garbageship | That's no moon... Wait, no, it's a moon.

"You should see what he does unarmed."

Which doesn't help at a distance, necessarily. Hence carrying the thing.

"Give this one a try. Make sure you got space, though."

The blaster he picks is a different make from most of them-- and if she looks closely at the barrel it's obviously been cut down. Yes, this galaxy has its version of a sawed-off shotgun.

"I bet." She knows he's strong.

She takes it, turning it over in her hands and inspecting the design first before holding it properly to get a feel for the weight. "Space, huh? Any particular direction?"

"It's a scattergun."

She's a smart kid, she can figure out what that means, right?

"I'd say better not have anyone you like anywhere in front of you."

"You know, I actually follow that advice with any gun I'm handling." Blaster. Whatever. "I had to explain that to Ben earlier when he encouraged me to shoot at him."

Which, oddly enough, is something she told Reid he could do once. She hadn't been all that serious, but with her power she also wasn't that worried if he had. He'd seemed so upset she'd even suggest it though. She kind of gets that now.

Sigh.

"You wouldn't have hit him," he points out, like that's any consolation. "But I'm glad you didn't."

She didn't, right? Self restraint is a thing. He shakes it off, nods at the blaster.

"You'll get kind of a cone effect off that one. Three or four at once. Not precise, but it comes in handy in the right kind of bad situation."

"You wouldn't hit me either, but it's still not cool." And depending on the type of weapon you could hit her, but details, details.

"I usually like more precision so probably good for me to practice with it." Can't always stay in a comfort zone. And she's a decent shot, but not an expert marksmen like Oliver or Artemis.

"It's the same idea, you're just aiming over an area. Faster, too. It's a good way to drive back a crowd."

Which he hopes is not something they'll need to do.

"Give it a try."

She glances around, getting everyone's position to make sure they are safely out of any kind of range and takes an extra few steps away from the store of blasters and Han before lifting her arm, choosing a point and firing on it. The recoil is sharper than on her gun but she moves with the flow as she watches the initial shot and then takes three more in rapid succession.

"That would be one very unhappy crowd."

"That's the idea."

He prefers precision, too-- Han is a damn good shot and not shy about it, he's gotten by on those merits for a long time-- but it takes all kinds. Time was the secret compartments of the Falcon housed weapons a lot stranger than these. Blasters, slugthrowers, explosives and thermal detonators. Now he's got a paltry store of guns and a couple of contested lightsabers. So it goes.

"You're not bad."

"I'm not great." She smiles over her shoulder though. Praise from ~~dad~~ Han is always good to hear even if she seemingly rejects it.

"Most of my training and experience is up close and personal combat." Most, not all. It's not always appropriate, and Logan is a thorough teacher. "And firing blankly into the distance is a little different than having moving targets shooting at you. Ben threw some rocks for me to shoot at earlier though." Yep, just mentioning Ben more. That's not dangerous at all.

"Nothing for it but practice."

Han settles back on his rock, letting his gaze roam. He still can't quite trust this place; being off the ship makes him uneasy, knowing how many people must be on their tail. But they've got bigger plans than this, he'd better get used to letting his charges out of sight now and then.

When she mentions that last bit he looks sharply back at her, though he doesn't look angry. Just intent, the way he habitually has been.

"He should be practicing himself," he murmurs.

"He was. I mean, he was cheating with the force, but he was shooting. Then I showed him how to shoot without it." There was also helping her and then a mind meld and then hugging, but practicing was happening too.

She fires off a few more rounds and then even attempts it with her left hand very carefully. You never know what will happen in battle, but she also didn't want to maim anyone in practice.

"That's what he needs, to learn without."

Looking back, he should have taught him years ago, when he was young, before it would have been so ingrained. It's hard to know how to manage things with child as sensitive as Ben was; he'd needed training with that first of all, some sort of self-discipline. Even if that had gone as planned, it would have meant he did everything with an awareness of the Force. Which isn't a bad thing; it's what allows him to wield his lightsaber effectively, after all, what lets him stop and block blasts.

In this situation, though, where he's trying to hide what he is, that effortlessness is a liability.

"Rey, too." At least Kitty's abilities don't give her too obvious of an edge.

"He started rough, but he picks things up quickly." Which is good since he has basically no patience.

"Rey is using the force to do it? I didn't realize she could control it for that." Or is that the point? She's doing it on instinct.

If Ben had any concept of patience, they'd be living in a different galaxy, probably. The New Republic would be proud and strong, Han Solo would be happily married, and the Jedi would be thriving. So it goes.

"I don't think she understands that she is."

With no affinity for the Force himself, Han is really not cut out to be training her in that vein. He's pretty sure he needs to start doing it, though. Maybe he can secretly ask Ben for pointers.

Kitty looks thoughtful for a moment. "It's hard to think you're one thing and then find out you're something else. Shifts your whole sense of identity." This is personal experience talking and she's sure it isn't exactly the same for Rey. Mutants were already well known and feared and hated when Kitty realized she was one of them. A freak. A monster. Different. Alone.

The titles changed over time and she has embraced being a mutant despite what Apocalypse tried to do to the name, but she remembers being that scared 13 year old girl who was just as likely to fall through a door as open it. She couldn't control it when she was so afraid of it and trying to deny it.

He looks a bit grim, watching her in the distance.

"She needs a teacher."

She needs Luke, because none of them are gonna cut it, for one reason or another. Even if Han trusted Ben for it-- and, oddly, he thinks he would, thinks it'd be good for both of them-- Rey wouldn't stand for it. He knows better than to bring up the idea. Kitty might be able to help with some things, but she doesn't know the Force, really, and she's far too close to Ben... And doing little to keep him from erring on the side of jealousy and possession, for that matter.

This is some kind of cosmic punishment for how badly he got along with Ben Kenobi.

They all need Luke.

"You've shot down my ideas for trying to find Luke, so if you figure out a plan I'm here." Not that she's really stop trying to think of solutions just because he didn't think they needed to have R2D2 on board for her to interrogate or for her to try and predict the systems around the parts of the map they do have.

"If Rey is a force user couldn't there be others out there?" She walks back to switch weapons.

There's not much you can do to interrogate an R2 unit. Plus there's no guarantee that the glorified doorstop has anything of use, that's just BB8's guess. Until then, they've got the Resistance's best astromech droids and navigators doing exactly that. It'd be dangerous for them to have a copy of the map on board, considering their pursuers.

"More kids, maybe. Trained Jedi? Probably not."

"Well, that's alarming in it's own way." She grabs the biggest one in the bunch.

"Maybe Ben could teach me and I could teach Rey. Which sounds problematic and terrible. So, really just depends on whether you think it's more problematic and terrible than no teacher."

"The more time you spend with him, the less she's going to trust you."

That's not the kindest thing he's ever said, but he's not trying to be nasty. There's a careful flatness to his tone, making it just a statement of fact, holding back his own (considerable and complicated) feelings on the matter. She might recognize the tactic, Ben uses it often enough.

"I'll figure something out."

She looks thoughtful as she inspects the new weapon but it isn't just the weapon she's taking in. "Then she's probably going to trust me less." Said as she takes a few steps away to fire. Maybe another confession that "careful" isn't going to include absent.

The resulting blast is very off center. Her second attempt is better.

Yeah. He knows. She's taking things way, way too fast, and apparently all that happens when he asks her not to is that she goes on and takes things faster. So maybe all he can do is look the other way and wait for the inevitable and hope some of them survive it.

The point he wants to make is that emotion isn't a bad thing, but being ruled by it is. That sometimes caring means inaction. His mind is megaparsecs and decades away, standing on a sinking platform above Bespin, telling Chewie not to fight even though every inch of him screamed to resist.

Maybe he understands the Jedi better than he claims.

If it makes him feel any better (it won't) it isn't necessarily going faster. Just not slower. The truth is she always makes better decisions in a crisis than during peaceful times. Maybe because she has more experience with the former.

She fires a few more times and pauses to stretch her arms. They're getting fatigued from all the kickback.

It probably wouldn't help matters, no.

"Don't wear yourself out," he says quietly, still a bit mired in memories.

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