Chapter Text
As she treks across the rocky flats of Tatooine, Rey’s head throbs. The effects of the alcohol, she admits, does her no favors. Nor does the planet’s eerie resemblance to her former home in Jakku. It makes her feel like she’s in some kind of hellish nightmare. As she walks, she tries to ignore the flashes of memories of last night’s conversation with the First Order Commander. Pieces come back to her, and she feels a tinge of embarrassment, trying to divert it with anger. “Force bond”, whatever that was, or no, how dare he intrude on her private moment, she thinks indignantly. And what was he doing, standing around with no shirt. She doesn’t care that he was sleeping at the time the bond connected them, that was just… just rude.
She feels her face go red when she remembers herself staring at him, admiring the broad expanse of his exposed chest, feeling the flush of something more than just the alcohol affecting her. She’s not sure what’s worse… thinking that Kylo Ren was some kind of monstrous death machine under that mask, cloak and armor, or… knowing that there was a young, admittedly attractive man under all of that pomp and circumstance.
And how he was almost… friendly with her. Intimate. It felt less like a meeting of enemies and more like… well, Rey doesn’t know how to describe it.
When she finally reaches the domed structure of the Hutt palace, her mood is black indeed.
“You there! Halt, and state your business.” There are two hulking Gamorreans near the gate in front. They don’t look pleased to see their surprise visitor. One points a vibro-lance in warning at her approach.
“I’m here to see Goran Hutt,” Rey calls out simply, walking closer to the gate, not slowing down.
“No visitors,” the Gamorrean with the vibro-lance states, his tone brooking no argument.
“I’m afraid that is not an acceptable answer,” she responds coldly.
At that, the Gamorrean attacks.
Rey’s saberstaff is already out. She ignites it, cutting his lance in half, before removing the guard of his head at the base of his neck.
The other guard she freezes with the Force as he attempts to reach for a blaster.
Walking up to him, she doesn’t even bother with a mind trick. Digging into his mind, she finds what she’s looking for, the codes to the gate that bar entry to the subterranean bunker.
A swift flash of her blade, and he’s disposed of, too. At the sight of the bodies, Rey feels nothing. Murders and scumbags allied with murders and scumbags. Just like Unkar Plutt.
Punching the code into the panel on the left, the reinforced metal creaks open. Rey walks through, finding a long passage carved that descends deeper and deeper into the rock. Several passages branch out into what she assumes must be other areas, but she uses the Force as her guide, following a cluster of signatures that indicate a gathering taking place. Alien voices and the sounds of revelry grow louder, until she finds herself in a large cavernous chamber.
At its rear, the giant Hutt perches on his pedestal, smoking a hookah device. He’s surrounded by Twi'lek slaves, carrying serving platters of squirming ‘delicacies’ that make even Rey’s stomach turn. His court, a retinue of crude looking species of all varieties, almost all of them armed. The Hutt turns his enormous, unblinking gaze at Rey’s approach.
Rey’s saberstaff is still ignited, glowing menacingly. The cacophony of the room dies off, as everyone pauses to stare at the stranger with the lightsaber.
<<Jedi?>>, Goran Hutt drawls gutturally in Huttese, inhaling from the hookah as he speaks. <<I don’t recall inviting a Jedi.>>
“Not a Jedi,” Rey shakes her head. “I have business for you, Goran Hutt,” she states flatly. She’s determined to get what she came here for.
The Hutt waves back a new group of Gammoreans who step forward brandishing their weapons.
<<Then state it. You interrupted something>>. His gaze rolls up and down as he gauges her, then flits over to a pair of scantily dressed slaves.
Rey, pitching her voice loudly, reads a list of names, committed to heart from the Letter.
“I need information. Do you know them?” She asks, trying to keep the frustration from her voice.
Before she had killed Plutt, she had ravaged Plutt’s brain for any clue to her family. Why she was left on Jakku. Plutt, for once, had not lied to her. Not completely. He did not know why she had been left there, as a child. There was only the snippet of a conversation from his memory, between Plutt and a man she had never seen on Jakku again:
“I don’t know where she’s from. But if I bring her to Goran Hutt, she’s not safe.”
Plutt had grunted a few words. “So what. She’s my problem now?”
“You owe me,” the man warned. “This is for her.” He pulled the Letter from a pocket and stuffed at Plutt. “Give it to her, or I’ll know.” The man then walked away.
If the Hutt recognizes the names, he does not show it on his face. His bulbous tail flicks up and down slowly.
<<I may be able to help you girl, but we have not yet discussed…the price.>>
Rey finds his mind irritatingly resistant to her probes from the Force. His species must be resistant, or he’s particularly strong willed.
“Name it.” She turns off her lightsaber.
At this, the grotesque mouth forms something like a smile. “50 thousand credits. And a favor. Owed to me.”
Rey smiles. “Very well.” Before she had left Jakku, she had stolen Plutt’s credit chips. They weren’t used for trade on Jakku, and she had been shocked to find how much he had stashed away. Enough to clothe, feed, and water the inhabitants of Niima outpost for a year, two times over. More evidence of his greed. She throws a few at the floor near Goran Hutt and a Twi'lek rushes over to gather them for his master.
The Hutt continues lazily, not missing a beat.
<<The first name on your list is someone who has done some work for me. He is in the business of, hrmmm, discretely transporting certain parties.>> Code for human trafficking, Rey thinks in disgust. <<You’ll find him, at some point or another, drinking at Maz’s at Takodana. His aliases are numerous, but ask for Chet. He works alone.>>
<<The second name, I do not recognize. But the last one, that one is interesting. Tell me, girl, have you heard of the witches of Dathomir?>>
Rey freezes. “Tell me.”
<<They say she is one of those witches. Find her on that planet. Be careful, girl. She is very powerful. When she travels in the Rim, she goes by the alias Amana Dakspor.>>
Something is wrong.
At his words, Rey’s eyes go dark. Her head spins and the air rushes in her ears. The headache she is nursing magnifies, threatening to overtake her vision.
In her distraction, she does not notice the sound of approaching footsteps from the tunnel, nor the Hutt’s eyes swell at the figures approaching her from behind.
Rey spins on her heel to find Kylo Ren and one of his Knights waiting at the precipice of the entrance to the Hutt’s hall.
Not again , she mutters to herself in frustration. Still, some part of her is oddly not surprised to see the Commander here. Confused, there’s even a thread of… excitement, seeing him again. She can’t see his eyes but could swear she feels his gaze on her, behind his mask.
At the sight of the First Order commander and his Knight, most of the room’s guests, previously watching the exchange with curiosity, scatter into the bowels of the palace with terror. Goran Hutt smashes a button on his pedestal and more guards, this time, deadlier, weathered looking killers, pour into the room.
<<Commander Ren.>> The Hutt continues calmly in Huttese. <<What reason do we have for the visit from the First Order…?>> His guards continue amassing in the background.
“I have business with the girl.” Ren points to Rey, his modulated voice coming out flat. “She’s coming with me.”
The Hutt makes a strangled sound. <<We are in the middle of a transaction. The girl owes me her services. She stays here.>>
“I’m not going with either of you.” Rey butts in, indignant that they are bartering over her like she’s some kind of prize from a scavenge. She re-ignites her saberstaff, anger growing. She turns to Kylo and the Knight of Ren, who was standing casually with a mean-looking vibro-scythe thrown over his shoulder. “Stay out of this, Commander Ren. Take your bucket head flunky with you and get out. ”
The Knight at Kylo’s side speaks up, chuckling behind his mask. “The name’s Vicrul. She’s a feisty one, Master. I look forward to taming her.”
Kylo makes no motion, continuing to hold his stance as he stares past Rey to Goran Hutt.
<<The First Order has no jurisdiction here. >> Goran Hutt continues to Ren, ignoring Rey. Then, to his guards: <<Take her. >>
Rey spins to face the eight armored warriors that surround her. She force pushes half of them away, then runs at two screaming a war cry as she slices them in the midsection with each half of her saber. They are faster than the Gammoreans, but none of them are a match for Rey, whose reflexes were honed on Jakku even before she learned how to wield the Force.
Vicrul and Kylo stand and watch, for a minute, as Rey cuts down wave after wave with her saberstaff.
“Well. She can hold her own,” Vicrul quips, watching her peel through four of them with a furious set of spins. “I can see why Snoke wants her.”
Suddenly the men pull out a device from their pockets and suddenly… Rey feels them blink out of existence from the Force. Rey freezes, confused, and Kylo and his Knight go deathly still.
The Hutt, still perched on his throne, hacks out a slow, guttural laugh.
<<A shield. Developed when my ancestor had an unfortunate encounter with the Jedi Skywalker. It creates a vortex where your kind cannot access your powers. The others thought me paranoid, with all the Jedi gone from the galaxy.>>
Then, he calls to his men, waving at Rey, the First Order Commander, and his Knight.
<<Subdue them.>>
Gathering her strength, Rey attempts a Force push on the aggressor closest to her. It has no effect. It’s almost as though the Force is sucked away. The man’s scarred face smiles menacingly and he advances, raising a electro-whip in one hand and brandishing a set of Force-suppressant cuffs in the other.
Hutt’s forces split, half of them now going after Kylo and Vicrul. Rey brandishes her staff aggressively, attempting to keep some distance in case the mysterious Force shields might affect her access to the Force directly. From the corner of her eye, Rey watches as Vicrul takes four and slams them down, but takes a hit to the side of his arm with a pike. Enraged, he cuts down the shooter and stomps in the direction of Goran Hutt’s pedestal, ripping the pike in half and leaving part of it embedded in his shoulder.
Without realizing it, she finds herself side-to-side with Kylo Ren as Hutt’s thugs close in. He manages to cut one in half, but three more approach, two carrying Force-suppressant manacles.
Rey tries something. “Any ideas?” Rey calls to Kylo with her thoughts.
I suppose your illusions won’t work , she hears his reply in her brain.
No. She huffs. It is like they are… dead to me.
Rey feels a blaster hit her right shoulder at close range and cries out, clutching her wound. She spins her saberstaff to cut the blaster in half, but the thug then pulls a knife and stabs her leg, and Rey involuntarily drops her weapon. Seeing her wound, Kylo turns and stabs the man in the chest. The man slithers to the ground.
Rey is not sure how, but she senses Kylo feels her pain through the Force. At that, his rage explodes, and Rey feels it through the bond as if it is her own.
With a raised hand, she sees Kylo Ren pull a chunk of loose rocks from the walls and slams them at his opponents. They all are pushed back toward the dias, where Vicrul is gleefully slicing at the screaming Hutt with his scythe.
Gathering the dark power around him, Kylo reaches up and pulls .
The ceiling collapses in front of Rey and Kylo, pinning down their attackers. She hears a second of screams before they are crushed under the weight.
Rey, clutching her injured shoulder grabs her saberstaff hilt from the floor, attempts to stand up. Blood leaks from the would on her thigh. She stumbles.
“Don’t,” Kylo says, reading her intention. Then, she sees him looking around. The underground structure is rumbling, creaking with residual instability. “We need to get out of here,” he barks shortly.
Then, improbably, he turns off his lightsaber, looks at her, and offers a hand.
Rey stares at it for a few solid seconds before taking it, pulling herself upright and bracing herself on his shoulder. “I’m not going with you,” she protests weakly.
Kylo snorts. “You have very little choice.” He looks at her staggered gait. “You can’t walk.”
With a swift movement he scoops her up, bridal style, like she weighs nothing but paper, and starts to jog out of the increasingly unstable structure.
“Put me down, helmet head!” She screams in warning. Thumping at his chest. The Commander’s amusement leaks through the bond. He’s never been so happy for the armor under his tunic.
Kylo keeps his eyes ahead, but is hyper aware of the contrast between the wiry muscle of her shoulders and the softness on the back of her thighs. “No.”
Rey catches his thoughts and blushes. The wound on her leg is bleeding freely, however. Hutt’s thug must have hit an artery, or something, and she reluctantly concludes that running on it would only exacerbate the wound. She shuts up but does not stop fuming.
They emerge from the cavern as it continues creaks and rumbles behind them, sounds of collapse.
Rey flashes a black look of warning at Kylo, putting all of her murderous intention behind her will. Reluctantly, he lets her go. He makes sure he steels his mental barriers in the way Snoke instructed to prevent the Force illusion from taking hold. The trick she tried earlier... He will not fall for it again.
She’s still stumbling and leaking blood. She ignites her saberstaff menacingly.
“Why did you enter there alone? The Hutts are not to be trifled with.” Kylo asks.
“That’s none of your business.”
“It must have been something important.”
“He had information I needed.”
“You’re wounded. Where is your ship?”
Without thinking Rey points in the direction of the flats where she left the Falcon , then curses to herself, remembering the droid that the First Order Commander was so intent on possessing.
Kylo turns, striding toward the Falcon as swiftly as possible. Rey struggles to keep up, dripping blood on the sand.
“Wait! HOLD ON!” She cries out, hoping to distract him.
He looks at her, amused behind his helmet. “Now you want my help?”
Rey seethes, her head spinning from the loss of blood. “I–”
She feels the world go black.