Ghost stories have a way of gathering traction. The First Order had their own spies, The Knights of Ren learned things in their own way, and The Resistance was capable at gathering information. Everywhere there were whispers, and many of them about the opposing side. Many were started falsely to set people in the wrong direction, to lay traps, and to create scandal.

And then there were The Nameless. No one spoke of them. No one knew of them. They came and went under the guise of a freighter, often carrying goods for trade and transporting large items between planets. They made funds that way, and it gave many members an excuse to slip into secret markets and dark cantinas to gather Intel and meet clients. Such clients never wanted to be known and they never spoke. There was a war that had just started and one had to be careful when playing both sides.

Ailsa sat at the bar of a cantina one day with a cup of sweet liquor and a hood pulled over her head. She wanted some time to herself. The planet was bustling, a city full of people, warmed by bodies, never silent. The woman toyed with an information stick, swinging it over her fingers like one would with a coin. They were of about the same size, but this one was far more valuable. This little rectangle held all the information they needed about the First Order's construction plans. They had a blueprint of the Star Killer Base.

Ailsa had done a lot to achieve such information. She held the device up to the light. So small, and yet so significant. She pursed her lips together, wondering at what she might find. Maps, layouts, finances. Dull things. Dull things came with names. Names were attached to people. People talked.

The Skylander set the device into a pocket hidden in the collar of her shirt, tucking it in as she sat herself in the shadow of her hood. The hand of a man appeared on her waist. She said nothing and did not move. He reached around her front. She took a drink and looked at him. He said something lewd. She broke his thumb. Ailsa was kicked out of the cantina for that, lithe frame stepping back onto streets lit by dirty lights. She sighed and wished she could see the stars. It had been so long since she had seen the aurora on Skye. How she wished she could see that aurora again…

The disk in place she headed for the safe-house. It was a nice place; neat as a pin and nearly as small. But it was sealed off and silent. It had to be. The woman slipped the information into the droid that sat by the door, immediately relaying the blueprints to The Dauntless. Smith appeared on a hologram, his form blue and wibbly as it hovered above the droid.

"Is this all of it?" He asked.

"Yeah."

"You look like shit."

"I know." Ailsa sat on the coffee table across from the image and pushed her hood back, fingers working her hair out of its braid and letting it fall free over her shoulder. "I haven't slept in a while."

"Why?"

"Because I had to steal the information. The house was not as poorly guarded as suggested."

"Ah."

"Ah indeed."

"You staked it out?"

"Yeah."

"No one saw you?"

"No. I managed to get in and out without being seen."

"Your master was good to suggest you for this. He was right about you being an expert in stealth."

Ailsa nodded. She was exhausted. She'd not been so tired since the day she'd woken for the first time with The Nameless. "There are details about Hux there too. He's…uh…he's got big plans for that weapon they're building. He's already looking for victims. Planets. Whole systems."

Smith was silent, his hologram wavering. "Systems? It can do that?"

It had been horrifying to learn of, but indeed – the Star Killer Base did more than just erase moons. "Small systems at least. I did not get a good look, but it looks like if they get a big enough star to power the weapon…"

"Shit."

"I know." Ailsa ran a hand over her face. The war had just taken a turn that no one knew about. "It is not good. Their Supreme Leader has Hux in charge of the base, and Kylo Ren as its commander. Captain Phasma is present too. It seems they have boarded and are already residing upon it."

"They are creating Storm Troopers."

"They are stealing Storm Troopers." Ailsa mentioned. "Kids. Not clones."

"It just gets better and better."

Silence.

"Get some rest, Ailsa. We'll analyze this. Good work. A ship will pick you up tomorrow."

She nodded. She rarely had that much to say to Smith. He had been there when she woke up in her new life, but he had not been there to learn of who she had been. Who she had been had shaped her now more than any training or meditation could have. The woman was becoming a master at her craft; secret service. It all felt very Cold War but without the gadgets. Most of the time she needed to move without her light sabers – no one could know that anyone from The Temple had lived.

Rumors of Skywalker wandered about in their own skin though. Ailsa paid attention to them, she followed their leads and listened closely. Luke was alive. A desire in her grew to find him, but she knew that such a desire would be burning in the heart of Kylo Ren. News of a map surfaced and no doubt the chase was on. Kylo did not know he was in a race, but indeed he was now.

Ailsa returned to the ship feeling poorly rested. She was sent to the medical wing of their floating city and given sleeping pills and instructions take them and recover. Smith was present when the girl awoke, sitting on the chair at her desk.

"You never lock your door." He said with a small smile.

Another place, another time, they would have been such good friends. Ailsa offered him a smile in return, offering kindness but no reciprocation. "You're being creepy."

"You like it."

"I would if your hair didn't always look like it was wet."

"You like that too."

She gave him a long suffered look. "Was the information good?"

"Very. Someone is going to be in a lot of trouble when The First Order finds out such information is missing."

"Wasn't that the point?"

The man offered a newer smile, wondering where her crooked grin had gone. He saw it occasionally, but only really when she was in private. Reading a book, speaking to her masters, chatting in her own tongue to friends from Skye. Her guard rarely came down, but when it did it was a beautiful thing. It was easy to see how Ben Solo had loved her, and hard to believe that Kylo Ren had been able to overcome it.

"So – Hux."

Ailsa sat up and sipped from a cup of water beside her bed. Her tongue tasted of sleeping pills, but her head was clearer and her body felt more energized. She'd developed a slight addiction to the drug and had to be weaned off it. Sometimes she pushed a little too hard on missions just to get a dose to help her recover. It was a small habit to disguise large nightmares; ones that left her cold, clinging to rocks with no air in her lungs, forced down by the water of the falls and aching with a chill that burned through every limb.

"Ailsa." Smith spoke her name sharply. "Where did you go just then?"

The girl blinked. "Sorry. Sorry. Still half asleep."

"I've known you for a number of years now, you don't typically drift off."

"I guess I am still tired."

"You do look like shit still."

"You like it."

The man shook his head before offering a small envelope to Ailsa. "Hux."

Small envelopes meant one thing; it was a bit of a tradition to invite death upon an individual, to make it formal. It was like telling all the gods people believed in that a ghost was coming. Only the ghost got to RSVP.

Ailsa took the envelope and opened it. The man's name was there, as was the reason behind plans for his demise. "I cannot get to him in the base."

"We know." Smith stated. It would be her first solo kill. "We need you to reveal your Force Sensitivity to them."

Her eyes grew a little, a brow raised. "Why?"

"Their Supreme Leader needs to know that you can hide from him. It may be the shock they need to reconsider many of their plans."

"Why?"

"If they are thinking, they are not moving."

"And maybe Skywalker will know."

"Yes. Maybe Skywalker will know, and maybe you can get in touch. We need him."

'Everyone needs him."

"So…we'll get him."

Ailsa closed the envelope again and used The Force to crumple the paper into a ball, hovering it above her palm before tossing it into the air and striking it with the live blade of one of her lightsabers. The room lit up for a moment, then fell back to its normal hue. The woman set her weapon back on her bedside and looked to Smith.

"How do we get Hux?"

"How does one get any rat?" He grinned. "You have to use bait."

"Ah." Suddenly it was clearer. Her powers. A Force User. "They will send Kylo Ren. Hux doesn't get his hands dirty."

"Good. We need Ren first."

"The target is General Hux though?" Her brow furrowed, body still clothed in sheets. Smith kept trying to pry into her life. He kept misplacing what might be an appropriate time to do so.

The man leant forward. "Kylo Ren needs to fail in this task so that Hux gets sent to do it himself."

"You want me to beat Kylo Ren?"

"Don't kill him."

"Hmmm."

"Ailsa, seriously. Do not kill him."

"Why not?"

"I think you know why not."

Ben Solo. Somewhere Ben Solo might remain. Somewhere there was still light. Ailsa shook her head a little as she tried to sort her thoughts out. "Okay."

Smith rose and headed to the door. He was stopped by her voice calling his name.

"Please stop coming in here when I'm sleeping."

"It's creepy, huh?"

"So creepy."

"Noted."

She gave him one of her lopsided smiles and rolled back over in bed, thinking hard about what was to come.

The new day brought new resolve and Ailsa was sent to a small planet away from much of civilization. It was snowing there. It always seemed to be snowing. But there was a sea and the taste of salt. There were high cliffs – not as regal as those on Skye but pretty enough.

Ailsa sat on one with her hands on her lap. She meditated as she had as a child, facing the water, sea-grass at her back. She let her guard down enough for her Force to be heard, to be sensed. It felt so good to do so; she had been hiding for so long, she had been disguising her sensitivity for so many years that she had nearly forgotten what it felt like to just sit and be herself; to be a user of The Force. It was a beautiful thing, such a quiet moment punctuated only by waves.

The dark whispers were sharp in their turn toward her mind. They seemed to sniff at her like a dog, wandering through The Force, feeling for the girl. She simply sat and waited. Sat and meditated. They would come. Kylo Ren would come.

Ailsa wore clothes for the cold. She had a scarf on that covered her from the bridge of her nose to her neck and a hood that covered her head. The wind picked up and called for goggles. All were in a pale white, all crisp and soft, some nearly blue in their hue. They hid her in the snow; hid her from anyone who did not know she was there.

Kylo knew. She sensed him arrived and felt herself grow cold despite the layers she wore to prevent such a feeling. They both would be masked for this.

Yet…something caused the young woman to pause. Kylo Ren had not come with his knights. He had come with Hux himself. He had come with a platoon of Storm Troopers. Even Phasma herself was there.

This was not the plan. But it would do. The aim was to kill Hux. He had an invitation with death – as cliché as that might sound.

The woman sensed them coming up the hill but did not move. She sat and meditated, drawing on The Force, breathing it in, finding her balance and the strength there-in.

Kylo Ren was the first to arrive, the sound of his lightsaber powering up indicative of his intention. "Rise."

That voice sent a chill up her spine. She did not know that voice. He would be in that helmet, his eyes hidden. Ailsa did not move.

"I said to rise." The man's footsteps crunched as he drew nearer. She did not move.

A gust of wind met the rising of his weapon, the sea air so fresh and cold. Ailsa wished it were a little warmer and that she was alone, standing there with her face to the breeze and her mind on home.

As the red saber came down it was met with a blast of The Force, a barrier around the woman sending the attacker back a step and stirring the snow in an outward circle. She rose with his intentions fully declared and looked upon the man in black.

He would see a figure clad for winter. Perhaps Resistance, perhaps something else. Definitely with The Force and therefore to be destroyed. Snoke had said to destroy her; he had not found a door into her mind and such a thing was not worthwhile.

In the distance stood a small platoon of Storm Troopers, Phasma, and Hux. In front of Ailsa stood a figure all in black, a looming height of power. He radiated strength. He had grown in force. So had she.

"I have risen." Her voice was muffled by her clothing, eyes hidden behind mirrored glasses that showed Kylo Ren only his own faceless mask. "Is this what you wanted?"

"No." Was the basic reply.

He swung at her again, his lightsaber met with one of her own this time. The red, wavering blade she had seen so many years ago send a shock of betrayal through the woman. That weapon, that night…She forced Kylo Ren back with a blast of The Force and followed him down the slope a few steps, moving from the cliff and toward a small copse of trees nearby.

"You intend to kill me?" Ailsa stated. "Why?"

"You are not aligned with The First Order."

"You never asked if I was."

"I shouldn't have to." He drove against her hard, their weapons meeting time and time again. She could not bring herself to attack him. He moved the same. He felt the same to fight. This was…Ben. Kylo. One of them. Both of them. Ailsa hesitated and was thrown back toward the trees. The Storm Troopers began to advance.

"Are you working for The Resistance?" Kylo Ren leered in close, reaching out with his mind to invade hers.

Ailsa blocked him out violently, furious at such an intrusion. That was not Ben. She finally struck out at the man, her second lightsaber lighting up as she wheeled at him, striking over and over. The glow of their weapons lit the snow up, the warmth of their breath creating a fog.

"Who sent you?!" He yelled at her, frustrated. Another Force Users. A mystery. Someone who might be like him.

She realized he was lonely. But so was she – and all because he had thrown her into an icy river and left her to die. "Death sent me." Ailsa replied, their weapons pressed tight, their faces so close and yet lost between masks and hoods and blocked minds between.

"An assassin…" He nearly laughed.

"A ghost." She brought her leg up, knee coming up to launch into Kylo Ren's side. Ailsa straightened her leg after making contact, driving her shin into the point of impact as she leant back against the forward drive of his lightsaber and swung her own around to make contact with his shoulder.

He was quick to duck under such an attack and launched The Force at his opponent, using her momentum to flip her. Ailsa managed to land on her feet a short distance away before advancing again on him in a rage of betrayal and cold memory. The snow again. Always in the snow. And yet the smell of the sea brought back the knowledge that Ben might still be in there. She never made a strike to kill; not because it was against her mission but because it was against what she felt was right in him. She could not kill that boy.

The emotion was overwhelming and so conflicting, the battle occurred within Ailsa as well as through her actions. It drove her power but saw her blind to how close Phasma and Hux had come. She started to forget her mission. She saw only the mask.

They moved quickly, like lightening striking multiple times in the same place. Again and again and again they hit a balance, never quite overpowering the other, never quite finding a firm enough footing.

Finally Ailsa leapt up a little, one lightsaber forcing his down and away as a leg came up and aimed at his head. She could have driven her spare weapon through his gut, even across his neck. But she didn't. He caught her movement with ease; she'd done this before but he did not remember yet. She was spun back around as she had been in The Temple, suddenly facing him and headed for the ground. Instead of hitting her with his weapon he caught her by the back of the neck, memory and instinct reminding him of one day so long ago.

Time paused for a moment, the snow they had stirred up hanging there. So many years ago. So much time…and yet…

Back then there had been no mask, no hiding. He'd pulled her up and kissed her for the second time. Kylo paused for a long moment and Ailsa felt fear. She did not know why she was afraid.

Her lightsabers were turned off when he dropped her, her body quick to move away to watch the man. He did not turn his weapon off, but he was conflicted. Something in him stirred and she felt it.

She was so focused on this that she did not see Phasma giving an order. The Troopers had all of their weapons focused on the figure in white, all guns set to max power. Hux stood with a little smile; one so disconcerting that it left many unnerved.

The troopers opened fire all at once, focusing their shot as a single beam on the opponent before them. Ailsa saw the blast of red coming at her, its power hot and fast, burning away the grass and ensuring the snow was a mere memory in its path. She raised her hand just in time, throwing up a barrier with The Force in the millisecond before the beam hit.

The impact was immense and it sent the girl flying. She tumbled through the air, body hot from combat and now twisting in a manner she had not intended. The only thing to stop her was the trunk of a nearby tree, its bark catching her ribcage roughly and stopping her path. Ailsa hit the ground hard after that, landing on her back and suddenly without air. Not only did the breath rush from her lungs, but the attempt to bring oxygen back to her system was wet and half-baked. Pain erupted through her side, spreading with vicious intent. It ripped through her body and mingled with the blood in her mouth. She coughed and found herself trying to prop her body up in the snow. Her hood had fallen back, the goggles shattered from the shot. She ripped them off and threw them aside, one hand holding to her side as if it might help hold the pain together in a more manageable form, the other pulling the scarf down so she could breathe. No air seemed to come; not enough. It felt like she was drowning again, this time in heat and not in the cold.

She was somehow on her front, knees under her body, hand on the ground, the other still trying to pull her body together. Ailsa was gasping, head reeling. She looked up and saw that mask. That fucking mask.

He would have seen her eyes. For some reason he noticed her cheekbones more. They seemed to stand out like mountains on her features, with two great moons above watching over the planes of her face. Her mouth was stained with blood – teeth too. She looked like she was being robbed of air and she had begun to tremble from pain.

Kylo Ren did not move. He just stared. Hux was the first to reach the figure, her body somehow still trying to get upright, scrambling in the snow. He grasped her by her hair and hauled her up, causing a small cry to leave the woman as her body was lifted and the cracks in her ribcage opened and shattered further.

Hux.

Hux.

This was him. Up close he looked like a bitter winter's day. One someone had lit on fire. He might have been laughing at her. She couldn't hear him over the pain. It was so silent, her feet scrambling to hold her, her body not wanting to stay up. Her jaw shook, but her hand was fast. One clutched his, the other was deft in its motion from her side.

Ailsa drove a small blade through Hux's ribcage, twisting it to crack the bones so he might feel the pain he had inflicted upon her. He let out a cry and dropped her, hand quick to strike the girl and force her head toward the tree that had crushed her side.

She watched him, the wind bitter. Captain Phasma was the first to The General's side, the storm troopers all assembled quickly to aid him. He went to his knees. His eyes were on Ailsa, his gaze so bitter and furious, so pained.

She was drowning. She was drowning in her own blood as he stared at her like that. The impact had broken her ribs, it had sent one into her lung and now it filled with blood and not with air. Ailsa could not stop the shaking. She could not stop gasping for air. She could not hear any of it.

All started to fade. Her eyes went to Kylo Ren; eyes the colour of the sea on a stormy day. She looked at him as a scent much like the one from Skye lifted up and carried over them, stirring snow to blur the line between friendship and that day. Ailsa offered one of those lopsided grins he had come to know before letting her head fall back against the ground. The wind stirred the small copse, the trees all so old and strengthened by years on the edge of the sea.

That was all she remembered before losing consciousness. Just the air and the sea. The salt, the cold, and The Force.

A/N: So Kylo Ren finally sees Ailsa again. Let me know what you thought of the chapter! I would love your feedback and constructive criticism is always welcome. If you are reading please review! It is great to hear from you.
Please note - there will be more chapters. Stay tuned, I will post ASAP.