[Hux]

Hux stopped at the top of the ramp as the first sergeant and staff sergeant continued down it. He watched to make sure they went far enough that their audio pickups wouldn't read the conversation he was going to have. Then he turned back.

The door to the forward compartment was shut. There was one stormtrooper on sensor duty and overwatch in there, also available as relief for the four on perimeter duty. It meant his people were all accounted for and elsewhere. Lt. Connix was in the shower, taking advantage of the lull to clean up. The stormtroopers would be cycling through for the same thing as the day went on.

To the side of the main compartment of the shuttle, Rey and Ren had set up the two sleeping mats. They sat opposite, facing one another, legs crossed. Between them they had placed an object. It was a pyramid about the size of two fists, black on the edges with dull green crystalline faces.

Ren and Rey waited. Hux watched them. Finally, Ren looked over his shoulder and asked, "Are you leaving?"

"No." Hux walked closer. "What is that?"

"A datacron," Ren said with obvious reluctance.

"It looks like a Sith holocron," Hux said, moving to the edge of the mats.

"You recognize such a thing?"

"Of course, I do. You stole that from my quarters."

"It was Snoke's, not yours."

"And he stole it from someone else. I know." Hux positioned himself at the join of the sleeping mats and lowered himself to the hard floor. He sat cross-legged as they did. He noticed this put him at an apex of the triangular base of the pyramid, so that now, he, Ren, and Rey were at the three points of it. "My father had me study what information he had of the Jedi and the Sith, particularly their training methods, with the idea that we would use it to refine training for the troops. Now in retrospect, I have to wonder if there were other reasons." He extended his hand. "May I touch it?"

"No," Ren said automatically. Hux paused with his hand extended, then decided to see what happened when he disregarded Ren's command. He continued. Ren grabbed him when his fingers were less than a centimeter from the thing, jerking his hand away. Ren said, "I said no."

"I am aware." As he was also aware he wasn't being choked or assaulted. Ren wasn't even squeezing his wrist. It was still a firm grip, but not painful. "I am in command of this expedition," Hux warned him.

Ren released him, pushing his hand away from the device. "So you think. You're in command of your troopers. The Resistance obeys because it is convenient. I don't obey you at all. You owe me a life debt."

Hux withdrew his hand with a sullen expression for the mention of the debt. "In what way do you plan to collect on that? You know the First Order prohibits recognizing them."

"But you recognize it."

"I'm not even sure it's to you." Hux grimaced. This stupid feeling of muddled obligation was precisely why the Order, in its wisdom, forbid the damn things. "Why didn't the two of you just let me die? It would have solved all your problems." And his own.

Ren gave a dry chuckle. "You wouldn't have died. Our problems would not have been solved. What I have seen will come to pass. We can only change how we respond to it. I, too, have been the subject of visions that led people to cast me away." He shook his head. "That made me easier to convince to save you than I might have been otherwise."

"A life debt is singular in application," Hux pointed out. "I can't honor it to either of you until I get a clear answer on who it is to."

Ren shrugged, which was no help. Hux suspected strongly, and especially based on the last time Ren had saved his life and pretended not to, that Ren would leave the situation exactly there: undefined and impossible for Hux to rectify. It was an annoying form of generosity, but generosity all the same. Hux changed the subject. "What information does this holocron purportedly contain?"

"It's none of your business."

"The hells it's not! Poe told me. It is entirely my business."

Ren said, "Snoke knew how to … build a bridge between people. Possession is like … walking across that bridge."

Rey was looking straight at Ren as she added, "And then stabbing the other person in the heart and throwing them off it."

"Possession?" Hux asked, but the two ignored him. There was some interplay between Ren and Rey at that point, an exchange of expressions – wounded, angry, and resentful on both sides. Unsettled business. But Hux doubted any of it concerned him. "Well, get on with it, then."

Ren gave him a sour look. "Such meditations are best done in private."

"Meditations? You're just going to activate it and read the information, right?"

"Activating it requires the Force," Rey said. Ren shot her a warning look that Hux misinterpreted.

"Have you ever seen one activated?" Ren asked, turning to him with a wondering expression on his face.

"Do I have the Force? Is that what you're asking?"

"Everyone has the Force," Rey said.

Hux snorted. "That's like saying everyone has oxygen. It does no good to the dead. If everyone could use the Force, we'd need no distinction between creatures like Snoke, Palpatine, and yourselves, and the rest of us."

She gave him a look that was caught between amused, incredulous, and offended. Ren was only amused. He told Rey, "He's always like that." He turned to Hux. "We need privacy. This is a delicate process, assuming we can get it to work at all. These items were attuned to Snoke and not to us. There is a difference, you know."

"He's dead and you're not. That's the main one." But Hux rose to his feet. "If you think there's some other, then you're fooling yourself."

Rey said, "We aren't the same as him."

"Prove it," Hux said, standing over them.

"We're trying to cooperate with you here," Rey said.

"That's because you need me."

"No." She shook her head. "We don't."

He frowned at her.

Ren said, "Sidious needs you. We don't."

Rey said, "We want you with us."

"On your side?"

She drew in breath, then paused to consider her words. She glanced between him and Ren, then said, "No more sides." A hint of a smile touched her lips. "Let the past die. Make something new."

He narrowed his eyes in suspicion. Was that bait, or just an idea she was offering? He looked between them. "Did he kill Snoke or did you?"

"Does it matter?" she asked.

"I want to know who I'm grateful to."

She looked to Ren, then back to Hux. She didn't reply.

Hux said finally, "A straight answer would go a long way toward building trust."

Very quietly, Ren said, "I did. But only because she was there. Now leave."

"Thank you," Hux said, equally quietly. He turned on his heel and left them alone for their 'meditations'.