Ouroboros

Twenty One

Twenty One.

"If I was to tell you that there are landing craft entering the atmosphere, would that completely ruin the day?" Beau asked Finn and Jannah as they nervously paced the crew area in the Millennium Falcon. Both stared at him. Finn was on tenterhooks, swinging between the desire to exit the ship, run headlong towards the Castle and barrel in, doing whatever he could to get Rey back and the duty to stay and accept that this place was toxic to him.

"Is that something you're likely to say?" Jannah asked dryly.

"Maybe, maybe," Beau admitted. "Hypothetically, there could be three, homing in to land on the plains to the north of the Castle. And due to land in ten minutes."

"Any luck getting through to Poe?" Finn asked, ceasing his pacing and walking right up to the man. The small shake of his head and slump of his shoulders told the tale even before he confirmed it.

"So what do we do?" Jannah asked. "Go get them?"

"And be trapped on the ground and outnumbered?" Finn asked and then sighed. "We need to get the ship ready to fly...and be ready when they arrive." There was a scuffle as Tamini emerged from the galley, her eyes glittering with irritation and a bowl of weak porridge clasped in her hand.

"There is another option," she said, glaring up at the humans. "You could take the ship to them."

-o0o-

Exhaustion was weighing his limbs and he felt as if he had been fighting for hours. Every time he cut down an enemy, another surged forward. Red-clad Sith guards, Knights of Ren, Praetorians...all surrounded him, forcing him to expend his energies to protect himself and stop them killing him. Parry, duck, twist, slice, stab, deflect...every motion was precise and balanced but though he carved a deadly swathe through the opponents, there were never any fewer and he was never any nearer the end...

Think...

He spun away, the lightsaber raised, pointing aggressively at them as was his usual stance, his weight balanced forward. His chest was heaving and sweat trickled down his neck as he tracked their movements. He was pretty certain he had killed at least one of them three times already. It just made no sense...

They aren't real, he realised. These are just ghosts generated by the Dark Side. Rey and I killed the Praetorians and the Sith Guards. I slaughtered the Knights of Ren myself. None of these are alive...but they can still harm me in this place. This is an illusion, a distraction to keep me from my goal...

Or hold me up.

He gestured and all the shapes were slammed backwards, away from him and crashing devastatingly against the rocky walls. Finally he lowered his lightsaber.

"I won't play your game any more, Snoke," he growled, tamping down his rage furiously. Losing control now was not an option-not when he had the others nearby and particularly when he had a very specific purpose.

"You are weak-just as you always have been," Snoke taunted him, looming from the dark suddenly. He couldn't help himself, back-pedalling and raising the lightsaber defensively to hide his panic. He could sense the evil presence swirling around him and the sight of the attenuated gold-clad shape, moving towards him with the scarred, misshapen head and the ice-cold blue eyes. Snoke inspected him and his voice grew colder. "Pathetic. I knew I should have searched harder for the spawn of the Palpatine line-because you were always a disappointment, a spoilt child in a mask!"

Fury surged through Ben and he leapt forward-to meet a blast of Force lightning that spun him over and over, face and hands scraped on the rough floor. The saber skipped away and he slowly raised his head, feeling Snoke's energies begin to crackle through the air once more. In a second, he extended his hand and the lightsaber slapped into his skinned palm, igniting as he rolled to deflect another blast of lightning.