Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars.
"John, John…I feel as though the most terrible thing has happened."
"What, Lucy, what?"
S-3_C-1: Returning to Hell
37 ABY
The panorama of stars before me stared back with chilling apathy. I needed to change the heading of my tiny spacecraft and engage the hyperdrive, but my hands sat idly in my lap. My father's parting words replayed through my mind, and I found myself lost in thought and memory. So, I drifted through the vast loneliness of the Inner Rim, directionless.
It was the two-year anniversary of the day my life changed forever.
"This just in: breaking intergalactic news…"
No, it wasn't the day that I joined the First Order.
"A jaw-dropping victory for the Resistance and the New Republic..."
No, not even the day that I became a mother.
"An event which has spelled defeat for the First Order and its fleet..."
It was the day that I lost the only person I ever truly loved.
"We would like to repeat: Supreme Leader Kylo Ren has died."
Finally, with familiar motions, my hands plotted the course for Tatooine and started the hyperdrive. I leaned back in my cramped seat and stared at the kaleidoscope of blue light cascading around the cockpit. Catching sight of a reflection in the viewport, I locked eyes with the pale, gaunt face of a woman. Her hair was much too long and lifeless; her blue eyes were puffy and dark-rimmed.
"Two years," she rasped through cracked lips.
The hollow ache in my chest was a familiar, constant pressure. I knew that returning to Tattoine would only exacerbate it. It wasn't sadness or loneliness; it was just emptiness. Numbness. Nothingness. It was an endless black hole that could not be filled by family, by labor, by travels, by anything.
Sometimes, it felt like I just wasn't there at all.
A cloud of red dust obscured the landing platform below, forcing me to trust the automated landing system. As my ship descended, the tinny sound of sand being blown against the hull filled my ears. I took my filtered mask and goggles from my satchel and replaced them with my jacket. It was cold in space, but on Tatooine, it was hell.
I hopped out of the cockpit, trying to ignore the angry spasm in my leg. A jawa took my dock fees as soon as I left the platform. He gave me a snide remark in Huttese which I chose to ignore. It was just not the kind of day to get testy with a jawa.
Looping my blue scarf over my mask, I set out into the streets of Mos Espa. The sandstorm kept most people indoors, giving the spaceport a rare feeling of peace. Usually, the streets were lined with merchants, travelers, and shady characters peddling strange goods.
When I spotted two Rangers in the distance, I crossed to the other side of the street. Their orange uniforms were starkly recognizable, even in a sandstorm. What the hell are they doing out during a storm?
Before long, I ducked under the awning of a familiar townhouse. I typed a code into the lock on the door, and it slid open with a shush. Stepping inside, I tapped my sandy boots on the mat at the door.
"Who's there?" said an elderly woman's voice.
"It's me, Gran Cara!" I shouted, pulling my mask down and goggles up. I wiped my sweaty face, feeling the sand rake across my skin.
I navigated through the dimly-lit kitchen and into the dining room, where Cara sat with a bowl of purple soup before her. She had a shawl draped around her hunched shoulders, and her white hair was tied back in simple braids. When she smiled up at me, her eyes practically disappeared into her wrinkled skin. The tattooed tear under her left eye was faded beyond recognition.
"Lu," she said, her voice as coarse as sand. "I haven't seen you in so long."
"I know," I said, pulling my satchel to the front. "I hope you don't mind your credits being so late." I rummaged through my bag until I found my datapad.
The old lady just shrugged. "No." Her brown eyes watched me take her datapad from the table to start the transfer. "What's kept you?"
I hesitated before I answered, not sure how much I wanted to share. Focusing a little too much on the credit transfer, I mumbled, "I was off-world for a few days."
"I see," Cara hummed. Picking up her spoon, she turned her attention back to her soup. Her best attribute was a tendency to not ask questions.
I tapped a finger on my datapad impatiently. It was fifty percent complete.
Suddenly, a muffled yell caught my attention. I walked across the room to the window and pressed a button to open the shutters. Through the haze of sand, I saw the two Rangers handling a civilian roughly. They shouted another warning before one of them aimed his blaster. The other one lifted the blunt end of his weapon and brought it down on the alien's head. I looked away. Gods―I hate them.
"Can you believe them?" I scoffed incredulously. Cara was watching with a tired kind of sadness. "Right in the middle of the street…"
"The New Republic wasn't always this brutal," she murmured. "They used to maintain order through strength." She was shaking her head. "The First Order took that from them, leaving them defensive and...violent."
When I returned to the table, the transfer was complete. I grabbed my datapad and put it away. "I don't know about all that, Gran Cara," I said vaguely, turning for the door.
The garbled cooing of a child stopped me in my tracks. My eyes snapped to the other room, where the child sat in a playchair with an assortment of toys in front of him. My gaze locked with his for several, long seconds. Those eyes.
Those damn eyes.
He didn't react to me in any particular way; he simply went back to playing. I was as good as a stranger to him.
"Would you like to stay for a while?" Cara asked gently.
I ripped my eyes away from the child. A crushing sadness threatened to fill the emptiness in my chest. "No," I whispered, pulling in a steadying breath. "Thank you."
The New Republic Rangers were gone by the time I rounded the corner. I thanked the stars while I trudged on to the shop where I had stored my speeder bike. After paying the shopkeeper an unexpectedly high price, I dusted the sand off my single-seated speeder. Its mismatched metal surfaces were tarnished from years of sun and sand.
I took off at full speed, leaving Mos Espa behind in a wake of kicked sand. Though the ride back to the estate used to feel exhilarating and freeing, I felt nothing at all.
Welcome to the third and FINAL installment in this series. If you've read this far, you are literally amazing. I've had Kylo and Lucia in my head since 2016 and I want to give them a happy ending (eventually lol).
Warning: this story will have much more fluff and much less action than its predecessors. To readers old and new: thank you, thank you, thank you.
-Scarlet
