—Chapter 28: Out of the Frying Pan—
The craggy rock walls had receded, the atmospheric cloud cover had thinned, and Ben was able to make out the formidable kyber crystal piercing the sky above him. Hope surged in his chest. He was so close, and he knew that once he got there, there would be something he could do. He didn't know what that something could be, but the what was a future problem. All he knew was that getting there had to happen first.
All of a sudden, Ben felt panicked, like he was losing himself. His mind was the only thing he really had, and it seemed to be slipping away from him. He fought hard to keep it—centering himself, concentrating deeply until the moment of delirium passed. He watched his hands ball into fists and uncurl again. There was no feeling—his hands weren't really there—but they were at least under his command. He imagined his lungs taking a long pull of air, his chest swelling. He couldn't stop whatever was happening to him, but he could stop it from slowing his progress toward his goal. Steeling himself, he overcame the sensation, and continued his march toward his purpose. He was close enough to see its fissures, its ethereal geometry.
As he walked, he noticed the electrical activity in the atmosphere had become more frequent—or rather, more concentrated. The lightning was always striking somewhere, but it was clearly focused around the kyber crystal, as though the atmosphere was even more unstable in that specific location. His connection to the Force had been cut to almost nothing, but the Darkness permeating the massive kyber crystal was an almost overwhelming aura—so strong he could see it.
Eventually, Ben reached the perimeter of the structure. It was just as he'd read: A crumbling temple, like a pyramid, centered and built around the enormous crystal. Where the entrance was, however, he had no idea. He could not feel it.
He walked for several minutes around the outside of the temple, looking for a way in. He found several portions of the exterior that had collapsed, but nowhere in the rubble did there appear to be a hole or crack large enough for him to squeeze through, and the Force did not obey his commands here—moving the rubble aside was a non start.
"Fuck," he cursed, surprising himself with the sound of his own voice. It was different than he remembered, but nonetheless audible to his own senses. For the first time, he wasn't hearing it through the meat of his own head, but that wasn't the only difference—his voice sounded like it was floating on air.
"Can anyone hear me?" he asked no one, just listening to the gossamer quality of his own voice. Feeling defeated even in the shadow of his destination, discovered but impenetrable, he leaned up against the temple—his back, such as it was, on the stone walls, as he stared out at the endless rocky plains he had traversed to get here.
He couldn't feel where his back was touching the wall, and was forced to imagine the feel of the cold, rough-hewn stone pushing back against it. With a sigh, he closed his eyes and stole a moment to feel sorry for himself.
Without any visual cues to ground him to his surroundings, he was suddenly overcome by the sensation that he was falling. Falling forever through nothing. Flailing his imaginary arms and opening his imaginary eyes, he attempted to reconnect, in whatever way he could, to this hellish place.
The falling sensation subsided almost as quickly as it had hit him, but he still could not see. Unable to perceive his surroundings, he felt a wave of terror as fear poured into him, the sense that he'd lost the material world entirely. A muffled crack of thunder gave him hope that he wasn't entirely on his own, and that was enough. He breathed in, and his lungs, imaginary though they might be, filled once again.
Ben sat still, listening; listening to the thunder and the wind. Though the storm still raged, the sounds of the atmosphere had become deadened. Almost like he was listening to them through a wall of rock. Ben tried to look around, but every direction revealed the same blackness. He tried to walk, or crawl, but he didn't know if he was still on his feet, or even where 'up' was.
The material plane was still here. He was still in it, but he lacked enough of an ability to sense it that he couldn't navigate his place in it. In his past, in moments like this, when he knew his five senses were useless to him, he had always relied on the Force to save him.
The Force—yet another sense that had been muted in this nightmare, only touching him in brief, rare moments. Stabs of Darkness had reached him here, tragedies in the real world that he was helpless to stop. Why was Darkness the one thing he could feel in droves? What was the Force telling him?
Ben lay there, pondering his connection to the Darkness. Where the fuck am I? he thought miserably. All I feel is Darkness…
Necessity is a strange thing. We work so hard to avoid being without something, and we get so good at avoiding need—if we're lucky—that we forget how useful necessity can be. Necessity breeds creativity; it is the mother of invention. It is in our moments of greatest need, that we have our greatest ideas.
How can I use the Darkness to light my way?
Ben thought back to his first days on Dendrokaan, as he lay in a Resistance hospital bed recovering from his torture at the hands of his old nemesis, General Hux. He'd been unable to move, and had nothing to do—nothing but to stare at the four walls boxing him in. He'd devoted that time to reaching out with the Force, using it as his eyes and his legs, and he had explored the vast expanse of the Resistance base and the terrain beyond. He'd felt the life, the Light, in the world outside, and with it, he'd created a map inside his own head. He could see, with the Force as his light.
But there was no Light here, only the Darkness. The temple was awash in it. With nothing else, he reached out to the Darkness, and felt its tendrils reaching back. As his mind began to feel tethered to something outside of himself, he found he was able to visualize… not life. No, not life's glow from the deadness of space—but the void of negative space. He could feel where there was nothing, and, by process of elimination, he could tell where there was something. Imagining himself on his hands and knees, he crawled forward, toward nothing.
He didn't have far to go before there was something. Like breaking through the top of the ocean after nearly drowning, he emerged into a dimly lit hallway. Looking left and right, he saw a wall extending out and away from him on either side, and he realized that he was in the wall. His body had no form except that which he could construct with his own mind, and right now, in the space he'd imagined his body from the neck down to be, was the exterior stone wall of the temple of Malachor.
He chuckled, as he withdrew his arms from the thick rock wall and placed them firmly upon the stone floor of the temple to push himself up. He had made it inside. Now, he need only follow the Darkness to where the tendrils pulled most strongly.
—
Everyone jumped at the sound of the alarms signalling their arrival at Malachor. In spite of how successful they thought they'd been at mentally preparing themselves for their trespass into enemy territory, their nerves betrayed them when the moment finally came. The alarms themselves weren't really that grating, but everyone was just that on edge.
"Everybody buckle up," said Rey, reaching for the shoulder strap behind Ren to snap him securely into his seat. "Landings can be bumpy," she added, with a wink to her son, reassuring him in spite of his tenacious front. As Malfi, Temiri, and Finnie reached for their own harnesses, Rey stood up from the dejarik table and motioned for Finn and Poe to follow her into the cockpit.
"About time," said Poe anxiously. "I hate waiting."
"You know, we've got no idea what's going to be here," said Rey. "It could be anything, including, but not limited to, more waiting. And, uh, if Ben is here, I can't imagine a scenario where I really want Ren or Malfi tagging along while I go get him."
"Hey, my babysitting obligations have been fulfilled," said Poe, kidding, but not kidding. Sitting around the ship keeping kids out of trouble was not what he thought he was signing up for. "Besides, I gotta get first-hand accounts of what we find here back to my boss, otherwise I'll spend the rest of my career on sanitation duty."
"Sanitation duty is really underrated," said Finn. "Everyone acts like it's the worst thing ever, but really, it gives you a lot of time to think."
With a smirk here and silent chuckle there, Poe and Rey ended the discussion—they'd reached the cockpit. Chewbacca greeted them with a hearty roar as the final seconds of hyperspace came to a close. With a small lurch, the Millennium Falcon accelerated to a stop just within view of their destination.
From their vantage point, the gray orb of Malachor was only about a third illuminated by its star, but the frequent flashes of electrical discharge made the whole planet shimmer, dipping in and out of visibility. It was hypnotic. Their hearts in their throats, they took in the distant planet in utter silence.
Finally, Rey, barely above a whisper, asked, "Chewie, can you detect his shuttle anywhere?"
The sound of her voice, gentle and unassuming though it was, seemed to break a spell the Wookiee was under. He shifted his gaze from the solitary sphere back to his control panel. After a few button presses, he huffed an affirmative.
After a collective sigh of relief, Poe collapsed in a seat, his hand on his forehead. "Well, thank fucking God for that," he declared sincerely.
"So he's here?" asked Finn.
"Yes," said Rey, feeling enormously uplifted just by this one development. "The atmosphere makes it impossible to pinpoint exactly where, but we're reading the signal, and that's all I needed to hear."
"I better put in a message to the admiral letting her know what's up," said Poe, reaching for the comms.
Then, from out of nowhere, an arc of green plasma cut its way through space, slamming into the side of the Millennium Falcon and sending everything into disarray. Finn managed to hold his grip on the headrest of Chewie's seat, but Rey was thrown into the wall of the cockpit, and Poe was launched out of his seat and onto the floor. Chewbacca shrieked, and immediately took evasive action, putting the Falcon into gear and hastily swerving to avoid further volleys.
"What the fuck was that?" shouted Poe, struggling to pull himself off the floor.
"Something shot at us!" answered Finn, to the surprise of no one.
"But what? Who the fuck is out here that has that kind of firepower?"
In the distance, visible as just a glint off the atmosphere of Malachor, was their answer. "No way," said Finn, shaking his head. "It can't be…"
"It is," said Rey forlornly. "A Star Destroyer…"
"The First Order?" blurted Poe, aghast.
"No," said Finn, squinting at the object, coming into view even as the Falcon's erratic movements kept it in and out of their direct line of sight. "Not First Order, not exactly…"
"That's an Imperial Star Destroyer," said Finnie, clinging to the doorway, having clawed her way from the lounge to the cockpit.
The blast from the destroyer was intended to obliterate them, but it had been fired from so far away that the Falcon's reinforced hull had withstood enough of the damage that they were still spaceworthy. However, they were severely crippled, and as alarms and warnings began screaming at them from all over the ship, a squadron of TIE fighters emerged to engage them in close combat.
"Chewie, does this thing still have a cloaking device?" asked Poe, hopefully.
Chewie shook his head and began hollering off everything that had been lost in the blast. Among other things, hyperdrive, long-range communications, and cloaking were all on the list of casualties.
"Yeah, yeah—but tell me what does work!" shouted Poe, scrabbling into the copilot's seat next to Chewie.
Chewie muttered in response as he tried to reassert control over the ship while Poe got himself strapped in.
Frantically reading all the different flashing lights on the Falcon's display, Poe evaluated their assets. "Okay, so we've still got shields, rear thrusters, the quadlasers, and… is that the caf maker? You've got a status light for that?" Chewie shrugged.
With a determined sigh, Poe shook off their handicaps and started issuing orders. To Finn and Finnie, he barked, "You two! Get to the guns! They'll be on us soon!"
With a single, determined nod, Finn took the job and began working his way to the rear of the cockpit, pulling his daughter along with him. He'd never trained her on a turret, but now was as good a time as any for her to figure it out.
Rey remained in the cockpit, trying to wrap her head around a strategy that would see them safely to the surface. The planet was still a ways off, and the space between it and them was slowly filling with short-range fighters. "Chewie, you have to get us to the surface," she urged. "If you can get us there, there's a chance the atmosphere will shield us enough that we'll be able to hide."
Chewbacca roared an affirmative, and took a serpentine approach toward the planet and its cloud of TIEs.
Temiri stuck his head through the cockpit entrance. "What's going on?" he shouted. "Finnie said we were under attack by imperials?"
"Big ships, kid, that's all. Take a seat," said Poe.
Temiri sat down in the chair behind Poe and looked out ahead of the Falcon. He could see Malachor, and he saw all the enemy starfighters closing in. "Where did all these ships come from?" he asked, not expecting an answer.
Poe furrowed his brow, but remained silent. The black market… he thought frustratedly. Someone, the Black Dragons, had been building an armada in secret.
Rey was watching the bolts coming at them from the encroaching TIE fighters, and was preparing to defend the Falcon in the only way she could. She began to center herself, and lifted a hand toward the transparisteel window, out toward the ships.
—But they exploded into pieces before Rey could even blink.
"God damn they're good," Poe murmured under his breath, with admiration for the two crack shots manning the turrets. Though their disadvantages were many, at least they were getting the most out of what offensive capabilities they had.
As they got closer, however, another two Star Destroyers came out of cloaking to insert themselves into the battle.
"A cloaked fleet?" yelled Poe, completely horrified. "Fuck, fuck, fuck! How many are there?! I guess it was wishful thinking that they would've only had one of those fucking things, but cloaking? We're fucked…"
Chewie hollered, announcing that the destroyers were locked on to their position. The Falcon was screaming toward the planet, but it was a race to get there before the destroyers could fire. If the arcing trajectory of the first blast was any indication, these plasma bursts were equipped with tracking capability—simply moving out of the way wouldn't save them.
The first of the new destroyers let loose a blast from its turbolaser. For Rey, time slowed down and her mind raced, her heart stopped beating. From her outstretched hand, she pushed back with the Force. Screaming, she poured all of her effort into this deflection, and at the last, the Falcon managed to escape impact as the blast skirted by into the empty space beyond. Temiri watched in awe as the bolt tore past them.
"More incoming!" yelled Poe. "I hope you've got another one in you!"
The third ship was only seconds behind the last one in its attack against the freighter. It hadn't fired yet, but if it did, it was still within the window of opportunity to destroy them before they could reach the planet. Rey took a deep breath, preparing for more. This time, she was more calculating, acting less on panicked instinct and more on sheer method. With another pull from the wellspring of Force flowing through her, she focused her efforts not on the destroyer that was preparing to fire, but on the nearer one that had already depleted its turbolaser.
"Here it comes!" shouted Poe, doing everything he could to help Chewie steer the Falcon toward the relative safety of the unstable atmosphere before them.
As this latest destroyer loosed its volley, the other destroyer lurched suddenly off course and into its path, absorbing the blast at its rear flank. The massive Star Destroyer's back half exploded, sending out a shockwave of debris in all directions from the point of impact. The vessel wasn't totally destroyed, but it was crippled, and the Falcon had its breakaway moment. Leaving a floating graveyard of ruined TIE fighters in its wake, the Falcon tore through the thick, chaotic atmosphere, utterly blind to what lay beyond.
Once they cleared the thick atmosphere, it was obvious they'd entered too steeply—the ground was way too close. "Slow down! Slow down!" screamed Poe. "We're going to crash!"
Rey was already spent from the exertion it had taken her to get them this far, but still, she pulled from her reserves for more. They were going to crash if she didn't do something. Palm outstretched, forehead beaded with sweat and bulging blood vessels, Rey tried to slow them down, but it wasn't enough. Their velocity was dropping, but it was insufficient to pull them out of the nosedive they were in to stop them crashing into the carbonite plains before them.
Temiri watched her, aware of the danger. With an overwhelming sense that this was his moment, this was his reason for being there, he popped out of his seat and joined her, channeling his own energies alongside hers. With a lurch and a groan, the Falcon started to slow down significantly, and the two of them were nearly pulled off their feet from the sudden change in acceleration. With effort, they stayed in place, and the Falcon pulled up in time to maintain a safer altitude.
"Fuuuuuuck…" droned Poe, deflating from the breath he'd been holding, totally aware that he'd just escaped death. Rey's legs gave out, and she let herself flop onto the floor of the cockpit, gasping with breath. Temiri remained standing, breathing heavily, cautiously proud, and mindful of the fact that they hadn't actually landed yet—Chewie was still navigating the storm clouds and the inhospitable terrain below them.
"Why the hell was it so hard to pull up?" asked Poe, perplexed. "According to these indicators, the ailerons are one of the few things not broken on this ship," he said, giving the display panel a frustrated whack. At that, the red indicator light flickered to life, letting him know that the panel was less than totally reliable. "This fucking ship…" he muttered.
"The shuttle?" Rey asked tersely, still winded from her efforts.
Chewbacca gave a short huff, followed by sober warbling. Beneath the cloud cover, the signal from the shuttle's short-range beacon was easier to read. They had several hundred more klicks to go, but the shuttle was there, and they would soon be upon it. Poe shouted back to his gunners, "Finn? Finnie? You two okay back there?"
Finn came through the headset in response. "We're fine, but damn, that was some entry! Nice flying."
"Yeah, well, it was a team effort," said Poe.
"Are we still being pursued?"
"Doesn't look like it, but that'll definitely change. We didn't exactly enter quietly."
Finn removed his headset and stepped down from the turret. Exchanging a look with Finnie, she too climbed down from her position and joined him at the ladder to ascend back into the main part of the Falcon. "You did fantastic, sweetie," he said to her, looking her in the eyes as he grabbed the first rung. "But that's no surprise."
Finnie smiled, blushing ever so slightly at this praise from her father. "I got more than you," she said, nudging him in the ribs playfully.
"No you didn't," he replied, very matter of fact. "One of the ones I know you're counting was already crippled by me, so don't go getting a big head, thinking you can't still learn anything from this old man. I've been shooting down TIE fighters since before you were a gleam in the test tube for the blastocyst that would eventually differentiate into you and your trigger finger."
"That's not actually that long."
"Yeah, but 'since you were kneehigh to a kyntix' wasn't any better. I really talked myself into a corner with that one, but what I mean, of course, is that I've been doing this for a while."
They shared a chuckle, and ascended the ladder, satisfied. At the top, Finnie glanced left to peek in on Ren and Malfi, still strapped into the bench around the dejarik table. "All good in here?" she asked.
Malfi and Ren looked back at her, slack-jawed and wide-eyed. Malfi nodded dumbly back at her.
"Good," she nodded in return, then proceeded to follow her father back into the cockpit. She entered in the middle of Poe answering questions.
"Yeah, we found it, and we're headed there now. With any luck, we can mask our presence long enough to find Ben and get help. With the hyperdrive and comms array out of commission, escape isn't really an option."
"Comms too? Shit…"
"Yeah. My comlink still works for short-range communication, but we needed the array in order to reach the Republic. Good thing they knew where we were headed, or we'd be fucked. I mean, we're fucked either way, but at least they'll know where to look for our corpses."
"Terrific," muttered Rey, scanning the landscape. "Chewie, there!" she cried, pointing. It had been obscured by the cloud cover, but now, this close, they could make out the massive kyber crystal from Rey's dream. Near it, about a klick to the east, was the shuttle.
"Dammit, we're already too close," said Poe. "Without cloaking, we really should've landed further away. They'll find us in no time."
"Doesn't matter," said Rey, undaunted. "It's not like they don't know we're here. Just set us down as close to the shuttle as you can. We'll start there."
"You got it."
Much of Malachor's surface was frozen carbonite plains, but closer to the kyber crystal, things got more jagged and rocky, making it difficult to set down as close to the shuttle as they would've liked. Their landing site was a short walk from where the shuttle was, through a convoluted series of spires. Chewie remained on the Falcon to try to make some repairs, but the rest of them walked the few minutes to the shuttle. They found it abandoned, the cabin door left wide open.
Ren ran up to it and hastily popped his head inside. Rey had a flash of fear at her son running off unguarded, but quashed it—she knew there was nothing here.
"Anything good in there, kid?" called Poe, hand instinctively on his blaster. Temiri followed Ren into the shuttle, and confirmed what he had already indicated: The shuttle was empty.
"So what now?" asked Poe. "Big stupid crystal thing?"
Rey sighed, looking upward to the only place Ben would've headed off after landing. "Big stupid crystal thing," she confirmed.
"Well, th—" Poe had started to say something, but cut himself off, raising a finger to the others that they should be quiet too. There it was: The unmistakable scream of a TIE fighter. "Back to the Falcon, now!" he screamed, pulling Malfi by her arm, and signalling to the others to run back with him.
"Temiri, you're with me!" called Rey, heading onward, away from the others, down an apparent trail leading into a crevasse toward the temple. She looked for her son, but didn't see him anywhere. She wanted to at least meet eyes with him before pressing onward without him, but he was nowhere to be seen. "Where's Ren?!" she called, anxiously.
"He's already gone back to the ship!" answered Malfi, pulling against Poe, not wanting to leave as quickly as he was urging for her to go.
Don't worry, mama, Rey could hear her son inside her head. I won't be at your side, but I'll be with you. Just go.
Looking back at her loved ones, receding from view as they ran back to the Falcon, to nominal safety, Rey's jaw quivered momentarily. Steeling herself, she put her hand on the saberstaff at her hip and turned from them, running down the path, Temiri following.
This was no small thing they were heading off to do. At the end of this path, Temiri, both of them, really, would find their destinies. For Temiri, this was the first of what he hoped would be many acts of redemption, to ultimately cleanse his soul. His real test was about to begin.