"If she could push him out of her mind and enter his, what else could she do? What might she be able to do with regard to someone else? Someone less skilled, untrained in the ways of the Force? The single guard posted just inside the front of her cell, for example? "You!" He turned toward her, patently unconcerned and not a little bored. She studied him closely. As he was about to speak, she addressed him clearly and firmly--and not only with her voice. "You will remove these restraints. And you will leave this cell, with the door open, and retire to your living quarters." The guard eyed her silently. He did not look in the least intimidated. Her confidence wavering as she shifted slightly in her bonds, she repeated what she had said with as much authority as she could muster. "You will remove these restraints. And you will leave this cell, with the door open, and retire to your living quarters. You will speak of this encounter to no one." Raising the heavy, black-and-white rifle he held, he came toward her. Heart pounding, she watched him approach. Was she going to be killed, freed, or maybe laughed at? Halting before her, he looked down into her eyes. When he spoke again, there was a notable alteration in his voice. It was significantly less confrontational and--distant. "I will remove these restraints. And leave this cell, with the door open, and retire to my living quarters. I will speak of this encounter to no one." Working methodically, he unlatched her shackles. He stood and stared at her for a moment, then turned and wordlessly started for the doorway. Lying in shock on the reclined platform, Rey hardly knew what to do next. She was free. No, she corrected herself: She was free of this cell. That hardly constituted freedom. But it was a beginning. As the guard reached the doorway, she spoke hastily. "And you will drop your weapon." "I will drop my weapon," he responded in the same uninflected voice. This he proceeded to do, setting the rifle down on the floor, then turning left into the outside corridor to depart in silence. For a long moment she stared at the open portal. Deciding that it was not a joke and that the guard was not waiting for her just outside the cell, she moved to pick up the weapon and leave. --"