Force Destiny

Choice

SIX MONTHS EARLIER, IN A MEDBAY ROOM ON BESPIN—

"Goodbye, Kylo." The young woman's smile was sad, but he saw the acceptance in her eyes. She would let him go. When she had barely passed him, she stopped. "Here," she said, reaching into her satchel. Placing her hand over his, her skin just grazed his, and he shivered. She dropped two small, golden chance cubes into his palm. "Your father would want you to have them...for luck."

A spark of energy passed through him like a lightning bolt. His breath hitched with the intensity of it.

For luck.

She didn't look back as she released his hand and walked out of his life. Or, at least, he didn't think she looked back. For all he knew, she could have stopped in the doorway to look at him one final time, but he was turned away from her. He was focused on the golden dice in his palm, her words repeating over in his head. For luck... for luck... for luck... Why did she say those words; why did they sound so familiar? They echoed through the shadows of his mind until they became a different voice.

For luck, kid.

I know that voice...

There was a vibration from the dice—an energy, like electricity—that pulsated through his fingers. It was a familiar energy that he was certain he had felt before. Ben saw flashes of memories in his mind, flashes of memories that he knew were not his. A greying man knelt next to a boy with chestnut-colored hair, handing the boy the pair of dice before leaving in a crowd. The boy called after him, but he never turned around.

The boy, older now, hung the golden cubes on his speeder as he raced through the streets of a planet that Ben was certain he had seen before. He had been there, not with this young boy, but he had been there. The memory was so close he could almost touch it. This was not his memory, but he knew the people in it weren't strangers. There was a young girl with brunette hair sitting beside the boy, laughing and smiling. There was no doubt in Ben's mind that they were in love.

The memory flashed forward again. The boy had become a young man, his visage eerily familiar. He handed the dice to the young brunette woman as she stared at him with uncertainty. "For luck?" she asked the man. "Damn right," he replied. They were trying to escape someone by way through a checkpoint in a spaceport, but the woman was stopped, and a gate closed between them. The man escaped, the woman did not. Her hand held the dice against the transparensteel wall between them before she was dragged away.

The memory flashed to the woman, years older, placing the dice back into the man's palm after striking him with feigned cruelty. She was playing a role, but her message was clear; she believed in him. Ben recognized the darkness, regret, and hopelessness in her eyes, however. Somehow, Ben knew that the story wouldn't end happily for them.

The man kept the dice and used them in a game of cards Ben was certain he had played before. The man won a ship, the Millennium Falcon. He hung them proudly inside the cockpit. He said it was for luck, but it was also a reminder of who he was and how far he had come. But who was he?

For luck, kid.

It was that voice again, one he knew well. The new memory flashing through his mind wasn't someone else's memory. He had seen it before. No, he remembered it. The man knelt before the boy as he handed him those same dice, whispering those achingly familiar words with a smirk.

For luck, kid.

He knew that man.

It was his father. Han Solo.