Log:Jedi Order: What Lies Beneath

Jedi Order: What Lies Beneath

OOC Date: March 5, 2020
Location: Ilum
Participants: Jedi Order: Aryn Cole, Elrych Cometburn, Ban Iskender, and Rey Skywalker with Ben Solo

The call to assemble had gone out from Rey, with very little detail. Come aboard the Falcon on Arisnar, where Ben Solo was waiting for them. Few more details were forthcoming from the laconic man, who merely answered any questions with 'somewhere important' to do 'something important'. Then he receded to the cockpit to fly the ship.

Anyone in there with him likely noticed the hesitation before he dropped into the pilot seat, and even after the ship was chugging along through hyperspace, he didn't seem to relax or become any more talkative, so the others were left to their own devices until the Falcon emerged on the other end to the view of a Sith-styled Star Destroyer of the kind last seen over Exegol. Wordlessly, Ben had flown them down to the surface, giving the destroyer a wide berth. Once the ship settled down in the snow, he exited the cockpit and led them down onto the frosty ground.

He exits the ramp, tromping down into the crunching white snow, a blue tinge seeping into the deepest cracks and recesses of every snow-covered surface, which is basically everything in view, from the landing field to the nearby range of mountains. He's landed as close as humanly possible to the trail that leads towards them, and stares off along it with a sense of trepidation, the wind whipping through his hair. "It's colder than I remembered," he remarks to the others, his nose beginning to pink against his pale face.

In the distance, the rush of air over the craggy peaks produces a faint, haunting howl that ebbs and swells with the breeze, and the atmosphere is filled with a low undercurrent of foreboding, the sensation one gets walking through an unfriendly neighborhood alone at night. "We need to be quick. He wasn't onboard but they'll have noticed the ship." He sets off down the trail towards the mountains at a brisk pace, each step producing a muffled crunch.

Aryn's booted feet land in unison upon the snow, sinking down slightly before her heavy cloak, with a fur lined shoulders, settled in around her small frame. It was just enough to combat the cutting and biting winds of this graveyard like world, but it was poor guard against the biting chills that came from the scenery. Howling distant winds and looming mountains were all the company they had at the moment, yet the sense of foreboding was heavy on Aryn's shoulders as she stared out over the horizon and tried to recognize the purpose for this world.

Silence had become her, and rather try to draw Ben into conversation to quiz their purpose from him, she sought only now to follow after him when he moved, sparing no comment to add. Like Ben's hair, Aryn's swept behind her, slightly longer than usual, and tucked back with clips. As she walked after Ben, she pulled her gloves on more tightly, testing her hand's dexterity in each by flexing her fingers.

Elrych had been to Illum once before, to fetch the Adegan Crystal that now rested inside his the black and gold saber hat hung from his left side. The Jedi himself was silent for the majority of the flight, a single earbud tucked into one ear, music playing. He'd bob his head with the different beats before putting it away once again. Blue eyes peered out from behind shaded glasses, the lenses reflecting the Star Destroyer as it moved across the void. "That's new..." The Corellian commented, giving Ben curious glance before he made sure to get what information he could to report back to Poe on the matter.

Once they were on the surface, he bundle up as best he could, instructing Eggsy to stay with the falcon while he trudge down into the fridgid climate. "You should have told us we were coming here so we could prepare proper clothing. And who are you talking about, who's Star Destroyer is that?"

Ban Iskender disembarks along with the others, a cursory sweep of green eyes taking in the desolate landscape with a curious measure of appreciation. To the word that need to be quick, he notes evenly, "I daresay knowing our task would make haste more likely." He adds nothing further to the questions Elrych has posed, flexing his gloved hands to encourage circulation in the cold.

Rey had indeed sent out the call. Though not everyone answered, but such is the way of the traveling Jedi. Some were harder to reach than others, due to whatever situations they had gotten themselves in to. Those who did show up to the time and place found that... food was ready aboard the Falcon. A selection of cooked foods were set out on the table in the recreation lounge. Rey had made things, it was a skill she was working on yet still... she's not that great at it yet... and its not very detailed food, but its something to prepare for where they're going, wherever that is.

Once the ship was in Hyeprspace, Rey peaked in to the cockpit, to check on Chewbacca and their new pilot. But she didn't linger there for long, she would've moved to step back out after saying she was going to gear up once she saw where they were headed. Cold weather gear is pulled out of lockers and set aside for others to pick up should they want it.

So by the time the ship lands, Rey has the coat on she'd had on while on the world of Kijimi, with the hood up over her head and the metal fasteners twisted and sealed to close the coat over her form. Taller boots on her feet that lead up to her knees keep her legs warmer, and she trudges along through the snow with the others.

Rey had seen the Star Destroyer, she comments softly about it as they go. "The Resistance will want to know about that. Let alone the Republic."

"No one I feel like running into," Ben replies to Elrych's question, pulling his own jacket a bit more tightly around himself. Snow has already begun to cling to his hair, in that ends-first way of clumping snow has when it first begins to accumulate. He's not dressed any warmer than they are. Maybe preparation is not his strong suit.

Broken, faded glowsticks mark the path up towards their destination, most of them only poking a bare span of inches up through the snow, though one stands a full meter tall and gives an indication of just how ill-kept these beacons are. Set back along the base of the forbidding range is a jet-black maw cleft into the rock. The wind is oppressive, and the burden it imposes on the forward travel has a peculiar, pervasive tension, an almost conscious malignity, coupled with the bizarre whistling as it runs over the jagged stone high above.

The mouth of the cave itself is riven through smooth black rock, almost glassy in appearance, and Ben steps into it first. The sound of the wind cuts as they follow him in and is replaced instead by an ominous silence whose immediacy is equally unsettling. Ben does not seem immune, his expression drawn in, lips pursed, brow furrowed, anxious, aggressive energy beginning to spill off of him that gathers in his shoulders. "The Jedi used to come here. Now my- the Knights of Ren do too. Was it always like this? I don't know. But I can tell you that I've always felt something here. Power, yes, strong in the Force, that's why these crystals work. But something else, hiding. Watching. Something... unfriendly. This is a side of the Force it can be hard to face." He turns to look at the others, the eerie cyan light around them covering everything in a shade of blue. "But we have to. To understand."

The wind was so harsh it chapped Aryn's cheeks with a fresh red. Each step proved harder than the last, and soon Aryn's trip became more about mental fortitude and focus rather than observing their surroundings and the path. The pervasive nature of the living force, perhaps even the whispers of the unifying force, felt strong here. Stronger than any place Aryn had visited before, and the presence of darkness was here too.

Her steps slowed as they entered the cavern, and she rubbed her hands together seemingly for warmth, but truthfully for noise. Silence bothered Aryn, especially when her ears still rung from the whistling winds from earlier. She's given some respite to find her steady breathing once again and finally turns her attention to their surroundings. She waits quietly, listening to Ben and looking to Rey, Ban, and Elrych in turn before touching one of the cyan walls with gloved fingers slightly mesmerized by the effects of chiaroscuro have around them. When Ben mentions this unfriendly strength, Aryn felt like the shadows somehow got darker. She timidly stepped back a bit, her hands coming together out of habit to fidget idly.

"Well we still come here..." Elrych mentions, "But I didn't know the Knights came here too. Guess we just never ran into each other. I'll keep that in mind." He quiets though as the cave envelopes them and the erie silence settles in. Favoring other senses now, he listens with his ears and reaches out with he force. He was glad to at least be out of the wind which has messed up his otherwise manicured hair, his robes flaked with white snow. He looks around, slowly, not unsure but curious as to what exacly Ben was speaking of. "A Vergence in the Force?" His voice echos.

Ban Iskender steps into the cavern and adjusts his outer robe once out of the worst of the wind. He regards Ben throughout his description of the cavern where they all stand. A short glance goes aside to Aryn and Elrych, before including Rey and returning to their guide. He echoes one of Ben's words: "Understanding?"

Rey's mind was on the Star Destroyer in relative orbit of the planet. She'd had a bad feeling about it, and knowing it was up there wasn't helping anything. She trudges along with the others, near the back, walking through their pathways that they create through the snow and shaking her head here and there inside of her hood. She's still not quite used to weather like this, if any human truly can be. Starkiller Base had been her first exposure to snow, and though she's seen it a few times since then it... it is still very uncomfortable for a girl who grew up in temperatures far exceeding the freezing point.

"Its a big planet." Rey says up ahead to Elrych. "Maybe they were in another cave all along." She's trying to be a bit funny there, to keep her own mind off of her teeth chattering inside of her mouth! Her eyes glance ahead to Ben, and she hears his words like the others, but she lets him explain as he so sees fit. "Holocrons brought us here. The Masters within them only told us a small amount about the place itself though." Is all she adds for now.

Ben looks Aryn over for a moment, the silent fidgeting doctor capturing his attention briefly, but he makes no effort to relieve her apparent anxiety. "It would be wise to be on your guard here, regardless," he replies to Elrych, stepping forward to walk deeper into the cave, the black rock looming oppressively overhead, weighing down on them from all directions. Claustrophia would be crippling here. The remnants of tools used long ago to extract crystals from the cave lie around, forgotten, on the cavern floor, and stepping through a tight crevasse leads into the crystal chamber itself.

More tools litter the area in here, but the main feature are the many crystals that line the walls and a massive central pillar that holds the weight of the mountains above. Looking at the pillar, it is easy to imagine what might happen if its foundations were severed. The scant light that filters through from some unseen fissures in the rock above bounces around the chamber, magnified and reflected and refracted hundreds of times by the many facets and faces of the crystals, tinting the entire area blue with their light.

"To understand," he repeats again, with a nod as he looks around the cavern's deepest chamber with narrowed, suspicious eyes. And it is there with them; the presence in the Force. Something 'other', lurking somewhere in the rock. Part of the rock. The rock itself. "Do you feel it?"

They move further into the chamber and Aryn drifts more toward the back after having weathered the heavy gaze from Ben. It's to Iskender she stays near now, and her gaze turns to the effects the light has upon the crystals. Oddly beautiful, mesmerizing, and unnerving all at once. The silence here...

Aryn turns to look behind them, then forward again, only this time what she saw was not through her eyes but someone elses. A hazy vision pervades her thoughts, her receptive mind, as the shape of someone walking into this very cavern plays out.

For those brief, unnerving seconds, Aryn is frozen looking ahead, her eyes unblinking as she uses the stalwart presence of the wall to lean upon for support.

"No... not really..." Elrych says looking around the cavern with narrowed brows. Indeed, he didn't feel it. It might have just been under the surface though but he was clearly not atuned enough to sense what ever it was the others might be. He hadn't yet drawn his saber, currently seing no need to. He notices Aryn stare owards, leaning against the wall. He moves towards her, "What is it?" He asks...

Ban Iskender gives a slow, terse exhale as his eye is drawn upward, toward an unseen point on an unseen wall. Ben's question of whether they feel the presence is answered without his searching eye straying from overhead, "Ought I answer directly, or would it be better to speak in vagaries?" He looks back down and aside to Aryn at her discomfort, before Elrych is addressed, "We are being watched, master Cometburn."

Rey's eyes are moving around the tools and discarded equipment from the others who've been here before. She listens to the words from her companions on this mission though and when Ben asks if they can sense it, she looks up in time to do just that. It slows her pace as she experiences the vision. When she refocuses her gaze ahead of her she glances over to Ban and nods softly to what he says. "Lets avoid vagaries if possible."

She pushes on ahead and past Aryn now toward where Ben is, on the way she looks over to Aryn to check on her, visually at least before she tries to catch up with Ben. She doesn't want to speak loudly, just loud enough though. "One of the reasons we tried to... get enough of what we needed here, the last time we were here, is the fact that this site is so... compromised. The crystals that this world plays host to... seem to be growing more rapidly scarce in supply in the galaxy. It means every time we come here this planet feels less and less... secure. From Star Destroyers above our heads, to..." She glances around and speaks softer. "Whatever might be lurking down here now and new, from the /last/ time we were here."

"If that is who I think it is, we've already been here too long," Ben replies to Rey regarding the Star Destroyer, glancing over at Aryn's struggle with the vision she's experienced for a moment before Ban puts it into words. "It's not a vergence in the Force, but it's... something. Like a person, but it's not a person. It's not alive." His brow furrows as he looks around the chamber, the dim light and the unfriendly presence making the space feel hard to linger in. "I told you the Sith are trying to find ways back out of the Force. I thought this might be something like that. Something we could learn from."

This time when Aryn had the subsequent vision, she felt the licking flames of heat upon her flesh, and looked up to see the others consumed in flames. Absolute hatred poured from the wall and it was so palpable that it hurt. It hurt her. Aryn sucks in sharply now, as if her air was cut off only she felt the heat of this fire burn out her lungs in a single final moment of life.

Only then did the vision end, and Aryn hunched forward, emerging from the grasp of this telepathy only the steam slightly from her heightened body temperature in contrast to the chilly depths of this room. Aryn took in healthy gasps of air as if it were a surreal thing to feel again, before logic and sense returned to her sudden primal urge to simply survive.

Her eyes had to adjust, and in looking up she only saw the dark shapes of the others and she backed herself away from them all! When her back is to the wall, her voice is found, along with the dawning realization that these people were her companions, and they were not, in fact on fire. ".. a presence... forces itself upon my mind, plaguing my mind's eye with visions. Terrible visions. Of each of you, burning in its fire of hatred, consumed by the heat of flame till we were but smoldering piles left to nothing. Whatever /it/ is.. whomever /it/ is.. we are not welcome in this place. We are not welcome on this world, in its presence." Aryn's hands have taken hold of one another again, fidgeting nervously as she tries to sort through her recollection of the vision, only this time placing an emphasis of thought to it. Did it mean more? Had they done something wrong?

Elrych turns his head to the side, looking towards the wall. He felt it then, when Aryn touched the wall. He didn't see what she saw exactly but he was on the same page now. Maybe it was the 'boost' given by Aryn's conact but what remained was that he was aware now of that... hatred. Looking up to the higher place on the wall. "I can feel it looking down at us... it...." He grits his teeth then, stumbling back and looking away. "Gah... the hell..." His breath quickens, clearly distressed.

Ban Iskender turns his regard aside to Rey with a short nod. "As you say. Then.. what is our objective, here? If we have tarried overlong already, tell us:" he looks back to Ben. "What are we here to learn? How to banish a dark presence, or how to close some way out of the Force?" the way he speaks 'some way out of the Force' makes it clear the young soldier doesn't grasp the concept. Then, Aryn is struck with her terrible vision, and gives it voice. Quietly, Ban ventures, "Are you well? Has the illusion fully faded?"

Ben's words, Aryn's reaction and response and Elrych's sudden inclusion makes Rey take a step to the side and her hands move to her side to pull her coat open enough to get to the bag she has resting against her hip. "The Sith need bodies to get out from the afterlife." Rey comments back to Ben, her eyes scanning up and around to try to find where she'd seen the vision peering down from above. "Thats what he told us, thats what he told me..." She draws in a frozen breath and unclips her lightsaber from the latch on the back of her bag, she now clutches the leather wrapped hilt in her right hand and she lets her fingers tighten over it. "Something has changed since we were here last though, that much is making itself quite evident."

A glance to Ban then before to Ben. "If we're here to learn, then we need to confront whatever is here. Otherwise, the trip all the way here will have accomplished nothing."

Is something really watching them? Or is it a trick of the Force. She's not sure, admittedly.

"I'm not wasting our chance," Ben agrees with Rey, even if he does think they've stayed too long for what caution dictates. "I want to know what it knows." The man in black steps forward towards the central pillar, eying it for a moment, and reaches out a hand to splay his fingers across the cool stone, then the other. His eyes squeeze shut, and he begins to concentrate, focusing on his connection to the Force, to this place, and to the unknown entity that haunts its walls. "Help me," he hisses to the others, clearly exerting himself as his hands start to tremble from the effort.

"The visions.. they are here, then gone. Brief glimpses of a consciousness, like a breath of air that brushes by." Aryn explains to Iskender, then she looks to the others. As Rey unclips her lightsaber, Aryn's hands part and she reaches for her own, freeing it from her belt to be held to her side.

Elrych's own experience seems to render a similar response to hers yet, he seems more mentally capable of bearing the weight of this ire. Much like the others, it seems.

When Ben Solo calls them into action, Aryn is not convinced that her strength will help. She experiences another vision in those moments that give her pause, and her gaze angles down. To those who may see her, she seems intently focused upon the cavern flooring, but Aryn's mind's eye provides an image of a muddy pond. There is a crowd of milling shapes about it, presumably people, all wearing black. They rock, staring, and she stares back feeling unnerved and fearful from the weight of their stare. She lacks the willpower to separate from this unnerving image, and lingers outside the semi-circle from her companions, trying to mitigate this overwhelming sense of dread and fear. Aryn wanted to leave, and every nerve in her body was screaming one word: Run.

Elrych focuses, moving forward to touch the wall with Ben. He's there suddenly, clearly, at the pond with the shapes. One turns to stare towards him, crimson eyes borring deep into him. The Corellian had seen a lot in his life and had practiced the ability to remain calm under preassure, threat of intimidation, or otherwise. Control was essential to being a Fighter pilot and especially a Jedi. "Well hello there, Red... What are you?" He asks, unsure if his voice is carrying out loud in the real world or just in this vision. He glances around to se if he can see Ben, Ban, Rey, or Aryn... unaware currently that she's stepped away from the circle.

Ban Iskender lets out another slow exhale when their guide calls for help. Ban draws the glove off his right hand, takes hold of the unlit hilt of his stunsaber in the left, and places his bare hand on the chill pillar. He had closed his eyes when reaching out, but as the vision strikes him, the nobleman's eyes open in slow, focused frown. Without drawing back his hand, Ban's posture improves. Shoulders drawn back, head held high, as if being inspected at court, or in military review as he stares back at the phantoms. When Elrych converses with 'Red', Ban adds aloud, "I see a goodly number of grim folk in black armor and robes. They look toward me."

Rey doesn't ignite her lightsaber, she just holds it at her side and grips it tightly by the leather wrap. She starts to walk in a small circle perimeter around the others and listens closely to them. She looks away though, her eyes are on the vision she sees, what the Force is showing her. She can hear her friend's voices but what she sees sends a different kind of chill through her core.

"Its the Sith." Rey says then, based on her own experiences leading her to say it. Something that the Jedi of this new young Order have not experienced in a great depth. Not like this. "It has to be related to that Destroyer in orbit. They're laying claim to this world."

She watches the figures in her vision take a step toward her and she raises her hilt, but does not ignite it. "Ben, this world is, it's in danger."

For his part, Ben's hands remain on the pillar for a moment longer, but when he does pull them away, it's like he touched a hot iron. He's silent for a moment, absorbing everything the others have said, and then he shakes his head. "I don't know. I don't know if they're here, or if this... presence has the power to show them from afar. I don't know." His hands tremble slightly at his sides. "But I know we can't stay here any longer. Whatever it is, it's on their side of this. Not ours." He has no lightsaber to reach for, and his hand remains above the chrome-plated blaster strapped to his thigh.

Quietly, he looks around the chamber one more time, a look of disappointment crossing his face. "I had hoped to take a crystal. But this place feels tainted. We should go while we still can." He turns then and starts for the way back, a deep frown troubling his expression. "I thought we could learn something here."

Aryn's vision ends as the others around her begin to speak. The images taper, and she's left blinking again, though quiet now despite the others sharing. Ben's dismissal that there was nothing more to learn has Aryn glancing down before she pivots to follow quietly. She had no counter point, and she lacked the willpower to speak against the vote casted to leave. He wanted to leave? Aryn was all about that. This place gave her the creeps! She waited for the others, staying quiet and in thought. Her weapon, the lightsaber she unclipped, was returned to her belt and forgotten beneath the confines of her heavy cape.

Elrych steps away when the others do, flicking his hands as that burning sensation works up his arms. He looks down at his hands, shaking his head as he studies them. "It's unknown. I'm not sure... Where else can we ge crystals from if this place is... tainted?" He glances up to look to Aryn casting a glance of concern in her direction. "I don't know the answer yet, but with that up there... we don't have the time to properly spend figuring it out I think."

A lack of comprehension might be noted in Ban Iskender's manner or in his curious frown as he draws his glove back on, flexing fingers again with the cold. He notes Aryn's discomfort with worry, before looking to Elrych and Rey in turn. "Are we finished, here?" he wonders, evenly.

Rey lowers her saber hilt back to her side after hearing Ben's summation and declaration that it's time to go. She closes her jacket back up but she keeps her saber hilt in her hand for now. Her brown eyes glance over to Elrych. "We'll ask--" She cuts herself off. She was going to say 'Leia'. Leia would've known precisely what to do and where to go, but that outlet is gone now. Her Holocron might be able to... but that seems like it could be a longshot.

"We'll ask Maz. Maz will know." Its a safe bet that the mysterious Maz Kanata would know too, with her smuggling experience and seemingly endless amount of years beneath her belt to boot.

"I don't think we have a choice at this stage." Rey says to Ban as she starts to pass by him, headed back the way they'd come now, stepping around a metal toolkit on the ground that very nearly tried to clip her shin. Rey looks back as she goes though. "We've learned a lot about the standing of this world now, I would say, if nothing else..."

They're finished here, and the group of Force users make their way out of the cave back down the icy slopes towards the Falcon with the bitter wind behind them, urging them to begone from this place. No doubt there will be discussion and speculation to come as to what it was they experienced here on Ilum, but for now they have found no answers, only more questions, and a nameless threat left to linger in the walls of the cavern.

Ben Solo starts flipping switches and twisting dials to prep for take off... then reaches out and taps the ignition. The ship hums to life, rumbling the bulkheads! Ben reaches out and shoves the ship's throttle forward and with a sudden rumble through the bulkheads the Millennium Falcon's engines flare to life propelling it ahead. The ship soars up and through the sky and slowly it crosses out of the planet's atmosphere into space.

The Derriphan's laser cannon comes to life as it has fully charged and powered itself up. The ship has pulled to a far off distance from the world of Ilum...

It fires upon the planet! Red hot death begins to pour out of the Axial Superlaser as it crashes into the planet's surface and begins to tear a hole into its inner core!

Into the intercom: Ben Solo says, "...It's not under control. We need to go. Now. Hold on." The navi-computer beeps indicating a jump trajectory is processing. Upon completion of the trajectory calculations, Ben Solo reaches out and pulls back the hyperdrive levers. From outside the viewport the enveloping blanket that is the starscape of space suddenly explodes into a dizzying array of ever-growing starlines until they culminate into an explosive field of pure white.

Outside of the viewport, the planet's destruction fades into white streaks as stars blur and then are replaced by the bluish glow of hyperspace. Ben looks up from the controls at anyone else in the cockpit with him. "...that was a little closer than I cared for." Leaning over the controls, he slouches back then, letting out a sigh. "You couldn't get them all at Exegol?"

Rey stands at the back of the cockpit with her hood up and the jacket gone. She has her right hand on the back of the chair beside her. Her eyes are large, her stare stunned. Her focus goes from the viewport over to Ben. "There was a rogue Destroyer. The one that blew up Kijimi. There have been rumors of it spotted in the outer rim. It... we found it." Rey sinks down in to the chair and leans back against it. "I don't believe anyone lived on Ilum. But..." The world was important to the Jedi Order, of old, and of the days yet to come.

Elrych isn't so much stunned as he's just confounded. "Well, huh... no kidding." He echo's his fellow Corellian's sentiment in the matter of that being too close for anyones liking. "There was like... a billion of them, of course some got away." He nods to Rey... "Maybe we should look harder for Adegan. Ossus..."

"They blew up Kijimi?" This appears to be news to Ben, who raises a brow at that, before immediately furrowing it again to match his deepening frown. "I didn't order that. They weren't supposed to be operational." He glances out of the viewport at the blue waves of light running over the ship. "Not that it matters now. That /thing/ is a threat. So are the Sith, but they can't blow up planets. Not yet." A finger is pointed back in the direction of the Derriphan on the word 'thing', though with their transit through hyperspace it's unlikely that it's an accurate direction any longer.

Rey's bottom lip is pulled in between her teeth where she bites down upon it whilst listen to the others talk. Elrych, Ben... some quiet noises from Chewbacca. After Ben speaks though, Rey looks up to him. "Alderaan. Hosnian Prime. Kijimi... Now this world. Not large in population, but large in historic value. Meaning. Importance to the galaxy in ways not easily described, but ways none the less." Rey moves to stand up and she places her hands on the back of Chewie's chair now. "We have to stop that destroyer. It might be the last vessel in that wretched fleet, and it cannot be left to do this to any other worlds." She pauses then. "We have to tell the Resistance and the Republic. I doubt the destroyer will remain in the Ilum System for very long, if it hasn't already left in our own wake... But... Something has to be done."

Elrych scratches the back of his neck, "There's a few things out there that need to be gone..." He doesn' elaborate further, "But yeah... that think takes priority in this case. We'll have to meet with Poe and Admiral Antilles about this..." He turns and starts to head back towards the crew area. "I need a drink... Chewie, you still got some of that Wangos sitting around?!" His voice echos down the corridor.

"You'll have to tell them," Ben replies after a moment considering it, shaking his head at Rey. "They won't accept it from me. They won't accept anything from me. But you, you're their hero. If you tell them, they'll listen. They'll have to." He says it with certainty, a hand raising as if to halt any forthcoming arguments. "Your... fledgling Jedi, they tolerate me because you do. The Republic won't see it the same way."

Rey steps aside for Elrych and glances back to him as he moves out into the corridor of the Falcon. She then looks back to Ben as he speaks. She knows he's right. She nods her head softly to him once. Her stare goes then to Chewbacca. "Prepare a message for the fleet. I'll record it in my room and we'll send it to them in advance of us arriving there. Maybe if we can get word soon enough their scouts can begin a coordinated effort in searching this vessel down." She looks back to Ben then. They very nearly were destroyed with that planet, if they hadn't left so soon.

"If that destroyer has its shields systems functional... it'll be a lot more challenging to take down than the ones at Exegol were." Not that Ben doesn't know that, of course he does. Rey turns then to leave. "I'll be in my room, preparing the message." S, their mission had been an 'inconclusive' expedition at best, coupled with this after effect.

"Rey," Ben interrupts as she turns to leave. "I really did think we would learn something. Anything, that would help us understand what we're fighting. I'm sorry we didn't. And I feel responsible for what happened. I won't let this keep happening. We'll stop it together." He sounds very certain of that, and it's clear from the look in his eyes that he means it. "We have to."

Rey will pause just outside of the cockpit and look back at him. She nods her haed softly inside of her hood and then turns and goes. Chewie looks over to Ben and makes a soft and quiet 'rrrrowl' sound.

"You said it, Chewie," Ben remarks quietly as he turns back to watch the blue waves pass over the viewport.