Loneh, First Order Advanced Weaponry Facility
The AAL flew from the Resurgence Star Destroyer hanging in orbit, one of 2 in fact, along with a handful of other smaller frigates and corvettes that orbited the planet. Descending to the planet surface, the lander skirted over the terrain once it had punched through the clouds.
Blizzards covered the planet in a thick layer of snow, the black mountain ridges arching across the skies beyond the horizon. Yet over parts of the planet, including this one, large rivers of magma surfaced, as the planet's geologically active nature cracked through to the surface to glow in the night.
Flying across, to a section of the planet where the surface lava became less obvious, a massive facility came into view up ahead, where mag train and vehicle roadway extended from it to a few tower structures beyond it. Around and near the towers some small rivulets of lava were streaming, venting towers for the facility's geothermal power plant, given how close they tapped the lava flows underneath the planet surface, and the magma chamber nearby in a large low lying mountain volcano.
A means to prevent an eruption, and to ensure the massive power there allowed the facility all the energy it needed.
Coming to land on one of the myriad of landing platforms, the AAL unfolded its ramp, a few Stormtroopers saluting as General Hux disembarked. Passing the troopers, he turned to the pedway, glancing sideways to see the massive assembly area nearby at the centre of the complex, a massive open expanse of smoothed concrete and metal that acted as a larger loading area than for mere shuttles. A small cruiser could land there if need be.
As he walked down the hallway, the transparisteel panes revealing the assembly plant below, General Hux gave a stiff nod to the younger corporal, datapad in her hand as she walked beside him.
"Make sure the newer prototype blueprints are forwarded to the manufacturing divisions on schedule. And arrange for the new supply chains the Supreme Leader has authorised, let the Fabrication corps know he expects similar results from the other projects."
"Yes Sir."
As the Corporal saluted before heading off to her duties, Hux turned to look out the hallway's viewport walls, his eyes beholding the forest of assembly lines, fabrication chambers, assembly droids and engineering corps troopers that peppered the massive space.
With a small grin of pride in this hub of research and manufacture of new weapons, Hux turned, and strode down the hallway without another word.
Outside the manufacturing and development facility, the scope of the facility could be seen, the large assembly area that was flanked by the shield generator complex, main factory and laboratories, the upper parts of the geothermal plant and the loading bays of the Crystal and mineral mines. Beyond it, a faintly glowing mountain ridge, where a few streams of magma came to the surface, along with a few larger craters where larger magma pools sat bubbling away.
But stretching out from the main factory facility were mag-loop tramways, trains running inside the tube that serviced mining facilities elsewhere on this region of the planet. The transparent steel that marked many points along the tubes show the pods running through them from time to time, each line a double tube, one line going to the factory, the other away in parallel. 5 lines, some burrowing through parts of the mountain.
One set of mag-loop lines ran down the wide, snow covered valley, towards a distant smaller facility a few miles away.
The main command building, communications center, and the detention block.
First order Loneh facility, command center building.
Detention level
Awaking with a jolt, Rey felt her wrists and ankles bound to the cold metal chair she was in, leaning back somewhat compared to the floor.
Straining briefly against them, she gave up as she noticed a familiar black figure in front of her, knelt down on his knees in an almost praying like pose, but staring right at her face.
Gulping, her face in a nervous sweat, she spoke with a dryness in her mouth:
"Where am I?"
Not moving at all, the masked figure replied in a baritone voice:
"You're my guest."
"Where are the others?"
"You mean the murderers, traitors and thieves you call friends? …You'll be relieved to hear I have no idea."
Breathing as he seemed utterly calm in this whole situation, in control, Rey tried to keep calm herself. But she was barely keeping a level head, and Kylo knew this.
"You still want to kill me."
"That happens when you're being hunted by a creature in a mask…"
Kylo seemed to stare up her for a moment, contemplating something, thinking. At that moment, he slowly stood up, and a clicking came to Rey's ears as she saw Kylo slowly pulling out his lightsaber, his fingers lightly stroking the handle, slowly advancing on her.
With a silent step, he tantalizingly pressed the nozzle of the lightsaber into Rey's throat, making her choke slightly as he pressed it uncomfortably into her windpipe. Her eyes darting around, she saw his finger slide slowly towards the ignition button.
A moment of tense silence followed, before Kylo pulled back slowly, placing the lightsaber aside on a nearby pedestal by the interrogation chair for now.
She would have seen the light grin at his threatening gesture if he'd removed his mask, but she suspected the mask was just as soulless as the man beneath it, and removing it would not reveal much more.
Coming around to her front, Kylo Ren calmly spoke, his metallic voice as calm as ever:
"Tell me about the droid, the one that was travelling with the pilot Poe Dameron."
Taking a nervous breath, knowing this man was incredibly dangerous, Rey began almost breathlessly:
"He's a BB unit with a Selenium drive and a thermal hyperscan vindicator-."
"It's carrying a section of a navigational chart, and we have the rest. Recovered from the archives of the Empire, but we need the last piece. And somehow you convinced the droid to show it to you."
"You, a scavenger."
At these words, Rey held back some tears of fear, but also of anger at the air of supremacy Kylo spoke with. She hated that he was, and knew it as well, in control of everything here.
"You know I can take whatever I want." Kylo spoke darkly, reaching out a hand to Rey's head from the side. In resistance, Rey turned away, but it was useless.
She felt in invasive, cold presence in her mind, as a mind besides her own tore into hers without remorse.
Kylo's voice seemed muffled as she lay there, his words like a distant poison:
"So lonely, so afraid to leave, so afraid to trust others too much."
She struggled slightly, but it was struggling against that which her own mind was telling her. Kylo was merely speaking it aloud for his own gain:
"At night, so desperate to sleep, you imagine an ocean. I see it, I see the island, and Han Solo."
Rey's eyes darted to Kylo's masked visage, as he drawled on at a more brisk tone now, a tone of contempt in his voice now:
"You feel like he's the father you never had, I'm sure he would have disappointed you."
"Get out of my head…!" Rey demanded, but it felt like a herculean task to overcome even some of Kylo's invasive techniques. Coming around to her front, his hand still outreached to her, Kylo's head nodded slightly as he grew impatient, certainty in his voice as if he spoke the truth:
"I know you've seen the map. Its in there, and now you'll give it to me."
Rey felt her head involuntarily leaning forwards from her restraint seat's headrest, as the pressure on her mind continued to grow, her heart pounding as she grit her teeth, a headache matching the mind probe from the masked figure standing before her, his outstretched hand seeming like it was trying to pull her head off along with her memories.
"Don't be afraid, I feel it to."
"I'm not giving you anything.." Rey replied, though this was a hard task in itself, the masked man's seemingly lying reassurance falling on deaf ears. Kylo didn't believe her words for a moment:
"We'll see."
In an instinctive resistance, Rey tried to mentally push back, feeling the invading limb in her mind that came from Kylo's mind. As Kylo strengthened his own mind probe, Rey felt its grip on her mind tighten.
She pushed back, and felt her own strained mind enter another.
Her eyes beheld Kylo Ren shift somewhat, his stance flinching as he seemed overcome by something he wasn't doing. He pushed his own mind probe harder, feeling her own retaliatory probe that she was instinctively doing, a far simpler task to do than opening up a mind probe from nothing.
Back and forth they struggled, until at the moment when Kylo was ready to violently press into her mind, she pushed herself. Invading another's mind left one's own vulnerable, and Rey burst through, the pathway to his mind allowing her to accomplish this with ease. The harder Kylo pushed into her own, the wider the path, and she dove deep into his mind, the masked man not used to another invading his own so unexpectedly.
"You, you're afraid…" Rey calmly replied, her brow covered in sweat as she stared at the unfeeling mask, but sensing the trepidation and fear behind it as she resisted more than any prisoner before.
"That you will never be as strong as Darth Vader!"
In a flourish of anger, Kylo wrenched his hand away from Rey's temple, his lightsaber flying from the pedestal into the same hand out of a flare of anger in him. A deep breathing, his body shaking slightly, but there was no ignition of a red crossguard blade.
Her breathing calming, Rey could do nothing but stare at the masked man as he stared back, before he stormed from the holding cell a few moments later, the doors slamming shut behind him, leaving her in the cell.
Facility Command structure
Communications hall
In the dark lit hall, the size of a chapel room, as the projection of the throne-sat figure of Supreme Leader Snoke spoke with Kylo, his visage taller than the masked man as he heard what had been done:
"She resisted you!?"
"She is strong with the force! Untrained, but stronger than she knows..."
"And the droid!?"
"Ren believed it was no longer valuable to us…"
Kylo span in the communications hall, seeing General Hux striding up as the dark room's doors shut further back. Turning back with his head low, Ren let Hux speak to the Supreme Leader uninterrupted, his mask and stance hiding his dislike of the man in wake of the success of the Hosnian Prime success:
"That the girl, was all we needed. As a result the droid has most likely been returned to the hands of the enemy. They may have the map already."
The larger holoform of Snoke shifted on his throne, addressing both of them as he briskly spoke:
"Then the Resistance must be destroyed as soon as possible, even Skywalker's return will be meaningless if they are in ruins. Have any new weapons ready as soon as possible General, I sense that they are seeking retribution for Hosnian Prime. Their movements will reveal their base, then you will receive the order to attack full force. Go."
"By your will Supreme Leader." Hux gave a small bow, while he then turned to look at Kylo's masked face with an air of very carefully hidden superiority, as much as he dared around the force wielder.
As Hux walked off, Kylo turned to Snoke with a respectful, almost pleading tone in his metallic voice:
"Supreme Leader I can get the map from the girl, I just need your guidance."
Leaning forwards, the projection of Snoke looked down at Kylo Ren, a cold tone in his voice:
"If what you say about this girl is true, bring her to me."
Loneh, main factory complex
As a few AALs landed, part of the gathering reinforcements for the immediate attacking task force being put in place, Captain Phasma strode off ahead of the others. Her FN troopers followed suit, before they each peeled off to their respective postings. But not before Phasma words beneath her chrome armor followed them each:
"Report to the designated transport the moment the order is called, be it moments or even days from now. Delay will be regarded as highly as incompetence, or treachery."
As she passed by FN-2199, he felt her words directed at him in particular:
"Is that clear?"
"Sir yes Sir!"
"Dismissed."
As they left, FN-2199 marched of with his group, his own contingent with a few other squads headed for a patrol in the volcanic mountain fissure to the north of the main facility.
As he marched, a slightly taller Stormtrooper asked quietly as they approached a First Order landspeeder to embark on patrol in, among the other troopers in their squad:
"Hey, you were 2187's squadmate, right?"
"So what if I was?" FN-2199 asked bitterly, tired of these questions by now.
"Did you know he'd turn traitor?"
"If I did he wouldn't have been alive to do so."
FN-2199 muttered this darkly beneath his helmet, as he and the other Stormtroopers boarded the speeder, its engines powering up to begin speeding across the snowy plains outside the main facility, the large expanse of the landing causeway and plaza giving way to the snow coated valley before them.
Interstellar space
Millennium Falcon
As Han input the commands, Finn sat behind the man, while Chewbacca made sure the falcon's systems performed as normal in the co-pilot seat. The former Stormtrooper, clad in his black underlayer form his trooper gear and Poe's jacket, nodded as Han typed in the last of the codes:
"Right, that's the codes. Not sure about it both ways however."
"First Order will flag it as an invalid code, but not before we slip into the planet's atmosphere. I'm pretty sure they'll notice its codes tagged with an verification ID of a deserter."
"But this hulk can get down there before that happens right?" Finn asked.
"You don't know much about what I've done with this ship, do you?" Han turned in the pilot's seat, shooting Finn a sceptical look. As Finn shuffled uncomfortably, Chewbacca grumbled in a sort of laugh, while Han then got up from his seat:
"We're still a while out, so may as well sit tight kid."
"Kinda hard to do knowing where we're headed." Finn admitted, as he followed Han into the crew lounge of the Falcon. The smuggler sat on a small seat, as he saw Finn sit on a small round couch nearby, idly shuffling an elbow onto the holo-table nearby.
A small set of holographic creatures suddenly appeared, the Dejarik table flaring to live in a surprise to Finn. Cautiously, Finn deactivated the table, before he saw Han slowly pull out a Lightsaber of all things:
"You're a jedi too?"
Han looked at Finn, arching an eyebrow as he placed the saber on the table before them, remarking offhandedly:
"Do I look like the Jedi type to you? No, that was Luke. Besides, I used that once before to help him. Brings back memories of things I'd rather not see or smell again."
"Uh, okay…"
As things were quiet, Finn admitted: "Is it weird, me being here, an ex Stormtrooper?"
"Kid, I've seen many strange things, to the point where I just add you to the list and move on. An ex Stormtrooper where we're headed is more a help then a problem anyway. If not, Chewie would've had his way with you by now."
Finn nervously glanced towards the cockpit passage, where he saw the Wookie wandering out the check the Falcon's backup nav-readout screens just within sight around the corner.
Finn looked at Han once more, shuffling forwards to ask him:
"What about the girl, the one who was with you?"
"Rey."
Finn nodded, as he remarked: "She'll be in the command centre, away from the main factory. That's where they hold prisoners."
"But the shield generator's in the main factory. We gotta make a choice kid."
"We have to get her, we would've got a call from the Resistance if the Order was heading to where Luke is if she'd already shown the last part of the map you said she has."
With a sigh, Han said simply: "Lets get there first, make our plan from there."
With a pause of thought, Han then moved the Lightsaber forwards on the table towards Finn:
"Here, you should take this for now."
"Me?" Finn asked incredulously.
"You said you were an elite trooper, riot trained? Better than nothing."
Leaning forwards, Han said bluntly: "Besides, whoever gets caught with that on them becomes the bigger target. You might be a good distraction, but try not to lose it."
Looking at the lightsaber, Finn did a double take at Han as he got up to check something in the back quarters of the Falcon, a minor groan escaping him as he looked down at the weapon in his hand.
All the while, the Falcon continued through hyperspace to the planet Loneh, and the mixed sabotage and rescue mission that awaited them.
Explaining the new third act locale, an icy world with volcanic activity in small emergent pockets. If it were to be based upon a terrain on Earth, it would be Iceland's mixed snow plains and volcanic mountains.
Geothermal energy feeds the plant, as well as molten metal resources. But Kyber crystals are the real treasure there, as will be shown later in the chapters with some of the prototypes the infiltrators see as they go about the mission.
Kylo Ren keeps his helmet on.
Also, having a lightsaber on one's self around the First Order is equivalent to painting a bullseye on your chest, and it would seem like Han to pawn it off on a partner if it meant an easier time for him and Chewie, seeing as he and Finn aren't fully 'friends' at this point.
Please review/critique, though this chapter took longer due to plotting it out, and University work.