POE readied the Raddus for a hyperspace jump, blaster in hand. Minutes before, he had taken complete control of the bridge and sent the crew to the hangar. The only ones who stayed were Lieutenant Connix and General Organa’s assistant, C-3PO.

Though more anxious than usual, the protocol droid obeyed Poe’s orders, having opened up a comm channel with the team on the Mega-Destroyer through BB-8. But Finn’s report that they were within reach of the tracker flustered C-3PO. “Sir, I’m almost afraid to ask, but—”

Poe had no time to argue with the droid. “Good instinct, Threepio. Go with that.” As he entered hyperspace coordinates, a screen monitoring the hangar lit up with blaster fire. Holdo and her crew were fighting back, and Poe knew his small group of mutineers holding the hangar wouldn’t last long.

“Seal that door!” he yelled to Connix. The lieutenant did as commanded, rushing back to a console to assist with astronavigation. But C-3PO hustled toward the door access controls.

“Threepio, stay away from that!”

“It would be quite against my programming to be a party to mutiny, Captain Dameron!” said the droid, evidently having computed what was going on. “It is not correct protocol.”

The edges of the door began to glow and spark. Someone was trying to cut through it. The firefight still blazed on the screen, so Holdo’s troops couldn’t be behind it. Had those loyal to Poe turned against him?

C-3PO backpedaled from the door but kept talking. “I will have some very strong words in my official report when this is all over.”

Poe pounded his fist on the comm button. “Finn?” There was no response. “Finn, are you there?” Where had Finn gone? “Finn!”

Then Poe heard cries and protests on the comm. The worst had happened. The First Order’s troopers had found his friends and taken them prisoner.

It seemed like Poe would share a similar fate. A section of the bridge door clanked to the floor, melted from the other side. Keeping one hand atop the hyperspace lever, Poe raised his pistol at the intruder.

General Leia Organa ducked through the hole.

Shocked but overjoyed to see she had recovered, Poe lowered his weapon.

The general triggered hers.

A stun bolt coursed through Poe’s nerves. He blacked out.

In the cavernous throne room, Rey stood petrified.

The being in the golden robes looked more dead than alive, like a cadaver animated by some evil force. He loomed large in the chair, yet his eyes were small, pinpricks of misery that froze Rey in cold terror.

This was the Supreme Leader of the First Order, the one known as Snoke.

He curled a finger and the shackles around her wrists released to clang on the floor. “Come closer, child.”

Summoning every iota of will, she refused.

“So much strength,” he said. “Darkness rises, and light to meet it. I warned my young apprentice that as he grew stronger, his equal in the light would rise.”

Kylo Ren continued to kneel, even as Luke’s lightsaber was torn from his grasp and shot into Snoke’s hand.

The Supreme Leader studied the weapon. “That light was Skywalker, I assumed,” he said, “wrongly.”

He placed the hilt on the arm of his chair, then motioned to Rey. “Closer, I said.”

Rey dug in her heels, but she was pulled forward against her will, past a pair of guards in red armor, until she stood at the foot of the throne. While her body would not obey her, her mind remained free.

“You underestimate Skywalker and Ben Solo,” she said, with a look at Kylo Ren, “and me. It will be your downfall.”

“Oh.” Snoke sounded intrigued. “Have you seen something? A weakness in my apprentice? Is that why you came? Young fool. It was I who bridged your minds. I stoked Ren’s conflicted soul. I knew he was not strong enough to hide it from you, and you were not strong enough to resist the bait.”

As if pulled by cords, Rey was wrenched up the stairs in front of Snoke’s mangled face. “Now you will give me Skywalker,” he said, “then I will kill you with the cruelest stroke.”

She wanted to mount a proper defense. But all she could manage was one word. “No.”

Snoke smacked his thin lips. “Yes.”

He flicked his hand and Rey flew off her feet, slamming into an invisible wall a few meters away. He kept her levitating high off the floor as the hideous tentacles of his mind invaded hers, contorting the flesh of her face.

“Give…me…everything!”

Snoke’s tendrils slithered like snakes around her brain, and with one vicious pull seemed to yank her lobes apart. She flailed and screamed, but there was no end to the pain.

With her mind went her defiance. She gave Snoke everything.

Rose endured shoves and kicks from the stormtroopers as Captain Phasma took them into the Mega-Destroyer’s hangar. Finn was roughed up even more. DJ, on the other hand, was nowhere to be seen.

The hangar offered no opportunities for revenge or escape. The First Order’s firepower was on full display with a dizzying array of TIE fighters, droid walkers, assault shuttles, and combat-ready stormtroopers. A tall and trim military officer with hay-colored hair watched over it all.

“General Hux. I have caught the intruders,” Phasma said.

The man turned toward them and Rose recognized him immediately. Though Armitage Hux looked far too young to be a general, Rose knew the First Order thrived on the passion and arrogance of youth, which were Hux’s chief qualities.

Hux slapped Finn across the cheek. Finn didn’t flinch. “Well done, Phasma. I can’t say I approve of the methods, but I can’t argue with the results,” Hux said.

DJ stepped out from behind a row of troopers as the sleek Libertine settled on the hangar floor. Flight officers guided a repulsor sled of credit crates into its hold.

“Your ship and payment, just as we agreed,” Phasma said to DJ.

Rose scowled at the thief. “You lying snake!”

“We got caught,” he said. “I cut a d-deal.”

She regretted not trusting her instincts. DJ was just as he looked, a deceitful, flimflamming, rubbish-mouthed rat. Even his slogan “Don’t join” was a lie. He had joined a side—the wrong side. And he’d pay for it, if she ever had a chance to do anything about it. “You lousy, double-crossing—”

She pounced on the traitor.

None of her swings connected before troopers restrained her. She thrashed in their grip as another officer delivered a report to Hux. “Sir, we checked on the information from the thief. Thirty Resistance transports have just launched from the cruiser.”

Hux favored DJ with a half grin. “You told us the truth! Will wonders never cease?” He turned back to the officer. “Our weapons are ready?”

“Ready and aimed, sir.”

Finn gave Rose a look of despair. DJ had not only sold them out, he’d sold out Poe and the whole Resistance.

“Sorry, guys,” the thief said with a shrug. He went over to the credit crates.

“Fire at will,” Hux told the officer.