Chapter 3: Interrogation Aboard the Finalizer

Kylo Ren quickly strided down the shuttle ramp as it descended to meet the ground of the docking bay. The shuttle trip from Takodana back to the Finalizer had been brief, or at least brief enough that the scavenger in his arms had not become a burden to carry. Not that the girl was especially fatiguing to carry. Quite the opposite in fact, Kylo had mused. He had more than enough time to observe her during the shuttle ride. The girl barely weighed anything at all, but he could clearly see that her lean frame was all muscle. She had obviously been living the physically taxing life of a scavenger for a long time. In her unconsciousness, her breathing was slow and shallow, and her face was relaxed. The expression of fear, panic, and anger he had seen on her face when she was attempting to flee him had disappeared, and left behind was the face of a girl who looked to be sleeping serenely. Escaped tendrils of dark brown hair that had been previously stuck to her face from perspiration had dried, and were now slightly curled and framing her face.

As Kylo Ren walked across the docking bay to his destination, he was intercepted by General Hux who was staring questioningly at the bundle of tan cloth in his arms. "My troops have informed me that you forewent the pursuit of the droid because you found something else with the same information," Hux stated icily. "Do you honestly believe this… girl knows where Skywalker is, and how to get to him?" He asked, his voice and face expressing his lack of faith in Ren's decision.

"She has seen the map," Kylo stated annoyed, knowing that Hux was hoping for his failure, so as to gain favor with the Supreme Leader. "It is simply a matter of getting her into an interrogation room and having her show it to me."

The General's lips thinned with displeasure. "She's one of the Resistance. She'll fight you're attempts." Hux bit back at Ren icily.

"And she will lose that fight. She is no one. She will break, and then she will die when we have no use for her. We will know where Skywalker is, and the Resistance will be none the wiser that we know." Kylo Ren replied, his deep, robotic voice getting increasingly more angry than annoyed as the conversation continued. Without waiting for a response from the general, he stalked past him, eager to get the girl out of his arms and into an interrogation room.

Why he had even decided to carry her the entire time was beyond him. He could have just pawned her off on a Stormtrooper with commands to take her to the prison block. But he hadn't. Instead he had opted to personally hold onto her for the entire shuttle ride, and to continue to carry her across the Finalizer to the interrogation room.

Well, it is just as well, Kylo Ren justified in his head, considering there was now precedence for Stormtroopers going rogue and freeing prisoners. Yes, she is too important, it is too great a risk to leave her in someone else's hands until I have that map.

As he went about convincing himself of this, he arrived at the prison block's interrogation room. After informing the guard stationed there to stand outside the room and keep the door locked until he was finished, he walked inside the room. The room was very bare, apart from the restraining chair in the middle of the room, the only other furniture was a low table with an imaginative variety of torture implements. Not that he would need any. The power of the Force gave him everything he needed to get information.

He lowered the scavenger into the restraining chair, carefully setting her head down, and went about putting the restraints around her. His face was much closer to her now than it had been when he had been carrying her, and he noticed things he hadn't before. Dirt? He questioned himself. No, it's sand. Her scent. Sand, sweet clear air, and… sunlight? Kylo shook his head at his absurdity and forced himself to stop thinking about how the damn girl smelled. Sunlight is not a scent. He chided himself, inexplicably angry as he bolted her restraints around her wrists and ankles, a little bit tighter than was absolutely necessary.

Upon completing his task, he stepped back to admire his handiwork for a moment, before sitting down on the small table. He released his power's hold on her consciousness. It could take moments, or it could take up to an hour, for her body to realize that it was no longer being forced asleep. So he waited.


The first thing Rey noticed when she started to wake was how uncomfortable her neck was. She made to get up and stretch, but was met with resistance when she tried to do so. Opening her eyes, only bright light flooded her vision. Becoming frightened she tried to bend up again, or move anything, but she couldn't. She was flat on her back, but as her eyes adjusted to the brightness, she realized she wasn't lying down, but almost standing up. Metal bars were cutting into her wrists and ankles and she couldn't move anything. Rey's breathing picked up considerably as she realized that wherever she was, she was absolutely not going anywhere. She closed her eyes, and tried not to let panic and desperation flood her mind. She quickly failed at that, and reopened her eyes to try and look around the room, but just ended up flailing against her restraints more.

Hurting her wrists against the restraints, she looked down at the ones around her ankles, trying to think of a plan, or anything at all. The lightsaber, and the vision. I saw myself screaming. Then what? Rey wondered to herself trying to piece together how she got here. Closing her eyes, she looked deeper. I—I ran. There were ships. The First Order! BB-8 needed to be protected, but then -. Rey's eyes flashed open as she recalled the masked man who had hunted her. She remembered his voice, deep, but robotic, and how the heat of his lightsaber had been so close to her neck. Then, she had been in his arms, being carried somewhere, falling unconscious for a reason she couldn't know. Suddenly more terrified than she had been, she started trying her restraints again, hoping their integrity had somehow been compromised since the last time she had tested them, roughly 30 seconds ago.

"You're awake." Rey froze at the voice, and, terrified, realized that it was the same voice as the masked man. She looked up and over to where the voice had come from, in front of her. He was sitting down, hands together, with his arms on his legs. She couldn't see his eyes because of his mask, but Rey felt distinctly like an animal that was being studied.

"What happened to the rest of the resistance?!" Rey questioned, her voice slightly shrill from her fear, but her anger broke its way through as well.

The masked man stayed quiet for a moment, before responding. "You mean the traitors, murderers, and thieves you call your friends? You'll be relieved to hear I have no idea." He shrugged. "You want to kill me, don't you?" The man asked, as if he had just realized it.

"That happens when you're being hunted by a creature in a mask." Rey said haughtily, refusing to show him how scared she was of what awaited her.

Another several moments passed, before the man stood up, causing Rey to flinch slightly. But all he did was reach for his head to do… something. To take off his mask, Rey realized. She swallowed the lump in her throat, and prepared herself to see whatever atrocity the man chose to hide with a mask. He pressed the release and began to lift it off. A helmet, not a mask? Rey realized, before quickly having the thought pushed from her head by the shock of what she saw. A young man, who must be only a few years older than she was. He had long black hair, and pale, but young, smooth skin. He had a distinguishing nose, and a prominent mouth. Why wear a mask? She wondered idly, forgetting her circumstances for a moment, she thought him rather handsome for a moment. Just one moment, before she remembered that she was probably about to die, and looked down hurriedly so he couldn't realize what she had been thinking.

When she finally managed to look back up at him again, Rey noticed that his eyes, a dark brown or black, seemed to express some conflict in him. Indecision, maybe? Rey wondered, trying to think of a way to get out of this. "Who are you?" she asked after trying to discern the expression in his eyes.

Whatever expression he had been wearing, turned to a mirthful smirk at her question. "You do ask a lot of questions, don't you, considering that I am the one who is to interrogate you." He responded. "My name is Kylo Ren." He stated simply, a cruel glint appearing in his eye. "And you are no one. A scavenger from a garbage bin of a planet." He said, seemingly amused.

Rey, insulted but not wanting to antagonize him in hopes she still had a chance to get out of here, tried to think of a way to not get tortured. "It's Rey," she said quietly. Kylo Ren's expression changed from amused to confused, and he raised a questioning eyebrow at her. "My name," she clarified, "It's Rey. And I'm not from Jakku. I was just there waiting for my family to come back." She clarified, not sure how him knowing this would help, but hoping the more he knew the harder it would be to hurt her.

His face became critical of this information, and she could feel herself blush as he raked his eyes over her body. "Well, Rey," he emphasized her name, "It's clear you've been scavenging on that hell hole for a very long time." He said, the implication of his words clear to Rey.

She flinched slightly at his words, insulted again. "What do you want from me?" she gritted out, her voice showing more of her anger than she preferred.

"The map to Luke Skywalker," he stated. "The droid had it, and you've seen it. Somehow, you, of all people, convinced the droid to show it to you." He wondered aloud, narrowing his eyes at her.

"I won't give you that. Ever." She bit back, knowing she couldn't do that to the Resistance. She had grown up to legends about Luke Skywalker, she didn't want to have a hand in his downfall.

Kylo Ren took a step closer to her, "You know I can take whatever I want," he said almost sorrowfully, and took another step so he was only half a foot away from her. Then she felt it, the pressure against her mind, as he searched through it, trying to get to the map. She didn't know how to, but she tried to resist anyways, with little effect. "You don't have to be afraid," he reassured her. "I feel it too, you know, the fear. And…, the loneliness. You've been so alone, waiting, the countless nights you've spent desperate for sleep, and for someone, anyone. I see the island, alone, surrounded by an endless, empty ocean... and you see Han Solo as the father you never had. He would have disappointed you in that, you know."

Rey was gasping for breath, due to her attempt to resist him, but also at the feeling of her own crippling loneliness that he had brought to the surface of her mind. She could feel the desperation she had learned to control and suppress over the years, it all came over her at once. "NO!" She managed through her exertion, and she pushed back against him hard. A look of confused shock went across his face for a moment, before becoming infuriated. She could feel him begin to push much harder on her mind, and her head started to feel like it was going to split open, but she pushed hard enough that it felt like she slammed her mind against his, and after a few more moments of resistance, she felt her push slip through. Suddenly her mind was bombarded with emotions and visions that she had never seen. His, she realized, and she tried to comprehend what she was experiencing as she began to feel all the things he must've felt. "You—you're the one who is afraid." She managed, gasping for breath as she spoke, "You're a-afraid that—that you'll never be as strong as… as Darth Vader!" She finished, and suddenly felt all of the pressure on her mind release as he seemed to have been thrown away from her. Crashing against the table behind him, he looked at her wildly, expression switching between anger, amazement, and, finally, fearful shock. Without saying anything, he practically ran past her and out of the room.

Rey, still gasping for breath, couldn't comprehend what had just happened. She had forced him out of her mind, but how? He was a Sith, if he had used the Force to invade her mind, did that mean that was how she had invaded his mind? She didn't even know what the Force was, just that it's always in the stories about the mythical Jedi. That was the least of her problems though, as she tried to figure out what had happened, and how she was going to stay alive, she found it too difficult to keep her eyes open. Whatever she had done, it had drained everything from her, and she wasn't going to be able to resist the pull of sleep. I need to get out of here, but… and for the 2nd time in as many days, Rey found herself falling unconscious in an inopportune situation.


Kylo Ren paced across his quarters, panicking and trying to think about what had happened in the interrogation room. He couldn't get the map from the girl. She had forced him out of her mind. She was force-sensitive. No training, but powerful enough to push out someone as trained as him. He needed that map, and he needed to go to Snoke to figure out how to get to it. He grimaced at the thought, his master would not be pleased that an untrained whelp had resisted him, and would think him weak.

Every second that passed that they did not have the map could be the moment that the damnable droid showed the Resistance the missing piece of the map. Kylo stopped his pacing suddenly. They knew the droid to only have one piece of the map, but they did not know if the Resistance had the rest of the map. How could they? He thought to himself. He had to research archive from the old empire for months to put the current, incomplete map together. No, the resistance would likely not be able to find Luke Skywalker immediately after getting their droid back, which bought them some time. Still, the Supreme Leader needed to be informed immediately. Yet, Kylo Ren continued his pacing.

When she first tried to resist his invasion of her mind, he had noticed it. The light that had begun to emanate from her. He couldn't fathom what it could be at the time, but when she had managed to push him out, he had been blinded by it, but couldn't see it when he looked at her after. It had been her power, he realized now, he could see it because he had been connected to her. But it had started as nothing before growing. This was the first the girl had seen or used of her power. She wouldn't know what it is, she could be scared of it. They could use the girls fear to manipulate her.

But perhaps not. The things he had seen when he had invaded her mind. She was fiercely capable and independent, at least when she was not facing the likes of him. She sought belonging, but he had seen her push away the droid when it first sought her help, he had seen her push away his father, despite her admiration for him, she pushed him away when he offered her belonging in a position on his ship. He saw her push away the Stormtrooper, FN-2187, when he was pouring out his heart to her, wanting her to come with him to make a life in the Outer Rim. She wanted to belong, but she was scared to as well. Scared of losing that belonging, perhaps. He had seen her being abandoned, felt what she felt, saw the ship flying away, and he had heard her screams as if he had been there. She wanted to belong, but didn't want to feel the hurt of being abandoned again.

Kylo Ren realized that he wasn't just analyzing how to manipulate her, but also sympathizing with this girl, and became infuriated with himself for his weakness. He wielded his lightsaber and started taking out all of his frustrations on the wall. He didn't have the map, the girl resisted him, and he felt sorry for her.

Kylo Ren finally emerged from his quarters after 3 hours of scarring the wall with his lightsaber, and considering how he would explain himself to the Supreme Leader. He made his way to the communications chamber, and once there, he called upon the Supreme Leader.

"My apprentice," Snoke said upon appearing before him, "I trust you have succeeded in your mission to Takodana."

Kylo Ren stiffened, not knowing what to expect from Snoke when he learned of his failure. "Not quite, Supreme Leader. We couldn't obtain the droid before the Resistance got to the planet, but I had tracked down the scavenger who had helped the droid escape Jakku. I pressed her mind to find the droid, and found more, that she had somehow gotten the droid to show her the map, and when we ran out of time, I brought her back to get the map from her in the interrogation room." He stated, pausing before he got to his failure. "Unfortunately, the girl… managed to push me out of her mind, and managed to push back into mine." He admitted, ashamed of his weakness against the girl.

"What?" the Supreme Leader asked, menacingly quiet, "She. RESISTED. YOU!" He yelled, his voice echoing off of the walls.

"She is strong with the force!" Kylo explained. "Untrained, but stronger than she knows. The Resistance doesn't have the rest of the map, they can't get to Skywalker without it, but I can get this part of the map from her! She has no real attachment to the Resistance. I just need time, and your guidance, and I can weed out her Resistance sympathies, get her to trust me, and turn her to the Dark side." He implored Snoke, a small part of him just wanting to keep the girl who had been so alone, and who had managed to push him out, alive for his own curiosity.

Supreme Leader Snoke stared down at Kylo for a long time before answering. "Fine. Go to this girl, and use a different tactic on her. Make her embrace her emotions, teach her how to harness her anger. That alone will begin to bring her to the Dark side, and she will either give herself completely to want to give us the map, or her embracing of the Dark Side will make her less able to resist you when you invade her mind. Go now, and in the meantime I will have General Hux begin to work on bringing systems that were loyal to the Republic before the destruction of the Hosnian system over to us."

Kylo Ren relaxed, "Yes, master," he said with reverence, "I will not fail you." He promised before turning on his heel and leaving the communications chamber.

Outside, he began to make his way back to the prison block, this time to reassure her that she would not be killed yet, despite her uselessness, and then move her to a cell where she wasn't strapped to a chair. Small steps, he thought to himself, as he considered his plan of attack.


Rey woke up some time later, but going by how exhausted she still felt, she assumed it had not been very long. 2 hours, maybe more, she guessed. She immediately went back to testing her restraints, but unfortunately they were still very good at their job. However, at that time, she heard radio static from behind her, where the door was. She realized that it must be the Stormtrooper assigned to guard her, and she started thinking of idea, anything, to get past him. Rey's first idea was to figure out how to use the power she had used against Kylo Ren against the Stormtrooper.

Rey remembered a story she had heard of the legendary Luke Skywalker when she had been on Jakku. That he had once infiltrated a Hutt's headquarters simply by telling the door guards to let him in. Jedi could convince people to do things with the Force, without them questioning what they had been 'convinced' to do.

Desperate for any chance at freedom, she decided to give it a shot. "You will undo these restraints, and leave this cell with the door open." She attempted to command the Stormtrooper.

At first, all she got back was silence, making her question whether or not someone was really there. "What was that?" the Stormtrooper questioned menacingly, daring her to speak again.

She took a deep breath, before making a second attempt. "You will undo these restraints, and leave this cell with the door open." She tried again. She heard the Stormtrooper start moving around her, and at first she thought she had succeeded, until he came into her field of vision.

"I'll tighten those restraints, and have you beaten if you say another word." He threatened, jabbing his weapon painfully into her ribcage.

Despite the threat, Rey felt more capable in her ability to make him to what she said when she made eye contact with him, so she tried again anyways. She closed her eyes, slower her breathing and calmed herself, trying to pinpoint this power within her. She opened her eyes, "You will undo these restraints, and leave this cell with the door open." She said stoically. The Stormtrooper immediately straightened.

"I will undo these restraints and leave this cell with the door open." He said agreeably while undoing her restraints, and making to walk out the door.

"And you'll drop your gun." Rey said hurriedly, amazed that this had actually worked.

"And I'll drop my gun." The Stormtrooper complied, dropping his gun right before the exit.

Rey waited a minute for the Stormtrooper to walk away, before bolting out of the interrogation chair, and going to inspect the dropped gun. It was a blaster assault rifle, but she figured she could be capable enough with it. You pull the trigger, she thought to herself, remembering when Han had given her the blaster. With that memory she quickly checked to make sure the safety was off. Reassured that her weapon would actually work, she decided on a rough plan to find a ship, and excitedly ran out into the hallway.

And was immediately grabbed and pushed against a pillar in the hallway. "Going somewhere, were you Rey?" The deep voice of her captor asked her, a hint of laughter in his voice.

After the breath that was knocked out of her by being unexpectedly thrown into a pillar came back to her, she assessed her current situation to see if she could get out of his grip. It appeared that the answer was probably not, as he was not actually holding her against the pillar, but was a few feet back from her, holding her there with the Force. "Not really, I was just going to go find something to eat, and then go back and strap myself into my comfortable interrogation chair." Rey bit back, bitter that her escape had been cut so short, she had barely gotten out of the room, she had been so hopeful, so sure that she was going to get free. He could have at least pretended that she had a chance.

Kylo Ren smirked amusedly at her sarcasm, and disappointment. "Yes, I suppose you do need to eat, though you don't look like you do it often. The mind-trick was clever, you know. I wouldn't have thought you capable of controlling your power so well, so quickly," he said, complimenting her attempted escape plan. "It is lucky that I happened to be coming to collect to you when you convinced the guard to abandon his weapon and post. What would have been you're next step? Avoid Stormtroopers, and find a ship you could pilot and steal it? Of course, your escape would not have gone unnoticed long enough for you to find a ship, so you'd had to have found a ship while the entire ship was on lockdown, and every person on it was looking for you."

Rey sighed, irritated at his smugness. "Yeah, that was pretty much the plan." She spat back acidly, the desired effect quite diminished when she was pinned to the wall, unable to move most of her muscles. "Wait, coming to collect me for what? What are you going to do with me?" She asked, afraid of his response.

"I'm going to let you down. Don't try and run, you won't get far," he warned her, and he released his power's hold on her, and she unceremoniously fell to the ground. He offered his hand to her to help her up, but she ignored it and stood up on her own, still waiting for an answer to her question. "You won't give me the map, and I can't make you, since you can force me out. My first instinct was to kill you due to your uselessness. But you're strong. Stronger than you know, and I can make you stronger than you'll ever imagine. I can train you in the ways of the Force." He informed her.

Her eyes widened at the insinuation, "No!" She exclaimed, "You're the Dark side, I won't join you! You can't make me!" She argued, angry and afraid at the same time. She wouldn't do this, she could not do the things the First Order did.

"Of course, Rey," He said softly, her name sounding strange coming from his deep voice. "Of course you have a choice." His voice was almost a whisper now. With one fluid motion he had his lightsaber activated and at her neck, the heat making her begin to perspire. "Choose, Rey." He commanded, his face hard, but his eyes shining with remorse. He doesn't want to kill me. She realized. But he would. If she made him, he would kill her. But she couldn't do this, could she? The Dark side embodied greed and selfishness, all of the things she was against. But agreeing to let him train her doesn't mean she would have to embrace the Dark side? Would it? She didn't really know how the Light and Dark side worked, but she wanted to stay alive.

"Yes." She finally managed to say, the heat from Kylo's lightsaber beyond uncomfortable. "I'll train with you." She finished, deciding to stay alive and escape at the first sure chance she had later.

Kylo Ren shut off his light saber, and seemed to be relieved. "Smart choice," he told her. "It would have been a shame to see you waste all your potential and sacrifice yourself for the Resistance, and organization you weren't even a part of," he clarified. "Follow me," he commanded before turning on his heel and beginning to walk down the hallway.

Rey, deciding not to disobey her first order, caught up to him, and walked with him in silence, until they reached a set of two doors, about 20 feet away from each other. "That door leads to your new… quarters." He said regarding the door on the left, opting for a nicer word than 'cell'. "Again, do not try and escape. If you do, I'll be forced to hurt you as punishment." He said pointedly, "Regardless, I'll tell you the measures that will prevent your escape. The vents are not big enough for even you to fit through. I will use my abilities to keep your door locked. If it ever unlocks, I will feel it. There will also be two Stormtroopers stationed outside of your door, and 10 more along this corridor. Also, this door," he motioned to the door 20 feet to the right, "leads to my quarters. I will feel it if you get too far from me when I don't expect you to. Do you understand?" He asked.

Rey, feeling quite dismayed about her escape prospects, simply looked up at him and nodded. "Good," he said. He opened the door for her quarters, and motioned her inside. "I will have a droid sent with something for you to eat. Otherwise rest, as your training will being tomorrow."

Rey nodded again, and walked inside. He stared at her for a few moments, as if was about to say something, but then just backed up and closed the door. Rey could hear the locks click into place. Turning away from the door, Rey looked around her new surroundings. Nothing about the room looked comfortable. There was a small metal table with a metal chair in the main room, otherwise it was empty. An archway in the back of the small room led to another very similar room, but instead of a table and chair, but there was a bed. A fairly lavish bed too, to Rey's eyes at least. She had been living out of and AT-AT on Jakku for several years, which didn't have a whole lot of room to move around, and no comfortable space to sleep. Here she had a bedframe and mattress. There was a door in the bedroom that led to a small bathroom, where there was a sink, toilet, and shower. All 3 she had never had access to on Jakku, but had occasionally salvaged for pipes from the old ships she scoured.

All in all, she had more here than could've ever hoped to have on Jakku, but she still felt like she needed to be back there, though she knew deep down no one was ever going to come back for her. Rey, still exhausted from her mental fight with Kylo Ren earlier, chose to return to the bedroom and let sleep overcome her, knowing she would need it to deal with him tomorrow.


Kylo set his light saber on its perch in his quarters and sighed to himself. He had managed to get the girl to agree to let him train her. Forced her, you mean. He thought to himself. He made her choose between life and death, of course she chose to train with him. He had to act quickly, convince her, really convince her, that she was better off here, then escaping. He knew that despite his warnings, she would try, though she would wait until she had a greater than average chance of escaping to risk his wrath.

Sighing, he pulled off his outer robe and shirt, and placed them next to his helmet and lightsaber, before sitting on his bed to begin to meditate. He would attempt to sleep later. He had to try and sort the feelings he had regarding the girl being still alive, still here, and now under his tutelage.

He looked down at the skull of his grandfather briefly, reminding himself of what he was attempting to accomplish, and began to meditate.


A/N: Oh dear, and I thought the amount of feedback from one chapter was a lot! You are all amazing. I apologize for the first two chapters, and some of this chapter too I guess, being a recap of the movie, but in their defense, they are small chapters, and I wanted to spend some time getting familiar inside their heads. Anyways, I'm on break from university until the 13th, so I have plenty of time to get fairly deep into this story before updates start becoming a weekly, or even bi-weekly thing. I'm going to try and continue to write a chapter's worth of content every two or three days until then!

Clearing some possibly confusing story aspects up. Kylo assumes that the Resistance doesn't have the map because he doesn't know that Luke gave it R2-D2. I'm also assuming that the First Order doesn't know where D'Qar, the location of the Resistance HQ is, because how could they? I think they had a ship track the Falcon there in the movie, but I don't remember exactly, so I'm just going to say they failed to track the Falcon back to D'Qar. Also Rey was taken to the Star Destroyer instead of Starkiller base for her interrogation.

Also, TFA is just as good the 3rd time. I want to see it again already! I'm just sad that I can't experience the movie for the '1st time' again! Thanks again for all of your support! :D