by Ian Doescher
Thou thinkest I did come to this, the most
Unfindable location anywhere,
Sans reason, purpose, or consideration?
Go hence.
[Luke begins walking away.
REY —Nay, I’ll not leave sans thee. Come back!
[Aside:] The man doth wander off; I’ll follow on,
Bear witness to whatever he may do,
See each of his quotidian routines,
Be like a shadow o’er his daily life.
He hiketh o’er the hills, despite his age,
His body still well prim’d for such a task.
Behind us swims a creature in the water,
Completely ignorant of this, our drama.
Luke walks before strange creatures of the sea,
The thala-sirens lounging lazily.
What skill is this? He draws milk from one’s teat!
Which part of Jedi training taught him this?
And O, fresh from the udder, green and warm,
He drinketh it, without a second thought,
Then grins at me with frothy, milky beard—
No table manners doth he worry o’er.
The creature spies me, too, as if ’twere I
Who is the strange one in this awkward scene.
Off doth Luke go again, on errand new—
He setteth down his bundl’d pack of tools,
Then grabs a wooden pole, of such great length
Its end is in the wat’ry depths below.
What shall he do with it? He cannot—yea,
He doth! The man doth vault the precipice
Upon the delicate and spindly stick,
As though ’twere nothing to him in the least.
Take care, intemperate, outlandish man!
He lifts it from the swirling water now—
I see its point, as sharp as any blade.
He waiteth for the moment, and he jabs!
A giant fish is caught upon his hook!
He sends precepts to the leviathan
To come ashore, and so it doth—as supper.
The rain begins, not merely drops, but torrents,
As if the skies would drown us where we stand.
Luke takes the fish back to his shelter meek,
And I must follow on, though thrash’d by rain.
E’en as I do, bethink me on th’remote
That Leia gave to me ere we did leave—
Which still may mark my way back to th’Resistance.
I’ll use it when I must, but for the moment,
Luke Skywalker is at his door once more
And moves as though to speak with me again.
LUKE Thy time is truly wasted foll’wing me.
[Exit Luke.
REY Gone, gone again. My hope is fading fast.
But soft! Another matter doth demand
Attention—what is this I sense, I hear?
A voice doth whisper softly in mine ears,
Doth call to me as once I summon’d was
By Luke’s lightsaber where it lay unus’d
In Maz Kanata’s cryptic castle, back
On Takodana. Here I’m call’d again,
Though whither and wherefore I do not know.
I’ll go, for Luke will soon return. Besides,
I find his tasks and duties tedious.
Down to another shelter it doth lead—
Within a giant gray uneti tree,
With jagged spires like teeth of gooberfish.
The rain hath stopp’d, here fog and mist are heavy,
The place is shrouded in some mystery—
Will it portend of darkness or of light?
My sense cannot yet tell. I’ll step inside,
To learn whate’er the voice to me would teach.
’Tis dark, ’tis wondrous dark inside the tree,
But I sense light exuding from its depths.
Forsooth, I have been here in visions past,
When I did see so many wondrous things—
Both wonderful and dire—in Maz’s place.
There, what are those upon that shelf, within
A sunbeam breaking through the cracks? ’Tis books!
The source of all the voices in my head
Are tomes, which somehow softly speak to me.
I’ll take one, and shall open wide its cover,
Release the waiting knowledge that’s inside.
Enter LUKE SKYWALKER.
LUKE Who art thou? Please, I bid thee honest be.
REY I know this place. I have been here before;
At least, seen from a certain point of view.
LUKE ’Twas built some thousand generations hence,
Constructed to protect these precious volumes:
The sacred Jedi texts. Like e’en myself,
These manuscripts are all that doth remain
Of the religion of the Jedi Knights.
Thou said before that thou hast seen this place,
Hast seen this island?
REY —Only in my dreams.
LUKE Who art thou? I do ask thee once again.
REY Th’Resistance sent me on my mission here.
LUKE They sent thee, eh? Yet wherefore thee, I prithee?
How wert thou speci’lly form’d to hither come?
Where art thou from?
REY —From nowhere.
LUKE —What, you fig?
A child’s reply doth from thy mouth come forth,
For ev’ryone doth come from somewhere, see?
REY Jakku.
LUKE —’Tis nearly nowhere, I do grant.
Why com’st thou here, O Rey of nowhere born?
REY Th’Resistance sent me on my mission here.
We need thy help. The vile First Order doth—
LUKE Why art thou here? Not the Resistance—thou.
What art thou here to seek? What is thy quest?
REY There is a thing inside me, buried deep,
Which e’er hath been there, since I can remember.
It hath awoken, and I am afeard.
I know not what it is, or what it wants,
Or what I should do with it. I need help.
LUKE Thou need’st a teacher; teacher I am none.
REY Yet wherefore canst thou not teach me, I beg thee?
Mine eyes have watch’d thee on thy daily chores—
Thou art not busy in the least. Indeed,
I have seen porgs far busier than thee.
LUKE I never shall another generation
Of Jedi train. I hither came to die.
The time arriveth for the Jedi’s end.
REY Why must the Jedi end, and wherefore now?
Thy sister, Leia, hither sent me full
Of hope that thou couldst make from darkness light.
So was my hope, so was Chewbacca’s too,
So was it for each spirit in th’Resistance.
If thou wilt not come with me, tell me why,
For she deserves to know, and so do I.
[Exeunt.
SCENE 5.
Aboard the Raddus.
Enter GENERAL LEIA ORGANA.
LEIA Luke, brother Luke, canst thou not hear my voice?
I reach my senses out, but cannot feel
Thy presence anywhere in th’universe.
If thou art lost, then we, I fear, shall lose,
And shall be lost fore’er, and with us hope.
Enow with this; thy peace thou must hold, Leia—
I feel the ship emerge from lightspeed’s rush,
And thus I must be general again.
Enter POE DAMERON
. LEIA slaps him immediately.
Thou art demoted on the instant, Poe.
POE How can thou speak so, worthy general?
We have a mighty Dreadnought taken down.
Pray, hear me, this indeed is life itself!
LEIA And what the cost—in life? In ships? In hope?
POE ’Tis but a basic strategy of war:
Once battle hath begun, continue on—
Go not halfway toward a victory.
For if we do, then surely death doth hold
Illimit’ble dominion over all.
LEIA Pray, pull thy mind from out thy codpiece, Poe.
Full many problems do exist, that may
Not have solution in the cockpit of
A waiting X-wing fighter, there to make
Explosions of whatever bothers thee—
Thou art so talented a pilot, sirrah,
I would thou learn this necessary lesson.
POE I tell thee, there were heroes on that mission—
I hear the beating of their glorious hearts.
LEIA Dead heroes—and no leaders. Think upon’t.
Enter FINN, COMMANDER D’ACY, ADMIRAL ACKBAR, LIEUTENANT CONNIX, and other RESISTANCE SOLDIERS and PILOTS.
FINN We nowhere fly—some part of space obscure.
How shall Rey ever find us where we are?
LEIA Behold this amulet about my wrist.
[Leia shows Finn the beacon she wears.
FINN A cloakèd bin’ry beacon—crafty plan!
LEIA To light her homeward way—an apple, cleft
In two, is not more twin than these two beacons.
FINN Praise be! Until she comes, what shall befall?
LEIA Our plan is this: we must some new base find.
D’ACY One with sufficient power to release
A signal of distress unto our allies,
Who have been scatter’d through the Outer Rim.
[Sensors begin beeping loudly.
ACKBAR Proximity alert, by some mishap!
SOLDIER The sly First Order, they have found our fleet.
Enter GENERAL HUX, CAPTAIN PEAVEY, and FIRST ORDER TROOPERS and OFFICERS above, on balcony, in the Supremacy.
Enter KYLO REN and FIRST ORDER PILOTS in smaller ships.
POE Nay, ’tis impossible! ’Tis Snoke’s ship yonder—
Ill-fated and myster’ous man is he.
Can we make jump unto lightspeed once more?
CONNIX We have the fuel for just one jump, no more.
POE Then comes fulfilment of the awful threat.
We must fly hence at once or die.
LEIA —Peace, Poe!
Let not our actions run before our thoughts.
Through lightspeed they have somehow track’d our ships.
FINN Is not such fiendishness impossible?
LEIA Yea, ’tis impossible, yet they’ve achiev’d it.
What danger, when we’ve shrewder foes than friends.
BB-8 Blic zoodrooq flirzilf bleezooz zzwa bluuzood!
FINN If we propel to lightspeed’s blaze again,
They shall but find us easily once more,
And we shall have no fuel. ’Tis o’er—we’re done.
POE Not yet, kind Finn, a notion comes to me—
The angel of the odd may yet watch o’er us.
[To Leia:] Permission to take forth my X-wing fighter,
To make explosions of what bothers us?
LEIA Permission granted for this bold request,
And take with it thy grateful gen’ral’s favor.
[Poe and other Resistance pilots run toward the hangar. Exit D’Acy.
Good Adm’ral Ackbar, turn our ship around.
We’ll face the threat with ev’ry grain of strength.
[Aside:] One fight doth follow hard upon the next—
I fear it is too much for our small band.
KYLO [to pilots:] My lead ye two shall follow closely, as
We drive the weak Resistance to the ground.
I make attack, and harm the traitors’ ship—
Each laser blast doth hit its mark exact.
I spin and parry, dodge most masterf’lly.
BB-8 [to Poe:] Flli roohblik bluurooq flirblis flir fligblay!
POE Wait not for me, but go, prepare the ship.
Pray, go to work in it with a good heart—
Spark thou the fire that lets the ship take flight.
KYLO E’en to their cruiser’s hangar do I fly,
To strike them where I’ll cause a dreadful harm.
Come, weapons of destruction, do your worst.
TALLIE O villain, even thou wouldst not so dare—
To fly within the hangar of our ship,
Where we are helpless, fully unprepar’d?
Thy name shall be associated e’er
With hatred, infamy, and rank abuse.
If this is what our enemies become,
How shall the good Resistance hope to win?
I go unto my death, with rage and fright.
This ship shall be a pyre, my grave within.
My story ends, yet hope abideth still.
[Kylo Ren shoots into the Raddus’s hangar, destroying it and blowing Poe and BB-8 back. Many Resistance pilots die, including Tallie.
POE Undone! We are undone! The blast doors shut
On all my comrades who do fly the air.
Without goodbye, their lives are lost to me.
The most notorious ill fortune, this!
Each person’s death diminishes me, too,
For I’m involv’d in humankind. Therefore,
Send not to know for whom the bell doth toll—
It tolls for me.
[Finn runs to Poe’s side.
FINN —Fine Poe, say, art thou well?
POE We must depart the Star Destroyers’ range
Sans hesitation or another thought.
Our foes are passing monstrous—bearing little
Resemblance to aught of humanity.
ACKBAR We need to what? Yet what if ’tis a trap?
LEIA Full speed ahead, upon our lives, O Adm’ral!
We must escape the deadly range of those
Harsh Star Destroyers—thus the fighters, too,
Shall fall away and we may take our flight.
To ev’rything, there is a season, yea—
The season of retreat hath come for us.
ACKBAR Full engines, with our strongest shields upon
The rear; we may fly thither from their map.
[All freeze, except Leia and Kylo Ren.
LEIA The swift TIE fighters, which do fly about,
I sense within my son, my boy, my Ben.
O, hath it come to this? My family
Is now become my hateful enemy.
Is’t possible a princess’s life will end
In tragedy and anguish and remorse?
O son, hear me—thy mother calls to thee.
KYLO My mother—she is in the ship below.
How urgently the sense of her doth come—
Her sorrow and her love in equal measure.
My scope is set to strike upon the bridge
Wherein I know she waits, with baited breath.
Can I set fire upon the woman who
Did give me life, did raise me as a child?
Shall I play murderer, ply matricide?
I shall not do it, cannot. Thus, I fail.
[All unfreeze. The TIE fighter pilots with Kylo Ren fire on the Raddus. Exeunt many Resistance soldiers, dying, including Admiral Ackbar. Leia is sucked out of the ship into space.
The action hath been ta’en, and not by me!
>
The other pilots who surround me shoot
And hit the mark upon which I’d not fire.
My mother gone, exploded in a trice!
What I had not the strength or will to do,
Another hath.
HUX —Ren, get thee back anon.
The frail Resistance pulleth out of range,
And we shall never cover thee from here;
The distance is too far. Come to the fleet!
[To Peavey:] What is the point of having weapons vast,
If still a tiny trio can evade us?
PEAVEY They faster are, and lighter also, Gen’ral.
They never shall outrun us, yet they can
Remain at such a range as to escape
Our mighty cannons with their hindmost shields.
Yet only for the present shall it be.
HUX Maintain continual barrage, that they
May ne’er forget we closely follow them,
Like buzzard waiting for a beast’s slow death.
PEAVEY I swear it shall be done.
HUX —They shall not last,
An they shall burn their fuel to keep us hence.
’Tis time, and time alone, that keeps them living.
[Exeunt Hux, Peavey, Kylo Ren, and all First Order officers and pilots. Finn, Poe, and Connix see Leia from inside the ship.
FINN The general! She’s lost, and gone fore’er.
POE Nay, nay, behold! Amongst the strewn debris.
Dead she should be, our comrades true withal.
Yet opens she her eyes, somehow, some way,
And stretches forth her hand—a thing of beauty.
Look how she glides through space toward the ship,
Defeating death and the First Order’s vice.
Love bursteth from my heart for thee, thou wonder,
Thou light in times of darkness, princess kind,
A presence sing’larly commanding, she.
CONNIX Amazing woman, pow’rful in the Force!
Brave, noble general, leader victor’ous,
We who are friends of thine our homage pay.
O may we follow in thy footsteps glor’ous,
Thou who art like a mother to us all.
FINN Fling wide the gates, and let our gen’ral in!
[They open the door and catch Leia as she falls within.
CONNIX Now to the center medical with her!
She fights with all her strength to stay alive.
[Exeunt Poe and Connix, bearing Leia away. As they go, the binary beacon falls from her hand.
FINN I am alone, and aught hath fallen here—
This beacon that hath dropp’d from Leia’s hand