The Calm Before the Storm

"Poe!" Finn and I say at the same time, coming to a stop at the docking port. Poe removes his helmet.

"How did you-" I start to say, trying catching my breath from our run.

"Listen," Poe puts up his hand to silence me. "I'm only here to get BB-8. It's really important that-"

"No," I say sternly.

"Just hear me out."

"BB-8 stays with me." My hand trembles at the urge to grab the light saber off of Finn's belt. I clench my fists.

Poe looks off to the side, pressing his lips together and crossing his arms.

Finn steps in between us, holding out his hands. "No one's going anywhere. What do you need from BB-8 exactly?" he asks Poe.

"The memory drive."

"We can't remove her memory," I object. "She'll forget everything. She'll lose all her memories. And it's not fair to her."

"Hold on," Finn says. "Can we just remove the part of the memory you need?" He looks at Poe.

BB-8 beeps behind us.

"She says she only has one memory drive and everything is on it," I repeat for her.

"General Leia sent me to get BB-8." Poe glares at us. "And she wants the light saber returned too. They'll send a fleet after you if you don't consent."

"They don't know where we're going," I reply, crossing my arms.

"They can easily track you."

"Finn? Can we change the tracking signature of the Millennium Falcon to confuse their sensors?"

"No, but I think I have an idea," Finn says, leaving quickly.

"What?" Poe watches him go, a confused look on his face. "Why are you doing this?"

"I'm sorry Poe. I'm going after Snoke and I'm going to kill him. And I'm not leaving BB-8 behind."

"You're making a mistake."

BB-8 rolls back and forth near our feet but doesn't say anything.

"The Resistance can help you," Poe continues. "Why don't you let us help? We need a strategy, a plan."

"No," I shake my head. "They will all just get killed. Don't you see? Snoke won't be defeated that way, with weapons fire and another battle against the First Order. We've tried that. It isn't going to work. I'm the one who has to do it."

There is a moment of silence and even BB-8 stops moving as we wait for Poe's response.

He nods finally, looking down. "I believe in you Rey. Count me in."

* * *

"Run this by me again?" Finn says, rubbing his forehead. We're sitting around the games table, going through a strategy, as Poe insisted we should do before heading out.

"I don't know what to expect when we get there," I say. "If they're on a planet, on a battleship or what. But basically, I'll go to Kylo, Snoke will be expecting me to go straight for him. But he won't be expecting the two of you."

"Or, he might be expecting a whole Resistance army," Poe mumbles.

"Maybe, but I don't think he'll see the two of you as any threat to him," I say. "Finn, you keep the light saber. Snoke will be focused on getting me to join the Dark Side and hopefully ignoring you. So our best bet is for you to strike when he least expects it."

"Won't he sense the light saber?" Finn rubs his hands over his knees.

"Hopefully he'll think I'm the one in the room that has it on me."

"I know a way we can sneak onto their ship. But if they're on a planet, it will be impossible to remain hidden," Poe says, a serious expression on his face.

"He'll know I'm coming either way," I reply. "But you should stay out of site anyway. You're our back-up. And you'll be with BB-8."

He nods.

"It's hard to make concrete plans when we don't know what we're going into," I sigh, sitting back.

"Agreed," Finn nods. "But we've got the element of surprise, if I'm the one to use the light saber." His hand moves to his belt and I hold back a gasp at my sudden urge to grab the light saber. It was never like this on Yavin_4, so what changed? I guess I didn't want to use it to kill an evil Sith Lord back then.

I get up. "Let's keep going. I'll fly."

The wait is agonizing as Poe pushes an asteroid through space with the tip of his X-Wing fighter plane, moving slowly towards the Battleship ahead. I know Kylo is here, but I can't feel whether Snoke is, or not, and I'm glad. Just the thought of him makes my skin crawl and as long as I don't sleep, I won't have to see him. I do feel Kylo's presence though, growing nearer and nearer by the second.

It takes all my resolve not to lean over to the front of the plane and grab the controls to blast this fighter forward already. But we're pretending to be a slow moving asteroid passing by. I grip the back of Poe's seat tight. There isn't much room for BB-8 and I back at the back and we had to leave some good bombs behind to make room for me. But the X-Wing was a better choice for being discrete than flying in on the Millennium Falcon.

"So where should I land?" Poe asks.

"It doesn't really matter," I say. "Somewhere less heavily guarded if possible. But they'll know we're here I think. At least Kylo will. I don't know about Snoke. I can't sense him."

"How about the sanitation chute at the back?" Finn asks. His voice, and Poe's, come through the small ear piece Finn brought for each of us. We're locked on to BB-8 as well. "If the fleet doesn't know we're here then we can get in through the cargo bay-"

"Hold on," Poe shouts as the large Battleship comes to a stop in front of us. There's not enough time to adjust our speed and the asteroid crashes into the side of the battleship with a jolt. The front of Poe's X-Wing fighter crunches into it and BB-8 hits the back of Finn's seat.

"They must be expecting us," Poe says. "Their deflector shields are down."

My hands are clammy as I adjust my ear piece. "Finn, are you ready for this?"

"As ready as I could ever be to kill an evil Sith Lord."

"Alright, then let's do this."

-----------

The immediacy of Kylo's presence is so strong that I have no idea which direction to take in the brightly lit halls of the battleship. Finn wipes at his forehead and doesn't say anything. The corridor is eerily empty and silent. The entire ship is still, like the catacombs on Ahch-To.

"Are you sure he's here?" Finn whispers. He wipes his hands on his shirt and I realize this is his first time back on a ship like this since the battle on Starkiller Base.

"He's definitely here," I whisper in response. Our boots click on the smooth floors as we make our way down another hallway.

"This doesn't feel right," Finn says. Then I gasp.

"Kylo?"

Kylo stands at the end of the hall, in his black clothes, without the helmet, unharmed, unbeaten, and dark look in his eyes.

Finn looks from Kylo to me then back again.

"I'm here for you," I say.

"FN2187," Kylo says to Finn without taking his eyes off of me. "Take her home to Jakku."

"I'm not leaving here without you-" I begin to say.

Kylo curls his fingers and I go flying forward.

"Rey!" Finn yells behind me. I hear him running forward as I slide on my knees before Kylo's feet.

"Go wander the halls," Kylo says to Finn in a low voice, "and forget why you're here. Don't come back to this corridor."

My throat is locked tight and I can't speak. I watch Finn walk away in a trance.

Kylo crouches down in front of me. "I told you not to come. Now I have to kill you."