FIVE
CHAPTER 5
CONNECTION
RAENA remembered the first time her uncle took her on a mission and how he had shoved a blaster in her hands as she stood in front of a stranger, directing her to "kill the bastard." She had known that she was born to do this and she had trained so long for it, but in that moment, reality struck her like giant boulder. She couldn't do it; how did killing another come so easily?
But she had raised the blaster at the crying stranger's head anyway, and with a emotionless expression, she had pulled the trigger.
The situation she was in now didn't seem any different than her past. She was forced to follow a trooper to the weapons area of the ship, alongside General Hux. Before she could question her newfound freedom, the storm trooper shoved a large blaster at her chest and left. Raena gripped the heavy blaster with two hands as she turned to the general beside her.
"This freedom you now have is a given, but it can be taken away – as well as your life – just as quickly. Don't fuck it up." He warned, a stern finger pointing in her direction before he stared down at the console in his hands. "If our sensors are correct, she is heading with a group to the basement of the ship. When you leave this area, take a right and find a staircase down the hall. That should lead you in their general direction."
She nodded at Hux's words and soon followed them down the hall. As she searched and dodged the heavy amounts of incoming storm troopers in both directions, whom she guessed were searching for the same group, she felt a inconsistent banging in her skull. It felt as if someone was trying to push their way in, and she had to take moment to hold her head against the pounding. She clearly wasn't in control of her own mind.
That was when she heard his voice.
Can you hear me?
She was obviously going bonkers, and she stood up to continue her descent to the basement, crossing a variety of hallways in the process. The voice kept repeating it's question, until it started to yell, I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME!
She stopped in her tracks, holding her temples with the edges of her digits. "Commander Ren?" She presumed, looking around as if he could hear her.
I've connected my mind with your own to contact you at a moment's notice, he explained. Keep watch for the girl and follow my instructions if I need you.
Raena groaned. "I would appreciate it if, for once, you would get out of my head."
We do what we need to in dire situations.
If she wasn't so tired, she would've been livid to know that the commander of the First Order was infecting her mind with his own. But she wanted this day to be done; it had been the longest of her life. Never before had she thought she would've been kidnapped and forced to pledge herself to the First Order all in one day. Things like this just didn't happen to people like her.
Rounding another corner, she spotted a specific group of humans heading away from the basement staircase. She watched Han Solo and his Wookie partner-in-crime head in the basement area, while the scavenger girl and the man in the Resistance jacket attempted to escape through a back exit.
Coming out from her hiding spot with her large blaster in hand, Raena pointed the weapon in the duo's direction. "Stop right there!"
The two friends slowly turned in her direction, confused expressions engulfing their features. "You're the girl who worked for Maz," the girl mumbled. "What are you doing here? Are you working for –?"
"If you come with me, I won't shoot you. I need to send you to the Supreme Leader."
The scavenger looked at her friend, sliding her small blaster from her backside. "No, I won't go with you."
Raena felt tears pricking her eyes and tried her hardest to suck them in. "Please," she begged the young duo, "don't make me shoot you."
The girl couldn't believe that Raena could possibly be working with the dark side just to save her own ass, but she did not know of her history and how important it was to be kept alive. The scavenger brought her weapon into full view, immediately pulling the trigger. Raena moved from her blast as it just grazed her skin and shot her own weapon in the couple's direction. The scavenger's eyes grew wide with fury, and before she knew what she was doing, she threw her hand up. Raena was lifted off the floor and thrown against the wall behind her, the Force already strong within the girl.
Raena felt herself black out for a moment, allowing the duo to get away, and she was finally content in her unconsciousness until she was awoken by the commander's deep voice ringing in her mind.
Get up, he commanded, and follow the stairs to the basement. We have the girl and everyone else right where we want them. Hurry.
She wobbled as she stood up, the blaster in her large hands feeling more heavy than usual. She followed his directions down the long metal staircase to a ledge just above a single bridge downward. She hid behind the bars surrounding the ledge, spotting Kylo Ren and Han Solo down below. But what surprised her the most was when Han had called him, "his son, Ben."
"Ben?" She whispered to not only herself, but to the commander too, if he could hear her.
Out of the corner of her eye, she managed to notice Commander Ren turn his head in her direction before removing his helmet for his supposed father. That's not my name, he echoed in her head.
"Then why did he say it?" She murmured, but he never answered.
She couldn't hear any of his words down below, but she could just see the commander's struggle to grapple with seeing his father in years. Raena was so sure that she even spotted a couple tears falling from his eyes. She furrowed her brow, whispering, "Are you crying?"
Ready your weapon was his only response.
She brought the blaster outwards, hiding it between the two bars as her finger readied itself on the trigger. She breathed out a couple times, watching Commander Ren hand his own lightsaber out to his father, pleading with his eyes for him to take it. "What the fuck are you doing?"
She received no answer as she watched the two relatives grasped the lightsaber at the same time. She watched Han Solo struggle to take it, and she finally saw what the commander was doing. He couldn't do what she was thinking? He was going to kill –
Before her thoughts could finish, Kylo ignited his lightsaber, shoving it directly through his father's chest. Raena's eyes widened as she heard his voice boom in her brain: SHOOT HAN SOLO!
She pulled the trigger as many times as it would allow, the fiery blaster puncturing holes within the old smuggler's skin as the commander's lightsaber was ripped out of his body. The blaster fire caused a continued ringing in her ears, so much that she could barely hear the scavenger girl scream "NO!" from the ledge right across from hers.
Raena stood up, catching Kylo's hard stare as he turned to see her place above. He gave her a nod, his deep voice greeting her mind for the last time, Thank you.
She was so distracted by the thought that someone like the commander – the Kylo Ren – had thanked her, that she hadn't notice the scavenger girl's friend raising his own weapon in Raena's direction. Before she could send her own thanks to Ren, a fiery blast ignited her hip and sent her tumbling to the ground at the same time Han Solo's Wookie partner, Chewbaca, shot at the commander.
All she saw was black.
•••
For a long time, Raena thought she had been tumbling into the deep abyss of the dark in her mind. But she soon saw a snowy ground and the deep color purple of two lightsabers connecting with one another. She saw the scavenger girl wielding the Skywalker saber and then noticed Kylo fighting her back. How was she able to see this happen? She was unconscious, wasn't she?
As her mind tried to slip away, she felt like she knew which attacks the scavenger was going to make. She found herself trying to pound her moves into the commander's brain, directing him to block her shot and then move left. At the same time that she was trying to force her orders to him, he seemed to actually be following them.
At the realization that the scavenger had the Skywalker lightsaber with a drop of her hand, Kylo tried to grab for it, the one object that he had been needing – the object that he kidnapped a retired bounty hunter for and forced to turn to the dark for the price of life. But he couldn't grasp it – only she could.
Raena watched the heated battle continue on and when she knew the wound in his side from Chewbaca's bowcaster would soon be the end of him, she hollered, Forfeit the fight! He continued his trying to hit the scavenger girl, but she soon pushed him off at the same time the ground below them split into two. Move to the other side! she screeched as he scrambled away from the split in the planet.
The last she saw was the commander breathing out a sigh and watching the girl sprint away.
•••
The first she thing she heard was the beeping of a monitor next to her.
Raena fluttered her eyes opened, sitting up in sterile bed below her and looking around at the all-too-clean walls. Her hands found her side where she felt for a wound, spotting the large bandage covering her hip from the blaster shot. "It wasn't a dream," she whispered to herself, the thought of her agreement to the First Order slipping back into her brain.
As she tried her best to stop the dizziness clouding her brain from the fall, she saw General Hux make his way into the room and stand by her side. "The monitors and medics informed us of your awakening."
"You might as well just kill me now," she muttered, running a hand over her face. "I didn't bring the girl to the Supreme Leader. I failed."
"Oh, but you are so wrong," Hux replied as his eyes locked with her own. A smirk found it's way to his mouth. "You accomplished the biggest mission of all: the death of Han Solo. You helped kill him, Ren has said."
Raena's brow rose. "Commander Ren told you that?"
"Of course, and it was to my surprise as well. He recommended you to Snoke as the Order's new assassin."
She rubbed at her eyes, not believing the reality before her.
"Welcome to the First Order, Raena Nhagy."
END OF BOOK I
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