Kylo Ren

IX

It was a long time before the next transmission came, fourteen months.  This time, they were able to track the direction, but not the distance.

In the time between the second and third transmissions, Connix had developed a way to find out where the transmission was coming from, but not exactly.  The method included about twelve dishes on top of the mound and a rope of wires.

This transmission came from somewhere in the direction of Endor.  They decided to send someone, since Luke had been there before, and

Poe promptly volunteered to go look while Connix and Jacen worked on tracking where it had been sent.

He jumped into hyperspace and came out over the forested moon.

The trees were tall, scraping the atmosphere's bubble, and reddish, with olive green needles.

Ever since the battle of Endor, the Ewoks always flooded to an X-Wing, and this time was no different.

As soon as he landed, he could barely get out because of the crowd of forest-dwellers.

They chattered around him, finally drawing out the human residents of the moon.

One family caught his eye. The mother had red hair and the father was blond, and their two daughters were spitting images of a dear friend.

Poe pushed through the crowd to them. He clasped forearms with the man in greeting. "Bendal?"

He looked astonished.  "Yes, I am Hyrish Bendal."

"Your daughter is Averann?"

He nodded.

Poe smiled at the two girls, about sixteen and seven, who were hiding behind their mother.  "You look so much like her."

"How do you know her?" the mother asked.

"First, let me introduce myself.  Captain Poe Dameron."

"Lara," said the woman.  She pointed to her daughters.  "Anonra and Afren."

Ben smiled at them.  The older, Afren, stepped forward.

Poe looked around at the expectant crowd.  "Could I talk to you and your family in a more private place?"

Hyrish nodded and led the pilot to a treehouse suspended midway through the canopy.

Afren made him a cup of tea with some sort of leaves that filled the treehouse with aromatic steam.  He nodded in thanks as the family sat on seats facing him.

"First off, I will tell a bit of how I got to know her.  You remember a man coming and saying that she had the Force?"  He waited for their nods.  "He brought them to Dunov before we went to Dantooine.  That was where I met her.  Then we became padawans, training in the ways of the Jedi of old, under Luke Skywalker.  Before I became a Jedi, I left to be a pilot, because I felt that was where I was most useful.

"She remained and became a Jedi master, with her own Padawan, a boy named Aaron."  Poe looked around at the family.

"Why didn't she ever visit us?" Afren asked, her little sister leaning into her leg.  She stroked the girl's blonde hair, which was reddish, like her mother's, while still being gold.

"She can't."

Poe dreaded what would come next.

"Why not?" Anonra asked, not looking at me, but at her doll.

He took a deep breath and looked into Hyrish's eyes as he continued his tale.  "One of the Jedi turned to the Dark Side.  Under the influence of the Supreme Leader of the First Order, he killed everyone inside."