StarDestroyer.Net BBS

“None of this is possible,” a downcast Ackbar postulated. “While the planet in question may at present be deliberately underdefended, the instant we move forces out of hiding and in its direction, the First Order will realize that we know the location of the weapon. They will mobilize everything in the vicinity to protect it. Their fleet is too large for us to fight our way through. Additionally, despite what Poe theorizes, I would wager they must already have at least a minimal planetary shield in place. Plainly, they can access the energy to support such a defense.” He looked at Finn, whose reply was not encouraging.

“No planetary defense system can be sustained at a constant rate. It would take too much power. Besides, it isn’t necessary. All planetary shields have a fractional refresh. Instead of being constantly ‘on,’ they fluctuate at a predetermined rate. Keeps anything traveling less than lightspeed from getting through. Theoretically, a ship could get its nose in when a shield is off. Half a second later, the shield snaps back on and—well, it isn’t good for anyone on that ship.”

The shield control room was not large. With everything functioning normally, there was no need for technicians to be on duty. The instruments monitored themselves. If a problem arose that they could not self-correct, appropriate notification would instantly be flashed to Central Command. If the difficulty could not be fixed from there, a tech or two would be dispatched to deal with the trouble in person. A planetary shield being a fairly straightforward thing, there was hardly ever a problem with the system.

Deep within the mountain, engineers and techs concluded the final firing protocol for the new weapon. A last connection was made.

Above, the rally ground was silent. Then, at a great distance, an impossible blast of light shot into the sky. Despite the remoteness of the actual firing zone, the light was so bright that despite their protective masks a number of the troopers had to cover their eyes. The blast was followed by a terrible concussive roar as a vast column of atmosphere was displaced. In spite of the distance, everyone was pushed back and many were knocked down by the ground tremor that followed. Airborne creatures by the thousands took fright and took flight.

Having been gathered in stages by an immense array of coupled collectors located on the other side of the planet, a tremendously compact volume of a type of dark energy known as quintessence had been accumulated at the center of the planet. Held in place inside a roiling molten metal core by the frozen world’s powerful magnetic field, augmented by the weapons system’s own containment field, it grew until there was nothing like it—nothing natural like it—in this corner of the galaxy. Penetrating to within a predetermined distance of the containment field, an immense hollow cylinder permitted a way out while ensuring that when the weapon was unleashed, gigantic groundquakes would not roil the world’s fragile surface. When the weapons engineers fired the device, a breach was induced in the containment field. At incredible velocity and accelerating exponentially, the concentrated volume of quintessence escaped, transforming as it did so into a state known as phantom energy and following the artificial line of egress that had been provided. Assuming that the rotation and inclination of the planet had been taken into account, the released blast of concentrated phantom energy would travel along a perfectly linear path, punching a small Big Rip through hyperspace itself until it left the galaxy—

—or encountered something in its path that was of sufficient mass to intercept it.

...

Traveling faster than anything ever generated by artificial means, through a torn portion of space-time whose properties were not fully understood, the concentrated glowing ball of energy lit the night sky above Republic City. Leia’s envoy Korr Sella was among those who gazed uncomprehendingly at the inexplicable phenomenon. Disturbed space was energized and lit up by its passage. It was as if a minuscule sun had suddenly appeared from nowhere, heading directly for the world on which she stood.

It struck with enough force to penetrate the crust and the mantle. Stunned scientists assumed the globe had been hit by an asteroid. The reality was worse, much worse. So powerful was the orb of phantom energy that as it dissipated within the planetary core, it blocked the free flow of elysium. Gravitons that normally moved freely and harmlessly through the planet suddenly were blocked from doing so. Almost immediately, the resulting graviton flux released enough heat to ignite the core…

Turning the planet into what astrophysicists called a pocket nova.

Expanding outward from the explosion, a tremendous burst of heat tore through the Hosnian system’s other worlds, searing their surfaces clean of life and incidentally obliterating all settlements, installations, and outposts, as well as the hundreds of ships belonging to the Republic fleet. In its wake, the detonation left behind a blazing, spherical mass. The home of the Republic had become a new binary system: one utterly devoid of life.

...

“As near as I understand it,” Finn continued, “enormous arrays of specially designed collectors use the power of a sun to attract and send dark energy to a containment unit at the core of the planet, where it is held and built up inside that containment unit until the weapon is ready to fire.”

“Impossible,” Ackbar insisted. “Although we know there is more dark energy in the universe than anything else, and that it exists everywhere around us, it is so diffuse that it can barely be detected. Let alone concentrated.”

Finn persisted, despite the discomfort he felt at disagreeing with someone of Ackbar’s rank and experience. “It can be, and it is,” he responded with certainty.

Statura, at least, seemed ready to believe. “If the engineering could be worked out,” he observed, “one would have access to an almost literally infinite source of energy.”

Finn nodded. “General Hux told us it’s the most powerful weapon ever built. He said that it can reach halfway across the galaxy.” Fresh murmurs of disbelief greeted this latest assertion. “And in real time. Because it doesn’t reach across the galaxy; it reaches through it.” He shook his head, which was starting to hurt from the effort of trying to explain what he had overheard but did not understand.

Stunned by his own action, Kylo Ren fell to his knees. Following through on the act ought to have made him stronger, a part of him believed. Instead, he found himself weakened. He did not hear the roar of the enraged Wookiee above, but he did feel the sting of the shot from the bowcaster as it slammed into his side, knocking him back on the walkway.

“Come on.” Seeking a path through the snow, shadows, and increasingly dark forest, Finn finally slowed. Where were they running to? In any event, both he and Rey were out of breath. When he looked over at her, he knew the same realization had struck her. It was good, anyway, to stop. Even in the artificial darkness, in the shadow of the curtain of descending dark energy, the forest felt…clean.

At least, it did until a singular figure came upon them and uttered a single word.

“Stop.”

The three stood staring at one another: Finn and Rey, Kylo Ren some ten meters away. As Ren reached for his lightsaber, Rey pulled her blaster, stepped forward, and took aim.

Before she could fire, Ren raised a hand, halting her. She strained against him, her anger giving her strength. But she couldn’t fire. He was struggling also, against her newly discovered ability, as well as the wound inflicted by Chewbacca’s bowcaster. Gritting his teeth, he flung his arm sideways in a single, powerful gesture—and the blaster went flying out of her hand. Inhaling deeply, he gestured again, and this time it was Rey who went flying, to smash into a tree nearby and slide to the ground, dazed and hurt.

“Rey—Rey!”

Finn started toward her, but the sound of Ren’s lightsaber igniting made him turn. In the darkness, the hum and glow of the gleaming red weapon was mesmerizing. With nothing else to fall back on and unable to reach Rey’s blaster, Finn resorted to the only defense at his command: He pulled and activated the Skywalker lightsaber.

For some reason, the sight of it was enough to give Ren pause. He stared at it for a moment before reacting.

“That weapon—is mine.”

Finn all but snarled his reply. “Come and get it.”

Drawing himself up, a towering figure in the snow, Ren did not even bother to gesture. “I’m going to kill you for it.”

He rushed forward.

Despite his fear, Finn raised the beam to defend himself. Ren lunged, struck—and Finn parried. Shards of light flew, illuminating the snow and the surrounding vegetation. Drawing back slightly, Ren considered his unexpectedly determined opponent, then resumed his assault with a vengeance.

Finn blocked him again and again, once letting the other man’s beam slide against his own and harmlessly off to one side. He counterattacked, to no avail. The longer the contest continued, the stronger Ren seemed to become. It was as if he was enjoying the challenge. Feeding upon it.

At least, it appeared so until Finn parried, swung, and unexpectedly stabbed, the tip of his lightsaber beam grazing Ren’s arm. That made it more than a challenge. Taking a step back, Ren reconsidered his opponent. When he closed the distance between them anew, it was with a purpose that had been previously lacking. Expecting an execution, he had found a contest. Now he had been touched. It was time for play to end.

Advancing relentlessly, he was driven by something that Finn could not even sense, far less counter. Still the ex-trooper fought back, until Ren landed a blow that cut across Finn’s chest and sent the lightsaber flying from his hand. It landed in the snow six meters distant.

It was over.

Switching off his own weapon, Ren extended an arm toward the device lying in the snow. It twitched and then began to vibrate as the Force called to it. Stretching out his hand farther, straining, Ren beckoned powerfully—and the lightsaber rose, to come bulleting toward his outstretched fingers.

And past them.

Taken aback, he whirled—to see the weapon land in the hand of a girl standing by a tree. Rey appeared equally shocked that her reach for the device had exceeded his. She gazed down at the weapon now resting in her grip.

“It is you,” Ren murmured.

His words unsettled her: Not for the first time, he seemed to know more about her than she did about herself. But she had no time to ponder his comment, nor was she inclined to do so anyway; she was too consumed with rage. Holding the haft of the lightsaber in both hands, she ignited the beam—and charged.

Ren met her with his own weapon alight. Expecting weakness, he encountered only strength. Her skill with the device was raw at best, but it was backed by a fury that was as new to his experience as it was unexpected.

When the beams of their lightsabers crossed, the resulting burst of energy lit an entire section of forest.

To an observer at a distance, it would have appeared as if a series of small explosions was going off in the depths of the forest. Blow after blow landed as lightsaber struck against lightsaber. Though Ren was bigger and stronger than Rey, their struggle had nothing to do with physical size. What she lacked in mass, she made up for in ferocity.

For a while she actually drove him backward, until he regained his self-assurance and in turn pressed her. The fight continued to shift back and forth; first he gained the advantage, then an enraged Rey took it back.

There was a vast rumbling, as of a continent sighing, and a gigantic chunk of forest behind Rey simply collapsed downward, leaving her fighting on the edge of a cliff so high that the newly formed surface below could not be seen through the rising cloud of dust.

Ren held his lightsaber, poised to strike. “I could kill you right now. But there is another way.”

Breathing hard, Rey looked up in disgust at the man looming above her. “You’re a monster.”

“No. You need a teacher.” He was beseeching and insistent all at once. “I can show you the ways of the Force!”

Slowly she shook her head. “The Force?” That was what this was about? Instead of moving to defend herself, Rey closed her eyes. Ren hesitated, confused by her actions. A long moment passed, in which Ren sensed a change in the air, a change in her. Then she opened her eyes and attacked, viciously, in a way she didn’t know she was capable of, striking again and again as Ren was slowly driven back. The flaring energy from the interacting lightsabers was more pronounced than ever in the flurry of her attack. And—Ren went down.

He was up again in an instant, but not in time to fully deflect a following blow from Rey’s weapon. He succeeded in blocking it, but he still took the full force of the strike against the haft of his own lightsaber. The weapon went flying into the snow. Unarmed, he raised a hand and utilized the Force to fend off one slashing blow after another, until finally her fury penetrated his remaining defenses. Taking a glancing blow to the head and chest, he went down, a prominent burn slashed across his face. Weakened, he reached out toward his lightsaber, trying to draw it to him.

One downward cut, she saw. One quick, final strike, and she could kill him. The landing lights of a shuttle appeared in the distance, coming over the trees in her direction. She had to make a decision, now.

Kill him, a voice inside her head said. It was amorphous, unidentifiable, raw. Pure vengeful emotion. So easy, she told herself. So quick.

She recoiled from it. From the dark side.

The world shook beneath her as the ground began to split. Turning away from the injured figure, she ran back to where Finn lay badly wounded. A deep gully formed, separating her from General Hux and the arriving troopers. Utilizing the tiny position sensor emplaced in Ren’s belt, Hux had tracked him to this spot. He would have taken Rey and Finn, as well, if not for the command that had been issued by the Supreme Leader. That took precedence over everything. There was simply no time left.

Borgholio wrote:The First Order stormtroopers could be like the way US Marines are now. Every Marine is a rifleman first, then their other duties come second. So yeah Finn could very well have his duty station be in sanitation, but he was trained first and foremost to be a combat stormtrooper. That is the only way to explain why someone working in sanitation would be selected for a planetary assault.

Galvatron wrote:That little raid on Jakku was Finn's first battle, wasn't it? Maybe he his day-to-day duty on Starkiller Base really was acting as a sanitation worker in full stormtrooper armor.

Theoretically, a ship could get its nose in when a shield is off. Half a second later, the shield snaps back on and—well, it isn’t good for anyone on that ship.”

Patroklos wrote:That shield thing just makes it worse. Besides the problem of why nobody has tried this before, not as a random one off guess but as a concerted top level military research initiative of the highest importance, it removes the to military logic for weapons like the DS and Starkiller itself which was to destroy otherwise invulnerable worlds.

I don't mind the logic, I am on Saxton's site advocating for this logic regarding how droidkas were able to shoot through their own shields (and everything else). Sort of like WWII biplanes shooting through their propellers. However, if exploiting this was so darn easy that Han would do it at random from hyperspace without any information on the shield (Sensors can't see anything by gravity wells from hyperspace, oh yeah gravity wells...) it should be far easier for a warship in orbit to just hyper all its fighters through a shield at will.

Basically what Han did is far more revolutionary to SW warfare than anything we have ever seen in any movie or novel, legends or otherwise.

Galvatron wrote:Is it possible that shields have a low-power mode that has a longer gap? Then, if a hostile ship is detected, the shields go into full-power mode and the gap narrows so that nothing could feasibly get through?

bilateralrope wrote:

Theoretically, a ship could get its nose in when a shield is off. Half a second later, the shield snaps back on and—well, it isn’t good for anyone on that ship.”

Lets take that half a second literally, assume a 0 thickness shield and do some math:
- Wookiepedia give the Millennium Falcon a maximum length of 34.75m. So, to get through a shield that has a half second gap, it would need to travel at 69.5m/s. Or 250.2 km/h.

Now lets go with a 10m thick shield. That means the Millennium Falcon needs to travel 44.75m in half a second, 89.5m/s, 322.2 km/h

Does anyone want to try and convince me that travelling at FTL is necessary to get through a planetary shield ?

Does anyone have a velocity for ship based turbolasers ?
Just the visible part.

If they can get through a half-second gap in the shield, that would make planetary shields useless. The Empire would be able to crush any rebelling world with orbital bombardment. Fear of the fleet would keep planets from rebelling. But, going just off the movies, dissolving the Senate seems to have been the trigger that made planets want to join the Rebellion. The Death Star was intended to prevent their rebellion. Thus the Death Star was useful to the Empire in a way that the fleet was not. Therefore there is something that protected planets from the fleet. So now we have two choices:
- Accept the half second gap as canon then figure out what protected planets from the fleet. Then explain why planets might want such useless shields.
- Declare the half-second gap as a contradiction with the movies. The gap can still exist, it just has to be much shorter.

Patroklos wrote:You may be able to salvage this somewhat by going the ST route and having the shield frequency or whatever unknowable to the adversaries, but exploitable if you have inside knowledge. At least that way it explains why you can shoot out of them but nobody else can shoot in.

Unfortunately the current situation is still stupid, because via your math above you are assuming Han can target the gap. He can't. So its not just a matter of the speed he needs, he has to overcome the shear randomness of trying it in the first place. The entire operation rests on him taking a horribly stupid chance of not only randomly making it through that shield gap, but also exiting hyperspace within the space of a few dozen kilometers. It would be one thing if we could attribute skill to that (it still breaks the universe but its plausible), but because its from hyperspace it is entirely chance.

Vympel wrote: Kylo Ren

After killing Han:

Stunned by his own action, Kylo Ren fell to his knees. Following through on the act ought to have made him stronger, a part of him believed. Instead, he found himself weakened. He did not hear the roar of the enraged Wookiee above, but he did feel the sting of the shot from the bowcaster as it slammed into his side, knocking him back on the walkway.

- Declare the half-second gap as a contradiction with the movies. The gap can still exist, it just has to be much shorter.

There was no one else she could rely on. No one like her brother. No one else at all, now that the New Republic stood on the verge of implosion, of destruction, of complete collapse.

They had thought that with the fall of the Empire it would all be so easy. That people would understand the need for patience, that time would be required to rebuild that which the Empire had taken away. Cities, communications, trade: All these could and were well on their way to full restoration. It was the intangibles that proved so much more difficult to re-establish throughout galactic society.

Freedom, for example. The freedom to speak one’s mind, to object, to dispute. She sighed. Those who had led the rebellion had under-estimated the deeply buried desire of far too large a proportion of the population who simply preferred to be told what to do. Much easier it was to follow orders than to think for oneself. So everyone had argued and debated and discussed. Until it was too late.

The Star Destroyer Finalizer was massive and new. It had been forged and assembled in the distant orbital factories of the First Order, constructed in secret and uninfected by the virus that was the New Republic. Its devoted and fanatical builders had designed it to be more powerful, more technologically advanced, than anything that had come before it. Certainly there was nothing in the possession of the new Resistance that could stand against the vessel.

Concluding that she had drained the container of all its contents, she reattached it to her belt facing inward. The satchel and the larger piece of salvage were secured to a piece of sheet metal, which she sent sliding down the mountain of sand in front of her. Off to one side, shade was provided by one engine of a decomposing, old-model Star Destroyer. Too big to cut up, its technology obsolete, it had been left to molder on the hillside. In the desert climate, decay would take thousands of years. Being something less than portable, the great hulk of a shell was ignored while opportunistic scavengers such as Rey plundered its interior for saleable components.

THE INTERIOR OF the TIE fighter was spotless. Droids and techs had done their work well, leaving it ready for pilot and gunner. It was a true pilot who now settled himself into the cockpit command seat. As to the other missing crew member, that remained to be seen.

Slipping free of his bloody, confining jacket, Poe examined the controls laid out before him. Some were familiar from his professional studies of First Order ships, others from perusing details of Old Imperial craft. What he didn’t recognize immediately, he felt sure he could work around. A modern fighter like this one would be naturally forgiving, its computational components engineered to compensate for pilot miscues and oversights. He was relying on the likelihood that the ship itself would automatically correct for any minor mistakes in judgment.

...

Poe was becoming more and more comfortable with the vessel’s instrumentation. In a very short period of time, his mood had swung from fatalistic to exalting. Not only was he alive, not only was he free—he had a ship! And what a ship: a Special Forces TIE fighter. He was certain of one thing as he maneuvered around the immense destroyer: Nobody was going to make him a prisoner of the First Order ever again.

“This thing really moves.” He shook his head in admiration. Fine engineering knew no politics. “I’m not going to waste this chance: I owe some people in that ship a little payback. We’ll take out as many weapons systems as we can.”

It wasn’t a ship, Poe told himself as he gleefully manipulated the manual instrumentation. It was a part of him, an extension of his own body. As fire began to lance out toward them from the immense starship, he whirled and spun the TIE fighter, utilizing predictors as well as his own skills to avoid the blasts. Taking them underneath the mother ship, he danced back and through gaps and openings, executing maneuvers beyond the abilities of all but the best pilots. Several skirted the edge of believability. Poe didn’t care. He was free and he was flying.

“Standard issue helmets are designed to filter out smoke, not toxins. To cope with the latter, a trooper needs to engage one of several special filters, depending on the specific contaminant. Identification is the province of one or two squad leaders. Having brought this ship on board theirs, I doubt anyone will think to check for airborne pollutants. It’s not like leading a ground assault, or forcing entry to an enemy warship. This is just an old freighter. Any kind of internal defense, much less something as nebulous as a gas counterattack, would be the last thing a squad sent to take its crew into custody would expect.”

In another room, Korr Sella, Leia’s personal envoy, awaited the general’s arrival. The young woman wore her hair back in a severe bun and her dark green uniform contrasted notably with the general’s more subdued attire, as did the badge that identified her as a commander. As usual, Leia did not waste time on small talk.

“You need to go to the Senate right away. Tell them I insist that they take action against the First Order. The longer they bicker and delay, the stronger the Order becomes.” She leaned toward the other woman. “If they fail to take action soon, the Order will have grown so strong the Senate will be unable to do anything. It won’t matter what they think.”

Sella indicated her understanding. “With all respect: Do you think the senators will listen?”

“I don’t know.” Leia bit down on her lower lip. “So much time has passed. There was a time when they were at least willing to listen. And of course, the Senate’s makeup has changed. Some of those who were always willing to pay attention to me have retired. Some of those who have replaced them have their own agendas.” She smiled ruefully. “Not all senators think I’m crazy. Or maybe they do. I don’t care what they think about me as long as they take action.”

The emissary nodded. “I’ll do all I can to ensure the Resistance gets the hearing we deserve. But why don’t you go yourself, General? An appeal of this nature is always more effective when delivered firsthand.”

Leia’s smile thinned. “I might make it to the Senate, yes. I might even be able to deliver my speech. But I would never, never get out of the Hosnian system alive. I would have a terrible ‘accident,’ or become the victim of some ‘deranged’ radical. Or I would eat something that didn’t agree with me. Or encounter someone who didn’t agree with me.” She composed herself. “I have total confidence in you, Sella. I know you will deliver our message to the full extent of your considerable abilities.”

The emissary smiled back, grateful for the confidence the general was expressing.

When next Snoke spoke there was an intimacy in his voice, a familiarity that stood in sharp contrast to the commanding tone he had used with Hux.

“I have never had a student with such promise—before you.”

Ren straightened. “It is your teachings that make me strong, Supreme Leader.”

Snoke demurred. “It is far more than that. It is where you are from. What you are made of. The dark side—and the light. The finest sculptor cannot fashion a masterpiece from poor materials. He must have something pure, something strong, something unbreakable, with which to work. I have—you.” He paused, reminiscing.

“Kylo Ren, I watched the Galactic Empire rise, and then fall. The gullible prattle on about the triumph of truth and justice, of individualism and free will. As if such things were solid and real instead of simple subjective judgments. The historians have it all wrong. It was neither poor strategy nor arrogance that brought down the Empire. You know too well what did.”

Ren nodded once. “Sentiment.”

“Yes. Such a simple thing. Such a foolish error of judgment. A momentary lapse in an otherwise exemplary life. Had Lord Vader not succumbed to emotion at the crucial moment—had the father killed the son—the Empire would have prevailed. And there would be no threat of Skywalker’s return today.”

“I am immune to the light,” Ren assured him confidently. “By the grace of your training, I will not be seduced.”

“Your self-belief is commendable, Kylo Ren, but do not let it blind you. No one knows the limits of his own power until it has been tested to the utmost, as yours has not been. That day may yet come. There has been an awakening in the Force. Have you felt it?”

Ren nodded. “Yes.”

“The elements align, Kylo Ren. You alone are caught in the winds of the storm. Your bond is not just to Vader, but to Skywalker himself. Leia…”

“There is no need for concern.” Despite the Supreme Leader’s cautioning, Ren’s assurance remained unbounded. “Together we will destroy the Resistance—and the last Jedi.”

“Perhaps,” Snoke conceded. “It has come to our notice that the droid we seek is aboard the Millennium Falcon, once again in the hands of your father, Han Solo. Even you, master of the Knights of Ren, have never faced such a test.”

Ren considered his reply carefully. “It does not matter. He means nothing to me. My allegiance is with you. No one will stand in our way.”

Snoke nodded. “We shall see. We shall see.”

It was a dismissal. Turning, wholly preoccupied now, Ren followed General Hux in exiting the vast chamber. When he was gone, a grotesque smile twisted across Snoke’s countenance. Then it vanished—along with the rest of the holo of the Supreme Leader.

It was the order Poe had been waiting for. While unsure it would come, he had nevertheless run over the strike schematics in his head a dozen times. Timing was critical. Having plotted the vector to the planet that was home to the Order’s Starkiller Base as an arc, both to deceive any long-range sensors as well as to delay arrival and emergence from lightspeed, now they could revise the route and head straight for the target.

“Roger, base.” Hitting the controls necessary to alter course within a lightspeed run, Poe addressed the rest of his flight. “Red squad, blue squad—follow my lead.” At his touch, their revised vector entered the flight computer of every ship in every squadron, and the X-wings promptly adjusted as a single unit.

“Copy, Black Leader,” Wexley replied, as his own craft changed direction.

...

Within Central Command on Starkiller Base, there was rising concern. Hux refused to pace, regarding it as a waste of energy.

“The tech squad,” he muttered. “Haven’t they arrived at shield control yet?”

“Just getting there, sir,” replied the officer who was monitoring the situation. He went quiet, listening, and a strange expression came over his face. He looked back at Hux. “Sir, the lead technician reports that the doorway has been sealed.”

Hux grimaced. “Sealed? Sealed how? By whom?”

“He doesn’t know, sir.” The officer listened. “Heat sealed, all the way around the edge. Possibly by a blaster. Should they get a cutter?”

Hux shook his head. “Tell them to blow the door.”

“Sir?” The officer’s reply indicated he was unsure he had heard the order correctly.

“Blow the damn door!” Hux shouted. “Tell them to get in there!”

“Yes, sir!” The command was relayed. Moments later a reply was forthcoming from the tech repair team. The officer swallowed, hesitating.

“What?” Hux snarled.

“Sir, the team leader reports that there is—some damage to the shield control system.”

“How much damage?” an increasingly irate Hux demanded.

A longer pause this time, following which the officer experienced a sudden intense wish to be anywhere other than where he currently happened to be.

“Destroyed, General. The tech team leader reports that the operational capacity of the entire center has been reduced at least ninety percent by blaster fire.”

Hux had not achieved his present rank and position by deferring problematic situations to group consultation. “Bypass the shield center. Where redundancy doesn’t already exist, port all controls here.”

“Yes, sir.” The officer’s fingers flew over the console. “It will take a moment, sir.”

Hux all but scraped skin from the palms of his hands while waiting.

“Shields?”

“Not yet,” the officer told him, still working.

“Why not?”

“Have to block any remaining possible directives from the shield center so that they can’t override our efforts here—sir.”

“Hurry. In the name of the Order, hurry.”

“Yes, sir. I should have it soon, sir.”

Hux knew there was nothing more he could do. Further haranguing would only rattle the officer and the other techs in the command center. He could barely stand the silence as they worked.

Because he feared it was deceptive.

...

Within Central Command, officers looked on in horror as one strike after another shook the hexagonal structure. Didn’t the attackers realize what they were risking? Watching the aerial assault on the center’s monitors and through its sweeping windows, a grim-faced Hux knew they probably did—and that it didn’t make any difference to them. Turning, he snapped at a mid-level officer.

“Dispatch all squadrons. Take out every attacking craft, no matter the cost. When this is over I don’t want to see a single X-wing aloft.”

“Yes, General,” replied the officer.

“And engage seekers.”

The officer hesitated. “In an atmospheric skirmish, sir, seekers will have a hard time distinguishing between our fighters and those of the enemy.”

Hux didn’t bat an eye. “This is no time to worry about collateral damage.” His voice was steely. “Give the order.”

“Yes, sir.”
—

“Almost in range!”

As he sent his X-wing into a steep dive, Poe knew this was one attack where failure could not be an option. The entire Resistance was depending on him and those following him in. One way or another, this First Order weapon had to be not damaged, not temporarily disabled, but completely destroyed. Automatic weapons systems, trackers, and controls were all very well and good, but when it came down to it, this kind of all-or-nothing combat boiled down to ships, their pilots, and how good both were.

“Hit the target dead center as many times as possible with as many runs as we can get. Let’s light it up!”

As he let loose with the X-wing’s full complement of armament, he noted that similar bursts of destructive fire came from Snap’s vessel. Rebel Alliance veteran Nien Nunb was there, too, with him and blasting away with the full force of his ship’s weaponry.

When they finished with the building that housed the oscillator, Poe vowed silently to himself, there would be nothing left but a smear on the wintry landscape.
...

RISING FROM THEIR base, a host of TIE fighters moved to engage the X-wing squadrons. What had been a precisely plotted sequence of attack runs dissolved into chaotic dogfights as one X-wing pilot after another was forced to break from formation to engage his or her own assailants. Where formerly the sky above Starkiller Base had been filled only with the scream of the invaders’ engines, the blueness in which they had been operating now gave way to a cyclone of streaking energy blasts and explosions.

Nearly colliding with an oncoming TIE fighter, Poe let fly at another with the full force of his ship’s weapons systems.

“Cover for each other! There’s a lot of ’em, but that just means more targets. Don’t let these thugs scare you!”

“Blue Three,” Snap called out, “got one on your tail! Pull up and give us a view!”

“Copy that!” Blue Three’s pilot replied. Yanking back on her controls, Jess Pava took her ship up sharply—exposing the area in her wake to Poe’s fire, which immediately reduced her attacker to flaming fragments.

“I owe you one!” she called out as she sent her vessel diving back into the fray.

“Yeah, you owe me another attack run! Try to stick close, all teams! Follow me in!”

Despite being harassed by the swerving, diving TIE fighters that now seemed to be all around them, a clutch of X-wings managed to get low enough to carry out another strike on the containment structure. A series of hits sent flame and smoke billowing in all directions, but as they pulled up and away, Poe saw that the building was still intact. Worse than intact, he noted: It scarcely appeared to have suffered any damage at all.

“We’re not making a dent!” he yelled, confident his cockpit pickup would relay his observations to the rest of the squadrons. “What’s that thing made of, anyway?”

A telltale on his console began demanding attention. Flicking his attention to the attendant monitor, his eyes widened.

Seekers. Hundreds of seekers, rising from launch batteries concealed beneath the soil and snow. Rising toward him and his fellow pilots, giving them little room to maneuver—or escape.

“We got a lot of company!” It was all he had time to shout before being forced to take evasive action himself. Between blasting out of the sky everything in front of him and avoiding those seekers coming up behind him, he stayed in one piece—barely.

Other members of the attacking squadrons were not so fortunate.

One after another they found themselves hemmed in by multiple seekers. One after another the X-wings went down, along with any TIE fighter unlucky enough to find itself in the immediate spatial vicinity.

Able to follow the battle via hyperspace relay thanks to the two reconnaissance droids still operating above the surface of the planet, those in the Resistance base command center on D’Qar could only exchange looks of dismay.

“We weren’t prepared for anything like this,” Admiral Statura muttered. “Our pilots will be annihilated.”

...

High above and swathed in the shadow of the curtain of descending dark energy, Poe Dameron saw something. An explosion on the roof of the containment center. By its intensity and configuration he could tell that it was not the result of a hit from one of his X-wings, but instead a blast from within. Swinging around, he found that for the first time he could see the interior of the seemingly impregnable structure.

It was an opening. A small one. One opportunity, maybe. Given the way the fight was going, probably a last one.

“All units, this is Black Leader. Target structural integrity has been breached! I repeat: Target integrity has been breached! There’s an opening. Now’s our chance! Hit it hard, give it everything you’ve got!”

Led by the black fighter and ignoring both pursuing TIE fighters and arcing seekers, the remaining X-wings broke off from defensive combat and dove as one toward the hexagon. A few strikes missed, detonating harmlessly against the still-intact sides of the building. But the others, most, hit their mark. As Poe and his comrades pulled up and away, one detonation after another shook the great edifice. Gradually, almost in slow motion, it began to collapse, the walls falling in upon themselves. More significantly, gouts of flame began to erupt from below, rising from unseen chambers far underground.

Letting out a yell of triumph, Poe accelerated skyward, heading for the outer atmosphere. Secure in his position behind the cockpit, BB-8 emitted a steady stream of excited beeps.

“All teams, nice job!” Poe said to his fellow pilots. “General, the target’s been destroyed!”

Leia’s warm voice filled his ears, but the message she delivered was an unexpected one. “Good—now retreat immediately! The planet could be unstable. Get out of there now.”

Even with the relay in place, it took a moment for the message to be received. Poe didn’t hesitate to reply. “If we retreat, we leave our friends behind!”

Having anticipated Poe’s response, Leia was ready with her own. “Poe, outside of those of us here, your group is all that remains of the Resistance that’s capable of putting up a fight. If you stay to find them, we lose you all.”

“General, with all due respect,” he said evenly, “we’re not leaving our friends behind. Teams, who’s with me?”

He expected a delayed response. He was wrong: It came immediately, from Snap. “We’re all with you, Poe. You know that.” A concurring yelp came from the ship piloted by the Sullustan, Nien Nunb, followed by the others.

“Then let’s go do some good and find them!’

Reaching up, he slowly removed the mask. For the first time Han saw the face of his son as a grown man—and it jolted him.