Chapter Six

Leia stopped shouting at Chewie. He'd always known when to ignore her anyway.

She sat heavily in the co-pilot's seat. She'd been preparing herself for this since the moment she saw the plan in Luke's mind. She'd felt this pain before. She knew she could endure. Luke had failed his task and he'd merely died. She ought to be grateful instead of raging against her own grief. Her twin believed in the survival of the self after death. She'd experienced enough to hope, but not enough to be certain. Even the brush of Han's mind that she'd felt in the clearing could have been wishful thinking.

Her brother was dead. The agony as he was ripped from her would not be kind enough to kill her, too.

Chewie asked her what she needed. He knew, if only from reading her face, and his sorrow matched her own.

She wanted to smoke. She wanted to scream. She accepted a huge, hairy hug.

He'd felt his uncle's death in the reeling moments as the horrible spell abated. The light-drenched fingers of the Force had clawed at his heart, and had only been discharged with the lucky shot of a blaster. Kylo had spent more than a decade believing he would kill Luke Skywalker, or else die at his hands. He had believed this was their entwined destiny, set out from the day of his birth. Destiny had been thwarted by a faceless soldier under a mask obeying the wrong orders and paying for the mistake with his own life.

Just as when he'd felt the lightsaber pierce through his father, a part of him, almost drowned in the seething cauldron of the rest of his thoughts, stood back in revulsion and sorrow.

Lord Snoke's wrath would be great, and without the Stormtrooper who'd taken the shot to blame, that anger would land squarely on the only surviving target. He had to regain control of the situation here. He could still capture the girl and the traitor, and execute Dameron. He could send fighters after the Falcon, for all the good that would do.

"What good does any of it do?"

"I'm not interested in dealing with ghosts."

"You create enough of them around you, and they won't care about your feelings on the matter." This was not the same voice which had nagged at his thoughts these past weeks. This was the old inner turmoil he knew from long ago. Now he understood the source, though not the identity.

"Who are you? Why have you been whispering in my ear for so long?"

"Telling you what you don't want to hear but need to know? Whom do you think?"

Too many ghosts. Too many options. The rolls of Kylo's personal murders were long enough, though not compared to some, but this had never sounded like a vengeful spirit. "Kenobi?"

"Hardly. You summoned me when you were a boy. Is it a surprise I've been here?"

He was lost in the jungle, hurt and blind and talking to ghosts. "Grandfather."

"You hate being lied to, yet you've never liked hearing the truth. After this, you won't have the chance. You banished your father from your side. Luke would guide you for the rest of your life, but others need his wisdom more. I'm the only one left who cares about your welfare. Luke died to draw the Dark Side out of you, but the old Jedi left that magic behind for a reason. The only one who can drive evil from your soul is you."

"If you start singing hymns, I'm going to be retroactively very disappointed in the Empire."

"Luke couldn't fix you, but he did pull the darkness from your eyes, just as he pull it from mine. I have warned you for years of Snoke's treachery, and your ears have been stoppered by his influence. Listen. Watch. Pay attention. Your soul is as rotten as mine was, and that's no compliment, my boy. You have a choice where you go next."

"I want to follow in your steps. You were the most powerful Jedi who ever lived!"

"You are a foolish child, and you know nothing." The voice went still, and for the rest of his life, Kylo never heard his grandfather speak to him again.

He came back to himself, and made his way towards the distant sounds of the other Stormtroopers. He knew his path.

Finn let Poe take the lead. Rey was still walking, still moving. If she was going into shock, he couldn't tell. She'd lost friends before. They all had. But so much of her hope, her belief in her own destiny, had been riding on Luke Skywalker. Finn himself had started believing Luke would save them from Ren, would lead them to victory over the First Order, crumbs and all.

He had to stop putting his own faith in old guys. They died a lot.

People did. They'd killed more Stromtroopers back there. Those could have been people he knew. They certainly had been people like him, stolen from their homes too young and turned into machines. None had volunteered. He wondered if some of them had considered walking away as he had, and he'd just killed potential allies and friends.

Too much death today.

"Hey," he said to Rey, dropping back a little from Poe. "Want to talk about it?"

"No."

"Okay. Want to talk about something else? Ships? Stories?"

"I don't want to talk, Finn." She caught his hurt look. "Not now. I can't think, and I need to think ahead. I have to keep my shields up, and I have to plan, and all I can think about is that we're completely doomed without Luke."

"We're not. We have you."

"I don't know anything. I barely had a chance to learn even the first few lessons from him."

"Maybe. But you were an expert with a lightsaber the first time you held one, and I've watched you use your Force powers without any training. You've beaten the scariest dark lord out there more than once."

"I beat him once when he was bleeding onto the snow. I survived the other fights." Guilt crumpled her face. "Back in the clearing, Kylo Ren got to me. He told me to let him go, and I did. If I hadn't, Luke could have finished his spell."

"You said if he'd finished it, he would still be dead."

"That's not the point. He could have performed the greatest working in history, but I messed it up because I'm not a Jedi."

"Fine. You're not a Jedi. You're still the closest thing we've got." He took her hand and squeezed, before he saw her grimace and let go again. "We're going to get away. We'll meet up with the Resistance, and you can practice there. You've got his books."

"You can't train Jedi from books."

"Luke did," Poe said, the first he'd indicated he was eavesdropping. "The General said his Master died without completing his training, and he went on to found a school. Everything was from the old scrolls and books, and a few other half-trained Jedi he met. If you're the last, and unless Finn starts levitating you probably are, you're still starting out okay."

"See? You'll be great. You'll train up, and you'll come back fighting, and you'll take out Ren and save the galaxy."

Poe said, "First we need to get out of here." He'd brought them to the edge of the colony. "This world is loyal to the New Republic, but things aren't going to be easy. I've had transmissions that the local governments are shaking, even here. Everyone's afraid. I don't want to think anyone would turn us over to the First Order, but I wouldn't bet our necks on it."

"We should split up," Rey said. "We'll be less noticeable."

Finn shook his head. "Splitting up is a bad idea. We won't find each other." He'd never been interested in the entertainment holovids the other Stormtroopers watched during their R&R time, but he'd seen enough of them to know splitting up led to trouble every time.

"Maybe," said Poe. They reached a small out building. "You two should stay here. I'll find some of my friends and I'll be back for you."

"We'll go with you."

"We'll stay," Rey said. "Hurry back." As soon as he was gone, she said, "He knows this colony better than we do, and he's from this world. If the First Order comes looking, he knows how to blend in. We'll endanger him."

Finn still didn't like it. He could keep an eye on his two closest friends when they were together. Apart, anything could happen.

Rey's face twitched into a quick pain.

"What is it?"

"I have to remember to shield my mind. It's like someone peering in through a window. One moment I'm alone, and the next there's a horrible face leering at me."

"Is he close?"

"Not now. He's just always in there."

Finn thought about this. "He can sense what you're doing? What you're thinking?"

"It's getting worse. The next time I bang my ankle, Kylo Ren will say 'ouch.'"

He wasn't about to suggest punching her, and not only because he was fairly sure if he tried, she'd kick out his teeth. "Could we annoy him?"

"You think it's a good idea to annoy the homicidal maniac who keeps trying to kill us?" She was trying to sound stern, but he could see she liked the idea. Besides, anything he could do to make her a little happier and distract her from falling into grief would be a good deed.

"I was thinking that if I were to start kissing you right now, he might be annoyed enough to leave you alone."

"That may be the worst line I've ever heard."

He smiled at her hopefully until she reluctantly returned a small one of her own. She was still very close to that grief, and understanding this, he brought her into a hug for a long time.

Then they annoyed her psychic buddy.

Kylo closed his own mental shields so hard he physically rocked. He'd gone back to his new game of touching Rey's mind, and for his efforts got a mental mouthful of ex-Stormtrooper spittle. The trooper in duty guarding the ship which had brought his reinforcements watched him carefully. He knew the Stormtroopers whispered amongst themselves that he wasn't stable.

"I need your communications console. Supreme Leader Snoke is awaiting my report."

The Stormtrooper saved her own life by not asking why he wasn't using the panel on his own ship. She gave him access to their panel.

"And privacy."

She nodded and left him there.

He entered his access codes and waited until Lord Snoke's image appeared in the screen, wiping his mouth as if just finishing a meal.

"Skywalker is dead."

"You think I don't know that?" His Master glared at him with contempt. "And you failed to kill him." A disgusting gobbet lodged between two sharp teeth. As he spoke, Kylo's gaze was distracted by the stuck morsel.

"I was following your order. It was one of the Stormtroopers." He could hear the defensiveness in his own voice. Pay attention. Listen. Hah. As if that did him any good.

Watch.

Lord Snoke was not using a holoprojector, imposing over him from a distance. This was a simple visual contact, showing his chamber. The unfortunate Aldin had been dragged away, but another dark-clad body lay in his place. Kylo saw the familiar features of Snoke's quarters, so familiar he never noticed them.

"More excuses. I sense you failed to kill General Organa."

"Skywalker sent her away." Because he'd loved her. Because he'd rather face her eternal anger at him than chance causing her death. Because given the choice at saving Kylo and risking Leia, or the opposite, Luke chose his sister.

Pay. Attention. He took in the details around Snoke, each book, each data pad, each stick of furniture and device.

"As you cannot accomplish even the simplest task, I will send another agent to retrieve her. Finish off Skywalker's apprentice and return to the base."

"Retrieve? You wanted Organa killed."

"Now I want her captured, and asking you to do so would only ensure her victory. Destroy the little Padawan, unless that is also beyond your capabilities."

Snoke closed the transmission.

Kylo's fists pulled back to strike. With much effort, he relaxed them and thought. There was something in Snoke's quarters. Something he was meant to see. Something he'd seen so often he'd never noticed, or was encouraged not to notice. What had his eyes slipped off of, time and again?

There were records. The First Order's best spies turned their gaze on the Order itself. Cameras captured everything. Every conversation, every death, every whisper and grapple in the night. Someone watched. Someone recorded. Only Snoke's chambers had no camera save the one in his personal transmitter. Only Snoke had privacy. He killed in private.

He'd summoned Kylo back, and he would close his door, and Snoke would kill him as a lesson to the rest.

But that was foolish. That was a waste. No general of any army killed the best officers for sport.

He didn't have time for this. He dismissed the notion as foolishness of his own, planted by the same hallucinations his uncle had been plagued by. Before he died.

Uncle Luke had been the most powerful Jedi alive, and he'd died just like that. Another waste. Lord Snoke had wanted him brought to him, but that would have been dangerous folly. Skywalker could have defeated Snoke in any battle. Why bring him, unless to turn him? But if turning him hadn't worked, what good would bringing his most dangerous enemy into his presence have done? And why did he want Kylo's mother now, when mere hours ago he wanted her dead?

There were pieces missing.

He pulled up an image from their conversation, still recorded in the transmitter's buffers. Snoke's face was trapped in a frozen glare. Kylo looked past him again. The table.

The table was empty. He'd just eaten but there were no plates, no goblets. Lord Snoke never dined with others, and never had food delivered to his quarters. He never ate. Kylo had never noticed, had never had reason to notice, had perhaps been ordered not to notice.

The table was empty. Another Knight of Ren lay on the floor.

The databanks of the shuttle were too small to hold any useful information. He created a new transmission, another connection using Hux's credentials this time. Quickly he accessed the records on Snoke's base and told the search to cross-reference all meal orders from Lord Snoke, all food requisitions. Results scrolled by, none relevant. Some species ate rarely, glutting themselves once a year, but none of the records he could find showed a single meal delivered to his chambers.

He linked identity terms, searching for the Supreme Leader and food and the name Ren. The results narrowed. Jaldo Ren. Palon Ren. He'd known them of course, before they'd displeased their Master. Like the rest of the Knights, save for him, they had been plucked from the Stormtrooper crèche after discovery of their Force abilities.

The first record was difficult to see. Shadows covered most of the area of the base where this had been recorded. He saw Jaldo Ren's face, enough for the computer to have made the match. He saw Lord Snoke, and nothing else.

The second record was much shorter, as if most of the record had been deleted, and only these three seconds remained. Kylo rewatched the sequence over and over.

Then he wiped the search and broke the connection.

He went outside where the remaining Stormtroopers waited. "Come with me. The girl and the traitor are nearby. I can sense them towards the colony. We will find them and take them to the Supreme Leader."

Poe found the house on his second try. "Babe!" said Luna, taking him into her broad embrace as soon as she saw him. "Oh, you're all bones. Come on in. Supper's nearly ready."

Even as he stood in the doorway, the heavy smell of Luna's rich cookery tempted him. Savory stews, spicy mixes, and a huge dollop of sweet cream on his fruit for dessert were the tastes of home. If his mother hadn't been as adept a cook herself, she made friends with many who were. Meals past beckoned him.

"I can't, Madame Luna. I'm not here to visit." Nevertheless, Luna swept him into her home. "Baltana! Look who finally found his wings home!"

Luna's wife made a fuss over Poe, tutting at his hair and his clothes. "Doesn't the Republic pay you better, sonny?"

"I joined the Resistance, Madame Baltana. The pay's bad but I think Mom would approve."

"She would," Luna said. "She'd also say you're too skinny. You have time for a quick plate. Don't offend me by saying no." She walked him to a chair. When he'd been a child, he'd swung his legs waiting for whatever good things Luna would bring out while his mother chatted with her friends about her latest adventures. He let himself be sat down. His feet reached the floor and he knew everything was different now.

"The Resistance?" asked Baltana, slouching into the next chair and taking a drag from one of her slim bubble smokes, letting the exhaust out through her long, floppy ears. "Big times for you. What about for us? Aren't you supposed to be guarding the galaxy from those Imperial wishlets?" She put out her bubbles, but saved the end. Hard times, he thought, if she was hoarding those. He shouldn't have come to them.

"How bad are things here?"

"Everyone's scared. I hear the government's going to reform on some Core World. How long till the Order blasts them up, too?"

"We're trying to stop them. We stopped the Starkiller."

"They'll build another. They always do."

"Yeah." That was the one constant from all the stories he grew up with: take down one doomsday base or one dark lord, there will always be another tinpot tyrant wanting to rise up in its place. "We are doing what we can. The General will stop them." He said it for himself. He'd grown up believing there was nothing Leia Organa couldn't do.

She'd been dragged away from her last fight ignominiously, denied her chance to repair her broken family. He didn't want to face the thought there might be plenty of things she couldn't do.

"I have to get back to the Resistance but my friends and I lost our ship."

Luna plonked a plate of stew in front of him. "Lost a ship? Not so good, fly-boy. Where's your friends?"

"They're waiting for me."

Luna held an offended hand in front of her. "You didn't bring them to meet us? You embarrassed?"

"Of course not. I had to make sure they were safe." He dropped his eyes to the food. "This looks great."

"You're embarrassed of something," said Baltana, watching him eat. "You meet a girl?"

"No."

"You meet a boy?"

"I didn't meet anyone, Madame Baltana." He bolted the food, making appreciative gestures. "Excellent as always."

Baltana said to Luna, "He's met someone."

He ignored their pleased smiles. "I need a ship."

"And you think ships drop out of the sky here? And they're still flyable when they do?"

"You know people who know people."

Baltana said, "I know people who know money. You got credits on you?"

"A few." Very few, and Finn had none at all. Rey wouldn't, either. "I need a loan, too. I can repay you when I get back to the Resistance."

"Never writes, comes back without calling, eats our food, and wants money." Luna batted him on the head. "Told you we should have adopted him." Her face was kind. "We'll help you. And you'll introduce us to your friends."

He hesitated. He'd come alone to protect Finn and Rey. The less their faces were seen, the better off they all were. But Luna and Baltana were family. "All right."

"The spaceport," said Baltana. "Give me one hour."

"And I'll pack some food for your friends," said Luna. "Bet they're as skinny as you are."

"They'll love that. Thank you. Thank you both."

Baltana patted his head. "It's fine, sonny. Come visit more often."

The attack came the moment they were out of hyperspace. The Falcon rocked with blasts. She could see three ships bearing the insignia of the First Order. There would be more.

"We've got to jump again!" Leia said, punching in coordinates into the old computer. Chewie flew the ship through the barrage as well as he could, but they could both tell she was already damaged.

Leia cut short the calculation and hit the jump. The ship coughed but the drive didn't catch. Chewbacca dodged more blasts, and another hit one of their power inlays. Swearing a blue streak, he rerouted the power while Leia took over the controls. She pushed more speed out of the dying engine.

"C'mon, girl. You can do this." Talking to the ship had worked for Han. Sometimes. The Falcon edged forward a little faster, though it was probably due to Chewie's efforts. Still, she patted the panel. "Good girl."

She hadn't been at the controls of this ship in over ten years. She'd kept up her qualification on X-wings and she was passingly familiar with the operation of most of the Resistance's vessels. None were the Millennium Falcon. This ship was molded around her pilot and co-pilot, evolving controls to eke out a little more speed, a little more maneuverability. Leia knew the basics, but she'd never know these controls as well as Han.

"Help me," she thought, despairing of any answer and certain she was about to find out first hand what happened after death.

The memory, decayed and buried under heartache, rushed back into her mind: the day she'd taken her first real lesson on flying this souped-up mess of a wonderful starship under Han's alternately affectionate and exasperated teaching. Without realizing it, her body slid in the seat to a more comfortable position, and she relaxed her arms. She flew with her instincts now, flipping between red hot blasts, aware that Chewbacca was behind her rewiring circuit after circuit.

Leia zipped between two attacking fighters, letting them fire upon each other, and only regretted the fireball was behind her where she couldn't watch.

The hyperdrive caught. The sudden tug of the universe on edge exploded into starburst around them. The other ships would pursue them. For now, they were out of direct danger.

"Good job," she said to Chewbacca as he climbed out of the repair chute. "They'll be behind us. We won't be able to rejoin the rest of the fleet yet."

He said he didn't have an issue with that. He preferred being out here with her.

"No sweet talking, you old charmer. Any luck with the cloak?" He shook his head and admitted it had always been half-functional at best, tripped up with the rest of the unique modifications on this old beauty. He might get it up and running again. They couldn't rely on the protection.

They'd escaped once. They could hide. She still knew how to fly this ship, although the nudge at the right time was the difference between them being here now and being space dust back there. One nudge.

Leia sat back. She wasn't sure. She'd had those memories all along, But just in case, she thought, "Thank you."

tbc

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