Chapter Text
The journey from the Ash Worlds to the Mid Rim usually lasted upwards of twenty-four standard hours but Senator Ben Organa-Solo's pilot seemed determined to cut that travel time in half, judging from the way the Banshee was currently hurtling through the starlines on the whine and whirr of its Class-2 hyperdrive. While it was likely that Commander Poe Dameron was relishing the novelty of steering one of Mendel Baudo's prohibitively expensive, custom-designed yachts, it was likelier still that he had been instructed by General Leia Organa to deliver her son to Naboo as quickly as possible, given the recent spate of political assassinations at the hands of a shadowy junta calling itself the First Order. Even though Leia understood— perhaps better than anyone else did— how important it was that the fledgling state of New Alderaan be represented at the Festival of Light, she had insisted that Ben travel undercover, without the official trappings of a military-escorted consular ship that would make him an easy target. There are leaks everywhere, she had told him. I'm trusting no one with your life but the Jedi and my own men.
Ben was of the opinion that his mother was a little too paranoid but he kept it to himself; similar talk abounded in the Senate halls as of late and he had no desire to fuel such gossip. Still, he wished that Leia would stop interfering in his affairs— he was almost thirty-one years old, after all.
The Banshee' s inner compartment was furnished in the traditional gauzy tapestries and floral-patterned silks of Alderaan. A holo occupying much of the far wall depicted one of the famous grass paintings that had burned up with the rest of the planet but was immortalized here in a ten-minute loop of wind blowing through the starblossoms and the gingerbells. The vid flickered slightly in tandem with an almost imperceptible shiver along the durasteel bulkhead— Poe was easing the ship into realspace, which meant that they had reached the Chommell sector.
As he lounged on the settee, Ben's gaze darted to the music ball on the table in front of him. For lack of anything better to do, he leaned forward and picked up the spherical silver device, giving it a gentle shake. The opening glissando of Plexo-33's "Wish You Among the Stars" filled the room; he groaned at such a sappy, dated song but, before he could switch over to the next track, the cabin doors slid open and his bodyguard— who had been specially appointed for this trip— walked in.
Her name was Rey. That was the only thing Ben knew about her aside from the fact that she was his uncle's most promising student. Luke Skywalker spoke of her fondly, with quiet pride, but Ben would have to take the old man's word for it, considering that Rey barely came up to his shoulder and had the clearest, most innocent-looking hazel eyes he'd ever seen. Even now, dressed in somber brown robes with a lightsaber hilt glinting at her side and her chestnut-colored hair pulled back in three severe buns, she looked more like a schoolgirl than a Jedi Knight.
Plexo-33's vocalist hit an embarrassingly heartfelt high note, and Rey quirked an eyebrow at Ben. She didn't say anything about his taste in music, but that somehow made it worse. He rushed to give the sphere another shake; the treacly ballad faded into the pulsing, juvenile bass beat of a heavy-isotope remix that would not be out of place at a Coruscanti nightclub. That was hardly any better. He gave up and deactivated the music ball, tossing it aside.
"I liked that last one, actually," Rey commented.
"Such is the folly of youth," Ben deadpanned. "What brings you to this part of the ship, Madame Jedi?" He hadn't meant to sound quite so patronizing— or perhaps he had. Something about the unflappable demeanor of the Jedi Order made it a compulsion for him to try getting a rise out of them. It was a character failing of his that exasperated Leia to no end.
Rey did not take the bait— which had admittedly been deployed without much finesse on his part. "Bad news, I'm afraid, Your Worshipness," she replied in even tones containing no trace of sarcasm. A master, this one. "A bomb went off on the Celanon docks while we were in hyperspace. I regret to inform you that Senators Tolik Yar and Kvarm Jia are dead."
Ben tried not to flinch. He had been on amiable terms with both men— he and Jia, in particular, had been discussing the possibility of a trade agreement between New Alderaan and the Tapani sector. "What were they doing on Celanon, of all places?"
"As far as we can surmise, they happened to be finishing up their respective conferences in the Outer Rim when they decided at the last minute to meet on the nearest spaceport and travel to Naboo together. According to the logs, there was a message beamed from Celanon to Theed, informing the welcoming committee that Yar and Jia would be arriving at the same time. One hour later..." Rey trailed off, allowing Ben's imagination to fill in the details.
"So the leak appears to be on Theed's end," he mused.
"General Organa believes so, yes." Rey hesitated, and perhaps that in itself already spoke volumes, or perhaps he had inherited his father's talent for having a bad feeling about this, because his hackles had already started to rise before she continued, "Since it is apparent that the Festival of Light has been compromised, the General also believes that it would be in the interests of your safety for us to turn back. I am certain that Queen Vestralla will understand."
"Will she?" Ben drawled. "I did not realize that the nuances of intragalactic relations were part of my uncle's curriculum on your little backwater moon."
The line of Rey's mouth hardened. "You're right, I'm no politician. But I was tasked by Master Skywalker to keep you alive. Therefore, my authority overrides yours."
He stood up, making use of their considerable height difference to loom threateningly over her. Even as he did so, he cursed himself for noticing the freckles splashed across her nose and cheeks, eliciting a twitch of interest from certain parts of him that had been woefully neglected as of late. "I am not returning to New Alderaan with my tail tucked between my legs because of an assassination that took place on the other side of the galaxy!"
Rey lifted her chin, matching his glare with composed eyes that were more brown than green. "The fifth successful assassination in three months," she reminded him. "The First Order is moving fast, and they have spies everywhere. It's better to be safe than sorry."
Before Ben could argue, the ship suddenly rocked to the side, glow-panels dimming in a near-rhythmic pulse to the screech of alarms.
They were under attack.
*
Among the ranks of the Resistance, Poe was legendary for keeping his cool even in dangerous situations. He nodded politely at Rey and Ben as they ran into the cockpit, plunging the Banshee into a sharp dive to avoid the turbolasers aimed their way from a Marauder-class corvette that had materialized beyond the viewport. Ben would have careened into the walls in a rather undignified manner had Rey not stretched out an arm to hold him in place with the Force while keeping herself rooted to the floor at the same time.
"Who is it?" she barked.
Poe squinted at the insignia on the side of the enemy ship. "Guavian Death Gang."
"I knew we shouldn't have taken a damned pleasure yacht," Ben hissed. "We may have fooled the First Order but, without a military escort, we look like easy pickings to a bunch of pirates."
"What is the Guavian Death Gang doing all the way out here in the Chommell sector?" Rey demanded. "This isn't their usual turf."
"I don't think now's the time to ask them if they're lost," Poe quipped as the corvette spewed out five Preybird- class starfighters that were quick to surround the Banshee, barraging its shields with cannonfire.
"The First Order isn't above working with criminal organizations," Rey muttered, brow creasing. "I think this is an assassination attempt masquerading as a pirate attack."
You're as paranoid as my mother is, Ben wanted to scoff, but the tiny hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.
"Only one way to find out," Rey concluded. "Commander Dameron, take the shuttle complement into the Rimma. If this is an attempt on Senator Solo's life, they'll assume he's on the escape vehicle and follow you. If it's piracy, they'll stay locked onto the yacht. I'll head up the Enarc Run and comm you when we're clear."
Poe nodded, scrambling out of the pilot seat so that Rey could take his place and disappeared into the rear end of the ship. No sooner had he ejected from the Banshee when the formation of Preybird-classes changed course, following his shuttle as it sped towards the Rimma Trade Route.
The faintest of smirks darted across Rey's face as she took the controls. "I hate it when I'm right."
"Somehow, I don't think you do," Ben remarked.
The Guavian corvette had stayed with the Banshee— which, while far from ideal, wasn't exactly a surprise. No self-respecting pirate would pass up the chance to loot a Baudo- class yacht, whatever the circumstances might be.
"You can't outrun a Marauder- class in this thing," Ben told Rey as she fired up the thrusters. "Your best bet is to take advantage of the maneuverability—"
She hurtled straight through the flurry of wreckage from a starfighter that Poe had shot down, coaxing the yacht into a tight barrel roll to avoid the chunks of floating debris. The pursuing corvette swerved too late, a shard of wing smashing into its hull.
"Like that?" Rey asked wryly.
"My apologies," Ben said through gritted teeth.
She flashed another one of those vague smirks and then motioned to the gunner's booth. "How's your aim, Senator?"
*
The next few minutes raced by in a blur of star-strewn darkness and whirling metal. In spite of the damage it had sustained from the collision, the corvette managed to position itself between the Banshee and the hyperlane, raining down lasers. Without missing a beat, Rey darted below the enemy ship's plane of flight, giving Ben the perfect opening. He squeezed the trigger and a blast of plasma energy flowed from the yacht's lone turret, lancing through the belly of the Marauder- class.
It was oddly beautiful, how splinters of durasteel broke away from the point of impact like a flower unfurling its jagged, fire-licked petals amidst clouds of smoke. Ben was entranced; the sight sang to his blood. He stared at the disintegrating corvette until Rey made the jump into the Enarc Run, the scene beyond the viewport transmuting into a frieze of silver and black.
*
In the safety of hyperspace, Ben crawled out from the gunner's booth and made his way over to where Rey was hunched at the dashboard. Peering over her shoulder, he scowled at the coordinates flashing on the navicomp. "I lay no claim to astrographic expertise in this vast galaxy of ours, but it appears to me that Naboo is in the other direction."
She didn't so much as turn around to look at him. "We aren't going to Naboo."
"Don't be ridiculous."
"Senator." Her voice was like ice. "Did you by any chance forget that people were trying to kill you a few minutes ago?"
"Did you forget that I proved to be more than capable of handling myself?"
"If you could just let me do my job—"
"— at the expense of mine?" he spat, glaring daggers at her back. "I represent New Alderaan on the galactic stage. If I turn back now, what will that say about my homeworld? That we are cowards? That we are easily intimidated—"
"Or perhaps that you have common sense?" Rey suggested under her breath.
Ben wanted to grab her by the shoulders and spin her around. Make her face him. There were few things worse than arguing with someone whose expressions he couldn't gauge. He resisted the urge, knowing full well that laying a hand on her could result in grievous bodily injury on his end. For all their moralizing, the Jedi were lethal when they put their minds to it. " Listen to me," he grated. "For the past two years, I have been working to advance New Alderaan's reputation as a key player in the Outer Rim Territories— particularly as a Republic foothold in the Ash Worlds with significant diasporic ties to the Core. All of that will go to waste if I skip the Festival of Light because of what cannot be verified as anything other than a pirate attack. I must put on a show of strength."
"No dice," Rey said firmly. "I am under strict orders to bring you home posthaste. Your mother—"
"— has let sentimentality undermine her political sense!" Ben railed. "She should know how important it is that we don't concede to destabilizers. The only difference in this case is that I happen to be her son."
"Well, your uncle signed off on this and he happens to be my master. I have my duties, too—"
He couldn't take it anymore. He tugged at the sides of the pilot seat; it swiveled, revealing the tense set of Rey's features and the annoyance simmering in her tawny eyes. Part of him exulted in the fact that she wasn't completely imperturbable but that satisfaction was eclipsed by his own temper, how it flared and rose within him, higher and higher as the seconds passed. "Turn this ship around!" he barked.
"No!" she shouted— she actually shouted, right in his face. He would have been surprised by that, had his fury left room for anything else.
Ben lunged for the controls, all rational thought vanishing beneath the potent mix of anger and desperation. Rey bolted out of her seat to stop him, raising her arm. She was going to immobilize him with the Force, he knew that with blistering certainty, understood it deep in his bones. Sheer instinct overtook him then; he curved his wrist behind her neck, not fully cognizant of what he was doing, no thought left to him except to block, defend himself, get what he wanted. Energy poured from his fingers, as rich as blood, as primal as a heartbeat. Rey's eyes drifted shut, her limp body sagging against him, into arms that automatically shot out to catch her before she could hit the floor.
It was over in a matter of seconds and, yet, the ensuing stillness that rang through the cockpit seemed to last for hours, the silence broken only by the gentle tick of the Banshee' s droid brain and the hum of its hyperdrive. Ben Organa-Solo, widely considered the most formidable Populist of his generation, nephew of Luke Skywalker, and illustrious scion of two political dynasties on his mother's side, stood frozen at the dashboard of a Baudo- class star yacht, carrying a Jedi Knight and bodyguard whom he had just rendered unconscious with the Force equivalent of a wallop to the head.
"Sithspit," he said out loud.
*
The gullipuds were always noisier in the summertime. Beneath the velvet press of a purple dusk, they croaked amidst the soft, thick reeds, occasionally joined by a sleepy avian hoot from some overhanging branch in a chorus that the honey-warm breeze filtered in through the windows, mingling with the Bith love song playing from the music ball on the nightstand. Ben was already regretting his impulsive decision to bring the device in from the ship— it was only one more thing that Rey could throw at him when she woke up.
He was crammed into an armchair at her bedside, struggling not to gawk at her face and failing rather abysmally. Her sun-kissed features were languid, almost romantic in repose, gilded by amber lamplight. She had a high forehead, sweeping chestnut brows, long lashes that fanned over the tops of sharp cheekbones, a narrow nose, delicate yet alluringly pink lips, and a strong chin. She was cute but not stunningly beautiful, certainly nothing to write home about. So why couldn't he stop staring?
"If only I could let go and cry," warbled the music ball. "I know you did the best you could..."
He shouldn't have lost control back on the yacht. Ben had kept a tight leash on his Force abilities all his life; what credibility he'd garnered despite being the grandson of Darth Vader would swiftly erode if word got out that he possessed the same powers. But he had been so furious, so frustrated, and it had felt like the most natural thing in the world.
Too much like Anakin, Luke had once said, peering down at a ten-year-old Ben in sorrow. I sense his darkness in you. The darkness that lives in me as well.
A slight chill had permeated the room as true night began to fall. Ben reached out to draw the quilt over Rey's still form, the Bith song rolling on. "Now that you're not around, the walls are cracked and dry. The mercury is gone from this eight-valve heart..."
Slender fingers suddenly clamped around his wrist, digging in hard enough to bruise. His gaze darted back in the direction of the headboard, where a pair of absolutely virulent hazel eyes was narrowed at him. That was the one thing he registered before his chair was sent flying by a blast of raw telekinetic energy. He grunted in pain as he hit the wall, the hapless chair splintering as it crashed to the floor that gravity dropped him on only a half-second later.
Rey got to her feet, her face pale and twisted in utter wrath as she stalked towards him. "You dare," she snarled in a voice that didn't sound like her own, raspy, feral, and brittle. "You dare use the Force against me—" The bedchamber's foundations began to shake, furniture rattling and various ornaments rising into the air, and in that moment Ben was one hundred percent convinced that he was going to die.
However, Rey must have belatedly recalled that her mission entailed the exact opposite of killing him. She exhaled slowly, and the room stilled once more. He lay crumpled at her feet, his throat dry while she towered over him, the scene glossed with a surreal quality by the song still playing from the music ball. "It's amazing how sad I get, remembering the past, and all the things you said and did to scramble my chloroplasts..."
Rey flicked her wrist towards the offending device, switching it off. "Where are we?" she demanded, glowering at Ben with such ferocity that he was mildly surprised that the skin didn't shrivel off his bones.
"Varykino," he replied. "My grandmother's estate in the Lake Country."
"Naboo?" Rey snarled. "You knocked me out and dragged me to Naboo?"
"You left me no choice." And, because he apparently had zero self-preservation instinct, "Although it is gratifying to know that you are in possession of a temper, after all, Madame Jedi."
Her arm lashed out and he braced himself for more pain but, instead, she merely summoned her lightsaber from his belt and into her palm. "This is abduction, Senator."
"Technically, it's not," he argued. "As my bodyguard, you are charged to accompany me wherever I go. This is a win-win situation; I get to attend the Festival of Light and you get to successfully accomplish your duty."
"How generous." Rey looked down at him with contempt. "Sorry if I don't feel particularly grateful at the moment."
"It's all right— I forgive you." Stars, he really had to switch off before she ended up doing the First Order's job for them. It would be all too easy for her to pin his murder on assassins.
She displayed no visible reaction to that last taunt, her expression unchanging as she crossed her arms and watched him clamber to his feet. To be fair, it was already a supremely pissed off expression. By Jedi standards, anyway. She appeared to have retreated into a modicum of the composure for which Luke and his band of acolytes were renowned, but Ben couldn't help thinking about earlier— her wildness, the power emanating from her slim frame in weighty currents. There was more to his bodyguard than met the eye. Of that he was certain.
"I suppose I should be glad that you didn't immediately go waltzing into Theed," Rey pronounced in clipped tones. "Your plan is to travel there undercover, I assume?"
Ben nodded. She was very quick on the uptake. "Theed is a couple of days away by speeder bike. We'll get there with plenty of time to settle in before the Festival starts."
"Not so fast. I need to contact General Organa and Master Luke first."
He had been expecting that, but he groaned inwardly upon hearing it. "Fine."
*
Varykino's communications bay was located in the north wing. It was a far cry from state-of-the-art, considering that House Naberrie had little use for the villa these days, but Rey managed to patch through to D'Qar on an encrypted channel. Ben was reluctantly impressed, a feeling that dissipated once he was on the receiving end of a ten-minute lecture from his mother while his uncle— who, as luck would have it, happened to have dropped by the Resistance base in time for Rey's comm— watched with an aura of mild concern.
"That's not how you use the Force and that's not how we raised you," Leia's flickering, blue-tinted hologram admonished. "You owe Rey an apology, especially now that she's going to have her work cut out for her if anything should happen on the road to Theed. Caraya's soul, Ben, what were you thinking? Incapacitating your security detail during a high-risk situation— I never—"
"Can you honestly say that you wouldn't have done the same thing?" Ben interrupted. "If you knew that what you were doing was right, if you knew that it would help your people—"
"You won't be able to help anyone from beyond the grave!" Leia snapped. "Two days riding through a wilderness you haven't been to in years, with a single armed escort—"
"Careful, Mother, now you're sounding like you doubt my bodyguard's skills almost as much as you doubt my ability to make decisions for myself—"
"If I may interject," Luke said, "before the two of you reenact the Galactic Civil War, or before the First Order traces this comm—"
That shut Ben and Leia up. The longer they kept this line open, the greater the chances of surveillance equipment either tapping into it or deciphering its point of origin.
"Rey." Luke's hologram turned to his student, who had so far been observing the scene in embarrassed silence. "I'm sure you already know the basics. Keep to the forest cover whenever you can, no fires at night, avoid other travelers as much as possible."
Rey bowed. "Yes, Master."
"Ben.” Luke’s solemn gaze shifted to his nephew. “Follow Rey's lead. You have already brought her there under duress, and now you must let her do her job as she sees fit."
"Yes, Uncle," Ben grunted.
"Leia." Within the confines of the holographic field, Luke placed a hand on his sister's shoulder and murmured something too low for the audio feed to pick up. Whatever it was, Leia nodded— albeit a bit stiffly— and proceeded to address Rey and Ben in a calmer tone.
"I will inform Commander Dameron of the change in plans and have him meet you at Theed with a few soldiers who will serve as guards for the remainder of your stay," she said. "Ben, please abstain from making any more rash decisions. Rey, thank you for not wringing his neck the moment you regained consciousness."
Rey's lips curved into a small smile— the first genuine smile of hers that Ben had seen since she walked into his life forty-eight standard hours ago. "You're welcome, General."
"May the Force be with you," Luke said, and then his and Leia's holograms winked out of existence.
*
In the early days of his term, Ben had once hosted a dinner for two Ash Worlds monarchs whose planets were embroiled in a blood-soaked territorial dispute over a cubirian-rich asteroid. His guests had come to blows during the soup course, but even that had been less uncomfortable than the meal he was currently sharing with Rey.
They regarded each other warily from opposite ends of a long table laden with meat and cheese from Varykino's larders, fruit from the orchards, and a bottle of Rydonnian spicewine dug up from some musty corner of the ancient cellars. "Who prepared all of this?" Rey finally asked.
"Dorian Accu," said Ben. "The estate's caretaker, as his father was before him. He's already retired to his quarters for the night," he added, because Rey was glancing around the dining room as if expecting the old man to pop out from behind one of the red marble pillars at any moment.
"And he was not alarmed by our... entrance?"
"Not at all," Ben lied through his teeth. Poor Dorian had nearly had a heart attack upon seeing Master Ben emerge from the star yacht carrying a passed-out young woman in his arms. A woman wearing Jedi robes, no less.
"Hmm," was all Rey said, but Ben felt the Force prodding at his mind like inquisitive tendrils, trying to determine whether or not he was telling the truth.
He cast his shields, blocking her more harshly than he'd intended. He hated having people inside his head. "Didn't my uncle teach you not to be so rude?"
"Didn't he teach you at all?" she shot back. "I had no idea you were Force-sensitive, he never mentioned..."
"It's the big family secret. I've learned how to mask my signature, which is why you couldn't detect it." Noticing that she had started helping herself to the food, Ben followed suit. "If you're wondering why I didn't train on Yavin 4, it's because I realized early on that I would make a terrible Jedi."
"You would," she agreed. "But most children dream of becoming Jedi, don't they?"
"Did you?"
She shrugged, nibbling on a hunk of cheese. "I dreamed of many things back then." She talked with her mouth full and, as the minutes passed, he noticed that her table manners were rather atrocious for someone who carried herself with such eerie composure on a regular basis. She chewed loudly, was all elbows, ate fast, as if this meal was the only thing standing between her and death by starvation.
He had so many questions tangled up together on the tip of his tongue. Who were you before this? What did you think and what did you do? It took him a while to settle on, "How old were you when the Jedi came?"
"Is exchanging life stories over the cold cuts an Alderaanian tradition?"
"No, but awkward silence is bad for the stomach."
Rey seemed torn between laughing and rolling her eyes. "Eleven," she grudgingly offered. "I was eleven. It was Master Saa who found me."
Ben nodded in recognition. T'ra Saa, the shapeshifting Jedi who had survived Order 66 and gone into hiding on Kashyyyk, resurfacing to take her place in Luke's New Jedi Order. She was a handful of centuries old, which made her a mere sapling by the standards of the Neti species.
"The X'us'R'iia caught me unawares on my way back from the Graveyard," Rey continued. "Master Saa practically tripped over me three days later, out there on the dunes. I was dehydrated, half-dead... She saw the Force in me, used the Force to learn that I had no people of my own, and brought me with her to Yavin 4, where I recovered from my ordeal. Where I stayed."
"How long ago was this?"
Rey's brow creased as she did the math. "A decade, more or less."
For some inexplicable reason, Ben's stomach dropped. She was twenty-one. Older than she looked at first glance, younger than he'd— hoped. That was the best word for it, and he was annoyed with himself. It wouldn't have mattered even if they were the same age— she was a Jedi Knight and, therefore, off-limits. "The X'us'R'iia?" he echoed.
"It's what the Teedos call the weather storm," she explained. "They believe it's the breath of their god."
The mention of the Teedos was what made it click for him, made the pieces of Graveyard and dunes fall into place. "You're from Jakku."
"Yes."
A junkyard, his father had once scoffed. A bad old place where nothing grows.
"I have no idea why I'm telling you all of this," Rey complained. In the mellow light of glow-panels turned down low, her eyes were the color of sun-drenched forests. "I just wanted to know why you didn't follow in your uncle's footsteps, but I ended up giving away much more personal information. They were right about you— you are a skilled deflector, and silver-tongued."
"Comes with the job." Ben took a sip of wine, admiring how she hadn't hesitated to call him out on his bantha fodder. "What else do they say about me?"
"I think I've stroked your ego enough for today," she retorted, startling a chuckle out of him.
"So, all good things, then?" he prompted, smirking at her over the rim of his glass.
"Good night, Senator." Chair legs scraped across the floor with a ringing finality as Rey stood up. "I'd advise you to take it easy on the alcohol. Long day tomorrow." She had resumed her professional aloofness and he was sorry for that, but it wasn't until she had left the dining room that he realized— she had deflected as well, had stopped him from asking any more questions about her life with a subtle appeal to his own vanity.
Shaking his head in amused disbelief, Ben raised his wineglass at her empty chair in a toast. "To your sharpness, Madame Jedi," he said to himself. "May it refrain from leaving me bloodied."