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With that, orders were sent out to every member in the Resistance to gear up and take flight after that X-Wing. Cel was geared up in her orange jumpsuit while she had a quick debriefing with her comrades once more before heading out. "As long as those Star Destroyers are on Exegol, we can hit them," Finn spoke aloud to the team of Resistance pilots and his co-generals.
"Hit them how?" One pilot questioned. It didn't seem possible to even enter the system, let alone take down their defenses.
"They can't activate their shields until they leave the atmosphere," Rose explained.
"Which isn't easy on Exegol," Poe added, "ships that size need help taking off. Nav can't tell which way is up out there."
"So, how do the ships take off?" Another pilot asked Poe.
The plan seemed to be working out too smoothly. There were no faults or plan b. There were no considerations for anything going bad during this operation. And it wasn't sitting too well with Celestia. What was the point of a navy if it couldn't take off? That had to mean they could take off, just not in the way they were used to. "They use a signal from a navigation tower, like this one," Poe was holding a small remote in his hand, which he used to show a small hologram of the nav towers on Exegol.
"Except they won't, air team's gonna find the tower, ground team's gonna blast it," Finn told.
"Ground team?"
"I have an idea for that."
"Once the tower's down, the fleet will be stuck in atom for just minutes, with no shields and no way out," Poe explained.
"That's when we strike. We have to move fast to take out the canons, which will likely light up the main reactors... and from there, everything goes boom," Celestia finally spoke her part, since she was in charge of leading the pilots into the attack.
"We need to pull some Holdo maneuvers, do some real damage."
"Come on, that move is one in a million. Fighters and freighters can take out the canons if there are enough of us." Finn shook his head.
"You're counting on numbers?" Celestia took a long look at Finn. There wasn't nearly enough of them in comparison to the First Order.
"That's why we have Lando and Chewie for. They'll take the Falcon to the Core Systems. Send out a call for help for anybody listening," Finn spoke.
Cel furrowed her brows. Poe and Finn hadn't completely informed her of the plan before announcing it to the team. They came up with it all by themselves without her input, most likely because she would have disagreed with following through with the plan. "We've got friends out there," Poe assured everyone as he noticed their skeptical eyes.
"Our friends didn't come the last time we needed them, and we had to run," Cel reminded them.
"They'll come this time," Poe looked down at her.
"What makes you so sure?" Cel snapped back at him in front of everyone. She was speaking what was on everyone else's minds.
"Because they'll come if they know there's hope," disagreeing groans were uttered from the crowd, "they will!"
"The First Order has already won if we think we're alone," Poe said, "we're not alone. Good people will fight if we lead them."
It was risky, but Celestia had no more time to argue it. They were counting on people that had no obligation to them. On people who had families that they could protect simply by being compliant with the First Order. Yet, she would still fight. Because when she looked back at Poe, she saw a future. And if she wanted that future, she had to fight for it. And to fight, she was going to have to trust him at that moment.
* * *
Celestia hopped into her fighter, roaring the engine to life. Her heart beat quickly as she grew nervous about the fight. That battle would be the last of their fights, and it was up to them whether they'd win or lose it. Before she closed the top to her fighter, she felt a weight on the side of her fighter. Her head snapped to her left side to see who was climbing up. It was Poe. Her face softened.
"Do you trust me?" Poe's rose his brows at her.
She sighed at him. "I don't think you gave me much of a choice."
"If we win this, we can have everything we talked about before. We can be happy." Poe grabbed her hand and pressed his lips to it.
"I know," she said. She had thought about it all already.
"See you on the other side then," he smiled brightly, then left her be. She watched as he walked away. He was so confident and so sure they'd win this. It was a radiance she could only dream of having, it was surely another characteristic of his that made him so alluring.
* * *
The flight to Exegol was rough, the environment wasn't exactly suited for flight, yet they pushed through anyway. Once they entered the atmosphere, they were faced with a fleet of numerous massive ships. It was certainly intimidating, but there was no turning back now. Cel looked around at her tiny little fighter she was seated in and looked ahead at the navy before her. Her ship was a speck in comparison to theirs. Instantly, the First Order navy began shooting at their small fleet.
"Damnit," Poe shouted over the comms.
Cel remained silent as she sped past the shots taken toward her. There was one good thing about being in a small fighter against the huge destroyers, she was a small and difficult target to hit. The beams of lasers flew right past her ship as she sped quicker and quicker toward the destroyers. She needed to give Poe cover so he could drop off Finn and the others for them to complete the ground mission.
"What are you doing?! You're being way too aggressive, Cel!" Poe shouted at Celestia through the comms.
"We need to get to their altitude quickly, so the only way they can tag us is if they hit each other." Cel explained, and almost instantly the fighters behind her followed in her pursuit to get to the destroyer's low level.
Celestia's mind went blank as she focused on the task ahead of her. Everything around her disappeared as she focused in on the destroyers. This was a good thing. As fellow pilots were beginning to worry that help would not be arriving to help them.
"They haven't deployed fighters yet, you need to drop Finn at the tower before it's too late, we've already got eyes on it," Celestia commanded as she deflected shots from the destroyers.
Exegol was quite eerie, clouds lurked in the atmosphere to give it a gloomy and ominous look, setting the scene of the battle. "Incoming TIEs!" Cel announced to her team.
"I see them!" Poe spoke. Dozens of TIE fighters were headed toward her sector of fighters. She whipped her fighter around, causing it to do a flip and shot three times, blindly, at the incoming enemies. Her fighting tactics must have been instinct because she hadn't even thought about what she was going to do before she did it. Each one of her shots hit a TIE and managed to travel through its first victim and do a little damage to the ship traveling right behind it.
It was an epic scene to behold, as it managed to take out half of the incoming enemies in one swift move. "Woooooo!!!!" Poe exclaimed, severely impressed by the move. "That must be the Mandalorian in you!!" Poe joked.
The rest of the team cheered excitedly, their sense of dread dissipating for one moment. "If you keep attacking like that, we won't need the help!"
Celestia chuckled. "A triple collateral? That only happens in my dreams." She spoke into the mic, getting a few chuckles from her comrades.
