LEIA drank tea in her cabin on the Raddus, gazing at the swirls of hyperspace through her viewport. For the moment, the tunnel of light represented safety. Once the Resistance fleet returned to realspace, however, it would be vulnerable to attack. The rendezvous point in the remote Oetchi system would no doubt give them all a chance to regroup, but the Resistance’s long-term survival depended on finding a secure place to rebuild and rally her Jedi brother to their cause. Without him, she knew they would never defeat the First Order.

She also missed Luke.

Leia had lost so much over the years—her homeworld, her parents, her Republic, her son, and most recently, Han, her husband. It seemed that everything she loved had been torn away from her to cause the most pain. She had endured it all, with little time to grieve. But how much could one person suffer? She needed her twin, now more than ever. She needed someone with whom she could talk and share her pain. Luke would understand.

Leia let the emotion pass through her. Many more beings had endured far worse catastrophes. She had to remain strong. The members of the Resistance were looking up to her, not her brother, to lead them in their struggle for freedom. They had answered the call to join her and she could not abandon them.

The safety of hyperspace broke apart into lines. Then the viewport showed a dark void, speckled with stars. General Leia Organa strode out of her cabin and headed to the bridge.

Poe came out from his quarters, his old flight jacket over an arm. BB-8 rolled beside him, Finn a step behind, putting on the shirt and trousers that Poe had lent him. Poe had gotten Finn up to speed on everything that had happened, but Finn had a million more questions. “So you blew up the Starkiller Base, Rey beat Kylo, the Resistance got the map—you won, right? Why does this not feel like winning?”

Poe led the way down the corridor toward the bridge. “We came out of hiding to attack Starkiller. It didn’t take the First Order long to find our base.”

“Look, Poe, I believe in what you guys are doing, but…” The former stormtrooper hesitated. “I didn’t join this army. I followed Rey here. I just don’t want you thinking I’m something I’m not.”

Poe tried to reassure his friend with a smile. “It’s gonna be all right. Don’t worry. You’re with us, where you belong.”

He stopped and gave Finn his flight jacket. Finn had saved it from the TIE fighter crash on Jakku, and when they met again on D’Qar, Poe had told him to keep it. But when Finn was admitted to the medcenter, the jacket came back into Poe’s possession. Hoping his friend would recover, Poe had tried to mend it as best he could, stitching combat patches over the tears and burn marks from Kylo Ren’s lightsaber. “I’m not much of a sewer. Plus, I was, you know, saving the fleet.”

Finn didn’t seem as eager to accept the jacket as he had on D’Qar. Poe understood his wariness. Finn was still recuperating from nearly being killed. It might take him a while, but he’d eventually come around. He was a soldier, and soldiers never gave up the fight.

They rounded the corner and walked onto the bridge, where General Organa was inspecting a holographic star chart with Admiral Ackbar, Commander D’Acy, and other Resistance officers.

When Poe went up to her, she welcomed him with a slap to the face. “You’re demoted.”

Poe grimaced. He’d expected a reprimand, but never losing his rank. “For what, a successful run? We took out a Dreadnought!”

“At what cost? Pull your head out of your cockpit.” She began to turn away from him.

Poe felt the need to defend himself. “You start an attack, you carry it through.”

“There are things you can’t solve by jumping in an X-wing and blowing something up. I need you to learn that.”

“There were heroes on that mission,” he said.

“Dead heroes,” General Organa said. “No leaders.”

She was a small woman, yet her words landed with tremendous force. He felt ashamed he had failed her, and any further explanation would be nothing more than an excuse.

During their argument, Finn had been studying the holographic star chart above the command table. Their present location appeared empty of stars and celestial bodies. “We’re really nowhere. Deep space,” he said. “How’s Rey going to find us?”

General Organa pulled back her sleeve and revealed a black-corded bracelet adorned with aspherical metal device. It shone faintly.

“A cloaked binary beacon?” Finn asked.

The general smiled. “To light her way home.”

Finn returned to the map. “So until she gets back, what’s the plan?”

“We need to find a new base,” the general said.

“One with enough power to get a distress signal to our allies scattered in the Outer Rim,” suggested D’Acy. A career military officer, the tough-as-nails commander had seen her fair share of battles over the years.

“And most important, we need to get there undetected,” General Organa added.

Emergency lights suddenly flashed. Sirens began to sound. “A proximity alert!” Ackbar shouted.

Poe couldn’t stay quiet any longer. “That can’t be—”

In the large viewport around the bridge, thirty First Order Star Destroyers emerged from hyperspace. One dwarfed them all, a thunderhead of a vessel. Veins of illumination ran along the kilometers of its surface to a central command area the size of a major metropolis. And it was armed with giant turbolaser cannons from bow to stern—on both sides.

It was Supreme Leader Snoke’s flagship, the Mega-Destroyer Supremacy.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Poe said. It made no sense that the First Order had found them so quickly. “Can we jump to lightspeed?”

Lieutenant Connix checked her readouts. “We have enough fuel for just one jump.”

“Do it fast, we have to get out of here,” Poe said, watching squadrons of TIE fighters launch from the Destroyers. If the Resistance fleet didn’t jump soon, it would be swarmed.

“Wait.” General Organa stared at the warships. “They tracked us through hyperspace.”

“That’s impossible,” Poe said.

“Yes, it is,” the general said. “And they’ve done it.”

Poe didn’t argue. Her explanation seemed to be the only possibility. First Order engineers had built the Starkiller superweapon, so it was conceivable they could invent a tracking device that transmitted through hyperspace.

Finn offered his own assessment. “So if we jump to lightspeed, they’ll just find us again and we’ll be out of fuel. We’re trapped. They’ve got us.”

“Not yet they don’t.” Poe turned to General Organa. “Permission to jump in an X-wing and blow something up.”

She didn’t hesitate. “Granted. Admiral, swing us around.”

Cannon fire from the Mega-Destroyer rattled everyone on the bridge. Ackbar leaned a webbed hand on a console to maintain his balance. “Full astern! Rotate shields!”

Poe ran off the bridge, Finn a few steps behind him. More shots rocked the cruiser. The pattern of the blasts told Poe that some of the TIEs were already on them. BB-8 wheeled ahead of them, squealing that they needed to go faster.

“Don’t wait for me!” Poe told BB-8. “Get in and fire her up!”

Poe followed the droid into the hangar. Tallie and the other pilots sat in the cockpits of their starfighters and prepared for launch.

The launch never happened.

Torpedoes from a First Order TIE fighter shot into the hangar and detonated. In the blink of an eye, fuel lines burst and the place erupted. Flames consumed every craft, from the A-wings to Poe’s beloved Black One. Tallie was in her cockpit when it blew apart.

The force of the blast saved Poe and BB-8 from suffering the terrible fate of their comrades. Both were sent reeling backward into the corridor. BB-8’s dome flew off the ball of his body, but he was able to activate his magnetic casters to reconnect it. The blast doors shut, sealing off the hangar to prevent the fire from spreading.

Finn dashed toward them. “Poe! Are you all right?”

Poe took his friend’s hand and staggered to his feet. “We need to get out of range of the Star Destroyers.”

The Resistance would not survive otherwise.