The Ghosts of Jedis Past
Our heroes, as we left them…
The minute Kylo touched his father's dice, he knew the Millenium Falcon had spirited away the remains of the Resistance even as he'd fought with his uncle's fetch. As his fist closed over the fading image, it clenched, and in doing so, slammed into the antiquated radar system in front of him. Stormtroopers sidestepped as he strode out of the control room, clearing a path for their tempestuous supreme leader. Hux fired off orders behind him as he stormed across the crimson path back toward the AT-ATs. His boiling rage had chilled to an icy calm, and he had one clear thought – destroy the last of the Resistance, and make them pay. Her especially.
Light years away by now, Rey guided the Falcon out of hyperspace, leaving Chewie to pilot it alone for a while, and picked her way back through Resistance fighters to the General's improvised command center by the Dejarik board. General Leia looked up from her heated debate with Poe to meet Rey's eyes.
Rey held her gaze, as Leia nodded, "I felt it too."
"That's it then," Rey's voice broke, rendering her unable to speak for a moment. "There are no Jedi masters left."
"Luke said to me before he—left… no one's ever really gone."
Kylo stalked through the darkened corridors of the Finalizer, watching Stormtroopers and officers alike step aside to salute only to scurry away the moment he passed. There was a time when that reaction made him swell with pride to be respected and feared. At the time he'd felt it a sure sign he was well on his way to becoming as great –if not greater—than Darth Vader was. Now, he merely snarled as he continued on, their cowardice in the face of his fury needling the last vestiges of his frayed nerves. He finally reached the elevator bank, only to have the five or so Stormtroopers waiting for one suddenly remember that they had urgent business elsewhere.
He made it down to the third floor after riding the elevator alone, ignoring the hush that fell over the ship's cantina as he strode in and ordered a bottle of Vaschean rye. Let it all go to hell, he thought bitterly. For that night and probably part of the next day, he was going to get blitzed. Hux could handle it.
Meanwhile, the Millenium Falcon set down on the planet Krant, on a large island Leia outlined to Rey aboard the ship. A large swath to the eastern side of the island proved the perfect landing spot, while the entire team found a perfectly serviceable fort ten minutes into a dense forest to the west. Though it had been abandoned for years, the fort at Le'Roche Island held everything they could need including troop housing, a command center, and even a few droids left behind with some supplies. As large as the island was, by nightfall the first few scouts still managed to find an abundance of game birds and fish, not to mention a ghost city to the north. In the meantime, the rations were a few years old, but still edible.
It was late when Rey finally hit the rack she shared with Rose Tico, but by the time Rey landed face first in the musty covers she still could not rid her mind of the past day's events or the fathomless dark eyes that pleaded with her in her memories. Rey drifted off to sleep wondering what would have happened if she had just said yes.