Kylo Ren stared at his evening meal. Yalvik queen stinger, Corellian flatbread and a side dish of Mandalorian soup. Delicacies from across the Galaxy. He poked at it with his fork, the muffled tapping and scraping of his cutlery against the metal plate, echoing in the silent void around him.
Ever since becoming Supreme Leader, Kylo had dined alone by choice.
Hux was… He skewered the stinger with his knife. That snivelling ferret . He wouldn't let Hux within a parsec of his food.
He could have joined the high-ranking officers in the dining hall but they were so unnerved by his presence they barely ate.
It was better this way. Alone.
He sipped a small crystal glass of port, letting the alcohol spread warmth in his chest and relax his senses. His eyes roamed around his chambers, trailing over the dulcet grey tones of the walls, to the hollow black steel of the floor. There was no life here, no colour, no light.
He had not minded it … until now.
The room flashed green as the holo-screen flickered to life.
His heart stopped. A notification. They were moving. She was moving.
He watched as a white dot tracked across the screen, staring at it with enraptured attention, forgetting the bite of food in his mouth.
Where was she going? he thought, calculating the possible trajectories.
Could he connect the Force Bond? Should he?
He had tried to open it just once from his end. Just to see her once, a fleeting glimpse that would have been enough to satiate him.
He had gotten so close—standing alone on the observation deck, eyes closed, reaching across the stars. It only took a moment for the air to tighten around him, the soft burn of sunlight on his skin and the fresh scent of misted sea salt filling his lungs.
Rey was nowhere to be seen.
He had felt her, but she always alluded him and he hadn't found the courage to seek her again. Not after what had happened last time.
The buzzer by his door beeped, and Kylo checked the time. Right on schedule.
The door slid open with a hiss, and HR entered, a bundle of raw nervous energy vibrating in the surrounding Force.
"Supreme Leader." HR snapped his hand to attention, a sharp confident motion. A lie. Kylo could sense his emotions— hesitation, doubt, terror .
"Take your helmet off when you address me," Kylo commanded, lowering the timbre of his voice into something threatening and full of menace.
HR hesitated, and Kylo slammed his cutlery onto his desk with a loud crash. "I gave you a command."
HR fumbled as he unclipped the fastening of his armour, holding it at his side as Kylo regarded him. HR's face was unchecked and open, unable to conceal his true feelings. That was something Kylo appreciated. It was so much easier to hide behind a mask.
HR stood at attention with a light coat of sweat at his temple, dark eyes wide and imploring and that blasted goatee, still there—his mark. His rebellion against conformity. Against Hux. Against him.
"Are you incapable of working a razor, HR?"
"No, sir."
"Do you have some kind of impairment that makes you unable to complete a simple task of self-grooming?"
"No, sir. Consider it gone."
"See that it is," Kylo snapped. He should threaten him. Punish him for his insolence… but he wasn't finished with him yet.
"You have to admit though," HR rubbed at the spot with his index finger, a disarming smile creeping onto his long face. "It looks pretty sharp."
"HR…" Kylo glared at him and the living Force around the room became taut and strained but despite this, the stormtrooper smiled.
"Actually, Supreme Leader. I have a new name now."
Kylo choked, breathing in the flatbread he was halfway through eating. "You what?"
"A new name. A few of the guys from the HR designation started calling themselves HR too. So I had to think of something else…"
Kylo waited but HR volunteered no more information. What did he want him to do—ask for it?
He was close, so close, to throwing him into reprogramming himself.
"It's Hari, sir!" he shouted with excitement.
Kylo Ren ignored him, returning his full attention to the movements of the Millennium Falcon, moving his fist towards his lips to hide the subtle smirk that tugged there.
The computer had now calculated three possible destinations: the Outer Rim, he would lose them there, Genosia, unlikely, and Batuu, what would they be doing there?
"Were you stationed in the kitchen today?" Kylo asked.
"It was my shift off, but I volunteered there anyway. I like to help, it keeps me in touch with all the happenings on the ship. That's how I knew the name HR was—"
"And was there any news?" Kylo pulled his eyes away from the screen and scrutinised the stormtrooper.
"Not much. General Hux has sent the TD-squadron for reprogramming for the second time in a month—my friend Ted was in that group." Hari turned away, blinking. "The kitchen staff have been working overtime to get this latest humanitarian food shipment ready for Altarrn."
"Don't care," Kylo said flatly, poking at his meal again.
"There was one more thing the guys in supplies mentioned," he stopped now, brow furrowing. "But I'm not really supposed to—"
"You see? That's the one I want to know about."
"Apparently, Hux has ordered a secret convoy to retrieve some device on Batuu."
"Batuu?" Kylo pushed his plate away.
Hari nodded. "It's at the "black" something. I didn't quite catch the name. I wasn't supposed to be listening."
"What had he ordered them to retrieve?"
"No one knows Supreme Leader; it'top secret, I'm not even supposed to know anything about it… but I try to listen more than talk when I can."
"I find that hard to believe," Kylo grunted.
Hux and Rey convening in the same location. Had he found her? Was she the "device"?
"You should come one night," Hari added. "To eat with us."
Kylo checked in with him again, calculating the motive behind his words. Hari's expression was just the same as before, open, readable, honest…
"I'm not coming to the damn mess hall," Kylo growled.
And there it was. Hari's tell, a slight furrowing of the brows and tightening of the lips. He had offended him— finally , but not it seemed, deterred him.
"It would mean a lot to the troopers."
"I'm sure." Kylo exhaled, letting out a sharp laugh.
"It would make you seem a little more human instead of all this…" His trembling hand gestured around the room to Kylo, the smashed walls of his bedroom, and the charred remains of Darth Vader's mask sitting atop a pile of ash. "It's bloody terrifying if I'm being completely honest."
"You really have no filter, do you? It will get you killed."
"I don't understand what you mean, sir. What kind of filter would you expect me to have?"
Kylo didn't respond, although this time he didn't bother hiding his smirk.
"A lot of the stormtroopers are pretty threatened with all the reprogramming and testing that Hux is doing right now."
"I'll consider it," he said grimly. "For now, I want you to gather up a team, loyal men you would trust with your life—and mine. They must be able to follow orders but have enough independent thought to improvise and above all, be discreet."
"I, ah, yes Supreme Leader," Hari stammered. "Would you not take your own personal guard though?"
"It's sensitive. I need to make sure my team his loyal to me, and not," he added with a scowl. "To General Hux. Is this something you can do?"
Hari's jaw dropped, mortification and quiet pride. He then rattled off a mix of individual names and designations, listing the finer attributes of each: FN-8161 from dry cleaning, he's great to have in a tight spot. Burt, all round nice guy and loyal to the Supreme Leader, KR-120, a terrible singer but handy with a blaster.
And on, and on…
Kylo didn't listen to a word of it, instead, his mind focussed, listening at a deeper level—to Hari's heart. With Force-sharpened perception, he went into Hari's thoughts. Everything linear and ordered, almost droid-like, stripped to the bare essentials. He supposed that's what programming did to them. He searched for hints of betrayal, selfish ambition, deception, anything that would confirm this was all an act to betray him.
But Kylo found nothing. He was genuine. It was hard to believe. No ulterior motives. Perhaps deep down, at a subconscious level? No. He continued his search, subtle enough he wouldn't notice.
"Hari," Kylo's interrupted. "What are you doing here?"
"Following orders, sir," Hari announced proudly, as though responding to his station master.
"And if you weren't following orders," he asked. "Why would you be here?"
Hari was speechless, staring at him with that wide-eyed innocence, but his thoughts were loud and clear. Loyalty, friendship, compassion…
Kylo smiled despite himself as Hari continued rattling off contenders until at last he finished and after a pause, tickled his goatee. "None of those men are pilots though, PD-8161 will tell you he is, but he wouldn't even be able to pilot a speeder."
"A pilot isn't necessary, I can fly my own ship."
"Yes, sir. Can I tell them where we're going?"
Kylo tapped once again on the planet showing on his holo-screen. "Batuu, Hari. We leave within the hour."
On the command deck of the Finalizer, Armitage Hux paced along on the bridge. He stood tall, head-raised, shoulders back, a silhouette against the vast array of space. He looked out at the stars with pompous possession, as though they were his own property.
Millicent was at his feet, his ginger-cat with gleaming yellow eyes. She pushed past his leg, leaving a light coat of fur at his ankles, purring. Her tail flicked as she prowled along the bridge, eyes fixed and deadly, melting into the shadows preoccupied with the hunt.
Hux resumed his slow, long strides until at last, he lowered himself into the command chair, watching his officers work in terrified silence.
He smiled with pride. It was a good day. The Supreme Leader had barely surfaced from his tomb, the officers had maintained a satisfying balance between respectful terror and productivity, and right now his private team were readying themselves for departure to Batuu.
Millicent pounced out of the shadows, the spidery arms and legs of an insect-like creature twitching on both sides of her mouth. She set it down at his feet and peered up at Hux expectantly.
"Disgusting," he said with a scowl, noting the crushed creature on the floor. "Someone get the fumigation team up here."
Millicent turned back to her prize, pawing the creature, breaking limbs and wings as she did so. Occasionally, letting it scurry away, the promise of freedom luring the insect to scatter to safety. But its freedom was deceptive. Millicent watched it, silent and still, the only sign of movement was the rhythmic flick of her tail.
Then she struck again, skewering the creature with a sharp stab of her claw, dragging it back into her snare. Over and over, she repeated the game, until the insect shuddered and died.
"Well done, Milly," Hux said, scratching her around the ears. Ruminating on what he had witnessed: freedom, capture, hope, torture, despair and death.
A valuable lesson. An adaptable plan.
Something buzzed in his pocket, and Hux removed his private communication device vibrating in his hand.
"What is it?" he hissed.
"General, the Supreme Leader was here just a moment ago. He's pulled your special troops."
"What?" Hux's face went livid, flushing red like the colour of his hair.
The doors to the command room slid open, and a great wave of darkness entered from behind him. Hux stiffened, curling his lips around his teeth, pocketing his communicator once more.
Kylo Ren loomed before him. His heavy black cape fell from his shoulders, eclipsing the light in his formidable size. His face flushed with anger. It reminded Hux of the folklore of Arkanis that told of the demons with black wings spitting fire from their eyes. Right now Ren was as close as he would ever get to one.
He liked those stories. The demons didn't scare him, as they had the other children. He liked to strategise how one might use them. How they could be manipulated to crush enemies and then discarded.
Hux smiled curtly, the curl of his lip hooking into something of a smile. "Can I help you?"
Kylo raised a single eyebrow in response.
Silence, was it? Hux's eyes flickered from Kylo's face to his hand, loose , he noticed. He exhaled a sigh of relief. The Supreme Leader wanted something from him. Hux let the silence fall between them. Waiting.
"What have you found for on Batuu?" Ren's voice was soft, quiet, like the way his father used to speak before beating him cruelly across the ears with the buckle of his belt.
"We don't know what it is," he lied. "Only that it's highly illegal, and the Resistance is trying to have it for the war."
"An item?"
Hux tightened his lips together, forcing that heartless smile once more. "You need not worry about it. I have assembled a team of my finest men. They will be there within the hour. We will get to the bottom of this Supreme Leader. The Resistance will pay."
Kylo stared back at him blankly. Unconvinced.
"We will crush these Rebels, Supreme Leader. They have no chance of standing against the First—"
"Save your rhetoric Hux," Kylo said, marching forward into his space. "I want the name of your contact. I'm taking my own team there to deal with it."
Hux stiffened, his voice barely audible between his clenched teeth. "This is far from your duties as Supreme Leader. Let me handle it."
"Let you handle it?" Kylo almost laughed at the thought.
"I mean it, I—"
Kylo held up a single finger in-front of his face. "One. Only one time will I forget that you have gone behind my back to gain access to an illegal item without my knowledge or consent."
"But Supreme…"
"Let's give credence to both our intellects and finish this right now. Don't pretend for a minute you are doing this for me."
"Supreme Leader!" the general's voice echoed around the control room. "You have only ever had my loyalty."
"We'll see." Kylo turned to leave, his voice calm. "Within the week my knights will arrive. Make sure they have everything they need. Give them full access to all records and whatever else they ask."
Hux bowed, watching Millicent as she stalked another creature in the shadows. "Does that include your personal records, Supreme Leader?"
Kylo froze, and Hux smiled, satisfied his words had found their mark. "You did say all records, Supreme Leader."
"Be careful, Hux," Kylo hissed back, not even favouring him with a glance as he left Hux alone and unsatisfied on the bridge.
"Incompetent…" Hux muttered as he returned to his command chair. "Deranged…" he hissed under his breath, each insult growing louder than the first.
He slunk back onto his chair, lips still moving with silent threats and insults running rampant in his mind. Millicent jumped into his lap once more, nudging her head against his hand for attention. Kylo Ren , he sneered under his breath, shaking his head with a terse smile. He cupped his hands over Millicent's head, sliding his hand over her back as she arched into him, repeating the motion over and over again, each stroke firmer as he struggled to repressed the rage boiling within him. Spineless, pitiful, barbarian, he would … Oh, the many things he could think of to destroy him. Then the throne of Supreme Leader would be his. And only then would the First Order be the dominant power in this universe instead of the farce it was fast becoming under Ren…
He breathed hard, right eye twitching with every stroke. Millicent tried to move away, but he pulled her back again, ignoring the way she clawed at him.
He had to be careful, underhanded. That he could do. All he needed was leverage.
"Leverage, Milly," he whispered, pulling her closer by the collar. "We need lever—."
His hand caught on something, a note with a small chip attached. He yanked it off her, brushing his fingers over the rectangular data chip and read:
Turbo lift security footage 34 ABY. You may find it interesting.
Streams of starlight streaked past the windows of the Millennium Falcon as Rey relaxed with a sigh. She sat with her feet up and a hot drink of tea held close to her chest. Poe's rhythmic music played through the ship's sound system and she smiled as she watched his toe tap in time with the tune. There was such a different atmosphere in the Falcon with Poe. Everything was a little more laid back as he joked and laughed with her.
He yawned casually, one arm toying with a ring that hung around a chain on his neck, the other stretching out wide until it caught on the back of Rey's chair. She glanced at it out of the corner of her eye as he held it there awkwardly.
Rey shifted in her seat as he turned to her, with a wide grin that flashed white perfect teeth, his dark eyes peering at her beneath heavy-set brows. He was a handsome guy; she had to give him that. He had manufactured a debonaire style oozing charm and confidence of one that was always in the right place at the right time, doing exactly what he was meant to be doing.
"So… this is nice," he said casually.
"Yeah." Rey sipped her tea. "Thanks for letting me drive, that was big of you."
"Well, you can take her on the hyperdrive," he said, finally dropping his arm from her chair. "I'll land her though."
Rey glared at him, and he laughed.
"Or you could land her. Although, if we're being entirely honest. Leia's kind of like a mother to me…"
"It's not your ship, Poe," Rey said.
Chewie came into the cockpit, a lone Porg pecked at a strand of his fur from his shoulder, grooming it in his beak. "Oh, hey Chewie."
"I didn't say it was my ship, only that it was like my ship."
"If the ship belongs to anyone it's Leia and failing that, Chewie—isn't that right, Chewie?"
Chewie let out a contented growl from behind them as Poe pulled the ship out of hyperdrive, the rivulets of stars transforming into clear pinpricks of light.
"What are we doing?"
Poe pointed to a large asteroid belt before them. "The Harsel Belt, it's just before Batuu, but it's not a stable field. We're better off going around it manually incase there are any loose asteroids that would pulverise us at lightspeed."
"What's that?" Rey asked, pointing to the proximity alert that was now beeping at them.
"Two incoming crafts." He said searching the screens to the left of him. "Bounty hunters! Where the hell did they come from?"
Rey activated the shields, watching as the indicator on the dashboard showed them building around the ship up to 60 per cent and then … stall. She cursed.
"Oh come on!" Poe shouted. "You guys were meant to have fixed them after Veros!"
"We did fix them," Rey shouted back and Chewie bellowed, crossly.
He banked the Falcon gently to the right, towards a hazy line of grey, the two spacecraft turned alongside them. Hovering alongside them threateningly, marking them but not firing.
"What have you got in mind?"
Poe turned to her with a smile, mischievous and overly confident. "We'll lose them in there."
"The asteroid field? Are you crazy!?"
"It's not the first time it's been done," Poe said.
Chewie grumbled, leaving to fix the shields once more as BB-8 wheeled in beeping wildly.
"It's alright little buddy. Best pilot in the galaxy, remember?"
"You better be," Rey said.
The Millennium Falcon powered to the edge of the asteroid field where they were faced with pale grey rocks floating in space, dancing and crashing in unpredictable patterns. A pair smashed into each other as Poe fired the forward thrusters, sending splinters of rock showering on the ship and tapping loudly on its hull.
"Easy does it," he cooed to the ship. "Are they still following?"
"One of them is; the other is holding back outside the field."
The Falcon maneuvered carefully into the field, banking and dropping around every obstacle. Rey grasped her seat with a terse expression, her knuckles white. They were in the centre of it now, surrounded by every side. A star destroyer sized rock ricocheted off another, careening towards the Falcon. Poe flipped the ship onto its side, completing a roll as the asteroid came towards them, almost scraping the ship's underbelly.
"Hey—Jedi, can't you do something to help?" Poe said again, taking the Falcon into a deep dive to miss an oncoming rock.
"Oh right, sure," Rey answered and closed her eyes. She sought out the Force, the energy instantly electrifying around the Falcon, giving and taking. But her mouth dropped open at the realisation that Poe's gift in flying was more than skill, he was in-tune with the Force, subtly and unconsciously, he moved the controls with instinctual precision.
"That's better thanks, Rey. And hey look, we've lost the other one."
Rey was speechless, peering in shock and awe. How many others were out there? Luke was right; the Force didn't belong to the Jedi. It belonged to everyone. Rey stared at him in wonder, at the same time noticing that Poe's neck was now flushed with colour and he nodded to himself with a satisfied smile. She quickly turned away, cheeks red and very aware of how her gaze could be misconstrued.
He cleared his throat. "We're almost out now," he said, continuing to weave through the fabric of the Force as if it were no trouble at all. "Can you believe Leia bought up Del Poa?"
"It wasn't that bad, was it?"
Poe shook his head, banking hard left as three asteroids collided to the side of them. "Nah. We had it under control. I mean, perhaps if you had—"
"No," Rey's voice rose up sternly.
"What?"
"No, no," she continued, pointing at him defiantly. "It had nothing to do with me, you're the one who wasn't in position."
A scattering of space rock exploded towards them. Rey flinched, but Poe didn't— determined on proving himself right.
"The guy walked straight past me. I couldn't just let it go!" Poe said with passion.
"And I had to make sure you weren't walking into a trap … which, by the way, you were!"
"I had it under control," Poe said louder this time, lips tightening around every word.
"And so did I," she replied, staring straight ahead. Chewie groaned behind them at the start of another argument.
The Falcon continued on in silence, deftly rolling this way and that until they finally saw the hint of empty space before them. Poe breathed in loudly through his nose, lips clamped in a tight line, while Rey chewed on the inside of her lip. Hot-headed fly-boy.
She took a deep breath and tried to remove the challenging tone in her words. "Anyway, it didn't end up mattering what we did. The First Order still got what they wanted."
"Yeah," Poe replied, but his voice was still sharp. "What I wouldn't give to burn the whole First Order to the ground—starting with that lunatic Kylo Ren."
Rey stiffened and glared at him but Poe didn't even notice, his attention consumed by the path ahead.
"You know you're talking about Leia's son." Rey tried to say it calmly, but each word was strained.
"That is not Leia's son!" he shouted at her almost hitting an asteroid. "Don't even pretend that monster is Leia's son."
A wave of heat surged through Rey's body. "You can't pretend he's not!"
"Rey, I don't know what meditating and lifting rocks on that island has done to you but…"
She forced a bitter laugh. "Lifting rocks?"
"Whatever, If you're trying to defend that sick basta—"
"I'm not defending him!" She tried to relax—to slow her rapid breathing but her body was tense all over. She continued, slowly, pointedly, trying to keep the emotion out of her voice.
"All I'm saying is that whatever he's become, he was once Ben Solo. He had a family, people that loved him before Snoke twisted him."
"He twisted himself!" Poe spat, surging out of the asteroid field at last and turning to her with a pointed finger. "As far as I'm concerned, Ben Solo is dead and you'd be wise to think that way too."
Rey stood up a little too fast. She pushed down the emerging feeling of slapping him across the back of the head and took a long, slow breath. Anger is the path to the dark side , she reminded herself but if she was entirely honest at that moment—she didn't really care. "I'm going to help Chewie out back. Call me if you need me."
"Yeah, hurry back now," he added sharply.
She turned to leave, looking back once in silence at her friend. The Force was bristling with anger around him, as it was around her. He didn't know. No one knew the conflict that was tearing Ben apart.
"I thought you were going," Poe huffed.
She came back to him and placed a hand on the back of his chair. Immediately she felt the emotions of the room change. Anger resided, brushed away as a storm blows out to sea.
"Not everything is black and white, Poe," she said softly.
Poe smiled, not looking back at her. "Actually, Rey, it is. You should know that more than anyone. Light and dark, good and evil, First Order, Resistance."
She reflected on his words and thought about the Jedi texts sitting in her room. She had waded through them every night, trying to decipher small puzzles of a larger problem. Some of the pieces had been written more recently, in a language that she was able to translate through Leia's decoder. One of those passages sprung to mind.
"Only the Sith deal in absolutes."
Poe fired full thrusters again, nearing a bright sun that centred around a few moving planets. "What the hell does that even mean?"
"It means," she shook her head. "We don't know what the future has planned for Ben Solo, for any of us. He may yet turn."
"Yeah, when hell freezes over." He pushed the button on the intercom. "Chewie, we're coming up to Batuu. Prepare to land.
"Are you going help me land this ship or not?" He turned back to look at her.
She sat back down beside him, taking the controls in her hands slowly, feeling deflated.
"Anyway," Poe continued. "Let's just say that he turns. Do you think the galaxy is going to forgive him for what he's done? Do you think they should?"
Rey said nothing, staring silently at the solar system before them.
"They'll want blood, Rey. Regardless of what side he's on. Ben Solo is dead one way or another."
They were coming up to Batuu now, lush and verdant green spreading before them. Perhaps he was right , she thought. No. She knew he was right.
"And the fact that you're even talking about this—honestly, it's just weird, Rey."
She turned away from him, away from the light of the sun and rested her eyes on the vast emptiness of the Outer Regions beyond them. "What can I say, perhaps I learnt it from Luke. We have to hope, without it we have nothing."
"You're a fighter, Rey." Poe reached out and squeezed her arm, his eyes lingering on her. "I like that about you. Now, let's talk about your role as the only Jedi in the Resistance…
Rey shuddered. Batuu couldn't come soon enough.
Thank You!
I want to give credit to my amazing beta reader who is helping me make this story into what it is.
The Aberrant Writer Girl who stays up into the wee hours with me working this into something mildly readable. She gives so much of her time and is an amazing author. Check out her work.
Lastly, if you want to come and chat, you will find me on Tumblr at Pathfinder.
