Chapter Seven
Finn, that foolish traitor, was finally asleep, as were Poe and Rey. Otherwise, the medical bay was empty.
Kylo struggled off the bed. His feet hit the ground with a soft thud, yet no one stirred.
He didn't want to go. He had to go. The guilt was killing him.
The handcuffs were easy to break. Snoke had taught him well.
Kylo knew he couldn't return to Snoke, broken and contaminated by the Light. He couldn't face his Master's indignation and Hux's satisfaction. Yet he could not face General Leia's pain, nor her pity.
Weak, clothed only in tattered black pants, Kylo crawled his way towards the door. If he could pilot – pilot his way to another planet and crash there, end it all – he just wanted to feel loved, but he didn't deserve it.
Bleep – boop! As soon as Kylo exited the medical bay, the orange and white droid who'd been the bane of his existence rolled out from behind Poe.
Bleepy-boop-bloop! BB-8 bumped Poe's chair repeatedly.
"What – what is it, BB?" Poe glanced around until his gaze landed on Kylo's empty bed. "Oh no."
Kylo was almost out. He couldn't face the morning. He couldn't face his mother. His wound began to ooze lymph liquid, and he relished his pain.
"You!" A kick to the shoulder sent Kylo Ren sprawling across the stone floor. "Where the hell do you think you're going?"
Lights exploded in his vision as person after person rushed in. SO many familiar faces – Ackbar, Statura, Leia –
A lightsaber whizzed to life and suddenly blue light was tauntingly close to his face.
"I'll do it again," Rey threatened. Of course the girl would.
"What were you doing, prisoner?" Ackbar said sternly. "Escaping?"
"Killing myself," Kylo replied.
Rey withdrew her lightsaber, to Luke's relief.
"Oh dear!" C-3PO hurried over to the broken man. "You needn't do that, Ben, please."
"I'm not Ben. Ben is dead," Kylo said, struggling to his knees. "General." He faced Leia, wrapping his arms around his chest. "Your son is dead. I – I will always serve the Supreme Leader. I am not – not worth life."
General Leia walked closer to her son. No one spoke a word.
"Ben." She bent down, her fingers tracing his blaster scar, the scar from when he'd killed her husband, to his lightsaber wound. And then her hands were on his face, examining the line down half his face.
Kylo trembled, unable to meet her eyes. "Don't."
"Don't what? Show you mercy? My son?" Leia whispered.
"I'm not." Kylo's voice cracked. "I killed Han Solo. I killed the villagers on Jakku. I let the Republic die, I killed Skywalker's Jedis. Do not forgive me."
"Well, Finn already has," Poe spoke up. Just to spite his torturer. Just a little bit.
"No," Leia said. "Ben, will you forgive me? For failing to protect you?"
"I made my choice, and I killed Ben Solo before anyone else," Kylo begged.
"My son lives," Leia declared. If only she could show him, if only she could bathe his heart with her love.
"The light is fighting for you. It's still in you. It always will be. The light is powerful, I know," Luke said suddenly, kneeling besides his sister. "I can't change your past, but you can turn –"
"Turn like Anakin," Rey said, halfway hoping he would choose not to, that he would die for his crimes. Yet she couldn't deny the Light coursing through her.
Kylo was shaking uncontrollably. "I don't – I can't –"
"He should get some rest to be of use," Ackbar said coldly. He didn't know what to make of his former shadow, a quarter century later a weeping killer on their floor.
"I have an idea." Rey smirked at Luke and, using the Force lesson she'd had earlier that day, raised Kylo's body up and carried him bridal-style back to the medical bay.
"Impressive," Luke remarked, watching his sister stand by her humiliated son's bed.
"Am I a dark person if I enjoyed that?" Rey asked softly.
"No. You're a hurting child – just like us all."
Hux froze before the sneering hologram. Perhaps his lack of sleep, perhaps his strange feelings and rash actions had overpowered him, ruined him.
"You went to usurp Kylo Ren." Snoke leant back, tapping his fingers against the ragged stone chair. "And you succeeded. He's now a captive to the chaotic Light. What would your father say?"
Hux fumbled for words. "I take full responsibility, Supreme Leader –"
"You are the greatest disappointment I've seen in my eleven-hundred years," spat Snoke.
"I am, sir." Hux dropped to his knees. "I promise I will not fail you again."
"Get up! You are a General of the First Order; you should be proud of your position!"
"I am, sir. I will develop a force to rescue Ren," Hux said, nauseated at the thought. He climbed to his feet, wishing for a bloody death.
"It is too late. The Resistance will be changing bases as we speak. We must hope for him to return on his own," growled Snoke.
"I will, sir," Hux vowed. "What would you have me do in his absence?"
"Bring your stormtroopers to me."
"They are not ready, Supreme Leader." Hux wasn't sure why he was arguing for them. Truth, perhaps. And this was what Zaira would say.
"They had better be! I gave you another chance to retrain them."
"Retraining takes time," Hux contended, clenching his fists.
"They are ready now or you will be without an army," purred Snoke. "You can hardly afford to refuse the First Order now. I'm beginning to suspect I made a mistake promoting you for a family name and not much else."
"I've built the First Order to new militaristic heights," Hux blustered. "I will bring my troops to you immediately, sir. I will not fail you again."
"You will not."
Hux dipped his head and strode out.
He considered praying to the Force, but he was too bitter towards its narcissistic users to ask for aid. He could succeed on his own merit, just as his father had beaten into him.
He didn't want to see Zaira, Hux realized. He cared almost more about her opinion than the Supreme Leader's.
General Hux ground his teeth. You fool. Now was not the time to surrender to corrupting emotion.
"Sir, they are not ready." Phasma blocked Hux's access to the stormtroopers' training room.
"The supreme leader is wise," Hux responded. "We deploy in an hour."
"Sir, this is foolish."
"No, disobeying Supreme Leader Snoke is foolish."
"Very well. You'll have more deaths on your hands, then," Phasma said coldly.
More deaths? Hux's temper ignited. "I'll let you tell them the good news then, Captain. Don't you dare disobey me."
"Have I ever?" drawled the Captain, seething inside as she stormed inside the training room.
"What's happening?" RT-3131 stopped sparring with 2460, who, with a reluctant nod from Zaira, slammed her body to the ground.
"In battle, you can't be distracted, no mater how safe you feel," Zaira said. She remembered her father telling her that through her tears. Did she really want 3131 to suffer her fate?
Unease swelled in Zaira's stomach. "Captain, you do seem on edge."
"We deploy in an hour, on orders from the Supreme Leader."
Zaira's eyes became flames. "What?"
"Troops, prepare," commanded Phasma.
When they were alone, Zaira let out a shaky breath. "What on earth is he thinking?"
"You're the only one who might be able to talk some sense into him." The very idea that she could lead her troops, her troops she'd danced with last night, to death today, stunned Phasma.
She cared, she realized. Captain Phasma was cruel and demanding, but she gave a damn and liked it.
"I'll try." Zaira stormed out of the room.
Hux's face burned red at the mere sight of Zaira. "It was not my preference."
"We're going to get these children killed," Zaira exclaimed.
"They're hardly children. They're soldiers."
"Incomplete ones. Don't pretend you don't care."
Hux avoided her gaze. Of course he cared. He shouldn't, but he did. "We don't have a choice."
"I'll help them," Zaira said. "As best I can. I'll be on the field with them and Phasma. We'll train between every, every mission. What will you do?"
"Me?" Hux frowned. "To help?"
"Yes." She glared at him.
"I'll help you with training in whatever ways I can. As you will help me," he said weakly. What had happened? When had he decided to help her?
"Thank you." Zaira regarded him with appreciation, and suddenly Hux felt fear.
Leia's blood pounded in her ears as she descended into the medical bay. Her son saw her coming and scrambled away, though he couldn't move far with both his hands and feet now shackled to the bed.
R2 greeted her casually, before refocusing on Ben. The droid hadn't left his side since Rey'd placed him back on his bed.
"We're moving to avoid another attack from the First Order," Leia said, uncertain what else to say. "You'll be placed aboard a ship soon."
"Still chained?"
"For your own benefit," Leia said. "Snoke's been manipulating you, Ben, since you were a child. I didn't notice and I'm so sorry, Ben."
"Don't say his name. Ben Solo is dead. Like his Father." He wouldn't even meet her eyes, her son, her son.
"I want nothing more than to embrace you." Leia swallowed. He was all she wanted, her son. Han's son.
"But you won't." Kylo's eyes gleamed with self-directed malice.
"Would you let me?" Leia held her breath.
Kylo wanted nothing more than an all-encompassing embrace, but he could never admit it. He had committed to the Dark. How could he cheapen his father's sacrifice by letting the Light retake him?
Across the bay, Rey saw another opportunity. "General, allow me."
To Kylo's shock, Rey crossed the bay and squeezed his shoulders. His wound smarted, and he imagined she'd intended that.
"Girl is amazing." Poe chuckled. "Hey, I'd hug him if it'd annoy him."
"Gee, what do I have to do for a hug," Finn joked.
"You want one?" Poe's heart leapt, and before he could censor himself, he was embracing his buddy.
Finn returned the hug. He felt oddly excited in Poe's arms.
"You'll never miss an opportunity to make a fool of me," Kylo grumbled to Rey. "Are you sure you haven't embraced the Dark Side?"
Rey's eyes flashed. "Isn't it better than torture or hunting?"
Leia noted a strange look in Kylo's eyes, something beyond humiliation, when he spoke to Rey. A pleading to be seen as human, perhaps.
"Luke and I will be guarding you on the ship," Rey added. "Better get used to it."
"Give him hell," Poe said with a grin.
"I'm already in it!" Kylo screamed.
Poe's face fell; Kylo gasped at the compassion he felt in the room.
"Stop that! Don't start to care for me because I'm weak! I'm weak!"
"I never stopped caring." Leia's fingers squeezed his hand. "We'll be leaving later today, Ben."
"I'm not Ben!"
Her son hadn't changed from his teenage years, Leia realized. Fury at Snoke's abuse coiled within her. "Then I love Kylo Ren, because he has Ben Solo inside him."
Their orders came while still in space.
"I – I think I'm afraid." 3131 stared at 3100 with wide eyes.
"Oh – oh! Lieutenant Zaira." Frantically, she tried to place her helmet back over her hair. The other stormtroopers quickly assembled into two lines.
Zaira swallowed. "We'll be guarding General Hux while he, er, negotiates with one King Prana."
"Who is he?" asked a usually quiet trooper, RT-3189.
"A king. Who may be, hmm, of use to the First Order. You didn't hear it from me, but don't stray out of line." Zaira exited the room as Phasma entered.
Phasma huffed at her friend's obvious disregard for protocol. She, their captain, ought to be dispelling the barest details for their soldiers. Still, this was Zaira, and everything she did seemed to come from a genuine heart.
"Prepare to disembark."
Mountains, taller and steeper and darker than Zaira had ever expected, rose to greet the soldiers as they marched off the ship.
Hux ground his teeth. He'd possessed a disposition of controlled fury since childhood, but these days his fury was directed toward himself rather than his underlings. There was no doubt that the Supreme Leader had changed their route simply to test him.
I am loyal. I am capable of negotiating this deal.
Everyone knew that those who angered King Prana could be fed to a gogitol or a giant Velusian fursnake. More likely the troopers would suffer before he would, but Hux didn't find his rank as comforting as usual.
Two Togrutas bowed their heads in his direction. "General Hux. Follow us, sir."
Vaguely aware of Zaira and Phasma leading the stormtroopers behind him, Hux kept his head high as they passed through a narrow passage between mountains. A crater teeming with gardens full of cages loomed beyond them.
"Kind Prana has been most displeased with the Resistance of late. No doubt you've heard Han Solo betrayed him, killing his rathtars."
The actual story'd been far stupider, Hux recalled – oh wait – he'd concocted that piece of propaganda against Ren's father, hadn't he?
A creature howled in the distance, a howl Hux didn't recognize. His skin crawled, and he heard one of the troopers give a little gasp.
Zaira's every nerve raced. At any second, one of the troopers could be attacked by who knew what kind of animal – and she would defend these children if she could, position be damned.
A golden palace dominated the center of the gardens. Its opulence clearly awed some of the stormtroopers and Zaira, but Phasma and Hux found themselves bitter. Phasma scowled at the idea that opulence must be concentrated, not spread; Hux felt angry that time had been wasted on something so useless as a palace.
"King Prana wishes you to go on ahead, sir, while your soldiers stay here," said one Togruta.
"Very well." Hux nodded towards Captain Phasma before proceeding up the shimmering stairs.
The sun beat down as Zaira, Phasma, and the stormtroopers waited silently below.
Rey's stomach felt as violent as a supernova. She didn't want to give into the Dark Side. She didn't want to hate Kylo Ren, despite the pain he'd caused her friends.
Luke, Finn, and Poe were asleep. Only R2-D2 and BB-8 were awake to see her cross the cabin and sit on Kylo's bed.
"We'll be arriving soon," she said softly.
His eyes blinked open. "You knew I wasn't asleep."
"Lucky guess." Rey shrugged. "I didn't invade your mind, if that's what you meant."
"I would have felt it if you did." Kylo met her eyes.
"You don't need to apologize. I'm not mad about that, or about being smashed into a tree."
"I feel your anger."
"That's for Finn, and Poe, and the villagers on Jakku. Luke's academy. Han." Rey couldn't turn her eyes away. "I can take it, but they didn't deserve it."
"Neither did you," he confessed.
Her brow furrowed. "Are you remorseful?"
"No."
She felt the conflict, the lie, within Kylo Ren. Pity stirred within her. No matter how much pain she'd ever been in, she'd fought to survive. She could not comprehend the guilt necessary to wish death upon oneself.
"You can survive, you know. You can make it. If you need help, there are people here to help you."
"Why would they?"
"Because – because people can be good." Rey shook her head. "I don't know why or how, but people can always be good."
"Where are we going?" Kylo asked for the hundredth time, because he knew it annoyed everyone.
"Not telling." Rey rolled her eyes, perfectly aware why he was asking again. He'd find out soon enough; within an hour they would land on Ahch-To.
King Prana was draped across a diamond-studded throne. "General Hux, isn't it? Or shall I call you Brendol?"
"You will call me General Hux," snapped Hux, infuriated at the name.
Prana's dark, practically Hutt-sized eyebrows rose. "Very well."
He dangled another worm into his mouth, exposing the teeth he'd filed into claws.
Hux had no patience for this man who fancied himself a beast. "You know what the Supreme Leader wants."
"Yes, yes, of course." Prana waved a ring-studded hand about. "Allegiance, money, mercenaries – am I forgetting anything? I've had such bad indigestion recently, I do feel it's affected my memory."
Now Hux found himself wishing Kylo Ren was still around to suffer this mission. To choke this King. "That would be his request, yes."
"And my portion?"
Hux blew out his breath. "I'm told you're to gain three new rathtars and as many creatures as there are on planets the First Order conquers."
"Three? Dear, dear." Prana pressed a hand to his chest. "No, that can't be. Solculvis has had word of Solo's disaster, that's for certain. No, I shall require at least a dozen."
"A dozen rathtars?" Hux now considered Kylo Ren sane.
"No less." The king thought for a moment. "And no more too. You know how hungry those things get."
"So I've read."
"Do we have an agreement?" Prana clasped his hands together in delight.
"I suppose we do." Hux wanted to leave. Now. No, he wanted to be a child again and forget this man.
"You work with the son, correct? Of Solo?" Prana did have the most delightful way of spitting out that surname. "I must say, I was so hoping he would come instead of you – distinguished though you are. It would have been such fun to taunt that rotten double-crosser."
"Then it will warm your heart that Kylo Ren has slain his father." Hux thought it better not to mention that Ren was now either slain or imprisoned by the Resistance.
"Did he?" Prana's nose wrinkled in horror. "My my, patricide is an awful thing."
"Indeed. But sometimes necessary."
"I suppose that is where we disagree." Prana cocked an eyebrow.
"Sir?" Hux couldn't believe that King Prana would dare moralize him, a hardworking officer of the First Order!
"No matter. Keep me out of your war details. I'll let your soldiers and my mercenaries handle the conflict. You'll be given quarter here for the night. Well, let me see, your soldiers shall have the servant's quarters – it wouldn't do to put officers with the soldiers, I have some dignity – and I'm sure we can find rooms for the rest of you."
"Thank you for your generosity." Hux held back a sneer as another Togruta beckoned him to follow.
Outside, Zaira heard a rumble far too close for comfort.
"What was that?" 3131 whispered.
"RT-3131, who permitted you to speak?" Phasma asked in exasperation.
"The monster over there?" suggested Hundred, voice rising.
"What monster?" Zaira whipped her head around to see a nexu bounding towards them.
2460, their most promising trooper, raised his weapon – and then someone was yelling at them, "Shoot it and we shoot you!"
But 2460 had been too quick, and were it not for a kick from Hundred, the gun almost certainly would have killed the nexu as it chased a lone lluma not far behind them.
A Vollick guard pounced on them, aiming a blaster at 2460. "You think you're above these creatures?"
"No – no. It was a mistake, sir," stuttered 2460.
"A mistake you'll pay for!" The Vollick shoved 2460 back. His fingers moved towards the trigger –
"Stop!" Zaira lunged forward as Phasma raised her blaster, but then someone had leapt in front of Zaira and the stormtrooper, knocking her off balance.
"You will keep your paws off my soldiers," spat Hux. "Unless you'd like to ruin your king's hard won deal."
As the Vollick lowered his weapon in favor of growled insults, Zaira could only stare at the back of Hux's red head.
"General." Later that night, Zaira appeared at Hux's door. "I thought we should continue training wherever we are."
"Of course. I'd expect nothing less, since one lesson would hardly suffice." Hux sniffed.
Zaira glanced around the intricately engraved room. More gemstones were in this room than she'd ever dreamed existed. The ceiling soared above. "If I knew everyone in the galaxy could live like this, I'd live the rest of my life here in wonder."
"Prana is a petulant sloth."
Zaira's eyes widened. "Well, I did notice his, er, lackadaisical demeanor at dinner…"
"He builds an elaborate zoo while the galaxy descends into war. He's worse than the Republic, although I suppose he's not hypocritical about it." Hux tumbled down as Zaira kicked his legs out from under him. "I was hardly expecting that."
"I'm glad you admit it."
"Why wouldn't I?"
Zaira laughed. "Hux, please."
Now her hands locked onto his shoulders, and he was flipped on his back before he could respond.
He used his momentum to yank her down with him.
"Oof. Although, I must admit you took me by surprise today."
"Did I?"
"I wasn't expecting you to jump in front of RT-2460 and me," she said.
Hux's face turned red. At the time, he hadn't even known what he was doing. Yet he couldn't help but admit Zaira's death would be an enormous loss the First Order could not afford. "We couldn't lose such a fine officer."
"Fine? The uncivilized, protocol-shunning one?" Zaira teased.
"Is it so hard to believe?" he demanded.
"No," she said, taken aback by the defensiveness in his tone. "My father, though, he used to say that soldiers didn't give up their lives for one another, only for the citizens back home. Only friends, he said, gave up their lives for each other."
Hux blinked. "Well, your father was wrong."
Zaira looked at him evenly. "Guess both of ours were."
All Hux could think about was how grateful he was she hadn't died today. He was, he knew, far more grateful than a General should be.
I will not be compromised by sentiment, he thought wildly.
Zaira noted the tensing of Hux's jaw, the embattled light in his eyes … the close proximity of his body to hers.
The idea that he was not an unattractive person scared her far more than a dozen rathtars.
