Fear and Sabers | (The Push of a Button #1)

Not my idea

I was nervous.

So nervous that my fingers were trembling as I marked my paper with a pencil. Ironic, they had pencils in space. They were a lot nicer than ours tho, strangely, and didn't look like they were made of lead, but some blackish material. Charcoal, maybe? I glanced up from my paper across the table, where Rey and Kylo were seated beside each other, deep in discussion. I slowly reached for my phone, sneakily taking a quick picture-

oh burn it all.

The flash was on.

"Hey," Kylo snapped his gaze to me. "What was that?"

"Oh, my uh...my thing, my phone messed up." I held it up and tapped on it, focusing extremely hard on the screen and not my burning cheeks.

"How's your picture coming, Kenna?" Rey asked me, ignoring Kylo's grumbling.

"Why is she drawing again?" Kylo asked with a grunt.

"Because I asked her to," Rey awarded him with a dazzling smile. "She's an artist, just like you. I wanted to see her work."

"It's not good," I muttered. They either didn't hear me or didn't acknowledge I had spoken, and Rey turned back to Kylo. I swallowed hard and tried to straighten my pencil lines. Why was I so blasted nervous all of a sudden? Oh, because I had been asked to draw a picture for the Rey and Kylo Ren of Star Wars. That's why.

To top it all off, my mind was swimming with what Rey had said. Face my fear? Was it that simple? No, it couldn't be. This whole thing felt like a dream. A bizarre, strange yet frankly awesome dream. I looked at the palm-sized button that now rested on the table before me. Unless the stupid thing glowed again, I was stuck here.

Which wasn't so bad. I mean, they had cookies.

I broke from my reverie to hear a crackle from the other end of the table. Rey was typing away on a datapad, and then a hologram appeared. It was a man. A tall, scary man. At least I think he was tall. The hologram wasn't life sized.

"Supreme Leader, Jedi Rey," The man spoke, and I realized this must have been the hologram recording that had come in. Though he used terms of respect, he spat out the words like they were poison. I cringed. "We have taken control of Sidolus. I would advise you to not show your pretty faces on my planet. We have taken the villagers hostage, and if you care about them, you won't set foot here." 

Rey inhaled sharply. I glanced at Kylo's face, illuminated by the blue hologram. His expression was nutrual, but his eyes blazed. Kylo touched the datapad, and the hologram instantly disappeared.

"Was that-"

"Dauntless," Rey finished my question with a nod.

She sat back in her seat, running a hand over her hair. "This isn't good. I thought we would get there first," Rey put her face in her hands, propping her elbows on the table. "We obviously have the greater advantage. Dauntless's men hardly number a thousand. But if he's holding the villagers hostage..."

Kylo reached out a hand, rubbing small circles on Rey's back. He said nothing, but Rey instantly relaxed, her furrowed brow smoothing. She gave him a crooked smile.

I nearly screamed.

"We can't arrive like this," Rey finally said as she stared at the dark table surface. "We'd barely be out of hyperspace and they'd kill them."

"You could sneak onto the planet," I offered. "Or offer an exchange."

Rey and Kylo looked up at me.

"An exchange?"

"Yeah," I suddenly felt very self-conscious. "Like...whenever a sibling takes something of mine, they normally wants something in exchange for it back. You could do the same," I finished lamely.