thatwaslucky: (small)
Rey Skywalker ([personal profile] thatwaslucky) wrote2022-08-30 05:46 am

Exegol- Tuesday evening after that

The ships exited hyperspace, and Poe's first thought upon seeing Exegol was that it looked dead. It was the the ugliest thing he'd seen in a long while, and he wondered if it had always been this way, or if building a colossal fleet of Star Destroyers here had killed the place.

And when the ships dived into the cloud cover, they nearly ran into the Sith fleet. It was massive. Their triangled hulls were enormous, but they grew even smaller as their numbers seemed to stretch into infinity.

"Great dark seas," Aftab Ackbar gasped across the comm. "Look at that!"

"No sign of the Falcon or allies," Tyce said from her ship.

"Help will get here," Poe assured them.




Poe

At once, thousands of simultanous cannon blasts lit up the sky like a nova. Immediately a ship was reduced to a fireball, and the shooting was coming hard and fast at them. It was already on.

"Stay at their altitude!" Poe yelled into his headset. "They can't fire on us without hitting each other."

And from somewhere else, Snap called, "Incoming TIEs!"

And then hundreds of Sith TIE fighters were screaming their way towards them.



Summer

Any reservation Summer had felt about being in her ship instead of on the ground for this immediately dissipated the moment they arrived and it became firmly clearly that every ship was going to count in this one. She felt a rare twist of doubt in her gut as she clutched the wheel of her ship, trying very hard to remind herself that she'd gotten out of a lot of really impossible situations before, why should this be any different? But even for her, that massive fleet was looking pretty insurmountable, it made the New Supposedly Improved Galactic Federation fleet look like babies.

But it was fine. They could do this.

Somehow.

Maybe.

Oof. But with determination, she latched onto what Poe had said in particular.

"I'm heading in," she informed everyone. "Tell me this baby's not just screaming to be hit."

But she was faster than she looked, and she had portals. She could be an excellent dodgy target.



TIE

If that baby was begging to be hit, then good, because there was a TIE sweeping towards her to shoot a volley of laser fire at her.

She was kind of an obvious target.



Summer

Well, yeah. That was the point.

With an alert of an active enemy on the move toward her blooping almost cheerfully on her screen, Summer quickly switched on a suggestive nav path with the program she used to help her guide herself through asteroid fields when she went stress-relief meteor-blasting. She knew she didn't have much time to really think about it, though, so she gloss over it quickly before immediately dropping down at just about the time she figured that laser fire would be reaching her. A few more adjustments, locking onto a few of the enemy ships and planning her course to hopefully swing by them just slightly ahead of the laser blasts so they got caught in the range, then ducking swiftly back around and weaving through them like some spastic, unpredictable pink guppy swimming through a swarm of sharks.



TIE

She was doing a very good job of keeping them busy, and one TIE even exploded not by thanks to one of them trying to hey her.

They did have better numbers, though, so they were persistent with the shooting.



Summer

Good! The more persistent they were with the shooting, the more chances there were to miss and hit something behind Summer rather than Summer herself!

Especially since she was clearly having way too much fun with this, for how dangerous and insane it was to be weaving through ships like this. But now that she was getting the hang of it and hopefully getting the feel for how the ships that were pursuing her were moving and shooting, she also felt confident in shooting out a portal in front of her, so that she could disappear into it and close it off as soon as she wound up on the other side, which hopefully would put her in a different spot on the battlefield.

A risky maneuver, especially if she screwed up the coordinates, but, hey, you didn't win shit by not taking risks! And hopefully, she could come out on the otherside with a nice round of her ion cannons at the ships over there before they even realized what hit them. Literally!



TIE

That did result in one TIE flying right through the area she had just occupied and being obliterated. Good risk on her part, apparently!



Summer

And you know what? It being successful even just the once was all Summer needed for encouragement to keep doing it. It required a bit of focus, really, so she was sort of on her own, doing her own thing, unless someone directed her otherwise, but zipping around between enemy ships to get their attention and then portaling out into a different area would at least provide a small amount of distraction and collateral damage.

A drop in the bucket, sure, but every little bit counted.





Finn

Finn's original plan had been to set the Tantive IV down on the ground and attack the navigation tower to keep the First Order from deploying their sqadrons. Moments before the TIEs were released, he changed his mind, and landed them on the actual hull of the Steadfast instead. Sometimes you had to go with your gut.

And then a couple minutes later, the landing ramp had gone down, and a cavalry charge of Resistance fighters on orbaks went running onto the surface of the Star Destroyer, with all the fighters they had at the moment running right after them. The First Order knew they were there. But at least they could make some headway to the tower before the stormtroopers joined them for a fight.



Jaina

Jaina had decided an orbak would just slow her down, and she was more than happy to run after the others with her lightsaber drawn, violet blade adding an interesting new light to break up the dark blue.

And the instant the red-armored Sith troopers were released to make their way into the fight, she was charging towards them, because really old habits died just super, super hard.




Lana

Lana had made a similar decision, and decided to stay close to their other Force users for the time being, less for protection from the troopers and more to avoid being a target if anyone on their own side decided that red lightsaber looked like an enemy.

"Is whatever I can feel down there something we need to concern ourselves with?" she asked as they ran.



Jaina

"I'm guessing Rey's on it," Jaina said, which was not unnerving at all, "so hopefully no."

Hopefully. Cross your fingers.



Lana

"May the Force serve her well." Lana's metaphorical fingers were absolutely crossed.



Jaina

"And if things go wrong, then..."

Then they'd deal with it. But right now Jaina was getting to a group of Sith troopers and absolutely laying into them.



Tahiri

Tahiri kept pace with Jaina, her own lightsaber ignited and casting a golden light.

"This is weird," she said as they closed with the Sith troopers, "but also just like old times."



Jaina

"It's weird," Jaina confirmed, slicing through a Sith trooper without a second thought. "I'm having second thoughts about Imperial Knight uniforms..."



Tahiri

Tahiri huffed briefly in amusement, then flung a hand out and knocked three troopers over like dominoes.

"Yeah, I bet. You know, I thought I was about as used to the timeline oddities as I could get after all these years, but I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around, well, all of this one."



Jaina

"Oh, there's parts I don't think you know, either," Jaina said, whipping around to lightsaber a trooper's blaster right out of his hand. She wasn't trying to show off, she was just really used to doing this.



Tahiri

And Tahiri didn't even double-take at that, she was so used to Jaina doing this.

"Sithspit," she said wryly, batting one trooper's blaster bolt square into another one's chest. "I don't want to know, at least not right now. I need my brain functional for this."



Jaina

"Later," she said, casually, "the fight'll be over before I finish it all anyway."

Said like a Jaina doing Jaina things.



Tahiri

"Classic Jaina," Tahiri said fondly. "I've missed doing this with you."

Now was not the time to remember that the last thing they'd done together was get randomly married for the weekend.



Jaina

"We should do it again sometime," Jaina agreed. "Maybe not like this."

When a jet trooper lifted off to shoot at them, Jaina pulled him out of the sky with the Force and slammed him into the hull.



Tahiri

"Good one," Tahiri said, and Force-yanked another trooper's blaster out of his hand instead of using her lightsaber to do it. Look, she wasn't as cool as Jaina.





Goose

Goose was probably the last person anyone would actually want to be a pilot since his methods were … unorthodox at best but he had a ship that he was very happy to provide to the cause and instead of being worried or anxious he was actually quite enthusiastic about it.

“Goose there are a lot of enemy ships,” his AI Alma spoke up.

“Steady Alma,” Goose told her, “I know what I’m doing,”

Alma seriously doubted that but she had been Goose’s AI for a while now and decided to focus on her calculations and targets for Goose to be able to fire back and hopefully not cause too much damage to his ship, even though this was Goose's third interceptor since he had become a Galaxy Ranger.

Goose’s interceptor was going to be lucky to survive this.



TIE

The TIEs were plentiful in numbers, too, so there were several coming at him at once, firing the whole way to him.



Goose

Goose grinned as the TIE fighters came towards him, he laughed and immediately returned fire, he dove in and out of the firing range a few times before he began to pilot directly towards them. Returning as much fire power as he could in the process.

“Eat light,” he declared gleefully as he took on the TIE fighters head on.

Goose really should not be enjoying himself this much.



TIE

One TIE fighter blew, but the others were coming straight at him despite that, like they were determined to win this game of chicken.



Goose

Goose whooped as the TIE fighter exploded, he also wanted to win this game of chicken.

“Goose we’re taking on a lot of fire power,” Alma warned, “our shields won’t hold,”

“It’s fine, look for an opening Alma we’ve got this,” Goose instructed as he kept getting closer and closer, not wavering from his determination to keep flying straight into the TIE Fighters, returning fire indiscriminately.



TIE

The TIE took a hit, veering off just in time to avoid hitting Goose straight on, but if Goose didn't move at all his ship might get clipped.



Goose

“Incoming enemy vessel Goose,” Alma intoned and Goose saw just how close that TIE fighter was getting, dnd realised that he wasn’t going to be able to keep on that same path and broke off, his ship still getting slightly clipped in the process.

“Great howling hopping …” he was cut off mid swear as he tried to get his interceptor back on course so he could keep returning fire.



TIE

He was going to need it, because the TIEs just kept coming. It was like every time they took some out, a new squadron took to the air, and they were aiming directly at anyone in their way.

Like him.



Goose

Goose managed to get his interceptor on course just before he noticed all the TIE Fighters coming towards him.

“So it’s going to be like that huh?” he remarked and steadied his ship to face them head on again, he resumed flying towards the incoming TIEs, trying to take out as many as as he could.



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Annie

As slow as she was on foot, Annie opted to ride into battle. (Also: that was just kind of cool, she could admit it. Hopefully they all lived through this so she could tell Diego how fucking awesome that part had been.) Orbaks, it turned out, were so much like horses it wasn't even funny. And while it had been a few years since Annie had been in any kind of saddle, she still found a natural enough seat on the creature's back as she charged along with the others. Being up a little higher gave her a little bit of a view ahead, too, which meant she could be more selective about where she drew power from. She took care not to drain anything that looked like a friendly was using it, opting instead to tap into the systems of the ship they were actually on. Might as well make use of the charging time.

By the time she was swinging out of her saddle, she'd pulled enough power to be one of the brightest things on the surface of the ship. Which was probably bad news for anyone coming at her, considering she was just going to keep pulling power until it was straight-up hard to look at her.



Sith troopers

As soon as she was off the horse, there were Sith troopers lining up to fire at everyone, so at least one was definitely aiming for the very bright target that was Annie.



Annie

Which was silly of them for several reasons! First of all, shooting at her wasn't going to do anything -- though that did smart a bit, so thanks, dude, and Annie didn't waste any time in firing a bright blast of her own back at the Sith troopers.

But also, Annie was only on the ground for a second or two before she pulled hard from the Steadfast's power systems, and her feet actually left the surface of the ship as she levitated.

Cool to see, probably. Also: now she was an even bigger, brighter (and totally invulnerable) target, so if y'all just wanted to focus on her, that would be totally cool.



Sith troopers

In the troopers' defense, they couldn't have known they couldn't hurt her.

And a line of them did try to fire on her, but at least a few had figured out that they had to try something new. They just had to figure out what.



Annie

Aww, and look at them line up to make it easier on her!

All of that energy holding Annie in the air surged out of her in an enormous, blinding blast that -- hopefully -- would fry any electrical equipment the troopers had, and sending them flying like bowling pins, if Annie had her way.

At least, she sure hoped she knocked them back with that, 'cause she was falling back down to the ground and it was gonna take her a second to recharge.



Stormtroopers

The troopers did in fact go flying, but it was also enough to draw attention from other troopers.

One of which drew a baton, something of an energy weapon, because he didn't know better.



Annie

Man, these troopers totally should have read their, like, 'What to do when facing down an invulnerable energy siphon,' handbook, right?

"That looks fun," Annie commented, springing back up quickly and focusing her glowing eyes on the baton -- which would prove to be dead fairly swiftly here, should the trooper try to use it.



Sith troopers

Well. He tried to use it.

Maybe if they aimed a turret at her. Incoming!



Annie

But what if the turret listened to Annie's powers, too? Oh, no.

She remained unharmed, though this was stinging enough to really start to piss her off. She yanked energy from the turret before firing it back in a blast to take the thing out. Annoying.

The troopers were getting blasted, too, though not with nearly as much force as when she'd been levitating a moment prior. (Though, like, it probably didn't tickle, either.)



Sith troopers

The troopers were flying back again, and a moment later part of the turret blew, sending fire raining down. Some shots were still able to make it through, but their aim was definitely going to be off from now on. It was a big something.




Tony

As much fun as riding a space horse would be, Tony was where he could be of much more use with the armor. Which meant up in the sky rather than down with Steve.

"A ship would have been a much safer option, sir," a greatly aggrieved JARVIS chimed in.

"Aw, where's your sense of adventure, J?" Tony asked, doing a very unnecessary spin in the air to avoid one of those TIE fighters.



TIE

The TIE pilots really had no idea what he was or what to do with him, so their first reaction was to try and blow him up. One had him locked in their sighs, firing off several shots in rapid succession.



Tony

Look, sometimes there was just a guy in a suit of armor, flying around.

It was fine.

"Whoa!" Tony said as alerts sounded in the HUD of his helmet, immediately moving to avoid the shots as much as he could and maybe panic releasing a few decoy pods to take the rest in a cloud of smoke and debris. "You're right about as friendly as the Kree."

Which was to say, not at all.



TIE

Sith and Sith affiliates would like to argue that they were less friendly, really. But at the moment they were also suddenly swirling around trying to figure out what to do with decoy pods besides try to blow them up.



Tony

Okay, so no banter either. Good to know.

Tony let JARVIS go through an analysis of the ship as he boosted the thrusters of the suit to get around them and get in close enough to latch onto one of those very, very poorly designed... wings? Fins? He wasn't sure.



TIE

They were definitely wings, and the pilot inside the TIE was suddenly flying a little wilder, trying to shape whatever he was off of the ship.



Tony

"Sir, I recommend you disengage," JARVIS chimed in Tony clung like a spider monkey in a very high tech suit of armor.

"Doing fine, JARVIS," he ground out, digging his gauntlet into the metal of the wing. "Just... don't let Steve know about this, okay?"

And that was when he charged up the unibeam to burst out of his chestplate and into the cockpit.



TIE

The pilot definitely didn't know what to do with that, but he only had to worry about it for a minute before the TIE came apart.

At least the other TIEs nearby had a second to be stunned by that before they could do anything!



Tony

"Well, that's a plan," Tony said brightly, turning his attention on the nearest TIE fighter. "Let's go again."

Oh, this was going to end in him getting smacked to the ground at some point, but for now he could have some fun! He didn't get to use the unibeam nearly as much in Fandom, you know.

Sorry, poor, evil NPC fighter pilot. It was blue laser beam to the face time.



Steve

Steve was not a natural orbak rider (and he was very sure that throwing one at the incoming troops would be frowned upon. It wasn't a motorcyle.), and so as soon as he got close enough to the fight, he flipped himself off of his animal and used that momentum to kick the nearest trooper in the head as he came down to the ground.

That was a good start, he felt. He threw his shield test how it worked against unfamiliar armor.



Scott

A moment or so after Steve had dismounted, a very much Scott-sized Scott popped up nearby, already charging at a trooper to throw an ant-strength punch at the guy (or lady! He couldn't tell! But whoever it was: punches.)

Why get your own orbak when you could surprise Captain America by hitching a ride on his as an ant-sized man?

"Nice work, Cap!" he called, saluting -- and hopefully that would help with the whole who the hell is that factor.



Steve

Steve was distracted enough to almost miss catching his shield on its return. "No problem!" he said, sounding a little befuddled, "...you there!"



Scott

Scott could be fairly dense at times, but he did remember that this Steve hadn't actually met him -- or Ant-Man -- yet, in his timeline.

Scott took a moment to punch another trooper -- though, this time it was just regular Scott Lang-enhanced-slightly-via-Pym-suit punching before flipping his visor open to offer a little further clarification there. "Sorry," he offered. "Scott in here. Or -- well, Ant-Man."

Still weird to call himself that, though.



Steve

Steve grinned. "Nice to see you, Ant-Man. I've only worked with Wasp. She's from Tony's version of our universe."



Scott

"I bet she gets wings," Scott noted enviously, briefly curious about which Van Dyne was in the suit in that universe. (Or whether she was a Van Dyne at all? Maybe a Pym? Maybe someone new entirely?) "I think my Hank used to have one of those."

But then she got lost to the Quantum Realm, as one did.



Steve

"She does," Steve said with a grin as he used his shield to mow down a row of troopers getting too close. "They're cute."



Scott

"I'm jealous," Scott admitted, flipping his visor back into place and pressing that important button on the palm of his hand.

By all appearances, he'd disappeared -- until he was abruptly his own size again, careening way too fast off of a nearby ledge with a kick that took out three troopers. Sweet.



Steve

Now that Steve knew what to look for--he'd gotten into a couple of scrapes with Jan in Tony's universe--he could grin and watch for Scott's impact on the field.

"They never see you coming," he teased.



Scott

"Except in very rare cases," Scott replied with a muffled laugh, because sometimes he was very visible, also. (And could the Wasp do that? Maybe wings were overrated when you could become Giant-Man.) "But I don't think this spaceship needs that kind of a weight-bearing test."



Steve

"We who are running along this spaceship appreciate that," Steve said, punching a nearby trooper so hard his helmet kind of bent.

Way harsh, Steve.





Different Steve

Steve had done really well in his summer flying classes with Jaina, and the Navy had spent many millions of dollars to teach him to adapt to his surroundings and fly whatever he found himself in.

Looking at the TIE fighters screaming in towards him, sitting in space, he realized he was hopelessly outclassed up here.

"Shit."



TIE

Yeeeeep.

Hopefully he was at least a little prepared for the TIE firing on him as it sped closer.



Steve

Well, fortunately for Steve, the "don't freaking die, moron" lesson had been buried deep into his subconscious--also by the Navy--and so he shifted his plane--ship! ship!--out of the way and poured on the firepower.

He'd have to keep an eye on his firepower. He didn't remember exactly how fast that depleted.



TIE

One ship got its wing clipped and went spinning, but the others kept coming. One even dove in front of him, barely missing the gunfire, to try and distract him.



Steve

Steve wasn't distracted. He was terrified, and a little bit pissed off, but not distracted. He shifted the ship again, lined the TIE up in his sights, and fired.



TIE

This was apparently the wrong move for that TIE pilot, because a moment later it was blowing up after taking a direct hit.



Steve

"Jesus Christ," Steve said, breathing out through his mouth to calm his nerves. "Okay. Let's go again."

He spun the ship and headed back into the melee.



TIE

The melee was waiting for him. Even more had joined the fight now, and there were far too many enemy ships facing far too few Resistance ships.

Which meant several TIEs could immediately swing forward to focus on him.



Steve

"The only easy day was yesterday," he muttered under his breath, glancing at the cockpit dials and screens, labeled in an entirely foreign language. Nothing was beeping or turning red, so he assumed he was okay for now.

"Okay, you bastards, let's play," he said, flying straight at them.




TIE

The TIEs were not playing, in fact, and they were aggressively headed for him, shooting the whole time.



Steve

"I hate every single thing about this," Steve said, trying to shift his ship out of the line of fire and enjoying the lack of drag in space as he soared up.

But he wasn't exactly an ace out here and his moves were still pretty basic. The TIEs were closing again much faster than he could compensate for.

"Danny's going to kill me."



TIE

He might, if the TIEs firing on him didn't do it first. They were really trying with all of the shooting.



Steve

"Shitshitshit," Steve said because there were all of the blaring lights and red flashing buttons he'd been hoping not to see on the control panel.

He looked out the cockpit to see one of the S-foils on the starboard side complete gone and the other shot full of laser holes.

"My ship's done," he said, with a sigh. "Punching out."

Into a combat zone. In space. This was probably bad, but better than being in a sitting duck of a ship?



Tony

"On it," Tony called back, turning into a bit of a red and yellow blur to reach him in time. Hopefully Steve wouldn't be too opposed to getting snagged like a bag of groceries.



Steve

Well, if it was that or "dying like an idiot", he'd take this option very quickly. "Mahalo!"



Tony

"Let's get you to another ship, shall we?" Mostly because he super didn't think he could get Steve back through atmo safely.



Steve

"Thanks," Steve said, nodding. "Maybe one towards the back? It'll be easier to get in when they aren't taking fire."



Tony

"Hold on tight." This was clearly the thrill ride that Steve wanted, right?



Steve

Well, as long as there was less shooting than that first bit, yes, this was awesome.

"Where'd you get your suit?" he asked.



Tony

"I built it," Tony replied dryly. "It's not for sale, sorry."

He only made suits for his friends. Because he was insane like that.



Steve

"You built it?" Steve sounded very impressed. "That's awesome!"





Lana

Once Lana felt she'd made the point which side she was on, she broke away to do some real damage. Troopers gathered in groups made excellent targets of lightning, as did mounted weapons.



Sith troopers

That was a pretty effective way of neutralizing troopers, yes! Quite a few immediately hit the floor, writhing.

The more comedic-minded might notice a few troopers on the periphery who moved to stay out of her way.



Lana

Lana was briefly disappointed she'd never bothered to master throwing her saber.

She did, however, know how to spin up a whirlwind around one of the troopers and use them to knock over a few others.



Sith troopers

From her left, another trooper took aim at her as she did that, hoping to take out the cause of all the chaos.

Or at least that part of the chaos. There was quite a bit going on up here.



Lana

Lana reached out toward him without looking and made a pulling motion, hauling him up with the Force and throwing him off the side of the ship.



Sith troopers

He even made a little "ahhh!" noise as he went over.

It did give the others the needed time before they could start firing again. They didn't have a lot of targets. It was easy to focus on the Resistance, even if some of them were scary.



Lana

Lana sighed. "You're not even trying, are you?" She leapt into the middle of them, whirling her lightsaber in a circle.





Stark

Stark didn't have his own ship, or enough familiarity with the ships here to feel comfortable taking a useful position on one. He was, he thought, more likely to be of use on the ground.

He'd given the orbaks a sort of longing look before setting off on foot. He wasn't charging in. He was going to be more useful staying back from the front lines. He did have his own gun, and a blaster, and he could provide covering fire if nothing else. And if anyone was injured he was hopefully in a good position to offer assistance.



Sith troopers

Staying back had the benefit of keeping him safe longer, but it wasn't long before he had Sith troopers lining up to fire on him as well as the others.



Stark

At least Stark had experience being shot at and shooting back. He'd be able to hold his own in a brief firefight, at least. He'd fought Peacekeepers and Scarrans and with less support. Although he was probably going to end up backed into a corner if he wasn't careful.

For the moment he was going to try and pick off troopers if he could.



Sith troopers

Others could probably use that, too, as the troopers were mostly in groups. Partly for cover, partly because there were just so many more of them.

It did make them more easy pickings if someone was just trying to snipe one of two at a time, though.





BB-8

BB-8 kept pace with Finn and Jannah on their orbaks, head canted forward with determination as he rolled.



Finn

"Doing great, buddy!" Finn called down to him.

The Sith troopers were spilling out onto the surface of the ship on foot, already firing. The team on the orbaks fired back, providing cover for the others. He reached into the munitions bag hanging from the saddle, and pulled one of the homemade explosives they'd cobbled together with what they'd had on Kef Bir. He sighted a squad of troopers, took aim, and threw, just like Jannah had shown him. It exploded, sending several stormtroopers backward.

"One lesson!" he whooped. "Did you see that?"



Jannah

"You had a great teacher!" Jannah called back.



Finn

They were almost at their destination. They grabbed their explosives bags, jumped from their orbaks, and sprinted along the ship with BB-8 at their heels. One group of red-clad Sith troopers engaged jet packs, and lifted into the air to get a better vantage point for shooting at them.

They flew now, too, apparently.

Finn kept firing, but most of his shots were going wide as they raced forward, ignoring everything going on around them but being aware of how much was going on. When they reached the nav deck, they found the bunkerlike structure, built out from the hull. "This is it!" Finn yelled above the shooting.



Jannah

"BB-8, do your thing!" Jannah told him, whipping out her bow to help keep troopers off of them while BB-8 opened the panel for Finn to plant the explosives.



Sith trooper

One shot hit a jet trooper, who spun into the air, missiled into an oncoming TIE, and sent it crashing onto the Destroyer's surface.



Finn

Finn was aware as he worked that the thrusters had begun to glow bright blue. He had to work fast. If he didn't, this ship was going to leave atmosphere, which would instantly kill them all.

But he worked fast, and finally he gave Jannah the signal, and they both ducked, hands over their heads, as he triggered the explosion.

The blast was loud, and shook the hull, and lights all along it began going dark. The navigation beacon was down.



Steve

"Starlight, that wasn't you, right?" Steve called out.



Tony

"That was our side doing that, right?" Tony chimed in over comms.



Annie

"Not me!" Annie confirmed, though whoever it was -- she admired your work, because that was neater than she would have done it. (Not to mention she wasn't sure she could do quite that much, anyway.) "Sure hope it was our side, though."

This was probably not the good news it looked like, if it hadn't been.



Steve

"Hi!" Steve said, the smile clear in his voice. "You're still okay! You could see that from space?"

It was a big boom.



Tony

"J's keeping tack of you guys down there!" Tony replied. "We're doing great--"

Ignore the screaming sort of noise of one of those TIE fighters and then an explosion over the comms. "Doing great! I'll get back to you in a moment."



Steve

"Love you," Steve said. "Stay safe."

Well. Safe-ish. For them.



Poe

"Nav beacon's down!" Poe yelled into his comm. "They did it!"



Finn

"You got three minutes," Finn commed back, "until the command ship resets the nav and the fleet can escape."




Snap

"Still no Falcon or backup," Snap said.



R2-D2

From the droid socket, Artoo beeped a question off to Poe.



Poe

Off comm, he answered, "I don't know, Artoo. Maybe they didn't find any allies. Maybe nobody's coming."

He looked at the ships, what they were facing, and thought fast.

"We gotta hit them ourselves," Poe announced over the comm. "Whatever you can do. Be fast, be precise, hit those cannons. You with me?"




Tyce

"We're with you," Tyce responded without hesitation.



Poe

"May the Force be with us," Poe said, hoping more than anything.

The longer they went without backup, this few people against this many troops and fighters, the worse this was going to get. Fast.






Snap

When they started attacking harder, Snap noticed that everywhere around him, ships were getting taken out. It wasn't stopping him from going in to fire on one of the turrets.

Then his console beeped.

"Fleet's locking onto a navigation signal," he warned. "They're gonna split!"



Vanik

"Watch your starboard, Wexley," Vanik called, dodging blowback from another X-wing next to him getting vaped.



Snap

Snap looked over. "Yeah, I see 'em."




TIE

He didn't see the TIE swooping in from the other direction, though, which fired a clean shot into him immediately.



Poe

Poe saw it a second too late, and the next thing he saw was his friend and squadronmate's ship exploding, and all he could do was watch in despair.

They were going to lose this. They were putting up a decent fight, but their forces were still being damaged and shot down. They'd lost friends. Poe didn't know how many they could afford to lose. It was just them. No one else. And cries of shock were lighting up his comm.

"General! Do we retreat?"

"What now?"

"What's our next move?"

Poe clicked his comm on. "My friends," he said, around a lump in his throat. "I'm sorry. I thought we had a shot. There's just too many of them." They'd learned nothing from Crait. He'd learned nothing.



Lando

A familiar voice broke through the comms: Lando Calrissian. "But there are more of us, Poe. There are more of us."




Poe

Poe flipped his fighter around to look, swooped over the hull of a Destroyer to get a visual on the atmosphere above.

Ships were popping into sight all over the place. Freighters, fighters, medical frigates, longhaulers, from every sector of the galaxy, every era Poe had ever heard of. Hundreds. No, thousands. A fleet of fleets.

"The allies!" he heard Aftab yell. "They're here!"




Finn

"Lando, you did it!" Finn yelled, looking up from the hull of the Steadfast. "You did it!"



Poe

The comms were lighting up with chatter, so many people trying to get through to arrounce their arrival. Usually that was standard, but it was far, far too much now.

"Okay, okay!" Poe interrupted. "Just... go shoot stuff! Hit those underbelly cannons with all you've got. Every one we knock out if a world saved."



Lando

Lando cheered as he and Chewie charged ahead, and a thousand fighters, frigates, and even well-armed freighters swooped after them. Within seconds, the Millennium Falcon had taken out a cannon. That ship made everything look easy.



Tahiri

Tahiri glanced down at her comlink with a bemused expression, even in the middle of all this, because --

"Lando? Of course it is," she said with a laugh.

Some things didn't change across timelines even when the timeline had branched off sharply from all the ones you were familiar with, and of course (if maybe ironically) Lando Calrissian was one of them.



Jaina

Jaina had seen a lot of things, but this was incredibly impressive. She almost wished she had time to pick out all the ships she knew.

But she didn't, so she Force-shoved a group of jet troopers towards the cannons to let the ships take them out, too.



Anakin

Anakin was still not going to love that ship. It was mostly habit by now.

"I've got a good feeling about this," he said with a tiny smile.



Tahiri

Like Jaina, Tahiri would have loved to get a chance to pick out all the familiar ships. Instead, she settled for stealing a moment to look up with undisguised awe on her face... and a faint twinge of something like homesickness at the sight of the Falcon, no matter how different it might be here.

"Kriffing hell," she said to Anakin, "I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like this."



Anakin

"Reminds me a little of the battle for Coruscant at the end of the Clone Wars," Anakin said, "but this is bigger."



Tahiri

"It reminds me a little bit of Coruscant at the end of the Yuuzhan Vong War," said Tahiri, because Coruscant had shouldered way more than its fair share of being battled for, "but much bigger. Sithspawn, there must be five times as many ships as we had then."



Anakin

Anakin nodded. "I'm grateful for the reinforcements."



Lana

"Now that is a lovely sight," Lana said, smiling.





Poe

The tide was turning. The patchwork navy pummeled the defenseless fleet. Within minutes, one Destroyer listed sideways, smoke rising from its hull. It collided with another, and both dropped to the surface of Exegol. Another fell after a pair of proton torpedoes hit it in the gut. Soon Destroyers were falling away all over the place.

The TIEs were still definitely targeting Poe specifically, though. One threatened him head-on, and Poe wasn't sure if he'd destroy it in time, or if he should speed away...

A Y-wing slipped into position beside him, gunning the TIE, which exploded into a fireball.

"Who's that flier?" he asked over the comm, suspicious of that move.




Zorii

"Take a guess," came Zorii's voice. Was she a little smug to be here, saving him like this? Absolutely.



Poe

Poe couldn't keep the relief out of his voice. When he'd head about Kijimi, he'd assumed the worst. "Zorii, you made it!"




Babu Frik

"Hey, heyyyyy!" In case anyone doubted that Babu had made it, too.





Poe

Suddenly a burst of blue lightning shot out from the planet, hitting a lot of the fleet. Readings blinked out all around, pilots at a loss without communication or anything besides emergency systems. A few ships dropped clean out of the air.

The console of Poe's own fighter started sparking, shocking his hand even through his flight gloves. "Artoo, my systems are failing."

From the X-wing's droid socket he could hear Artoo's squealing, but nothing from the comms.

"Does anyone copy?" Poe asked, trying to make the comms work, and of course getting nothing.



Jaina

Of course Jaina knew what the lightning was about. She'd seen it before, she'd used it before, but she'd never seen it used like this.

And for once she had absolutely no idea what to do about it.

"Kriff."



Lana

"That sums it up nicely," Lana agreed. "Think we could siphon off enough to make a difference?" She had her doubts, but she'd be willing to try.



Jaina

"I really don't," Jaina admitted. "At least not without just making ourselves dead."

Which, as a crazy Jedi, would be a thing she would be all right doing, unless it got them dead and didn't help anyone.



Lana

Lana nodded. As a non-crazy but practical Sith, she wasn't averse to death, either, but not if it wouldn't do any good. She hated not being able to do anything!

"Right. Whoever this Palpatine is, he is, to put it in Earth terms, a raging asshole. Steady the ships?"



Jaina

Jaina nodded. "Steady the ships," she agreed, reaching out with the Force to help who she could.



Lana

Lana reached out herself, feeling what Jaina was doing so they wouldn't be overlapping, then helping to steady and slow the falling ships wherever she could.



Tahiri

Tahiri muttered a particularly colorful Yuuzhan Vong oath at the sight of the Force lightning.

When she was thirteen and half-trained she and Anakin had been able to control one ship with the Force, working together.

She had years of training under her belt now, and more experience working with Jaina than she'd gotten to have with Anakin. It wasn't hard at all to reach out in the Force to sense her -- and Lana, though that didn't quite have the same ease of familiarity -- and try to help some of the ships they hadn't yet covered.



Anakin

Welcome to the wonderful world of Huttese cursing, Poe, as Anakin let loose with a string of absolute doozies.

"Copy," he finally managed, one hand on the stick and the other reaching out into the Force to grab as much of the fleet as he could manage and giving them a way to fight against gravity until their systems stopped smoking. "That son of a bitch."

Rey?

He didn't really expect an answer from her, but if Palpatine was shooting lightning at the fleet he probably wasn't also shooting lightning at her.





Poe

All of a sudden, nav screens cleared. Their navigation wasn't being jammed anymore. The power coming from the planet's surface had stopped.

"We're back on!" Poe yelled. "This is our last chance. We've got to hit those cannons now! Finn, get everyone on the lander!"

Time to aim everything they had at the Steadfast and hope everyone on the ground got on board in time.



Finn

"Ground team!" Finn yelled, waving everyone toward the lander. "Get back on, go go go!"

They'd all be quick enough, right?



Annie

Annie didn't have to be told twice before she was running as fast as she could back towards the lander. She was keeping an eye out for anyone who seemed hurt enough to need a hand, as well as any enemy weaponry small enough that she knew she could confidently siphon power off it to just help with cover. (The cannons seemed a touch, perhaps, above her paygrade.)



Scott

And the fastest way to get back to the ship, in Scott's opinion, was to hitch a ride back. So hopefully this blonde woman wouldn't notice or mind that he'd grabbed onto her shoelace.

Once Annie was close enough to the lander, he jumped down to the ground, sprang up to full size, and darted past her to board.

Normal stuff!



Steve

Steve loved running. It was up there with punching bad guys as a hobby. He took a flying leap and ended up on top of the lander, looking around for any stragglers to help up.



Tony

"Need a lift?" Tony asked, making a pass over where Steve was running.



Steve

"Please," Steve said, grinning under the cowl. "How was space?"



Tony

"Dark, explosive," Tony said, scooping him up under his arms. "No one would exchange insurance information. It was a real mess."



Steve

"Sounds terrible," Steve said. "Scott can turn really tiny?"



Tony

"Ant-Man," Tony said like he expected that one. "Can he also turn really big?"



Steve

"I'm not sure," Steve said. "Do ants get really big?"



Tony

"Depends on if they're attacking the city!" Tony replied brightly.



Steve

"I'll pretend that made sense," Steve decided, looking around for something else to hit. While flying. Seemed like the thing to do.



Tony

"Ten o'clock," Tony said, already ready to just yeet Steve in that direction on his signal.

Weren't you all so glad these madmen were here, folks?



Steve

"Got 'em," Steve said, getting his shield into place like this was a very normal day.

And it was, for them.



Stark

Quick enough? Maybe. But Stark was still hanging back a bit and trying to offer covering fire for the rest of the ground forces.

The problem was that he was watching the others too intently and once he started moving out from his fairly defensible position he wasn't compensating for his blind side.



Sith troopers

As he ran, one of the jet troopers landed in a good position to have a clear opening. He fired, trying to account for movement and probably shooting around arm level.



Stark

This had been going too well for Stark so far so of course he was going to get attacked by a flying enemy. Of course.

One shot struck his upper arm and he cried out, dropping his blaster as he stumbled a few steps before falling forward. It hurt. But he needed to get back up or it was going to hurt more.



Finn

Finn just happened to look over at the right time while waving people through to the lander. He wasn't sure what happened, and he didn't have time to ask, so instead he let instinct take over.

He stuck a hand out, and suddenly Stark was picked up into the air and moved him the rest of the way into the lander.

If he was slightly more dropped than set down, well, Finn was real brand new to this.



Stark

Being sent flying through the air with no warning was a new experience. If Stark let out another yell that sounded suspiciously like "what the frell" at the sensation that was perfectly understandable.

Hitting the ground was considerably less new, at least, and resulted in a much smaller yelp followed by a thud and a quiet groan.

"How...?" He'd be very thankful later. For now he was confused and he'd just been shot.



Finn

Did Finn look shocked that that worked? He sure did!

He'd deal with it later. Right now they had to get everyone on board.



Tahiri

Tahiri was a trained, experienced Jedi, so of course she'd be quick enough even if she had to break about five laws of physics in the process.

Which was why she'd chosen to stay to the back of the group, to keep an eye out for stragglers and guard their rear: her golden lightsaber was ignited and in her hand, flicking out with casual ease to deflect any blaster bolts that came too close, and occasionally she might reach out and gesture with her other hand to send would-be assailants flying or drop a boulder into their path or any number of fun telekinetic tricks.



Jaina

The hard part was not being the one staying behind and making sure everyone else got on the lander. Not her mission.

She was however sticking to the periphery to take out troopers that were trying to stop them, though.



Lana

Lana had Force speed, which she was pouring on now, lightsaber weaving in front of her to take down any troopers who got in her way. She'd come this far, she wasn't getting killed by not getting out of the way in time.



Summer

One of the nice things about basically having spent most of her time in the air being a portal-hopping erratic target was that Summer hadn't actually spend too much of her ammo resources on shooting things (although she'd definitely gotten a few pew-pews here and there, because, um, duh, obviously, why wouldn't she?), so she was ready to swoop back in with everyone else with plenty to volley at those cannons.





Finn

When it was clear everyone was going to make it, Finn, Jannah, and BB-8 raced after the others and the orbaks toward the lander. But Finn came to a halt, realizing that every shot at them was coming from a blaster. The deck cannons had gone silent, blown apart.



Jannah

BB-8 kept rolling, but Jannah turned. "Finn! Let's go!"



Finn

"The surface cannons stopped," he said. "They're resetting their systems. So before they do..."

He stared at the cannon. This had to be the worst idea he'd ever had. "Maybe we can do some shifty stuff... Jannah, go. I gotta do something."



Jannah

She surprised them both by saying, "No. I'm staying with you."



Finn

Finn blinked, but he'd learned better than to argue with a determined woman. There wasn't time for arguing anyway. He nodded his thanks, and together they sprinted for the cannon.

When they got close, the cannon was circling cautiously, like it was just looking for something to attack.




Jannah

"This is the command ship," Jannah said. "We take it out now, the whole nav system goes down for good. Every Star Destroyer in this fleet!"



Rose

"Finn!" came Rose's concerned voice over the comm. She was safely on the lander, but couldn't help but notice he wasn't. "Lander's leaving. Where are you? What are you doing?"



Finn

Finn reached for the massive gun barrel. This was probably going to go badly. He didn't have time to be nervous about it, but he did feel bad about this conversation right now had to happen. "I'm saving what I love."



Jannah

Jannah whipped her bow to take out a jet trooper winging their way, then pivoted quickly and did the same to a ground trooper.



Finn

"Go without us," Finn told Rose. "We're taking this whole ship down."



Rose

Rose couldn't believe what she was hearing, and she stepped forward like she was half debating going after him. She wouldn't, they'd been over this sort of thing before, but... "What? How?"



Finn

"You'll see from the lander. Rose, please," Finn said. "Go. And... take care of yourself."

He cut the comm before she could argue. Jannah was doing a great job of keeping the troopers distracted, but Finn was having to really focus. Rey or Rose could have had this thing rewired in half the time.

"Okay, we're hot!" he announced, jumping down from the cannon, yanking a handful of wires with him. He was almost sure he had the right ones. He handed two to Jannah. He would aim, she would fire.

Finn touched the wires together, and the giant cannon barre swiveled until it was pointed directly at the deck. "Never another kid."



Jannah

"Not even one," Jannah agreed, and she touched her wires together. They sparked, and a split second later the cannon fired a massive pulse blast. They waited, breathed-

The hull came apart beneath them as the lander took off.





Poe

Poe swooped around and watched as the Steadfast started exploding from the inside out, parts of it falling to the ground below.

"That's the command ship!" he said over the comm, to cheering. "It'll take out all the other Destroyers with it!"



Rose

"Finn didn't board the lander," Rose said, serious over the comm above everyone's excitement. "They're still on the command ship."



Poe

"What?" All of Poe's relief at getting the fleet back together ebbed away. He couldn't lose Finn. He couldn't. He peeled his X-wing away from the attack and dove for the Steadfast. The ship was now pointed downward, ready to spear the planet's surface.

His buddy had done that.

Scanners were useless in this atmosphere so he was stuck doing a visual sweep. He buzzed a comm tower, now parallel to the ground, and he almost missed the two figures huddling together on top of it.

"I see them! I'll double back."



Tyce

"You'll never make it in time," Tyce warned.



Poe

"Trust me, I'm fast!" Poe insisted, starting to turn his fighter around.



Lando

"Not as fast as this ship," Lando pointed out over the comm.

He'd been there for the twelve-parsec Kessel run.



Summer

To that, Summer could only snort. "Step aside, ladies," she said, fiddling with a few controls to reset her portal configurations. "I got this."

Hopefully. Look, she wasn't quite as good as Rick at knowing exactly how to coordinate her portal gun, but she felt confident she was good enough to manage to get her popping through the one in front of her to the Steadfast, her little pink ship bursting out of her shiny pink portal, not even hesitating a moment to drop the hatch and sing out through the external comms, "Need a lift?"



Finn

What the hell.

"I'll take it," Finn said, carefully inching forward to urge Jannah into the hatch first.



Summer

"Just watch out for all the cat stuff back there," Summer warned them cheerfully. "Let me know when you're in and we'll get you guys out of here."



Finn

A moment later she might hear, "...That is a lot of cat stuff," followed by a louder, "We're good! Go!"

The Steadfast fell apart beneath them and started falling to the ground below.



Summer

Pancakes was an incredibly spoiled feline, it was true.

And with a quick U-turn back into the portal she'd come from, Summer and the others returned back into space far, far away from the wreckage.

If a ship could preen, you'd better believe that was exactly what Summer's ship was doing just then.



Finn

Finn started making his way up by her with Jannah following close behind, and then it felt like he'd been punched in the chest so hard that he had to hold the wall for support.

"No," he breathed. "Rey..."

She was gone. He meant to tell her, and he hadn't. Now he'd never get to.


[NFB, NFI, OOC okay. Bits taken from The Rise of Skywalker novelization by Rae Carson. Preplayed with [personal profile] somethingwithturquoise, [personal profile] notagoose, [personal profile] sith_happened, [personal profile] grenadesandohana, [personal profile] imafuturist, [personal profile] weetuskenraider, [personal profile] unusual_sith, [personal profile] defenderofdesmoines, [personal profile] heroic_jawline, [personal profile] dishesonthetoprack, and [personal profile] stykera. Thank you all!!]