30. Chapter 30: Screams

30. Screams

Hux was not drunk today. He wanted to be completely sober to savor this moment, the moment when he destroyed Kylo Ren, the scavenger girl who was presumptuous enough to call herself a Jedi, and General Leia Organa. And, although this was merely a bonus, the destruction of all the villainous, wretched scum that lived on this backwater planet.

He had brought the whole fleet, nearly, the fighters and a few bombers and three divisions of stormtroopers. Now they hung outside Batuu's atmosphere, making a plan of attack. An hour ago they'd sent down a light cruiser to pick up their informant, who'd then told them about the planet's shelters and defenses – both of which were, to Hux's delight, pathetic.

He intended to sweep the planet with the fleet, taking out every settlement they came across and bombing shelters. They would shoot down any craft that tried to escape. Then he'd send in the ground troops to flush out the rest – and R'iia, would he enjoy it.

The comms crackled slightly, then Captain Tyra's strident voice echoed across the command deck. "We're in position above the coordinates. Would you like us to begin the attack?"

"Please," Hux purred, and he glanced over at Phasma where she smiled at him from behind a row of databanks. Finally, he thought, and she smiled wider.

Kylo had a terrible, terrible feeling. The past few days had been alright, all things considered –he'd discussed nothing more serious with Rey or Leia than the weather, and Tess and Tyr's hate for him seemed to have subsided to mild dislike.

But today, something felt off. He couldn't have said what it was, only that the Force wasn't moving the way it normally did, and he had a hard time accessing it. Rey had the same feeling, when he asked, although she hadn't paid as much attention to it as he had. He attributed that to her lack of experience with the Force.

"I don't know, Ben, it just feels muffled to me," she sighed. "Not bad."

"You don't have the Dark Side whispering in your ear all the time like I do. It's definitely bad," he snapped, not meaning to be angry, but he was on edge, and if he let himself relax at all, the power would come back and he wasn't sure how to deal with it anymore.

Placatingly, she lifted her hands, nodding. "Okay. What do you think it is?"

"I don't know," Kylo growled, and he began pacing to let out some of his tension. "I can't… Everything feels cloudy." He'd always been able to feel things with the Force, since Luke had first taught him how. Now there was nothing but vague emotion, and that was full of threat, looming heavy.

And then something… switched, a flash of pain and terror echoing in his head.

Rey felt it more strongly than she did, because she suddenly gasped as if she'd been punched in the stomach, eyes going wide. "Oh stars, stars, Ben, what is that?"

He didn't feel it as much, because he'd felt it too often before, but the Force was screaming, and although he was sure it wasn't as jarring through the Dark as it was for her, it still ached, and he knew what it meant.

Immediately he grabbed her shoulders and shoved her towards the Falcon so they could get Leia. But his mother came running out of the ship towards them first, the children all bounding behind her. "Where is that coming from?" she asked, and Kylo kept one hand on Rey's shoulder as he tugged the other through his hair, reaching with the Force as hard as he could, but there was nothing.

"I don't know, I don't- I can't tell, it's just-"

"What is going on?" Rey snapped, shoving his hand off her shoulder and giving them both a furious look. "What was that?"

"That's what it feels like when people die," Kylo growled, and he was frightened because he wasn't sure how close it was, whether it was a threat to them – surely there would have been a raid warning if there was an attack here? "A lot of them."

Rey's face went slack with horror, and she glanced at the children, who were all staring at Kylo in shock. "What do we do?"

"I don't know, okay?" he answered, furious. "I can't even tell if it's here or not."

Only suddenly he could, because a familiar sound began building, first just a soft humming in his ears, building to a low rippling roar and he knew long before Rehc came barreling towards his house from the village. He felt frozen.

"We didn't hear!" Rehc was shouting, tripping over himself, blaster in hand, eyes wild. "No one warned us, they must have learned about the lookouts! I think they're killing everyone, we have to get them to the shelter, now."

The roaring whine of TIE fighter engines was getting louder and Kylo felt adrenaline flood his veins as he let the Dark rush sweetly back into him. The power was an infinite relief, something he knew he could control.

"Ben-" Rey began, but he glared at her and shook his head.

"We need to leave."

"We can't just-"

"We're going."

He looked at the village and saw crowds of people stumbling out across the grass, away from them and toward the shelter, tripping over themselves, carrying blasters. Most of them ignored Kylo's little group in favor of running as fast as they could.

Rehc stumbled to a halt next to Rey, and the children ran to him, because going to the shelters was familiar, it was what they did-

And Kylo could see the fighters now, a host of black dots on the horizon like a cloud, sweeping over the mountains, flanking them.

They couldn't go to the shelters. They wouldn't survive. "If they knew about the lookouts, they'll know about the shelters," he said urgently, grabbing Rehc's arm, digging his fingers hard into flesh to make the other man focus. "You get as many people as you can on ships and get out of here."

They'd be killed. But better for them to try to escape than to sit in the shelters and be gunned down like rats in a cellar. Rehc nodded, looking at him desperately. "Ben, how did they know?" he asked quietly, hoarsely. "How did they know?"

"You have to go now," Kylo told him, forcing himself to sound encouraging. "You need to protect the kids."

But when Rehc gestured for the kids to follow him, they wouldn't – because Tess wouldn't. Kylo glanced back at the advancing fighters again, his stomach feeling hollow.

"I'm not leaving the Princess," Tess said stubbornly, her voice wavering.

"We aren't either," one of the other kids agreed.

"Fine," Kylo snarled. "Get on the Falcon, then." He wasn't sure how they were going to escape, but he could get the kids to behave if they were on the ship and felt like they were leaving. "You go tell the other, Rehc."

Finally, finally they listened and ran for the ship. Rehc hesitated, but then sprinted off to the shelter. Kylo could still feel the screaming and he knew this planet wasn't going to weather this assault.

Rey was shaking, her eyes glassy, and she'd wrapped her arms around her stomach. "What are we going to do?" she asked quietly, and Kylo looked at the fighters again and shook his head.

They were too close now; there was little, if anything, they could do. Taking off in Falcon would make them an immediate target – there would be no ignoring that ship.

His mother took charge. "We have to get them somewhere safe," she said, nodding to the Falcon. "We can't escape in that. Are the shelters like bunkers?"

"Basically."

"But we can't go there?"

"No."

Now all Kylo could hear was the screaming of the fighter engines, and he looked at Rey and his mother and he knew he couldn't let them down. "We'll find something," he said desperately. "Get them back out of the ship. We're going to find somewhere to take them."

Leia strode back to the Falcon, and Kylo grabbed Rey's wrist as she started to follow. "We're going to be okay," he said, trying to believe it so that she would.

"We have to help them," she said quietly, eyes full of tears. "They're all dying, Ben, and it hurts."

"I know," he said, although he'd pushed the screams and the pain down into a corner of his mind so he could focus on surviving.

The first blaster bolts started shattering the houses furthest from the village, sending fountains of flame and smoke and earth into the air. Kylo stared at them, a little lost for a moment himself. He recognized the red stone of Oolism's house seconds before two blaster bolts blew it into dust. Maybe she wasn't inside – he hoped not.

"We're going to find somewhere to hide them," he said, more to make it sound like he had a plan than anything else.

But they were coming, and there wasn't anywhere to go.

A/N: *throws this out from a mountain of blankets and leaves it*

Welcome to what happens when Grace writes when she's sad. I've been planning this plot point since chapter 19 or so? I think? And I'm terrified you guys are going to hate me for the next few chapters but I'm determined to give them to you. Anyway, I wrote this chapter and much of the next one last night because I felt really down, which means you guys get all the angst.

Please comment?