2/8/36 ABY
It's been a long time since he last did this. He's standing in the bay overlooking the flight deck, a sheet of transteel between him and the now empty, at least of ships, hangar. He thinks the last time he was here, he was waiting, not sure what was coming, just knowing, somehow that he needed to find a spot to be alone for a moment.
A good plan, because after that moment, he wasn't alone. He was looking at Rey and she was calling him a murderous snake.
The difference a year and a half makes. He shakes his head, rechecking the notes he made for his speech. Year and a quarter. Sixteen months can change a lot. He tucks the speech into his tunic. He knows the words, knows what he wants to say.
He looks out, seeing his troops filing in. Just about all of them who could be relieved from duty are here. Any he could afford, in the sense of spare from their duties, have been shipped in from his other commands. Rank after rank after rank of them. Stretching almost beyond what his eyes can see.
If they're moving into place, that means half an hour to go.
Kylo squares his shoulders, then slips the helmet to his hands. He closes his eyes and settles it over his head. It seals on with a slight hiss. He touches the helmet. After more than a year without it, it feels alien, strange and heavy. In retrospect, it always did. The thing he liked most about it was not that it was right, not that it was an extension of him, but that it hid him and any reaction he may have been having. Only another Force user could feel what was behind the mask, and that gave him an automatic air of deathly calm, which many men find unnerving.
Which gave him an automatic upper hand.
It commanded the respect that a tall, lanky, twenty-two-year-old who wore every feeling in his eyes, who had never won, let alone fought, a real battle couldn't get from his face.
But he's not twenty-two any longer.
And he's won a position that demands respect.
He drapes the cloak back slightly, leaving his left arm visible. His previous shirts never had a mark of rank on them, because he was not actually a member of the First Order. The privileges of rank without the rank. He often thinks Snoke did that just to annoy Hux. To show him that a man didn't need a uniform or marks to be obeyed. Unlike Hux, people followed his orders by the feel of his power alone.
His shirt bears a mark, now. His new symbol, a silver hexagon edging a black field, surrounding a silver circle, around a white circle with sixteen black rays connecting in the center.
He's the only one with the silver hexagon. All of his citizens will have a white hexagon. His citizens will get the silver circle on their new badges. His troops will just have the white circle. But all of them are getting the new mark.
His commanders will keep their stripes.
But the Supreme Leader… No, not a Supreme Leader, not after today… The Master needs no stripes. He needs no blaster. He has no guards. When he walks, he walks on his own, cloak billowing behind him, lightsaber on his hip, shoulders back, back straight. With the right mindset he can amp his power. His troops, his commanders, the 'dignitaries' he's invited to this, they'll all feel it in their guts and bones. Just being near him should make them want to kneel.
He smiles behind the mask, looking at the rally set out before him. More and more people are flowing in. Soon, he'll stride out of there and make the first official, visible step, of putting his mark on the First Order. Taking ownership of it. Stripping it of the past and making it his.
He feels the presence to his left, slightly behind, and then next to him, looking out. The satisfaction, and desire, and glee at the sight of this is palpable, even from the shade.
"This is what we were meant for," Hux says, a grand smile on his face. It was rare to ever see a look of unfettered joy on Hux's face, but it's there right now. He always did love a rally.
"You and Phasma, perhaps."
He smirks at Kylo. "Don't give me that, Ren. You feel the thrill of it, too. Hide your face behind that mask if you like, keep it to yourself, but you still feel it."
Hux inhales, sharp, slightly shaky. Before Rey, he didn't know all the layers of that look, it was just hot and red. He understood, in theory, what he was seeing, in the sense he could name it, but not, on any real level understand. Now Kylo knows that's the way he looks at Rey when she takes him in hand, licks her lips, and meets his eyes, just about to take him into her mouth. Now he knows how that feels, in his guts, and bones, and shaft. Again, a lot can change in sixteen months.
Hux's jaw is tight, breathing a little fast, looking at rank upon rank of what he still considers his men. Kylo'd seen him do that in life, too.
And maybe he does feel a thrill at this, but… not like that that. Not even close. "Not the way you did… do. I don't have to tape it to my thigh to keep my tunic hanging properly at one of these."
Hux glances away from the men filling the hangar. "Don't be crude, Ren."
"Crude? You're dead, and I can feel the heat pouring off of you."
Hux is nonplussed by that. He is or was what he is or was and likes what he likes and this… he likes this. "We were meant for this. Why fuck a woman when you can fuck a galaxy? You want crude… There it is. Take them out, march them through… anywhere. Conquer. Spill the blood and watch them beg. I know you've felt it. I know you gave orders for it. You've listened to the screams of innocents and felt it stir your blood. You've seen them on their knees, pleading, and your body thrilled at it. Maybe not the same way mine did, but you felt it. Your skin sparked at it, your heart raced." He looks out at the rally. "And you feel it now."
He turns to Kylo, those pale blue/gray/green eyes, Kylo was never entirely sure what color Hux's eyes were, other than cold, literally glowing blue now. "It's about power, and always has been. That's why we get hard. And this… It's the biggest fucking shaft in the galaxy, and you get to have everyone kneel and worship it. You like this, Master Ren. That's where you want them, on their knees, before you, prostrate to your power."
He looks at the saber on Kylo's hip. "You took every title you've ever claimed with that. And you'll keep them with that. You'll throw them bones so you don't have to use it as often, until you get bored with it. Until the training droids and the desert cunt can't keep your interest. Until you crave the fight so hot that your blood boils."
Hux rests his hand on the glass overlooking the rally. And Kylo tries his best to banish the fears Hux just named.
"We were not born to be politicians, Ren. We were not made for long-winded negotiations or compromise." He sneers just at the idea of it. "You can pretend your fight isn't there, hide it behind the image of the Master, but you know it's there, and one day, it'll come out."
Kylo swallows at that. "You would have lived longer if you'd been this perceptive before."
"I'd have lived longer if you'd stayed unconscious a few more seconds." Hux nods to the rally. "Enjoy your victory parade."
Kylo closes his eyes behind the mask, straightens his shoulders again, and forces his mind to calm.
Time to go.
He knows this is being recorded, played across sixty-thousand planets and tens of thousands of ships. His troops, his subjects, his people, they're watching, or they will be.
He strides across the flight deck of the Supremacy. Walking tall, proud, each footfall echoing through the otherwise silent chamber. He gets to the podium, and faces his troops.
The podium is black, with his symbol draped over it. Snoke's black on red flags fly behind him. The splashes of blood red look garish in the cold light of the Supremacy flight deck. Last time this happened, it was Hux, standing in a similar space on Starkiller, shouting about the ascendency of the First Order and the power, blah, blah, blah.
But Hux is dead. Even if he does come to visit from time to time. And so is that version of the First Order. Today he's officially giving it its death blow. And it's not coming back.
And neither is the image of Kylo that Hux summoned.
He hopes. He wants to touch the token around his neck, under his shirt, warm against his skin, but doesn't. It's supposed to be Rey's day with it, but he just… wanted it, for this.
Kill the past step six million: Past Kylo had no home. Present Kylo has one, and that small disk of metal, warm below his throat is the symbol of that home, and what he's doing to earn his place there.
He looks over his crowd for another moment. He channels the Force, and uses it to make everyone in the room feel his power. The ones closest to him look like they want to drop to their knees. Like it's only the order to stand that's keeping them upright.
Kylo smiles at that. He's not sure if he should be ashamed of it or not, but he loves the feel of this.
Then he reaches behind him and flicks the little clasp that undoes the mask. In the held-breath silence of the Supremacy's flight deck, the tiny hiss echoes.
He takes it off, setting it on the podium, and he can feel the shockwave through his troops. Whatever they expected behind the mask, a young man with dark hair and a scar across his face wasn't it.
He keeps his voice quiet and calm, though whatever sound magic Jon has done amplifies it without changing the tone, allowing the front row, twenty or so meters from him, to hear just as well as the back row, close to two kilometers away. "I believe you know me, or at least of me. I am Supreme Leader of the First Order Kylo Ren. Sixteen months ago, Supreme Leader Snoke proved himself dangerously unsuitable for the job of ruling the First Order. He allowed his second-in-command, General Armitage Hux, a free rein, and Hux loved nothing more than death and mayhem.
"This resulted in the unfortunate destruction of far, far too many lives.
"In the days following the destruction of the Hosnian system, I set into motion a plan to remove Snoke, Hux, and many of the officers they relied upon from their positions of power. Thus ending a frightfully unstable element in our galaxy." He pauses for a beat, watching the crowd, feeling their curiosity, with some sparks of disbelief, and a few veins of shock.
"Instability is the mark of the last three decades. Thirty-one years ago, a group of blood-thirsty terrorists turned a functioning Empire, a system legally enacted through the democratic process, into anarchy through a series of bombings and assassinations. In the years that followed the destruction of the Galactic Empire, we saw not one single day of peace. Somehow, somewhere, someone was at war in what used to be the Empire.
"Snoke saw the chaos, and knew something had to be done. He knew that the galaxy cried out for Order. For a rule of law.
"Unfortunately, for Snoke, law meant that he got to do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, however he wanted, to whomever he wanted, and everyone else would just… cope.
"That definition of law attracted others who enjoyed the idea of a galaxy full of shivering slaves awaiting the next command in terror.
"Like I said, they've been dealt with." A flick of his finger drops Snoke's First Order banners. He gives it a beat, allowing them to flutter to the ground, and then, with one more motion, Kylo's Order banners, long sheets of black, with the white circle, and sixteen rays surrounded by the white hexagon, fall in their place. "But Snoke was not entirely wrong, the galaxy does call out for Order. It does need a rule of law, but a rule of law dedicated to protecting its citizens from the dangers of chaos.
"Thus from the ashes of The First Order comes The Order.
"And The Order will exist to be what it is. Order. A stable, predictable system of governance dedicated to allowing any person who joins it to flourish.
"For a system of governance to work, it has to provide some advantage to its citizens, not just its leaders. No system can long survive on terror and pain alone, though Snoke certainly sought to test the limits of how long it could endure.
"That ends, now." He touches the badge on his sleeve. "Anyone who gives five years' service to The Order becomes a citizen, and so will their children. If you already have your five years, as of today, you and any children you may have are now citizens. Anyone who can get to a recruiting station will be accepted into The Order. No one will be turned away. All citizens will have a collection of basic rights, including free association and free travel, the right to keep and hold any honestly gained property, legally enforceable contracts, access to a system of courts and justice, and in time, a vote. In seven years, all citizens will be offered the opportunity to vote in our first galactic elections. Every hundred thousand people will have their own representative, whom they may pick from any Citizen of The Order. The representatives will gather, discuss what would benefit the people of The Order, decide on which paths to follow, and vote on them. They will send those votes to me, and if it can be done, or should be done, I will make it happen."
Kylo can feel the wave of disbelief aimed at him. No one expected this. They figured they were here to see him crown himself, and he's doing it all right, but no one expected him to take up this mantle. He'd like to smirk at that, but knows he can't, not now, not when everyone is watching.
"We've lived in a galaxy of chaos, power-hungry warlords, terrorists claiming to be 'for the people' who slaughtered them indiscriminately, and megalomaniacs with death fetishes who worshipped pain.
"No more. I've ruled for the last year, and in that last year, this galaxy has had its first real taste of peace. There have been no major conflicts since Snoke died, and I intend to keep it that way.
"We need to focus on growing, on becoming more, and better. We need to build homes, lives, and businesses, not weapons for destroying those homes, lives, and businesses.
"Today, we start anew. Today, the past dies. Yesterday, I was Supreme Leader of the First Order. Today the First Order is gone, and there will be no more Supreme Leaders. I am Kylo Ren, Master of the Order, for those of you who wish to join me in building a bigger, better, glorious galaxy of dazzling lights and myriad wonders, welcome. It's time we got to work."
He offers a slight bow to the hundreds of thousands of troops and officers arrayed around him, and then strides off.
"I think that was good." He feels flushed, jittery, nervous, but… not. The physical sensation of nervous without the mental uncertainty. He's not sure if he likes this sensation or not. He feels an amused smile in the back of his mind along with Rey's voice. You're excited, Kylo.
C8 nods. "You hit every point you intended to."
Unfortunately, lacking emotional responses means that C8 doesn't exactly have the map of 'good' Kylo would find useful in this situation.
He knows who would, and aches to see her, feels her answering longing, but right now, he's about two minutes away from a wave of officers in need of instruction and dignitaries wanting to know what happens next.
He knows that his troops are getting their new badges. All of them are getting the new image, and about three quarters of them have more than five years of service, so they are getting badges with the silver circle on them.
His officers will be getting quick primers on what it means to be a citizen. It's not too detailed, yet, but at least the basics are down.
And anyone with more than twenty years of service are getting a pamphlet suggesting they look into retiring. He's not going to mandate it, but he's hoping the more of his men from the days of Palpatine and Snoke he can remove, the more the Order will be his, and the less it will be theirs.
Upon suggesting that they invite people to this, it became immensely clear to Kylo that Snoke and Palpatine were not, on any level, interested in the same things when it came to ruling. Beyond, of course, the most basic level of being the most powerful being in the galaxy, if not the universe.
Palpatine's men more or less jumped up and clapped at the idea of this. Palpatine had no problem annihilating anything that didn't want to go his way, but he preferred to at least attempt to get along diplomatically. He enjoyed working behind the scenes, setting up layer after layer of deals to move people into positions that best benefitted him.
Snoke worked under the technique of asking, nicely, once, and if he didn't get the answer he liked, he'd kill everyone involved in giving him the wrong answer, and most of the people near them. (And, sometimes, even if they said yes, he'd kill everyone near them, just to hammer home the point of what an eventual no might result in.)
But Snoke is gone, and his men grudgingly allowed that there might be some purpose to this, but really, they've got a big enough fleet, so wasting time meeting with people sounded boring. (And Kylo could feel them privately thinking that if he needed his ego petted by having diplomats fawning at his feet, that he wasn't suitable Supreme Leader material.)
Palpatine's men pointed out that this was a way to show all of those people out there exactly how big and dangerous the fleet was without having to risk any of it to enemy fire, which made Snoke's men feel a little less grudging about the whole thing, but really, they'd rather be fighting than meeting. (Still, a few of them are slowly coming to the conclusion that there may be battlefields beyond a literal battlefield, and maybe it's worth learning how to fight on them, if for no other reason than to make sure Palpatine's men don't take them out when they aren't paying attention.)
So, slowly, they did come up with two thousand dignitaries to invite, and close to six hundred of them accepted the invitation. So, they came up with another two thousand to invite. Which got the total up to close to fifteen hundred. And another two thousand, and that finally got them over the two thousand mark.
For some reason, likely because no one from the Raclan Bank was ever seen again, most heads of state weren't terribly interested in visiting Kylo, for fear that they, too would find themselves engaging in 'involuntary displays of exuberant patriotism.' They sent polite refusals that didn't exactly say outright none of them would ever be insane enough to get within gun range of Kylo, but more than hinted at it.
The ones who did send emissaries sent what appears to be the second or third rank of their diplomats. The son-in-law of the third son of the Prince Consort: people they'd prefer not to lose, but are, all in all, disposable.
Kylo supposes that's logical.
And he supposes this part of it matters. He's here, and they're here, supposedly because he's changing things but… He'd pretty readily skip this part.
Major Frakes tells him that this is the important part. These people came to meet him, not just watch him take a mask off, so he's got to meet them.
What the hell he's supposed to do as he's meeting them, he doesn't know, but… Meet dignitaries. Okay. He can do this.
They're in his throne room, though he's not using his throne. Honestly, he hates the damn thing. It's the least comfortable chair in existence, he can't have a decent conversation while he's in it, and apparently in his all black, looming above the people who come to petition him, he's so unnerving to the average person that it takes at least five minutes of them stammering and trembling before they can even get to why they came. And yes, the first few times, he rather enjoyed that, but as he's spending longer trying to do things, he's getting less patience for people coming into his presence and immediately curling into a terrorized ball of no higher level mental functioning.
So his throne is empty, and he's at the door, supposedly greeting people, and thanking them for coming, and on some level, answering minor questions about who he is and what he's doing. Mostly, he's feeling how curious they are about him, and Frakes is right, if he's going where he hopes to go, these people need to see him. Literally, lay eyes on him, and as they get more interested in him as a… celebrity, he guesses, they may be willing to work with him, later.
He's been at it for an hour when he runs into the first real issue, beyond how to make, "Hello, nice to meet you," interesting after the third time, let alone hundredth. The man in front of him is sticking a hand out at Kylo, waiting, staring at him expectantly.
Kylo's looking at his hand, wondering what this is.
Take his hand!
Kylo jerks his head, looking around, and sees Kinear, who is staring at him, intently. He knows the man doesn't have Force skills, but apparently, when it's important, he can think loudly.
Why?
It's polite. Take your gloves off, first. You take his right hand in yours and give it a little squeeze.
Rather than get into a discussion of why anyone would ever do this, he just does it, and takes the man's hand, giving it a little squeeze.
The man squeezes back, harder.
Once they're touching, Kylo can feel this is some sort of dominance game. The man who can squeeze hardest wins.
Apparently, Kinear feels or sees it, too because as he's moving up to stand next to Kylo, DON'T BREAK HIS HAND! echoes hard and sharp in his head.
However, he's not thinking loudly enough for a non-Force sensitive person to pick up on it, or the man in front of him just doesn't care, because he does not appear to be getting the don't break his hand message. He's doing his best to see if he can crack Kylo's hand.
Kylo shakes his head, done with this, and both the man and Kinear wince, hard when they hear the crack. There's enough conversation going on that no one else hears, and the man's eyes go wide in shock and pain as what just happened really hits him, and a tiny "Oh!" hisses out of him.
Kylo lets him go, and turns his attention to the next one in the line, tugging his gloves back on, fairly certain that he's not going to get into stupid hand holding games again, polite or no.
The next person in line, and the one next to her, and the one down from that, also all saw what happened, and are very hastily killing any plays they may have had of offering Master Ren a hand, too.
There are facets of this he wasn't expecting, at all.
The questions. He knew they were going to ask him things, because that's part of meeting people, but… Where are you from? (The core.) Is that really a lightsaber? (Yes.) Did you build it yourself? (Yes.) Are you a Jedi? (No.) Why did you kill Snoke? (Because destroying an entire system on a whim is inappropriate.) Did you write his speech yourself? (Yes.) Is that your only scar? (Long unblinking stare along with a vague sense of discomfort.) How did you kill Snoke? (Touches lightsaber.) Is there a Lady Ren? (Longer, even less blinking stare with a heightened sense of discomfort.) What do you mean by myriad wonders? (Give it seven years, and let's see where the Order wants to go.) How old are you? (Old enough.) How about we slip off somewhere private and get to know each other better? (He got asked versions of that four times, by two women, a man, and one he wasn't sure about, and offered the same flat, "No" to each one.) Your accent is… ("Non-descript." The correct answer is Chandrila with a layer of Alderaan on top and a few Tatooine inflections intentionally smoothed out over a decade in the First Order.) Where do you intend to set your capitol? (We're standing in it.) What does your symbol mean? (Order moving forward, leaving the past behind.) Why free slaves? (Because I can.) Don't you worry about upsetting the galactic order? (No.) What happens if a system bans your recruiting stations? (None of them have, so far.)
And they roll on and on and on. And at no point does he ever feel easy doing this, and it's significantly more tiring than he was expecting, but… There's something to it.
Most of them are looking at him with curiosity.
Some of them are angry or afraid.
Some of them are intensely watching him, desiring him, and not just, though there's a level of this, too, sexually. Some of them want to see what comes next, where he's going to go, the idea of the possibility he represents heady in their minds.
He's never felt that before, the sensation of being watched hopefully, and it's appealing. He can see how some of Snoke's men fear that he might keep doing things to try and get more people to look at him that way, but… That's not how it works for him. He wants that appreciation for doing what he's going to do, not for doing a good job of twisting himself into the shape they want.
He spends four hours at it, which he feels is as long as anyone can take standing around meeting people, before he withdraws. They're all still milling around talking to each other, doing whatever it is diplomats do.
Spreading rumors likely, talking about what they asked and what he said, and guessing what he could have meant, where he might be from, and where they may be going.
"Did you get to see it?" he asks as soon as Rey comes through.
"On what?"
That's a good point. She has communications software, but because she's 'hiding' what she has is the ability to call out and receive information only from people she's called. She can't just monitor broadcasts because she doesn't have enough antenna or a satellite for it.
"We should fix that."
"Later. You have a copy I can see?"
He thinks about it, and then fetches a datapad. "Probably." He messes around with it, and locates a broadcast. "I've got it."
She pats the bed, and when he joins her on it, she snuggles into him… "Show me."
He wraps his arms around her, and rests his chin on her shoulder, and then clicks on the video.
She smirks at it as he walks in tall and proud, cape billowing behind him. Then she pauses it. "You did that on purpose, didn't you? There's no wind on the Supremacy, you used the Force to do that."
"I was just walking."
"Uh huh." She's skeptical about that. He unpauses it, and they both watch.
She nods as he takes the mask off. "Your hair's getting too long for it."
He shrugs. "I haven't gotten it cut since… before I broke the first one."
She strokes his hair, these days it rests on his shoulders, and is another few centimeters longer in the back. More than half of the time he wears it pulled back in a tidy queue. Today it's long and loose. She prefers it that way, but certainly understands how impractical it is to just let your hair hang.
After a few lines he says, "Do I really sound like that?"
"Uh… Volume's low, but… Yes. Isn't that what you sound like to you?"
"No. I think my voice is deeper."
Rey's eyebrows shoot up at that. "Deeper?"
"That's how it sounds to me."
"It's awfully deep, already." He sends down Snoke's banners, and she nods at that. Nods a moment later when his fall open, and from the angle of the camera he can see people react to that in a way he didn't when he was speaking. There's a shifting in the crowd, an almost eagerness to see what comes next.
They listen to the rest of it, and at the end Rey says, "It's good, Kylo."
"Really?"
"Really."