The sun was bright on Moraband but its heat not quite as harsh as Jakku or Ahch-To.
Aldir gave Rey a new set of clothes, her previous set tattered and singed from the crash. These new ones were made of similar material but darker in color and felt more like proper clothes than the cloth she'd sewn together herself.
She stood on the floor of a rotunda, the massive domed ceiling reaching hundreds of feet into the air. She felt awkward standing there before Aldir without a lightsaber and he'd yet to even mention needing one.
"What are you afraid of?" Aldir asked.
Rey considered his question, searching her mind for an answer.
"Do not think about it too much, it should just come to you. The Dark knows what you are afraid, the test here is if you can be honest with yourself. Being afraid is nothing to be ashamed of."
She closed her eyes, choosing her words carefully. "I'm afraid that...that without me the Resistance will fall. I'm afraid that they might already be," she breathed deep, "be gone."
"Go on."
Faceless figures came to her mind. "I'm afraid I'll never see my parents again."
"The Resistance is weak." Aldir said and Rey's eyes shot open. Aldir's voice had changed. It was no longer calm and thoughtful. Now it was deliberate and sharp, every word dripping with venom. "Every second that passes their hope fades. They gaze out the windows of their ships in hope that they will witness your return and eventually they will give up on you, figuring that you have given up on them. Maybe they have already surrendered. Your friends are probably dead, their corpses left to rot on some forsaken planet surface or burned up in the explosion of their ship."
Tears welled in her eyes. "What are you-"
"Your parents never cared about you. Because if they did they wouldn't have abandoned you on a planet made for garbage for fifteen years. That is what you were to them, garbage. A worthless mistake who brought nothing good to their lives. Or maybe they did love you and they still do. And every moment of every day of their lives they think of you, long to see you, wondering if you are still alive, if you are still where they left you. They want to come back for you but something is holding them back. And what a reunion it would be if you found them instead. But here you are, too lost and too afraid to even know where to begin."
She tried holding back but she couldn't, it was too much. She wept for the Resistance and for her friends and for her parents. But mostly she wept for herself because she knew in her heart that she was far too weak to make any difference.
"You are weak, young one. You are an insecure, doubtful, frightened, child. You are lying to yourself if you think you could stand against the might of the First Order. I have seen pupils crushed and killed by the Dark. What makes you think you are something different? If I-"
Aldir flew backward and slammed against the wall behind him. He fell to the floor on his stomach.
Rey stood with one arm reaching out, her palm open. Her tears were gone now, dried against her face. Her hair clung to her cheeks, her other hand tightened into a fist.
Aldir groaned and grunted as he pushed himself to his knees. He stared at Rey and she stared back. He reached up and touched just above his lip and found that he was bleeding. "Now we can move on."
Even from a distance Takodana was more pleasant to the eye than Jakku could ever hope to be.
"If I may, master," still the word master took some effort to come out of Kylo Ren's mouth. "We've already searched and interrogated the area where the girl and her friends were hiding."
"I'm aware of that but seeing that our options are limited, retreading territory might not be the worst use of our time. Hux's men have already cleared out the base on D'qar. Rey wasn't there. Which means one of two things. One, she just barely escaped with the rest of those dogs or two, she's already found Skywalker."
Their shuttle touched down just outside the half destroyed cantina where Kylo had first captured Rey a few weeks ago.
Most of the creatures and persons working on the reconstruction of the cantina scattered, fleeing into the nearby treeline. A few of them stood their ground and watched Kylo, Allya, and the troopers exit the shuttle.
"Come to finish the job?" An old man resting his arm against a shovel glared at the two knights. Allya assumed him to be the leader.
Allya approached the workers with Kylo beside her. "We have no quarrel with you. I come in search of information." The man said nothing. "What's your name?"
"Ozan."
"Did any Resistance ever return here?"
Ozan shook his head. "Not since you people came and wrecked the place. And not since the hole in the sky opened up."
"Hole in the sky?" Allya asked.
Ozan motioned behind her with a nod of his head.
Both Allya and Kylo turned and looked up.
There in the expanse of the bright blue sky was a black spot, distant but visible.
"That's where the Hosnian system was," Kylo said.
"What is that?" Allya whispered to herself. "Commander."
A trooper stepped forward. "Ma'am."
"Prepare the ship, set coordinates for the Hosnian system."
The journey up took less than an hour but to Kylo it felt like several. Just laying eyes on the black spot made him uneasy. Now that they hurdled toward it, he felt even worse.
"Approach slowly," Allya told the pilot, "Keep an eye on the gravity meters." The last thing she needed now was to be caught in an immense pull and sucked away to some other end of the Galaxy.
The black spot was massive, a giant black hole cut into space. Blue wisps of light flowed in and out of the black, swimming though the area. Allya glanced down and saw the gravitational meters constant.
Kylo remained at the back of the ship while Allya gave her orders from the front. He felt nauseous and a cold sweat had broken out on his-
...help…
He flinched at the sound of the voice, a whisper in his ear. He turned, startled, and found no one beside him.
...please…
He tried to stand but fell to his knees instead.
...run…
The voices of a man, a woman, a child all whispered to him. More of them came breathing words and phrases directly into his head.
...why…
...save us…
...destroyer…
So many voices all simultaneously whispering to him that soon they were no longer words, but a wind. It began as a breeze, the words so softly spoken. But soon the whispers turned into yells and the yells into screams. The winds buffeted any thought that tried to cross into his mind.
Every muscle in his body tensed and went rigid. He groaned, his eyes beginning to water as he tried to force his muscles to obey. His face went red with strain, chords standing out on his neck.
One of the troopers beside Allya said, "Master," and motioned at Kylo. Allya turned and saw him crawling. "Kylo," she said, "What's wrong?"
Kylo tried opening his mouth to speak but found his jaw was locked in place. He groaned through his teeth and slowly, painfully lifted his right arm and pointed. Allya followed the direction and found he was pointing out the window where the great black circle swirled and flowed. "Commander," Allya said, her eyes fixed on the circle. "Get us back into the jump. Take us back to the surface."