The Art of Broken Pieces

A Storm of Porgs (82)

The other children knotted together behind the Chiss girl, and Rey sensed their trust for the red-eyed child. How old was she? The Chiss were an offshoot of humanity, but their accelerated growth-rate meant that what appeared to Rey as a fully-grown adult could very well be eleven years old. This girl was the size of a five-year-old, but her mind felt older, calmer than the others.

"We have a ship," she said. "There's not much there for rations, but there must be some around this place."

The Chiss girl nodded, then warbled something in a strange language, pointing at one of the dead men. Rey squinted at him, noting the white plastisteel node embedded in his arm. The sensor on it showed red.

Understanding hit her all at once—this man must have been the Vogori Kha's leader. His vitals had been connected to the suspension pods' life support systems. When he'd died, whenever that had been, it shut down the oxygen to the infants in their tanks, suffocating them. The Vogori Kha had never been a trusting bunch, and it was clear they hadn't trusted the First Order.

Rey wobbled, a flood of panic overtaking her. Had she killed the trader? A blaster shot to the throat—had she deflected it? Was she responsible, in some horrible way, for the murder of hundreds?

Her knees gave, pain and guilt rushing through her. "I killed them," she whispered. "His life was tethered to theirs. I didn't know. I didn't-"

Tiny blue hands on her face. "They would have given their lives to the First Order," the Chiss girl said. Through the blur of tears, she saw the rest of the children shrinking back, felt the Wookie girl begin to tremble at her side, even as the Chiss girl's red eyes flicked up. "Your dark Jeedai comes."

Ben had had enough of hovering on the edge of the encounter, waiting impatiently for Rey to finish up whatever she felt she needed to do so that they could leave. When Rey's legs gave out beneath her he was on his feet, moving swiftly across the sands as most of the children scattered back. Crouching at her side he pulled her gently from the young Wookie's supportive grasp, arms sliding under her and lifting her carefully from the ground. She was light in his arms, pale and shaking, and he cradled her against his body as he stood. He avoided eye contact with the children around them, still unsure of how to handle them.

"Rey, we need to go." He spoke softly, only for her. "You need rest and treatment, the Alliance will be here soon enough to clean up this mess." Her blood was warm on his skin, and for a vengeful moment he wished he could kill the Twilek bitch a second time. He almost lashed out with the Force as a small blue hand reached cautiously out to touch his side. She shrank back as he glared at her, but mustered the aplomb to speak softly.

"The western pod has beds for the slavers... she can rest there."

"We can't leave them," Rey said, kicking fruitlessly in an attempt to get him to put her down. "We can't..." There was damp skin against her cheek—a bare shoulder, still warm and slick from the fight's exertion. Why in all the stars in the universe had he taken off his shirt?

Bandages. The thought glimmered into her mind, but she chose to disregard it. Bandages were not what was important right now. Right now, he was half-naked in a slaver's dome. In front of children. Children were seeing him without a shirt on. It should not have been the most pressing of her thoughts, but it filled her mind, relieving her of the weightier concerns.

One of the children chittered something, and the flickers of fear blossomed once again into bonfires.

"What did he say," Rey said, kicking again for Ben to put her down. He sucked in a breath, and she noted the strips of dirty blue shirt around his waist, the expanding spots of blood where her jerking thigh had pulled open the injury.