Under the glaring sun, the white stormtroopers' helmets reflected blindingly. Rows and rows of them stood at attention, awaiting their turn after the TIE fighters swept their laser canons over the battlefield, killing many and spreading panic through the poorly prepared troops of the enemy. At the signal, the troopers began forward; the motley band of insurgents crumpling under their advance.
"Forward," the general said, calmly, his hands clasped behind his back, his sharp-lined jacket open in front, revealing the badge on his chest that marked his position and rank in the First Order high command.
Grand General Armitage Hux was watching the battle from his command shuttle, hovering above the surface of the planet Hmago in the Outer Rim. It was not a powerful or well-populated world, but anti-First Order sentiment was strong and it made a good example for the rest of the galaxy. It would be easy enough to clear out all the adult males of the three primary species and resettle Hmago as a bastion of the Order; the fact that Hmago's soil was rich in potassium and nitrates which could be exported to supplement farming on wetter worlds to feed First Order troops was a convenient benefit.
In the few short months since the death of Supreme Leader Snoke, Hux had undergone quite a rollercoaster. Kylo Ren, that rabid beast, had claimed the throne, and his mysterious and near-total capacity in the Force made a coup … trickier to attempt, though not impossible, Hux knew. That throne, Hux's by all rights, was so close to his grasp, yet not his. Not yet.
Meanwhile, Kylo Ren – ahem, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren – had proven even more mercurial than Hux would have anticipated. He delivered orders with violent and absolute force and then refused to be present when they were carried out. Today, for example, while Hux oversaw the battle, who knew where Ren was hiding?
It was only a matter of time until the right moment and circumstance arrived. As he watched the ill-prepared peasants fall below him, he knew it was only a matter of time.
Supreme Leader Kylo Ren sat silently in his throne room, on the hard, oversized throne. He hunched over, his elbows on his knees, turning over and over an iron circlet, a gift crafted without his orders by a particularly enthusiastic – and skilled – blacksmith on some distant world. He dropped it on the slick polished floor; it landed with a clang.
What had he been thinking – Supreme Leader? What did he want with this throne, this crown, this … empire? In truth, he wanted no part of it. The only thing he really wanted, had ever really wanted, was out there somewhere, trying to forget him. She was the only thing he'd ever found that actually, in fact brought him any comfort. And she was gone. Had rejected him and his offer, as surely as he'd feared she would. But how he had hoped …
Galactic conquest; the management of troops, their movements and their care; the governance of worlds already conquered – he had neither heart nor head for any of it. While his mother had been an inspiring leader and a wise public official, she had spent all her energy on that project, with little left over to teach her son how to be like her. Instead, he had chosen to go down the opposite path.
A holomessage alert blinked from the arm of his chair. It was Hux, reporting from the battlefield. He ignored it. The rape of Hmago, despoiling it of its resources and its men, had been Hux's idea. He'd merely agreed to let him go forward. In truth, all of the conquests since Kylo Ren had taken the throne had been Hux's idea. That was bad, he knew; it made Ren look weak in the eyes of his Grand General, although none of the other officers ever saw their exchanges.
He leaned in his seat, arching his back as if it were sore. Lightsaber practice certainly gave him a rare opportunity to clear his mind, but he had no one to practice against but a hologram. Without making actual contact with an opponent, without the chance that he'd be bruised or wounded or worse, it all seemed so pointless and bland. He thought again about the night she'd given him this scar; unconsciously he raised his hand to touch its slightly raised surface. She'd stalked him like a beast of prey, stood over him while he lay bleeding in the snow; the strike of her blade had burned like fire, and he'd watched her circling him, deciding whether to finish him. Her face, her eyes that night – they haunted him.
He could see her, almost always, in his periphery. Snoke's words had been nothing but lies; he hadn't created the bond they shared but only exploited it, for now he was dead and still Ren could see her, hear her, almost all the time. If anything, it was stronger.
Right now, for instance, she was walking again. It seemed to be just about all she did, aside from looking after her pets and practicing with her lightsaber. She was getting to be quite good at that, he noted, with a bit of perverse pride; the ephemeral holograms she sparred with evidently gave her enough pushback that she was slowly moving from the barbaric chopping of a street brawl to a far more delicate warrior. He would have liked to tell her that, if for a moment he thought she'd appreciate his words.
Neither of them seemed to sleep much, but that was nothing new. But when finally she would drift off, lying in her bed wherever it was she was, sometimes he would whisper her name. "Rey."
Some days it was easy to ignore him; some days, it was hard. Today was one of the latter.
On the easy days, he was there, connected to her, but he made just as much of an effort to ignore her as she did to ignore him. She felt him, his emotions, his presence; she even heard his voice and could guess at his actions. But on days like today, when she caught him looking at her, with those eyes … These days were tougher.
Finn had noticed that she wasn't talking much. No matter how much time he spent fussing over Rose, he still found more to invest in Rey. He'd find her in a corridor here on their darkened space station, where she'd be walking aimlessly, trying to escape him, and try desperately to engage her in conversation. "You hungry?" he'd ask, and try to drag her to one of the mess halls; "How are your little … bird things?" he'd enquire, referring to the porgs she and Chewie had left Ahch-To with. In truth, the porgs were about the only things keeping her together. Feeding them, cleaning their nest boxes, petting and talking to them, gave her a sense of purpose while so much else felt so meaningless and blank.
Occasionally she'd turn back to the books, the Jedi texts, when curiosity finally took hold of her. And she'd get lost in them, in the beautiful ancient chants and poems, and find herself lost in thought as she tried to digest them on her own. And she'd wish again that she had someone to discuss them with. And she'd think of Ben.
He was constantly in the back of her mind, as he was so often on the edge of her sight. The Force was connecting them, that was obvious; Snoke's lies may have affected her for a moment, but his spells had been broken the moment Ben had sliced him in half, yet their connection remained. Intensified, even. It had grown from a few, unpredictable events on Ahch-To to the near-constant presence of Ben Solo – Kylo Ren, she corrected herself – everywhere she went. She could ignore him but she couldn't seem to make him go away.
"The General's looking for you," Finn said. She was jolted out of her reverie by the sound of his voice behind her. "Let me walk with you."
This too brought up mixed emotions for Rey. She wanted nothing more than to go to Leia, whose kind and steady presence gave Rey, and everyone else here, so much strength. Leia, who knew more about the Force than she did, who might be able to give her some insight into the meaning of the texts or share with her some new knowledge. Or even just listen to Rey as she puzzled through this mystery she'd found herself a part of, without ever wanting anything to do with it. Leia's losses were severe: her husband, brother, and childhood friend all gone in a matter of days. Her own health destroyed in so many ways by the attack on the Raddus. Rey wanted very much to be able to take care of Leia as Finn took care of Rose. Leia was perhaps the only person Rey knew who could share in Rey's sadness; everyone here had lost so much in this fight – too much, but Leia alone shared Rey's sensitivity to the Force.
But, as was always so, the problem was Ben. She could hear him when he spoke, even though it was never to her, and this was the reason why she withdrew from everyone on the Resistance base: if she could hear him, then surely he could hear her. It was bad enough that he had so much access to her unspoken thoughts, and this part of their connection only seemed to grow as time went on. But the kinds of things she would want to discuss with Finn or with Leia were exactly the kinds of things she needed to hide from Ben.
She'd been summoned, and Finn couldn't know and wouldn't understand why she wanted to refuse. So she went.
Rey entered the chamber, which was softly lit. It was an office, more elegant than anything she had really been in before. But it was simple, clean and undecorated. There was nothing showy or pretentious, and nothing that gave away the importance in position of the woman whose office it was.
General Organa sat in a high-back chair, her cane held in front of her, its tip on the floor between her feet and its head between her two folded hands. She was dressed simply put elegantly, in an olive-green gown with a high cowl neck. Gold earrings and bracelets were the only decoration, but for the single comb in her long, ornately braided hair. Ray realized that Leia looked older since she seen her last, even in the few weeks she'd been avoiding her. The strain on her body from the destruction of the Raddus combined with the stress of leading this ragtag bunch of resistance fighters was clearly wearing on her. A thought passed through Rey's mind, too, that Leia no longer had her husband to lean on, and had watched her beloved son tried to kill her beloved brother. No wonder she looked so tired and stretched.
"Well come in," Leia said. There was no preamble, no pretense of formality. Rey felt again the warmth and love that Leia always exuded. It was what made her such a beloved figure, and it was what made Rey trust her so much.
Rey sat herself on the chair opposite Leia. It was obviously where Leia intended her to sit. It was a chair that matched Leia's own, a clear symbol that this was a meeting between friends, not between a soldier and a general. Not that Rey considered herself a soldier, or even a true member of this Resistance. Her role was too conflicted, too fraught, to bear putting on one of those orange and white jumpsuits they'd found in the supply room.
"Something's wrong," Leia said, her brown eyes fixed firmly on Rey. Her chin was tilted down, her brows arched, her gaze intense. Quite frankly, that look reminded Rey of Ben's.
"No, General," Rey lied. "I'm fine."
Leia sighed and sat back in her chair. She looked Rey up and down, evaluating the girl's posture and figure. Rey knew she looked far too thin, even for her. She'd been eating, thanks to Finn's constant bothering, but sleep was hard to come by, and practicing with her staff was about the only activity that allowed her mind any rest.
"Rey, you don't get to my age without knowing when something's wrong." Leia gave her a soft, almost maternal smile. "I may not be a Jedi, but I can tell that there something going on with you."
Of course she could. This was exactly why Rey had been trying to avoid her. Surely she could read that Rey was unhappy - more than unhappy. That much did not require any familiarity with the Force. Even Rey knew it was obvious. But the cause of her unhappiness- that was something she could not talk about, especially not with Leia.
"Just tell me," Leia persisted. "Maybe I can help."
It was tempting. So tempting. Rey glanced around the room, nervously. She listened, reached out with her feelings to see if Ben was with her. For once, he was not. But still Rey could not bring herself to say the words, to name the source of her sleeplessness, her restlessness.
"No, General Organa," she said, at last. "Really."
Leia did not believe her. She was a woman who had lived many lives; more and more these days, she felt like she had lived many lifetimes; she was not old by most standards, but most people did not lead wars and govern galaxies. Most people did not outlive every single person they loved. Most people did not survive open space. Her body was breaking down, and she knew it.
"I've been through almost everything a person can go through, Rey. If you change your mind, I hope you trust me enough to speak with me. In the meantime," she added, thoughtfully, "stay strong. The galaxy needs you. It needs all of you."