The shuttle trembled, the floor paneling shivering under Hux's boots.
"What was that?" he demanded.
"Not certain, General," the captain said. "Could be a solar wind or unstable gravity field from the... the collapse."
Hux frowned. They should have been far enough away from the remains of Starkiller, but then again, nothing like the planet's demise had ever happened before in recorded history, so some unexpected phenomena could be expected.
The ship shuddered again, this time accompanied by a resounding clang. Everyone whirled towards the back of the shuttle where the alarming sound had come from.
"Karking hell," Hux muttered, not caring if the crew heard him use vulgar language. He stalked aft, flinging open the door to the makeshift medbay that was really the overnight quarters.
The stormtrooper inside nearly shot him before Hux snapped, "Hold your fire." He quickly took in the scene, noting the medical droid that was smashed to pieces against the far wall and the way that the stormtrooper was shaking in his armor.
"Get out," Hux ordered, not bothering to wait until the trooper fled the room before advancing on the bed where Kira Ren lay writhing weakly.
She must have woken while the medical droid was working on her. Her eyes were foggy with pain and her skin glistened with sweat. The slice across her neck and face had been treated and sealed, although it would still need bacta to heal cleanly. The wound in her side, though, was ugly. The droid had cut away the armor and tunic over her abdomen, leaving her in a simple undergarment to cover her chest. Normally, Hux would've been taken aback to see so much skin but now the blaster wound took all his attention.
At the impact point, the skin was burnt away, leaving raw, glistening flesh with glimpses of her ribs beneath. The intact skin surrounding the wound was mottled with red contusions that covered her entire side. Although Hux had had the foresight to order the crew to snag a medkit and droid before they left, they didn't have any imaging equipment to determine what damage had happened internally. If she had ruptured her spleen, she could be bleeding out and he would have no way to know or stop it from happening.
Kira moaned, her entire body shivering. The shuttled trembled again and several unmoored objects in the room began to rise from the floor.
"Hey," Hux snarled, gripping her chin in his hand. Her eyes snapped to his, as though she hadn't known he was there. "Stop trying to wreck the ship. If you do that again I'll kill you."
She struggled to focus on him. "You can't... kill me," she panted weakly.
Hux scowled in her face. Even half-dead the bitch knew she had the advantage.
"No," he agreed. "But you only have to be alive when we reach the Supremacy . Doesn't matter if you die after we arrive."
Her eyes drifted away. Hux looked at her wound again and grimaced.
"Since you destroyed the medical droid, you'll have to settle for me." Hux turned to the medkit on the floor and bent down to rummage inside. There were no painkillers, of course. If they'd had any, it would have been in the medical droid, ready to inject the proper dosage. Even if Hux had found the drug and a hypodermic needle, and managed to get up the willpower to stick it in her arm, he wouldn't have known the difference between enough to kill the pain and enough to kill her. The last thing he needed was to arrive on the Supremacy with a dead Kira Ren and a toxicology report pointing directly at him.
Hux stood next to the bed, holding a handful of bacta patches of assorted sizes. "Ren."
Her eyes had closed, but Kira opened them blearily.
"I'm going to bandage your wounds. Please refrain from any unnecessary violence."
Hux took her silence as compliance and pulled on a pair of sterile gloves before reaching for the cleansing solution. It appeared that the droid had mostly prepared the burn wound in her abdomen, but it was still leaking fluid and he attempted to wipe up around the edges of the exposed area for a clean application. That seemed right, anyway – this wasn't a simple scrape or cut.
Hux ripped open the first bacta patch. The sharp clean scent hit his nose and he braced himself before gingerly laying it across the bottom edge of the damage.
As the bacta came in contact with exposed nerve endings, Kira flinched, which caused Hux to flinch, expecting to be tossed across the room. He saw the muscles in her arm go rigid, her hand gripping the frame of the bed and crushing the metal in her fist. Hux exhaled shakily. As long as she didn't crumple the shuttle's bulkheads, he was fine with her damaging the furniture.
"Next one," he informed her, trying not to gag as he lowered the second patch over the center of the grisly wound where the blaster bolt had struck. This time, her whole body went rigid, her back arching slightly as she breathed through her nose. Hux wasn't in much better condition, feeling the bile climbing up his throat. He probably should've packed the wound with something.
Stars, this is revolting.
The last patch covered the upper limits of the burn wound as Kira turned her face to the wall. Hux let out a sharp breath when it was done.
Then he abruptly turned and vomited into an empty crate on his knees. The pungent smell of his own sick mixing with the stench of blood and sweat caused him to heave several more times.
Hux wiped his mouth and stood, peeling off the soiled gloves. Kira watched him, her eyes sharper and more alert. The bacta must have taken the edge off the pain.
"I should probably wrap your abdomen to keep them in place," Hux said, although his tone almost made it a question. She didn't respond, but he rummaged for gauze in the medkit and pulled out a thick roll.
"It'll be easier if you sit up. Can you do that?"
"...Yes."
She groaned, fresh beads of sweat breaking out over her forehead as she struggled to sit on the edge of the bed. Hux reached out to support her, the unreal feeling of the entire situation overriding any shock he would have normally incurred by willingly assisting the Master of the Knights of Ren. Hux wrapped the gauze around her middle clumsily, trying to secure the bacta patches in place until they arrived at the Supremacy.
He helped her lay down, gripping her hand as she slumped to the blood-stained sheets. He let go quickly, grimacing when he saw his own hand was covered in blood.
"What the hell, Ren," he said, searching for a clean cloth or something to scrub her blood from his palm.
"Sorry," she breathed, her eyes closed. "It was your choice to not leave me behind."
He rubbed his hand furiously, noticing the blood dripping from her fingers and the twisted, jagged bedframe where she had gripped it as he applied the bandages.
"Trust me when I say it was not my choice." Hux turned her hand over, finding a puncture wound and cursing under his breath. "But please, continue to injure yourself and make my task as difficult as possible."
Kira huffed a wry laugh which turned into a groan as she jostled her damaged ribs. "It's the only freedom I am allowed. We're both just pawns in Snoke's game, with no real choice."
"Shut it," Hux snapped, applying another smaller bandage to the puncture wound. When he looked up, she was watching him with that burning challenge that never failed to rile him.
"You may be right," he begrudged, settling into the familiar territory of arrogance and hostility, "but I'm currently the pawn with the advantage. Don't piss me off."
"We are both failures today," she returned. "Don't pretend otherwise."
Hux stood and glared down at her. Kira turned her face away, exposing the long row of sutures along her neck and face. Sickened and exhausted, Hux retreated to the opposite side of the cabin and slumped to the floor, leaning his head against the wall.
It was not unusual that Poe Dameron would be the first to volunteer for the most dangerous and daring missions with the most terrible odds of success.
It wasn't that he was trying to show off. That was more of a secondary motive or a side effect. No, he volunteered for those missions because he enjoyed them – he lived for the moment when he came through on the other side, hyped on adrenaline and laughing in the face of the Resistance's enemies. Nothing could beat that high.
While this also was a dangerous mission with terrible odds of success, he was beginning to regret volunteering.
He had just touched down on the tarmac and the entire Resistance was there to greet them. The whole base was cheering and whooping with joy. Understandably, because ttaking down Starkiller Base literal minutes before they would all have been obliterated by the First Order's weapon of mass destruction would get anyone excited.
When Poe jumped out of the cockpit, he was already scanning the crowd for his friends. He located the Millennium Falcon and loped off towards the freighter, clapping technicians on the back and clasping hands with pilots, mirroring their relieved grins.
The gangway of the Millennium Falcon dropped as Poe approached, and he found General Organa was right next to him, her face drawn.
"I'm sure they got him," Poe assured her, speaking over the cacophony of jubilant noise around them.
Leia startled, her head turning to glance at him distractedly. Poe was surprised to note the glimmer of tears in her eyes.
"Are you alright?" Poe asked.
She pressed her lips together just as a Wookiee's warble interrupted Poe's follow up questions. They both saw Chewbacca charge down the ramp with a limp form in his arms.
"Finn!" Poe exclaimed, running forward. "Medic! We need a medic!"
The next few minutes were chaos as Chewbacca transferred Finn over to the medical team. Finn looked terrible and Poe wasn't even sure he was alive until someone declared that they'd found a heartbeat.
"What happened down there?" Poe demanded. Chewie moaned the beginnings of the story – how he, Han, and Finn had infiltrated Starkiller Base, when Poe realized it was just the two of them.
"Where's Han?"
Chewbacca whimpered softly, his head bowed. Poe's heart sank as he realized he had lost track of Leia.
Poe turned on his heel and found her standing where he'd left her, staring at the Falcon. "Oh, no."
Someone else stumbled off the Falcon, tripping and falling on his knees, not bothering to get up. Leia stepped forward, stiff and tentative.
"Ben?"
Poe saw Ben's head jerk up at the name. Poe moved closer to Leia when he saw the look in Ben's eyes: hard and angry and unfocused.
"No," Ben spat. "Leave me alone." He rose to his feet, turned, and stalked away into the trees at the edge of the airfield.
"What was that?" Poe asked no one in particular. He felt disturbed by Ben's outburst. Even though it was fairly typical for Ben to snap at everyone, especially if Han was truly dead, something about him reminded Poe of Kira Ren's manner – volatile and burning.
Leia pressed a hand over her mouth. Chewie stepped forward, wrapping her in his arms, and Leia buried her head in the Wookiee's hairy chest. This was probably far from the reunion with her son she'd hoped for. Poe frowned, his eyebrows drawn together.
"I'll go get him," he offered. Leia didn't respond, but Chewbacca looked at him and nodded, then continued to murmur gently to Leia.
Poe turned and jogged off after Ben. Luckily, Ben hadn't made it far, stopping in a green clearing just behind the last hangar. He was bent over, kneeling in the scratchy grass with his hands gripping his hair. Poe approached cautiously, that instinct of something wrong growing thicker, tugging at him to run the other way.
"Hey, Kylo? You should come back to the base, get checked out by medical and get some food."
Ben raised his head, but he was facing away so Poe couldn't see his expression. He growled, "I said, leave me alone."
"Can't do that, Ben." Poe felt his legs tremble with the urge to flee, but he had learned a long time ago to ignore that urge. "I just escaped the First Order, too, remember? That Kira Ren can really get inside your head, but we need to take care of you, alright?"
Ben rose and turned, his face ghostly and hollow in the shadows under the canopy of trees. "You know nothing about it."
Poe raised his hands placatingly. "Sure, but I might know something about it."
Ben stared at him for several tense minutes, his anger gradually melting into a vague despondence. "I almost killed her."
Poe blinked. "Who? Ren?"
"She murdered Han."
"Why didn't you get rid of her then?"
"I tried."
"And what happened?"
"I failed."
Poe sighed. Chewbacca probably would be able to tell them what happened. With Ben, it was like pulling a rancor's teeth. "Alright, come on. We'll sort it all out after we get you fixed up. And the General wants to see you."
Poe started back the way he'd come, relaxing when he heard Ben follow after a brief hesitation.
Kylo submitted apathetically to Dr. Kalonia's efficient examination. Her diagnoses were unsurprising: dehydration, likely post-traumatic stress, concussion.
"Eat something, drink something, get some rest," she advised, tapping notes into a datapad. "Go talk to Leia. She's waiting on you."
Kylo grunted, sliding down from the table and tugging on an olive Resistance-issue shirt and snatching up his boots, ignoring the doctor's critical eye. He wandered towards the exit of the medbay, passing medical droids and crates of supplies as he felt the row of stitches in his tongue. Most of the bleeding from when he bit his tongue during Hux's torture had stopped, but Kalonia had insisted on numbing his mouth and sewing up his tongue. His mouth still felt fuzzy, so he clamped his jaw tightly to keep from drooling or something equally pathetic.
Leia looked up when Kylo stepped out of the medbay. He wasn't surprised to see her there; after all, Kalonia had said she'd be waiting. He was mildly surprised to see that her eyes were dry, although they were bloodshot and hollow.
"Ben. Is it true?"
He should have known she wouldn't use his bounty hunter alias , but it still hurt when he heard her say his name. He answered, "Would Chewbacca lie about something like that?"
Leia coughed on a pained laugh, then stopped herself. "No."
Kylo nodded.
She stood, her movements stiff and fragile, like she was trying not to trigger the tears. "I'm glad you're here, son."
"You shouldn't be."
Leia pressed her lips together, then slapped her son hard across the face.
Kylo jerked back, an unusually large amount of saliva and blood splattering from his mouth due to the numbing agent.
"I am so kriffing tired of you idiot Solo men attempting to tell me what to do." Her voice broke at the end of her declaration and she shuddered on a sob. "I'm sorry. I didn't plan to attack you when you got home."
Kylo stared at her in disbelief, holding his jaw.
She sighed, briefly touching a hand to her head. "Let's go to my office."
General Organa's office turned out to be as elegant and spare as Kylo would've guessed. The furniture was made of sturdy polished wood, and the roots hanging down the walls were also polished, creating an elegant latticework framing the room.
Leia sat down behind the desk. Kylo hesitated before slumping down in the seat across from her. He felt slightly more at ease with the solidity of the desk between them.
"Chewbacca already told me what happened," Leia reported, the tears in her voice having vanished. Apparently, the desk also helped her find her balance.
"He couldn't have told you everything," Kylo said, concentrating on his pronunciation to not slur his words around his thick tongue, being mostly successful.
"No," Leia agreed, "but likely you won't tell me the rest."
Kylo bristled at her assumption even as his gut agreed. He didn't want to tell her what had happened to him on Starkiller – it didn't concern the Resistance anyway.
"But as your mother, I'm willing to listen."
"Really?" Ben scoffed, raising his eyebrows.
"Now's not the time to throw my failings in my face, Ben." A fresh wave of grief passed over her face and Ben remembered again.
Han was dead. His father was dead.
How had he forgotten, even for a split second?
Ben felt the anger rise up again. "It was Rey."
"Rey?"
"Rey is Kira Ren. She killed Han."
Leia's jaw tightened. "Chewie wasn't sure but he thought that it was her." She exhaled slowly. "Is she alive?"
Kylo didn't hold back the venom in his voice. "Yes."
Leia absorbed the news quietly, a flurry of emotions running across her face before she exploded. "Karking hell!"
Kylo stared at his mother in surprise for the second time that day.
"Don't give me that look," she said. "It's just... everything I've worked for just got shot to pieces today. No, that's not true." Leia met her son's eyes. "I'm glad you're back, Ben."
Kylo waited, refusing to rise to the bait.
"Right. I've ordered everyone on base to begin preparing for immediate evacuation. The First Order will be in disarray, but they still have many resources beyond Starkiller Base. I expect that they'll be here within a day cycle to finish what they started." She sighed, placing a hand over her eyes before looking at him again. "I'd like to spend more time with you but that's not possible."
Kylo cocked an eyebrow. That was nothing new.
"Meanwhile, we matched the piece of the map from BB-8 to what we already had from R2-D2. We know where Luke is."
Kylo straightened in his seat. He had forgotten about the map to Skywalker.
"I can't spare anyone from the Resistance right now," Leia continued, "so I'd like to send you to find him and bring him back."
"Me?" Kylo couldn't think of a worse idea.
"Yes, with the Falcon, of course. Chewie's already agreed to go with you."
"Luke disappeared years ago and hasn't come back since. What makes you think he's going to now?"
"You can convince him to return."
"He never listened to me," Kylo muttered. "And I don't owe him anything."
Mother and son stared at each other. Kylo looked away first.
"What happened on Alaris Prime?" Leia asked softly.
Kylo gritted his teeth.
"Please, Ben. I want to understand."
He worked his jaw back and forth. "It was Rey."
"Rey?"
"She gave in to the Dark. Destroyed the Temple. Burned the Academy. Killed everyone."
Leia absorbed his words in silence. "Except you."
Kylo glowered. "And Luke, apparently."
"Well, yes," Leia amended, tapping a finger on the desk absently. She sighed. "I didn't think we would lose Rey like that."
"It wasn't her fault,"Kylo disputed. "We failed her." I failed her, and now Han is dead.
Leia shook her head. "We can only hope it's not too late for her to come back to us."
Kylo scoffed. "You never believed Luke that Anakin truly returned to the Light. Why would you want that for Kira Ren after she murdered your husband?"
Leia scowled. "Maybe because I know she has both Light and Dark in her. I saw her grow up. With Anakin, I only knew Vader."
"But isn't she just the same? An orphan, a failed Jedi apprentice?"
"Are you done trying to provoke me?" Leia snapped.
Disgruntled, Kylo slouched in his seat.
Leia's demeanor flipped to business in the blink of an eye. "You're a bounty hunter."
Kylo stiffened warily, unsure of where she was leading.
"I'm going to offer you 50,000 credits for the retrieval of Luke Skywalker – alive, of course. Double if he comes willingly."
"Excuse me?"
"I'm paying you to bring Luke to me."
"With what money?"
"Money that you need. You don't have a vessel. You don't have equipment. What you do have is a bounty on your head courtesy of the First Order. This is money that you need if you expect to survive."
Kylo clamped his mouth politician in his mother had just cornered him into a deal he couldn't afford to turn down.
"It's settled." Leia leaned away from her desk. "You leave with Chewie in twelve hours."