LN peered around the corner, then quickly drew back.

"It looks like a low-priority guard," she reported, her brow furrowing with confusion. "Only two troopers."

Jedi Thren began to step forward, but she held out her arm and blocked his path, meeting his gaze firmly.

"Let me handle this one, Jedi. We don't need the element of surprise to win this. Just follow me out when I say, and don't kill anyone."

"You are wasting time," Thren replied, but he did not push forward. LN nodded her understanding and turned, marched out into view of the trooper guards.

"Designation and purpose, trooper," demanded one of the two as she approached. She did not stop walking as they spoke, nor did she increase her pace.

"LN-2737," she replied clearly, and as the beats of her number matched the beat of her sharp footsteps she thought of her old squad, of MK-4414. "I'm here to take your post."

She could well-imagine the confusion on their hidden faces as she stopped right in front of them. Here she was, alone, in uniform instead of armor, well outside the time range for shift-change, claiming to be their relief.

"My squad is coming." She projected her voice, making sure the men waiting would hear. They did; she could hear their footsteps. "It's time for you two to leave."

They tensed, their obscured eyes focused beyond LN, and she burst into action. She snatched the blaster-hand of the one on the right, twisted it behind him, and turned to get him between herself and the other one. He was heavy - she didn't have the benefit of armor to give her more throwing-weight, even out the odds. She had to be fast.

"Surrender!" she shouted, leaning away to avoid the sudden attack of her living-shield as he threw his head back, trying to smash her in her unprotected face. She retaliated, twisting the blaster out of his still-captured hand and then, her back braced against the wall, kicked out with both feet to shove him forward into his companion.

Then, Jedi Thren was between them, his lightsaber ignited and burning a black line on the floor.

"Surrender," he repeated, glaring at the two troopers as they disentangled themselves. For a moment, the two looked tense and ready to ignore the warnings and fight back, then the blasterless one's white shoulders slumped.

"SM-..." began the other furiously, then Thren angled his lightsaber to hover threateningly in front of his black visor. The trooper trailed off with a gulp, then reluctantly dropped his blaster.

"Good choice," said LN, and kicked the blaster to one of her waiting strike team. "Now get out of here."

Thren slid his lightsaber into the door lock as the two troopers ran off down the hall. "They will return with reinforcements," he warned, then pulled the door open. "We should hurry."

.

The trams wouldn't go all the way.

Raey pushed through a crowd of desperate humans waiting to get on the very tram he had ridden into the station. The communications outpost had been in near-lockdown; they barely waited for the tram doors to slide open before shoving their way inside.

No one gave him a second glance. A rumpled uniform didn't seem to matter much anymore.

He ran through the emptying black-and-silver halls, his vague memory of the appropriate sector map agreeing with his general understanding of Imperial layouts. The control room was abandoned, but the lights were still on - either they planned on coming back, or they were in too much of a hurry to bother shutting everything down.

Raey felt their urgency, but for now, at least, it was serving to give him an advantage. He had free access to their work stations.

"Communications," he muttered to himself. "Main communication array..."

Locked.

He slammed his palms against the metal keyboard, letting out a huff of frustration. "Of course, the one thing I need..."

He stared at the screen for a long moment, a new possibility tickling the back of his mind. Risky, uncertain... but he had to warn them.

There was a scan running on one of the other screens, a digital recreation of the battle taking place far above his head. The Resistance had come in force - there were dozens of fighters, hundreds of people on the warships, taking part in a meaningless dogfight while they waited for shields to drop.

Wait...

He looked back at the scan. Something was missing.

The Resurrection.

The Knights' flagship was gone. All that was left were the Tie-fighters, the Resistance, and the civilian cargo ships.

A shudder ran through the floor that almost knocked Raey off his feet, accompanied by a deep rumble that echoed in his head and shook the foundations of the world.

"No, no, no!"

Risky Plan B it was.

He began pulling apart consoles, picking out parts with a reckless speed that he knew would haunt him later, if there was a later. He just needed the materials for another computer spike, and if the rest became unsalvagable in his carelessness, the scavengers of the future would have to forgive him.

The communications outpost was on the outskirts of the main body of the base, and just beyond stood the array itself. It would be a bit of a run outside, but Raey was confident he could make it.

He began twisting the wires together as he ran for the outer door. The earthquakes would only be the beginning - he had no time to waste.

The winter air hit him like the surge before lightspeed. Not just cold - this was bitter. He stood in the door for a moment, his breath frosting in the air, then steeled himself and stepped out into the alien field of white frozen water.

Snow was a lot fluffier then he had expected from the old spacer stories. Like jungles, winter worlds were just a bunch of words that he had nothing to measure against. This time, though, he didn't dare stop to explore the weird freaky nature. Snow clung to his boots and dragged at his steps - nothing like walking through sand. He didn't know this terrain, and it slowed him.

And it was freezing.

He hugged his arms to his chest and kept his eyes fixed on the array, visible in the growing darkness by its own blinking lights. That was the goal.

There were ships flying over his head, trying to flee the unstable world. A huge cargo transport took off from the nearest docking bay, shaking snow from the dark trees beyond the array with its roaring engines. The lights of it lit up the field of snow between Raey and the communications array, and in the brief glow Raey saw something, a dark someone, standing between himself and his goal.

He stopped.

He had left his blaster in the outpost. His hands had been full, and he had left his weapon behind.

"T-there isn't time," he whispered through shivering lips, shooting a glance over his shoulder. He was halfway there, and the earth was rumbling beneath his feet again...

He licked his lips and regretted it, and forced himself to keep moving forward. "I have the uniform... I'm j-just a tech or something, making one last check..."

But the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach would not be overcome by feeble excuses. He changed his path, hoping to go around... but then out of the darkness just ahead he saw the darker shape of a man step forward, directly in his path.

Dread.

Raey clutched his rough computer spike, the cold metal seeping the warmth from his hand. He tried to think of something to say, but he didn't know what to do. Stall? Pointless. Bluff? Impossible. Intimidate?

Hah.

The black figure stepped closer - too close now! - and the low, cold voice, muffled by the modifications of his mask, did not even have to rise to be heard over the growing-distant roar of engines.

"So... this is the spy they sent after me..."

Raey swallowed his fear and tried to keep his shivering voice steady. "How did you know where to find me?" He knew who it was, but the why... the how... it didn't make sense.

"You came when called. It was only a matter of waiting."

He felt himself trembling. "It's just the cold," Raey whispered aloud, but the lie fell brutally short.

A gleam of metal flashed in the Knight's closed hand as he raised a familiar object. Silver, with dots of blue. Raey's jaw clenched suddenly, so hard it ached.

"When my master said the intruder had arrived, I thought it would be the Jedi." The voice behind the mask changed, became darker. "But you... you have barely awakened. You aren't one of them. Not yet."

Raey drew in a long, sharp breath. "What did you do to Ar'tak?"

The silver lightsaber tilted, this way and that, as the dark figure examined it. "Nothing. What my Knights have done is another matter." His wrist flicked dismissively, and the lightsaber tumbled through the air off to one side to vanish in the snow. "They live to hunt Jedi, scavenger."

That one word clamped a cold vice around Raey's already-pounding heart. How much do they know about me...?

"And what about me?" he asked, clenching his teeth on the anger and fear that threatened to shake his voice. "Like you said, I'm not a Jedi. Are you going to let me go, then?"

"I am not my Knights." A jagged hum broke through the softening affect of the snow. Raey tensed as the lightsaber in his opponent's other hand, unseen in the darkness, burst into a fierce red blade and crossguard, crackling wildly. "You have one chance, scavenger," continued that dark voice behind the red-gleaming mask. "Join us. Become my acolyte, and I will teach you the ways of the Force. Join me, and live."

Raey clenched his hand, and his make-shift computer spike dug into his palm. The wires, the metal... his world.

His lips had frozen dry again.

"No."

The word barely made it past his fear-heavy tongue.

Snow hissed as the lightsaber trailed through it, as the Knight - Kylo - stepped closer. Slowly. Raey retreated, back along his own trail of footprints. Slowly.

"I'm not a Jedi," Raey managed. "And I'm not a Sith, or a Knight, or whatever you are. I'm just a scavenger. Not worth it. Besides, this whole planet is going to go. I... I just want to send a goodbye to my friends, that's all."

To Raey's bewilderment, Kylo Ren stopped. Then bewilderment turned to trepidation as the Knight reached to his black belt.

"No, you want to rescue your friends. That was why you came in the first place, why you replied so readily to my master's summons. You thought you had a friend here, and you meant to save him."

The cold felt cruel. It sank right through to Raey's bones, crawled in his warm veins. "How...? No, you're lying."

"Your certainty that you could save him was the lie, scavenger. It brought you and your Jedi friend to us, and the Resistance followed you blindly. All because of my master's whispers across the galaxy that you could save a man who has been dead for days."

Raey's breath caught. His tense muscles trembled.

The black-gloved hand flicked again, but this time it was not a lightsaber he threw. It was something small, dark, unidentifiable against the snow. The Knight's tone changed again - almost less threatening, but also sinister in a way it hadn't been before.

"When we heard it was the escaped prisoner who had come with the Jedi, the Torturer was eager to be here to meet you. He felt robbed of the chance after you got away the first time, and even brought you a present, a memento from your friend the pilot. Of course, now he's too busy with the rare prize you brought him. Doubtless he's already added that black, forked tongue to his collection of trophies..."

Horror (as Raey realized what that piece of dead flesh on the snow actually was) ignited the suppressed anger, the growing sense of vengeance, and even the fear for his life into pure, instinctive action. Raey's tension sprang before he consciously realized it; he found himself sprinting across the snow, off to the side to where he knew Ar'tak's lightsaber lay.

He's right behind me.

He bent, hand thrust down into the white, and came back up, turning abruptly as the blue blade ignited in his grip. His left boot skidded through the snow, drawing an arc behind him until it found purchase against some hidden rock or branch.

Then he charged.

The sky shimmered. The planetary shield fell.

Raey swung - too fast! - and the Knight leaned back to let the wild attack pass in front of his mask. He didn't even raise his own lightsaber.

It's light.

Raey wrapped his left hand around the hilt below his right and lunged. Don't have to worry about wide swings with a lunge. Kylo Ren's lightsaber moved in the same moment, flashing upwards to knock Raey's high.

He staggered, his momentum unbroken, and barely caught himself from lunging into the raised crossguard of his opponent's saber. Then fingers closed around his right wrist, and before he could react Kylo's knee hit him in the stomach.

He doubled over, and the Knight wrenched Ar'tak's lightsaber from Raey's weakened grasp. An armored elbow smashed into Raey's back and he dropped to the snowy ground.

"You're right," snarled Kylo, and Raey heard the sinister voice right next to his ear. "You're no Jedi. Don't pretend to be."

Raey slammed himself sideways, headbutting the Knight right in his masked face. Something cracked, and from the pounding pain in his head Raey couldn't tell if it was his skull or not. He scrambled away as Kylo reeled back, breath hissing sharply through his mask.

A bolt of light fell from the sky. Far away, even over his over-loud, racing heartbeat, Raey could hear the scream of fighters.

The array!

Raey hauled himself to his feet and ran.

"Spike, spike, where's my spike," he panted, suddenly realizing he no longer had his datapad or his computer spike.

Blue reflections flickered wildly across the snow in the corner of Raey's vision. He threw himself to the ground and Ar'tak's lightsaber whirled, spinning, over his head to slam into the base of the array in front of him.

The earth trembled again, but this time it didn't just stop. Raey managed to get to his hands and knees before another shiver of movement knocked him flat again, his hands slipping one direction and his legs another.

KRRRCK!

Trees beyond the communications array cracked lengthwise from the roots, splitting to the core as the earth shifted beneath them. Metal screamed as the massive structures of the base itself began to tear apart in the throes of a self-destructing planet.

Raey didn't think it through, he just reacted. "You're going to get us all killed!" The protest was a desperate one, but it infuriated him as much as it confused him that this was the First Order's plan.

The wickedly-jagged lightsaber stabbed into the snow next to his face, painting everything vividly scarlet.

"That was the plan."

Raey rolled away, another ill-timed wave of moving earth throwing him forward into the array. The dish itself groaned in protest, but it wasn't ready to come down yet.

Ar'tak's lightsaber was still sticking out of the base, slowly cutting a deep line downward as the metal melted away beneath it.

Raey grabbed the hilt one more time. This time, he knew what to expect.

And Kylo Ren hit him like a tram.

Raey's back pressed into the base of the huge array, his arms trembling as the Knight's lightsaber pressed relentlessly into his. Kylo Ren loomed behind the bright, glowing blades, his black and silver mask reflecting the clash of red and blue... except in one small corner of the visor. The glass was cracked and broken there, revealing one black, merciless eye narrowed with anger, tinged red by the light of his saber... and, around the eye, by the trickles of blood drawn from pieces of the broken visor still sticking out of the Knight's flesh.

They hovered there.

For a long moment.

Raey glared back into the Knight's hateful gaze, his arms trembling but locked, keeping his lightsaber in place. He had no plan beyond it, no idea how to win, barely any time to get the warning out... but in that moment, it didn't matter. All his concentration, all his strength, was dedicated to pushing back.

Somewhere behind him, in the forest, the planet split open. It roared, and the engines of shuttles roared back. Raey did not take his eyes off his opponent, but he could feel the ship approaching. And another, behind... aggressive...

The pressure changed.

For a split second, Raey pushed forward, but he wasn't winning ground. The enemy lightsaber relaxed, only for the hilt to twist and jab forward like lightning.

And red lightning caught in a cross-guard filled Raey's vision.

White flash, then black.

He wasn't conscious of the scream, or of hitting the ground. But, somehow, he did hear Kylo. In his burning brain, he heard him, without the distortions of the mask.

An eye for an eye.

.

.

"Princess Leia?"

The princess looked up, her attention drawn away from the manifest of ships New Alderaan had at their disposal. One of her city's nurses stood in her doorway, frazzled hair sticking out of her looped buns and her hands clutched to her chest protectively.

"What can I do for you?" Leia asked, inviting the young woman in with a gesture. The nurse stepped forward, but did not take a seat.

"The matron told me to clear out and clean our guests' bedrooms, in case the... the First Order does come and there's a battle and we need the space, and I found something she said to bring to you." Nervously, carefully as if she was afraid to break it, the young nurse placed a small metal object on Leia's desk.

A data-chip. Forgotten.

The nurse left with the little bob of a bow and a quick step. Leia ran her thumb over the small metal device, the lines that decorated the casing forming a familiar, subtle pattern only three people knew the meaning of.

"Oh, Raey..."