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Kylo Ren dreamed. He dreamed he was back in the X-Wing, excited by the feel of its rumble as the engines began to fire. The pull of gravity, the light of the moon as it spilled over the dash. His hands, slender but calloused, curled over the yoke
Over the yoke. He again turned the nose towards the most distant star, but something was wrong. Light spilled in from the aft canopy pane. Dawn.
He jerked awake, realizing the true significance of the vision. His arms were empty. Rey had gone, taken the X-Wing. He could feel her still, her determination as she piloted the craft upwards into the heavens. The pain in his chest was sudden and intense, as though his heart had been speared by a great hook and now it was pulling, tearing him open. Unbidden, tears filled his eyes and he cried out, curling around himself as the pain ripped him open. He pressed his face into the stone floor, unable to do much more than whimper rhythmically. Blood dripped from his nose, the result of a minor hemorrhage somewhere in his skull.
He reached out to her, a silent entreaty to return, to put an end to this pain. To kill him if that’s what it took. It was still possible to find her as he had done before, but she might as well be a ghost in the ether now. He closed his eyes tightly, panting with the effort. Then, his mind caught her. She was in orbit, drifting, unable to fly the craft and fight off the pain at the same time. He saw her clearly, her feet wedged and her back pressed against the pilot’s seat. Tears streamed down her face, mixing with the trickle of blood that ran down her from her nose. She was rocking, slamming herself against the seat as she screamed. As the ship fell through the planet’s orbit, the Upsilon, his own ship, became visible.
Then, it stopped. Everything stopped. The searing, ripping pain subsided into a dull throb.
A trilling noise from across the room. His communicator crackled to life. “Hailing Lord Ren. We have a contact, an X-Wing with rebel livery. Enage?”
She saw it, hovering above the night-day line. Her heart was pounding, but it no longer felt as though it would burst in her chest. She grasped the yoke and jerked it around, swinging the nose around to point directly at the Upsilon. And she hesitated.
“Sir! Permission to engage! Rogue ship is preparing to fire on our position!”
Kylo Ren’s eyes snapped open. The communicator flew to his hand, and he depressed the call button. The physical pain that had been localized in his chest now spread to the rest of him, finding ever nerve, every blood vessel, transforming itself into a stinging, purifying rage.
“FIRE EVERYTHING YOU HAVE. OBLITERATE THAT SHIP.”
--
Rey clung to the yoke, trying to catch her breath. She had survived the pain of separating from Kylo Ren, but it was a near thing. Then she saw the ship, a dark outline against the darkness of space, but for the red bridge windows. She saw the thrusters deploy, turning the massive birdlike shape to face her.
She felt the surge of hate rising up through her like black bile, only it wasn’t her hatred. She herself felt nothing but sadness, and now, as the seconds passed and the twin heavy laser canon barrels were brought to bear on her position, she felt fear as well.
The Upsilon canons glowed as they primed, and then unleashed a fusillade of deadly red laser fire. The paralysis inside her shattered. She pulled the yoke down and punched the engines, sending the nose careening upwards. The Upsilon was not fast enough to outmaneuver her, and had maybe two thirds of her speed. A ship like that couldn’t beat an X-Wing in a fair contest on a good day. Clumsily, it wheeled to turn its cannons on her, but she was already past its field of fire. She remained there for an instant, watching the ship, watching the night and day line as it drifted over the place where she thought the island was.
Then she turned her eyes away, punched the accelerator and threw herself and her ship into hyperspace.