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CHAPTER 12
Planet Tatooine- Arkanis Sector
"Mum! Mum! He opened his eyes!"
A blazing pain tore his side. He had the impression of having cotton in his head instead of his brain. The sounds were muffled, distorted, and nausea turned his stomach.
Was it the voice of a child he'd just heard?
He wanted to bring a hand to his ribs but his arm seemed to weigh a ton. He was lying on his back, seemingly in a bed or a bunk. The air was hot and he was sweating profusely. He turned his head to the left and blinked several times: the orange jumpsuit he had worn on Hoth was lying on a chair by the door, stained with blood.
It's my blood ...
He realized that he was shirtless and his abdomen was bandaged. His black pants were gone too and he was only in underwear.
Gradually, everything came back to him: the betrayal of Hux and his knights, Elias revealing that he had been Snoke's apprentice too, his flight aboard the shuttle, his decision to go to one of the old abandoned rebel bases to try to find bacta ...
He heard footsteps now and a woman's silhouette, and then another, smaller one, appeared in the doorway.
"Stay behind me Shalim."
Kylo perceived a hint of apprehension in the female voice. His head was spinning. The bile was rising ever higher in his throat and he would have killed for a drop of water. When the image before him stopped shaking and came into focus, he discerned more clearly the features of a woman with auburn hair. She was rather young with gray eyes and a thin face, and she held a blaster directly at his head. Behind her, a boy of about ten years old stared at him intently.
He began to panic and tried to raise his hand to use the Force and disarm her. He could not.
"Go get a drink," she ordered, and the boy complied immediately.
He had trouble breathing. Sylla's dagger had perforated one of his lungs and, unfortunately for him, the bacta-serum he had injected himself with in the shuttle and the doses he'd found in the infirmary on Hoth were not enough to completely heal his wound. But he felt that the bacta-patch on his thigh was still in place.
By all the stars of the galaxy ... He was really in bad condition.
Yet these strangers had brought him back here and took care of him.
Why? Did they, at least, know who he was?
In other circumstances, he would have rendered them unconscious with a snap of his fingers, searched the house for food and medicine and left.
"Do you understand me when I speak?" the woman asked. The barrel of her blaster was still pointing in his direction and Kylo nodded.
"Your ship crashed in the Jundland wastes. You were so lucky that my friend, Zed, and I were passing by there. He told me I was crazy to pick you up and take you home, so I hope you're not going to prove him right. You are seriously injured and you have a fever."
Shalim returned with a large glass of water and gave it to the woman. Before taking a step towards the bed, the latter put the weapon back in the little boy's hands who stared at her with dismay.
"I already showed you how to use it. If he tries anything, you shoot," she explained. "We are not yet sure whether he's a rebel or not."
They thought he was a rebel?
The realized why when his eyes landed again on the Resistance-symbol emblazoned jumpsuit.
He was apparently very lucky, because these people really didn't seem to like First Order supporters.
The flickering blaster was now pointing more towards the foot of the bed than towards his head. The child's brown curls fell in front of his eyes and the weapon seemed disproportionate between his nervous little fingers.
Despite his condition, Kylo noticed that the boy's irises were crystal green. His mother - or at least he guessed she was - knelt cautiously by the bed and gently passed her hand behind his head to help him up a little. He tensed instantly but let it go. She brought the glass of water to his lips and he drank so greedily that he nearly choked.
"Easy," she whispered, instinctively putting her palm on his forehead to brush back the few strands stuck with sweat and check his temperature.
It was undeniably the gesture of a mother. She must have been in her thirties at the most. Her fingers were cool against his skin and he could not help but close his eyes. The fleeting memory of Leia caressing his feverish cheek as a child crossed his mind.
He had lost a lot of blood and had to concentrate all the energy he had left on the regeneration of every fragment of damaged tissue. It had been an eternity since he'd used the healing power of the Force on his own body. Luke had taught him how to do it, but when he was with Snoke, the First Order's surgeon droids and medical staff had always been the ones to get him back on his feet.
Suddenly, he felt sucked into the void and struggled to maintain consciousness.
"You're burning up. We're almost out of our stock of bacta, I'm sorry. I'm going to prepare a special herbal tea to help you fight the fever. But first of all I need to ask you something. Are you part of the Resistance?" she let out, holding her breath.
He lied scrupulously, nodding his head one more time. Then he closed his eyes before his body relaxed completely on the mattress of his bunk. When he heard the woman get up and walk out of the room followed by the footsteps of her son, he gathered his last strength to stay alive a little longer.
OooooO
He was running in the meadow. His lungs were on fire when he arrived in the small grove. He went to hide under the big tree trunk near the Shaak*-shaped rock. He then tried to slow his breathing and stay quiet. It was difficult because he was already hearing Aedan coming towards him, grumbling as usual.
"It's not funny Ben! My mother said: not outside the garden! We'll get in trouble, and it'll be all your fault!"
He put both his hands on his mouth to stifle a giggle. He loved to make Aedan mad. His nurse's nephew came from time to time to visit him in the large house which his mother and he occupied not far from the palace. The two boys got along pretty well and enjoyed playing together. When Aedan was with him, the voice in his head was silent ...
They were both the same age and had the same brown and ruffled hair. They could almost be mistaken for brothers, except that his friend's eyes were as green as the chrysoprases that could be found in the gem quarries on the south of Theed. The days on Naboo in this season were peaceful and sunny. His mother was stuck on Coruscant and his father was moping on edge of the galaxy, so he savored the moments spent with Aedan and forgot that he was still "the one left behind."
"Ben! Come on! Show yourself!"
Aedan was getting closer. He was going to find him. He crouched a little deeper in his hole and waited without moving. But suddenly he heard nothing more. Not the slightest sound. As if the forest had frozen. Not a single bird song, nor the sound of the wind in the leaves ... He raised his head a little to look through one of the gaps in the bark when a hand fell on his arm.
He jumped violently and nearly fell off the bunk. When he raised his head, two sparkling jade orbs stared at him candidly, and a small hand shook his bicep.
"Mum asked me to wake you up. She prepared something for you to eat. You have to regain strength if you want to heal."
The thin voice of the child brought him back to the real world. For a few seconds, the face of his dream was superimposed with the one of the child standing in front of him. He rubbed his eyes painfully, saw the glass of water on the small table near the bed and found that he was now able to lift his arm to grab it.
"Mom told me you are a pilot in the Resistance. Is that true?" Shalim asked.
Kylo emptied the contents of his glass without answering. His fever had fallen and the pain was less intense than the day before. Or was it two days ago? He realized then that he did not know how long he had been unconscious. All he knew was that he felt much better.
"Are you a good pilot? Do you have an X-wing fighter?"
The questions continued, jumbling together, and Kylo's jaw tightened. The auburn-haired woman then entered the room and cast a dark look at her son. She wore a simple beige linen dress cinched at the waist with a thin leather thong, and she held in her hands a pile of clothes of the same style.
"Shalim, leave him alone, will you? Go check C-3TB's arm. You must have done it yesterday!"
"But muuuuuum!"
"Shalim ..."
The little boy began to pout and left the room, dragging his feet.
If Kylo had no desire to sympathize with the boy, he was aware that he could not do without a minimum of communication with his mother. He straightened up on the bunk and leaned against the wall before asking hoarsely:
"How long have I been here?"
"You've had a fever for two days," she said, putting the clothes down at the end of the bed. "You were confused and asked for 'Ray' several times. Maybe you want to contact this man to tell him that you are here? If he's one of your Resistance friends, I can try …"
"Rey is a girl," he corrected.
He had no idea why he felt compelled to say that. He swallowed hard and added:
"I can't contact anyone and no one should know that I am here. It's too dangerous."
He was struggling to hide his discomfort and began to fidget feverishly on the bunk.
What was he still doing there? He had to leave immediately now that he was in a position to do so. He had to get away from these people before they could find out who he really was, and he had to find his shuttle.
"My name is Sovan Real. You are on our farm. Can I at least know what your name is?"
She had her back turned and was preparing a new lot of bandages. She probably wanted to change those which had covered his wounds for two days now. The small voice in Kylo's head continued to whisper that he had to flee. This time, it was not Snoke's voice ... just his.
You must kill them. They will find out who you are. This woman asks too many questions. Get out of here…
Ren looked down to try to hide his annoyance.
"Where is my ship?"
"As I told you two days ago, you crashed in the Jundland Wastes, further east. Your shuttle is probably in spare parts right now, being resold by the Jawas in Mos Eisley. But Zed and I recovered your belongings."
She pointed to the big metal suitcase propped up against the wall. Kylo had not even noticed it before. He let out a sigh of relief, immediately followed by a sidelong glance at Sovan.
The latter seemed to understand what was bothering Ren and stammered quickly, "I didn't look at what was inside!"
The boy then burst into the room, shouting: "Mom, a message from the First Order is about to be broadcast!"
Kylo stared at the child for a few seconds and then tried to get up despite Sovan's protests. He was still in his underwear and hesitated a moment to completely remove the sheet that covered the lower part of his body. Her hostess's cheeks flushed a little, pointing to the pile of folded laundry she had left on the bed a few minutes earlier.
"Sorry, but I had to take off your clothes because they were full of blood. These are clean. They belonged to my husband. They may be a little bit tight because you are ... Well, you're really very tall."
But Kylo was not listening to her anymore. He put on the trousers and the light cotton shirt, and darted out of the room to find himself in the next room that served as a living room. Shalim was already standing in front of the wall-mounted monitor, while Sovan grumbled that her work in stitching him up was going to be ruined if Ren kept moving like this. He clenched his teeth as he sat down at the big table and the video started.
A black silhouette wearing a mask appeared on the screen.
His mask.
General Hux was here too, his face triumphant and his hands crossed behind his back. In the background, several squadrons of stormtroopers were lined up in close ranks.
The voice distorted by the modulator of the helmet announced the advent of a new era. As Supreme Leader, he, Kylo Ren, ensured that the First Order would introduce discipline and rigor into all planetary systems and that any opponent would be ruthlessly eliminated. The speech lasted several minutes and ended with the rallying cry of the troops who saluted their leader by raising their fists.
Kylo's lips began to shake and the top of his left cheek flinched slightly.
So Elias was pretending to be him with the complicity of Hux.
Ren felt a wave of irrepressible fury rise to his throat.
I'll make them pay for what they did to me.
His hands resting flat on the table, he thought back to the flood of destructive lightning he had managed to create during his clash with his former companions on the Finalizer, and imagined the smoking and charred carcasses of his enemies at his feet.
You are going to crush all these bloody traitors, without exception, make them suffer and ...
The violent pain in his side suddenly woke up and he had to grab the edge of the table tightly, gritting his teeth so as not to moan. Sovan rushed to him and put a hand on his shoulder.
"You should go back to lie down, please …"
The harsh reality came down on him and instantly defeated his rage. He was stuck on Tatooine, in a hydroponic farmhouse lost in the middle of the desert, held by a woman and her son who thought he was a member of the Resistance. Hux and his knights had made the whole galaxy believe that he still led the First Order, and surely they were still actively searching for him to kill him. He was weak, hurt both physically and in his pride, and leaving this planet now to try to regain power was madness.
He had never been a reasonable man, yet today, common sense dictated that he should keep a low profile and accept the situation.
He hated heat and sand. Kylo had often repeated that when Hux and he were still under Snoke's orders. Elias knew it too, just as he knew that Kylo hated everything related to his uncle. So he had bet on the fact that these two vermin would never think to come and get him on Tatooine.
The other positive point was that the Hutts had not returned to this planet since the death of Jabba** and, to his knowledge, no faction of the Resistance was established here.
So after Hoth, he had chosen to come here to Tatooine to recover from his wounds and take time to decide what he would do next.
Plus, he was lucky. This family offered him hospitality and he had to enjoy it.
"Listen," added Sovan, "I don't know what happened and I'm just trying to believe you, but …"
Come on, make an effort, you need them ...
"I can't say anything except that my mission went wrong. The less you know, the better. The First Order is searching for me and I can't contact my base at this time. Nobody should know that I am here," Kylo replied.
He had spoken harshly, but Shalim had listened to him with an open mouth and stars in her eyes.
"You can stay here as long as you want," Sovan assured him.
Then the young woman told him she'd been living alone with her son ever since the death of her husband when Shalim was still a baby. Both managed to run the farm with the help of several droids, as well as help from Zed and his wife Blys, who lived on another farm several miles away from Mos Eisley. Kylo wondered if Zed's farm was the one that had once belonged to the Lars family and in which Luke had grown up.
"I'm not going to impose myself on you for too long, I just need enough time to recover," he said.
Sovan gave him a shy nod and headed for the kitchen. Kylo took the opportunity to briefly look into her mind. What he read there didn't surprise him in the least: she thought the was gruff and unfriendly.
Did this woman really think that all rebels were good Samaritans?
Kylo heard her working behind him as Shalim began setting the table.
"Ok, but if you have to stay a few more days with us, is it possible to finally know your name, or is it also top secret information?" asked the young woman.
Kylo met the gaze of the boy who was struggling to hide his excitement on knowing that the mysterious stranger was going to spend some more time with them. A strange feeling invaded him. No one had ever looked at him like that.
The child is happy that I'm staying ...
The confusion he felt only lasted a few seconds.
"No, it's not a secret," he answered.
And when he stared again at Shalim and his big green eyes, Kylo added:
"My name is Aedan."
OooooO
"Hello Aedan! The provisions are in the kitchen, wait a minute, I'll get them," Sovan announced.
He quietly waited in the small inner courtyard dug out of the arid soil until the young widow returned. As in all hydroponic farms on Tatooine, the various underground cavities acting as rooms were connected by tunnels, all around the central patio. The greenhouses were buried too.
It was impossible to grow anything on the surface of this arid and inhospitable planet.
When Kylo was a padawan, Luke had briefly mentioned Anakin Skywalker's home planet and told a few anecdotes about his life in Owen Lars' farm located several dozen kilometers to the south-east, near Anchorhead. Now it was Zed's property.
Kylo turned his head to the EG-6 droid that was working on the electrostatic repeller in the middle of the yard. It had been two weeks since he was stranded on Tatooine.
When Sovan drove him to the spot where he had landed, Kylo found that the young woman was right: his damaged shuttle had been sacked and completely dismantled. He'd only been able to recover some spare things left intact in one of the lower drawers of the ship. Luckily, Sovan had had the good idea to pack up his precious briefcase containing nearly a million galactic credits, his lightsaber and two or three little things stolen from the Supremacy's labs.
A door to his right opened abruptly and Shalim ran out to come and stand in front of him. The boy had a big smile on his face.
"Will you stay with us today, Aedan?" the child asked with a hopeful tone.
Kylo suppressed a grunt of exasperation.
"No. I just came looking for food."
His tone was harsh, as it was every time he spoke to Shalim. But the more Kylo was unsociable and contemptuous, the more the kid seemed to cling to him. In the same way, his mother was always gentle, caring and kind. It was incomprehensible ... and destabilizing. So he had felt the need to get away from these people.
When Kylo had mentioned the existence of a cabin in the canyon not far from the farm, Sovan had confirmed that there was a small house that had been abandoned for decades on the edge of the territory controlled by the Tuskens. Kylo didn't know if she was aware that this was the place where Obi-Wan Kenobi had lived during his exile on Tatooine. She'd looked worried when Kylo had said he wanted to go to the cottage and settle in there instead of staying with her and her son.
He had given the widow enough galactic credits to cover the costs of providing him with food and basic necessities for several months. Even if Sovan had wanted to ask him where all the money came from, she had abstained. She had also negotiated for him a new landspeeder in Mos Eisley, which he was using to travel between Obi-Wan's house and the farm when he had to pick something up from her. He hated to depend so much on Sovan, but it was too risky for him to show up in town.
So he lived in this little hut now, in the middle of the canyon bordering the Jundland desert.
When he had arrived in front of the cabin, only the white dome of the main room was still visible. He had used the Force to clear the rest of the house of the huge amount of sand that had gradually buried the building over the years. The interior had remained intact, and the generator and recycling and drinking water systems were still operational. The rooms were modest but functional. It was the perfect place to lie low and let things settle down a bit.
He could leave whenever he wanted to. All he had to do was go to Bestine or Mos Eisley, steal a shuttle, or use his power to force a pilot to surrender his ship.
The question was: to go where? And to do what next?
He had no ally, no army. If he landed on the Finalizer now, even if he told everyone that Hux and his Knights had seized power in a coup, he was convinced that the troops would take their side.
He was deadlocked.
So, on the first day in the cabin, he had taken out his frustration and annoyance on the furniture. Two chairs and a good part of the dishes had been smashed on the floor in the middle of the living room.
He had nothing else to do in this hellhole other than brooding over his future vengeance against Hux and Elias.
So he had started exploring the area around the cabin.
He had once happened upon a squad of Tuskens patrolling the canyon. He had watched them from afar, hidden behind a rock, wondering if Sovan and her son knew that these creatures came so close, and if they could defend themselves in case of an attack. Then he'd convinced himself that it did not matter if the woman and the child died. It would just be unfortunate, because then he'd lose his one and only means of supply.
When he finally got tired of walking around, he resigned himself to repairing the chairs, spending time working in the shed under the house, and he began to meditate again. His fits of rage eventually calmed down, mainly because he realized that he couldn't live without furniture and dishes.
He was still waiting in the middle of the sun-drenched courtyard when Sovan came back with a basket full of food, clean linen, and toiletries. She handed it to him with a smile, and Kylo could not help but notice the brief spark that illuminated the young woman's eyes when he grabbed the handle and their fingers brushed against each other.
OoooooO
He had been there for a month now but felt like years. His anger had given way to a certain apathy, to a strangely soothing boredom, and he even found a form of serenity in the daily routine: he rose with the sun and spent one or two hours meditating before training with his lightsaber and then eating a light snack. Afterwards he'd read a bit, look after the various equipment in the cabin, or visit the Reals. In the evening, he'd have dinner and stroll under the starry sky before going to bed.
Who would have thought that one day, Kylo Ren would take pleasure in strolling, his head in the stars?
Ever since he was a child, his nights had always been restless, but his nightmares had never been so vivid and frequent as they were here. He suspected the day-to-day monotony of causing his brain to go into overdrive during his sleep hours. His old master was no longer the main protagonist of his dreams, but something worse had slipped into his head in the place of the old man's stony and venomous voice: remorse.
He was waking in the middle of the night, sweaty, with the burn of Han's fingers on his cheek. He was hearing Luke's calm and solemn voice reminding him that everything he had done would haunt him forever. The screams of the innocent slaughtered by his fault were deafening and he had the impression of feeling the metallic taste of blood on his tongue. Sovan was standing in front of him, frightened and hugging her son close to her, but it was Leia's voice coming out of her mouth when she shouted at him that he was nothing more than a contemptible man who did not deserve to live.
And Rey ...
She was here too in all his dreams, looking at him with disgust.
He felt a heavy weight of hopelessness and despair. He was alone. He had always been. And he had been totally crazy to believe that his situation could change one day.
This morning, when he arrived at the farm, he was surprised not to be greeted by Shalim as usual. He first descended the stairs leading to the small courtyard and then headed for the kitchen where he thought he would find Sovan. But there was no one there either. He then took a shortcut through one of the side tunnels to access the main greenhouse. He crossed several droids bustling around the columns filled with mushrooms in full growth before seeing the young woman rummaging in one of the control panels at the back of the room.
She jumped when she finally perceived his presence close to her.
"Hey!" she said, hastily wiping her chin covered with dust.
Kylo watched her, his face impenetrable. He was not stupid. No need to look into the young widow's mind to feel the desire he awoke in her every time he spoke to her or looked her straight in the eyes.
She was young, lived alone with her son, and her husband had been dead for several years. He saw in her a mixture of repressed desire, guilt and deep sadness. Although she always put on a brave face in front of him, the wounds of her heart were deep and she did not know how to handle this flood of new emotions that she thought she'd never feel again. Kylo didn't know if he should be flattered or if he should pity her. But he was certain of one thing now: he didn't want any harm to befall them anymore, her and her son.
He bit his lower lip before asking in a neutral and detached tone: "A problem?"
Sovan let out a stifled sigh.
"The refrigeration system has just broken down. If I don't manage to restart it very quickly, we risk losing a lot of the crop. In addition, I must also check the alarm system because the Tuskens become more reckless before the harvests. Two seasons ago, Zed was attacked and they stole all his production."
Kylo knew very well that the harvest was near but the maturation of the mushrooms was not over yet. Without regulation of the temperature in the greenhouses, the farmers could lose everything.
"Where is Shalim?" he said, looking for the child.
"He's in the second greenhouse with C-3TB, checking the nutrient supply system."
Ren looked into Sovan's desperate gray eyes. The greenhouse was underground but thin openings in the ceiling and a clever arrangement of mirrors allowed some sunlight to intrude into the basement to illuminate the aisles between rows of crops. The young woman was standing in one of the light beams. She wore beige cotton trousers, a draped top, and blond leather cuffs. Her outfit reminded Kylo of the one worn by Rey when she arrived on the Supremacy.
Was there really a particular fashion common to all the desert planets of the galaxy?
The soft light accentuated the coppery highlights of Sovan's hair. The latter froze and her cheeks flushed as she saw that Kylo detailed her from head to toe.
Realizing that his shuffling look could be misinterpreted, he suddenly launched a "let me see this" as he passed in front of her to examine the control panel.
After a good half-hour of adjustments and more or less successful connection attempts, the cooling system started again.
Sovan could not suppress a little cry of joy. She grabbed Kylo's hand to hold it in hers before realizing that Kylo had just frozen on the spot. The expression of deep malaise displayed on Ren's face got the better of the young woman's excitement. She released him promptly and cleared her throat.
"Thank you," she said then to fill the embarrassed silence that had just settled between them.
Kylo replied with a simple shake of the head.
OoooooO
"Are you going to call your friend Rey to pick you up?"
Shalim was sitting next to Kylo in front of the big table, on which was spread the mechanical arm of one of the droids.
Did this kid stop ever stop?
Every day, for the last three months now, he had been subjected to a thorough interrogation. The little boy was a real chatterbox. He was constantly asking questions about the other members of the Resistance, about the battles Kylo had won, and about future Rebel plans against the First Order. Kylo sighed with annoyance and ended up lying to try to silence him.
"You told mom she was a girl ... Is she your girlfriend?"
The tool that Kylo held in his right hand escaped him and fell to the ground.
"No," he retorted curtly, stooping to avoid the piercing green eyes of the child and to pick up the tool at his feet.
"Is she pretty? Is she a pilot like you?"
By all the suns in the galaxy, he was really going to kill that brat ...
Kylo had quickly given up staying in Obi-Wan's hut all day long and was spending most of his time on the farm helping Sovan and her son prepare for the harvest. The day before, the young widow had returned from Mos Eisley to inform him that several merchants had landed in the city. Maybe he could ask one of them to take him wherever he wished to go?
To leave, yes ... But the same question always arose: to go where?
In any case, he was sure of one thing: he was going to take his revenge. Only the conditions remained to be defined.
"My mom is pretty too, isn't she?"
Kylo did not have time to come up with an answer because Sovan's voice sounded from the kitchen on the other side of the yard.
"Food's ready!"
The little boy frowned and grumbled before getting off his stool and leaving the shed. Kylo let out a sigh of relief, stowed his tools and followed him.
A delicious smell of stew reached his nostrils when he stuck his head through the door to announce that he was returning to the cabin and that he would come back tomorrow to finish repairing the droid.
"I've cooked double the amount of food that we need," Sovan announced. "Maybe you can stay here with us?"
The little voice in his head was screaming that it was not a good idea but, betrayed by the unexpected gurgling of his stomach, he finally resigned himself to accepting. And he did not regret it – the young woman's cooking was a delight. During the meal, he silently observed Sovan and Shalim laughing and chatting without a care in the world. The little boy continued to babble and his mother listened with wonder and tenderness.
These people had almost nothing and yet they seemed happy just because they were together and they loved each other deeply. They had welcomed him, a stranger fallen from the sky. They had taken care of him, fed him and helped him for months without asking anything in return.
A feeling of uneasiness suddenly rose inside of him. It was not the first time he'd felt that. These people were awakening in him things that he wanted to repress at all costs, and he was having more and more difficulty as he was confronted with all of this: benevolence, respect, compassion ...
That damn compassion ...
He had even had to admit that, somewhere, he admired their courage and their determination to keep their farm afloat, day after day, and all the hard work they were doing to survive on this barren land.
He was letting himself be moved ...
And that was something he could not afford. He was still Kylo Ren, heir to the Dark Side.
His fork froze a few inches from his mouth. He was out of place here. He had nothing to do in this house. These people were going to make him weak and he might taint them with his darkness.
He slammed the cutlery violently down on the table and startled the boy and his mother. Their radiant smiles deserted their faces.
"I have to go. Thanks for the meal," Kylo stammered, getting up hurriedly.
He went out without turning around and straddled his speeder to go back to Obi-Wan's hut.
At the entrance of the small canyon, while the twin suns of Tatooine were about to disappear on the horizon, his attention was drawn to the remains of several fireplaces smoking at the foot of one of the steep walls. At the moment, it didn't worry him too much. He had heard Zed tell Sovan via the holocom that the Tuskens had been spotted near the Motesta Oasis about forty kilometers to the southeast. They were very far away. These extinguished fires were surely the remnants of a Jawa encampment.
When he arrived, he parked his speeder under the shelter next to the house, entered the cottage and headed for the small bathroom. Hands resting on each side of the sink, he gazed at his reflection in the mirror before sighing. Sovan had given him her husband's razor but he had not shaved this morning. He made the water flow and splashed his face several times.
He didn't know why, but something was wrong.
An alarm had been sounding in his head since he'd crossed the threshold of the cabin and he was desperately trying to understand why.
Then he closed his eyes and concentrated, letting the Force flow through every fiber of his being. The immaterial fluid passed through him like a warm, vibrant breath, the air suddenly became denser around him, and the hairs on his arms bristled. Suddenly, he opened his eyes and turned sharply to enter the living room.
Here, the luminescent silhouette of his uncle was standing near the table.
Kriff…
Luke was the last person he wanted to see right now.
He was about to scream at him unceremoniously when the old man said in a deep voice:
"They need you, Ben."
Kylo inhaled deeply. The Force suddenly sent him warning signals so powerful that he could not ignore them. Luke was right. Sovan and Shalim were in danger.
Yet something kept him from acting. Resentment. The spirit of stubbornness. He was ready to stay here without doing anything just to upset Luke. Everyone considered him awful, right? So why should he care about two insignificant farmers whom he was only using to improve his life on this damn planet? Why come to the aid of this mother and her son who had opened their house and cared for him? Why act as a human being when he was actually a monster?
"Ben …"
Luke's pleading tone suddenly shook his determination, and he did his best not to let out a cry of rage when his uncle's ghostly figure faded away, leaving him alone and panting in the middle of the cabin.
The Force was screaming now. He realized he could not ignore it anymore. He rushed straight to the chest in the corner of the room and took out his lightsaber. Seconds later, he was riding his speeder back to the Reals' farm.
When he arrived near the house, a dozen Tuskens had already begun to ransack the shed and the first greenhouse. They had managed to get through the security systems which had been installed around the property precisely to detect looters of their species. Sovan was lying in the middle of the courtyard, unconscious. She had been stabbed several times in the stomach, and Shalim was nowhere to be seen. As he advanced to join her, Kylo neutralized five assailants using his weapon and the Force. The remaining five flung themselves on him in turn and were slain too. Surrounded by the corpses of the Tuskens, Ren knelt beside Sovan to see that she was still alive. He called Shalim, who finally came out of his hiding place in the back of the shed, and the boy, still in shock, followed him sobbing while Kylo carried his mother to the bedroom. Kylo injected the woman with the last dose of Bacta and dressed her wounds as best as he could. Shalim was watching him without a word, his eyes empty and desperate. Sovan needed specialized medical care or she would die. His face covered with tears, Shalim stared at him with his big green eyes.
"You ... You're a Jedi ... I saw how you fought the Tuskens. Please, help us."
But Shalim was wrong. He was not a Jedi. He was in fact the opposite of what the followers of the Light Side represented. But, without hesitation, he lifted Sovan's body, laid the young woman beside her son in their airspeeder, and rushed straight for Bestine.
He burst into the small first aid station in the North Quarter, shattering the door with a thought. The place was shabby and dusty. There were no hospitals in Bestine, just places like this one, run by shopkeepers once in the service of the Hutts who were now becoming "health center" managers.
From the counter in the back of the room, a bald man with a mock medical coat pointed a laser rifle at him.
"Hey! Where do you think you're going?!" he shouted.
Kylo disarmed him with a nod and dropped Sovan on a stretcher parked against the wall. Shalim followed him, almost clinging to his leg. The bald man, suddenly empty-handed, gasped in surprise and was about to scream when Kylo reached for him.
"You will order all your medical droids to take care of her. If she dies, you die."
The guy nodded and pressed a button under the counter. Four wretched humanoid robots emerged from the next room to pick up the stretcher on which Sovan lay. Through the filthy window that separated the hall from the treatment room, Shalim and Kylo watched as the robots worked on the young woman. The little boy sniffed loudly while wiping his wet cheeks. He slipped his little hand into Kylo's.
After two hours of waiting, Shalim had fallen asleep, curled up on the small wooden bench in the hall. Kylo had remained standing, still motionless in front of the bay window. Sovan's condition was stable. The bald man was standing behind his counter and still seemed to be in shock.
"I must be paid," he stuttered.
"I'll pay," Kylo retorted coldly, not even glancing at him.
But all of a sudden, the dispensary door opened and three men entered. The noise awoke the little boy. The bald man froze again and his face became even more discomposed. Kylo turned his head towards the newcomers and frowned. These visitors were going to be a problem, there was no doubt about it. They had bloodshot eyes and their bodies were twitching nervously. They were all looking for drugs, and seemed angry to find Kylo and the child at this time in the usually empty clinic.
"Zilog, what are they doing here?" asked the taller man with a white mohawk and tattoos on his cheeks. "You know that I hate running into strangers when I come to get my goods. It makes me irritable. And when I'm irritable, I do unpleasant things."
The bald man, visibly panicked, raised his hands in front of him, stammering.
"Listen, A'Shek, they burst in out of nowhere! I couldn't do anything about it!"
White mohawk guy's friends drew their blasters. The first one, a short, stocky man with a beard reaching his navel, pointed his gun at Kylo. The other, a tall, extremely thin man with blackened teeth, aimed at Zilog behind the counter.
"You! Step back, slowly!" A'Shek shouted at Ren.
Shalim was watching Kylo with scared eyes. So he took a last look at Sovan's sleeping figure on the other side of the window and grabbed the lightsaber he had stored in his belt.
OooooO
Zilog never received his money. During the clash with the three drug addicts, a blaster shot had pierced his skull. Ren quickly dispatched of the stocky bearded man, while A'Shek and his white mohawk fled screaming into the maze of neighborhood streets, his back lacerated by Kylo's lightsaber.
When the droids had finished bandaging Sovan's wounds, Kylo picked up several doses of bacta and took the young mother and her son back to the farm.
He had spent the whole week with Shalim while Sovan regained his strength, bedridden in her room.
The harvest was coming up in two days and one of the moisture vaporizers had stopped working once again. Kylo was in the shed trying to fix it but he was missing an important piece that a Jawa tribe would bring him in a few hours.
Since the attack of the Tuskens, Shalim had not left him for even one minute. The interest of the child had turned to adoration.
"Aedan ... Can I see your lightsaber when I finish cleaning C-3TB?"
The big green eyes had been watching him disassemble the generator for thirty minutes now.
"No," Kylo grumbled, trying to ignore him as always.
He could have used his powers to force the boy to forget their misadventure at the clinic. He still wondered why he had not done it.
"Were you beaten by another Jedi or by the soldiers of the First Order, is that you why you've got that scar on your face? Did it hurt a lot?"
And the questions just kept coming…
"Is it true that you can move objects with your mind? Mom told me Jedi Knights could float a lot of things just by moving their fingers. I saw how you took away that bad guy's weapon at the clinic. Can you show me again?"
Kylo finally raised his head. He had just heard the sound of a motor outside.
"Can your saber change color? Why is it red?" Shalim continued.
Kylo sighed as he closed his eyes.
"Why do you never answer me?" the little boy sulked, frowning.
"The Jawas are here. Go and greet them and tell their leader to bring me the part here," Ren ordered. "And stop talking about all that. I told you it must be a secret between us."
Shalim complied without complaining. Kylo heard the little creatures chatter as they came down the stairs toward shed.
But suddenly, the air around him became more compact and began to vibrate. Kylo immediately recognized the familiar cocoon created by the Force to announce that the link was about to open.
And then the silhouette of Rey appeared in the middle of the shed.
Stunned, he stared at her silently.
She had not changed. She was even more beautiful than in his memories. She stared at him with her big hazel eyes, star-studded with green, and seemed as astonished as he, if not more.
Kylo's pulse quickened and he was convinced that Rey could hear the beating of his heart as it drummed hard against his ribs. Then, without really knowing what to say, he opened his mouth to speak, but it was at this moment that he perceived the gestures of the Jawa chief brandishing a lot of connectors on his left. The creature was asking Shalim if Kylo had a problem. He could not ignore the scrap dealer any longer.
"Jawi nakmar tedo," he grumbled at the creature, nodding his head.
The jawa put the devices on the workbench, raised his hands to the sky to signal his discontent, and left grumbling, escorted by Shalim. When Kylo turned his attention to Rey, he saw her move to walk toward him, her hand outstretched, and he realized that she intended to touch him. But all of a sudden, the connection stopped.
No no no no…
Kylo stood abruptly from his stool to find himself alone and panting in the middle of the room. His blood was no longer pulsating against his temples, and he wondered if his heart had stopped beating. The anger returned in full force before being immediately replaced by despair and regret. The link had just closed, and he was already missing the soft, soothing light that emanated from Rey. His body shuddered and he felt the cold pierce his bones. He wondered how he would ever manage to live with the immeasurable void of her absence in his chest.
OooooO