The Art of Broken Pieces

113 Porgs

"I'll keep in communication," she said, when she pulled away. "If I need help, I'll write something about porgs. Oh, and the rescue kids—there's a Wookie girl named Sarissa, and I think Chewie might actually be serious about wanting to adopt her. Find out if he is?"

Then, as swiftly as she had arrived, she took off. Her chest ached as the figures on the landing pad got smaller and smaller, wishing she never had to leave them.

Once she'd plotted her course and set the nav computer calculating her jump to hyperspace, she sent out a message to Ben.

>>Coming back. Don't leave. I'll hunt you down, remember?

Ben's reply was terse, direct, and surprisingly prompt.

>>Not there. Find port near Aurelia, not on world. Will pick you up.

Rey's brows drew tight, and she was just beginning to wrap her mind around the words when the nav computer beeped its readiness. She swatted it, clearing the hard-won numbers. Aurelia? Where in the known galaxy was that? She'd vaguely heard the name, but she couldn't remember where or why or in what context.

She leapt onto the holostreams, poking around for information, and plugged the star system's location into the nav before diving back into pictures of a purple sky, veiled in magnetic gold, and tourist activities that included netting endangered, force-sensitive fish, walking down the thoroughfare of a thousand palaces, shopping in some of the galaxy's most exquisite haute boutiques, and staying in a magnificent hotel constructed entirely from Alderaanian rubble.

Why the hell would Ben want to go somewhere like that? What was in Aurelia?

Well, there was only one way to find out, and hopefully, she could sooth Ben's tangled emotions. Maybe if she told him Poe was just a friend... No. That might not be any better. And really, she didn't owe Ben an explanation. She didn't owe him anything, except being there, and helping him. Those were the things she'd promised to do, and no hollow ache in her heart would convince her otherwise.

Frowning, Rey waited for the nav computer to give her the jump, programmed it in, and shot into lightspeed.

***

Ben hadn't returned to the Betrayal since the night he had stormed out, and he knew without having to check that she was currently in no shape to fly. Renting a short-jump luxury shuttle, he set a course for the small tourist moon that Rey indicated she had chosen for the Falcon's docking.

The flight out took a little over an hour, and Ben spent most of it deep in thought, watching the stars pass by. He opened and closed his fingers, purposefully testing the pain in his bandaged hands as he turned the idea of meeting her again over in his mind, examining it like an unfamiliar object. He was distantly surprised that the thought bothered him less than he had expected. Really it affected him barely at all, his emotions tightly packed away.

As the shuttle slid quietly into port he moved automatically through the landing procedures, seeing the familiar lines of the falcon at the far end of the bay. He lowered the shuttles ramp and sent his berth number to Rey's communicator, opening the shuttle's door to wait for her.

Trepidation dogged every step Rey took toward the berth. She scanned the people milling around the shuttles and found herself surprised to note that they were all uniformed. Not the same uniform, either, so it clearly wasn't a dock for local military. And these weren't military ships anyway—they were private, expensive, and large enough to disgorge at least three transports apiece. Star liners?

Rey peered at them, watching the crews scurrying about their tasks and the glittering passengers gliding sedately along the quickbelts toward the spiky metal station. The porgs were going to die of excitement at the sight of all those wires.