Nine:

They managed to get down four levels before they ran into a pair of Stormtroopers who were marching through the passageway. The three fugitives and droid skidded to a halt and there was an awkward moment where the Stormtroopers realised there was something very wrong with the picture-but in that moment, Ben advanced, his brow furrowed and gloved hand flung forward, causing the men to recoil in memory of his reputation. And in that moment, he lunged forward, an accurate blow slamming the first stormtrooper back as he wrenched the blaster from his grasp. His fellow had no time to even react before he was blasted and he hadn't hit the deck before the weapon finished off the first man.

Poe and Finn stared at him in shock before practicality set in and they harvested the remaining trooper's weapon. Ben was already heading off to the nearest turbolift, the gun grasped in his hands as Poe shared a concerned look with Finn.

"Wait up," he called as they accelerated after him. He paused as they ducked back, avoiding a squad of troopers who were walking briskly in the direction of the detention block.

"What?" he asked as soon as they had passed.

"I-we-didn't expect that," Poe explained.

"What-you thought I would just hand you in-or stand there and get shot? You really didn't have much of an opinion of me, did you?"

"Never gave us any reason to," Finn pointed out as Ben took a shaky breath.

"I was a monster," he murmured, echoing Rey's words-the words that had rolled around his memory every day since. "Everything I did was for my Master-for Snoke-and for the First Order. Any sentiment was weakness, any past was a canker that had to be destroyed. But Rey never gave up on me. She believed that I could be saved. So did my mother. And when I felt Mom die...I felt her love and her faith in me. Even when she died, she still loved me as a son." He peered at the next group of stormtroopers marching past and found it provided the instant he needed to push down those emotions once more. He would be damned before he exposed them before these men. "Rey saved me. Mom saved me. I made the choice-to reject everything I had been. To become the boy I had tried to destroy." He glanced over. "You need to get that part to the Falcon."

"We need to get it to Chewie," Finn corrected him. "How are we getting off here?"

BB8 beeped and rolled to the nearest data port. Poe nodded.

"We won't all fit in a TIE fighter this time," he pointed out. Ben gave a small smile as they trotted to the port overlooking the main hanger.

"No-we can take that," he said and pointed. The impressive shape of a Command Shuttle was parked, its wings folded up for landing and the ramp down. "It's fast, armed and big enough."

"Unless they send TIE fighters after us," Finn pointed out.

"Are you always this positive?" Ben asked him, his eyes narrowing. He pointed to the left. "You two-go that way. I'll cover you from there." And then he dashed off in the opposite direction. Poe frowned.

"I see what you mean," he murmured. "You could really swear that he is genuine." Then he nodded to Finn. "Now let's get a ride out of here. BB8-stay close!"

Knowing his way around the Finalizer was different to striding around without a care and with everyone cringing away from him in fear but Ben had no time to ponder on the change in his fortunes. The next group of guards he met had clearly heard of the escape and that Peavey had moved against him: they fired on him without hesitation. Turning, he returned fire and picked them off swiftly, his aim unerring. The Force had always helped him hit what he aimed for and he was relieved that, despite the chemical wall that had blunted his ability to access his higher order Force abilities, some of his instincts were still functional. And he had been trained for battle from before he had destroyed the Jedi Temple. Luke had taught him Jedi techniques and Snoke had hammered in lessons on using his strength and anger, never eschewing the lethal stroke or any advantage. He had honed his Force powers to deflect blaster bolts, slam any item he could get his hands on into an enemy and, of course, he had used his lightsaber to terrible effect. Battle had inflamed his blood, heightening his senses so he could taste their fear, smear the metallic tang of blood and the acrid stench of seared saber wounds, hear their pants of terror and the desperate huffs as they tried to escape his hungry blade. And he saw it all, every image branded on the inside of his eyelids, to haunt him every night until the day he died.

He blinked, dropping the last Stormtrooper. Battle had been an act of rage, allowing every ounce of his pain and fear, rejection and hatred and anger to fill his being and forge him into the fearsome killing machine that had been Kylo Ren. He knew his style was brutal, sparing no quarter and thinking only of the kill. The hum of his lightsaber in his hand and the red light reflecting in his dark eyes summoned a demon that only stopped when his enemies were slain. How many had he killed? He guessed he could probably find out if he tried but would it help? Hundreds, certainly. And in his memory, every face was there, the brush of every dying soul through the Force indelibly stamped on his heart. Death had been his friend for so long as he slaved under Snoke and still he had continued when he had ascended the throne because he trusted no one in the search for Palpatine as much as himself. No one could withstand Kylo Ren.

Except Rey. Even untrained, she had bested him. Fuelled by rage at the murder of her mentor Han Solo-his father, he reminded himself with another inward scourge of shame-and filled with her expanding connection to the force, she had beaten him, had maimed him. And she had left him to die. Had Hux not collected him on Snoke's orders, he would have perished on Starkiller Base. And they had patched him up, fast and dirty because Snoke had wanted him to suffer after that abject failure. But it had been no fluke because she had beaten him again, knowing his mind through the Bond and stoking his inner conflict. Until Kef Bir, when she had won and finally defeated Snoke's enforcer, the Jedi Killer. Kylo Ren had died.

He rose and sprinted for the next intersection, checking the way and then running on. His body was trained, he had skills in any weapon you could find on this ship but he would have given almost anything for a lightsaber right about now. And then he burst into the hanger and skidded to his knees behind a container of fuel. The others had entered the hanger a hundred yards to his left and only a dozen steps from the command shuttle. But there seemed to be half a battalion of stormtroopers in the hanger, pinning the escapees down with precision blaster fire. He groaned. The Force seemed to be determined to make this mission as difficult as possible and it was impossible that they could make even the short sprint to the shuttle without being killed. But there was a TIE fighter a couple of yards behind them.

Taking aim, he picked off half a dozen Stormtroopers, trying to suppress the unsettling thought that the men and women he was killing were people not that different to Finn-maybe from the same section-who were just following orders. He couldn't let himself consider that they were taken as children or bought from orphanages and raised for this purpose, stripped of any choice in their future. That they were expendable. If he faltered now, he would fail them both. The troopers needed to focus on him while the others got away. Then he fired one careful shot right next to Finn.

The man looked up immediately, his blaster levelled straight at the dark shape. Rolling his eyes, Ben gestured to the fighter behind them and he was relieved when he saw the former stormtrooper pat Poe on the arm and the pair appraise the options. Snapping off a couple more shots, he checked his blaster and read that the power unit was redlining: he would need a new one soon. But in the meantime… He glanced around, carefully locating the fuelling tethers for the fighters and shooting at them until he managed to ignite the fuel. And explosion ripped through the hanger and under its cover, he saw Poe and Finn scramble into the TIE fighter with the droid and roar out into the inky blackness. There were still too many stormtroopers between himself and the Command Shuttle so he ducked down, shot another stormtrooper and snatched the fresh weapon as he barreled past, diving through the blast doors and blasting the controls to close them.

They would scramble pursuit but he guessed Poe would handle himself as well as he always did. The 'finest pilot in the Resistance' actually lived up to his own hype and Ben was sure he would get them away. They would rejoin the Falcon and get safely back to the Base.

But Ben wouldn't be with them. He would steal one of the longer range TIE fighters and complete the journey on his own. It was better this way: Rey's friends wouldn't be in danger and he wouldn't have to continually justify himself to them when he couldn't justify himself to himself. He knew what he had done, what he owed. He was a monster. No penance or reparation could ever repay for all the deaths he had caused, all the evil he had done. He deserved to die and she needed to live. There were so many people who loved her and cared for her and who would love her to live so that they could grant her the family and belonging she had earned. The future needed Rey: he was the past, the evil that had been defeated and that merely lingered to poison the chances of hope for the Galaxy.

Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to.

He had been right. But he hadn't realised at the time that he was talking about himself.

Another couple of pairs of Stormtroopers tried to intercept him and he gunned them down without hesitation, avoiding their comrades when he could. The level was flooded with more and more troopers and he found himself slowly running out of options. He needed to get away so he descended to the port hanger he was searching for, where his TIE Silencer had been berthed for so long. He had to duck back, past patrols and doubled back on himself more than once before he finally reached his goal. Pausing and checking for any troopers, he emerged-to find the hanger deserted and every vessel gone. His eyes widened and he turned back-but the blast doors closed behind him. Every other blast door closed as well as whitish gas billowed into the hanger from every single ventilation grille. Covering his mouth, he cast around for a breather to at least give him a chance to find a way out-but every installation was empty. Realising that he had been anticipated, he turned back to the doors but the controls didn't respond, even when blasted so he went in search of the environmental controls. Coughing and choking, he felt his knees buckle, dumping him on the smooth metal. Grimacing, he tried to crawl to the panel but the blaster spilled from his nerveless fingers and he collapsed onto his face. But as his consciousness slipped away once more, he found himself mulling over Finn's words.

"Why wasn't he this easy to capture when we were fighting him?"

-o0o-

"How come we're back in a TIE fighter?" Finn asked as Poe flew them back towards Andaku. Chewie had howled a few questions over the com which BB8 had translated .

"You're lucky you got another chance to show me what ya got as my gunner," Poe teased him, his tone completely self-confident. The General was never happier than in the cockpit of any fighter and this time, the TIE fighter didn't hesitate-and nor did the five in pursuit. But Poe was already throwing the stolen fighter into a ferocious spin as Finn picked off their pursuers.

"Hope I'm not disappointing you-General," he shot back as another fighter disintegrated into an expanding cloud of debris and gases. Poe chuckled as they strafed the surface guns to enable their escape before they flipped away. Flying fast and fearlessly, they arched down into the dense clouds of Andaku, spinning round a cyclonic vortex and leading their pursuers to back off from the turbulent atmosphere of the planet. First Order they may be but it seemed that they were not authorised to risk their vessels by playing tag with Poe Dameron.

"Not at all-General," the pilot laughed back. "Looks like our buddies don't fancy the weather. Do you have the coordinates for the Millennium Falcon?"

"Fifteen minutes to landing," Finn reported and then sat back, flipping the weapons system to standby. "Hopefully, we won't crash this time!" Poe grinned.

"Hey, I'm wounded," he quipped back. "That was one time and we both survived!" Finn chuckled and nodded but the smile fell from his face and then he sighed.

"You realise we lost him?"

"The thought had crossed my mind," Poe admitted wryly. "And I think it's how he planned it. He made sure we knew the numbers of the remaining First Order ships and we have the location of the Finalizer. He knows we need to know that."

"And he gave us the part," Finn murmured. "He wanted us to get away. He wanted us to be...safe…" His brow furrowed.

"He could be playing us and returning to his own kind," Poe argued, though the words lacked conviction.

"Or he could be in trouble," Finn said quietly. Snatching a glance over his shoulder, he saw a thoughtful look in his friend's dark gaze. He slammed the harness forward.

"I know that look-and believe me, I don't want to let him get away either," the pilot mused, "but maybe this is for the best…"

"For who?" Finn asked and he took a deep breath. "When he talks about Rey, his eyes light up. There is genuine grief and affection in his voice."

"Affection? Buddy, are you sure you didn't hit your head…?" Poe teased him.

"Love," Finn insisted. "And I believe him when he says he will do what it takes to get her back." He sighed. "I feel she's in trouble as well." Poe groaned and then slammed his head backwards against the flight seat.

"I knew you were going to say that," he muttered. "Just as I know what you're going to say next…" Finn nodded and leaned forward.

"Rey needs our help," he decided. "And I know...I know...that she needs Kylo Ren. So we drop the part off with Chewie, alert the Resistance-and then we go back."

-o0o-

They hadn't been gentle. Not that he would have expected any consideration, once Peavey had made his stance plain, but it ranked among his worse awakenings. Strapped to an interrogation chair, welts on his face and body from the staff interrogators softening him up-all of it was familiar and what should have been standard practice. But as the former Supreme Leader of the First Order, a small part of him felt cheated. He would have expected more.

An armoured fist slashed across his cheek and spilled blood on his pale skin, though he gritted his teeth against making any sound. His head dipped and he felt the irritating trickle of blood dripping from his jaw as his vision greyed. He swallowed as the interrogator stood back, apparently satisfied with his work and his chest heaved as he strove to calm his breathing and fight back the surge of anger, the siren call of darkness that he had worked so hard to silence. He knew what he had risked when he separated from the others, when he made his choice.

And look how well my decisions are going so far, he noted ironically, lifting his head to stare steadfastly ahead, not gracing his interrogators with the slightest acknowledgement of their presence. Not that it had mattered anyway.

No one had asked him any questions.

His vision was still settling when the door opened and two officers entered: the quiet presence of Captain Peavey and a lieutenant who appeared familiar...Mitaka, his name was...who had acted as his liaison when the Finalizer had been his base. The man who had witnessed Kylo Ren's rage more than most, who had been treated cruelly and viciously in his towering outbursts. Perhaps, even amid his rage, he tried not to kill anyone though he knew that he really hadn't cared when he was blinded with the fury but he knew with shame that there had been casualties during his time here...perhaps why the interrogators had set about their work with such relish. Peavey looked him up and down and appeared mildly disappointed.

"I had expected you to escape," he commented. "And it would have been more convenient all round. Now you are here, we have to prise every iota of information about the Resistance from your head, Ren. I did not expect standard methods to yield any results."

"Especially if you don't even ask a single question," Ben said thickly.

"Would you have answered them?" Peavey asked him evenly.

"No."

"So there you are. No point in wasting energy," the Captain said. He sighed. "Of course, the art of interrogation is sadly underestimated and has been neglected in favour of your arcane sorcerer's methods. No finesse. No skill. Just brute force."

"Not unlike what you've tried so far," Ben replied, his eyes still fixed on the wall ahead. He had no doubts that the Captain had a point to make. Peavey looked over to Lieutenant and nodded. Was it his imagination that Mitaka's lips lifted in a small smirk, that he stood back with an arrogant snap of his head as a panel opened and a black metal globe floated out, the hum of the antigrav motor jarring.

"Of course, the old Empire were skilled in extracting information from traitors and saboteurs," Peavey admitted. "And though your predecessor, Lord Vader, was an expert in extracting data, he often used the Imperial Interrogators as well, seeing mind-probing as beneath his skills and frequently unnecessary." The taunt was cutting and would have blinded Kylo Ren with rage. The Captain gave a thin smile, as if reading his roiling emotions and probably unaware of the struggle he was having to control his anger and prevent the darkness rising once more.

If I can just grasp the anger, I will be able to access the power…and then, Captain, I will crush your larynx like a piece of shell. I will watch you struggle for breath and claw desperately and watch your lips turn blue as you die…and then everyone else on this corridor will follow you…

He blinked.

You chose. You knew what you had to do. You didn't know if you had the strength…but Dad believed. Even as I killed him, he still loved me, still hoped for my redemption. Even as Mom died, she reached out for me…to save Rey but also to save me. She loved me with her dying breath. And Rey…risked everything to come to me on the Supremacy. She believed I could be saved. And even when she dealt me that fatal blow, she saved me. How can I become the monster they all died to destroy…?

No matter what happens, I remain…Ben. Not him. Not Kylo Ren. Not the monster.

The hum grew a little more insistent as the low lights in the room gleaming off the needle probes that the interrogation machine carried. "I very much doubt that your sorcerer's ways will protect you," Peavey told him casually. "Mitaka-if you would? Please report to me when you're done."

"What do you want?" Ben asked, his voice husky with the ongoing struggle to control his anger and fear. He already knew what the device could do, knew the specifications from his training and his obsessive researches into anything and everything connected with his grandfather and former role model. He hoped the combined stubbornness of his parents and the strength he had built enduring Snoke's brutal teaching would be enough.

The Universe was really truly having a laugh at his expense.

"The Resistance," Peavey told him as he headed for the door. "At the moment, the Galaxy is in flux. If the central leadership of the Resistance was wiped out in one fell swoop, the scattered First Order Forces would be able to reassert their authority on certain key systems and prevent the fall into anarchy." He paused. "You are going to tell us where they are and then we will destroy them."

The door hissed shut and Mitaka nodded. Then he turned to Kylo Ren, his eyes flicking over his former tormentor as the machine moved forward.

"Shall we start?" he said.