Planet Tatooine- Outer Rim :
Kylo had already lost too much time.
What was he still doing here?
He had to get to Bestine. In the cabin two hours earlier, he'd made his decision. He'd straddled his landspeeder and headed straight for the capital. He still did not know what had caused him to stop at the Reals' farm, but the idea of leaving Sovan and Shalim without checking that everything was fine had upset him much more than he wanted to admit.
Five minutes. He had promised himself to stay only five minutes.
But when he arrived, he could see that everything was not going well. The damage caused by the storm was visible from the entrance to the farm. Without delay, he had turned on his speeder to conduct a thorough inspection of the vaporizer field: nearly half of the devices were destroyed. Then he went down to check the underground greenhouses. Fortunately, nothing had been touched here, and the droids had even started harvesting. But according to his estimates, the sale of water and cultivated mushrooms would not be enough to finance the replacement of a quarter of the sacked facilities.
Sovan, who was barely recovering, was depressed. She was trying to put on a happy face and be positive in front of her son, but Kylo could see that she was ready to burst into tears.
"Mom, what are we going to do if we don't have enough money to rebuild the vaporizers? Will we have to leave?"
"All will be fine Shalim, don't worry …"
"I can work, you know, mom! I can go to Bestine to see Minos Buk, and ask if he needs someone to clean or serve customers in his spare parts store. I am the man of the house now, I have to take care of you as dad did."
And that's when Sovan cracked. She repressed her sobs as best as she could while squeezing her son tightly against her.
Kylo felt like an intruder while watching the scene.
"No, I refuse to let you go to work for Minos Buk. We'll get by," she repeated as if to convince herself. "As long as we stay together, everything will be fine."
The little boy snuggled his head against his mother's chest and Sovan gently stroked his brown curls. They had been alone in the face of adversity for so long now ...
"I love you mom."
"I love you too, honey."
Kylo's throat tightened and he did not even try to fight it this time. He ran a hand through his hair and coughed to signal that he was still there before declaring in a deep voice:
"I ... I'll check the ventilation system and the central generator just to make sure the greenhouses are safe."
Sovan looked up at him, and her big gray eyes bore into his. The young woman had guessed that something was wrong.
"You are about to leave."
It was not a question, but rather a heartbreaking observation. Then it was Shalim's turn to lift his chin and stare at him. The little boy with his inexhaustible babbling was this time unable to utter a single word.
Kylo knew this look too well.
In the past, this look was his as he watched, broken-hearted, the takeoff of the Falcon or Leia's shuttle from the runway of the Chandrila Airport.. After each departure, there were long moments of gazing at the sky, terrified that his parents would not come back, leaving him alone and abandoned.
His parents had always returned. But he would probably never set foot on Tatooine again.
OooooO
With the tip of her boot, Sylla lifted the old piece of rusty iron scrap lying on the ground before sending it careening against the wall to clear the way. The reception area of this medical shop in the northern district of Bestine had been inundated with sand. A violent storm seemed to have struck a few hours earlier on this part of the planet: the front door had been torn down, and the bay windows at the back of the room were cracked.
The young woman entered the treatment room and stepped over an old droid sitting on the ground, to finally reach the computers lined up behind the operating table. But suddenly, a hoarse voice rose from the hall.
"There is nothing here! We searched the cellar and the storage. Bacta, painkillers, anesthetics ... Everything has already been looted!" grumbled a bald man with a tattooed skull.
Sylla rolled her eyes before giving an annoyed sigh. She wasn't pleased to team up with Mintha the Hutt's mercenaries. But she had to admit that they were formidable warriors. Moreover, they did not ask questions and obeyed orders without complaint. That was all that mattered.
"That's not what we're searching for," she replied, continuing to tap on the keyboard in front of her.
She accessed the treatment history and went back to the date indicated by the white-mohawked slave. After opening the corresponding file, she found that it was empty. Sylla's face then broke down and she slammed an angry fist on the table. All records of surgeries and data for that day had been erased.
Damn it, Kylo ...
She turned around and saw the second medical droid waiting quietly at the back of the room. Sylla rushed over and reactivated the robot. Luckily, it was still operational and raised its flattened head, flashing its photoreceptors.
"I want a report of every patient who was seen eight days ago," Sylla ordered, praying that the droid wasn't too damaged.
The synthetic voice of the GH-7 robot answered without delay: "Impossible request. Empty memory card."
The rage of the female knight was heard as far as the street, where two Barabel giants stood guard, guns in hand.
She was desperate. Kylo had erased all traces of his passage here. Impossible to know why and with whom he had come. The few inhabitants interviewed in the neighborhood had been rather cooperative but did not know much: a fight had broken out, three guys had died including Zilog, the proprietor of the clinic. The bodies had been swung out into the street by a tall man wrapped in a brown coat, who had come out with a woman in his arms and a kid running behind him. Nobody had really seen where they had gone and besides, no one cared.
Sylla exhaled slowly and tried to calm down. She would rake the entire surface of this planet if necessary. She was going to find him and make him pay for his betrayal.
The beep of her comlink sounded as she was about to leave the room. It was one of Mintha's henchmen on a shuttle flight over the Jundland Desert.
"You will never guess what I just saw at the entrance to Kingya Rift!" the pilot shouted. "That old piece of junk belonging to Han Solo!"
Sylla stopped on the threshold of the clinic.
"What?" she exclaimed. She must have misunderstood.
"When I was working for Jabba, Han was already causing us a lot of problems! But it's been a while since I've seen him!" he sneered.
The young woman calculated at the speed of lightning.
"Go back there! We mustn't lose this ship, understood? Follow him wherever he goes and send me the coordinates!"
"But he was heading east! And I'm almost to Mos Eisley!"
"Well, turn around and find it! If this freighter escapes us, I will personally make you regret it!"
Sylla then changed the frequency of her comlink to address all of her troops:
"Change of plan. Everyone in the fighters, heading east. We remain in permanent contact from now on. Our new target is the Millennium Falcon."
OooooO
Rey lifted her head from the dashboard and finally saw the vaporizer field of the Real farm.
Well ... what was left of it.
Through the window of the Falcon, she also spotted a landspeeder parked not far from the main house and congratulated herself internally for having followed her instincts.
She knew it. Ben was here.
She landed the ship a few hundred yards away from the dome, unhooked her belt and pulled down the ramp. Staff in her hand, she was about to go down when the frantic beeps of R2-D2 stopped her in her tracks.
"I'll be right back R2, do not panic!" she reassured him.
"Miss Rey! Miss Rey!" The golden figure of C-3PO was hurrying down the corridor. "Do you want R2 and me to accompany you?"
"No, I prefer to go alone. Stay here, both of you," she ordered, ignoring the new protests from the little astromech.
She decided not to announce herself this time, and went straight to the patio dug into the rocky ground, just like in the old Lars farm. She was halfway down the small stone staircase when she saw Ben burst out of one of the side rooms to stand in the middle of the courtyard. He was followed almost immediately by a child with shaggy black hair, and a few seconds later by a young woman whom Rey guessed to be Sovan.
"What are you doing here?" Ben asked coldly.
The scavenger stopped in the middle of the steps and tightened her grip on her staff.
"I…"
"Are you Aedan's girlfriend?" the boy asked naively.
The young woman's eyes widened with astonishment and she felt her cheeks flare up.
"I ... I'm Rey," she stammered, not knowing how to react.
Sovan and Shalim examined her from head to toe. When she finally met Ben's gaze, she saw that he was downright angry. Then suddenly, his whole expression changed. He looked up at the patio and froze like a beast at bay. There was apparently something happening that he was the only one to perceive. He cursed, muttering words that Rey did not understand, and grabbed Sovan and the child each with one arm to bring them back inside.
"What's going on?" Rey asked, watching the trio disappear through the door behind them.
She ran down the rest of the stairs to join them and stopped on the doorstep to see Ben open a metal briefcase resting on the table.
"Tell me what is happening!" she insisted.
"Sylla is here," he retorted.
Sovan's jaw dropped when she saw the multitude of little yellow and black rectangles that Ben began to pour into a leather bag. The young widow had never seen such a quantity of galactic credits. He filled the wallet, and when he had finished, he handed it to Sovan, still dumbstruck and stupefied.
"It's for you. Hide them in a safe place. I have to leave right away. Those who are after me have found me."
"Who is Sylla?" Rey couldn't help but ask again.
"She is a Knight of Ren, and she is not far from here. She can't sense me, but she will be able to sense your presence since you are not yet able to hide your aura in the Force. She will come here if you don't leave."
Rey's blood froze in her veins. She had only been here for forty-eight hours, and now the First Order had landed too. Had she been followed? Was it really her fault? If so, she had ruined all the efforts Ben had made to make to hide himself from his new enemies. Sovan's trembling voice cut short his speculation.
"A Knight of Ren? The Force? What are you talking about?"
Ben saw that Shalim was dying to answer and finally tell his mother that the man they had been helping for four months had a splendid lightsaber. So he took the lead and, reluctantly, put a hand on the child's head and the other on Sovan's cheek. Rey watched the scene with curiosity as Ben's deep voice echoed in the little living room.
"I am just a pilot of the Resistance, nothing more."
The child and his mother were staring at him and drinking in his hypnotic words.
"And all these galactic credits, you found them in a ship that had crashed in the desert. Nobody will come to claim them. They are therefore yours. You can use them as you like. Now I am going to leave and you will continue to live as you always have, always counting on each other, no matter what happens."
"No matter what happens," repeated the woman and the child together, her gaze fixed and her body motionless.
Ben's fingers lingered a few seconds on the young widow's face and in the child's hair. Rey was stunned. She had never seen Luke's nephew so tender, if not with her ...
Sovan blinked and seemed to be slowly coming out of her trance. Her hand came to join Ben's on her cheek and she gave him a grateful smile.
"Thank you for everything," she murmured, on the verge of tears.
The tall man gave her and her son a furtive smile. Then he closed his briefcase and put it back in the canvas bag that he swung onto his shoulder. Crossing the threshold, he grabbed Rey's arm and forced her to follow him.
"Hey!" she protested as Ben pulled her to the stairs.
"You leave with the Falcon. Sylla probably won't have come alone. I bet a destroyer is now in orbit and is waiting for the order to send fighters and transports troops. With luck, they will not go after you."
"And you?" Rey asked.
"I'm heading for the Jundland Desert," Ben replied.
They had just reached the top of the stairs, and gazed down at the two frail silhouettes below of Sovan and Shalim clutching each other in the middle of the courtyard. They were watching them go. The green-eyed child, his face bathed in tears, addressed Ben with a wave of his hand as a farewell. The latter responded with a nod before rushing to his speeder, still pulling Rey by the arm.
The young woman, not enjoying being dragged in this way, freed herself from Ben's iron grip before exclaiming:
"I can walk alone! And first of all, what are you going to do now? If you stay on Tatooine, they will capture you!" she protested.
Ben stopped to turn around and stand in front of her.
"They are not here to capture me. They are here to kill me. But I don't intend to let them."
"You may be strong, but that won't be enough this time, Ben. Not against entire squadrons of stormtroopers, TIE fighters and a destroyer."
She was looking at him now with her beautiful hazel eyes. The sunlight on her face brought out the green and gold glitter that dotted her irises and the adorable freckles on her nose. He would surely die in a very short time, but he didn't care. All that mattered was her, and he would do everything in his power to protect her.
"Get out," he commanded, leaving her on the spot and heading towards the speeder.
Rey caught him and grabbed his arm, forcing him to face her again.
"No! I won't leave you here. You're coming with me!"
Her lips were tight. Ben realized that she was furious and frightened. Why? What would it do to her if the First Order took him? Was she afraid that, in an attempt to save his own life, he would give up everything he had discovered about the Resistance to Hux and the Knights? Or was there something else? Something he did not even dare to hope ...
"Why do you want me to come with you?" he asked, taking a step toward her.
Ben eyes were roaming over her. His face was so close to hers that Rey could feel his warm breath on her skin. Her eyes drifted automatically to his plump lips.
She was not sure she could give him the answer he expected — even though, at that very moment, her body was on fire, even though her heart was on the verge of implosion, even though the Force implored her silently to tell Ben that ...
"The First Order must not find you," she murmured. "And especially not with this speeder."
"Why?" he repeated.
His mouth had gently whispered this word to her.
Rey's heart was pounding in her chest. In two seconds, her trembling legs would no longer support her. She managed, however, to take a step back, to leave the magnetic sphere of Ben's body and stare down at the dusty floor.
"Because they will discover that it belongs to Sovan and Shalim. They will realize that they've helped you. They're going to torture them just for fun, destroy their farm, and also go after Zed and his family. You know their methods. Not so long ago, these methods were yours."
She had just been intentionally hurtful and she hated herself for that. But using Ben's attachment to the farmers was the best thing she could do. Keeping them safe was a good reason to leave Tatooine right away. Above all, it prevented Rey from confessing that the very idea that he could be killed was unbearable to her, that the feelings she felt for him were too strong and she was afraid of them.
Impossible for her to tell him that ... Not now.
Without even looking at him, she felt him tense. She felt his disappointment and sadness as if they were hers.
When she finally dared to look up, he was staring unflinchingly the Falcon parked behind her.
"You're right," he said.
Rey knew very well that if Sovan and Shalim had not been part of the equation, Ben would have preferred to risk dying here instead of boarding his father's freighter. He gave in, but could not hide his repugnance as he climbed the boarding ramp alongside the young woman. When she pressed the button to close the platform, she even heard him grumbling behind her:
"I hate this old piece of junk."
OoooooO
R2-D2 was furious. He had beeping continuously since Ben had crossed the threshold of the common room.
The astromech had pulled out all its panoply of tools and mechanical arms ready to carbonize Kylo Ren with its laser torch, to knock him down with a blow from its electroshock arm, or even both at one time. Rey had intervened before Ben reduced it to pieces with a snap of his fingers.
"No R2, stop! HE is the 'top secret' mission! We came here to find him and now he's coming with us!"
"So I see this traveling tin can is still in working order…" he had scoffed at the little robot before being immediately rewarded by a spate of electronic insults.
Now it was C-3PO's turn to express loudly his dissatisfaction.
"Oh my…! Why didn't the princess inform us that the secret mission concerned her son?! And that we'd now be traveling with him? It's madness, Miss Rey!"
Rey used all her force of persuasion to calm R2-D2 and reassure C-3PO before asking them to prepare the ship. Reluctant and visibly annoyed, the two friends went to the control panel while continuing to complain to each other.
The young woman then turned to Ben. He was tense and uncomfortable. Being in his father's ship was torture for him. He was staring at the ground and clenching his fists as if to restrain himself from doing something he might regret.
"We have to take off now," Rey said.
"It's out of the question for me to step into the cockpit," he retorted.
"What?"
"You heard me," he sighed before rushing back to the corridor leading to the crew cabin.
Rey let out a grunt of anger. She went alone to the cockpit, sat down in the pilot's seat, and turned on the engines. She initiated the flight sequence and the Falcon climbed slowly into the air, making a fluid half-turn before beginning its ascent to the troposphere. The voice of C-3PO soon echoed on the vessel's internal communications channel:
"Miss Rey! Do you see that on the control screen? It looks like five ships are coming at great speed right behind us!"
Rey looked over at the viewing screen.
"Here they are," she muttered, pushing the throttle fully open.
OooooO
Sylla was already stamping with impatience in the cockpit of her TIE fighter. Behind her, the tattooed mercenary was her co-pilot and confirmed that sensors had just spotted the Corellian freighter at most five hundred meters straight ahead.
"To all the ships," she ordered, "Fire at will on the Millennium Falcon. Shoot that piece of junk down!"
The four starfighters and the CR90 corvette sailed in a tight line towards their goal with the firm intention of putting a definitive end to the career of Han Solo's famous ship.
OooooO
Rey was staring at the control screens: the ships were spreading out around the Falcon. Two above, one on the right, and two behind them. Impossible for her to jump to light speed without first getting rid of their pursuers. The bewildered stridulations of R2-D2 erupted in the communications channel, and Ben suddenly appeared in the doorway of the cockpit, slightly out of breath, looking worried but determined. Their eyes locked then with the certainty that the situation had become critical.
"Activate the deflector shields," he said. "They are going to fire."
As if to confirm his fears, the first salvo of laser beams shook the Falcon. The stern of the ship had been hit. Several alarms sounded on the cockpit panel.
"The shields, now!" Ben shouted when a second volley of shots struck the starboard side this time.
He almost fell backwards, catching himself just in time by grabbing the metal door frame.
Rey maneuvered to avoid both the shots and the enemy corvette, and rushed into a narrow canyon.
Wedged between the cliff and the corvette, the hull of the Falcon scraped a rocky outcropping, and Ben was almost flattened against the wall of the corridor once again.
"Sorry!" Rey exclaimed as she accelerated further to outpace the enemy squad. She stretched her arm toward the co-pilot's side panel to activate the shields but she couldn't reach the button.
"I need a little help here!" she yelled.
In spite of himself, Ben finally decided to enter the cockpit and pressed the button to activate the shields.
Nothing.
A second time.
Still nothing.
He began to get angry and pummel the poor button with no further results.
"Why doesn't it work?" Rey panicked.
"Because this ship is a trash bin," Ben spat.
"The previous fighters' hits must have damaged something!"
"Without the shields it'll be hard to survive this …"
Rey's heart was beating wildly. Her hands clutching the controls, she was trying to keep the lead she had managed to win on the First Order ships, but Ben was right: without the shields, they were dead. The little nervous tick had reappeared on Ben's face. Suddenly, she felt his gigantic hand resting on the backrest to rotate her seat.
"Let me," he said, grabbing her forearm to make her leave the chair.
"What? But…"
She didn't even have time to protest. Ben was now sitting in her seat and she was relegated to co-pilot status. She was about to tell him what she thought of his cavalier attitude when he made a spectacular loop to avoid the deadly bursts of one of the Manta starfighters. Rey was stuck to her seat, her mouth open and her hands clutching the armrests. Once the cargo ship stabilized again and Rey's stomach was back in place, she gave Ben a murderous look.
"I was doing very well!"
"I never said you weren't," he taunted openly. "But I think I have more experience than you when it comes to aerial combat."
"You arrogant jerk." Rey swallowed her insult before opening the internal communications channel in front of her.
"R2! There is a problem with the shields! They won't activate!" she yelled.
In the common room, the droid immediately connected with the shipboard computer.
The Falcon was now rising off the dunes. Rey stared at the horizon and saw a multitude of clay shapes rising up, looking like mushrooms, and forming a picturesque and disturbing landscape.
"Ben ... I don't think it's a good idea to go that way …"
"Those who are on our heels are mercenaries, not seasoned pilots. Two Manta fighters, a Corellian CR90 corvette, a B-wing fighter MARK. I presume Sylla is inside the TIE. We may have a chance if we manage to get them to maneuver in the Mesa."
R2-D2 had always been a very fast and efficient little droid. Its damage report arrived quickly on the control screen: the internal circuits of the shields had been affected. The little astromech had activated his magnetic feet and had already reached the front of the ship to begin repairs. But restoring the deflector generator would take hours.
The Falcon was slaloming between the rocky peaks, still flanked by the corvette on its right and the other pursuers behind. Ben may have been arrogant but Rey could not deny that he was right: he was good. She had already seen Chewie and Han at work and those two were already very good pilots, just like Poe who was impressive flying with a X-wing. But Ben was simply amazing. The annoyance of the young woman dissipated as quickly as it appeared, replaced by admiration. Leia's son anticipated each maneuver of their enemies, each shot, each attempt to overtake them. In Ben's hands, the Falcon performed miraculous feats.
Alas, the topography of the place was not playing in their favor. Rey initial dread was confirmed. The space between the stone pillars was very narrow and the sides of the freighter were dangerously close to the walls. The ships clinging on to them were gaining ground. The alarms began to scream. The TIE had just got a lock on them. At the same time, the corvette armed its guns. The fighter was ready to shoot, too. If they got caught in the crossfire, they'd be dead.
Ben turned his head to Rey and frowned.
"Hold on," he advised.
The young woman, who understood what he was planning to do, prepared for impact. The freighter made a sudden shift to the left and intentionally bumped into the corvette to send it crashing against the head of one of the pillars. The enemy ship exploded in a fireball. The Falcon narrowly escaped the same fate when Ben shifted, without losing a second, in the opposite direction. Fuselage debris struck the left wing of the TIE fighter chasing them. The spacecraft was forced to climb above the Mesa and momentarily abandon the pursuit.
Rey let out a small victory cry in Ben's direction. He was staring straight ahead, his face focused.
Ben's talent for flying was not the only thing that would get them out of this bad situation. The rest of the starfighters wouldn't let them go. It was time to start the fight and get rid of them.
"I'm going to the turret under the ship," she exclaimed. "Will you manage without a co-pilot?"
"Go," he replied without looking at her.
Then she dashed down the corridor, clinging to the walls, and took the ladder on her right to go down to the gunner bay. Once here, she settled into the chair and adjusted her headset. She grabbed the cannon controls and the seat swiveled to instantly obey her commands. On her viewing screen, the two Manta fighters and the B-wing MARK were still there.
A predatory smile stretched her lips and she started to fire.
OooooO
The situation was ridiculous, not to say unbelievable. He was piloting his father's wreck to escape the men hired by his own subordinates to kill him.
In spite of everything, Ben had to admit that the old freighter still had plenty of power under the hood.
When he had been old enough to do it, Han had allowed him to fly with him several times. He had seen the smuggler stamp his foot on the panel under the console to debug the cooling system, give three small punches – just in the corner, there, on the top left – on the radar when it refused to illuminate, pump on the handle of the auxiliary system, tape, screw, seal ...
In short, Ben had always wondered why Han still clung to this old thing that was only good for the junkyard.
But one thing was certain: every time he had climbed in the Falcon, every time he had sat at the controls of his ship, his father had been happy.
"This baby is indestructible. And one day she'll be yours," he repeated to Ben incessantly.
Ben, at the time, hadn't cared that the freighter was falling apart, or that it would one day be his. All that mattered was being with his father and seeing him smile.
His eyes began to burn.
Kriff ... It was not the moment to be sentimental.
He had to anticipate, concentrate, use all the help that the Force could bring him to put Rey in the best possible shooting conditions.
Suddenly, the Falcon was shaken violently by laser fire. Ben prayed that no important systems had been destroyed.
"We've been shot!" Rey exclaimed on the comms.
"I noticed, yes!" Ben rasped. "What are you waiting for with the cannons?!"
A huge explosion suddenly sounded behind them and Ben heard the young woman gloat. She had shot down one of the Manta hunters.
"You were saying?" she bragged defiantly.
Ben couldn't help but smile.
While negotiating a rather tight turn, he felt something against his boot and when he looked, he saw that the object was a small compressor. He looked up to see where the device might have fallen from and spotted a mishmash of wires protruding slightly from the ignition circuit above the co-pilot's seat. He supposed that the device previously connected here had been removed, even ripped off.
Good thing. Connecting a compressor to the ignition line was completely silly. It would put too much stress on the hyperdrive ...
Moreover, they would very quickly need all the power that the system could muster if they wanted a chance to get away from here.
They shot out over the Dune Sea. Rey was doing wonders in the turret. Her shots were forcing the last two hunters to dodge and were preventing them from aiming properly. Sylla's TIE was back in the race, but a slight trail of black smoke was escaping now from her damaged wing. She was not going to be able to continue very long. And this was confirmed when Ben heard Rey explode with joy again on the floor below.
"The TIE is out!"
The First Order starfighter was losing altitude and was soon far behind. There remained only two pursuers. The B-Wing fired a burst at them and the whole ship shook. Ben realized that the gun turret had been hit and the air left his lungs.
"Rey!" he called.
The five seconds of silence that followed seemed to him the longest of his life.
"Rey!" he yelled, this time completely panicked.
"I'm ok! The shock just knocked off my headset!"
His heart started beating again and he sighed with relief.
"We have to finish this!" Rey exclaimed then.
She was right. Ben tightened his grip on the controls. He inhaled deeply and cast his consciousness all around him, letting himself be carried by the currents of the Force. He extended his senses beyond the limits of the cockpit and soon reached the turret below. He felt Rey greet him with astonishment and his mind connected with hers. They could see through each other's eyes now, as if their bodies and the controls of the ship were now one and the same. Kylo turned around and the cannons were perfectly positioned in the axis sought by Rey. She pressed the fire button and the B-wing was pulverized. When Ben activated the aero-brakes, the second Manta fighter, carried away by its speed, found itself in front of them in the center of the scavenger's targeting scope. The missile she dropped on the ship made it explode in a sheaf of fire and incandescent scrap.
They were finally rid of all five enemy ships. Rey could not believe it. She was out of breath and still a little stunned by the joint effort between her and Ben. His presence in her head had been a strange and invigorating sensation, the exact opposite of the time he had forced himself into her mind to try to obtain the map. This time, they'd acted in symbiosis, each supporting the other, as if they had been made for that since forever ... Rey could not help but shudder.
"We did it," she stammered.
"Not yet," he replied. "We still have to manage to leave this planet without being atomized by the destroyer in orbit."
OoooooO
Sylla pulled herself out of her pilot seat and jumped down on the burning sand at the top of the dune where she had landed her TIE. She was furious. She needed to let off steam on somebody, and her gunner-copilot would do the trick. Kylo was about to get away and she couldn't accept that. She activated her comlink to contact the cruiser navigating in the space above them.
"Commander Palkott, we are in the Dune Sea area. A Corellian freighter will try to flee the planet. You must not let it escape. Destroy it! And if it goes to light speed, follow it!"
OoooooO
All the alarms had lit up at the same time. The cockpit was filled with flashes from all sides. A slight stream of white smoke escaped from the panel above Ben's head. He was frantically trying to attend to the most urgent issues on every corner of the dashboard. Leak in the cooling system, overload in the motivator, short-circuit in the lateral boosters ... They were going to be transformed into confetti before they were able to make the jump to light speed.
"Damned ship," he grumbled.
Rey's voice rang out suddenly: "What do I do? Do I go up?"
"No, stay down," Ben retorted, sitting back in his seat. "Some fighters could be waiting for us in orbit. Even if, for the moment, the sensors detect only one destroyer. C-3PO, do you confirm?"
"All my excuses, but even though I knew you when you were wearing diapers and hanging on the legs of our beloved Princess, I have now absolutely no desire to talk to the man who …"
"Threepio!" Ben snapped.
The droid realized it was not time to play dumb, so he hastened to answer simply, "A Resurgent-class destroyer, yes. Classic equipment: turbolasers, ion cannons and missile launchers."
Just at that moment, the gray silhouette of the ship appeared on their port side. Ben immediately initiated the light speed flight sequence.
"R2! What about the shields?"
The astromech announced that he had taken care of the front deflectors and that they would support travel at light speed. On the other hand, Ben knew that the dreadnought might be equipped with a hyperspace tracker. So wherever they went, the enemy ship would follow them.
"Rey, we're going to try to jump into hyperspace before they shoot us. But they may follow us with their tracker."
"Push the orange button at the top left of the dashboard! It's a scrambler developed by my friend Rose! They will not be able to follow us with that!"
Ben did it and the ship's computer started the trajectory calculations. In twenty seconds, either they would be scattered in small pieces above Tatooine, or they would finally be safe in a hyperspace tunnel. The cruiser's turbolasers fired. The Falcon made a series of maneuvers to avoid the shooting.
"Everyone hold on!" Ben shouted.
He pushed the controller in front of him and the Millennium Falcon suddenly disappeared from the radar of the First Order.
OooooooO
The air conditioning system of the ship was perfectly operational, yet the senior officer of the Fellfire was sweating profusely. He cleared his throat before nodding to the technician sitting in front of his console and waiting for his instructions. The communications channel with Tatooine opened:
"This is Commander Palkott." The officer's voice was a bit sharper than usual. "We had a little problem. The Millennium Falcon escaped. It was apparently equipped with a scrambler that neutralized our hyperspace tracker. It was impossible for us to follow him."
Everyone on the ship's deck held their breath.
At the other end of the line, Sylla replied with a venomous tone: "Our Supreme Leader will certainly be very disappointed to hear that."
OooooooO
The blue beams of the hyperspace tunnel were streaming around them.
Rey burst into the cockpit with short breath and flaming cheeks. Some crazy locks had escaped from her buns, and she had a radiant smile. She was visibly still under the effect of the adrenaline running through her veins after their epic escape.
Ben found her beautiful, almost unreal.
"That was amazing!" she exclaimed, waving her arms in C-3PO style. "Did you see that? The Force was flowing through every part of me, and it was like I almost left my body! I really felt like I'd merged with the ship, with you, with the space all around us, with …"
She realized that Ben was staring at her, and the intensity of his gaze cut off her breath and her speech. In his dark eyes she saw a fire, a hurricane, an apocalypse, so she took a few steps back to escape the cataclysm. But Ben did not intend to let her run away this time. He got up from his seat and followed her. It was only when she found herself with her back against one of the cockpit control panels that she could see that he too was struggling to breathe and that several veins in his neck were throbbing violently against his skin. She was suddenly very hot, then very cold. She had sweaty hands and a confused mind. She shuddered when he raised his hand to put it against her cheek. His palm was warm and his fingers were soft. Ben caressed the freckles on her cheekbone with his thumb, and the heat emanating from his huge body wrapped around her delicately. She felt his dark and powerful aura forcing its way through her skin, her organs, her bones until it reached her soul. She offered up no resistance, and allowed herself to be invaded with delight. Then he leaned down slowly, and she held her breath. The Force was exulting to see them so close, to feel the shadow and the light dancing around each other, and the atmosphere all around them became electric.
Never had anyone kissed her before. She had several times surprised Rose and Finn kissing in the corner of a corridor, but she had not dared to approach the subject with one or the other, much less ask them for advice.
A little feverish, the young woman slipped her fingers into Ben's black locks, and he finally put his lips on hers. The kiss was shy and furtive, as if it was the first time for him too.
Who would have thought that the terrible Kylo Ren could be capable of so much gentleness and restraint?
Ben pulled away and looked at her again. He was waiting to see her reaction, and she realized that she wanted more. She wanted him to start again and she wanted it to last ... for a long time ... for always. If he didn't do it then she would take things in hand. So, she did not hesitate a second: she grabbed Ben's neck, and this time she crushed her mouth to his.
He responded instantly to her assault. His tongue tried to break through her lips and she let him in, moaning with pleasure. It was good – it was hot, sensual and so natural. Ben's hands were everywhere: sliding on her lower back, running over her hips, slipping down her thighs and back up to touch her breasts. The friction of their bodies was pure delight and Rey felt a liquid fire spread through her veins to concentrate between her legs. Desire was consuming her whole and obviously, Ben was feeling the same. His need for her was gloriously expressed through the fabric of his pants. The sensation of his erection rubbing against her core was exquisite. He kept her pressed against him forcefully, as if she might fly away. Rey squeezed the locks between her fingers harder. She had the impression that if she let go, her body would slowly rise to leave the floor of the ship and get lost in the cosmos. Her only anchor was Ben's mouth and his powerful arms hugging her. She felt that she could no longer survive without his tongue stroking hers, his hands on her body, the smell of his skin. If he continued to touch her, to kiss her like that, she was going to lose her mind. She couldn't hold in another groan of ecstasy, to which Ben responded by grabbing her arse with both hands and pulling her closer to deepen the friction between his pelvis and hers. It was divine, it was magic, it was ...
Several alarms from the cockpit began to scream simultaneously. The stridulations of R2-D2 and the lamentations of C-3PO resounded in the corridor, forcing Rey and Ben to separate abruptly and come down painfully from their little cloud. Still panting, they jerked away from each other before the droids appeared. C-3PO and R2-D2 began to talk at the same time with panic. Rey, whose cheeks and lips were still burning, raised her hands in their direction to tell them to calm down.
"Hey! Slowly! One at a time!"
The golden robot explained that the radiation from the ionization chamber of the hyperdrive would soon reach critical levels, and Ben went to check in the cockpit on the ship's viewing screen.
"He's right, the circuits must have been damaged during the battle. If we don't leave hyperspace right now, we are going to disintegrate," he mumbled.
He lowered the lever in front of him and a slight jolt indicated that the Millennium Falcon had just left light speed.
"Survival systems also have failures," C-3PO continued. "The auxiliary generator and the thermoregulation module are also compromised. R2 says we absolutely have to land on the nearest planet to do repairs, otherwise we run the risk that these systems will actually stop working and we will die frozen inside this old freighter drifting in space."
Rey came to join Ben in the cockpit, and began to contemplate with him the ocher and green marbled surface of the little planet on their left.
"Where are we?" she asked.
Ben tapped his fingers on the dashboard, and the location system showed the map of the area.
"In the Mid Rim, a planet named Berith. It is uninhabited but viable."
Suddenly, multiple dashboard alarms began flashing red.
"I don't think we have much choice," she sighed. "We have to land here."