Cyra was startled awake by the sound of a Wookie cry. She was restricted by straps over her shoulders and hips when she tried to sit up. Her head whipped to the space outside of the bed she was strapped into. As soon as she saw the browning panels lining the hall, Cyra knew exactly what ship she was on.
She focused her attention on the clasp of the strap around her shoulders. When it popped open, Cyra sat forward and unhooked the strap over her hips. She swung her feet over the bed, stumbling to the floor when she took a step, and caught herself on the wall. There was now a proper bandage over the back of her calf and she certainly felt better, more cognizant. It was blood loss that knocked her unconscious, she assumed, but the medicine in her would have to do as a treatment for the moment. She needed to find out what was going on.
Cyra caught sight of that big Wookie piloting as she turned the corner into the cockpit. She opened her mouth to call him, though all that emitted was a scream when a blast hit the ship and knocked her forward. She fell against the back of the co-pilots chair, gripping it with white knuckles for balance. Her presence startled the Wookie, but he immediately began yelling at her to sit down and be quiet--he was trying to evade a TIE Fighter.
"What the Hell are you doing avoiding a TIE Fighter?!" yelled Cyra, climbing into the chair and buckling in. She paused as she felt a knocking against her back. She let out a frightened scream when she noticed a bug-eyed furry creature smashed between her back and the seat, to which it replied with a cry of its own, and flew out of the chair. "What is going on?!"
Chewbacca started to yell in his famous Wookie speak, pausing in part to genuinely just yell when he had to maneuver the ship to evade blasts and try to rid the swarm of TIE's on the Falcon's tail. He managed to lose a good number of them before he decided to fly into an overlap of ground underneath the surface. It was a narrow passageway, an underground cave of red salt crystals, and Cyra knew instantly where they were.
"So, Rey and I escaped on Snoke's ship, you got us, I got some medicine, and now we are on Crait helping the Resistance fight against the First Order?" Cyra clarified.
Chewbecca roared.
"Great. Great, fantastic. One moment," she said. She leaned forward onto the dashboard and hit the call button down to the gunners chair. "Rey?"
"Cyra, you're awake!"
"Yes, I am alive, it's true," said Cyra non-nonchalantly. She took a deep breath. "What the Hell happened with Ben? I wasn't supposed to leave him--"
"What?!" breathed Rey, appalled by her reaction. "Cyra, he wanted the Throne. When he put you to sleep, he asked me to join him, too, and just to let everything die. He wants to start a new reign, and he's about to kill the entire Resistance right now!"
"No, he won't, not if I'm there with him," said Cyra. She and Rey grunted as Chewbacca shook off the last TIE fighter and suspended quickly out of the Cave and back into the clear sky. "I left Leia to live on Crait in that base, there's only one way in or out and it's through the front door, which they will close to avoid the First Order. There's thirteen ships, barely workable equipment. They will die in there, if you don't let me go back to him."
Rey did not answer. Cyra repeated her name into the microphone, awaiting an answer.
"I dragged your body out of there so you could survive, Cyra," said Rey. She walked into the cockpit, leaning between Chewie and Cyra to peer out of the cockpit with them.
"He wouldn't let me die," disagreed Cyra.
Rey turned to her. Her head was shaking softly, and she swallowed hard, her voice softer, as she said, "Cyra, I know what Luke saw. He told me he saw you turning to the Dark Side with Ren, yes, but he also saw your death. If you turn to the Dark Side, you'll die, and it's Ren's fault."
Cyra opened her mouth to reply, but Chewbacca interrupted the women, his furry finger pointing to a swarm of seemingly transparent critters exiting from between a crack in the ground.
Rey leaned forward to check the dashboard, where a small blue bracelet was patched into the wiring of the navigational system. "Yes, yes, they have to be there. The beacon is right beneath us. Land, Chewie."
Cyra no longer needed an excuse to beg them to let her off the ship. She unbuckled the belt over her lap as Chewbacca was finding a spot to land and pushed past Rey to the place she awoke. She grabbed the lightsaber from the bed and attached it back to her hip. Looking around, she neglected to see her backpack. She had to assume it was still on the Supremacy and hoped Ben had kept it safe when she was taken by Rey.
The ships engine remained on once they landed, since they hoped to make a quick escape from the First Order. Chewbacca remained in the cockpit. Cyra watched Rey run past her to the exit. She took a step to follow, but paused, and returned to the cockpit.
Chewbacca was taking a moment to stretch. She called his name softly and wrapped her arms around his torso. He hummed softly and hugged her back. They hadn't seen in each other in well over ten years, when Han decided to return to the smuggler life, but Chewbacca had been apart of her childhood in the same way Han and Leia were. He was apart of their family. She missed him, too.
"I am sorry for all that's happened to you, Chewie," she said. She pulled away from him and caught his warm hands in her own, looking up at him. She smiled softly, feeling like the child from her memories, as she broke her neck trying to look at him. "You are the true essence of resilience, and I will miss you in my life as I have for years. Thank you for being apart of my family."
Chewbacca asked her why she couldn't stay.
Cyra smiled. "This is a step I have to take. For me, for the Resistance, Han," she whispered. Her eyes watered. Chewie's head lowered. "I have to do this for Ben."
Chewbacca pulled her in for another hug. Cyra tried to hold on to the love that little girl held so dearly in her heart, like every other memory she had of hugging Chewbacca. It was love that was going to change all of this. The love Ben held for her and the love she was rediscovering for him and for their life together was going to be enough to change their reality.
"Cyra!" yelled Rey urgently.
Chewbacca and Cyra fell apart. The Wookie smiled down at her, patting her head and causing her to laugh, before he ushered her away to answer Rey's call. Cyra turned at the end of the hallway, raising her hand at him in goodbye, before she ran after Rey.
Standing at the edge of the cliff, Rey and Cyra watched crystal-like foxes scurry out of the valley. They were escaping narrowly from the inside of the Rebel Base by squeezing between boulders that had fallen against an opening to the Base.
"Lifting rocks," noted Rey, somewhat humorously.
"We better hurry," said Cyra.
They climbed together carefully down the steep cliff.
Cyra had no trouble with lifting objects; it was one of the first lessons she ever learned as a child alongside Ben. All things were the same in the Force, from a pebble to a boulder, they came to learn, and it was one of the only abilities she was confident in with the Force.
At the base of the opening, Cyra and Rey focused their outstretched hands and their minds to lift and move the boulders. Before a pathway was even cleared, a man rushed out and grabbed Rey in a hug, causing her to drop her concentration on the boulders. Cyra pushed her collection of boulders to the side.
People scurried out from the opening of the cave. Rey started to usher people towards the Falcon. Cyra waited at the entrance of the cave for it to be clear, waiting for her chance to run. Her shoulders were being pat, a thanks, she assumed, by members of the Resistance who were escaping to the Falcon.
Cyra stopped when she saw Leia stepping carefully from the cave. She was being helped along by a blonde woman and by the pilot, Poe, but when she saw Cyra, the tired look from her eyes was replaced with worry. Cyra's heart ached with guilt; she knew from being in Ben's head that Leia was recovering from her brush with death as well as the stress of having to relocate the Resistance. The woman looked beyond tired.
"My Cyra," said Leia, reaching for her. Cyra stepped forward quickly to grab her hands. "You came to help us."
"It was me that brought the First Order to you, it was me and Ben. He used the Force to find me and that's what got us into this whole mess. I am so sorry, Leia--"
Leia waved her hand, ignoring the apologies. She started to tug Cyra along towards the Falcon. Cyra protested, pulling her hand from Leia's. She stood in the cave, being engulfed by its darkness, while Leia had made it into the light of the bright sun shining down on Crait.
"I can't follow you," said Cyra.
Poe's face fell. "No..."
Leia did not appear surprised. Instead, she begged Cyra to listen to her next words carefully, thoughtfully.
"Luke saw my life ending because of Ben's turn to the Dark Side," guessed Cyra. When Leia shamefully looked down, she shook her head in disagreement. "I don't feel that's how this will end. The prophesies don't always come true, Leia, and we're going to hope this is just one of them that ends better. You tried to separate Ben and I to avoid our turns and it didn't work, but it created a scenario where it will. I know now where my path leads, after years of avoiding this war, I know what I'm supposed to do and I need you to trust me."
"Ben has more of an influence over you than you know, Cyra," said Leia. She was speaking fast, worried, because she could not fathom to lose her children more than she already had. "When you were kids, he would use the Force, without knowing, to influence you. How do you know any of what you're saying is your thought and not him?"
"Because I feel him," whispered Cyra. She understood what Leia was saying, she would be mindful of his unintentional influence, but her mind was made. "I have to try. I have a chance, a real one this time, and he needs someone to try. I won't fail him."
"Cyra," mumbled Leia, her eyes low.
Cyra started to take steps back, falling back into the cave. She wiped her stray tears away. She raised her hand at Leia, the same she did to Chewie, before she turned on her heel and ran fully into the cave, desperate to find Ben.
The cave was too dark to navigate once the light from outside disappeared. Cyra pulled her lightsaber out as she ran, igniting it to see the path below her feet. It did not take her long to navigate through. Soon enough, she was at the opening of the hangar, where there was now a gaping hole burned through the closed entrance of the Base.
Cyra grunted as a sharp burning pain hit through her arm. She glanced down, seeing her the flowing sleeve of her shirt singed. At the sound of another blast headed her way, Cyra ignited her lightsaber using one hand, managing to block the few shots the Stormtrooper fired before he shouted that there was a Resistance straggler and she was surrounded briskly by guns.
Cyra kept her lightsaber raised to protect herself from their blasts.
"Bring me to Ren," she demanded.
"I have a shot," she heard a Trooper behind her whisper.
She twirled her lightsaber around her to cover her back, but she continued to speak to the first Trooper who shot her. "Shoot me again and Ren will have your head. That's fact. Where is he?"
"We have orders to leave no Resistance survivors," said the Trooper.
"I'm not Resistance," she said strongly. Their guns remained on her. Cyra huffed and brought her lightsaber back to her front, releasing her fingers slightly from the hilt. She stared at his helmet. "You will take me to Kylo Ren."
"I will take you to Kylo Ren," repeated the Trooper.
Cyra lowered her hands. She ignored the confused glances of the other Troopers and followed behind him as he started to lead her away from the swarm. She made it only a few steps before another sharp burn pierced her, this time in the arm assuredly, and Cyra fell to the ground with a cry.
She was shocked immediately by a Trooper, subduing her, but they could not stop her from crying out for Ben in her mind.