Chapter Twenty: Heritage
The Ring of Kefrene wasn't a place world where upstanding people generally visited. It was an out of the way system overrun by gangsters, smugglers, and people hoping of avoid notice. The planet was covered in mostly sandstone, with some large deserts in between the few settlements. But unlike Jakku, the sandstone had created huge monolithic mountains that were beautiful and extremely dangerous. The non-cohesive nature of the stone made it prone to cracking and breaking. Many a traveler had lost their lives trying to determine which paths were safe among those craggy peaks, and she had no intention of being one of them.
The crystal mines had been played out years ago, which had left the poor even poorer and more desperate to eke out a living. The First Order had had little to no interest in the isolated system, so it had mostly been left alone. Which had been fine with the inhabitants, until the lawless nature of the gangsters had taken over, disrupting what little lives they did have.
Now it was a seedy trader's market, dealing in everything from spice to slave trafficking.
Rey swallowed as she and Finn worked their way through the sandy streets. The suns were still high, and the day had another six hours before the twin suns finally set. After which there would be fifty-three hours of darkness. She'd wanted to wait for the cover of the night, but Finn and Poe had disagreed. They both preferred to do their hunting during the day. She thought that made them more of a target, they didn't agree.
Her fingers were wrapped around her staff as she moved with a careful ease through the dilapidated city. The narrow streets curved and wound around large sandstone spires; which had been carved into homes for those that could afford it. She cast her gaze over her shoulder every so often to see if Finn was still back there. He'd said very little to her since their trip to Utapau. Granted she wasn't exactly stellar company after that, but still… Pain worked through her, as it always did, when she thought of that planet and what she'd lost there. She kept moving despite the immense emotional agony she was suffering. Finn had talked a little about Ben and what he'd seen, but he'd been very quiet otherwise. Rey knew that he was keeping something from her, and that knowledge hurt. But she couldn't fault him for it, because she was keeping stuff from him too. She didn't like new dynamic of secrets between friends.
Finn was very careful to keep his thoughts focused on their current mission and not on whatever was bothering him. Not that she would've read his mind. She shivered at the memories of having her own thoughts peeled from inside her mind. She would never do that to another living being. One's thoughts should safe from prying minds.
Rey did, however, find Finn's silence to be frustrating. Her feet scuffed the sand-covered stone as she headed for the far end of the street. A man that Poe knew had agreed to meet them here. Supposedly he knew where the last of the mines were located. And if they were going to find a heart of kyber, they were going to need his help.
A large rolling wagon trundled past them and they stopped long enough to allow it to pass. She started forward, but Finn's fingers wrapped around her wrist pulling her to a stop.
"What?" She asked, turning to stare at him with wide confused eyes.
His gaze dropped down and then lifted to meet her questioning expression again. "Why didn't you tell me?" His voice was soft, there was no reproach in it, just sadness.
Now she really was confused. "Tell you what?" Part of her was hoping that he wasn't talking about the time she'd spent with Ben. That would be a very awkward conversation that she wasn't ready to have, not with Finn.
He tilted his head and looked slightly disappointed in her. Rey's stomach twisted. She didn't like disappointing him. Finn was the closest thing she had to family and what he thought of her meant something…no, it meant everything.
"Rey, I know about your past."
She frowned. "My past? Finn you're not making any sense."
He sighed, "Palpatine." He uttered the word quietly, like saying it too loud might bring the old Emperor back, again.
It was the one word she never would've thought to hear from his lips. And the one word that scared her more than almost anything else. "What?" She stuttered nervously.
"It's all over the place; every single world has heard about it. The Final Order put the information out for the entire galaxy to know." It cost him something to tell her and he couldn't stop himself from reaching out and pulling her into a hug. "You could've told me." He whispered. "I would've understood."
She was too stunned to pull away and too surprised to return his comforting embrace. Rey's throat bobbed with emotions she couldn't express. Finn didn't release her despite knowing who her family had been, he held on like she was something precious. A ball of fear she'd been harboring deep inside released and the tears flowed like rainfall. She folded into his embrace and let her disappointment and shame freely slip from within. A small worried feeling wrapped around her and she had to send warm loving thoughts down her tenuous link with the child.
After a long time, she pulled back and wiped at her red eyes. He hadn't said anything the entire time, simply held her and allowed her emotions to drain with the tears. "I didn't know how to tell you." Her voice was small and scratchy.
"Rey, you didn't turn away from me when you found out I'd been a stormtrooper. Why would I turn away from you for something you have no control over?" His brown eyes were earnest and sincere as he stared at her. His hands running up and down her upper arms in a gentle caress that had nothing to do with attraction and everything to do with comfort. "You're family. Blood doesn't matter with us. You, Poe, Chewie and me. We. Are. Family." He took a deep breath. "And when we find Ben Solo, he'll be part of that family too. All of us have things in our pasts we'd like to forget. Or at least atone for."
Her eyes snapped up, her mouth dropping open in a tiny 'O' of surprise. She found herself wondering, and not for the first time, just how it was that Finn was who he was? He should have been tainted by his service to the First Order. But he wasn't. Finn was a unique and wonderful combination of understanding and strength.
"You love him, don't you?" Finn pressed softly, his dark eyes holding her in a trance-like state as he waited for her answer.
She smiled sadly. "It's not that simple. We're not that simple."
He knew she was talking about the thing between herself and Ben Solo. Finn had seen the tendrils of whatever it was long before Kylo Ren had turned back to the Light. "A Force thing?" he asked with a half-smile.
She inhaled, her breath hitching once again at his understanding nature. "Something like that."
"Will you tell me about it?"
Rey ran her fingers along his cheek. "I will. Someday."
"Then let's go find the one thing that can bring him back." He grabbed her hand and they started moving again. "To us." He added.
She couldn't stop the warmth that spread along her body as she allowed herself to be pulled along behind him. A thought occurred to her that Rey dragging him to a stop again. He turned to look at her with a questioning expression. "You know I love you too, right?" She blurted out.
Finn grinned. "I know."
XXXX
Kylo Ren stalked through the sandy mountains of Kefrene. His long robes swirling around his booted ankles. He didn't wear a mask, for reasons unknown to him the Empress had forbade it. Not that he'd wanted to. Something about hiding his face behind a mask felt stifling and claustrophobic. His stark black clothing was at the same time both familiar and alien to him. He'd been given very little information about this mission beyond finding and either killing or capturing the Scavenger. And now he found himself on this outer rim planet with so much sand and granite that he wondered how anything survived at all.
He hated the sand he realized with a start of surprise. It wasn't really a memory, just a fact. He probed at the feeling and found that there was something about it that reminded him of unpleasant things he couldn't quite recall. The black troopers followed him at a discreet distance, Jaxom at the head of their line. Ren hadn't wanted them to come, but the Empress hadn't given him a choice and now he was flanked by troops he didn't trust on a mission he couldn't fail.
And always there was the face of the girl.
A simmering anger flowed through and around him with every step he took. She was here. He knew it, could sense it. The strange connection he felt for the Scavenger was allowing him to track her with far greater ease than he'd anticipated. The Empress was wise. She'd known where the resistance would send their last remaining Jedi and she'd responded in kind. The star destroyer was hidden among the many rings of Kefrene, waiting for him to find the resistance fighters and either kill them outright or bring them back to her. A slight pang of something ran through him at that thought. He cast it aside and focused on the narrow winding trail he was traversing. A deep canyon dropped off one side while a vertical granite face rose on the other. One misstep and he'd find himself falling thousands of feet. Even with the Force he likely wouldn't survive a fall like that.
Ahead of him, the sandy rocks lifted out of the moisture starved soil like skeletal fingers. Reaching toward an ever-moving target high above them. Ren glanced over his shoulder to see where the black troopers were, they were still there, but they were keeping a respectful distance. They'd been instructed to only interfere if he looked like he was going to lose or was overwhelmed by resistance forces. Her lack of faith in him rankled his tightly wound emotions. His booted foot hit a rock and he hissed as his injuries were jarred painfully. Wrapping his free hand around his bruised midsection he continued picking his way along the path.
The sun was finally starting to drop, and he found he was grateful for the oncoming darkness. The air had finally begun to cool, and he wondered how cold it would actually get before the twin suns rose again. Fifty-three hours of darkness. Kefrene had the longest night of any known planet in the galaxy.
He'd studied the outer rim planet, though he hadn't paid much attention to the temperature shifts. Mostly he'd been searching for the possible locations of old abandoned kyber or racine mines. Only one mine on this planet had produced Kyber crystals and he intended on being there when the Scavenger showed up. The path took another steep climb and he had to scramble over the uneven surface using his hands. It wasn't very dignified, but at the moment he didn't really care. He reached the top of the highwall and dropped over the backside without any thought for his own safety.
The steep rim would have been extremely treacherous without his Force abilities. Without conscious thought he manipulated the gravitational forces and made a slow controlled descent into the heart of the ravine. Once he was back on stable ground he glanced up, the troopers had remained at the top of the ravine. Good, I don't need your help to kill this girl.
Pulling out the lightsaber, he ignited the blade. He was gratified to see the frenetic red energy spitting and hissing with the barely controlled power of the cracked crystal that powered it. The small cross arms dispelled the excess heat allowing the saber to function at a more stable level than would have been possible with the traditional designs. It felt strangely right in his hands and yet horrifyingly wrong at the same time. Kylo chalked it up to his memory lapses. Perhaps he'd acquired this lightsaber from another Force user, and it had yet to acclimate to his control? He wasn't sure and decided he'd worry about that at a later point. For now, he had a job to do.
Unslinging the pack from his shoulders, Ren pulled out the multitude of concussion traps that he'd been given and busied himself setting them up around the entrance to the old mine. It went straight down into the rocky ground, like it was an artery to the heart of the planet itself. The Empress had amassed an enormous Sith library in the few weeks since she'd seized control of the Final Order. He'd spent a lot of time studying kyber crystals, especially the hearts of kyber crystals. They were extremely rare and only came into being at the exact moment a star generated so much gravity that it transformed into a planet. That heart then existed at the center of the new planet and retained the incredible galactic power of the ancient star.
Few Jedi or Sith had ever found such a crystal. Because of their location, many of them were impossible to reach without destabilizing the gravitational pull of the planet rendering it impossible to inhabit and deadly to mine. The only reference to one had been that of the dark saber, a tale of power gathered by a very powerful Sith Lord and then lost for generations. But the stories concerning that saber were generated mostly by word of mouth stories. No one had seen that saber for thousands of generations, so it probably never existed in the first place. The organization of the Sith loyalists had started around the same time that plasma blade was rumored to have been created. A shiver ran through him at the thought of possessing such a powerful weapon.
He pulled his mind back to his assigned task and he began the arduous task of setting the traps before dropping into the darkness of the mine. He was careful to hide among the dark passages and wait for his prey to wander into his trap. Ren wasn't a patient person, but he could wait for this.
Sinking down into a crevice, he rested the lightsaber on his folded thighs. In the darkness he had nothing to do but think, his mind wandering among the memories he did have. He was surprised to feel a twinge of regret for his current actions. Ignoring the crisis of conscience, he kept searching through his own mind. An image of the scavenger girl standing among red-robed guards, her blue lightsaber flashed with such incredible speed and skill that he was reluctantly impressed. She dropped down into crouch and slammed one of them into the dusty ground with nothing but the power of the Force. She commanded it with great care and precision and then she looked in his direction.
Her eyes blew wide with both surprise and…pleasure? His insides twisted with several unexpected emotions as he watched her across the expanse. The scene flickered and he found himself staring down at her, she was in a much different position. Her multi-colored eyes were soft and welcoming. Her bare arms stretched around his neck as she laid beneath his larger body; pliant and yet strong. Gently, she traced her fingers along the scar on his face; following it down until she reached the end just above his pectoral muscle. Her touch was feather-light, and whispers of her breath tickled the edges of his jawline. She was intoxicating in this position and he found he wanted nothing more than to feel every inch of her as he claimed her body.
Kylo wasn't immune to the intimate feelings that encompassed them as they laid there together. He could feel her calm acceptance and an astonishing love flowing from her to him, wrapping him in the unwanted emotions. Her fingers drifted over his hot skin and he knew that he was every bit as marked by her as she was by him.
He surged up out of his own mind, his heart hammering frantically inside his chest and sweat pouring down his face. He panted as he tried to regain control of his traitorous body. He scrubbed his hand down his face hoping it would wipe away the image of her lying naked beneath him. But that image was now burned into his mind and wouldn't be erased. He'd never wanted anything as much as he wanted for that image to be real. No power in the galaxy could compare to the simple acceptance and love that reflected back at him from the scavenger.
"She's important." A voice floated from the darkness, sending his entire body into a state of battle-ready action. He spun around, desperately searching for the speaker. A translucent blue glow coalesced just ahead of him and he found his feet frozen in place.
The speaker was tall and quite young. Hair similar in style to his own, except a sandy brown color to his black, and blue eyes that watched him with interest. "Who're you?" Ren demanded. He was gripping the hilt, but he hadn't yet lit his lightsaber. This stranger wasn't here to harm him and somewhere deep inside, he knew that.
"I think you already know." The projection said. But as his blue gaze remained steadily on Kylo Ren's reaction he sighed. "So, she's taken that from you too." It wasn't a question.
"Taken what? Who are you talking about? The Scavenger?" he accused as the anger rose up inside him.
The figure shook his head. "No, not Rey."
Rey. Kylo felt the stab of jealousy penetrate his heart. This person knew her name. What else did he know about her?
"The Empress. She's damaged your mind." He stepped closer and Ren back away, his fingers twitching toward the light saber. The man's eyes dropped, and he smiled sadly. "You can't hurt me with that. But if you strike me in anger, you will truly be lost. Rey won't be able to find you then."
Grinding his teeth together, Kylo moved his fingers from the hilt of the plasma blade. "How do you know me?"
"We're family. That is all you need to know at this time."
He didn't like all the games being played with him. From the moment he'd awoken in that interrogation cell, he'd been toyed with. His mind invaded and twisted by those around him and he was furious about it. "No. That is not all I need to know." He bit out angrily. "I don't know who I am. My memory is full of holes. I have scars I have no recollection of and memories of a girl I've never met. I need to know more."
Kylo had always been driven by knowledge. Curiosity had been one of his most ardent qualities and had driven him to seek answers above everything else. He had to understand how things worked and why. The man nodded once and turned to sit on a low rock wall.
"I cannot give you back what she has taken. Only you can do that. But I can tell you some of what you wish to know."
Ren nodded and sank back onto his heels, the lightsaber still held loosely in his right hand.
"My name is Anakin Skywalker—"
"You're a Jedi." He said without breaking eye contact.
"Yes, I'm a Jedi. But I've also been a Sith."
Kylo's eyes widened at that. "You can't be both." He said irritably.
Anakin's eyebrow rose in question. "And why not? The Force has two sides. One Light and one Dark. People have that same capacity. So, if we are the users of the Force, acting out its will upon the galaxy, how can we not be both light and dark?"
The dark-haired man paused to consider that statement. "The Empress is a Sith."
The projection's eyes narrowed and flashed with anger. "The Empress is something ancient and evil. Vanquished many thousands of years ago. She has found her way back to the living world. But she is neither Sith nor Jedi. She gathers the souls of Force users, taking them into herself and making them part of her 'hive'. She feeds on their strength and controls their fear making her very powerful and very dangerous."
Something flickered at the edges of Ren's memory; he recalled having his mind ruthlessly and painfully torn into. Parts of himself smothered under the incredible power of the hive's mind. A small dam broke and a new emotion slipped past the broken wall. Compassion.
"She…" His voice drifted off as he tried to capture the words. "…did something to me."
Anakin's eyes softened and he nodded. "She has ripped out part of who you are. Leaving only the violent volatile parts of your personality intact." He rose and took a step toward Kylo.
The man in black hurdled himself backwards against the jagged stone. He felt a few new cuts as the sharp rock tore through his clothing and sliced his back open in several places. Grunting, he ignored the injuries as he came to his feet. Gripping the hilt of the lightsaber tighter he pressed away from the other man.
Anakin sighed, "Well, that was dramatic." He said with a half-smile. "I'm not here to hurt you Ben—"
Kylo's eyes blew wide and his fingers loosened their grip on the saber. "—What did you call me?" he blurted out desperately.
Raising an eyebrow, Anakin repeated, "Ben. I called you Ben."
"Why? My name is Kylo Ren. Not Ben…"
Anger flared in those dark blue eyes and Anakin's aura flashed to a deep-hazy purple before returning to a soft blue. "You were born Ben Solo. The sole heir to planet Alderan. The only son of Princess Leia Organa and Han Solo. Nephew of Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master and…my only grandson."
Ren's eyes went impossibly wide and he started shaking his head in denial. "That's not true."
"Search your feelings. You know it to be true."
The internal conflict was ripping him apart. Parts of his deepest self were fighting for control. He sank to his knees, his hands wrapped around his skull as pain lanced through him. If he could have bashed his own head open on the rocks to stop the agony, he would have. But one of his directives from the Empress didn't allow him to harm himself. He couldn't take his own life or injure himself in any way to alleviate the pain inside him. Grinding his teeth together he flung his mind out to the Empress seeking an end to his pain.
Instantly, the jarring fire inside him abated as she reinserted herself into his mind.
"Don't allow yourself to be deceived my apprentice. This is merely a trick of the Jedi to bend your mind to their will. Ignore their words and focus on mine." She reinforced his directives and wrapped his mind in darkness, dimming the light that had threatened to undo what she had done.
When Ren opened his eyes again, he was alone. The darkness had once again settled over the cavern. He didn't know whether the projection had been real or not, but he knew that his mission must not fail. And yet he couldn't forget the words of the Force-ghost. Somehow, he knew that was what this Anakin Skywalker had been. Which meant he had lived, at some point. Kylo wanted his pain to end. Wanted his mind clear and focused. If the Empress was to be believed, then the only way that could happen was if he killed the girl and with her whatever Light still lived within his soul.
Steeling himself for the conflict to come he backed into the crevice again. The scuffling of two distinct sets of boots alerted him that he was about to fulfill his destiny. He would be the one to kill the last living Jedi and with her, the Light that so desperately wanted to destroy him.
TBC…
Author's Note: I hope you are doing well in these uncertain times. Please accept my newest chapter as a way to escape from the incredible drama we are all currently living through. Stay safe and I'll get the next chapter up soon. I realize I left this in a bit of a precarious spot. :)
Reviews would be lovely.
