The Call to the Light

Chapter 44

Author's note: Rey in pure survival mode.

ssssssssss

"Come on!" Rey threatens the electro-steel chain and brace around her wrist. She's tried lubricating the skin of her hand with her own blood, and if that isn't to be rewarded…

Her leg is wailing in pain, throbbing like blaster shots. She's managed to tear up a thin bedsheet into strips with the kitchen knife, which now soak up the gaping wound.

She considers the last of her options. I'll just have to break my wrist, somehow, Rey decides; if she doesn't pass out soon.

The ship stutters, quivering and lurching now. Not good. Of course, upon said release – if that happens in the next two minutes – what is she supposed to do first, rescue Jirah or get to the cockpit and land this damn thing?!

There is a whimper nearby. Rey angles her head over to where she had last seen Siele.

"Siele?"

The Sallustran's ink-black eyes gleam in terror. "What's happening?"

The girl's bubbling sobs are enough to distract Rey's near-peril. "It's okay," she responds in Huttese. "I can get to the cockpit. I just have to get out of here!"

She must look a right, wild mess. Her entire leg is brown-red with her blood and she's struggling out of her bounds like an animal escaping from slaughter.

Siele clings to the corner of the wall, afraid even now to expose herself to the Jedi.

"Siele, I won't hurt you," she says urgently. Out in the hallway, the sirens go off. "Can you help me? It's all right."

Miraculously (Rey thinks she counts to twenty), Siele sidles over, choking on hesitation.

"Don't be scared. You can do this. Can you open this chain?"

Siele's eyes look around. Rey's fear that Xolon, or even Snoke is speaking to her, spikes incessantly.

"Siele, I have to land this ship and get to Jirah. Please."

"I can't."

Oh, this is the poor old Cerean all over again.

Then the girl's broken tone suddenly leads to tight distrust. "Why should I trust you?"

Thunk! The room begins to tilt in a growing angle. The gravity fluctuator must be about to go. Or –and Rey's stomach clutches at this – they've entered atmo somewhere.

Gritting her teeth, fighting off nausea, Rey glares at the defensive girl. "Because I will never hurt you."

Briefly satisfied, Siele squints at the chain and focuses. Rey counts the precious seconds.

Snikt! The metal slinks and gives way. Rey blinks at the damage. The brace is still around her wrist, intact, but at least one of the links from the chain broke.

"Nice job," she breathes.

Gripping one of the pipelines, Rey hoists herself up and favors her good (well, better) leg. She waves off Siele's awkward offer to help her. "I – I've got to land the ship. The engines are gone."

"He won't let you," Siele whimpers again.

"I don't care," Rey retorts, stuffing the knife in a belt-loop. "He's hurt enough people! I'll stop him somehow."

"You can't – the Force – "

"You want to help, then?" Rey snaps. "There's a kid half your age who's helping me."

She doesn't wait to see what the girl does. Blinking heavily, Rey limps forward. She has to grope the hallways for something to hang onto, in case the ship's fluctuators burn out.

Not even halfway down the hall and she has to stop, take a few deep breaths, try to even out the pain, and try again. "Joah, I'm coming," she whispers to herself. "Where are you?"

The boy's apprehension douses her like cold water. I can't move, he'll find me.

The little wail in his voice echoes. Children, Rey thinks to herself. Just babies, the lot of 'em.

The kitchen knife feels heavier with purpose. "Don't worry, I'll get him. Can you hide? Can you move places just by thinking it? It's okay."

A moment that feels too long: Yes.

"Good – that's good," Rey smiles. If Luke were here, he'd go bonkers over this Force ability, but right now she's relieved.

She thinks of Lorra and the others held captive in the cells. "Can you make the locks open? In the room where the others are? I bet you can," she adds mischievously, hoping he'll rise to the playful tone.

Why?

"Because – " she stops to swallow down a yelp, accidentally walking on her bad leg. "If everyone in the cells can get out, then they can escape. And – they'll make a big mess running around, and distract Xolon and his stupid idiot crew."

Rey hopes it sounds like a great deal of fun, even as this bucket of bolts is minutes away from hurtling into smithereens.

O-okay. Okay.

"Okay!" I can do this, she recites.

The next few minutes of navigating through the halls is agony. This must be how droids feel when their energy cells drain or when they short-circuit. If it's any more possible to feel colder, she does.

The cockpit. Where, where is the cockpit.

"Jirah," Rey calls out faintly. "Jirah!"

She senses nothing.

The catwalk floors rattle with stomping feet, a flurry of shadows from up ahead dart forward – and then blaster fire.

Rey freezes. She cannot rush out and protect them, with just a knife. She needs a blaster, a lightsaber, anything.

"You, bitch!"

Rastro's jagged echo tears through the dark, and even the sirens.

Rey closes her eyes. For possibly the second or third time since Rey discovered the Force, she wishes she knew how to choke someone at the pinch of her fingers.

She takes one despondant look at her ripped thigh and the bloody rag keeping the flesh together. Fused to the damn bone. If only she had begged Siele to try and remove the implant.

If only.

Turning to face Rastro, Rey fingers the knife's handle. She even tries her best to hold her bloody leg straight.

"Rastro," she rasps. "Could this possibly…wait until we find a way to land this ship safely?"

Ever the unpredictable little shit, the unstable Zabrak chuckles. He toys with something small and shiny in his quick fingers. "Well, aren't you the genteel little tart?"

He flicks something in her direction. Rey barely has time to blink before she realizes the shiny object is also a sharp one – planted inside of her bloody thigh.

"Argh! Ahhh!" Rey cries out.

Maybe it's the shit-eating grin – or even the shit-eating laugh – that finally gets to her. Or it could just be a final push of adrenaline before she actually might pass out (if only). When Rey looks back up, she is seething.

A flash of memory: Ben/Kylo Ren, his pale face scarlet with heat as he bludgeons his own wounds to fuel his ferocity as he attacks her, and Luke, and anyone standing in his way.

Rage, endless captivity, her weakness taunting her in the form of her ruined leg, sends fire down her arms. She cannot remind herself of the Light, for all she sees is torment.

"You. Little," she spits, letting it fly from her peeled lips. "Bastard."

"That's it, Jedi slut," he hisses. He prowls over to her, drinking up what he must think is a penultimate encounter: he's ready to kill her. "Show me how angry you get when things don't go your way. Naughty little thing - !"

The trick with Rastro is that he maintains eye contact in such a hypnotizing way. His cold eyes have kept Rey distracted before (though she's been trained to watch his limbs instead).

And he likes to play with his food: he'll go for her wounded leg, invoking her pain so that she becomes blind with it. He'll draw for an attack below her waist, meaning –

Rey draws the knife and waits for an opening.

But Rastro's mind is sharper, reflexes quicker; he's rested, and she's injured. All he has to do is extend one of his wiry arms and pin her wrist before the downward strike. He shoves her into a wall.

Rey buckles. The knife clatters to the floor. Rastro's horned head rears back, then forward – head-butting her with his thicker skull. Flashes dance in Rey's vision and she cannot think further.

The only motion she can try and do is flinch away.

Rastro pulls her head back to whisper in her ear. "You're mine now, sweet bitch. Gonna cut you to pieces and sell you – !"

Something squelches. For a frozen instant, Rey fears he's gutted her, finally. It's strange how she doesn't feel anything – but she's been hit in the head and can't focus on anything.

The third person who crept behind Rastro is an indistinguishable mixture of features – almost like they're changing. I'm hallucinating.

That squelching sound repeats again. Rey is jumbled forward and out of the way. The third person seems to solidify (Rey can't imagine any other word) – into Lorra, of all people.

Lorra forces herself into Rastro's space and grips the kitchen knife, pushing it into any angle under his ribs that she can. Her sneer is ugly, excited and horrified.

Rastro's too strong for the girl. He gathers himself and shoves her back, forgetting about Rey. He wraps one hand around Lorra's neck while he awkwardly reaches to draw out the knife lodged in his gut.

By now Rey's shaken the brunt of her dizziness. With a cleansing breath, she dislodges the tiny little blade Rastro had stuck into her, and studies Rastro's profile.

Kill zone.

His back faces her, only for a second. It's cowardly – no Jedi would attempt this maneuver.

Rey reminded herself days ago that she has been a scavenger for far longer.

One hand holds his face while the other snakes around, darting for the neck. She summons all the strength in the past fights, the triumphs and the losses, and holds on: tearing Rastro's throat apart.

Lorra yells in horror. Blood sprays her vision until she fights out of Rastro's dying grip. "Oh!"

Rey holds on, keeps the blade in, grateful she can't see how awful this is. She holds onto her own sobs, feeling filthy as this sack of shit, while Lorra gapes continuously.

Rey's eyes are definitely wet when she asks, rather pointlessly, "You okay?"

Lorra's mouth quivers. She's shaking worse than Rey, yet she gets up and stares at Rey like Rastro isn't even dead on the floor between them. "I – I thought – are you – krrrif, Rey!"

The way she throws her arms around Rey is instinctive, and uncaring of however many injuries Rey's collected. But in that instant Rey forgets everything for a swift moment. The body contact stumps her until she feels she is being carried back in time, a faraway moment long ago when she had turned a corner and there stood Finn, Chewbacca and Han Solo, unimaginably there in front of her.

She thinks right now that she loves Lorra like a sister. The tears that should not have fallen now streak Lorra's dark hair.

"Are you okay?" Lorra croaks.

"Kark no," Rey rasps with a pissed-off grin. "This ship is going down…and I need to pilot…so we can escape - !"

She stumbles. Lorra dives to catch her.

"Rey! Don't – "

"'M fine," Rey mumbles. "Ohh, okay. Weapons." She glances down at Rastro's corpse. "We have to check him."

Lorra takes pity on her and gingerly pokes around his belt and clothes by herself. She's able to pry off a blaster and, to Rey's disgust, a lightsaber.

"Bastard shouldn't get to touch these things," she murmurs as she takes it.

Ssssssssssssssss

Xolon Ren is already in the cockpit. Slumped on the floor, just outside the hall, is Jirah. He'll deal with her later.

The damage done to the twin engines is beyond saving for now. Emergency power has been disabled. Xolon strongly suspects foul play.

Jua'nul rushes forward. "The boy is gone. He vanishes before we can find him."

"He uses the Force to teleport. I assume he unlocked the cells of the potentials?"

He knows Jua'nul nods carefully. Quickly, Xolon calculates their crash-landing trajectory, sirens screaming in protest, and concludes that this pathetic escape attempt just tipped into his favor.

"Have the guards round the Force-sensitives using whatever means necessary. Get the others and bring them back here. The four of us will need to join our Force abilities together."

"To land this ship?" Juanul croaks.

"Unless you and your brother wish to die. This ship is a dead stick. Get going."

ssssssssssss

Lorra's got Rey's arm over her shoulder, doing her best to keep them upright as the ship quakes.

"Down – I think down this way," Rey gasps, blinking heavily. "Good boy, Joah."

"Who're you talking to?" Lorra whispers.

"There's a boy, with the Force," Rey mutters back. "He's showing me – "

MMOOOOOM!

The scream is white-hot and blinding inside Rey's head. Joah's emotions are sharp as glass.

"Oh!" Rey whimpers, going slack in Lorra's arms. She experiences inexplicable desperation, her world giving up under her as she sees Jirah's prone form on the floor. And Xolon Ren's iron-cold Dark presence overhead.

"Rey, Rey get up - !" Lorra shakes Rey, her voice tight and small.

Before them stands Jua'nul, back straight in a glaring combative stance. He looks fierce and ready to take them both down.

Rey locks eyes with the young man. She shakes her head. Don't do this.

"This was my home," Jua'nul tells her, pinning her with accusation. Rey has come to associate him and his twin with brutish obedience, foolish servitude. Now his glowing eyes evoke condemnation. "And you have come to destroy us."

This is the worst time to argue. This ship could be plummeting straight into a planet's surface.

"No," Rey tells him. Truth, and her oncoming failure, her impulse of a plan, make her throat tight with pity, and the need to be understood. "I came to save you. I saw you – all of you."

"We already were," he counters. "We were embraced – "

Their cramped hallway shudders and groans, upending them off their feet.

Lorra wrestles the blaster given to her. Untangling herself from holding Rey, she aims badly at the Iktotchi. "You're a monster!" Lorra spits, vindictiveness burning through after months of captivity. "You're a kriffing monster!"

Just as Rey brings down Lorra's blaster hand, the left wall now becomes their floor. All become disoriented, limbs scrambling weakly for something to hold onto. Another second, the continuous rattling starts again. The sirens now have changed to rapid, incessant screaming.

Between the Falcon's mishaps and Poe's suicidal flying, Rey knows what's about to happen next. She ducks her head into one of the frames and plants herself as close to the surface as she can. Unable to maintain a forward, even trajectory, the ship leans into a nosedive.

Behind Rey, Lorra shrieks. Ahead, she can make out Jua'nul's amber eyes.

"Come on, do something!" Rey shouts, forgetting herself in Basic. "Do something!"

Sssssss

Outside the cockpit, Joah's attached himself to his mother. The first minute he saw her, her fraying robes the only thing he recognizes until he's able to find her face, Joah forgets the fear for the dark man who stole them both. Her robes, her hair, her scent take over his senses and he greedily inhales her presence for the first time since he gave up and hid from even her.

And then her lack of response begins to sink in. And the dark man – Xolon (I am your father now, he once said to the boy) – swoops in.

"No!" Joah hasn't had need to scream in so long, not even in dreams. He does now. "MOOOOOM!"

Ssssssss

Inside her shared room – the one she never left – Siele buries deep inside somewhere safe, huddled so tightly she can't breathe. Sparks fly and land on her skin, but she's been burnt before. She can't feel them. Nor can she feel the clutter in the room as it crashes and tosses about; they bounce off her through the Force.

I don't want to die, This is the mantra that stays the thirteen-year-old girl's sanity as the world – her only world for the past two years – collapses.

She grips the durasteel wall's bare fuel pipelines. The Force – stalwart as rough iron yet kind as the breath of wind – ripples around the girl –

Ssssssss

As it does tens of others. It is fervent in the room, like the breaking of a storm, a collective rush of sighs felt by each soul as they clutch at whatever they can, to not die.

This is a different type of fear. Fear does not take the shape of dangerous, shadowy masters or brutish, whip-like jailors who sneer at their mere presence. This is a fear that is paired with adrenaline, vibrating among them all, a symphony of pleas and echoes, ready to burst through and take flight, right through the cage-like ship.

They whimper in their own languages, pray to their own gods. Death….if they die, it is no misfortune. It is the fear of being free from this pain, this unforgiveable, dreary world.

Sssssssss

Rey's consciousness finally begins to buckle. Her thoughts are a monsoon, swirling in and out between Lorra's groans and the metal shaking underneath her fingers.

She looks forward at Jua'nul, no longer belligerent, eyes just as peeled in terror as hers.

She's argued with Darksiders (one in particular) enough times to know when to drop them.

Ben. Oh, Ben. I don't want to die.

"Your brother," she tries to say to him. Instead she thinks it, the words like water spilling through. Your brother. Save him. Save us.

And then it all goes black.

Sssssssss

Pale shadow and cotton-thick fog allow the shouts and heat to just penetrate through, lazily informing Rey that she is being dragged from the wreckage. It's all light as air, as the water's surface, deceptively calm.

She can't possibly have survived this.

Sssssss

"Rey. Rey! Please, for the love of kriff wake up - !"

She wakes up, blearily. There's smoke and howling fires. And something else, something terribly dark and infernal underneath. For a split second she thinks she's returned to a battlefield, but no. the ground is – well, for the first time in a long time, it's real ground. Dry and dusty, it's chalked her palms and clothes.

Something is very utterly strange. The more she feels the ground under her, the more it, whatever it is, lulls underneath. It's such a real, binding thing that Rey thinks too quickly that she is free – that she has the Force again.

She looks up at Lorra, whose hair curtains her face. Then Rey creaks her neck forward. Her injuries, they're not even really there.

"Your leg healed. Can you move? Come on!"

Rey jerks into action, albeit awkwardly. Just as she gains feeling in her back – her very, very sore back – and legs, she begins to realize the depth of Lorra's words.

"Who - ?"

"Come on!" Lorra isn't having this shit at all as she hauls her stupefied friend from the ground. "We have to go!"

Go where? "Wait!"

"They're dead, Rey, we have to hide, please!"

Rey has no care for her surroundings or her new planet, other than that the ship – a massive hunk of a barge unlike anything she's seen before – now lies gutted on its side, having carved through the earth in its descent. This fact alone is too bad; it's unsalvageable, certainly by her standards, at first glance.

In three steps she hobbles again. She may walk better than before, but there's something not right with her leg. Pawing it to quickly surmise its healing process, Rey asks, "Why do we have to - ?"

Run.

Rey nearly bends from the unfamiliar presence. Her mind has been pried open so many times that it feels as raw and swelling as her former leg wound. This time, it's from the youth she had faced before she lost consciousness. Jua'nul must still be alive.

Barely, though. His Force-presence stutters weakly. Run, now. Now!

My leg! She interjects urgently. There was an implant

Instinctively she tests it, casting her arm to levitate anything out of the way. Nothing happens.

Couldn't, Jua'nul tells her. No time –

He's cut off, leaving Rey feeling strangely weighed down. If she does not have the Force, then how does she feel this outward pressure that builds like anxiety and sickness all in one? Where is it coming from? Is it another Force-signature?

"Where's Joah!"

"Who?" Lorra's fingers grip Rey's wrist.

"The kid!"

Just as Rey considers stumbling around for the cockpit, she detects movement. She registers far too later that there are no other survivors in sight, trying to run for escape.

Horror claws into her eyes. Siele, and the Zabrak woman. The Huttese teenager. Where were they?

No. This isn't – she had been so sure. This wasn't supposed to happen this way. Wasn't she supposed to have helped them escape? Were they still inside?

Groaning metal signals Rey to someone's approach. As he climbs out of the hull, the horned silhouette of Jua'nul is bent over with another figure in his arms, bundled in a thrown-back veil.

"Jirah," Rey breathes, then at the smaller, bumbling form. "Joah!"

As they get closer, Rey spots Jua'nul's leg is dragging. Blood is slathered down his pants.

"Let me help!" she admonishes, reaching to assist with an unconscious Jirah.

"No," Jua'nul moans, attempting urgency. He shoves Joah in Lorra's direction. "You run. Take them."

There is a sudden and extreme tightness in the air as Rey tries to object. Neither she nor anyone else can move an inch: a Force-hold.

Rey immediately guesses Xolon is still alive, stuck somewhere in the wreckage. Dread has sunk into her chest. But in another moment it's gone. She and the weight of poor Jirah are cast loose, free of the Force-hold. Blinking, Rey backs away, watching in awe and fear as the young Iktotchi turns to the ship, suddenly haggard but leveling the stare of a wounded predator.

He's going to die. He'll die trying to kill Xolon. Rey is absolutely sure. She hopes she hasn't lost the lightsaber as Lorra dragged her out the wreckage.

"Rey! Mama!"

Terrified in the instinct to flee, Lorra has clung to Joah, who looks ready to spring closer to harm where his mother is.

Arms throb from such disuse that Rey struggles to adjust her human cargo. At an impasse, Rey considers her options. The Force, the Force. Oh, hells, why can't it tell her in her simplified, useless state what to do?! Hasn't she received enough divine intervention in visions before?

Jua'nul's awful groan is enough. He must be fighting off Xolon's intent to net them all under his capture. "Leave me to him!"

A rattling sighs rips through Rey, angry at everything until her eyes feel hot with tears. None of this has been made right. Alone in the wilderness of an unknown planet, in front of a smoking, wounded ship, Rey is frozen herself with indecision.

Come with us! We can escape him! she thinks, ignoring the petulance there.

She is forced away from the Iktotchi's invisible battle as Lorra wrenches her away. She clutches a broken arm, and there are fresh bruises and cuts from the crash. "I am not dying here, let's go!"

She gives in, immediately exhausted and ready to sink to the ground if only to sleep and wish herself away. They are not safe. They have only traded one danger for another.

She trails behind with Jirah as Jua'nul's last words funnel through, a desperate whisper before he faces his master.

You are not safe on this planet. They will hear you, and devour the Light.

They? Rey can barely think her way through this new connected conversation as she trudges in a half-jog, the semiarid ground giving way to rocky slopes.

It's caught off with a scream. There's no time to look back, or to mourn. There's nothing left to do but run, and hide.