Chapter 8

Poe had been worried sick for two weeks, not as worried as Finn who was beside himself and every other day offered to go look for Rey. Poe sighed, it was still early and Finn was sleeping so he could afford himself some peace as he ate and watched the scanner. The change of look shifts was coming up and it was soon to be his watch. A deeper sigh escaped him. He loved being on Ajan Kloss, but it was surely not the safest. The first order would find them eventually. He took his plate over to a counter and set it down, wondering for the fifth time that morning where the kriff Rey was. If Ben didn't know… then she might actually be in real danger. Knowing her, she attracted danger; but not without a certain tall dark shadow there to somehow let her escape. He was able to tell how worried Ben had been as well, every few days he sent a transmission asking if the Jedi was found. At first Poe hadn't answered, but then after a particularly nasty message indicated that it was Ben who was sending the requests Leia had answered back.

"Poe, you need some rest, I'll watch." He looked over to Leia, he sighed and got up. "I have watch this morning too, so it'll just be a cat nap." As he passed, he put a hand on Leia's shoulder, "He'll find her."

They smiled at one another, "I know he will, we've got some good terms worked out between us in the meantime, and hopefully she found her crystal. I don't think this is going to be a pleasant fight. It'll be tough but worth it. I can feel that it's coming to a close. Something big will happen soon."

How right Leia was, but not exactly as she had been hoping for. Across the galaxy Palpatine had been amassing his army, with Snoke as his puppet had snared Ben Solo. His plan was thwarted by Rey from nowhere turning him and killing his puppet. Palpatine could sense her power from where he resided. He had planted some seeds within the first order to draw Ben over to his side, if he could make Ben turn this girl toward the dark side Palpatine could use her strength to bring him one step closer to ruling again. There was something about her power that intrigued him…

Ben finally made his way to the command bridge, he snuck by it and into a side corridor. He opened a panel in the wall and typed up a message, pressing send he sent it to the resistance. Waiting 30 seconds more, he deleted it from the system and encrypted it not to have recognized that a message had been sent at all. He was getting rather good at working on these secret messages. Closing the panel, he made his way back to his room. He planned to pack up essential things that he didn't want in the hands of Hux and get them stowed away on his ship for his escape.

Upon entering his room, he went to the wall, opening a hidden panel he pulled out a hollow tube. He took the cap off and rolled some paperwork up off his desk and slid it into the tube. Re-capping it he slid it on a holster on his hip. Putting on his cape and left his room for his ship. He passed storm troopers in the hall, they stopped to salute. Passing one of them Ben stopped, turned and walked back to them. "You…."

The storm trooper startled by being addressed by Kylo Ren almost dropped his blaster.

Rey landed on the ground below very clumsily, she fell onto her knee. "I'm never eating First Order food again." She got up and made her way along the chaos of the crowed toward the ship yard. She sensed she was going the right way but then someone started shooting at her and she lost it. She ducked into an ally and ran along another street. Where was the force telling her to go? She continued on as she had before, stumbling down the road. She couldn't understand where the force she was supposed to go. Getting angry she used the force a little too much to shove a trooper off a man getting pushed around. He flew back into the wall unconscious. "Run!" she shouted but the man looked at her like she was insane.

"Are you a Jedi?"

"No, now run!" She started toward the ships again, more people clustered together like cattle. How was she to get off this planet. Suddenly someone grabbed her elbow pulling her to the right. She slammed into a wall.

"Hey!" Whipping her head to the side her eyes landed on Lando. "Oh! thank goodness you're ok."

He grunted, "Not exactly. But we'll have time for that later." It was then she noticed the dark stain on his shirt, he must have been hit in the shoulder. His arm hung to his side useless for the time being.

"I can fix that later; we need a ship."

"They are guarding ours… think you can clear it?" Rey nodded. They slunk around the backside of a few buildings. "There's not really any cover, but maybe if we just run for it, could you push them far away?"

Rey smiled, "Yes, I can keep them away while you start up the ship."

Rey just hoped that Ben had gotten enough time to send a message to get Finn and Poe as far from here as possible. She felt bad leaving innocent people stuck behind, but without her lightsaber she wasn't as useful. She force-pushed a group of troopers away and into a water troth. Another trooper saw her and started firing. "Hurry up Lando!"

She could hear the engines starting, she slowly backed up onto to the ramp. No one would be close enough to attack, and without a lightsaber to deflect the lasers she felt open and useless here. She started up the ramp. As she reached for the button to close the ramp the hair on the back of her neck stood up. Not turning around in time, Rey felt something sharp enter her back. She screamed in pain and twisted around dropping a kick to her attackers' stomach, sending him rolling down the ramp. Palming the door shut aggressively she reached behind her to feel the dagger still embedded in her back. She couldn't pull it out on her own. It hurt so bad, that was a good sign Rey told herself, if it hurt it wasn't that dangerous. She moved back to her bag she had given Lando, inside she pulled out a clean shirt that she could press into her back. "Where is your bacta kit?" Lando yelled back which way to the refresher, she grabbed it and set it by the sink. She felt the ship shake, how was she going to brace for hyper speed, stay conscious and bandage it up? She started to notice the bond open, hoping that Ben wasn't feeling her injury, something told her that he had already had. She could feel a sense of panic that wasn't her own. Suddenly a light brush against her mind told her that Ben was sending her a thought.

'Ben?'

'Rey, what mess are you in now.' She could sense the urgency, but also relief that whatever he was doing worked.

'I got off the planet like you wanted. Lando helped…we…. Ran into some trouble….' She sighed. 'Lando is busy getting us away from the planet.'

'Let me set this on auto pilot.'

Realizing he was in space, 'it's ok, I can figure this out on my own-'

"Now- WHAT THE HELL REY." She had fallen on the floor before he had finished setting auto pilot.

She must have been tired; she didn't sense him appear before her. She swayed on her feet, gripping the sink for support as she pulled herself up. "I'm just a little light headed."
"Yeah? No wonder, a knife in your back. Even Skywalker would have taught you to never turn your back on an enemy." He was still ranting but Rey couldn't concentrate on that. He was getting fuzzier to hear after each second.

"Ben… I'm going to pass out. Please…." She kneeled on the floor panting, "I think you'll have to…."

Ben worked quietly while Rey laid on the floor on her stomach. He had to rip up her shirt after pulling out a knife. With her back exposed he was able to clean and disinfect the wound. Scars littered her hands he knew, but he wasn't expecting to see the bruises and scars on her back, filing that away for a later conversation of who he would have to kill for harming her. He put a bacta patch on her back to cover the wound. "That should do for now. You need to get this treated."

"Lando is meeting up with the resistance, he's taking me back."
"Good."

By the time Lando had come back to check on Rey and get himself patched up Ben had faded and Rey was sitting in a chair in the back instead of laying on the bathroom floor. Lando grabbed the med kit from the bathroom and sitting across from Rey he patched himself up. They made light conversation for a few minutes before he had to go back to the cockpit.

"Rey, we'll be landing soon. Looks like they have a few people to greet us."

Rey smiled as she saw her friends standing next to Leia.

The meeting with the storm troopers went way better than Ben was expecting. He made it his mission to at least set up the foundation of something before Hux discovered the coo. So far, all the storm troopers he had spoken with had agreed that they would agree to a stand down at his command. Most had thought he was insane; they didn't believe it at first. He had to find some of the generals and convince them as well. This would be a long day for sure, but at least he knew that Rey was with Lando and should be safe for the time being.

Ben sat in his ship annoyed with Rey. Earlier this night he was relieved that she was ok, and after all his meetings he was frustrated and wanted to see her again. He felt bad about getting injured and was purposely taking himself out of dangers way and she puts herself right back in it. Although he was glad, he could patch her up before the bond ended, he knew that it was a crappy job given the limited amount of time to help. He sighed, maybe working with his mother this could come to a close soon. He knew that there was something else out there manipulating the force, he could feel a disturbance but he wasn't sure what it was. He was so focused on pleasing Snoke that he had failed to notice Rey until after she had gotten to his father. And now that he had chosen Rey, Snoke was gone but it still felt wrong. Like something else was still there in the back of his mind, most the time he thought it was Rey. When talking to Rey through his thoughts or meeting her in the bond it was warmer, a more familiar feeling. Like coming home in a sense. The feeling in the back of his mind was off putting, he wanted to discuss it with Rey to see if she had noticed anything strange, but then again, she was so new to being force sensitive how would she understand?

He flew to another destroyer. He was meeting with more captains about storm troopers and people working on these ships. His mother had made it a point, as had FN2187 to see how many would want to reform. They thought that maybe if they had enough people to stand down and lower their weapons that maybe they could have less casualties. Fuel, food, clean water, and parts for ships were hard to come by; might as well save as much as they could. Getting everyone to stand down from fighting seemed easier to Ben than the government and political issues they would face after. He would leave that to Leia and maybe find a nice green planet to teach Rey the ways of the force.

Stepping off his ship he was greeted by a general and a hand full of storm troopers… "General"

They walked down a corridor and into a room that he was most certain Hux had never even seen before. Hux probably had never left his main ship. He wanted power, and the only thing he wanted more than power was to have Ben killed off. That would be the next challenge; getting rid of Hux.