Commemoration


The Star Destroyer had been picked clean, and then picked over again. Rey herself had been through it three times since she started scavenging, each time finding less and less of value. But she still had hope. At thirteen, she was able to fit into spaces older, larger scavengers couldn't, her tiny hands prying loose components that, if she found enough of them, might bring her a quarter portion.

And even once there was nothing of trade value left, there was still plenty to salvage.

She had made her way through the hangar, crawling over the upended hulks of TIE fighters, until she found the pilot's lounge. This was what she was looking for; she hoped to find more data chips for her flight simulator. She had flown every ship on the ones she had so many times that they didn't present much challenge, even when she set them to create various in-flight emergency scenarios. The Star Destroyer had crashed upright, but in a steep dive, so she had to climb across the walls and slide down the sharply tilted floor, then she had to pry open or pick locks on drawers no one had felt were worth bothering with. The first five had netted her nothing but a few holos with nudy pictures – ten of those would bring an eighth portion, so she scooped them into her pouch. But the sixth drawer had what she was looking for – data chips labelled with the names of various types of ship, and one labelled 'accident reports'. She scooped all of those up, too, and put them in a different pouch – her 'mine' pouch.

Hours later, having traded what she could, she returned to her AT-AT with a single rehydratable muffin. She sat down to eat it in front of the computer she had rebuilt from scavenged parts and popped in each data chip. She was thrilled to have obtained three new types of ship, plus some new scenarios for types she could already fly. Finally, she popped in the accident report disc. It had obviously been used for training. It contained a series of terse crash narratives, describing each incident or accident, and pinpointing a cause, or causes, often with comments from pilots and instructors included.

She skimmed the first one as she broke off chunks of muffin and chewed.

'A YV-545 light freighter crashed shortly after takeoff from Mos Eisley Spaceport, Tatooine. All seven crewmembers—the captain, first officer, loadmaster, co-captain and first officer, and two mechanics—died, and the ship was destroyed from impact forces and postcrash fire. The freighter's cargo included five speeders secured onto pallets and shoring…vehicles could not be placed in unit load devices (ULDs) and restrained. During takeoff, the ship immediately climbed steeply then descended in a manner consistent with an aerodynamic stall… investigation determines that the probable cause of this accident was inadequate procedures for restraining special cargo loads, the loadmaster's improper restraint of the cargo, which moved aft and damaged hydraulic systems and horizontal stabilizer drive components, and pilot error in not verifying that the load was secure before takeoff.'

She found herself oddly fascinated. She could picture the load shifting, slamming into the control mechanisms; could feel the pilot's panic as the ship's nose continued to pitch up despite his efforts to break the stall, could feel the sharp drop and inevitable spin as the ship returned to the sandy surface of Tatooine. She read some more, learning new terms like 'accident chain' (most accidents didn't have one single cause, but were caused by a series of mistakes and errors that, individually, might not cause a crash, but linked together, did) and 'risk assessment' - analyzing potential losses using a combination of known information, knowledge about the underlying process, and judgment about the information that is not known or well understood. For the next several months, she read an accident report every night before crawling into her pile of blankets and sleeping. She considered them her bedtime stories.


"Why not use a real blaster?" Rey asked, deflecting zaps from the training remote.

Luke stumbled over his words a bit. "Well, umm, it...I'd rather not shoot at you?"

Did you just ask Luke to shoot at you with a blaster? The voice in her head sounded amused.

"Set to stun," she said, spinning easily to block another zap. The training remote was set on expert level, and she was not having the least trouble. "Because this. Is. Too. Easy." She said, spinning and evading as she spoke.

Luke looked thoughtful. "Even stun hurts a lot more than that." He nodded at the remote. He was giving her that quizzical, uncertain, struggling look again.

Sheesh. I thought it was a good idea.

It is. But he won't do it.

How do you know?

Because I asked him the same thing…once.

Oh.

Oops.

"That's the point," she huffed. "Plus, there's the person factor. It's one thing to be brave against a remote. Another thing entirely to look someone in the eye as they try to shoot you."

To her surprise, Luke chuckled a little. "You sound like Han."

She felt a tensing over the bond, a wave of guilt so bleak and dark it almost engulfed her, then Kylo's presence faded.

"I do?" She asked, voice trembling a bit.

"Yeah. When I was first training, he said something like that. Good against remotes is one thing, good against the living is another."

Rey and Luke were both silent for a few minutes, the mood suddenly somber. Finally, Rey said, "Well, I think he had a point."

"Maybe. But I'm still not going to shoot at you."

She exhaled. "Okay. Fine." She sensed an opening. "If you won't shoot at me, will you, umm...can we talk about some things?"

He looked at her with that concerned look he often had. "Of course. Let's go inside and I'll make some tea. It's starting to rain, anyway."

It was, big, fat drops splashing on her face and arms.

They hurried to Luke's room, which was in the same building as Leia's. It was smaller, and messier, but also cozier. He pulled out a chair, scooping a stack of clutter off of it. Artoo rolled into the room, beeped a greeting to Luke and then an even more enthusiastic one to Rey. Ever since BB-8 told him about the way Rey had rescued him, the astromech had taken a strong liking to her. She greeted him, then sat in the chair Luke had offered.

"So, what do you want to talk about?" He asked, as he sprinkled roots and herbs into cups and put water on to boil.

She looked down, fiddling with Artoo's antenna, carefully and reluctantly closing off the bond. "Umm. Well. So, you...you were like me, right? I mean, you didn't know about having the Force, about who you were, about any of this until you were…about my age?"

Luke carried the tea to the table and nodded. "Yup. As far as I knew, I was just a boring farm boy looking for adventure."

She stirred some sweet nectar into her tea and smiled. "Right. So, I guess, that's what I'm...it's sort of a lot to take in, you know?"

Luke nodded. "Of course it is."

"And you found out…other things. About your…family. Your father."

He nodded. "Obi-Wan Kenobi – he was my first teacher, and my father's before me. He told me – not much, in the beginning. I know a lot more now. Force Ghosts." He smiled. "But it sure would have helped to know then. He didn't think I could handle it, but I…"

"Would rather have known, no matter how bad it was?" She met his eyes and he nodded. She felt like that on this point they would understand each other. Luke was staring at her, that intense stare she remembered from the island, the I-don't-want-to-deal-with-this look. She stumbled ahead, hoping he wouldn't cut her off. "I was wondering, I mean, I'd like to know – what happened to him? Your father? How…?"

Luke let out a long sigh, a sigh that sounded almost relieved. He looked down, stirred his tea. He was silent for a long time, eyes distant. She thought he was going to do that thing he did, when he just sort of let the silence go on so long you forgot what you had asked. But then he sat the spoon down carefully and met her eyes. "The first time I saw my father was when I watched him kill Obi-Wan, the man who told me about the Force and started teaching me to use it. The second time, he was chasing me in a TIE fighter. The third time, he cut off my hand. And the fourth time, he saved my life." Luke's eyes had clouded, but now they were clear and bright. "I like to think of him as Anakin Skywalker," he said, "and I don't mind telling you about him."

She smiled, tucking one leg under the other and settling more comfortably in the chair. Artoo scooted closer, to listen or show support or both.

Luke told her a story of a little slave boy on a sandy planet, similar to Jakku, and Qui-Gon Jinn, the Jedi who found him, realized his potential and power, and believed he was to be the one to bring balance to the Force. He told of the Jedi Council's refusal to train the boy, Qui-Gon's insistence on doing so anyway, and his deathbed request that Obi-Wan, his padawan, continue training the child.

He told her about Padme Amidala, the beautiful young Queen of Naboo, and how the little boy adored her from the moment he saw her, of his meeting her again as a young man, hopelessly enamored with her, of how she stood by him when his mother died - and when he let rage overtake him and slaughtered the sand people responsible.

He told her how Anakin tried to deny his love for Padme, to stay true to the Jedi way of non-attachment, and of how he couldn't. Of how that drove a wedge between Anakin and Obi-Wan, between Anakin and all the Jedi, and how that was the crack that let the darkness in.

She swallowed hard, stared at her tea, picked at a string on her arm wrap. Anything except look Luke in the eye right then. That can't be right. That can't be right. Love is good.

He told her about their secret marriage, hidden from the Jedi Council for years.

Secret. Right. It wasn't the love, it was the lying. It was the lying that…

Oh. Oh no.

Rey's tea grew cold as she listened, brow furrowing.

He told her of Padme's unexpected pregnancy, of Anakin's premonitions that Padme would die in childbirth.

She ran a hand over the small, hard lump that was the birth control implant. Okay. One good decision.

Of his desperate, obsessive desire to save his love.

Save his love. Rey's mouth was dry, but when she tried to sip her tea, it stuck in the back of her throat. But saving someone you love is good. How could that have lead him to the Dark side?

Luke continued, telling her of Chancellor Palpatine, the secret Sith Lord who would become the Emperor, who used Anakin's love for Padme, and his fear and dread and distrust of the other Jedi, to lure him to the Dark side.

Of how Palpatine tricked him, making him believe he would teach him how to save Padme, how to bring her back, even if she died. He told her about Order 66, when almost every Jedi was wiped out; he told her, voice breaking, about Force Ghost Obi-Wan telling him about watching the security recording of Anakin killing the younglings in the temple; of how they were so small, so helpless.

A tear rolled down Luke's cheek, and a matching one down Rey's as a whole series of events clicked into place. This, this was a breakthrough. Oh, things made so much more sense now. Oh, Ben. That was why…she wasn't sure if his obsession with his grandfather came before or after Snoke's influence, if it had been real or planted in his mind; she doubted he even knew, but as Luke told the story of Anakin and the younglings, she saw another story in his eyes – his Jedi academy, a pale reflection of the original on Coruscant, an attempt to bring back something good and true, and his nephew…

Her eyes narrowed. Palpatine. Snoke. Always some menacing figure, hovering, waiting to pounce. Another link clicked into place.

He had made Ben do it; tricked him; manipulated him into thinking that was the first step toward 'finishing what his grandfather started'. And he had just been a boy himself. Anger surged through her, fierce and protective. She would save him; she would help him break free; she would.

But…

That was what Anakin had wanted. To save his love. She dug her nails into her palms. No. Saving someone is good. What I want to do is good.

Luke sipped his tea, seemed to visibly pull himself together. "I don't know a lot about what happened between that time and when I first knew him, except that he grew incredibly powerful as Darth Vader under the influence of the Emperor. Obi-Wan found people to raise me and Leia, hid us from our father, and went into exile. He didn't think there was any hope for him; any light left. But I did. And I was right. He sacrificed himself to save me, and in doing so, he not only redeemed himself, he managed to rid the galaxy of the reign of the Emperor. To me, in the end, he was a hero." Luke flexed his mechanical hand. "Despite everything, he died a hero."

Yes. He saved Luke. Because he loved him. And that was good. That redeemed him, brought him back to the light.

Rey met his eyes, her tears matching his. "Thank you," she said, voice small, "for telling me all this."

Luke reached across the table, patted her hand, sighed. "Of course, Leia would disagree."

"Oh?" Rey asked, voice soft.

Luke nodded. "He saved me. He tortured her – twice. And Han."

Rey sucked in a sharp breath. "His own daughter?"

"He didn't know she was his daughter – not that that excuses it – but yes. And I don't think she'll ever completely forgive him for everything he's done to her." Rey knew he didn't just mean the torture.

Walking back to her room, Rey was lost in thought. She wanted to talk to Leia, but was afraid to. She needed to understand how Anakin's attempt to save Padme had gone so horribly wrong, but his saving Luke had gone right; his intentions were the same, the emotion was the same – or at least similar. What was the difference?

She had to look at it critically, analyze it.

What were the links in the accident chain?

Love. Distrust. Dishonesty. Fear. Manipulation.

She continued walking the corridors, chewing a nail, letting the links fall into place.

She remembered reading those accident reports, a lonely thirteen year old girl with her morbid bedtime stories.

And what do you do when you're already three or four links into the accident chain? When you can see the crash unfold before your eyes, hear the metal screech, feel the flames bloom around you? You fly it to the ground; accept the inevitable property damage, try to avoid casualties, but never give up. Never let go.


A/N

After a grueling week of moving and having one thing after another go wrong, I'm finally back, and my characters are finally talking to me again. They didn't like being ignored, but they seem to have forgiven me. They're even planning some spicy, slightly dark smut next chapter. ;)

This chapter should probably sit for another day for polishing, but I just want to get the story updated. I might go back and give it another edit tomorrow, so please forgive any errors tonight. (Edited to fix some typos now!)

The accident report in the beginning is a modified and fictionalized version of a real NTSB report (AAR-15-01).

Thanks to everyone who has read, followed, faved and reviewed! I've been away for 8 days, so I'm starving for reviews. :)