by Jason Fry
But that time hadn’t arrived yet. Until it did, not getting shot struck her as an excellent policy.
Maz ducked a blast that was a little too close, firing her pistol back in that direction to show her lack of appreciation, and turned one goggle-covered eye to her hologram transmitter. Four figures shimmered in the blue transmission field.
One of them was Finn, the young First Order deserter who’d caught her interest on Takodana, before his former colleagues arrived and did so much damage to her operations. She’d been curious about what she’d seen in his eyes then and wondered what they’d show her now. Was it possible he’d learned the patience he’d so thoroughly lacked then?
Maz doubted it. Finn was only human, after all. Human life spans, regrettably, were a couple of centuries too short for patience to stop being a virtue and become a habit.
Maz recognized two of the others. Poe Dameron looked like he’d stepped out of one of Leia Organa’s recruiting posters, but war heroes were a decicred a dozen. He needed to fail a few times to become intriguing. As for Leia’s protocol droid, he’d never been allowed to accumulate the logic snarls and quirks that might have given him something interesting to say in one of those seven million languages he was always boasting about. Still, unlike the others, he had no expiration date. A few billion more processor cycles without a memory wipe might make him into an amusing companion.
The fourth person in the hologram was a young woman wearing a painfully dull-looking jumpsuit. She was new to Maz, and broadcasting loss and confusion through the Force. But this Rose had toughness and resilience, too. Maz made a note to remember her, and take the opportunity to look into her eyes someday. She was curious to see what was in them, and to figure out in whose life she’d encountered them before.
But there wasn’t time for that now—not with the galaxy in such a hurry again. And these four wanted something from her. What was it again?
Oh, right. A simple request, really—one she would have granted offhandedly in different circumstances, if only to see what currents it set flowing through Finn’s and Rose’s possibilities. But with things the way they were now, the two of them would have to show some initiative, instead of relying on her.
“Could I do it?” Maz asked. “Of course I could do it. But I can’t do it. I’m a little tied down right now.”
Finn struck her as more alarmed by all the blasterfire around her than a former stormtrooper should have been. But maybe that was why he no longer was one.
“Maz, what is happening?” he asked.
“Union dispute—you don’t want to hear about it,” she said. “But lucky for you, there’s exactly one guy I trust who can get you past that kind of security. A master codebreaker, a soldier, freedom fighter, and ace pilot. A poet with a blaster—and the second-best smuggler I’ve ever met.”
“Oh!” said C-3PO. “It sounds like this fellow can do everything!”
“Oh yes he can,” Maz said, and let herself remember some of the better capers and exploits she’d helped him engineer. He really was one of her favorite beings, though she knew one of his bouts of inattention would likely be the death of him before he got truly interesting. Well, either that or his inflated ego.
But then both maladies were among the many hazards of dealing with humans. Maz had learned long ago that she had to enjoy their adventures while she could.
The crackle and tang of ionized air broke her reverie.
“And he’s sympathetic to the Resistance,” Maz said. “You’ll find him at Canto Bight, on Cantonica.”
“Cantonica?” asked Poe. “But that’s…Maz, is there any way we can do this ourselves?”
So impatient, that one. If he isn’t flying a starfighter, he’s at a loss. It’s too bad—I like that set to his jaw.
Maz surveyed the battlefield and realized her position was about to be overrun. That would be an annoyance.
“Sorry, kiddo,” Maz said. “This is rarefied cracking. You want on that Destroyer, you’ve got one option—find the Master Codebreaker. You’ll recognize him by the red plom bloom on his lapel.”
She activated the jetpack she was wearing, cutting the transmission as she ascended. Soaring into the sky, Maz wondered if her friends would find the Master Codebreaker. She didn’t speculate, knowing it was useless. Like everything else in the galaxy, whether they succeeded or failed—or discovered that their destiny involved neither of the two—would depend on the will of the Force.
Still, she could wish them luck.
Dawn on Ahch-To found the island shrouded in mist, tinted a fiery crimson by the rising suns.
Trusting in Luke’s promise that they would train at dawn, Rey had abandoned her vigil outside his door to sleep in a hut of her own—though the stone bench inside the structure she’d chosen offered no more comfort than the one in the clearing.
She rose, blinking at the sunlight streaming through her narrow window—and then stopped.
For a moment she’d thought she’d seen someone in the hut with her—a tall, pale figure, sitting quietly, with a dark bulbous shape hovering over it and touching its face.
And it was almost as if she felt something pulling at her own cheek, tracing a line up from her jaw.
She looked up and her eyes widened. Kylo Ren sat there, his cheek bisected by an angry red line—the wound she had branded him with in the snows of Starkiller Base. Its upper reaches were still stitched shut with sutures.
Terrified, Rey fumbled for the blaster she carried in her holster, raised it, and fired. She thought she saw Kylo flinch as the blaster spat energy in his direction, the noise startlingly loud in the confines of the stone hut.
But he wasn’t there.
Rey lowered the gun, her hand shaking slightly, and stared at the smoking hole she’d blown in the wall.
There was no sign of her mortal enemy—the dark, menacing figure that had frozen her on Takodana and spirited her off to Starkiller Base, where he’d killed Han Solo and nearly killed Finn. But she knew she hadn’t dreamed it—he’d been there.
She bolted out of the hut, looking in all directions. Nothing. Just the morning chill and the cries of porgs, diving in groups from the cliffs to bombard schools of fish below.
And then, instantly, Kylo was there. This time, she knew he saw her, too. He lifted his hand, staring at her, and she could hear his voice.
“You will bring Luke Skywalker to me,” he said.
But unlike on Starkiller Base, no invisible fingers burrowed into Rey’s brain to root through her thoughts and secrets. Unlike on Takodana, her body responded to her commands, not his. They were just words, and held no power over her.
She smirked, and Kylo lowered his hand in surprise.
“You’re not doing this. The effort would kill you.”
He peered at her, curious now.
“Can you see my surroundings?”
He sounded like a student contemplating an interesting problem—and expecting her to work as his partner to solve it. That infuriated her.
“You’re going to pay for what you did,” she said, but he ignored her.
“I can’t see yours—just you,” Kylo said. “So no, this is something else.”
That was when Luke emerged from his hut, blinking at the morning light. Rey turned to face the Jedi Master, panic accelerating her heartbeat. Would Kylo see Luke? Would he somehow know where the last of the Jedi was? Had she done something wrong, unlocked some gate that had desperately needed to stay shut?
When she turned back, Kylo’s expression told her instantly that while he might not have seen Luke, he had seen her reaction—and understood what it meant.
“Luke?” he asked, his eyes eager and hungry, like a predator catching its prey’s scent.
“What’s this about?” asked Luke.
Rey’s eyes returned to the Jedi Master’s face, expec
ting to see anger and betrayal there, but Luke just looked puzzled—until, to her horror, he pointed past her, directly at where this strange visitation stood.
She forced herself to follow his gaze, but Kylo was gone.
Luke was pointing at the hole in the side of her hut.
Kylo was gone, but she and Luke weren’t alone. Half a dozen aliens had emerged from the mist and were milling about the huts, one of them inspecting the damaged wall in consternation.
Rey knew immediately that these new arrivals were real—and that they were no threat to her. They had broad faces and three-toed feet, and their stout bodies were hidden beneath simple robes of beige and white. They reminded Rey of the anchorites of Jakku, who’d found its wastes ideal for a simple life of religious observation and adherence.
She realized Luke was still waiting for an answer to his question. And so were the aliens.
Rey’s first instinct was to tell him the truth, in hopes that he might be able to help her close off the unwanted connection before it became more dangerous. But something told her that would be a mistake. Luke had stopped pretending she didn’t exist, but their relationship was fragile and perilous. The slightest misstep, Rey sensed, would cause him to reject her even before the first lesson he’d promised.
No, she had to tell him something else.
“I…was cleaning my blaster,” she managed. “It went off.”
Luke didn’t look any less puzzled by that explanation, but the aliens seemed to accept it, albeit grumpily. Within moments they were removing fish from baskets, sharpening knives, and angrily yanking loose stones from the damaged wall.
Luke inclined his chin at the stairs climbing higher up the mountain. As Rey turned to follow him, one of the aliens glowered at her, then turned to Luke.
“Choo-chigga chupa?” she asked, or something like that.
“Croopy,” Luke replied.
The alien looked decidedly dubious.
Certain she’d made a poor first impression, Rey followed Luke up the winding steps until she thought they were out of earshot of the activity around the huts.
“What were those things?” she asked.
“Caretakers,” he replied. “Island natives. They’ve kept up the Jedi structures since they were built.”
“What did you tell them about me?” she asked.
Luke gave her a thin smile. “My niece.”
“Oh. I don’t think they like me.”
“Can’t imagine what gave you that idea.”
Rey followed Luke across the grassy saddle above the huts and then up another set of winding stone steps. This staircase followed a rocky prominence that loomed above the island and the sea beyond.
She was still shaken by the manifestation of Kylo Ren, in a place she had come to think of at least as Luke’s sanctuary, even if it wasn’t hers.
After he’d immobilized her on Takodana, Kylo had taken her to Starkiller Base, to pry her memory of the map to Luke out of her head. He had probed her thoughts, sifting and sorting, and seen much that she would have kept from him—him and anybody else.
Her desperate certainty that her abandonment on Jakku had been a mistake, or a grim necessity that would be put right by her lost family, if only she waited long enough and patiently enough. Her terror and despair that she was deluding herself, and would spend her days in solitude, ending up as anonymous bones in the sand. Her dreams of an island amid a trackless ocean—the very island on which she now found herself.
Kylo had rummaged through these hopes and fears, things he had no right to. But as he searched, something had changed. Even as he callously rifled through her mind, he had somehow revealed his own. Rey found herself in his mind even as he invaded hers. She felt his rage, like a ruinous storm that filled his head, and his hatred, and his lust to dominate and humiliate those who had wronged him. But she also felt his hurt, and his loneliness. And his fear—that he would never prove as strong as Darth Vader, the ghost who haunted his dreams.
Kylo had retreated at finding Rey in his head—had practically fled from her. But that had not been the end of that strange, sudden connection. She had seen more—far more. Somehow, almost instinctually, she knew how he accessed some of the powers at his command—even though she didn’t understand them. It was as if his training had become hers, unlocking and flinging open door after door in her mind.
But now Rey couldn’t shut those doors—and she feared what had been set loose.
Kylo had urged her to let him be her teacher—had pleaded with her, almost. She had rejected him—only to be rejected, in turn, by Luke.
Until this morning.
Rey had traveled halfway across the galaxy so that Luke would help those who needed him so desperately—Leia, Finn, the Resistance, the people of the galaxy. But she also hoped he would help her.
* * *
—
Rose was simultaneously annoyed and amused when Poe insisted on going over the plan one more time, pulling her and Finn into a ready room off the hangar to do so.
“You could just come with us, you know,” she said, exasperated.
Poe’s face fell, and Rose felt sorry for him. He wanted to do just that—wanted to so badly that it was killing him.
“Someone has to stay here and keep an eye on things,” he said. “On General Organa.”
“Threepio can do that,” Finn said.
“Well, someone has to keep an eye on Holdo, too.”
Considering that, Finn reached up to scratch his chin. When he did so, Rose spotted the glow of the beacon around the former stormtrooper’s wrist, the twin of the device Rey had taken with her into the Unknown Regions.
Poe saw it, too.
“Better leave that with me, buddy,” he said, reaching for Finn’s wrist.
Finn drew back instinctively, and Rose saw the indecision on his face. His original goal had been to take the beacon far from the fleet and the danger to it, and now he was being asked to abandon that goal.
“The general sent your friend to bring back Skywalker so he can help us,” Poe said. “It’s not going to do the Resistance any good if he shows up at Canto Bight.”
Rose knew immediately what Finn was thinking—the former stormtrooper would have been a terrible sabacc player.
“Give that thing to Poe already,” she told him. “You want to save Rey? Then save the fleet. That’s why we’re doing this, remember?”
Rose saw the look of surprise that crossed Poe’s face, followed by dawning comprehension as the pieces fell into place.
“I just want her to be safe,” Finn said unhappily.
“So do I,” Poe told Finn, his voice surprisingly gentle. “But this is a lot bigger than Rey. Or any of us. It’s about everybody in the galaxy. So come on—let me have that. I promise I won’t let it out of my sight.”
For a moment Rose was afraid Finn would refuse. But then he reluctantly worked the beacon free of his wrist, placing it in Poe’s hand.
“You see?” Rose said. “That was easy.”
But Finn’s face told her that hadn’t been true at all.
* * *
—
As she followed Luke up the steps, Rey saw that the stairway ended in a cave in the side of the peak.
She followed Luke inside, where an ancient mosaic was still visible in the middle of the stone floor. But this wasn’t their destination—Luke led her out onto a pair of ledges, one high and one low. It was a dizzying vantage point from which the island seemed to fall away into the endless sea surrounding them.
Luke watched her for a moment, idly twisting a reed in his hand, and Rey wondered if he somehow thought she was afraid of heights. She wasn’t and never had been—she’d still been a child when she’d scaled the conning tower of her first wrecked Star Destroyer.
“So?” she asked him.
“So.”
Rey tried not to scowl. So far the morning when he’d teach her the ways of the Jedi wasn’t terribly different from the mornings on which he’d refused to speak to her.
“Well, I’ll start,” she said. “We need you to bring the Jedi back, because Kylo Ren is strong with the dark side of the Force. Without the Jedi we won’t stand a chance against him.”
Rey half imagined Luke would walk back into the cave and down the stairs, leaving her to wonder what test she’d failed this time. But he simply peered at her.
“What do you know about the Force?” he asked.
“It’s a power that Jedi have. That lets them control people, and…make things float.”
For a moment the only sounds were the cries of seabirds and the whine of the wind.
“Impressive,” Luke said. “Every word in that sentence was wrong. Lesson One. Sit here, legs crossed.”
Rey settled herself on the higher of the two ledges, arranging her legs awkwardly in a crisscross position.
“The Force is not a power you have,” Luke said. “It’s not about lifting rocks. It’s the energy between all things—a tension, a balance that binds the universe together.”
“Okay. But what is it?”
“Close your eyes,” Luke told her. “Breathe. Now reach out.”
Rey did as she was told and tentatively stretched out her arm, fingers grasping for purchase.
Nothing happened. Was something supposed to? Did it take a while? Was he testing her patience? Back on Jakku, the Teedos had venerated a sun-addled local who sat unmoving atop a stone pillar all day. She’d hoped learning the ways of the Jedi wouldn’t require anything like that. But apparently she’d been wrong.
Then Rey felt something strange, like a tickle on her hand.
“Ah!” she told Luke. “I feel something!”
“You feel it?”
“Yes! I feel it!”
“That’s the Force.”