Y/n pushed through the crowd, BB-8 whirring frantically at her heels. The little droid’s panicked beeps were a constant stream in her ear. The First Order. Here. The thought was a cold stone in her gut.

A green bolt of energy sizzled past her head, scorching the ancient wood of a support beam. Maz’s patrons—smugglers, pirates, refugees—were either fighting or fleeing, a river of bodies surging toward the exits.

The kitchen was a ghost town of overturned pots and abandoned meals. She burst out the rear door into the cool, damp air of the forest. The sounds of battle were muffled here, replaced by the whisper of leaves and the distant hum of TIE fighters circling above the canopy.

She ran, boots sinking into the soft moss, BB-8 struggling to keep pace over the gnarled roots. The plan was simple: get to the Millennium Falcon, get the droid to the Resistance. Simple. Clean.

Then the forest went silent.

Not a bird, not an insect. The very air seemed to thicken, to press in on her. A shadow fell across the path ahead, long and imposing.

He stood there, a monolith of black amidst the green. His cloak was still, as if the wind itself dared not touch him. The cracked, unstable red blade of his lightsaber ignited with a violent snap-hiss, casting a hellish glow over the ferns and painting his mask in stark, shifting light.