TRIUMPHANT cheers echoed far and wide across the base on D’Qar. The battle was over. Starkiller Base was destroyed. The Resistance had won.

General Leia Organa retired to her quarters and wept.

Moments before the command center holoscreens had relayed the detonations, she had felt the sharpest and deepest of pains. As if her heart had ruptured.

Her husband. Han. He was gone.

Those who knew Leia considered her to be someone who had suffered much yet had always emerged from that suffering stronger and wiser. But immersed in her present grief, Leia found no strength. She found no wisdom. She found only anguish and emptiness. She’d failed to prevent her son from succumbing to the darkness of Darth Vader. Now her husband was dead. Her brother lost.

Would it ever end?

She doubted it would. But if she surrendered, who else would disappear? How many more homes and husbands and sons and brothers would vanish like hers?

Leia did not view herself as strong or wise. She was, if anything, persistent.

Steeled by that persistence, she strode out of her quarters and onto the tarmac to greet those who had returned from enemy territory.

C-3PO and BB-8 joined Leia as the Millennium Falcon landed. A crowd formed behind her. The freighter’s hatch opened, but all cheering was respectfully muted when Chewbacca ran down the ramp carrying a severely wounded Finn. A medical team assisted him immediately.

The applause came back loud and triumphant for the girl who emerged next. She descended the ramp and walked over to Leia.

Leia held Rey’s face in her hands, then embraced her, sharing the girl’s tears.

Poe went to the situation room, taking BB-8 with him. A host of senior commanders and officers had assembled there, along with the girl from Jakku, General Organa, and her protocol droid. They had gathered to discuss the still unknown whereabouts of Luke Skywalker.

Poe started the conversation. “Kylo Ren said to me that the segment held by Beebee-Ate is the last piece of the map that shows the way to Skywalker’s location. So where’s the rest of it?”

The girl chimed in. “The First Order has it. They extracted it from the Imperial archives.”

Poe blinked in surprise. “The Empire?”

“It makes sense,” said Admiral Statura. “The Empire would’ve been looking for the first Jedi temples. In destroying all the Jedi sanctuaries, they would have acquired a great deal of information.”

Poe had nothing to say to that. His eye strayed from Statura to a light that had switched on in the back of the room. Seemingly forgotten among a pile of discarded equipment was an old R2-class astromech droid.

“We’re still at war with the First Order—a war that won’t end until they or the Resistance is destroyed,” General Organa said. “The next time without Luke, we won’t stand a chance.”

The old R2 unit trundled forward into the gathering. It issued forth a stream of beeps that were every bit as loud as anything BB-8 produced.

“Artoo, what is it?” an oddly excited C-3PO asked. “I haven’t seen you this functional since…slow down! You’re giving me data overload!”

The R2 unit did not slow down, whistling and tootling as if his electronic existence depended on it. “What’s he saying?” General Organa asked.

C-3PO translated. “He says if the information you are seeking was in the Imperial archives, he may have it in his memory. He’s scanning through the records now.”

The general gaped at the astromech droid. “Artoo has the rest of the map?”

“He’s certainly implying the possibility,” C-3PO said, his voice high-pitched. “I’ve never heard him beep with this much energy before!”

R2-D2 hooted, then projected a hologram from his lens. Before them all hovered an enormous galactic map, far larger and more detailed than the one obtained from Lor San Tekka. Yet as before, an area of the map was blank, missing information.

BB-8 beeped and nudged Poe. “Yeah, buddy, hold on,” Poe said. “I have it.”

Poe took out the peculiar object Lor San Tekka had given him and the Resistance had returned to him. He inserted it into BB-8’s data port. The droid sat still for a moment, reading its contents. Then BB-8 projected a star chart of his own. Once its proportions were adjusted, the smaller map filled in the gap in the bigger map.

C-3PO cheered. “Oh, my stars—that’s it! Artoo! Artoo, you’ve done it!”

A less excited but more touching response came from General Organa. “Luke…”

The name electrified the room. Officers who had never shown emotion embraced each other. Poe mused that yet again, all the tiny victories had contributed to something greater.

The girl from Jakku stood next to him. Unsure of whether to embrace someone he barely knew, he introduced himself. “Uh, hi, I’m Poe.”

“So you’re Poe,” she said. “Poe Dameron. The X-wing pilot. I’m Rey.”

“I know,” Poe said. “Nice to meet you.”

They traded smiles. Poe had a feeling their paths would soon cross again.

Rey wanted to say good-bye to Finn before she left on her mission, even though she knew he wouldn’t hear her. He lay in a coma in the base’s medical center, still on life support.

Doctor Kalonia, the same physician who had treated Chewbacca, assured Rey her friend was going to be fine. But that had been a few days before, and Finn’s condition remained the same.

Rey sat with Finn for what must’ve been hours. When it was time to leave, she bent over his recovery pod and kissed him. “We’ll see each other again. I believe that. Thank you, my friend.”

Rey headed to the launch area with R2-D2. Leia waited near the boarding ramp. She adjusted the fit of the new flight jacket Rey wore. “I’m proud of what you’re about to do.”

Rey looked into Leia’s eyes and saw more than pride. “But you’re also afraid. In sending me away, you’re…reminded.”

Leia let go of the girl’s jacket. “You won’t share the fate of our son.”

Rey glanced at the Falcon. Chewbacca had almost completed his exterior flight check. “I know what we’re doing is right,” Rey said. “This is how it has to be. This is how it should be.”

“I know it, too,” Leia said. “May the Force be with you.” She moved back and smiled as Rey boarded.

Rey took the pilot’s seat, which was where Chewbacca had asked her to sit. Despite the old cushioning, she felt comfortable in it.

Chewbacca scruffed up her hair and sat in the copilot’s chair. R2-D2 rolled in behind them and chirped.

Rey refamiliarized herself with the controls, gauges, and readouts. She didn’t have to worry about the compressor or priming the fuel line. Chewbacca had yanked out everything Unkar Plutt had installed.

She engaged the repulsors, lifting the freighter from the tarmac. When the engines were ready, she took a breath and launched the Millennium Falcon toward a world that had been erased from the star charts—until now.