker must have been short-circuiting.
"Seal that door!" He yelled.
Reeve ran over to manually press the button. She hesitated. "If I shut this thing, we won't be getting it back open!"
Poe's hand hovered over his own controls. Every muscle in his body was tense as he ran through the options in his mind. "Do it," he decided. "We'll figure that out later."
The door hissed shut, leaving him to turn back to the screen and focus on buying Finn more time. The sequence to jump to lightspeed was encrypted with a code that required an officer's authorization. Nothing impossible, but it was going to take him longer than he thought it would.
Connix moved quickly between the stations. She was doing the work of four officers at once as she primed them for the correct lightspeed sequence. From the corner of his eye, he caught the golden glint of Threepio on the move. That was not going to fly on his watch.
"Threepio, where do you think you're going?" Poe yelled.
Their first mistake was forgetting to lock the droid out in the first place.
Hobbling away as fast as was mechanically possible, Threepio said, "It would be quite against my programming to be party to a mutiny!" He stuttered, barely able to get the words out of his processor.
"Hey!" Poe barked defensively. "This is not a mutiny! This is us trying to stay ahead of the First Order!"
"Whatever you would like to call it, it is not correct protocol--!" Threepio started to argue.
Sparks flew from the edges of the blast door. They skittered across the floor as if a fire were blazing on the other side of the metal.
"Oh!" Threepio called out, shuffling back the way he had come. He moved to stand next to Connix as if she was going to defend him.
"Finn, buddy," Poe said into his com. His heart hammered against his chest. Holdo was on the other side of the door and he was out of time. "We need to make the jump. If we don't do it now, we don't do it at all."
But there was no answer. After a beat of static, all he heard was the hollow voice of someone else saying, "Drop your weapons now!" and then, "That's it rebel scum, get down!"
His eyes widened and he kept his blaster trained on the doorway. Ducking down, he flicked the final switch on the nav computer in preparation for their jump. He didn't waver, and he wasn't going to back down, not when he had already dug a hole so deep. Aboard the Raddus, he had done nothing but compile mistakes. Dangerous errors that had cost lives; this could not become another iteration of the same story.
Billowing white smoke was filling the room, and the shower of sparks was only getting brighter.
"FN-2187," a metallic voice echoed in the com. "So good to have you back."
"They didn't make it," Poe breathed. His grip on the blaster faltered.
Just as soon as the words were out of his mouth, the doorway exploded. The mechanics in the door failed in a wave of bright orange flames. Glass shattered. Shrapnel blasted everywhere and skittered over the floor. The smoke filled his lungs with the smell of acrid, singed metal.
And standing in the middle of all of it was Lyra.
She emerged from the smoke, flames still burning bright in her palms. He had to have been imagining it, but for a split second, her gray eyes reflected enough of the light to look like glowing copper. Like a phoenix, like something not of this galaxy, he stared at her like he had never seen her before. There was no anger left in her expression. Just a resigned kind of defeat as she surveyed the room. And as her eyes fell on him, he knew she wasn't surprised.
Leia stepped through behind her, still dressed in white.
She looked like she had come straight from the med bay, and it was as if nothing had happened at all. Aside from the cane she was leaning on, she looked unchanged and unaffected. The General, the one he had looked up to for so many years, was once again looking at him with nothing but disappointment.
Lyra kicked at a piece of shrapnel with the toe of her boot. "Don't make me do that again," she muttered, just loud enough that he could hear her.
Poe was still staring at the General in awe.
"If someone hadn't locked the door, you wouldn't have had to do anything," Leia said sternly.
Poe lowered the blaster, realizing he was still holding it up. "Leia," he tried.
He didn't get out much more than that. Before he could even register what was going on, Leia held up her own blaster and fired a blue shot of a stun ray. The last thing he saw before he blacked out was Lyra, his Lyra, standing stock-still with a horrified look on her face.
-ˋˏ★ˎˊ-
𝐓𝐇𝐄 final boarding announcement echoed in the yawning hanger, and there were nervous voices all around. Everyone was aware of what would happen when they left the safety of the ship. It wouldn't be long before everyone was going to have to remember what it meant to fight the First Order head-on.
Lyra stood at the foot of the ramp to the final escape pod looking down at Poe, who was still unconscious. It reminded her of Kaddak, the first time she had felt the gut-wrenching worry for him. That time, he hadn't been out for this long. Leia swore she had the blaster set to the lowest voltage, but the way Poe had crumpled against the wall of the bridge said otherwise. Behind her calm expression, Leia was still harboring a good deal of resentment for what they had done.
Finn and Rose were nothing but radio silence. None of it had been worth it.
Lyra put her hand to Poe's warm cheek. He was starting to stir, but he wouldn't be up and talking for a while. Brushing a stray piece of dark hair away from his eye, she still managed a small smile.
"That one's a trouble maker," Holdo said from behind Lyra. "I like him."
Lyra turned away as the last of the crew pushed the gurney up and into the transport. She folded her arms across her chest. "You have a very funny way of showing it," Lyra said lightly.
Leia stood next to Holdo, once again dressed like a General. With a smile, she said, "I think we can all agree that there was a certain lack of good communication."
"Among other things," Holdo relented. "I believe I owe you an apology, Lyra."
Lyra thought it might have been the first time Holdo had used her first name. She had a retort on the tip of her tongue, but it dissolved into nothing when she thought again of Finn and Rose.
She stretched out a thin, delicate hand and placed it squarely on Lyra's shoulder. "You did what you knew was right."
"I've always tried to," Lyra told her, squaring her shoulders. "Even when I was told that who I was was inherently wrong."
Holdo gave a small nod. "I knew your mother once, a very long time ago when she served in the legislature. She had that same ardent need as you to make things right, loyal to the bitter end. So much like you. I am sorry that I let my perceptions outweigh the truth."
Lyra didn't say anything else, certainly not any words of acceptance for the apology; she knew she didn't need to. They could part on even terms, just decidedly not as friends.
"Now," Leia said to Holdo. "You need to get to your transport. We'll regroup once we make it to Crait."
Leia started to turn away, but Lyra didn't. She saw the hesitation in Holdo, the split-second decision that was made in her head. "Someone needs to stay behind and pilot the cruiser," Holdo announced with finality. "This was my choice, I will not abandon it in its final hour."
Leia clasped her hands together as she turned back around. With a slow shake of her head, she said, "Too many losses. I can't take any more." Her voice broke and she tried to smile.
"Sure you can," Holdo answered. "You taught me how."
For all the resentment that Lyra had for the Vice Admiral, her heart broke as she watched their exchange. No one deserved the fate Holdo had placed upon herself. Threepio, who stood at Lyra's side, made a strangled noise as he failed to cover up a sob.
At the same time, Holdo and Leia started to say, "May the Force be--"
Leia gave a short, tearful laugh. Loss followed her always. "You go on, I've said it enough."
"May the Force be with you always," Holdo said softly. And then she turned her head to face Lyra. "All of you."
Holdo walked away from them for the last time, headed towards her last stand.
As the ship pulled away from the hangar, Lyra felt the familiar tug of guilt. Holdo stood alone and unafraid, the smile on her face evident even from the window of the transport.
While Leia watched on, Lyra turned away and sat down on the graying seats that lined the window ledge. Her thigh holster clinked against the metal, and her fingers were tangled in the golden chain of her necklace. Poe was within arm's reach, eyes still closed and face peacefully relaxed. Blasts pelted the side of the Raddus' dwindling shields, but the transports flew on unharmed.
Leia sank into the space next to Lyra. Lyra was about to speak when a feeling of cold swept through her body. Ice cold air kissed her skin and her veins felt coated with lead, weighing down every muscle from her head to her feet. All words died in her throat.
"What is it?" Leia asked quickly.
Lyra blinked once, shaking the feeling away. "It's nothing."
It had to be nothing because it didn't make sense. The times before, when Snoke had spoken to her, they had felt so intentional. This time, it was a loose brush of the Dark Side, as if a host of potential energy was coursing through her of its own accord.
Lyra didn't get to dwell on it because Poe shot up so fast, all she could do was blink in surprise. The surge of relief she felt was enough to make the chill dissipate.
Poe barely took in his surroundings before he said, "What the hell happened?"
Leia looked over at him with a blank expression. "You tell me. Last I heard, some idiot was running around disobeying orders and trying to derail the entire Resistance."
Gingerly, Poe swung his legs over and stood up. Blinking his tired eyes, he had the nerve to say, "Couldn't have been me. Last I saw, someone was shooting me with a stun ray."
Poe leaned forward and peered out the window. In the distance, the ring of light from a rising sun outlined the planet of Crait.
"I'm not even going to begin to unravel what happened on the Raddus," Leia said, now addressing both of them. "But I'm going to need leadership when we reach Crait. There's a long-range transmitter that should be able to get a signal to the Outer Rim, but we can't count on it."
"I read the old report on Crait," Lyra said, glancing out the window. "It didn't seem like there was much there that could mount a defense."
"There isn't," Leia agreed. "But we have allies, and we have our own forces. We will make do with what we have, and it will have to be enough."
"It's going to be," Poe nodded, turning away. Then to Lyra, he asked, "What happened with Finn and Rose?"
"The last person who had contact with them was you."
Poe's hand brushed over where hers rested on the bench. "I heard voices in the background, First Order officers," he told them, faltering. "I don't think they made it out."
Lyra's posture stiffened. The cold feeling that hadn't gone away felt like it was clawing at her throat, threatening to strangle her. This time, no relief would make it fade. It was there for a reason and it was the precipice she had begun to feel on the Raddus. This wasn't a fight that could be won with a baton or a blaster, and it was one that Lyra was quickly losing.
Her ears began to ring, heightened to a state of hyper-awareness of the Force around her.
"Lyra?" Poe asked, and the space between his brows creased. "Are you okay--?"
Lyra's eyes glazed over as she stared forward. "I don't know. I just feel this dread, like something awful is about to happen."
Poe tensed. "To the transport?"
"No," Leia answered for her. "Not to us, but to someone else."
So many people had died. Too many. Lyra saw all of them dying in darkness. The people aboard the ship, every single person she knew. Dread was all that she could see. It clouded her vision and gave it a yellow tinge.
"Lyra," Leia said from somewhere very far away. "I need you to try and break the connection. Just focus on me, listen to my voice."
"How?" Lyra whispered.
Everything was consumed by an ink-black shadow of darkness.
━━ -ˋˏ★ˎˊ- ━━
a/n omg draMA
it's only downhill from here (or as in, like, uphill for the drama levels) as we head into these last chapters of TLJ. only two left!! let me know your thoughts, opinons, anything. I love hearing from u guys 🥺
--nat <3