LN found her concentration slipping.

Leia's conversation went on without her - heard but not processed - the voice of the princess's contact among the Resistance as meaningless to LN as the buzzing of an insect's wings. Sometimes individual phrases, because of a change in tone or an abrupt rising of volume, infiltrated her thoughts, but they only served to distract her further.

I shouldn't have let Raey go. Those two boys are going to get themselves killed...

"... We cannot rush into this. There is no knowing what defences that base have at their disposal."

That's it. I let myself get rushed into making a hasty decision. But it's too late, now. Isn't it?

"- cannot allow the First Order to complete this weapon -"

I should go back. I've still got the black acolyte's fighter, the Knight's fighter. That should buy me entrance. What then?

She didn't even realize the conversation was over until Leia said her name, and then she looked up sharply, startled.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"There still might be a way you can help."

LN turned to follow Leia's movement as the Alderaanian princess walked past her out of the dim communications center. "I'm sorry, your highness, but I was preoccupied. What has been decided?"

A subtle note of disapproval betrayed itself in the response. "The Resistance has decided the threat of this planet-killer calls for immediate action. The leadership is divided on how, exactly, to respond, but the fighters aren't going to wait for them to make that decision. They're already preparing their ships."

LN's eyes widened in astonishment."They are going to launch an assault? They don't even know what they are going up against!"

"Tell that to my husband's commanders," replied Leia dryly, but not without a small smile. "The Resistance pilots tend to be reckless, and their officers only exemplify that attitude. But they do not have to go into this without our help." They climbed the last few steps and walked through into the underground courtyard, still scarred and damaged from the fight with the black acolytes. Leia's smile faded as they walked past the place, marked by a wide spiderweb of powerful cracks, where one of her trainees had fallen.

"Raey and Ar'tak?" LN prompted, and the princess tore her gaze back away from the ruined floor.

"Yes, and no. They may have gotten into a position where they can be of help, but we have no way to safely contact them before getting someone else on the surface of that planet. Thank the Force, you and Raey have left us with a way to do just that."

"The Knight's fighter?" suggested LN, but Leia shook her head.

"It is too small for an infiltration force, and I am not sending anyone in there alone. But the Resistance lent us one of their experts in First Order technology, and he has been working almost without rest since you first came to us."

LN frowned in confusion, but Leia didn't explain herself. She didn't need to. As they walked towards the sunlight of the mountainside courtyard, LN heard familiar engines rumbling through the earth. She picked up her pace, passing Leia, and hurried out, squinting, to scan the sky.

A First Order shuttle flew low over the city before her, almost parallel to Leia's mountain temple. The Diomediun; somehow already back in the air, with the same X-Wing that had flown LN in serving as cheerful escort alongside. LN almost smiled, thinking how excited Raey would be to see the ship back on the wing, and looked over her shoulder at Leia.

"That will carry a full strike team," she said, eyes gleaming, and the Jedi princess nodded.

"Thren Olon will be accompanying you as your black acolyte," she explained. "We initially considered sending him alone in your new fighter, but the shuttle's completed repairs have given us a better opportunity. He is eager to take the fight back to the Knights - perhaps too eager, and I fear that we are recklessly hinging a lot on this one mission succeeding - but you will need every advantage we can give you."

"'You'?"

"You want to go help Raey, don't you?"

LN looked away, fixed her gaze on the shuttle as it prepared to land on the widest side of the temple courtyard. The X-Wing circled once, then veered off to fly back across the city. "... Yes."

Leia started walking towards the ships, but LN caught a glimpse of her pleased smile in passing. "Good. On a mission such as this, your familiarity with the First Order will be invaluable. A few other volunteers have agreed to accompany you and Thren; we should be able to send as many as we can find uniforms for..."

She trailed off. LN followed her gaze back towards the temple and saw a dark figure stepping out of the shadows, the distinctive shape of a cleaver-shaped sword in hand.

That would be Leia's apprentice, LN reminded herself, but the sight of the black robes still made her skin crawl. The shuttle engines died as the black-cloaked Jedi apprentice walked towards them.

"An acolyte of the Knights and a shuttle full of uniformed troopers," muttered Leia. "It is as good a cover as we could hope for on such short notice..."

LN took a long, quiet breath, steeling herself. Shoulders straight, chin up. I've let myself be distracted for too long, she told herself sternly. Time to take charge again.

"Your men will have to be able to follow orders," she warned. "I can tell them how to behave, but one careless movement might give us all away."

"They can handle it. Trust me."

Leia sounded so confident, LN didn't pursue the matter. The New Alderaanians did not seem like a particularly well-trained military force, but perhaps the quasi-Jedi habits and training they all had access to had forged them into something more then met the eye.

There were names and handshakes all around as they boarded, a half-dozen New Alderaanians who looked her in the eye and called her "ma'am" - looked her in the eye like they would look at their captain. She met their trust with a confident gaze she didn't feel, knowing they only gave it to her because of Leia. Without the princess's recommendation, they would sooner have her in a cell then leading a strike team.

But no one mentioned that. They all seemed to silently agree not to mention how, by all sense in the galaxy, they should be enemies.

Someone handed her one of the uniforms that had been sitting all this time in the shuttle's tiny storage room, pressed and packaged and waiting to be used. The team had been numbered according to how many usable uniforms had been found while their 'expert', whoever that was, repaired the ship.

She focused on the folded black cloth, putting all the distracting what-ifs and what-may-bes out of her head. They hadn't offered her her old armor - it would stand out among a group in uniform - but they had brought her blaster. Just as well, she thought.

The armor was a prison. The blaster was a tool.

Hours. They had had only hours since her news of the planet-killer, and yet here they were. Strangers, ready to fly into the mouth of the monster for a shot at... what? Saving their planet?

Distractions, again. By the emperor... I've gotten worse.

LN went to the tiny officer's room to change out of her pale New Alderaanian clothes. She polished the boots, tucked in her shirt, brushed her hair. Pants, belt, hat. Routine.

It was easier once she set the loose cottony clothes aside. Wear the uniform, wear the mindset. She took a deep breath and left the room, her gleaming black boots clicking familiarly against the metal floor.

.

.

Step...

Step...

Step.

Orders were orders.

Officers might rage at their peers, their underlings, but they did not say anything in front of a Knight. Not if they were smart.

Captain Karne was smart. He was scared, but smart. The Domination had already lost men, and the request for replacements had been denied. They had new orders. Go to Station Red-Nine. Escort the Knight of Freedom to Star-Killer Base. The Domination was supposed to be the new military head of the First Order fleet, but the Knights were showing their teeth.

We still own you, Admiral. You are little more then an errand-runner for the Knights of Ren.

Admiral Tyllius had let them have their way, and he hadn't. The Domination was to play escort, but the Admiral had accompanied Captain Phasma back to the Resurrection. Now the job of appeasing the Knights lay in Captain Karne's hands, and the captain didn't want it.

Of course, this was all going on upstairs. It was speculation, based on the attitudes and emotions that sank down through the ranks from the bridge.

But MK-4414 felt sure they were flying towards a reckoning. He could taste it.

No, no, no.

Cold air blew through the inside vents of his helmet, cooling the lightsaber burn that still stabbed his face with pain whenever he twitched. And he twitched whenever the inside of his helmet brushed the burn, irritating exposed but no longer dead nerves.

He twitched a lot.

Someone bumped him on the shoulder. Brief, secret, a warning. He stopped humming, tightened his trembling jaw over the involuntary reaction.

The Knight was on board.

Onwards to the Star-Killer.

.

.

They came out of hyperspace in a battlefield. The Resistance, it seemed, could mobilize quickly when the threat of a new Death Star arose.

LN hovered over the console in the middle of the cockpit, her eyes fixed on the flashing dogfights filling the space between the small Resistance warships and the huge, black spearhead of the Resurrection. The planet-weapon framed them almost artistically from LN's angle of approach, the great huge cannon-maw dark and sinister directly behind the Knights' flagship.

"We have to get through that..."

The pilot had a good ear for First Order language and mannerisms. He was on the comms in a heartbeat, barking demands towards the planet on behalf of their so-called black acolyte.

LN didn't trust the lie to hold. She didn't know how many acolytes the Knights of Ren possessed, but she did know only one had been definitively left behind on New Alderaan. Raey was already using that disguise.

Then a response crackled through, frantic and short in a way that set off warning alarms in LN's head.

"Shield-exemption granted, land when ready."

There were voices in the background, raised in fear. Something was happening on the planet to scare the operators, and it couldn't be the Resistance attack. It was closer, more immediate, more personal.

"I don't like this," she murmured, then jumped as an unexpected voice replied,

"Me neither."

Jedi Thren. He moved like a ghost around the shuttle, eyes in shadow from his black hood, but now a frown of concern was plainly written across his face. He stood at her side, hands tucked into his sleeves, and did not elaborate. She didn't ask him to.

"The planetary shield is still active," reported the pilot tensely, scanning for anomalies on the planet's surface. "And they've sent me a confirmation. We should be clear to land." He glanced back at LN and Thren. "Ready?"

LN looked to the Jedi for an order, but he met her questioning gaze with complete neutrality.

"You're in charge of the mission, LN," he said calmly. "I'm here for the Knights."

His deference surprised LN, but she nodded and turned back to the pilots. "Continue, then. Whatever is going on down there, we need to bring down that shield."

And find Raey.

.

Alarms blared throughout the halls, a constant companion now. People, the workers who had come in from offworld, were panicking.

A careless word, repeated in the wrong ears, and now the entire base was alive with fear. Ar'tak strode down the echoing hallways, the high emotions of countless terrified people pressing in, constricting his chest.

But he had to stay focused. That was one of the first things they had been taught; when you opened yourself up to the Force, you had to know how and when to shut yourself off, too. He had a job to do.

The detention cell block seemed to be abandoned. It looked like it had never even been used- everything was dark, deactivated, and yet nearly spotless. By the remnant glow of light from the hall outside, he found the master console and activated it.

White lights flickered in the panels lining the wall, then popped and died with splutters of electronic protest. It was only the main lights that reacted like that, though; the indicator lights and monitors on the control consoles lit up and stayed that way, and a line of glowing red dots appeared in the hall of cells, blinking their status as locked.

Except one. One door light, right at the end of the hall, remained a steady green. Open.

And then Ar'tak heard footsteps.

Tiny, non-illuminating lights vanished and reappeared in sequence as a something, completely hidden by the deep darkness of the cell-block, walked forwards towards the control room. Ar'tak's fingers twitched. He unclipped his lightsaber from his belt, but he did not raise it. Not yet.

A slim figure appeared in the dim light from the outside hall. Metal spikes gleamed dully on his gauntlets, his shoulders, crowned his full-face helmet. Spikes, armor, and an empty round hilt in hand that glowed with red from within.

Ar'tak's lightsaber hummed to life.

"Too late, Jedi. You won't find your pilot here," said the Knight, his voice modulating through layers of digital manipulation. His red saber sprang to life, and the new light glinted brightly off the armor of two more silent black figures lurking behind him. Acolytes...?

But then a second red blade sprang up in the darkness.

"And yet..."

And a third.

"... you're right on time."