Creation is the far harder achievement than destruction. It requires pragmatism and a healthy, maybe even foolhardy, sense of optimism in the face of the failures of all those who have come before. Why bother to try again? Because now and forever the Sith shall rule the galaxy. And because no one makes the transports run on time like the Sith.

So muses Emperor Ren as he checks his datapad and stands to stretch his long legs. Half an hour left before his shuttle lands at Bast Castle on Naboo. Half an hour until Rey.

Being CEO of the galaxy is not easy. Especially when your Chairman of the Board Sith Master is quick with his criticism. Kylo Ren wishes he too could hang out all day reading intelligence reports, watching stock exchange tickers and communing with the Dark Side, but as Emperor he has things to do, people to see and orders to give.

Being in charge means your job is never done.

It was supposed to get easier once the war was over. But governing an Empire is harder than winning one in many respects. And after twenty years of war, Kylo misses it. Misses the rush of combat, the easy camaraderie of the Knights of Ren, the thrill of a narrow escape, and the Dark mastery that comes with victory. Peace can be, well, boring.

And peace is hard. Because as the Sith have long known, peace is a lie.

Conflict is out in the open in time of war, and the enemy is known. Peace time has its own conflicts. But the solutions are less efficient. He can't call in an air strike on small time dissidents as easily as he could on the Resistance. Sometimes he has to tolerate the opposition or even deal directly with them. It's annoying.

Where is Hux when he needs him? Hux would have been good at this shit.

Kylo hasn't slept in close to twenty hours. This is the same unrelenting pace he had kept up at the end of the war. Pushing his mind and body to the limit. But after the first two weeks of his Empire were spent obsessing over Snoke's efforts to revive Rey, Kylo felt that he had stumbled at the start. Had squandered some of his first hundred days. So with his wife alive, recovered and blissfully unaware, Kylo had thrown himself back into his Empire building. And it had been the perfect excuse to hide from the lonely grief and the crushing guilt he could not talk about.

Once he had planned to build his Empire for the little boy Sheev who looked so much like him. And together they would realize Vader's dream to rule the galaxy as father and son. Slowly, Kylo planned to bring along the small child with amazing telekinesis who he allowed to lurk in the recesses of his mind. From a tender age, his son would witness it all to absorb what it meant to be a Sith. And with a 22,000 midichlorian count, a powerful Sith Sheev Ren might have become.

Like his grandfather before him, Kylo Ren had discovered an unexpected son. And like his grandfather, Kylo had grown to care for his newfound child. But that's where the similarities end.

He does not regret his decision. But he regrets that he had to make it. If only he had seen that blaster bolt in time to block it. But like the shot from Chewbacca on the Starkiller, things sometimes get past him in the heat of battle. Especially in the aftermath of a major kill. For even a Sith is fallible.

And while sometimes Kylo has wondered whether he should instead have told Rey that Sheev was killed in the battle, he knows his wife would sense the lie in the Force. And every time the new Emperor finds himself turning away from the garden terrace at Bast to wipe at his eye, he comforts himself with the knowledge that Rey is blissfully unaware. That she doesn't feel the pain that he does.

Steadfast survivor that she is, Kylo worries that the loss of Sheev would be the one thing that could break Rey. Not Jakku, not Skywalker, not his nagging mother, not Kylo's own abuse, could shake his scavenger wife's resolve to endure. But losing her beloved Sheev would crush her. And that in turn would crush him, for Kylo depends so on his Rey. More now than ever.

His Master had been fatherly and unexpectedly compassionate about it all in the end. Darth Plagueis had wiped not just the boy from Rey's mind but Kylo's many transgressions. Creating a lovely, if all together false, history of their relationship. Corny, almost. For the creepy old Muun, it seems, is surprisingly old fashioned when it comes to women and sex. Who knew the old Sith fancied himself such a ladies' man?

But there was something very fitting about it all the same. Rey and his Master are the only two people in the universe who Kylo Ren deeply cares about. And that his Master cared enough to do this had touched Kylo. Forever he shall be in the Muun's debt. For this and for so much else through the years.

Kylo strives very hard now never to discuss the past with Rey, for he is terrified that he will screw up and reveal something he shouldn't. He tells her that he doesn't want to talk about the war, and she respects his wishes. Rey thinks he is remorseful about all the lives lost when in fact he could care less. He's a Sith and he takes what he wants, regardless of the cost. But Kylo maintains the fiction for Rey's sake. He knows that she likes to think that he is privately conflicted about his actions. But he is a Sith, so the ends always justify the means.

Truly, he has no regrets other than that blaster bolt.

When he had thanked his Master for reviving Rey, Darth Plagueis had looked him in the eye and reminded him that he too had once lost a beloved wife and a son. That he understood the loss. And then cryptically he told his Apprentice that he hoped one day Kylo would understand how much that loss had hurt. How if he could, his Master too would have made the hard choices to revive his family. But they are long past that now. Rey is recovered and pregnant now. All is perfect on his homefront.

Kylo never did discover who had sabotaged the shuttle Rey and Sheev were on. Likely the culprit had escaped immediately after the deed was done. But a furious Kylo had slaughtered everyone on the Finalizer maintenance crew who had recently worked on the shuttle. For one of them should have caught the error. Still, his bloodlust had not been abated. He had ordered all the prisoners taken on Skywalker's ship to be executed and so too all the remaining Resistance prisoners in the First Order's custody. Kylo would start his Second Empire with a fresh slate. The last remnants of the New Republic and its sympathizers would be swept away.

Now, almost two years into his reign, there is still so much left to be done. The easy, low hanging fruit type reforms have all been implemented. Now the harder, more complex work is to be done. And it has Kylo reflecting on things in ways he wouldn't have anticipated.

The worst part is that Kylo thinks he's beginning to understand his mother. And some days, he worries that he will become his mother. That he will be mired in committees and meetings and his life will become all talk and no action. That like Leia Organa and her New Republic cronies, he too will fail in the end after a promising start. Because while he and his mother might have shared little in common politically, the former Ben Solo has some of her idealism deep down. Kylo Ren just idealizes different goals.

He worries now that all villains begin as heroes. That the road to Hell truly is paved with good intentions. And he will be the bold First Order strongman leader that the galaxy needs and welcomes but then cools on quickly. And then the name Kylo Ren will be a footnote to history and a cautionary tale for anyone in the future who might attempt too much change, too fast.

His wife has become his most trusted unofficial policy advisor when it comes to the development of the Rim. For while many on his staff are from Rim Worlds, all are culled from the elite of the Imperial exiles. They are men (and a few women) educated in Coruscant and raised in privilege. They don't know the experience and the attitudes of the average Rim dweller. But Rey does. And he values her perspective. She is his one woman focus group. His sounding board. Rey is helping him get it right.

But if his end goal is to please the historians, Kylo's current goal is to please his Master. The old Sith looks over his shoulder more than ever. Darth Plagueis had given Kylo a long leash during the war. His Master's role had been largely relegated to advise and consent during the final two-year push to victory. The old Sith had preferred to plan the war, rather than to execute it. So after Kylo had proven himself competent in strategy and in battle, the eternal Muun had been mostly hands off.

Not so with governing.

Kylo had expected the Muun to be deeply enmeshed in economic and commerce issues. Darth Plagueis has long understood the role of finance in war and the strategic advantages of the First Order's power base. For years, Snoke had busied himself using Hux and others as frontmen to negotiate a wide array of trade treaties among the First Order worlds. Helping to deeper enmesh the Order's economic incentives for unity.

And now that Rey has passed on the information about his Master's long secret past, it all makes sense. The genius manipulator behind the late Republic Banking Clan had been a Sith. The man had funded everything from the Clone Wars' Separatist droid factories to the Old Republic's Clone Army. Money, it turns out, truly is the root of all evil. And for a century now, a large portion of the galaxy's money has been controlled by a Sith.

But even with Kylo managing the military and his Master running the money side of things, there is still plenty to do.

Kylo spent years with Snoke analyzing what Palpatine had done right the first time. And that success wasn't hard to replicate with history providing a template. But there are things that Palpatine had done wrong. And there, the solutions are not always self-evident. Because the galaxy is a complex place and sometimes the facts of the problem keep changing. And sometimes the problem itself keeps evolving. So Kylo sets some priorities and lets some problems fester. His Master complains at this. It is a point of some contention.

And his Master argues for a greater degree of self-determination. Give the people a Senate to make them happy, Snoke instructs his Apprentice. It is a familiar concept, well understood by ordinary citizens. It is a nod to the past and a pretense at democratic principles. Just give the Senate very little power, Snoke tells him. And give them the difficult but less important matters to preside over. Predictably, they will fail. Then, if the Senate becomes problematic you will have the perfect excuse to disband them. And in the meantime, you will have an easy target to take the blame for failed government.

Kylo recognizes this as a classic Snoke solution—a setup with good optics and a pre-planned exit strategy. But Kylo is skeptical of democracy and loathe to relinquish any power just yet. And perhaps he is foolish, but he lacks the old Sith's cynicism. For Kylo had not only spouted the First Order's principles, he had believed them. So only once his Second Empire is fully up and running with some track record of success will Kylo agree to permit a Senate.

Snoke had raised an eyebrow at this resistance and patiently told him to reconsider. That merely announcing the intent to form a Senate will earn Kylo some goodwill. And that had been an astute insight, the Emperor concedes. But however much he needs his Master's wise guidance, Kylo still chafes under it sometimes.

It can be hard to be an Apprentice.

But the Galactic Senate is a problem deferred, a topic for another day. Now, all Kylo can think of is Rey. Her arms around him, her face smiling up at him, her big pregnant belly poking him when they embrace. It's not long now until her due date. How he relishes the thought of welcoming two more Skywalker Siths into history.

Kylo checks his datapad again. Fifteen minutes to Rey. He smiles. Almost home.