He also had dreams On evenings after he'd finished his chores he would go out and watch the binary sunset The twin suns would descend below the dunes one blazing white hot the other orange red Cast in the amber light the boy would wonder wonder about himself who he was where he would go what he would become He dreamed of getting off his dull and dusty homeworld and training to be a pilot so he could sail through the depths of space so he could see the stars He dreamed of being like his father What little the boy knew of his father he had learned from his uncle in snatches and grumbles Supposedly his father had been a navigator on a spice freighter yet something something tragic had happened His uncle had never elaborated insisting the boy quit daydreaming and accept life on the homestead There was no shame in being a moisture farmer No shame at all Years passed and this boy was now an old man He stood on a cliff overlooking a great sea He wore sackcloth robes under a woolen cloak A hood protected his face from the wind The water before him stretched to the horizon like the dune seas of his home broken only by mountainous islands He had come to this forgotten world to retire in solitude All his dreams he had fulfilled long before He had flown the depths of space seen the stars and all the light and dark between He had nothing more to give and desired nothing in return He just wanted to be left alone in peace But after many years he had been found
He turned slowly from the sea A girl stood on the other side of the plateau She approached but stopped within a few paces of him He hesitated before he reached up with his hands one of flesh and blood the other of metal and wire and pulled down his hood For a long moment he and the girl beheld each other quiet with their own thoughts She had dark brown hair braided in triple buns Her vest and tunic were the color of sand Gauze was wrapped around her arms and her trousers were short exposing fair skin above leather boots She carried a quarterstaff that appeared salvaged from a gear axle A worn canvas satchel dangled from her hip Freckles dotted her face She slung the strap of her staff over her shoulder and opened her satchel From that she removed a chrome cylinder cylinder about half the length of her arm It was the hilt of a lightsaber She held it out to him He inhaled deeply and trembled This lightsaber had once belonged to him and to his father before him He had lost the weapon when he had lost his hand during a fateful duel in a city among the clouds He had thought it gone forever yet somehow it had been found as had he He clenched his jaw and frowned He did not take the lightsaber from her Her grip on the device wavered She blinked Her confusion confusion gave way to distress Yet still she held the hilt out to him She wanted him to have it She pleaded with her gaze
The man's frown broke His eyes moistened The light saber carried so many memories Too many He shouldn't accept it Not now Not after so long His metal fingers touched the hilt and took it from her The man stood there near the edge of the cliff considering considering the lightsaber in his grasp It felt as light and familiar as it had the first time he had held it back when he was around the girl's age The old hermit who had given it to him said his father had built the lightsaber and had wanted his son to have it but the boy's uncle wouldn't allow it That day so long before was the day his life had changed It was the day he no longer had only dreams It was the day he suddenly had a destiny Holding the hilt now part of him wished he had never held it at all With a swift snap of his wrist the man flung the light saber off the cliff toward the sea
CHAPTER 1 THEY'VE found us shouted a tactical officer On the bridge of the Resistance cruiser Raddus Poe Dameron stood with General Leia Organa and her protocol droid C 3PO whose coverings had been recently buffed to a bright and shiny brass But there was nothing bright or shiny in what captured their attention Above a communication communication table the holograms of three dark hulled warships blinked into existence setting off alarms and panic across the bridge Admiral Ackbar the Mon Calamari military genius who had directed the Rebel Alliance's triumph at Endor manipulated manipulated the table's controls with his webbed hands Two of the warships were identified as First Order Star Destroyers the Fellfire and General Hux's flagship the Finalizer The other was the massive cannon laden Dreadnought Fulminatrix Well we knew that was coming Poe muttered The Resistance had recently obtained intelligence about the First Order's fleet from a pair of battle hardened spies Not only did the data include detailed schematics of the
