Darkness spread over the moon's surface. Bloated red Yavin hung malevolently in the sky. Sparkling colony lights fought against the sprinkle of visible stars. The contrast between the night above them and the glitter around them as they hurried towards the spaceport nearly took Rey's breath away. So many worlds. So much to see.

Somewhere close by, she felt a serene presence, comforting against the malign touch at the back of her thoughts. The tree. Poe had told them about it, and Rey longed to take the time to see what he'd meant. She would settle for listening to the quiet song of limb and leaf and sap, drowsing through decades.

The song was rudely interrupted. "I need to speak with you." Ren's voice echoed clearly in her mind.

Rey slammed down her mental shields again. This was past ridiculous. She could fight Ren off. She'd pushed him out of her head when she'd been under his direct control, clawing her way into his mind as she battled him. Instead of driving him off, she'd established an intimate, violating connection. He'd chased her, terrified her, attacked her, and now he was using their unwanted bond as a radio.

"Go. Away."

Finn turned to her, worried. "That wasn't to me, was it."

"Kylo Ren wants to talk."

"He wants our location," Poe said. He'd returned with food, borrowed cloaks, and good news. Now he looked worried again. "Do you have any way of shutting down his link with you?"

"I've been trying. Luke didn't have long to train me." He'd wanted that connection, had planned on it. He'd needed Rey to bait his trap, but the trap had failed, and the hunter was lost, and the quarry had only become more savage.

"I'm worried about taking you back with us," Poe said. "The moment we land, our worst enemy will know where our base is."

"He already knows. It's D'Qar," Finn said.

"We're abandoning that site. The General gave the order to move out as soon as we left. The First Order would have attacked us as soon as they regathered their forces."

"You're thinking about leaving me here." The old fears bit into her all the way to the bone.

Finn said, "We're not leaving you here or anywhere. You're coming with us."

"Of course you are," Poe said, but Rey didn't believe him. "We're not leaving you behind. But you have to get control over your powers before we can risk rejoining the fleet. That's not a security risk I'm willing to take."

"Fine. I can take care of myself. I always have done." She turned away, affronted and worried he might be right.

She wasn't surprised to feel Finn's hand on her elbow. A small part of her wondered if she'd turned away simply to see if he would come after her. "We're not doing this. Rey, you're getting out of here with us. Poe, if you think we're too dangerous to go home, we'll go somewhere else. Together. Maybe we can hop a transport to Coruscant or something. See the galaxy."

"Yes. We'll all have drinks together on a Spiran beach. Dameron can go snorkeling. Perhaps he'll drown."

Rey froze.

Poe watched her face. "What does he want?" He stared directly into Rey's eyes and said in a louder voice: "What do you want?"

"That's very annoying," Rey said, and hated the fact that she could feel Ren's agreement.

"I need to talk to you. Alone."

She closed her eyes. "We are talking."

"Not like this. We need to meet."

She thought very clearly about their previous encounters. "No."

"There are ten Stormtroopers coming to your position. Your friends shot four of their colleagues, and they've been ordered to kill you and Dameron. They're going to be far more creative with FN-2187 before he's permitted to die."

"There are Stormtroopers on the way," she said aloud.

Poe took a hand from each. "Come on. We can make it to the ship."

"I didn't send them. I'm about to order them to search away from you."

"Aiming to get the credit for yourself?" She had to keep her eyes open to run. By now, she knew he could hear her no matter what. Finn kept watching her, mindless of their haste, worry on his face.

"I'll be waiting at the spaceport."

Rey stopped dead, and Poe nearly fell as he didn't stop in time. "He's already there. He's waiting for us."

"Then we'll fight him again," Finn said. "There's three of us."

"And plenty of Stormtroopers," Poe reminded him. He swore. "I thought we might be able to get out of here."

"Ren said he sent the Stormtroopers away."

Poe said, "Yeah. He's lying."

"Tell me," she thought. "Tell me what you want me to know, and I'll agree to see you"

"Do you know what the klemont are?" She didn't. He went on, "They are a species which feed off Force energy. They live on a world in the Outer Rim. One will make a Force user weak. A hunting pack can drain even a fully-trained Jedi of power and life in a matter of minutes." In his mind, she saw the image of long, silvery creatures devouring a man.

"I won't visit that world."

"There have been rumors of other species with the same hunger. Find someone strong with the Force, drain them, and use their powers."

She let out an exasperated sigh. "Let's go," she said to her friends. "Now he thinks he's a vampire."

"No. But I know who is." He gave her an image from his mind. Three seconds long and brutal in simple intensity: a vicious little man plunged his fingers into the eye socket of a young man not much older than Rey. Purple energy flowed, but where a Dark Lord would have blasted an underling with the power, this creature drank it greedily from the dying youth's body.

"Good. Go to him. Let him drain you dry. You're not feeding me to him in your place."

Rey closed herself off, doubting it would help.

Poe tried to think, but they were running out of options. Rey had stopped trying not to talk to Ren, which meant every second she was with them, he knew their exact location. But if they didn't get off world, it was only a matter of time before the door to door hunts began, and more Stormtroopers left to make things miserable for the people who lived here. No, better to get away fast and give the First Order no reason to find this green moon interesting.

"Does it stop if you're unconscious?"

"It's worse. He came into my dream last night."

"He did what?" Finn looked furious, but he'd been there last night, hadn't he? The day had been very, very long.

Rey said, "I don't think the Stormtroopers will be there."

Poe didn't say he didn't trust her. He didn't have to. Finn said, "There's no chance for us to sneak away if Ren's there waiting for us. So let's not sneak, and let's not run. We'll fight him."

"You're not getting a rematch today," Poe said. "You're not healed all the way from the last time you fought him. We'll find another way in. Rey, think of flowers and rainbows and other things that will irritate the hell out of him."

Baltana and Luna met them outside the port. "About time you showed up," said Baltana. "There's bad sorts here looking for you."

"And who is this?" asked Luna with a bright smile.

"We don't have time," said Poe quickly, but Luna immediately went to Finn and Rey.

"Our boy doesn't bring friends home often. It's wonderful to meet you."

Poe said, answering the confused expressions on his friends' faces, "Madame Luna and Madame Baltana are old friends of my family. They're helping us get the ship. Madame, this is Finn, and this is Rey."

Finn's face broke out in a bright grin. "You made the food? It was great." Rey nodded in agreement and said her thanks. She was distracted, almost enough to be rude, but Poe's aunts didn't notice.

To his horror, Luna turned back to her wife and winked. "Both!" she said in Dantarian.

"What's that?" Finn asked politely. Poe cleared his throat.

"The ship. I hate to rush but if we don't, we're going to die."

"This way," said Baltana. She led them through one of the worker entrances to the port, sliding her badge through and shuffling the three of them through quickly. Luna stayed outside, waving madly.

"Luna doesn't get undercover," Baltana said conversationally. "You'll have a problem if those Stormtroopers come knocking because she's ready to show them your baby pictures."

"Please tell her it's important not to."

"You could come visit more often."

He bit down on a couple of replies. Only one mattered. "I will. I swear."

Baltana brought them out at the side of the main hangar. Poe did a visual sweep of the area. No Stormtroopers that he could see. He'd missed BB-8 on this trip so many times, and he missed his favorite little droid again now. A quick sensor scan, and they'd be set.

They had an unconventional sensor at their disposal. "Where's Darth Jerkhead?" Rey pointed. Poe couldn't see where she meant, and he was sure she didn't see, either. "Do you think we can get around him?"

"No."

"Who are we looking at?" Baltana craned her thick, squat neck to see. Poe's stomach tightened.

"Madame, you have to get away from here."

"Why? Some First Order nobody is here looking for our boy, I can given him a talking to."

Finn said, "Not this guy. He's trouble. Which ship is ours?"

"The blue one." Baltana dropped a control key into Poe's hand and kissed his cheek. "I'll go talk to your friend. Tell him to get out of my spaceport."

Poe grabbed her arm before she could stalk over. "No. Madame, earlier today he killed Luke Skywalker. Please. Get out safely and tell Madame Luna I'll be back soon."

She glared at him but the warning had shaken her. She wasn't all bluff. She still couldn't take this fight, and the last thing he wanted was to lose someone else to the madman waiting for them in the shadows. "Be good, Poe. Take care of these two. Luna knows these things."

"I will. Give her my love."

Baltana went out the back way. Small favors. They still had Kylo Ren to deal with. "All right. I'm going to go out and distract them. You two get to the ship. Start her up. If I can make it back to you, wait. If I can't, get out of here." He went to give Finn the key, but he still couldn't fly. Rey folded her arms and wouldn't take it, either.

"I'm the only one who's faced him down, and you're the only one who knows where the Resistance is headed. I'll distract Ren. You get the ship."

"Still not liking this plan," said Finn.

"It's our best plan," Rey said, and kissed him on the cheek. "Keep my seat warm. I'll be right there."

"Come on," Poe said, grabbing Finn's shoulder. "We won't leave without her."

Finn's gaze was distracted. Poe rolled his eyes, then saw what Finn was looking at. "Oh no."

He'd felt her approaching the spaceport for some time, felt her great hesitancy, and now he felt her walking towards him. With his eyes closed, Kylo could sense the distance narrowing between them again, as if they were two ends of a spring pulled apart and hurtling towards each other to collide.

"What do you want?" Her voice stayed firm, accusing. "If you were going to try to kill me, you'd have attacked the moment I set foot in the building."

"You're still in the building. I have time."

"You said you wanted to talk about Force vampires."

"I needed to speak with someone else who uses the Force. You're the only one who doesn't work for the First Order."

"You killed the rest." She was grieving for Luke, her obvious sorrow held in tight abeyance for the sake of her current task.

"Not all."

"You tried."

"Yes."

"Why?" He could feel her rage building inside her. She had the same potential he did. Stoke her anger, feed her resentment, and Rey would make a perfect weapon. Her body poised midway between fighting him and fleeing.

"You wouldn't understand."

"That's not an answer." The anger grew inside her, haloing her in energy she could take and use if she just reached out to claim her due. He wondered how far he could push her until she fell over that edge. He should kill her before she did. It would be safer for him and less traumatic for her.

Almost perfectly in step, they began circling each other. He'd called her here, and she'd come. She hadn't wanted to. She couldn't stay away. He could summon her. He had to ask her for help. The words of a plea wouldn't form in his mouth.

"You can try to kill me," Rey said, one hand on her unlit lightsaber and keeping pace with him. "You've tried before. You can keep trying, and I will always fight you, and I will win. Leave us alone."

"I didn't come here to kill you." He removed his mask. "Lord Snoke has been gathering Force-sensitive children to him for years. He ordered the deaths of those he couldn't collect for his own. I thought he was building an army. Instead he was gathering a herd and culling the rest. I have to stop him."

He felt the scorn in her mind. "That doesn't make you any better. You're not growing a conscience. You're frightened of the abattoir." The word rang oddly in her mind, unfamiliar, drawn from his fears rather than her own knowledge. She could read him like a display screen.

"Kylo Ren!" One of the Stormtroopers. He'd ordered them to search elsewhere in the colony. Apparently even they were smart enough to realize there was only one place their quarry would come.

He sighed. "A moment." He looked up where the troopers had come in. "I have the situation under control. You may guard outside in case the others appear."

The Stormtrooper said, "You have been ordered to return to the base immediately."

"I don't take orders from Stormtroopers. My orders came directly from Supreme Leader Snoke."

"So did ours." No 'sir' he noticed.

"Underlings not bowing down?" Rey said in his mind.

"You will return to the First Order immediately," said a second Stormtrooper, far more stupidly. Annoyed, Kylo reached out with his powers and threw the man to the floor.

"I will go when I'm ready. I have a prisoner. I will interrogate her. Then I can return."

"You're not going to interrogate me."

"I have to tell them something."

"Our orders are to shoot the Resistance members on sight."

"Belay them. This girl is a valuable source of information. Go outside." He sent a mind push with his words. Mind-controlling Stormtroopers was a child's game, beneath him. It did smooth through life's rough edges. The troopers turned to go.

Then a blue ship across the hangar fired its engines, and all hell broke loose.

The good news was, they distracted the Stormtroopers.

The bad news was, the Stormtroopers began firing on them.

Finn automatically checked to see what kind of weapons their borrowed ship featured, and he wasn't surprised to discover the answer was 'none.' In a way he was relieved. He'd fight his former comrades at arms. He didn't want to if he could avoid it.

The ship boomed with the weapons strikes. Outside, the viewscreen showed him not all the troopers had their attention on the blue ship. Two began firing on Rey.

"We have to get her now!"

"Lowering the gangplank," Poe said, dropping it with a worrisome thud. "She'll have to come to us."

Finn dashed down to the entrance. "Rey!"

Her lightsaber was out, and she blocked blasts as well as she could. Ren was right behind her. Finn grabbed for his own blaster, carefully aiming for his black-clad former superior. Even though Finn doubted he could kill Ren, he could keep him away from Rey while she headed towards them.

One of Finn's blasts grazed Ren's leg. Before he could celebrate, Rey sagged, favoring the same leg. He saw her mouth the word, "Ouch."

More blasts came his way, forcing Finn back into the ship.

He didn't want to shoot the Stormtroopers. He would do it anyway if their deaths meant saving Rey, but he didn't want to. They were like him. He should talk to the other brainwashed children, not kill them.

One of the troopers, brighter than the rest, aimed up. The ceiling of the port, designed from the beginning to blow up rather than out in case of an explosion, cracked in a giant hole in the center which began to crumble out.

Finn shouted her name again, unable to hear his own voice in the noise.

In his mind, he felt her presence. "I'm all right. I can't reach you now. Go. I'll take another ship and find you. Frequency gamma gamma two delta one."

He ignored it. The voice could be a trick. Heavy pieces of steel and concrete dropped as the ceiling caved faster. "Finn, get in here! We have to go now!"

"She's still out there!"

"GO!" she shouted in his mind so loudly his legs obeyed the order before his head even registered.

He felt Poe's hands grab him, tugging him inside before his friend slammed the hatch controls. The ship was ready to take off. Finn paid attention to the controls Poe used as they blasted through the crumbling ruin of the spaceport.

Two TIE fighters waited for them.

"We have to go back," he said, but they had no weapons, no way to fight, and no chance unless they fled now. Poe looked up at him.

"We're running. I heard her, too." He flipped the comm line and set it to frequency gamma gamma two delta one. "She'll contact us."

He dropped their ship suddenly, avoiding the first blast from the TIE fighter in front of them. This old shuttle wasn't much, and they didn't have the speed to get away.

"This is going to get bumpy," he warned, and Finn fell against the bulkhead as Poe dodged another blast. He slammed hard on the engines, pulling up and out into the night sky, the fighters pursuing them. "Come on, come on." He got free of the planet's surface and engaged the hyperdrive. They slammed into a spray of starshine.

"We'll find you," Finn thought as hard as he could.

The blue ship barely made it out of the spaceport before more of the roof caved in. Rey struck out with her powers instinctively, creating a barrier between herself and the falling rubble. This world flowed with Force energy. She felt her connection to the core of the moon, to the life in the jungle outside, and the strength of the tree.

For a moment, she held everything in perfect balance.

The next moment, she felt herself slipping. Rey got out of the way of the worst of it just in time as the destroyed ceiling cascaded to the ground. The destruction separated her momentarily from the Stormtroopers. It only left her trapped with her worst enemy, who was already rising to his feet.

Beyond him was an old scow, the last ship left unscathed in the destruction around them. If she fought her way past him, she could take it and follow her friends.

Her lightsaber was too far from her, trapped under the debris.

Luke had told her such things didn't matter. It wasn't the size of the task. She could focus again. She needed to focus faster, because Ren was going to kill her. Impending death didn't sharpen her mind or her skills. All she could think was how disappointed everyone would be in her.

Her staff was in her hands in a moment. She spun and hit him hard, feeling the impact echoed on her own side. Rey was stunned by the sharp pain, and in her distraction, he sliced her staff in two. She kicked out, but Ren ducked the kick. He was faster this time, faster than he had been. He raised his lightsaber. She reached out her mind for her own. She poured every ounce of Force energy she could find into one thought: "Come to me."

Rey expected a blow, had already started her roll, but his arms were there, trapping her, and his mouth found hers. She felt power skitter through him, wrapping around her and filling her through the sudden connection. Her lips tingled. Everything tingled, from the hairs on her head down her spine to her heels, alive with electric fire. The circuit was complete.

Ren pulled away, his face as shocked as her own. He hadn't meant to kiss her. He'd intended to kill her. She was sure. Her lightsaber was light years away from her.

Rey kissed him back, mouths crashing together as they met. She felt his mind against her, pushing as he'd pushed before, and she shoved back as hard, thoughts smashing into one another. His mind tangled with duty and fear and desire. His eyes were open, perhaps for the first time since he'd been a child. He was running away. He needed to kill her to regain his place within the First Order. He wanted her alive, wanted her help, wanted her. She saw these things in a flash, hazed over by the other thoughts broiling in his head: vengeance and self-hatred and longing and a riot of unnameable emotions centered on Rey.

"You're confused, too," he breathed, reaching a gloved finger to brush her lips. "Nothing makes sense." He'd read her, like he always read her. She needed to use her mental shields. But what was the point? She could learn all his secrets, and the price would only be all of hers.

"You want to run away from here," she said, watching his eyes. "We can take the ship."

"If I leave now, Lord Snoke will never let me come back."

"He intends to kill you." The thought was clear in his mind. Another thought pushed for attention. "You think he's going after your mother."

"He's already given the order. She's the only one left with Vader's power." For all his confusion, these thoughts formed a straight line. "I have to find her first."

She kissed him again, acting on signals that had nothing to do with sense. The Force moved through all living things, joining all beings. The Force compelled the two of them to meet, slithering around them like leather cords, piercing both through with the same sharp spear.

"I need my lightsaber."

"It's not yours."

"Then I need to return it to its rightful owner." She reached out her hand, and now, the lightsaber came easily to her. Power flowed through her, as if a spigot had been turned on. His arms still entrapped her but she was more powerful than she'd ever been, energy bounding between them and multiplying as they stood there, each armed, unable to speak.

The dust was clearing. They'd be spotted in a few seconds. "How many Stormtroopers are there?"

"Six. I can kill four but the others are too far."

Four faces behind masks, all of them Finn's. "No. We're not killing them. I can trap them until we escape."

Ren stared at her disbelievingly. "They are your enemies."

"They never had a choice about it."

She spent one more moment completely still, the heat of his body pressed against her. Then Rey ducked out of his embrace and dashed out of cover. Immediately one of the Stormtroopers saw her and fired.

Perfect.

She threw her lightsaber, praying like mad the arc was right. The blade held true, slicing through struts supporting the remaining ceiling of the hangar.

"Now!" she shouted to Ren, but he'd scooped his mask from the ground and was already boarding the shuttle. She expected him to close the door without her, abandoning her, but the hatch stayed open as she called her lightsaber into her hand. She jumped aboard, slapping the close toggle. He was already in the pilot's seat and firing the engines.

They burst from the hangar out into the planet's sky. One ship tried to engage, but he rolled out of the way and shot through towards space. The shuttle's hyperdrive sputtered before it caught, flinging them out into the stars.

"I'll have to contact my friends. We can rendezvous where it's safe. Make a plan." They were only words, sounds she could make as she watched him set the autopilot. Already his eyes were dark, focused on her.

"Yes."

Her back pressed against the bulkhead. Even with her eyes closed she felt him approach, felt his mind. Asking. He was asking for admittance, and her shields dropped, if they'd ever been up. He entered her thoughts as he pushed his leg between her knees. Rey's senses filled with his heat and the scent of his skin while she drank deeply of every memory. Her hands found his face blindly, found his lips, and felt the tender bite as she slid them into his mouth.

"Tell me what you want."

A brief guilt gnawed at her. "This."

He yanked his gloves and dropped them to the floor before reaching for her belt. His robes were complex, but allowed her easy reach to what she wanted. "Hear me," and nothing else he thought was as settled as mere words. He thrust into her clumsily, and she gasped in the first pain of their awkward coupling. He lifted her, holding her high against the wall with his powers. The angle felt sublime.

"There."

Rey kept herself together, kept unfolding him from the inside. Years of First Order training and plans spooled under her mental fingers, too much to take in. His mind was bare before her, and she was overwhelmed.

Want drove him deeper into her, and she felt the desire tripling back upon herself as he found a place inside her that made them both groan. She'd had lovers before, quick warm trysts between friends for a night, and gone again. None filled her soul this way. She felt him behind her own eyes, indulging in her pleasure with her. He couldn't form coherence now, but fed her a tendril of his own thought. She felt his thick lust, and the slick pressure of her own body forming a perfect friction around each twitch of his hips. He'd never felt anything other than his own hand before, and the new sensations overwhelmed him. Rey fed on his indulgence, drank him down, and filtered back to him the sparkling light blooming on every inch of her skin pressed against his.

A stray memory came back to her, in the last private place inside herself. He wanted to be told he was the best, and she didn't have to lie. "I've never felt this good before."

He let out a moan in her ear. She felt the starburst inside him, touched it and rode his peak to her own body-clenching climax. Energy pulsed from her back into him, rebounding into her. A light above them flared and popped. The ship shuddered around them, engines absorbing the unfamiliar jolt of their powers going to ground.

They fell to the floor, bodies still bound, clothes snarled. His eyes were wide, and he trembled. Rey felt trembly herself, in the best way. She took quick stock of her body, but she'd practiced each day, even during these mad few weeks. This would be a terrible time to have forgotten.

"What's that?" The question was simple, not layered with anything but curiosity.

"You don't know? The med droids teach you how to regulate your body to keep you from conceiving when you don't want to."

"The First Order prefers sterilization." That led to questions she didn't want the answers to right now. His fingers found her face again. "You can control all your body's functions?"

"Some."

Instead of words, he sent her a mental image of the pair of them tangling this same way with the shattering cascade lasting hours instead of mere moments. Her mouth went dry at the picture, at the promise. Rey bit his lip.

This time, they made it to the bunk.

tbc

Reviews welcome