"Didn't realize I was on a rescue mission," the bounty hunter turned away from the control panel to look at Lori.
They had made a short jump at lightspeed away from Dantooine, and now sat in the empty void of space.
Lori had finished her call several minutes ago, though she had only just slid into the co-pilot's seat. Not wanting to delve too deeply into her past, she gave a comment that distracted more than answered any question the man might have, "Guess that means your conscious can rest easy now."
He hadn't been bothered in the first place, but he could appreciate the sarcastic barb, "That still doesn't explain why you asked me to clock you."
Lori shrugged before answering, "Just keeping up appearances."
"An appearance of what, exactly?" the bounty hunter wasn't keen on being blindsided by some other circumstance that his employer hadn't mentioned.
A lie came easily to Lori's lips, "I just figured my life and yours would be easier if my captors thought you were working for one of their competitors."
"Instead of your husband?" he thought he was putting the pieces together.
Lori let him make the convenient assumption, "That's right. If they knew you were working for him, that man probably would have shot us both. But, since they think you're just another thief…"
He picked up on the logic he thought Lori was trailing off on, "They'll try and steel you back instead."
She turned a grin into a grimace, "Not the best solution, I know. But you've got to admit that it's better than getting blasted out of the sky."
"Fair enough."
The bounty hunter didn't press on why she and the infant had been kidnapped in the first place, nor did he ask where she came from, or who the kidnappers were. He had spent long enough marauding around the galaxy to know that the answer would leave a bad taste in his mouth, and that it was better to take the money and leave without another word.
Lori leaned back in her seat, satisfied that that would be the end of it. She didn't expect Dak or the mercenaries to catch up, and once she returned to the First Order it more than likely wouldn't matter what they thought of her. But she was never one to leave a loos end dangling, and it was all the better if they considered her to be a lost ally for as long as she could manage.
The bounty hunter finished plotting their course to Batuu. He had recently upgraded his hyperdrive, and the journey wouldn't be long at all. Breathing out a small sign of annoyance, the man flipped a switch to initiate the jump.
Only for the engine to stall.
A glance at the ships instruments found several strange readings. He wasn't sure why, but one screen had blinked out a warning of a sub-hyperspace rip. Just as he was about to grumble out a complaint, a red light painted the inside of the cabin.
.***.***.***.***.
General Hux stepped onto the frost laden platform. The senior officers and head engineers that had brought Starkiller base to life stood at attention in neat rows towards the center of the stage.
Tens of thousands of troopers stood on what would normally be a landing field. Flanking the field of white were black rows of newly minted TIEs, their pilots stiffly standing to their sides. Dotting the crowd were blood red banners, each emblazoned with the First Order's insignia. General Hux took in the scene, letting himself marvel at all he had created.
A shiver cut through him, its sharp edge barely dulled by his heavy gaberwool coat.
The surface of Starkiller was bitterly cold, made even worse by the death of the star that it had once orbited. The lingering light left behind by the suns withering core cast the planets snow laden landscape in a muted gray. Deep green trees took on a sinister tone and melded into the black stone of the many mountains in view, even the pure white snow turned to the color of ash.
If Hux were a symbolic man, he would have taken the fading light as an omen. An event to portend the death of the New Republic.
Instead he listened to the snapping of flags on the wind. Three massive banners served to block the base's entrance from the harshest of the elements. Like the smaller things dotting the field they were a deep red. The biggest shock of color on the planet, they drew the eye and demanded attention.
Hux felt very big and somehow truly insignificant as he had his back to the banner.
He breathed deep, looking down at ten thousand helmets that looked nowhere besides back at him.
Starkiller base had become a field bathed in black, white, and red. Wrapped in his officer's coat, with skin paled by the cold, the red headed general was in perfect harmony with the sinister sight.
The wind blew across the field. Hux took a deep breath before beginning a speech that had sat in the back of his mind for nearly a decade.
"Today is the end of the Republic!" He began at a shout, "The end of a regime that acquiesces to disorder!"
He voice fell over the field of obedient soldiers, words quickly fading against murmuring wind. As they did, he didn't just see a field of troopers, he didn't just feel the cold wind whipping around him. He saw the future unfolding out beneath him. He felt fate turning on a single moment that was his to command.
He continued, words beginning to tumble form his mouth with a practiced cadence, "At this very moment, in a system far from here the New Republic lies to the Galaxy, while secretly supporting the treachery of the loathsome Resistance. This fierce machine which you have built, upon which we stand, will bring an end to the senate! To their cherished fleet!"
"All remaining systems will bow to the First Order! And will remember this… as the last day of the Republic!"
As his last word faded into the wind, there came a sudden snap and a deep rumbling that came from a great movement in the crowed. Ten thousand troopers saluted a general, his eyes turned towards the sky.
Hux looked up, seeing the end of one era and the beginning of a new. An age of order, an age that would be his. Quick thoughts of everything he had lost and everything he had never imagined that he would have cut at him along with the wind.
Ready for his life to begin again, the general gave his order as a shout.
"Fire!"
.***.***.***.***.
Red light painted the cockpit. Turning around, the bounty hunter followed Lori's gaze through the viewport.
Garish red streaks cut through the stars. He counted three, then four, then five arching beams darting through the galaxy at an impossible speed, an impossible distance away.
His confusion turned to disbelief, then to horror, as the beams suddenly bloomed. The edges of their fearsome glow turned uneven with the fragmented remains of some rocky celestial body.
Lori didn't mind the man, nor did she mind the blast.
A terrible sight, to be sure, but within the violent beam she didn't see the billions of lives that had been unmade in an instant. She didn't see the fear or hear the screams cut short.
She gently cradled her infant daughter, and she saw the harsh beginning of a bright future.