From The Force Awakens:
General Hux: "The weapon. It is ready. I believe the time has come to use it. We shall destroy the government that supports the Resistance, the Republic. Without their friends to protect them, the Resistance will be vulnerable, and we will stop them before they reach Skywalker."
Snoke: "Go. Prepare the weapon."
They'd done this dozens of times before – charging the planet's core, powering up the lasers, preparing everything for the command to be given. That was the main difference. Hux would be giving the order from the speaking platform rather than the command center. If anything went wrong, he wouldn't be immediately on hand to address it. Given the pageantry of the final defeat of the New Republic, Hux wouldn't have it any other way, but it meant things needed to go off flawlessly.
He'd gotten rather used to that as a requirement in his life. He could look back on the previous six years as an achievement greater than even Krennic – fewer delays, although he couldn't say much about the budget. Fortunately for him, Snoke didn't say much about the budget, either. You could probably buy a small star system with the cost overruns.
Not that they were in debt. The corporations which built construction droids and starships were more than willing to accept kyber as payment. As they had hollowed out the planet's core, they'd unearthed literal tons of the stuff. The diffusion of such crystal throughout the galaxy's manufacturing centers might yet be the greatest net achievement of Starkiller. It was an amusing thought.
There were other uses for the planet that Hux had been pursuing with more than mere amusement. Their first test shots had been at the lowest power setting, studying the interference patterns of the energy wave as it punched through hyperspace.
It was soon obvious this could be used to illuminate hyperspace hazards. Small adjustments in aim lit up other paths. They continued a slow sweep and multiple lasings until they marked out a path that had no obstructions. Voila – a new hyperspace route, safely mapped, in seconds. (Or, well, six years and a great deal of blood and sweat since one had to build Starkiller first. It was a trivial cost. Hux would do it again in a heartbeat.)
Once they had fully tested the charging system and taken their test shots, they had snuffed out the star Starkiller originally orbited, earning its name in truth. The next test was moving the planet through hyperspace. Despite the concerns they might shake the planet apart, it worked.
From a position near the First Order core worlds, he mapped further jump trajectories, this time at Snoke's order. These would be the routes the First Order used to make it possible to move their fleet rapidly through the galaxy along previously unknown paths, surprising their enemies and conquering the New Republic. In very short order, Hux began to see victory take shape.
It was none too soon. Just as Snoke had predicted, this was coming down to the wire on timing. The First Order was discovered, harassed, and in some cases outright attacked by a New Republic force led by General Organa. Not that the New Republic would admit to that.
The New Republic pretended to the rest of the galaxy that Organa's organization was separate, all while it used New Republic ships, pilots and agents recruited from the various New Republic militaries, and was headed by Organa, one of the founders of the New Republic. Her 'discrediting' for being the daughter of Darth Vader looked like theatre – a public relations move to create deniability for the new military she headed, one more aggressive than the New Republic wanted to admit they had on the payroll.
From Hux's own experience of the military – the importance of chain of command, the lack of meaningful opportunities for disobedience, the impossibility of treason on the scale of the Resistance – he couldn't imagine a situation where Organa could have done what she'd done without the support and endorsement of the leadership of the New Republic.
To him, the Senate had to know. They were either intentionally turning a blind eye to the details while Organa got on with her mission, or they were giving her orders directly while they just as intentionally promoted a false narrative to the rest of the galaxy. In either case, they were lying about the most important thing possible – that they were a false authority, and that the real one, the First Order, was coming back to restore law, order, and legitimate government to the galaxy.
Bizarrely, they painted the First Order as some kind of lunatic fringe element. They gave no explanation for the imperial-era star destroyers or the actual imperials themselves manning them. They dismissed the very real support the First Order had from the power brokers of the galaxy. They ignored Kuat and Sienar and what was left of the Trade Federation, the Banking Clan, and the Techno Union.
These were the corporations that had built the galaxy as the New Republic knew it, whose voices were no longer listened to in the Senate, and who had provided material support to the First Order just as they had to the Empire. Without Starkiller's kyber, they would have owned the First Order, bought and paid for as a mercenary force to promote and protect their interests. Hux had to admit Snoke's sorcery had made the Order financially independent. Free.
With the New Republic gone, there would be no support for the Resistance. The last bastion of hope for the Rebellion would be wiped out quickly. Hopefully, it would be before they could rally Luke Skywalker for some repeat of his Death Star trench run, but if not … that was what Kylo Ren was for.
It was with all this in mind that he wrote the coordinates for the Hosnian system on a slip of paper. His handwriting was poor, but legible. He hand-carried this to the operators as the mode of transmission, standing by as each of the three verified the numbers. It would not do to miss. As far as he knew, Ren had not won his argument with Snoke in asking that the other planets be spared. Neither had Hux. As he had all his life, he followed the orders he'd been given.
The various tests and operations of Starkiller had precipitated most of the moisture from the air and dropped the average global temperature. The planet and the plant life on it interpreted this as winter. Should they survive the upcoming battles, then Hux would choose some nice orbital band with plenty of sunlight to restore the natural order of things. He watched as Phasma finished speaking in her comm, making the last adjustments for the troopers arranged on the parade ground.
She walked over to him. "Ready."
Hux turned to Captain Opan. "How do I look?"
Opan gave him a tight nod. "Your father would be proud."
Hux snorted in amusement. "I suppose he would be, if he were here to see it. This isn't about the past, though. It's about the future."
"Isn't it always?"
Hux huffed, rolling his shoulders to work out tension. He turned to stare at the edge of the platform, where he'd be giving the speech from. It looked awfully cold and windy. He hoped his hat didn't blow off. The stormtroopers assembled had to be even colder. Not wanting to make them wait, he gave the signal to begin.
The ground shook slightly as the massive weapon released the full charge of power. The beam shot upward, appearing to streak off into space in an impressive and mind-bending display of perspective. The leaked infrared radiation was endurable from here – the warmth was pleasant after the bitter cold. Armitage Hux gazed up at the blazing light pouring out of the planet and disappearing into deepest space. He trembled at what he had wrought.
So many lives would be snuffed out. It was tempting to think of the deaths as needless. When you pulled the trigger on a blaster, you were supposed to be utterly certain of your target. He knew this, and he was. There were innocents on Hosnian Prime - billions of them. But there was also the Senate. There was also the assembled fleet of the New Republic who had gathered together all their ships with the intent of acting on the information Organa had provided to them.
With one shot, the First Order would decapitate the rebel government, destroy their weaponry, and send a signal to the rest of the galaxy of the cost of continued rebellion. Maybe with one shot, they would prevent the deaths of millions or billions more that could be lost if the war dragged on. But saving lives was not his priority – restoring order was. With the galaxy set to rights, peace would return and progress could resume.
His father would have been proud to see a Hux having a role in victory. But he'd be envious, too, and jealous. He'd have hateful and insecure things to say about Armitage's efforts, undermining the moment. He was destructive and toxic. He'd make sure Armitage knew victory was only due to him and Armitage was nothing but a tool. He knew he was a tool, but stars be damned if he'd let the man rub his face in it. He had too much pride for that. Vanity. Arrogance. All those things Snoke accused him of.
Snoke. The last six years ran through his mind – the worry, the turmoil, the effort, the laughter so rare that it was sweet when he found it. The pain. The suffering he still couldn't bring himself to think about. He didn't try, either. He didn't want to consider the role it played in goading him on. It would be cowardly and despicable to need such urging to do his duty. He should have done it freely and correctly without prodding. He'd earned his punishments. Or maybe not, because each one he thought of, he hadn't deserved. But they'd been his fault? He didn't know. He pushed it from his mind.
The beam was beginning to attenuate and fade. Hux swallowed, inhaled deeply, and let the air out slowly. His shoulders rose and fell with the motion. His lips parted. His heart was hammering in his chest, which he told himself was caused by the strange vibration from the weapon. He wished there was someone here to talk to, someone to be with, someone to express … things … himself … to, about all of this. There were so many things he didn't understand. There was such pain in his heart from what firing this thing had done. It was like a wound had opened inside of him.
Sloane gone. Thrawn gone. Even Cheskar – gone. People feared him. Hated him. This was only going to make that worse. Most of the galaxy would know his name now … and blame him. And he was to blame; he didn't deny that. Not everyone got to be a hero or thought well of. He wished he had friends. This was not a good way to go about getting them, he reflected.
"For Cheskar," he whispered as the beam finally disappeared. He pulled off his cap, mussing his hair, and thought about all the people who were about to die because of his command. He crumpled the stiff fabric over his heart. He didn't think he regretted it … but he was sorry.