Chapter Ten
After the curious display between Master Kylo and Mistress Rey in the library, Ved thought it prudent to update his interpersonal protocols. His original master had the ingenuity to program V-33D with the ability to improvise and update his own protocol listings. This had been fortunate considering his newer, younger master had less mechanical inclinations than his predecessor.
Until Mistress Rey abducted him from his home, the only place Ved had ever been was Darth Vader's castle. Which meant there hadn't been much opportunity to observe human interpersonal behavior. It appeared to have been Master Vader's deepest desire to have as little contact with other beings as possible while in his sanctum.
Mistress Rey tried to convince Ved that she liked what Master Kylo was doing to her face, although admitting such made her face flush red and she fled the room. Master Kylo stared at the door for a long time after she left but didn't follow his distressed cohort. Is that what she was? A cohort? Master Vader never mashed faces with his cohorts.
Ved searched internally for understanding other labels for human relationships and came up blank.
So once each of his charges were settled in their chambers with servings of steaming bantha-steak soup, Tatooine flatbread and an icy cold glass of blue milk, Ved retired to his charging pod and hooked himself into the database Master Kylo installed a few years ago to allow Ved access to more up-to-date protocols.
He stopped at the first relevant listing that indicating face smashing — defined as kissing — and downloaded it. The protocol titled "Droid as Chaperone" held a weight of authority Ved felt fit in with his role in the castle perfectly. The chaperone was a responsible adult — Ved was definitely older than either of the humans in residence — who accompanied and supervised young people.
"Circuits!" Ved exclaimed as he processed the data. He'd already failed in one of his most essential duties as a chaperone. He certainly shouldn't have allowed that kiss to happen.
Ben tried to focus. Because this was important. Important to Rey. They'd had little time alone together since they kissed the previous day in the library — mostly because Ved had taken to hovering nearby with his red eyes glowing dimly any time Ben got too close to Rey.
As soon as he kissed her the day before, he realized it may have been a mistake. Up until that point, he'd been buoyed on this path by things out of his control. He hadn't felt like he had any choice other than to go along with Rey's plan because there was no way he could take back the First Order on his own. He planned to continue to turn Rey to his objectives — if both of them went back to the First Order, his chances of reestablishing himself doubled, at least.
Ben felt like it was still too late to "return to the light" as Rey and his mother thought possible.
He killed his father.
He couldn't forgive himself for that - so why would anyone else?
An unfortunate side-effect of their kiss — he couldn't stop thinking about what he could do to deserve more of her kisses.
With just one kiss she seared him through and all of the light energy she held in a deep well transferred to his body and thrummed under his skin. It was a shock to his system that had sent synapses firing inside of him that had been long buried. The burden on his soul weighed on him but lighter, like he could breathe just a little easier.
His head felt a bit fuzzy replaying the moment in his mind.
Rey ahemed and looked at him pointedly.
He blinked until his eyes cleared and he could see her sitting clearly in front of him. She had a small smirk on her lips like she knew exactly what he was thinking about. Which sent his eyes to the black droid hovering in the doorway of the library.
"Shall we?" Rey asked and pointed to the lightsaber pieces on the desk before them.
They were supposed to be working on rebuilding her lightsaber. And once they got started, Ben shaking the amorous thoughts from his head, it hadn't taken long for Rey to assemble the pieces with her new hilt of snowflake obsidian. She didn't need his help with that. She was capable and confident as she worked.
When they got to the part where she needed to focus her halved crystal pieces into their separate chambers, Ben reached his hands across the table, palms up. "Let me show you how to do it," he said.
Slowly, she rested her hands on his and closed her eyes. He closed his and allowed her access to his mind. She was hesitant and careful not to go anywhere beyond the path he showed her to the information she needed. Her gentle, careful touch in his mind floored him nearly as bad as her kiss.
Then she was there, pulling on the memory until it played for her. Luke, with a darker beard than Rey remembered, stood before a group of students and went over the basics of how to meditate and attune lightsaber crystals. Rey watched with eagerness to soak up the teachings of Luke before he became jaded. Ben felt a sharp pang at her joy in his memory. This version of Luke had been an uncle he trusted.
Feeling his distress, Rey soothed over the wound in his mind and he let it fade away as she internalized the knowledge she needed to complete her weapon.
Oona Ren winced at the scene unfolding before her. She committed her fair share of violence, but never at this level of disregard for life. As a Knight of Ren, the deaths and violence caused were instrumental, not indiscriminate.
The Yuuzhan Vong Hunters justified their slaughter as a test to their victim's worthiness. If they survived — worthy. If not, then they were dead and worthless. There had been none yet named worthy.
The death troopers required no such justification. Their pleasure in death untainted by motive.
This is instrumental, she told herself. Instrumental to her survival. Kill or be killed. She leveled the blaster — a weapon with zero sophistication — and fired into the innocent crowd as the death trooper squad leader demanded information on the whereabouts of their prey. Oona had to hide her vibrosaber aboard the Finalizer before she infiltrated the death troopers. She missed it dearly.
She took no delight in the killing but celebrated each breadcrumb the commando squad followed that led nowhere.
The squad leader put his hand in the air and gestured for the group to fan out and around up any stragglers.
A thrill ran down Oona's spine as she realized this may finally be her chance to send a comm to Master Kylo Ren. She side-stepped into the forest bordering the small town they razed. Oona crept through the trees, watching her surroundings for any other troopers or one of the Vong Hunters. Once the trees started to grow larger and denser, Oona assessed she was far enough in to pull out the device from the pocket at her hip.
"Master Ren," she whispered into the small comm.
She waited with her back against a tree-trunk that was easily as wide as a Hutt.
A few moments later, the comm crackled in response. "Oona?" came Master Ren's disbelieving voice.
Oona sagged against the rough bark, feeling the scrape of the jagged wood through her death trooper gear. "Master Ren, you're alive."
"You're alive," he said fiercely. "I thought Hux killed everyone."
Oona nodded at the comm even though he couldn't see her. "I don't have much time. I barely escaped death by matter of being late and managed to disguise myself as a death trooper. Master Ren, the death troopers hunt you along with the most abhorrent beings I've ever met. They're an aberration in the force. A void. They can't be sensed or influenced and their weapons are some kind of creature."
"They're a completely organic race?"
"Yes," she said.
There was a long pause.
"If you can escape, come to Mustafar," Kylo said.
Oona pressed the button to send her reply but a heavy step behind her made her freeze. "What's this?" rumbled the Yuuzhan Vong Hunter behind her. He grasped her shoulder with one meaty scarred hand and lifted her up in midair. "Infidel!" He ripped the comm out of her hand and threw it to the dirt before grounding his boot down on top of it. "Who was that you spoke to like a coward hiding in the woods? Are you traitor?"
"No, I—" Oona gasped as he wrapped his grotesque fingers around her throat. Alarms monitoring her vitals in her helmet blared as her flow of oxygen restricted.
"Hey, what are you doing?" the death trooper squad leader stepped out a few paces away.
"He's gone berserk!" Oona choked out, flailing toward the Hunter holding her.
The death trooper squawked out a command to the rest of his unit and cocked his DLT-19D heavy blaster rifle with preternatural swiftness. Oona braced for impact but the shot rocketed through the Hunter and he dropped her as he staggered back.
Green spun around her as sky blurred with land. She blinked and shook her head as the sensors in her helmet chimed at her and started tagging approaching threats all around her. She dragged herself up and gathered her bearings, ready to start swinging.
"Freeze," said the death trooper as he swung his heavy blaster to aim at her.
Oona lifted her arms up slowly and reviewed the target map laid out at low opacity across her visor. All of the troopers surrounded her. One Vong was unaccounted for but the one that was shot was groaning on the ground several feet behind her.
"I thought you were strange," the death trooper said. "You're not one of us. Who are you?"
Oona stayed silent, trying to calculate the odds of fighting them all and winning. It was low. Too low.
The death trooper stepped closer keeping his blaster trained on her. "I heard Mustafar." The trooper cocked his head at her and the bright orange sun of this planet reflected off his visor. "What's on Mustafar, traitor?"
"I'll tell you nothing," Oona said. She sensed the trooper behind her but couldn't do anything about it.
He clubbed her over the head and darkness fell as she heard the leader saying, "Don't worry. I"ll find out."
A chill of unease crept down Rey's back as the comm Ben held went silent after the savage voice on the other end yelled, "Infidel!"
"Do you think those beings are related to what Jess and Snap saw — to the blorash jelly thing?" Rey worried her hands in her lap, twisting the cylinder of her newly crafted lightsaber.
Ben stared at nothing for a long time and Rey waited. She sat ready in her chair, every muscle poised for action whenever Ben responded.
When he finally swung his gaze to hers, his brown eyes darkened to black. "It would be an unlikely coincidence. The blorash jelly mesh didn't have a presence in the force either. Ved's analysis of the creature determined it wasn't of any known species in our galaxy. Whoever these hunters being are, they're from the Unknown Regions."
Rey rubbed her thumb along the raised bumps at the end of her obsidian hilt.
"But why are they working with Hux?" Ben wondered aloud, rubbing his hand over his eyes and down his cheeks.
"I thought the First Order built up its power hiding in the Unknown Regions," Rey said. "Do they still have ties to worlds there?"
"I didn't spend much time out there. The First Order had already started its conquest of the galaxy when I joined." Ben tensed his jaw as he thought. "Snoke was from the Unknown Regions."
Rey's churned at the mention of Ben's former master. Just his name dredged up the memories of his cruel assault on her mind. Her own Force abilities had been useless against him. "The darkness I felt in your mind when you saw the Falcon, do you think that could be related?" She couldn't bring herself to question whether or not Snoke was really dead. She'd seen him slashed in two, body lying in pieces. He was dead.
Dead. Dead. Dead.
Ben swallowed. "I don't know. I thought I understood Snoke, but a lot of that has been challenged since meeting you." He shot her a wry half-grin.
3.5 smiles, Rey tallied. Could you tally half a smile? She rounded up. 4 smiles.
But the smile faded as quickly as it had appeared. "The First Order now probably knows where we are and have Oona. They've either already killed her or are keeping her as bait."
Rey tried to remain impassive as the husky voice of the female Knight of Ren replayed in her mind. She reminded herself that Ben kissed her. That he and Rey were doing some kind of thing.
What kind of thing, Rey had no idea.
And it really didn't feel like this was a particularly good time to try to have a thing.
Especially with the Most Wanted Man in the Galaxy.
"We have to leave," Rey said. She resigned herself to the fact there would be little time to explore kissing in depth with Ben, which had been exceptionally hard anyway due to Ved's overbearing manner.
"We do," he agreed. "But we need to take as much as we can load onto the Falcon. We haven't even started your training. And even with the castle's defenses activated, I'm not sure how they will fare against these creatures. Most of them are tied to the Force." He looked around the library, mouth down-turned.
Hardly having owned anything of sentimental value, Rey couldn't even begin to imagine what Ben felt knowing he could lose everything here to a vindictive enemy.
"Any system is a minimum of 6-hour jump from here. We have time to pack."
And so they did.
Rey served as pilot on the Falcon for their departure from Mustafar. This time Ben was coaxed reluctantly into being her co-pilot but the sullen look on his face indicated he'd rather be in the maw of a Sarlacc.
"Are we jumping to the First Order?" Rey said, flicking the series of controls that powered the Falcon.
"No. If they kept Oona as bait we have some time," Ben said. Rey grimaced at the callousness and he looked at her sharply. "We didn't even start your training. Do you think it would be a good idea to walk into a trap unprepared?"
Rey pursed her lips and glared at him. "No, of course, I don't think that would be a good idea. Won't it be worse for her the longer they have her?"
"She's trained for this type of situation. You haven't. She'll be okay for a few days. We go in now with you as you are and all three of us will be dead."
"I'm not that bad," Rey protested.
"Maybe not. But Hux likes his tech and I guarantee you he has something to use against us. We are not going in there with you unprepared. Wasn't the whole point of this for me to teach you and you help me get the First Order back? Well, this is it."
"Yes," Rey gritted out and lifted the ship off the ground, beginning their ascent to the atmosphere. "So where to?"
"Dagobah — it's unpopulated by advanced lifeforms. Ved, calculate the jump," Ben said.
Just as Ved affirmed his master's request, the proximity alarms on the ship blared.
"What is that?" Rey pointed out the viewport.
"It's one of the organic ships." Ben cursed and shoved out of his chair. "I'm going down to the gun pit. Do your best to outrun them and get into position for the jump as soon as Ved is done. Ved — how long on those calculations?"
"Three minutes, Master," Ved said.
Ben doubled back after leaving the cockpit and poked his head in. "Rey, will you open the connection between us? I think it would help."
Rey bit her lip. She was so vulnerable when she let him in but remembered in Snoke's throne room the way they'd so fluidly fought in tandem and lifted the barriers. She felt the cool slide of his mind against hers and he left.
The alarms got louder as the organic ship advanced on the Falcon.
"Strap in, Ved," Rey said and steered the ship into a roll as the seed shaped ship shot a glowing orange missile at them. Her knees went weak when she saw that it was following their spiral to stay on trajectory.
Heat-seeking.
"Focus, Rey," Ben said through their connection.
She kept her eyes open, steering the ship on a random course but heeded Ben's advice and focused intently. Something snapped into place between her and Ben and she felt almost as if they were one. He anticipated her every movement of the ship and began firing at the magma missile trailing the Falcon.
He connected and the magma exploded.
Rey let out a scream of victory and then her hands moved as if they had the muscle memory of years driving this ship in and out of danger. Like when she'd entered Ben's mind on Starkiller base, doors in his mind flew open transmitting all of his piloting skills to her faster than Ved could compute the jump coordinates.
The enemy ship shot three retaliatory blasts of magma.
Rey sent the Falcon into a series of dives and rolls to evade the pursuing ship while Ben shot down each of their weapons.
"Coordinates calculated," Ved announced.
"Finally," said Rey and pulled the Falcon hard up and to the right to get into position.
Five more roiling magma missiles were inbound, following the Falcon up into the outer layers of the planet's atmosphere. Ben continued to shoot with one missile advancing fast as he took out the others.
The Falcon barely free of Mustafar's gravitational pull — Rey slapped her hand down on the switch to activate the jump. Hyperspace blurred around them just as the last missile was seconds away from colliding with their ship.
Rey collapsed into her seat, all the adrenaline escaping her body and leaving it a pile of jelly.
Ben's bounded into the cockpit, his heavy boots announcing his arrival far before he darkened the door.
He almost looked...giddy?
No, Rey thought. Even if he wasn't exactly Kylo Ren to her anymore, she couldn't see Ben Solo being so unrestrainedly happy.
"Yes," Ben said aloud, then moved his massive body to the tight space between her and the controls. He ducked his head down and pressed his lips to hers.
The doubt fled as soon as his warm lips were on hers, wooing them to open with his lips tugging at hers. The aftershock of the adrenaline leaving her system and his kiss made Rey shake and she steadied herself by wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him closer. She parted her lips beneath his, inviting him in.
The kiss was only the beginning. The contact made any remaining barriers between them disappear. It wasn't the same as being in his mind. It was a oneness. A wholeness. Rey was lost in it. Every part of her craved this deep connection with him even when her mind reminded her of how much was a stake. But that thought was barely a blip in the sea of burning sensation that ignited between them.
Touching his hand through their connection had felt like a live wire. Kissing him was a never-ending current of electricity that made her heart pound.
Ben pulled away but hovered close. "That was amazing."
Rey touched her lips dazedly. "You are a good kisser."
Ben Solo unleashed the full force of his grin and Rey fell back against the pilot's seat absolutely slain. That had to count as two smiles, at the very least. Their connection was still open and sharing her thoughts with him causing his grin to widen and her heart stuttered. Okay, three smiles.
"Stop," he said, shielding his mouth. His cheeks flushed pink. "That's not what I meant, although..." He raised his eyebrows and Rey rolled her eyes even though she had a goofy grin of her own that wouldn't go away. Ben stood to his full height and massaged the back of his neck. "Flying like that — with you. I've never experienced anything like it."
"You're welcome," Ved interrupted.
Ben jerked and looked back at the droid. Rey had forgotten he was in the cockpit with them.
"For what?" Ben said.
"For allowing you that congratulatory kiss. Please note that it was only because you were suitably supervised, by me, that I permitted it. If we had not just prevailed in dire life or death circumstances, you would have been reprimanded for your behavior. You have already violated my chaperon protocol previously. Two more strikes and you shall no longer be an eligible suitor for Mistress Rey. You are proving to be quite the scoundrel, Master Ren."
A shadow crossed over Ben at Ved's words. Rey thought she heard the word scoundrel ricocheting in Kylo's mind like stray blaster fire. He pushed her from the thoughts, gently scooting her away. Some of the barriers in their minds reestablished themselves naturally, but there was still an undercurrent of him around her.
"We don't need a chaperone," Ben said. "We're both adults."
Ved swiveled his head toward Ben. "You are children."
"This is ridiculous, droid. I am a thirty-year-old man. End whatever chaperone protocol you seem to think applies here. It doesn't."
The gears in Ved's neck whirred as he turned to Rey. "My responsibility here is not to you, Master Ren, but to Mistress Rey. Do you permit these attentions, Mistress?" His robotic intonation lilted in disbelief and Ved's eyes glowed in anticipation of her response.
Rey was flattered by Ved's protectiveness and smiled him. "You're a sweet droid, Ved. But I can take care of myself. You see that scar on Ben's face? I gave that to him the last time he made me angry."
"Very good then," said Ved. "I shall decrease the chaperone protocol."
"Erase it," Ben commanded.
Ved harrumphed. "I'm going to my power cell."