by Jason Fry
She ducked, pressing her head against the fathier’s neck as the matriarch crossed the infield, churning up grass, and smashed through the window behind one of the casino’s bars. Glasses and chairs flew, and Rose could hear people screaming. Finn’s face was between her shoulder blades.
Rose looked up and saw the blur of the casino floor around them. Gamblers were diving over tables and piling up in panicked heaps, yelling in terror. Server droids stood stock-still, pivoting their trays rapidly this way and that to avoid the herd. Bouncers were screaming and trying to stay upright amid the tide of fleeing guests. Elderly women in glittering gowns managed to leap atop pazaak tables while smartly uniformed croupiers sought shelter below them. Chance cubes and cards and coins and purses and monocles and drinks and utensils and coasters and canapés wheeled in midair.
Oh, it was glorious. Every vacationing arms dealer doing an involuntary cartwheel made Rose want to cheer.
The fathiers stormed into the lobby. A valet stood, staring and paralyzed, in front of the matriarch. She shouldered him into a pond filled with ornamental fish—carnivorous ornamental fish, to judge from the sudden frenzy in the water. The automatic doors ahead of them obediently opened and the matriarch leapt into the air, mashing the outline of her hooves into the hood of a fancy speeder, then barreling up the boulevard.
Rose felt as if she were flying. She was pouring sweat, breathing hard with the effort of keeping herself upright in the saddle. Her legs ached and she didn’t care.
Behind them, the herd pursued the matriarch, drawn out like a string in her wake. She somehow picked up the pace, her speed creating a tunnel of air and noise around Rose. Tables and chairs flew as the herd obliterated an outdoor café, separating bleary-eyed night-shift workers from their cups of caf. Behind her, Rose could hear the jangle of police sirens, the wails of terrified onlookers, the crash of windows shattering, and the hollow clomp of fathier hooves denting speeders.
Rose was laughing out loud now. How many times had she and Paige imagined themselves the heroes of adventures in which they rescued fathiers from sleazy owners, guiding them to victory and watching their abusers laid low? But the Tico sisters had never dreamed of this much delightful destruction.
Rose patted the matriarch, who quirked an ear as one of Old City’s plazas rocketed by around them.
She loves wrecking this awful place as much as I do!
The matriarch lunged sideways, ducking into an alley, then leapt up onto a low rooftop. Rose yelped as the fathier hurtled the gaps between the buildings, scanning for a route across the city. Ahead of them, a rooftop skylight glowed in the night.
“No no no—” Rose yowled as the matriarch turned toward the light. Then she was pressing her head into the warm hide as the skylight exploded around the fathier, plunging downward with her legs braced for impact.
They landed, hard enough to knock the air out of Rose’s lungs. Finn was screaming in her ear and she wanted to tell him to cut it out but couldn’t. It was sweltering and the air was full of steam—they were in a sauna, she realized.
“Oh, sands,” exclaimed a long-armed masseur.
A diminutive pink alien clutched at his towel, single eye staring, as the matriarch sprang back into motion. A charcoal-colored, slablike alien yelped from atop a masseuse’s table as the herd turned the room to kindling before crashing back into the street in an explosion of flying glass.
“Yeahhhh!” Rose screamed, her joyous defiance turning into a moan of fear as police speeders swooped down in their path, spotlights turned on them. The matriarch rocketed into a narrow alley. Strings of decorative lights stretched and snapped, and Rose cringed at the stone walls blurring by on either side of her, convinced that her knees would be smashed at any second.
Ahead of them, the alley terminated in a dead end.
Rose could hear herself screaming—but she could also feel the matriarch’s muscles coiling beneath her. Rose’s stomach fluttered as she sprang into the air, the wall of Old City passing just below her belly, and landed in loose gravel and sand. The rest of the herd came down behind her, grunting and snorting, chasing the matriarch across the beach.
Moonlight glimmered on the surface of the sea.
She could see the pale shape of the shuttle, still sitting where Finn had plowed it into the beach. It wasn’t far away—they might even make it.
Then it exploded, ripped apart by a fusillade of full-intensity laserfire from the police speeders.
“Aw, come on!” Finn yelled.
Blasterfire whined around them and blue rings struck the edges of the herd and one fathier tumbled end over end, stunned and helpless. The matriarch snorted and froth flew from her muzzle.
Ahead of her, the beach rose, climbing a bluff. The matriarch took it at a sprint, her hooves scrambling for purchase in the loose sand, and raced along a rocky ledge above the water.
Police vehicles were alongside them now, firing into the herd. Fathiers tumbled off the ledge, falling toward the beach.
“This is a shooting gallery!” Finn screamed. “Get us out!”
Rose yanked on the matriarch’s neck, trying to alert her to the danger, but she knew there was only one way forward and sped up a crumbling path that struck Rose as terrifyingly narrow, her hooves slinging gouts of sand in her wake.
They emerged in a broad meadow, a green oasis in the middle of the Cantonican desert. The tall grass crackled and shooshed as the matriarch pounded through it, up to her flanks in greenery.
Rose leaned hard to the right, urging the matriarch that way. She raised her head and called to the rest of the herd before obeying, cutting across the field as Rose had asked. The rest of the herd remained on its earlier course.
“Is it working?” Finn yelled.
Rose watched the spotlights swing from the other fathiers to the matriarch.
“They’re letting the herd go!” she yelled. “Now if we can just—”
“Cliff!” Finn shouted.
The matriarch skidded to a halt, digging up skeins of grass and dirt. Rose and Finn were flung over her head, tumbling through the sweet-smelling grass. Rose wound up on her belly, just short of the cliff’s edge. She peeked over it, legs shaking, and saw it dropped at least a hundred meters to the water below.
“Can you swim?” Finn asked.
“Not when I’m dead,” she replied. “We’re trapped.”
The matriarch stood in the grass, sides heaving. Behind her, the police speeders were hurtling toward them, spotlights searching the meadow.
“Well, it was worth it to tear up that town,” Finn said, waiting for the speeders with his shoulders slumped. “Make ’em hurt.”
Rose shot a surprised look his way. Was this the same Finn who’d seemed happy to hang around the hazard-toss tables and cabarets?
The matriarch was still breathing hard. Rose’s fingers worked at the straps of her saddle, loosening it and then letting it slide off into the grass.
“Thank you,” she told the animal quietly, then reached into her jumpsuit to touch her medallion.
They’re even more beautiful than you said they were, Pae-Pae.
The matriarch looked at her, either reluctant to leave them or too tired to go. Rose slapped her flank and she trotted away, breaking into a canter that took her across the meadow, back toward the other members of her herd. Above, the police spotlights followed the fathier briefly, then snapped back to Rose and Finn.
Rose watched the matriarch go and smiled.
“Now it’s worth it,” she said, and waited for the police speeders to descend and take them back to jail.
A different sound reached her ears—the whining hum of well-tuned ion engines.
Rose turned and her mouth opened in shock as a luxury star yacht rose from the cleft in the bluffs, hovering in front of them.
A hatch opened on the side o
f the yacht and an orange-and-white astromech whistled at them.
“Beebee-Ate, are you flying that thing?” Finn yelled.
The answering beeps were accusatory.
“No, we were coming back for you!” Finn said. “Come on, pick us up!”
Then, behind BB-8, DJ stepped into view.
“Oh, you need a lift?” he asked. “Say the magic words.”
Finn considered. “Pretty please?”
But Rose knew all too well what DJ was waiting to hear.
“You’re hired,” she said grimly.
Rey walked alone across the meadow atop the island, beneath a full moon like a lantern. Her eyes wandered to the outcropping of the Jedi temple, a pale spike against the night, atop the winding thread of the stone stairs.
She supposed it was the last time she’d ever see it. The last time she’d walk through this grassy saddle. The last time she’d admire the craftsmanship of the cluster of ancient huts.
It made her a little sad, but she realized what made her sad was the memory of what she’d hoped to find on the island, but hadn’t.
Such as a teacher—or a reason to hope.
Both had eluded her, and now she would have to explain that to General Organa.
Leia had lost so much, and Rey would add to her burdens. By telling her…what, exactly? That her brother had lost himself in bitterness and self-reproach? That after helping the Force find the balance it had sought, he had closed his senses to it, stubbornly rejecting its call? That he was willing to die alone on a speck of land in a nameless ocean on a forgotten planet while the galaxy burned around him?
Well, she wasn’t willing to do that. She would do the only thing she could do: tell Leia the truth.
And then she would fight. Even if she could offer the galaxy only another day of hope—or a minute or a second—she would fight.
Rey could see the pale saucer of the Falcon far below her now. She dug in her bag for her comlink.
“Chewie, get her ready for launch,” she said. “We’re leaving.”
Even as she broke the connection, she felt a familiar presence, like a change in the weather behind her. Gooseflesh broke out on her arms.
“I’d rather not do this now,” she said, without turning.
“Yeah, me too,” said Kylo.
Steeling herself, she turned, determined not to let her adversary into her head. This time, she would make him answer for what he’d done.
“Why did you hate your father?” she demanded, then stopped. “Oh!”
Kylo was stripped to the waist in his chambers. The angry scar she’d given him in their duel snaked down his face and neck and across his collarbone.
Her eyebrows rose, but Kylo was unruffled by the sight of her—and seemingly undisturbed by her question.
“Because he was a weak-minded fool,” he said.
Rey forced herself to look into his eyes—those angry, haunted, needy eyes.
“I don’t believe you,” she said. “You’re going to—do you have a cowl or something you can put on?”
Kylo ignored that, and Rey made herself focus.
“Why did you hate your father? Give me an honest answer.”
“I will when you ask an honest question,” Kylo said, and she wanted to scream at him. He wasn’t her teacher—and anyway that position was no longer open.
“Why did you hate Han Solo?” she asked.
“No,” Kylo said dismissively, almost bored.
But Rey wouldn’t let him escape so easily.
“You had a father who loved you. He gave a damn about you.”
“I didn’t hate him.”
“Then why?” Rey demanded.
“Why what? Why what? Say it!”
“Why did you kill him? I don’t understand!”
“No?” Kylo’s curiosity was genuine—and infuriating. “Your parents threw you away like garbage.”
“They didn’t,” Rey said, and she hated the fact that even to her own ears she sounded like she was pleading. The strange contact between their minds had given her insight into his powers, and had helped unleash her own. It had also let him pillage her memories and feelings.
But there was no way the Force could have told him that, shown him that.
That was right, wasn’t it?
“They did,” Kylo said. “But still you can’t stop needing them. It’s your greatest weakness. You look for them everywhere—in Han Solo, now in Skywalker.”
His gaze was hungry—and knowing.
“Did he tell you what happened that night?” Kylo asked.
“Yes,” Rey said, knowing Kylo could see that wasn’t true.
“No,” he said.
* * *
—
Ben Solo—no longer a boy but not yet a man—looks up in surprise and alarm. His uncle Luke has come into his chambers, at night, and now stands over him. The Jedi Master’s face is twisted in a snarl—and lit by the green blade of his lightsaber. The Force is aboil with danger. For a moment regret shadows Luke’s face, but Ben can see his uncle has gone too far to turn back. He will not falter or hesitate; rather, he will bring his lightsaber down and cleave his nephew in two while he sleeps.
Desperate, Ben’s hand reaches out, not toward Luke but beyond him, to the lightsaber he has constructed. Willing it into his hand, its blue blade blocks the killing blow. The locked blades buzz and spark. But Ben knows this is only a brief reprieve—he can’t resist his master’s far greater powers for long. Trapped, he reaches up toward the ceiling with his free hand, begging the stones to heed his plea and come crashing down on Luke’s head. To save him.
* * *
—
“He had sensed my power, as he senses yours,” Kylo said. “And he feared it.”
“Liar,” Rey said, but there was no conviction behind it. She could feel that what Kylo had told her was true—or at least he wasn’t trying to mislead her. And hadn’t she sensed Luke’s guilt and self-reproach? What if he had gone into exile not because of what the apprentice had done to the teacher, but because of what the teacher had done to the apprentice?
“Let the past die,” Kylo said. “Kill it if you have to. That’s the only way to become what you are meant to be.”
And then he was gone, leaving her alone in the night. Alone, but knowing that she had one final thing to do. Only then would she leave Master Skywalker’s refuge forever.
Jaw set, Rey strode off across the rocky highlands, in the opposite direction from the Falcon.
* * *
—
Luke stood outside the temple, bathed in moonlight. Below him, the waves chewed ceaselessly at the margins of the island, continuing the slow, patient work of dissolving it into the sea from which it had sprung. Above him, the stars were cold lights, following their fixed and eternal courses.
Luke sat, his legs protesting as he forced them into position. He put his hands on the rocky ledge, where so many Jedi had meditated over the eons, and closed his eyes.
Breathe. Just breathe.
The wind filled his ears—the island’s constant companion. It was a whisper now, the low conversation of autumn breezes instead of the whine of winter or the howl of a summer storm. He could hear the night birds calling as they rode high above him, and the metronome calls of insects from the grasses.
Behind him, in the ancient temple, the still surface of the water in the ancient font began to ripple and dance.
Luke could hear more now—far more. He heard the static of pebbles and sand being washed back and forth beneath the waves. He listened to the bump of the worms pushing blindly through the dirt, building their tunnels and revitalizing the soil. He heard the muttering of the season’s last porglets as they turned inside their eggs, beneath the heartbeats of their mothers.
He heard the world floodi
ng back into his senses.
* * *
—
Aboard the Raddus, an MD-15 medical droid raised its blank white head. Its patient’s heartbeat had suddenly surged, accompanied by spikes of brain activity. The droid focused its photoreceptors on the subject, motionless on the gurney. Her eyes moved beneath their lids.
“Luke,” whispered Leia.
* * *
—
The sounds grew to a crescendo, a thunderclap that was followed by a bewildering, blinding rush of images.
Seek your center. Find balance.
Luke’s body felt like it was on fire. He knew it wasn’t. He accepted the feeling, denying it power over him, and then let it ebb. In its place came a familiar sense of warmth, of belonging, of finding himself part of an endless lattice of connections that held him and everything else, each fixed in its proper place.
A Force.
That aspect of the Force—the Jedi had called it the living Force—was ceaseless and ever-renewing. But the Jedi had spoken of another aspect—the Cosmic Force. It had an awareness, and a purpose, and a will. A will that had been silent, dormant after the demise of the Sith, only to wake once again during Luke’s exile. A will that Luke finally allowed himself to acknowledge once again.
More confident now, Luke stretched out with his feelings, his awareness slipping lightly through the island’s tumult of life. He found Rey instantly—she was like a beacon in the Force, burning so brightly that everything around her seemed attuned to her.
And Luke sensed another familiar presence. This one was far away—achingly far. But nothing so meaningless as distance could ever dim that presence in his awareness.
Luke opened his eyes.
“Leia,” he said.
* * *
—
Rey stood on a long, flat outcropping of stone that emerged from the grassy slopes of the island to end in a low cliff above the sea. In the center of the stone was a gaping hole in the rock, surrounded by reddish moss bleached gray by the moonlight.