Precursor
In which possibilities are realized and nocturnal visits are made.
Trust was a funny thing. You could go without thinking about it, without even realizing it was there. Suddenly, when you realized you needed it, it felt like leaning out over a long, long drop while hanging onto a frayed rope.
It felt like that as she listened to Kylo and the stormtrooper commander plot the most effective means of someone’s downfall. When she’d mocked him, asking what he did for the First Order, Rey hadn’t thought about seeing him in action. Now, as stormtroopers and Nightfolk loaded onto the troop transports, she did.
She’d told herself stories to survive the days and nights of a bleak, lonely existence. How many stories had she told herself about Kylo? The hunter, the creature in a mask. The monster. The quiet voice in the night, the secret confidant. A bright vision of possibility, a fearsome ally, a fellow fugitive. Now this. What was he really? Or was this only a matter of getting to know someone, their dark and their light, their good and bad, strengths and weaknesses?
She didn’t know. There had never been anyone she’d been able to get to know—no one she ever trusted that far. So now she hung on that frayed rope and hoped for all she was worth that it held.
The troop transport she was aboard roared and shuddered through Jannessi’s atmosphere—not much in the way of inertial dampers here. The hassash hummed an almost-tune in her ear and stroked her hair. She had an idea it was supposed to be comforting—it almost was comforting, if she didn’t think too hard about what was doing it. She’d wanted to get rid of the thing a while ago, but it wouldn’t leave her. Let it stay, Kylo had told her. If the Nightfolk don’t behave, it’ll bite them.
From the stormtroopers around her, Rey sensed nervous anticipation and fear of the Nightfolk that accompanied them. From the Nightfolk, she sensed hungry anticipation.
Clearer than both was Kylo, on one of the other transports—anticipation, yes, focus, determination, ferocity. He felt like a storm raging toward the First Order ship orbiting Jannessi.
Someone’s attention tugged at her awareness. She looked over to find one of the stormtroopers watching her. It was uncomfortable, looking into the faceless face, but she offered a smile.
His helmet dipped in a nod. After a moment, he said, “Why did you help me? We were killing your people.” The modulator distorted his voice, but she thought it was Not-Finn.
“You reminded me of a friend. He used to be a stormtrooper, too. His name is Finn.”
“I’m DR-8853.”
“Finn told me he had a number, too, but he took a name. You should have a name. All of you should.”
More faces had turned toward them now. Rey sensed…hope.
“In my…dreams,” the stormtrooper said softly, “the dreams I had when I saw you…I was called Dare.”
Something bright leapt up in her. “Dare,” she said. “It’s a good name. I like it.”
He nodded again. “I do too.”
The deck fell still under them. They must’ve broken atmosphere. Rey wanted to be in the cockpit where she could see what was happening, but surprise was key to the plan’s success. If anyone aboard the ship they were headed for spotted a grubby girl with ragged hair and a bent staff, dressed in a bloodstained, too-large shirt in the cockpit, people would definitely get suspicious.
The sound of the engines changed, winding down. There was stillness, then a slight bump as the transport set down. The stormtroopers stirred, straightening, arranged themselves in orderly rows.
“Wait for my signal,” said DR-8853—Dare. “Once communications are down, we proceed. EL-4906, YT-1365, you guard Rey. Questions?”
No one will harm our brother’s Bright-one, the Nightfolk said. The hassash hissed softly in her ear.
Rey wasn’t used to such a surfeit of protection. It felt almost…suffocating. Like she couldn’t get away if she had to.
Do I need to get away? she thought. Do I want to?
“Ready,” Dare said.
The boarding ramp whined down, letting in bright, cold light. The stormtroopers marched out except for her guards. The Nightfolk’s anticipation swelled, quivering.
“Wait,” she said.
As our brother has said.
Of course they wouldn’t listen to her. She looked at one—tall, thin, the three yellow eyes colder and more alien than the Brightfolk’s ever were.
“What I do—did—with the stormtroopers on Jannessi,” she said. “Does it hurt you?”
Their whispers flowed around her. Two stepped very close, one beside her, the other behind. The hassash’s hands shifted on her shoulders. She forced herself to stand still.
Does it hurt you when we fed from them?
“No,” she said. Not directly, anyway. But indirectly— She shivered.
They didn’t say anything else. The answer must be ‘no.’ A good thing, she guessed, if they were supposed to be allies.
She sighed. She was beginning to realize how Kylo must’ve felt surrounded by Brightfolk.
A burst of static came from the stormtroopers’ comms. One touched the side of his helmet.
“It’s a go,” he said.
The Nightfolk flowed down the ramp. The dark side of the Force poured out ahead of them. Screams began.
Rey was supposed to wait, to let the Nightfolk do their work before she followed and did hers. Battle meditation, whatever it was. The screams drew her in their wake, out into a hangar much smaller than the Finalizer’s vast hangars.
The other troop transports sat on the deck nearby. Nightfolk swept out of them, too, spread across the hangar. She saw Kylo among them, dark in the darkness even without his usual menacing black garb. A spark shot through her the moment his gaze landed on her.
One of the Nightfolk nearby whirled and pointed at her.
Wait. Its mind-voice was sharp with command.
The hassash locked its hands on her shoulders in emphasis.
TIE pilots and stormtroopers and uniformed officers writhed on the deck or ran in blind panic. Rey’s heart and breaths sped as if the panic was her own. She took three running steps before she felt a push from Kylo through the bond. She shoved back, seething, but stopped.
Wait. She was supposed to wait while they tortured people.
Her stormtrooper guard stood on either side of her. Their horror and dismay rolled over her. Rey wanted to shut her mind to it all, but then she wouldn’t be able to help the people who needed it.
“Hold on, ma’am,” one said. “Not much longer.”
Fists clenched, breathing hard, she quivered like the Nightfolk had. They were disappearing through hatches now, into the corridors beyond. The sobs and screams of the men and women in the hangar tore at her, almost as maddening as when the Nightfolk had attacked her. Her gaze was drawn across the glossy black deck to Kylo, where he stood outside a lift looking back at her. He nodded once and stepped inside. The doors slid closed.
Rey instantly reached for the bright sparks in the minds of the First Order crew.
* * *
They rolled through the ship, an unstoppable tide of darkness. Kylo let it carry him forward as he swept away any resistance that didn’t fall to the Nightfolk. The storm commandos from Jannessi came behind as rear guard.
By the time they’d reached it, the bridge was boiling with confusion and panic. Now it was calm, the battle won, the captain and officers dazed and unsteady but no longer a threat.
He breathed power and triumph. One ship. The Precursor. He’d take the name for an omen. Only a cruiser, but it was a beginning.
Distress spiked through the Force. DR-8853 turned toward him suddenly. “Sir, YT-1365 requests your presence.”
Kylo stiffened. One of the commandos he’d left to guard Rey. Pushing aside the heady intoxication of the dark side, he reached out through the bond and felt—
“Take over here,” he snapped to DR-8853 and turned toward the Nightfolk, five of them scattered among the bridge personnel. “Anyone who turns against us is yours.”
The two nearest him grinned. Yes, brother.
His lightsaber crackling in his hand, he stormed off the bridge. Something about the weapon tugged at his attention as he strode along the corridors, something different…
He heard Rey before he saw her: “I’m fine. I’m fine! No—no, don’t! It’ll bite you!” Then the hassash’s threatening hiss—
Kylo rounded a corner. Rey leaned against one wall of the corridor, hand outstretched, the hassash hissing at the two storm commandos facing her. Others were there, too—techs, an officer. He swept a hand to one side and they were all flung back against the opposite wall, pinned there.
Rey spun, staggering a little. She put a hand to the wall to steady herself “What are you doing?”
“What happened?” he growled, his lightsaber still spitting.
“They were trying to help! Let them go!”
He hesitated, then released them. Everyone stumbled away from the wall. The officer and techs scuttled off, their fear shivering through the Force.
“What happened?” he said again, looking between the stormtroopers and Rey.
“Sir,” YT-1365 said. “She—”
“I—am—fine,” Rey broke in.
Kylo turned to her, narrow-eyed. She was pale. Shaking. Tears streaked her cheeks. Distress shivered through the bond, even the Force.
“Thank you, YT-1365,” he said, never breaking from Rey’s gaze. He deactivated his lightsaber. “Show us to the medcenter.”
Taking Rey’s arm, he started after the storm commandos. The hassash clambered from her shoulder to his.
“I’m—” she began.
“The more you say that, the less I believe you.”
“Ben— Kylo, wait.”
He let the troopers get ahead. “Tell me.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just—” She slumped, scrubbed her hands over her face. “There were so many,” she whispered.
He didn’t understand. Then he did.
For all the violence and suffering she’d experienced in her life, she’d never been in a battle. The only thing remotely similar was when they escaped the Finalizer, and she’d used the dark side then. She wasn’t using the dark side now. And she had to open herself to every terror the Nightfolk drew on.
“Rey,” he said quietly. “I didn’t think.”
She swallowed, swallowed again. He knew she wanted to cry. He thought of when he’d held her in the barn when the Nightfolk attacked, the way she buried her face in his neck and cried then. He wanted to hold her now, but only slid his hand to her back, pulling her closer.
The dark side still surged through him—he needed it to keep going. Submission would be easiest to press on her, but calm and quiet were close enough he could manage. She relaxed under his hand and leaned into him.
“This was a quick, clean victory,” he said. “You know what their lives in the First Order have been like. You saw. Now they have another choice.”
“I know.” She nodded, swiped a hand across her face again. “I’m okay. Sorry.”
He shook his head, dismissing her apology. “Let’s go. I still want you checked out.”
She frowned at him. “Only if you get checked out. You need a medic worse than I do.”
He couldn’t argue with that. Despite Force healing and the Jannessi healer’s efforts, his blaster wound could still do with bacta therapy, and his dragging fatigue told him he probably needed a transfusion. “We’ll both get checked out.”
* * *
A “quick, clean victory” didn’t mean the medcenter wasn’t still packed with casualties. Rey didn’t want to see what a long, messy one looked like. And topping off Kylo’s blood supply and doing whatever needed to be done to his wound took more time.
She found a spot against a corridor bulkhead among the triaged patients, put her head down on her knees, held her staff in front of her like a barrier and closed her eyes, exhausted.
She felt Kylo reaching through the bond and raised her head. When he came out into the corridor, everyone else’s head came up, too, the stormtroopers and TIE pilots with their helmets off to show their bruised, bloody faces, the officers with their uniforms torn and jackets and caps missing. She wondered if they knew who he was, or if it was only the raw power pouring off him. It was funny how he could still have that effect while wearing what was clearly someone else’s old shirt.
His gaze raked over her, more intense than she had energy to face.
“What are you doing here?” he said.
It seemed obvious. “Waiting for you.”
He studied her a moment longer, then offered a hand. She took it and let him pull her up. She felt eyes on her back until they turned into an empty corridor.
“Why didn’t you stay for proper treatment?” There was an edge to his voice. It occurred to her that there’d been an edge to him since he walked out of the medcenter.
She made a face. “There are people hurt worse. I only needed some bacta patches.”
She sensed his disagreement, but he didn’t say anything, only guided her along triangular corridors that were too cold and smelled of recycled air. The people they passed didn’t make eye contact and gave them as wide a berth as possible.
“I’ve arranged quarters,” he said shortly, then with another sharp glance, “And food.”
She tried to sort out what she was sensing from him, but her mind just buzzed, unwilling to make the effort. Unease trickled through her. “I thought—”
“Go on.”
“What about Jannessi? We aren’t going back?”
“I found what I was looking for.”
“What?”
He just looked at her.
She stopped. “What?” she said again. “Maybe it’s obvious to you, but not to me.”
“Do you enjoy being hunted?” he said.
She gave him his own look right back.
After a moment, he relented. “Now we have a toehold. A chance to fight back.” He started walking again.
Galactic domination seemed to be simmering again. She stifled a sigh.
“I like Jannessi,” she grumbled.
Another look, this one disbelieving.
“I like Verrannallu and Jaegar and Tam,” she corrected. “I like the mallikin. I liked fixing the speeder. I was going to fix things for other people.”
“Rey—” He stopped whatever he was going to say. “You get attached too easily.”
“Why shouldn’t I? You’d be dead if it wasn’t for them,” she said, temper rising. “And then after everything they did, people got hurt and killed because of us. What’s wrong with you, anyway? Why are you acting like this?”
Three stormtroopers came around the corner at the end of the corridor. Kylo looked up at them. They turned right back around.
He rounded on her, fists clenching. “I won’t shout,” he said. “I won’t throw things this time.”
She fought an impulse to swing her staff off her shoulder. “What for?”
He closed his eyes briefly. She had the sense his fists were clenched on his slipping temper.
“We agreed the boy in the sinkhole was a trap, yet you came after me when I went down there. Why?”
She just stared. He was bringing this up now? “You disappeared! What was I supposed to do?”
“Wait. I can take care of myself.”
“You were hurt,” she said. “I couldn’t sense anything from you. What would you’ve done in my place?”
It was his turn to stare. His hands relaxed. “The same thing. But with more destruction.”
It was a joke, sort of. Except it wasn’t. “That’s what I thought. And I did think about it, even if you don’t believe it.”
“No. I think you looked for a reason.”
“What if I did?” She did shrug her staff off her shoulder now, poked the bent end into his chest. “You’re the one who dragged me into all this. Twice. Don’t complain about how I handle things.”
He pushed her staff away. It was mildly threatening, but no more threatening than poking him in the chest. The edge she’d felt softened and she caught a flicker of exasperated amusement.
“Reckless,” he said. “I still don’t know how you survived.”
“Dumb luck, probably,” she said, disgusted.
“The Force.”
“That too.”
He turned and started walking again.
The cruiser was old, maybe as old as the ships she’d crawled through back on Jakku. The quarters he took her to were just big enough for a narrow bunk and clothes chest and tiny refresher through a door on the opposite wall. He stood behind her as she took it in, a looming presence as dark as the bulkheads around her.
The Force pulsed and the door hissed shut. She turned, her skin prickling. He stood gazing down at her with one of his burning looks. She couldn’t read his face, suddenly couldn’t read him through the bond, but something made her back a step. She bumped into the bunk.
His hand rose and he touched warm fingers to the bruise around her neck. “Don’t do anything like that again.” His voice was soft now. “What you did this morning. What you did yesterday. Promise me.”
His anger she could stand against. The softness was something else entirely.
“I don’t know. I’ll try.”
“Try hard.”
She gave a hiccup of a laugh. “Okay. I’ll try hard.”
He dropped his hand. “Rest. You need it.”
The door closed behind him, leaving her alone in a small, gloomy, cold room that for all its cleanliness, was somehow less inviting than her shelter on Jakku.
Rey marched herself into the ‘fresher to wash—there was no way she’d get into bed gritty with rock dust. Just because she’d had to go to bed grimy forever didn’t mean she liked it.
At last, she crawled into the bed with a grateful sigh, knowing she’d be unconscious in seconds.
The sheets were like everything else in the First Order: crisp and unforgiving. The mattress made only a token attempt to keep the bones of her hips and shoulder from grinding into the sleeping platform. Her muscles ached from what felt like an endless series of fights. She closed her eyes, breathed slowly and waited to sink into sleep.
She didn’t. She counted her breaths, concentrated on relaxing each muscle, one by one. She imagined the peacefulness of Ahch-To. Minutes dragged past, a lot of them. She remained awake, restless, oddly bereft. The sheets felt cold, the bed too empty…
And she realized what the problem was: no Kylo.
“Oh, for pity’s sake, Rey,” she said aloud and opened her eyes to the dim room. She didn’t know whether to laugh or be completely mortified.
Once she thought it, she couldn’t stop thinking about it. The way he was so big and warm and solid, the way his arms felt around her, like nothing and no one could get past. His rich, dark scent that could go to her head like giszen-weed smoke if she let it. His heartbeat under her ear, his breaths like the ocean had sounded on Ahch-To, his dark eyes that always seemed to speak more than words ever could—
She became aware of heat unfurling through her and stopped, taken aback.
She wasn’t completely ignorant about sex. In a place like Jakku, you found out just about everything at a young age. She’d also learned very early that men were frequently predators to be guarded against.
The problem was, Kylo often felt awfully predatory to her survivor’s instincts. The biggest predator, the one other predators wisely avoided. So she didn’t know how she could think of him like that, the way that made that pleasant but disquieting warmth curl through her, making her tighten and ache.
Probably because he wasn’t here. Well, here, on the other side of some bulkheads somewhere, but not here-here.
Another instinct, newer and less familiar but just as strong, whispered that crossing that line wasn’t a thing to be done lightly. She’d crossed a lot of lines with him, but this one wouldn’t just be scratching a biological itch or closing some kind of bargain, the way it mostly was on Jakku. To him, it would mean much more. Greater closeness and trust, something she didn’t know if she could commit to.
Still, how would it feel? To be kissed. She closed her eyes and brought her fingers to her lips. To be touched. Her hand slipped downward…
A familiar, ear-popping sensation came, the sense of the Force building a quiet bubble just big enough for her and one other. Her eyes snapped open.
“Space” by Rainbow Nebula
Kylo lay in the bed with her, facing her. He wore black—of course—a loose shirt that left his arms and a sliver of his chest bare.
“Oh!” she said, torn between embarrassment and horror, and started to sit up.
His hand shot out to lie against her cheek, fingers curling into her hair. The touch was real and gentle, stilling her.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I feel it too.”
A startled smile tugged at her lips. Where had she heard that before? “I just forgot,” she said. “About the bond doing this.”
She hoped that would be a convincing explanation for her fluster. Which wasn’t helped by seeing all that muscle on display.
“Me too,” he said.
Her heart was still beating harder than it should. “What do you feel?”
He just looked at her for a long moment, one arm pillowing his head, his thumb tracing a warm arc on her cheek. His eyes were very, very dark. “Lonely,” he finally said.
“Me too.” She realized she’d echoed him and gave a breath of a laugh. “Stupid bond.”
“No. Never that.”
“No, I guess not. But it’s…” She trailed off uneasily.
“Awkward?”
“Something like that.”
He seemed to think about it. She saw when another thought came to him—something flickered in his eyes. “Join me, Rey.”
Mischief! That’s what she saw. Kylo Ren was teasing her while he lay in her bed—sort of-but-not-really lay in her bed.
It was the not-really part that let her tease him back. “Where, Ben?”
He patted the mattress in front of him. “Here.”
“Hmm. Why does that not seem like a good idea right now?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”
Should she tell him? “Let me put it this way—just now, I was thinking of predators, how you always have to watch out for them.”
“What if I promise to behave?”
There. That, right there, told her he was thinking exactly the same things she was. Of course he was. She’d sensed his desire almost from the beginning—she just hadn’t wanted to admit any such frightening thing to herself. That a creature in a mask, a monster, wanted her.
She folded her own arm under her head and considered, reminding herself of everything she’d been thinking before he appeared to look at her out of those dark eyes and caress her with that dark voice.
“Maybe another time,” she finally said lightly, not wanting to hurt him.
“When?” he said immediately, obviously taking her literally.
She swallowed a laugh, though she couldn’t say why it was funny. “Oh, maybe like when you’re half-dead from blood loss and a bunch of telepathic predators are terrorizing me out of my mind.”
“That can be arranged,” he said and smiled.
It was a real smile, not a flash he tried to hide. It utterly transformed him. In that moment, she felt she could join him.
The bond winked out and she was alone in her bed again. She didn’t know whether to pound the mattress in frustration or give a sigh of relief.
Image credit: “Space” by Rainbow Nebula on Deviantart
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