"Documents" pt. 6

Just a little more . . .

(Part 5 is here.)
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He risked a glance and saw a cobbled-together assault transport rising from behind the rock formation. The ship appeared so rickety it might fall apart mid-flight. Through the windscreen Kylo could make out two forms. One, he felt sure, was Rey.

***

Connix moved her thumb to the gun activator, but Rey said, “No.”

“No?” Connix echoed.

“He’s more valuable to us alive,” said Rey.

“There’s no way to contain him,” Connix said. She hesitated. “Is there?”

“Let me worry about that,” Rey told her. “We just need to get him—”

Kylo looked over his shoulder at the ship, and Rey’s mind went alarmingly blank.

“Rey?” Connix asked.

Rey blinked. “Uh . . . right. We need to—”

The flash of a blaster firing stopped her this time. Kylo didn’t even turn around. His gaze was locked to hers as he fell to his knees.

“Ben!” Rey shouted. “No!”

Startled, Connix reached for the radio. “Commander Dameron, do you read? Stop firing.”

“Wasn’t me,” Poe responded. Over the radio they heard him say, “Finn, enough!”

Rey watched numbly as Poe wrenched the blaster from the ex-Stormtrooper’s grasp, but not before Finn managed a couple more shots.

For a long, terrible moment, everything felt frozen around Rey. Even sound disappeared, replaced by a roaring silence. She watched Kylo tip and collapse in a heap, his lightsaber winking out as he hit the ground.

Then suddenly there was motion, sound. Poe shouted something—the radio was no longer on—and he and Spannik ran and pulled Kylo’s body aside.

“What are they doing?” Rey asked, her voice tight and high; she felt as though she was being throttled.

“Making room for us to land,” Connix said.
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Part 7 is here.