Chapter 18

An Unorthodox Infiltration

Leia had lent him a throwaway shuttle to turn himself in with. It waited for him at the furthermost edge of the landing platform, pieces of metal sticking out and rusty from the humid jungle climate.

While he made his way to his ship, dozens of Resistance troops swarmed past him, chinks of early morning sunlight reflecting off of their pilot suits and holstered blasters. Though space on the wooden deck was scarce, they somehow managed to keep at least a two-foot radius clear around him. Part of him didn't mind the extra space, but still… it did nothing for his morale. Even with his light saber clipped to his belt and his usual dark robes covering him from neck to toe, he marveled at the vulnerability still clinging at him.

"Ben."

Even though she didn't shout, he could hear Rey clearly over the din, as if through a comm system. As he turned around, he saw her gliding towards him. Her new outfit draped over her elegantly, all flowing white fabric held to her by the usual brown straps and belts. Her saber was strapped behind her back, ready to be whipped out and ignited.

"Rey," he answered, but couldn't speak any more than that, for she sprinted towards him and crushed his chest in a huge hug. He let out a small grunt but returned her embrace. Taking in the clean scent of her hair and the beautifully rough scars on her hands filled him up to the brim with a new, brighter courage.

"You think we can do this?" he asked her, peering down into her sparkling brown eyes.

"Of course, we can, Solo. What, you think we're going to let you down?" Finn had appeared behind them with Rose and Poe in tow.

He cleared his throat and shook his head, pushing away from Rey suddenly. Poe raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

"If Starkiller is anything to go by, this'll end in a lot of smoke and debris," Ben replied.

"But with us winning still," Rose grinned, nudging Poe playfully in the ribs.

"Keep her safe, you got that?" Poe asked. He crossed his arms over the buttons on his flight suit.

Irritation lashed up through Ben, but he didn't take the bait. Instead he said, "I won't let you down."

The pilot nodded, seemingly satisfied.

Rey looked between her friends and Ben nervously but loosened her shoulders when none of them appeared aggressive to one another.

Then Finn held out his hand to Ben, his expression neutral, which is all Ben could have asked for.

"It's means a lot to me. What you said back at that meeting."

"Thanks." They shook hands. Damn, that stormtrooper training wasn't for nothing, he had a grip of steel.

"Hopefully we'll see you at the field when you two finish up," Rose told them, and with that Rey's friends turned and hustled away, the pilot joining the rest of his comrades by the parked x-wings.

An all-too-familiar roar reached Ben's ears. Rey whipped her head around and gasped happily.

Chewie waded through the throng of soldiers, calling and bleating to the pair of them. Rey ran from Ben into the Wookie's waiting arms while Ben waited behind, unsure of how to act.

His father's best friend. His uncle, basically. How would he react to seeing his friend's murderer here, among his friends? How could Ben make it up to him.

Chewie hugged Rey tightly in his hairy arms then let her down sweetly, now turning to him.

His dark eyes met Ben's. He felt like his entire soul was being read like a book, not unlike the effect his mother had on him.

Suddenly the Wookie roared and swept him up in a rib-cracking hug. Even Ben's large stature was dwarfed by the Wookie's massive body. Resting in his arms again flung him back into old memories with Chewie, of him nestled in his hands as a baby, of him sitting on his shoulders, laughing as his family took long walks through the courtyard of their home.

A tear trickled down his cheek, but he let it be, throwing his arms around his old friend.

"I'm so sorry," he mumbled.

Chewie nodded and let out a small grunt, as if in understanding. They both pulled away, but not without a last shoulder pat from the Wookie.

"You'd better be on your way." Rey looked over her shoulder. Ships now lifted off from the platform, scattering heat all across the wooden planks and rustling the leaves of the jungle trees. Ben's hair flew around his face.

Rey's hands parted his mess of locks, though, as she swooped in for a last-minute kiss on his cheek.

"Good luck. Maybe after this we can head back to Nov Sensum for a visit," he said to her. Fidgeting with the lightsaber on his belt, he clicked the cockpit doors of his shuttle open and stepped inside, his cape swirling around the dust that had unsettled at his arrival.

Her smile was the last thing he saw before shutting the door between them.

A few button clicks and switch flicks had the engine up and running. Slowly but surely, the old bird rose up into the air and began to hurtle away from the surface of the planet.

They had also supplied him with the First Order's frequencies so he could radio them ahead of time. As his ship sailed through Raspitar's outer atmosphere, he managed to connect with one of the communications officers on board the Finalizer.

"This is Kylo Ren," he stated matter-of-factly. "Tell your General Hux that I'm surrendering myself to the First Order."

…

The big bad of all the destroyers, Hux's flagship, the Finalizer, now hovered above him like a monstrous bird of prey. Comparing it to the power and finesse of Snoke's old ship was like comparing a blaster gun to a blast from the Death Star. But if Hux was still on board like Ben remembered the thing was not to be underestimated.

The TIE fighters on patrol had allowed him to maneuver his ship past theirs to the main bridge, where he picked out hundreds of stormtroopers marching in formation along the shiny dark floor, looking like tiny mites. Soaring through the life support barrier, he initiated the landing gear and took the clunky old shuttle down to the ground. Already the lines of stormtroopers filed down the platform to meet him, blasters at the ready. If only he'd have his royal guards to back him up, but they were down on the down with Rey and the others. Their presence here would not bode well with their plan, anyway.

"Here we go," Ben braced himself. Stepping out of the pilot's seat he pressed the button to operate the door, when lowered itself down with an ancient hiss. He focused on morphing the expression on his face into something more Kylo Ren-like, with his old scowl and burning eyes.

As soon as he descended the ramp the clicks of raised blasters met his ears. A sweat began to form along his brow despite the brave face he put on. On the beach he'd blocked the laserfire coming towards them with a significant effort, but with even more guns trained on his chest, would he be able to protect himself?

A few of the stormtroopers have shuffled aside for two black-clad figures strolling towards him. He gritted his teeth at the familiar blonde bob of one and the tall, red-headed figure of the other.

Hux and Penma stopped a few yards away from him, both brandishing small blasters, the standard issue for high-ranking officials who needing a little extra protection hiding in their coat pockets. Her black eye had almost faded completely, but a few cuts along her jawline still remained from their encounter on Mer'in.

"Still playing the coward?" he called to her, remembering how the colonel had crouched behind a wooden sign like a child, waving her soldiers on to do the dirty work. Maybe it was his imagination, but he felt a few of the stormtroopers shift uneasily as if they partially agreed with him.

"So, you were the man under that mask." She trotted forward until she was but a few feet away, sneering up at him. "Brave words from a man with a death wish at the mercy of the most powerful order in the galaxy."

The woman huffed in a satisfied way, throwing a glance up Hux's way, like a pet begging for attention from its owner.

Hux said nothing but stepped forward, his boots clacking against the floor of the deck. He still looked exactly the same, with his hair so gelled up it practically shone in the bright glare of lights overhead. Not a wrinkle or patch of dust scuffed up his uniform. It seemed that the increase of his power only fluffed up his appearance.

A few TIE fighters scraped the air above them as Hux strode over to Ben, who waited despite every nerve screaming at him to leap forward and wring the little weasel by his neck. The general wore a look of contemplation.

"You're here to surrender, according to our communications officers," he stated neutrality.

"Could it have been any more obvious?"

An ugly grimace crossed Hux's face, but he managed to keep it under control. "What happened to your little desert rat? Surely she wouldn't leave you at a time like this. Thick as thieves, I've heard from the reports of the masked figures."

As much as Ben wished to prove his love for Rey here and not, now was not the time. They couldn't suspect a thing if their plan was going to work. He swallowed his pride.

"She went back to the Resistance," Ben willed all of the emotion and pain he could muster into his voice. "I knew it was a matter of time before you caught up to me. Before her Resistance dogs chased me down. And I didn't want it to end with her there."

He found himself flashing back to the burning throne room. How he and Rey had grappled over the lightsaber, over her allegiance. The hurt that arose from her pained expression, of her hand outstretched only to take herself away still thrummed through him like an aftershock, and he used it to his advantage.

But Rey was somewhere, waiting for him. None of that mattered now but in this place, among his enemies who didn't know their full story.

A moment passed before Hux dipped his chin down to his collar and smiled, appearing to be suppressing a laugh. The stormtroopers aiming their guns at Ben dropped their aim and looked toward their general, curiosity getting the better of them.

"It's quite ironic, really. All of these people in your past and now none of them can hold their faith in you."

Rough hands seized Ben by his shoulders and forced him to his knees. A surge of panic rose up in his throat when the cold metallic clasp of handcuffs slapped down around his wrists. The familiar weight of his lightsaber disappeared from his belt.

"Sir!" A young, petite officer ran towards their group, sweat dripping from their brow.

Hux waited her the woman to catch her breath, then she continued her message.

"We've detected a signal coming from Raspitar's surface. They say Leia and her troops wish to battle on the far side of the planet."

After a few moments Hux waved his hand. "Send the bulk of our ground troops down with a couple of TIE fighters to sweep up. I'll be joining you in a moment after I'm finished with this traitor."

Already the hiss of First Order shuttles and TIE fighters rattled the dock as more and more stormtroopers poured in. Ben watched, secretly smug. Good. He had taken the bait.

"So, you've been down there to the planet's surface and seen our precious princess, have you not?" Hux nodded to the stormtroopers holding him and they jerked Ben up and forward. He even had to employ a bit of Force power to keep himself from falling flat on his face.

"If you want me to tell you anything, you're going to be sorely disappointed," Ben told him as he, Hux, Penma, and the guards stepped onto the nearest turbolift and began their ascension. The air turned stiff and hot the longer their group stood still in that compartment.

"And why is that?"

"They didn't give me information. No positions, no numbers, nothing."

"Oh, I didn't even think of the possibility of you knowing anything of actual importance. No, I want something a little different from you."

Ben shut his mouth and didn't ask what Hux wanted but decided to go with the flow. The Force worked around him here. Telling him to hold back and listen and keep a low profile. Everything will work itself out in the end, something in his gut told him. Even as he glanced down worriedly at his confiscated lightsaber in the grip of a stormtrooper, he willed himself to follow that passive feeling, to trust his friends down in the jungle.

They had arrived in a place Ben certainly hadn't been expecting. The large black doors to Hux's private quarters met his eyes as soon as the turbolift spat them out onto a different floor of the destroyer. They filed a short distance to the doors, where they opened silently to allow their party in.

Clean white light shone throughout the grand space of Hux's quarters. A dark wooden desk dominated one corner while a small, tasteful kitchenette stood at another. Some straight-backed chairs huddled in the center of the main room. A couple of locked doors hid what Ben assumed to be his bedroom and bathroom.

Ben's gaze quickly fell to the orange ball of fur asleep on the kitchen counter. Millicent the cat was spilled out over a cutting board, her stomach rising and falling peacefully. He sighed through his nose as he watched her: just a day or two ago he'd been as carefree as that cat, waking up next to Rey after that golden night by the sea.

"Sit him here." Hux motioned to a chair in front of his desk. Rough hands pushed Ben down into the chair while Hux strolled behind the desk and slid into his seat. After removing his coat and throwing it over the back of his chair, he knitted his fingers together and peered over his knuckles at his captive.

"Wine?" he asked. He opened a drawer and pulled out a small green bottle with two thin-stemmed glasses.

Ben scrunched his eyebrows together in confusion. Hux shrugged and opened the bottle with a pop, letting the golden liquid inside to flow into one glass, then the other. The troopers standing on either side of him remained motionless, as if this were any day on the job.

"Why?" Ben asked simply. He yanked at the cuffs around his wrists, anger rising in him at the bite of the steel around his flesh.

Hux looked up from his wine and bit at his lip with a small smile. "Because I've won," he replied.

Following his instinct from the turbolift, Ben kept silent and waited for Hux's clarification. What he needed was more time.

"You could have killed me the second you walked onto this destroyer, but you didn't. Whatever your reasons for turning yourself in, you don't seem to be going back on them."

He leaned back in his chair and lazily ran his fingers up and down his glass. "And I've received a call from the Resistance saying they want a battle. Well, we'll give them a battle alright. And when the ashes are cold and the ships are rusted down, I'll be the one on top."

He swallowed all of his wine in one hard gulp, wiping his lips on the back of his black gloves. Penma beamed at him.

"Why am I here?" Ben asked.

"Oh, I just wanted to tell you all that over some wine. Nothing like a chat with a nice bottle of Dantooine's finest sitting in between."

Blood pounded against the inside of Ben's skull. The man, this rabid cur, as Snoke had called him, still pushed all the right buttons to set him off. Even with the changes in his life, the love he had been so graciously given, Hux somehow still knew how to break him down like back in the good old days of Supreme Leader Snoke.

"Are you sure you won't want any?" Hux asked politely, gesturing to the full glass still in front of him. "It may be your last."

Ben sat unperturbed and glared down at the general, lips locked and hands daintily in his lap. This wouldn't be his last drink if Rey had anything to say about it, not even close.

"Suit yourself, then. More for me." He snatched the second glass of wine and chugged it back as quickly as the first.

As soon as the last drop was drained, a black-clad officer burst in through the door, panting and wide-eyed.

"Sir, the Resistance forces below have taken out our heavy artillery!" the young man shouted.

Hux launched himself from his seat. "What?" he growled.

"We need reinforcements. What is your plan?"

Penma looked at Hux worriedly. Her guards shifted around nervously once more.

To Ben's delight Hux sighed and stomped around his desk, throwing him a scathing look before turning his attention to the officer.

"I'll accompany you to the bridge. If we're going to take any more action, I want to be there to oversee it."

Hux gestured to Penma, who snapped her heels together in attention. "Take this traitor down to the interrogation wing. We'll keep him there until we resolve the situation and afterwards…" A cruel smile curled the general's lips and his cold blue eyes flashed. "I'll be able to do whatever I want to you. Now you're finally out of my way, and I'll find ways to celebrate."

With one last swirl of his cloak, Hux was gone. The guards lifted Ben up from his chair and walked him out the door and down to glaring hall back to the turbolift, Penma trailing closely behind and tapping her fingers on her holopad.

Good, so he'd be alone in a quiet little room sealed off from the rest of the ship. Rey could appear to him then without distraction and they could dash to the main bridge. Hux and his closest officers would be taken care of before any more people could get hurt.

With a hiss the turbolift's doors opened, a dark, barred hallway that he had walked down many a time, dressed in his sweeping robes, hood, and his mask. Just remembering the snap of the fabric around his heels brought the distant screams of long-dead prisoners ringing in his ears. He shuddered involuntarily against his handcuffs.

But that was all behind him now, and soon even the First Order would turn into just a galaxy-wide bad memory. He lowered his head and smirked at the thought.

A door on their right slid open to reveal a cold, barren room, save for a wicked metal contraption in the center of the floor. The very same machine that had held Poe Dameron captive, then Rey, on Starkiller Base.

"Lock him down," Penma instructed the stormtrooper guards. They nodded in unison and threw Ben into the chair. Immediately they set about undoing his handcuffs and slamming his wrists into the restraints.

Now he found himself panting and writhing, his arms trapped at his sides and legs locked into place. His hair had fallen into his eyes but he couldn't reach up to brush it out of the way.

"Close the door," the colonel told the guard closest to the door. He obeyed and sealed their group from the rest of the hallway.

"You know, I never really trusted you, Ren." Ben watched in confusion as Penma slowly slid off her gloves and handed them delicately to a stormtrooper.

She approached her former Supreme Leader. Her small hands balled into fists and she raised them to her chest, blonde hair falling around her livid face.

Pain erupted in Ben's jaw as the colonel swung at his face. His head whipped to the side and he let out a surprised grunt.

"But I still wished that what Hux told me about you wasn't true. I wanted you to be there for us! To build a new, untouchable order for the rest of us!"

Another blow landed on his cheekbone and another on his eye.

"You—" Another hit. "Betrayed—" Another. "Us! And you betrayed—" Another punch to his jaw. "Me!"

It took every ounce of Ben's self-control not to throw this woman up into the air and across the room. He needed to wait and bear it, for Rey's sake.

Penma stepped back, breathing heavily. She shook out her fists and flex her fingers.

"Maybe I shouldn't have gone for the face. Hux will start to ask questions. But perhaps he won't mind."

Ben breathed in and out, concentrating on that stillness, that wall of silence that proceeded a Force bond episode. If she could just appear right now, he could get out of this mess and start their mission.

But nothing came. She wasn't here. Sweat built up in his gloves and he looked around wildly. He searched for a flash of her robes, a strand of her hair, anything.

Something flashed up on Penma's holopad and she nodded gloomily. He reached for her gloves and the guards placed them back in her hand.

"Looks like duty calls, Ren." She stomped away from him with their escorts.

Just as Ben was prepared to let out a sigh of relief, the colonel stopped in the doorway. The click of metal echoed through the room as her pistol leveled itself at his forearm.

"Maybe a little graze on your arm couldn't hurt." She giggled and her finger wrapped around the trigger. "Well, not me, at least."

Panic fell on Ben full force, and he willed up all of his strength to stop any blast coming his way. But with his hands pinned, could he…?

"Ben!"

Rey ran into his line of sight as silence engulfed him. Some of her hair was sticking out of her buns and her lightsaber staff was ignited in her hands. She met his eyes and dashed towards him.

"Rey, take my hand!" Ben shouted, splaying his fingers to the best of his ability. His heart leapt at the sight of her, the light in the dark, brooding space.

"What in the name of…!" Penma yelled as her guards aimed their blasters in every direction. "Who's he talking to?!"

Rey's warm fingertips met his and the room rippled.