AN: So, this book is already more than the length of my other when I decided to finish that one, and I'm nowhere near done with this one haha. Get ready for a long ride!

The planet was soft as silk in the morning, when the troops marched to their ships and slid away from the flagger base and the sand. The sky was like a blanket, a strip of blue-yellow illuminated by the white sun that lit up the ocean. And the person beside him . . . Rey was radiant.

The two of them were meant to take the Falcon, and when Leia had suggested it, Ben had pretended it didn't mean anything. The ship was far too old but it was capable of impossible things, and it was the most trustworthy thing his mother had left in the galaxy.

But this was his father's ship.

<He's coming?> Chewie growled to Rey, broken arm in a sling.

Rey cocked her head. "I need a copilot, and you're no good with that arm."

Chewie met Ben's eyes, and Ben knew they were both remembering the old days, when Ben hadn't turned and when Han Solo still walked the universe. Rey noticed the interaction and stepped between them, cutting the tension apart with her path.

"Come on," she said.

So Ben walked onto his father's ship and went to protect his father's people. Rey didn't question it when he removed a keychain-two golden dice-from a pocket in his commander's jacket and hung them in the cockpit. He had fought with them next to his heart, and now they were back where they belonged.

* * *

The stars turned to liquid around them as they traveled and even when they switched to auto pilot, Rey stayed in the cockpit. At some point Ben stood up, and Rey turned to see Chewie walk in, growling at Ben to leave.

The Wookiee sat beside her and waited for the door to close behind Ben. <You're keeping something from me,> he said. <What's going on?>

Possibilities swirled through Rey's mind like the stars around them, but she couldn't find the words to explain the bond. "I don't know," she said.

<Han could have told you,> said the Wookie faintly. <But he's gone.>

Rey could sense the grief and blame in the air around him. Words came to her slowly as she watched him, but finally they leapt from her mouth. "He's your nephew."

<I want to believe that.> A pause. Dark eyes leaned closer to her. <Rey, someone on the inside betrayed that location.>

She could tell it hurt him to say it, but Rey didn't care. She was too surprised. "It wasn't him," she said.

<Well. I'm not sure you're the person to ask.>

Chewie stood and left, not letting her say anything else. Her mind was whirring, denying over and over that it was true. She knew Ben. She knew who he was and that he hadn't betrayed the alliance. Maker, he killed Knights. Why couldn't the others understand that?

Rey shook the thoughts away and concentrated on the task at hand, starting to switch over to manual as Ben sat beside her once more. The minutes ticked away faster with the jump to hyperspace, and slowly the stars stopped liquefying around them as the planet got closer.

Rey had already ordered her troops to prepare when they landed, since mid-flight intel had told the commanders that the flaggers would attack about three hours later. It was hardly any time, but the intel had also listed the size of the attack, and Rey knew that alliance soldiers could take them if they were strategic.

During the time the ship was in auto-pilot, the commanders had used the speakers to go over strategy. Three loops around the base, each full of soldiers that would barricade a land attack. Ships in the air, too, with skilled pilots to defend against the air attack. She and Ben would be in the air this time.

When they finally landed under the planet's midday sun and in the center of grasslands, Rey went to the computer room to act out her part in the plan. She copied over a program she had wrote during the flight, and sent it pinging to the signal put out by the blasters that would be used in the middle circle of soldiers.

In the back of her mind, she wondered if the entirety of their plan was too centered around arrogance, around the idea that they were indeed one step ahead of the enemy simply because they had gathered intel.

Three hours passed far too slowly, and the air troops were waiting restlessly in the sky. Rey sat in the turret of the Falcon, hands ready to fire, while Ben was above her in the cockpit. Slowly, predictably, ships with a red flag seal burst out of hyperspace.

It was time.

* * *

"Here they come!" Ben yelled into the speaker, bringing the Falcon around as the flagger ships flew closer. "White team, on my left. Block them!"

In the vacuum of space, there was no sound. There was nothing-only blackness broken by starlight. War had no sound, and so the galaxies heard nothing when the ships started to fire, when the shots tore like obliterating ribbons through the darkness.

"Blue team, come up!" Ben yelled, ordering the group of ships positioned under the enemy.

Space itself might have been hearing nothing, but Ben could hear everything, each shot from Rey that shook the entire ship, each blinking alarm letting him know someone was shooting at the Falcon. To him, war was deafening.

He looked down and saw the blue team growing closer, their shots pulsing color at the flaggers. He also saw the three small ships, each with only a single pilot, speeding toward the Falcon.

"Rey!" He yelled.

"Get me around!" She yelled back, her crackling voice tearing through the comm. He turned and she yelled again, "There!"

The Falcon flew like the bird it was named after, diving impossibly downward as Ben let the enemy follow. Ben was doing his best to protect the Falcon, while also getting Rey an opportunity to get rid of the company behind them.

Something blinked. They were locked on. Rey was yelling as she shot, sending pulsing light through the darkness, following each turn he took with another dozen shots.

The Falcon vibrated with each pulse like a living, breathing thing, and when Rey got rid of one, and then two of the ships trailing them, it seemed to swell in the joy of the aftermath-that split second between the destruction of the second ship and when Rey started firing again.

Another alarm blinked before Ben, who was deep in concentration as he flew the ship alone.

He leaned over and flipped a switch, and brought the Falcon up higher and higher, until the Resistance base was invisible behind the atmosphere, high enough that the wreckage of broken ships would float endlessly in the darkness, never breaking through the planet's sky to rain fire on the grasslands.

BEEP BEEP BEEP!

The alarm kept beeping, and Rey kept shooting.

"They're locked on!" He yelled into the comm, bringing the Falcon in a sharp turn up and over and back the opposite direction.

BEEP BEEP BEEP!

"I've almost got it!" She yelled back, sending more vibrations through the ship with every shot, aiming at the ship still trailing them and matching each of Ben's turns.

Warnings flashed before Ben's eyes as the alarm kept ringing. "Rey!"

A pause. Nothing. No vibrations. Anxiety crashed over him with adrenaline. The alarm was still beeping, still commanding his attention as he turned left, and up, and back and went faster. Then through the camera he saw her shoot the last ship, and her whoop came bouncing into the comm in his ear.

She laughed. "Alright!" The comm crackled. "We need to get more of them away," she said.

Ben knew this, which is why he was already soaring through to the rest of the fight.

* * *

She might have been fashioned from war itself. She was cold and furious as a typhoon when she needed to be, and yet simultaneously soft and precise as the growth of a tree. She fought to survive and that her life would have meaning, and she did it better than most.

She was choking on fury and drowning in starlit expectations, but never once did Rey falter. She shot the enemy down and let the shrapnel pierce the emptiness of space, let the wreckage hang trembling forever where no scavenger would ever find it.

* * *

So the battle raged among the stars and the alliance was able to destroy a good many flagger ships before they entered the atmosphere, but Ben knew there was still fighting on the surface.

"Come in, Poe," Rey's voice came, full of static. "What's going on?"

The sound of blaster fire and grenades burst through the comm as Ben brought the Falcon into the atmosphere to guide it to the fight in the grasslands.

"Outer loop's gone!" Poe shouted into the comm, and then cursed. "Second loop is ready."

Ben could feel it when Rey was caught between fear and hope. "Get those blasters to latch on to a ship," she said.

The middle loop of soldiers was most important because of the weapons contained there. So if the trackers Rey had programmed and sent to the members of the middle loop worked, soldiers with those weapons would be able to launch devices toward the ship.

The alliance needed to find the base of the red flaggers, and tracking devices was a fast way to do that, given the limited amount of time.

"They're on it!" Poe yelled. "Will you get down here?" There was the sound of a blaster being fired, and a war cry. "We could really use your magic swords."

The comm blinked and switched off, and Ben was already landing the Falcon on the west side of the base, tucked in a place protected from most of the fighting. He met Rey in the hallway, and they burst down the landing ramp when it opened and out into the pouring rain.

The sky was as purple-brown as a bruise, and the very heavens were quaking from the pain of war, each cloud leaking and pouring and shooting dagger-like drops at the ground. Red in Ben's hand, flickering flashing pulsing in the rain. Blue to his left, catching and reflecting in every drop.

They inched forward through the fight, cutting down enemies as they came, and a path of bodies trailed behind them like wheat cut under a scythe.

"Hey!" Rey yelled, and Ben turned to see what she had seen.

Water poured down his face, soaking through and chilling each bone. A group of troopers were running toward an unlocked door of the base, scarcely bothering to shoot because their companions had been doing that for them.

But now their companions lay scattered behind Rey and Ben, and the group of dead troopers hadn't been enough to distract the two commanders.

Rey took off after the troopers and Ben followed, boots squelching in the mud of the grass, closed fists freezing in the water, eyes darting between each of the trooper's helmeted heads.

One of the troopers, and then two of them, turned to fight and aimed their blasters. Ben froze the blaster shot when it came at him, and took two steps forward before bringing his saber down on one of the troopers. The other fell down and he saw Rey stepping over the body.

The door clanged shut and Rey was already there, pulling it open and rushing through the threshold to sprint down the halls. Ben didn't wait to see if they were being followed and rushed through after her.

The troopers were weaving down the hallways like they knew what they were doing, as though they had a location in mind. Again one of them turned and tried to hold Ben and Rey off, but with a wave of Ben's hand collapsed and slid, armor squeaking, to the floor.

Then the troopers opened the door leading to the cells and Ben thought he knew what was happening.

* * *

Down the hall of cells, past the hands that slammed against the glass panes, begging pounding asking to be released. After the troopers, running faster and more precise than they should have. Rey breathed hard from exertion, and raised her saber as the troopers slowed to a stop.

"We can end this now!" She said. "Surrender."

A trooper stepped forward and laughed, then shook his head. "No."

He pressed a button in his hand, a thin strip of metal that looked familiar. The buzz of recognition she felt through the bond made her realize she was right. She knew that program, and what it could do. How did the trooper get it?

There was someone on the inside, Rey knew that. But how deep did the betrayal run, if this red flagger held a replica that program?

"I would reconsider that," Rey said to the trooper.

The trooper cocked his head and said nothing. Then he pressed a button and the whirring began. Beside her Ben was walking closer, saber pointed at the floor. Blasters aimed at them.

Why was that trooper laughing?

A cell door popped open as if to answer her question, and a figure emerged from the steam. Rey inched closer, looking beyond the dozen troopers to the figure exiting the cell.

* * *

"Hux," Ben spat.

Before him the red-haired man was stepping out from the cell and into the hallway, proud chest lifted and smirk painted on his face. Ben raised his saber threateningly.

"Back into the cell, or these troopers die," he said.

Hux laughed coldly. "I wouldn't kill anyone else, Commander."

"And why's that?" Rey asked, voice stringed as tight as the bow of an ancient archer.

Ben knew Hux had been expecting this because nothing of his demeanor gave away surprise. The former general had always been smart, always cunning in each decision. It was why he and Rey had been relieved to finally lock him up. But now Hux stood before them, delivering something of an ultimatum.

"We could kill you," Ben said.

"You can't. You see," Hux said, "I learned something from that stunt you pulled with the cameras, so I brought cameras of my own." Hux pointed to the ceiling. "Everything is being broadcasted to the entire galaxy, and yes-it is real. If you kill me, all anyone will know is that two Force-users brutally murdered a First Order General."

"You were stripped of your title," Rey spat.

"That doesn't mean people forgot who I was."

Ben brows furrowed. "What do you want?" He asked harshly.

"You are going to let me walk out of here alive," was all Hux said.

Ben paused and reached, using the Force to figure out that Hux was indeed telling the truth about the cameras. He could feel the electricity running through the wires and into the cameras' wide glass eyes, each blinking steadily and capturing it all. The Force, he realized, and almost smiled.

"You haven't served your time yet," Rey said. "We can't let that happen."

Hux glared, but Ben barely noticed. He was still reaching, searching for each and every wire of the cameras.

Get ready, he sent Rey, and he felt her understand what he was doing.

Ben spun his saber and while the troopers stepped even closer, Ben kept reaching, kept following the wires down down down until he found the source of the power in the hallway.

BANG!

The cameras exploded and rained glass onto the floor just as the lights switched off. The troopers were faltering as the darkness settled heavily, but Ben and Rey-they had their sabers and they could see.

Hux, the coward, was turning and running, not letting the opportunity to escape pass by him, and Rey yelled after him as he went, trying to get to him but being blocked by white armor after armor after armor.

They were nearly held up for too long, fighting the dozen troopers, but it was easier in comparison to fighting the Knights, and the bodies fell to the dark floor. They ran forward and out the door at the end of the hall, down the stairs-sabers red and blue and electric in the darkness-and out into the rain once more.

"Where is he?" Rey yelled into the rain, into the bruised sky and the fighting around them.

Ben saw what she hadn't seen yet and switched off his saber, not taking his eyes off Hux as he moved slowly forward, not caring if his heart was tearing and the shrapnel was being sent across the battleground.

Then Rey saw too, and the blue of her saber disappeared with a whoosh.

They walked forward, slowly, hands in the air. Around them and before them the blasters were pausing, the shots ceasing, the soldiers standing still. The rain poured harder when the rest of the motion stopped, and blurred the image of Hux and the person he was choking, whose blaster he had stolen and was aiming at cruelly at their temple.

"Hux!" Ben yelled, not caring if his emotions made him sound weak. He begged when he said the word.

"Let her go," Rey said.

Because before them, eyes blinking slowly and face turning a strange color in Hux's headlock, was the General, was Leia, was his mother.

"I can't do that!" Said Hux, pulling harder and tightening his hold.

His mother was meeting his eyes so purposefully Ben knew what she was trying to say. It's okay. Don't worry. But this was his mother, and Ben couldn't do nothing.

"Don't come any closer!" He yelled. "I'll shoot!"

Boots halted. Hands stayed trembling in the air. Sabers stayed tucked onto belts.

To their left Ben could see Finn, putting up his hands and pressing them into Poe's chest, trying to get him to stay still.

"You bastard!" Poe yelled, voice bounding through the rain.

Hux laughed. "You have so many friends," he said to Leia. "Let her come with me, and she lives another day."

His mother was meeting his eyes once more, almost nodding as her breath was being choked from her lungs. Ben's mind was panting with ideas and he kept trying to think of anything to get them out of this. Not even the Force could save her now, not when as soon as Ben lifted a hand Hux would shoot.

The trackers, Rey was sending. The trackers, Ben. We'll find her.

He had almost forgotten. He met his mother's eyes across the battlefield, through the rain and mud that separated them, and wished he had been better years ago.

"Well?" Hux yelled.

It was the hardest thing Ben could have done, but slowly, achingly he nodded.

A grin. An arm sliding away from his mother's neck. Her gasp. Then a shove to push her forward to the waiting ship. Like demons, the red flaggers took his mother and left without shooting another blaster. They had what they had come for.

"We'll find her," Rey said, but the words pained her and Ben knew that even she was hesitant. What if the program hadn't worked? What if the tracker hadn't attached properly? What if he lost his mother for good?

"We will," she said as the moon began to rise through the rain.

* * *

Still they crept back to each other when night fell and the soldiers went to sleep. They found each other as though they were two planets captured in the same pull of gravity, constantly circling the same sun. They held each other when the other started seeing red on their hands, and didn't let go until morning.

When Ben woke up frozen in terror Rey jolted awake, whispering and calming and pulling him back down. He breathed and breathed as their hearts slowly stopped pounding hard enough to feel.

"We were fools," he whispered into her hair.

Rey turned, and through the moonlight entering the room could scarcely make out anything but his eyes and the outline of his face. "What?"

"Fools to think we might have peace," he said softly, sorrowfully.

"No," Rey said. "Peace will come, in time."

He said nothing and simply stared into the fluttering rays of moonlight and the shadow between them.

"Is it too much to ask for?" He said dejectedly, as though he didn't expect an answer.

Rey had thought the same thing. "We'll figure it out," she said, both for him and herself.

The moonlight continued to bound skittishly, as though the galaxies themselves knew of impossibility-and she knew that under his fingers as they found her cheek he could feel the emotion dripping down her face.

"We have to," she said.

AN: Wow so peace is not a thing I guess. I'm about to make myself a cup of tea, which makes me hope tea comes back to this story when the war finally stops haha.

Still, 3500 words is pretty good. Lots of things happened in this chapter, and I hope everyone is appreciating the slow burn. :) Feedback?