The Raptor
I’ve been terrible about keeping up with posting chapters here. Sorry! I’ll start catching up
Her arms locked tight around her, Rey paced her quarters again—for a different reason. She cursed the Force again—for a different reason. She still felt the heat of Kylo’s hands, smelled his scent. She licked her lips, swollen and a little tender. She could still taste him. And the way his big, solid body had felt, the strength in his arms locked around her—
She remembered when she saw him half-naked through the Force, the way the sight of his powerful chest and arms had shocked through her, sending a strange heat breathing over her skin. It was like that now, but the shock was more of a throb, the heat a blaze that made her breath shake.
She should go to him. No, she shouldn’t. If she did, things would happen. Was she ready for that? Yes. No. Yes.
She dropped her arms to her sides. Clenching her fists, she started for the door—
—And stopped. Kylo’s presence was coming toward her, a rumbling wave through the Force.
She scrambled backward, bumped into her bed and sat down hard. A few moments later and the door gave its nerve-shredding buzz. Rey made herself wait, her heart thudding hard three times, then she jumped up and darted for the door.
He was breathing as hard as she was. There was a brush of color high across his cheeks. She looked up at him, her mouth suddenly dry and her heart beating much too hard. She felt like a captured moon, spinning irresistibly down into his gravity.
His throat bobbed once in a swallow. “We’ve made contact with the Raptor. We’ll be dropping out of hyperspace in fifteen minutes.”
It was like missing a step in the dark. She fumbled, cut adrift, then managed, “Oh.”
He just stood looking at her, a question in his eyes.
Without thinking, she stepped forward, slid her hand behind his neck, went up on tiptoes and kissed him on the corner of the mouth. He went completely still.
“It was nice,” she whispered in his ear. “Let’s do it again soon.”
Releasing him again, she slipped past him and started down the corridor.
An arm came around her middle and hauled her back.
“Ky—!” she managed then his mouth came down on hers and swallowed the rest.
I Want It Now by Saturnine Stardust
She was dimly aware of the hiss of her door closing. Her back hit the wall and his hands were everywhere, roaming up her sides, down over her hip. Her hands were trapped between them. She knotted her fingers in the front of his tunic. Pressed against the wall, she couldn’t escape—didn’t want to escape, intensely aware of every inch where his body met hers.
Her head spun. Little, eager noises came from her throat as she kissed him. And oh, it was even better than it had been through the Force, so much stronger, so much more.
He broke from her mouth, trailing little nipping kisses down her neck. “Soon enough?” he growled.
Rey moaned. “Fifteen—” she got out.
He silenced her again, one hand tangling in her hair, the other slipping from hip to bottom, strong fingers kneading her flesh.
She whimpered and her knees went out from under her. Only the wall, the crush of his body against hers and her hands fisted in his tunic held her up.
Kylo abruptly broke away, burying his face in her hair. His hands shifted, cradling her head against his shoulder, his other arm sliding around her waist. He was breathing hard.
“Fifteen minutes,” he said roughly, “is not enough.”
She clung to him and panted. No. Not nearly enough.
* * *
The lieutenant touched the comlink at her ear and turned away from her screen. “We drop out of hyperspace in one minute, sir.”
Kylo, standing in front of Rey, nodded in acknowledgement. His hands, warm and gloveless, enfolded hers, sending disquieting ripples through her.
“Are you ready?” he said, his eyes searching her face.
She glanced around the hangar, to the Nightfolk boarding a shuttle, the white-armored Strike Unit guarding the ramp, also prepared to board for the preliminary stage of the assault on the Raptor.
She took a breath, set her jaw and forced herself to focus. “I’d better be.”
“It’s the same as what you did with the guard in the interrogation room, on Starkiller,” he said. “The first time you used the Force.”
She gave a jerky nod.
His calm flowed to her through the bond, easing her tense muscles. She let out a breath. The next one she took matched Kylo’s. She felt the pulse in her throat flutter then slow to beat in time with his.
It was the opposite of Snoke’s throne room, when every sense, every reflex had sparked and sped to match his.
Rey reached for the Force, forming feelings: Trust. Assurance. Security. Certainty.
“Good.” Kylo’s confidence and approval rippled through the bond.
“Dropping out of hyperspace now, sir.” The lieutenant’s voice came distant.
“Now,” Kylo murmured. “Reach out.”
Rey let the conflagration of her power ignite, spiraling outward.
Kylo’s swirled around her, dark and cool, containing and directing hers. It blasted out through the hangar, into space. She sensed the star destroyer, a blaze of life in the emptiness of space.
Beyond the heaving sea of the Force, the lieutenant’s voice spoke: “Codes transmitted and received. Comm silence ordered. Permission to board received.”
The whine of the shuttle’s engines pressed around her, then fell silent as the ship pierced the pressurizing field. The stormtroopers aboard were more specks of light, the Nightfolk shivers of darkness.
Rey sent to the Force, Interest. Curiosity. Eager anticipation. Kylo focused the suggestion like a beam toward the Raptor.
Time was nothing in the Force, only the ebb and flow of life, a glittering, beautiful, ever-shifting web. She didn’t know how much had passed when the lieutenant’s voice spoke again.
“They’re aboard the Raptor, sir. Mission commenced. Sensors detecting blaster fire.”
Rey sensed darkness spilling across the glimmering lights, spreading through the ship. Pain and horror and terror blossomed in its wake, twisting in her gut. Pushing through the devouring darkness, she groped for the light—
“No.” Kylo’s dark power coiled around her light, threading through and dampening it. “You’re going too deep. There is light. You know it. Give your knowledge to the Force. Let your power give strength to the light side.”
He withdrew again, though she still felt him near, a vast presence flowing through the Force.
It was hard, surrendering her intent to the Force, not being able to see and feel the hopes she wanted to nurture. Like scattering seeds to the wind and hoping they’d land in fertile ground. But there, there a glimmer appeared in the darkness sweeping through the Raptor. Another flickered to life, then another. Rey kept her intention focused on the wave of darkness the Nightfolk rode, sparking ripples of light behind it.
Hope, she thought. Aspiration. Purpose.
Brightness grew, though she felt it whirling with confusion, lost and disoriented.
“They’ve sent a distress call, sir,” the lieutenant said. “TIE squadrons launched.”
“Prepare to launch counterattack,” Kylo said. “Follow my lead.”
Rey pulled out of the Force long enough to blink up into his intense gaze.
“You can do this.” His grip on her hands tightened. “Don’t go too deep.”
She nodded, her head swimming, her entire body vibrating with the power of the Force.
Kylo let go of her hands and strode for his Silencer, a towering storm of black among the scurrying forms of mechanics and droids and running TIE pilots.
* * *
Kylo’s Silencer shot out of the Precursor’s hangar, a flurry of TIEs howling out behind him. More TIEs rounded the hull from the aft and starboard hangars, spreading out to meet the Raptor’s onslaught. Engaging shields and stealth field, he flipped down his targeting array. The Raptor’s TIEs filled the screen, so many he couldn’t possibly miss.
He commed his squadron leaders. “Fire at will.”
They signaled acknowledgement, then the green bolts of mag-pulse cannons were stitching the black of space. TIEs dove and twisted in a deadly dance.
Kylo assessed the odds. The Precursor’s pilots were a cut above line fighter pilots. Flying for a Security Bureau ship, they had to be. But the Raptor’s forces were, for all practical purposes, endless.
It was only a matter of time. If DR-8853’s Strike Unit aboard the Raptor didn’t gain control of the bridge soon, he’d be forced to confront the star destroyer head-on. The Silencer was perfectly capable of taking on the Raptor’s defenses, as he’d proven when he and Rey escaped the Finalizer. But a damaged or crippled destroyer was not part of Kylo’s plan.
Green bolts of plasma slashed across his entire field of vision. A TIE to his left exploded. One above him took a hit that sent it spiraling away. A blast went from a burst of green to white as it struck his shields. An enemy fighter flashed on his targeting screen. Kylo pressed the trigger and it disappeared in a glowing spray of superheated shrapnel. He punched the engines, hurtling through enemy fire, then through enemy fighters, heading for the Raptor.
Everything suddenly shifted. While half of Kylo’s awareness was occupied taking out as many fighters as he could, the other half watched what was happening with amazement.
Enemy TIEs simply…stopped firing. Some shut down engines and hurtled through space, riding nothing but their own momentum. A few crashed into their wingmen, as if guiding the ship had become a burden too heavy to bear. A moment later and they were all falling to the Precursor’s fighters like targets in a novice-level sim.
Kylo could feel power flowing through the Force.
Rey, he thought. She’s doing this.
The Precursor’s squadron leader came over the comlink. “They’re breaking off. What are your orders, sir?”
“Shields up and weapons ready, but hold your fire unless fired upon.”
“Yes, sir.”
Kylo reached out through the Force. The power enwrapping the enemy TIEs was—dark. As dark as any Force projection he could achieve.
Worry spiked through him. Rey, what are you doing? She shifted toward the dark so easily…
He felt back along the bond for her and sensed anger and fear. Why? What had happened?
As his worry bled back through the bond, he felt her focus on him, light almost blinding in its intensity.
He huffed out a breath. There you are, he thought.
He truly didn’t want her to turn to the dark, he realized suddenly. Sometimes he’d wondered if telling her that was only a feint, a tactic to get her to let down her guard with him. It was a strange sort of relief to discover it wasn’t.
At the other end of the bond, Rey relaxed, too, maybe responding to him.
A tiny holo shimmered to life over his comm: DR-8853, commanding the Strike Unit. “Sir, we’ve secured command. Captain Arkady is standing by for your orders.”
Ferocious triumph blazed through Kylo. “Captain Arkady,” he responded. “Recall your fighters. Resume communications silence and await my further orders.”
* * *
Even with two blackening eyes and the front of his uniform spattered with blood from his broken nose, the Raptor’s captain stood at rigid attention as Kylo gave orders. The rest of the bridge crew didn’t look much better—Rey saw plenty of bruised faces, bleeding hands and torn jackets. One woman had a seeping bald patch where she’d torn at her hair while in her dark visions. Rey hunched her shoulders and glanced away.
She was marrow-deep tired. Not the kind of tired from clambering through dead ships all day long, but tired like that time she’d sliced herself good on a duct’s sheet metal, going dizzy by the time she got the spurting wound tied off with strips torn from her wrappings.
Still, she managed to hold herself straight, forcing herself to pay attention to what was going on around her. No strategy meeting this time. No discussion. Just the captain nodding and saying, Yes, sir. No, sir. I’ll see to that, sir, his swollen eyes on Kylo round and dazed and nervous.
Uneasiness slithered through her. She didn’t want to be part of telling people what to do. She knew what it felt like, to be forced to do what someone said. She remembered a little girl compelled to crawl into the smallest, darkest, most frightening places, not allowed to come out until she’d fetched whatever she’d been sent for.
No, she told herself firmly. This isn’t like that.
The Raptor had sent a distress call. Someone would be showing up very soon to deal with the problem—no time for meetings and discussions. She might not know how these things worked, but that was clear enough.
Rey kept her attention spread across the Raptor’s cold, gleaming black bridge, standing just enough behind Kylo to avoid hampering his swing if he had to draw his lightsaber. With Dare and the Strike Unit behind them and a handful of Nightfolk scattered among the bridge crew, that didn’t seem likely. It didn’t feel likely, either, but her grip on the Force wasn’t too steady right now—things wavered in and out of her perception like mirages.
Kylo’s hand closed on her elbow and she realized she’d drifted. He urged her to one side of the bridge, by a huge, triangular viewport that showed the Precursor floating, shuttles running back and forth between her and the Raptor. Two Nightfolk glided near to flank them, likely at Kylo’s unspoken wish.
He studied her with one of his intent gazes. “What happened while I was out there?” He tipped his chin toward the viewports.
She frowned, not really sure what he was asking. “While I was in the Force,” she said slowly, “I saw all those fighters coming at you.”
“You did something,” he said. “They stopped firing.”
Rey blinked. “I— They did?”
His chin dipped in a nod.
“There were so many of them,” she said, her voice hushed. “I could see our pilots’ lives going out, and I was afraid—” She bit her lip and went on. “I wanted them to just stop.”
Kylo still held her elbow. His fingers tightened. “You sent that intention to the Force.”
“I didn’t want you to be killed!” she said, defensive.
He was looking at her strangely. She felt a pulse of some strong emotion through the bond before he muted it.
“Could you do it again?” he said.
“I’m not sure what I did. Maybe?”
His intent look transferred to the viewport behind her. At last, his attention came back to her. “We’ll explore it later.” His hand on her arm softened. “You did well. It saved lives—ours and theirs.”
She nodded. It should’ve made her feel better, but something tight coiled in her belly.
“The Relentless will arrive soon,” he said and bent his head to catch her eyes. “You know what to do.”
“I know.”
“Tell me.”
She made a face. “Defend myself if I have to.”
“Rey.”
She glared at him, then blew out an annoyed breath. “Defend myself if I have to but stay out of the fighting.”
“Good. Don’t forget.”
“I won’t forget, Kylo,” she said. “I spent fifteen years taking care of myself, remember?”
“That,” he said, “is what worries me.”
Image credit: “I Want It Now” by Saturnine Stardust
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