The wind howled and swirled around her, violently whipping the snow across the barren plains at the base of the giant mountains. Rey pulled the cloak tighter around her. It didn't do much good. Rey was wearing more layers than she thought possible, but it did nothing to keep the biting wind at bay. It sank through the layers and embedded itself into her bones. The swirling white clouds dotted out her vision, she could maybe see a foot ahead of her at best. She had thought Starkiller's frozen forest had been cold, but Rhen Var was so much worse.
Still, she trudged through the blizzard, the ruins of what had once been a Jedi temple hundreds of years ago letting her feet guide her to where she had parked her borrowed X-Wing.
I've spent too long here, she thought.
She had been away on this mission for too long. What good in this fight was a half-trained Jedi with a broken lightsaber.
"The lightsaber belonged to my father," Leia told her in the days after Crait. "It's seen unimaginable horrors. Even Luke had to make his own. It was one of the few lessons he gave me."
"You can use the Force?" Rey had asked her.
"In a sense. Luke trained me some, in the early days after the Empire fell. Enough to control what I can do, and not accidentally hurt someone. There is very little I know, in truth."
"So what now?" Rey had asked.
"Meditate. Read through the texts, and when you're ready, I'll have a list compiled to places you may be able to find an unbroken kyber crystal."
So for months, as what remained of the resistance fled from planet to planet, staying steps ahead of the First Order, that's what she did. Her days were spent reading the ancient books she had stolen from Ach-To, meditating on what she read, and helping the engineers repair the few broken-down ships and defunct x-wings the resistance had cobbled together.
Finally, thirteen months after the Resistance was all but decimated, she went back to General Organa.
"I think it's time," she told her.
A list of coordinates for seven planets had been uploaded into one of the X-Wings.
"It's a small list," the General told her. "There used to be hundreds of places to find kyber across the galaxy."
The Empire had looted what they could for their weapons and other projects or destroyed what they couldn't use. Illum, Starkiller, had been the largest known kyber deposit in the galaxy, but it was gone now. The First Order now controlled most of the few places they could be found.
Armed with the Jedi Texts, the broken pieces of the Skywalker saber, the blaster Han had given her on Tokadona, and the list, Rey left in one of the few X-Wings that they had acquired to build her own saber. The first and fourth planets had been a bust that took weeks of her time, the second, third, and fifth had First Order ships patrolling the systems. Rey had barely escaped two of those three run-ins. More and more of the galaxy was being brought under their brutal control; and at a rapid rate. Rhen Var was the sixth planet on the list. It housed dozens of ancient temples, ruins, and tombs for both the Jedi and the Sith. More importantly, there wasn't a sign of the First Order anywhere in the sector.
The moment she broke the atmosphere, she felt the kyber calling out to her. The resonance had been almost overwhelming. It sang a song of something she was intimately familiar with. Her kyber crystal, the one always meant for her to find, was on Rhen Var, forgotten to time just as she had been. At the base of a vast mountain range, nestled between a sloping forest and a vast plain was the temple. The nearest place she could safely land was half a day's trek across the frozen plain from the temple. And the decaying ruins were built in an elaborate maze filled with collapsed rooms and broken passageways. It had taken days to carefully pick and climb her way through it, to where the kyber was calling her from. It was a beautiful thing, yellow-orange like sunlight in the middle of summer. It was as lonely in the frozen decay as she had been in her own sweltering one. Kindred spirits, her and the kyber. The first step of her journey had been completed.
Then the storm had started. The unrelenting howling of the winds beat against the crumbling walls. For two days she had sheltered in the temple, lamenting the fact that she left her commlink on the starfighter. It didn't feel right taking it into the sacred place. How she wished she had ignored that impulse. It would have been much easier to call for a ride than to wait out the storm.
She had commed Finn before going into the temple.
"I can feel it, Finn! It's here somewhere," she had told him.
"Can you find it?" He had asked.
"I think so. But it might take a while," she told him. "I'll be out of contact while I search for it."
"Any idea how long? We're missing you here."
"Hopefully not long. I miss you too," she said.
There was some yelling in the background, then another voice on the comm.
"I feel left out! You miss me too, don't you little Jedi?" Poe Dameron asked her.
She laughed. "Of course Poe, how could I not?"
She had grown close to all of them over the past year. Finn, her first friend, easy-going Poe who laughed as quickly as he angered, sweet Rose who dreamt of love, even Kaydel and Jessika, despite how different they were. Even the General. Most of all, Chewie, the only person who knew her secrets. Chewie who had seen her breakdown as they scrambled to rescue the Resistance, as he had his own crisis.
"If we don't hear from you in a week, We're launching a rescue mission," Poe said.
"If it takes me a week to find this thing, then it's taking too long."
That had been five days ago. The conversation had been joking, but now, Rey thought she might need that rescue. At least if the storm didn't let up soon.
She sheltered in the temple for two days, letting the wind howl and the snow build. She had brought very little in the way of nations, but she was a scavenger from Jakku, she could go days without food. But she had grown used to regular food with the Resistance. Filling, good food at that. Sometimes it was rations, but sometimes it was fresh food when they had the credits or there was wildlife nearby.
Her food had run out on the first day of the storm. Hunger gnawed at her gut as the conditions grew worse. She had resolved to wait. Then the walls began collapsing around her, unable to hold up under the weight of the snow.
So having no choice, she set out, hours ago, to make her way to the X-Wing and get off the frozen wasteland.
Shivering and near blinded, she tripped over a tree branch that sent her sprawling in the deep snow. And Rey realized something was very, very wrong. Squinting against the onslaught, she realized the once-empty plain was dotted and marred with broken trees and rocks. It looked as though half the mountain had fallen.
And her starfighter was nowhere in sight.
"Kriff!' she screamed. Her breath danced in wisps in front of her face. "Think, think!"
She tried to stamp down the panic that was slowly rising in her. Fear was the path to the darkside, and she couldn't let it control her. The snowstorm so far had behaved like a sandstorm, and sandstorms had two rules. The first was to find shelter, the second was to keep moving until you find shelter. She had already traveled too far to turn back towards the collapsing temple. Instead, she took a deep breath and began following the trail of debris.
For hours she walked; until her feet ached and her knees and back burned. Her lashes had frozen over with ice, and she was soaked through. More than once, she sunk into pockets of loose snow and had to climb her way out. It reminded her of the sinking fields back on Jakku. The dangers of snow, she quickly discovered, were eerily similar to the dangers of sand. Still, she did not stop.
The sky above her was growing impossibly darker, nighttime was coming. She had set out from the temple as the clouds lightened some with the dawn. Now, night was returning, and her need to find her ship or shelter was growing increasingly necessary. She had long since left anything that could shelter her from the night.
Gaining the kyber was important, but it was feeling more and more like a mistake.
I stayed too long, she thought. I should have gone back.
A stray thought danced through her mind. What if, just like the sinking fields, the X-Wing was buried beneath the snow and unreachable? She tried not to dwell on it, but there had been no sign of anything but snow for hours.
Rey kept walking though. She gathered bits of wood, small twigs, and sticks, easy to carry, as she went. Night had settled in completely, and her still arms were full by the time she found something useful. A large, irregularly shaped boulder jutted above the snow just ahead of her. It was more than big enough to offer some relief from the wind. She used her sticks and gathered a small pile of rocks to build a fire. It wasn't much, but it would do to get her through the night.
Once it was lit, she searched the area, careful not to stray far, for materials to build a small shelter, something to keep the snow off so she wouldn't freeze to death. Nothing held together in the gusting wind, and her clothing, wet though it was, was too precious to use to bind anything together.
Instead, she sat, exhausted, with her back to the boulder, and her hands as near the fire as she could get them. She attempted to meditate, but all she could focus on was the cold.
Like a bad dread, the world got progressively colder, and the wind picked up around her. The fire flickered and died.
"No, no, no," she cried, desperately trying to bring it back.
Frozen tears tracked down her cheeks. She couldn't die here, not like this. She had finally found a home, a family. She didn't make it off of one wasteland to die on another.
There was no way to contact the Resistance, no one even knew she needed saving. She should have taken Finn up on the offer. Or risked the Falcon.
Another thought slid through her mind. There was someone, something she had tried her best to shut out in the year since Crait.
No! That was the fear calling her, the darkside. She would not give in. She had worked too hard to block him out and keep him out. A year of training, most of it wasted on shoring up her mental defenses and blocking the connection she shared with him.
Still, the shaking got worse. She tried to stand and ended up face-first in the snow, and all the strength left her body.
She had no other choice.
Rey dropped the shields in her mind, and was met with a solid wall of nothing.
"Ben!" she said. "Please Ben, let me in!"
Her eyes stung as shame and fear overcame her. "I can't...Ben, please," she sobbed.
Rey screamed until her throat was raw.
"Kylo!" she screamed and her voice cracked.
The world went silent, and suddenly, there he was, standing in front of her, a look of shock across his face.
"Kylo, help me. Please!" she begged, sobbing.
The edges of her vision were blurring, dimming. For a moment, she didn't think he would answer. She thought he might ignore her until she faded away.
"Where are you?" Kylo Ren asked after a long moment of staring at her face.
The scavenger girl appeared out of nowhere, sprawled across the floor of his office. Her skin was bright red, and her lips an alarming shade of blue, causing her to look half-dead. Show covered her as though it were a blanket.
It had been over a year since she betrayed him in that burning red chamber. His goals and dreams were finally achieved, and she refused his hand, stole his grandfather's lightsaber from him, and then aided his mother's rag-tag band of troublemakers in escaping from justice. Her last act had been to sever the connection in his face.
But there she was, once again ripping through his defenses. The impossible connection held, even though he could feel her signature in the Force wavering. That bright light that drew him like a moth to the flame, slowly but surely was flickering out.
Why now, a less enlightened man might think. Ever persistent, the Force shoved them together across the stars obeying only its own whims. It wanted them together, and so together they would be, regardless of either of their wants.
"Sir," Lieutenant Mitaka asked.
Kylo held up a hand silencing him. The man had been briefing him on the situation with the planet below them, but the details fled in the echoing silence of the Force.
Moving swiftly, and cursing himself for the sentimentality of what he was doing, Kylo snatched a tracking fob off the desk. He knelt next to her and forced it into her hand. She barely had the strength to hold it. He pulled the heavy woolen cloak from his shoulders and draped it over her.
"Rey," he said. "Tell me where you are."
"Rhen Var," she slurred, her voice barely audible.
He brushed his hand across her face, and even through his thick leather gloves, her skin was as cold as ice. That was worrying.
"Don't fall asleep," he told her softly. He couldn't remember a time when he was so gentle with anything.
Rey tried to say something else, but it was too soft and slurred to make out.
"I'm coming," he said.
Not a second later, she closed her eyes and the connection evaporated.
Straightening himself, he turned back to the bewildered officer. "Our closest ship to Rhen Var?"
"I don't…where.." Mitaka stammered.
"Lieutenant!"
"The E-eclipse, it's at Felucia. General Pryde-"
"Inform their captain they have two minutes to set a course to Rhen Var. They are to send a medical team to find that tracker. It will take them to the girl. I want her brought to me…alive."
"Right away, Supreme Leader," Mitaka said, then he fled.
Kylo pressed the built-in commlink on the desk, which connected him directly to the bridge. "Set course for Rhen Var, now!" he demanded the second it was picked up. He didn't bother waiting for a reply.
The Steadfast was farther away, in the Mid-Rim orbiting Ord Mantell. They would get there a day, possibly two, after the Eclipse.
A violent scream erupted from him. The Force swirling around him, the dark black cloud he made his home turned to a raging violence that had nowhere to go. It was a feeling he was familiar with. That unsteady precipice threatened to spill over into whatever was closest to him. Snoke was entrenched in his mind the last time he felt so out of control. He needed to hit something.
She was dying, that scavenger girl he misguidedly offered the galaxy to. And he was too far away to do anything. His only hope was that the Eclipse found her in time.
He felt it the moment they entered hyperspace. It helped to center him, enough to stop the spiral of thoughts and to draw the darkness back. He needed to meditate, let the Force guide him. It would not have connected them had there been no hope.
It astounded him that Leia would send anyone that she thought of as hers out on some harebrained mission completely unprepared and with no way to call for help. No, he thought, that made perfect sense. Leia Organa won her rebellion on half-thought-out daring schemes. She also ignored her only child until he became too much of a problem, then abandoned him to be nearly murdered by his uncle. It was exactly like her to send the girl out with no plan, supplies, or backup.
Like a prayer answered, an irate Hux stormed into his office just as the violence threatened to explode.
"Why exactly have you pulled the Eclipse from its reconnaissance mission, and abandoned the negotiations for us to follow halfway across the Galaxy?"
Slowly, Kylo moved towards the general. The man took a slight step back, just enough to make his fear known. Kylo smirked.
"Well?" Hux demanded.
Fearful or not, Hux had yet to get it through his head that the two of them were no longer rivals in constant competition for Snoke's approval. Kylo had surpassed both the General and their former master, forcibly taking control of the First Order for himself. Hux still believed Kylo bypassed the chain of command and took advantage of the situation with the death of Snoke and the destruction of the Supremacy.
If only the rigid bastard knew the truth. In actuality, it was a one-man coup d'état and part of Kylo's own plans. Killing one's master had been a long-standing Sith tradition, for it was the only way for an apprentice to rise. The kill itself had been glorious, as had the fight. Which should have been a glorious victory, except for Rey's betrayal and Skywalker's dirty little trick.
From that moment on, Hux had questioned every move Kylo made and became an unending thorn in his side. Still, Hux had to be placated as often as he had to be put into his place. Violence only accomplished so much. Quietly stripping him of his power was a slow endeavor. Hus had been at the forefront of the military for years, and the face most visible to not only the First Order's troops but the rest of the Galaxy.
Losing the Finalizer had been a blessing in disguise. Hux and Kylo had a contentious joint command of that ship for far too long. Making the Steadfast the flagship, and keeping Hux on it with the rest of the High Command kept the other man off balance. The officers weren't as loyal to the irritating ginger either. Kylo himself had not spent years terrorizing this ship with uncontrollable bouts of rage at every opportunity. Now, he kept the general in line with threats, occasional uses of the Force, and assigning duties that while important, Kylo and the rest of High Command thought beneath them.
Maybe it was his mood, or maybe it was just the ginger menace's smug face, but the opportunity presented itself beautifully.
He felt the force converge around him, as he extended his hand out towards Hux. Fear flashed across the other man's face. The energy flowed into Kylo's hand and he guided it towards the target, Then he squeezed his hand into a fist, loose enough to not truly do anything, but just enough to get the point across.
The sound of choking filled the air. Kylo smiled sharply.
"Are you questioning me?"
His grip was too tight, and Hux clawed at the invisible hands clutching his throat. He turned an interesting shade of red. It wouldn't be wise to kill him, not yet.
Kylo let go.
Hux collapsed into a heap. He gasped for breath as he struggled to his feet. Hatred rolled through his eyes as he glared through his now disheveled hair.
"I would never think to question you, Supreme Leader." Hux's voice may have been cowed, but his words were anything but.
One second Kylo was on one side of the room, the next, he was hauling Hux up and slamming him into the opposite wall. This time, his actual hand closed around Hux's throat.
"Don't lie, Armitage," Kylo snarled. His free hand itched for his lightsaber. "It is well past time you Learn. Your. Place."
On the surface, Hux's thoughts were all betrayal and jealousy. Regret that he wasted time in getting his blaster and just shooting Kylo when he had been unconscious back on the Supremacy. Fear of the Force and the random, violent outbursts he'd witnessed from Kylo. Even fear of the father who had beaten him as a child.
Focusing, Kylo shoved himself into Hux's mind like he never had before, tearing away every weak defense the man had. The hatred was unsurprising, they had been groomed to hate one another, but both were placed into positions where they would forever be forced to work together. It was the same for the Force, a mystical energy Hux could never hope to understand, that had no true place in the world the First Order was building.
But I stand above all, Kylo thought. What did the conformity of lesser men matter to him?
That it seemed, was Hux's entire problem, and the true root of the jealousy. Kylo had been born to the life Hux craved and been given a power that made him more than those around him.
"If you ever attempt to betray me, you will suffer in such a way your childhood will feel like paradise," Kylo whispered through his mind, letting images of pain and suffering flow into him.
"You serve me, you answer to me until I decide I am done with you. Learn. Your. Place.," Kylo screamed at him.
Strangely enough, he felt better as he let go and stepped away.
Hux kept himself pressed to the wall. He stared at Kylo in horror.
"What is on Rhen Var? It has been abandoned since the Empire pulled out forty years ago. There is nothing of high enough value to make it worth pulling two ships away from important missions that you ordered." The longer Hux spoke, the more he regained his composure.
"Abandoned, yes, but with ancient Jedi and Sith ruins spread across it."
"The scavenger girl?" Hux asked.
Kylo gave a slight nod.
The triumph in Hux's eyes was almost laughable. He thought he would get his hands on the girl he believed murdered his beloved master. Too bad for him, Kylo had better plans for her.
"I'll have a squadron on standby for when we arrive," Hux said.
"That won't be necessary, General."
The question was there, at the tip of his tongue. Kylo could hear it before it was said. Thankfully, the bit of violence made Hux think better of it and back down before he started.
"I'll alert you when we arrive, Supreme Leader," Hux said.
"You do that," Kylo said.
Once he was gone, Kylo closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on Rey's signature. It would take time for the Eclipse to get there, a couple hours at least. And time to find her. There were only a handful of times Kylo could remember being terrified of what came next. This was the third time Rey was the reason.