The Call to the Light
By TheOneAndOnlySlayer
Chapter 35
Still in shock, Rey doesn't even protest at – well, everything – until she's dragged halfway back to her cell. That dank, rusty place. She's been used to crawling through small, metallic holes since she was left on Jakku. Still, the stench of sweat and fear (she doesn't need to use the Force to know it permeates everything here) makes her panic.
She came here for a reason. She chose to be here, even if she only saw why for a fleeting second.
Before she can attempt to memorize how they get back through the ship's halls, the Togruta shoves her against a doorjamb. "Cut it out, whatever you're doing."
She speaks. Rey stubbornly ignores the way the woman's lightsaber clicks against her belt. It isn't hers, she's checked. Where is it, then?
Not a problem. There are near a dozen of them here, probably. She'll just snatch one of theirs for her escape plan.
There's no time to think of some comeback. She's kicked into her cell, right when the barrier is shut for a half-second before flashing on again.
Okay. Okay.
The others did their little torture games for what felt like hours. The whole time, Rey was kept down on her knees at blasterpoint. She shifted her knees from under her once – purely an innocent move – when she was shot with some electro-rod, leaving her shuddering on the ground for a few minutes. Her teeth still hurt from the aftershocks.
It hurt even more to hear the others scream and plea, all in varying dialects, to stop. Rey could have ended it all in ten, fifteen seconds. The Iktochi twins would have gone down first, then the nasty copper-skinned Zabrak female. Now, that woman was something else – she could actually (and Rey might have just imagined this from the electro-jam) bring fire out of her hands. The woman actually held fireballs in her hand.
In that Zabrak, Rey had noticed, there was more emotion, a twist between hesitation and the hunger to prove herself to the Mirialan, than the mindless Iktochis. She was given a Sallustran female to "train": as the Zabrak sent shooting star-like fireballs circling the poor younger female, the Mirialan commanded the Sallustran to simply "stop" them.
If Rey had full command of the Force, maybe she could have done it. But the longer the Sallustran delayed, the closer the plumes came to her body. The poor girl ended up half-burnt, flapping desperately when her clothes caught fire.
Pity, guilt and indignation threaten to flare from her chest. She can't give in to her emotions now. She must be a Jedi and concentrate on the plan.
She counts the crew: The Togruta, who has the lightsaber. Rastro. He can snap people's necks. Iktochis -good at following orders. Training to be sadistic, but how far can they go? On their own, without their master watching?
The hooded female and the Cerean. Rey counts the guards who deposited her and the other captives into the other room: two humans, one shorter and wirier than her, and a larger man, probably as strong as the shirtless Twi'lek male. The Nautoloid probably has gills that can be hit, knock him out cold; she just has to remember where.
That's eleven, not including whatever crew keep the ship running. They'd have a skeletal crew, probably: just a pilot, co-pilot and an engineer. Then The Mirialan…
The Mirialan is a Knight of Ren. A Force-Sensitive. All that must be measured is how strong he is with it.
In the year since Rey was brought onto the First Order battlefield, she had never heard of a Mirialan Knight. Ben would have…well, Kylo Ren would have said something. The knights she and Luke had defeated would not have been sent to kill her if they weren't good enough. Ben's given plenty of information to Leia, which had tricked through to Rey somehow. Never had he mentioned a Ren Knight who had gone off to search for new Force-Sensitives as recruits to their cause. After all, how many times had the former Kylo Ren gone off about how Rey was the best "challenge" he had had in a long time?
In any case, this Mirialan's dangerous, and calm. He's so collected and in control that he's like stone. He's like, the opposite of Kylo Ren.
Ben.
Rey inwardly softens. It's a cross between guilt and assurance that he will be looking for her. He'll be tracking down Rastro's whereabouts. He's with Poe, and Poe will contact Leia – and if Finn gets wind of how stupid new way Rey's decided to risk her life, he'll help too.
Rey knows, as desolate as her situation is, that her boys and her boss will find some way to get her back.
In the meantime…
Her thigh pulses uncomfortably. Her body ought to be pushing the foreign object out, but it seems to fit as much as a botched operation allows such a thing. Rey needs to cut the Force dampener device out if she wants to escape soon.
She'll need to acquire a sharp object.
Bending down to inspect the sealed incision, Rey takes her thumbs and gently presses down. Yes – yes. There is something uncomfortably foreign in there. It nudges against her bone, and she has to wince at the sensation.
Then – something Rey should otherwise blame on lack of sleep, and food – the tendons around her bone are brushed, like hair against skin. Something – whatever was put into her, it stretches. It wiggles.
Force - ! Rey's hands retract as if burned. She's losing it. She stares open-mouthed at her leg, half-expecting something to rise under the skin, but the area stills again. Overwhelmed by the strangeness, a headache breaks through her. She has to swallow and take a few deep breaths, lean her body against the bone-cold durasteel to reign in the last of her alertness.
Speaking of food. Rey's eyes struggle to look for the small, hand-sized window at eye level. To her surprise, there's another at the bottom. Presumably to be given food.
Food. Rey's leg is forgotten as she shuffles over to the gap. It's barely four inches tall by ten inches across. It's not exactly an open space. There's something like invisi-plasma mesh throb to show its presence. If Rey touches it, she'll probably be shocked.
Rey gets her eyes as close to that gap as she can to peer through. The row of cells across from her doesn't look to be guarded by anyone. She can't see very well from the doorway to the rest of the ship. Perhaps the traffickers are that confident no one can get out of these cells: the captives are weak from the abuse and malnutrition.
A few taps is all Rey allows. If there are guards nearby –
Three quick taps, against the floor. Nothing.
She does it again. This time she can faintly hear people – on the other side, in threadbare clothes against the floor, shifting like she did. The other captives.
She tries Huttese. "Hello?"
Nothing. Perhaps whispers amongst each other, too petrified to respond.
Oh, please don't be scared. I'm here with you. We'll be all right.
"Pateesa – "
"Cut it out, they'll hear you."
It's someone speaking Basic. It's tired and…Rey could be mistaken, but it sounds like someone who is used to telling people off.
Rey's bristled reaction from behind the wall confirms this. "And they'll beat me, not you," she points out.
"And they'll starve us, so shut the fuck up," the voice berates.
Rey's mouth goes completely slack. She's not sure what she just heard. Everyone…the other captives on the ship have appeared so forlorn, like lost souls adrift like ghosts who have lost their way. There's no fighting spirit among them.
This one speaks with an edge that lies buried, waiting to be stomped on, just to get to bite something.
"Maybe you can lose a few pounds," Rey finds herself teasing the other girl. It's how Poe and the other cocky-brained Resistance fighters got Rey to open up, after Finn was in the hospital.
The jab has the expected reaction, and on the other side, movement reveals long, sweeping dark hair, a sharp face and…and pale green skin –
"Are you fucking stupid?" the girl hisses carefully.
Rey starts. Inky black eyes stare back at her, sharp with attention and wit. Another Mirialan. She's young, probably Rey's age. She even sounds like a bratty college student.
Inwardly stamping down the bubbling, buzzing hope, Rey blinks hard to clear her vision. She must not get her hopes up. "Maybe that's what we've got in common. You don't seem like a slave to me," she muses quietly. "Too…outspoken."
The Mirialan girl huffs. "Where are you from, Coruscant?"
"Something like that." It's still dark, but there's enough slices of light from indistinguishable parts of the chamber to see the girl on the other side gazes at her with as much curiosity. She sizes Rey up like she anticipates her to promise something new, some sort of hope that hadn't been allowed in here before.
"I'm Rey," Rey says quietly.
The light, which hadn't been so generous before, shifts onto the girl's jade skin now, displaying crosses of her facial tattoos and dark lips. Rey realizes she hasn't seen Niall in his own true form. He is a Mirialan, after all, when he isn't a changeling. Those blue eyes… they would have been startling and gorgeous on his daughter.
These black orbs must have seen something. "Lorra," she answers. She doesn't have a clue what that means.
Here. Here is where Rey's heart rests, finally, overjoyed at the sound of the Mirialan girl say her name six feet across from her on the floor.
Now Rey understands. The edges of her purpose suddenly fill in. The frigid, despairing cell warms from under her. The hope returns, and despite the cold and the near-impossible odds of escape creeping in, Rey feels herself smile.
sssssssssssss
Ben slept for a few hours before the Falcon approaches the Boshtar. Retaining a sense of professionalism, Poe pounds on Rey's door to get up.
Ben feels…rested. It doesn't seem right. Sleep has always been a simple respite before his next mission. He's sprawled across Rey's cot, yet he doesn't want to get out of it. The guilt and heightened confusion he experienced hours ago from molesting himself can clamor into his head any minute.
Rising, Ben shuts down as much of his…earlier arousal deep into some cavernous well. He dons his clothes and heads to the main cabin.
Niall is there, stirring some concoction and giving Ben a nod. "You hungry, mate?"
Surprised at the invitation, Ben nods. "Yes."
"Good, help yourself. There's some soli grains in the cooker there."
Glowering, Ben grabs a bowl full of dull-looking oatmeal and begins to shovel it down.
Poe comes in. Ben notices the split-second change of the purposeful stride switch to tentative, but the bright-faced pilot sits down across from Ben.
The Jedi ignores both as he scarfs down breakfast. That thing, that organ between his legs, remains stubbornly, thankfully, dormant (more like shriveled, since it's so damn cold). A part of Ben still wants to crawl back into bed and away from these men.
Thinking intensely of Rey's breathlessness in her voice (more than just Chiroh and Lorra, she had said), Ben is lost until Poe has to clear his throat. "Solo. What are we dealing with here?"
The spoon is halfway to Ben's lips. He sighs and sets it down. "The man who's leading the trafficking ship is a Ren Knight. Xolon Ren works with Rastro. Rastro…I don't know how his fixation on Force-sensitives started, but he's searched for them and delivered them to Xolon. For training, it seems like." He stares darkly at a faint dent in the table, unable to think just exactly what his idea of training entails. "Apparently my Uncle had been trying to track them down years ago."
Next to Poe, Niall nods. "Right. Like Jiroh's family."
Poe leans forward. "Do you know this for sure?"
"There are two knights that Xolon claimed he groomed for Snoke. One of them is still alive – a female named Kezal Ren."
Niall cuts to it. "How dangerous is this guy?"
He's a monster, Ben wants to say. Worse than…."He's…not many Ren Knights are as strong in the Force as Rey, or me. Xolon Ren isn't…as attuned. But he more than makes up for it in other ways."
Poe nods dumbly whereas Niall just shrugs. "O-okay. So, do you know where he is, usually?"
"Xolon had disappeared on some private service to Snoke. I wasn't expected to know his whereabouts."
Poe snorts. It's quiet, the most polite Ben can expect from the man, but his disappointment is evident.
"And you can't…look for him? In your head?" When Niall leans closer, Ben recoils – the thief of all trades has smoked something, probably that Roanbush his friends grow. Maker, how can Ben summarize the kind of man Xolon Ren is?
He inhales. "He's very meticulous. He's secretive, far more from any unassuming person I've known before. He's good at protecting his mind. Even I couldn't get inside. If I couldn't do that standing next to him, I can't try to extract his location from light-years away."
They're both stumped. "Will a regular comm-link call do?"
Poe sniffs his disagreement, turning to Niall. "What, are you serious? Just give this guy a call? Say 'hey, give me back my…" Poe reaches a few seconds for the word "Jedi friend."
"No, you moof," Niall retorts. He turns to Ben. "Play him up. Deceive him with some sob story about you needing some help after turning cloak on your Knights of Ren gig."
Ben almost laughs. "You cannot be serious."
"What other choice we got? How many Rodian cargo runners we gonna search for? We don't have a destination, this ship of theirs apparently never stays in one space too long, like all other traffic ships, only this one's carrying violent Jedi-to-bes. Even with the two Star Destroyers and your Resistance, we'll never find it."
Ben's expression sours, hands clutching the still-warm bowl. Niall is right about not having any other choice, but the remaining one is very poor. Xolon is an expert in deception. He'll anticipate Ben to try and assault Xolon's mind. He has anticipated Ben's connection with Rey, which is why a Force-dampener must be behind Rey's silence.
Will he expect a desperate Ben Solo to ask for help? Perhaps…perhaps he could still be Kylo Ren. Maybe Xolon doesn't even know of Ben's betrayal. Maybe he could convince Xolon it's all been a ruse to get closer to his mother and the Resistance.
No. That definitely won't work. It is the stupidest idea he's ever considered.
Ben glowers at the impasse. Hatred, an old friends and close confidant, bubble with memories. Xolon Ren used to smirk wordlessly at Kylo Ren's longer, monk-like robes. Xolon always wore a thick leather jerkin to withstand space weather. Nothing ever seemed to rouse the Mirialan – he was always like stone, calm and impenetrable. His abilities in the Force were not pronounced like Ben's, but that never seemed to bother him. It was simply the way of the Force. He was…always loyal. Clinging to it like a ghost. Though his temperament was a far deeper element to his persona than Kylo's thrashing temper, the man had an appetite for violence as if he tended to it like a farmer or weaver. His patience was remarkable, his tact shadowy and effortless. He seemed to rise out of nowhere, like fog.
"Look…" Niall hesitates. "It's not like we have the time to completely go through the entire slave trade; if these people have made a career in avoiding detection."
Something about Niall's observation make Ben pause, a thought dangling right above him. But of course:
"We just liberated, what, eight thousand Resistance members?" he asks them. "Eight hundred First Order officers and personnel?"
"I doubt any of the Resistance people have connections with the slave industry," Niall argues smartly.
"The Nakorkian the Boshtar is named after is a smuggler."
"Well, then, what about the First Order schmucks? We can't just drop them off at the nearest Resistance base to be babysat."
Ben blinks. "Let me talk to them. Get them to help us find her."
Poe's reaction is so negative he stumbles out of his seat. He can just imagine it: Ben Solo-Kylo Ren the murderer and traitor and unpredictable bomb of a man in front of his former loyal subjects.
"You think I'm just gonna – !"
Whatever half-serious threat Poe tries to promise, Ben is already out of his seat.