Exegol

After encountering another Sith Loyalist survivor from Exegol, Rey becomes determined to visit the Sith planet to ensure all is well and the Sith are indeed extinct. Of course, her boys (Poe, Finn, Chewie, and BB-8) won’t let her go alone.

Rey Skywalker stood atop the ridgeline, looking out over the vast expanse before her. Pale green grasses blew in the ever-present wind of the prairie off to her left and to her right the stark sandstone pillars and cliffs of the area known as the Badlands showed off their various colors, ranging from almost white to bright orange. Somewhere not too far from where she was now standing and not so long ago, she had faced death as a Moher, a giant bird-like creature, stole her right off of Sal’s back and tried to fly away with her.

It was odd to feel nostalgic about such a terrible moment in her life, but her time here on Kolbe almost two years ago was a memory she could look back on with only a minimum of negative emotion now. It had ended well for both her and Sal, and the planet itself was not to blame, so why dwell on the bad? Which is why she was here now, looking over this area right along the border between the grasslands and the Badlands, deciding with a handful of other Resistance members whether or not this would be a good place for a new base.

It was a bittersweet decision for all of them; Yavin IV, where their current base was located, had become home for many of them. But they had known it was temporary, and four times now since the end of the war with the Traagmol it had been attacked by terrorists that had supported either the Traagmol or their Sith sponsors. Seeking revenge, they had threatened the innocent residents of the planet, which made moving the base a priority now. Rey had been the one to suggest Kolbe, knowing it was uninhabited by any other sentients at the moment.

It hadn’t always been that way. After Rey had returned from her forced exile on the planet, she had learned a great deal about it. It had once been home to several different sentient species, including humans. The land was rich and fertile, and though the weather was volatile, the growing seasons were long and many had thought raising substantial crops was worth the gamble of having it all ruined in one fell swoop by a tornado or hail. Then the Empire had taken over, and most of the residents had essentially become slaves. When crops were destroyed by natural disaster, the Imperials didn’t just shrug and say, “Oh, well. That’s life.” Instead, they took it out on the farmers. Whole villages were destroyed, people killed or sold into true slavery off-world. When the Empire fell just over 35 years ago, it didn’t take long for all the survivors to abandon Kolbe, the years of fear and worry over the weather having taken its toll. Since then, Kolbe had been left to the non-sentient native inhabitants and the occasional temporary smuggler or rebel hideout.

But now, Rey was almost positive, it was about to become home to the Resistance.

Just two short weeks ago, Rey and the group she was now with had attended a meeting on Naboo, the current capital of the New Republic, where it had been suggested that the Resistance should be disbanded. After the war with the Traagmol had ended, recruitment for the New Republic’s Navy and Army had increased tenfold, and now, for the first time since its re-establishment, the New Republic’s military was larger and better equipped than the Resistance. But the Resistance’s leadership had declined to even talk about dissolving their organization. Leia Organa had established the Resistance back when the first New Republic had a very well-organized military; that hadn’t helped them when the First Order unveiled Starkiller Base. The Resistance would remain, separate from the New Republic but ready to assist when needed. No one really challenged them; after all, if it hadn’t been for General Poe Dameron and his militia, the war with the Traagmol would have been lost.

*Are you going to ever come down or are you going to stay up there looking like a goddess waiting for us to worship you?*

The teasing question wasn’t asked out loud, but Rey could hear it in her head as if he had spoken right next to her. She looked down the hill off to her left, where her husband stood several yards away from her, hands on his hips and a small smile barely visible through the short beard on his face as he looked up at her.

*I don’t see you worshipping me,* Rey responded in kind.

*Really?* She could see him raise his eyebrows and tilt his head. *What about last night? I must not be doing it right.*

Unbidden, images of last night rushed into Rey’s mind. Poe’s dark head between her legs, one of Rey’s hands gripping his hair, his beard tickling her inner thighs. She took a deep breath, cleared her throat, and started down the hill toward him. He was grinning now, his smile startling against the salt and pepper beard. As she got closer, she finally spoke out loud. “You’re getting pretty good at that,” she told him. He was getting better every day with his growing Force abilities; just a few short months ago having a full conversation with each other through the Force wouldn’t have been possible, with just a word or an image being the extent of their non-verbal communication.

“Could have gone on longer if I hadn’t been distracted,” he told her as she finally reached him.

“Hey, it’s your fault that memory came to mind,” she told him wryly. They started walking side by side toward the Shaman’s Trance, the shuttle they had used to come to Kolbe. The others in their group were also slowly making their way back to the ship after doing their own personal survey of the area.

“Yeah, well, now you can help me with my little problem,” Poe told her as they walked along.

Rey glanced down at her husband’s crotch, noting that the bulge there was a bit bigger than normal thanks to their shared memory of last night. “Little?” she asked. “Since when did you become so modest?”

Poe stopped and turned to her, his eyes narrowed, but she could see the corners of his mouth twitch. “Not THAT problem!” he said in exasperation. He waved his arm toward the shuttle. “THAT problem!”

Rey looked to where he was motioning, noticing BB-8 at the top of the ship’s ramp, rocking back and forth in agitation. She laughed. “Oh! That little problem!”

“Yeah,” Poe responded as they continued walking. “He won’t leave the ship. Your stories of this place have him totally freaked out.” He shook his head. “He’s convinced some big bird is going to fly away with him.”

“I think he’s been hanging around Threepio too much,” Rey told him. “He never used to be scared of anything.”

“I keep telling him that we’ll take safety precautions if we move here, but he still refuses to agree to it.”

“Have you informed him he isn’t a part of the Resistance leadership therefore he doesn’t have a say?” she grinned. “He needs a job, Poe,” she continued. “He hasn’t flown in combat since he was with me at Naboo.”

“I know,” he answered. “That’s pretty sad, isn’t it? Almost a year of peace and my droid is going crazy.”

“We’ll figure out something for him,” she told him as they reached the ship. The others in their group started to gather around them.

Poe waited until they were all there. “Well? Yeah or nay?”

“Yes,” D’Acy said firmly.

“I like it,” Connix agreed.

“It’ll work,” Junior added.

“Let’s do it,” Finn said with a sharp nod.

BB-8 started squealing from his position at the top of the ramp.

“Noted, buddy,” Poe told him. The droid’s opinion was the lone objection.

“Okay,” Poe said with his own nod. “Welcome to the new home of the Resistance!”

******

Rey spent the following day after their return to Yavin IV with her students and their families, going over the details of the move. Because there were no structures on Kolbe, it would take more time to get things set up than it had taken when they moved from Ajan Kloss to Yavin; there had been many structures left from when the Rebellion had been stationed at Yavin, including the huge Massassi temples that they had used as hangers. Kolbe was a clean slate. Because of that, only about a third of the Resistance personnel would be heading to the planet first to set up temporary shelters and start the planning for more permanent buildings. Once things were a little more established, the rest of the organization would come, bringing ships, weapons, and the remaining equipment. Rey’s ‘school’ would then make the move, coming along with the last wave of Resistance supplies and personnel.

Rey had to admit it was a large undertaking, but a lot easier to do in segments like they were able to do now rather than all at once like they had to do when hiding from the First Order. Had their last secret move, the move to Ajan Kloss, been almost six years ago? It seemed longer, so much had happened since then. The defeat of the First Order and the Emperor’s Final Order, the destruction of the Emperor himself, Finn and Rose’s wedding, the first of what would end up being a total of six since then, plus seven new babies among the Resistance members, two of which belonged to Rey and Poe. And she couldn’t forget the other war, (though she would like to) this time with an alien species invading from Wild Space.

Once Rey had gone over the details of the move with her ‘school,’ she had headed toward home, where she knew her father-in-law was watching her children, Shaina, who was almost a ‘grown-up’ three years old, and Skyler, who at just 11 months was already walking and talking.

The sun had set and Yavin had yet to rise, so it was fairly dark as she arrived at her little house just off base. Kes was sitting in the small living area, reading to a sleepy looking Shaina. One ‘glance’ with the Force told her that Skyler was already asleep in the children’s bedroom. Kes looked up as she entered and gave her a soft smile that held a hint of sadness. Rey knew why. Leaving Yavin IV meant leaving Kes.

“Poe isn’t back, yet,” he told her softly. “I know he was going over some of the equipment you all are planning on leaving to sell in the village. He was going to store it in my shed.” He frowned a bit. “I didn’t think he would take this long. Maybe you should go check on him?”

Rey looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Oh, really?” she asked with a hint of sarcasm. “Why can’t you check on him? He’s at your house.”

Kes gave her a one shoulder shrug, trying his best to look innocent. “I don’t want to disturb the babies.” Just then, Shaina gave a big yawn and nestled her head down on her grandfather’s other shoulder, eyes closed.

Rey shook her head and tried not to laugh. “Okay, Papa,” she told him. “I’ll go check on him if you’re okay to stay here for a while longer.”

“Of course, I am, Filla,” he told her with a wry smile. “Take my speeder.”

Rey did just that, wondering what exactly her husband and his father were up to.

Upon arriving at the Dameron farmstead, she noticed that the house was completely dark other than the security light near the front door. She stepped out of the speeder and opened herself to the Force, unsurprised when it led her to the backyard. She made her way toward the Force tree, slowing down as she neared its soothing presence. She stopped and smiled as she looked down at her husband, who was sitting at the base of the tree, leaning back against the trunk, eyes closed. He was shirtless and barefoot, and the gentle blue glow that emanated from the tree seemed to highlight his naked skin, making it almost appear as if he was the one glowing.

She stood quietly, admiring the sight before her, until she noticed his eyes were open, watching her warily. Finally, he asked, “What time is it?” He looked over to his left, where the red/orange shape of Yavin was just beginning to rise over the treetops. He looked back at her. “I guess I fell asleep.” He didn’t look too guilty.

Rey crossed her arms and smiled. “And here I thought you and your dad were up to something. I guess it was just your dad.”

“He sent you to fetch me?” Poe grinned at her. “That must mean he’s okay with us being a little late getting back.”

“Oh,” she responded. “So, you did plan this?”

He shook his head. “Nope,” he told her. “But I know how to make the best of every situation presented to me.” He held out his hand toward her. “It might be our last time under this tree,” he said softly. “Might as well make another memory.”

She pretended to consider it for a moment, then reached out and took his hand, letting herself drop down onto her knees next to him. She leaned in to kiss him, not resisting as he worked her tunic up her body and eventually over her head. She pushed herself back a bit, sitting down to remove her half-boots and trousers. He watched her, his eyes hooded, but she could easily sense his growing arousal. She opened herself up to him even more through their connection and saw his chin lift in acknowledgement, then he reached for her as, completely naked now, she got back onto her knees and moved to straddle his lap.

She kissed him deeply, reveling in the feel of his hands as they roamed her body, touching first her breasts, then moving around her to slide down her back and curl around her buttocks. She shuddered as his touch became much more intimate and she let her head drop back as his lips moved to her neck and collarbone. She let her own hands roam down his chest, allowing her knuckles to softly sweep along his belly until she reached his belt. With practiced ease, she undid it and the fastener of his trousers.

His hands came around her and for a moment their fingers tangled as they got in each other’s way. Rey giggled, but it turned into a gasp as Poe reached his original destination. She returned the favor by finishing her task and making him moan. Their heart rates increased and their breathing became labored as they continued to ensure the other was more than prepared. Rey finally moved forward, spreading her legs even wider and guiding him home with her hand. She brought up her other hand to brace it on the trunk of the tree Poe was still leaning back against and closed her eyes as she felt him fill her. He groaned and pulled her even closer with his hands on her butt, gently kneading her as he did so.

Rey held still for a moment, just enjoying the feel of every part of him that touched any part of her. “Rey…” she heard him breathe into her neck as he absorbed the same feelings through their connection, then he latched onto her with his lips, nipping her lightly with his teeth.

His love bite spurred her into action, and she began to rock her hips, slowly and easily at first, but gradually increasing her speed and the strength of her thrusts. With one hand still braced on the tree, she used her other hand to lift Poe’s face toward hers so she could kiss him, moaning into his mouth as she reached for the high she knew was coming. His hands moved to grip her hips tightly as he felt its approach. Her movements became sharp and jerky and she broke the kiss to gasp in air. Almost there.

Suddenly, her vision became a kaleidoscope of color, bright and wild, with the center of the prism-like lights a sharp, pale blue flash. Her whole body shuddered and she screamed, hearing Poe’s indecipherable shout matching hers. The lights swirled about her for a long while, flashing every so often as aftershock after aftershock caused her to convulse over and over. Finally, she began to feel her surroundings again. Gasping for breath, she opened her eyes to see the tree glowing with an intensity she had never witnessed before. She looked at the hand she still had pressed against it, then at her husband, whose heart she could feel was still racing uncontrollably. He was glowing almost as brightly as the tree. She brought her forehead down to touch his, concentrating on his breathing, using the Force to help him focus on her and her breathing, bringing them both back to a more reasonable respiration.

He was watching her, his gaze incredulous. He took a deep breath and spoke. “What the hell was that?”

“The tree,” Rey started, but her voice broke.

Poe shook his head. “We’ve made love under this tree before,” he reminded her. “This,” he motioned with his arm weakly, “never happened before.”

Rey took a deep breath of her own and swallowed. “We weren’t touching it then.”

His eyes widened as he realized the truth of her words. Not only had his bare back been up against the trunk the whole time, but she had been bracing off of it with one hand. “Whoa,” he said softly.

Rey grinned at him and he grinned back.

Slowly, his grin faded. “I want to make a deal with you,” he told her, his eyes becoming serious.

“Okay,” Rey responded warily.

“When we’re done,” he started. “When I’m done being a General and you’re done teaching Jedi and we’re done making babies, let’s come back here. To Yavin. Let our grandbabies come visit us here like our kids will still come visit Kes.” His eyes were hopeful, and she realized, her own heart aching, how much her husband was going to miss this place. His home.

“Absolutely,” she whispered. “When we’re done, let’s come home.”

He nodded and blinked and she saw a tear fall from one eye. He swallowed and brought a hand up to her face, rubbing his thumb gently along her lower lip. She kissed it and smiled at him.

“Did you see the light?” she asked softly.

“Which one?” he asked roughly. “There were a whole lot of lights.”

“The one in the middle,” she answered. “The bright white-blue one.”

He nodded, his brow furrowing.

“That’s you,” she told him. “That’s what I see when I see you in the Force.” She smiled and ran her fingers through his beard. “And speaking of babies…”

His breath caught. “You think..?”

“I can’t be sure, but it’s a definite possibility.”

He looked up at the branches above them. “Now that would be a story to tell. Conceived under the Force tree.”

Rey snorted. “I’m not telling that story. You can tell that story.”

He answered with another grin.

******

Poe felt the dark tendrils work their way through his head, and he immediately started pushing at them with the wall of light Rey had taught him to use, driving his consciousness away from sleep and toward wakefulness. This wasn’t the first nightmare about the Dark Side that he had suffered through; after his experience with having his brain ransacked and almost destroyed by Mikaela Dean, nightmares involving that darkness had become frequent. Not only had his wife helped him learn how to combat the dreams, but she was usually there when he woke, their connection having alerted her to his situation, and was ready to offer him some of her Light to banish the Darkness inside him. The nightmares were becoming less and less frequent as time went on and the war with the Traagmol became more of a distant memory, but they still popped up from time to time.

Tonight must be one of those times, he thought. Only, he was having no luck in pushing away the Dark, so he started panicking and struggled to leave his dream-state, searching for Rey even before he woke. When his eyes opened, he realized with sudden clarity that the Darkness he was feeling wasn’t a dream, but was reality. Rey was already scrambling naked out of their bed, grabbing the first article of clothing she could find and pulling it on, then calling her lightsaber to her as she headed out of the bedroom… in nothing but his shirt.

“Rey!” he called as he stumbled out of the bed, grabbing his pants and pulling them on, then snatching his blaster from the holster hanging from the bedpost. He rushed into the living area, where BB-8 was already squealing in dismay after having seen Rey run past him. “Stay with the babies,” he told the droid, then ran out the front door, following Rey as she ran toward the base. He saw Finn running out of the door of the house he shared with Rose, their new baby Paige, and Temiri, his own lightsaber in hand.

“Protect the children,” Rey called to him, as she kept running, and Finn stopped and nodded, looking back to see Rose already heading for Poe’s house, Paige in the crook of one arm, a blaster in her other hand. Poe knew she would stay with his children until the threat had passed. More shapes appeared as Rey’s Force sensitive students made their families aware that something bad was going on. Finn turned to meet them, to help calm them and keep them safe. Poe continued on after Rey, the Darkness now so strong his head was starting to throb. He could see the light of flames ahead of him, and dread filled him.

The Command Center was on fire. He could see the prone bodies of at least three people in the glow of the flames, but had no idea if they were dead or alive. A few blaster bolts came from behind the building, directed toward the shape of a person, cloaked and hooded. The shape easily deflected the bolts, and Poe heard a scream as one of them hit a living target.

“Hold your fire!” Rey called out. The cloaked individual, who Poe could now feel was the source of the Darkness, turned toward Rey. Immediately, a hand came up and Force lightning started shooting out of it toward his wife. Without hesitation, Rey brought up her lightsaber, the yellow blade easily deflecting the energy. Poe knew she had faced much worse, and her attitude illustrated that. There was no worry on her face, no fear. She seemed almost irritated more than anything, as if mad that this person was ruining her sleep. Standing there with her lightsaber raised, with his shirt barely covering the essentials, her hair mussed from Poe’s own hands, she looked just like the goddess he had teased her about being when they had been on Kolbe. He felt fear, pride, and desire rip through him as he watched, his blaster at the ready.

The being stopped the lightning, and stood tall, facing Rey. In a voice that sounded male and disturbingly young, he spoke. “You’re the one, aren’t you?” He stepped forward as Rey lowered her saber. “The one who destroyed it all.”

Rey sighed. Again, her demeanor spoke of a person who was more irked than fearful, as if she was tired of all the dramatic interruptions in her life. Poe knew different, of course. She was taking this very seriously. “Yes, I was the one who destroyed the Emperor,” she told him. “So, go ahead, take out your revenge on me. Leave everyone else alone.”

“You don’t understand,” the boy gasped. “I was going to be his apprentice. I was the only one strong enough. Good enough.”

“To be his slave, you mean?” Rey answered, stepping closer to him. “He had no desire for an apprentice. He wanted an heir, a powerful body to take over his throne.” She shook her head slowly, moving even closer to the kid. “You would never have been strong enough for him. He would have used you and destroyed you when you were used up.”

“No!” the boy screamed. “I was the most powerful of them all. He would have chosen me.”

“All?” Rey focused on the same word Poe did. “What all?” Rey took yet another step closer. “Where are you from?”

The kid shook his head, his face still hidden in the hood of his cloak. “He was going to choose me.” He thumped his chest. “Me!”

“Where are you from?” Rey pushed. Poe could feel the power emanating from her now, and realized with some comfort that it was overwhelming stronger than the boy.

The kid seemed to fight her influence for a moment, but then gave in.

“Exegol.”

A movement off to the side caught Poe’s attention, and the boy reacted as well, immediately shooting off more Force lightning at the person who had been trying to sneak up on him. The blast caught Sargent Hooper in the chest. Rey rushed forward, closing the last of the distance between her and the boy. “No!” she shouted, striking at him with her saber, removing the kids arm. Without hesitating, the boy brought up his other arm and Force pushed at Rey. Poe saw her body jerk ever so slightly, but then she moved forward again and the kid screamed, shooting out more lightning. Poe felt the impact on his wife before he heard her shout, agony ripping through him. He brought up his blaster and aimed it toward the boy, but Rey pushed through the pain and reached him with her saber before Poe could fire. The boy collapsed.

Breathing hard, Rey closed down her saber, stepped forward and dropped to her knees next to the body. Poe rushed forward and kneeled next to her. She was carefully removing the hood, revealing the face of a human male who couldn’t have been more than 16 years old. Rey shuddered and closed her eyes. Poe reached out and put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently. There was nothing he could say. She had just killed a child. It didn’t matter that it had been in self-defense, the end result was the same.

He looked over as more people began to filter into the area. A fire crew was working on the Center now that they had safe access to it, and medics were attending to the fallen; he would need to find out if they were dead or alive, but at the moment he didn’t want to leave his wife. She took a deep breath and looked at him, her eyes devastated but determined.

“We need to stop these attacks,” she said softly. “I need to go back to Exegol.”

******

The Resistance had done a thorough search of Exegol only a few days after the great battle there. They had found few survivors, and all of them had been either fighter pilots or personnel from the downed Star Destroyers. It was assumed that there had been more, but most had escaped in the days between the battle and the mop-up, finding enough working shuttles, fighters, or escape pods to leave the planet. There had been no survivors found in the remains of the Sith Citadel that Rey had destroyed, but Rey knew for a fact there had been at least one. Yarrow Rumam had already tried to extract his own kind of revenge almost three years ago, kidnapping Rey and threatening to take her unborn child and raise her as a Sith. Shaina was safely born on Ajan Kloss (barely) shortly after.

Since then, only scavengers and outlaws had wanted anything to do with Exegol, and they never stayed long. Even those that had no Force sensitivity couldn’t stand the feeling that emanated from the unfriendly atmosphere of the desolate planet.

Ever since her encounter with Rumam, Rey had wondered about any other Sith Eternal survivors. The Citadel had collapsed almost completely after her battle with Sidious, but there had been thousands of worshipers in the amphitheater surrounding the Throne of the Sith that day, and there was no way to know how many had lived and how many had died. Ruman was proof there could be more survivors.

This child, powerful with the Dark Side, had claimed to come from Exegol. What had been missed in those final searches of the planet? Had the boy lied, or were there more like him still hidden on Exegol? Others that had attacked Yavin in recent weeks had also claimed to be associated with the Sith Eternal, but Rey had just assumed they were part of smaller cults that had inevitably sprouted up throughout the galaxy after the Emperor’s death. If there was a larger group of survivors still hiding out on the Sith planet, one that included force powerful children, Rey needed to know about it. She needed to do her own search of the planet.

Chewie had stepped forward immediately and demanded she let him take her there, and she wasn’t going to refuse. She had long ago learned to let go of her streak of independence when it came to dangerous situations and accept the help of her friends. While she would always feel the powerful inclination to protect those she loved, she knew better than to dismiss the idea that they were not as protective of her as she was of them. And, she reminded herself, they were more than capable of taking care of themselves.

Of course, this meant that Finn had invited himself along, as well. Rey only put up a mild argument. Being a new father, she felt his place was with his wife and baby, but Rose had encouraged him to go with Rey, and Rey knew that the new mother had a great support system already in place among their friends in the Resistance, so she would not be alone. Rey would also appreciate the steadiness her first Jedi ‘graduate’ would bring; nothing much upset Finn. If there were indeed children to be found on Exegol, Finn’s calm demeanor and experience with Force sensitive kids would be a great advantage.

It was while the three of them were rushing around the Falcon checking systems and ensuring the old ship was good to go that BB-8 rolled up the ramp, chirping away happily. Rey stopped in her tracks and looked at her droid as he halted and focused on her. “BB, what are you doing here?”

In answer, the little droid just turned his head to look behind him, and sure enough, walking up the ramp was his master. Rey had planned on stopping by the Command Center before they left to say goodbye to her husband and had not expected him to come to the ship, but when she noticed the satchel he had slung over his shoulder, and the casual clothing he was wearing, she realized he had not come to say goodbye.

They stood staring at each other for a moment before Rey finally spoke. “The move to Kolbe..?”

“Doesn’t need me,” Poe finished. “D’Acy and Connix are quite capable of handling it. And Kes is happy to have the babies to himself for a while longer.” His eyebrows rose, daring her to argue.

Rey wanted to. She really did. It was tradition with them, to argue over everything and anything they were even mildly at odds on. But not today.

“Welcome aboard, General,” she told him softly. Then she turned away with a grin and headed for the cockpit. “Just remember who’s in charge of this mission,” she said over her shoulder.

“Yes, ma’am,” she heard him say, a smile in his voice.

It took less than an hour for them to make all the final preparations. Rey commed the Command Center to let them know they were heading out. “I guess we’re stealing the General,” she told them, trying to hold back a grin.

“Just don’t let him get too beat up out there,” Leuitenant Kehchog told her, laughter in her own voice. “We kind of like him around here.” Rey always appreciated the lack of formality on base. Somehow, Poe had managed to find the perfect balance between proper discipline and a relaxed attitude. Kehchog’s voice turned serious. “Take care out there, Rey,” she said. “We’re quite fond of all of you.”

Rey glanced back at her team. Chewie next to her, Finn behind him, Poe moving to sit behind her, and BB-8 taking his usual position right behind the center console. Her heart felt amazingly full; it was almost like old times. “We will,” she told the Flight Control officer. “We’ll take care of each other like always. Falcon out.”

With a nod to Chewie, her hands moved to the controls, and together they smoothly got the Falcon into the air. Within moments, they had left atmo and were preparing for hyperspace. Rey glanced around the cockpit one more time, making eye contact with everyone there, then with another nod, she initiated the jump.

Onward to Exegol.

******

When Rey had first traveled to Exegol almost five years ago, she had been flying Luke Skywalker’s old X-Wing and using a slightly singed Sith Wayfinder. She had also transmitted course markers as she flew the treacherous route, sending them to the Resistance, hoping Finn and Poe and Chewie had made it back to Ajan Kloss and would be bringing as many people as they could muster to help defeat the Final Order.

It had been a huge gamble, especially knowing that Leia was gone. She had no clue at the time that Poe had been promoted to Acting General and that he, in turn, had promoted Finn to help him. She did remember lying there in the Citadel after believing she had failed, looking up at the Force lightning radiating from her hated grandfather’s fingertips, feeling the fear and desperation flowing through the Force around her. The fear and desperation had been coming from those closest to her. Finn. Chewie. Poe.

She shook her head ruefully. How in the galaxy had she been lucky enough to have these three beings come into her life? They had almost died on this planet, and yet they were willingly coming back with her, without hesitation and no trying to talk her out of it. Never in all her lonely years spent on Jakku had she ever believed she would have such friends. She never truly believed people in general could ever be so loyal. Or so loved.

She and Chewie navigated the once secret route through the remains of long dead giant space faring creatures and red gas clouds, arriving at the dark, desert planet in good time. The view they experienced after their exit from their last hyperspace jump was much different than the last time they had visited the planet. Instead of hundreds of Star Destroyers hovering over Exegol’s barren surface, the skies were clear. The static charges created by the dry dust in the atmosphere were still evident as they got closer, however. Like lightning without thunder, Rey thought. It gave the dark planet an extra eerie feel.

Rey directed the Falcon toward the Citadel. Its upside-down pyramid shape was still intact, though Rey knew what lay beneath was long gone. She settled the freighter down gently as close to the black stone structure as she dared, then took a deep breath. Her companions stared out the cockpit window, and she realized with a sudden jolt than they had never been here. The search parties that had scoured Exegol after the battle had been mostly ground troops, with a few pilots that had volunteered to help. Poe and Finn had both been occupied elsewhere, directing the handful of small skirmishes with the First Order that had occurred in the days after the main battle, and she and Chewie had both been flying in those skirmishes.

She looked at the Citadel again, trying to see it as they were probably seeing it. With the ‘lightning’ constantly flashing about the huge structure, it looked menacing, and Rey could feel the Darkness that radiated from it. She glanced at the others again, and she knew without a shadow of a doubt that both Finn and Poe could feel that Darkness. She had never been able to determine how much sensitivity Chewie had – Wookiees were very hard to read in the Force, despite the fact they gave off enormous and easily recognizable Light energy – but she guessed he could feel it as well.

“You guys ready?” she asked softly.

She saw Poe and Finn eye each other. “Let’s do this,” Poe said finally, nodding at his wife.

She nodded back and stood. BB-8 moved out of her way as she headed out of the cockpit, her team following. BB-8 began to trill and beep persistently. “You can stay on the ship if you want, BB,” Rey told him in response. “But we might get lost down there without you.” She grabbed her sling bag and shouldered it as her companions also began to gather up their belongings, both Poe and Finn checking their weapons one more time. “There’s a reason you came along, isn’t there?”

BB-8 seemed to contemplate her question for a moment, then he tilted his head to look up at Poe and beeped him a question. He shrugged in response. “I didn’t ask you to come,” he told his droid. “You invited yourself. As usual.” It was a subtle reminder of the time BB-8 had stowed away aboard the shuttle Finn and Rose had taken to Catonica without Poe’s permission. He had known his help would be needed in the mission to disable the First Order’s active tracker, and he had been right; he had saved Finn and Rose more than once on the excursion. It was also a not-so subtle reminder that once upon a time, BB-8 had been the bravest droid in the Resistance.

Rey watched as BB-8 seemed to make an important decision. With another little trill, he followed them down the Falcon’s ramp and toward the Citadel. She shared a soft smile with her husband as they walked across the rocky ground, their ‘first born’ at their heels.

Rey moved ahead of the small group, leading them underneath the floating structure to the platform that would lower them down to the main amphitheater. This view was also much different than the last time she traveled this route, with all the dark statues of past Sith Lords nothing more than rubble on the temple floor. She was actually amazed the platform still worked, and the fact that she could easily manipulate it with the Force even now made her wonder how many others had traveled this path since she was here last.

Finally, they reached the bottom. She led them on through the towering hallways, the only light coming from the ‘lightning’ still visible through the open shafts leading to the surface above them. Rey ignited her lightsaber to help light their way, and the others also lit their own torches; Finn kept his lightsaber on his belt, not as confident as Rey with using it in the close confines of the hall. She heard whispering coming from the two men behind her. She didn’t try to hear what was said, but she did note the humor in both men’s voices. She glanced back and they immediately stopped talking and looked at her with innocent expressions. “Do I need to separate you two?” she asked, trying not to laugh. They both shook their heads ‘no.’ Finn immediately started looking around him as if the dark walls were suddenly interesting, but Poe gave her a wink. She shook her head and rolled her eyes, then faced front again and started walking, a small smile on her lips.

They came to a large room that she knew had once held all the cloning equipment that had helped the Emperor stay alive, even after his original body had been destroyed on the second Death Star. From what she had deduced, Palpatine had this whole laboratory set up long before his encounter with Luke Skywalker on that fateful day. Somehow, he had been able to transfer his consciousness from the Death Star to this place before his frail human body had died, having been thrown into the giant weapon’s reactor shaft by Darth Vader. However, the cloned bodies he had made here were never as strong as his natural body had been, and one by one they had failed him, unable to contain the immense Force power he possessed.

“He wasn’t really my grandfather,” she said suddenly, her voice breaking the silence that had fallen when they had entered the room. “My father was actually one of his failed clones,” she told them softly. “One that had no control of the Force whatsoever.” Rey looked at them. “Why Sidious didn’t just destroy him, I don’t know. He was just… let go.”

“And thank the Force for that, “ Finn told her as he moved around the room. “You father was able to find some happiness for a while, finding your mother and loving you, even if only for a short time.”

Rey gave him a soft smile. “The older you get, Finn, the more you become a ‘cup half full’ kind of guy.”

Finn snorted at her assessment. “Rosie wouldn’t agree. She calls me ‘Mr. Negative’.”

“Do wives ever agree with their husbands in regards to their emotions?” Poe asked innocently.

Finn shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe in some alternate universe.”

Rey looked at Chewie. “Whose idea was it to bring these two clowns again?” she asked him.

The Wookiee shrugged and grumbled that they had invited themselves. As usual.

Poe didn’t miss the replay of his own earlier statement. “Hey!”

Rey shook her head and turned toward another hallway, this one tighter than the others. “This way,” she said with a smile. Thank the Force they were here, keeping what could have been a very stressful experience comfortable. The Light Side was strong with her team.

Then she entered the throne room. Or what used to be the throne room. She gazed around her as the men, Chewie, and BB-8 split up to navigate the huge chamber, which was still wrecked with the remains of the Sith statues that had collapsed at the Emperor’s death. The huge monolithic structures had destroyed everything as they fell, including the bleachers holding the thousands of Sith Eternal worshipers and the Throne of the Sith itself. Rey could still see part of the stone monstrosity, the sharp points of its back lying forgotten on the ground. While the Darkness of this place surrounded her, she felt nothing from the remains before her. Its destruction, like that of Sidious himself, had been complete.

“This is where it happened, isn’t it?” she heard Finn say behind her. “This is where the Emperor died?”

She turned to look at him. He was looking at her, but Poe was looking up, through the opening in the roof that exposed the currently clear, dark sky of Exegol. Rey glanced up, too, remembering her view of the battle that day. She looked back down to see her husband now watching her, concern alight in his eyes. “Yes,” she whispered, answering Finn. “It’s also where I died.”

******

Poe watched as his wife began to wander around the shattered stone remains around them, his heart squeezing in his chest as he realized she was mentally drifting back to that day. His own memories of that day were tough enough to manage sometimes, but the battle he had fought above the planet had been nothing compared to what Rey had been through. He carefully followed her, noting how her eyes seemed to focus inward as she began to talk.

“He was waiting for me. Hanging like some wretched puppet, unable to even walk on his own.” Her voice was soft but firm as she recalled that day. “His eyes were cloudy and his body was literally falling apart, but the power coming from him was so frighteningly strong. It was no wonder the clones he made never lived long, with that kind of sick power eating away at them from the inside out.” She stopped and turned to face what was left of the throne. “He seemed so delighted when he said how long he had waited for his granddaughter to come ‘home.’ All so he could use my young, strong body to house his decrepit spirit.”

She looked at Poe. “I was able to deny him,” she said. “It was amazingly easy to keep his Force influence at bay. As strong as he was, I knew I could hold him off.” She tilted her head up to look at the sky above them. “Until he threatened you.” She seemed to shiver in reaction. “He showed me the battle. I could feel the fear. The death.” She swallowed. “He told me I could save you if I agreed.” She paused, looking back down, but refusing to look at him or the others. “So, I agreed.”

Poe heard Finn take a shuddering breath, and Chewie growled softly.

“I had this silly idea that I could control it,” Rey continued. “The Dark Side. Control it so it couldn’t control me. That I could take on Sidious’ spirit without losing my own.” She shook her head. “It was the only way I could keep from falling apart.”

She turned again and walked away from the throne. “Then I felt Ben,” she continued. “He had been cornered by his own Knights. They sensed, as I did, that Kylo Ren was dead. And that Ben Solo was a threat.” She glanced at Finn, who had moved closer to her. “I can’t explain it even now, but I was able to give him Luke’s lightsaber through our Dyad connection. He used it to fight off the Knights and I used Leia’s saber to fight off the Emperor’s guards, and soon we were both standing before him, nothing between us and him, nothing to stop us from ending his reign.” She took a deep breath. “Except him.” She shook her head. “Even with our connection, our strength was no match for Sidious. In fact, he recognized our connection, and used it. Right before my eyes, unable to move, he healed himself. He used the life force from both Ben and I to become whole again.”

She squatted down and picked up a loose rock. Poe stepped over and crouched down next to her, close but not touching. Offering her his own energy to support her, but not interrupting. She looked at him and gave him a soft smile, then looked down at the rock in her hands.

“I passed out after that, the pain was too intense. When I woke, I was sure I was as good as dead. He was killing everyone I loved, using that same Force lightning that I used on Pasaana to slowly and deliberately destroy everything good.” She dropped the rock and stood, Poe following. “I wanted to give up. I was exhausted. My whole body hurt. I couldn’t feel Ben and assumed he was dead. I didn’t see any reason to even try.” A small smile touched her lips. “Then I remembered Leia, and her constant badgering about being patient. That I would know what needed to be done when the time came. That I had to trust in the Force.” She turned and glanced at Chewie. “So, I opened myself up completely and invited them in, just as Leia had taught me. And for the first time, they accepted the invitation.”

Rey gave a soft laugh. “I could hear them, and every voice was familiar. I knew their names and I could see their faces in my mind’s eye, but I had never met any one of them before. Only Luke.” She glanced at Chewie again. “His presence was the strongest of them all. They pushed me. Prodded me. Talked me through the pain, the fear, the helplessness. Before I knew it, I was on my feet facing him, Leia’s lightsaber in my hand once more. It was enough to distract him from what he was doing, and I immediately felt the relief from everyone in the sky above us.

“It was almost a shock to me how the saber was able to deflect even his energy,“ she continued. “But I knew it wasn’t just my power that was fighting him. I could feel them all behind me. All the Jedi.” She paused. “I called Luke’s saber to me, and crossed them, creating a shield. It was agonizing. It was terrifying. It was desperate. But it worked. His energy doubled back on itself, and before he could do anything to prevent it, he was caught in own carnage. And then, it was done.”

She was silent for a long while, and Poe held his breath, waiting. He could tell the others were doing the same.

“I always heard that dying was peaceful,” she said, her voice quiet. “And it was,” she shrugged. “But not in the way I had imagined. There was no light to meet me. No comfort. The Others weren’t there.” She tilted her head. “When I look back on it, I think they weren’t there because they knew it wasn’t over, yet. I think they were waiting to see what happened next.” She looked at Finn. “They’re not omniscient. I don’t think they had any clue what Ben Solo was about to do. When I opened my eyes, he was there, his own body battered far more than mine, his eyes exhausted, but full of hope.” She looked at Poe once more. “They were his mother’s eyes,” she said with a slight grin. “And he smiled,” she whispered. “I had never seen him smile.” Her own smile faded. “And then he was gone.”

Poe stared at her intently. He was thinking about the one moment she left unspoken, the moment that Finn and Chewie didn’t need to know about. The moment that he had only learned long after he had married this amazing woman, when she had admitted it to him after a long discussion about Ben Solo and the Dark Side influenced nightmares she had had before and during the war with the Traagmol. “And you were alive,” he whispered in response to her last statement.

She nodded at him. “And I’m alive,” she whispered back. Then she moved toward him, placed her palms on either side of his face, and kissed him.

******

Rey felt her husband’s arms come around her as he sank into her kiss, and she let her own arms slide around his neck. She had seen his intensity as she finished her story, and she knew he had been thinking about the kiss she had admitted to sharing with Ben Solo just before his death. She didn’t regret it, nor did she feel any remorse for the feelings she had experienced for Han and Leia’s son. But she was long past mourning the man who had been her other half in the Force, and was grateful beyond measure for the man she had chosen as her other half in life. She wasn’t about to let Poe forget it.

“Okay, guys,” she heard Finn say. “We get it. You’re glad to be alive and to be together, but can we focus on this mission so we can get the hell out of here?” Chewie growled his agreement.

Rey slowly pulled back, meeting Poe’s eyes, and grinned as she saw the humor in them. She stepped away from her husband and looked at Finn. “Sorry, but you can’t begrudge us this moment, can you?”

“I can when it lasts as long as that!” Finn argued.

“He’s just jealous because Rose is more focused on the baby than him right now,” Poe claimed. “I get it, buddy. I’ve been there.”

“That is so not true!” Finn argued. “I am not feeling neglected by my wife!”

“No worries, Finn,” Rey assured him. “She’ll remember you’re there eventually.”

“Most likely when she’s ready to have another baby,” Poe continued.

Finn shook his head in frustration, but couldn’t stop the smile as Rey giggled at Poe’s last statement. “Enough!” he cried, even as Chewie started to snort in amusement.

They all laughed, relieved to have the tension of Rey’s recollection eased. But then Rey noticed someone wasn’t adding to the conversation. She looked sharply at Poe. “Where’s BB-8?”

The laughter died as all four of them started looking around quickly. Some of the fallen chunks of stone were larger than the droid, so it was possible he was just out of view, but as they all split up to look for him, it became apparent he was no longer in the chamber with them.

When their calls did not bring about the familiar beeps, Poe grabbed his commlink. “BB-8, where are you?”

Rey took a deep breath in relief when the droid answered.

“’By the fallen statue’ doesn’t help us here, buddy!” Poe exclaimed with a huff of laughter. “Turn on your transponder.”

The ball droid obeyed and Poe used the connection to his commlink to focus in on BB-8’s location. The others followed, Rey bringing up the rear. They came to the remnant of the stone grandstand and Rey wasn’t surprised to see the skeletal remains of dozens of human bodies. She heard her husband grunt in disgust. It was obvious by the scattering of the bones that in the last five years animal scavengers had used the destroyed colosseum as a feeding ground.

Suddenly, Chewie growled and pointed. BB-8 sat next to the almost intact head of one of the shattered Sith statues, rolling back and forth slightly, waiting for them. Poe, still disturbed by the human remnants (Force knew he hated bones!), glared at his droid. “Just what were you thinking going off by yourself like that?”

BB-8 beeped a query.

“Yeah, of course I want you to be brave and get out and help us, but we’re a team, bud. You don’t just wander away from your team. That’s not brave, it’s stupid.”

“I know this for a fact, BB,” Rey concurred. “Been there, done that, have the scars to prove it.”

Poe turned his glare on her, but the corners of his mouth were twitching a bit under his beard. “You didn’t wander, Mesh’la. You absconded.” He wasn’t about to let her forget about the time she left them on Kef Bir, risking her life several times over trying to protect her friends.

BB-8 started beeping again and they turned back to face him. He swiveled and looked toward the base of the wall, shining a light on the hole that was barely visible behind the statue head. Looking at it, Rey just assumed it was the result of the stone effigy hitting the wall when it fell, but BB-8 seemed intent on it. So, igniting her lightsaber once more, Rey stepped toward it.

It was large enough for her to fit through. In fact, Chewie would be able to squeeze himself in if he wanted to. She carefully climbed inside the hole, her lightsaber before her, and was only a bit shocked to find herself in a hallway. She moved away from the hole as her companions started coming in behind her. Knowing Finn had studied up on the initial search reports from after the Battle of Exegol, she looked at him first. “Is this familiar?”

Finn shook his head, glancing back at Chewie, who had crawled through the opening and was now pulling BB-8 inside. “I don’t remember any report of tunnels underneath the grandstand.”

Rey opened herself up to the Force completely. She had been holding off on doing so since they arrived, not wanting to be inundated with the Dark Side until she had to. She didn’t fear it, but it did mess with her ability to concentrate and gave her a raging headache. Now she let it in, reaching for the Light just beyond the Dark and letting it guide her. She turned left and started heading down the corridor. “This way,” she told her team. “Something is this way. Not sure what, yet.”

“Well, that’s comforting,” Poe mumbled, and Chewie grunted in agreement, but they followed her. She glanced back to see all three of her ‘boys’ with weapons ready.

Suddenly, they walked into an open chamber. It was cold, and Rey could feel air circulating through vents in the walls. Artificially cooled air. There was a shape on the floor that looked suspiciously like a body covered in a tarpaulin. Rey walked toward it carefully, then squatted down to pull the covering off. She gasped slightly as she looked on the face of a human child, no more than ten standard years old. The girl was obviously deceased, as her features were already decomposing. Rey stood and backed away.

She looked at her companions, and they looked back at her, eyes wide and confused. “Even in this cool air, that is not five years worth of decay,” she whispered. “This child died recently.” She looked back around the room to another opening. “It looks like the Sith Eternal have been keeping a big secret here on Exegol after all.”

******

There was another passage on the other side of the makeshift morgue, and Poe was anxious to enter it, more to get away from the body than to see what was ahead. The deceased child disturbed him far more than he would have expected, especially as he had spent a great majority of his adult life dealing with death on a regular basis. However, things had changed in the last few years. He was a father, now, and the body of the little girl hit too close to his own heart as he thought of his own daughter back home.

He felt the others follow him and for a while he was content to lead them through the dark, cool passageway. Then he came to an intersection, and the tunnel branched off into three different directions. He stepped aside and Rey moved up next to him. She was focused on the tunnels ahead, but he felt her touch him gently on the arm as she came close, letting her hand slide down his forearm until she reached his hand. She gave his fingers a slight squeeze and he returned the gesture, letting his fingers tangle with hers for a moment, silently thanking her.

Rey moved in front of him and he could see her take a deep breath and close her eyes. He felt the Force surge around him, and was extra grateful he wasn’t as sensitive to it as Rey and Finn; he felt it strongest when Rey directed it close to him. He had no desire to feel the full power of the Dark around them; what negative energy he could feel was bad enough. He watched as Rey opened her eyes and moved to the right tunnel and he and the others followed without question. He noticed in the glow of her saber and his own torch that there were light sconces on the walls and he wondered if they still had power and if they were ever used. It was obvious someone had brought the girl’s body through these tunnels, probably with the intention to keep the body there only temporarily until she could be buried or burned on the surface.

They continued to move through the tunnels silently, stopping only when they came to junctions where Rey would stop and open up to the Force to determine which way to go. Poe could tell they were moving downward ever so slightly, and he didn’t really like that thought. They had been walking, slowly but deliberately, for a good thirty minutes before something changed in the air. There was movement, a current, cool but not cold. They came around a corner, and Rey’s gasp reflected his own shock. He heard Chewie grumble behind him and BB-8 gave out a low whistle.

“Damn,” Finn said softly.

The chamber before them was huge. Poe guesstimated that it was at least a kilometer long and at least half as wide. He looked up, realizing that he could see the whole chamber despite the fact it was underground because of some kind of luminescent growths that covered the ceiling of the gargantuan cavern. He looked down and saw dozens of buildings of various shapes and sizes. Among the buildings he could see what looked like several dark colored plants. Somehow, they were able to grow here in the restrictive light from above. He also noted a few vehicles here and there: a couple of speeder bikes, a small hovercraft, a full-sized rig used to transport heavy equipment. They were looking at a good sized, intact underground village. However, there was something missing.

There were no people.

“This must be where the Emperor’s troops lived,” Rey said softly. Her voice echoed despite her low tone. Poe shook his head in amazement as Rey started walking down a set of stairs built into the stone wall, heading for the village. “We knew they had to have been housed nearby. I guess I just assumed they were all shipbound.” The Emperor’s Final Order Sith Fleet had included thousands of loyal officers, pilots, Stormtroopers, and other recruits, and very few of them had been older than thirty standard years. On interviewing the few survivors they had captured, the Resistance had learned that these people had essentially been raised by the ‘Final Order,’ brainwashed from birth to be loyal to the Emperor and his military. They had never known any other life. “I’ll bet there are other cities like this around the planet,” Rey said. “Those tunnels probably connect them all.”

“But it looks abandoned, now,” Finn said as they reached the bottom of the staircase. “I don’t see any evidence that anyone has been here in the last five years.” He shrugged. “I can’t tell if there is anything or anyone alive, though,” he admitted. “That Dark Side energy is just too much for me to ‘see’ through. It’s like trying to swim in mud.”

Rey was looking around intently, but she was nodding at Finn’s words. “I feel life, but I can’t tell if it’s human or some other kind of animal,” she told them. She glanced at Finn. “Even I have a hard time focusing in this mud.” She shut down her lightsaber and put it back on her belt. “I guess the best thing to do is have a look around. See if we can find any evidence of human life. That little girl came from somewhere.”

She began to move down the ‘street,’ looking carefully at every small house they passed, and Poe knew she was trying to focus the Force to pinpoint any life inside those buildings. To him, the place just felt plain creepy. He was expecting the ghosts and ghouls from the stories of his childhood to come popping out of a doorway at any minute.

Suddenly, that’s exactly what happened, only it wasn’t a specter that jumped out. It was a child, a small boy that couldn’t have been more than six years old, running away from them in ragged clothing and bare feet.

“Wait!” Rey shouted. “We won’t hurt you!” She began running after the child, and Poe took off after her. He could hear the others come up behind him, but they stayed back a bit, not wanting to scare the child more and also keeping an eye on their six.

The boy shot around the corner of one of the houses, and he and Rey turned the corner together, only to stop short at the sight in front of them.

More than a dozen children, ranging from ages six to sixteen, stood in front of them, and they were armed. Most had blasters, but a couple had lightsabers of their own. The boy they had chased had apparently been a lure, and he had led them straight into a trap.

******

Rey raised her hands, palms forward, in a placating gesture, but she saw Poe’s blaster raised and aimed out of the corner of her eye. “Finn!” she heard him shout in warning.

She heard Finn and Chewie come up behind them and she heard Finn’s lightsaber ignite.

The tallest one of the group in front of them, most likely the oldest, told them in a loud, firm voice, “Drop your weapons.” His blue eyes flashed behind a shock of startling blond hair. He was one of the two that brandished a lightsaber. Rey took note that it was a dark violet in color, but not red.

She heard more shuffling behind her and turned her head to see more children, all armed, come up behind her small group. She also took note that BB-8 was not with them. She faced front once more as she heard Finn mutter a swear word.

“We’re not here to harm you,” she told the young man. “We just want to talk.”

“Drop your weapons,” the boy repeated. “Now!”

Rey looked at Poe and nodded. Slowly, with his right hand up, he carefully placed his blaster on the ground. Finn and Chewie followed suit, both grumbling under their breaths.

“How did we get into this?” Poe said softly. “We’re smarter than this.”

“Apparently not,” Rey replied with a grimace.

Two small boys, one of them the child that had led them into this trap, ran forward and began collecting the weapons. Chewie’s bowcaster was almost too large for them to handle. The blond boy nodded at her and pointed with his saber at Rey’s belt. “That, too.”

Rey carefully unhooked her own saber and placed it slowly on the ground. A little girl came forward and took it, looking at Rey with a bit of awe in her gaze. Rey gave her a small smile and the little girl blushed, then returned to stand close to what appeared to be the oldest girl in the group, also tall and blonde, but with far less confidence than the young man.

“Who are you?” the boy said.

“We’re seekers,” Rey told him. This mission wasn’t a Resistance or New Republic operation, so she felt no need to claim they were from a certain group. “We met a young man who claimed he was from Exegol. We believed Exegol to be uninhabited, so we decided to come check it out.”

Another boy, the other lightsaber bearer, nudged the blonde. His saber was a lighter shade of violet, his hair as dark as Poe’s. “She’s talking about Devon,” he said.

The blonde grimaced. “Dark hair? About sixteen?” he asked Rey.

She nodded. “Yes, that sounds like him.”

“Where is he?” the other boy asked. “Why didn’t he come with you?”

“I’m afraid he’s dead,” Rey told them. “He picked a fight that he couldn’t win.”

A couple of the children gasped and she thought she heard a sob, but the blonde boy didn’t look surprised. “He left here with the intent to do harm,” he said. “I can’t say I’m shocked by your news.” He paused. “Did you kill him?”

“I did,” Rey said softly. “But only after he seriously wounded five of our number and tried to burn down one of our buildings.”

“And tried to kill her,” Poe growled. Rey felt a touch of annoyance at his comment, but only because she didn’t want to antagonize the children surrounding them. They were nervous, and that could be both a good and a bad thing. Their nerves most likely meant they had no intention of doing them harm, but nerves also meant someone could panic and discharge a weapon without meaning to.

“You’re the one, aren’t you?” the blonde continued. “The one who killed the Emperor?” His eyes narrowed. “They told us it was a young woman.”

Rey stayed silent a moment. She would not deny the truth, but she was uncertain what the admission would do. This boy seemed to be level headed and not looking for a fight, but that could change in a heartbeat. “Yes,” she finally told him. Then she took a chance. “I killed my grandfather.”

Gasps and soft exclamations circled them as the children eyed each other with startled expressions. Rey looked around her, noticing her team was also eyeing the children’s reaction. The group behind them was smaller than the one in front, and she guessed there were about twenty children total. She looked back toward the blonde, who was eyeing her with a combination of fear, respect, and anger.

“Is there someplace we can go to talk?” Rey asked him. “I promise, that is the only reason we are here. To learn and understand.”

“Understand what?” the boy asked, his voice a bit angry now.

“Understand why you were all abandoned here,” Rey told him. “Why did the Final Order and the Sith Eternal survivors leave, and not take you, the most important among them, with them?”

******

Poe felt naked without his blaster, especially as they were literally surrounded by armed children. He counted twenty-one of them, and all but the smallest three had a weapon. He prayed they knew how to use them responsibly. He looked around casually as the group moved down the street, heading for what looked like a large building set off by itself next to a small park-like space. The town square, he wondered? As he eyed each kid individually, he noticed something missing. He glanced at Rey and she returned his look. He saw the image of his droid flash in his mind’s eye as she connected with him briefly. So, she had already noticed BB-8’s disappearing act. He knew for a fact the droid had been with them when they came down the stairs to the floor of the cavern; the thump-thump sound he made while descending and ascending stairs was distinct.

Well, it wouldn’t be the first time his droid had become his secret weapon. Unless, of course, the little guy had gone into hiding from fear. Geez, he hoped not.

Finally, they came to the building. The two kids leading the way opened the doors and stood aside, and the blonde kid motioned for them to enter with his currently unlit lightsaber. Poe and Rey walked in together, both looking around the large meeting room curiously. Finn and Chewie followed, then the children. Their ‘guards,’ two older boys with blasters they seemed very comfortable with, led them to the center of the room while the children spread out around the outer edges of the area, forming a circle around Poe and the others.

Rey turned to face the blonde kid, the obvious leader of the group. “My name is Rey.” She gestured to him. “This is my husband, Poe, and our friends Finn and Chewbacca.” She tilted her head curiously. “What’s your name?”

The blonde took a deep breath and glanced around at the others. It was the first time Poe had seen any indication of uncertainty in the kid. “Dayne,” he finally said.

“How old are you, Dayne?” Rey continued, her voice relaxed and curious. As if she was at a social gathering making friends. He envied her ability to stay so calm while more than a dozen blasters were pointed at her.

“I’m sixteen,” he told her, this time glancing at the dark-haired boy with the other lightsaber, as if he wasn’t sure he should be answering. The other boy’s expression didn’t change.

“Are you the oldest, Dayne?” Rey asked.

He paused a moment, then seemed to decide that having her ask all the questions wasn’t what he really wanted. “Yes, me and Sakura,” he said quickly, nodding toward the tall blonde-haired girl. “Why do you need to know all this?”

“I told you,” Rey continued conversationally. “I need to understand why…”

“We weren’t abandoned!” one of the other boys shouted. He had dark auburn hair and looked to be about twelve.

Dayne hissed at him. “Shut up, Evan!”

Rey focused on the red-haired boy. “So, there are adults here, then?” She paused. “Where are they? I would love to speak to them.”

“There are no adults here, right now,” the dark-haired boy with the saber said. “Dayne is in charge when they’re gone.”

The children glanced around at each other nervously.

Rey looked back at Dayne. “Where do they go, Dayne?” she asked. Poe realized she was using his name often, making a connection between them, giving Rey power the boy wouldn’t even notice she had. She wasn’t using the Force; she was using psychology.

Dayne grimaced, then shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Why don’t they take you with them?”

“Because they’re scared of us,” the dark-haired boy said.

“Shut up, Korey!” Dayne may be the ‘leader’ of this group, but it was obvious he didn’t have complete control. Not of the boys, anyway. Poe had yet to hear one word out of any of the girls. They stood, eyes downcast, only glancing up from time to time, standing further back against the wall, their blasters pointed down.

“You’re probably right, Korey,” Rey said, looking at the dark-haired boy, her voice still calm and reassuring. “People in power tend to fear two things more than anything else: losing their power and the unknown.” She gave them a small smile. “Oftentimes, the later brings about the former.” She turned suddenly, and began walking around the inner part of the room, circling him, Finn, and Chewie. The movement caused a couple of the boys to jump and their blasters wavered. “My guess is they don’t feel they can really control you, so they keep you here, prisoners in your own home.”

She stopped as she completed the circle, facing Dayne once more. Poe knew from experience she had used the maneuver to get a better view of all the kids, the weapons they held, and their confidence with them; he had seen her do similar movements on her students back home. He also had a feeling he knew what was coming. “How did Devon get off-world?” she asked abruptly.

He saw Dayne swallow nervously and glance around at the others. “He stole a ship, from one of the counselors.”

Rey’s eyebrows rose. “Counselors? Is that what they call themselves? Like they’re in charge of some kind of retreat?” She shook her head. “I am so sorry.”

The red-haired boy sneered. “Sorry? For what?”

Rey sighed. “This.” She gave Poe a look, and in that split second he ‘saw’ her intention and reacted.

“Down!” he commanded Finn and Chewie, and was glad to see they had been on alert. The three of them dropped as Rey brought up her arms and started twisting her body and spinning slowly, using the Force to shove the children back with just enough effort to knock them down. “Now!” Poe called out, and the three of them rushed in different directions, grabbing as many weapons as they could, including their own. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rey calling her lightsaber to her, as well as the other two sabers and a couple of blasters.

Dayne was up almost immediately, and his expression was furious. He raised a hand toward Rey, his intent clear, but Rey simply waved her hand at him gently. “None of that,” she told him, blocking whatever he had been attempting to do with the Force with her own greater strength. “If you wish to become true students of the Force, then you need to not threaten violence to your instructor.”

Dayne lowered his hand as the other children, all now unarmed, slowly got to their feet. “You are not our instructor,” he fumed.

“But I could be,” Rey told him. She looked around at the others. The majority of them stood subdued, fear in their eyes, but a handful of boys stood defiant. “Jedi or Sith?” she asked them. “There’s not a lot of difference between them and yet they are as different as day and night.” She glanced at Poe and he couldn’t help but give her a wink. She smiled and turned back to Dayne. “I can’t ask you to choose when you have never even been exposed to one of those choices. So, all I can do is offer to introduce you to all aspects of the Force, and hope you choose wisely when the time comes.”

Rey looked at the little girl that had taken her lightsaber earlier. With a soft smile, she held out her hand. The little girl looked at the older blonde, who was staring at Rey with a terrified expression. With a sigh, the little one moved to Rey and took her hand, looking up at her with the same awe Rey had seen earlier, as well as hope. Rey nodded at her and looked back at the other children, who Finn and Chewie were herding into a group together around Dayne. “Sometimes, the bravest thing to do is just go forward,” she told them. “The future may be uncertain, but it can also be very exciting.”

She smiled. “So, let’s talk about that future, shall we?”

******

She must be crazy.

It wasn’t the first time Rey had thought that about herself, but her last minute decision to ‘train’ these kids wasn’t being questioned by her husband or her friends, so it must not be too crazy. Of course, the thought that her team may have a little too much confidence in her crossed her mind.

“I’m starving,” Rey said to the group of nervous youngsters in front of her. When she had used the Force to sweep over the twenty-one individuals, she had learned that while all of them had some Force sensitivity, none had any real strength, and she was positive their training was minimal. That didn’t mean they couldn’t hurt her or her little group, but she hoped that by showing them her own strength, and then still treating them with friendship and respect afterward, would insure they wouldn’t try anything desperate. “When do you all eat around here?”

Dayne and the other older boys looked confused for a moment, as if they couldn’t understand why she would be thinking about food after ‘capturing’ them. She saw him look over at the tall blonde girl questioningly, but she refused to look up. Rey looked down at the little girl holding her hand. “What’s your name?”

“Halen,” she whispered with a shy smile.

“Are you hungry, Halen?” she asked. At the child’s nod, Rey turned to the others. “I say we should all sit down to eat and get to know each other better. What do you say?” She noticed the tall blonde raise her eyes finally. Rey met them with her own. “And what’s your name again? Sakura?”

The girl immediately ducked her head again, obviously uncomfortable about being singled out. Rey reached out with the Force and felt a strong aura around her, stronger than Dayne’s or Korey’s. Sakura took a deep breath and looked up. “We have food here, in the hall,” she said softly. “Simple bread cakes are already prepared, and we have wine.”

“I think that sounds lovely,” Rey responded with a smile, totally ignoring the angry and frustrated looks from the older boys.

Sakura nodded and then looked over at a couple of the other girls. They moved cautiously toward the back of the room, opening a cupboard door and removing plates and cups, bringing out the food and drink from what looked like a cooler. Rey raised her head and looked over at Poe. She could see his frown and when he returned her look she just shrugged slightly. Some cultures still deemed women inferior and made them do all the menial work; she shouldn’t be surprised to find that the Sith culture was one. Though Rey had learned about one or two female Sith Lords in her past research, they had been few and far between.

“Sit,” she said as she once more looked at the children grouped in front of her. “Please?” She looked down at Halen who had dropped almost immediately and was sitting cross-legged at her feet, looking up at her with a smile. Rey smiled back and also lowered herself down to the floor. The girls and the smaller boys also slowly lowered themselves down as Sakura and the other girls brought out small plates of food and cups; Sakura served Rey and Halen first, and Rey was very aware of the hopeful glance the young woman gave her while handing her the plate. Rey gave her an encouraging smile, then looked at the others. Dayne and the other boys were grudgingly sitting, looking warily at Finn and Chewie, who were still standing on either side of the small group, looking relaxed but alert. She felt Poe’s presence behind her as he moved to the door of the building, keeping a watchful eye outside. And probably looking for BB-8 while he was at it.

Rey started nibbling on the bland bread, taking a sip of the thankfully mellow wine, then started talking. “So, I have a couple more questions,” she conversationally. “The little girl,” she began. “The body we found on our way down here…” she paused as she saw most of the children tense up. “Who was she?”

“Melora,” Sakura answered. “Her name was Melora.” It seemed that Sakura was becoming a bit more confident.

“How did she die?” Rey asked softly.

Sakura looked down at the floor again, more because she didn’t want to answer than out of fear, Rey thought.

“She was Devon’s sister,” Dayne finally answered. “She tried to stop him when he left.” His own voice became subdued. “I don’t think he meant to hurt her, but he was so angry.” He shook his head sadly. “He was the most powerful among us, but also the most…” He paused, looking at Rey with a bit of fear.

“Unstable?” Rey asked. “Unhappy?” She sighed. “Afraid?”

Dayne shrugged. “All of the above?”

Rey paused, taking another bite as the children began to eat again. “How is it there are no older children here? Are they taken away when they reach a certain age?”

It was Korey who answered this time. “Not anymore, but when the Final Order was set to leave, everyone twelve standard years and older was conscripted to work on the Star Destroyers.” He shrugged. “We were all that was left.”

“There is no one else left?” Rey asked, a bit startled. “Aren’t there other villages like this one?”

Dayne nodded. “Yes, but we all moved to this one as it’s the closest to the surface entrance.”

“Weren’t there any other children? Children that were not Force sensitive?”

The younger children kept eating, but the older ones looked at each other nervously.

It was Sakura who finally answered. “We only heard stories, and some thought they were being said just to make us afraid, but I believe them.” She took a deep breath. “We were told that any child born that was not Force sensitive was destroyed at birth.”

******

Poe grimaced as he heard Sakura’s words. They didn’t surprise him, of course. Evil was evil, be it the Sith, the Empire, or the Final Order. Killing newborn babies may seem less drastic than destroying entire worlds, but they originated from the same malevolent ideology. He surveyed the area outside the door to the hall as Rey continued her interrogation.

“What about your parents?” she asked. He could tell by her connection to him that the story of the babies had upset her, but she wasn’t letting it show to the children. “What happened to them?”

Now that was a good question, he thought. It was nerve-wracking enough facing Force sensitive children, but knowing that most Force sensitivity was inherited, it wouldn’t be pleasant having to deal with potential Sith trained parents showing up.

Most of the children looked downcast again. “Most of them were on the Star Destroyers during the battle,” Dayne finally said. “None of them came back.”

“No relatives at all?” Rey asked.

“Sakura’s father was in the Throne Room,” Korey said, glancing at the young woman. “He lived long enough to come tell us to hide, but he died the next day.”

Sakura shrugged. “I know I have a cousin, but she never came here; I never met her face to face. I’m sure she doesn’t even know I’m alive.”

Poe felt Rey’s gaze on him and he looked at her. Through their connection, he saw a familiar and hated face. He knew she was asking him what he thought, and he looked at Sakura again. He decided that maybe there was a slight resemblance, but it was hard to tell how much since Sakura was not only underweight but wore no makeup or nice clothes. He shrugged at his wife.

“Is your cousin named Mikaela?” Rey asked, and Poe felt an unpleasant shiver go up his spine at the name. He turned back to look outside again.

He heard Sakura’s startled response. “You know her?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Rey answered, her voice carrying a tinge of humor. He was glad she could find amusement from this. “Fortunately, she’s in prison.” Ah, that’s why she was chipper.

Suddenly, Poe noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. He focused in that direction, a bit disgusted with the dim light in the cavern; he briefly wondered if any of these kids even knew what real sunlight was. He saw the movement again and breathed a sigh of relief when he recognized the familiar and beloved white and orange ball shape. BB-8 rolled surreptitiously from one building to the next, looking around carefully before moving from spot to spot. Poe felt a smile form as he watched his droid move around like a spy. At one point, he stopped and focused on Poe. He gave his master his patented ‘thumbs up’ then continued on. All was well; BB-8 was on patrol. Poe grinned, then turned to focus on his wife again.

He realized the room had gone quiet. Rey was levitating one of the bread cakes above her hand, and every eye in the room was focused on her. She moved it toward Halen, and the little girl raised her own hand, palm up, as if to catch the bread as Rey lowered it. But Rey didn’t drop it. Instead, she nodded to Halen, encouraging the child to ‘take’ the bread with the Force. He watched as the little girl focused, staring at the bread intently. Rey slowly took her hand away and he knew that the cake was now floating under the child’s control. It would sink, then rise, then sink again. Halen’s face was scrunched up in concentration. Rey smiled and ‘took’ the bread back, floating in across toward the group of children sitting still and quiet along the back wall. She directed it to Dayne.

Hesitating briefly, Dayne finally raised his own hand to ‘catch’ the cake. Poe could feel Rey draw back again as the young man took control. Like Halen, he had to focus hard just to keep the bread from sinking into his hand. Nodding, Rey moved it to Sakura. The young woman, her eyes wide with wonder, ‘took’ the cake, and Poe could tell from her expression that she had no trouble keeping the bread from touching her hand. One by one, Rey offered the cake to every child. Some, like Halen and Dayne, had trouble keeping it controlled, but a few, like Sakura, made it look easy. It was a simple but important test. Not only was Rey gauging their individual strength in the Force, but testing to see how much training they had.

When she finally brought the cake back to her own hand, Rey asked, “Where did you all learn to use your powers?” She paused. “Who taught you?”

The kids looked around at each other, and even Poe could feel their confusion. Finally, Sakura answered. “No one,” she said softly. “We just help each other. Learn from each other.” She glanced at Dayne. “Branigan and Janis encourage us, but you can tell they are afraid of us, too.”

“Branigan and Janis are the adults that come?” Rey asked, though she really didn’t need to. She was just keeping them talking.

Dayne nodded. “Rumam used to come, too, but he stopped coming over two years ago.”

“Rumam?” Rey said, and Poe snorted to himself. “Yeah, I met him.”

“You met him?” Korey asked. “So, is he in prison, too?’

Rey shook her head. “No. He’s dead.” She shrugged. “He tried to take my daughter. That was a huge mistake.”

“You have a daughter?” Halen asked, her eyes bright.

Rey smiled at her. “Yes, I do,” she told the little girl. “She’s younger than you.” She glanced at Poe. “We also have a son.”

“Can they use the Force, like you?” a dark-haired boy of about nine asked.

Rey nodded. “Yes, they can, but they are still very young, so their training is minimal right now. Soon, they’ll be students right along the others I teach.”

Sakura smiled suddenly. It was the first time any of them other than Halen had done so. “You teach other children about the Force?”

Rey nodded. “I have about fifteen students right now,” she told them.

“Teaching them how to be Jedi?” Evan sneered.

“Giving them the tools they need to become Jedi,” Rey corrected. “Whether they become Jedi or not is completely up to them.” She stood suddenly. “And I’d like to give you all that choice, as well. But if you choose to become my students, that means leaving this place. Leaving Exegol and anything and everything to do with the Sith.” She paused. “Is that something you think you can do?”

Poe felt a bit of anxiety at his wife’s announcement, but he was not surprised by it. *I hope you have a plan,* he told her, taking a chance by connecting with her while she was still focused on the kids.

She looked at him as the kids started murmuring among themselves. *Plan?* she grinned. *I thought I’d just make things up as I go like you do.*

******

Rey watched as the children huddled together, discussing her proposition. Finn and Chewie were still watching them carefully, but she could tell they had both relaxed a bit. Not only had the anxiety in the Force eased, but the tension in the older children’s bodies had also abated. They were not happy here, and Rey’s invitation had made several of them hopeful, if not excited. The older boys, of course, were still wary, but both Dayne and Korey seemed to be listening closely to Sakura as she spoke to them softly but with passion.

She turned and wandered over to the doorway, where her husband leaned against the doorframe, hand on the blaster at his hip, looking out into the dusky cavern. He turned his head to watch her as she moved next to him, his gaze intense. She looked past him. “Any sign of our little delinquent?”

He nodded. “Yeah, he’s out there patrolling, being sneaky.” He shrugged. “It is amazing how he can just disappear, sometimes.” He sighed and kept his attention on her. “So, that ‘plan’?”

She nodded and focused on him, trying not to feel unsettled by his scrutiny. For someone not having a lot of control of the Force, he sure could make her squirm. Probably because he was one of the few people in the galaxy whose opinion mattered to her. “There’s a lot of open space on Kolbe,” she said softly. “Another settlement not far from where we have the base planned wouldn’t be hard to build. They would be close enough for me to visit often, but not a direct part of our community.” She glanced back at the kids, who were still in a huddle. “This would give them the independence they’re used to, and also keep my other students safe.”

“Do you really think they would be a danger?” Poe asked, giving the kids a glance.

She shrugged. “All they’ve known since their birth is the Dark Side,” she said. “They’ve not been trained to it, nor, it seems, have they been taught how to hate.” She looked at him again. “That’s a good thing, but with all the darkness imbedded in their psyche, I can’t fully trust them.”

He nodded, and she saw a bit of relief on his face. She knew he didn’t fully trust them, either, and had been a bit worried she was about to open up the chicken coop and let the vulptex in. Yet, he hadn’t tried arguing with her; he had trusted her to do what was right. She gave him a soft smile, letting her love for him flow out and fill him. His eyes widened as he felt her warmth through the Force. “What was that for?” he whispered.

“I’m just very glad you’re here,” she whispered back.

She was distracted just enough that she didn’t sense Halen until the child was almost next to her. She looked down as the little girl reached for her hand, then looked up at the rest of the children. They were all watching her silently. She looked back at Halen.

“I want to come with you,” the little girl said, her eyes filling with moisture. “I don’t care what they want,” she continued, indicating the rest of the kids. “I don’t want to be here in this place anymore.”

Rey looked up at the group again, asking them a silent question. Dayne finally spoke up. “We haven’t decided anything, yet,” he told her. “Will you really leave if we decide not to come with you?”

Rey looked down at Halen, then glanced at Poe who was staring at the children contemplatively. “I will take any who want to go, whether it’s all or just one.” She gave Halen’s hand a gentle squeeze. “The rest of you can continue living in this hole in the ground if you want.” Her voice was firm.

Dayne seemed to consider her statement for a moment, then he turned back to the others. They all looked at each other, and Rey noticed Sakura looking at Halen with worry, but before anyone could say anything else, a familiar warble came from outside.

Rey looked to see BB-8 rushing toward them, screeching in binary so fast that even she had a hard time understanding him. Rey felt Halen give a soft gasp of excitement when she saw the droid, but she obviously didn’t understand what he was saying.

“Ship.” “Men.” “Armed.” Just those three words were enough for Rey and Poe. They looked at each other, then turned toward the group, not even questioning how BB-8 knew what was happening on the surface. Finn and Chewie were already on alert; neither of them understood BB-8 as well as Rey and Poe did, but they didn’t need to in this case. “It looks like your ‘councilors’ have arrived,” Rey told the children, sarcasm heavy in her voice. “And they brought company.”

Confusion filled their expressions. “They never bring others,” Korey said.

“My guess is your friends got here earlier, saw our ship, and called for help,” Poe told them. “The question is, are they here to defend you or prevent you from leaving?”

“You better make up your mind on whether or not you want to come with us,” Rey told them. “Because we see no reason to risk our lives if you want to stay.” She left the fact that just getting themselves out of here would bring enough risk to their lives unsaid, but if the children wanted out, Rey and her team would defend them as well as each other.

Sakura looked at Dayne, her eyes pleading. Dayne looked at Korey and Evan. Korey nodded back, and finally the angry Evan also gave a grudging nod. Dayne turned toward Rey and dipped his head. “We’ll come with you,” he told her, but his expression was worried. “What do you want us to do?”

******

Poe squatted on a ledge that looked down on the Sith village, shifting himself a little more behind the huge boulder that balanced on the rocky surface. Halen was tucked behind him, completely hidden from view should anyone down below look up. Finn and Chewie were similarly hidden elsewhere, each ‘babysitting’ one of the youngest boys. He brought one knee down to the ground, moving a bit more to try and find a comfortable position. I’m getting too old for this, he thought.

He looked down to where the rest of the children were, all of them hovering just outside the meeting hall. Poised in front of the open door was his wife, her arms manacled behind her back, two of the boys standing guard on either side of her, weapons once more in hand. Seeing her in such a vulnerable state made him almost as uncomfortable as his physical position did. Even though he knew she could easily uncuff herself in a heartbeat using the Force, and that BB-8 was just inside the doorway to the hall with her lightsaber, his nerves were on edge.

He glanced at Halen, who looked at him with large, scared eyes. He gave her a soft smile, trying his best not to show her his anxiety, but knowing she could probably feel it through the Force. He took a deep breath, trying to not focus on the thought that this little girl had only been a baby when the great battle had taken place here. Younger than Skyler was now. He turned to look back down into the village. Skyler. When Poe had decided to accompany his wife on this journey, he had given no thought to the danger they might encounter. Now, for the first time, he felt an almost overwhelming fear take over. What if neither of them made it back? What would happen to their babies? Why didn’t he think of them before he had agreed to this?

*Stop it!*

Though silent, the words slammed into his mind with violence. He looked at Rey, who was glaring up at him from her position. A part of him wanted to be angry that she had so easily read his mind, but he quickly acknowledged that it was his own fault for ‘shouting’ through the Force. Rey would never force herself into his brain. Not without a good reason, anyway. He closed his eyes and opened up to her intentionally, letting her confidence and calmness flow into his psyche.

*That’s better,* he ‘heard’ her say, but then he felt her immediate distraction. He opened his eyes and looked down the valley to the stairs that connected the tunnels to the village. He felt his chest tighten at what he saw.

At least two dozen stormtroopers, wearing the red armor of the Final Order, were stomping down the stairs, weapons ready. Following behind them were two older human men. Brannigan and Jannis, Poe assumed. He watched as they marched into the village, heading right for the meeting hall. Dayne stepped forward to meet them, his demeanor confident but confused. “What is this?” he demanded. “Did you know she was coming here? Is that why you have troopers? Why didn’t you tell us?” He was a pretty good actor, Poe thought.

“Her?” one of the men said as they came forward to the front of the line and stood face to face with Dayne. “Was there just one?”

Dayne looked back at Rey, who was looking a little too scared. *Don’t over-do the terrified look, sweetheart,* Poe ‘told’ her. *You killed their Emperor. They’re not gonna buy it.* She wasn’t as good an actor as Dayne.

He saw Rey’s lips tighten as she took a deep breath and raised her chin, her expression now insolent.

Dayne was looking around, glancing toward the walls of the cavern. Poe noted that he purposefully did not look toward him or the others in hiding. “As far as we know,” he told the man. “We’ve seen no sign of anyone else. Just the Jedi.”

“Jedi?” the other man said, his voice surprised. He stepped forward, passing Dayne and walking up to face Rey. He looked her up and down, distain in his expression. “You’re younger than I imagined,” he said. “In all the stories I’ve heard about you, I never pictured a little girl.”

“I’m flattered,” Rey told him, amusement in her voice. “I guess I can thank the Force for keeping me young.” Poe was sure her sarcasm would be lost on the Sith wannabe.

The man glared at her, then turned back to Dayne. “Was she armed?”

Dayne shook his head. “We did not find any weapons on her, and she says she had none, but I don’t trust her. I have the littles out searching the tunnels. I expect she hid it in hopes that we would think her harmless when she came into the village.” He shrugged. “We saw the ship land on the monitors in the command center, but you know the cameras aren’t that good; we couldn’t tell if she had anything with her then.” Monitors in the command center, Poe thought. That explained how BB-8 was able to warn them.

The man turned back to Rey. “What was your intent coming here, Jedi?”

Rey gave him a little smile. “My name is Rey. And you are?”

The man looked startled for a moment, then glowered. “Never mind that,” he told her gruffly. “Why are you here?”

Rey sighed. “I met a young man who told me he was from here. I didn’t know there was anyone left here, so, I guess I got a little curious.” She shrugged. “I didn’t expect the Children of the Sith.” She frowned. “That sounds like a really bad holo-horror story, doesn’t it?”

The man turned to look at his partner. “Brannigan?” he cried. “Can you believe this brazen jezebel?”

The other man moved forward, a smirk on his face. “From what I’ve heard, she is a bit of a hussy.”

Poe rolled his eyes, then clenched his teeth. *Don’t do it,* he warned his wife as he felt her anger grow.

He saw her take a deep breath, then the corner of her lips curled up again. “You better not let my husband hear you say that,” she told them, and the venom in her voice made the hairs stand up on the back of his arm. “His temper is almost as bad as mine.”

*I do not have a temper,* he argued. ‘Speaking’ with her like this was getting easier and easier. *You, however… you can be touchy.*

“Husband?” Jannis queried. “I thought Jedi were supposed to be celibate?”

“First you call me a jezebel, then you tell me I’m supposed to be celibate?” Rey was aghast. “Make up your mind already!” Suddenly, her arms were free and her lightsaber flew out the door behind her and into her hand. “Now!” she called out.

Poe ignored his cramped legs and stood to shoot over the top of the boulder he was hiding behind, aiming for the red armor. He saw Finn and Chewie do the same from their respective hiding places. The younger children on the floor of the cavern immediately ducked into a couple of buildings, but the older boys and Sakura stood shoulder to shoulder with Rey, the two violet-colored lightsabers a startling contrast next to Rey’s golden blade. Some of the younger children started shooting their own blasters from the windows of the buildings they had dived into.

It didn’t take long for the stormtroopers, who had been distracted by the argument between Rey and their bosses, to be overcome. Most hadn’t even gotten off a shot before they were dropped by blaster fire. Rey and Dayne stepped forward, their lightsabers pointed at the throats of the two men left standing; neither of them had even had a chance to go for their own blasters. Poe couldn’t help but wonder if they even knew how to shoot them.

He glanced at Halen, who was still tucked safely back against the wall of the cavern, then he looked back down. “Head count!” he shouted. “Everyone okay?” He watched as the other children came out of hiding. Eighteen young faces looked up at him, most of them with huge smiles. He glanced across the way, seeing Chewie lift the little boy he had been hiding, Kev, onto his shoulder, and he heard Finn call out, “We’re good!” Poe looked back at Halen, who was slowly standing. He smiled at her and she smiled back.

He looked back down at his wife. “Well,” Rey said with a satisfied smile on her own face. “It looks like we’ll be taking more than kids back to the New Republic,” she told the two men in front of her. “Don’t worry. From what I understand, the new prison cells on Belsavis are very comfortable.”

******

It took a couple of hours, but they finally left Exegol. Poe, experienced battle leader that he was, insisted that all the stormtroopers were checked to insure they were all dead. This was done not only to guarantee they were not followed, but to prevent any unnecessary suffering. While Rey and her team did this, the children prepared to leave, packing what little they could claim as their own. Most of them were excited, chattering away like the kids they were, but a handful were sullen, going about the chore as if they were being forced.

Rey watched Evan closely. He was awful young to have such an attitude, she thought. But then again, the only children his age that she was accustomed to were her students, most who had been seeped in the Light Side of the Force for most of their lives. Growing up here on Exegol made these children far different than what she was used to.

Once everyone was ready, it was time to say goodbye to Exegol. She wondered how different the kids would feel once they left this place and the Dark Side energy stopped influencing them. She herself was anxious to get rid of the non-stop headache.

It was decided that Finn would accompany Rey and the children to Kolbe on the fancy ship their Sith Eternal ‘councilors’ had come in on. Poe and Chewie would take the Falcon and escort their prisoners to Naboo, where they would be officially arrested and await trial as all Final Order and Sith Eternal survivors did when captured. If they weren’t immediately executed by the ones who caught them, of course; that happened more often than not.

While Finn supervised the loading of the elegant yacht, Rey moved toward her husband. His dark eyes flashed at her as he turned from watching Chewie shove Jannis up the ramp into the Falcon. She sighed, frustrated that she could not sense his emotions. “You’ve not only gotten very good at ‘talking’ to me through the Force, but you’ve learned how to put up those barriers to keep me out, too.” He stayed silent, watching her. “Please tell me you’re okay with this?”

“You want me to lie?” he said softly.

“Would it be a lie?”

His face finally relaxed a bit. “No, it wouldn’t,” he told her, shaking his head a bit. “I think your plan is the right one, but that doesn’t mean I like the idea of you and Finn alone on a ship with twenty Sith kids.”

“I’m quite sure the majority of them are harmless,” she told him. “I know which ones to keep an eye on.” Evan wasn’t the only boy who seemed angry about leaving, but the two oldest and Sakura seemed to have good control of the group, and she could feel the hope emanating from them every time they looked at her. “I’m more worried about your passengers.”

He snorted in amusement. “I’m not.” He took a deep breath and looked behind her at the yacht. Little Halen was standing at the top of the ramp, her expression excited. She was anxious to go. He smiled at her, then looked back a Rey. “I know you’ll be okay,” he told her. “Just don’t expect too much from them too soon. Remember, the goal isn’t to turn them into Jedi, but to keep them from becoming Sith.”

She nodded, acknowledging that she did have a tendency to demand a bit more from her students than they were ready for on occasion. That’s why she had Finn and Rose to help her; they usually pulled her back before she caused too much anxiety in her pupils. “Finn will be there to keep me grounded,” she said with a smile. She tilted her head. “I’m assuming you’ll be heading back to Yavin as soon as you’ve dropped off your cargo?”

“Unless you want us to come to Kolbe first?”

She shook her head. “No, we’ll be fine. I’ll be so busy making sure they get set up okay and showing them how to avoid Mohers and Cousers, time will fly. You come with the last wave, as planned. Go spend time with your dad.”

He nodded. “All right,” he told her softly. “You let me know immediately if there’s a problem, okay?”

She reached up and gently pushed an errant curl off of his forehead, then let her hand drift down his cheek to run her fingers through his beard, her thumb rubbing gently on his full lower lip. He responded by leaning in to kiss her. He deepened the kiss with no hesitation, and she heard a soft moan as she let her tongue meet his. The moan was hers. Damn the man for always making her lose control. She pulled away before the rest of her body started reacting. There was no such thing as a chaste peck from Poe Dameron when it came to her. “See you soon,” she told him, refusing to say goodbye, then turned to the yacht, only to see Halen bouncing on the balls of her feet grinning from ear to ear as she waited at the top of the ramp. Rey couldn’t help but laugh. She knew there would be no trouble from this youngling.

She heard BB-8 whistle behind her and turned to look at him. He was sitting about mid-way between her and Poe, his head swiveling back and forth between them. Poe gave a soft chuckle, then jerked his head in her direction. BB-8 trilled happily and turned to follow Rey. She was pretty sure he would have been just as happy had Poe motioned for the droid to follow him, but for now he was going with her. Rey knew it was Poe’s subtle reminder that he was always watching out for her. From their earliest days after Crait, Poe had always sent BB-8 with her whenever he himself wanted to be with her but couldn’t; Rey had never recognized the action for what it was back then. She did now.

Rey kissed the palm of her hand and threw it at Poe, her smile bright.

Poe caught it, and placed it on his heart.

******

It was almost three weeks before the last of the Resistance arrived at Kolbe. This included the Organa, Rey’s students, Rose with Temiri and Paige, and Poe with Shaina and Skyler. Rey was already settled in one of the temporary houses set just off the base perimeter, right next to another one claimed by Finn. As of yet, the only permanent buildings were the new command center, which also housed the shield generator, and an enclosed mess hall that had a large subterranean chamber for use during severe weather; that had been Rey’s suggestion as she had been witness to the violent storms the area was subject to and wanted to insure everyone’s safety.

The new little village of Conata sat about two kilometers from the base and it was also making due with mostly temporary buildings at the moment, with one large structure (that also included an underground shelter) in the center of the small settlement. The twenty-one residents were adapting well, and Rey had to admit that after the initial awe and wonder they all exhibited upon their arrival to the sun-soaked planet, they had adjusted with amazing speed. Other than offering building supplies and foodstuffs, and making sure they knew the danger some of the native animals posed, Rey had done very little in the way of helping the Exegol children establish their own little community. She visited often, but wasn’t ready to start any formal training as of yet, wanting them to trust that they were indeed welcome here while still being allowed their independence.

When the Organa entered atmosphere, Rey was instantly aware due to her connection to her husband. She had known the general timeframe of their planned arrival, but being out with the animals she hadn’t had any technological heads-up they were here. Thankfully, she hadn’t needed any. She smiled up at the graceful cruiser in the sky far above her, barely visible due to the bright sunlight that saturated the land 70% of its daylight hours; though not a desert, this area of Kolbe was arid, with the majority of its moisture coming from storms in the summer season and occasional snow during the short winter. The change of seasons was one thing Rey hadn’t been aware of when she had been stuck here before Skyler’s birth; she was grateful she had been marooned during late spring and not the height of winter.

She finished with her task of feeding the fathiers and Sal, then headed back toward the base, making her way toward the area newly designated as their landing field. She knew the Millennium Falcon would be descending soon, carrying the handful of humans and one Wookiee she loved more than life itself. Her family. She arrived at the field about the same time the old YT-1300F freighter gracefully came down for a landing. Rey was aware that BB-8 had rolled up to sit at her feet; the little droid was finally becoming comfortable with his new home, following and ‘protecting’ Rey as often as possible. Finn showed up shortly after BB-8, excitement emanating from him in waves. She grinned at him, knowing he had not been away from Rose for this long since they had married, and that he missed both his wife and Paige desperately. Though she and Poe were much more used to being separated, she understood his enthusiasm completely.

When the ramp came down, she was unsurprised to see Tem run off the ship first. The teenager rushed over to Finn, hugging him exuberantly, then he turned to Rey and gave her a quick hug before asking her in a rushed tone, “Where are they?” Before Rey could open her mouth to respond, he said, “Never mind,” and with a grin took off running toward the area where Rey had just come from.

“Well, I guess I know where I stand compared to the fathiers,” Finn said with a snort.

Rey laughed. “I understand Poe and Rose had a hard time convincing him he didn’t need to come with them,” she said. The animals had arrived via shuttle only three days ago, but Tem acted like he’d been away from them longer than his adopted father. Rey faced the ship again, watching as Rose came walking toward them, Paige in her arms, her eyes focused solely on Finn. “There’s someone who’s been missing you,” Rey said, and watched as Finn smiled broadly and moved to meet his wife and daughter.

Movement behind them caught Rey’s eye, and a little whirlwind, long dark hair flying around her, sped toward her. Rey kneeled down, catching her daughter in a bear hug and standing up to swing her around, kissing her noisily on her cheek over and over again. Shaina giggled wildly as she clung to her mother’s neck. Rey, her own face split with a huge grin, turned to find Kes walking toward her carrying Skyler. Rey reached for her father-in-law with her free arm, drawing him and her son into the hug. “I’m glad you came,” she told him. She knew he would only be staying for a few days before heading back to Yavin; he had not only wanted to see his grandchildren settled in their new home, but he wanted to say goodbye to his ‘Filla’ Rey.

Rey stepped back and looked over Kes’ shoulder. Poe was descending the Falcon’s ramp, his voice loud and argumentative as the Wookiee next to him roared and waved his arms. BB-8 rolled over to them, watching them with seeming fascination. She looked at Kes askance. “Let me guess, something broke on the way here and Chewie is blaming Poe?”

“Like always,” Kes grinned. His smile faded as he looked back at his son and the Wookiee. “I’m gonna miss that.” He looked back at Rey. “I’m gonna miss a lot. But I think I’m going to enjoy the quiet, too.”

“Well,” Rey told him. “Just know that you’ll be dealing with noise in excess a couple times a year, still.” They had promised Kes they would bring his grandchildren to stay with him at least that often.

“I’ll look forward to it,” he told her. “And speaking of…” he paused, his dark brows raised. “Am I going to get a third grandchild soon?”

Rey gave him a side-long look. “What did Poe tell you?”

Kes shrugged. “He just said you weren’t preventing anything right now.”

Rey rolled her eyes. Poe never could keep secrets from his father. “Well, you know, it took months for Skyler to happen, so you never know.”

“No rush, no rush,” Kes soothed. He looked around him curiously. “This place is as unlike Yavin as possible, isn’t it?”

“At least it’s not a desert,” Rey told him dryly. “Not sure I ever want to live in a desert again.”

Kes laughed, then turned to Finn and Rose, who were coming up behind them.

“I’ll show Kes to the house if you want,” he told Rey, glancing back at the still arguing pilots.

“Why don’t you?” Rey told him. “I’ll break up the brawl over there.” She set Shaina down and reached over to give her sleepy looking son a kiss. “Why don’t you both go with grandpa while I make sure Uncle Chewie doesn’t rip your father’s arms off?” Shaina laughed at this, as she couldn’t fathom her gentle giant of an uncle doing anything so rash. While Rey knew Poe was indeed safe from such an act, she also knew from personal observation the Wookiee could and indeed would do it if he thought it was appropriate.

As her family moved off toward the houses, Rey watched as more and more shuttles came down from the Organa, including the one carrying her students and their families. Kaydel was waiting for that shuttle, ready to show them all to their new temporary homes. She already had great plans for the housing area, including planting trees and mapping out gardens as the permanent buildings went up. While the woman had proven to be a formidable warrior in the past several years, she loved helping the burgeoning Resistance families create a comfortable community, too. It probably didn’t hurt that she and Beau had finally made their off-and-on again relationship official a few months ago.

Rey turned toward the Falcon just as her husband and Chewie seemed to finally be reaching an agreement of some kind. Chewie grunted as he noticed her coming, walking toward her and sweeping her up in big hug. “Ugh,” Rey uttered. “I missed you, too,” she gasped. He set her down, glared at Poe once more, then wandered off toward the base, already curious to check things out.

Rey looked at her husband, who was grinning at her reaction to Chewie’s ‘hello.’ “Sometimes I think the only reason I still have my appendages is because he knows you would be very upset with him if he deformed me.”

She snorted in laughter. “Don’t let him fool you. He would never let you fly the Falcon if he didn’t love you, too.”

Poe walked toward her. “I don’t know, Rey,” he drawled. “You are the one that holds us all together.” He moved into her space and wrapped his arms around her. She let herself relax into his hug, encircling her arms around his waist and breathing in deep the familiar scent of jet fuel, mech grease, leather, and the unique aroma that belonged only to Poe, one that always reminded her of a rainstorm. “You are the sun in this family,” he whispered into her neck. “We will always happily revolve around you.” He kissed her behind her ear, slow and soft.

Rey closed her eyes and once more thanked the Force for this amazing, impossible, difficult man.

******

Five Months Later

Rey eased herself back in the saddle, feeling Sal slow down at her subtle cue. She glanced behind her and watched as Poe also slowed his mount down, maybe with a little less grace than Rey, but she had to admit he was getting better. Rey smiled at him as he watched her with wide eyes, moving Blanco, the white Tris he was riding, carefully up next to Sal. “You were going a bit fast there, darling,” he told her, his calm voice hiding the stress she could feel emanating from him.

“Oh, relax,” she told him with a grin. “Sal can go a lot faster than that.” She reached down to stroke her mounts neck. “He’s taking very good care of me.” She shifted a bit in the saddle, not used to it as she usually rode Sal with no equipment. However, at her husband’s insistence, she had agreed to use it for this ride. It did give her more security, and it wasn’t just her on Sal’s back today.

Kes’ question about a third grandchild back when he had visited several months ago had reminded Rey that she should have had her monthly before then; she had been so busy with helping the Exegol children get settled, not to mention offering recommendations and advice to the Resistance crew already there, that she hadn’t given personal things like that a thought. Of course, it hadn’t taken long after that to confirm her prediction from the night of her and Poe’s last coupling under the Force tree; baby number three would be born on Kolbe.

At least she was keeping to her part of her deal with Poe: she could have as many children as she wanted as long as they were all born on a different planet.

She let Sal walk up to the bank of a small stream and slid off, trying to be as graceful as she could with her belly already protruding quite a bit. Though she was still fit and healthy, this pregnancy going smoother than her last, she felt she was getting larger than she had with either Shaina or Skyler. She let Sal know through a touch of the Force that it was okay to drink and then graze from there, and she knew Blanco would follow him as soon as Poe got off. She walked over to the creek and sat down in the cool grass at its edge, waiting for her husband to join her. She stretched her legs out in front of her and leaned back on her arms, lifting her face to the sun and letting the constant prairie wind whip around her.

Poe sat down heavily next to her. She smiled at him. “Sore?”

“A bit,” he groused. “I don’t ride as often as you do.” She felt fortunate he rode at all. He had never consented to learning how to ride the fathiers, but when Blanco came along, and he noticed how often his wife liked to go out with Sal, he had given the older Tris a try. Blanco had been an accident, really. While Sal had not seemed to care one whit about coming back to his home planet, ignoring any wild Tris that came anywhere near the paddock where he and the fathiers were housed, Blanco had been a different story. The old animal had started hanging around the base, often visiting with Sal, and it was obvious that he had been cast out of his herd due to his age. Sal seemed to understand, as he had suffered the same fate thanks to a mishappen horn. So, Rey had allowed Blanco in, and it hadn’t taken long for Poe to become attached to him and vice-versa.

Poe laid back on the grass, his arms folded under his head, eyes closed, and Rey found herself looking at him intently. He was less than two years short of forty now, the grey in his hair and beard becoming more and more prominent, but he was still fit and lean and as beautiful to her today as he had been six years ago when she first met him. She sat up and moved over to lay next to him, propping herself up on an elbow so she could look down at him, bringing her other hand up to play with his hair. His eyes opened as he grabbed her wrist, bringing her hand to his mouth. He kissed the ring on her finger, meeting her eyes with his own. “Are you trying to seduce me, Jedi?” he asked with a smile. “Out here, in the open, where anyone could see us?”

Rey looked around them, where grass stretched as far as they eye could see. “I have a feeling we’re not going to be bothered out here.”

Poe’s eyebrows shot up. “So, you are trying to seduce me!”

“Well, why not?” she argued. “What better way to celebrate?”

Yesterday, for the first time, Rey had invited several of the Exegol children to join with her regular class. Not only had it gone well, but she had felt an amazing sense of positivity in the Force around her, as if it had been waiting for this moment and was thrilled. The integration would go on gradually, as Rey had talked a couple of her grown students, her ‘graduates,’ into becoming teachers themselves, helping her, Finn, and Rose as their school surged exponentially. Neither Raseyn nor Ciarra were exceedingly powerful, but they understood what was needed to control the Force and they were good with kids. They and Finn were now, in Rey’s opinion, full Jedi. That alone was enough to celebrate.

Rey leaned down and started kissing her husband, and he quickly moved up into her, pushing her onto her back and leaning over her, bracing himself up with one arm while stroking her swollen abdomen with his other hand. He began nibbling on her chin, working his way down her neck, as she began to run her hands up underneath his shirt. The hand that rested on her belly responded by moving lower, seeking out the stretchy waistband of her trousers and stealing underneath. She gasped as he reached his goal.

“Why, Master Jedi,” Poe whispered, lifting his head and looking at her, his eyes heavy lidded and oh, so sexy. “You’ve apparently been thinking about this for a while.”

Rey lifted her hips in response. “What can I say? Watching you ride turns me on.” She lifted her face to kiss him, grabbing his lower lip gently in her teeth and pulling on it. “Of course, watching you do a lot of things turns me on these days.”

“Gotta love those pregnancy hormones,” Poe mumbled, then he climbed on his knees and began working at removing Rey’s boots and trousers. He folded the clothing and placed it on the ground, then helped Rey up from her prone position, gently positioning her so she was kneeling on the pants.

She grinned at him. “Such a gentleman,” she teased.

“Yeah, that’s what I feel like right now,” he said sarcastically as he quickly removed his holster and began unbuckling his belt. “A gentleman.”

Rey giggled, then faced forward as she felt him come up behind her, his arousal poking at her insistently. Her breathing quickened as she felt him line himself up with her, then she let out a huff of air as he slowly slid into her. He stayed still for a moment so they could both adjust, and Rey was the first to move, rocking forward and then back again. Immediately, he took over, pumping steadily and rhythmically, his hands firm on her hips.

She felt absolutely amazing. The hot sun shining down on them, the cool wind blowing around them, the grasses waving as if they were dancing along with them. Even the Tris, grazing a short distance away, totally oblivious to what was going on with their people, were a part of the magic, she thought. She felt Poe increase his speed and the strength of his thrusts and she answered by pushing back into him again. When she felt the first spasms begin, she reached back and grabbed his wrist, holding on tight, feeling his own excitement rise as he felt her passion grow. The first wave was minor, and she lowered her head down toward the ground, wanting to absorb the feeling. With the same hand she was holding onto, Poe reached forward and cupped her breast, squeezing it ever so slightly, then ran his hand down her firm round belly. She exploded, and she heard his shout match her own cry. He continued pumping into her as she allowed her upper body to drop, letting go of Poe’s wrist and tucking her head between her arms, her forehead brushing the earth underneath her. He was still thrusting away, hard and hot, and she felt another wave flood through her, once more crying out in ecstasy. She heard him grunt, and his grip tightened, as finally he expelled his essence into her. The wave that rushed through her was so powerful she felt her vision black out for a moment. She became aware of Poe’s beard tickling her back as he ran kisses along her spine, making her shiver and creating an aftershock that made both of them moan.

Breathing hard and sweating in the hot sun, Poe finally sat back on his heels, bringing Rey up with him, settling her on his lap. She felt as limp as a doll, and she let her head fall back onto his shoulder as he stroked her belly and thighs. “How we haven’t killed each other doing this yet, I don’t know,” he grumbled. Having sex while connected through the Force had been an amazing discovery, but it was also the most intense thing either of them had ever done, and seemed to only get stronger every time they tried it. Which was why Rey didn’t open herself up like that every time; she was afraid they might indeed die from its powerful energy one day.

At least they would die happy.

Eventually, they situated themselves so that they lay spooned, clothing back on (just in case), watching the Tris as they continued to contentedly graze.

“So,” Poe finally spoke after a long while. “Kolbe was a good idea.”

Rey laughed so hard the Tris raised their heads to look at them.

The End