Finn was restrained, hand and foot on an interrogation table, much like the one he had witnessed when he had been a stormtrooper for the First Order. His friend, Poe, had been confined to one the day Finn had saved him and thereby defected from the First Order over a year ago. Now Finn found himself on the opposite side of that situation.

He struggled to move his arms and legs, studying to see if there was any way to loosen his bonds; but he knew that all his endeavors to free himself would be pointless. The attempt was simply to bide his time, keeping him aware and ready for whatever inquisition was coming. Hours passed in isolation, but the boredom was preferable to the torture; and he knew torture was coming.

The prison cell door eventually opened, and Rey walked coldly into the room; instructing two stormtroopers to remain outside. She did not look directly at Finn but walked and positioned herself squarely in front of him. There was a moment of silence between them. Finn bit his lip, thinking of a million things he might say. In the end, he broke the silence.

"Do I call you Rey or Darth Irata?"

Rey squinted her eyes then looked at him, and with a calm voice asked, "Where is the Resistance base?"

Finn shook his head in disappointment and said sadly, "I will not answer questions from Darth Irata."

She stepped closer her dark cape wafting slightly with the movement. "You will answer me. You know what the First Order can do. You know what I can do. Now, where is the Resistance base?"

Finn stared directly into Rey's emotionless eyes. "What has Snoke done to you?"

Rey's anger seethed. "Where is the Resistance base?"

"He's using you, and you know it. You are his tuk'ata hound on a chain."

She punched him in the face. "Answer me!"

"Is this his test? To see if you can prove yourself by torturing someone you care about? The same thing he did to Ben Solo when he sent him to kill Han, his father."

She gritted her teeth in anger and punched him again. "I am the one in charge here! I ask the questions."

Finn spat some blood to the side. "You think you are in charge. Maybe for the first time in your life, you think you're in charge."

"Shut-up!" Rey yelled. "You are just a pawn of the Resistance. Don't tell me how I'm being used."

Finn laughed at that. "Snoke has fed you a bunch of garbage. You know better than that, Rey. You know it was the First Order that took me away from my family, to grow up in an army, and fight for them; to be their pawn. I know you went through something like that, too. But you have joined the side that is doing that very thing!"

Rey did not want to respond to that. "Where is the Resistance base?" She returned to her questioning.

Finn did not change the subject. "And another thing! The Resistance doesn't own me. I didn't join them because I was against the First Order. I left the First Order for that reason. I joined the Resistance because of—" He stopped short before he could finish his sentence, surprised that his rant had arrived at this point.

Rey appeared to have a second of interest and paused surprised by her own curiosity. "Because of what?"

Finn did not answer immediately, but stared at Rey, his face a paradoxical image of concern and anger.

"Because there is something in this life more important than being in control."

Rey looked down at his bound arms and legs. For a moment she looked as if she might let him go, but the brief occasion passed and her face became hard again.

"There is nothing more important. You, wait for fourteen years. Wait for someone to save you. You, fight to eat every day, not knowing if you will starve, or if some other dying brute overpowers you to take your water. You do that every day for your whole life, then you can tell me that there is something more important than being in control!" She stepped closer to Finn and leaned in. She raised her open hand with fingers spread over Finn's forehead. "As for your refusal to tell me where the Resistance base is, you will see what kind of control I really have," she said as she began to force her way into his mind.

Finn screamed out at the invasion, sweat beginning to drip from his face.

Rey could see images in his memory and feel his emotions. Working backward from the present moment she saw him trying to escape his bonds on the table, then the dark transport in the shuttle. She could feel his fear acutely. The images of his encounter with Rey at the Alderaanian station rose to the surface. She could feel the choking sensation in her own throat when she had almost killed him. She had expected to feel his fear at that moment, but she did not. She felt how he desperately wanted to warn her. An emotion rushed into her, his emotion from the memory.

Rey gasped and quickly stepped back, removing herself from his mind. Tears began falling from her eyes. Finn dropped his head in exhaustion.

Rey looked afraid and unsure of what to do. She moved swiftly to the door, opened it and exited, saying to the stormtroopers as she left, "Send in the torture droid and make him talk."

….

Ben Solo awoke in a mud hut and on a hard bed, framed with bone and animal skin. He tried to get up but squinted his eyes.

A young Zabrak put a hand on him to push him back into the bed.

"Don't move. You need your rest," the youth said. He was a teenage male with yellow and black facial tattoos, the horns of his head just beginning to break through.

"My head hurts," Ben said.

"I think you will find everything hurts," the boy said. "You're lucky nothing was broken. Lucky I found you, too. If I hadn't been tracking that rancor, you would have died out there. Did you actually go into its lair?"

Ben tried to sit up, but winced and laid back down. "Yeah, why?"

"That cave once belonged to the nightsisters, so the legends say," the boy replied. "They had a creature that gave them their power—a dark creature they called the Sleeper. One-of-a-kind, I think. At least they say it only reproduced once every thousand years."

"So," Ben said.

"You didn't see it, did you? They say it can take any shape." The boy looked eager.

"I was kind of busy with a rancor if you hadn't noticed," Ben replied.

"Too bad," the boy said and hung his head. "It would have been a great story."

"And finding a half-dead man that fought a rancor isn't?" Ben said a little put off.

The boy shrugged as if unimpressed.

"I've got to go," Ben tried to get up.

The boy yelled for his father. "Father, he's awake!"

An older man entered from outside. His facial tattoos were similar to his son's, yellow and black. "Thanks, Kato. Now go get yourself something to eat. I'll take over."

The father brought a bowl to Ben.

"Here," he said to Ben, handing it to him. "It's meat broth. You deserve it. It's made from the rancor you killed."

Ben took it gratefully and sipped the broth. His face grimaced at the foul soup. He saw the father watching him drink it, so he forced the rest of the steaming soup down, trying not to taste it while burning the back of his throat in the process.

"How long have I been here?" he asked but did not know what to call the Zabrak.

"My name is Huuto. You have been unconscious for about three days, and seem to have had bad nightmares, too."

Ben felt the bandages on his body and limbs.

"Thank you."

"It's a harsh world, if we don't help each other, we all perish." The father said. "At least I'd want someone to do that for me or my son."

"I'm afraid I have to go," Ben said.

"I thought as much," Huuto said. "You appeared to be a man on a quest. No one fights a rancor for leisure. But I'm afraid moving is going to be very painful for you."

Ben stood up and almost fell over at the pain, then took a deep breath and stood straight.

"Looks like you are no stranger to pain," Huuto said.

Ben did not answer that comment. "How can I repay you for your kindness?"

"The rancor is payment enough. That will feed our clan well into the next dark season."

The young Zabrak entered. "He's going? Already?"

"Yes, son," Huuto said.

"Then he'll need these." He produced the two lightsabers and gave them to Ben.

"Thank you, Kato," his father said and put his hand on his son's shoulder.

Ben took the lightsabers from the boy. He saw the affection this father had for his son; and he appeared as if he was going to say something, but did not. Instead, Ben simply turned and left without another word.

After Ben had left the Zabrak hut, he wandered with great effort back through the red wasteland to his two passenger A-Wing; a new model fitted with a rear gunner position, much like the new TIE fighters had been. He had landed it about three kilometers from where he had fought the rancor. It took him a long time to make the trek with his injuries, but he had managed. After eating a small meal from his supplies and drinking a nutro-drink to rehydrate, the beaten man climbed in and set off for Takodana.

Takodana was on the opposite side of the galaxy directly through the Core. For that reason, he had to make a few stops on his journey in order to avoid running into a planet as he passed through the dense core of the galaxy in hyperspace. This gave him an opportunity to refuel and stock supplies as well.

When he finally arrived at the forest planet, he found himself at the rubble of Maz Kanata's old castle, the same castle that he had destroyed with the army of the First Order when he was searching to kill Luke Skywalker. There were only a few of the original pillars of stacked stone left of the structure, but in its center the broken rocks and walls had been removed and stacked anew to create a much smaller building that had a reinforced tarp over the top. A few furry Tynnans were working on the unfinished roof that eventually would replace the tarp.

Inside the make-shift tabernacle, drinks were being dispensed from a rock slab bar and patrons, albeit much fewer in number, reclined on second-hand chairs at wobbly tables. Ben looked in cautiously.

"You!" came a voice.

He looked up. Maz Kanata removed herself from behind the bar. A Kowakian monkey-lizard continued to serve drinks, knocking a few over and spilling the liquid over the table, as was her usual custom.

Ben tensed his shoulders preparing for the short-statured Maz to let him have it for his last visit.

She marched up to him. Her eyes, huge behind her glasses were not difficult to read. She grabbed his hand and made him take the drink she was holding. "I've kept this waiting for you." She smiled. "Now come over here and take a seat. You look like that rancor just about did you in, and we have a lot to talk about."

Ben looked as if he was in shock. "How did you know I was coming? How do you know about the rancor?"

"Oh dear, I see many things. I even know that you had a vision. But I'm not getting into how I know. There is not much time. Come now." She led him to a corner table, as isolated as was possible in that structure. He threw back the drink she gave him on the way to his seat, and sat with his back to the door, not caring for any danger anymore.

She wiped down the table with her waist rag. A measuring rod for the construction was sitting on the table. She moved it to one of the seats. "Starting all over. It reminds me of when I first opened this place. I'm sure you know what I mean." She looked closely at him. "I mean the starting over."

Ben huffed, "Yeah."

"It's hard, but not all bad," she said. "Look around."

Ben turned in his chair to look at the small number of patrons and workers.

"Not many," Maz said. "You get to know those that are truly loyal to you . . . if you stick around yourself."

Ben turned back to face Maz. "That is if you want to know. When you have done terrible things, you don't want to know which people will stick by you. You just don't want anyone to."

"That is true. But empty," she said.

He stared at the empty cup. "Sometimes I would rather just die."

A sharp whipping pain hit him on his left ear. "Ow!" he ejaculated.

Maz was holding the measuring stick. "Enough of that! I will not have you lying to me! Don't give me that dying talk. If that were true, you wouldn't have made that!" She whipped his side where his new lightsaber was.

"Ow! Stop it!" he yelled.

"And you wouldn't have fought that rancor the way you did!" She struck him again on the shin.

"Would you quit it!"

"And you wouldn't have listened to the Jedi spirit that told you to come here." She attempted to hit him on the head again, but Ben caught it.

"Enough!" he said. Most of the patrons stopped their various activities for a moment to turn their attention to Maz and Ben.

Maz smiled. "There—and don't give me any of that self-hatred talk either." She pointed her little finger at him. "That is the only thing more ridiculous. As if anyone in the entire galaxy has ever really hated himself. You only hate being unable to make yourself happy. If anything that shows you love yourself too much for your own good. But I'm sure you have never thought of that before." Her eyes pierced him for a moment. "So, tell me exactly why you did come," she then asked.

"I had a vision of Luke," Ben said in a low voice.

"Ah, I wondered who it would be. It would have either been him or the other one."

Ben furrowed his eyes in a confusing look.

"What did he say?" Maz continued.

"That you and some Jedi Master would train me," Ben said.

"No," Maz grew stern again. "That is not what he said. You need no training."

Ben thought again, "He said that you would show me the way that I have lost."

"Yes," she said, "that makes more sense."

She stood up, took off her waist rag and threw it to the Kowakian monkey-lizard behind the bar. "Grams, you're in charge for a while."

Grams laughed a sharp cackle and picked up the rag, knocking over another drink into the lap of a hammer-headed Ithonian.

Then she turned to Ben, "Let's go. We don't have much time."

"Where are we going?" Ben answered.

"We need to remind you of what you have forgotten. For that, I need to take you to a Jedi Master."

"What Jedi Master? Who is left?"

"We need to find Yoda," Maz stated flatly.

Ben squinted his eyes in disbelief and tenuous thought.

He let out a sigh. "I'm going to need another drink."

"No," Maz barked. "Let's go."