A/N: Hello there! (insert *that* Obi Wan gif here lol) Thank you so much for sticking with this little story and all the comments on the previous chapter! Here's another little piece of madness.
Now, a nerdy fact: There is a Kubaz in this chapter – it is a humanoid alien species, with super-sensitive sense of smell. I did not come up with it (sadly!) – it actually makes an appearance in The New Hope. Look it up on wookiepedia to get a better idea if you want.
The usual disclaimer – all of the recognisable characters and locations belong to their respective owners. I merely came up with the plot.
Happy reading!
Chapter 009 – Mind tricks
The voices outside – so many of them. Full of urgency and rage. And a simple nervousness, too. Understandable, given who they would have to give a report in case of the failure of their mission. Rey didn't believe they were going to fail, though. In fact, she would bet her very last credit that any minute now the Stormtroopers (or Deathtroppers, or whichever kind of Bucketbrains it was today) would knock out the door to the – yet another – dingy apartment she was hiding in.
So she sat across from the door with a blaster, ready for them. And they were all she allowed herself to think about.
Hours passed. The voices grew louder before they got quieter and, then, died away completely. Rey, however, did not move, she knew that the soldiers would eventually find her. The silence must be a deception. The silence could not be trusted.
I cannot be trusted, she thought, and the images of destroyed warehouse flashed before her eyes. She had barely had to make any effort to tear the whole place down. Of course, there was still a possibility that it wasn't just her, but both of them, but she would never know.
She was planning to never be in the same room as Ben. It was too dangerous, and she wanted him too much to have confidence in her better judgement. Especially now that she knew what it was like to lose herself in him.
Focus, Rey! She ordered herself. She will not think about that kiss. Not now, not ever. She will not allow herself to think, not even for a minute, about how good he tasted and how surprisingly soft his lips felt, but how greedy they turned out to be.
"Stop!" she yelled at herself, getting up from the chair she'd been sitting on and giving it a few solid kicks. Oh, if Master Luke could see her now, he would laugh his head off! She really needed to get a grip, otherwise she might just as well use the blaster on herself.
R focused on the noises coming from outside the apartment, but nothing seemed alarming, so she decided to get a better look at the place where Ben had dumped her.
It was still quite a mystery to Rey – why hadn't he captured her, she was there, for the taking, practically willing to go. Well, maybe not willing, maybe just unconscious. He could have brought her with him to his flagship and claim a victory. Propaganda videos would be glorious – just a week or so after announcing her crime, she would be captured. Defeated. This seemed like such a smart move for Ben. Even more so for the Supreme Leader.
But then, again, coming to Sullust was the opposite of a smart move. And yet, he had been there. Rey had no idea how – of even: if – he'd managed to keep secret his absence from where he should have been. She could only guess, but if it was her, she'd use mind tricks on a lot of people to get where she'd wanted.
Probably shouldn't call them "mind tricks", it occurred to her. Such a diminishing phrase. These mind tricks had already saved her life quite a few times, she should think of some more profound name. If only you read the books, you'd know the name, her conscience observed bitterly and Rey froze. The Jedi Books! She had left them in the previous place where she'd been hiding, before she went out that one time and massacred a cantina full of innocent people.
She had to get back there.
She searched through the grim apartment in hope of discovering anything useful, but all she found was a half-empty bottle of fermented mead with worms sloshing around inside and a corpse of a Kubaz in the little shower unit. "Explains the stench." Rey muttered, as she stared at the dead body of the humanoid. Its eyes were hidden under the copper goggles and his snout was crinkled, as if in a final act of disapproval. Rey knew that Kubazians had incredibly sensitive sense of smell. They could sniff an enemy long time before they would saw him. More than that, they could smell your emotions, your intentions, it was almost like a mind trick of their own.
This particular Kubaz simply must have smelled what was coming for him. Or rather who.
There were no visible injuries on the body. Had Ben choke the luckless alien to death? Or had his brain got fried? She would never know. Just as she would never know whether Ben had killed the Kubazian before or after he had brought her to this apartment. If it had been before, then, perhaps, he had planned to use this place to hide himself – or her. If it was after – all the same. Either way, the Kubaz had died and she lived. Perhaps, he had died so she could live.
How was she supposed to feel about it?
In a tiny closet she found a few cloaks the newly deceased had kept in perfect order along with a few pairs of spare googles. All she lacked was the snout cover. Without it the disguise would be laughable. It was nowhere in sight though. Reluctantly, she got back to the shower unit, and, just as she'd thought, the metal snout cover was in the Kubaz's hand. Rey grimaced, and knelt next to the corpse to try to free the mask from the clenched fingers. It proved to be an arduous task and, in the end, she had to actually break Kubaz's fingers to retrieve the item.
She stared at it for the longest time. Was she really going to wear a dead person's face cover? The chances of her passing for an actual Kubazian were not great, to say the least. But it was either this, or staying in this place till she starves to death. Or until the First Oder army finds her. It occurred to her she could boil some water to clean the snout mask, but she decided against it. There was no time for that. The soldiers could be back at any time.
She tore a narrow strip of fabric from one of the cloaks and used it to tie the snout cover to her head. It was worse than she'd feared; the smell she was breathing in was making her stomach turn. Oh, get a grip! She scolded herself again. Then she put the goggles and the cloak on.
"Pathetic," she said as she evaluated her look in the cracked mirror on the closet door. If anyone actually believed she was a Kubazian, she would laugh. Not that she could actually laugh with that thing attached to her face. Still, there was no time for second guessing herself now. She tucked the blaster behind her belt and quietly left the apartment.
She stopped at the door, wondering whether she should give the deceased some kind of last rite. She didn't. It would be too little, too late.
When she stepped outside of the building, she saw the city in a state of controlled chaos. The streets were crowded as always, but everyone was on edge. She sensed fear emanating from almost every single passer-by. Rey had no clue where she was. After the cantina, she had run blindly, just to get away from it, doesn't matter in which direction.
How, by Gods, was she going to find her way back? Ben had said she'd found him. She discarded it back then, but now it didn't sound as ridiculous. There was no way he would have known where she'd end up in her panicked escape. Perhaps the Force guided her. If it had back then, it could just as well now.
As she walked the streets of the city that – just like Five Point Station – didn't seem to sleep, ever, she allowed herself to feel the pull towards something. The sacred Jedi texts, hopefully, she thought. She focused, again, on seeming unimportant – a mind trick that that seemed to work so far. The further she walked from the explosion site, the less frantic she felt and, when she finally – by, what she would call a miracle not long ago, but now knew was simply the Force guiding her – reached Tate's apartment, she was fully composed.
She stopped in front of the door, listening for any noises coming from the inside, but the place was perfectly still. She took a deep breath and regretted it instantly, the smell of the dead Kubaz's face cover made her gag. She ripped it off, gasping for fresh air. When she managed to stop herself from vomiting, she entered the apartment.
It was dark and cold. Precisely like she had last seen it. The Jedi Books were still where she'd left them, too, tossed underneath the bed, in a move that now seemed both careless and childish to Rey. Quickly, she tucked them into her bag and turned to leave.
But then she stopped. Or, to be more exact, something stopped her. She was reaching for the sensor that would open the door, when her hand froze. It was a peculiar feeling of not being able to make any, even the slightest, move. A feeling that she already knew.
"Did you honestly think you could just come back here and no one would know?" a raspy voice behind her broke the silence. How was this even possible? Rey hadn't sensed anyone inside. She still couldn't move, but saw him from the corner of her eye, slowly approaching, the green light of his eyes somewhat dimmer.
He leaned against the door, effectively blocking her only way out. He seemed to put no effort whatsoever to paralysing her with the Force. She saw a complicated piece of machinery on his neck, with numerous tubes and wires. He noticed her staring. "This little collar here?" he mused, pointing to it, "That is the only thing between me and suffocating, since your stunt back at the cantina." He didn't say it with anger; on the contrary, he sounded almost amused. It would have been better if he actually was angry. People don't make mistakes when they're calm.
Which is why you should stop freaking out all the time, a little voice at the back of her head remarked. Rey wanted to roll her eyes at herself. Duh.
"Wherever it is you ran, you should have stayed there, girl." Quay continued. He reached out and pulled down the goggles Rey was still wearing. "I like to see the face of my victims before I kill them." He said and finally let go of the Force that was immobilising her. Instinctively, she took a few steps back from him.
He had been waiting for her, wounded and plotting revenge. He was much more dangerous than when their paths had crossed before.
"I would think you need to bring me back alive in order to claim your reward." She said, but Quay waved it off. "You attacked me and I had to defend myself. It was either this or letting you go, which I simply couldn't afford again."
"Maybe there's a third option," Rey started carefully. She didn't have a clue what a third option acceptable for Quay would be, but she needed to gain some time to come up with an option good enough for her. Preferably one that wouldn't include mass murder.
Was such an option even possible at this point?
"Maybe there is." Quay agreed, "But I'm done with you." He ignited a lightsaber, which Ray hadn't noticed before. Its blade shone with red light, which was not surprising. What was surprising to Rey, was how unimpressed she felt. She realised that she could take him down with or without the lightsaber. Or, better yet, she would take him down with his own lightsaber.
She reached out for it, and it took only a few seconds of Quay's struggle, until the weapon flew across the room and elegantly landed in her hand.
"Did you honestly think it would be that easy?" she asked. Quay immediately produced a blaster from behind his belt and started shooting at her, but, driven by instinct which by now felt pleasantly familiar, Rey sparred all the shots with the lightsaber, sending them across the apartment and putting mostly everything on fire.
"The place is surrounded," Quay yelled, while still shooting, "You've got nowhere else to go!"
"Didn't stop me before!" Rey answered and launched at Quay, who moved out of the reach of his own saber in the very last moment. She tore the door down with the blade. The hallway outside was eerily quiet. If she wanted to run, now was the time.
"You are going nowhere!" Quay roared and sent a surge of the Force towards her so powerful that it threw her across the hallway. The pain of hitting a wall almost knocked her out, but she quickly got up to her feet and marched back towards the apartment. The blood was pumping in her temples. She wasn't going to run. She was done running.
"Not until I'm done with you," she said and attacked the knight of Ren. Blaster was no defence against a lightsaber, so all he could do was to evade her blows. He was predictably good at that, but he was getting exhausted quickly, most likely due to his new respiratory aid. Not before long, he was on the floor, the pulsating red light of the saber blade inches from his face.
Briefly, Rey thought of a similar moment when she was about to kill. It had been in a forest and it if hadn't been for the ground splitting between them, she would have killed Ben back then.
There wasn't going to be an earthquake now.
"Just finish it," Quay whimpered. Rey raised the saber, ready for the final stroke, when an idea occurred to her. This man was so exhausted, so scared. He was practically defeated already.
"You will compose yourself and take me to your ship." She commanded him. Not dissimilar to an obedient droid, Quay sat up straight and took a few deep breaths. Rey handed him the lightsaber and knelt next to him, "I am your prisoner, but you will kill anyone who will even try to touch me."
Quay nodded mechanically, the green light gone from his eyes.
A/N: Thank you, as always, for reading this little chapter! Please let me know your thoughts!
Stay tuned for more xx