Star Wars, Duel of the Fates: Chapter Three- The Training

**for previous chapters, please refer to the Table of Contents**

               It had been a week since the raid on Kuat. Rey sat, cross-legged, immersed in the Force. The air around her was filled with an endless variety of sounds, the chirps and squawks and cracks of the jungle. This particular planet in the Talrezan system featured a number of rocky plateaus that each played host to a thick jungle, growing over and around the odd and twisting stone formations of the planet's surface. As strange a sight as these half rock, half plant landscapes were, they provided ample nooks and crannies to hide a considerable number of starships from both physical view and from a great many types of sensory equipment.

               Because of this, Talrezan Four had served effectively as a primary base for the Rebellion in the months since the disaster at Crait. None other than the legendary general Lando Calrissian himself had led them there. Encountering them mid-flight from Crait's airspace, he'd later explained that he'd heard the initial sending of their message and had been in a nearby system, but that it was soon cut off by some strange new jamming technique. He figured that most of those who had heard the start of the message were simply too afraid, at that point, to risk flying into what may have been a trap. When he himself flew in, he soon realized that he stood alone against an entire fleet, and had flown under the radar to the other side of the planet when he and the Millenium Falcon were able to establish contact.

               It had been slow going ever since. Ship by ship, recruit by recruit, the Rebellion had been able to piece back together something resembling a fighting force, but it was still not nearly enough to seriously challenge the First Order. With the new jamming system apparently being used across the entire galaxy, they could not coordinate with any other sympathetic systems, and had to rely on the very occasional rogue transmission or direct personal rendezous to carry out even the smallest of missions, from supply-gathering, to recoinnasance, to attempted sabatoge like at Kuat. But it wasn't enough. It all wasn't nearly enough.

               All this weighed on Rey as she sat on a small, exposed rock surface out in the jungle, meditating. It weighed on her every minute of every day, but it was especially pressing now, with her body sweaty and sore from another morning of training. The dense, humid heat of the place didn't help things either.

               Her "training grounds," such as they were, were set off a ways from the main camp, set up on a prominent rise overlooking a valley clear enough of vegetation to allow most of their main ships, the Falcon included, to settle there. Using bits of the Jedi texts as guides, she'd soon established a regular series of both physical exercises and Force meditations to help her continue to hone her abilities as best she should. As frustrated as she was with the state of things, she had to continue on, somehow. She was the last of the Jedi, and it was on her to forge a new way forward, alone.

               Well, not entirely alone.

               I see you're still dwelling on Kuat.

               At the sound of the voice, Rey turned her head. Luke Skywalker, her late master, now a blue-tinged, translucent figure one with the Force, stood on the other end of the clearning, observing her.

               "Master Skywalker," she responded. "....yes. I can't help it. I can't help but feel that I failed. I sensed the danger far too late, and we couldn't carry out our plan as a result. If I can't even get a simple sabotage mission right, how am I to take on the First Order? How am I to stop Ben?"

               Luke opened his mouth to respond, but Rey cut him off by continuing, "And yes, I know, it is not proper of a Jedi to regret, or dwell on the past, or whatever, but..." she cut off, unsure of how to continue. Luke stood silently, waiting.

               Finally, she stood so as to keep her thoughts flowing; her body needed to move, and she began pacing around the clearing.

               "There's just so much darkness. All around me. I think of all the horrors that have happened...all the loss....how many people are willing to accept something like the First Order....and I wonder what I can possibly do to push back against...against all this...evil. It's....it's all so much."

               Luke began to walk across the clearing towards her;

               The path of the Jedi is never an easy one, Rey. Especially in your case. You carry the legacy of the Jedi in your person now. I had my chance to rebuild the Order and failed. So believe me, I know what regret is.

               "And what even is that legacy, then?" Rey snapped back at Luke, "You keep saying things like that, but I can't even begin to imagine what it means. If you failed- if Luke Skywalker failed- what hope do I have? This endless cycle of Sith, Jedi, Sith, Jedi, on and on again. If all light casts a shadow, then how can balance ever truly happen?"

               Luke was silent for a moment before responding.

               I understand your anger. If I knew all the answers, I would still be alive. My new Jedi order would have succeeded. So I can't tell you what, exactly, you can or should do, Rey. All I can do is teach you what I know. And remind you to open yourself to the Force. I believe that, soon, when you least expect it, a door will open for you.

               Rey opened her mouth to respond, to ask what in the hell sort of door she could hope for, but the figure was already fading. She could practically taste her annoyance in her mouth.

               Kriffing Force ghosts, she thought. Never come when you really want them there, and leave when you still have questions. Glancing up at the sun to note the advancing hour, she turned, grabbed her lightsaber and satchel, and turned back towards the main camp.

               Rose and Finn sat under one of the small overcrops of rock on the edge of the landing plateau, drinking caf and watching the tech crews on shift go about their work. Since Kuat, Finn had been in another one of his more somber, withdrawn moods. When he went very still, and very quiet, not saying much of anything, you knew something was really eating at him.

               This, at least, Rose had learned over the past few months. Finn had clearly matured from the flight-happy, go-it-aloner she'd encountered in the pod bay of the Raddus; it had meant worlds to her to see him so proudly call himself rebel scum while staring down Phasma. That was the moment her heart had opened itself in a way she never expected, and she found herself falling in love with Finn.

               And yet, he could still be so reserved, so unwilling, or reluctant, or unable, to share much of himself. She could feel, deep down, that he loved her too, even though he hadn't said it yet. As frustrating as this had been for her, she knew that she had to be patient; after all, he'd been kidnapped and brainwashed for nearly his whole life by the First Order. She understood all too well that that sort of trauma would need time- lots and lots of time- to heal; her dreams were still, so often, filled with the memories of her dear sister. So for now, she was willing to wait, and to just be what he needed her to be right now. What else is love for?

               Not that she wasn't willing to prod him every so often- this, too, he needed, as much as he needed patience.

               "Alright, what's up?"

               "Hm?" he almost shook his head a bit, coming out of his reverie. "What? What's supposed to be up?"

               She rolled her eyes while laughing at the same time. She seemed to be doing that a lot, lately.

               "You, dummy. I can tell when something's bothering you. C'mon, what is it?"

               "Mm....." Finn stared off across the landing zone for a bit before, "It's....kinda hard to explain. Like....after Cait, I felt, well, more confident that I think I've ever been. Like I'd figured it out. I'm part of the Rebellion, I'll help put things in the galaxy right again. That's what I can do, and I'll do it. You know?"

               Rose nodded, sipping at her caf. Finn continued.

               "Before that, I'd had so much fear, so much...uncertainty, just eating away at me. That's one of the reasons I tried to, um," here he cast his eyes to the ground briefly, "to run away, back then. But suddenly that was gone, and it was like I could see a way for my life."

               "But, since Kuat, that weird feeling is back. I don't know how to describe it, it's like some strange itch that I can't get at. I don't know if it's good, or bad, or...I just don't know."

               He fell silent. Rose pondered this for a bit.

               "I think I get it," she finally said. "In the middle of a war it's pretty easy to just focus on the next job. But what if we win? What happens next? What do I do with my life after that? That's what I've been starting to think about, in those times when I let myself believe that we will, somehow, pull this off. About how to live afterwards. The people I want in my life afterwards."

               Finn finally met her eyes then, and for a moment, they just looked at each other, contemplating the same thought. Finn seemed to want to open his mouth when a call came out from his sergeant across the way;

               "FINN! Get your butt over here man, drill time!"

               Finn glanced back at Rose, and smiled in a rather sheepish way, "Thanks, Rose. See ya later."

               "Later," She could only shake her head as she watched him jog over to the drill grounds on the other side of the base. How in the galaxy was she going to reach that boy?

               Rose then heard the sound of movement behind her and turned around to see Rey emerging from the pathway back to base from her own training spot, deeply breathing and covered in sweat. Rose hopped of the ledge she'd been sitting on and trotted over.

               "Hey," she said, catching up with Rey, "How'd it go today?"

               Rey stopped, and was silent for a minute before starting to walk again, responding, "Frustrating. I spoke with Luke again."

               Rose was still not wholly able to wrap her mind around some of the stranger things that the Force seemed to cause, like dead-and-gone legends appearing like ghosts out of thin air, but she'd spoken with Rey about this before, so she didn't feel the same level of awe she'd felt the first time she'd heard of this.

               "And? Any more guidance from the Jedi master?"

               "Nothing he hasn't said before. Be open to the Force, trust in yourself, the legacy of a thousand generations, blah blah blah. I've been opening myself to the Force. I've been going through the texts, over and over and over again. I train every day. And...nothing. No idea how we can around this blasted jamming system, much less rebuild the Rebellion afterwards. And even after all that, how do I build a whole new Jedi order?"

               She stopped walking suddenly. Rose waited.

               "Even after all that's happened, I still feel like just a simple scavenger girl. Like this is all just too big for me."

               Rose thought about this a moment. "Have you tried talking to Leia about this?"

               Rey shook her head, "Not yet. She has way more important things to worry about than me."

               "That's not true Rey, and you know it. Leia knows that you need succeed every bit as much as the rest of us do. And she might be the one person left in the entire galaxy who really understands what you're struggling with."

               Rose moved in and placed a comforting hand on Rey's shoulder. "Talk to her. Today. If anyone can help you out, she can."

               She stepped back to go, draining the last of her drink, "I gotta run now. Poe wants help on a specs test he think might help us break the jamming. Need to make sure he doesn't blow himself up."

               Rey had to laugh in spite of herself. A bit- just a bit- of the worries surrounding her heart began to lighten up. "Alright. Thanks Rose."

               Rose grinned one last time, then turned and jogged around the corner. Rey didn't know how long she stood their, her grin slowly, fading, lost in her thoughts. Then she too a deep breath, stretched her shoulders back to loosen up her sore muscles, and decided to take Rose's advice. But first, she desperately needed a shower, and a change of clothes.

               Rey found Leia later that afternoon at her personal work desk near the command consols. Approaching the general from the side, Rey was struck by the lines of worry and care in her face that only seem to have deepened in the past months. If she'd been fully honest to Rose earlier, she would have admitted that another reason she felt too nervous to talk to Leia until now was her awareness of the intensely personal nature of Leia's burden. Rey was looking at someone who had just lost her brother, whose own son had killed both her husband and the Republic she'd literally spent her entire life trying to create and defend. The loss of family and friends she had felt over the years had to be an immensely painful burden, and the few times she dared think on it, Rey felt that she couldn't justify adding to this burden by so directly asking Leia for what, in effect, was help in defeating her son and only remaining family member, Supreme Leader or no.

               But Rose really was right about this, and Rey knew it. They'd all chosen to be here. Leia could have given up or turned away or even embraced the Dark Side any number of times throughout her life. But she hadn't. She was still here, head bent over the papers on her desk, deep in thought over her next move. If Leia Organa Solo could summon that sort of strength, Rey knew she had no excuse.

               Once Rey had moved to about 2 meters shy of the desk, Leia slowly raised her head to look at her. Suddenly, the cares that seemed like deep gouges in stone in her face seemed to drop away, her smile radiating warmth.

               "Rey. How you doing, kiddo?"

               Rey had to smile herself, "Mixed, I guess. Do....you have time to talk?"

               "For you? Of course. Take a seat." she gestured to one of the simple chairs scattered at other work stations around hers. Rey selected one that looked at least marginally comfortable and sat down.

               "So. What's on your mind?"

               Rey took a deep breath before responding, "A lot. I spoke with Master Luke again, while I was training earlier."

               She thought she saw a flicker of emotion and loss in Leia's eyes, but her voice held steady. "And?"

               "And....I finally asked the question thats really been eating at me this whole time. We're here to stop the First Order. To make a new Republic. And I'm the last Jedi, so it's on me to somehow recreate the Jedi order. And I've been wracking my brains over it. Training. Speaking with Luke. Meditating. Reading the Jedi texts. And I can't think of anything. I don't know what the right way forward is for me, or for the Jedi. Even if we beat the First Order, what do I do after that? If even Luke Skywalker..."

               She hesitated before saying this next part, unsure if it would hurt or offend Leia, but if she'd already said this much she might as well finish it.

               "...if he....failed, how can I hope to succeed?"

               She felt a rush of gratitude when Leia smiled and seemed to really think over it; she took it as a sign that Leia hadn't taken that last part about her brother the wrong way.

               "You know, Rey, I was effectively born into this life. My father was a Senator involved in the Rebellion who personally knew many of the old Jedi, like Obi-Wan and Yoda, even my real father, Anakin. Politics, diplomacy, military strategy. The fight between the Sith and the Jedi. The roles that my husband, my brother, by son have all played. We were all pulled right into old structures and conflicts we had no part in starting, without ever having much of a choice. It's been my whole life. And," here she leaned towards Rey, "that's fine by me; I wouldn't choose another life for all the galaxy."

               "But you're different. You have no history, no connection with any of this. You're not from some noble family on Coruscant or one of the Core Systems. You're not like my father, or my brother, or even my son. You're something new. And therefore, you have a freedom to think of something genuinely new for the galaxy that the rest of us aren't able to see. Luke knows that too, which is why he's insisting on sticking around to help you out."

               "But that's just it," Rey responded, "if a whole universe is open to me, how do I pick a way? I feel so afraid when I think about making the wrong choice. But then Luke or the texts say that that isn't the Jedi way, or that it leads to the dark side, and then I start doubting myself all over again..."

               Leia pondered this for a moment, "Well, remember: the old Jedi are gone. Luke is too. You define the Jedi order now, not a thousand generations of dead warriors. Maybe you pick a path that the old Jedi would never have taken, but that doesn't make it wrong. And if one path doesn't work out, you try another. A lack of flexibility was a big reason the old order could be fooled and manipulated by Emperor Palpatine. Maybe a fresher, more pliable philosophy, open to interpration and error and redemption, is exactly what the new order needs."

               As Leia spoke, Rey began to feel even more of the cares that been draining her emotional stamina loosen and retreat from the grips they'd had in her head. A warmth, a deep appreciation for her and for the other people that the Force had brought into her life, began to fill her. For the first time before Kuat, she felt somewhat at peace again.

Blinking back tears that suddenly threatened to squeeze out of her eyes, Rey looked back up at the general, "Thank you Leia. I think...I really needed to hear that."

               "Anytime, kiddo. And one more thing you should never forget; it's ok to feel fear, or to worry about doing the right thing. That isn't dark side or light side, that's just being alive. As long as you don't let it overwhelm you; dwelling in fear, now that's a surefire way to lose everything important to you."

Films for the Trump Years, Part 17: Malcolm X

               I don't know why, but for some reason a 2017 article by film critic Odie Henderson popped up on my Twitter feed on the 25^th anniversary of the release of Spike Lee's Malcolm X, his massive, three-plus-hour biopic of one of the most titanic figures in 20th-century American history. At first, I was confused as to why this article was just crossing my path now, but the time gap between now and the article's original publication is ultimately trivial; the whole gist of Henderson's piece is to point out how revisiting the film several decades later throws into painful relief how very, very little has changed in America in terms of racial inequality since, not just the release of the film itself, but the life of its subject. And if that was already undoubtedly true in 2017, it's even more obvious now.

               As it happens, while I am writing this article in late May 2020, a viral video has ended up launching the largest public reckoning with racism and our militarized police force since Ferguson. The video is- God have mercy on us all- yet another example of a police officer callously and cruelly murdering a black man named George Floyd over....what? Speeding? A parking ticket? Frankly, it doesn't matter. Events have moved extremely rapidly over the course of me writing this, so any summary I try to put here will be long out of date by the time you're reading it, so please; get active and start informing yourself.

And this is happening across the backdrop of an ongoing global pandemic, one that has, so far, hit the United States the hardest in terms of the numbers of cases and deaths. This horrific burden has been overwhelmingly born by the poorer and less-well-off among us, which, inevitably, means minorities and marginalized communities. African-Americans, Native Americans, illegal immigrants, and the inmates of federal prisons (which, again, overwhelmingly means black and brown persons) have been the most devastated communities so far, and with the Trump administration adamantly refusing to do any of the heavy lifting necessary to stave off social and economic collapse, this is not about to get better anytime soon. As always, real tragedy tears off all the masks, and an increasing number of Republicans, conservatives, and white people in general have taken to saying the quiet part very, very loudly.

               So, once again, those who want to comprehend why this sort of shit remains so deeply embedded in American DNA need to seriously grapple with our history of inequality, genocide, and discrimination of every shade and stripe imaginable. I've already recommended films on the US prison complex and other aspects of American racism, including an MLK biopic, but reading Henderson's piece made me realize any attempt to encompass the history of American racism without including Malcolm X would be incomplete at best.

               Fortunately, much like Ava DuVernay's Selma, Malcolm X is of a much different cut than your standard biopic. The genre of prestige biographical films has a rather justified reputation for usually being incredibly safe, dry, predictable, and rote on a filmmaking and storytelling level, even if a rote and formulaic approach is wholly antithetical to the person or persons the film is trying to depict (see the latest sludge bomb Bohemian Rhapsody for a primo example of this- or rather, don't).

               Spike Lee is having none of that here. The film opens with an American flag slowly burning into a giant X, intercut with shots from the Rodney King beating that took place roughly a year before the film's release. Subtle, this movie is not.

               Perhaps the first thing that struck me as the film proper started up after the opening credit sequence was just how vivid and vibrant the colors of its world are. Particularly in the first segment of the film, when a young Malcolm X (or, as he then styled himself, "Detroit Red") is not much more than a party-boy and hustler in the big city. There is so much texture and lushness to each frame, I literally felt like I'd been pulled straight through a time warp to late-1940's Harlem. While the use of color and lighting alters later on, reflecting the various mental and physical changes Malcolm X undergoes in his short life, that almost tactile sense remains throughout. This is very much of a piece with Spike Lee's other work, of course; Do The Right Thing, a movie where a heat wave plays a crucial role in the plot, nearly had me sweating buckets by the end, even though I watched it in the relative coolness of early March.

               Remarkably inventive uses of sound design, camerawork, and editing aboud throughout to jar the viewer just a little out of any complacency they might be tempted to slip into; Malcolm and his erstwhile partner-in-crime, Shorty (played by Spike Lee himself), goofing around in a park shooting finger-guns at each other, seem to cause the sound of actual gunfire to ring out, and Malcolm falls to the ground, appearing to be dead. A sequence of him in solitary confinement later on flips the camera on its head, something we don't know until the lone window to the world of light opens up, casting its white glare on the outline of Malcolm's upside-down face. And in my favorite bit of the entire film, an early scene where Malcolm is working as a train waiter and has to endure the smarmy superiority of white passengers, a flash-edit convinces you that he actually does snap and mash a lemon meringue pie into a man's face. Alas, it was just a momentary flight of fancy on Malcom's part, played out on-screen for our benefit. He knew what the price would have been if he'd actually done it.

               The central anchor of the film, of course, is Denzel Washington, and I don't think I would dare argue with anyone who contends this to be the defining performance in his career. It also ended up being one of the more infamous snubs in Oscar history; the winner that year was Al Pacino for....actually, I don't think anyone remembers what he did.

               As amazingly as Washington threads the lines between the many parts of Malcolm X over the course of nearly 20 years of his life is, I found the balance brought by his wife, played by Angela Bassett, to be just as important to allowing the film to engage with the complex disparaties between the different phases of Malcolm's spiritual and intellectual development. Next to his conversion in prison to Islam, the revelations about its founder that led him to eventually break away from the Nation of Islam was one of the most consequential moments of his life, and not just because it was what directly led to his murder. While I am a little unsure how historically accurate it is, in the film it's Bassett who forces Malcolm to reckon with this dark side of the movement he'd devoted himself heart and soul. It's the woman in his life who forces him to stop working so obsessively, to think critically for the first time about the people around him, a moment of introspection that sets up the next stage of his journey. In fact, f I had one, tiny criticism of the film, it's that, it's running time notwithstanding, it could have used even more Angela Bassett; I have never seen another movie make a simple, short phone call feel so profoundly romantic.

               Malcom X is a titanic achievement in biopic filmmaking, a gripping and incredibly challenging examination of a life every bit as layered, complex, frustrating, and inspiring as Martin Luther King Jr's. As history repeats itself once again, and America engages in another tug-of-war over whether or not we will continue to ignore the sins and legacies of our past, it is incumbent on all people of good faith to educate themselves on the struggles of those who've gone before. Otherwise, we stand absolutely zero chance of making the most of this latest opportunity for healing, condemning us to continue on our old cycle of racial prejudice, violence, and forgetfulness.

Previously on Films for the Trump Years: 

Part 1- Selma

Part 2- Good Night, and Good Luck

Part 3- 13th 

Part 4- Get Out

Part 5- Chasing Ice/Chasing Coral

Part 6- The Big Short

Part 7- Human Flow

Part 8- Moonlight/Winter's Bone

Part 9- Black Panther

Part 10- Arrested Development

Part 11- Bowling for Columbine

Part 12- [T]error

Part 13- Angels in America

Part 14- Do The Right Thing

Part 15- All The President's Men 

Part 16- Ken Burns' The Vietnam War 

Star Wars, Duel of the Fates: Chapter Two- The Inheritance

**for previous chapters, see our Table of Contents**

               Kylo Ren's world was fire and blood. Gathering the Dark Side within himself, creating a black hole of power that whipped and spun and tore apart all around him, his burning saber cut down every one of the primitive defenders that had been foolish enough to stand in his way; stabbing one through the chest, separating another's head from its shoulders with a flick of the wrist, even pulling some directly towards him through the Force to cut them completely in half. He dimly feel the other soldiers of his at the edge of his vision, fighting their own paths forward, including three of his Knights, but none of them dared to stray anywhere near him to risk being pulled into his vortex of slaughter. As always, Kylo Ren stood alone.

               It had been only two days since one of his many contacts throughout the galaxy head reached out to him. Always on the hunt for further treasures of the ancient Sith, this time the rumors were of a Sith temple on Mustafar, guarded by a local tribe. What was to be found inside, if anything, was yet unknown, but Kylo Ren was not about to pass up this chance. He couldn't afford to.

               A week had passed since the partially-thwarted raid on Kuat, where repairs were taking an aggravatingly long time. This latest annoying hurdle was yet another of the thousand and one tiny problems that kept cropping up all across the galaxy. None of them fatal to his power, but collectively the pains they caused him and his commanders could not be ignored. With the Republic's government gone and the Rebellion truly on the run, the First Order had finally established control over every major system. A new jamming technique designed by their best engineers had allowed the First Order to effectively kill all communications between systems other than their own; they had first deployed this technique to great effect at Crait, where the rebels must have wondered in agony why their calls for help in the battle went unheeded when, in fact, just about no one ever heard it, and for those few who did, it was too little, too late.

               And yet, even with no effective means to coordinate between systems, each major world was still finding its own way to hinder and harm and stifle First Order government in a myriad of ways. A local rebellion here, an ancient, entrenched bureaucracy here, a barbaric religious revival there. The First Order still possessed more firepower than any individual system, but with their fleets stretched so thin to maintain what peace they could, Kylo Ren knew more than almost anyone outside High Command (and even, to an extent, within High Command) that they were rapidly approaching their limit.

               That damned raid was the perfect example of this; it was nothing more than a hunch that had led him to assign Knight Trudgen to the planet as an added guardian, but while his presence had prevented a total disaster, the fact that the raid was not only partially successful, but that Rey managed to escape yet again proved there were clear limits to using the Knights like this. Trudgen remained on Kuat for the time being, and the remaining Knights not with him now were stationed for similar purposes on Coruscant itself, but there were simply not enough of them- nor were they as capably trained in the non-violent uses of the Force- to cover all necessary planets in either the Core or the Outer Rim.

               Kylo knew that, in the end, he could only rely on himself to find the power necessary to create his own Empire. Part of what had allowed Palpatine to hold such an ironclad grip for so long on an entire galaxy had been his particularly potent ability to sense through the Force any genuine threats to the Empire before they could fully form, allowing him time and space to plan his countermoves. Obviously, this foresight had failed him in the very end- like Vader, he never fully overcame his own weaknesses- which made Kylo all the more determined to not only discover such powers for himself, but to take them to levels no other Force-user had yet achieved. He would succeed, and the past would be left behind to die, finally. If he was lucky, whatever was inside this temple could hold the next key for his ascension.

               After a two full seconds passed without another danger presenting itself, Kylo Ren began to feel himself slowly withdrawing from the dark tunnel he'd surrounded himself with. He glanced about at the smoking ruins stretched behind and beside him. All the defenders were dead, with only himself, a dozen stormtroopers, and the Knights still standing.

Satisfied, he turned his gaze to the obsidian-black structure before him; a ziggurated behemoth that began with a large, wide base, ending with a pillar at the very top the same fireblood color of a Sith lightsaber. Age-worn steps from the base led up to a doorframe that, though clearly old, was untouched by vines or plants of any sort, nor were there any indications of insects, birds, or other animals having tried to make their homes there. Even abandoned, the Dark Side was so strong in this place it turned back any creature that tried to touch or tame it.

               Any creature, Kylo Ren though to himself, except those powerful enough to earn entrance.

               A curt nod sufficed as an order for the troopers and Knights to secure the immediate area, should other locals in the area get any ideas about trying to drive them off. Bracing himself, his now-unlit saber at the ready, Kylo Ren walked through the doorframe into a well of utter blackness.

               After a moment, though, his eyes adjusted. Red stones carved into various shapes and runes along the wall, probably from the same stone as the spire above, glowed with a gentle light that, after a short wait, gave his eyes enough light to make out the broad, cavernous chamber that filled the center of the temple. A series of doorways around the edges clearly led to side rooms and antechambers, but he could already sense that there was nothing to be found there. That which he sought was a dias at the very center of the room, right beneath the bottom of the spire above, that radiated an evil power.

               As he got closer, the outlines of a box, as black as the stone of the dias, began to appear. Wary of a possible trap set long ago for trespassers, he carefully probed the box with the Force, and with a nudge, actived the mechanisms that opened it. With an outward burst of stale air and dust, the top flew back and a small plate within the box was raised up to viewing level. Upon on it sat a hand-sized, crystalline pyramid, filled with innumerable shards of glass within itself, appearing endlessly fragile.

               This fragility, though, was an illusion. Kylo recognized instantly what he was looking at- a Sith Holocron. Technology that had been lost for eons after the ancient Sith-Jedi wars, Holocrons allowed a Force user to leave behind an imprint of themselves, like a Force version of a computer program, that could preserve and carry on the secrets they had unearthed long after their deaths. To possess just a few Holocrons was to possess several lifetimes of knowledge that could be harnessed for one's own ends, and gathering the lost Holocrons of the Sith had been the obsession of many of the Sith Lords, but after the Clone Wars and the many wars between the Galactic Empire and the Rebellion, nearly every known or rumored Holocron was considered lost.

               Now, though, with the Force guiding him, Kylo Ren had found one of these lost treasures. All that was left was to discover from which Sith Lord this one was, and whether or not they were capable of giving him the power he needed to secure his Empire.

               Kylo reached out with the Dark Side of the Force, contemplating the shape and presence of this device, before sending out a single thought; open.

               With barely a sound, tiny pinpricks of light began to appear and run along the edges of the many crystal shards inside the pyramid. Slowly at first, then picking up speed, more and more lights appeared and rushed up to the very apex, which began to glow a deep blue. After a moment, it cast its light upward, and a holographic image appeared above the Holocron; a bent figure, with clawed hands, wearing a black robe and a hood pulled so far forward, all that was visible of the face was a wrinkled, ancient mouth set in a permanent grimace.

               Complete silence fell inside the temple, and then, the figure spoke:

               I am Darth Sidious, Empreror of the Galaxy and Lord of the Sith

               The voice, though clearly old, had depth and a malicious strength to it.

               The cowl lifted slightly, revealing the glowing yellow eyes in its depths before Sidious spoke again:

               Darth Vader was instructued to recover me after the fall of Skywalker. I feel the Dark Side within you. But are not Vader.

               There was nothing accusatory in the voice's tone, simply a matter-of-factness.

               Who are you, and where is my apprentice?

               Kylo Ren was in so much shock, he almost forgot to respond. He could not believe his luck. Not only had he found his way to a genuine Sith Holocron; he'd found one, not from some half-forgotten, wayward Sith from five millenia ago, but from Emperor Palpatine himself. It figured, he supposed, that Palpatine, who had pushed the bounds of the Dark Side further than any Sith before him, would have also managed to rediscover the lost art of the Holocron.

               He only waiting a moment, though, before responding; "Darth Vader is dead. As are you. Or rather, your original self. Vader betrayed you; he and Skywalker laid waste to your Empire."

               The figure before him turned his head slightly, and Kylo Ren, to his astonishment, felt it reaching out; the Holocron itself was, apparently, Force-sensitive. He wondered at this for a moment. I suppose it figures, he thought. A Holocron required fine and arcane Force skills to craft, and was a tool for powerful Force users, so it stood to reason that the echoes within a Holocron would retain a connection to the Force; clearly, they were more than just memories.

               After a few moments of probing, the image spoke again; It is as you say. Ah, Vader. How supremely disappointing.

               Then he turned back towards Kylo. Now answer my first question. Who are you?

               Kylo focused, using every trick he'd ever learned from Skywalker and, later, Snoke, to shield himself in the Force. No way to tell yet if his true heritage would help or hinder in convincing Sidious to teach him.

               "I am Kylo Ren. Leader of the Knights of Ren, and Supreme Leader of the First Order, the successor to your Empire, and your mantle as Lord of the Sith. My forces and I have destroyed the New Republic, ended Luke Skywalker and his new Jedi order. All I need to cement our rule is to ascend to the next level of power."

               He took a step forward, closer to the dias, "I need the power of Palpatine. Of the Emperor. And I can then complete what you and Vader started."

               To complete the picture of subservience, one he'd perfected over years under Snoke until that blessed day he threw it off, he kneeled, "Vader failed you. But I will not. Train me, that I may prove worthy of your mantle."

               Maybe a bit much, he thought, Then again, Palpatine was vain to a fault.

               A moment of silence passed. Then, Sidious laughed. A sickly, creeping sound, one more felt than heard, crawling up his spine and igniting a fire of indignant rage within him.

               After a second (or an eternity?), the laughter faded; when the voice spoke next, there was no mirth to be found in it.

               Pretty words, boy. Do you take me for a fool? I may be but a memory, but I can still see all of you. All you would wish to hide from me. I know exactly who you are. You are not Kylo Ren. You are no Sith. You are no Solo. You are a Skywalker.

               That name, Kylo thought, clenching his fist, that damned name.

               Sidious continued; Your so-called First Order playacts at recreating my Empire, but I have seen its failings. Its weakness. You are as children, grasping at a toy still too big for your own fingers. Why should I bestow my blessing upon you? Why, having been betrayed and destroyed by both your grandfather and uncle, should I grant my secrets and my powers to another Skywalker?

               For a moment, Kylo Ren was not sure how, exactly, he would respond to this. His body screamed at him to lash out, to wreck the tiny crystal structure before him, to send this last remnant of a dead and failed old man screaming into the void. He held himself back only with every ounce of willpower he possessed. However he did it- whatever he had to say or do- he needed every secret this device could provide him with. No matter the cost.

               Finally, he looked back up at the figure; "Then test me. Name any trial you wish, and I will overcome it. I have worked too hard and too long to kill off the chains of my past, of my heritage. I won't stop now. I can't."

               The figure stretched out its hand, and an immense wave of power gripped Kylo Ren and lifted him completely off the ground, holding him suspended in mid-air. The strength surrounded him was choking. He had never guessed a Holocron could command power like this. It truly felt like the Emperor himself stood before him, a presence that far outstripped Snoke's.

               The voice filled with fury; And if I refuse? You'll get angry? Lash out? Destroy my last inheritance to this galaxy? FOOL! I told you I can see all of you!

               The grip strengthened.

               You are the last of your line. So it is only befitting for me to take my revenge thus; by wiping the Skywalkers from the universe, once and for all.

               Farewell, Kylo Ren.

               Blackness began to spread from his neck throughout his body. Kylo fled further and further within himself, seeking refuge from the power surging in to crush his being. This couldn't be it. This can't be his end. His mind flashed through everything; the pain and betrayal he felt when Luke attacked him, his rage at his parents for laying their legacy on him, the murder and death he had caused to ascend to lead the Knights, to cement the power of the First Order, killing Snoke, killing his own father-

               -and the return of that image, of the burning blade in his hands tearing apart his own father's life, reignited the hot core within him, and he lashed outwards.

               "NO!" In an instance, the pressure holding him up snapped away, and he fell floor, trembling only an instanst before regaining his footing.

               Breathing like he'd just traversed all of Coruscant at a sprint's pace, he focused his gaze back on the figure before him. The fury he'd felt was gone, and in its place, a sense of genuine curiosity.

               Aaaaaah, the voice purred, there. That...that was the fury of Vader.

               Perhaps you do have potential after all. And if you have already sacrified that, you are farther along the path of the Sith than I'd assumed.

               Sidious appeared to contemplate something for a bit. Kylo waited, hoping against hope that he'd found his opening.

               I think a trial may well be in order, young Kylo Ren. Very well. Listen carefully. You are to take this Holocron and return to your ship. Arrange what affairs you must to ensure your absence, then follow careful instructions that will appear on your navigation systems to a certain planet. There, your trial will begin.

               With this, the figure faded, slipping downard back into the tip of the Holocron, which soon grew dark, as did the glowing runes along the walls, throwing the interior of the chamber back into total darkness.

               The only sound was the weight and exhaustion of Kylo Ren's breathing.

Star Wars, Duel of the Fates: Chapter One- The Raid

               Breathe. Just breathe.

               As it had so often the past few months, the thought cutting through Rey's mind came in the voice of Luke Skywalker. It somehow broke through the tension and nerves bound up in her emotions and strained muscles, reminding her of the core of her Jedi training, of her need to balance herself before taking on the world around her. She needed that reminding more and more every day, as the First Order's grip on the galaxy grew tighter and tighter and her hopes ever dimmer.

               She also particularly needed it for herself, right now, cramped as she was in a storage room with Rose and the several packs of explosives they had stacked alongside them. Their uniforms were stretches thin by all the compact weapons and equipment stashed into every pocket and lining. The double-pronged ends of her newly-forged lightsaber dug an especially painful groove in her back, where it sat tucked into a special lining in the back of her suit. By her count they had about two minutes to go before the latest guard check would leave the repair deck, leaving the whole place empty for what should, in theory, be enough time for their mission.

               Their mission had been long in setting up and even longer in planning; Rey, Rose, Finn, and Poe, along with R2-D2 and BB8, had arrived at their destination a week earlier, the massive ring of shipyards surrounding the planet Kuat, known as the Kuat Drive Yards. For generations upon generations, these legendary facilities had produced the biggest and best ships of the line for the Galactic Republic, then the Empire, then the New Republic, and now the First Order. Its production capacity made holding it nearly as essential to any galactic government as holding Coruscant itself. Sadly, the Rebellion was still in no position to contest control of even the smallest Outer Rim world, much less a Core Planet like Kuat.

               They were, however, hoping to cause enough damage to significantly hinder whatever the First Order's commanders were planning next. While the shipyards ran all the way around the entire planet, the most important and centralmost segment of the Ring was the Prime Yard; sporting the largest landing platform in the entire facility, providing gravity and air held in by a special force field, the Prime Yard featured a series of movable, retractable "arms" reaching out into space. These "arms" were effectively long hallways with rail lines for transport that allowed the fast movement of workers and materials across the entire length of some of the grandest behemoths of space travel, like the feared Imperial Star Destroyer. These arms could be sifted around, lengthened, and shortened as needed from a grand control center sitting over the landing platform.

The longest and largest of the arms was currently devoted to the production of a new Dreadnought, one even larger than most. With this ship situated to the right site of the command center, nearly all of the other large production arms had been shifted over to the left side, where they currently sat idle. All available personnel were to devote themselves to the completion of the Dreadnought to the exclusion of all else, on pain of occuring the wrath of the First Order and its legendarily unstable Supreme Leader.

               After sneaking into the central platform of the facility, the small team of rebels laid low for a few days while gathering as much intel as possible on worker shifts and guard routes; soon they established the longest period of time when the arm would be free of both workers and guards, and decided to use that as their window.

               The plan was twofold- Rey and Rose would take their supply of specially-designed thermal detonators onto the arm, strategically placing them at the mouth of the regularly-spaced access ports connecting the arm to the ship. Meanwhile, Finn, Poe, and the droids would launch a surprise attack to take out the workers in the control room. While the droids took over the system controlling the arms, Finn and Poe would send a general evacuation order sounding throughout that section of the facility, in an effort to minimize non-First Order casualties. By then, at the very latest, every stormtrooper in the facility would definitely be coming for their heads, but according to the layout of guard posts they'd spent days carefully analyzing, the amount of time it would take to gather a force able to bust through the sealed doors should be long enough for them to finish their primary task; using the droids to shift the arm with a massive Star-class Dreadnought attached to it until the ship was facing the command platform at a sharp, 90-degree angle.

By then, Rey and Rose should have finished placing the detonators and be on their way back to the landing platform, using two of the special, rocket-propelled spacesuits stored all across the facility for spacewalking emergencies. Once they made their way out of the command center to the ship they had prepped and waiting for their escape on the landing platform, and with (hopefully) all civilian personnel having evacuated to safer parts of the facility, they would detonate the charges remotely. On their own, several dozen thermal detonators would obviously not do any major damage to either a Dreadnought or even the arm itself. The very force of the explosions would, however, especially within the vacuum of space, push the Dreanought into a slow drift....

               .....straight into the landing deck and command center, with all its sophisticated and delicate computer systems. Neither the atmospheric force field nor the reinforced glass that made up the windows of the command center were built to withstand the sheer weight and bulk of a Star-class ship bearing directly into them. Even iff the force of the crash ended up not being enough to break through the Ring entirely, it would at the very least leave the most critical segment of the shipyards crippled and an utter wreck, delaying the further production of any more warships for the First Order for the foreseeable future.

That, at least, was the plan, agreed upon after endless hours of heated debate. All that was left was to set it into motion and hope nothing went awry.

               That is to say, all that was left was the hardest part of all.

               "Okay," Rose muttered, "I think I heard the last of them leave around the corner. Rey, we all clear?"

               Rey inhaled slowly and stretched out with the Force, feeling beyond the door they stood wedged behind, into the hallway and out into the liftways heading towards their target. Nothing.

               She nodded, "We're clear. Let's go."

               Slowly, carefully, the eased open the door and untangled themslves, slowly rubbing the blood back into their legs and arms. Rose checked her watch.

               "If the boys are on schedule, they should be taking over the control facility in about 20 minutes' time. Let's try and finish before they start moving that thing."

               Rey nodded and they started a light run towards the production arm and the first of the connective hatches. They truly were alone here, but Rey couldn't shake a bad feeling, as if a shadow still dogged them. After wrestling with it in her mind for a bit, she decided to just push it away as best she could. She'd been feeling something of the sort almost every day since Crait, and it wouldn't do to let it hold her back now.

               Rounding the last corner, they found themselves standing at the far end of the massive, five-kilometer long hallway that made up the main part of the arm. To save themselves distance while making their escape, they clammered into one of the grounded speeders on thin rail lines that facilitated fast transportation over the distance so as to start the far end, then work their way back towards the front end, closest to the landing platform, visible outside the hatch windows to their left. To their right, Rey quickly noted the closet containing the space suits they would need later.

               No more words were needed. With a grim determination, Rey and Rose sped out to the far end and started moving back in increments, stopping in front of each patch of access doors. With the Force, Rey would quickly feel out the main hinges they wanted to target, and would lift up the needed explosives, floating them over to attach them securely to each hinge. In this way, they were able to cover segments relatively quickly, and after just over a quarter of an hour they were once again nearing the entrance they'd started at. Looking at the half-dozen or so doorways left, they started to get out of the speeder when a stab of premonition hit Rey in the back of her head, leaving her cold with shock.

               "Rose," she whispered, "we have to hide. Now!"

               They quickly scampered behind a stack of parts sitting next to one of the last doors. A crack between the boxes allowed Rey to see the entrance, where she soon learned what, exactly, the Force had been warning her about.

               A whole company of stormtroopers, led by a commander in pitch-black armor, were marching directly towards them.

               Rey and Rose looked at each other in horror. How? No military patrols were scheduled for another hour. They'd gone through the station plans so many times Rey had started to worry she'd start seeing timetables in her sleep. There was no way they'd been detected, she was sure of it. What could have gone wrong?

               She realized this is what had been pressing at the back of her head all the morning. That awful feeling that something, somehow, would definitely go wrong today.

Whatever the reason for this hitch, she knew she would have to think over it later. Now, she had to act, or their mission- as well as their lives- were as good as fragged.

               "Rose."

               "Yeah."

               "Get ready to move. While I take care of them, you move as fast as you can to the last set of doors. Get the explosives set up and I'll clear our escape."

               Rey glanced over. Rose's eyes were set, a confident smile on their face.

               "Roger that. You got this."

               Rey allowed herself a short smile before she braced herself and stood up to face the incoming soldiers, simultaneously pulling out her lightsaber and igniting the twin blades of crystal blue on either end, holding in a ready stance horizontal to the ground. Carefully following the instruction in the old Jedi texts, she'd spent a whole week taking the burnt remnants of Luke's lightsaber and combining it with parts from her old quarterstaff. Though her years in the desert had made her adept at using two-sided weapons, she had not yet had the chance to actually test using a lightsaber version in combat. Oh well, she thought silently, first time for everything.

               Out loud, she said, "I am Rey, Jedi Knight of the Resistance. Leave now, and your lives will be spared."

               The troopers glanced at each other for just a moment- Rey could practically hear their silent laughter ringing out in the Force- before they turned back, lifted their weapons, and began firing. At the same time, Rose jumped up and started firing from her blaster as she ran towards the long archway to the last set of doors. Rey matched her movements, quickly swinging both ends of her lightsaber to bat back blaster bolts that attempted to cut Rose down, until she made the shelter of the archway.

               Alrighty then, Rey though, gritting her teeth, you had your chance. And weaving her blades in an arc in front of her, plasma-red bolts dancing off the ends, she dove forward. With the Force guiding her every move, her eyes seeing each turn of a soldier, each pull of a trigger, before it happened, her body moved of its own accord. With blue streaks left in the air behind her to mark her path, she ducked, leapt, and parried, each thrust leaving another soldier crumbling to the ground behind her.

               It was a testament to the professionalism of the soldiers that, even as the hopelessness of their situation must have been made clear, she felt no flicker of fear or panic in the Force; only a grim concentration of their killing intent on her person. Sensing that Rose was almost finished- meaning that they were just about out of time for their part of the plan- she realized she needed to speed this fight up a bit. Letting just a bit of her concentration stray over to the large, metal closet containing the space suits to her left, with a thought she tugged-

               -and sent the whole thing spinning through the rest of the troup before her, catching them so unawares that only two had enough time to duck away from the massive crush of metal spinning towards their heads; the black-suited commander, who leapt backwards with a gymnast's skill, and a lone regular trooper at the very front, who jerked forward to avoid the closet only to find himself staring down a second later at a blue fountain that suddenly burned through the center of his chestplate.

               As he fell to the ground, the commander took stock of the situation for a moment before tossing away his blaster and pulling a wicked-looking vibroblade from behind his back. Spinning it expertly, he leapt over the remains of the fight before him and charged Rey head-on. He was elite, clearly, and Rey allowed herself a moment's regret that someone like that had ended up fighting on the side of the First Order before slicing off first the arm holding his blade, then his helmed head.

               It was over.

               Before she could even turn to see if Rose had left the hatch, she felt a great shuttering all around her, and a momentun so great she just barely stayed on her feet; the arm was moving.

               She then saw Rose, bracing herself against the frame of the door to the ship; "We're all set. Seems like the boys did their part too."

               "Yeah," Rey nodded, "then let's get to our ship."

               It had, Finn reflected, all gone astonishingly according to plan so far. Timing their part to begin right when Rey and Rose should be about halfway done placing the detonators, BB8 had jacked into the defensive systems of the command center from an outside port and triggered a switch that flooded the room with stun gas. After waiting a minute for everything to clear, he and Poe had quickly dashed in and pulled the unconscious crew into a side closet, sealing them inside. They then closed and sealed the two entrance doors while the two droids joined efforts in hacking into the general system and sending off the evacuation warning. So far, so good.

               Once they saw via security cam feeds that evacuations were actually being carried out, they turned their attention to the control programs for the arms themselves. With R2-D2 tweedling instructions, Poe started to move the arm with the Dreadnought attached to it inward, watching out the window as it started to slowly turn towards them. Again, so far so good.

               Somehow, though, Finn couldn't avoid a strange sensation, running up the back of his neck. Almost like a premonition. Like things had been too smooth. Somehow, something was going about to go wrong. He just couldn't figure out-

               -the feeling suddenly became a sharp pressure in his brain.

               "Um, Poe..." he said, quietly.

               Poe was so intensely focused on the controls he didn't even glance up. "Yeahwhat?"

               Finn glanced back at the doors, which to his eyes seemed to triple in height, casting a massive shadow over them.

                "POE!"

               Poe turned, "Wha-"

               BOOM.

               The two doors shook as if they'd been hit by torpedoes. Jumping with shock, grabbing their weapons, they both looked down at the security footage being fed in from right outside the center; on both ends were large companies of stormtroopers, the heads of which held large, sizzling, ramming-type devices clearly meant to blow throw the sealing mechanisms that were supposed to protect the center from just such an attack.

               "Aw what the hell," Poe groaned, his mouth twisting in a grimace, "we checked all this, there shouldn't have been this many soldiers nearby." He glanced at Finn, "Could they have known?"

               Finn shook his head helplessly, "No idea. But we have to hold out as long as we can. And hope that Rey and Rose can get to the ship in time."

               Another BOOM.

               Poe sighed. "Whelp. Firefight it is then. See ya in hell buddy."

               "Yeah..."

               Rose felt a shuddering sensation in her suit as she and Rey broke through the light force field around the landing platform. With gravity once again acting on them after a good quarter-hour of spaceflight, thrusters in the sides of the suits automatically kicked in, turning what would have been a sharp drop onto a very hard surface into a gentle descent.

               After pulling off their helmets, noting the emptiness of the place- the emergency alarm had clearly done its job- and locating their getaway ship, Rose turned to find Rey staring back at the arm they'd just left, her brow furrowed. Once Rose looked at it too, she understood why.

               They'd felt the arm begin its shift, but somehow, while they were in transit, it had stopped. Instead of facing the command platform directly, the arm and ship were sitting silent and still only about halfway turned inwards, at a 45-degree angle, not nearly enough to do the kind of damage they'd been aiming for.

               "Blast. Something must have stopped them. Rey, can you feel anything?"

               "No....the command center is shrouded in darkness. They're alive but they're in trouble. We need to get the ship and get up their fast."

               "Got it."

               They turned and ran over to the ship, which they'd thankfully pre-prepped that morning. A few minutes later, they were swinging into the air and turning towards the glass windows of the command center above them.

               This was, Poe thought, supremely annoying.

               Pinned down as they were, with no option for retreat, all he and Finn could do was keep on jumping up and sending out supressing fire to keep the troopers from overwhelming them completely. They'd kept moving the arm as long as they could, but once the troopers had managed to fully bust in the doors, the flying laser bolts had forced the droids to break off connection with the system and scurry with the two of them out of the direct line of fire. BB8, always a trooper, had tried reaccessing the system from the other side of the computers, but one of the soldiers must have been carrying some kind of override drive, because the entire center then shut down completely. Nothing more they could do now, other than hope that Rey and Rose could find a way to get them out of this mess. And that sort of momentary helplessness was, as far as Poe was concerned, about as bad as death itself, if not worse.

               Not much time to dwell on it, though. He and Finn kept alternating jumping up and sending as many blasts as possible into the consoles behind and bove them, enough that any stormtrooper trying to jump out and towards them fell back down with smoking holes in their armor. They couldn't keep this up for long against so many, though.

               "Where the hell-" Poe began, but was cut off by the sudden glare of lights flaring up behind them. Glancing back, they saw Rose sitting at the helm of their getaway ship, hovering just outside the center, and beneath the forward nose, torpedoes armed and ready.

Instantly, Finn, Poe, and the droids ducked out of site as Rose let loose, first with the torpedoes to shatter the glass separating her from the inside of the command center, then with a fury of laser blasts that drove the stormtroopers further back towards the doors.

Quickly, she flipped the ship around while opening the entrance hatch at the back of the ship, where Rey stood balanced, lightsaber at the ready.

               Thank the Force, Rey thought, seeing that all four of their companions were still in one piece. She proceeded to flip over them, deflecting the bolts that the remaining soldiers had already started to send back their way, the blasts from the ship notwithstanding. Rey gritted her teeth; they had no more time for this. Again, with a thought, she picked up the biggest piece of metal she could quickly identify- in this case, a heavy metal table sitting at the far side of the room- and sent it careening across the entire upper level, this time sending the troopers really scrambling for cover.

               Suddenly, right as the table was about to finish its arc towards the other end of the command center, she felt a different wave of power in the Force, one dark and full of fury, smash back into the table to send it rocketing up into the ceiling, after which it crumbled uselessly back to the ground. Glancing at the source of the power, it all suddenly made sense. Why patrols had appeared when they weren't supposed to. Why there had been enough soldiers nearby to prevent their plan from being carried out in full. Why exactly what wasn't allowed to go wrong did.

               Entering the command center from the upper-right doorway, a black-clad figure holding a massive, thick blade, pulsing with the Dark Side, a clenched fist held in the direction where the table had been.

               Even without having ever seen him before , Rey knew instantly who he was. A Knight of Ren. One of the perverted personal soldiers of Kylo Ren, the most feared of his enforcers.

               Without hesitating, the Knight began to swing his blade eagerly, advancing on Rey.

               She wasn't terribly worried about losing to someone who, though powerful, was clearly only marginally trained in the use of the Force, but she knew that this was the worst possible time for her to get bogged down in a swordfight. Using the distance still between them to her advantage, and sensing that Finn, Poe, and the droids had already safely scrambled onto the ship, she jumped backwards herself, Finn grabbing her outstretched arm to help to pull her in.

               "ROSE, PUNCH IT" yelled Poe. Rose obliged, closing the hatch as she quickly accelerated out of the landing deck and out towards the rim of the facility, where they would make the jump to lightspeed.

               Having arrived at the precipice of broken class and machinery a second too late, the Knight just stood there, staring at the ship. Even after the hatch door closed, Rey could feel him following her in the Force.

               She shook her head to ward off the unpleasant sensation, and heard Rose telling Poe to "go ahead and detonate it." He pressed the remote detonator they had stashed on the ship, and the watched silently as a row of fire and debris sprayed outwards from the other side of the Dreadnought. It immediately began it's drift, but with the angle all wrong, it was clear that, at most, all it would do was maybe take a few other production arms out with it. The command center, as well as the heart of Prime Yard, would get by with minimal damage.

               Within the ship, everyone had a grim expression on their faces. "All that time, all that effort....and we won't change much of anything with this." Finn lamented. "Damn. It."

               A second passed, then two, then three; clearly, no one felt up to responding. Back at the far side of the spreading wreckage, a group of First Order ships sprang out of hyperspace, clearly backup that had been called in. Shimmers that indicated groups of TIE fighters immediately began spreading out from them, some of them clearly tracking towards their getaway shuttle, but they were too far away. Before any of them got into firing range, they would made the leap to hyperspace, making first a series of random jumps to avoid being followed before setting on their real course, to the current rebel base on Talrezan Four.

               So ended the less-than-spectacular Raid of Kuat.

Star Wars, Episode IX: Duel of the Fates (Table of Contents)

               So, The Rise of Skywalker really wasn't that good. I think we're all agreed on that at this point, right? Though I was generally positive (kind of) in my original review, the more I thought over the film- and if nothing else, recent (ahem) world events have left us all with lots of time to think- the more it soured. Revisiting just a sampling of the best novels written in the old Extended Universe before Disney put the kabosh on it only reinforced this, as the storytelling in the old EU, in its best moments, has some moments of pure, exhilerating transcendance. Plus, looking back, my initial worries about The Force Awakens after it came out proved rather prescient; in the end, the new trilogy meant to "finish" the entire grand, generations-in-the-making saga of the Skywalkers.....actually kind of cheapens the original trilogy now, since the official canon now says, in essence, "LOL none of it mattered life is meaningless buy gold BUY GOLD!" 

               And you know what? Screw that! Even if the overarching narrative of the trilogy proved wanting, the new trilogy did, at the very least, give us a great group of characters that deserved a hell of a lot more than what they were given. So, in a fit of pique (and a touch of Plague Madness), I decided to rewrite the whole damn thing. Yep. I'm insane, and this probably won't be anywhere near good, and I'm doing it anyway.

               The initial spark for this idea came to me when the storyboard and concept art for what Colin Trevorrow (who was originally slated to direct Episode IX) had planned was leaked and confirmed to be genuine. It's obviously very barebones, and of course, there is no guarantee that either he or everyone else involved in the film's making could have fleshed it out into an actual, good movie, but even the basic plot concept was well above what we ended up getting, and had far more potential to actually do justice to these characters and give their arcs proper payoff.

               So I'm doing it. What will follow, in a currently-unknown number of chapters, is me taking the basic structure of Trevorrow's original story concept and fleshing out or altering it according to my own personal whims. Not going to try and monetize or publicize it- I have neither the time nor the cash reserves to afford a fight with The Mouse- but it will be here for those who care enough to want to read it and give me their feedback.

               This page will serve as the regularly-updated Table of Contents each time I upload a new chapter, which, as of now, I plan to do once a month to give me enough to write the story out in advance.

               Enjoy! Or don't. Either way.

               This is Star Wars, the TRUE Episode IX: Duel of the Fates.

Table of Contents:

Chapter One- The Raid

Chapter Two- The Inheritance

Chapter Three- The Training

Chapter Four- The Homeworld

Chapter Five- The Revelation

Chapter Six- The Reckoning

Chapter Seven- The Signal

Chapter Eight- The Breakout

Chapter Nine- The Mortis

Chapter Ten- The Uprising

Chapter Eleven- The Ascension

Chapter Twelve- The Final Trial, Part 1

Chapter Thirteen- The Final Trial, Part 2

Chapter Fourteen- The Pieces

Chapter Fifteen- The Epilogue