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chapter fifty-four: binary sunset
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THE SOUND OF GUNFIRE has subsided. There is only silence amongst the rebels inside the mine — the haunting kind, that almost seems loud — and no one dares to break it. Poe Dameron lets out a slow exhale, still holding Indira tightly in his arms. One of his hands rests on the nape of her neck and the other supports her back, keeping her steady against him. Her breathing is unsteady, hitching on silent sobs that make her shoulders tense, but she is completely still otherwise; no longer hell-bent on charging outside and throwing herself into the line of fire.   

     Poe lets his gaze drift inside the control room and he locks eyes with Leia. Her expression is mournful, but the general gives Poe a nod that he returns solemnly. He knows this can't be easy on Leia either. Skywalker was her brother — her twin brother — and she had lost him only a few months after the death of her husband.

     How can one person suffer so many losses and still keep her head held high? He thinks. How many times can a heart break before it breaks you, too?

     Poe's thoughts unconsciously drift to his father. Losing Poe's mother took a heavy toll on him. For a short time after the death of his wife, Kes Dameron had seemed to lose the will to live. He stopped eating and became thin. His temples greyed and his hair grew sparse. It took many months for him to return to a fragment of his former self, but Kes had never truly been the same after the death of his wife. Poe wonders what will become of his father when he dies, too. Will his heart be able to bear one more loss or will he lose the strength to continue carrying on?

      Poe has no delusions about their chances of survival; they will be dead soon. Skywalker's confrontation with the First Order had been terribly short-lived. The AT-AT walkers would advance on the mine and blow the rest of the Resistance to hell. It was only a matter of time.

     As his morbid thoughts grow more and more depressing, Poe hears voices shouting from the entrance of the mine. His shoulders tense on instinct. Undoubtedly, it is the First Order and their troopers storming in to finish the job.

      Except, Poe recognizes those voices.

      "Med-pack!" Finn screams himself hoarse. "I need a med-pack!"

      "Please," Stefan Nakada shouts. "Rose is hurt! She needs help."

      Poe's brow furrows. In his arms, Indira stirs and looks up at him, red-rimmed eyes wide with disbelief and he shakes his head, hardly daring to trust his ears. "No way."

     He lets go of Indira, backpedaling from the control room into the heart of the base. There, in the gaping hole of the blast door, stand Finn and Stefan. Between them, Rose's unconscious figure hangs from their shoulders, but her chest is still rising and falling with shallow breath.

     "Med-pack!" Finn yells again. "Please, someone help. She's really hurt —"

     A team of medics rush forward from behind Poe. The troopers swiftly remove Rose's motionless figure from Stefan and Finn's shoulders and carry her to safety. Poe blinks multiple times. He had been certain that they had lost Finn, along with Stefan and Rose, but all three of them were alive.

      "How did you guys —" he begins.

     Finn shakes his head. "It was him," he points outside the doors. "Skywalker. He took all their fire."

     Somewhere in the distance, Poe hears Indira let out a choked sob. He flinches.

      Stefan nods, confirming Finn's words. "I don't know how the hell he did it. They must've hit the spot where he was standing at least hundred times, but he was still standing there — completely unharmed — when we ran in. It looked like the command shuttle was coming down to the ground to meet him."

       Poe gapes at him incredulously. "What?"

     Behind him, Indira lets out a strangled gasp. "He's alive?"

     Finn shrugs. "Look for yourself."

     Immediately, Poe fumbles for the pair of quadnoculars tucked into his belt. He pulls them free and lifts them to his face, peering out onto the salted plains outside the mine. It takes a minute for the device to focus, but true to Finn and Stefan's words, he sees Skywalker standing on the ground below. Not even a single hair is out of place on his head. By some miracle, he had survived the AT-AT assault and came out completely unscathed.

     In the distance, Poe can see Ren approaching from his ship. The sight of him sends a shiver of fear through Poe's body. For a brief moment, all he can think about is the last time he saw Ren. It had been on the Finalizer, where Poe had been strapped down and restrained, and Ren had dug through his memories in the worst way possible.

     In comparison to his own frantic breathing, Luke Skywalker shows no sign of fear at Ren's appearance. Instead, he brushes off his shoulder casually; a direct challenge towards the other man.

      Poe mouth drops open with disbelief and he allows the quadnocs to fall to the ground. In an instant, Indira snatches them up and puts them to her own face. She makes a small sound — something between a cry and a whimper of surprise — before she looks back at Poe and Finn.

     "Kylo Ren is out there," she tells them frantically. "He's facing him, alone —"

     "We should help him," Finn says instantly. He steps forward towards the door. "Let's go."

     Poe sticks an arm out to prevent them from moving any further. "No, wait. Wait." His brow furrows. "He's doing this for a reason."

     Skywalker wouldn't have shown up in the middle of the battle just to buy them a few more seconds before they died. There was a purpose to the man's actions. Poe had been too distracted to realize it before, but the explanation had been staring him in the face from the very beginning.

     "He's stalling," the pilot realizes, "so we can escape."

     "Escape?" Finn asks incredulously. "He's one man against an army. We have to help him; we have to fight."

     "Finn is right," Indira says, her mouth falling into a hard line, and Poe has to wonder when they switched places — her wanting to charge head-first into danger and him telling her to exercise caution. "We can't just run away and leave him to die —"

     "No, no, no." Poe shakes his head, closing his eyes as he remembers — oddly enough — the first speech that Vice Admiral Holdo gave onboard the Raddus.

     When he opens his eyes again, Leia is standing a few feet away. Her hand is around her niece's wrist, keeping the younger woman at her side. She whispers something into Indira's ear that makes her brow furrow before a look of understanding passes over her face. Her expression is different when she meets Poe's eyes again and she nods at him to continue speaking.

     He takes a deep breath. "We are the spark that'll light the fire that'll burn the First Order down," Poe says with conviction, looking at all the faces of the remaining Resistance members. "Skywalker is doing this so that we can survive."

      He turns away from the blast door, staring at the high ceiling and stone walls. "There's gotta be a way out of this mine," he shouts. "Hell, how did he get in here?"

     C-3PO waddles forward. "Sir, it is possible that a natural, unmapped opening exists. But this facility is such a maze of endless tunnels that the odds of finding an exit are 15,428 —"

      "Shh," Poe shushes the droid. "Shh. Shut up!"

     "— to one," C-3PO concludes.

     "Listen," he instructs, holding a hand up. The only sound that can be heard is the stillness of the wind echoing through the network of tunnels.

     "Oh!" C-3PO cries. "My audio senses no longer detect —"

     "Exactly," Poe finishes.

      Finn's brow furrows. "Where'd the crystal critters go?"

      The sound of soft tinkling draws Poe's attention toward the back of the tunnel. There, a lone vulptex stands in the mouth of the cavern. Its crystalline fur glows in the faint light pouring in from the blast door, illuminating the creature just enough for Poe to see it from a distance. He lets out an incredulous breath before the fox yelps and takes off running, disappearing into the darkness of the tunnel.

     Poe clenches his jaw with determination before looking behind over his shoulder at the remaining troopers. "Follow me."

      Instead of obeying him, their heads turn in Leia's direction and the soldiers seek out her guidance. The general raises an eyebrow at them. "What are you looking at me for?" She asks, eyes shining with pride when she meets Poe's gaze. "Follow him."

THE SUN IS SETTING on the plains of Crait as Luke Skywalker watches his nephew approach in the distance. For all of the years that have passed since Luke last saw him, Ben Solo has hardly changed. The black clothing and long hair does nothing to disguise the child hiding beneath his hulking frame. It makes Luke feel the slightest bit of pity for the boy he once knew — though that nearly vanishes the moment he opens his mouth.

"Old man," Ben sneers. "Did you come back to say you forgive me? To save my soul, like my father?"

Luke regards him with a look of disgust. "No."

His nephew scowls, throwing his cape to the ground before igniting his crimson colored lightsaber. Luke draws his own blade, illuminating the luminous green blade while staring Ben down.

Impulsive and rash as ever, his nephew strikes first. He lunges at Luke, but the Jedi Master is quicker. He sidesteps the blow with ease. Frustrated, Ben attacks again. This time Luke narrowly ducks beneath the blade before he rises to his feet unharmed. A small amount of distance grows between them, allowing Luke to have the chance to speak with Han and Leia's boy once more.

"I failed you, Ben," he says evenly. "I'm sorry."

"I'm sure you are," his nephew spits, seething with unbridled rage. "The Resistance is dead. The war is over. And when I kill you, I will have killed the last Jedi."

"Amazing," Luke replies calmly. "Every word of what you just said was wrong."

     Ben falters.

       "The rebellion is reborn today," he continues. "The war is just beginning. And I will not be the last Jedi."

     In his mind's eye, Luke can see them all — Leia, Indira, Rey, and the others. He splits his attention between them and his nephew, biding his time for as long as he can so they can escape. Luke knows Ben's heart — his impulsive nature, his stubborn pride — but he also knows he will only be able to hold his nephew's attention for so long before he grows impatient.

     "Rey?" Ben scoffs, a vicious and angry sound. "Your chosen one. Chosen over me. I will destroy her. And you and your daughter — I'll destroy all of it. Know that."

      Luke's eyes blaze with a righteous fury. "No," he says again, sheathing his saber. "You won't touch my family ever again. Strike me down in anger and I'll always be with you. Just like your father."

      The mention of Han is enough to trigger a reaction from Ben. He lets out an enraged scream before charging at Luke with his blade held high. Luke watches impassively, refusing to flinch as his nephew swings his saber in a wide arc, slicing directly through his torso.

      Except, the blade passes through him as clean as air.

      Ben turns to look at him incredulously. His stubborn brow furrows as he approaches Luke again, slowly this time, and plunges the blade directly into his heart. Again, the blade does nothing. It just hovers in his chest, suspended in weightlessness.

     Understanding dawns on his nephew's face. "No," he mutters. "No!"

     Luke Skywalker smiles. "See you around, kid."

     THE TUNNELS ARE DARK and poorly lit. Poe is leading the charge from the front, but Indira hangs back. She sticks close to Leia's side, trying to process the information that her aunt had shared with her only moments before. None of it made sense to her — not really — and yet it also made total sense at the same time. "It's called Force projection," Leia had muttered in her ear. "He's not really here, Indira. Wherever Luke is, he's safe. I didn't realize it at first, but after he touched my hand, I knew."

     Indira still doesn't understand it. Her father had been there — he had held her in his arms, cradled her face in his hands — but according to Leia, he hadn't been there at all. Somehow, she knows that her aunt is right, but she can't wrap her head around it in the slightest. It felt so real.

     "This way," Poe calls up ahead, turning sharply down a narrow tunnel.

     Indira squints as the Resistance crowds into the passageway. Her elbows bump against the other soldiers, cramming for space as they squeeze through the tiny opening into a hollowed out cavern that is filled with rocks. Indira surveys the space with a slight frown, coming to a disheartening conclusion: the crystal fox had led them to a dead end.

     "Oh, no," Poe mutters as he makes the same assessment. "No, no, no, no!"

     They were trapped.

In retrospect, Indira thinks that she should have anticipated something like this happening. At this point, she is almost surprised with herself for feeling surprised. The universe had a sick sense of humor, playing her over and over again by getting her hopes only to dash them into oblivion.

      "It's over," she sighs.

     It isn't necessarily a sigh of defeat. If anything, it is a sigh of relief. The Resistance had run its final course and now it was their time to die — as all living things must. The thought is strangely comforting to her. After fighting so long in vain, dying doesn't seem as daunting as it once did to Indira. That in itself would be a hell of a lot easier than continuing to fight.

     "No," Leia murmurs, holding up the binary beacon on her wrist. The small device pulses blue and red. "It's not."

      A rumble makes the cave shake and the rocks shift. Indira blinks hard, thinking that she must be hallucinating, but she isn't. The stones blocking the exit of the cavern begin to move — slowly at first, then all at once. She watches in awe as daylight floods the cave. A new tunnel is revealed once the boulders are gone and Finn and Poe go charging through it without hesitation.

    Everyone follows after them, stopping in the mouth of the tunnel. There, outside of the stone walls, is Rey. Her arms are extended above her and her eyes are closed as she holds the rocks in the air, keeping them suspended by the Force. The young Jedi's eyes open and she smiles when she sees them — vibrant and beautiful in all of her strength and power.

      Nobody moves until Finn does. He goes barreling towards Rey, pumping his arms as he runs, and the rocks move with him before they crash safely down to the ground. Rey is engulfed in Finn's embrace. She falls into his arms, laughing and sobbing, and clutches at him just as tightly as he clutches her.

     Slowly, the rest of the Resistance members make their way out of the tunnel into the light of day. Indira blinks against the harshness of the daylight before a smile covers her face. She looks around before setting her eyes on the Millenium Falcon in the distance, where Chewbacca is sitting in the pilot's seat. The sight of him makes her grin and she lifts a hand to wave, beaming when he waves back.

      The doors to the Falcon fall open and the Resistance members are quickly ushered inside by Rey. Indira watches her friends go one by one — first Rose, still unconscious on a stretcher, followed by Stefan, Connix, and Finn. Poe is one of the last to board the ship, waiting anxiously so he can speak with Chewie.

     It's only after all of her soldiers are stored safely inside the ship that Leia begins to make her way towards the ramp. Indira walks a few steps ahead of her aunt, ready to board the freighter, until a strange feeling washes over her.

     Indira's hands shake as she sinks to her knees. A sharp pang echos in her chest and her fingers scramble for the kyber crystal around her neck, finding it warm to the touch. Something is wrong — Indira knows that instantly — and when she looks at Leia and Rey's startled faces, she knows that they can feel it, too.

Indira.

The voice is soft and familiar. It's one she's heard before, calling out to her in quiet moments from across the stars. She closes her eyes to try and calm her raging mind, inhaling and exhaling deeply.

      That's good, her father's voice tells her. Breathe. Just breathe. You'll hear me better that way.

     Her brow furrows, but her eyes stay shut. "Where —?" She asks before he cuts her off.

     Ahch-To, he replies hastily. That doesn't matter, though. Listen to me — I don't have much time left.

     "Don't have much time?" Indira frowns. "I thought you were safe. I thought —"

     The projection took all of my strength, he explains before chuckling slightly. Your father is an old man, Indira. I lasted long enough to allow Rey to find you, but I can't stay any longer.

      Her lip trembles. "What do you mean?"

He sighs heavily. I mean that this is goodbye. I don't want you to blame yourself for this. My life's journey is coming to a close. Part of that journey is the end.

"I don't understand," she murmurs, feeling her heart sink. "I thought that —"

I know what you thought, he interrupts her gently. And I'm sorry that we won't get to see each other. But I wanted to share this with you. I want you to remember this moment and remember this place.

A vibrant binary sunset floods her vision. Indira can see the entirety of an island surrounded by soft hues of gold, orange, and red as she looks through her father's eyes. The water reflects the colors of the sky, shimmering in the fading light of day. It's beautiful — stunningly so — and it takes her breath away. She has never seen anything like this before.

Look to the horizon, her father tells her. No matter how dark the night may seem, the sun will rise always again.

Indira exhales sharply. "I don't know how to do this without you."

      Yes, you do, Luke disagrees gently. But if you need me, all you have to do is reach out like this and I'll be there. I'll always be with you, sweetheart.

     On the horizon, the sun sinks towards the waves and disappears behind them. Indira feels a shift in the Force and the wind kicks up on the island, wailing over the sound of the crashing tides and singing birds. Something warm washes over Indira, covering her from head to toe, and she sighs. It feels light and bright.

It feels luminous.

      Her eyes open with a start and Indira finds herself back on Crait, still on her knees on the hardened ground. She lifts a hand to her cheeks, finding them wet with tears. When she looks up, Rey is kneeling in front of her. Her eyes are red and glossy and her chin quivers slightly before she reaches out a hand. Indira lets out a shuddering breath before she takes it, allowing Rey to help pull her up from the ground.

When she turns around, Indira finds Leia watching them. Her normally stoic expression cracks as her lips tremble and her eyes flood with tears. That's when Indira knows — really knows — that her father is gone.

Luke Skywalker is dead.

"Come on, my girls," Leia says softly, regaining her composure as she reaches out to take Rey and Indira's hands in hers. Her eyes are sad, but warm as she holds them both tightly. "We need to go."

a/n: only one more chapter left of act ii 🥺

EDITED ON:
11.15.19