Seventeen:
It was with a sense of relief that Poe and Chewie landed the Millennium Falcon on D'Nolos, a reasonably cosmopolitan planet that was famed as a major trading post and a venue for all sorts of outlandish and Galaxy-spanning events. And Maker, if this didn't qualify… The climate was humid and sticky, the skies permanently overcast and the lush vegetation corralled in parks around the low-rise and crammed cities, especially D'Nomolos, the capitol with its buzzing space port, huge markets and slave auctions.
The group glanced around amongst themselves before they left the Millennium Falcon and without any discussion, they armed themselves. Tamini decided to wait on the ship, refusing to be left on the planet and repeating her demands to be taken home. It was only when they landed that she revealed that she had been sold through the slave markets on D'Nolos years earlier and that she had sworn never to set foot on the planet again. Despite his exasperation at her intransigence and her complaining, Poe felt a shiver of sympathy and had allowed her to curl up in one of the cabins and wait.
Somehow, Finn was the most chipper of the group, ensuring he had a blaster firmly strapped to his hip as well as a second blaster and a spare. He and Poe had both adopted regal-looking deep blue cloaks and they had managed to find pins with the Resistance symbol on to display while Chewbacca hefted his bowcaster in his arms. Poe glanced over at his buddy, seeing Finn smile back at him.
"You know we gotta pull this off?" he asked the former stormtrooper.
"I'm just pretending to be you, Poe," Finn told him. "But we need to act like the leaders of the Resistance-because that is what we are. We led the Battle of Exegol-and now we are going to get back our two most important missing members. Jedi Master Rey of Jakku-and our secret double agent and the only man who can lead us to her-Ben Solo, the man formerly known as Kylo Ren."
"Good speech," Poe complimented him with a broad grin. "Wouldn't say it so loud though. Half the galaxy wants to dismember him and the rest want to just shoot him! And we have to smuggle him away before all chaos breaks out." Chewie growled and the two men glanced up at the Wookiee.
"You can see them?" Poe murmured as the Wookiee struck out, heading towards the lithe shape in a burgundy jumpsuit topped by an all-enclosing yellow metal helmet. He gave a yowl and exchanged a few words with Zorii, who replied in kind before starting to laugh.
"What?" Finn asked as Poe scowled.
"He said that he was very grateful she saved our asses because us two certainly weren't able to-thanks, pal!" he translated. The woman tilted her head and he could imagine, under the helmet, the smug look in her luminous eyes. Their relationship in the past had been friends, rivals, comrades, even lovers…but now, he was glad she was a friend because Maker, they needed them.
"You know, would it kill you to thank me in person?" she asked, though they could hear the grin on her voice. He smiled back though his eyes remained serious.
"Thanks," he said honestly. "Though I ought thank Rose for sending you as well." She folded her arms and he could imagine her pouting. "But thanks, Zorii. I mean it."
"You're welcome, Dameron," she said, lifting her chin. Then she relented. "I know some of those guys. They were playing for keeps. Your boy has certainly managed to unite them all in a way he couldn't when he was Supreme Leader." Finn chuckled.
"Maybe we should point that out when we see him."
"If we see him," Zorii interjected. "He's worth a system's ransom. Can't see even this crew being stupid enough to let him go."
"I can be very persuasive," Poe offered.
"Don't kid yourself, flyboy," Zorii teased him. "Even you couldn't charm the pants off these guys."
"Ouch-she really does know you," Finn put in, his eyes twinkling.
"And it's gang up on poor Poe day," the former pilot grumbled. "Chewie-ya got them?" The Wookiee rolled his eyes but warbled an assent.
"Now we better meet the others. Rose said you had a plan," Zorii persisted as Poe struck out towards the gleaming citadel. He nodded and fell into step alongside her as they headed in the direction that Chewie indicated, the tall Wookiee leading the way and acting as a furry division of the tide of people. Finn couldn't help noticing that they were part of the most cosmopolitan crowd he had ever been in-and that included his trip to Canto Bight. There were more aliens than he could possible name, humanoids of every description and a hundred different styles of garb, mixed with masks, helmets and cloaks. And then they all froze as they say a flash of white.
Up ahead, there was a cloaked shape, walking through flanked by an honour guard of a dozen Stormtroopers.
"What the Kriff?" Poe hissed, his hands scrambling for his blaster but Zorii grabbed his wrist and held him firm.
"I get the feeling they aren't here to play up," she murmured as Finn huddled close.
"The question is-why are they here at all?" he muttered. Then they all shared a horrified look.
"Ren," Poe exhaled as Rose appeared with Jannah and Beaumont Kin. The shorter women grinned cheerfully.
"FINN! POE!" she said as the pair guiltily looked over at her.
"Hey Rose," Finn said as he moved forward and hugged her. She sighed.
"What's wrong?" she asked, hugging Poe. The pair shared a glance.
"I think this just got harder," Poe revealed as Rose pulled back and looked at her friends. "Apart from every criminal gang and half the planets, the First Order are here."
-o0o-
She found him overlooking a star nursery, deep in the embrace of the most vivid nebula she had ever seen. The gentle silence swirled but the force was warm and calm, the swell of new life energising her. He was waiting with apparently infinite patience, hands clasped behind his back and eyes on the new light bursting from the nascent stars. As they watched, a simmering ball of overheated gas burst into light, the first instants of a burn that would stretch for billions of years.
He was tall like his grandson, straight and balanced, his hair a honey brown and wavy. His face was handsome and calm as he inspected her in his old-fashioned beige and brown Jedi robes, his eyes vaguely amused as she determinedly landed at his side and folded her arms across her chest, refusing to be intimidated.
"Rey of Jakku," he greeted her, his voice different to what she expected-and certainly different to the voice she had heard in Ben's memory. Lighter…more human.
"Anakin Skywalker," she replied evenly, looking up into his face. He was smiling, a slightly lopsided smile that made her heart ache, for she had glimpsed a similar expression a few times on Ben. "You're hard to find."
"I have been where I always was," he told her evenly. "You, on the other hand, have been busy." She nodded and her hazel eyes flicked back to the newly minted star.
"I have to be," she murmured. "My…soulmate, I guess?…is alive and in danger. I need to help him."
"You are dead," he told her.
"He said I wasn't meant to be," she argued.
"And you believe everything he says?" he asked her without any rancour.
"He has never lied to me," she told him boldly. He paused and pressed his lips together in thought.
"No, he hasn't," he admitted.
"So I have to help him," she argued. "I am meant to still be there…"
"Maybe he is not?" he suggested quietly. Staring at him, her brows arched in confusion.
"Why are you being like this?" she asked, suddenly exasperated. "He's your grandson!"
"Never been a terribly good family," Anakin admitted, folding his arms across his chest. "I was responsible for the death of my wife. Me. No one else. My children were hidden and separated to protect them from me. I tortured my daughter and tried to kill my son, taking his hand. In the end, he reached me at the last moment and I died before ever saying anything of worth as a father to him. My daughter and her husband ignored and neglected their talented and lonely son, leaving him vulnerable to Palpatine's manipulations. My son screwed up by seeing the darkness within him and rather than trying to save him, he deemed the boy lost and contemplated killing him, precipitating his flight into the arms of Snoke. I'm not sure I can be of any help."
"You chose the light," she insisted. "In the end, you chose the light. So did he. And it must have been so hard to throw off the years and years of darkness, of manipulation, of shame and rage and sorrow but he chose the light."
"For you," Anakin murmured. "I saw. I watched. He should have died. He tried to save you. There was…a fracture."
"A fracture?" Her eyes were locked on his face now.
"There are echoes…of a different future that are fading by the hour," he told her. "The Force does not make errors. It just…is. But if you concentrate, you can hear the echoes of that other future, that other time. And Ben is the most sensitive Force User left. He can sense them. He is right: you are meant to live. And you need to be helped because you cannot live without his help."
"The Emperor said we are a Dyad in the Force. So did Ben."
"You don't refer to him as Kylo then?" His tone was mildly amused. She huffed.
"That was a different person, one who died on Kef Bir," she told him.
"He was still a facet of Ben Solo, a persona forged of loneliness, pain, fear, shame, sorrow, rage…but still part of my grandson," he corrected her. "And there are still echoes of Kylo Ren there." He paused. "Just as you carry echoes of the legacy of your family." Her fists tightened.
"Did everyone know but me?" she asked bitterly.
"Those of us who lived through the time of Darth Sidious," he told her simply. "Once you feel the edge of such evil, you never forget it. Luke and Leia picked it up-but it was of no mind. Because your family does not define the light or dark within your soul. You can always choose what you want to be, the path you desire to follow."
"You were supposed to bring Balance to the Force," she accused him. He grimaced.
"Ah, yes. The Chosen One. A myth Qui-Gon chose to believe and invest on a small boy," he said with restraint. "A tag that forever blighted me. An expectation that no one person could ever achieve. And the Jedi mythology and beliefs denied me the true salvation I needed-my heart and soul. Padme."
"Your wife," she murmured. He nodded.
"Balance is a very tricky thing to achieve," he told her. "It requires constant attention, constant adjustment, ever vigilant…on your own. But maybe they had it all wrong. I would achieve Balance eventually through my family…the family they sought to deny me in their fossilised outdated beliefs."
"I can agree with that," she muttered and he smiled.
"I see why Luke complained so much about you," he commented. Even dead, she felt her cheeks flush at the throwaway observation.
"Not a stellar example of a Jedi teacher himself," she retorted. He chuckled.
"You are exactly what my grandson needs," he told her more gently. "Both of you a mixture of light and dark, from opposing sides in the wars, both shaped by choices of others, by manipulation, by your strength and loneliness and vulnerability, by your determination and power. You naturally gravitate to the light and my grandson…maybe if he hadn't been seduced by darkness from his earliest years, he would have joined you. But together, you Balance light and darkness across your souls. You are the Balance."
"And I am dead," she said bitterly.
"My grandson was right-you need to live," Anakin told her. "What you need to achieve this is in the remains of my Castle-Darth Vader's castle-on Mustafar. The place you need to be to achieve the resurrection is Dathomir…"
"Where I was waiting…" Rey grumbled. "I spent most of my life waiting…and now the same thing is happening in my afterlife…"
"Snoke will be waiting," he warned the young women. She frowned.
"I thought…Palpatine created Snoke, that he was every voice in Ben's head, including Snoke's…"
"The Emperor created Snoke…but make no mistake, Rey-Snoke is a separate entity, a powerful Dark Side wielder in his own right. A malignant presence who will want to supplant you in rising once more. And the process makes it more dangerous."
"Why is that always the way?" she asked him quietly. Finally, he turned to face her.
"Every Skywalker has ultimately failed," he told her. "And your very existence and the future of balance in the Force depends on my grandson making the greatest sacrifice. He must give up himself, give up what he values most. And we Skywalkers tend to cling to our fear of loss and failure rather tightly." Looking into the handsome face, she managed a watery smile.
"I trust Ben," she said finally. "I trust him."
You love him, Anakin realised with sorrow. I am sorry, child. No one should ask you to give up more…but if you are to live, you will have to surrender one last thing…
"My grandson has already visited Mustafar to retrieve the Sith Wayfinder," he revealed. "Under the deepest part of the castle, there is an ancient Sith Holocron that details how you can be reunited." She nodded.
"I will find a way of telling him," she promised. "Thank you." Quietly, he unfolded his arms and took one of her hands in his.
"What you are asking is dangerous and very difficult," he reminded her.
"Which is what my entire life has been," she replied, a twinkle in her eyes. He sighed.
"Just remember that no story grants a happy ending for a Skywalker," he told her. "Ours is legacy of sorrow, of failure, of loss. Of bad choices, worse actions and ultimately winning while losing." There was a warning in his voice. "I do not doubt my grandson's bravery. Just…don't be disappointed if things end up different to what you hope." She frowned.
"Anakin?" she murmured. But he was gone, just the echo of his voice remaining.
"Enjoy the stars. And don't cling to hopes for the future. For a Skywalker, it never works out."
-o0o-
He was trying to meditate but the guards were very distracting, the jab of the needle electrodes in his collar and binders aching as he shifted. He gritted his teeth, jaw muscles aching from the action and kept his eyes closed.
"How much do you think we'll get as our cut?" Mongur asked. The Crolute was the loudest and most obnoxious of the group, a being that filled any silence with the sounds of his own voice consistently. The humanoid next to him-Anachton-sighed.
"Five figures at least," he admitted, checking his blaster for the hundredth time and eyeing the prisoner with a jaundiced eye. "Biggest fish we've ever sold."
"Most dangerous," the insectoid Kl'i'ib added via his translator. He was the most alert of the guards and far and away the freest with the shocks. Ben consciously forced his hands to relax at the words, and tried to reach out of the Force, assessing if the creature was going to indulge his new favourite pastime. He had felt Rey briefly, just as they treated him to a demonstration of the higher power levels and concentrating on her light had helped him endure the abuse. A shiver ran through him as he lifted his chin slightly as the door opened and the tramp of feet sounded as more people marched in.
"We need to speak with the prisoner," a voice said, altered by a helmet vocoder. Ben stiffened because he recognised the tone, his concentration shattered again.
"Really?" Mongur sneered.
"Authorised by Ilios Dando," the voice said, handing over a token. There was a pause.
"We'll be over here," Anachton offered as the guards withdrew and Ben heard them draw back. Slowly, he opened his eyes and saw a tall shape swathed in a deep black cloak and cowl approach. A blank black mask stared back at him as the honour guard of stormtroopers snapped attention. Painfully slowly, the gloved hand lifted to remove the mask as the man leaned forward to peer into Ben's face. Pallid eyes stared back in a face that was so smug it was overbearing.
"I never thought I'd see the day when I finally got you in chains," he said.
"HUX!" The word spat from Ben's lips in shock and he felt a surge of anger and hatred run through him immediately. "I was told you were executed for treason." General Armitage Hux gave a thin but smug smile.
"Rumours of my death were greatly exaggerated," he commented disparagingly. "That fool Pryde that you promoted over me really had no concept of running the First Order. Or how the upper echelons are in open warfare with each other-just as Snoke liked it. I've been in open combat with you for years, Ren! You think a single blaster shot would end me?"
"One can hope," Ben commented in his iciest voice. This man was really bringing out the Kylo in him without any real resistance on his part.
"And one would be a fool," Hux replied smugly. "I'm the technologist, the planner, the man who built Starkiller, who founded the child-Stormtrooper programme, the genius who created all our systems and advantages. You were just a rabid attack dog. Did you think that my uniform wasn't prepared and shielded to take that shot? Only my head was unprotected and Troopers are all trained from recruitment to shoot for the body! So when Pryde shot me, an alarm was triggered with my loyal officers and when my 'body' was collected, they took charge of me and I was transferred to my ship, the Eliminator. There I've been recuperating and waiting to see who won."
"That may have been a problem if Pryde and Palatine had triumphed," Ben told him coldly.
"And I would have found a way to integrate in their new 'Final Order'," Hux told him smugly. "If the Resistance won…well, I'm their friend. Their spy. I saved the current leaders of the Resistance from their execution almost at the cost of my own life! And finding you here? That is just the reward I deserve for everything I had to put up with from you!"
"You're ridiculous," Ben said flatly.
"So which one of us is chained and shackled, waiting to be auctioned to the highest bidder and which of us is here with loyal troops and access to the full wealth of the First Order?" Hux sneered. His eyes narrowed and he extended a hand. Ben scowled as one of the guards handed him an activator for the collar.
"You know I will get free and choke you to death," Ben growled, his eyes flashing darkly with hatred. Internally, he was shocked at how the sight of the man raised all those dark impulses that he had successfully quashed since Kef Bir. But Hux had been the pain in his side and fiercest rival since he joined Snoke, a man who had striven to undermine him, frame him, assassinate him, outmanoeuvre him…and who would have stabbed him in the back whenever he had the chance. Hux's eyes narrowed and he viciously twisted the dial then stabbed the button.
The current surged through Ben and he clamped his teeth together as his body arched in pain. It was definitely one of the higher settings as his vision greyed and his echoing hearing filled with the sounds of Hux chuckling. But the current scarified him for sadistically long and when he collapsed forward, he could still hear Hux laughing.
"That is definitely worth the price," the General commented coolly. Ben clenched his fists and tried to reach out with the Force.
"Y'never gonna get the chance…" he breathed as Hux caressed the button again. His low grunt of pain was involuntary but caused the General to smile as he hunkered down by the cell, tilting his head as he inspected the trembling prisoner.
"You imagine that the First Order didn't have insurance against any treason on your part-or that of your precious 'Knights of Ren'?" he taunted Ben, finally deactivating the current. "Supreme Leader Snoke himself approved my chemists' efforts in creating a superior serum to suppress the connections between your kind and the Force. We trialled the drugs on your precious Knights…and of course, we developed a much more potent version for you. So no, Ren-when you are my possession, you will be muzzled by drugs, shackled and collared and I am going to spend years ensuring you understand exactly how offended I am by your very existence!"
"No," Ben growled. Hux leaned forward, his smile broader.
"Imagine what I will do to you," he breathed cruelly. "Because, no matter what the price, you are going to be mine, Ren." Gritting his teeth, Ben raised his head and glared.
"You spent so many years trying to get rid of me, trying to supplant me in Snoke's favour," he breathed. "Kind of ironic you want me back. Look forward to breaking your neck, Hux."
In a flash, the General rose and twitched the cowl back over his head. He spun on his heel and stalked for the door, tossing the activator to the guards once more.
"I think not," the General said coldly. "I rather imagine that I will be welcoming you to the Eliminator as my possession, my slave. A fitting end to your story." He paused. "And by the way, the auction starts in one hour."