Force Destiny

Mechanics

Rey rummaged through her bag. She had packed her bag full of tools, rations, and a medpac for her journey, but it was the weapon at the bottom that held her interest. She stared at both halves of Luke's broken lightsaber.

What am I doing?

She was running away to a far-off planet with no plan once she landed there. Where would she find a Kyber crystal? How would she know which one to take? If she couldn't fix this one, how would she make the new lightsaber work? Where would she find the parts to fix it? She removed the fractured Kyber crystals from the heart of the mechanisms, rolling them in her fingers. What if she couldn't fix what they had broken? What kind of Jedi would she be without her lightsaber? Even if she had her own blade of plasma, would that make her a Jedi?

She was no closer to that dream than she had been when she escaped Jakku. She had learned little from Luke or the texts. The most she had learned was from a self-proclaimed darksider. Her bondmate. The man she loved. Her connection with him would always be a threat to the people who needed a Jedi the most. It was complicated, something a single Kyber crystal couldn't fix. But a war was coming, and she would have to choose a side, as much as couldn't fathom making that choice. The dream from the previous night had only served to give her hope that she wouldn't have to make that choice.

It was a hope that seemed more foolish the longer she spent away from him, just like this search for a Kyber crystal. Where would she start searching for one on a planet the size of Ilum? How would she know if it was the right one? She wanted a crystal that she could form a bond with, but the whole process seemed daunting. She turned the broken mechanisms over in her hand, wondering if there was a way to salvage the one she had. She was a scavenger after all. It was familiar, and familiar was simpler. If she could make it work, then she could leave the Resistance before she was forced to do something terrible.

"Hey, Rey," a voice said from the door.

"Hey, Rose," Rey said, turning to smile at her friend, "is it my shift?"

"No, I just came to check on you," Rose's voice was gentle, her eyes scanning the cuts and bruises on Rey's face. How could she explain her fight on Mustafar with a long-dead Sith and her bondmate over a Force connection? Rey waited for the inevitable questions. The one she received was pleasantly surprising. "Are you okay?"

Rey was thankful she didn't pry, so she chose to let her in. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about lightsabers, would you?"

"No," Rose answered, smiling, "But it couldn't hurt to take a look."

Rose examined the two halves of the broken weapon with a meticulousness that reminded Rey of her bondmate. "Well, I'm familiar with the Diatium power cell, focusing lenses, cycling field energizers, and this here is an emitter matrix, so I could help rebuild those. I assume the plasma created in the blade energy channel is projected through these crystals, giving you the blade. Everything seems in relative working order besides this part that was ripped in half. It looks like the chamber that holds and focuses the crystal, or, in your case, crystals. These crystals are fractured, so it wouldn't work as it was built. What did you do to this thing?"

"Do you want the real story?" Rey asked, "Because you might not like it." Rose shrugged and waited patiently for Rey to choose whether or not to trust her with the truth. "It was broken when Ben asked me to join him on the Supremacy. He killed Snoke to save my life, but after we killed the guards together, he wouldn't help me save the fleet. He asked me to join him and destroy everything instead. I knew I had to save the fleet on my own, but he had my lightsaber, because I threw it to him when we were fighting the guards. So I called my lightsaber, but he called it, too, and we fought over it until it exploded."