Rey never made it to Crait. Her shuttle was kept in orbit around the planet for the next three days, while various Star Destroyers arrived, picked up passengers from the surface or the remains of the circling fleet and left.
There was very little to do aboard Snoke's shuttle. He'd had a stash of Corellian brandy she'd tasted, and then poured away, and an extensive collection of interrogation devices, all of which looked like they'd been used, which she happily pushed out of the airlock. There were some actual paper based books, all of which had to do with either torture techniques or training Sith apprentices and contained almost exactly the same set of instructions, so those made a nice fire one evening, not long after she'd finished the brandy.
On the first day she monitored the communications channel religiously, glued to every garbled message and relayed instruction. It appeared that Kylo Ren had personally supervised the expedition to the rebel base, around an hour after she'd sent her message to Leia, but it had been found empty, already abandoned and he'd blasted it to smithereens anyway. Rey divined by this, that he might not be in the best of moods.
She'd never had a response to her telepathic message, and she had no way of knowing whether it had even got through, but Chewie would have been monitoring transmissions the same way she had, and it was a reasonable hypothesis that he was the reason they'd escaped. That also meant that all her friends knew she had been on the First Order ship when it exploded, and, if her message hadn't been received, would by now assume she was dead.
No one was coming to save her. No one even knew she was in trouble.
The shuttle continued to go around, and around and around, as she awaited the leisure of Kylo Ren. She thought a lot about killing him. She imagined it so much she found herself waking in the morning drenched in sweat, hands shaking with the effort of a night of throttling dreams. It wasn't just him she was going to kill though, she'd fantasised about running a lightsaber through his guts many times since he'd murdered his father - it was Ben Solo she was really after. The man behind the monster, the one who had lied to her and made her believe him. He'd woken something on Ahch-To that had nothing to so with unseen cosmic forces of right and wrong, and everything to do with a lonely girl, and the feeling of belonging. His death was personal.
The shuttle databanks unexpectedly switched back on on the second day, and she paged through the information they contained for want of anything else to do, but with increasing interest as time went on. She learned about the history of the First Order, slow build and steady rise, and the steps that had been necessary to achieve it.
When Captain Ocram called her on the morning of the third day she had more questions than she knew what to do with.
'But what's it for? Ultimately, I mean, what's the point of it?'
The Captain's hologram put up its feet on its desk, and sipped from the hot drink it had needed, after talking for so many hours. 'A very good question, young lady. But not one I know the answer to. I simply collect the data and let them make of it what they will.'
'But don't you care what happens?'
'Not really. It's a game. There are pieces all over the board, some light, some dark. They both want to win, and they'll both do anything to achieve it. Sometimes one side wins, sometimes the other, but I don't think it's for anything. I don't think the power has a purpose - Republic, First Order, they're both the same. My advice to you, is focus on the detail and let the big picture take care of itself.'
She flicked at a piece of loose webbing on the chair. 'I'm not sure Supreme Leaders can do that,' she said, gloomily.
He shrugged. 'I've met a lot of Supreme Leaders. Like I explained, a career as long as mine, a life as long as mine and you see them all come and go. Palpatine, Snoke, senior Senators and respected Republicans. You're the only one who's ever wanted to talk to me about the point of power. If you don't want it, leave it alone, same as anything. Now I've got informants beating down my door to tell me all about the latest crisis in the Telanian system, so if there isn't anything else I can do for you today, I do need to go.'
'No, she sighed. 'Just send me over the files you promised.'
'There are five hundred and thirty-one of them.'
'That's alright, I have a lot of time of my hands. And Menan, if you're ever passing wherever it is I'm going, it would be nice to meet in person.'
He bowed his head. 'The pleasure is all mine, Rey.'
She'd managed to get through half the files before the ship's docking sequence abruptly commenced, and she had to go and check her lightsaber, for about the thousandth time. She was the last to arrive. No other ships accompanied hers into the hangar, none were stationed on its floor; there was no sign of the hustle and bustle of troops and droids and whatever else milling around as there had been the last time she'd landed on a First Order craft.
The touchdown was gentle, and the doors slid open with a tiny snick, releasing cool air into the stale smelling ship. She had her weapon activated even before she'd made it down the ramp. This wasn't a normal landing – no craft this size could be this empty on a normal day. The hangar had been cleared.
She was conscious of gun turrets swivelling to track her as she moved away from the ship, very small and alone against the unseen ranks of the enemy.
She felt him then, close by. The Force stretched around her in all directions, flat and calm like an ocean without wind, except one small part of it that swirled and frothed, boiling the sea. There, to her right, somewhere beyond an enormous opening in the blank grey wall, hiding in the dark. She swished her weapon a few times, because she knew he'd sense her the same way she felt him, and she wanted him to hear it, and be scared.
She paused with her foot just over the threshold, peering into the black. Red fire split the shadow, burning across the blank eyeholes of the mask. She said nothing, preferring not to waste energy on greetings or threats. Instead, she ran to attack.
The door slammed shut as soon as she'd entered, muted lighting set into the walls and floor flicking on. Apart from the thing she'd come to face, the room was empty, the walls smooth and featureless, the ceiling very far away.
He parried her first blow, dodged the second, threw her against the wall with a Force push so hard she saw stars. She gritted her teeth, and charged.
He wasn't quite as easy to kill as she'd been expecting though. After an hours' worth of feint and lunge, side swipe and overhead smash, elbow to the face and kick in the ribs, he failed to be dead and she was getting tired.
There just wasn't anything else in the room to play with. The walls resisted any attempt to rip bits off and throw them at his head, the floor was smooth and impossible to trip on, no hills gave an advantage or trees a distraction. There was nothing but him and her, two lightsabers and an awful lot of running around.
Shortly afterwards she thought she had him when he retreated into a corner, switching his weapon from hand to hand as he removed the helmet, threw it to the floor and shucked off his cape. Once removed, his face held no more expression than the mask, watching her circle with cold, dead eyes.
Half an hour later, sick of rubbing sweat off her palms she used her teeth to remove her sleeves, unwound the sheet of linen that had been so useful in the desert, and was less so in a fight to the death.
Two hours after that, her fingers almost too numb to grasp the hilt, her legs shaking with effort, and her hair sweat-stuck to her head she thought she had him again when the red blade dipped, and he hit a panel in the wall with his elbow.
It sprang open behind him, revealing a row of water cannisters and some towels. He lobbed a bottle over for her to catch, still keeping a safe distance and she gulped it down, watching warily from the corner of her eye.
She discarded the bottle and continued to circle, looking for an opening.
He matched her, move for move, breaking the long succession of grunts and yells that had been the only communication up to now with: 'I always liked training. I miss it.'
She didn't answer, hoping conversation would make him careless.
'Jedi training begins at birth, earlier if they can manage it. I was seven before my mother managed to convince my father to let Luke teach me. From then on, training was my life. I only got home once every couple of months or so, and even then, my mother had trouble making time to see me. I'd forgotten what my father looked like by the time I was eight.'
She probed his defences with the lightsaber, without commenting.
'Jedi training has a technical component – you're supposed to sit around thinking about how superior you are a lot. The rest is drills. First positions. Attacking as a team. Lightsaber technique, that sort of thing.'
With a sudden burst of energy, he took a couple of steps and cartwheeled off a side wall, smashing at her head as he flew though the air with such force she had trouble staving him off.
He landed, breathing hard. 'Sith training is more personalised, as you'd expect. Tends to be test based. Kill your enemy to test your character, kill your friend, even more of a test. Kill your father, biggest test of all.'
The dull light reflecting in his eyes distracted her and he launched himself in her direction with a lunge that left her reeling.
'There may be others, but as far as I know, I'm the only person still alive who's had Jedi training. Never finished it, and not just because my uncle tried to murder me. He always said I'd know when I didn't need any more lessons, but I never did. And you, you're strong but…'
He whipped past her on a spin, kicked the back of her knee in passing and she went down with a howl.
'You need training. Jedi, Sith, both, whatever. We can try something different if you want, but if you don't learn how, you're never going to be able to kill me.'
She got back up, wincing, but he had more to say.
'I realise that suggesting you become my apprentice wasn't very flattering and I'll remember that. You like flattery.'
She hobbled after him, unable to do much more than waggle the sword threateningly.
'But I was trying to give you what you want. You need training. Luke won't do it. I will.'
He came closer, but still out of range, and with a flourish, extinguished the sword and clipped it back on his belt.
'I'm not trying to turn you Rey,' he said quietly. 'I'm trying to love you.'
My romance novels, The Car Crash Bride and The Postman's Daughter by Sally Anne Palmer are available on Amazon, if you're interested.