Force Destiny

The Bridge

Rey, Finn, Rose, and Blue had made it from the lifts onto the elevated walkway that connected to the Emergency Bridge. Rey glanced at Finn and Rose beside her. Rose nodded in encouragement. Here goes nothing. Sprinting into view of the cameras, they held the cylinders in front of the sensors, steeling themselves for the battle that awaited them inside. Rey burst through the doors as they opened. Finn joined her in the fight, and Rose moved for the door control panel.

The officers stood, reaching for their weapons. Rey activated her lightsaber and moved toward the officer nearest the mainframe. His blaster fire was ineffective against the quick parries of her weapon, and she felt the power surge through her. She imagined this was how her bondmate felt the day they met on Takodana. Invincible. The darkness was back. It fed off the fear in the officer's eyes. There was nothing more comforting to Rey during the heat of battle than the strength the darkness provided her. She felt faster, more aware, more in touch with the Force around her. She felt sadistic exhilaration as she sliced through the officer.

As she watched him fall, he lifted his weapon in a final act of defiance. Her dark concentration was broken as Blue whimpered beside her, pressing himself between two control panels to hide. She opened her mouth to explain when a blaster shot grazed past her, hitting Rose in the leg. The room immediately erupted in blaster fire. Rey realized the bombardment was coming from behind her. She turned to see Finn's eyes wild and enraged, scanning the room in tactical strategy. He may have the kind heart of a man from the Resistance, but he had been trained to be an assassin of the First Order, and it showed. She ducked as beams of plasma flew across the room, but Finn didn't so much as blink as the others returned fire. He howled with rage as he systematically and expertly eliminated his enemies. He didn't stop until he'd slaughtered every last officer in the room in an impressively short amount of time.

"I think you got them!" Rey shouted as he continued firing, even after the last officer fell. With a shake of his head, Finn took off his helmet, breathing heavily in agitation.

"That was the most attractive thing I've ever seen," Rose breathed.

"What happened to your mantra about not killing those we hate to win this—?" Rey was interrupted by a banging on the blast door. Her eyes raised to a holomonitor. Ben stood outside, screaming at her through the door.

"Rey! Let me in! We've got to get out of here! It's a trap!"

Rey's heart jumped to her throat as she searched the holomonitor for obvious signs of injury to her bondmate through the black robes that obscured her view. Her stomach churned not only in fear for him, but at the thought that, if he was there, they had failed. Still, something felt... off. Rose rushed torward the blast door, and despite the probability that Ben was in danger, everything in her screamed to stop Rose. There was a warning in the Force, and that was when she realized what was different about him. The clothes.

There's more....

"Rose, don't!" she screamed, but it was too late. As the blast door opened, he rushed into the room. Rey stepped forward, calling a blaster to her hand, and fired it at him. As expected, he didn't even have a lightsaber to block the bolts aimed for his chest.

Both Finn and Rose turned to her in shock. Blue screamed as the man crumpled to the ground. "Clones!" she warned, "they made clones!" Her friends were distracted by her revelation; they didn't see the threat stalking through the open door. A squad of stormtroopers entered.

"FN-2187," a voice acknowledged.