Author's Note: I can't thank you all enough for your follows, favorites, and comments. There is nothing more exciting to me than seeing a new review and hearing your thoughts. So thank you!
You all are in for a huge treat! I sent the chapter along to JenniferLadyBug ahead of time and she was able to fully illustrate it in time for today's update! Check my Tumblr at erickawrites for a sneak peak and links to the fully illustrated chapter on AO3.
Rey paced the Falcon's corridors alone. The only sounds were the drone of the engines and her boots pounding a cathartic beat against the floor as she circled again and again. Her friends knew by now not to interrupt when she was in a mood like this. So they stayed cloistered in the cockpit, speaking in hushed tones as Rey tried to move.
They had only just barely escaped the Sith Fleet. How had they known where to find them?
The Falcon couldn't have been tracked. Rey had looked it over a thousand times since they'd recovered it from the First Order. She'd stripped off anything that even remotely looked like it could hide a tracking device.
The only explanation was Malak and the Sith. They could somehow communicate with the crew of the Derriphan and the other remaining ships of the Sith Eternal Fleet. They had known about the Great Tree and the power it held for her and Ben.
And they'd taken it away.
They'd taken him away.
Rey eventually retreated to the lounge to be alone with her murderous thoughts. Malak and the other Sith would fall and Rey was going to be the one to topple them. Pins and needles in her fingertips were the first sign that she was tipping, falling into that angry abyss. She tried to breathe. Focusing on one lung-filling breath after another until the rage drained from her and she was just… empty.
She sank heavily into the lounge seat, propping her head on her hands. She sat there for what could have been hours, until she surfaced from her own thoughts long enough to see that pieces of Ben's lightsaber had slid off the Dejarik table during their frenzied escape and were now scattered everywhere on the floor of the Falcon's main hold.
She sighed, carefully collecting the parts on hands and knees and placing them back in their box and onto the table. He'd made good progress last night, she thought, reaching for his nearly finished saber. She'd suspected a re-build would be much faster than starting from scratch. In fact, there were just a few more circuits to connect near the energy modulator, but the sheath had already been sealed around the crystal and most of the wiring was fitted to the harness.
She appreciated the build he'd chosen. The hilt, he'd formed from both black and silver casing, raised ridges added grip and a touch of ornamentation that had been lacking from Kylo Ren's weapon. It was still a vicious-looking thing, the lateral vents adding sharp angles to the graceful weapon. But then again, Ben Solo, she'd learned, had his own sharpness to him. Even now, having shed the persona of Kylo Ren, he was still the son of Leia Organa and Han Solo. A few sharp edges were to be expected.
She turned the weapon over and over in her palms, running fingers over the corrugated metal near the pommel, imagining what it would look like held tight in Ben's fist as they faced the Sith together. When the plasma blade hummed to life in his hand, would it hiss and spit like his old saber? Would the healing of the crystal have changed its color?
"You okay?" Rose's voice drifted softly over the hum of the hyperdrive.
"Yeah."
"Yeah?" Rose blew out a noisy breath. "Not convinced."
Rey nodded, not bothering to argue knowing that Rose could read her easily. Eventually, she turned to find the others there, too, wearing varying expressions of concern.
"Come on Rey," Rose said, placing a gentle hand on her arm. "You can't keep doing this. Shutting everyone out."
Rose sat at the lounge and patted the spot next to her. Rey took the seat, continuing to run fingers over the weapon's hilt as she grappled with just how much to tell them.
"It's just – I'm just disappointed," Rey said, purposely choosing the word 'disappointed' instead of 'desperately homicidal' or 'filled with murderous rage.' She didn't want to worry them with the true scope of the emotions mangling up her insides.
With a short growl, Chewie cut to the heart of the problem. "Rey loves Solo Pup."
Leave it to Chewie to put it all out there for her.
Poe and Finn shared a glance, and Rey was forced to start talking. "I – I don't know about that," she began, but the denial tasted sour on her lips, and for the first time she was forced to consider that maybe the Wookiee was closer to the truth than she was ready to admit.
"But…" she fumbled for the words to continue, "but we do share a connection. And I feel … it's hard to be apart."
"Because of the Bond?" Finn asked.
And Rey thought it did seem safer to blame all of her feelings for Ben on the Bond. She couldn't tell them everything. Not yet. She couldn't put voice to the way she wanted to do nothing but talk to him, stare at him, touch him all the time, the way she felt positively explosivewhen something threatened him.
"Yes," she said. "I told you about the power of a Force Dyad? That when he saved me, he passed into the World Between Worlds…" she took a deep breath, steeling herself to continue. "Well, the Great Tree had some kind of connection to that In-Between World. It made it easier for us to connect, for him to appear to me."
"And they destroyed it," Rose said, knitting sympathetic brows together as she propped her head on an elbow at the table.
Rey nodded.
"Does that mean you can't see him anymore?" she asked.
"Well, no," Rey admitted. "We weren't anywhere near the tree on Ajan Kloss, and he came to me several times there."
Rose offered a weak smile. "Then he's not gone."
"No," she said. "It just takes a lot of Force energy to appear physically. Without the help of the Great Tree's connection, I may not see him for a while."
"But that's not everything is it?" Finn asked almost immediately. "Because now the Sith are in the World Between Worlds?" Finn scooted in to take a seat next to her on the lounge. "With Ben." Her friend hesitated at the name, and Rey had to wonder if he was going to slip and call him Hutt-spawn again, only stopping short on her behalf.
"Yes," she said, swallowing back a lump of emotion, thinking of Ben trapped in the In-Between alone. With them. "The remaining Sith Loyalists are working to somehow restore the spirits of Sith. Meanwhile, they're just waiting to siphon the power of our Bond. If they get it, they seem to think they can return."
Rose frowned but didn't speak.
Rey continued. "If I want to help Ben get out of the World Between Worlds, I will need to find a way to defeat these Sith."
"We will need to find a way," Finn corrected.
"Thank you, Finn," Poe said, scooting in on Rey's other side. "How many times do we have to go over this." But Poe's tone was light, and his easy smile melted away some of the strain of holding onto this burden by herself.
Chewie growled his assent and Rose reached out a hand, placing it on the back of hers as Rey continued to clutch Ben's lightsaber.
Her friends wouldn't let her do this alone.
The Falcon skimmed low over the dark seas bordering Coronet City. The ocean, slicked with oil, reflected the sky's light into thin, greasy rainbows as ships unloaded cargo at the docks nearby. Soon, the needle-sharp spires adorning the city's skyscrapers came into view from behind the smothering haze of pollution. All the while, starships circled the main spaceport like flies around a carcass.
Rey immediately wished they could turn around and go back to their cozy little jungle on Ajan Kloss. There was a disturbing lack of green here. Actually, there was a disturbing lack of any open land at all.
The worst thing about it was the way the capital swarmed with life. Like a hive of bees, it buzzed in her ears and in the Force, pressing on Rey's senses until she felt that she might implode. This was not the quiet backwater Jakku. This was a bustling Core World and she was not accustomed to blocking out this much noise.
Maz and her team were holed up in the Teeno Village District, using a friend's old art studio as their base of operations. Maz wasn't worried about being followed, as they wouldn't be here long.
Poe brought the Falcon down where Maz had indicated, in a makeshift hangar that was once used to host art auctions, before the district fell to "spicers and other such riff raff" according to Maz.
One uneventful landing later, they were greeting Maz in the main room of the studio. It was a quaint little place, hexagonal windows with lattice style panes brought in light from the paved street outside. Shelves displayed sculptures and vases - products of the art studio no doubt - and the whole place had the smell of old wood. It was not what Rey had expected for a meeting of this kind.
"Chewbacca," Maz said, rising from her chair in the corner to greet them. Standing, she still only came up to the Wookiee's waist. "Generals," she nodded to Poe and Finn. "Rose… Rey," then she paused, looking around. "Solo…"
Rey frowned, eyes darting to each corner of the room. If Rey couldn't see him, how could Maz?
But Maz only smiled, "Just because you can't see him, doesn't mean he's not here."
Rey warmed at that, the thought of Ben always being with her thawed a bit of her heart that she didn't realize had frozen over.
Just then, BB-8's shrill whistle cut through the awkward silence and Poe ran to kneel before him, running his hands along his panels checking for broken parts, straightening his antennae, and patting the faithful little astromech with loving hands.
"Come, have a seat," Maz said, directing them to a long wooden table at the far side of the room where Captain Beaumont Kin already sat, flashing them a wide smile in greeting.
"We don't have long, but you need to know who you are dealing with here," Kin said.
They took seats around the table with Maz climbing into hers last and raising a pitcher of some steaming substance that Rey could only guess was tea and offering each of them a mug which they took, graciously.
Mug in hand, Maz began to explain. "Lando, Jannah, and Connix have the fleet in orbit around the Mon Calamari shipyards. We fear the Sith remnant may attempt to disrupt shipbuilding there in the same way we are here trying to disrupt the operations of the Sith. We cannot lose those shipyards."
Poe nodded, chewing his lip. "That leaves us spread out."
Maz nodded. "The First Order had a strong grip on this planet. It was easy for the Sith to swoop in and pluck up the pieces. The people don't want a disruption to business, and they don't care who is funding it."
"Tell me about the Acolytes of the Beyond," Rey said, growing impatient of politics and wanting to get to the root of the problem.
"They formed after the Battle of Endor, staging a revolution here in Coronet City five years later. Ochi, the Sith Loyalist who killed your parents, was one of these Acolytes."
Rey tasted bile and forced herself to swallow it back.
A thick hush blanketed the room as Maz continued. "They've been collecting Sith artifacts since that time, practicing Sith alchemy, working in darkness. The Acolytes believe these items, infused with the power of the Dark Side, can strengthen the connection the spirits of the Sith have to the physical world. They believe there is a way to bring them back."
"That's a crock of bantha scat," Poe said. "Everyone knows those Vader supporters were just extremists with no real power."
Maz leaned across the table, lifting her oversized spectacles and staring hard at Poe. "Be careful, General. Underestimating your enemy is a grave mistake."
Then she settled back onto her seat and sipped her tea as though she'd said nothing of consequence.
"Where are they?" Rey could hear the obvious strain in her voice and hoped the others didn't notice. But she was sure they could see how tense she was, how overwhelmed she was with the need to do something. These Acolytes, associated with the murder of her parents, needed to be eliminated. And Rey, forced to sit calmly sipping a cup of tea, was fighting a losing battle within herself. Calm was becoming a state of mind more and more difficult to maintain.
"Don't be so fast to rush into violence," Maz said, giving Rey the same hard stare she'd just given Poe. "These acolytes may be foolish, but the power they wield and the masters they work for have generations of experience in the Darkness."
"Should we wait as they become more powerful?" Rey said, unable to contain the rising tide of anger pushing to escape.
"Just be sure you are ready," Maz said, and Rey had no trouble reading the subtext of her warning.
Maz took the time to gaze at each of their faces in turn, peering at them from over her steaming cup. When she finally spoke, her voice was low, a warning. "They've continued to work from Diadem Square. And we think Ochi's son may be a key player in their operation."
Rey pushed out hard from the table to stand, her toppled chair clattering on the floor behind her.
Maz, too, rose and gestured to the others. "Captain Kin, would you please head to the conference room to finish debriefing the Generals and the rest of their team. I'd like to speak with Rey."
Feeling a bit like a child being scolded, she watched the others follow Kin, leaving her and Maz in silence.
Maz gestured with a nod of her head, encouraging Rey to take her seat. With ears hot from embarrassment, she righted her chair and sat facing opposite her again. Maz gave a half-smile and pushed a plate of sugar-dusted sweetbreads in her direction, which Rey politely declined.
Maz shrugged and snatched one up, speaking again through sugar coated lips. "I once told Finn, that I often see the same eyes in different people."
Rey tried to focus on Maz's words, knowing that she had a century of experience, knowing that she had a link to the Force, but with fear circulating like a disease through her blood, it was difficult to attend to anything. Still, she tried.
"I think you should know," Maz said, voice heavy with truth, "the same applies to you Rey. You and Ben Solo," She leaned in, studying her for a moment, eyes boring into her through those thick spectacles. "A true dyad in the Force has not been seen since Darth Revan and Bastila Shan."
Rey was rubbing her forehead. "What are you saying?"
"The Force works in mysterious ways."
Rey wanted to grab Maz's shoulders and shake her. She was so tired of cryptic answers to every question. Master Luke, Leia, Maz - she could never get a straight answer from anyone.
"You've found your belonging," Maz said, reaching a thin hand across the table and placing it gently on hers. "And now it is time for you to fight for it. Just be careful the fight doesn't drag you to some place from which there is no return."
Rey took her first drink of the tea, hoping it would soothe the cold chill that clung to her skin.
"Few have travelled to the World Between Worlds and come back," Maz said, almost as an afterthought.
"Who? How can I get there?"
"I know of a Jedi. Ezra Bridger," she said. "He was able to cross over at the Jedi Temple on Lothal, but the temple was destroyed to seal the entrance, to keep Emperor Palpatine from journeying there."
Rey leaned forward, hands fisted so hard she could feel the cut of her nails against her palms. "How can I get there if it's destroyed?"
"That, dear child, is a mystery to me as well."
And with that, Maz Kanata shoved the rest of the sweetbread into her mouth and walked away, leaving Rey to wonder at the weighty implication of Maz's veiled suspicions about Revan and Bastila and the hopelessly daunting task of entering the World Between Worlds through an opening that no longer existed.
It took every last ounce of patience Rey had, to keep from pounding her fists on the table in frustration.
The sun hung lower now, and the shadows cast by the tallest of the city's spires reached to strangle the light from the streets of Coronet City below. Rey's heart hammered to the rhythm of her footsteps as she marched toward Diadem Square. Poe and Finn insisted on leading, being more familiar with Corellia than she was. Chewie and Rose took up the rear, leaving Rey in the middle of the group.
The plan was to infiltrate, to gather information on how to stop the Acolytes from continuing to strengthen the Sith in the World Between Worlds and to get a better idea of their remaining fleet's capabilities. It was an in and out job.
They'd reached the square using the city's rocket tram system, and having changed into working class Corellian dress, they didn't attract too much attention. Rey's hooded work coat was two sizes too big but left plenty of room underneath for her lightsaber and a blaster rifle. Poe, Finn, and Rose could have been machinists on the way home from a long day. And Chewie, well, there was no way to hide him so they just hoped he wouldn't attract too much attention.
Poe stopped abruptly at the corner of a building, hand clutching the blaster inside of his coat, and peered around the corner. They'd reached Diadem Square, an open space set with old tiled stonework, crumbling statues, and deteriorating fountains that no longer held water.
There were no crowds here and Rey attributed that to the greasy taint of the Dark Side that hung thick in the air. She breathed in the heavy scent, feeling the Force ripple cold against her skin, letting it guide her toward their mission.
"This way," she said, cutting through Finn and Poe and leading the way toward a line of rusted metal doors at the far end of the square.
Rey pointed to the second door, and Poe approached, crouching as he rummaged through his pack to find his cyberpick to begin to work on the lock release.
Precious minutes passed as Poe worked at the lock and anticipation had Rey's heart beating like a caged animal against her ribcage. They didn't have this kind of time. Rey had to know what the Sith were doing in there. She needed to get to Ben and she didn't care how she had to do it. She needed to get through that door. Now.
She sent a sudden blast of Force against the metal door. It didn't even have a chance to groan its protest before it was sent barreling to the other side of an empty room, ringing loudly against the stone wall as it struck hard.
"So much for stealth," Poe muttered from behind her as Rey rushed in.
Blaster fire echoed shrilly in the cramped space and her lightsaber ignited in her hand with one wicked flick of her wrist. She squinted as her vision adjusted to the darkened room before dashing through the narrow entry, heedless of how many enemies there were or what they happened to be screaming at her.
Her pulse thundered in her ears as dark power lapped like waves around her. The sensation sent a shiver through her as she spotted several shadowy figures moving against the far wall of the first room. The Force was building to a quivering crescendo now, tightening her muscles and sending tingles down her arms and into her fingertips.
The figures shifted, studying her, but she never really saw them. The energy of the Force roared through her veins and instead of the acolytes, she saw the contorted faces of her parents as they sacrificed themselves to keep her safe. She saw Ben's body disappear as he passed into the In-Between. And now these robed acolytes who had murdered her parents, were keeping Ben from her. These acolytes were responsible for this bottomless ache inside of her.
She was not going to lose Ben like she lost her parents.
So when the first hooded figure stepped toward her, raising a staff, she didn't hesitate. In a wide sweep of her saber, she cut through both weapon and wielder, sending his smoking remains toppling to the stone floor.
More black-clad acolytes rushed to meet her, raising chop-axes, machine shop blades, and clubs in defense before falling one by one to her saber. Rey was oblivious to anything but the burning wrath of her yellow blade, as it dealt out vengeance fiercer than a Mustafar lava storm. Each slice, each searing blow brought her closer to Ben, closer to filling that inextricable void eating away at her insides.
Somewhere far away, she heard her friends calling for her to follow, having found something of interest, but she was blazing now with the adrenaline of the fight. Seeing only the dying eyes of these monsters who dared to keep her from the other half of her soul.
Sweat streamed from every pore and her breaths came in heaving gasps by the time she reached the far chamber where she felt the Darkness at its most potent. She stepped through the low entrance, the humid air of the inner chamber wrapping around her face like a damp mask. Peering around the dank space, she let her eyes rove over countless vials and tubes, containers filled with viscous liquid, unidentifiable tissue, and other morbid experiments that transported her memory back to Exegol.
And just like on Exegol, there was something else here. Something calling to her, begging her to come closer. Chanting. Whispers. The cacophonous sound of a hundred hissing voices crashing together in her mind and she had to find its source. Its power hummed through the Force, seeming to connect all of space and time in those whispers.
A figure stepped out from a darkened corner. His features were mostly obscured by his dark hooded robe, but she could just make out the scaly yellow skin and small beady eyes of a Bestoonian.
"Rey Palpatine," he rasped, in a reptilian voice that carried an eerily familiar quality. "The Sith who reside in the World Between warned me you would come. As my father, Ochi, was the one to execute your parents, I'm sure you can appreciate the irony of our meeting."
"Poetic indeed, that I be the one to kill you now," she snapped.
"So it seems," he said, eyes darting to the lightsaber still buzzing angrily in her hand. "But what I do for the Sith Eternal will ensure my sacrifice is for the greater good. I do not fear death."
Rey was not sure why, but she laughed then, a cold sardonic thing whose echo chilled her when it resounded off the chamber's walls.
Ochi's son stared hard at her, black eyes reflecting the dim light of the lanterns hanging along the walls. He nodded to himself as though following an invisible order and pulled something from his inner robes. The hissing voices intensified. Whatever he held, this was the source of that mysterious energy radiating throughout this place.
"The Acolytes of the Beyond offer this gift to the granddaughter of Darth Sidious. It belonged to the late Emperor himself."
As he uncurled his scaly fingers, Rey could see the distinctive shape of a lightsaber in his palm. He flipped a switch and a crimson blade cut through the empty space between them. The hilt of this saber was smooth electrum, ornamented with gold accents near the pommel. An elegant weapon for someone so depraved and Rey could feel the power it emanated.
Ochi's son wore something that might have passed for a smile on his thin, reptilian lips.
"This weapon is imbued with the Dark Side. It holds the power to connect with the Sith beyond."
She closed her eyes to focus on the weapon. She felt its energy snaking everywhere in the Force, twisting and curling around the web of balance connecting all living things. And it called to her, in whispers and screams, nightmares and dreams, and most of all with the promise of a secret. It offered a connection to the Sith lurking in the In-Between and with it, the power to return Ben to her. She would need that link to the Sith to find them and destroy them.
Rey.
Her hand, which had already begun reaching for the weapon, froze. She whipped her head around, searching for the source of the voice. She closed her eyes to focus on the Bond.
"Ben," she choked on his name, rage having tightened every muscle in her body to the point she could hardly speak.
Rey, we'll find a way without it.
But something ripped inside of her in that instant. She felt a tearing down the Bond, a strangling cinch of a noose around that sacred connection. And just like in her vision at the Great Tree, she was falling into an endless abyss of empty space. The crushing weight of nothingness pressed hard against her body, squeezing her hold on Force, stifling the Bond, and crushing her heartin its grasp. Rey panicked, falling to her knees as she cried out.
She struggled to suck air into lungs that no longer remembered how to expand and tried to force out his name again, "Ben."
Ochi's son seemed confused for a moment, cocking his head to one side to study her unexpected reaction. Then, with one swift motion, he flicked off the saber and proffered it to her in his open palm.
A lifeline. To Ben. To the World Between Worlds.
And with a storm of ice flowing through her veins and a coil of darkness twisted around the Bond, Rey reached up toward the son of Ochi and wrapped trembling fingers around the cold hilt of her grandfather's lightsaber.
