Do you wonder why and how Kylo ended up in this situation on Hoth? OK ... So let's discover it together.

PART ONE - CHAPTER 1

Four days after the battle of Crait - The Finalizer, First Order interstellar cruiser.

Kylo Ren was standing in front of the large bay windows staring off with an unreadable gaze into the vastness of space. Hands folded behind his back he listened distractedly as Hux prattled on behind him.

"The Supremacy is completely unsalvageable; restoration isn't an option. We lost at least eight thousand men when the vessel was damaged. Not to mention the destruction of several battleships due to the shock waves, and that's on top of all of the men and ships we lost to the rebels on Crait."

The new Supreme Leader could hear the thinly veiled hostility in his subordinate's pinched voice and turned to face him. The latter strove to maintain a neutral face, and he succeeded in it, but his voice betrayed him.

"We're vulnerable. We need to strengthen our stormtrooper numbers and begin the construction of new ships immediately. As you well know, we also lost Captain Phasma." Hux said with a heavy sigh.

It had been four days since Snoke's death. Four days since Kylo Ren had become the Supreme Leader of the First Order. Four days since the Resistance had slipped right through their fingers, again. The remaining interstellar cruisers that made up their fleet orbited Crait and Kylo had settled on the Finalizer. He was well aware that Hux had always considered the large ship as his property so he took a sadistic pleasure in claiming the destroyer as his new base. He had briefly considered emptying the general's own personal quarters and claiming them as his own upon arrival, but he had graciously spared the man.

"I want a complete report on the current state of our means: troops, ships, bases, weaponry, everything. I also want all of the information we have on our allies, suppliers, and mining planets." The Knight of Ren ordered.

Hux tried to keep his face impassive, but his eyes bulged at the command. "Supreme Leader Snoke trusted me completely concerning the management of-"

"I'm sure I don't have to remind you that Supreme Leader Snoke is dead, do I?" Kylo interrupted with a steely and unusually calm voice. "I am at the head of the First Order now which means that you report to me. As such you will heed my request and transfer all of the information I've requested to my holopad without delay."

Teeth clenched, Hux only nodded. Kylo Ren took no small amount of pleasure in the fact that the man was forced to yield to his demands.

"I also want complete control over the Holonet. Messages need to be broadcasted galaxy-wide informing each and every system of the state of things. We need them to know that I am the new Supreme Leader, that Luke Skywalker is dead, and that anyone who aids the Resistance will face the same fate."

"It will be done." The general said in a flat voice. "Forgive me, but what exactly are your plans for the surviving members of the Resistance?"

"Their fate is all but sealed. We will hunt them down and we will exterminate each and every one of them. I want all of our informants on high alert and if any information surfaces, I want to be notified immediately."

Kylo turned away from the general to face the vastness of the cosmos once again and Hux took that as his cue to leave. As he was about to exit through the door of the boardroom his superior's voice rang out once more.

"Another thing, Hux! I want a message sent to Korriban. All of the Knights of Ren are to be aboard this ship as soon as possible."

OoooooO

The cocky moron…

Amitage Hux threw his tablet down on his desk in frustration. After nearly two hours, he had finally finished gathering all of the data Ren had requested and sent it off through the ship's communication network.

Would he really be consulting all of those files? What was his plan?

Hux might not have been as high up in Snoke's rankings as Kylo Ren, but the general wasn't stupid.

Thanks to his military exploits the late Brendol Hux, his father, had risen up to the rank of commander in Emperor Palpatine's army.

Though Armitage hated the man he had promised himself one thing: to walk in the footsteps of his illustrious father. He wanted to serve amongst the mighty and perhaps even reach the highest rung on the ladder of power. As the First Order had risen from the ashes of the Empire the young recruit had watched on and learned all that he could. On grit and determination alone he had climbed the ladder, rung by rung, and he had almost reached his goal. After how far he'd come it wasn't an option to let Kylo Ren, the spoiled idiot, ruin everything he'd ever worked for.

Snoke's death had been a blessing. He couldn't count the number of times had he dreamt of tearing the heart out of the hideous figure that valued him for nothing and saw him as little more than incompetent. But at least the old wretch had been a somewhat thoughtful manipulator. Kylo Ren meanwhile was an unpredictable brute, posed to explode at any given moment. A temperament that did not benefit Hux's own personal goals, nor those of the First Order, at all.

The military had pretended to believe Kylo's preposterous story about the Supreme Leader's assassination at the hands of the scavenger from Jakku. In reality they'd have to have all been idiots to believe that a girl, who was all knees and elbows, had been able to take down the most powerful force sensitive in the galaxy, all eight members of the Praetorian Guard, and the master of the Knights of Ren at the same time and all on her own! Hux, like the rest of his men, had decided to swallow the lie and keep a low profile until the time was right. He had to play his cards close to his chest and conceal the fact that he knew that the apprentice had betrayed his master.

As a rule, Armitage rarely drank. However, he found himself standing to pour out a glass of aged Corellian wine. He savoured the taste of it on his tongue and clenched his jaw as he thought back to the last request he had received from the new leader of the First Order: to summon all of the Knights of Ren.

Kylo Ren needed allies. He wasn't military. His officers feared him, that's all.

If the opportunity arose, Hux was sure that they would support him rather than the reigning Supreme Leader. The demise of Phasma, his most loyal subordinate, annoyed him to no end, and with the coming of the Knights the scales would be tipped in Ren's favour and strengthen his authority. No question about it.

The soldier took another sip of his wine. He could not let the vile imposer relegate him back to underling. He was a general in the most powerful army in the galaxy and he planned on maintaining his position and so much more.

OoooooO

The rebel base on planet Arbra

A little while after their arrival on Arbra, a debriefing with the few surviving resistance fighters was held in the command room of their new base.

Leia's face looked tired and worn, but the glimmer of hope that seemed to live in her dark eyes remained. She had told them that Luke had left them and that he was one with the Force now. At that, all eyes had turned to Rey. The young woman had lowered her head as if it sagged under the weight of the gazes full of questions that she did not have answers for. Leia had come to her rescue at once though, urging all of the survivors to believe in their own strength, and in their own determination to continue the fight. Yes, the Resistance was at rock bottom, but they weren't alone. She had trust in their allies. They were bound to answer. They were bound to help. Memories of the Empire and its exactions lived on in the minds of all life forms in the galaxy. It was out of the question for them to simply submit to a new dictatorship without putting up a fight. The winds of revolution were going to blow again. Of that she was sure. For now, they just had to be patient and keep a low profile.

After Leia's assurance, Rey had recounted everything that had happened in the Supremacy's throne room to the speechless rebels. Even Leia froze upon hearing Rey's story.

"As soon as I regained consciousness, I heard the elevator coming up. I fled down a hallway that housed an escape shuttle and didn't stick around long enough to meet whoever it was. Just launched the ship and rejoined the Falcon." She finished.

"So, if Snoke is dead, who's leading the First Order now?" Finn demanded as he steadfastly avoided eye contact with general Organa.

A heavy silence filled the room.

"I doubt that my son left that privilege to our dear friend Hux," Leia sighed. "I suppose he took charge of the First Order."

Everyone had finally discovered that Kylo Ren and Ben Solo were one and the same. The merciless murderer who had committed patricide was the son of their beloved general. Nevertheless, Leia Organa stood proudly before the assembly. She had never flinched in the face of hardship and she was certainly not going to start now.

"Like I said to Luke, Ben, my son, is gone."

Rey's heart skipped a beat, her hands trembled, and she felt an invisible vise crush her chest.

"Kylo Ren and the First Order must be stopped at all costs. We need to continue the fight. I'm counting on all of you, and all of you know what you have to do." All heads in the room nodded in assent and Leia signaled the end of the meeting with a kind smile.

Now motionless on the threshold of the same command room Rey watched on as Poe talked to a young blonde woman and C-3PO, in front of the circular holocom monitor. The golden droid waved his arms about in all directions and Dameron seemed worried. The ex-scavenger was unsure if she should approach the group or not, but when the pilot took notice of her he beckoned her over.

"Hey!" She said, giving the three of them a small hand salute. "Can I make myself useful?"

"We're having problems with the generators," Poe replied. "A team's working on the first one, but we need bodies to figure out what's wrong with the second. I think there's something up with the accumulators. Do you know anything about how they work?"

Rey liked Poe a lot. Over the past few days she had come to know him better and she enjoyed his intense personality.

"Yeah, I got it. I know a little about mechanics, I can go join the others."

Poe thanked her and she took off towards the generator room.

OoooooO

A few hours later Rey returned to the refectory, annoyed. The malfunctioning battery was turning into a bigger problem than she had anticipated, one that she couldn't fix for lack of equipment and replacement parts. She spotted Finn at the back of the hall and made her way over to join him once she had picked up her meal. The two young rebels had scarcely had time to talk since their arrival at the base. Both of them preoccupied with the effort it took to settle and secure the place.

"Hey!" Finn said with a grin.

"Hey…" Rey replied as she slid into a seat opposite him.

The pair of friends seized the quiet moment alone to make up for lost time. Finn walked her through everything she had missed during her time on Ahch-To, especially his misadventures with Rose on Canto Bight and their infiltration mission abort the Supremacy in an attempt to disable the hyper-space tracker. She learned more about Rose, and the young man's enthusiasm about his escapades almost made her forget her sullen mood. After that, the former stormtrooper questioned her about what she had been up to on Luke's island. She recounted her time with the Jedi in detail, how the man had lost faith in himself and had ultimately cut off all ties to the Force. She also told him all about what had happened between the Jedi and his nephew, Ben Solo.

"That's no excuse for becoming the worst kind of scum in the galaxy." Finn spat the words, grinding his food into his plate with the edge of his spoon.

Rey swallowed hard and decided not to continue on with that particular vein of conversation.

"How did you meet Rose?" Rey asked eventually as she swallowed a mouthful of gritty protein porridge.

"Oh, well…" the rebel stammered, "let's just say that she has a keen sense of honour and hates deserters."

Rey eyed him suspiciously and Finn sucked in a long breath before he answered, guilt lacing his tone.

"She caught me trying to leave the Raddus in an escape pod."

The ex-stormtrooper lowered his head to push his food around his plate as Rey stared at him in confusion.

"You wanted to abandon the ship?"

The noise from surrounding conversations in the refectory had suddenly come to their attention as a thick silence hung heavily between the two friends.

"Listen Finn, I'm not judging you. You have-"

"I don't have any excuse." Finn interrupted. "I wanted to run away again, yes. But only because I knew Leia had given you a beacon to help you find us. When she fell into her coma I got ahold of the beacon and I had to get it as far away from the ship as possible. If you had come back while we were being pursued by the First Order's fleet you would have been killed. I'm not a hero, Rey. I never have been. But you are, you're important…" Finn trailed off as he finally met his friend's softened gaze.

Her large, compassionate, hazel eyes scrutinized him, and he took a deep breath before finishing.

"You're important to the future of the Resistance, if we have any chance of winning at all."

Rey might have had the ability to use the Force in a manner of ways, but Finn had the power of finding the exact right words to say to comfort her and to make her take notice of just how special their friendship was.

"Thanks, Finn."

The young man only nodded, and a comfortable silence settled over them as they finished eating. When they got up though, Rey couldn't help but rib him a final time.

"I'm confused," she starts. "How was Rose able to get the upper hand on one of the toughest ex-stormtroopers in the galaxy?"

Finn laughs a little.

"She electrocuted me."

"So, it was pretty much love at first sight then, huh?"

Finn's cheeks suddenly darkened, and he looked to the ground without comment.

"You know Finn," Rey added as she stared at him more intensely, "You claim not to be a hero, but you went to Starkiller for me and you were ready to sacrifice yourself by flying a speeder straight into an enemy cannon to try and save the rebels. It all seems rather heroic to me."

Finn shot her a grateful smile and they parted ways, each going off on their own. As Rey walked slowly to the generator room she thought back on the conversation they had just had.

This girl, Rose, seemed to have taken a special place in her friend's heart and Rey was happy for him. But then a feeling of guilt seized her, a deep breath forcing its way into her lungs. Finn had been so sincere and honest to her. She hadn't. And she also lied by omission to all the others. She hadn't even mentioned the connection between her and Kylo once.

How could she admit that she had tried to rally the new Supreme Leader to their cause and failed miserably? How could she admit that the connection they had shared had awakened something incredibly strong and frighteningly foreign inside of her? Something that she couldn't even explain to herself, something that she was barely recovering from. She had felt something completely other than hate for…

For who? For the monster? For the power-hungry murderer?

But it was over now. The connection between her and Leia's son had been severed and she had no intention of letting it return. However, she couldn't explain the hole it left within her when it had taken its departure, nor the stab of pain that seemed to lance right through her chest every time someone said Kylo Ren's name in a tone full of contempt and disgust.

OoooooO

The Finalizer, interstellar destroyer

He laid completely still on his bed save for the rising and falling of his chest in the slow rhythm his breathing had taken up. His eyes were wide open and his mind was racing.

The First Order, Snoke, Hux, the rebels… and Rey, always Rey…

Despite everything he had to think about and organize to establish his new position of power within the First Order, the scavenger hadn't left his thoughts once since Crait.

His encounter with Rey had plunged his entire world into chaos, everything he had been sure of had exploded in front of his eyes, and pockets of light inside of him that he had thought were long extinguished had been fanned back to life. They seemed to glow in the darkness inside of him. Weaknesses, his master had called them. It was as if after contact with the young woman the glimmers of light inside of him burned like embers yearning to grow, more and more until they burned brighter than the stars. The newfound light had also awakened his self-esteem, his own will, and his own free will. All things that Snoke had spent so long trying to eradicate.

Back on Starkiller when the old man had told him that there was too much of his father in him and called him a child in a mask, he had unwittingly committed the worst of mistakes. That was the exact moment Kylo Ren understood. Han Solo was right: Snoke was only using him for his power. Just as he used Hux, the First Order army, and the Knights of Ren. Just the same as Palpatine had used Anakin Skywalker…

But Snoke was no longer part of his life. A new future had presented itself to him and he had to remain faithful to his internal mantra: kill the past… The past he hated so much.

Kylo scrubbed his face with both hands. It wasn't that easy. Everything he had lived through from his childhood through to his adolescence had brought him to where he was today.

After his birth, his mother had thrown herself, body and soul, into rebuilding the New Republic. Meanwhile, his father spent his time dreaming of the adventures he could have been having out in the throes of the galaxy. He knew growing up that his parents loved him in their own way, but not as much as they loved 'the cause' and 'adventure'. They just hadn't been cut out to be regular parents; parents that he needed, parents that would put him above everything else. How many days had he stayed back on Chandrila, alone in his mother's quarters, with nannies whose names he couldn't even remember? Despite the tender mothering Leia had tried, asking him what he had learned from his tutors, hugging him and kissing him goodnight, he knew… He knew that the spirit of his mother wasn't really in it, she was just going through the motions of what she thought a good mother ought to do. The same thing happened when he sat on his father's lap at the controls of the Millennium Falcon and listened to his father's stories of distant planets in the Outer Rim. Ben soaked up every word his father gave him with stars in his eyes and a heart fit to burst with the admiration he felt for the man, but his father was never really there with him in the cockpit. He was light years away. On Endor, on Er'Krit, Anoat, Nar Shaddaa… And damn it all, he had lost count of the times he had hoped and prayed for his parents to finally see him. His extraordinary parents, Resistance heroes, the people responsible for the destruction of the Empire… But how could a child, shy and sensitive, compete with the fate of an entire galaxy? He had always felt too much, and by the age of seven his parents had figured out how to wash their hands of him. After that, when his own uncle, his role model, his master, his idol, Luke Skywalker had tried to murder him in his sleep, darkness had seemed much safer than the light. He had decided to follow in his grandfather's footsteps, honour his memory, and prove to everyone that he didn't owe them a thing. But, like the rest of his wretched family, his grandfather had been deaf to his calls as well.

They had all abandoned him. They had all betrayed him. Thinking of them wasn't even worth the effort.

Eyes still fixed on the ceiling, he took a deep breath.

Suddenly, the beeping of his holopad rang out through the dark room, the only light inside of it came from the diffused light of the stars shining through his panoramic window. Kylo Ren sat up and grabbed the device without hesitation. On his screen was the terrified face of a young soldier.

"I- I apologize for disturbing you Supreme Leader, sir," he stumbled over his words, "but you expressly asked to be informed as soon as we could get in touch with Korriban."

Kylo Ren jumped up and walked over to the monitor of his holocom that took up most of the space in the adjoining room.

"Transfer the communication to me." He ordered.

He had scarcely thrown on a tunic when a familiar face appeared as a hologram in front of him. A man with a smooth head stared at him with an icy-blue gaze. Black stripes adorned his face and a single dark line marred his chin. His skin was the colour of ash and he wore a small carnivorous smile. All typical physical characteristics of the Rattataki people. He greeted his interlocutor with a nod before speaking in a gravelly voice:

"Salutations, Lord Ren."

Kylo stared at the hologram, satisfaction written all over his face.

"Yehnu," the commander of the Knights of Ren replied simply. "Are the others with you?"

"Sylla and Elias are still stationed on Lothal and Bram is overseeing the construction of new bombers on Allyuen. We all felt a strong disruption in the Force. Does Supreme Leader Snoke-"

"He's dead." Kylo interrupted without preamble.

Yehnu's face froze immediately in utter astonishment.

"That was four days ago. Killed by a Force sensitive rebel. I took charge of the First Order and I need you all to join me on the Finalizer at once. We are currently in orbit around the planet Crait in the Outer Rim. I will explain everything that happened in detail once you arrive."

The Rattataki knight seemed to find his voice again.

"Okay. I will contact the others. We will leave instructions for our subordinates and prepare for our departures right away."

"Where's Viri Pax? Why is he not with you on Korriban?" Kylo asked.

"He left to take care of a slave encampment on Hays Minor at the mining site, there was an uprising there. He said he would return when the dissent had been dismantled. Knowing him he will be back in less than forty-eight hours.

"Perfect. I expect all five of you to be here as soon as possible." He ended the conversation by cutting off the communication

Kylo Ren remained where he was for a few moments, smoothing his hands over the surface of the holocom. His knights would be joining him. Then, the real work would have to start.