Last On: The Falcon is coming to them. Ben agreed to stay because they have a recording that they are sure he'll want to hear before he leaves.
Chapter 13
It was an hour and a half before they heard the purr of the Millennium Falcon's engines as it circled looking for a place to land. Ben felt an immediate surge of emotions when he saw the ship, and he quickly ducked into the First Order Shuttle, to avoid them. He did not intend to step foot on the Falcon. They could show him the news-holo on a portable device. And after which, he intended to leave this place as fast as he could.
Rey stood outside looking up as she very much looked forward to seeing her friends again. Their tent and few belongings had been packed up, and were piled with the scavenged parts Rey had been collecting from the 'junkyard.' Though Rey was hesitant to use that noun, as compared to the best junk on Jakku, where everything had been scavenged by hundreds of scavengers before, this place may well be called a gold mine. And she made several trips back to that gold mine while waiting for someone to respond to her calls.
As the boarding ramp lowered, Rey smiled and waved to Finn and Rose. Ben stepped out of the shuttle then, and eyed them suspiciously. Behind them roared a greeting from Chewbacca, as he left the cockpit and came around to join them.
The looks on Finn and Rose's faces were ones of worry, especially once they looked over and saw Kylo Ren glaring at them from his shuttle hatch.
"Here, you'll both want to see this," said Finn, as he handed Rey a device.
As Ben walked behind Rey to see the device, Finn and Rose both jumped back a step. Chewy didn't move a muscle. All three had their weapons pulled and aimed at Ben. "You all know, if I wanted to, I could take you out from back there," he said pointing to his ship.
Chewy alone growled a response, which Ben ignored.
Ben looked at Rey, and she pushed the button on the device to play its recording.
A three-dimensional representation of Hux popped out of the device. The expression on his face seemed to be sad, though Ben could see the twitch in his eyebrow that was his tell. "Everyone, I come to you today to share grave news. Our Supreme Leader Kylo Ren is dead," his voice seemed to break at this last word. "He was murdered by an assassin yesterday morning. His last words were to promote me to Supreme General, and to bid me with his wishes for the First Order." Hux had tears in his eyes as he said this. "I only hope I can live up to his infinite wisdom. Despite our best efforts, his assassin fled and is still on the loose. This is the face of the assassin." A holo-image of Ben was brought up on the device, and Hux's face seethed with anger. "According to our intelligence he received plastic surgery somewhere in the Outer Rim so that he would look like Supreme Leader Ren. His appearance, even his fingerprints are almost an exact match. It was hard for our people to tell the difference, but he is a dangerous man, a force sensitive killer. If you see him, alert your authorities immediately. And do not fall for his manipulative claims to be the Supreme Leader. Let today be a day of mourning as we remember our fallen leader." Hux took a moment to hang his head in sadness, then his image broke apart, and disappeared.
Everyone was silent for a while after the transmission. "Well, that's obviously a lie," Rey said. "I mean here you are, not dead, beside me."
Ben opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a loud, guttural yell. It must have frightened his audience because Rose's blaster went off. Ben held out his hand to freeze the shot mid-air, only instead it was deflected left and blasted some trees in the forest instead.
Chewy said something in Shyriiwook.
"I don't know what I'm gonna do," Ben responded.
Chewy spoke again.
"No, I don't have any allies. I knew nothing about this. Hux is a traitorous nerf-herder, but I had no idea he was planning anything so soon."
Chewy hummed a word. Ben looked at him in disbelief. Then Chewy continued.
"Go to the resistance. I'm the displaced leader of the enemy. That's the last place I want to go."
Chewy trilled a reply.
Rey added onto his statement, "He's right. Your mom wouldn't let them hurt you."
Then Finn and Rose looked at each other, before Finn took a step forward. "We're the enemy of your enemy, right. You've got no one else."
Ben let out a long sigh, as he brought his hands through his hair. All to give him time to think and to distract him from the emotions that wanted to rip right through him.
Then Rey held out her hand. "Please, Ben," she said.
And that was all it took. Ben felt his body was drawn to Rey as if on instinct. When his hand was in hers he looked down and nodded in answer. Tears filled his eyes, as his emotions leaked past the cage he used to contain them.
Later, as the girls were packing the scavenged parts on the ship, Rose pausing to ooh and aah over each new part. Every once in a while they'd whisper and one of them would laugh. Ben wondered what conversation they were having, and how much of it had to do with him.
"You don't want to know." came a voice behind him, and Ben half expected to turn and find his dad standing there.
Instead it was Finn. He had been modifying the clamps on Ben's shuttle to allow it to dock with the Falcon's outdated equipment. "Trust me, when girls laugh like that, you're better off not knowing what they're talking about."
"Yeah," Ben nodded.
The two completed their work in quiet. Ben got into the shuttle, and piloted it up to the Falcon's Bay, where Finn hooked it up manually with the docking clamps.
"I just want to say," Finn broke the silence, as he looked up from his work and over at Ben. "The way I see it, we were both taken from our families, in different ways, but we were trained and manipulated into killing for them. We both became traitors, too. Me when I left the First Order, and you when you killed Snoke."
Ben looked up at him, wondering what he was getting at. He knew he should be angry that the stormtrooper would dare compare himself with Kylo Ren. But it was like his anger was out of juice, and the rage just didn't come.
"Yeah, Rey alluded to what happened. I got the rest from Rose when she explained about you guys. I just have to say thank you, for that. For protecting Rey, I mean. Anyways, the way I see it, you and I are more alike then we are different. It doesn't matter what color mask we wore. And if I can help you shed the mask, I'll be here." Finn continued with a nod.
Ben didn't respond, and Finn didn't expect him to. "Are you two ready?" Finn asked Rey and Rose.
"Yes," they replied.
"We have one more shuttle to dock," said Rose.
Ben knew she meant the ship he was sent here in. "You're gonna need a tractor beam." He almost smiled.
As Chewy flew the Falcon to where it crashed, Rose looked down at the wreckage. "Oh, I guess I need to work on the landing maneuvers," She looked over at Ben. "I only got the order as soon as you left that morning."
Rey and Ben turned to look at her in surprise.
"What? You think I can't figure out what's going on." She rolled her eyes and smiled as the Falcon's tractor beam pulled the shuttle up towards them.
Ben held onto a bulkhead as he felt the ship entering Hyperspace. All chances to turn back were gone. They were on their way.
