Emperor of the galaxy, ruler of the First Order, master of the dark side, the magnificent Kylo Ren, sat on his throne feeling worthy of every single one of his titles. Of course, no one was actually calling him 'Emperor' yet, they were all still stuck on 'Supreme Leader', but his ascension was only a matter of time. He made a mental note to have a crown made. He swished his luscious black mane, examined the shine to which a lackey had polished his boots, straightened his robes, but he was still bored.
Three months after taking over from Snoke the galaxy was his plaything. His army had overrun the Core Worlds easily and his realm now stretched from the Outer Rim to the Unknown Regions with every planet acknowledging his rule. He had all the credits and resources any supreme leader could reasonably desire, and the boundless respect of every one of his subjects, who were all forced to kneel on the floor whenever he arrived. His new weapon, the 'Emperor Ren', made to his own design, bigger and more powerful than anything the Empire or the First Order had ever owned before was under construction and scheduled to begin testing in a few short months. The Resistance had never recovered from the loss of their fleet and even though they were still out there somewhere, they no longer presented a threat.
Kylo picked at a fingernail. The throne room was full of uniformed flunkies all gagging to do his bidding, rivalling each other in their eagerness to show their loyalty to his majestic person. Unfortunately, he could think of no more orders to give, so they, like the Emperor himself, were finding the day ever so slightly tedious.
A herald approached the throne, creating a stir in the rows of officers and Kylo straightened in anticipation, removing his feet from Hux's back where the General knelt on the floor.
'My Lord,' the herald began importantly, and Kylo could tell that this was going to be good. 'By the power of your all seeing authority, through the wisdom of your thrice blessed rule, as a result of your omnipotent judgement the First Order has secured a great victory.'
'Yes, yes,' Kylo snapped, making a mental note to fire whoever was writing these proclamations. 'Get on with it.'
The herald's chest swelled. 'We have wiped out the last of the Resistance.'
Kylo frowned. 'You have?' Despite his new, elevated position he was sure he'd feel his mother's death through the Force, and most likely Rey's as well, but he'd had neither of these warning signs.
'Yes, your glorious Majesty. Behold.'
The man gestured behind him and the wall hung viewscreen shifted to show a picture of rain. Nothing else. Just a torrential downpour complete with thunder and lightning and the hiss of water hitting more water.
Kylo raised an eyebrow.
The herald hurried to tap some buttons on his wristcomm and instantly the drone on whatever planet this was zoomed in closer to show a ship parked in the middle of the storm, a round ship with two extensions on the front like outstretched arms.
The herald waved a hand. 'This is the flagship of the Resistance, the Millennium Falcon, the ship that did the Kessel Run in…'
'Stop.' Kylo cut him off. 'I can see what it is. So, you captured the ship and killed its crew, is that what you're saying?' He squinted at the outline on the screen, wondering why he didn't feel more like celebrating.
'There was no crew. We picked up a Resistance distress call and when we followed it we found this ship, unguarded, all the crew having abandoned it in fear at our approach. Filthy rebel scum.' The herald spat on the floor.
Kylo glowered, and the man bent down and cleared it up with his sleeve.
'This ship was unguarded? Empty?' He tapped his chin. 'They just abandoned it on a planet somewhere?' Something about this didn't feel right.
'Yes, your Eminence,' the man announced. 'There are no life signs on board. The Resistance are gone, fled like the miserable cowards they are, and since they have no other transport, we can safely assume they are defeated.'
'We can safely assume nothing of the kind. Has anyone been on board yet? This looks like a trap.'
'No, your Worship. General Hux thought you'd want to supervise the search yourself. There are troops standing by on the planet and your shuttle is primed and ready for the journey.'
Kylo bent over and patted Hux on the head. 'Good thinking.'
This had all the appearance of a ploy designed to lure the First Order in, but with unquestioned military superiority and nothing better to do, Kylo decided to take the bait. He was off the throne and heading for the hangar bay only moments later, strapping his lightsaber to his side, with a bubbling energy popping inside him that he hadn't felt since the last system fell to the army a few weeks ago. There was no way the Resistance would have simply left that ship alone and unguarded on a planet in the middle of nowhere, there was something else going on.
He pulled up his hood as he left the shuttle. It really was raining quite hard and his personal hairdresser had spent some time perfecting this new, more regal style and he didn't want to ruin it in the damp.
'Situation report?' he asked the captain in charge.
'No life signs, Supreme Leader. No droids either. The engines appear to be crippled. There are scorch marks all along the right-hand side where it appears to have been engaged by one of our fighters and further damage to one of the landing struts. It's a wreck.'
Kylo considered it carefully, the vessel his father had loved more than his own son and tried to calculate how quickly he could have it dismantled and melted into slag.
'I'll go aboard. If I need you, I'll call.' He ignited his lightsaber and strode confidently up the ramp.
The ship did appear to have been abandoned. There was rubbish strewn all over the floors, the walls were smeared and dirty and protruding wires and parts hanging from the ceiling or poking from the consoles spoke of hasty, pointless repairs. Someone had cooked something that stank in the not too distant past and he tried not to contaminate himself with anything as he passed carefully through the chaos.
When she attacked, he nearly missed it.
Only a sudden squeak as her boot slid on a discarded wrapper gave her away and he managed to step to the side, catching the blow of her staff on his shoulder instead of his head. Rey, stepping out from one of the maintenance cupboards, whirled the weapon in one hand while reaching for a blaster with the other, and he could tell from the expression on her face that she was angry she'd missed her target.
He wrenched the gun out of her hand with the Force, sent it whistling back down the corridor but she pushed him backwards with her own power, following it up with a hail of blows aimed at his head. He span his blade, managed to chop the staff in two and while she was still adapting to carrying two bits of wood instead of one, planted a boot in her knee and she yelled as she went down.
She reached out with the Force, yanked his feet from under him and then she was haring off towards the ramp and freedom – she wasn't to know there were ten First Order ships stationed outside with their full complement of soldiers. She ran, her feet clanging down the metal surface and then she leaped into the mud, her boots sinking instantly as she attempted to make progress through the stinking quagmire. He followed her at a run, lightsaber outstretched, barely conscious of the rain plastering his hair to his head, and the annoying way his robes kept getting sucked down into the wet dirt.
She glanced over her shoulder, gestured with her hand and his lightsaber whooshed out of his grasp, landing on the mud far away, where it hissed and was extinguished as the hilt disappeared into a puddle. She was running as fast as she could manage but his strides were longer and with a howl he tackled her to the floor, fumbling to pin her arms to her sides.
She got an elbow into his groin, fighting him with fists and feet, rolling through the mud, but his weight was superior, and he came out on top. He straddled her back, pushed her face into the mud until she began to thrash with the onset of hypoxia, flinging out his hand for a set of restraints from the nearest stormtrooper's belt. He clipped her hands behind her back, yanked her mouth and nose out of the suffocating mire, then grabbed hold of the top bun on her head and hauled her backwards towards the Falcon by her hair.
He stomped up the ramp, turned into the nearest bedroom and threw her into a chair in the fresher. 'Stay,' he commanded.
She glared at him murderously, her eyes the only clean feature on her face and he grabbed hold of the water attachment and directed it straight at her as she coughed and spluttered and tried to shift away from the spray. When she was clean enough that he could read her expression, he switched the pump off and pointed her in the direction of the floor.
She didn't shift from the chair and he had to go over and tip her off it, so he could sit down. She scrambled away, only stopping on the other side of the tiny room. He bent down and gingerly began to remove his boots, aware that everything he was wearing was coated in thick, smelly mud.
'You are going to find my lightsaber,' he growled. 'And you are going to lick it clean.'
She spat at his boot and he curled his lip in disgust, kicking both off with a flourish and leaving black smears all over the floor. He shucked off his cloak, unbelted the sash of his ceremonial robes, balled them up and shoved them down the laundry chute, to be washed and dried in ten minutes. He remembered to bang twice on the sticking lower left door of the concealed cabinet and extracted two sets of trousers and two flouncy white tops, throwing one set of identical replacement clothing in Rey's general direction. Then he removed the top he was still wearing, baring his chest.
'Why are you taking your clothes off?' It was the first time she had spoken, and her voice held more than a touch of fear.
'Because I'm covered in mud.'
He pulled off his socks, and they followed his top down the chute.
'Why are you taking your clothes off in front of me?' Her voice was edging towards terror now, as he unfastened his trousers and dropped them to the floor, leaving him clad only in his underwear.
'Because if I turn my back or leave you alone, you'll either hit me or try to run away. You're my prisoner now. Get used to it.'
He heard her swallow and her feet pushed helplessly across the floor as she tried to wedge herself further into the corner. He paused, about to remove the sodden, close fitting shorts, studied her half petrified, half disgusted expression more carefully, and then looked down at his hands, thumbs tucked into this waistband.
'You think I'm taking my clothes off because I'm going to rape you. You think I go around raping women.' He was insulted at the suggestion.
'I think you're a monster,' she bit out.
He shrugged, stripped off the last of his clothing, leaving him naked in front of her. He had nothing to be ashamed of, the sooner she realised the peak physical condition in which he kept himself, the sooner she'd stop thinking she could beat him in hand to hand combat and stop fighting. Glancing over he saw that she'd shut her eyes and reached out for the thin beige trousers that were the only clothes not covered in mud.
'You're welcome to look,' he remarked, to suggest just how little he valued her opinion.
Her lids popped open immediately and she watched as he hauled on the replacement trousers, which were too short and much too tight and would barely fasten at the waist. The shirt was no better, resplendent with a slit front, open to his belly button and ruffles on either side.
When he was done he nodded at her. 'Your turn.'
She shook her head, brought her knees up to her chest, but with her arms still trapped behind her she couldn't easily defend herself. He approached with a determined tread, found himself flying backwards as she threw him across the room with the Force and he banged his head, shaking it to clear the dizziness. He tried again, and she went for his feet this time, throwing the chair across the room remotely and cutting them from under him so he fell.
'You're not getting on board my shuttle until you're clean.'
'I'm not getting on board your shuttle at all.'
He made a run for it this time, battering through the shield she attempted to throw up with brute force, heaving her to her feet by her elbow and fisting his hands in the front of her clothing.
'You're my prisoner,' he stated, ripping the flimsy material in two and then flicking it back off her shoulders, leaving her front bare. 'I own you.'
He managed to split the seams of her sleeves so that he could fling off the tattered rags over the top of her restraints, but she continued to fight, and he had a close-up view of her breasts jiggling as she tried to prevent him stripping her. To his surprise, his body began reacting to the proximity of hers and he swiftly undid the fastening on her trousers and yanked them around her ankles, returning to sit in the chair to camouflage the sight of his burgeoning arousal. Then he watched her mounting embarrassment.
The blush spread from her cheeks down over her chest and the brown points that topped her breasts darkened into hard little lumps. She was hairless and smooth between her legs, the light bouncing softly off the rounded mound at the apex of her thighs. She attempted to push off her boots without using her hands, keeping her gaze down and away from his, clearly conscious of his scrutiny. Eventually she managed to free one foot and then two, performing an elaborate little dance to kick off her trousers. He said nothing, simply watched the bounce of her breasts, the odd flash of pink as her legs separated. He was fully erect now, extending further as she attempted to clamber into the replacement garments, arching her hips forward and giving him a close-up view of the welcoming inside of her cunt.
She managed to get the trousers on, although they were too big and had no belt and would only stay up as long as she clamped her legs together on the fabric. Without the use of her arms, she had no luck with the top, and gave up trying, her damp hair hanging over her face in defeat.
He stood, and went over in a courteous and gentlemanlike manner to assist.
She wouldn't look him in the eye as he simply pulled the top over her head, now pinning her arms behind her back with material, as well as the existing metal cuffs.
'You're my prisoner,' he stated in a low voice. 'I control you. I own you. You're mine.'
She glanced up at him at last, but there was something unexpected in her expression. He'd prepared for hatred, defiance, violent rage, but her cheeks were flushed and burning, her eyes bright and she bit at her lower lip. He wasn't sure he was reading her right. The expression on her face looked almost like encouragement. She was breathing hard, her chest heaving against the light fabric which barely covered her nipples and left her flat stomach bare and he found himself distracted by the sight.
Checking her face again for confirmation, he stretched out his fingers and could have sworn she gave a swift nod. Carefully he peeled the material back over first one breast and then, when the flesh on her chest grew a more obvious pink and he caught her staring fixedly at her exposed nipple, freed the other. She stood there with her arms tied behind her back and her tits on display and he wasn't sure he'd ever seen anything so hot in his life.
He followed the path of her stare as her eyes tracked a line between his hand and her breast and tentatively he moved to touch it.
Her lips trembled, and words came out. 'I'm your prisoner,' she said. 'You control me.'
His hand alighted on her breast gently at first, but then with more ardour as she gave a low groan in the back of her throat and her chest pushed forward so that her flesh filled his palm. He got the message, raised his hand to feel her other breast, rolling the nipple between finger and thumb to the accompaniment of more throaty moans.
'Do you like that?' he all but whispered, just to be sure.
She replied 'Yes, sir,' and his trousers nearly exploded with the pressure his cock was putting on them.
He played with her breasts and she gave his hands her undivided attention, rewarding every increase in force with another little murmur. After a while he took a step back to see the impact of his ministrations, noted that the skin on her chest was a glorious deep pink colour, the nipples enlarged and erect, and when he looked downwards he was surprised to see an obvious patch of wetness staining the fabric of her trousers where it pressed tight between her legs. Curious, he glanced into her eyes and she rolled a shoulder, slightly embarrassed, but with a heat in her stare that drew him back in.
He murmured, 'You do like that.' Then he put his hand inside her trousers.
She spread her legs instantly and his hand kneaded the delicate flesh of her pussy, before he slid his finger inside it. She was ridiculously wet already, her slick warmth encasing his finger as he explored her slit and settled firmly on her clitoris, rubbing at it determinedly. She was clearly a woman who enjoyed a little pressure. She widened her stance a bit more, gave him greater access and he revelled in the soft, liquid noises her body made as he worked his finger between her legs.
She looked up at him and when she spoke he was expecting her to ask for the mauling she was getting to be faster, or harder, but instead she said, 'Hit me.'
He was shocked by the request. 'No. I'm not that much of a monster.'
The curve of her lips bowed into a smile. 'I can tell. You're very careful. But I'd like you to hit me please. Sir.'
Reluctantly, he raised his free hand, swung it back in preparation for a light blow to her cheek when she shook her head.
'No. There.' Her eyes gestured downwards, and he turned the direction of his hand, giving her right breast a light slap instead.
The reaction was instant. Her eyes rolled back in her head and the juice from her cunt soaked his fingers. He tried it again on the other tit this time, giving her nipple a little tap. A loud noise burst from her throat, so he increased the friction between her legs and smacked her breast again, watching a red mark rise in answer. She was making unintelligible sounds, thrusting her hips against his hand desperately so he went at her faster and harder and walloped her other breast with the flat of his palm.
She bucked, staggered and he could see the climax hit her in the way her whole body stiffened and then jerked in arrhythmic waves. When she was finished he withdrew his hand, wondering what to do next but she recovered herself quickly, sank gracefully to her knees in front of him. He wasn't prepared for this turn of events and when she opened her mouth he was at something of a loss until she nuzzled at his fingers and he let her lick her own climax off his hand.
The sight of her tongue caressing his fingers was incredibly erotic and he gestured diffidently. 'Would you mind?' he asked, without being able to complete the sentence.
She shrugged. 'Make me suck your cock.'
He swallowed. 'Make you?'
She tipped him a little wink. 'Yes. I want to but make me anyway.'
Unsure quite what sort of trap he'd walked into here, he gingerly removed himself from his trousers and then lost all control as she wrapped her lips around him. She couldn't use her hands, so she went straight in, circling the head with her tongue, popping off the end a few times and then inserting him so far down her throat he was amazed she didn't vomit. She watched him from her position below his waist, her nose in his pubic hair, sucking him hard for a few seconds and then releasing.
She frowned at him and he remembered he was supposed to be forcing her to do this, so he put a hand on the back of her head and urged her forward. She over exaggerated her actions as if he was ramming his cock into her face and after a period during which she extended her tongue and licked him all the way in and all the way out he found he was going harder. He grabbed her head with both hands and she gave him a wink of approval, unable to speak with a mouth stuffed full of cock.
He felt the warm hole behind her teeth accept the inroads he was making, and then she opened her throat again and he slid into it with a feeling of unbearable heat and tightness. He pounded her throat a few times, because she seemed to want him to, and then quite deliberately, she swallowed around him. The clench and squeeze of that activity spoke to something primal inside him, his balls tightened, and he grunted like an animal as he hit his peak, pouring thick and sticky orgasm into her mouth.
She pulled back immediately, opened wide so that he could see the blade of her tongue white with his come, and when he'd finished jerking into her mouth she waited another few moments for him to imprint the image on his memory and then swallowed. He felt awkward standing there, but she clambered back to her feet, fixed him with a significant look, stepped around him and kicked open the fresher door.
He thought vaguely that she might be making a very ungainly escape, but she simply climbed onto the bed in the next room, put her face flat onto the mattress, lifted her backside into the air and spread her legs. She wanted fucking, of course she did, and he felt a touch of trepidation at the thought that all this was merely foreplay. Feeling silly he stripped off the white shirt, kicked off the trousers and poked a finger at his flaccid penis, still glistening with saliva. It was going to take a little while before he could give her what she wanted.
In the meantime, she continued to wait patiently on the bed and he had a clear view of the void between her legs with which he was being presented.
She murmured a reminder to him, her words muffled by the sheet. 'You own me. I'm yours.'
She was right. He could do whatever he wanted to her, and although at the moment all he could think about was filling that cunt so full it hurt he would have to demonstrate he owned her with his fingers instead. There was no resistance to his first insertion, she had already climaxed once, and she was ready to take whatever he chose to give. He explored her pussy with a finger, getting the measure of the space inside, and then he pushed in two, then three while she shouted an expletive into the bed. He buried his fingers in her up to the knuckles, twisting and turning his hand in an experiment to see which position made her shout loudest and when he'd found it, he slowly increased his pace and pressure until his fingers pistoned into her cunt.
Her initial expletive cycled upwards into a string of expressive swearing, and then she seemed to lose the ability to form complex syllables and settled for 'Fuck, fuck, fuck,' instead.
He gazed down at her bent form, the pink pucker of her backside uncomfortably close and he considered it carefully. This too, was owned by him.
After some thought he decided that he should show her that he owned that part of her as well, since he'd already demonstrated that he owned her mouth, and was currently demonstrating that he owned her pussy. He shifted his angle, heaved himself into position and ran his tongue around the rim of her arse. She cried out, and he took that as a positive sign, and gained even greater comfort from the fact that she reached back with her manacled hands and spread her cheeks to give him easier access.
After a few thorough explorations of her opening he took a deep breath and then forced his way past the tight ring of her sphincter and began fucking her arse with his tongue. She writhed beneath him, bashing her wrists as he penetrated both her exposed orifices at the same time.
She was his prisoner, and every part of her belonged to him now, he could use her any way he pleased. As soon as her arse was prepared, he was going to fuck it as hard as he was going to fuck her cunt, and as often.
First, there was the small matter of her climax, which was so strong he had to withdraw everything he had inside her because her body convulsed so tightly the grip of her internal walls began to cut off his blood supply. She came shouting, bellowing out the orgasm he'd given her for what seemed like endless minutes until he was so impressed with his prowess in the bedroom he started congratulating himself.
His body decided it had had long enough to recover so he positioned himself carefully, planning to begin with a more traditional entry point and work up to the one he'd just been tonguing over the next hour or so. She was too slippery with sweat to get a good grip on and he had to grab hold of her restraints to keep her steady as he pushed his way inside her.
She buried her head in the mattress, a cry escaping from her lips and he picked up the pace, moving easily inside her well lubricated entrance, revelling in the way her body yielded so willingly beneath his onslaught. He pounded into her without concern for how rough he was being, certain that she'd be enjoying the punishment her cunt was getting and once he even slapped her backside because she'd probably like that too. Within a couple of minutes, she began shifting against him and he could feel her building up to another crescendo, her body tightening its grip on his cock.
She raised her head out of the bed and said, quite distinctly for someone in the throes of their third orgasm, 'Thank you for fucking me. Master.'
At that last word his loins delivered another bout of extreme pleasure, which culminated in him burying his cock in her as far as it would go and desperately fucking her deep enough to bash her cervix a few final times. She collapsed forward with the force of it and lay on her front as he pumped her full of semen and then pulled out, panting.
He was asleep within seconds.
Rey spent a few minutes reaching out carefully with the Force, securing her grasp on his mind and sending him into a deep and dreamless slumber. Then, with another part of her consciousness she unlocked the manacles remotely, slipped the horrible top over her head, and stretched the kinks out of her shoulders and lower back.
The Supreme Leader's orgasm trickled down her leg as she stood, and she frowned with distaste, trotting quickly into the bathroom to flush it out of her. When she had a spare moment, she'd have to see about birth control.
She examined the damage in the mirror. The skin around her mouth was rough and scratched and her throat still felt sore from having a man in it. Her breasts were bright red and still tingling from where they'd been hit, but it was a pleasurable kind of discomfort that she could easily ignore. He'd used the place between her legs so hard she probably wouldn't be walking properly for a week, but she knew that all of these problems were just consequences of her mission.
People had died to get hold of similar information to that she was about to extract and what she'd had to suffer at Kylo Ren's hands wasn't as bad as an early exit. In fact, the suffering had been all of her own making, because she'd reasoned that anyone who was well known to rest his feet on his most important general and kept referring to himself an emperor in speeches probably had a thing for domination and would respond well to a submissive approach. Besides, she couldn't really describe the experience as suffering, because most of it had been thoroughly enjoyable. That second orgasm, the one where he'd had his tongue stuck up her backside had been the single most intense climax of her life and even reliving it gave her the shivers.
This was Finn's room and she yanked out a pair of old shorts and a top he used for sleeping from a drawer and went to re-join the comatose would-be emperor.
The Resistance was down to a single ship, no support, no resources and only the ingenuity of its remaining members to rely on, whereas Kylo Ren was constructing a brand-new planet killing weapon somewhere in the galaxy, because he kept telling everyone what he was doing in his daily thronecasts.
The rebels had no one on the inside to steal them information and no coding experts to break into the First Order's systems. What they did have was the knowledge that all the plans were in Kylo Ren's head, because he'd boasted about having designed the 'Emperor Ren' on numerous occasions.
It had been determined that a trap would be set to catch him, so that Rey could incapacitate him and read his mind. The bondage had simply been an added bonus.
She knelt next to him on the bed, raised a hand and systematically penetrated his thoughts, feeling morally justified given that he'd penetrated her in every way he could think of. She took the plans, carefully copying the images into a pad, then took the location of the construction facility and the names of its senior staff, the weaknesses he'd envisaged and tried to design out, the location of the files on the First Order data drives and his personal codes to unlock the encryption. She also picked up quite a lot of other, more personal insights on the way which weren't strictly relevant to the mission.
Then she switched the lights back on in the gun enclosure and signalled the rest of the Resistance.
Poe was back on board minutes later. 'How did it go?' he demanded. 'You've been much longer than we expected. What happened?'
Rey shrugged. 'Plan A didn't work. I slipped on Finn's takeout wrapper and he heard me coming. I had to improvise.'
Poe stared at the supine figure snoring on the bed behind her. 'Why's he naked?'
'Like I said, I had to improvise.'
Poe eyeballed her but didn't ask. 'There were ten ships outside and we've incapacitated them all with Chewie's explosives. All the guards are either dead or surrendered.' He nodded at the bed. 'Do you still want to let him go?'
Rey considered. There were advantages to wiping out the Supreme Leader, but she knew that Hux would only take over to fill the power gap if Kylo Ren never recovered from his time on the Falcon. The objective was dismantling the regime, which was far more powerful than the individual leading it.
'Yes,' she decided. 'We'll stick to the plan. If we kill him now we'll just warn them that there's an attack coming. Drag him outside and leave him in the mud.'
Poe accepted the order, left to get help to shift the sleeping man down the ramp while Rey walked over to the bed and ran a possessive hand up the Emperor's burly thigh. She'd rather keep him alive, in case she ever wanted to ride his tongue again.
She shivered at the memory, reached out, and slapped him hard on the backside. 'Until next time,' she said.
Emperor of the galaxy, ruler of the First Order, master of the dark side, the magnificent Kylo Ren, also known as 'Master' to the last of the Jedi relaxed on his throne, feeling worthy of every single one of his titles. The little incident on the Millennium Falcon had been effectively covered up, and almost no one knew he'd been found snoring, naked and covered in mud while the Resistance had disappeared on their fully functional flagship and left him behind.
He wasn't sure why they'd kept him alive, but he reasoned it was because Rey was too cowed by his effortless domination of her to kill him and had simply rolled him out of the door after she'd somehow managed to escape her bonds.
It was only four weeks later when his brand-new weapon, the 'Emperor Ren' was unaccountably blown up due to an unanticipated design weakness that he started to suspect he'd been taken for a ride.