Let the Light In

Chapter 75: Home- An Epilogue

Chapter 75: Home- An Epilogue

Try as she might to be annoyed at the situation Ben had gotten them into, Rey had to admit that she'd messed up just as badly a few times before. She was also laughing harder than she ever had before. Tears were running down her face, and her sides hurt whilst her lungs burnt for air.

"Enjoying the show, sweetheart?" Ben's voice crackled over the comm system.

Rey reached to flick the button from where she was doubled over on the Lark's control board.

"All too much, I'm afraid. You do realise what was implied by 'We promise to extract at least these children without alerting every baddie or Senate goon on the planet to our presence?' It wasn't this Ben, dear, it wasn't this," Rey snorted as she watched the scene unfold from behind the Lark's viewport.

Ben had torn around the corner of one of the many crumbling sandstone walls of the slave compound on Ryloth, a little blue Twi'lek tucked under his arm, and another red one attached to his back, neatly huddled under his cloak with only the Lekku poking out. Rey had breathed a sigh of relief at first, which then turned to a gasp, and then to giggles as, yet again, a horde of angry slavers was hot on Ben's heels. Now he was taking care to dart in amongst the ruins and dunes to where Rey had the Lark on stealth.

"Perhaps if you stopped laughing, and came to pick me up, then this would run smoother!"

"Fine, fine! I'll save your backside again-"

"Rey!"

"Alright, I'm on my way! Keep your tunic on good grief..."

His breathless laugh echoed over the comms, interrupted by the sound of his lightsaber deflecting blasterfire.

Rey smiled to herself as she lifted off, and made her way to Ben, carefully keeping the stealth functionality on. She purposefully overshot him, disabling the emitter then, and revelling in the shock it caused amongst the slavers. She pulled a clipped roll, her downdraft enough to force a sandstorm over the pursuers and began steadily lowering the cargo ramp as she flew in front of Ben. The slavers' momentary disorientation was enough, and Rey swung low just in front of him, grinning when he took the Force-aided leap up and hit the button to close the hold.

She could hear children laughing.

It was scary just how good she and Ben had gotten at wrangling themselves out of situations like this, Rey thought as she pulled them out of the atmosphere and dropped them into hyperspace. First it was the Sarlacc on Felucia, which they could have sworn was dead, till it of course wasn't. Then the Krayt dragon on Tatooine, and the den of organ dealers on Onderon, and pirates of Florrum...

They really got around. It was strange what kind of places simply looking for stolen children would take you. Strange, and heart-breaking.

Rey sank back into the pilot's chair, and just stared at the blue of stretched space flitting past. She didn't really see it. Instead, she was watching the past year or so that she and Ben had spent together. That first tentative flight into space after the events of Lehon seemed so long ago, and yet not. Rey could still remember it fresh in her mind.

She could still smell the burnt flesh of four months prior to that flight, and still hear the yelling of soldiers, with Leia's gentle reassurances somehow drowning the noise out. Rey was still not quite sure how they had gotten out of that mess, but she knew it had something to do with a large portion of Resistance who, at the heart of it all, were still the old Rebellion.