EPISODE VIII

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

Three Star Destroyers came out of hyperspace over the small green planet. Deep within the Ileenium system in the Outer Rim, it was a place of no significance to anyone - not anymore, anyway. For a brief time, it had served as the heart of hope in the galaxy.

That time had ended with the Resistance's departure. Now there was nothing left but empty rooms, empty crates, and the scraps of life and warfare that were too small or insignificant to gather. There was no reason for the First Order to come here.

They were here all the same.

A stub-winged shuttle disembarked from the larger of the three Star Destroyers, the flagship of this segment of the First Order's growing fleet. Four TIE-interceptors accompanied it on its journey to the useless planet below.

The landing platform was dotted with the detritus of a hasty departure. Spent fuel cells rattled across the pitted duracrete and abandoned cables thrashed like serpents in the wind kicked-up by the shuttle's arrival. It sank heavily onto its landing gear as its TIE escort settled around it. The shuttle's ramp descended and a single figure limped out, black robes flapping.

Kylo Ren strode into the abandoned base alone.

Protocol - and every sensible precaution - demanded that he wait for a scanning team to clear the area first, lest the Resistance had left traps or other unintentional dangers behind in their hurried flight. Kylo Ren considered such protocols both unnecessary and beneath him. He had the Force, of course. What trap could be laid that he would not sense, would not defeat?

He walked through the hollow shell of his mother's base like he was stalking the corpse of a long-hated predator. When something impeded his path he kicked it aside, sending crates skittering and empty chairs sprawling. Sometimes he used the Force to shove them aside instead, seeming more like a petulant child than a Dark Lord.

He held his lightsaber clenched tight in one black-gloved fist, but there was nothing here to fight. Not even ghosts.

Until he turned a corner and found himself confronting a hologram of his own father.

Kylo Ren stopped dead, his black helmet not enough to hide the shock that ran through him.

The hologram showed Han from the chest up, smiling his customary cocky grin. It must have been taken several years ago, when there were fewer lines in Han's craggy face and more brown in his hair. He looked like the middle-aged man that Kylo Ren remembered from his old lifetime, before he had left the chains of his family behind and become himself, not like the old man who had come chasing him to Starkiller Base.

Not like the old man whom he had killed.

Han Solo, read the words cycling beneath the image. Hero, Husband, Rebel, Scoundrel, Friend.

Kylo Ren read the words again. Then a third time. No matter how many times he read them, the missing word - father - did not materialize.

Ren clenched his hands into fists that shook angrily at his side.

"Very droll, mother," he growled, the vocodor of his helmet making his low words echo harshly in the empty room.

And suddenly, the room was no longer empty. As though his words had triggered it, a second hologram jumped to life. This one showed a young woman with pale skin and light hair bound in tight buns against her skull. She was dressed in what passed for a uniform in the shabby Resistance and there was something vaguely familiar about her face, although it wasn't until she spoke that Kylo Ren could place her: Kaydel Ko Connix, one of the so-called "granddaughters of Alderaan" who had flocked to his mother's banner.

Behind his mask, Ren sneered. The noise came out as a derisive cough.

Connix, of course, could not hear him; this was clearly a pre-recorded message, somehow triggered mid-speech by his presence.

"...call on all free peoples of the galaxy," Connix was saying. "Yes, the threat of Starkiller Base has been neutralized by the efforts and sacrifices of the Resistance, but that does not negate the travesty of their actions. That does not bring back the people of the Hosnian does not destroy the evil of the First Order."

Ren stalked around the room as Connix's pathetic plea filled the air. He assumed it was on some kind of broadcast loop, probably tied to a Holonet transmitter. He wasn't afraid of the galaxy rising to his mother's cause, of course, but the message was an irritant he intended to silence.

"Many lives were lost in the fight to destroy Starkiller, too," Connix was saying. "We remember and honor their lives, and mourn their deaths. Sara Bel-Sun," she said, her sad little voice heavy. "Ello Asty. Furillo - "

"Yes, yes," Ren sneered more to himself than to her, "such tragic losses. How will the galaxy endure without its most pathetic dregs?"

" - Pallaris Ven," Connix was still speaking. "Han Solo. Bendamin Organa-Solo."

Ren stopped and jerked around, helmeted head snapping to stare at the cringing little hologram.

"What?" he demanded.

"We ask you to join us in grieving these losses," Connix continued, unaware of Kylo Ren's furious question. "We implore you to join us in ensuring their sacrifice is not in vain. Please, rise up. Resist. Only together can we defeat the First Order and the evils for which it stands."

Enraged now, Ren finally spotted the transmitter. His lightsaber ignited with an angry, buzzing hum as he stalked towards it, his wide strides making his robes flap in the still air of the abandoned base.

"Please," the pathetic little girl in the pathetic little hologram was repeating, "Stand with us. Resist. Rise up while you can. Only together can we save our galaxy - our friends, our families - from the First Order."

Ren raised his lightsaber. He brought it down.

"Only togetherrrrrrrrrr - !"

Sparks flew from the Holonet transmitter. The weak little hologram stuttered and died, Connix's ugly little face vanishing in a burst of static. Blessed silence filled the empty base.

Ren slashed at the transmitter again. And again. Somehow, he could still hear its words echoing inside his helmet. He used the Force to wrench it free of its housing, sending it soaring through the air to smash into the far wall.

He twirled around and stalked to the hologram that had been left to memorialize his father and smashed his lightsaber through that, too. It took two blows before he found the projector and severed it. Han Solo's cocky grin vanished.

Kylo Ren struck the projector again. He could still see it, could still hear his father's voice in his ears. Alone in the empty base, he could still hear that mocking chuckle. He struck the scorched remnants of the holo-projector again. The words that had scrolled beneath the hologram seemed to have become somehow imprinted on the inside of his helmet's lenses. They rolled past, taunting him. He roared in anger and struck it again. And again.

It didn't help. He struck it again. Again.

Again…

Author Notes: If you've been reading my EU-inspired Sequel Trilogy AU, don't be confused: this story is not part of that continuity. It is, however, a result of it.

I concocted the major plot-beats of that story before TFA released, and had most of the first part drafted before TLJ even came out, let alone TROS. As such, while it incorporates characters and influences of the Sequel Trilogy, there are a lot of specific plot and character beats that happened in the movies that are not touched-upon in that story in any way. And as I was writing the second part, I found myself struggling against the urge to incorporate or address some - even ones that didn't make sense within the continuity I had built for myself, and which really didn't fit the story at all.

This is the solution. This is a direct canon divergence rather than a whole-cloth AU. This story accepts everything that was on screen in TFA as canon (although some of it will be treated to explicative quasi-retcons for the sake of salvaging logic, don't worry), and branches-off from there. Some additional elements of Sequel Era Canon will be incorporated; some will be ignored. I consider this an alternate take on how TLJ might have been written, but one that is free of the constraints imposed by later additions to Sequel Canon.

(And if you want something that's both more of an original story and also more deeply influenced by "classic" Star Wars, I heartily recommend The Dark Reborn, the first installment in my what-if take on the whole idea of a sequel trilogy.)