The Force Awakens (Star Wars) (16 page)

“A map leading to the first Jedi temple!” Maz was marveling as she puttered about the
kitchen. “To Skywalker himself! I’ve never given up hope for him.”

“Well, that’s good to hear, because I have a favor to ask,” Han said.

Maz looked at him knowingly. “You need a loan. I heard about the
rathtars. King Prana’s not happy.” She stopped and looked at Rey. “How’s the food?”

“So delicious,” Rey said enthusiastically between bites.

“I need you to get this droid to the
Resistance…,” Han said.

“Me?” Maz said archly.

“…and the loan sounds good too.”

“I see you’re in trouble,” Maz said. “I’ll help you find passage—avoid Snoke’s hunter squads—but this journey to the Resistance isn’t mine to take, and you know it.”

“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.”

“
C
AN
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.

She screamed,
and screamed again, and fell backward, backward, sitting down hard in—

She was in the underground corridor, sitting on the cold old stone, her chest pounding as if she had just run from her home all the way to Niima Outpost.

“There you are.”

The voice made her jump. But it was only Maz Kanata, standing alone in the passageway between her and the far stairway.

“What was—that?” Rey
stammered as she struggled to catch her breath.

Maz looked from her to the open doorway and then back to Rey. “It called to you.”

Rey stood unsteadily, her mind still rocked by a succession of rapidly evaporating nightmares. BB-8 rolled out of the room to come to a stop beside her.

“I—I shouldn’t have gone in there.” Aware that she might well have violated unknown privacies, she hurried
to voice amends. “I’m sorry…”

“Listen to me.” Maz was watching her closely. “I know this means something. Something very special…”

“I need to get back.” Rey shook her head, as if the simple physical action might somehow clear everything from her memory.

Maz came closer. “Yes, Han told me that.” Her voice was gentle now, not at all the hard, sardonic tone she had employed up until this
moment. “Whatever you’ve been waiting for—whomever—I can see it in your eyes, you’ve known it all along…they’re not coming back. But there’s someone who still could. With your help.”

Tears were beginning to trickle down Rey’s face. She’d had enough, of all of this. It was too much. “No,” she said simply.

“That lightsaber was Luke’s. And his father’s before him. It reached out to
you
. The
belonging you seek is not behind you. It is ahead. I am no Jedi, but I know the Force. It moves through and surrounds every living thing. Close your eyes. Feel it. The light. It’s always been there. It will guide you. The saber. Take it.”

Rey’s voice strengthened as she wiped away tears. “I’m never touching that thing again. I don’t want any part of this.”

Without another word Rey took
off running, heading determinedly toward the stairs that beckoned just ahead. Accelerating, BB-8 easily kept pace. Maz watched her go and sighed.

One could teach knowledge. One could teach skills. One could even, she knew, teach something of the Force.

But patience had to be learned alone.

The mass rally was impressive. Those who were present would never forget it. Which is the
point of such things.

A thousand or so stormtroopers and their officers fronted assembled TIE fighters and lesser machines of war. Around them rose the central edifices of Starkiller Base. Towering still higher above the buildings were the snowy crags of the surrounding mountain range
that simultaneously shut off and shielded the central portion of the base from the world around it.

Glorying
in the moment, General Hux stood at the head of the assembly flanked by his senior officers, all aligned atop a raised platform backed by an enormous crimson-and-black banner stamped with the insignia of the First Order. Enhanced by artfully concealed amplification, his voice boomed across the troops assembled on the parade ground.

“Today is the end! The end of a government incapacitated by
corruption! The end of an illegitimate regime that acquiesces to disorder! At this very moment, in a system far from here, the New Republic lives and wheezes, staggering onward, depraved and ineffectual and unable in any way to support the citizenry it claims to serve. Meanwhile a host of systems are left to wither and die—without aid, without care, without hope. Drowning in its own decadence, the
New Republic ignores them, unaware that these are its final moments.” A hand swept sharply downward.

“This fierce machine which you have built, to which you have dedicated your lives and labor and upon which we now stand, will bring a final end to the worthless Senate and its dithering members. To their cherished fleet. When this day is done, all the remaining systems in their hundreds will
bow to the dictates of the First Order. And all will remember this as the last day of the last Republic!”

Turning, Hux solemnly gave the signal as the assembled thousand turned to face the mountainous, snowy landscape. Turned, and waited.

Deep within the mountain, engineers and techs concluded the final firing protocol for the new weapon. A last connection was made.

Above, the rally
ground was silent. Then, at a great distance, an impossible blast of light shot into the sky. Despite the remoteness of the actual firing zone, the light was so bright that despite their protective masks a number of the troopers had to cover their eyes. The blast was followed by a terrible concussive roar as a vast column of atmosphere was displaced. In spite of the distance, everyone was
pushed
back and many were knocked down by the ground tremor that followed. Airborne creatures by the thousands took fright and took flight.

Having been gathered in stages by an immense array of coupled collectors located on the other side of the planet, a tremendously compact volume of a type of dark energy known as quintessence had been accumulated at the center of the planet. Held in place inside
a roiling molten metal core by the frozen world’s powerful magnetic field, augmented by the weapons system’s own containment field, it grew until there was nothing like it—nothing natural like it—in this corner of the galaxy. Penetrating to within a predetermined distance of the containment field, an immense hollow cylinder permitted a way out while ensuring that when the weapon was unleashed,
gigantic groundquakes would not roil the world’s fragile surface. When the weapons engineers fired the device, a breach was induced in the containment field. At incredible velocity and accelerating exponentially, the concentrated volume of quintessence escaped, transforming as it did so into a state known as phantom energy and following the artificial line of egress that had been provided. Assuming
that the rotation and inclination of the planet had been taken into account, the released blast of concentrated phantom energy would travel along a perfectly linear path, punching a small Big Rip through hyperspace itself until it left the galaxy—

—or encountered something in its path that was of sufficient mass to intercept it.

Overwhelmed and exhausted both physically and mentally,
Rey finally slowed to a halt. Running solved nothing. Besides, she had nowhere to run to, and she could not run from herself. A familiar electronic chirp made her turn.

BB-8 slowed as he approached, beeping inquisitively. She was far too tired to acknowledge the little droid’s concern.

“No,” she replied, gesturing. “You have to go back.” More beeping,
and she could only shake her head
tiredly. “I thought I was strong enough. Or tough enough. But I’m not.”

Traveling faster than anything ever generated by artificial means, through a torn portion of space-time whose properties were not fully understood, the concentrated glowing ball of energy lit the night sky above Republic City. Leia’s envoy Korr Sella was among those who gazed uncomprehendingly at the inexplicable
phenomenon. Disturbed space was energized and lit up by its passage. It was as if a minuscule sun had suddenly appeared from nowhere, heading directly for the world on which she stood.

It struck with enough force to penetrate the crust and the mantle. Stunned scientists assumed the globe had been hit by an asteroid. The reality was worse, much worse. So powerful was the orb of phantom energy
that as it dissipated within the planetary core, it blocked the free flow of elysium. Gravitons that normally moved freely and harmlessly through the planet suddenly were blocked from doing so. Almost immediately, the resulting graviton flux released enough heat to ignite the core…

Turning the planet into what astrophysicists called a pocket nova.

Expanding outward from the explosion,
a tremendous burst of heat tore through the Hosnian system’s other worlds, searing their surfaces clean of life and incidentally obliterating all settlements, installations, and outposts, as well as the hundreds of ships belonging to the Republic fleet. In its wake, the detonation left behind a blazing, spherical mass. The home of the Republic had become a new binary system: one utterly devoid of
life.