Twelve.
"How many?" Rose's voice was shocked and she knew that she wasn't the only one disturbed by the turn of events.
"The Governors, Prefects, Electors and Monarchs of eighty-two worlds have demanded Kylo Ren's rendition for trial and public execution," Commander D'Acy reported, her face troubled. "In addition, the Hutts, the Guavian Death Gang, the Kanjiklubbers, the Slaver Guild, the…"
"I think we get the picture," Beaumont Kin sighed.
"There are currently thirty-four extremely generous bounties on Kylo Ren's head," D'Acy added.
"Any more good news?" Rose asked, willing the older woman to shut up.
"Somehow, word of his escape has gotten out and all of them mention the Millennium Falcon as well," D'Acy concluded.
"That's hardly a surprise since almost everyone here believes he should stand trial and pay for his crimes," Beaumont conceded.
"But it does mean that some of your friends have been communicating with these people for them to know about the Falcon," Jannah commented, walking forward. Lando nodded.
"Not to mention the small matter of the few remaining First Order ships and bases that didn't go down when the Final Order was defeated," he added.
"And our co-leaders are stuck in the middle of a scrum of bounty hunters, all of them tasked with bringing Kylo Ren back, dead or alive," Rose sighed. She looked up. "Contact the Falcon. If you can't get hold of them, send our fastest remaining ship to find them. The war isn't quite over and we can't have our leadership running off."
"And if Ren has them?" D'Acy asked. Rose gripped her pendant and stood, her face determined.
"Then we rescue them and bring him back here to pay for his crimes," she said. Everyone nodded and set about their tasks as Jannah paused.
"I think I know just the ship-and the pilot," she said.
-o0o-
Waking almost wasn't worth the bother but he did it anyway, forcing his eyes open and waiting for the host of pains to make themselves known.
The first thing he saw was the strange bird that was sitting about three feet away, between the bed in his cabin and the door, apparently nesting on his cloak. He blinked and raised his head a fraction, blinking his bleary eyes and wondering if he was hallucinating. The creature was a squat smooth brown and white with big eyes and stubby wings. As he stared, it made an incredibly jarring noise, someway between a scream and a really bad yodel, and then it turned and waddled away. Realising he was back on the Falcon and didn't seem to be in chains, he sat up, swung his legs over the edge of the bed and waiting for the vertigo to settle before he stumbled up and slowly made his way out of the cabin.
The others were in the cockpit but no one looked up as he slid into the vacant seat behind the pilot, grimacing as he jarred a variety of injuries he had picked up. The elongated light blurs of hyperspace filled the forward window as Poe leaned forward.
"So there are over eighty worlds we can't go anywhere near and pretty much every major organisation has a price on his head?" he checked. There was a pause.
"That's what we've learned," Rose reported. "A number of them were not happy we didn't just hand him over the moment we returned from Exegol."
"Well, that would have been easier," Poe conceded, frowning. "But it wasn't the right thing to do-and we're all in this to do the right thing."
"Even for the wrong people?" Rose's tone was hard.
"Depends who decides who's the right or wrong people," Poe suggested. "And once you start making those judgements, you're no better than the First Order."
"Who are also after him," Finn added. "Poe's right. The right thing is for everyone."
"Not for him," Rose said. Finn sighed.
"You did the right thing when you stunned me," he reminded her. "Even though I was a Resistance hero. Because you thought I was doing the wrong thing. And you know? You were right!"
"Hey, what?" Poe asked, craning his neck to look at his friend.
"Long story," Finn explained. "Rose, you did what was right no matter who it applied to. We have to do the same now."
"The bounties all apply to Ren-and all name the Millennium Falcon as the ship he's on," Rose added. Chewie gave an irritated growl.
"You got it, Chewie," Poe agreed. "This is just great."
"You should have left me to escape on my own," Ben murmured.
"Yeah-that would leave all the Bounty Hunters after us!" Poe protested.
"And the Hutts and the Slavers Guild and the First Order and Guavian Death Gang and...everyone!" Finn added.
"Is there anyone who doesn't want to kill you?" Poe asked Ben as he glanced over at Chewie.
"Your droid?" Ben suggested.
"Nope. He tried to set you on fire!" Poe shot back as BB8 beeped indignantly.
"Runs in the family," Chewie commented. Ben sagged back in the seat, not disputing the truth in the Wookiee's growls..
"My father was a rogue and a scoundrel but I am-I was-a monster," he said tonelessly. "He never set out in his business to deliberately harm another being, he just had issues with delivering smuggled goods on time and honouring loans...while I killed and ordered the deaths of thousands."
"And yet, Rey still believed in you," Finn reminded him.
"From what your friend said, she was definitely in the minority," Ben murmured. "You should have left me. Probably would have been for the best."
"And yet...Rey was our friend," Poe announced. "And despite the fact that half the Galaxy is on our tail, you think there is a chance to get her back."
"And none of us will ever be able to rest if we don't explore every last possibility to bring her back," Finn said honestly.
"Besides-it's just like old times!" Poe grinned.
"Your old times!" Finn protested.
"Nah-we've been chased, shot at and gone on crazy missions over the last coupla years," Poe reminded him.
"It will be dangerous," Ben reminded them. "You'd be safer dropping me off and letting me finish this on my own."
"And you know that's not gonna happen, right?" Finn told him sternly. "In case you hadn't realised, we are going with you."
"You know I don't play well with others?" Ben checked. "Last time I burned the Jedi temple down…"
"Yeah-but you were evil then," Finn riposted. "Face it-this is non-negotiable." Poe nodded and Chewie added his growl of agreement. Even BB8 gave a few whistles of support. Ben nodded and then got up, walking slowly back towards the communal area. Images flashed across his memory, each worse than the previous one…
...Poe, staring up bloodied and unbowed from the interrogator's chair, spitting defiance as he inexorably forced open the man's mind and tore whatever he needed from his memory, his screams of agony echoing round the room…
...Finn, FN2187, traitor, facing him in the snowy, darkened woods of Starkilller Base, the blue lightsaber washing his features pale, his inexpert attacks toyed with by Ren until he went for the killing blow…
...Chewbacca, roaring his rage at the shell of his best friend's son, screaming in fury and hatred at the man who had just ignited his lightsaber through his own father's heart, watching Han's final paternal gesture before he fell...and blasting Ren's side with a shot that should have been lethal if not for the Force…
...Rey, facing him with a blaster, valiantly trying to delay him from acquiring the droid, clearly terrified but willing to give her life for something that she truly believed in. Rey, thrumming with latent power she had no realisation about, power he sensed and unleashed when he tortured her. Power that turned back on him, shocking him and sending him scurrying back to Snoke like a shamed cur. Power that had blossomed until she was his equal and opposite-and his soul mate though their Force Bond. Power that had enabled them to talk, to touch, to Bond even across lightyears and across the shattered ground of Exegol. That allowed her to heal him, to share her thoughts and fears and that final briefest of touches before she died…
He leaned against the wall and screwed his eyes shut.
And even across death.
He dropped to a crouch, his hands pressed to his face. The more he thought about it, the more it would drive him insane-but not with anger and rage and hatred but with shame and pain and isolation. The Dark Side would get to him through his misery and pain and he would find it harder and harder to resist. He swallowed. He had been alone all of his life, pushed away and disregarded by his parents, treated with suspicion by his peers, condemned by Luke...and even when he served Snoke, the Supreme Leader had treated him like a pet, to be encouraged when necessary and chastised when he failed. But he was always alone with his pain, always suffering and swathed in darkness, isolated from his men, his Knights, his family. Always the dark presence at the back of the room, instilling terror and fear and hatred...
You are not alone, she told him. Was that her or his imagination? Because memory would not be enough to see him through. Everywhere was a reminder of what he had done, the terrible, horrific things he had done. Memories of the single-minded madness he had embraced, believing in Snoke's twisted vision, willingly an accomplice to the darkest of Evil. But the more he thought, the worse it became. Every death, wound, hurt...haunted him and returned to swirl around him. And maybe if Rey had been with him, he could have dealt with the pain, swathed in her light and support but alone, there was no one to face the demons and the consequences of his sins but him alone. He was alone fighting the darkness and the pain. He knew...if it failed, he would never recover. She who thought she was nothing, had become his everything.
Meditate, she urged him. Clear your mind. Control the pain and darkness. I am with you.
"Rey…" He took a shuddering breath. He hadn't tried meditating since Exegol, wasn't even sure how it would go, since his abilities to sense and manipulate the force seemed haphazard still.
I am with you…
Reluctantly, he walked to the centre of the room and sat down, crossing his legs and grimacing a little. He was stiff and he ached but he stiffened his spine and closed his eyes, clearing his mind of everything. Slowly, he drew into his centre and then waited, allowing his senses to expand out, praying, praying that he would be able to find some peace…
-o0o-
"He's been quiet for a while," Poe commented as they remained in the cockpit, checking the power flows. Chewie had ambled out to check the new components but had finally come back indicating he was satisfied. BB8 had obligingly rolled along by the Wookiee but had swiftly come back when Chewie had roared at him. Finn stretched.
"He may have gone back to sleep," he admitted. "He looks pretty banged up."
"I'm sure he's looked worse," Poe reminded him.
"And he made sure he got us away," Finn added. "They recaptured him, didn't they?" Poe's eyes glinted and he looked at his friend. Both were not innocent where the realities of the war were concerned and had taken hard choices in their time.
"Yeah-well, maybe it was justice he learned what it felt like," Poe said and turned back to the controls, his eyes flicking from switch to switch. Finn sighed. There it was again: the unsaid festering anger that Poe harboured for Ren, the refusal to let go the brutal and appalling intrusion Ren had perpetrated when he ripped information from Poe's mind. Something told Finn that the Finalizer hadn't had access to Ren's Force-fuelled abilities in his interrogation so they had used more brutal methods-and that the man was concealing a lot from them… Abruptly, he rose.
"You know, whenever I try to rescue people-except you, buddy-then they've already escaped. And Ren was on his way out," he said. "But I still oughtta check on him." Poe scowled.
"Why?" he asked, slightly petulantly. Finn sighed.
"Because we're the good guys," he reminded his friend. "And like him or not…"
"Not!" Poe put in.
"...he's trying to get Rey back. And we said we would help him. So we have to honour our promise." The pilot sat back and shook his head.
"I know, buddy," he conceded. "It's just...hard not to see him as the monster who turned my head inside out and ripped everything from my brain. But...he is trying to help...and they won't have been any more merciful to him than they were to me."
"Less," Finn reminded him. "He's a traitor after all." Poe grabbed his cup of caf and took a sip.
"Aren't we all," he said as Finn headed out to find Ben. Determinedly, the former stormtrooper checked Ben's room-finding it empty with a Porg nesting on Ben's discarded cape-and then set out to find the man. He located the former Supreme Leader in the communal area, cross-legged and floating maybe a metre in the air, his eyes closed and hands resting on his thighs. More curiously-reminiscent of when they had seen Rey practising-there were skeins of items orbiting the man. Finn frowned, seeing various tools, some nuts and bolts, one of the Porgs which looked distinctly unhappy and an old helmet.
Quietly, the former stormtrooper walked past and sat at the table, his eyes trailing over Ren with something akin to envy. Finn had thought through the fact he was force sensitive but he knew as well he was a dwarf in comparison to Rey and Kylo Ren. There was no way he could even imagine himself as their equal in any way, shape or form but the memory he had, of switching on the lightsaber and facing Ren amid the snows of Starkiller...for that one instant, something inside him had felt right. And no matter the outcome-which had been inevitable when you considered a man who was holding a lightsaber in battle for the first time (he didn't count his pitiful efforts on Takodana) against the Master of the Knights of Ren, a man who killed using the weapon hundreds of times…
His eyes widened and his head jerked up because something was wrong. His head felt thick and fuzzy, like a fog or a hangover and he felt an unexpected dizziness assail him. Superimposed on his vision, a darkness was seeping into the air around them, the lights dimming. The ship shuddered and he heard Poe curse in the cockpit but he heard and groan from much closer by. Guiltily, he looked up-to see Ren's face furrowed with pain, his brows scrunched and jaw tight. Finn tensed as he heard the man moan again.
"Rey…"
Ben suddenly jerked, his eyes wide open and dark. Finn could see they were filled with pain and confusion and a sudden vulnerability that the man had never shown to the former stormtrooper. His entire body jerked and arched with pain, arms flinging wide and fingers splayed as if an electric current was surging through him. He jerked again and a scream burst from his lips, his entire body jerking in pain. Suddenly on alert, Finn saw the objects that had been orbiting Ben in his meditation fly out in an explosion of tools, small ship parts and one annoyed Porg and he dived for cover.
"Poe!" Finn yelled as the ship shuddered again and the lights flickered more strongly.
"Kinda busy here," the pilot shouted back, wrestling with the controls. "No, I don't know what's happening either," he added over Chewie's accusations. Finn glanced up and saw Ben jerk once more and then slam to the ground, lying still, a thin trickle of blood coming from his mouth.
"POE!" Finn shouted, his head snapping around. As soon as it had arrived, the darkness was gone. He scrambled to Ben's side and checked for a pulse-faint and very fast but still there. "POE! We have a situation. It's Ren!"
"Now what?" the pilot shouted as the ship levelled and suddenly, everything seemed back to normal. Finn stared into the unconscious man's face and sighed.
"You know-I really don't know," he murmured. "But I think he needs help. And now."