As the minutes progressed, the earthquake worsened. It started to swallow all of the wrecked ships in the graveyard.
"Return to the ship! If we're going to survive this, we need to return to the ship!" Finn shouted at his friends.
"I'll lead the way!" said Rey. She jumped before her friends and ran but did not get far. A rock broke out of the ground before her, taking Rey with it. Closing her eyes, she hung on for dear life.
Down below, Finn's eyes popped. "Oh no! Rey!"
The rock rose higher and higher into the atmosphere.
Rey felt the gravity lighten up. Before she knew it, her legs floated like a kite behind her. What a strange planet. On Phonolukamy's surface, the gravity was strong enough to hold life forms, but it quickly dissipated in the air. Another starship fell over like a domino. That one crushed the rock Rey held onto. She gasped when it slowly floated away from the growing tower and turned upside-down. She tightened her grasp on her ride, and her fists turned white. Rock pieces bumped it and knocked it toward the ground.
"Please, no," Rey begged. She did not want to risk entering the standard gravity field again. Her ride would crush her if she did.
"We need to get her down from there," Finn told Rose and Poe.
They nodded in agreement, but watching Rey panic and float around was a little amusing. Poe and Rose almost wanted to grab a rock and join her in the anti-gravity zone.
Rose lifted her hand and asked, "Are you having fun up there, Rey?"
"No! Make it stop!" she said back. Her rock once again turned upside-down.
"I'll get her," a voice spoke behind Finn, Rose, and Poe. Ben emerged from the shaking planet, having dragged out a broken piece of a starship from another wreck.
Poe and Rose instantly glared.
"How do we know you're not going to kidnap her again?" Poe asked.
"I'll bring her back to the Falcon. Just give me a chance." Ben almost sounded desperate. "Besides"—he held up Rey's lightsaber—"I have her lightsaber. Somebody has to return it to her."
The ground split under him, but he quickly jumped to another piece of land.
"We don't have time for all this childish behavior," Finn sternly told Rose and Poe. "We need to get to the Falcon soon, or else we're done for." He nodded and told Ben, "We'll bring the Falcon to you and Rey."
"Fine! Do whatever you must." Ben waved Poe, Finn, and Rose on. Though doubtful, they listened to him.
He waited until another new rock burst out of the ground. He used it as a ride to reach the anti-gravity field. Once he hit it, he jumped on top of the debris. Another broken piece of a rock tower tapped him.
Rey saw him, but she still panicked. She was right on the line between the anti-gravity and regular gravity fields. While the rock was in the anti-field, she was in the normal. The thanks for that went to her being upside-down.
Rey suddenly fell from her ride and dropped toward another Star Destroyer stuck in the shaking ground. "Ahh!" she yelled.
Ben held his hand out to her. "Rey! I need another rock to tap me!" He rapidly searched the area for more floating rocks.
Rey crashed into the Destroyer's back. The force of the impact flipped her onto her front, and she rolled down its spine toward its engines. However, she managed to grab hold of a sturdy pole just before she could hit them.
She peered down to the lava bed below and shook with fear and heat. The only thing holding up the Star Destroyer was the small piece of land under it. It was still intact. However, the force of the earthquake caused it to crack. "Uh oh," Rey said, realizing the ship had started sliding through the expanding hole. It looked like the Titanic during her last moments of life.
Rey clenched her teeth and closed one eye. She tried to lug herself up the pole, but it was difficult because of her arm. No matter how hard she tried, she could not do it. As a result, her fingers slipped, and she started back toward the Destroyer's spine. She wrapped her arms around one of its engines that time, but now her legs dangled under her. The lava river below called for her because it knew she would make an excellent dinner entrée.
Sweating and breathless, Rey peered up the length of the sinking Destroyer. She attempted to come up with a solution to her problem. She did not want to incinerate. She was too young to die. The lightsaber the mysterious, hooded figure gave her in the throne room bounced on her hip. She again tried to climb back up.
"Look out!" a voice shouted above her. Kylo Ren. When another floating rock finally hit him, it caused him to reenter the standard gravity field of the planet. He crashed into Rey and ripped her straight from the Destroyer's engine. Both Force-sensitive youths landed on a rock sled that broke off from the wall surrounding the lava river. They slid down it like children snow sledding.
Rey rested on Ben's back. She wrapped her arms around his broad, powerful shoulders.
They exchanged glances at one another, and then they yelled at the same time.
The Star Destroyer finished its journey through the hole. It fell straight toward Rey and Ben. They were so dead, or were they?
Without thinking, Rey closed her eyes and held her hands toward the falling starship. At her command, it stopped and floated in midair.
Ben, too, closed his eyes. He stretched his arms out to his sides. Under him and Rey, the rock sled stopped moving altogether. Working together, they glued themselves to the wall.
Rey had never lifted a Star Destroyer or a starship in general, so it was understandable why it exhausted her physically and mentally. The only thing that got her through the strain were the words: "Lifting rocks." Nevertheless, a Star Destroyer was nothing like a rock.
Rey clenched her teeth and started to push the Destroyer back toward the surface, but she struggled. Rocks fell into the lava river all around her and Ben.
The Destroyer began to slip from Rey's Force grab. "I can't hold it for much longer!" she yelled at Ben.
"If we die, we die together," he said back. He struggled to keep the rock sled steady. Who knew the Force could be so mentally exhausting?
Rocks continued to crash into the lava. If things weren't hectic enough, a second earthquake shook the planet. In minutes, the river would erupt like a volcano and toss a blanket of lava into Phonolukamy's atmosphere.
Rey and Ben yelled with both frustration and exhaustion. They started to give up, but something emerged from the top of the wall and zoomed toward them. There was the Millennium Falcon.
"I see them," Lando said from the pilot seat. "Over there, Chewie." He gestured Chewie over to Ben and Rey.
Finn leaped up from his seat. "I'll open the hatch." He took off running and passed Temiri, who stood in the corner of the cockpit with his arms crossed. Strangely, he looked furious.
The Falcon edged closer to Rey and Ben.
Ben peered up to Rey and said, "Here comes the Falcon. I'll get you on it."
"I can't!" Rey shouted with a shake of her head. "I have to hold up this Destroyer, or else we're done for!" A blast of wind blew her hair out of its three buns, but it also smacked into the starship's side and caused her to tip forward.
"Rey!" Ben said. He wasted no time. The second the Falcon appeared beside him and her—and the hatch opened to reveal Finn—he took Rey's place. With one hand, Ben grabbed her and shoved her off the rock sled. His free hand caught the Destroyer instead.
Rey fell onto the Falcon's roof, yelling, but Finn caught her before she could tumble to her doom. He started to drag her into the hatch, but she fought him. "No! Ben!" She found herself trapped in a state of fear and panic. Before things could get too out of hand, Finn dropped her into the Falcon.
Poe, who stood at the base of the hatch, caught her. He wrapped his arms around her body.
Finn next reached out to Ben back up top, but the Dark side user shook his head.
"No," he calmly spoke. "As long as she's safe, that's all that matters." Sweat trickled down his temples.
"But, Ben! We're in this together! The Resistance never leaves a partner behind!" Finn argued.
"I don't care. I feel the light spewing from me. Give it to her. Do not let her turn. She doesn't deserve it," Ben upsettingly replied.
"Ben, please, I know you can do this. Just jump," Finn begged.
"If I let go of this starship, it will fall and crush me, so I have no choice. You need to go. Return to Jakku. That is where destiny will meet the future." Ben suddenly liked to speak in riddles.
"Return to—?" Finn started to ask, but another shake interrupted his thought. There was not much time left for the river.
Like Rey before him, Ben felt the Star Destroyer slipping from his Force grab, but he tried his best to keep it from falling. His arms started to shake. "Phonolukamy's changed me, just as it's changed her," he said. "Rey is the future of this galaxy. She is a descendant of evil and the only one who can remove the Emperor. Go. I know this is the right thing to do."
"But, Ben—!" Finn argued.
"I'm not going to ask you again!" Ben demanded.
By then, Finn had no choice but to leave him behind. The tone in his voice told him he was not joking. He nodded slowly to show that he understood his plea, even though he did not entirely understand what he meant by Rey being a "descendant of evil".
Finn took a deep breath and glanced at Ben Solo one last time. He then disappeared back in the Falcon's hatch.
The spaceship started to leave, and Ben watched it. He closed his eyes and accepted his fate. He felt the shaking lava river under him. However, his eyes fluttered open when something sounded not far from him. It dodged rocks as it flew, casting a white light on Ben's scarred face.
Boom! The Falcon soared out of the pit when a cloud of lava exploded into the atmosphere. The legendary ship barely made it out of there unscathed. The ground caved in behind them where the Moceka Graveyard used to be. It headed for space, away from danger, and onto the next adventure.
***
"Finn! You're okay, bud!" Poe hurried to Finn, who had just hopped down from the ladder's last step, and embraced him.
Finn returned his hug, but he did not say a word. He could not believe what Kylo Ren did for Rey—what he had done for the whole Resistance. He spared them.
Rose approached Finn next. She hugged him, too. "Finn! Thank goodness!" Pecking his lips, she adjusted his jacket. "Your jacket is covered in dirt! What an ugly sight. Wait..." Hers and Poe's eyes started to roam. "Where's Kylo Ren?" Rose inquired.
Finn still refused to speak. He lowered his head. The message was almost too clear. Rose and Poe's jaws dropped.
Chewie, who appeared in the hallway with them, growled sadly.
Off to the side, 3PO muttered, "Oh dear, oh dear."
BB-8 and R2-D2 let out a round of sad-sounding beeps to illustrate their grief.
Rose, Poe, and Finn glanced at a wall further down the hall beside a room. There was Rey.
She stood with her back propped against the steel structure and her own head tilted down. She rubbed her nose and slipped into the room.
***
The Moceka Graveyard had been wiped off the face of Phonolukamy. Eventually, the earth calmed down, leaving behind broken rocks and leftover scraps from the ships. Dust and ash blocked out the Sun, and the area grew significantly colder.
Something moved under a pile of rocks where the pit of lava used to be. A shadow appeared off to the side and further down the plain, but it was hard to make out what it was a shadow of. One would have to get a closer look.
A hand shot out from the pile of rocks only a few seconds later, but it was unclear whom the hand belonged to. The adventure was not over... not yet. It was only the beginning... the beginning of The Rise of Skywalker.
258Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1O6OBUIh3l
End of Part II: Phonolukamy
End of Novella #1!
Final Word Count: 31,266
ns 15.158.61.8da2
