“Leia doesn’t want to see me,” Han said uneasily.
“Who can blame her!” Maz exclaimed. “But this fight is about more than you and that good woman. Han, go home.”
“What fight?” Rey asked.
“The only fight: against the dark side. Through the ages, I’ve seen evil take many forms. The Sith. The Empire. Today, it is the First Order. Their shadow is spreading across the galaxy. We must face them. Fight them. All of us.”
Finn snorted. “That’s crazy. Look around. There’s no chance we haven’t been recognized already—I bet the First Order is on their way right—” He broke off as Maz adjusted her goggles, making her eyes grow even larger than usual. “What?” Finn asked indignantly.
Instead of answering right away, Maz’s eyes somehow grew even larger within the goggles, impossibly huge. Then she climbed up onto the table and made her way to stand directly in front of Finn. He started to feel nervous in a way he hadn’t since entering the castle. “Solo, what’s she doing?” he asked.
Han shrugged. “No idea,” he said, “but it ain’t good.”
Maz finally spoke. “I’ve lived for over one thousand years, son. Long enough to see the same eyes in different people.” She adjusted the goggles again, and to Finn’s relief the pirate’s eyes went back to normal. “I’m looking at the eyes of a man who wants to run,” she said solemnly.
“You don’t know a thing about me,” Finn said in frustration. “Where I’m from. What I’ve seen. You don’t know the First Order like I do. They’ll slaughter us. We all need to run.”
Maz considered him, then pointed back into the main hall area. “Big head, red shirt, shiny gun. Bright red helmet with ear flares. They’re bound for the Outer Rim. Will trade transportation for work. Go.”
Awkwardly, Finn rose from his seat. Everything had happened fast. Too fast. The last thing he had anticipated was the fulfillment of his request.
Reaching—slowly—to his service belt, he drew the blaster Han had given him and offered it to its owner. “It’s been nice knowing you. Really was.”
Han didn’t look at him. “Keep it.”
Finn hesitated, but there was nothing more to say. Pointless words wasted atmosphere. Turning, he walked away.
Watching him go, Rey was confused and hurt by the abrupt turn of events. They had been through a great deal together, she and this strange but agreeable youth, and his sudden, somewhat inexplicable leave-taking was hitting her hard.
Though his thoughts were churning, Finn managed to keep them under control as he approached the table Maz had pointed out. There were no humans in the group, save possibly the red-helmeted captain, but they eyed him without prejudice. Even the top-heavy, warty, one-legged Gabdorin first mate waited politely for him to state his business. Having been pushed to this point, Finn didn’t hesitate as he addressed the captain.
“I’m told you’re looking for help. I’ll work for a lift to any civilized world on the Outer Rim.”
The first mate replied to him, but Finn didn’t understand a word of whatever language the Gabdorin was speaking. The captain remained silent.
“I don’t know what that was,” he responded, “but it’s a deal.” He smiled, hoping the expression was not found wanting. Or hostile.
The exchange was interrupted by Rey’s arrival, accompanied by an anxious, softly beeping BB-8. She was confused and angry all at once.
“What are you doing?”
Finn smiled anew at the leader of the alien crew. “Give me a second. Or your equivalent time-part.” He edged Rey away from the table, leaving the aliens to mutter incomprehensibly among themselves.
“You heard what Maz said,” Rey hissed at him. “You’re part of this fight. We both are.” She searched his face. “You must feel something…”
“I’m not who or what you think I am. I’m not special. Not in any way.”
She was shaking her head slowly, not comprehending what she was hearing. “Finn, what are you talking about? I’ve watched you, I’ve seen you in action, I’ve…”
His voice tightened as he finally blurted out the truth. “I’m not a hero. I’m not Resistance. I’m a stormtrooper.”
That silenced her. He might as well have hit her across the face with the business end of a blaster.
“Like all of them, I was taken from a family I’ll never know,” he continued rapidly. “I was raised to do one thing. Trained to do one thing. To kill my enemy.” He felt something that should not have been there, that was not part of his training, well up in him. “But my first battle, I made a choice. I wasn’t going to kill for them. So I ran. As it happens, right into you. And you asked me if I was Resistance, and looked at me like no one ever had. So I said the first thing that came to mind that I thought would please you. I was ashamed of what I was. But I’m done with the First Order. I’m never going back.” Suddenly he found it hard to swallow, much less to speak. “Rey, come with me.”
She shook her head. “Don’t go.”
“Take care of yourself,” he begged her. “Please.” He turned and headed back to the group of waiting aliens.
The red-helmeted captain looked up at him. Finn nodded once, hoping the gesture was as universal as he had been told. “I’m ready whenever you’re ready.” The first mate replied in his stumbling language and Finn nodded a second time. “Whatever.”
The crew members rose and headed for the main doorway. As Finn started to go with them, an anguished Rey pivoted and turned her back on him, ignoring BB-8’s troubled beeping.
Finn had wanted to say something more before realizing anything he could come up with would be worse than superfluous. Better to leave it as it was, he told himself. Clean break, no scene, no yelling and shouting. He went with the members of the alien crew, pausing at the hall exit to glance back just once. She was still walking away, not looking in his direction. Just as well, he thought as the doorway closed behind him.
That was what he told himself. But it was not what he was feeling.
So preoccupied and bewildered was Rey by Finn’s completely unanticipated confession that she failed to notice the lumbering figure and accompanying henchmen who were making their way through the crowd toward her. She was utterly blind to their approach until one thick hand reached out to grab her. A second later BB-8 noticed what was happening and let out a series of alarmed beeps.
“Hello, Rey.”
She recognized the voice before she even saw the face.
Unkar Plutt.
There was no mistaking that repulsive countenance. After sparing a quick glance for his oversize minions, she turned her attention to him, astonished.
“How—how did you find me?”
He smiled. It did not improve his appearance. “The ship you stole. The Millennium Falcon. You can’t really track a ship while it’s in hyperspace—but when it emerges, and particularly after it sets down somewhere, there are ways. Expensive, but in the case of valuable property, often worth it. Definitely worth it in the case of the Falcon. It happens to be fitted with a covert Imperial homing device. Old technology, but still quite functional. To which my presence here can attest. Didn’t take much to get the necessary relays working.”
No one in the hall was paying them the least attention, she noticed worriedly. In a place where everyone minded their own business, she found herself wishing fervently for someone to butt in. She twisted defiantly in Plutt’s grasp.
“I suggest. Kindly. That you let go of me. Now.”
Despite her attempts to pull away, he drew her steadily closer. She could not avoid the fact that his breath was a suitably aromatic match for his visage.
“I suggest, less kindly, that you come quietly with me. Otherwise we’ll begin right here, where you can provide some entertainment for this galactic rubbish.” Putting his face so close to hers that they were almost touching, he lowered his voice.
“I’m gonna make you and that wearisome droid pay for what you’ve done.”
This close in, he could see her expression—but not her hands. Whipping out her new blaster, she plonked it right up against his nose. His underlings started forward, only to be waved off by their master.
Rey growled softly. “I’m seriously thinking about adding another hole to your face.”
He chuckled unpleasantly, then in a single swooping motion grabbed the blaster and wrenched it away from her. Her expression fell. Before he had managed to grab it, she had pulled the trigger—she was certain she had. But for some reason the weapon had malfunctioned.
He shook his head in mock sympathy as he held up the blaster. “You’d need to take off the safety first.” One finger moved toward the almost hidden switch in question. “Here, I’ll show you how. You just flip this little—”
The upraised blaster vanished from Plutt’s hand, yanked away by a much bigger set of fingers. Startled, Plutt looked back—and up, into the furry face of a deceptively calm Wookiee.
“Urrrrrrr…”
Not especially eloquent of Chewie, a relieved Rey thought, but it got the point across.
Plutt wasn’t impressed. Noticing the bandaged shoulder, he poked at it with the same hand that had swiped Rey’s weapon.
“Half a Wookiee ain’t much to worry about.” He started to retreat into a fighting stance. “Not against all of me.” He lashed out.
Grabbing the thrusting arm, a roaring Chewbacca twisted and ripped it off at the shoulder, throwing the dismembered limb clear across the room. Looking down at himself, Plutt let out a scream of agony as his underlings hurriedly fell back.
The arm landed on a table where a group of four-armed, long-snouted Culisettos was gambling. With an annoyed huff, one of them picked up the amputated limb and absently tossed it aside, allowing the game to resume. Nearby, a small bipedal GA-97 droid who had been monitoring the pastime turned curiously to check the source of the excised limb. Though it initially focused on Rey, its attention was immediately drawn away from her and to the rotund droid at her side. Visual recognition ignited a small but very important internal sequence that concluded with the GA-97 sending out a compressed signal that was bounced around, coded, decoded, encrypted, and flashed out into deep space.
Where it very soon was picked up, decoded, and decrypted, to become the impetus for an electronic shout of joy.
—
Only on very rare occasions did C-3PO encounter a need for forward speed. This was one of them, but his ambulatory programming restricted him to a gait that was less than satisfactory. If only, he mused, he could move as fast as he could talk.
Despite his motive infirmity he eventually found General Organa deep in intense conversation with a tactical specialist. Ignoring the fact that they were engaged in serious discussion, the droid started speaking without prefacing his arrival.
“Princess— I mean, General!” At the sound of the protocol droid’s familiar voice, Leia turned and waved off the tech. “I hate to brag—as you know I was fitted with a humility circuit during my last rebuild, though I cannot imagine why anyone would think I would require such an accessory—but I must risk taking a moment of your time to sing my own praises!”
“Threepio!” She didn’t try to hide her exasperation. “No one has this kind of time!”
“This kind of time was made for precisely this kind of intelligence, General,” the droid insisted proudly. “I believe I have successfully located Beebee-Ate! According to the information I have just received through our scattered but attentive network, Beebee-Ate is presently within the castle of Maz Kanata on Takodana.”
Leia let out a gasp of excitement. “Maz—I knew you could do it, Threepio! Good work! You deserve an extra oil bath.” Murmuring to herself, she started off, the tactical tech in tow. “This changes everything.”
Left behind, the bearer of good news had no one to converse with except himself. As usual, this did not inhibit him.
“Finally! Appreciation so long overdue.” He paused a moment, not thinking but instead checking on something internal, before again murmuring aloud. “Oh dear. I think the humility circuit may be malfunctioning.”
XII
“CAN YOU GET the droid to Leia?”
Still seated at the table, Han had scarcely noticed the commotion on the other side of the crowded hall. When a returning Rey and Chewbacca had not been forthcoming about what had taken place, he had decided not to pursue it. At the moment, he was much more interested in talking to Maz—and getting her to take the troublesome droid off his hands.
“I know how important it is to her,” he finished.
Maz’s response was somewhat less than helpful. “If it’s so important to her, do as I said before and take it to her yourself. Whether you believe that she wants to see you or not. Han, when you first came to me, your most important decision, involving your most meaningful bonds, was yet to come.” She shook her head. “I’m surprised, frankly. You were always so good at looking ahead. I think now it’s your time to look back. At what—and who—you’ve left behind.”
All the discussion and debate was making Rey weary. Coupled with Finn’s confession and his walking out on the rest of them, it made her wonder, not for the first time, what she was doing here. She felt lost and alone.
No different, she told herself, than she had felt on Jakku.
Alone…alone…It echoed in her mind as she sat there. Under the weight of her loneliness Han’s voice seemed to fade, and Maz Kanata’s as well, until there was nothing surrounding her but a silence as deep and profound as the distant reaches of space itself.
Then something came, stealthy and unidentifiable, to fill it.
A feeling, unrecognized yet somehow familiar. Drawn to it, she rose. Locked in conversation, Han and Maz ignored her as she made her way away from the table and toward a distant corridor—but BB-8 followed.
There was a stairway there: ancient stonework leading downward. Perceiving her unease, BB-8 asked what was wrong.
“I don’t know. I—I have to see.” She started down the stairway. Struggling, the droid followed.
The stairway terminated in a deserted, dimly subterranean corridor. Why was she here, she asked herself. When herself declined to answer, she continued onward. Though the passageway was not long, it appeared so to her. At the very end was a single door. It almost seemed to vibrate. BB-8 chirped nervously, but she ignored the droid, drawn forward. There was a seal, a lock, on the door. She reached out, only to draw back her hand when it opened before she could make contact.
It was darker still in the room beyond. Among the stone arches and alcoves she could see crates piled haphazardly and shelves filled with packages heavy with age and dust. A bust of some unknown bearded human sat on the floor next to an antique shield fashioned of an unknown silvery metal. Tarps and cloth covered much of the collection. There seemed no rhyme or reason to the place, no organization of any kind. Objects of obvious value sat side by side with simple woven baskets and bundles of unknown plants.
Though curious as to their functions and origins, she ignored them all, moving deeper into the room toward a table on which rested a single wooden box. There was nothing especially impressive about the container, nothing overtly valuable or significant. Yet of all the items in the chamber she was drawn only to it. Behind her, not a peep of a beep came from an anxious BB-8.
The box was not locked. She opened it.
A heavy, slow, mechanical breathing filled the room. Turning, she found herself looking down an impressive hallway, its architecture reminiscent of the Old Empire. Peering harder, farther, she saw in the distance a section of the famed Cloud City. Two figures were locked in combat, distant, distant. Someone, somewhere, somewhen, spoke her name.
“Hello?” Wreathed in the irrationality of the moment, she called hopefully, but received no answer.
>
A boy appeared at the end of the hallway. She started toward him, and the world turned inside out, causing her to trip and fall.
Onto the wall, which had become the ground. Not the adamantine ceramic she had just seen, but dry grass. Nearby, a lightsaber slammed into the ground. A missed thrust, a statement of power—she didn’t know, couldn’t tell. A hand appeared to pull it upward.
Day became night, sky ominous and filled with rain, cold and chilling to the bone. She was standing, she was sitting, she was looking up—to see someone, a warrior, take the full force of the lightsaber. He screamed and fell.
Battlefield then, all around her. Putting a hand to her mouth, she rose and turned. As she turned, she found herself confronted by seven tall, cloaked figures, dark and foreboding, all armed. Soaked and shivering, she stumbled backward, turning as she half fell. Firelight illuminated her, firelight from a distant, burning temple.
The seven vanished. A sound made her turn, and she blinked in surprise at the sight of a small blue-and-silver R2 unit. A new figure appeared. Falling to his knees, he reached out to the droid with an artifice of an arm—metal and plastics and other materials with which she was not familiar. She blinked and both were gone.
Around her now: barren, snowy woods, the sounds of unknown forest creatures, and a conviction that she must be losing her mind. Once more she climbed to her feet, her chilled breath preceding her. From in front of her, not far away, came the sounds of battle: the cries of the wounded and the clashing of weapons. Then behind her, another voice.
That voice.
“Stay here. I’ll come back for you.”
She whirled, glazed eyes desperately scanning the dark gaps between the slender trees, trying to penetrate the darkness.
“Where are you?” She started running toward the voice.
“I’ll come back, sweetheart. I promise.”
“I’m here! Right here! Where are you?”
No response. She started forward again, running, only to be brought to a sudden halt by a figure appearing without warning from behind a tree.