Chapter note: 30/06/19 - This chapter has been edited to revert Pasaana to a single-biome desert planet.
I've also deleted my recent upload of Chapter Four. After many attempts at revision, I decided it just needs a complete overhaul. I also need to put this fic down for a while, and come back to it when I'm in the right headspace. As I have two fics inspired by Rey's TIE leap scene in the TROS trailer, I have to decide which one to continue and which to let go. Particularly as scenes and conversations between Rey and Kylo keep running parallel to each other.
AIRSTRIKE IMPOSSIBLE - 3
ll lll l ll
Rey had visited several planets in the year since leaving Jakku, and travelled many terrains. The thick, cloying boglands of Dagobah had been amidst the most challenging for her to touch down upon, and she marvelled that there was once a time when Luke himself had trained there with his Master, Yoda. But for all the challenges Dagobah presented, she'd felt a sense of well-being on the planet. The Force flowed strong and pure, and she'd perceived it even when under the most gruelling conditions a swamp planet could offer.
On this world, however, she observed a disarming sense of unease. And as she journeyed further from the flat desert plain, a rolling, seething feeling of disruption coiled within her belly. The Force had led her to this place - she was sure of it. But at some point, that strange and beautiful cosmic energy - the thrum of which was still so new to her - had lead her astray. A teeny tiny voice inside her head whispered insistently that she was lost. Berated her for her foolishness. Her apparent inattention to the Force-fed nudges she'd thus far been following.
And so she sat cross-legged upon yet another rock. Eyes closed. Awareness of her surroundings blown wide as she threw out her senses in search of a reading on that strange inner beacon that had led her to this planet. This mountainside. This very path.
Somehow, she'd find her way again.
Kylo Ren toed the indiscreet pile of ash and scorched brambles before him and stared up into the foothills ahead. What game did the scavenger play, he wondered, to be so careless of her tracks?
Drawing a deep, centering breath, he focused on the threads of the Force that surrounded him. Honed his concentration until he could all but see the lingering energy of every living thing that had passed through settle like unspooled ribbon at his feet.
Above and below, the threads spun.
In and out, they fused.
Every nearby creature that crawled the parched desert floor or flew its relentless sky.
Every split stick upon the ground.
Every sun-warmed stone.
The Force wove gossamer strands within them all.
Kylo plucked at these threads. Tested each invisible string to determine which one belonged to her. He was hours behind her. Her strand but a fading imprint. But it was there. Thrumming with energy as unique as a fingerprint.
And now that he'd found it, he could find its source.
The sun tracked towards the highest point of the sky.
And then beyond it.
The only extra-sensory awareness of her surroundings, Rey had developed, was the deeply uncomfortable press of her bladder. The gravel beneath her butt cheeks. The pins and needles in her legs…
Frowning, she squeezed her eyes tighter. Inhaled deep and released a slow steadying breath. Willed her conscious to let go of the slow-burning anger and frustration that had simmered beneath her skin for the better half the day. Let go, she silently urged herself, and fracking meditate. For crying out loud.
The pins and needles only intensified.
Exasperation at critical levels, she stretched out her legs, climbed down from the rock and began pacing out a track in front of it.
Seemed she was too tense for meditation right now.
Rey really was lost.
There was nothing she could do but admit it. Berate herself for insisting Poe and Finn keep the holomap. Then reproach herself for being arrogant enough to think she could do this alone.
Instead, she was running out of time. Running out of time and blundering. Pushing her way deeper into the foothills as she tried to reach into the Force and find the lure that had drawn her here.
That teeny tiny voice was still whispering, but its tone has changed; no longer taunting her for her foolishness, but urging her to stop. Stop. Center herself. Find her calm.
Easier said than done, Rey muttered inwardly. But when she broke through a tangle of brittle desert foliage and into a narrow clearing, and the exhaustion in her limbs finally made itself known, she allowed herself to slow. To stop. To rest a palm against a pillar of chalky rock, and start mentally back-tracking in search of that damn calm.
"You're unbalanced."
The deadpan voice at her back sent a chill of shock up her spine. This was no bridging of the Force-bond, she realised with no small amount of trepidation. She'd actually wasted enough time on this wild bantha chase for Kylo Ren to stumble across her in person.
Her fingers furrowed into crumbling rock as she defied the urge to spin around on her feet.
"You," she began tersely, "you're one to talk."
"No. Listen." The light tread of footsteps scuffed the ground behind her. Rey closed her eyes, pressed her forehead to the pillar and drew in a deep steadying breath as she sensed him directly behind her. Or rather, she sensed the intensity of him. Rolling like a thunderclap. Charging the air like lightning particles.
"You're letting your emotions get the better of you." His words, soft and measured, gave away nothing of his thoughts. "Your frustration. Your anger. Your -"
"That's rich, coming from you," she scoffed, incredulous. It was like listening to a Sarlacc accuse a Rancor of having teeth.
"Do you have any idea where you are? What you're doing?" Kylo pressed, ignoring her rebuke as he stepped so close she could feel his breath ghost the back of her neck, "you don't, do you?"
Rey tensed at his proximity. She would have loved to throw the answers to his stupid questions back in his arrogant face. If only she had any to give.
"I thought Luke would have taught you better."
"Luke taught me nothing." She hissed, provoked into pivoting on her heel at last. She blinked away from Ben's - Kylo's - wide brown eyes. Disconcerting. How warm they could look. Particularly when he was standing close enough to see the flecks of ochre in their depths.
"He ordered me to leave before we reached the third lesson," she obstinately returning his gaze, "I suppose I can thank you for that."
"When I told you, you need a teacher," a muscle twitched beneath Kylo's left eye, "I didn't have Luke Skywalker in mind."
He wheeled away, crossing several paces before turning back to face her, hand outstretched. For a moment, Rey froze, confused as to the invitation. Until she felt a tug at her belt and she slammed her hand against his trembling lightsaber.
"No." She bared her teeth with the effort of holding the saber in place. Reached into the Force to counter him. "You only get this back when I've got what I came here for, and I'm boarding my ship."
"And what did you come here for?"
She blinked. Unsure of how to answer him. Mind suddenly blank of any potentially useful lie. "A weapon." She said at last. It was the truth. Possibly. There were certain gaps in the intel the Resistance had been able to gather on the exact nature of the artifact she'd been sent to find.
Kylo snorted, dropping his hand to his side. "You have no idea, do you?" For a long moment, he assessed her. "You're just a scavenger. Playing at being a Jedi."
He left her with that. Turning away with one last scowling glance at his lightsaber before picking out a path between rock pillars and scrub and striding from sight.
Rey stood statue still in his wake. Indignant. Angry. And by this point, half-afraid he was right.
As the minutes ticked by and the anger subsided, Rey felt that small insistent inner voice kick in at last. Telling her what to do next.
And she didn't like it. Not one bit.
There was a cave somewhere ahead; Kylo Ren could sense the still, silent pocket it created in the Force when he extended his awareness. It was a place of absolute darkness. And not just because it was set so deep within a cliff crevice that the thumping desert sun had no chance of touching its entrance.
He didn't know this cave, but he knew the Darkside thrummed strong within its walls. It was no wonder the girl was being thrown into discord. Nexus points of the Darkside had ways of disguising themselves. And protecting their own.
His senses touched upon another ripple in the Force. A now-familiar strand that seemed hell-bent on creating crossroads with his own. He sighed before slowing his pace. Chose the sun-bleached skeleton of an orbak to rest against.
"Give back the lightsaber now, and I'll be merciful later."
"How did you know I was tracking you?" Rey ignored the request, instead stopping to pull a flask from her satchel and trickle a few precious mouthfuls of water into her mouth.
"How could you not be? I know where I'm going. You, clearly, do not." Kylo's eyes flickered to the flask before he blinked away. Damn the girl for destroying his TIE and making what should have been a quick stopover into a damn pilgrimage for which he had no provisions.
"At least I'm prepared for the journey." She raised an eyebrow, smothered the indignation that sharpened her tone.
"I wasn't exactly expecting some scrap of a girl to plunge a lightsaber through my ship."
"You tried to run me down." She managed between clenched teeth.
Her ferocity was not without warrant. And suddenly he wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the situation. At the fact they were even standing here discussing it.
"Yeah, I did." He pressed his lips against the sudden threat of a smile. Perhaps, he idly wondered, the dehydration was getting to him.
"Guess we're even then."
When he looked up, she was holding something in an outstretched hand towards him. Something that glinted as it captured the late afternoon sunlight.
He only hesitated for the skip of a heartbeat before accepting the water flask.
This time, the smile slipped through.
tbc...