Rey uses her beacon to focus on it. It oozes the energy of the Light Side and remembers all rebels and Leia. Technologically, it is practically dead. But she has communications of the TIE silencer now.
She needs time to track them down – and when she finally does, she has the impression days have passed, not hours.
It's Finn. They're on Sullust, hiding with Maz Kanata in an underground tavern.
He is beside himself with joy. He only wants to know she's alive and well, and everything else is just a minor detail, including the fact she helped Kylo Ren escape and that the rebels themselves barely fled from the crumbling skyscrapers of Coruscant as that battering ram hit the core of the former Empire with unbridled power. Of course, their propaganda blames Resistance for it – but Finn withholds this information from Rey, although it is useless effort in the light of her ever-growing intuition.
Rey feels guilty for provoking this course of action, but Finn is undeterred. The First Order is murderous and will stop at nothing. It's not your fault.
Poe is out, trying to smuggle food and other provisions to the rebels. A true General – dedicated to both the cause and his men. But she knows he won't be so easily persuaded, precisely because of it.
He left her with a decision where to go.
"Utapau", she says eventually. The planet is remote and the First Order, although in charge, is thinned across the galaxy and has little use of the native Utai and Pau'ans. Naboo is lush and wonderful, but it's an Imperial stronghold and the First Order occupation zone since the destruction of Hosnian system. Hiding in plain sight is tempting, but not on Naboo. Tatooine is just little further, but their means are scarce and she fears the fuel would not withhold them until there.
May the Force be with us all.
Now, she only needs to tell Ben this. But where is he? Only when she says goodbye to Finn, she realizes that the day on the planet feels old. She checks the universal Galactic Standard watch – almost 5 hours have passed.
She protrudes her head through the door.
Ben?
He is alive, but his presence in the Force is clouded, like a figure of a man lost in densest of all fogs.
She takes the dark saber after some reluctance, then locks the ship and walks into the dimming light of the planet, striding quickly. The Force leads her, but his image is still puzzlingly blurred.
Ben?
The forest thickens and she soon has to plough her way through intertwined vines, lianas and roots with her quarterstaff. Why is she going this way? If he went here, she would already find his steps, broken branches and dangling wines. But there is none. However, the pull of the Force is by now so strong that she feels complied to use the saber to break through quicker. The crackling plasma beam slices through the forest like it's nothing.
She feels uneasy for using the saber – she feels the blade is ancient and soaked in the Dark Side, where Kylo Ren's influence is barely one film-thinned layer on the top. There is also a small flickering light won at the Throne Room – him slaughtering Snoke so he might save her. But everything else is just old, deep and thick evil.
She sighs with relief when she reaches a small clear place deep within the equatorial forest. Rey deactivates the saber immediately, but now she's in a dense darkness. Night has not fallen still, but this place feels like the bleakest midnight, and it's not just the shade of the trees.
The Dark Side.
There is an opening to a cavern beneath the crooked trees and tangled roots. It's cold – it oozes such coldness that her jaws start gnashing. Even the dark saber at her side flinches.
What have you done?
"The question is – what will young Solo do?"
The little voice behind her startles her, but she isn't afraid. That Force that called her wasn't the Dark Side.
She never saw the little creature before, but she knows exactly who he is.