Ch. 2: The General

Hux knows not to fight. He's lowered the walls around his mind as much as he can. But there is something in the most fundamental fabric of the brain that recoils from this kind of violation, and Kylo watches Hux's jaw tighten when he pushes through that barrier.

Kylo realizes in seconds why his Master kept him alive: Hux is, there is no denying it, a genius.

He's immediately shocked by the sheer number of things the general keeps track of. He accomplishes more tasks in a morning than Kylo does in a month, he knows more acronyms than Kylo knows words. He glories in all the tiny details that keep the blood pumping through the distended body of the First Order, from the Supply grunts who handle the laundry droids to the Safety personnel who teach the stormtroopers how not to blow up First Order property to Operations, Weapons, and Air Command.

Kylo sees that he loves Engineering with a pure, childlike joy.

He also learns that Hux likes this. He's a kind of exhibitionist. In practical terms, he finds mind-reading much more efficient than the slow and fragile process of building a trusting relationship with a commander. But he's also wanted Kylo Ren in his head, wanted him to see personally how necessary Hux is. He's lonely, in his stunted way.

Kylo pushes past all this with a mental shudder, searching for what he needs so he can get out of Hux's mind as soon as possible. Hux leads him to what he wants him to see.

It's a disorienting sensation; he's never had someone cooperate before.

Hux conjures a memory, which Kylo can feel from the texture of it is about three years old. He's annoyed at Hux's presumption but he's also curious, and allows the memory to proceed.

Hux sits at a small table with another officer, maybe ten years his senior, eating a steak of some animal. Kylo doesn't know the other man's name, but recognizes him from the Supremacy high command. He takes a messy bite, dripping sauce down his chin. "And Ren?" the man asks.

Hux scoffs. "Ren is a child."

"You've got, what, four years on him?"

Hux makes a dismissive gesture with his fork. "The only reason he's allowed within ten clicks of the throne room is because he's the excretion-once-removed of Darth-fucking-Vader. He lives from tantrum to tantrum, and if he has any idea there's a broader strategy for the Order or the galaxy, I've never seen any evidence of it."

"Could we get rid of him, if the need arises?"

Hux swallows and dabs his mouth with a napkin. "We have to tolerate the Supreme Leader's extracurricular projects," he says. "Snoke has made Kylo Ren believe this carnival side-show with Skywalker is his central concern. As long as he believes that, he's no threat. Ren's job is getting rid of Skywalker, and if he doesn't die in the attempt I assume Snoke will just kill him afterward."

The other officer nods and fiddles with the alien vegetable on his plate without taking a bite. "But he is powerful, Hux. That Jedi squad the Supreme Leader was training, they answer to him, don't they?"

"The Knights of Ren, yes. I believe he's nominally in command. Snoke keeps them all separated, or at least he keeps them separated from Solo. He hasn't been allowed to have any contact with them. I've no idea if they're even alive."

"Are they dangerous?"

"If they are alive, extremely. Snoke sent them to the front, or on his special missions, to keep them from gaining too much power in central command."

"But they're young. And they obviously serve Snoke. They'd probably help us if it comes down to a fight between us and the old guard." This was his pet name for the group of officers who had been promoted during the Empire and the immediate aftermath—the group which Hux now outranks, despite his young age.

"In the short-term. But they're too strong; if they can, they'll take command for themselves. Especially Apolin."

Kylo's heartbeat picks up at the name. In the memory, the older officer's eyes widen, and he nearly chokes on his steak. "Senator Apolin? Of Kuat?"

Hux takes a bite of some over-spiced starch. "No. His nephew, Gallius Rax Apolin. He's one of ours, First Order. He went through the Academy and used to hold a commission. I forget what name Snoke made up for him, something ridiculous."

Kylo knows: Mendar Ren. Like his own name, Kylo never knew what it meant. They're all long-dead, anyway.

"I remember that kid," says the older officer. "Prosthetic legs. Almost as much of an over-achiever as you. Weren't you in the same year at the Academy?"

Hux frowns and ignores the question. "Unlike Solo, he has a brain in addition to a lightsaber. He fought Solo for leadership of the Knights, but, apparently, lost."

"Why would Snoke let that happen, if Solo is so incompetent?"

Hux had wondered this himself. Not that he wasn't grateful; anyone with ability would've caused him far more headaches in central command than Solo's dogged obliviousness.

Hux shrugs. "To keep them weak, I assume. The Supreme Leader has been around for a thousand years and intends to last a thousand more. Kylo Ren isn't meant to be Snoke's successor. He's meant to be his slave."


Kylo recoils from the memory, but doesn't break the connection. He needs to monitor Hux, see if he lies to him.

Why would Hux show him any of that? "You had a point about these officers, General?"he asks, not waiting for the man to catch his breath. Kylo has not been overly gentle.

Hux is wrong, of course. About Skywalker being a side-show, about his Master training him to be a slave. His Master was wise; his Master saw that Kylo Ren had a destiny, even though he didn't realize that destiny was to kill and replace him.

"My point, Ren," Hux says, slicking his hair back into place, "is that we need each other. There are those who objected strongly to the Supreme Leader's installation in the early days of the Order, and my part in it, who think both of us are forty years too young to hold command."

"They can be controlled." It's amazing how persuasive a Force-choke can be.

The general raises an eyebrow, and from inside his mind, Kylo can feel the contempt coming off him. "You are not Snoke. The instant you made the senseless decision to walk around without that mask, you lost. All they see, all the army sees, is a thirty-something zealot in a Vader costume, and they don't fear you."

Kylo hates to admit Hux is voicing thoughts he's had more than once since that day he destroyed his mask in the turbolift. There was power in that mask. He threw that power away to spare himself his Master's contempt. He's just a man, now.

Hux regards him, seeing that he's made his point.

"There's something else you should see, Ren. A token of my trust."

Without preamble, Hux whisks him away to another memory. This one is much more recent. His Master is there, but he is towering over Hux, impossibly huge. The holo-projector on Starkiller.

Hux is speaking. "More than once he has put his own priorities before your orders, Supreme Leader. That map would have never reached the Resistance if he had obeyed your order to allow it to be destroyed."

Hux is ratting him out, Kylo realizes. Why would the man show him this to prove his loyalty?

Snoke's hologram continues to frown. "I am aware of my apprentice's indiscretions, General."

Hux expects this to be the end of the conversation, but Snoke regards him with detached interest. "Ah, but you have more particular suspicions that you wish to share with me. Tell me what you've inferred."

This is a test. Hux knows enough about the strange bond between Snoke and Ren to understand that Snoke knows the truth about the idiot's motivations, if he has any beyond sheer impulse. Snoke wants to know what Hux, his chief advisor, can figure out.

"I believe he wishes to use the map to find Skywalker for his own ends," Hux says. "To kill him for his own reasons, or even to join him."

"Very good, General. My apprentice hopes to throw himself at the mercy of his old master. His allegiance to our cause is…fragile."

Kylo, whose mind is completely absorbed in the memory, feels through the tenuous connection to his own body, standing in the office, that he has stopped breathing.

He knew. Even though Kylo never allowed himself even to think it, never let himself form the thought his mind, his Master had woven together the strands of fear and longing and self-hatred and betrayal and understood the depth of his aim, to beg Luke to help him. Of course he knew. His Master always knew.

Hux stands straighter. "If I may, Supreme Leader—"

"You question why I keep him alive at all." He makes a trivializing gesture. "The fragility of his allegiance is precisely what makes him valuable to me."

Again, Hux thinks this is a dismissal. He has no patience for the Supreme Leader's mystical paradoxes. Kylo desperately wants to hear more, he craves his Master's words, but Hux, in the memory, is only irritated.

"I chose Kylo to stay by my side not because he is the strongest, but because he is the weakest. He has no mind of his own. He believes utterly in the destiny of his ' bloodline'," the sneer in his voice is obvious, "and he believes that I alone can lead him to his true potential."

In his own body, Kylo clenches his jaw and feels blood rush to his face. The Force surges within him, slamming against Hux's mind with enough energy to force the general to one knee under Kylo's hand, pressing him forward into the memory. These are lies, he reminds himself. To manipulate Hux. Just convenient lies.

Snoke continues. "But as a symbol of power, as an object of fear, his tantrums are useful." He leans forward. "You understand the theater of power, don't you, Hux? That is the motivation behind this weapon of yours, behind your speeches and symbols. Kylo Ren is a piece of theater. A character in a frightening mask for children to fear. We are not children, so we see him for what he is: a clown."

The hologram leans back, at ease, even bored. In his real body, Kylo is shaking. Hux, kneeling on the office floor, is smiling cruelly.

"Kylo Ren is a rabid cur," Snoke says in the memory, amused. "He is most useful to us when he's snarling at the end of his chain. Let him snarl, let him lunge, let him try to break his chain and run to Skywalker. Rest assured I'll dispose of him when he has outlived his purpose."


Kylo rips his hand away, tearing the connection apart with enough trauma to wrench Hux forward onto his hands with a muffled groan. But as he recovers there, prone, facing the dusty floor, Kylo hears the groan transform into a laugh.

It takes every ounce of Kylo's self-control not to pull out his lightsaber and swipe the man's head from his shoulders. He steps back from Hux, pacing like a caged animal while the other man rises to his feet with surprising steadiness.

He tries to calm himself, tries to remind himself that Hux was the one being deceived. But the words his Master spoke cut him. For an instant he'd believed they were true and that instant had shaken him to the bone.

"You see, Ren." Hux says as his laugh changes to a dry cough. "You need me. You blundered your way into a game that you have no idea how to play. But I can help you, if you help me."

Kylo curses himself for showing Hux how much the memory affected him. The words hurt, but he knows better than to think his Master would place his trust in a man like Hux.

"No," he says. "You think he would reveal so much to you? An accountant. A secretary. He fed you lies and you drank them up, because you know that without someone like him, someone like me, with real power, you're nothing."

The cruel smile doesn't leave Hux's face. He raises an eyebrow, considering, but shrugs and lapses into his usual tone of contempt. "I pity you, Ren. Even now, you can't see how much he made a fool out of you."

Kylo does not respond. He does not pity Hux, only feels disappointment at seeing how deep the man's denial goes. Still, it's just as his Master said: his weaknesses can be a sharp tool. He'd called him a rabid cur. His Master must have known that Kylo would see this memory some day—he'd left a message there, coded, for his apprentice.

"As you like," Hux says. "Whether or not you choose to operate in this reality, let's be frank. You have no idea what you're doing."

Kylo returns to the desk, sits. He leans back and banishes all thoughts of his Master from his mind.

The fleet is a debris field after the Resistance attack, he might have a coup on his hands, and he's got hundreds of planets voting to secede from the Republic and join the Order, the culmination of decades of scheming that he has never taken the slightest interest in. There is so much he doesn't understand, so many things his Master tended to while Kylo was meditating and training and running missions that Kylo never knew anything about, and he hates Hux for knowing it.

"You said you had recommendations, General," he finally says.

Hux's voice turns professional, and Kylo is annoyed by how grateful he is. "A list, Supreme Leader. These are all the officers I've identified as threats who are currently stationed on the fronts or in the planetary garrisons." Hux shows him his data-pad, on which he's drawn up a spreadsheet containing the names of twenty or so officers. Kylo has heard of most of them but not met them.

He nods; he knows what Hux intends. "Do it. What about those who are with our fleet right now?"

"Another list, Supreme Leader, of all those on ships in subluminal range. As you can see, quite a few are casualties from the suicide attack. As of a few minutes ago a dozen are still missing. The timing is excellent." Hux reaches over and taps the data-pad to show a fresh column of names, about thirty men and women, some with names crossed out. "I can prepare—"

"No," Kylo says. Whatever Hux says about needing him, Kylo hates the overly-familiar, arrogant way Hux is addressing him. It reminds him of Rey. Both of them need to remember who they're dealing with. "Leave these to me."


That day each of the officers on Hux's list receives orders to report to the Finalizer, where he has set up his temporary command, on the authority of the Supreme Leader. The guests are anxious. They've heard rumors of Snoke's death in the catastrophe aboard the Supremacy, whispers that General Hux addressed Kylo Ren as Supreme Leader during the operation on Crait. But no one can confirm this and all agree it's unlikely. Snoke must be alive.

Kylo has spent the afternoon in his new quarters making the necessary preparations with the security access Hux has already granted him. There is nothing on this ship that can't control, no safety he can't override.

He doesn't want to draw this out. His Master taught him not to enjoy this.

Kylo stands near the edge of the room, as inconspicuous as he can be in his tunic. He's not wearing robes. Hux stands beside him, surveying the room with disapproval. Kylo's told him he brought these people here to talk.

When a protocol droid assures him all parties are present, a message marked urgent appears on Hux's comm, and there are only a few anxious glances as Hux shows it to Kylo and they leave the room. The guests think that Snoke, not Kylo Ren, is in charge—but even so, they're not going to stop two commanders from leaving a room to respond to an urgent message in the middle of a crisis.

Hux begins to say something about the irregularity of the message.

"I sent it," Kylo says calmly as he waits for the doors of the meeting room to close and uses the Force to jam them. There are no guards stationed; he has ordered this corridor to be empty.

Hux has no idea anything is happening. "Supreme Leader?"

"Walk with me, Hux."

Hux follows, and they pace about twenty meters down the corridor to a window from which Kylo can just see the bulkhead of the meeting room jutting out slightly from the profile of the Finalizer's hull.

"What is this?" Hux says.

Kylo says nothing, does not bother using the Force, only opens his data pad and engages the fire suppression system. He watches as a stream of vapor begins to leak from the vents near the floor of the meeting room, boiling off into space.

Hux follows his gaze. He draws in breath slowly and allows his ginger eyelashes to open a little wider, betraying surprise and, barely discernable, respect.

Kylo has shut off all transmission from that room; no sound leaks through the sealed-off fire doors, no wireless calls for help reach beyond the walls. It takes five minutes to smother everyone inside, but they stand in silence for ten, fifteen. The shredded remains of the fleet float past the window like leaves in the wind.

He takes no pleasure in this.

What would she think of him, if she saw him now?

Hux begins to fidget, trying to hide it. Kylo understands; to him this is academic. Death is death. Standing around to watch it seems maudlin at best and a gross waste of time at worst. Hux breaks the silence twice, but Kylo ignores him.

We must not hide from the truth of what we do, my apprentice.

When he allows the vents to close and the room to re-pressurize, he enters with lightsaber ignited in case anyone has managed to stay alive.

No one has.

Satisfied, he opens his comm and types an order for the sanitation droids to handle the garbage.

He considers saying something ominous to Hux, something like, "I trust we understand one another, General." But in the end, he simply turns away, silent, and allows the doors to close.

Hux follows.


Kylo walks back to his quarters feeling like his stomach is being vented into space. He strides through the halls with as much dignity as he can muster, ignoring anyone who salutes him.

Whoever has the bridge in Hux's absence hails him on a private channel. He ignores this too. The First Order is a machine that shouldn't require his oversight to run, and he won't give it, not now; these petty things are why he bothers to keep Hux alive.

He's putting everything he has into keeping himself intact.

When his door hisses shut behind him he breaks into a run and barely makes it to the 'fresher to vomit profusely into the sink. The heaving in his chest shatters the mask of calm determination he's been wearing since Crait and sends his mind roiling.

Hux is wrong about his Master. But he is right that Kylo is fantastically, monumentally unprepared to rule a galaxy. He'd seized power in a frenzied rage. Seeing himself from the outside, from Hux's point of view, he sees his worst fears confirmed: everyone is laughing at him. His incompetence is completely transparent to everyone who's supposed to take orders from him.

You're no Vader. You're just a child. In a mask.

But now he doesn't even have a mask. Had his Master goaded him into taking it off to make him weak? To make sure that when the First Order looked at him, they saw the face of a man, a face they couldn't be afraid of?

No. No. His Master had been right. He didn't need the mask.

Except—it had been his father who said that.

He wipes his hand across his mouth, washes his hands, splashes water on his face. It doesn't matter, now. He's shown his face and now he'll look weak if he puts on a mask again. He is not weak. The bodies he left in that room prove that.

Let people see him as he is; mask or not, he'll rule them.

He thought they would all bow to him because of his strength in the Force. That the only strength that would matter is reaching out and choking the life out of someone. It had been enough to force Hux into submission. That had always been enough, before.

It's not going to be enough now.

He enters his separate bedroom, which has a real bed, not just a hard cot. He hasn't slept on a real bed in twenty years. He takes off the bloodstained tunic and shirt he's been wearing since Rey arrived, dabs some bacta on the small wound on his bicep, and sits down on the too-soft duvet with a vague intention of looking at the itinerary Hux has drawn up for tomorrow. More politics, more purges. But he can't summon the energy. He just sits.

A narrow slit of a window cuts the back wall of his bedroom. Through it, he can see the supply drones fade into tiny motes against this system's weak sun, speeding away on their pre-programmed courses. The atmo systems hum a steady low note that feels all-enveloping in the silence; the filtered breeze disturbs the hair on his neck.

He doesn't rage, he doesn't shed tears. He just stares out the window with his hands in his lap. He stares for a long time.