Episode IX – The New Order
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters. Disney does. My personal gratitude and awe go to the people behind the wookiepedia and mandoa, and of course to Rian Johnson and everyone involved with Ep. VIII. I used some references from the Original Trilogy, Rogue One and from the Star Wars: the Rebels and put in just a small wink to the EU lore. I generally kept myself away from too many theories, because I wanted this to be as stand-alone as it is possible for a SW fanfic. However, I used some general ideas from a few online sources. That being said, I enjoyed writing this version of Episode IX. It is far from perfect, but I like it nevertheless. It's nothing to the world, but it means something to me ;) The story is very Kylo Ren – Rey and Episode VIII oriented, so if you hate those – simply don't read this piece of fanfic. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy it and MTFBY.
Chapter I.
Last Farewell.
Synopsis: General Leia has died. The remaining Resistance prepares a funeral pyre and memorial for their beloved leader, risking exposure, capture and final annihilation. Kylo Ren ascends to the power as the new Supreme Leader over Snoke's funeral pyre.
She fell ill mere days after their last stand-off on Crait. Perhaps it was the damp, sickly atmosphere of Degobah. Or, as many of them feared, it was her broken heart that finally gave way.
She slipped from consciousness softly and quietly, not coming to her senses again.
That fine cord of hope that tied them all together and that served as a beacon in what felt an ocean of darkness, has snapped.
The moment Princess died, Rey was at her side. Praying to whoever heard her to spare her life, to give the Force way to heal her. But there is nothing that could be done. The Princess abandoned this reality almost by her own volition – Rey could sense her pain and her grief, her immense guilt for both losing her son, Ben, and for being a culprit, if even an unwilling one, for the great decimation and death of so many Resistance fighters.
Crait was the final blow to the hope that her son might come back, from which she never recovered.
And when that bond was severed, Rey felt like the world became a surreal place. The hushed voices and laments around her became muffled. The shapes of weapons, equipment and people became washed out and everything felt like a half-death.
She was sitting alone, in silence, in the half-light of that abandoned planet. And for the first time in a long time, she felt nothing.
She was empty.
The broken pieces of her Master's saber strangely mirrored her own self. She was broken. A weapon that was once so full of potential and strength was now lying in ruins.
As Leia's life was slowly leaving her, Rey fervently read the Jedi texts day and night, using all her Force-heightened intuition to decipher the highly poetic, hermetical language of the Jedi. She used the old skill she had – the one that allowed her to immerse herself into the very spiritual substance of the object before her. Everything in the universe had its own unique energy signature. But the ancient texts were quizzical at best and nonsensical to her at worst. She saw the visions, powerful visions of Light and Dark, but no clear instruction how to repair the broken relic. Only very vague references were left by the ancient Masters.
More often than she'd like to admit to herself, she would find him within those visions. She didn't tell anyone about the communication she had with Kylo Ren. She wasn't quite certain if the connection was true or not, a promise of a future victory or a mere deception by Snoke who fed them both with what they wanted to see. She realized her emotions were swaying her left and right. There was a deeply unsettling realization buried in the heart of her hearts – she still cared for him. His image haunted her like a shadow in her nightmares and in her visions, and she often found it difficult to discern former from the latter.
She had an endlessly reiterating dream, where she'd slay him in a proportionate number of ways, the next always slightly different from the previous one. In her dreams, her rage was being materialized as crimson of a volcanic eruption every single time. The torment of it all was that he didn't even so much as defend himself. Rey found no satisfaction or peace in killing him. Infallibly, she'd always see his face in the end – but it was not the vicious face of a Supreme Leader. It was a face of man tormented, a man who welcomed death. Sometimes, the dream would end there. But sometimes, as soon as he'd slide away from her saber, she'd find herself struck down with her own saber through the abdomen. The sensation was so vivid that she'd break from her sleep in cold sweat.
A connection to the new Supreme Leader would be worse than a high treason among these people. She didn't fear death – she was afraid she would fail these men and women whom have become the family she never had.
She couldn't confess to this bond. And she felt the responsibility and guilt pressed her heart like a heavy weight.
He had a recurring dream.
He'd awake from his troubled sleep to be met with her eyes staring at him from the foot of his bed.
They stood there in silence for a nanosecond that felt like eternity.
She didn't need to tell him. He knew. They both knew.
Her eyes were empty, and as impermeable like polished obsidian.
And in the next moment, swift and merciless like a hawk, she'd pierce his chest with her saber, with her hardened gaze being the last thing he saw before falling into total darkness.
And then he would wake up once more, alone in his room. Only this time, there was a phantom pain in his chest. He touched the imaginary wound instinctively.
His mother has died.
The Resistance agreed to build a funeral pyre worthy of a General and of a Princess. They risked so much: the exposure and the attack that would mean the end to all that was left of Resistance – but they didn't want their beloved leader to be buried without the proper code and respect she deserved. Many of them had the same unspoken thought: I might be the one soon to follow.
Every one of them said a few words of eulogy that shared the most important memories of their General. Rey was as cold as stone by that point. She'd fear herself and her numbness, if there was but an emotion left in her to feel. When the torch came into her hands, she stood there, motionlessly and frozen like an ice sculpture. She thought she could feel his presence, cold and distant. But she didn't have the strength to care. Eventually, Poe came to her side and gently and slowly lowered the torch to the funeral pyre. Rey snapped from it like from a bad dream.
The flame flickered and struggled to spread through the damp, misty atmosphere. The skies were always overcast on this planet, which was one of the reasons it has been chosen in the first place. Rey walked few steps away, with her fists flinched. She couldn't bring herself to pray or to mourn. She didn't dare look at the white, thin smoke reaching for the skies. A familiar sensation passed through her hand – her loyal friend from the beginning, Finn, was at her side with his hand reaching hers. She loosened the grip and touched her friend's palm. They looked at one another, standing side by side like two orphaned children.
First Order was in the haste to bury their former Leader. The giant was difficult to embalm and wrap in royal, golden linen to conceal the mutilation of his body. Ren overlooked the ceremony himself, following the ancient traditions of the Knights of Ren. He was the last one to set his eyes on Snoke's disfigured face, the same way he was the last one to see that face alive. He looked at that grimace forever locked in shock and disbelief, and then covered it coldly. From the distance it seemed like the two leaders have exchanged some unspoken wisdoms from the other side. But he knew. Snoke wasn't much alive when he was alive – and in his death, it was very much the same.
From Snoke's finger, he removed the robust, richly embroidered ring with an obsidian stone retrieved from under the ruins of Vader's castle at Mustafar. That was a common rite in Ren temple. And after all, it was his rightful heritage in a way – but the ring had the stench of death to it – beyond detection to anyone but him. He passed it to the Temple Priests with a barely contained disgust for the relic.
He let Hux address his men – some 2.500.000 of them – from a giant pulpit built over the funeral pyre.
It was a standard Hux's overzealous, pompous tirade.
He called his soldiers on arms against the remaining rebel scum and their sympathizers, calling them meager and pathetic, mocking the fact they were reduced to no more than 100 that were no more than a drop in the ocean that is the First Order.
Kylo Ren tolerated the seemingly endless current of words coming from Hux, and then descended solemnly from the top of the temple stairs to the funeral pyre. He ignited the fire with his saber. The dense smoke broke quickly through the layers of wood.
He could barely see his army through the thick veil of smoke, as they were hailing him the new Supreme Leader. The binary suns shone brilliantly against him and the vast Ren temple. For the briefest of moments, he thought he could see her with the periphery of his eyesight, as she was standing by the side of the pyre. Her sadness came flushing over him like tide. Her thoughts were distant. There was emptiness in her, emptiness surrounding her. He realized – it wasn't a daydream. It wasn't a hallucination. And it wasn't Snoke's funeral pyre. It was her, standing by his mother's pyre, but she didn't open to the communication although she was aware of his presence in the Force. Her heart was elsewhere, and consumed by grief. The same grief exploded at him and set ablaze his defenses. But he resisted. He remained there, motionless, a singular black figure against the white marble staircase.
His heart was empty. He felt almost as dead as the creature he has put to death.
Ren saw the shadows of Hux's mind and he could tell the rising mistrust about the story he has told him. Hux absolutely didn't believe that a simple girl, Jedi or not, could take down the Supreme Leader Snoke in but one fatal and masterful blow and afterwards singlehandedly defeat Kylo Ren and the Praetorians. He saw her being accompanied by Ren and elite Stormtroopers in handcuffs, a frail frame against the brutal machinery of the First Order. Hux broke men and women far more intimidating by his own record – including many of his own disobedient, plot-ready, scheming-savvy officers.
Ren knew he had to strike Hux down before he acted against him. However, he couldn't do it directly, as he found the "rabid cur" useful to his own goals and too much of a cunning and influential politician to be executed without a good reason. The First Order suffered a lot after the destruction of Starkiller Base, "The Finalizer" and "Supremacy". The leadership was tattered, and the man-power needed replenishing.
For the time being, Hux struggled to be as compliant to the new Supreme Leader as not to raise his suspicion. He also jumped readily at this opportunity to blame a Resistance member for this most grievous of all insults – he declared warrants for her capture across all the charted regions and put an enormous bounty on her head and all helping her.
As for the remaining First Order leadership, shaken by the desperate suicidal attack of vice-admiral Holdo, they all rushed to Supreme Leader's side to prove him their loyalty.
However, Hux knew how to wait. He knew the men would be once again fed up with the Supreme Leader's moodiness, his proneness to mysticism and incontrollable rage – and although powerful, the Supreme Leader wasn't altogether invincible.
Hux knew his patience was the only advantage he had over Kylo Ren.
And that was an advantage he was planning to exploit to the outmost.
Chapter II.
Token of Hope.
Synopsis: Rey asks Poe's permission to leave for Ahch-to, desperate to find answers.
"I heard you're promoted", she said, with her back facing him.
"It is an honor I'd very gladly pass", Poe answered, realizing his stealthy walk wasn't even as half as stealthy as he believed.
"I'm sorry I've disturbed you", he said, coming closer to her side, "If you wish, I'll leave".
She glanced at him like a simple girl, sitting on the lake shore.
She shook her head.
"I wasn't meditating", she said, "Please, stay".
"Sure".
They sat there in silence for some time. And that shared silence felt peaceful and soothing for a change. Poe was stuck in a position he never wanted and that made him face the immense responsibility, the kind he never asked for, in a situation so incredibly bleak. But there was something about her presence – her name suited her well. She was full of light, promise and hope. She made him almost feel poetic. "Damn it, Poe", he thought to himself and looked down.
There was General Leia's ring in his hand. He's been trying to give it to Rey for some time, but his new role and her constant distancing into work, meditation and reading kept them apart.
"Rey", he cleared his throat and passed her the ring on his open palm. "It will never be a good time, so this might as well be the best. Take it. She gave it to me as a memento, but it should belong to you. If she had the time, she would give it to you".
Rey's eyes misted over with tears.
"Poe, I couldn't possibly", she replied gently. "It's a great honor, but I can't – she intended it for you".
He shook his head.
"No", he said, "We were the closest thing to family she had left. It should belong to you. I knew General well. This is yours".
Rey accepted it reluctantly. "Thank you", she whispered and put the ring on her finger. The bipartite ornament fitted her. Rey wasn't accustomed to jewelry, but this wasn't jewelry. It was a token, a promise of hope. The cold metal warmed up and to her sensitive Jedi ear, two opalescent deep-blue stones almost emitted a low reassuring humming noise.
This gave her the boldness she needed to ask him what was on her mind ever since they left Crait.
"Poe", she said, "I need you to help me".
He anticipated what she was about to say, but complied nevertheless. He found her damn hard to resist.
"I need to get to Ahch-to again", she said.
He made an exasperated sound.
"Rey", he said, "You know there's basically a limitless bounty on your head. The moment you leave the orbit, you'll have half of the First Order at your tail and who knows what else of a space mercenary slime. We're as safe here as can get. Lay low. Save your strength. There must be another way. We're like a single broken pixel in First Order's screen. There's hardly any harm we can cause them. If you stay under their radar, they'll soon start bickering among themselves and give us some time to re-group. Trust me – I've seen it. That's how they operate".
She waved her head again.
"I know", she replied, "And I did obey General's orders. I did stay low. But she is dead now", she said, with sad tone in her voice, "and I believe, if she'd lived, she'd give me the permission eventually. Reluctantly, but she would".
"Rey", he said, "You escaped once – barely. Don't test your luck. Wait for Maz to contact us back. If there's someone in the galaxy who can help you, then it's her. I don't even know what piece of junk you can use to get to Ahch-to. The "Falcon" is not only a junk, but is a known throughout the galaxy sort of junk. Old man's escape craft screams "First Order" from across the universe. As for other light freighters, it's like navigating a bucket with a broomstick".
Rey shook her head.
"I can't wait, Poe", she said, "Not anymore. I can feel the darkness rising. Wait here – and they'll just ambush us as we're waiting. The rope is tied around our necks".
"Tell me something I don't know", he murmured, and then looked at her, quickly casting away his disgruntled face.
"Rey, you know I'd be the first to take you wherever you say", he said with honesty and just a hint of ardor, "But this is just…madness".
"Perhaps all Jedi are mad in their own way", she responded, and jumped to her feet.
"Help me on this, General", she said, "Give me the permission to take Chewie and R2 with me, onboard the "Falcon". The sooner I depart, the sooner I'll come back". She fetched her old quarterstaff.
He stood straight near her, brushing dirt on his hands against his sides. He could cut through her resolve with a knife.
"Why do I have this feeling you don't need anyone's permission?", he asked, "0k. But take me as a co-pilot, Rey".
She shook her head once again.
"No, General", she smiled at him with that bright and reassuring smile of hers, "You're needed here. These people need you".
She was really hard to say no to, war crisis notwithstanding.
"Take BB-8 with you, then", he said eventually, "He's well programmed to fix space junk".
Alarms were roaring and BB-8 again shaken by yet another electrical shock. The little robot rolled away, trembling and buzzing.
"I over-worked "Falcon" this time", she thought.
"I know, Chewie", Rey yelled, her face stained with mechanical oil and sweat; "I'm working on it. I only have to deactivate the hyper-drive module and it'll be alright, trust me".
A disgruntled noise came her way.
"Of course", she thought, "Only if it does not explode first".
R2D2 came around, bleeping.
"Are you sure?" Rey asked, "But it might just blend the hyper-drive module and the impulse reactor together, and then we'll be just a floating scrapped metal in the space".
R2D2 seemingly resented this remark.
"Alright", Rey gasped, "Do your thing, R2".
The little droid stretched one of his telescopic grabbers, clicked on fuming electric chips like experienced clockwork-master would tip on a broken, but intricate antique clock. Then he practically immersed himself into the electric panel, and with alarms screaming left and right, he tore the hyper drive module out.
Rey held her breath, without even so much time as to think.
The alarms stopped.
R2D2 bleeped with what sounded like a relief.
Rey was beyond herself for a nanosecond, but then jumped again to her feet, fixing the little BB-8 unit, who was bleeping rather faintly.
"Now, R2D2", she exclaimed, "Let's see what's with the module".
But to her total dismay, she saw little more than a fragment of scorched metal, with a big black hole piercing right through it.
"Oh no", she said, terrified, "Oh, no, no, no, no".
That was their only hyper-drive module and Ahch-to was 2.5 hyper-jumps away.
Rey almost staggered and sat backwards.
BB-8 unit made a sheepish, whistling sound.
"Yes, we didn't explode", she answered bitterly, "But we're as useless as dead without the hyper-drive".
And as if that wasn't enough, an incoming signal came from the cockpit. Chewie howled and punched their blocked interface.
It was the Guavian Death Gang.