Kylo Ren

XXV

On Dantooine, the base was in much better shape. It had only been a few years since it was abandoned.

The team wandered through, accompanied by Poe Dameron, who still knew the place like the back of his hand.

The signature Ben was burned into the floor.  He stepped a little harder on it, and heard as the shattered crystal crunched beneath his feet.

He continued down the halls.  "Here is the training room.  Barracks are that way, a meeting room is this way.  The mess hall is down this corridor."

He led them through.

But for him, each room took a different meaning.  Here was where Averann, Ilia, and Mei had died.  Here, where all the children were.  This closet, Kilya.  The mess hall, Aaron and Anina.

Poe couldn't wait to leave, to go back to D'Qar, to go to Cloud City.

He was glad he hadn't sent Afren here.  It would be too hard for her, knowing that she was standing where her sister lived and breathed and laughed and loved and trained and died.

Then again, he'd sent her to where her parents and Anonra had also lived and died.

Perhaps he'd made a wrong decision, sending her to Endor.  Maybe she would have been happier in Cloud City.

He shook it off, making sure the woman in charge of the Dantooine base was settled, and flying home, to D'Qar, again.

He was allowed a day's rest before he took the next group to Cloud City.  Lando Calrissian was waiting for him, and had sent loosely coded transmissions to let him know there would be a separate building, with a hanger, ready for them once they arrived.  He'd also invited the young pilot to a meal once he had the crew settled in their base.

Poe had agreed to come.

Jess walked around the base with him, as he surveyed the loading of supplies to be sent to Endor.

Poe made a note to visit soon, to make sure all was going alright, especially with Afren.

Jess touched his arm lightly to get his attention.  "Do you think the First Order knows where we are?"

"They sent a declaration of war, so if that's any way to tell, I'd say yes.  At least somebody does."

"Then why don't they attack?"

Poe chuckled.  "Do you want them to?"

"Well, no, but I'd like to know."

A young lieutenant, the one who'd taken Jacen Grisal's place, ran up.  "Captain, there's a transmission you should hear."

His stomach dropped.

"Oh, it's nothing bad," he said, then muttered something under his breath than neither pilot could hear.

The two friends exchanged a glance and followed the lieutenant.

There was a hologram transmission, showing the captain of the Dantooine base.  "We found a protocol droid, gold, who says he was Luke's, and that Kylo Ren sliced him when he went all crazy."

Poe groaned.  C-3PO.

The protocol droid popped up into the hologram and spotted Poe.  "Oh, Master Dameron.  So good to see you.  I was trapped in a closet for a dreadfully long time."