Star Wars Episode X: The Shroud of The Dark Side

Chapter 14:Rey Solo

Rey was making lunch. She had been stuck on Tatooine for 3, almost 4 months now. She understood what Ben meant when he said it drove him crazy. They were running low on food, when Ben woke up she would let him know and they would go into town together. Rey felt much better than she did even a week ago. Ben was great about helping her. She went into their room and smiled. He had a long mission yesterday, used a lot of the force and came back and promptly fell asleep. He'd been asleep since and had barely moved. She only knew he wasn't dead by his deep breathing. Rey went outside and polished her lightsaber. It hadn't been used in a really long time, and it probably wouldn't be used for a while more, but that didn't mean it couldn't be clean. Rey hated not being at the Jedi temple and she hated not knowing what was going on. She pulled out her comlink and called Finn.

"Hey, whats up? You ok?" Finn looked alarmed at her call.

"I'm fine. I wanted to check in and see how everything was going." Rey had to laugh at his panicked face.

"Oh! Yes, it's great. Everyone misses you but since the republic offered guard and money we've got some new recruits. It's great. We're already growing a ton. I've done a lot of studying and I think I'm getting a better hang of the force. We took down a few Black Sun bases but man, they keep growing. If we don't find out where their main headquarters are soon they're going to be a full military force."

Rey sighed. "Good news and then bad news. It's better than nothing."

She told Finn about Ben's fight with Darth Caedus yesterday.

"Ok, well that's great news!" Finn was very excited about that for some reason.

"What do you mean great news? It was super close, if Ben hadn't gotten away when he did who knows what would have happened." Rey didn't understand where Finn was coming from at all.

"But if Ben can take on Darth Caedus now, he just needs to keep up training and next time something big happens, he can take on Caedus and we can deal with the Yuuzhan Vong. He just needs to make sure that he keeps up with Caedus's training." Finn explained.

"Yea... we don't know his training though. It's not like we have a bunch of stuff here for him to use." Rey bounced back.

Finn waved his hand "Ben will figure something out. Anyway, I heard he and Poe are getting along better. That's a relief to hear. I gotta go, good to hear from you, stay in touch!"

Finn disappeared from the com. Rey shook her head and stood up, which was getting to be a bit of a chore these days. She walked into the dining area and saw Ben sitting at the table reading one of the books that Poe gave him.

"Any luck?" She asked him, sitting down beside him to see what he was reading.

"Nope. This one basically says that anyone that commits any kind of war crime should be killed no matter what so. That's not any use. Later in the book though an amendment states that in specific circumstances that can be forgiven, but being seduced by the dark side and coming back isn't one of them so again, no use." He didn't move his head up from the book and just kept flipping through it.

"Well I'm sure you'll find something. Feeling better?" Rey got up and walked toward the cupboards. "We need to go get supplies. Will you go to town with me?"

Ben shut the book and stood up. "Yea I am. Sure let's go now."

They got in the speeder and went to town. For a while they couldn't find anything interesting, Ben got some wires for the new lightsaber he wanted to make. Something caught Rey's eye. She moved over toward the salesman who was selling rocks. She looked through them trying to figure out what had glowed. There it was, sitting on the table. A kyber crystal. She picked it up and rolled it around in her hand. It was clear which meant it hadn't been used before. If it was used the lightsaber would have picked a color based on the user's affinity with the force.

"How much for this?" She asked the salesman.

"That? Oh I don't know... " He looked at it confused. "Where did I get that? Shoot lady... 12 credits."

Rey took the money out of her pouch and gave it to the man. He took the money and nodded. She walked back to find Ben. She found him leaning against a wall staring at a picture. Confused, she walked up to him and looked at the photo. It was of a very handsome man who kind of looked familiar and a beautiful woman. She looked at Ben's face and saw shock and sadness.

"Who are they?" Rey asked him gently.

"One of the storekeepers had it. Said it was found on the skywalker moisture farm years ago. It's signed on the back saying from Obi-Wan Kenobi. It's my grandparents." Ben muttered softly.

Rey looked at the photo. That's why the man looked familiar, she had seen him when she passed out 2 years ago fighting Darth Sidious.

"What was your grandma's name? She's very pretty." Rey asked.

"Padmé amidala. She was the queen of Naboo for a while and then senator. I bet she's buried there." Ben explained, not looking up. "She died right after Anakin turned to Darth Vader. Interesting that this photo exists. Their marriage was a secret, in the old Jedi order the Jedi were not allowed to love."

Rey had heard of that rule and was very confused by it. But being that she joined the Jedi much later than other people usually did, it made sense that she didn't understand. Still, it seemed like a very hard rule to track with your order.

"We should go visit her grave." Rey said. "Not in the day, but tonight. Maybe you can feel something from her, even if she wasn't force sensitive." She quickly added seeing Ben's face at the thought of going to a populated planet with a fugitive.

Ben thought hard about it for a minute. "Ok, sure. Let's go tonight. We can wear the Jedi robes to cover our faces."

Rey nodded. "I'll bring flowers."

Ben looked at her as they walked back to the speeder, with food and supplies in hand. "You're pretty great, you know that?"

Rey smiled. "I have my moments."