—STAR WARS—

CHAPTER EIGHT

The isolated quarters of Kylo Ren in the tower beside the bridge was where the mysterious warrior vanished to for her more serious meditations. She sat on her knees in the middle of the circular room, her helmet on as she wallowed in her solitude. A couple of spherical training remotes hovered around her. She had her lightsaber on the floor before her.

But there was something missing in her mantra.

Suddenly the doors to her quarters were opened and one of her subordinates marched in timidly. She must not have locked the doors. "Ah…ma'am. We have an update on the pursuit of the traitor on Jakku."

"You must be new to your position, officer," the Knight of Ren spoke, remining still and tranquil, though her voice revealed the timebomb that the officer had just begun. "Most under my employ know better than to intrude on my private meditations, lieutenant?"

"Oh, well. It's lieutenant Mitako…uhm… Lady Ren, forgive me but our reports indicate that…well we seem to have lost track of FN-2187 who seems to have escaped the planet…and he is in possession of the BB-8 unit that we have been looking for."

Suddenly Ren rose up and the officer back up a mere inch, finding his bones frozen in fear. "Was the Resistance pilot with him?"

"No, ma'am. But he was in the company of some pirates instead, who managed to rescue the traitor and the astro droid aboard a Corellian YT-1300f light freighter…they've just made the jump into hyperspace."

Those words ignited something in her. Holding out her hand over her weapon, the hilt flew into her palm and instantly came to life. Suddenly the training remotes were firing at her and she swung her sword around her, reflecting every single bolt into the surrounding wall. The officer recoiled in terror as many of those reflected lasers had gone in his direction though just missing him by inches.

Disappointment fuelled frustration, which fuelled anger, then consummate hatred spurned into an ever-present aggression. The dark side of the Force was a constant source of power and knowledge.

Without stepping out of her meditation circle, Kylo Ren's crimson blade slashed and wacked the air and with every other strike, she was beginning to slice the machines as well. Then finally it all stopped. Every floating training droid was cut in half and left in tatters on the cold floor. Her chest heaving profusely, the warrior turned to face the new lieutenant. "Anything else?"

The man was petrified, recoiling into himself like a shrivelled insect. Left in a completely catatonic state with his eyes shut tight and when he finally managed some bravery, looked back to his superior. The blaster ricochets had left a rough impression of him all over the dark wall behind. "Ah…well… our… our… analysts say we may yet be able to track them on their last known trajectory—"

"Do not bother. I will hunt them down myself."

—=O=—

With the ship ascending into the vast emptiness of space, the old man could finally release a sigh of relief and once they jumped into hyperspace, reclined deep into his seat. The captain looked to his right, at his co-pilot who shared his exasperated expression. "We're supposed to be retired," he breathed.

The Wookie whined in response, clearly in agreement. For a moment longer, Han and Chewie just sat there and exchanged worrying glances. What respite they could snatch was short lived however. The sudden clash of clutter and chaos at the back had Han groan with familial annoyance. Again, he looked at his furry companion with not so much vexed than reluctant amusement. It had been some time.

But work needed to be done.

The old smuggler sighed as he got up from his seat and went straight to the main hold. He didn't even get through the portal when a metal rod was swung at his head. It was by mere millimetres that the swing missed him. The girl screamed as she made another assault on his head that once again, the pirate was able to dodge.

"Hey, easy there, kid!"

Suddenly the girl seemed savage, waving her staff around like she was fending off a rabid animal. The boy was there too, shielded behind her. "Get back. I mean it!"

"What's going on here?"

"Well, I could ask you the same question." She bellowed at him. "You just kidnapped a bunch of kids from Jakku!"

"I said easy there, kid. I mean it." The pirate held his hands up to brace himself from her next attack. "A little thanks wouldn't hurt much, either. We just saved your sorry asses back there, and not unscathed I might add."

"Well…thank you…" he could see a few cracks showing on the girl's defensive exterior, if not just a little chip. She had some spirit and pride; he'd give her that. "If it's all the same to you…I'd appreciate it if you'd drop me back to Jakku—"

Suddenly the spherical droid started to beep and whistle and somehow the girl had understood, nodding her head at him.

"Right and if it isn't too much trouble this droid wants to be dropped off at…uh…" she then turned to her other human companion. "BB-8 says your base is need to know…so I think we ought to know."

Han saw the boy's expression shake and rock off its stability. "Right…ah…well. Last I checked… it was in…" he looked to the droid pleadingly.

Before another word could be said by either of them, the Wookie pilot roared for them. Apparently, the ship's hyperdrive was strained and the ship's mechanics began to shake beneath their feet and steam started to burst through the grating. The pirate came over to the pressure point, lifting the grate, careful not to get any of that steam in his eyes. He started to analyse the damage in the access hole from up where he stood though he could not see much with all that fog.

The girl however had all but forgotten her mistrust. She ignored the emission spewing from beneath the deck and jumped into the access portal. Finn and BB-8 joined in soon after.

"You alright there, kid?"

Rey started to tinker about with the various valves and wires. "I'm just hoping that it isn't the motivator. Ship of this age and class is bound to have one."

"While you're down there, don't touch anything whose function you don't understand completely," the pirate shouted down to her. "If you start screaming and cursing stand by. You'll want me to pull you up."

"Yes, you do that," she sarcastically quipped. The old man walked over to a locker hidden under the table and retrieved a small metal box filled with various tools and equipment. After some time where all that was heard was the grunts of the little girl struggling with the freighter's broken parts, then she popped her head up, "Grab me the Harris—"

She was taken aback by the very Harris wrench she was asking for in the hand of the pirate, now present to her readily. She thanked him briefly and went back to work.

"Is it the motivator?" Finn asked down the vapour filled depths.

"No, I don't think so…" there was some more rattling going on below. The well seemed to branch into different smaller tunnels, so Rey was trying her best to navigate them. "Some moof-milker installed an older compressor on the ignition line!"

"Well, the Falcon has been on active duty for forty years straight now," he replied. "I've done a lot of patchwork here and there but haven't been in one place for long enough for a full service."

Rey began to explain that normally a compressor would do wonders for the hyperdrive, especially when making the jump, "But you're using an old Imperial era Corellia manufactured c-4 compressor on an SSP05, 0.8 class hyperdrive generator. Its putting too much strain on the power flow. Generator's going to bust."

"Know a thing or two about ship mechanics?"

"Well…when you're a scrap worker on a desert planet with no way off you're bound to pick up some things," Rey answered plainly. "Like how not to touch something in a way that makes it blow up in your face."

The Wookie started to moan in protest and his own defence,

"Don't worry, pal. No one's blaming ya. Like I said, kid; no time to properly fix this beauty." For an instant the man looked puzzled and just a tad curious. Who was this girl, who spoke so knowledgably of power flow rates and hyperdrive ignition pressures? His curiosity didn't last long as more sections of the ship's deck erupted in vapour geysers. "You alright there, kid?" he shouted down the shaft."

"Rey…are you okay!" Finn shouted after her while BB-8 started racing around the portal.

After some time with no response, the old pirate intended to jump right in and fetch her when a hand shot up, with a small metallic cylinder firm in her grasp. "Got it," she sighed finally ascending the abyss. "I bypassed the compressor. The hyperdrive might last a little longer but probably won't make it all the way. At least it won't explode like it would have otherwise. Also, your engine coolant is leaking, auxiliary power cells are being drained and your rotor is one day short of broken."

Han bobbed his head, impressed by this scavenger's mechanical prowess as well as her new attitude, given that mere moments ago she had tried to smash his head in with a heavy stick. He and the boy helped Rey out of the hole and once she was on her own two feet again, the pirate's demeanour hardened. "Okay, you two," once again, he took a seat around the hologame table, foot resting on his leg, "talk, now."

Rey was about to protest with her staff but a hand hovering ominously on the blaster pistol resting in the pirate's holster had her hesitant, recalling his short work with those thugs at Niima Outpost. "You first, sir," she risked.

At first, he smiled. A snarky, too confident smile that actually looked more intimidating to her. He leaned back in his seat, giving her an irate nod. "Kid, I'm not asking for your allegiance. I'm just asking for your names and why a bunch of TIE fighters decided to blow up an entire town for apparently no reason."

Again, the scavenger wanted to resist the pirate's request. This time it was Finn that broke the glaring contest between them, stepping forward with raised hands in surrender. "Hi…ah… my name is Finn and this is Rey, Mr…ah…"

"Solo," the pirate finally told them. "The name is Han Solo, I'm captain of the Millennium Falcon," he gestured around the room. "And the Wookie over there is my first mate, Chewbacca."

Chewie roared in response. Yet to their new guests, awe was all that permeated between them. It was his name that awed them.

Han Solo?

Han Solo.

Their shocked expressions were not lost on the old pirate, who just sighed before lifting himself off of the seat and making his way back to the cockpit.

They watched him go, Rey looked to Finn, unsure. "Should we…like…follow him?" Finn asked to which Rey just shrugged her shoulders though without any further prompting the two kids ran off behind him.

"Wait!" Rey called out after him.

"Hold up!" Finn tailed behind.

"You're Han Solo?!" she then halted, suddenly the space she occupied began to radiate with reverence, suddenly the grime and grease was replaced with polish and shine. "This is the Millennium Falcon!"

"Wait…Han Solo, the smuggler…the criminal?" Finn blurted out. He had read the archive documents back at base. Han Solo, renown pirate, accomplished smuggler and infamous criminal with an extensive rap sheet and an exceptional bounty on his head that was still in effect even to this day.

"No, the war hero," Rey as-a-matter-of-factly corrected him. "He helped take down the Empire." She even looked overhead at their pilot and giddily pointed at him in childish amazement. "And that's Chewbacca. The Wookie Warrior!" Clearly, the girl did not seem to share his view, and neither did Han, though his expression was mostly at amusement and pride in his many titles. Even the mighty warrior of Kashyyyk started to howl a conquering roar, revelling in his many victories.

At this point just outside the cockpit, Han turned around to face the two. "Listen. You two seem to know an awful lot about me—"

"It's actually the bare minimum. It's like public information at this point." The old man glared at Finn. His stern look was command enough for the young man to follow into silence. Rey however, was not deterred.

"I heard you infiltrated the crime syndicate of Jabba the Hutt and literally dismantled it. Ooh, and how you made the Kessel Run in fifteen parsecs on this very ship!"

"Twelve." Han corrected under his breath, trying not to validate her giddiness.

Suddenly she gasped, again, enveloped in her excitement. "My favourite was when you helped Luke Skywalker blow up that massive Imperial laser weapon."

This made the pirate freeze abruptly, causing them to bump into his back. It was like he had become paralysed. A wave of something washed over the old man. Not nostalgia. That was never part of his makeup. Perhaps it was remembrance of old friends, old adventures, or missed opportunities? He sighed and lay silent for just a few more moment before finally turning around to face the two younglings. "Before we have to jump out of hyperspace, I need to know what's going on here." Just as he said this BB-8 came into view and the smuggler gestured to him. "We're going to start with that."

The desert scavenger promptly shrunk under his sight. "This is BB-8 and he's carrying a secret message for the Resistance. We need to get him into Republic hands because the First Order is hot on his trail—on our trail." she explained, suddenly nervous of the great war hero standing before him, as if she had not just tried to knock him out with the sole purpose of stealing his ship.

"He's carrying a clue to the location of Luke Skywalker." Finn then chimed in. like before, this elicited a serious response from the smuggler. "You are the Han Solo that fought in the Rebellion, fought with the Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker against the Galactic Empire."

"The Rebellion ended when the New Republic rose," he finally began to say. "It was no longer needed… and neither was Luke Skywalker." When Han entered the cockpit, he was shaking. As he took his seat by his towering friend, Chewie observed him with what could possibly be identified as concern. The old pirate could sense his best friend's sympathetic gaze and assured him that he was doing just fine.

Rey and Finn took the chairs behind them. After some more silence between them, Rey finally asked where they were actually going.

"Well, it's clear this ship won't get to Hosnian Prime," Han told them. "As for the Resistance; their base of operation changes so often that it's hard to determine, last base of operations was in Mygeeto, but I've just come back from there and its empty. The Resistance is on the run, I think." Finn felt somehow that he had taken a burden off of him. Han then took some time to process things for a minute. "I've got an old friend however, who has resources we could use to locate their base. We'll drop by to rest and resupply, and while we get the Falcon fixed up, we can figure out where this next generation of rebels are hiding."

There was a slight sense of distain in his voice that Finn was rather quick to pick up on. After all he had lived the all his life with people who sounded exactly like that when talking about the Resistance. "Not much of a fan of the Resistance, are you?"

Again, Han Solo sighed, more to himself than at Finn's accusation. "It's all the same, isn't it? It's just the same old fight. The same old war, the same old enemy…" We're supposed to be retired.

—=O=—

On the flat plains where once stood the lowly town of the Niima Outpost, Kylo Ren, draped in her black, woven cape examined the carnage and ruin left behind by the traitor FN-2187. Nothing was left of the town but wrecked structures turned to rubble and burnt or burning bodies.

Approaching her as she crouched down to closely inspect one of the many crater and scorch marks that riddled the flats, Knight Ap'lek brandished his laser-glaive spear in one hand while the other dragged behind an overweight alien with flab in place of facial features. The knight threw him at Kylo's feet and trained the bright, crimson laser end at his throat.

"This is Unkar Plutt," he said. "He was the de facto governor of this town and says he knows who helped both FN-2187 and that the traitor was in fact in possession of the Resistance BB unit."

"Yeh, and I can tell you who it was that saved the boy and kidnapped one of my scavengers. But for that information…demands a price."

Kylo took in a deep, sharp breath, seething, dark, she held out her hand in front of the junk dealer's bloated face. "And you will pay for it."

Amidst the screams and cries in both basic speech and Croluti, two words were discerned from his trembling mouth. Those words were enough to stagger even the great master of Ren. "Han…Solo…"

Unkar's fate was chosen. He would be left to the fates. The junkyard owner was chained to a single post in the middle of the ruins. Under the blazing Jakku sun, Unkar began to sob as he waited, as Sand Stalkers popped out of the ground and began to enclose upon him. It would be very slow.

—=O=—