Chapter 13: The Game is Afoot
"NO!" Rey fell to her knees, arms clutching her head. She couldn't breathe, it was as if there was someone wrapping their fingers around her throat and squeezing the air out from her. It felt as if her chest was caving in and all she wanted to do was curl up into herself and wait for someone to save her. But she knew no one would and that he wasn't actually there.
A choked cry for help forced itself up her throat, and she felt tears beginning to run down her cheek. "Why is this happening to me, Ben?" Rey looked up at him with sorrow in her eyes.
"Rey!" Kylo carefully touched her back. All her emotions came flooding through him, forcing him to feel what she felt.
Dread.
Anxiety.
Fear.
Her adrenaline flew through his veins like a scalefish through the river, but he couldn't move a single muscle, the absolute panic paralyzed him. Especially when he heard his Knight.
'We're coming for you, Scavenger' It was Kailin.
He could feel her shivering beneath his fingertips, the terror they gave her. She didn't possess an ounce of this trepidation when she so blindly fought him on Starkiller Base. Or with Snoke, when he was torturing and assaulting her mind for his uncle. The Knights had left something deeply rooted within her and he couldn't understand why.
'Oh, the wonderful things we will do to you.' Kylo heard. It was Mortathi Ti Rhea teasing Rey. In blind anger, he clutched the fabric of Rey's tunic in his fists.
'This wasn't the plan.' his mind echoed.
The fury inside was a raging boil. He wanted to slice the men in half. There wasn't anything he could do to help. 1. He was on a ship that was still two days from Endor. And 2. He was in a towel. But, sadly, this was the price that needed be to paid before he, and he alone was able to strike them down.
"Get up," he told her sternly. "Rey! Get. Up!" with the fabric still balled in his fist, Kylo pulled Rey to her feet.
Rey snapped out of her hysterics. "Excuse you!" she shoved her shoulder from his grasp.
"You need to go to your room and pack anything you can fit in a bag and run." he ordered "Food, clothes, anything."
"What?" Rey looked at him confused.
"Maker, Rey! Just listen to me." He pressed his two hands together, pointing in her direction "Once this turbolift gets to the top level, get to your quarters, pack a bag and run fast as hell. And hide! I'll find you when I get to Endor." Kylo instructed.
"Wait… wha… I'm sorry?" her heart smacking against her chest cavity. "You can see my surroundings?" She questioned
"Are you even listening to me, Rey?" Kylo, not paying attention to her, and tenderly placed his hands on her shoulders. "They're going to hurt you," he warned.
In the midst of the hysteria, the Force strengthened their bond without them noticing. Kylo slowly looked around to realize he was able to finally the world around her with pure clarity. Rey wasn't his only point of vision in their connection. He could hear the whirring of pulleys of the turbolift, see the fluorescent lighting of the panels on the walls, feel the slight rumble of the lift moving upward.
In a blank fog, Rey looked at Kylo. She could only see the bits and pieces of his surrounding as well. She could feel the thrum of his ship, see the shadows of the hallways, hear the beeping of the cockpit.
"How is this possible?" she asked
"Something we can figure out later." The turbolift dinged indicating its arrival to the level. Kylo gave Rey a look of longing before he pushed her out the lift. "You're here. Go! I'll find you."
"And if they find me?" Rey took his hand, refusing to let go.
"Don't fight back. Mortathi loves it when prisoners fight back. Kailin… well, he loves to torture." Kylo stepped forward, placed a hand on her cheek and his forehead on to hers. "I'm so sorry."
Rey nodded holding the flood behind her eyes and began to slowly walk backward whilst trying to keep his hands in her grasp.
"Go, Rey!"
She gave one last look his way, seeing the confines of the cockpit behind the doors of the turbolift before they closed.
Hushed conversations swirled in a dirty cloud of smoke, the stagnant stench of the smoked tabac hid within the cantina. The sharp smell of spilled alcohol permeated the air. In the shadows of the seedy cantina sat a woman who fiddled with her comm in one hand and swirled her drink in the other.
Bazine Netal wondered who the client was that she was meeting. She was contacted 3 days prior to meet in this dump on Corellia. The message was one of the most encrypted messages she'd ever received, so it must have been somebody important.
She watched the doors carefully to try and guess who they were when they walked through.
"Deathstick, gorgeous?" a scraggly voice interrupted.
"Go away," Bazine said in a bored manner without looking away from the doors.
"Oh, come on. It's the best stuff around." the voice begged.
"I said go away!" She annoyingly waived the voice away. The creature, that the voice belonged to, grabbed her arm. With the quickness of a blinked eye, she grabbed his face and slammed it into the table she was sitting at.
"Ugh, now look what you've done. You've wasted a perfectly good drink," she said unbothered. The entire cantina looked her way, staring at the creature on the floor. Bazine nonchalantly wiped the spilled drink from her and looked up, the cantina quickly continued back to business. She stepped over the unconscious creature and toward the door. Before she was able to step two more steps another pair of strong hands gripped tightly around her left arm. But before she could react another body grasped her right arm and pushed a nozzle of a blaster to her back.
"You'll be coming with us Ms. Netal" she looked to her left to see a stern but handsome looking man with steel blue eyes, a shaved head, and tanned skin.
"Oh, no need to be rough, boys," Bazine spoke seductively and rose her hands in defeat. "I'll go anywhere you want me to." She turned to her right and winked at the other man with similar hair but with green eyes and milky-white skin.
"FUUUCK!" Kylo screamed and pulled the back of his hair. There was an urgent beeping that kept flashing on his console. He tried to calm himself before answering, it didn't work. He slammed his fist against the button to answer.
"What!" he retorted
"Sir, it's Vrei" He could hear her ragged breath before the video connected "Sir, can you see us?"
"Yes, what is it?" he answered impatiently as he watched her holocam shaking furiously.
"Sir, they're after her." He could hear their footsteps slamming against the forest grounds. Their bodies hitting branches and bushes as they ran past. It was dark but a small spotlight beamed from the holocam on Vrei's eyeless face. He saw the steam rapidly being released and caught from her mouth.
"We can't stop them." he heard Aeron in the background.
"They're almost to the base, Ren," Keir added, her voice surprisingly calm considering their current state of movement.
"We've tried holding them back." the holocam swiftly moved to Darik, keeping speed with his fast pace. "They wouldn't listen."
"They're obsessed with the girl," Aeron added once more. Not a moment later he screamed, the holocam turned to his direction to see him surrounded by a thousand little yellow lights swirling around him.
Aeron screamed as he swatted at the blinding somethings.
"Wispies!" Kier yelled. There was shuffling all around.
"Fucking Ewoks" Kylo remembering the stories his mother told him as a child. Even then he thought them to be annoying.
"Ewoks" Darik repeated. He lifted his hand and used the Force to blow away the Wispies. "I hate Ewoks" he gritted his teeth.
"We don't have time for them. Darik you take care of them. Keir and I will head for Kailin and Mor." Vrei immediately ordered
"Yes, ma'am" there was a hint of glee in Darik's voice. He ran towards Aeron and whooped a yell as he shot an Ewok running toward him.
"Kier lets go!" Keir ran alongside Vrei and the holocam for a couple of klicks more. The holocam finally stilled as they stopped at a treeline near a clearing that was before the entrance of the base. Silence. All Kylo heard was their rough breathing
"What do you see?" he asked impatiently.
"My photoreceptors are picking up massive a heat signature" Kier manually focused her receptors to zoom-in to the door. "Kailin used a thermal detonator to blast open the doors."
"Why am I not surprised?" Kylo rolled his eyes and pushed back his hair. "What else do you see?"
"Panic, sir. But I can't tell what the heat signatures are because of the blast."
"Vrei, what do you see?" he asked impatiently knowing she'd understand his meaning.
"Sir, she is still inside." Vrei hesitated.