A/N: Sorry this took so long, and it took even longer than it did being posted on...that other fanfiction site, because formatting on this site is challenging and I just didn't have the drive to. Also I know I've said the next chapter will be the last one, but there was a scene I wanted to include in this, but it didn't fit in with the pacing, so then I was going to make a short interlude chapter, and then it ended up being way longer and more complicated than I expected, but you should be getting it soon.
The Siege of the Raddus- The Supremacy, Crait System (System PZ-43 Gamma)
Casper leaned against the bulkhead, technically breaking the rules for a stormtrooper on duty, but he didn't even care. It had been almost 10 hours and the whole ship was on edge. With almost every free capital ship in pursuit of the Resistance, no crew member was in their bunks. Since he was technically rated for Stormtrooper duty, Casper was assigned to this one hallway to be ready in case of boarding or Resistance infiltration. He shared the post with some other Stormtrooper, a regular. He had gotten the man's ID number, but nothing else. Casper had just come to relieve the soldier, having spent the past eight hours in the ready room, drinking caf, a named officer interloper to the squads assigned there.
With the ships under battle protocol, all the spare rooms were emptied out. Wen was also handed armor and sent to another section of the ship. Quay's processing power had been co-opted for some secret project. Nobody knew where Tal was. He'd been pulled away a week ago, right after Starkiller had blown up, while the rest of the room was given a more strict supervisor and duties processing and piecing together casualty reports.
So when Casper was given the post, not used to the limited vision in a bucket, yet overwhelmed by the new HUD, when he knew no one was watching, he slumped against the bulkhead, giving his old joints some relief. He managed to occupy himself for a bit by going through each of the menus on the more advanced First Order HUD. Even with his minimal live combat experience, he could tell how useful all of the new features were. Imperial buckets just had ID tags for your fellow soldiers, coms, and intel storage. This one had things like tech analysis, automatic Resistance operative matching, and aiming assistance. But none of the new features helped him pass the time. With no real mission, all the intel folders were empty.
Casper ended up passing the time by shutting off his comm mic and signing half-remembered songs, trying his best not to fall asleep listening to the hum of the ship.
Thankfully Casper was aware enough to hear the sound of boots echoing off the walls of the Supremacy. He quickly stood up straight and shifted his blaster into the proper position. But he was surprised, when instead of revealing an officer or perhaps another stormtrooper, it was someone else.
It was a male human, wearing non-standard dark clothes. An ugly scar bisected his face. He marched with haste. He couldn't have been a bounty hunter. They couldn't walk around the ship without escort. There was one stormtrooper following behind him, carrying binders.
"You!" the man snapped at Casper, causing him to stand at full attention on instinct.
Casper was surprised when the other stormtrooper, DF-7831 according to the HUD, sent him a closed audio message. It was considered against protocol to send such messages except for in combat or extraneous situation. And you definitely shouldn't do so in the presence of what seemed to be an officer.
"Hey just so you know, that's Kylo Ren. No idea what happened to his mask, just don't make the same mistake I did. "
Casper studied the man- Ren, more closely. Well now at least he knew the First Order's mystery warrior was a human, as most people suspected.
"You, trooper, with me," Kylo Ren ordered Casper without even checking to see that he followed him. Casper fell in with DF, while Ren marched ahead of him, his rage so obvious it almost gave off heat.
Casper followed Ren to a hangar bay, as the TIE fighters escorted in some old beat up Corellian escape pod.
Ren continued to march towards the coffin-shaped escape pod. At the same time, Casper felt drawn to it as well. The pod opened, and as the vapor faded away, he got a glimpse at the face around Kylo Ren's body.
It was her.
Rae sat up in the escape pod, staring up at Ren, fearless. She wasn't wearing her dessert rags, but some new clothes of thicker cloth, although still in a similar style.
Under the helmet, Casper smiled in pride. Some small part of him said: This isn't your daughter. She is not the child of your blood, nor did you raise her, but he couldn't hear it.
Sure she was a kriffing Resistance fighter, but she had escaped Jakku. And she was part of something big, something greater than any deci-credit a dozen stormtrooper or kid on Vardos. Or the child of two desert rats. Whatever great destiny she ended up with from being in that vault, she seemed to be living up to it.
But within all the love and pride, there was something else. Something more powerful, more enduring, and more insurmountable.
Fear.
It was fear that kept Casper rooted in place. That kept his outward appearance professional while inside, and even on his face, he was spiraling in free fall. It kept him from running forward and embracing Rae, for tearing off his helmet and apologizing for abandoning her.
Ren stretched out his hand for the cylinder Rey had clutched to her chest. "I'll take that. It belongs to me."
Rae held Kylo's gaze for a moment, before looking down at the object- the lightsaber. "Strange, then, that it called to me at the castle and not to you," she replied coyly.
"You're in no position to dictate."
Rae held out the lightsaber to her new captor and Casper's finger moved over his trigger as he saw the dark warrior approach Rae- approach his daughter. He'd be dead in a moment, but if Ren tried to hurt her-
That single moment of certainty evaporated as Ren snatched the lightsaber from her hand. Whatever worry Rae was feeling, the loss of her weapon didn't increase it. Or maybe she was just good at hiding it. Either way, Casper could no longer bring himself to pull the trigger and bring down certain death on both of them. And that, he reasoned, was probably better.
After placing the weapon on his belt, Ren stepped back to allow Rae to climb out of her escape pod. He then motioned for DF to come forward and put Rae in binders.
"That isn't necessary," Rae said to Kylo, but she didn't resist.
"It is," Kylo turned towards the innards of the ship and stalked away. "We have an appointment."
Before DF could lead her by the arm, Rae strode after Ren, struggling to keep pace and her calm demeanor. Casper and DF followed another few paces behind, while the crew of the hangar awkwardly return to their work, lost as protocol fell apart around their ears.
Casper's mind whirled as he tried to figure out where Rae was being taken. He had no idea if she was a prisoner or not. She seemed to have arrived of her own volition. Perhaps she was a Resistance envoy. But then why would Kylo have met her alone? Was she here separate of the Resistance?
As questions and scenarios swam through his head, Casper slowly increased his pace to match Rae's. When Kylo held up a hand to halt all three of them as he called a turbo-lift (possibly the one to the Supreme Leader's throne room, if Casper's mental map of the Supremacy was correct), Casper was right by Rae's side.
She didn't acknowledge him. She kept her eyes trained ahead at Ren. At this distance, Casper could easily see she was struggling to keep her breathing regular.
Casper reached out and gently grabbed her forearm. Rae's head whipped back to him and she stared at the blank visor of this odd Stormtrooper.
Even though the cloth around her arm and the fabric of his glove, reaching out to touch Rae had made this real in a way it wasn't before. He tried to imagine that they had a connection. That the gesture was seen as reassuring, not just weird and creepy.
On the outside, Casper looked the same as any other stormtrooper. Menacing and stone-faced, just like design.
But under the helmet, Casper's face told a different story. It was the face of a father finally reunited with his daughter.
And he didn't want to lose her again.
When the turbo-lift arrived, Kylo entered and motioned for Rae to follow. She broke Casper's gaze and his grip on her. She strode forward, fearless into the lift.
Although Casper remained stunned, DF took a step forward. Kylo held up a hand to stop him.
"That won't be necessary. You're dismissed,"
Casper heard none of this as the doors of the lift closed. He stared at his daughter, and prayed to whatever could hear him that it wasn't the last time he would see her face.
So while DF returned to his post, Casper stayed.
Rey stared at the stormtrooper who had just grabbed her arm. It wasn't a restraining grip, she could easily break away at any time. And his partner remained a few paces behind. Whatever this was, it was personal.
Who are you?
Rey wondered if he was like Finn. If he wanted to escape, but couldn't say anything. Despite the blank helmet, Rey tried to get a read on them, to try to figure out what her instincts said, just like what she'd done with many scavengers on Jakku.
Wait, she should be reaching out with the Force. She should try to feel him, like how she could tell Luke had cut himself off from the Force, or that Ben was a raging storm of conflict.
He was familiar.
The vaguest of memories tugged at the corners of Rey's mind. Something about pain turning into warmth. And that warmth was still there, but it was like a fire that only had a few remaining embers.
But she had no idea why.
Rey broke her eye-contact with the stormtrooper when the lift arrived and Ben called her forward, dismissing her escort.
She forced the confusion and the stormtrooper out of her mind. She only had a few more moments to bring Ben back to the light. She would have to say the right words and do the right things, to be like Luke Skywalker. Not the one she met on the island, but the one from the stories. The one who brought Vader back to the light.
And she tried. She thought she had for a moment, when Kylo Ren turned the Skywalker saber onto his master. But there was something she didn't account for. Her only stories of the conflict between light and dark had been those of recent history, those told by Amid. They excluded a crucial detail about how servants of the Dark Side acted. Something that scarred millennia of history and brought the Sith down to what should only be two at a time.
That a dark-sider slaying their master doesn't mean they have turned to the light.
And when Kylo Ren tried to convince Rey to rule the galaxy with him. And when he said what he believed to be the truth about her parents, but even then was a still a lie (for he knew how she would have fit into the contingency plan that birthed the First Order), that was all that consumed Rey's thoughts as his poisoned words cut through her heart.
In the stressful hours and days to come, Rey wouldn't remember the odd stormtrooper. And as she confronted Kylo's truth and her greatest fear, she was unaware the parent she sought was the closest he had ever been before.
Casper stood in front of the turbo-lift. He feared for his daughter's life, but he hoped that any moment she would exit the lift triumphant. And he would tear off his helmet and explain everything.
But that never came. Instead, the entire ship jolted, hard enough to knock Casper to the ground. For a moment, a sense of wrongness filled him and wrapped an invisible wire around his lungs. But it quickly faded and was replaced with fear.
Not the paralyzing fear he had felt since Rae came aboard, but raw, empowering, running-for-your-life fear.
He got up and saw that although all the lights had flickered, only some of them had come back on. A scattering of red emergency lights filled the hallway. It was like even the ship was confused about what had occurred.
Casper left his blaster on the ground as he sprinted through the ship, trying to find the nearest engineering room. He pulled himself in one, and the crew didn't even look up as they frantically checked readings.
"Everyone be quiet!" the head engineer shouted, causing all the work to screech to a halt. "Something has sheared the ship in half. At least on our side, all the blast doors near effected zones still functioned. We're pressurized."
A collective sigh of relief spread through the room, but the engineer ruined that too.
"The ship's design isn't modular. There are plenty of zones that have aspects of their power and life-support systems on the other side of the ship. Our zone has lost some of our lights, all of our external coms, and parts of the diagnostic system. But we got all of life support. The problem is, the ship is on internal lock-down because of the breach. It looks like our external hangars can still be opened, but the blast doors between zones aren't going to be overridden by anyone but the bridge."
"Do we have the bridge?" one brave engineer asked.
"Yeah, but I'm not even sure if an override command could get through since, comms to other zones are also down. The only way anyone can get a message to us is by someone physically delivering it through the hangar."
"Well at least we're still flying half a ship," the same engineer joked, clearly unable to read the room. He was silenced with a glare by the head engineer.
"Um, excuse me?" Casper asked, bringing all the attention to him now, "Is the Supreme Leader's throne room in a pressurized zone with oxygen?" They'd probably just assume he was a sycophant worried about Snoke.
"It's pretty close to the breach point, in the next zone over, but other than that, it looks to be fine.
"And the holding cells?" Casper didn't care what assumptions they'd make from that.
The chief engineer started to click through a few screens, but then stopped. She turned back to him. It was clear she was already very stressed and even more annoyed by this random stormtrooper who had barged into her domain.
"I'm sending everyone the best diagnostic schematic to look at. I want the left side working on getting more data. Right side work on establishing comms with other zones, or anywhere you can. I'll also bring it up the schematic on an empty terminal so our new friend can stop bothering me."
Once the engineer turned back to her work, the frantic energy of the room returned, but now it had direction. Casper tore off his helmet and placed it on top of the terminal. His hair was slicked down with sweat.
Hunching awkwardly over the terminal, Casper got to work. The engineer had been right about the throne room being fine. It also still had contact with the bridge. He only checked the nearest section of holding cells. It had lost its lights, however, the cell lockdown failsafes still functioned. But a closer look at the normal floorplan of the ship told Casper that Rae and Kylo couldn't have left the throne room without passing him.
Feeling a bit lost now, Casper searched for the location of Classified Zone Besh, Quay's assignment. It was in the same raised section as he was, but-
Well, that didn't make any sense.
CZ Besh had been obliterated. It wasn't in the path of whatever had cleaved the ship, but all it was sending back was null data. Not a communication failure, but that every diagnostic stat was reporting that the devices to measure it had been destroyed. The zones nearby were also reporting greater damage than the rest of the ship. Whatever had broken the ship had reacted with the project, and created a catastrophic effect.
Quay was dead. She probably didn't even notice anything. All of her neural processes would have been co-opted for the past many hours. Casper wasn't that close to her, it would have been like befriending a droid, but it hurt. It felt like something had been pulled out of his heart and left a hole full of something he didn't have time to analyze.
Without realizing it, Casper had already typed Wen's assigned zone into the search field. The Supremacy was so massive, and so many zones disrupted the standard naming pattern, he hadn't even realized where her assignment was located.
It was in the path of the breach point. All the blast doors around her would have sealed instantly, while Wen was pulled out into space, her kit only providing a few extra seconds before she died. Or maybe the explosion would have vaporized her in moments.
Wen was dead.
If Quay's death had pulled out a chunk of his heart, Wen's had removed what had remained. She had been Casper's closest friend over the years, the only person who could provide short respites of joy among the ice.
But unlike when he lost the first time, no ice came to cover this hole. Casper was left empty. And the last remains of ice and denial around Rae shattered with it. It didn't matter that the throne room was intact, she was as good as dead anyway.
Casper couldn't stand anymore. Ignored by the rest of the engineers, Casper managed to lower himself to the floor. He placed his head in his hands, and with no thoughts remaining and only emptiness to draw the water from, Casper began to cry.
This was the first time he had cried in thirty two years.
A/N: If you couldn't figure it out, Quay was being used in the hyperspace tracker, because according to the visual dictionary it works by brute forcing the small amount of radiation and data left by an object jumping into hyperspace against the First Order's extensive hyperlane records. It also uses a modified hyperspace field to slow down time to allow the calculations to take a reasonable amount of time. My headcanon about why Holdo's attack was so effective is that it was the equivalent of throwing a bomb at a box of munitions. That's why the tracker room was devastated. The small bit of wrongness Casper feels is because of how hyperspace is force related and bends the fabric of reality. Holdo bending reality so much and directly killing so many people using it caused a small burst of dark side energy. Oh and the extra dialogue when Rey gets out of the escape pod comes from the TLJ novelization.