CHAPTER 9

16 days after the Battle of Crait-On board the Finalizer:

He'd been trying for an hour now to feel the slightest vibration, the slightest fluctuation in the Force that would have allowed him to reopen the connection with Rey.

But it wasn't working.

So he got up and began to pace the room back and forth, unable to repress his frustration. Suddenly, a couple of armchairs flew into the air to crash against the opposite wall, followed by a cabinet and the chest in which the floor mats were stored. Quickly, he found himself running out of furniture to destroy. Out of breath, he was about to punch the bulkhead with all his strength, but he held his gesture at the last moment and his explosion of anger ended with his forehead pressed against the cold surface. The beating of his heart echoed in his ears and covered every other sound emanating from the ship. Pure rage and disappointment cascaded through his veins. Finally, he closed his eyes, turned to lean against the wall and slid to the ground in a seated position.

Why couldn't he find her? Was Rey deliberately blocking his attempts?

If that was the case, it meant she was fine. They had never yet been able to control their connection. But he had hoped that with enough concentration and will, he could have reached the young woman, perhaps even appear to her just as Luke had done with him on Crait. If his uncle had succeeded, why not him?

"You are not yet powerful enough for that."

He opened his eyelids, sharply.

It was impossible. A bad joke.

A few meters away, his uncle's ghost, bathed in a soft blue light, was standing there, hands clasped and face serious.

"You look surprised, kid ... I told you that we would see each other again."

Kylo Ren's body remained perfectly motionless except for his trembling lips. Everything was jostling in his mind: disbelief, suspicion and incomprehension.

What an irony ... All his life, his greatest wish was to be able to speak with his grandfather Anakin, even if only for a few seconds. He had been terribly disappointed each time when his pleas had remained unanswered, and at the same time so frightened at the thought of what his grandfather would have told him if he had answered.

When he was a padawan, Luke had told him that some Force-sensitive beings could return to communicate with the living after death. And so Ben had placed all his hopes in this possibility of dialogue with the most powerful Lord of the Dark Side. They shared the same blood after all, right? And he had so many questions ... Did Anakin doubt, too, at first? How did he manage to gain so much power? How did he manage to eradicate the Light within him?

Formerly, Ben had tried to find out more about him and did not hesitate to question his family members. But Leia's throat clearing, Han's precipitous departures and Luke's sad looks and silence had cut short each conversation he'd tried to have with them about his infamous grandfather.

Darth Vader had been a taboo subject throughout his childhood and this had, paradoxically, helped to maintain his fascination and thirst to learn more about him. So, after leaving Luke and joining Snoke, he had hoped that Anakin would finally appear to him and advise him as Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi had done with his uncle.

"I presume I'm not the one you'd like to see, am I?"

Luke Skywalker's silhouette was standing where he had been meditating moments before. Failing to answer, Kylo shot him a murderous look. Then he opened his hand and his lightsaber ran the distance of the living room table into his palm.

Luke smiled sadly.

"It will not help you, Ben."

"Don't call me that," Kylo spat, knowing his uncle was right.

Force ghosts were immaterial and could come and go as they pleased. Ren was not even sure he could make his uncle disappear if he wanted to, and yet, right now, he would have given anything for Luke's ghost to return to where he came from.

"You really have nothing else to do?" Kylo added in the most flippant tone he could take. "Like give your precious advice to the scavenger?"

"Rey doesn't need me."

"So why are you here?"

Luke looked into his nephew's dark irises and didn't answer.

"Why!" Kylo repeated clenching his fingers on the handle of his weapon.

The Jedi sighed.

"Rey was right. I let myself be blinded by my fears, my own anxieties and I didn't see then what should have prevented me from acting just like I did."

Kylo swallowed, a little taken aback by these enigmatic words, but continued to display his contempt and hostility.

"Your little trick on Crait, was finely played, I admit. But look where this led you, you fool! You sacrificed yourself for nothing! You are no more than a mirage and I am the new Supreme Leader of the First Order! The Resistance will soon be reduced to ashes. Do you think that the scavenger alone can revive the Jedi Order? Or that I will allow this? She thought she could change who I am. She was wrong and so were you."

While Kylo delivered his tirade, Luke slowly shook his head in protest.

"No Ben, I'm not talking about what happened on Crait. I'm talking about the fact that Rey was right to believe that there was still Light in your heart. I should have seen it before letting myself be overwhelmed by doubt and trying to stop you that night, ten years ago."

Once again Kylo froze. The last words of his uncle only increased his fury.

"Trying to stop me?" he chuckled nervously. "You did not try to stop me, you tried to kill me! Me! Your own nephew!"

"Snoke had already invaded your heart. I was desperate and unfortunately I made the biggest mistake of my life. I lost my mind for a split second and you can not imagine how much I regret it. I'd give anything to go back. I raised my saber above you, it's true, but I would never have …"

"Liar ..." Ren snorted, displaying a smirk of contempt.

"No, listen to me, I…"

"As far back as I can remember, I always did everything you wanted from me."

"I know."

It was time to settle their accounts. Kylo knew it, and Luke knew it, too.

"Leia, Han and you ... You always thought I'd end up like Anakin! What did you imagine? That I wasn't aware of it? That I didn't hear you, or see your guilty faces when you were talking about me? That I didn't see your worried looks, your looks of pity? As soon as I was old enough to understand, I felt the weight of your fear on my shoulders."

Luke lowered his head this time.

"This pain that tore me apart, this struggle between Darkness and Light… You let it ravage me from the inside. I was just a child. I didn't understand anything. All I wanted was to be the perfect little boy that you all wanted. I tried with all my strength, alone. And in the end, you abandoned me!"

"You are right but …"

"So I smothered the Light and embraced the Darkness. I made it my greatest strength, my shell, my armor. It's you who determined my destiny. Ironically, I should thank you instead of trying to erase you from my life."

"Snoke took advantage of you and your anger."

"Snoke revealed to me all the power of the Dark Side and what my true potential was. And I killed him to complete my apprenticeship. Darkness is an integral part of me now. And you coming here won't change anything."

Skywalker jerked his head up and stared at him.

"The conflict inside you is not over."

"It is."

"No, you're wrong."

"I killed your padawans, I ordered the killing of innocents by the hundreds, and I killed Snoke."

"I also helped kill a lot of people when we destroyed the Death Star."

Kylo's jaw tightened.

"I murdered my own father!"

"You did it, thinking it was the only way to complete your turn to the Dark Side. But despite what you claim, you failed. Your doubts have only grown and you're now gnawed by remorse…"

Kylo swiveled sharply back to his room. But he stopped when he saw that Luke was now standing in front of his bed, continuing his diatribe.

"... Han's death shook everything you'd believed in until then. Your father may not have the ability to appear to you through the Force like I do, but he is there, in your flesh, in your thoughts, every day, every minute …"

"Shut up!" Kylo screamed, shaking his head, unable to hold his uncle's piercing gaze any longer.

" ... constantly reminding you that you were only Snoke's puppet. We certainly helped — Snoke, your parents and me — to make you what you are now, but you lie to yourself when you say that you've smothered the Light within you. A glow persists, like the one that was in your grandfather's heart …"

"I said shut up!"

Kylo activated his sword and struck the figure in front of him in a desperate and totally useless gesture. The scarlet blade split only air. He was staggering now and let out an animal grunt. Without taking his eyes off him, Luke kept talking.

"You admire Vader so much, but you don't know anything. Yes, all those years, at the service of the Empire, he committed the worst atrocities — but in the end he turned away from the Dark Side."

"I don't believe you."

Ren's lungs were on fire. He had to silence Luke. He had to make him leave at all costs.

His uncle took a step towards him. Kylo's saber was ineffective. He raised his free hand to the luminescent apparition and closed his eyes. He had to try to chase him away, he had to concentrate to pulverize his aura and send him back to nothingness. Yet Luke was still coming closer, and he could do nothing but back away.

"You must have read a lot of terrible things about him in the Empire archives, heard a lot of stories... Snoke must have even made a martyr of him. An icon of the Dark Side. And I am responsible for that too. I should have told you about him myself instead of thinking it was a bad idea to remember. Leia and I thought it would only upset you more. But in truth, the only people we didn't want to see suffer were ourselves. Leia only knew the dark side of our father. And I regret it. But I owe you the truth today. You, who want to be like him and continue his "work," you have to see what really happened ... You have to see that it's never too late."

Kylo suddenly felt his back hit the wall of his room. When he opened his eyes, he saw Luke's fingers grabbing his arm that was still stretched out in front of him. Against all odds, the old man's grip was firm and sturdy, and he could feel the warmth of his uncle's palm as well as an intense stream of energy running from his head to his toes. His mind was sucked into a huge black hole, manhandled and tossed until it was cut off from time and space.

He was on a footbridge overlooking a reactor. In front of him, lightsabers clashed. He was short of breath and his blood was pulsing in his veins. He was fighting. Green beam against red beam. But this time, it was not he who handled the scarlet blade. His adversary, a mountain draped in black, countered him blow for blow.

Vader.

He struck again and again until the Sith flexed and tilted back. Then he lowered his saber one last time, and the armed hand of his enemy detached itself from his arm and fell to the depths below.

He heard the sneers of a shadow behind him and the voice invited him to join the Dark Side. It was Palpatine. He heard himself refuse, saying he was a Jedi, just like Anakin, once. Then he found himself thrown to the ground, shaken by a blistering pain. Every cell in his body was burning. It was a torture. Incandescent purple lightning flashed across him.

"Father, please!" He shouted at Vader.

"Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the dark side," echoed the malignant voice a few feet away.

At the edge of losing consciousness, he saw Vader screaming, lifting the hooded shadow and hurling it into the heart of the reactor. The explosion that followed made the entire bridge shake.

Then, the scenery changed.

He was now in a boarding hangar in the midst of total chaos. Soldiers were shouting, and people ran in all directions. Their uniforms were strangely similar to those of the First Order military. He felt the urgency. He was dragging something — no, someone. He had to escape ... He pulled the body to the foot of the lowered ramp of a shuttle. The smashed metal helmet he had so often contemplated, sitting in his room, was here intact and shining in front of him.

"Luke, help me take this mask off."

"But you will die …"

The impression was strange. He was talking but it was Luke's voice, devastated and pleading, that was escaping from his mouth.

"Nothing can stop that now, just for once let me look at you with my own eyes."

So he complied. He removed the parts of the helmet piece by piece to discover a pale face and a deformed skull, covered in scars. But what struck him most profoundly was seeing the smile of this man who looked at him with pride and admiration.

"Now go my son, leave me..."

"No you're coming with me. I'll not leave you here, I've got to save you."

"You already have. Luke, you were right, you were right about me, tell your sister, you were right."

Then Vader closed his eyes and he felt his body weigh a little heavier in his arms.

"Father, I won't leave you."

But it was finished. A tear ran down his cheek. Anakin Skywalker was gone.

Suddenly, his vision dimmed and everything went black. He panicked before realizing he could once again see the austere decor of his bedroom. He was shaking all over, and a feeling of nausea took him by the throat. Luke was gone. He let himself slide back to the floor, his back still pressed against the wall, his eyes wild as he tried to catch his breath.

OoooooO

Armitage Hux stared without moving at the empty throne on the platform. He was still struggling to come to terms with the fact that just a few weeks earlier, the tall silhouette of Supreme Leader Snoke had been sitting quietly on the same seat and giving him orders. He tried in vain to inhale and exhale calmly in order to chase away the ball of anguish that knotted his stomach.

The time had come. There was no turning back possible.

An officer burst into the room and Hux did not even deign to look at him.

"General, the Supreme Leader has been informed that you wish to see him immediately. He is on his way and your instructions have been followed to the letter."

"Good," Hux answered, stiffening a little more.

It had been two hours since he'd tried to gain access to Ren's apartments, without success. The officer's footsteps moved away and were soon replaced by the familiar slap of several pairs of boots. He turned to see that Sylla, Yehnu, Bram and Viri Pax had joined him and were now forming a line in front of him.

They seemed nervous too, and stared at him with gravity.

"Master your emotions, Hux," Viri ordered. "I could feel your fear and panic from the hallway."

Instinctively, Hux's hand went to his belt, reassured to find his blaster secure in its place. He examined the impassive faces of the knights. Bram was the only one to look annoyed and uncomfortable.

Finally, Kylo's silhouette appeared on the doorstep. Hux was not the only one to notice that the Supreme Leader of the First Order looked awful. He seemed to carry the weight of the galaxy on his shoulders and deep dark circles framed his eyes. The scar on his right cheek was more prominent than ever. Hux and the knights exchanged intrigued looks.

What had happened to him? Did he suspect something?

Kylo walked to climb the few steps to the throne. Once seated, he grabbed the polished armrests before finally giving them his attention.

"So you have some news about the hyperdrive tracker?" he questioned, his voice rough and unusually feverish.

Hux took a few seconds before reacting.

"Yes, Supreme Leader. The technicians told me that the system would be operational in two hours at most."

Kylo shot him a murderous look.

"And that's all? You called me here for this? A simple message on my holopad would have been sufficient!"

A deathly silence settled in the vast room. The soldier opened his mouth to reply but he sensed a movement on his right and saw the Zabrak move towards the throne and stand in front of Ren.

"No, that's not all, we have something else to show you, and we'd like you to give us your opinion," Viri let out with a too-solemn tone. "General Hux, if you please." The Zabrak turned to the redhead.

Armitage forced himself to walk over to the holocom and activate it.

The video started, displaying the setting of the throne room on the Supremacy. Kylo and Rey, back to back, were fighting the Praetorian guard. The images, although fuzzy and of poor quality, were overwhelming.

All eyes turned simultaneously to the Supreme Leader.

Kylo Ren was still staring at the screen, as motionless as a statue, his face as pale as a ghost.