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It wasn’t supposed to be like this, Kylo Ren thought angrily, staring at the back of Hux’s head from the rear of the shuttle. He should have felt at one with the darkness, free from the taint of the light. Killing his father should have liberated him and made him more powerful. Instead, he was bleeding from his side with burns on his face and shoulder, fleeing from an imploding planet after being beaten by the girl.
She should have stayed on Jakku where she’d been left all those years ago.
“If it was up to me, your incompetence would have cost you your life,” Hux finally said once their shuttle jumped to hyperspace. “But Leader Snoke requested otherwise.”
White hot anger lanced through him, overriding the pain from his wounds. Brushing aside the troopers surrounding him, Ren lurched to his feet and made his way to the front. Leaning over the back of Hux’s chair, he replied, “I’ll be sure to remember that when our positions are reversed, General.”
Hux’s back stiffened and his hands tightened at the controls for a brief moment before he forced himself to relax. “We have several hours before we reach our destination,” Hux announced with a false bravado that Ren could see through. He could feel Hux’s fear at his last statement. Seeing an opportunity to twist the knife further, Ren took it.
“Good. Hopefully by then you’ll have an explanation for Leader Snoke as to how the Resistance was able to destroy our prize weapon.” With that, Kylo Ren walked carefully back to his seat, ignoring the glare Hux sent his way. Closing his eyes, Ren opened himself up to the welcome darkness of the Force and sank into its embrace. He needed to compose himself before facing his Master. He needed to ensure that his family, despite their best attempts, would not prove to be his undoing as they had been his grandfather’s.
~*~*~
Leia has been here before, a leader with a heavy heart and a smile she doesn’t feel plastered to her face while everybody around her celebrated. It has to be the galaxy playing its biggest kriffing joke on her, except there’s nothing remotely funny about this situation. Not when it felt like her heart’s been torn out of her chest and she has to stay strong for those around her. Not when this felt like the hollowest victory yet.
A galaxy saved, an evil superweapon destroyed. The only cost was her husband and the death of any hope she had of redeeming their son.
How do people survive without a heart, Leia wondered, hands gripping the projector table. How do they manage when everything would be easier if she laid down, let the pain overwhelm her and carry her away? How can they survive when breathing feels like scraping her insides over ragged durasteel?
Evaan once accused her of being an ice princess, of not feeling anything when their planet had been destroyed. It’s never been like that, though. Leia has always been able to focus on the mission and what needed to be done. Grief had always been reserved for the quiet moments when nobody could see (there used to be somebody, two somebodies, but now one has vanished and the other gone, and Force, now she’s alone).
Nobody commented on her loss of composure during the assault, and Leia doesn’t know if she’s grateful or not: grateful that they respect her enough to let her have these brief moments when she reverted to being human; not because they’ve all seen what this victory has cost.
In the back of her mind, where she’s always been able to feel him despite his best efforts, she could feel her son, smarting and uncertain. But in the area beside him, in the place she had associated with Han, there’s nothing. Just an empty space and the knowledge that all the things she meant to tell him would remain unspoken.
She’s always been strong. Always able to withstand whatever was thrown her way and hold the hopes and dreams of billions on her shoulders. And even now, when Leia was so close to breaking she could almost feel herself splitting into pieces just standing there, she squared her shoulders to do what must be done.
“Start preparing the base for evacuation,” she told Commander Meta. “We need to leave before the First Order regroups.”
~*~*~
It’s only after Poe’s X-Wing has lept into hyperspace that his hands begin to shake. He’d been running on pure adrenaline ever since Finn helped him escape from the First Order, always focusing on the next thing that needed to be done. Now, however, the mission is over (at least for now) and he’s left alone with his thoughts and the eerie swirl of light around him.
BB-8, as if sensing something wrong, beeped a question at Poe.
“No, nothing’s wrong, buddy,” he lied, taking his hands off the joystick and flexing them. “Just exhaustion catching up with me, that’s all.”
The droid gave a disbelieving “bloop,” but thankfully quieted down to run diagnostics on the ship. Closing his eyes--he had at least a few hours before reaching the base--Poe rested his head on the back of his seat and tried to calm himself.
He always knew there was a chance he could be captured by the First Order and tortured for information when he joined the Resistance. One of the first points General Organa always hit for new recruits was that torture was always something they should be ready for.
”Nothing you do can really prepare yourself for it,” she added, her mouth thinning and her eyes taking on a haunted look. “Just hope that you either can hold out or give them enough useless information that they can’t tell the truth from the garbage when you finally do break.”
She hadn’t lied. The pain the torture droid inflicted on him had overwhelmed him to the point where he’d passed out more than once, and he’s sure there’s a scar on his stomach that’s never going to fully fade away. It wasn’t the physical torture, though, that haunted Poe. Whenever he lost focus or had a moment to think too long, he could feel Ren going through his mind, digging through his memories with nothing Poe could do to stop it. He’d never felt so helpless in his life.
Poe couldn’t tell if the lingering sensation of fingers sifting through his brain was just an echo or if Ren still has some sort of connection to him. Either option was equally unsettling.
Swallowing the bile rising in his throat, Poe opened his eyes. It was going to be a long kriffing flight back to base.
~*~*~
Chewie sat alone in the cockpit with his head bowed. The young human girl, Rey, left minutes before, leaving him alone with his guilt and grief. While he had sat in the Falcon’s pilot seat years before, this felt different. It felt wrong.
He never should have suggested the plan to split up to plant those charges. He never should have let Han confront his lost cub by himself. And when it came upon him to avenge Han’s death, he couldn’t finish the job. He couldn’t kill the last piece of Han Solo left in the galaxy.
A soft, mournful cry for his partner echoed through the cockpit. There wasn’t even a body to return to Leia, who by now must know that her mate is gone. There is nothing to mark Han’s death except the empty chair beside him and the weight of his failure to protect his best friend.
Looking behind him towards the medbay, Chewie made up his mind. He’ll finish the mission, deliver Finn and Rey to the Resistance and then… and then he doesn’t know.
He never planned on doing this alone.
~*~*~
As soon as the Falcon made the jump away from the exploding mass of Starkiller, Rey retreated back to Finn’s side. His chest barely rose and fell when he breathed, and Rey was half afraid that he would just stop if she looked away for more than a second. She gripped the hand closest to her, almost as if she could anchor him in this world if she held on tightly enough.
“You have to stay,” she told him, using her free hand to wipe off some of the blood from his face. “You can’t let him win.” She swallowed back tears before continuing, “I can’t lose you too, Finn.”
Ren’s words about Han Solo echoed through her head. ”The father you never had… he would have disappointed you.” Except he hadn’t. He had come back for her, even when he had wanted to run from this fight. He’d been willing to offer her a spot on the Falcon, to give her a place in the galaxy other than Jakku and now…
She moved slightly and she felt Skywalker’s lightsaber shift beside her. Even though part of her wanted to be as far away from the weapon as possible, the part that’s seen the bodies strewn around her and the clash of lightsabers found it strangely comforting right now. Maybe Maz Kanata was right and the weapon had chosen her. But why her? She wasn’t anybody special. Just a scavenger from a junkyard planet who happened to find a droid who needed help. She remembered the crazed possessive look on Ren’s face and shivered. Nothing good was going to come out of this.
Finn’s breath hitched and Rey’s attention zeroed in, Ren’s ghost temporarily forgotten.
“Please be ok,” she whispered, bowing her head over their hands. “Please be ok.”
On Jakku, she learned that nothing came without a price. If her newfound power came at the expense of her first true friend and the death of someone who saw something in her, she wasn’t sure she wanted it.
~*~*~
Luke has felt it, these last few days. A tiny speck of light amidst the darkness enveloping the galaxy, flickering precariously as it grows. It was more than he’d felt in the galaxy since Ben fell and destroyed everything Luke worked to achieve. It’s more than he’s felt ever since he began your exile at the first Jedi Temple in an attempt to hide and discover where he went wrong.
He drew comfort from that small spark when the phantom screams of a dying system drove him to his knees and nearly drowned him in their fear and pain.
Gasping for breath in the aftermath, Luke wondered how Obi-Wan survived it all those years ago. How did he manage to carry on in a galaxy determined to snuff out light at every opportunity, burdened by the memories of his failures? Tears streaming down his face, he tried to bolster himself with the knowledge that somewhere out there in the galaxy, there has been an awakening.
That warmth left him not long after, an icy/hot hole in his soul and the presence of a close friend suddenly gone. For a brief moment, the darkness overwhelmed him. No sound, no taste, no sight. It pressed down, robbing him of breath and movement and then…
The spark of light Luke thought had vanished flared before settling into a steady, if weak glow. The darkness was still there, pressing in and attempting to smother this new player in the eternal game between good and evil. But, for now at least, they seemed to be holding their own.
Rising to his feet, Luke looked across the ocean surrounding his island. He doesn’t know what will happen. The future has been clouded ever since Snoke hooked his claws into Ben. But in the seafoam swirling around the rocks below, Luke thought he could see a face reflected back at him and a weapon he hadn’t seen in decades being offered in a silent plea for help.
Just beyond the horizon the night sky began to turn to grey, signaling the arrival of a new day.