Force Destiny

Slaughter

"Where are you, Ben?" she asked hesitantly. She expected to see his blanket-wrapped form, half-buried in snow, appear in front of her, but he materialized face down in the snow, the blankets missing, and the fighter nowhere in sight. "Ben! What happened!" He should be shivering. Dread flooded through her as she approached him. He was deathly pale.

Ben?

She cautiously knelt next to him. She closed her eyes and reached out into the Force, sensing his slow, weak heartbeat. Sighing in relief, she gently rolled him to his back. His bare skin was cold to the touch. "Please, hold on Ben. I found a way to save you. You just have to hold on." She placed a new blanket over him. It was thin, but it was better than nothing. She squeezed his hand. "I love you," she whispered, but the energy did not return.

Chewbacca walked through the doors with his bowcaster.

"Ok, everyone ready?" Rey asked. Finn and Rose raised their blasters. "Wait, Finn, take this," she said as she handed him her new lightsaber.

"What? What about you, Rey?"

"I built it. It's mine. That lightsaber will be the weapon I keep for the rest of my life, and hopefully, I will never have to use it." She paused, summoning Kylo's lightsaber. "But tonight, I'm going to take on the entire First Order, and it only feels right that I should do it with this." She activated the blade, and her eyes glowed red as she let the anger build up inside her. "No prisoners, no mercy...as none will be afforded to us. Does anyone have a question about the plan?"

"Slaughter the stormtroopers, fly to the Finalizer, Get Kylo...uh, Ben to the Force death machine, support you on your rampage... No, I think it's pretty straightforward," Finn quipped.

They stealthily disembarked down the Falcon's ventral boarding ramp, circling around the rear of the ship to a nearby snowdrift that had been created when they landed.

"There is only one platoon and two laser cannons!" Finn whispered.

Rey closed her eyes to view them better in the Force. "How many are in a platoon?"

"Five squads, so fifty," Finn said. "Take out the laser cannons first, before they disable the ship."

They all pulled out their blasters, taking one last look at each other to gather courage. This was it. While there wasn't an army to meet them as they had all assumed, the odds of fifty against four were still daunting, especially when those fifty were all firing at once. Rey looked from Finn, to Rose, to Chewie and knew this was where it all could end. With a nod, they turned to their positions and began firing. The cold, dark landscape instantly lit up with brightly colored beams. The first cannon turret erupted in a fiery explosion. The stormtroopers immediately returned fire. The second turret swiveled toward their snowdrift, demolishing their cover in seconds.

"Spread out!" Rey yelled above the blaster fire. She abandoned the blaster and circled around the other side of the freighter. As her friends focused their efforts on the second turret—drawing the majority of the fire—she stepped up behind the stormtroopers in the snow.

The others had split up; Chewbacca was firing upon the turret, Rose was holding the platoon at bay with her blaster, and Finn was dispatching any brave troopers who breached their snowdrift. Finn was not familiar with a quarterstaff, but he used her weapon to block and stab proficiently. He may have not quite used the double blades to his advantage, but there was no doubt he was dangerous with the weapon. She watched him quickly impale two stormtroopers—one in front, one behind him—and throw their bodies to the snow. Rose stood at his side, blasting away stormtroopers left and right. They were a formidable team. Once the second turret was destroyed, Chewbacca retreated by the Falcon, destroying any trooper that was an immediate threat to his friends.