Chapter Eight
Stranded
The Millennium Falcon trailed smoke as it descended towards a snowy world. The ship wobbled unsteadily over a glassy, frozen ocean before crashing into the ice.
Poe Dameron unfolded himself from his seat. Most of the battered freighter's instruments had died on the way down. One of the corridor lights blinked hesitantly and then went out.
"You okay?" Poe asked his companions.
Chewbacca growled a yes.
"I'm just fine," Rose said through clenched teeth, her knuckles white as she clung tightly to her chair. BB-8 sat motionlessly at her feet.
Poe pulled out his flashlight and shone it into the dark passageway. The tool seemed to be getting a lot of use today. He started down the corridor, Chewbacca following him. "Rey! Finn!"
C-3PO's glowing yellow eyes appeared out of the darkness. "You didn't say my name, sir, but I'm all right."
Poe made his way to the gun wells in the middle of the ship. Rey, who had climbed partway down the ladder, let go and fell into his waiting arms.
"You all right?"
"Yeah," she said. "Where's Finn?"
Finn emerged from the rear of the ship. "I'm good."
"Ah! Master Finn," said See-Threepio.
Finn asked, "What is this place?"
"This isn't the afterlife, is it?" C-3PO wondered. "Are droids allowed here?"
"All I saw on the way down was a lot of ice," said Poe. "But I was trying to keep us from turning into pink smears on the ground. Thought we were goners."
"We might still be," Threepio suggested.
Poe said, "Let's get out of the ship, scout around—"
He broke off as the Falcon listed violently to one side. The crew braced themselves against the walls.
C-3PO said, "Sir, it's quite possible this afterlife is not entirely stable."
"It's worse than that," Rose said, walking into the corridor. She had BB-8 cradled in her arms like an oversized metal baby. "Look down."
Poe pointed his flashlight at the floor. Water trickled past their feet.
"All right, let's just get out of here," said Poe. "Everybody grab what you can and get to the top hatch."
Rey ran to her cabin. By the light of her saber, she grabbed some books and shoved them into her satchel. She sprinted to the forward hatch, where Finn was pushing Chewbacca through the hatchway while Rose and Poe pulled him up by the arms.
The crew finally managed to heave the Wookiee out. The water was already up to Finn's and Rey's knees. Poe kneeled next to the hatch, holding out his hand. "Rey, Finn, c'mon."
The Millennium Falcon lurched again. Poe jumped back as it slipped under the ice. Water poured through the hatch of the sinking ship, submerging Rey and Finn up to their necks.
"Take my hand," Rey shouted. Finn grabbed her as she pushed through the aperture and launched herself into the frigid ocean. They swam upwards, heading for the hole in the ice.
"Finn!" Poe shouted, staring into the water. "Rey!"
The water was horribly still. Suddenly, Rey's and Finn's heads broke the surface, gasping for breath. Their friends dragged them onto the ice sheet.
Rey used the Force to pull the water out of Finn's clothing, then her own. She waved her hand. The liquid splashed onto the ice.
"I can't believe we lost Han's ship," Rey panted. She glared at Poe. "What were you thinking, lightspeed skipping?"
"Well, it got us out of there, didn't it?"
"Poe, the compressor's down!"
Finn stared at the sky. "You two. . ."
Poe said, "Oh, I know, I was there."
". . . every time."
"Well now we're stuck here on—" Rey turned to C-3PO. "Where are we, anyway?"
"I'm afraid such information is usually supplied by an astromech droid," said C-3PO. "I merely translate—"
"—stuck here in the middle of nowhere with no ship and no way to call for help!" Rey shouted. Her voice reverberated across the ice field.
"Okay, guys, arguing won't help us," Finn said. "You said it yourself, Rey. We've got enough problems already without infighting."
Rey and Poe looked at him. "You're right," Rey admitted after a moment.
"Let's find some shelter," Poe said, tiredly. "Then we can try to think our way out of this."
The group was trekking across the ice towards a line of hills in the distance when something round and metallic caught Chewbacca's attention. He plodded towards the object and barked at the others. They came up beside him, looking down at his find. It was the radar dish of the Millennium Falcon.
"It must have broken off when we crashed," Poe said. His face brightened. "We can call for help!"
"What about the transmission blockade?" Finn asked.
Poe slapped his forehead. "Oh. Right."
Rose pursed her lips. She felt the stirrings of an idea, but its final form remained frustratingly unclear. "Let's bring it along," she said. "I think I might be able to get around the jamming, but I need time to think."
The Resistance band set off once more, Chewbacca rolling the dish along beside them. Soon they had reached the hills, which curved upwards into frost-covered uplands. A steep cliff sloped downwards from the tundra to the ice sheet.
The group made camp beside a large pile of rocks that broke the worst of the biting wind. Rey and Finn set about making a fire while Poe and Chewbacca attached the radar dish to a portable power supply and Rose sliced into BB-8's programming. After working with the droid for a while, Rose called Poe over.
"I've found the problem," Rose said. "There was a veil cipher inserted into Beebee-Ate's code, which caused him to transmit a location signal. The First Order could detect it whenever they were within range of his antenna. I've deactivated the program."
"How did he pick it up?" Poe asked.
"Based on Beebee's log, it was uploaded when we were on the Moon of Kuat."
"You mean," Poe said, taken aback, "they could have found us when we were at Nirauan, or even on Ajan Kloss?"
"Technically, yes," said Rose. "Their probes must never have been there when we were."
"So. . . can we turn him on now?" Poe asked, raising his eyebrows.
"Yep," Rose replied, flipping the droid's power switch. BB-8 raised his dome and shook it as though to clear his mechanical mind after a long nap.
"Are you all right, pal?" Poe asked. The droid twirled in a circle and gave a cheerful beep.
Poe smiled. "Glad to hear it."
Rose let the man and droid catch up and walked over to Chewbacca. "I have an idea," she said.
Poe walked up to Finn and Rose, who had successfully built a small blaze. The pilot plopped down on a flat rock.
"Well, I know where we are now," he told them. "Beebee-Ate says we're on the planet Wavett."
"Wavett," muttered Rey. "Great." She removed a book from her satchel and walked away towards the rocks.
Poe looked at her retreating back and then turned to Finn. "Do you think I should—" he began.
"Probably best to leave her alone for now," Finn advised.
Poe stared into the fire for a long while as the light faded from the sky. Finally he spoke. "She's amazing," he said.
Finn didn't ask who Poe was talking about. He knew well enough.
"The things she can do. . . I can't even imagine being capable of stuff like that," Poe continued. "But she's so hard on herself. When we were on Bonadan, she said she was responsible for the entire galaxy."
"Doesn't surprise me," said Finn, thinking of his and Rey's conversation just after the mission to Kuat.
Poe said, "I want to help her, but sometimes she just pushes me away."
"All we can do is be here for her when she needs us," Finn told him.
"I know," said Poe.
They lapsed into silence again.
"You know, you and her are pretty much family to me now," Poe ventured after a while. "You're like the brother I never had, and Rey. . . well. . ." he trailed off lamely.
Finn wasn't looking at him. He seemed lost in his own thoughts, the fire casting a flickering orange glow across his face. "I never had a family. When I was in the First Order I didn't even have a proper name." He looked up at Poe. "Rose and you two are my family."
They were both ruminating over this when Rose and Chewbacca sat down at the fire. "Hey, guys!" Rose said cheerily. "We came up with a way to send a transmission."
"Oh?" Poe inquired.
"We know that the First Order is able to send transmissions between systems somehow," Rose explained. "Our best guess at how they do this is that the jammer is programmed to briefly unblock certain frequencies according to a complex algorithm. Their transmitters use the same algorithm to send the signal, hopping between the unjammed frequencies." Rose said.
"Uh-huh. . ." prompted Poe, not quite seeing the significance of this.
"My examination of the veil cipher confirms this theory," Rose said. "Beebee-Ate's antenna isn't strong enough to send signals across interstellar space, but whoever wrote the veil cipher couldn't know where it would end up. Because it might have been uploaded to a starship or portable comm center with a long range, it was written to send signals according to the First Order's frequency-hopping protocol."
"Which means we can use the algorithm to send a signal too!" Finn exclaimed, kissing her on the cheek. "Rose, you're a genius."
"Aw, thanks," Rose said, hugging him. "But a real genius, like Drusil Bephorin, would have been able to determine the algorithm by studying First Order transmissions a long time ago."
Chewbacca roared.
"I concur with Chewbacca's assessment," C-3PO said. "You are quite clever, Mistress Tico."
This time Rose merely blushed and murmured something that sounded like, "S'nothing."
"So, have you sent the signal yet?" Poe asked.
"No," said Rose. "There's a chance this could tell the First Order where we are, and we wanted to make sure everyone else was onboard with the plan."
Finn said, "We should go tell Rey then."
"I heard," Rey said. She stepped out of the shadows beyond the ring of firelight.
Poe asked, "And?"
"Do it," said Rey. "I'm for whatever has a chance at getting us out of here."
"Okay," Rose said. "We'll go send the distress call right now." She and Chewbacca headed towards the makeshift transmitter.
"We should all get some sleep," Poe said, looking up at the dark, star-studded sky. "It's been a long day."
"I'll take first watch," Rey volunteered.
Poe asked concernedly, "Are you sure?"
"I'll be fine," Rey said, hoping she would be.
While her organic friends slept in their bedrolls, and her mechanical ones lay in low-power mode, Rey sat next to the fire, paging through the book she had found on Bonadan. Most of the sections she had read so far were about Force healing, a skill she had been studying of late. She and Leia had used the technique to heal the crystal that now powered her lightsaber, as it had powered Luke's and his father's before him.
Important and interesting as the text was, Rey's concentration began to fail. Her mind wandered to thoughts of her parents. No one might be no one, but the pain of her long abandonment was still keen. She didn't even know what her parents' names had been.
Rey wondered if Finn cared about who his parents were. She lazily considered waking him up and asking him, but decided against it. He needed his sleep, and she could ask him tomorrow. Besides, she felt so tired just now. . . .
Rey's eyes closed. She sank backwards and slipped into sleep.
Rey found herself in the bright, warm sands of Jakku. Wind whistled over the desert dunes.
A child's voice screamed. Rey turned to see herself as she had been years ago, a little girl reaching out for her parents as Unkar Plutt dragged her away.
"Come back! Wait!" the child cried, reaching out her hand.
Rey stepped towards the scene, her feet digging into the sand. Before her stood a lightly bearded man and a woman clad in a dark blue robe. The man was, with some difficulty, holding the woman back. Rey felt an instant shock of recognition. They were her parents. She tried to call out to them, but no sound emerged from her throat.
Rey's mother slipped free of the arm around her and ran towards her daughter, but Rey's father grabbed her and held her back.
"No!" Rey's father shouted. "We can't! It's too dangerous."
Rey's mother ceased struggling. "Stay here!" she called, pain etched in a prematurely lined face. "Wait for us! We'll come back. Understand? I promise we'll come back."
Rey's eyes watered, matching those of her younger self, as they both watched the transport ship carrying her parents rise into the sky.
"Come back!" the girl screamed.
Rey jerked upwards, breathing heavily. The book she had been reading lay open on her lap. The fire guttered nearby.
"They were afraid," Rey said, devastated by her vision. "Why were they afraid?"
No response emerged from the darkness. Rey walked along the edge of the cliff, the chill breeze cutting at her limbs and face. She looked out from the top of the precipice. Pinpoints of starlight in the sky above reflected off the glassy surface of the frozen sea below.
"Luke!" Rey shouted. "Tell me! Why were they afraid?" The bitter wind snatched away and muffled her words.
"He can't tell you, Rey," a harsh, distorted voice said from behind her. "But I can."
Rey spun, igniting her lightsaber reflexively. Kylo Ren stood before her, snow fluttering tranquilly around his image.
It was day on Remnicore. Kylo was standing near the Wommels' cave, his back to his downed TIE whisper. "I know the rest of your story," he said.
Rey turned away from him.
"Rey."
Rey rounded on him, raising her lightsaber. "You're lying."
Kylo walked slowly towards her. "I never lied to you."
Rey stepped backwards, halting at the cliff's edge. She looked down at the vertiginous drop behind her.
"Your parents were no one," Kylo continued. "They chose to be. Your mother was strong. Almost as strong as you."
Rey spat, "Don't."
"She could have become powerful indeed. But she was a coward," Kylo said contemptuously. "She chose to marry a craftsman and spend her days trading scrap on a dustball."
Rey seemed on the verge of tears. "I don't want this."
"I've been in your head," said Kylo. "I know what happened to them."
"No!" Rey shrieked, whirling towards him. Kylo dodged back before bringing his lightsaber up to block her next strike. Their blades locked, spitting sparks.
Rey's mother kneels in a tent, hugging her daughter tightly. "Rey, be brave." she says.
Her father rushes into the tent. He crouches next to them and tells Rey, "You'll be safe here. I promise."
Rey shoved Kylo's blade sideways. The two combatants circled each other.
"I don't need you to tell me what happened. I know what you did," Rey accused. "Deep down, I've always known. My parents didn't sell me for drinking money. They were hiding me from you."
Kylo seemed more intrigued than anything else. "So you remember."
"You killed my parents, didn't you?"
"You blame me for your life on Jakku," Kylo rumbled. "You should thank me for it. You were safe."
"Stop talking!" Rey shouted. She swung wildly at Kylo. He parried deftly. One of her attacks sliced into a basket of fruit gathered by the Wommels. Small red globes spilled across the cold, hard ground of Wavett.
Rey caught Kylo's saber with her own and pushed it downwards. Snow sizzled and melted as the two beams of energy pierced the frost-covered earth.
Violent sounds frayed at the edges of Finn's awareness. He rolled over, trying to tune out the noise and return wholly to the bosom of sleep, only to feel someone shaking him. He cracked open his eyes to see Rose peering down at him grimly.
"Rey's gone," she said.
Rey and Kylo slashed viciously at each other, then stepped away.
"You don't know the whole story," Kylo said.
Rey darted forward and struck out, her momentum carrying her past him. Kylo brushed her blow away. He turned slowly towards her.
Rey twirled her lightsaber, readying for another attack. "Say it! Did you kill them?"
"No," Kylo denied. "I buried them."
Rey stared at him, uncomprehending.
"Snoke made his orders clear," said Kylo. "Find anyone who could destroy him. It didn't take us long to hear about you."
Rain pours down. A red lightsaber plunges through a man's chest. He falls, dozens of others littering the ground around him. The Knights of Ren stand in their midst, weapons at the ready. Kylo breaks ranks and advances.
"They hid you well. When we caught up to them, they were on a wet, miserable backwater world. They had taken shelter among a group of colonists foolish enough to fight to protect them. It was hard work getting at them. Nevertheless, we found them eventually. But they wouldn't say where you were. So Snoke gave the order."
Rey's parents kneel aboard the Knights' ship. Solonny Ren unsheathes a barbed, curving knife and plunges it into Rey's father's chest. Her mother screams, then watches in silent fear as Hattaska Ren lifts his club.
"After the Knights had done their work, I took your parents' bodies back to Jakku and laid them to rest in a shallow grave."
"I don't believe you," Rey hissed.
Kylo took something out of his robe. "Perhaps this will help convince you," he said, holding it out.
Rey looked at the object in his hand. It seemed to be a small piece of wood. Rey warily stepped forward. Holding her lightsaber at the ready, she grabbed the object and then backed away quickly.
Rey examined the trinket. It was a carefully carved model of a round spaceship with a distinctive gap in the front: the Millennium Falcon. She looked up at Kylo, her eyes wide.
"I told Snoke that with your parents dead, we were unable to find you. But I knew you had never left Jakku. I always knew where you were."
"How?"
"Come find me," Kylo Ren said, "and I'll tell you." Then he vanished.
Rey's friends found her sitting in the midst of torn, inexplicably fruit-covered ground. She was cradling something to her chest and sobbing quietly.
Finn rushed to her, kneeling by her side. "Rey, are you all right?"
"Talk to me, Rey," Poe said on her other side.
"What happened here?" wondered Rose, examining a piece of red fruit. "I don't recognize this stuff."
Finn shot her a look.
Rose whispered sulkily, "It was a valid question." But she knelt next to Rey anyway.
Rey recovered enough to croak, "I'll be fine." She picked herself up off the ground and headed back to the camp.
Poe and Finn glanced at each other uneasily before following her. "I'll take next watch," Poe said, loud enough to reach Rey's ears.
Rey seemed not to notice. She crawled into her bedroll and sank into blessedly dreamless darkness.