[u9Xtw5]

Rae Carson, "The Rise of Skywalker"
Читала в основном для того, чтоб на некоторые вопросы получить ответы, хоть какие-нибудь, хоть официальную позицию. Что-то уяснила (хотя все приведенные пояснения только недоумение вызывают), что-то нет. Что такое диада я так не поняла, первое упоминание выглядит как обрывок текста, будто перед этим что-то о ней говорилось. Отношение и взаимодействие персонажей с этим понятием тоже ничего не проясняют. Хз, что это чёрный ящик.
Вопрос по которому в книге нет пояснений вообще - зачем Рей в конце мечи закопала. Первая мысль - символические похороны, но на это ни намёка, и к тому же это бессмыслица - непонятен выбор места, и ещё, допускаю, что о Люке больше некому скорбеть, но Лея-то! Не понимаю, к чему такое просирание ресурсов, мне кажется, Рей-мусорщица пошла бы на такое только по очень хорошей причине. Возможно, ей сила подсказала так сделать, для чего-нибудь в будущем? Но на это тоже не намекают...
Мне не понравилось, как персонажам отказывают в собственном пути, что для Кайло, что для Рей (другие персонажи - совсем статисты, ну кроме некоторых на злодейской стороне, хехехе). Для Кайло первое, самое яркое, ещё с первых фильмов - игнорирование его выбранного имени. Всё прочее - про промытие мозгов, описанное задним путём (с младенчества? Непредставимо. Тогда собственно "хорошей" личности там нету), про странный редемпшен. У Рей меньше: моментик, как ей отказали в световом посохе. Выбор вместо него меча не выглядит её решением. И что любопытно, тоже имеется момент с чужим именем, но думаю, поскольку показали в самом конце и как что-то типа хорошее, выглядит менее неприятно, чем у Кайлухи.
Очень горькой и пустой судьба старых персонажей видится ещё с седьмого эпизода, и этот последний сделал ещё хуже - оттенил, как те потеряли не только победу, но и детей (история с дочерью Лэндо - нахуяяя). Да и победы-то не было: Палыч - вот он. И теперь новое поколение на новый поворот сансары заходит. Скатертью дорожка, как говорится.
Финальная битва выглядит ещё хуже, чем в кино. А лучшим моментом в книге, самым проникновенным, я бы назвала сцену пыток Чубакки Кайло Реном, мда.
Местами на художественную книжку не похоже, а будто минимальная обработка текста сценария, или типа как пьеса.
Печально это всё.


REY,
the last hope of the Jedi, trains
for battle against the diabolical
FIRST ORDER.
"diabolical"

“Why did you stop training with Luke?” Her words came out too harsh, almost like a challenge.
Leia took it in stride. “Another life called to me.”
Eyes still closed, Rey asked, “How did you know?”
“A feeling. Visions. Of serving the galaxy in different ways.”

Rey could be a great leader someday, and she would be, if Leia had anything to do with it. The girl had darkness inside her, just like Ben. But Leia would not make the same mistakes she had with her son. She would not give in to fear—neither of the darkness rising within her pupil nor of her own questionable qualifications as a teacher. Most important, she would never send Rey away.

Leia was no Jedi Master, but she had learned from the best. And not just from Luke; over the years she’d occasionally heard the voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi through the Force, and even more rarely, that of Yoda. Some days it had felt as though she’d learned from the Force itself. She was first and foremost a politician and a general, but she had accepted her Jedi legacy and embraced it as best she could.

And maybe that’s exactly what Rey needed: training in the Force not from a formal Master, but rather someone grounded in the everyday minutiae of life and survival. Obi-Wan had failed to keep Vader from the dark side. Luke had failed the same way with Ben. She could not fail Rey.

There it was. Her greatest fear. That these people she’d come to care for so much would be disappointed in her. Maybe even hurt by her. She’d been alone for so long…she couldn’t bear the thought of losing any of them.
“But no one here understands…except Kylo Ren. If the son of Han and Leia can be turned, can’t any of us?”

Ren was a blunt instrument, a mindless dog, whose current obsession was putting all the First Order’s plans behind schedule. - Хакс про Рена думает, ага. Как это соотносится с тем, что тот - Верховный лидер нынче - я хз.

So it was almost against his will that he found himself mesmerized as Ren met a barbarian’s charge head-on, cloak flowing, mist swirling around him. The glow of his lightsaber occasionally snagged on his cheek scar, making it appear as though a crack of glowing lava slashed his face. It was like something out of a dream, or maybe a nightmare, as the Supreme Leader plunged his fiery crossguard into his attacker’s abdomen, lifted him from the ground, and sent him toppling onto his back. - Хакс опять про Рена думает...

Kylo Ren showed mercy to nothing and no one, but he had a grudging appreciation for things that struggled to survive.

Kylo was growing impatient. He glared in silence.
“Fine,” the creature said, as though disappointed that Kylo would not indulge him in ceremony.

Kylo knew that voice. He’d heard it his whole life. As a young man it had been like the wisp of a dream, one he couldn’t quite grasp. Then the Emperor’s transmission had flooded the galaxy, and Kylo had begun to dread that Palpatine had somehow survived, that his had been the whispering voice that had comforted, guided, tormented him for so many years. - спешите видеть, описание многолетнего промывания мозга из первых рук. Палыч-радио, я не могу.

Emperor Palpatine lived, after a fashion, and Kylo could feel in his very bones that this clone body sheltered the Emperor’s actual spirit. It was an imperfect vessel, though, unable to contain his immense power. It couldn’t last much longer.

Kylo’s heart was racing. So much power. A starfield of Destroyers. The largest fleet the galaxy had ever known. The rumors were all true. Exegol was a world populated by the Sith Eternal, true believers in the dark side of the Force, devoting their lives to this.

In fact, someday, once she had mastered this lightsaber-building business, she might design one that felt more like a quarterstaff in her hand. Familiar and hefty. Two business ends. Maybe with a hinge in the middle for portability.

He dumped the shards—all painstakingly scavenged from the wreckage of the Supremacy—onto the stone table.
He took it, admired it. The mask was a thing of jagged beauty. Shaped just as before, but now full of red fractures like crimson lightning.
Broken and re-formed. Like the Knights. Like his grandfather.
The Knights of Ren raised their weapons in honor as Kylo placed the mask over his head. It was heavier than ever. It reeked of molten metal. It was perfect. - зачем, а главное, нахуя?.. Ну, впрочем, этот вопрос ко всем остальным поворотам сюжета тоже могу отнести.

To Hux, he added, “I sense unease about my appearance, General Hux.”
Hux blinked. “About the mask? No, sir. Well done.”
“I like it,” General Parnadee agreed.

Pryde was one of the few officers who never seemed afraid of Kylo Ren, which didn’t sit well. Kylo would have gotten rid of him if he weren’t so competent. Also, it fed General Hux’s insecurity to keep the vastly smarter, wiser, and higher-ranking general around. Petty of Kylo, perhaps, but keeping his officers at odds kept them from uniting against him. - Кайлуха-интриган

Kylo stared his officers down. Hux was visibly shaken. Good.

But the ambition that cut into his being was the thought of reigning side by side with her.
They were connected. They had defeated Snoke. Together they would be invincible.

Sometimes the gaping void of what she didn’t know overwhelmed her.

“If this fleet launches,” Beaumont said, “freedom dies in the galaxy.”

Luke had told her that the Master-Padawan bond was strong. But he hadn’t warned her that she might come to see her apprentice as the daughter she’d never had.

Over and over again, she’d watched him encounter setbacks, only to rise more powerful than before. He was smart, determined, and aggravatingly prepared. Always two steps ahead of everyone else. - Лея про Палпатина

Hux hated the fact that he couldn’t see their faces behind their masks. Maybe they had something to hide. They were probably hideous, scarred beyond recognition. It was cold comfort.

Ren had no soft spots for anyone—except maybe the scavenger—so there had to be something else about Pryde. Something that kept him immune. Safe. Unafraid. Hux currently had resources devoted to finding out exactly what that was. - Хакса жалко, чем дальше, тем больше.

Hux distrusted masks on principle, but he was glad for Ren’s because it spared him the indignant assault of the Supreme Leader’s hair. A good leader led by example, and Ren’s hair was the furthest thing from regulation. A small detail, to be sure, but details mattered, and this one represented everything Hux hated about Ren. He was the exception to everything. Outside the rules. Disordered.

When Hux finally took his rightful place as Supreme Leader, the first thing he’d do was make Ren cut off his hair. - ой всё

It was fine that they all thought him a useless imbecile, he assured himself. Advantageous, even. In a way, Hux had his own mask.

She imagined that moment as clearly as she could, Han’s hand on Kylo’s cheek, gazing at his son with love even as his dying body slumped over the chaotic red lightsaber that had skewered him.
Rey wrapped her mind around the image. Threw it at Kylo.
He flinched.

“First Order went after us—the leaders from the old wars. They took our kids.” His gaze grew distant. “My girl wasn’t even old enough to walk. Far as I know, she’s a stormtrooper now.” - Лэндо

“They turned our kids into our enemies,” Lando said in a defeated voice. “My girl. Han and Leia’s son, Ben. To kill the spirit of the Rebellion for good.”

Finn gaped at Poe, and Rey shared his astonishment. The pilot had somehow overridden the ident locks in the space of mere moments. They’d have to get Poe to teach them that one.

She locked eyes with Finn. Her friend’s face was stricken. “Rey!” he said. “I never told you—” He dropped, the sand reaching his shoulders.
“What?” she cried.
Finn slid down to his chin. “Rey!”
No! “Finn!”
Finn disappeared beneath the surface.

He thought of protesting, of asking how Rey could possibly know which equally unremarkable direction was the right one. But Poe had learned that when Rey said things that way, her face determined, her voice unwavering, a fellow ought to just follow.

Leia had observed that her formative years on Jakku had taught her to look for tactile solutions to impossible problems. Leia thought that could be why it took so long for the Force to awaken inside her, and why it might take even longer to shake that kind of conditioning.

“So what was it?” she asked Finn, mostly to keep her mind off C-3PO’s words.
“What?” Finn said.
“What were you going to tell me?”
“When?”
“When you were sinking in the sand, you said, ‘I never told you…’ ”
Finn avoided her gaze. “I’ll tell you later,” he mumbled.
“When you’re not ‘with Poe’?” Poe said.
“Yeah!” said Finn, with a mock glare.
“Great,” said Poe. “We’re gonna die in a sand burrow, and we’re all keeping secrets…”

“I’ll tell you,” Finn said, “when you tell us how you know how to do all that shifty stuff!”

Whenever she fought, or leapt through the jungles of Ajan Kloss, or even mind-tricked a stormtrooper into releasing her shackles, she channeled the Force, using it for her own advantage in some way. But this would call for a different technique, something she’d learned from the Jedi texts when she was mending Luke’s kyber crystal. This time, she would give. - лечению Рей по книгам научилась, тренировалась на кристалле... Кайло повезло, что она перед ним хоть что-то живое вылечила.

Go, Finn, she thought, pushing a little harder with the Force.

Finn’s head was fuzzy. Maybe it was the heat. Maybe it was the fact that Rey had told him to go, and he’d just left her in the desert without question. Something about that didn’t make sense.

Kylo Ren sensed her before he saw her. As he flew his TIE whisper along the flat desert, she was a bright presence in his mind, practically glowing with determination and ferocity. Something odd pulled at his chest. It was the same feeling he’d had when he’d faced his father for the last time, when he’d made the decision to kill Han Solo. You had to kill the past, yes, but you had to kill the light, too, to fully claim the darkness.
He finally understood. Han Solo was his past. But Rey was his light.
That’s why Kylo was still in agony. That’s why he couldn’t shake the memory of his father’s hand against his cheek, of those eyes full of love and understanding. Kylo hadn’t yet destroyed his light.
Maybe the Emperor was right. She needed to die. That, or he needed to kill the light in her. - о, этот мыслительный процесс Кайло...

She should be mindless with fear. She should be cowering. She should have turned to the dark when he gave her the chance. How could she resist? How dared she?
Rage turned his vision red. He didn’t care about the Emperor. He didn’t care about the Star Destroyer fleet. He just wanted his pain to end. - мыслительный процесс х2

She was terrified, yes, but she was also strangely calm. Luke had told her that fear leads to the dark side. But it turned out that terror and calm could coexist. Maybe this is what Leia had been trying to teach her.

The strangest thing happened. In yearning to help her, in reaching for her, he sensed something. A danger. A presence. “It’s Ren,” he whispered.
Probably just a bad feeling…right?

Rey turned off her lightsaber. She hoped he was dead. No, she didn’t. She hoped…she didn’t know what she hoped. - мыслительный процесс Рей.

Snoke had always encouraged him to pursue his impulses. They were a shortcut to the dark side—and unimaginable power. But his impulse to kill Rey had almost ruined everything he’d been planning.
Kylo didn’t know how to reconcile that. The path to the dark side lay in succumbing to one’s desires. But his deepest desire, the thing he wanted most, would require planning and patience.

The Emperor had figured out how to embrace a plan so long suffering and painstakingly careful it boggled the mind—and he did it without being tempted by the light even a little. - все Палычем восхищаются!

She had beaten him again, and yet he was filled with triumph.
He’d been right to push her.
She had just demonstrated unbelievable, mind-blowing power. Dark power. Sith power.
The scavenger was almost ready to turn. And when she did, they would both kill their light, embrace their darkness. Then the Star Destroyer fleet—and the Sith throne—would be theirs.

They both still trusted her, even Finn, who knew her darkest secret.
She couldn’t bring herself to speak as she reached out and took Finn’s hand. In turn, Finn looked to Poe and extended his own hand. Poe shrugged once and then took it.
...
Poe was the first to let go.

Zorii touched the side of her mask. Her visor shield retracted, finally revealing depthless wide-spaced green eyes that seemed almost yellow in the lamp light. Poe swallowed hard. Her eyes had always affected him strangely.
“Wanna come with me?” she said, sounding suddenly vulnerable.

Nausea rolled around in the pit of Kylo’s stomach when he finally walked away from Interrogation Six. He’d gotten what he needed. Surely the sense of triumph would follow soon.

She had vague memories of Unkar Plutt raising her for a few years in a halfhearted, ham-fisted way, before booting her out into the desert to fend for herself as a little girl. - про детство Рей

Hux needed to insert himself before his peers brought any more good news. He asked, “Shall we destroy the city, Supreme—”
Ren stuck a long finger in Hux’s face, effectively shushing him. “Set a course for Kijimi,” he said. “I want her taken alive.”
His words dismissed them all, and Kylo Ren hurried off alone. Hux stood with his hands clasped behind his back and watched him go, wondering how he always managed to say the wrong thing. - пальчиком заткнул...

Since then, it had become clear that the First Order controlled so many lines of communication, had so many jammers operating at strategic locations throughout the galaxy, that they couldn’t be sure their call for help had even been heard.

Poe leaned over and whispered in Finn’s ear: “Does she do that to us?”
Of course not. She’d never—no, wait…she definitely would. To protect them. To keep one of them from following her into the desert and getting run down by Kylo Ren’s TIE fighter.

He growled and moaned excitedly, almost too fast for Finn to follow with his rudimentary understanding of Shyriiwook—he only caught the words for “surprised” and “danger” and “much gladness.”
“Of course we came for you!” Poe said.
Chewie rattled off a question.
“Rey’s here,” Finn said.

Rey entered a bright, white space with soaring ceilings and clean perfection. Kylo Ren’s private quarters.
She stepped slowly, carefully, still drawn to the dagger. The room was beautiful and light-filled, but devoid of warmth.

A vision filled her mind again, and Rey was helpless against it: Black-eyed Ochi of Bestoon raising his horrible dagger.
Rey’s mother pleading with the assassin. “She isn’t on Jakku! She’s gone—No!”
Ochi thrusting the dagger into her father’s gut. Her mother’s cry of anguish becoming sudden silence. - эээ... "Только не ищите на Джакку" !??

Rank insignias in the First Order were subtle, but Finn knew them all. This man had extra shoulder pleats and a double rank band on his left forearm. He could be none other than Allegiant General Pryde, outranked only by the Supreme Leader himself.

Hux stood over the stormtroopers’ dead bodies, his blaster tip smoking after close-range fire on the highest setting.
“I’m the spy,” Hux announced.
“What?” Poe said.
“You?” said Finn.
“We don’t have much time,” Hux said.
Finn, Poe, and Chewie all gaped at him.
“I knew it!” Poe said, sticking a finger in Hux’s face.
“You did not,” Finn said, rolling his eyes, which he knew was petty, but who cared? They were alive. - о эта сцена...

“I could kill you,” Finn said, testing the thought, letting it roll around inside him. He did not enjoy killing. He hadn’t even enjoyed watching Phasma fall into the flaming wreckage of the Supremacy.
Maybe he could make an exception for Hux.
“You need me,” Hux said.
True. But Finn could still make it hurt.
He shot Hux in the leg, doing as much external skin damage as possible. Hux grunted, and sweat broke out on his suddenly red face.
“Why are you helping us?” Finn asked. Hux hated the Resistance. Hated them all. Finn was certain of it.
“I don’t care if you win,” Hux spat out through his pain. “I need Kylo Ren to lose.”

Kylo pressed forward mercilessly, backing her closer and closer to the void. “My mother was the daughter of Vader. Your father was the son of the Emperor. What Palpatine doesn’t know is that we are a dyad in the Force, Rey. Two that are one.”
Her heart stopped. The dyad.
His words rang with truth, deep in her very soul. They shattered her, emptied her of everything. - первое упоминание диады

Leia, came her brother’s maddening voice. It’s time.
I can’t, she told him. There’s too much to do.
She felt his understanding, his love, maybe even a touch of amusement. There is only one thing left, he said. And then you can rest.

They’d lost four stormtroopers, one cargo pilot, and two maintenance workers when the Falcon’s engine wash had flooded the hanger, pushing them into the high atmosphere of Kijimi. Kylo considered it a small price to pay to encounter Rey again, to provoke her into a rage, to say the word dyad and watch the truth of it wash over her lovely face.

He hardly paid attention. He kept seeing her face, the way her lips had parted with surprise, the way her body had canted toward him. If the Millennium Falcon hadn’t appeared, she might have come to him, taken his hand. - влажные мечты Кайлухи

The darkness growing inside her; it all made sense now.
She was a Palpatine. Born of pure evil.

“He killed my mother, and my father,” she whispered.
Finn paused what he was doing to stare at her.
“I’m going to find Palpatine. And destroy him.” She lifted the probe and tested Finn’s newly wired junction. She could feel his eyes on her as he considered her words.
“Rey,” he said. “That doesn’t sound like you.”
Oh, but it did. Maybe she was revenge made flesh. Maybe she had been all along. She was a Palpatine, after all.

She felt groundless, adrift. This must be why they identified children so young in the days of the old Jedi Order. They needed a foundation, knowledge, care, because the only way to survive their awakening into power was to be surrounded by those who had done it all before.

“The Jedi apprentice still lives,” the Emperor said. Kylo was in a corridor of the Steadfast, but he was speaking with Emperor Palpatine—whose power was even more vast than Kylo had realized. Only Rey had been powerful enough to communicate over long distances like this—or maybe it was their strange connection that was powerful. Not even Snoke had been able to do it. - таки мозги Кайло промывали Палыч и Сноук отдельно? Да ещё и так, что Кайло их не различал, что ли? Ну и засрано у него там, надо полагать.

Zorii tapped her helmet to trigger the sensor array. A holographic overlay appeared, and she focused tight on the butcher—his long cloak, his wicked helmet. The holograph zeroed in, circled around, and beeped slightly, identifying him as Ushar, one of the Knights of Ren. - дополненная реальность + интернет + данные о рыцарях Рен открытые.

Pryde turned to the unit leader. “Get me the Supreme Leader.” Then he grabbed the stormtrooper’s rifle, pointed it at Hux, and shot him point-blank in the chest.
Hux was not dead before he hit the ground. His mouth opened and closed soundlessly as flashes of pain lit up every fiber of his being.
“Tell him we found our spy,” he heard Pryde say.
His last thought was of the scavenger. He hated that girl. She had ruined everything. Yet over and over again, she had faced Ren and survived. It gave him one bright shining spark of hope against the oncoming dark: Ren might still lose.
Then that spark, too, was consumed by darkness, and Hux knew no more. - Рей - надежда всей галактики!

“What a dreadful situation,” C-3PO was saying, as he and Poe ran a diagnostic on the forward shields. “Is every day like this for you people? Madness!”
“Did we ever find his volume control?” Poe said.

“Yes, Artoo,” Maz said. “She knows what she has to do. To reach her son now will take all she has left.”

This had been the Emperor’s throne room. Luke had fought Darth Vader here, and the energy—or maybe memory—of that battle still lingered. She closed her eyes and sensed terror, pain, regret, and…a determination to save someone who was deeply loved.

Rey gasped, stumbling backward. It was her. Her face, her form. Cold and dark, wearing a Sith cloak, whole at last.
Horrified, she watched as the dark mirror Rey swung her blades apart, forming a long, fiery quarterstaff. It was the very saber she’d tentatively begun designing in her mind.

Kylo advanced, pushing with his own Force energy. Her temples began to throb with pain, but she stood her ground.
He sent the thought directly into her mind: I know you.
No one does, she shot back.
But I do.
She screamed and launched herself at him again.

I never gave up hope for him, she said.
Tell him, said Luke.
With his words came a rush of knowledge, and a vision-memory of Luke sitting cross-legged atop a cliff of Ahch-To, shaking with effort as he projected himself onto the battlefield at Crait.
The effort to reach Ben would take everything she had left.
She couldn’t do it. It would be her ultimate failure, to leave behind everyone she loved, everything she’d worked for. Leia had to stay. She had to continue fanning the tiny flame of hope, or the Resistance would die.

She sighed with a heavy realization. She’d had it backward. Letting go wasn’t giving up. It was the ultimate act of hope—hope for her protégés Rey and Poe, faith in the lessons she’d taught them. The last thing they would learn from her was how to go on without her, thus finally embracing their own destinies as leaders.

If Vader could become Anakin again, Kylo Ren could become Ben. Her son was tempted by the light; she could sense it. But even if he never turned back the way Anakin had, she still loved him, and her legacy was secure. She was Leia Skywalker Organa Solo. As she caressed Han’s medal, she fully embraced all those inheritances. And she would pass them all to the next generation. Her Skywalker legacy would go to Rey, Organa to Poe, and she would try one last time to pass her Solo legacy to her son.
So that’s how it would be. A final act of hope, and then she would rest.

With all the life and love and hope and forgiveness in her being, she called out: “Ben!”
Her last thought washed through the galaxy like a wave. She was vaguely aware of Han’s medal clattering to the floor, a whir of sadness from R2-D2, and finally a surge of welcome from Luke, who was not alone…

Leia’s last thoughts had been of her, and Poe, and the Resistance—but mostly Ben. Leia still loved him. She had forgiven him. She had called him to the light.

She’d had a chance to kill him before, and she hadn’t. With him broken before her, vulnerable, she found she was even less eager to watch him die.
What would Leia do?
Rey reached out, put a hand on his chest.
His eyes flew open. He stared at her in confusion, and maybe…longing?
The air filled with a resonant hum. Rey drew on everything around her—so much life in that violent ocean!—but mostly she drew on herself. She gave.

He was alert, now. Whole. Brimming with life and energy.
But he said nothing.
Between breaths, she tried to explain. “You were right. I did want to take your hand. Ben’s hand.”

She dropped into the pilot’s seat. It took a moment to orient herself to the strange controls, but they soon made sense to her, as flight controls always did. - вот она, сила мэрисьюшества!

She didn’t know where she was going. She just knew she had to get away. Rey felt like she was being ripped apart, by the truth of who she was, by grief.
Rey let instinct guide her as she punched the coordinates into the navicomputer. She broke atmosphere and entered hyperspace.

Why had Rey healed him? Why would she do such a thing?
Why had his mother loved him right up until her last moment? Snoke had lied about that. Snoke had lied about all of it. All those voices in his head, torturing him throughout the years, they had promised him that a moment like this could never happen. They don’t care about you. Just their precious New Republic. And later, Just their precious Resistance.
All lies.
His mother had sacrificed herself to reach him. Then Rey had healed him, at great cost to herself. In spite of everything he’d done. - мыслительный процесс при редемпшене

He had failed to kill the light within himself because it had been all around him all along. In Rey. His mother. Even…his father.
“Hey, kid,” came a voice.
...
Kylo blinked. This couldn’t be real. “Your son is dead,” he said.
His father smiled. “No,” he said, striding toward him. Their noses were centimeters apart when he added, “Kylo Ren is dead. My son is alive.”

“Dad…?” he said, suddenly small. Vulnerable. Right.
Han Solo smiled. “I know.”
Ben turned, and launched the lightsaber into the air. It sailed in a high arc, far above the wreakage, and disappeared into a haze of ocean spray.
When he turned back, the memory of his father was gone, and Ben Solo was alone in the middle of the sea. - зачем меч выбросил?.. А хз.

This was the moment he’d been waiting for. “Let it burn. The Final Order begins. She will come. Her friends will follow.”
As his master grinned—a slow, centipede crawl across his mouth—Allegiant General Pryde shivered in near-ecstasy. “Yes, my lord.”

The ships were temporarily vulnerable, unable to raise shields in the planet’s hellish climate, but there was no choice. Much of the final building, inspection, testing, and maintenance must occur in atmosphere. - стройка и обслуживание межзвёздных кораблей в атмосфере

Captain Sabrond had never been outside the Unknown Regions. She’d been raised on Exegol, belowground. It had taken years of hard work and dedication to get this premium assignment, captain of the Derriphan, the designated advance destroyer. She’d killed three people, sabotaged two others, and barely slept in twenty years, just so she could be among the first to fly out into their new galaxy.

She glanced around. The bridge was filled with Final Order officers, many raised on Exegol like her, others from various planets in the Unknown Regions. Several were children of the Empire, following in their parents’ footsteps. Many of the crimson-clad stormtroopers had been conscripted by the First Order as children—and then carefully culled and “disappeared” by spies based on their potential. Everyone on this bridge had worked toward one goal: the return of the Sith. - если в ситхкий флот отбирали лучших из ПП, и эти лучшие такими дебилушками показали себя в финальной битве, возникает вопрос - как оставшиеся в ПП смогли назавоёвывать всё завоёванное?

“Listen,” she said. “It’s on every frequency.”
The console crackled and popped, and a voice began speaking in a language Poe didn’t recognize.
But Beaumont’s eyes flew open. “The Resistance is dead,” he translated. “The Sith flame will burn. All worlds, surrender or die. The Final Order begins.” - трансляция на всю галактику на ситхском языке, который полтора землекопа знают

No one quite understood his single-minded devotion to Rey, except maybe Leia. Even Rose—though she accepted it—thought it was a bit strange. But it wasn’t strange at all. Rey was Finn’s friend, yes, but she was also important. He sensed it. It was that same undeniable feeling he’d told Jannah about. If anything happened to Rey, the Resistance didn’t stand a chance.

Had Leia ever been tempted by the dark side? In all the stories she’d heard, in reading Luke’s journals, studying with Leia, she had never once heard of anyone even trying to turn her, the way Vader and the Emperor had tried to turn Luke. The way Kylo had tried to turn her. Maybe, of all of them, Leia had been unturnable.
Finn would be like that, she realized with a jolt, if he could touch the Force. He was special that way.

“You think it’s an accident we found each other?” Luke continued. “Two orphans from the desert…The Force brought you to me and Leia for a reason.

“A thousand generations live in you now,” Luke said. “But this is your fight.” He glanced down at the lightsaber in her hand. “You’ll take both lightsabers to Exegol.”

“They can’t activate their shields until they leave atmosphere,” Rose explained.
“Which isn’t easy on Exegol,” Poe added. “Ships that size need help taking off; nav can’t tell which way’s up out there.”
Tyce asked, “So how do the ships take off?”
“They use a signal from a navigation tower.

“Once the tower’s down, their fleet is stuck in atmo. For just minutes. No shields, no way out. And Rose has an idea about that,” Poe said. “Rose?”
“My team’s been analyzing the Sith Star Destroyers,” Rose said. “In order to kill a planet with those cannons, they need an enormous power source.”
“They’re drawing on the main reactors!” Vanik said.
Rose nodded. “We think hitting a cannon might take down the whole ship.”

“We need to do some Holdo maneuvers,” he said. “Do some real damage.”
Before Poe could answer that they couldn’t afford to sacrifice anyone, Finn jumped in with “C’mon that move was one in a million. Fighters and freighters can take out their cannons if there are enough of us.”

“That’s where Lando and Chewie come in. They’re going to take the Falcon to the Core systems. Send out a call for help to anybody listening.” Under Leia’s direction, Poe had been laying the groundwork for months. Allies were out there. And if anyone could smooth-talk them into helping now, it was Lando Calrissian, friend to General Leia, hero of the Rebellion.

He couldn’t rally their allies individually in the short time they had. So Beaumont and Connix had plotted a course that would take them past First Order jammers, where they could transmit a call for help at strategic coordinates. A few key figures, like the former Mon Calamari ambassador, would be contacted directly and given the special Calrissian touch, but mostly their goal was to jump, transmit, jump, transmit, over and over again until time ran out.

Poe wasn’t sure who moved first but all of a sudden they were hugging like the brothers they were.
They stepped apart, and Poe became keenly aware that one of them was missing.

Admiral Griss approached. “Entering the Unknown Regions, sir.” A simple announcement. It used to be Hux’s job to inform Pryde of such things, except Hux wouldn’t have been able to resist adding something ingratiating. Would you like me to prepare your personal shuttle? Shall I have a ground team waiting? May I fetch you a hot beverage? Pryde smiled unkindly. He’d been so glad for an excuse to kill the sniveling rat.

Rey stepped toward the dais. The rumble grew louder.
The corridor broke open into an an amphitheater as big as a hollowed-out mountain, brimming with robed figures. There were thousands of them, faceless in the dark distance, but pulsing with zealotry. Religious disciples, awaiting the return of the Sith.

“My grandchild has come home!” he added triumphantly.
He radiated evil, but her feet twitched toward him. She could not look away. There was something oddly compelling about him.
“I never wanted you dead,” he said. “I wanted you here, Empress Palpatine.”
This was nothing she wanted, she reminded herself, even as her feet threatened to step forward.

Your hatred. Your anger. You want to kill me. That is what I want. Kill me and my spirit will pass into you. As all the Sith live in me. You will be Empress. We will be one.”

Pryde muttered under his breath, considering. The short-range defense cannons wouldn’t be enough against this swarm of flies.

Exegol’s atmosphere made fleet-wide transmissions tricky. It also messed with their sensors, which meant they’d need visual confirmation to eliminate the Resistance threat.

It took a few seconds. Exegol’s atmosphere made fleet-wide transmissions tricky. It also messed with their sensors, which meant they’d need visual confirmation to eliminate the Resistance threat. And that meant scrambling fighters.

“Stay at their altitude!” he yelled into his headset. “They can’t fire on us without hitting each other.”

“General,” said his comm officer. “They’re targeting the navigation tower. So the fleet can’t deploy.”
Admiral Griss gasped. “We need to get those Destroyers out of there.”
Fortunately, Pryde always had a backup plan.
“Switch over the source of the signal,” he ordered. “To this ship.” His modifications were going to come in handy even sooner than he’d hoped. “We’ll guide the fleet out ourselves.”

“Now. Raise your saber and strike me down.”
Rey frowned. Luke had warned her about this. “All you want is for me to hate. But I won’t. Not even you.”
“Weak! Like your parents.”
She shook her head. “My parents were strong. They saved me from you.”
As if reading her thoughts about Luke, the Emperor said, “I’ve made this very proposal before. But on that unfortunate day Luke Skywalker had his father to save him. You do not.”

The thought swelled in her head, until she was giddy with it. Empress. Would that be so bad? Maybe taking on this mantle would be worth it. To bring peace. To save her friends. The whole galaxy would have no choice but to be saved.

It had taken Ben Solo too long to climb through the ruins of the Death Star in search of a hangar bay, even longer to find an old scout-class TIE and coax it into flying for him. He’d then followed Rey’s transmitted tracking markers toward Exegol, but the scout’s barely functioning navicomputers had taken a wrong turn, and he’d found himself grinding through unknown rough space. It had taken all his concentration to correct his course and get back on track.

“Navigation beacon’s shut down,” a technician yelled. “Repeat, navigation beacon down. Final Order fleet, hold position. No deployment! Resetting all systems!”

The Knights of Ren had never been his. They had belonged to the Emperor all along.

They surrounded him slowly, like predators stalking their prey. He could take two or three at a time, but these were his very own. He’d trained with them. They could even touch the Force in a small way. He didn’t stand a chance against all of them at once, not armed with just a blaster.
Maybe it had been premature to throw his lightsaber into the sea. - здравомыслие просыпается, ну надо же!

Maybe it was their shared blood that enabled her to see his thoughts, but somehow she could, and Rey saw it then, how he’d done it, what he was about to do again:

But Sidious, sensing the flickering light in his apprentice, had been ready for years. So the falling, dying Emperor called on all the dark power of the Force to thrust his consciousness far, far away, to a secret place he had been preparing. His body was dead, an empty vessel, long before it found the bottom of the shaft, and his mind jolted to new awareness in a new body—a painful one, a temporary one.
It was too soon. The secret place had not completed its preparations. The transfer was imperfect, and the cloned body wasn’t enough.

The heretics of the Sith Eternal toiled, splicing genes, bolstering tissue, creating unnatural abominations in the hope that one of these strandcasts would succeed and become a worthy receptacle.

One genetic strandcast lived. Thrived, even. A not-quite-identical clone. His “son.” But he was a useless, powerless failure.

The boy’s only worth would lay in continuing the bloodline through more natural methods.
And it was through that eventual union, unexpected as it was, that Rey was born. The perfect vessel. Strong enough to contain all the power of the Sith. His granddaughter…

—and reached for the connection she shared with Ben. Showed him.
He acknowledged her, and Rey’s lips parted in surprise. It felt different now. The connection was…right. Good. Like coming home.
Ben was similarly stunned, and together, they wasted a precious moment reveling in this new sharing. This is how it should have been all along. A true dyad. - было неправильно, стало правильно. Спасибо за пояснения про диаду.

Their bond—refined in the fire of mutual searching, shared grief, rage and hate, but also of compassion and empathy—was the one thing he had not foreseen.

They stood facing each other for the space of one breath, two…together at last. Ben was different. Relaxed. Unguarded. How had Rey not noticed before that he had the long face and posture of his father, the warm brown eyes of his mother?

He’d tried to create a dyad with Anakin, as his master had tried to create one with him. The Rule of Two, a Master always in desperate search of a yet more powerful apprentice, was a pale imitation, an unworthy but necessary successor to the older, purer doctrine of the Dyad. - продолжение пояснения... Более чистое, ага.

“Just…go shoot stuff! Uh, I mean, hit those underbelly cannons with all you’ve got. Every one we knock out is a world saved.”

For this, Pryde had no backup plan.
“Where did they get all these fighter craft?” Allegiant General Pryde demanded. “They have no navy.”
Admiral Griss was gaping. The light had gone out of his eyes. “It’s not a navy, sir,” the admiral said, and his voice shook a little. “It’s just…people.”

The tide was turning. Poe’s patchwork navy pummeled the defenseless fleet. One Destroyer listed sideways, smoke rising from its hull. It collided with another, and both dropped to the surface, helpless in Exegol’s gravity. Another dropped after a pair of proton torpedoes hit it in the gut. Soon Destroyers were falling away all over the place.

Her true power would always come from oneness.
“Be with me. Be with me.”
The battle above disappeared. Instead, Rey saw a perfect sky, vast with stars. Peaceful. Light-filled. It was like she was staring through a window to somewhere else, a place between places.

The lightning began to feed back on the Emperor. It ravaged his face, and he tossed back his head in agony, and in denial of what was happening. Rey pursued mercilessly, one foot in front of the other, absorbing power from the Force. Finally, she was ready. She gathered her strength, her faith in the Jedi past, her love of her friends, and she thrust it all at the Emperor.
He staggered backward, his own power reflected against him. It devoured him completely, ripping away his newly healed fingers, searing away the skin of his face, his very bones, until he disintegrated.
And like collapsing stardust, what remained of him coalesced into a single point, which then exploded with a massive shock wave that threw Rey to the ground. The Sith throne shattered. The ceiling bouldered down around her, crushing thousands of disciples in the amphitheater.

“There are attacks on Destroyers in all occupied systems,” said another bridge officer. “Overwhelming numbers of small craft!”

As he held her, he sensed something. The tiniest spark. And he realized: The Force hadn’t taken her yet.

Ben didn’t have much strength left, and he was about to do something he’d never done before. Fortunately, Rey had shown him how to give.
Ben poured everything into her. He found reservoirs he didn’t know he had. He gave her his whole self. - посмотрел - и повторил!

They stared at each other a moment. He waited for her to understand what had just happened. It would be okay if she left him behind now. Got on with her life without a backward glance at him. It’s what she should do.
Instead she smiled, and she whispered, “Ben!”
She was glad to see him. Glad to be with him in this moment. It was the greatest gift she could have given him.
His heart was full as Rey reached for his face, let her fingers linger against his cheek. And then, wonder of wonders, she leaned forward and kissed him. A kiss of gratitude, acknowledgement of their connection, celebration that they’d found each other at last.
But then she drew back, concern on her face. She could feel him growing cold. - сцена поцелуя

He had given Rey back to the galaxy. It wouldn’t atone for the darkness he’d wrought, but it was what he could do.
Ben Solo had no regrets as he collapsed to the ground. The Force reached for him in welcome. His final awareness was of Rey, clasping his hand with her own.

He had sacrificed everything for her.
She did not mourn Kylo Ren. She would never mourn Kylo Ren. But she dearly would have loved the chance to get to know Ben Solo. It felt like half of her was missing, and she supposed it was. The girl who had felt alone for all those years on Jakku had been part of a dyad the whole time. And just when she’d discovered that precious connection, that incredible oneness, it was ripped away.

A voice came to her through the Force, clear and strong. I will always be with you, Ben said.
She smiled. Let the truth of it wash over her. “No one’s ever really gone,” she whispered.

Finn didn’t think the moment could get any better, but then a transmission beeped on the comms console. Chewie jabbered with excitement.
“People are rising up all over the galaxy, Poe,” Finn informed him. “We did it!”

Poe began to smile. “We’re not just one small group,” he said, understanding. “The Resistance is a million people, a thousand places.”
“General Leia united a whole galaxy. This time, it’s for real.” Poe’s grin became huge, and Finn wrapped his friend in a hug. - а то! Уж в этот раз-то точно всё получилось

Of all his oldest, best friends, only Chewie was left.
He was happy for everyone though. This new galaxy—the New New Republic?—was for the next generation to deal with. - на колу мочало, начинай сначала!

Thousands, maybe millions of kids had been taken by the First Order—like his own little girl. And some of them, a very few, were special. The ones like Finn and Jannah, who had somehow managed to shake their First Order conditioning and make right choices.
Lando and the Lady Luck would help these special kids. Find their families, if that’s what they wanted. Help them discover their place in the new galaxy.

Their gazes caught.
It was all Rey could do not to burst into tears. Her friends. Her family. They had all made it.
Suddenly, they were wrapped in a three-way hug. Rey felt the wetness of Finn’s tears against her own cheeks, and Poe squeezed so tight it was hard to breathe.
“Rey,” Finn whispered. “I’ve been meaning to tell you—”
“I know,” she said, thinking of the way his presence had become so bright in her mind.
“We all know,” Poe said.
A warmth flowed through them, a connection separate from the Force and in its own way just as powerful. Rey didn’t care to put a name to it. She only wanted to live in the moment and let it flow over her like water in the desert.

Her lightsaber glowed white-gold, and she gazed at it a long moment. It was single-bladed, with an outer casing and emitter salvaged from her quarterstaff. The final result felt like the exact inverse of the lightsaber held by the dark Rey of her vision, and she loved it.

Leia and Luke stood on the edge of the homestead, glowing blue, smiling at her. Rey missed them both so much.
Luke gave her a gentle nod, It’s yours, Rey.
She turned back to the trader woman. Standing tall, she said, “Rey Skywalker.”