by Rae Carson
Finn hit the release again, slamming the door down. “Wrong way!”
They sprinted away in the opposite direction—and ran right into another stormtrooper, who began to fire. They’d caught him by surprise, and his first shots were wild.
“Not really a right way, is there?” Poe said, taking out the stormtrooper. He crouched over the fallen trooper, dislodged his blaster rifle from beneath the body and slid it along the floor toward Chewie.
The Wookiee grabbed it, and brought the rifle to bear just in time to blast two stormtroopers who had come up behind them.
They ducked around a corner—
And almost collided with an entire squad. Rifles whipped up, and the corridor became hot with laser blasts. Poe dropped to the ground, and Finn watched in horror as his friend clutched his arm in pain.
“Poe!” he yelled. The pilot’s arm was charred and oozing. He needed medical attention right away.
Suddenly they were surrounded by troopers, way too many for the three of them to fight off. “You there, put your weapons down. Hands up! Now!”
Finn raised his hands in surrender. He knew exactly what would happen next: interrogation, execution. He’d been on the verge of execution before, on the Supremacy, Phasma looming over him. A fellow couldn’t reasonably expect to get out of that kind of situation more than once.
“Hey, fellas,” Poe said.
“Shut up, scum,” said a stormtrooper, in a voice that reminded Finn so much of Phasma that he had to resist the urge to snap back.
He hoped Rey was faring better. If she found that dagger and got back to the ship, their mission still stood a chance.
* * *
—
Rey entered a bright, white space with soaring ceilings and clean perfection. Kylo Ren’s private quarters.
She stepped slowly, carefully, still drawn to the dagger. The room was beautiful and light-filled, but devoid of warmth. As though he didn’t care about anything or anyone.
Or maybe that wasn’t entirely true, because a few more steps brought her to a pedestal, deep black in contrast with its surroundings, jutting unchallenged from the shiny white floor. A place of honor.
Displayed atop the pedestal was a warped black mask, its eyeholes and vocoder still gaping but melted like heated wax, smeared into a display of perpetual agony. She stared at it a long time—too long—unable to look away. She’d seen this mask in Ren’s thoughts, when he’d tried to pull Luke’s map from her mind on Starkiller Base. It had belonged to his grandfather.
But that horrible mask was not what she’d come for, and she wanted nothing to do with it. She glanced around…there! On a table opposite the pedestal were Chewie’s things—his bowcaster, his satchel, and Ochi’s dagger.
She reached for the dagger. Wrapped her fingers around the handle—
Screams. A woman crying out, “Rey!” A ship’s engines roaring…
“No,” Rey whispered, even as pieces of a lifelong puzzle began to click together in her head. She’d dreamed of finding out about her parents, but as the knowledge began to clarify inside her, Rey finally considered that maybe she’d rather not know.
The floor shifted beneath her feet, and the air went dark. What had begun as a Force vision changed, became a connection.
“Where are you?” came Kylo Ren’s voice.
Rey whirled. Ren stood alone before her, masked, surrounded by darkness. Snow dusted his cape.
“You’re hard to find,” he said.
“You’re hard to get rid of.” She began to turn away. He was worth no more of her time.
“I pushed you in the desert because I needed to see it. I needed you to see it. Who you are. I know the rest of your story. Rey…”
She spun back around. Whipped up her lightsaber and aimed it at his throat. “You’re lying.”
“I’ve never lied to you.”
Oh, but he had deceived. Kylo’s words always had an element of truth, even when their intent was pure falsehood.
“Your parents were no one,” he said. “They chose to be. To keep you safe.”
“Don’t!” she said through gritted teeth. She hated this. That he had knowledge of her that she didn’t, that he was the one to tell her.
“You remember more than you say.” As she backed away, he reminded her, “I’ve been in your head.”
“No. I don’t want this.” And she didn’t. Not from him.
“Search your memory,” he demanded.
“No!” She swung the lightsaber. He brought his own to bear, and they clashed, blue on red.
“Remember them,” he said, relentless. “See them.”
A beautiful woman in a blue hood, tears in her wide brown eyes. She hugged a tiny girl to her chest. “I know,” she said. “Rey, be brave.”
A young man, stubble along his jaw, staring at the tiny girl with such love and hope and desperation. “You’ll be safe here. I promise.”
The Bestoon Legacy flying away, disappearing into the clear Jakku sky. “Come back!” the little girl cried, but Unkar was yanking her arm, yanking her away from the last sight of her parents…
Rey pushed the vision away, even as she pushed against Kylo’s lightsaber, thrusting him back.
“They sold you to protect you,” Kylo said. They circled each other.
“Stop talking.”
“I know what happened to them.”
His calm was maddening. She rushed him, swiped and stabbed with a series of blows. She was faster now, the lightsaber more like an extension of herself than a separate weapon, but he countered easily.
Rey swung; he dodged. Her lightsaber sliced through a basket. Red berries came from nowhere, spilled out, brighter than blood against the…white floor of Ren’s quarters?
They were together and they were separate, in each other’s minds and spaces, but Rey didn’t care, she just wanted to land a blow, to hurt him. Their blades sizzled with impact as they fought, creeping closer to Vader’s mask.
“Tell me where you are,” Kylo demanded. “You don’t know the whole story.”
Rey attacked again. He dodged, stepped back to give them some space.
“It was Palpatine who had your parents taken,” he said, like a patient teacher, as though they weren’t in the fight of their lives. “He was looking for you. But they wouldn’t say where you were.”
She circled him slowly, looking for an opening. Anything to get him to stop talking.
“So he gave the order.”
A vision filled her mind again, and Rey was helpless against it: Black-eyed Ochi of Bestoon raising his horrible dagger.
Rey’s mother pleading with the assassin. “She isn’t on Jakku! She’s gone—No!”
Ochi thrusting the dagger into her father’s gut. Her mother’s cry of anguish becoming sudden silence.
“No!” Rey screamed, launching at Kylo.
Their blades clashed, hummed with impact, and all at once she glimpsed his location, or maybe she was actually there for a split second—the shadowy stone rooftop, the icy air. Kijimi. He had probably just missed her.
She was having no luck getting past his guard, so she swung blindly, chaotically. He moved to block.
The pedestal shattered. Darth Vader’s mask tumbled toward the ground…and disappeared.
“So that’s where you are,” Kylo said, looking down, presumably at the mask. “Do you know why the Emperor’s always wanted you dead?”
“No,” she said, but the confusion on her face was the only answer he needed.
Immense satisfaction tinged his voice as he said, “I’ll come and tell you.”
Rey took several steps backward. What had she done? She’d let her anger get the best of her again. Let herself get distracted. Now Ren knew exactly where she and her friends were.
She half expected him to re
new the attack, but he didn’t. All went silent. Her vision of him winked out. Her own breathing was loud in her ears. The shattered black remains of the pedestal were strewn at her feet.
What just happened?
No time. She had to get everyone off this ship now, before Ren returned. She hefted the dagger, grabbed Chewie’s things, and sprinted for the freighter.
* * *
—
It took Zorii nearly half an hour to reach the Spice Runners’ den, even though it was usually a ten-minute walk from Monk’s Gate. Snowtroopers were everywhere, kicking down doors, rounding up everyone at blasterpoint to interrogate them about the scavenger. Zorii was forced to travel rooftops, ducking behind venting chimneys and fuel tanks whenever a scanner ship swept by.
She ended up reaching the den through the Monastery, an underground cantina in the Thieves’ Quarter. Her spice runners had an agreement with the Monastery’s owner—unlimited access to the cantina’s cellar in exchange for a heavy discount on spice.
The secret cellar door dumped her into the lounge area, with stained couches surrounding a creaky furnace. She was hugely relieved to see that many of her gang were already there.
“Zorii!” said Lluda. Lluda was a young human girl with close-cropped white hair and a knack for slicing. Her parents had been killed by the Lantillian Spacers’ Brotherhood. The spice runners had taken her in when they’d caught her slicing identichips. Useful kid. “I was getting worried. It’s bad out there,” Lluda said.
“It’s bad out there,” Zorii agreed.
“What do we do?”
“Zorii,” came a lower, gruffer voice, and she turned.
“Jarraban,” she said to the tall, mustached spicer. “Just the person I need to see. First Order’s got the city in lockdown. He’s looking for—”
“Your boyfriend,” he said, getting right in her face.
“He’s not my boy—”
“You left Vicii and Vibbo unconscious in an alley because of him.”
Damn. Word traveled fast.
The two beings—Vicii and Vibbo—stepped forward, their mandibles smeared with anger and blood. Rey had definitely given them a faceful with that quarterstaff.
“I had no choice. Some girl put a lightsaber to my throat. I got back here fast as I could.”
Jarraban turned to Vicii and Vibbo. “That true?”
They looked at each other. Shrugged. “It’s possible I was unconscious for that part,” Vicii admitted.
“I don’t even remember getting back to the den,” Vibbo added.
Zorii glared at them. “Glad we had this talk. Now everyone, listen up!”
She told them about the Supreme Leader locking down the city and ordering it turned inside out. “He’s looking for any Resistance associates, and I’m sorry to say, Poe Dameron used to be one of us, and he brought them all to our door. So we have to get out. All of us. Right now.”
Jarraban plunked down into a squishy, threadbare sofa and put his face in his hands. “We’ll need to scatter, reconvene when things die down. How many ships do we have right now?”
“The Voyam sisters are out on a run,” Lluda reminded him. “They’ve got the freighter and a support fighter.”
“That leaves three ships,” Jarraban said. “For over twenty people.”
“I can go underground for a while,” said Vibbo. “I know a place.”
“Nineteen people,” Jarraban said.
“I can take Lluda in my Y-wing,” Zorii said. “It’ll be a tight, uncomfortable ride, but we can fit.”
“Thanks, Zorii,” Lluda said.
“Seventeen people.”
“Carib Diss owes me a favor,” Vicii said. “I helped him collect a pretty bounty last week. His ship can take three passengers.”
“Fourteen—”
Pounding at the door. Blasterfire that made the whole building quake.
“Those weren’t hand blasters,” Lluda said, her voice low.
“A walker just clawed through our front door,” said Zorii. “Grab your go-packs and scatter. Lluda, meet me at my Y-wing; you know where I park it, right?”
The girl’s face was frozen with fear, but after a precious wasted moment, she nodded.
“Okay, go!” Zorii yelled, and her people fled. She raced back through the secret entrance to the Monastery, muttering under her breath, “What have you gotten me into, Dameron?”
* * *
—
It didn’t take long for First Order officers to appear on the scene. Finn glared as General Hux approached. The other guy was new to Finn, a slender, severe fellow with a perpetual frown and a piercing blue gaze. Rank insignias in the First Order were subtle, but Finn knew them all. This man had extra shoulder pleats and a double rank band on his left forearm. He could be none other than Allegiant General Pryde, outranked only by the Supreme Leader himself.
They were so dead.
“The girl’s not with them,” blurted one of the stormtroopers holding them prisoner.
Allegiant General Pryde seemed bored. “Take them away. Terminate them.”
Finn couldn’t believe it. No interrogation? Not even a single question from the allegiant general? What was so important about Rey that they’d ignore the opportunity to get intel about the Resistance from members of its core leadership?
Hux stepped into Finn’s space, so close he could feel the general’s hot breath on his skin. They locked eyes. “At last,” Hux said.
If Finn had a credit for everyone who wanted him dead for deserting the First Order…Well, he had no regrets, no matter what happened next.
Pryde left, but Hux tagged along as stormtroopers thrust rifle butts into their backs and shoved them down the corridor toward the execution chamber.
It was a small room, with jets built into the walls. Once they were dead, the jets would release heat and toxins to break down their remains, then vacuum everything up, leaving a perfectly sterile chamber. All physical trace of their existence would be obliterated.
“Turn around,” a stormtrooper ordered.
They faced the wall.
“Actually, I’d like to do this one myself,” Hux said, and Finn heard the click of a blaster accepting a new identiprint.
Suddenly Finn realized he did have one regret: that he couldn’t see Rey one last time. Tell her that—
“What were you going to tell Rey?” Poe asked, as if sensing his thoughts. “In the tunnels.”
“You still on that?” Finn awaited the inevitable.
“Oh, I’m sorry, is this a bad time?” Poe said.
Finn nodded. “It sort of is a bad time, actually, the worst—”
Chewie complained that he was going to die hungry.
“I suppose later is better?” Poe said. “I mean if you want to get something off your chest, now is not the worst time—”
A blaster shrieked.
Death did not come. Finn opened his eyes and turned.
Hux stood over the stormtroopers’ dead bodies, his blaster tip smoking after close-range fire on the highest setting.
“I’m the spy,” Hux announced.
“What?” Poe said.
“You?” said Finn.
“We don’t have much time,” Hux said.
Finn, Poe, and Chewie all gaped at him.
“I knew it!” Poe said, sticking a finger in Hux’s face.
“You did not,” Finn said, rolling his eyes, which he knew was petty, but who cared? They were alive.
CHAPTER 11
Rey peeked around the corner. The droids were being questioned outside the ship by stormtroopers. For once, she was glad of C-3PO’s memory wipe. She trusted BB-8 to say nothing. But D-O was an unknown factor.
“What’s your operating number?” a stormtrooper was asking C-3PO.
Th
e droid responded with an unintelligible soup of syllables.
“That’s not even a language!” the stormtrooper said.
Rey took a moment to focus, line up her shots, fired…one, two, three shots: three hits. The stormtroopers crumpled to the ground as Rey sprinted for the freighter.
“Oh, dear!” said C-3PO. “I’ve never been in a laser battle before!”
Rey was nearly to the on-ramp when she sensed a familiar presence. Kylo.
“Where are the others?” she asked the droid.
“They haven’t come back.”
A TIE screamed into the hangar bay and landed hard. He was on that fighter, and he was looking for her.
She thrust everything she was carrying at C-3PO—her quarterstaff, the dagger, Chewie’s satchel—and yelled to the droids, “Find them! Go!” Better for them to take their chances inside the maze of a Star Destroyer than face Kylo Ren.
Rey was vaguely aware of C-3PO scurrying out of the hangar with BB-8 and D-O on his heels as she took a deep breath and advanced on the TIE.
The hatch opened and Kylo emerged. His face was hidden behind his mask, and his cloak whipped at his heels.
* * *
—
Hux had good news for Finn and Poe: The Millennium Falcon had been commandeered by the First Order and was right here on the Steadfast. Finn could hardly believe their luck.
But he also had bad news: It was scheduled to be incinerated, by order of Supreme Leader Kylo Ren. They could save the ship and get away in it, but they’d have to be quick. And they’d have to leave the droids behind. Finn would come back for them somehow. And Rey.
General Hux led the way. They passed officers and stormtroopers, droids and maintenance crew, and although a giant, hairy Wookiee occasionally made someone do a double take, Hux’s presence gave them unhindered passage through the ship’s corridors.
“Look!” came a familiar mechanical voice behind them. “There they are!”
Finn spun. C-3PO! Looking ridiculous in Chewie’s bandolier, and carrying the Wookiee’s satchel and bowcaster. With him were BB-8 and the little cone-head droid.