The recovery ships glided slowly through the debris strewn wreckage of battle. Large pieces of broken star-ship loomed silently as the smaller ships scanned them. They scanned the area for life signs and any intact data drives. It was near impossible to tell the difference between fractured ship parts and bodies at this point so they relied almost completely on scanners that could pick up heat signatures, oxygen output, heartbeats or movement. Normally the Recovery Wing would have been called back to the nearby First Order Armada by now but with their discovery of that lone living human female floating peacefully through space, they were ordered to double their efforts.
Lieutenant Oris Thrakken knew when he pulled her on board that she was not just any Resistance officer as she had a certain aura about her, almost a soft strength that emanated from her. Oris shook his head and rubbed his eyes, phrases like "soft strength" were a surefire sign that he had been working too hard lately. He knew he couldn't use a phrase like that during debriefing but it really was the best wording that came to mind.
The woman's poise and grace even while clinging to life cut through any superficial wounds she bore. To Oris she almost glowed with a sense of contained strength and wisdom. At the same time he was unnerved by her and also utterly entranced with her. When he delivered her to the medical frigate Ascendant Imperious he was both relieved and saddened to watch her go. A small two man team took the lady from him after he was ordered to land in one of the rarely used cargo bays. There wasnt even any lighting when he landed and he had been forced to use the spotlights of his Prowler to light the area.
After delivery he was told not to speak of her again until Admiral Therris debriefed him. Lieutenant Thrakken was then commanded to take his wing and keep sweeping the debris field. Even now he could feel the woman's presence in the back of his mind, glowing softly but surely. He looked to port and saw the ship he had just exited, the Ascendant Imperious at the back of the First Order fleet. He watched as a small transport vessel made a trajectory for the medical frigate and he wondered why the woman's presence on the ship had to be kept quiet.
Ascendant Imperious
Hydraulic thrusters hissed as the shuttle made its landing approach. 7-5RB the droid pilot paid no mind to the clutter in the disused cargo bay and displaced more than a few empty crates as it put the shuttle down. As the landing ramp descended a hooded, caped figure all in black made its way out with sinister purpose. Whether the shadows clung to the lithe form or if that was a trick of 7-5RB's ocular receptors he could not tell.
As per procedure 7-5RB started to download the manifesto of the cargo bay which included everything that had been brought in or taken from aboard the Ascendant Imperious in the last few weeks. As he did this the droid observed from the cockpit as the cloaked figure made its way across the massive expanse of almost empty cargo bay. Suddenly the hooded figure stopped and turned to look back at the droid through the cockpit screen.
7-5RB noticed that under the hood there was a helmet that gave the organic man inside an almost droid like appearance. He filed that away in his memory banks as one of those odd quirks that sentient organics displayed every so often. The hooded man raised his right arm and slowly began clenching his fist. This was an odd display and even more bizarrely it seemed to coincide with 7-5RB's plasteel cranium casing starting to crack. He started running a diagnostics scan on his system but remarked to himself how difficult this was to do now that his head had been crushed.
Ren closed his fist and watched as the droid was crushed in a small implosion. He felt the Force bend to his will as he manipulated it to create chaos within the droids casing. The familiar sense of power coursed through him and it felt like home. With the droid gone minimal staff would know about the cargo onboard the medical frigate, at least until he saw her with his own eyes.
Further inside the massive starship lay long dimly lit corridors laden with all types of debris and unused equipment. A loud repetitive beeping sound was the only noise that broke the oppressive silence. One lonely, almost empty room at the end of a particularly long corridor was softly lit and had the rhythmic lights and sounds of a medical bay. Inside, laying atop a white medi-slab was the woman that was found floating in space. She was barely alive and yet the flicker of life that remained in her burned fiercely. . She was not prepared to leave yet and even the cold empty embrace of soulless, uncaring vacuum could not take her nor her quell her light.
A thousand digital displays blinked into life around her and her eyes fluttered for the briefest of moments. Her fingers twitched to life and gradually she opened her eyes. General Leia Organa took in her surroundings without moving an inch. She recognized the tech and the dimly lit, harsh aesthetics of a First Order ship. She looked up at the readings on the screen that curved over her upper body. She gave herself a small wry grin and unlocked the mechanism that caused the screen to retract.
With great effort she tried to sit up but realized that her body was nowhere as willing as her spirit. She lay there quietly unmoving until she let out a long sigh.
"Must you stand in the shadows?" She said softly shaking her head. "Always so dramatic, there's nobody here to see you Ben. Come talk to your mother."
A moments hesitation, then a shape detached from the inky black shadows and the sinister black robed and hooded man approached the peaceful woman. A floodlight in the hallway bathed the woman in a soft white glow.
"I am Kylo Ren..." The tall figure boomed in his deep tone. "...Your son died on Starkiller Base when I..."
"When you what?" Leia interrupted. "When you killed your father? Such a brave act to cut down a man that was offering you salvation."
"He was the last vestige of weakness keeping Ben Solo alive." The booming voice said behind its mechanical voice modulator. "Now, I will rightfully ascend to the heights that my grandfather reached. I am his legacy, I am the one who will finish what he begun."
Leia let out a bitter chuckle.
"You find something funny old woman?"
Leia turned to face him directly and in her gaze was a power that Ben had forgotten she wielded. He felt glued to the spot and as if all his sins were laid bare. Silently he recited Snokes teachings to himself until he felt that familiar dark energy fill his veins again.
"Your parlor tricks no longer have any effect on me old woman." He proved his statement by extending his arm and using the Force he pulled a laser scalpel over to his outstretched hand. "You see I am so much more than when you last saw me. I have extracted all the weaknesses that plagued my grandfather and bought his reign to an end."
Leia shook her head slowly "You are so much less than Ben Solo now. Each day you walk in Snokes shadow you stray ever further from the light, from those who love you." She clasped her hands in front of her. "Your grandfather was more machine than man and even he came back to us. Years of fear, paranoia, hatred and intimidation all fell away when Luke saved him."
"SAVED HIM!?" A medical console beside Ren imploded in a shower of sparks. "My uncle killed him just like he tried to kill me!" He used the force to hurl the scalpel at a nearby wall where it stuck with a loud thunk. "He failed to kill me which is why it is my place to finish Lord Vaders work. The Sith WILL return and even the might of the First Order will bow to them!"
"I do see a lot of my father in you." Leia closed her eyes.
"You do?" Ren silently cursed at himself for showing eagerness.
"Yes. You both have all the willpower in the galaxy, all that strength, all that power but absolutely no knowledge of the love that surrounds you." She shifted on the bed to try and find a more comfortable position but failed. "The harder you cling to the dark side the more the light side surrounds you. You fight an unending war, a war on your soul, a war on your surroundings and a war against knowing yourself and at all times you push away the light that wants so desperately to join you in part of something so much larger. Its the light that binds us and it is that which wants so badly to bring you home Ben."
Kylo stepped back from the table, he had hoped to hear something new about his grandfather. It was hard piecing together second and third hand accounts of all that his predecessor had accomplished. The few remaining holocrons in his collection were mainly of Anakin Skywalker, a weak and ultimately flawed Jedi. Not like the powerhouse he would become, the perfect blend of power, chaos and control that Darth Vader would come to embody.
"Take your mask off son." Leia still had her eyes closed, this time to shield her from the lights on the machines surrounding her.
Kylo hesitated and showed no sign of obeying. He looked at the old woman's life signs and saw that she didn't have long left. Snoke always pushed him and said that every situation is a challenge, a test to become stronger. When his uncle removed his grandfathers helmet the Sith known as Vader vanished. If he could face his mother without his helmet then he would have bettered his grandfather.
"Let me see your eyes again Ben, its my last wish."
Kylo reached up and triggered the hydraulic mechanism that opened the latches on his mask. He carefully took the mask off and placed it reverentially on a nearby table. He stared at it for quite a while until he turned to look at the old lady on the bed. Her eyes were still closed and she seemed so peaceful, he wondered why she wasn't howling and screaming at the oncoming darkness.
"Hold my hand." She reached out for him and reflexively he held her hand in his. "Your hand!" She barked and slapped his gloved appendage. He took his gloves off and held her hand.
Leia slowly opened her eyes and looked on the dark figure holding her hand. "There you are. My son." A tear trickled out of her left eye. "So scruffy looking." She laughed to herself.
Kylo screwed up his face, the ramblings of a dying elderly person. "Am I to be rescued mother? Will you use your last breath to bring me back to the light side?" He sneered.
"Do I have to do everything myself?" Her mind wandered to the rolling hills of Alderaan. Of time spent on the lakes with her friends, how much warmer the sun was then. "Not this time boy, you have it in you to save yourself. You are a Skywalker and a Solo, never before has there been a more stubborn, idiotic, brave but ultimately good force in the Galaxy."
"And Luke? Will he come to "save" me or to destroy me?"
Her minds eye flashed to her twin brother, at that moment he was sitting in an open rocky field, it was evening there. His hair was so grey, they had both grown so old so fast. He felt her presence and he smiled into the night sky as the native nocturnal birds took flight. "I wanted to see you again." Leia said aloud in her room, two people having heard her. Kylo raised his left hand to his face and touched it. Luke looked to the dark ground where a tear fell and stained it a darker shade.
"Be who you really are, not what others expect of you." Leia whispered and felt her brothers sadness, her sons conflict. "I love you and will never...did never give up on you. You seek forgiveness for past deeds but its you that holds yourself in that place, that time."
Luke felt her words more than heard them, the love she was sending him was pure and open and everything. He felt a new resolve trickling into him, warming him and igniting fires he thought long extinguished. He stood and into the night sky he sent all his love to his sister and also his goodbyes. He smiled to himself because on Ach-to he had discovered some new abilities with the Force that allowed him to do one last thing for his sister.
He closed his eyes and focused everything he had and when he was finished he found himself on his knees from the exertion barely able to lift his head. But he had done it, he had achieved something that hadn't been done in any of the teachings or holocrons.
"Thanks kid, you always were cocky."
Meanwhile the silence stretched on in the medical room. Ren grew tired of the quiet, of the waiting and of the warring doubt inside him. He was stronger than this!
"You may not have given up on Ben but he's dead old lady." Ren's words were a lot harsher than his feelings. Inside he felt the pull, the balance shifting again. His mother still offered him forgiveness and love even after all he had done, all he had yet to do.
For all his posturing and all his anger his mother still loved him and he knew that a part of him still loved her. This realization caused him to grow dizzy, he started sweating and had to use his free hand to steady himself. His vision grew dim and blurry and he found even the task of breathing a mammoth one.
Was this her doing? Was she making him sick? Perhaps she could sense his feelings? Maybe she knew that he still had affection for her. That he...loved her.
Leia turned her head to look at her son, she wore a mixed look of happiness and surprise. There standing behind her son was a transparent shimmering blue ghost of her late husband. He smiled at her and sauntered closer with that swagger that simultaneously infuriated and intoxicated her. Han stood to Kylo's left and gestured at him with a thumb and a look of 'What are you gonna do? Kids!'
Kylo felt a chill and looked to his left but saw nothing. He put it down to the sudden sickness that wracked his body. It was as if the conflict in his soul was having physical ramifications. He looked at his mother and saw that she was nodding slowly. Did that mean she knew her son was still inside him? That he longed to hold her and cry?
Han feigned looking at a watch on his wrist that wasn't there. "Come on princess, we gotta get going." He knew those words weren't enough. He gathered his strength and bravery. "I love you."
"I know." With those words Leia Organa, Princess of Alderaan, member of the Imperial Senate, a leader of the Rebel Alliance, a member of the Galactic Senate, and General of the Resistance passed quietly into death.
Kylo felt her leave, he reached out with the Force to see if he could detect anything but only had the weird feeling he used to get when his father was around. She knew. She knew he was still in conflict, they were her last words. Would he never be rid of this imbalance? Both parents gone and he felt even more sick, drawn out and tired than ever before.
He took one last look at his mothers body and left the room, making his way back to the shuttle. The long walk through dark empty corridors filled him with fear and sadness. Was this what it felt like to not be full of rage and anger? He had to stop and empty his stomach at one point. When he arrived back at the shuttle he pushed the droids remains out of the way and input a course back to his Star Destroyer.
He sat back and tried to stop the dizziness. Vader was supposed to bring balance to the Force. Luke made sure he didn't complete his destiny and now the result is the pain and agony he feels on a daily basis. He could feel the anger seeping back, he knew that if he held onto it that he would be feeling back in control again soon. His shuttle sped into the darkness...
Back on Ach-to Luke walked into the place that Rey had made camp. He looked over into the distance and saw the Millenium Falcon parked on the edge of a cliff. He stormed over to Rey's hut and Chewie stepped out from the shadows barring his way. Luke looked up at the giant Wookie and smiled. Chewie let out a jubilant roar, his friend Luke was back! "Come on Chewie lets wake this kid and show her what it really means to take down an Empire." He turned and looked into the fog. "R2?"
The familiar chirp and beeping sounds came from the fog as R2-D2 made his way over to Luke and Chewbacca.
"What do you mean about time farm-boy?" Luke grinned slyly, the years dropping from him. "Don't make me decommission you, you bucket of bolts. Are you ready to head back into the fray old friend?"
R2's top right panel opened and he showed them a familiar old green lightsaber that Luke had thought long lost.
"Are you going to throw that one to the Porg's as well?" Rey said stepping out of her hut.
"Not this one, it took me a long time to make." He smiled at her and for the first time Rey saw the Luke Skywalker she had always pictured from the stories she had grown up on.
All four of them made their way to the Falcon with R2 and Chewie going on board to start the old clunker up. Luke waved farewell to the caretakers of the island and turned to Rey.
"Why the change of heart?" Rey asked him blinking away the morning sun.
"Hope." His hair whipped around his face as he looked up at the bright dawning sun with squinted eyes. "Someone very dear to me has rekindled my hope. When I had given up she reminded me that there is always, always hope."
"Sounds like a smart friend." Rey said while checking that she had her belongings. Luke nodded and they walked onto the ramp of the Falcon.
"Is it true you once killed a rancor by beating it to death with a skull..?"
The ramp closed and the Falcon rose into the air like the early morning birds of Ach-to. The ship turned 180 degrees and ignited its engines, swooping off over the ocean and taking to the heavens in a gentle arc...