A/N: None of them have ever seen a Star Wars movie or a Jedi mind trick. Snoke tends not to use them, instead preferring to rely on rational self-interest (i.e., 'I will torture you to death if you don't do what I say'). Cheskar is not particularly weak-willed, but there's nothing about what Hux is telling them to do that they're inclined to resist. It's more like a suggestion.

Hux's greatcoat billowed behind him as he strode across the forward extraction chamber of the main excavation. It was warm here, but perverse as it seemed, the coat would insulate him from the heat for a while by the same mechanism by which it blocked out cold. They had long since begun to dig at depths untenable for prolonged human exposure. This chamber was the last with environmental processing, where an unprotected human such as himself would survive, albeit uncomfortably.

Cheskar was waiting for him, standing next to the crouching, crab-like shape of what was essentially an enormous portage droid. So many things on this project had baffling scales, like the thing the droid was carrying upon its broad, flat back. It was a kyber crystal – a single, massive kyber crystal about the size of a low couch.

It was difficult to see, as it was still heaped up with sandy, chalky kyberite ore. The cream and tan of the earlier diggings had darkened to grey and reddish brown. As he neared, he could see a darker, glassy band of the crystal itself. The smaller ones they'd found had been white or clear. A few had been smoky. This one looked black. He gave Cheskar a worried look. Cheskar handed him a long-handled broom, one used by the workers to clean equipment.

"Let's see what we've got," Cheskar said.

Together, they swept it clear, exposing the thing's form. It was roughly capsule-shaped with a bifurcation at one end in a lop-sided Y. The lines were not clean, but marred with eruptions and occlusions. The two of them backed up out of the dust cloud from their efforts, giving it a good look. It wasn't pretty.

It was a dark grey overall. Portions were clear. Portions were shot through with black. Where the black touched the surface, it formed a crusted nodule with the appearance of tar, like something had oozed from the interior.

"I'd read they came this big," Cheskar said in quiet awe. "Never thought I'd see one with my own eyes."

"There was that green one I showed you the holo of. It was five or six times this size. Perhaps more. And it was beautiful, naturally faceted with a clean lattice, which this one does not have. This looks like two crystals fused together … badly."

"It might not be much to look at, but I can feel it. Oh wow, can I feel it."

Hux gave Cheskar a side-eye. No one had forgotten the lesson about not touching these things. That's why he and Cheskar were evaluating this one personally, before it got anywhere near the rest of the personnel on the base.

There were several thousand people on the planet now, all engaged in various stages of construction. Hux had lost track of how many or who they were, but he had no doubt most of them didn't know to keep their hands off the crystals. He'd confiscated one as long as his finger off an electrician just the week before that had simply fallen out of the wall.

"Can you feel it?" Cheskar asked unnecessarily. They wiped at the sweat off their brow.

"Yes. Of course I can. I want to touch it, but I'm not going to." He said that pointedly.

Cheskar shifted their weight back and forth on their feet. "I don't want to touch it. I want to fornicate with it. I want to sleep on it. I want to lick it." They made a hissing sound through their teeth.

Hux's brows rose in puzzlement. "Do you need to excuse yourself? That's bizarre."

Cheskar grinned at him. "Only if you're leaving me alone with that!" At Hux's increasingly incredulous expression, Cheskar toned it down. "I'm joking. Sort of."

"You'd better be entirely joking." Hux's voice was serious, like a reprimand.

"I am." Cheskar balled their fists and put them in their armpits as though to physically restrain themselves from doing anything. They rocked up and down on their heels. "It has an energy. You're feeling it, too, right?"

"Yes, I am," Hux confirmed again. "But it doesn't feel right." Hux walked around it, giving it a wide berth as he did. He sent a pointed look to Cheskar and the engineer followed him. Hux didn't want to let Cheskar out of his sight with the thing.

Your perception is accurate. On both counts.

Hux stumbled and caught himself at the sound (?) of Snoke's voice in his head.

"You okay?" Cheskar asked.

"Fine." Hux made a show of looking back at the floor accusingly, although there was nothing there he could have tripped over. You're here? Why? He worried he'd done something wrong. No one has touched it. I've seen to it.

I am aware. The crystals within this planet called to me from across the galaxy. How do you think I was able to target the expeditionary force? The moment you unearth one of these, the song changes timbre. It rings out differently.

Ah. So that was how Snoke had managed to show up twice, unexpected, mere hours after excavation of the smaller crystals. Guiltily, he wondered if he was supposed to have punished the electrician. All he'd done was order training for anyone coming in contact with the planet's excavated crust and put the rock in a box in his quarters, expecting he would eventually decide what to do with it. He continued making a slow circuit of the larger one they'd found. Will you be coming to see this one?

No need. I see it now, through your eyes.

I see.

This one is flawed. You may use it for calibration runs and whatever practice exercises you deem prudent. Destroy it if you must. I care not.

Can we touch it?

It will twist your mind as it already works on that of your engineer. Hux snapped his eyes to Cheskar, who still looked anxious. Snoke continued, Use it to determine what shielding is necessary to physically protect your operators, since it is impractical to recruit and train those who are naturally resistant. There was a pause. Even an imperfect instrument might be useful, Snoke thought with a pointed mental reference to Hux himself. Continue your efforts. There are greater wonders yet to be revealed.

There was no more. After a long enough wait, Hux hazarded, Sir? Snoke? Leader Snoke? When no response was forthcoming, he turned to Cheskar. "Let us withdraw. We'll have the droid move it into a cargo container and see if that's sufficient to block whatever mental effect it has. If it isn't, we'll wrap the container in electrostatically charged netting and see if that works."

Cheskar looked after it longingly as they walked toward the other side of the room, where a long cable snaked over to a control panel that sat on a skid. Every day, they dug forward and moved the temporary walls that made up this chamber. Behind it, other droids and human workers put up a permanent framework for what would eventually be a central corridor big enough to fly a command shuttle through with wings extended. They were miles beneath the planet's surface, but there was nothing beyond the ceiling but air. They were in the great crevasse that would eventually bisect the world.

"It stirs you?" Hux asked.

"Yes? Doesn't it, you?"

"No. I feel it, but no. I am not … stirred. It doesn't feel right. It's not that I don't feel right, but the crystal doesn't feel right. Not to me."

"Huh."

"Were there no others found between the ones leftover after the knights and this one?"

"Just all the shard and trace we've been pulling out – stuff the size of a grain of sand up to your fingernail. And that one that jumped out at Basingi." That was the electrician. "I still think that means something." Hux shrugged. He did not care or believe a rock had 'chosen' one of the electricians to bond with. "I guess you're selling all of that?"

"The shards have been passed on to Snoke's bursar. I think we're selling them Kuat-Entralla to pay down our debt for the destroyers. I haven't included the other yet. It's worth … a lot. It might be a useful bargaining chip at some point." His thoughts had betrayed it to Snoke, but Snoke had said nothing of it. Hux assumed that meant he was free to do with it as he pleased. Which meant he'd probably offer it in exchange for expediting materials he needed for the base.

"Ah. Financial stuff." Cheskar nodded. "Lanlisa was the one who let me know the geological composition had changed. The kyberite was crusting up and we were running into voids. That's the same thing that happened before when we started finding fully-formed crystals."

"This one was in a cave as well?"

"Not exactly. More just a seam. If it had been in a cave, the excavation droid might have seen it first and notified us. As it was, its scanners noticed the density shift and it dug it out. I don't know if we have caves this far down."

"Well, we should get moving on building the faceting equipment. I'll want to test it out on that one."

"You want to cut it up? But it's beautiful!"

Hux stopped them with a touch to the arm, moving directly in front of them to face them. "Cheskar. Listen to me. It's just a rock." Hux held up one hand in emphasis. Cheskar's life and possibly their sanity depended on this (quite outside what Snoke might do to them, or to Hux).

Cheskar stared at him, seemingly on the verge of saying something, then they relaxed. "It's just a rock."

"You're not going to touch it."

"I'm not going to touch it."

Hux hesitated, wondering if he was being mocked given the toneless way Cheskar was repeating his words. Hux nodded. "We have work to get to."

"We have work to get to."

Hux snorted and abandoned the focused, serious tone he'd been using. "You are mocking me, aren't you?"

"No." Cheskar straightened a little, blinking. "It's a … um, good idea. Just a rock. Don't touch it. Get to work. I got it. I can do that." Their voice sounded normal enough now.

Hux shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Then get to it. I'm not leaving until I'm sure we have a functional containment system that doesn't leave my best project engineer talking about wanting to mate with the blasted thing."

"Alright, alright," Cheskar chuckled, heading over to a comm panel so they could get a cargo container brought down. "All work, all the time. I'm on it."

Hux turned and looked across the chamber toward the crystal. "One day it will all be over here," he said to himself. "Some of us, at least, will get to live in the galaxy made by this magnificent weapon. If we manage to get it finished in time."