Alderaan
"Lord Ren" buzzed Hux in Kylo's ear "I must advise you that the fleet cannot support you at your current distance."
Kylo did not deign to respond, his mind was still embroiled, the touch of his mother's mind still playing across his own, a circular rhythm that brought with it cascades of emotion. Kylo's own were varied. Guilt, anger and lurking below them, a childlike desperation which made him wish he could tear the whole galaxy asunder rather than made this one, logical choice.
Despite his catatonia, Kylo's pilot instincts continued to guide his hands, banking the ship to the left and making course for The Supremacy. "General, please inform the Supreme Leader that..." The dispassionate words slipped through Kylo's lips like water through a hairline crack in a vast dam. "Tell him General Organa and her command staff are dead."
"Excellent" Hux replied, deep satisfaction dripping off his words. "Activate the broadcast system, fleet-wide."
Annoyed at Hux's forgetfulness in closing communications and unwilling to withstand his prattle, Kylo reached across his control panel to sever communications himself.
"Men and women of the First Order! Leia Organa, the princess of Alderaan, the mother of the New Republic, the hero of the Rebel Alliance and General of the so-called Resistance, is dead!" Hux boomed. "When we have claimed out rightful place in the galaxy, this day shall be remembered as the day that the pathetic hopes of all those who opposed us were snuffed out! Leader Snoke!"
"Leader Snoke!" echoed the bridge crew.
Kylo now knew why Hux left the channel open. He smashed the communications switch down with enough strength to crack it. He drove his foot down, roaring the engines of his Silencer. Kylo would make clear who won this day for Leader Snoke when he returned and would teach Hux to never again make mention of his...
'Mother?'
It was impossible, it had to be impossible, yet there it was, weighing upon his mind, sinking into his very soul.
Kylo banked hard to the right, avoiding a collision with one of the wingmates by a hair.
"Lord Ren?" Inquired the other wingmate. "Where are you going?"
Their questions meant nothing to him. The only thing that Kylo cared about lay amongst the drifting debris ahead of him.
As he manoeuvred through the debris Kylo blazed away with his blaster cannons, eviscerating any wreckage that barred his path. When he had previously flown his father's old junker with Chewbacca and alongside his uncle in their antiquated Jedi fighters, he had felt a tranquillity normally alien to him, a freedom he never expected he would have, but now his face was a mask of panic, his heartbeat in tune with the engines as he threaded his way through the debris.
Just as Kylo begun to fear that he would crash in his panicked haste, his blaster cannons bisected an armour plate to reveal a dark-clothed figure, partly obscured inside a strategic overview hologram projected from a miraculously still-functional command console.
Kylo allowed his ship to drift closer, uncaring of the minor debris pattering against the outside of his TIE. This had to be some kind of trick. Another test by Snoke perhaps? Had his uncle returned, conspiring to draw him into a trap perhaps? The memories of his uncle's betrayal and the black rage it brought almost swept away the pull the figure emanated. Before Kylo could full re-clothe himself in the dark side, the command console finally died and revealed a sight that made Kylo gasp.
His mother floated before him, her hair and clothing immaculate, her entire body sheathed in a dim light.
'How can this be?' Kylo wondered as he manoeuvred his ship to intercept the drifting corpse. 'She was on the bridge and yet she is so...pristine.'
As he drew closer he realised that the light which played across Leia's body was not from the nearby sun, not a mundane light at all. Kylo reached out with the force, for what reason he did not truly know. The fallen Jedi in him demanded to know the source of this incredible phenomenon. Somebody else he dared not name simply wished to feel the touch, any kind of the touch of his mother, one last time.
As the tendril of force energy stretched out towards Leia, Kylo subconsciously pushed away the debris that surrounded them and his recently arrived wingmen, eliciting mutters of confusion and shock from them. Kylo cared not, what was happening now was his whole world. After what felt like an eternity, Kylo took hold of his mother and her eyes flicked open.
Kylo felt dread like nothing he had ever felt before. Not when Snoke had first whispered to him in his childhood dreams and not when his father's voice had cried out his name aboard Starkiller base.
Kylo instinctively tried to pull away, both physically and with the force but it felt as if a fist had closed around his body and mind, holding him in place, helpless. The newly-formed bridge with this mother remained standing and across flowed images. First he was looking into his mother's face, his own vague infant memories clarified by her photo-perfect recollection, her eyes the striking image even amongst the many comings and goings. Now came sadness at his father's disappearances, of how he cried himself to sleep not knowing when he would return, yet always mindful of her arms around him. Finally came the day of reckoning, of his uncle in the full splendour of his master's robes holding him by the hand as they boarded his twin-engined ship, Senator Organa waving her goodbyes, a sad yet hopeful smile on her face.
Throughout all of this his mother's eyes remained locked with his, her dark brown eyes unwavering from his own. Kylo attempted to throw up shields against the onslaught. His uncle standing over him, the blade as green as envy. His father's scared and resentful words as he fled Coruscant, Chewbacca in tow. The moment Kylo cut down the last of Skywalker's students, his screams a final last pathetic defence after his knights had disarmed him.
His defences were swept aside as if my Ahch-To's high winds by the impossibly strong force. Glimmering snow-capped mountains framed the faces of a regal couple amongst the vivid colors of a grapevine field, intense pride filled her as she stood beside her father admiring the new symbol of freedom in the galaxy, the silent wail of sorrow as she was forced to witness the death of her home, her paradise.
Ben felt his own face become wet as for the first time in years. He felt entirely powerless. Even when kneeling before Snoke in his throne room, the ancient rules of the Sith had rang through his skull, of how one day he would surpass his teacher and seize the galaxy for this own. Yet now he could do nothing as his mind and spirit tore itself apart.
The connection eventually became weak and confused, the various images blurring together and becoming less defined. His uncle's calm presence leaking over into his father's increasing vehement demands, his mother's hugs and kisses becoming less tangible and more alien.
The images suddenly dropped away altogether, replaced by a whisper.
'Ben please, enough.' The words were accompanied by a wave of sadness so deep that Ben could barely comprehend it, the kind of sadness that could only come from the death of love ones at the hand of someone whom you would end all of existence for.
'Mother, you were...' Kylo began to fire back, desperate to regain control of the situation, to dominate the weak as Snoke at taught him, but his own words were swept away once more.
'Your father loved you, he was a scruffy nerf-herder, but he never stopped loving you, we both know that.'
Unbidden, Han Solo's face flashed across his face, illuminated by a blood-red light, no hint of betrayal or dismay etched onto his tragic visage. Ben once again felt fingers brush across his face as Solo tumbled off the bridge.
What came next hurt more than the bowcaster blot that lanced his abdomen on Starkiller Base.
'My boy, my dear boy, please forgive me. I'm sorry, all that happened with your uncle, sending your father to you, it is my fault. I love you, I love you, by the mother of moons I still love you so much.'
Ben Solo suddenly began to regain control of his senses. He desperately reached out with the force, drawing his mother forward and himself into her fading force essence. He clawed at it desperately, attempting to grasp his mother's mind and body but found that both were running between his fingers like the sands of Jakku.
The thin film around his mother began to flicker and die. In sheer panic Ben tried to reinforce the impossible bulwark, allowing the light-side to flow through him like a river for the first time since Luke's temple. A sob broke through his lips as the wave of energy broke off his mother, dissipating aimlessly.
'Ben, my son, my boy, my Alderaan, don't be afraid, don't be afraid...'
The aura around Leia Organa flickered and died, her beautiful brown eyes lost their focus and bottomless emptiness washed over Ben.
Ben let out an awful scream, long and wailing. He desperately held onto his mother's body, willing her to live, projecting his full might in a confused maelstrom, the force essence bouncing ineffectually back onto him.
As the power flowed back into him, he found it married with a new, darker well of force energy. With a new scream of anger and despair he unleashed both.
As if they had been swept up by one of the hurricanes of Kamino, the starship debris surrounding him began to spin with great velocity, encompassing him in a sphere of raging plasteel and titanium. The screams of his wingmates came over the comm as their Tie Fighters were torn apart by the maelstrom. In the eye of his storm Ben was only aware of the hand pressed against the glass of his Silencer and the tears that rolled down his face onto his controls.
Ben was heaving another great sob out of his chest when a new voice boomed through his mind.
'Apprentice' the voice stated simply and coldly.
The sob caught painfully in his chest as Kylo remembered presence of his master, the debris around him stilling abruptly.
'You are required back on the Supremacy. The death of General Organa is a momentous event, one which requires much consideration and meditation.'
Hands took hold of The Silencer's controls and began to guide the craft back through the debris field calmly and deliberately. Kylo remained frozen, his eyes passing across the cold grey of the First Order fleet. The wetness on his cheeks was sliding away, the echoing screams suddenly silenced.