Chapter 2

The last thing Kylo wanted to do was depart on a mission for Kamino. But Armitage Hux had advised him on his need to go. Actually, if Kylo was being honest with himself, Hux had pretty much ordered him to go.

"It is imperative that you go to Kamino, Supreme Leader. It is vital to our war efforts." It wasn't exactly an order - it could, in fact, be construed as a friendly suggestion. If Hux was adept at anything, it was dancing on the line of outright insubordination, but never quite crossing over it. Cautiously ambitious. Kylo knew deep in his bones that Hux was scheming to overthrow him and usurp the throne. Yet the potential for treason and a coup, from Hux or anyone else, did not concern him. It should matter not what Hux thought or wanted, or at least that was what Kylo kept telling himself. The man had about as much personality as a sour tangerine. And he was a half-wit besides. The fact that everyone else in the First Order knew this, except for Hux himself, made the Armitage all the more insufferable. Yet Kylo could not be bothered to put the ginger coward in his place. Watching the sheep fancy himself a wolf was genuinely good entertainment, and it was one of the few happy things in what was left of Kylo's miserable life, other than Rey, that the Supreme Leader was not about to give up.

But what was most definitely not entertaining was how Hux kept questioning Kylo about the night of Snoke's death. About the girl, Rey. About why Kylo thought fixating on the minuscule Resistance was more important than strengthening the First Order's forces.

"Your focus on the Resistance and the scavenger Jedi is more than ardent. Are you falling in love with her?" the Armitage had asked at one random point, following an almost random train of theory in the hopes of tricking Kylo into saying something damning.

Kylo would never let Hux know how uncharacteristically perceptive he was in that moment, and thanked the stars that Hux did not possess the Force to invade his mind for the truth. "You doubt my motives, Armitage?" And he tightened the Force around Hux's windpipe - not dangerously so, but enough to get his point across.

"No... no, my Lord," Hux's eyes bulged.

"I will follow your advice regarding Kamino, Hux, but this is the last time you presume to know the ways of my own mind."

Kylo dropped Hux to the floor, ignoring his subordinate's wheezes and gasps as he swept away.


The one factor that had swung the Kamino mission grudgingly into Kylo's favor was the fact that he wouldn't be going alone. He was taking all six of his Knights with him.

The prospect was an exciting one, for missions that featured all the Knights of Ren as one unit were very, very rare. Individualized assignments were much more common, with Knights being paired off at most in twos and threes.

As it was, the scope of the mission required the chartering of a freighter, meaning Kylo could not use his much-preferred TIE shuttle. Ordinarily, Kylo would have piloted the freighter himself, and had every intention to, until Hux helpfully informed him that an elite Stormtrooper had been assigned piloting duties, serving as their chauffeur. Oh, the indignity!

And so here Kylo was, surrounded by his Knights in the back sitting area, which also served as a kitchen. Going around the table, Kylo surveyed face to face: five rambunctious men and one woman.

Kylo did not hold the gaze of Lombard Ren for long, but not because the Supreme Leader was afraid of him, oh no. Lombard had a notoriously anti-social disposition. Lombard was often proud to say that he was a perfectly normal member of the First Order, thank you very much. In truth, he was anything but. Within the Knights of Ren, he was the Beta to Kylo's Alpha. The hatchet man. The goon who was willing to do the dirty work that even Kylo thought beneath him, and even more so now that the latter was Supreme Leader. Aloof, one might say sadistic in a way that left even his fellow mercenaries squeamish, Lombard was largely tolerated by the others, but not much else.

Brevet Ren was the exact opposite on the Knights' personality spectrum. Meek, and adorned with horn-rimmed glasses, he had been the last Knight recruited out of Skywalker's old Padawans the evening the Temple fell, and also the youngest. And it was no secret that the boy - probably no more than sixteen at the time - had done so largely out of cowardice. It was either join or get slaughtered with the other Padawans: sad, naive fools all even younger than him. Brevet was a follower, not a leader - always had been. Every decision, every rape, every murder, every pillage he weighed was for the sake of following the crowd, even if he took no pleasure in the act itself. If that was the signal of some sort of conscience, so be it. Kylo knew that if any of his Knights were ever tempted by the Light the way he had been ever since Rey entered his life, it was Brevet who would naturally be the most susceptible.

A snap of jaws and a chortle made Kylo whip his head to the far end of the table, where Cassian Ren had just popped a nut into his mouth. He was the jokester of the bunch, always ready to find some wisecrack even in the middle of a violent campaign. This talent had its uses in diffusing any tension within the Knights and amongst themselves, and ever since Rey, Kylo had been relying on this levity, however forced, more and more.

Gaia Ren was the only woman of the group. She largely held a no-nonsense matronly presence within the Knights, and though she was neither Alpha nor Beta, she still commanded a lot of respect. Her maturity could keep the others in line when even Kylo nor Lombard could - a corralling that was especially beneficial to Cassian. Even if there wasn't an official third-in-command post, Gaia nevertheless filled it.

Kylo should have felt happy, sitting with his brothers-in-arms. Yet he was not, his thoughts drifting whenever they could to Rey. Once upon a time, the Knights would have given him the greatest comfort within the hard life of a Dark Side user, but now... he felt disconnected from the very group he had helped to form.

"Kylo, wake up!" Cassian chuckled. "What's wrong today? You look as though you've seen a ghost." He poured his master a glass of Coreillian wine, in a silent urging that Kylo loosen his tongue and explain what was going on.

Kylo gave a mirthless chuckle. "A ghost, you say? A ghost, maybe. She was just like a ghost to me - one minute there, then she was gone."

The other Knights exchanged surprised glances; a few of them featured knowing grins. Ha! If only they really knew...

"You did not mention, our Lord, that you had taken another mistress!" Cassian hooted. "A woman!"

"More than that!" Brevet sent a boyish grin Kylo's direction. "A nymph, I bet!"

The comparison of Rey to a nymph made Kylo crack the slightest of smiles.

"And here I thought you got all your fixes with Gaia here!" Xavier Ren, a more scholarly Knight who occasionally indulged in Cassian's needling, snickered, pointing at Gaia.

Gaia frowned. She and Kylo had engaged in relations only a time or two, more out of sexual starvation than anything else (there were few female officers in the First Order, and concubines were technically not allowed), but it had not lasted. The reminder now made Kylo slightly sick. He felt strangely... unfaithful somehow. Gaia had been an admirable partner, but she was not Rey...

"Yeah, but hearing them go at it was better than listening to Lombard here!" Cassian said. "I've heard the poor bastard hump at his pillow, heard his thoughts: 'Me want banana. Me climb tree!'"

All of the Knights, even Kylo, burst into laughter; the exception, of course, being Lombard, who scowled.

"How primitive! How primeval!" Kylo drolled in amusement.

Lombard took a brooding hit from a vaporator as the laughter began to die down, his pale skin turning a gradual shade of red. "Will you assholes just shut the kriff up?" he snapped, stamping the butt of the vaporator out with the toe of his boot.


It would take several galactic days to reach Kamino from where the First Order fleet was concentrated above Tatooine, so after dinner, the Knights retired to bed, pairing off into bunks. Lombard was the odd man out - an arrangement that catered well to his standoffish ways. And it didn't bother anybody that Gaia would be paired with Theseus Ren; it was an open secret that the two of them were fucking regularly.

Kylo himself bunked with Brevet. On the whole, he liked the young man who still exuded an almost childlike charm. He was funny, and didn't seem bothered whenever Kylo drew into himself. And if truth were known, Brevet was the kind of person who could listen to almost anything.

Just as he did now, as both Knights lay awake in their bunks for several hours after the life of the ship had quieted away. Though he had his thoughts, particularly the ones about Rey, well blocked, Kylo could sense Brevet probing at the outer reaches of his mind through the Force, picking up on traces of feelings here and there.

"Are you in love, Kylo?" Brevet asked, a teasing, affectionate edge to his voice. He clearly remembered the pining Kylo had alluded to at dinner.

"Yes," and Kylo almost moaned the reply, staring off into the darkness in front of him. It was startling how easily the admission was drawn from him. He was in love with Rey - he'd stopped denying it ages ago, and even more so since the ghostly visit from his uncle.

"Then, why is she merely your mistress? To be romantically involved with the Supreme Leader... you should take her as your wife, give her all the riches a girl could only dream of..."

"One day!" Kylo snapped, a little harsher than he meant to. "Then I'll deserve her..." For it had never been a question of whether Rey deserved him - that was a question only she could answer, and it was an answer that Kylo wasn't about to presume he knew. No, it had only ever been a question of whether he deserved her, especially after everything he'd done. "She's not like any other girl, Brevet. She's purer than you or I."

"I should think so!" Brevet chuckled, plopping back onto his pillow from where he had been leaning almost out of his bunk to talk to Kylo above. "Perhaps you should bring her to a First Order ball."

The thought of Rey dressed up, much less for a First Order function, made Kylo laugh out loud. "Hux wouldn't like it," he dismissed, and even though the excuse would be very much accurate as far as Rey was concerned, it still rang of bullshit. Indeed, Brevet was quick to call him out on it.

"Since when have you ever cared what Hux thinks?" the younger Knight scoffed. For he shared Kylo's disdain for the ginger-haired Armitage - all the Knights did.

"Hux would not deem her proper for me, as the Supreme Leader," Kylo shrugged. But even saying these words made him see red, as if Hux had actually expressed such a haughty opinion himself.

"Well, if this mystery girl of yours is as charming as you say, perhaps he'd change his mind," Brevet advised.

Kylo knew that Brevet did not mean anything bad by this comment. He was genuinely trying to be a good friend - or, at least, the closest representation to a friend Kylo had ever had. Still, it wasn't as though Kylo could ever take up Brevet's advice. Kylo couldn't. He most definitely did not want Hux finding out about his affair with Rey. It would be the slimmest of excuses for Hux to make a play for power, citing treason. And Kylo certainly did not want any of his Knights discovering the truth. Not even Brevet, to whom he had just given a kernel of the truth - the closest he dared come to confessing anything to anyone. Not Gaia. And especially not Lombard. If Lombard - the brute! - knew about Rey... the thought made Kylo shudder.

Sealing up his thoughts and mind tight, Kylo rolled over in his bunk and willed himself into sleep, dreaming of his precious Rey...