Rose squinted at the holovid, the blue light stinging her eyes after so many hours. With a groan, she paused it once again and rewound the footage. Editing was the worst, but the more trimmed the vid, the easier it was to encrypt and transmit without detection through the First Order. If only she could get to the encryption stage, that was the fun part. Hux would never know what hit him.
"I never expected to be a holostar," Archex said, watching a miniaturized holoimage of himself say the lines over again.
"I don't know if propaganda makes you a holostar," Rose replied.
"Probably not," he agreed. "This is just as unbelievable as stardom. I never would have conceived of doing something like this."
After replaying the thirty second clip one last time, she uploaded the file into her encryption algorithm and said, "The First Order makes thinking past tomorrow impossible. Each day is full of uncertainty." She glanced at him. "I really do appreciate you stepping back into the fight. That was a huge sacrifice."
"It wasn't sacrificing much," he admitted. "I had pieces of a life, but the First Order always lurked behind every decision I made. I'm trapped on Kijimi; going anywhere else means I could be discovered. I enjoy what I do there, but it's a small bubble that could implode at any moment. I'd rather fight the Order head on than hide in the corner with my eyes closed. It's not how I was trained."
"Finn talks like that a lot too," she observed. The file finished the encryption and compression. "BB-8?"
The droid popped out from a stack of crates.
"Where do you get off to, Beebee?" she asked.
He chirruped.
"You shouldn't bother Artoo. He's got his own tasks."
Whistling, BB-8 rolled closer.
"I'm sure he doesn't mind, but you're distracting him. Besides, Poe said you're to help me."
He hung his head, emitting a mournful whine.
Rolling her eyes, she couldn't help the tiny smile that tugged at her lips.
"Don't be so morose. I'm not mad at you."
He swiveled his oculus up towards her hopefully.
"Take this to Beaumont Kin in comms." She held out a datastick. "He knows the codes for our contacts, alright? Tell him the holo is ready for distribution."
BB-8 received the datastick grandly and rolled off to deliver his precious cargo.
Archex chuckled. "Spunky little astromech, isn't it?"
"A little too spunky. He gets that from his master."
"Poe Dameron?"
"Yup. That's him."
"What's his role here?"
Rose pressed her lips together. "Lieutenant, as far as I know."
"He lets you borrow his droid?"
She caught his raised eyebrows and an awkward laugh escaped her. "It's not like that. He owes me. Although in this case, it's more babysitting than anything else." A hot flash of the old anger gripped her. "He owes me a lot more than the use of his droid for a few days anyway," she grumbled.
"Ah." Archex nodded and squinted. "You carry around a ledger."
"I'm sorry?"
"You keep track of who owes you and who you owe."
The defensive words burst out. "I don't."
Archex dismantled the holocam they'd used to film his anti-First Order propaganda. "I had a ledger, too. You won't be surprised to know that Phasma and the Huxes were the furthest in the red."
Rose turned and quietly started shutting down her console.
"I never redeemed Phasma's debt. Apparently Finn killed her, so I won't be able to make her pay. Not how I'd like. It's an ugly thing to say, I know, but I wanted to make her hurt how I'd been hurt." He packed the holocam in its case and looked up at her. "You might relate."
"Poe's not a bad person," she admitted.
"That doesn't mean you don't want him to hurt." He paused. "Your sister?"
She stared before she remembered she'd told him on Kijimi why she fought for the Resistance. She nodded. "Paige died on a mission he planned."
"Hmm." He clasped the case shut. "That's difficult."
She gripped the pendant at her throat. "Yeah."
Sighing, he laid a hand on her shoulder. "Life doesn't work like a ledger, and we're not bookkeepers. If you try to make it work that way, you'll be continually disappointed. Sometimes you have to forgive the debt."
The console pinged before shutting down. Her hands dropped to her lap. "I know."
He tapped the holocam case. "You think these holovids will work?"
"You know the troopers better than I do, Archex." She gave him an optimistic smile. "But I think so."
Kira awakened with a shuddering inhale. Her eyes flew open to darkness, fingers clenching on fistfuls of cool, smooth grains. Lying supine, she leveraged to a sitting position, desperate to clear her head and remember.
Endor.
The fire.
Ben.
The hike.
Vader.
The mask.
She rose to a crouch and tried to get her bearings. A chill wind carrying the flat scent of dust cut through her clothing. Her boots shifted on sand, but this wasn't Jakku. The constellations were unfamiliar.
Almost dimmer than the stars, lights glowed on the horizon. She walked towards them, knowing exposure in the desert at night meant hypothermia or attack by wild animals. Civilization, friendly or not, offered protection against the whims of nature. She reached for her saber, finding its comforting presence at her side.
The closer she drew to the settlement, the more she felt her steps were being directed to a tent dwelling on the outskirts. Peering into a low-ceilinged living area, she halted at a slit in the rawhide. A woman hung limp on a rack, congealed blood dribbling from lacerations across her body. Kira pushed through the opening. The smell of old blood and infection assaulted her senses, almost making her step back, but the woman appeared to be whispering something. Leaning closer, she caught the faint rattle of battered lungs over chapped lips. The woman was alive, but not for long. Burns littered the exposed skin between a rainbow of bruises.
Why am I here?
A man materialized next to her, as if he had always been there, and when he spoke, Kira wasn't surprised.
"She was tortured."
Lit by the glow of the coals, the man's robes were stylistically Jedi, though the leather vest and tunic were darker than the traditional sand hues, and well-tailored to his towering height and athleticism, but his posture was apologetic.
"She was in agony for days before I found her."
Hidden under a deep cowl, his scar was almost a twin to her own, stretching over his eye and twisting across his scowling face. The words tripped off her tongue before the hypocritical guilt could stop her. "What did you do?"
"I held her," he said in an even, measured tone. "I felt the life drain out of her, like water through my fingers."
Kira turned away from his gruesome scar, staring toward the night-shadowed desert wastes. "You could have saved her."
"I had already lost her," he muttered. "But I couldn't let her go. The Dark Side, it takes everyone from you, in the end."
"No."
He took her shoulder in a bruising grip and wrenched her around to face him, pinning her with golden eyes that burned in the depths of his cowl. "I held on too tight. She slipped through my fingers."
His hand was a cold prosthetic, a metal claw that pierced her skin. The arm was going numb, as if ice water seeped through her veins. She raised her chin. "You're Vader."
He chuckled. "And yet you don't believe me, but you already know. You come to me for answers to convince my grandson to choose the Dark. The Dark Side takes. It will not give him to you. It takes and takes and takes until all you have left is a shell of your soul, held together by self-loathing."
The ice raced through her arteries and Kira screamed as the dwelling collapsed with a crack.
The numbness had spread throughout her body, a chill tingle the only reminder of her corporeal form. Sulfur and the smell of hot metal assaulted her nose. Oppressive heat shimmered through clouds of acrid smoke. A Naboo diplomatic vessel, chrome gilding glinted with undulating red light, sat on the edge of the platform with its ramp lowered. A different woman lay crumpled on the decking, delicate limbs limp around her slight body, rounded with child under a brown tunic. Glossy chestnut hair pulled back in a long braid, her chest rose in shallow, uneven breaths, face starkly pale.
R2-D2 careened down the ship's ramp with a shrill cry, startling Kira. How many years had it been since she'd seen the droid? This was the past, but this vision was all too real as the astromech chirped and whistled in distress. The woman didn't stir.
"You cannot take those you love with you down this path." He crouched across from Kira, lips twisting in a heartbroken snarl as he looked down at the woman. R2 began to pull her by the feet across the deck towards the safety of the ship, and Vader watched them go.
"This is not the same," Kira baulked.
"Isn't it? How many times have you hurt, killed, abused them?"
"I'm not responsible for their assumptions and judgments."
"No. You're responsible for your actions." He stood, Dark energy like heat waves around him. "I didn't kill her, but I trampled her in my lust for power. What I thought was love was desperation to possess. She was not a possession, but when I treated her like one, it broke us."
"You never truly loved her?"
Vader grinned, the expression feral. He came closer. "The Dark Side drained my love and replaced it with fear. I had nothing, in the end. Nothing but unassailable power." He was taller than her, and Kira tilted her head to meet his burning stare. "You think you can do better, that you can hold onto all the pieces?"
"I'm not a Skywalker." She drew the currents of Darkness to herself like a cloak. It fought against Vader's proximity like two opposing magnets, but they stood fast, equals in this. "Your weaknesses are not mine."
His grin widened. "My weaknesses are human. You think that the Dark Side is what you want, but I can sense your humanity, Kira Ren. Though you'd deny it."
"Weaknesses can be overcome."
"Weaknesses can be strengths." He snatched the front of her tunic and they were wrenched through time and space, albeit not far.
Vader's cowl was thrown back, his hair a riot of messy waves. The heat was unbearable, but he contemplated the sludge of lava unaffected.
An agonized groan wrenched her attention away from the grim Vader. Further up the slope lay a charred, mangled body. Kira had seen many horrors, some caused by her own hand, but the mess of crisped skin and glistening muscle and taut tendons and amputated limbs – somehow a living being – was gruesome enough to make bile rise in her throat.
A bearded Jedi Master stood at the crest of the rise, tears streaming down his face. "You were my brother, Anakin!" he screamed.
"I HATE YOU," the mangled man roared.
Vader raised a hand and the scene paused, the Jedi vanished, the remains of Anakin Skywalker stilled.
"I know the Dark Side," Kira spat, turning back to glare at his profile. "I know the cost. You think me weak. You believe me incapable of the sacrifices necessary. You seek to deter me from taking your birth right."
"I'll say it again. It takes, and it takes, and it takes." He was beside her, gripping her jaw with his unnatural hand. He forced her to look at the smoking, ruined body above them on the pebbled slope. "It takes more than you have to give, Kira. I don't care if your power exceeds my own. But don't expect me to aid you in destroying my grandson." He released her chin and she stumbled away. He chuckled darkly. "Yes, I know why you've come. My answer is no."
"Together," she rasped, "we could –"
"He'll either be that," Vader gestured to his ruined past self, "or he'll be lost along the way."
You're going down a path I can't follow, an echo cried.
The Jedi master's words returned, You were my brother, Anakin!
At their words, the burning Vader screamed with rage and the calm lava flow erupted from its banks, washing away the scene with a wave of blistering heat. She raised her hands but the molten rock crashed over her.
Kira drowned in darkness, barely attached to her consciousness.
Vader's voice rumbled in her head. You wanted a choice, Kira. Face the consequences.
Her lungs seized and she jerked to wakefulness, adrenaline scorching through her body. The sky was a blurred mess of branches and clouds, and she blinked rapidly against the light. A shadow cut into her field of view and she focused on it.
"Kira?" Ben breathed.
Ben's skin was numb, the brush of his clothing like scraping against porous stone. He hunched over and pushed forward, nearly stumbling over her in the darkness as the shadow flames licked at his limbs and torso in a boreal gale.
Rey lay in the center of the burning pyre, spine straight and eyes closed. Her hood had fallen away from her face and over her chest she clasped the warped visage of Darth Vader.
"Rey!" He fell to his knees and sought a pulse, but her skin was cool and stiff. Frozen tears tracked from the corners of her eyes and his own throat closed as he began to cry. "Rey, please, be with me."
How long had she been there, burning with cold? From the remains of the campfire by the starships, it could have been overnight. Her complexion was gray, lips and fingernails blue. Bruised hallows surrounded her eyes and horror clamped around his throat.
She was unresponsive, but she wasn't dead. Her Force signature flickered and sizzled with Darkness, very much active, but her body was in stasis, not unlike hibernation. He tried to pry Vader's mask from her but his fingers stuck to its surface, freezing instantly. Wrenching himself away, he shook her shoulder, slapped her face, but nothing woke her. Reaching through the bond was like slipping on ice and he landed winded on his back.
Violent shivers began overtaking him even as tears dripped off the end of his nose.
"Please, Rey, please, fight this." He curled up next to her, maybe to warm her or keep himself from freezing as shadow flames danced around them. Pressing his face to her abdomen, he pleaded, "Be with me. You're stronger than this. Please, Rey. Please, Kira, just be with me. Kira, please."
How long he wept and begged was uncertain, but when she seized and gasped, his muscles were dulled. Ben stiffly pulled himself over to peer down into her face. Her hazel irises were rimmed with gold, but even as he watched, it faded and they focused on him.
"Kira?"
She flung him onto his back, landing with a bone-rattling thump on the dirt. The flames had evaporated. He struggled to sit or stand if his frozen legs and arms would cooperate with either activity.
Swaying, she stood and watched with wide eyes as Vader's mask crumbled to ash and blew away, scattering amongst the forest detritus.
"Kira." He lurched forward, but her hand stretched out to ward him away. "Are you alright?"
Her nostrils flared and teeth bared. "You shouldn't have come."
He gaped. "You - you told me Endor."
"That was a mistake, Ben."
"No." His face hardened. "No, no it wasn't."
"I'm not going to argue with you about this," she hissed, and she was off through the trees at a sprint.
"Rey!" He staggered, still fighting the cold-induced lethargy, but he kept moving, warming as he did, and began to run after her.
She stayed out of reach, both too exhausted to do more than press on without tripping. Silyana, Finn, Chewie, and Poe had vanished, leaving Ben alone to pursue her. She headed toward the ships, but no way in hell was he letting her leave, not now, not ever. Not before they had a chance to talk. He tracked the flicker of her dark gray robes against the muted browns and yellows of the forest and pushed himself to lengthen his strides.
They stumbled into the clearing after an hour's chase when the sun was below the reach of the trees, gilding the highest branches in gold.
"Kira!" he shouted.
Her run flattened to a sprint towards the elegant TIE fighter.
"You're not leaving," he roared. She pivoted and wrapped an invisible string around his ankle and yanked. Trying to counterbalance, instead he landed on his wrist and collapsed on his side. He hissed, "Kark," and rose to his knees, cradling the joint against his stomach. When he looked up, she was sealing the cockpit and bringing the engines online.
Ben staggered upright and his overexerted muscles protested, begging for a respite, but his eyes were fixed on Rey.
The ion engines began to rumble and whine. She caught his wide-eyed gaze through the transperisteel canopy and held it as the TIE lifted a meter from the ground. The engines' propulsion tried to shove him back but he leaned against it and advanced. The ship was too high to reach, even if his human strength would've been enough to hold it to ground, so he flung his hands up wide and pulled.
The Force thrummed taut between Ben and Kira's TIE, staggering it in midair. His fatigue scattered as he opened himself up to the energy of the Force. Widening his stance, he drew the ship down as it bucked and swerved. The straining ship swung around and her furious, pale face glared down on him, but he raised his chin and clenched his fists.
Something in the TIE's structure popped and gave way, causing him to flinch. The ship lurched as his concentration faltered, and with a scream, the ion engines leapt to full thrust. The wind of the ship's wake lashed against him with a torrent of pine needles, and then she was too far away, slipping through the strands of his reach. Smoke trailed from the left wing, but it continued to accelerate into the upper atmosphere.
The others and Chewie were an afterthought as he sprinted aboard the Falcon and brought the engines online. He had no idea where they'd gone after he plunged into the shadow flames for Kira, but they'd understand. He'd return for them, once he had stopped Rey.
The Falcon's sublight engines hummed to life. He checked the scanners to trace the TIE fighter, which was nearing the exosphere, the threshold for hyperspace jumps. Guiding the Falcon into the air, he jetted upwards.
Whatever damage he'd inflicted on her ship had become exponentially worse when he caught up. From the look of it, she was foundering in open space with little thrust and his desperation ratcheted higher. Docking with the TIE would be risky, injured as it was, and the Falcon didn't have a tractor beam or grapples. Should he hail her over comms? Would she answer?
Before he could make up his mind, the TIE began to plummet towards the forest moon's nearest neighbor, Endor's ocean moon.
"Kira!" he cried, though she couldn't hear.
With no other options, he followed her dive towards the stormy blue-gray planet.
A/N: Look, a rare Vader in the wild! What did you think? Let me know in a comment! I'm interested in your thoughts...
Next update Dec 20 CST