The Underground Fleets

The brightly lit forest planet of Agen-Kloss, home to the Resistance at the moment, was bustling with soldiers and medics, getting ready to go to a mission briefing in the control room. Troops of all shapes, sizes, and species, jogged and quickly walked to the mission control room, where a weary looking General Organa was awaiting them.

Three of the soldiers were at the Millennium Falcon, fixing up the ship. Rose Tico was on her back at the bottom, screwing bolts into an exhaust pipe, Chewbacca was at the top, welding a piece of metal that had gotten blasted apart during a space battle, and Lando Calrissian just watched, handing the tools and supplies when they needed them.

"Wow!" Rose shouted as sparks flew into her face, "what happened to this?"

Chewbacca groaned out a few sounds, roughly translating to stupid Imperial bastards. He held out his paw, Lando handing him a bullwire wrench.

"Yeah," the old baron said, "we were just going through the Meridan System to bomb a supply chain, when they just started attacking us for no reason!"

The young mechanic glanced up at him skeptically. "No reason?"

"I mean, if you don't wanna get bombed, don't commit mass genocide!" Lando argued with a pained laugh.

Rose shrugged her shoulders, thinking he made a pretty good point.

"Now, how did you get to become such a good mechanic?"

Rose sighed, reliving the horror of The First Order in her mind. "My sister and I were captured and enslaved by The Order to work in their mining facilities," the girl shook her head to get dust out of it.

"I'm sorry," Lando apologized.

"That was before Leia came though," Rose answered, "her and Poe and rest of the Resistance stormed that mine, freeing my sister and I. I can still remember the look on my sister's face the first time she had a hot meal," she smiled, remembering her deceased sister, "that face was worth more than a thousand credits!"

Lando handed her a welder. "Leia's always had that kind of heart," the baron chuckled, "she even forgave me after I turned over the love of her life to Darth Vader himself!"

As Rose tried to screw the exhaust pipe back into place, a fire quickly ignited in her face. She got out of there in a flash, but ashes still covered her face as Lando put out the fire with an extinguisher.

"How is this ship still working?" Rose asked, taking her goggles off and splashing water onto her face.

Lando looked off into the distance, remembering the droid who sacrificed her autonomy for him and this ship, inserting her consciousness into the Falcon. He knew full well that the only reason this ship was still functioning was because of that droid.

Chewbacca took his goggles off, yelling to Lando and Rose that he was done with the repairs up top. Calrissian gave him a thumbs-up.

"You're just in time," one of the troopers said as he stopped at the three of them, "the General has called us all into the mission control room!"

...

Poe and Finn Dameron stood along side Leia, ready to give the Resistance bad news. As troopers stood gathering around them, Finn's eyes scanned the quickly filling room. They caught onto his friends Lando, Rose, and Chewie coming in, but those weren't who he was looking for.

"Where's Rey?" he asked quietly but impatiently, turning to the old general.

She sighed. "She's running the training course again,"

"Well," Poe butted in, "she needs to get in here!"

"Hope I'm here on time!" The three turned to the door, seeing a sweaty and grungy Rey panting and standing in the door way with her yellow lightsaber, BB-8 at her side, but a few scratches on the droid.

Leia smiled at her adopted daughter, knowing adopting her was the best choice she made in her life, even though she might not have that much time with her. "Yes, yes you are."

Poe wasn't as happy though as he marched over to her, looking worriedly at his damaged droid. "What did you do to him?" he yelled, patting the astromech, inspecting him for any other not so visible damage.

"He was in the way-"

Poe cut her off, "You should've dodged-"

"He shouldn't have been in the way-"

The Jedi and pilot argued for a few moments before Leia held a finger up, the two of them immediately silencing themselves.

The room remained silent as the general tried to find the right words, both giving her soldiers the danger and what was at stake here, while still giving them a bit hope.

She took a final deep breath before giving them the news. "The Sith have returned."

The room erupted into shouting, panic spreading from person to person, soldier to soldier. Shouting got louder and louder, the tension so thick you could cut through it with a saber.

"We only have two Jedi!" "Do you mean the ones with lightsabers?" "We can barely take down stormtroopers, much less entire Sith Lords!" "Why did Luke have to die?"

Finn and Poe pulled out their blasters in unison, shooting them up into the air. The room fell silent quickly.

"Let me explain," Organa said calmly, "thanks to information brought to us by the trusty Falcon Squad," she paused and turned to Lando, Rose, and Chewie, who rose through the ranks of the Resistance significantly fast, "we know that there is an enormous fleet amassing on the outer rim planet of Exegol, forged by the group known as the Sith cultists. Frankly, worst case-scenario, there are only wannabe Siths like Kylo, and best case, there are no Sith at all and instead just a few people who idolize them."

The room's tension lowered ever so slightly. Poe stepped in, as lieutenant-general to Leia Organa. "Its not helpless," he yelled, turning on the holo-table, a hologram sprouting out showing a map of the galaxy different coordinates on it, "all these places," Poe said, pointing at the highlighted little dots on the map, "are places where we have had fleet being built for the past half-decade-"

A resistance trooper cut him off. "Those are only two places!" she cried.

Finn shook his head and stepped forward. "Those two places are are where we have signals from the underground fleets. We will get signals from our fleets in the core worlds one the beacon is lit at Coruscant,"

"Which brings us to our final statement," Leia finished, "we are sending two squads out: The Rapier Squadron," she signaled to Poe, Finn, and Rey, "to go recruit the two fleets on Kef-Bir and Kijimi, and the Falcon Squadron," she pointed to Lando, Rose, and Chewie, "to go ignite the beacon on the old capital planet."

Rey raised her hand. "What will the rest of you all do? What about the First Order, aren't they still a threat?"

Leia smiled. "A high-ranking spy spy in The First Order is supplying us with not only ships and soldiers, but free permission to pass through many systems, including the Korriban system, where Exegol is located. While you guys collect the fleets, we will stay here to collect ships from the First Order."

The crew erupted in cheers now. "We're getting not only two, but multiple fleets!" "We've got a spy in there?" "We finally have a fighting chance!"

The grand General clapped her hands together. "Now, we have our work set out for us, so let's do it!"

Rey raised her gold saber in the air. "Come on," she shouted, "we've got a war to win!"