Mon Mothma demands that this take place on Chandrila—the same place that the Empire attacked on Liberation Day. The signing occurs on the crystal cliffs north of Hanna City, under an ancient tintolive tree. The chancellor is flanked by her two advisers: Sinjir Rath Velus, and Hosnian Prime’s Sondiv Sella. Princess Leia is present, as well. The signing occurs during the third hour of her labor, though she only tells her husband this after the ceremony is complete—at which point, he hurries her off to the birthing chamber in the heart of Hanna City.
The Empire is surrendered with minimal concession. The Instrument of Surrender informing the Galactic Concordance demands not only that all fighting cease on behalf of the Empire, but also that the Imperial government dissolve immediately. After which Mon Mothma signs a further declaration denoting that all still-living Imperial officials are now categorized as war criminals. Non-combatant functionaries within the Imperial government are given conditional pardons, provided they continue to act by the articles of the Galactic Concordance. Mas Amedda, in return, escapes without such formal censure, though certainly the stigma never leaves him. The media and the history books both brand him as a toady and a lackey and one of the willing—if weak—architects of the Empire. Even still, he is granted a provisional (and powerless) government on Coruscant, left with New Republic overseers who help confirm that he remains as little more than a figurehead, continuing his toothless rule over a troubled world.
After the ceremony is complete, Mon Mothma thanks Sinjir with a bottle of something very expensive: a lachrymead from before the birth of the Empire. Inside the bottle, the liquid—which, if we’re being honest, is really just the fermented tears of the sentient bees of the Nem-hive—has a golden glow, like sunlight on the sea. When you shake it, the glow strengthens. “Hope through agitation,” Mon Mothma explains. “The light glows stronger when we struggle.”
“From before the Empire, you say?” he asks.
“From a better day, yes.”
He thanks her. She asks him if he’ll drink it.
“No,” he says, to his own surprise. “Not today, at least. This feels somehow too special to violate with my crass tongue.”
“You’ve matured,” she tells him.
“Just like this wine,” he says, with a wink.
—
The war ends, the Empire dies, but the battle goes on.
Though the cease-fire is signed, the Battle of Jakku still rages. Its forces there refuse to surrender. They fight past the point of sanity. For weeks. Then months. The shattered Imperial remnant has no strategy. Their base is overtaken. The captains of the lingering Imperial fleet use more dramatic and desperate tactics as the battle rages, many trying to mimic the tractor beam snare that served as Agate’s final maneuver in this life. A few of those captains, utilizing mysterious coordinates, jump into Unknown Space. It is assumed that their disappearance is tantamount to suicide.
This remnant is like a parasite with its head sunk in the meat of its own certainty, teeth biting tight. It takes months for the fighting to truly end, months for the New Republic soldiers to round up the captives and count the dead, all that time for the Empire’s ghost to catch up with the death of its body and realize that the fight is well and truly over.
Even then, it doesn’t stop across the galaxy. Remnants remain. Some hide out, waiting for some savior to come save them. Others go out with spectacular flare-ups of violence and viciousness. But these remnants are few. Gallius Rax did the work of destroying the demesne properly. Those that linger cannot stay long. The rest are prisoners, so many that the New Republic has no idea what to do with them.
On Jakku, the war leaves behind a world of wreckage. Scavengers feast upon the remains. Niima the Hutt emerges even before the fighting is truly over to begin hoarding what she and her people can find. Already a black market forms around the junk and debris—weapons and computers and engines, all littering the sand like the markets of a massive graveyard. Niima sits at the center of this black market like a fat, throbbing tumor diverting blood flow to itself.
The galaxy heals.
The people do, too.
But a grievous injury such as the one caused by the Empire cannot heal without leaving scars behind as a reminder.
—
Akiva.
The jungle is thick, though the air is thicker. The funeral traditions of the world are many, but this is the one that Norra and her family cleave to: Brentin Wexley’s body is wrapped in a gauzy cloth. Friends and family heap him with garlands of hai-ka flowers, which are as orange and as soft as the tail feathers of a firebird. Then they sing songs and tell stories over him before sinking him in the salt marsh. The salt will eat the body over a short time, and it will claim him. He may return to Akiva as a child of Akiva—from water they arise, to water they return. Atoms to atoms.
But before the body sinks down, Temmin rushes up to his father and places across him a different honorific—
A metal arm. A droid arm. It belonged to Bones, and is the only part of his mechanical friend he was able to rescue from the sands of Jakku. Temmin, trying desperately not to cry, whispers: “Bones, you watch over my dad, okay? Keep him safe.” Then he hugs both of them together.