Kylo bellowed and pulled the saber back, turning to face Rey now. Lowering his head, he started toward her, red blade flashing.
Panic gripped her. As much as she ached for revenge, deep down she knew she lacked the training to defeat Supreme Leader Snoke's highly skilled apprentice. Seizing on the flow of the Force she sensed in the earth around her, Rey began throwing everything she could at him, sending stones, branches, dirt clods hurtling through the air. He expertly batted each one down with his saber.
Arms extended, Rey lifted and threw the largest thing she could see, a fallen tree. Kylo sliced it cleanly in half, and kept coming.
Stumbling, she fell back. Seeing this, he leapt to land on her, and with both hands she stopped him, repelling him. Propelling him backward from midair.
He landed hard, rolled, righted himself in one fluid move.
Rey sat up, shaking. She wouldn't be able to perform that maneuver again. She couldn't believe she was capable of it the first time.
Kylo reengaged his lightsaber. And began stalking toward her. Rey threw a hand in the direction of her tent.
Kylo marched closer. She redoubled her concentration, shaking with the strain of it.
At her feet, he brought his blade over his shoulder, swinging it down to strike at her, but suddenly the blue lightsaber was in her hand and she was stopping his from slicing her in two with barely an inch to spare.
They glared at each other in the dueling glow of their respective weapons, hatred welling in both their stares.
"You refuse the Dark Side's teachings like a fool!" Kylo hissed.
"I'd rather die than ever join you!" Rey shouted back, struggling under his oppressive strength.
Then suddenly the pressure abated, and, inexplicably, Kylo was retreating. No, not retreating, floating. Lifted, sent through the air, kicking, cursing. Eyes closed, hands moving smoothly through the night air, Luke pushed Kylo back toward his ship, placing him gently on the ground at the base of the entry ramp.
"Leave us, Ben," he said tiredly. "Just go."
"No!" Rey roared, leaping up. Reinvigorated, she began hurling bigger and bigger rocks at Ren. In her inexperience they went wide, striking dirt, boulders, some tumbling out to sea. One struck the side of Kylo's shuttle hard, shattering the metal and tearing through a support leg, causing the ship to tip sideways, colliding with the ground, teetering at the edge of the cliff. She felt Luke pushing her back, keeping them apart so neither could approach the other.
But that didn't stop them from attacking.
Rey called up a veritable tornado of stones. Kylo reached out with a gloved hand and instantly she felt his repulsive presence worming its way into her mind. Sickened by that familiar feeling, she fought against it, her stone whirlwind stalling. To Luke, she demanded, "Let me go!"
Luke spoke as calmly as ever. "I will not see another Jedi die."
"He's not a Jedi! He embraced the Dark Side!"
The stabbing pain in her head increased. Her face screwed up against it, struggling to repel Kylo's attack, but then Luke pushed them further apart, and the pain lessened.
"Go, Ben," he rasped.
Rey couldn't believe what she was hearing. "He killed Han!" she shouted, appalled. "He killed his own father! He killed my brother!"
A flash of surprise, then something like glee flared in Kylo's eyes. "Your brother? Truly?" He dropped his hand, and with it his telepathic intrusion. "Of course. Your ability...he must have been at the academy. Tell me, which one was he?" His eyes narrowed. "Perhaps I'll let you in my mind, let you see him one more time." Kylo grinned zealously. "Tell me who he was, and you can watch me kill him."
Finn hit the floor hard, jumping up in time for Nines to slam the door in his face.
"Nines!" he shouted, reaching through the bars, just missing the other man's shoulder. "Nines! Listen to me!"
"Don't talk to me, traitor!" Nines roared back. His helmet obstructing his anger, he stripped it off, putting his face in Finn's. "You betrayed us! All of us! The men you trained with, the men you fought with-"
"You don't understand, I had to leave! But you can leave too-"
"And enlist with that rebel scum?" Nines spat. "How could you do that, huh? After what he did?"
"Don't you know what the First Order does? Don't you see? We fight, but for what? Slip died, for what?"
"And who do you think is to blame for that?" Nines growled.
Finn blinked, confused, but a noise at the window made him turn. There were voices below, where he could just make out what appeared to be Domandar's main square.
Finn looked back at Nines, distracted. He tried again. "Can't you see, they brainwashed us. To them, we're expendable. Blaster fodder. You owe them nothing."
Nines shifted, but stayed silent. Finn recalled the years they'd known each other. How Nines never once diverted from the training rituals, the work schedules. How hard he strived to prove himself valuable. At times he'd seemed more machine than man, more dedicated to duty than even some of their superiors were.
But even to Nines, who never spoke of it, there was always that one question he'd never be able to answer with the First Order's propaganda. Always one unknown no stormtrooper could escape.
"Can you even remember it?" Finn asked softly, breaking the silence. "Home?"
Nines had gone still. His brown eyes stared at nothing.
"Do you even remember its name?"
A dampness appeared in Nine's gaze and he blinked hard, his jaw set.
Finn pressed his face to the bars, a hand to his chest. "I'm not the one who betrayed you."
Nines' eyes hardened. He squinted at the bars. After a long minute, he looked up, and opened his mouth to speak. But a sound at the window caught their attention.
Cheering.
Suddenly filled with dread, Finn ran to the window. In the dusty square below a large crowd of stormtroopers, officers, and First Order personnel had gathered around a small stage built at the edge of a thin crack in the ground, a crevice running through the center of town, spanned here and there by the occasional footbridge, the unfortunate result of illegal mining many years before.
A pair was walking up to the stage; Poe, led by a stormtrooper. Poe was made to kneel before the trooper walked away.
Finn gripped the bars. No sound escaped his strangled lungs, but in his head he chanted one word: No…
Behind him, Nines said flatly, "Phasma will do this one herself. She does all the high-profile executions personally."
Just as he spoke, Captain Phasma appeared. In her hands rested her personally modified chromium blaster. She stepped onto the stage and spoke briefly to the prisoner. Poe tilted his head back defiantly. Phasma took her position and the blaster was pointed squarely at the center of Poe's chest. Then, unbelievably, she turned her mask to look up at Finn, imprisoned behind the barred window.
Less an act of defiance than the only action he could possibly muster, Finn dropped to the floor, covering his ears as she pulled the trigger.
