Mal, Cassian, Rey, and Chewie make their way through the forest and down to the abandoned garrison. They stop at the top of the ridge, overlooking the ruins.
"Cassian and Chewie will stay here and watch us from above," Mal explains.
Cassian gets down and starts piecing together his gun.
"Cassian is the best sharp shooter in the galaxy," Mal boasts, putting a hand on his shoulder.
He looks up at her and smiles. Chewie roars.
"It's ok Chewie," Rey says. "I'll be fine down there."
"And Cassian needs someone to watch his back," Mal adds in.
She turns to Rey. "As soon as I tap into the hard drive to access the database the First Order will know. They'll most likely send troops to take us out, so we have to be fast."
Rey nods. They begin their descent into the canyon. It's a shallow and rocky path. Any miss step of the foot will have them plunging to their deaths.
"Thanks by the way," Rey starts, making small talk. "For saving my life. The Empire really has traps still set out there?"
Mal laughs. "There was a war here. The Empire didn't want to take any chances. They set traps everywhere surrounding this place. Most of them were set off but there's still a few around here that would blow you into a million pieces."
Rey notices that the shaved spots above her ears have black symbols engrained on her skull.
"What do those symbols mean on your head?" Rey asks, her foot slipping on a rock. She watches it crash to the bottom.
"Ever heard of the Blood Runners?" Mal asks in return.
Rey thinks about it for a moment. The name seemed vaguely familiar. At the trading post on Jakku there were always several travelers that would stop for supplies and fuel.
"I feel like I've heard the name before," Rey responds quietly.
"Well," Mal grunts, using her strength to pull herself over a gap in the road. "I was actually born in a prison. My parents were thieves and were arrested when my mom was pregnant with me. When I was a little older I was able to escape the prison but I was captured by the Blood Runners. Fortunately, their leader Antaki Tolorna, took pity on me and raised me as one of her own. They taught me how to fight and steal. They're a gang you see, stationed out of Atollon. They're like the Hutts but on the other side of the Galaxy. I was a bounty hunter for them for years. Antaki let me go when I was eighteen."
She stands on the other side of the gap, brushing her dirty hands on her pants. She waits for Rey to crawl over the hole.
"So you still wear their symbol?" Rey asks in a strained voice as she climbs over.
"They burned it onto my skull," Mal scoffs. "I don't think I have the option not to wear it."
Rey hops over to the other side. They continue walking down the path. When they make it down the bottom the various colorful planets have disappeared. Everything seems to be covered in a sheet of black. Destroyed AT-ATs and craters cover the ground in front of the building walls. Large birds swarm around old bones. They walk quickly through the ruins.
They enter through the front doors, but there isn't much of a building they've walked into. The roof is completely gone and there's only two short walls on either side. There's rubble everywhere and they have to navigate through it.
"How are we going to find the main hard line?" Rey asks as they make their way through the chunks of building and cables.
"You'd think they would have destroyed it," Mal says. "But it's deep underground and most of the bombs didn't even touch it. We just have to find a hole in the ground and I'll be able to access it."
Rey starts searching the ground. After about five minutes of searching they find one. They both peer down into the darkness. Mal turns on her head lamp and drops a rock down inside. They hear it clang after a few seconds.
"Money ball," Mal smiles, pulling off her pack and grabbing her grappling gear.
She hooks the harness around her waist and drives the nail into the dirt above the hole. She connects the grappling hook to it and leans back to test the weight. It holds steady.
"Am I not coming with you?" Rey asks.
"No," Mal says quickly in response. "I need someone up here to keep a look out."
"I thought this place was abandoned?" Rey snaps.
"Well use the force, Jedi. Do you feel alone out here?" she jokes as she lowers herself into the hole.
Rey did feel a little uneasy, like someone other than Cassian was watching them. Everything creaked and moaned in a spooky way. Or perhaps it was the fact that this place was covered in the bodies of the dead. Rey grips her lightsaber tightly, ready for any movement.
Mal makes it to the bottom and pulls out her equipment. She crouches in front of a long tube of wires. She pulls out a knife and cuts carefully through the plastic lining of a large wire. She then pulls out her own cable and hooks it to the wire. It begins transmitting information onto her holopad.
"I'm in!" she shouts up to Rey.
She begins sorting through the information. Doors to certain information are already beginning to close. They knew. But no one was as good of a hacker as she was. She quickly places a virus to slow them down. Information on Kylo Ren proved to be more difficult to find than she had thought. Whatever they were doing to him really was top secret information. Someone did not want the entire First Order knowing what had happened to him.
Mal finds bits and pieces of information about his movements over the past year. There were frightening bits about past projects and ones being prepared for the future.
"I have a bad feeling about this," Rey shouts down to her.
Mal ignores her as she digs deeper into the information. The virus she had placed was gone now and the First Order was breathing down her neck, locking all kinds of doors. Then she saw it! An order placed only minutes earlier about moving Kylo Ren to the main Destroyer. He would be transported in a prisoner cargo ship.
"Got it!" Mal shouted, extracting the information onto a small flash drive. She's about to shut down the connection when something else catches her eye.
Rey waits anxiously at the top, her eyes flashing around, watching for any movement. All of the sudden a Tie Fighter roars overhead.
"Mal we need to go now!" Rey shouts down the hole, hiding herself from view.
A cargo ship full of troopers passes overhead soon after.
"No," Rey whispers quietly.
"Give me just a few more seconds!" Mal yells.
"I thought you said you got it!" Rey shouts back, watching for Stormtroopers from behind a piece of rubble. A squad of Stormtroopers make their way into open space, their guns at the ready.
"Dammnit!" she whispers, readying herself to jump out and begin her attack.
They get close, and just as she's about to jump out, there are several shots. Three of the six Stormtroopers collapse. The others turn frantically, shooting at the air. The other three are shot down one by one.
Cassian, Rey thinks, smiling to herself.
"Mal!" She whispers angrily into the hole. "We have to go now!"
Mal's head pops up from the hole. "I'm here! Will you relax?"
"What took you so long?!" Rey snaps furiously.
She hastily undoes her harness and shoves it into her pack. She grabs her gun and points to an opening opposite of them.
"It takes a while to extract information, ok?" she spits back, though Rey has a feeling that she's lying.
They sprint across the opening toward the hole. Blaster fire explodes all around them. Mal shoots at them as they run across. Several troopers go down.
They burst out of the opening and crash into the wild forest around them. Rey can't tell where they're going. She hears the roar of Tie fighters above them. There are explosions all around them. There's an explosion on the ridge.
Chewie! Cassian!
She puts that thought out of her mind and pushes her legs to keep up with Mal. They make it to the bottom of the cliff but there isn't a path that leads them up.
"How are we going to get up there?" Rey gasps.
"We aren't," Mal growls, leaning against the rock wall and aiming her gun to the sky. She shoots at Tie Fighters passing overhead.
Rey doesn't have a gun. She only carries her lightsaber and staff. The only thing she could possibly try to use is the Force. She focuses on a Tie fighter headed straight for them. She closes her eyes, reaching out her hand to feel the pull of the Force. Mal is shooting at it frantically beside her. She blocks out the noise.
And suddenly Kylo is beside her. He looks over at her, his position mimicking hers. His feet are planted and his hand outstretched in front of him. The scar across his face is a deep red, but there's no blood on him.
You can do it, he whispers in her mind. Concentrate. We can do it together.
She turns back to the Tie Fighter. Its pull is so strong. But she pushes back. It's like she can feel her hand reach around the entire ship and grab it.
That's it, Kylo encourages her. Together.
Once her grip on the ship is firm she yanks her hand to the side. Kylo mimics the movements in time with her. She opens her eyes as the ship flies to the side, crashing into the trees with an explosion. She breathes out shakily, slowly lowering her hand. Rey looks over at Mal who's staring back at her wide eyed and mouth agape.
"Holy fuck," Mal whispers in amazement.
Rey looks over at her other side where Kylo had been standing. He was gone. Rey swallowed, her mind spinning. Was she just dreaming or had he helped her? Kylo Ren. The man she hated. The man she swore to kill. The man that had tried to kill her.
A roar of a ship appears above them. Both Mal and Rey shield their eyes as the wind whips around them. The landing ramp opens and Cassian stands at the top, waving frantically for them to jump in. Rey grabs Mal's hand and jumps up on the landing ramp. They run inside and Mal crashes into Cassian's arms. They hug for a moment as Rey leaves them and sprints to the cockpit.
"Did you find it?" Luke asks as he steers the ship away from the ground. The ship shakes and jerks as the Tie fighters shoot at them.
"Yes," Rey answers, before turning around and heading to man the gun.
She climbs down the ladder and pulls on the headset. Finn had sat here the first time they flew together. She missed him. The system was strange, her chair moving back and forth as she shoots at the fighters.
Rey shoots down the last one as they break through the atmosphere and enter into lightspeed. She leans back in the chair, taking a deep breath. After a moment she makes her way back to the top and is surprised to see everyone standing, looking at her.
"So you really are a Jedi," Mal says, there's a mix of awe and fear in her tone.
Cassian and Luke stand next to her. Luke is smiling from ear to ear.
"I'm not a Jedi yet," Rey corrects. "My training is not yet complete."
Rey decides not to tell Luke that Kylo had been there to help her. She was still too confused about it herself to bring it up.
"We are going to find Kylo," Luke confirms, walking up and putting a hand on her shoulder. "Is there anything you would like to tell me?"
Mal and Cassian head quietly to the cockpit. Luke stares at her quizzically. She can feel him watching every twitch in her face.
"No, Master," she lies, adding a fast smile at the end.
He gives her another long look before nodding and turning away. When he disappears into the cockpit she lets out the breath she had been holding. Hesitantly she looks over to the left and sees Kylo, leaning against the wall, arms crossed and eyes boring holes into her forehead.
She grabs her shoulders and follows Luke quickly into the cockpit.
Hope ya'll have a happy new year! Good riddens 2016!