Hux relished every single opportunity where the new Supreme Leader made himself absent from the Finalizer. As second-in-command, with Ren gone, this effectively meant he was the chief on board. Supreme Leader Armitage Hux. That should have been his title. He was born for it. The Finalizer was his ship to command. Instead some weak-willed man-child snatched the throne from him. Hux was still bitter everytime he recalled the moment he had reluctantly acquiesced the title to Ren. But one tends to do that when they were being Force-Choked.

Ren must have thought himself very clever. He didn't just appoint Peavey to be the new member of their triumvirate; he always made that old man his acting officer. Hux snorted. Of course he knew Peavey disliked him. But he also knew that Peavey only dared to challenge him when Ren was around. Hux resented all of this, but he let it slide. After all, Peavey openly disagreeing with him made for good theatrics, enough to mislead Ren into thinking he had the First Order under control.

Ever since Peavey informed him that Ren took his ship to meet those cultish Knights of his, Hux had entertained the idea of firing against that obnoxious TIE fighter upon its return. Preferably before it could even make its way into the Finalizer's landing docks. But no. He must be patient. Getting rid of Ren required some degree of delicacy.

Fortunately for him, he had acted on his plan as early as that inopportune moment when he discovered that Snoke was murdered in his throne room. Ren had told him that that scavenger girl had done all of the damage, including knocking him unconscious. On top of being an undeserving heir to Supreme Leader Snoke, Ren was also a terrible liar. Everytime he lied, it showed on his face. Hux kept that thought in mind throughout Crait. When things had settled down, he requested a secret inquiry to look into what had gone down on the Supremacy that fateful day. His loyalists within the security division managed to salvage hologram footage of key places on board the dreadnought. He had watched the tapes in hopes of finding some incriminating evidence. Those tapes, unknown to Ren, were safely locked up in Hux's chambers, awaiting the perfect moment to be revealed.

From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Peavey approaching the bridge. He called out to him, "I hope you enjoy playing acting officer, Captain Peavey."

The older man regarded him with a salute. "General Hux. There's been some news."

Hux turned to his former subordinate, now his hierarchical equal. "Oh? What may that be?"

Did Ren die on his way back? was on the tip of his tongue, but Hux bit back on it.

Peavey held out a holopad. Hux took it, frowning as he swiped through them. "Offers to form an Alliance with the Order. But what am I to do with these, Captain Peavey? Sign on them? Imagine what your Supreme Leader would say if I were to ratify these without his knowledge."

"I had already sent them to the Supreme Leader," Peavey replied with a straight face. "I thought I should just inform you, so there'll be no surprises."

Hux's lip curled in disgust as he returned the holopad to Peavey. He would have to find a way to deal with him one day. For now, he opted to change the subject. "I understand the new batch of Stormtroopers have just arrived. Very timely of them to graduate just when we need to revive our units."

Peavey peered down at the training docks through the glass of the bridge. "Yes, indeed. They have yet to complete their advanced training, but I dare say they are proficient enough to be sent for missions if the need arises. Plus, if the Acquisitors are on schedule, the Academy should be preparing to receive a new batch as well. Granted, they're older than what we usually handle, but we don't have the luxury to wait fifteen years to rebuild."

"Who knows, maybe we don't even have fifteen days," Hux responded with a shrug.

Peavey gave him a perplexed look, so Hux continued. "Ah of course, before your rise to prominence, you weren't privy to many things. But I recall the numerous times he and I had a meeting with Supreme Leader Snoke, and Ren was rather insistent on doing away with human troopers. He thinks there's no more need for them if we have clones." He made sure to look at Peavey from the corner of his eye as he added, "I worry for the future of our men in the event he finds them to be...no longer relevant for his vision of the First Order."

"...I have faith in the future of the Order. Excuse me, General," Peavey answered curtly.

Hux smiled in amusement as Peavey walked away to head down to meet the new Stormtroopers. So easy to toy with him, he thought. Peavey might be many things, but he was an old guard of the Empire, who fervently believed in the superiority of programmed humans over clones. Something that Hux's own father, poor dead Brendol Hux, held on to when he led Arkanis Academy. [1] Just the mention of clones itself was an abomination to Peavey.

He watched as Peavey began to address the new Stormtrooper units. Hux thought for a while, then made his way towards them. New recruits, same resilient programming. It wouldn't hurt to inject into them some psychological upgrade.

Not for the first time since joining the Resistance (informally?), Rey felt utterly alone. Of course, this wasn't to say that Poe and the rest of the team didn't try to make her feel as if she belonged. They had been wonderfully kind to her. But there was always an air of formality and the distance that came with it. On numerous occasions, the Resistance officers would be discussing strategies or making inside references, and she would be lost. Initially Finn too found himself a bit out of the loop, but eventually he fitted in quite well, with his Stormtrooper military background coming in handy for him to be converted to a lieutenant. Even Chewie, as she found out, was no stranger to these sort of discussions. As for her? There were only so many times she could keep asking for explanations without feeling as if she was more an interruption than assistance.

The loneliness felt worse now. From Chandrila, they had flown all the way to the far reaches of the Outer Rim to land at the subarctic desert of Daxam IV. The allies that Mon Mothma promised turned out to be the very elite Pamarthe Resistance squadron led by Captain Aslik Sallaros, who was as elitist in his personality as his vocation. [2] He was more than pleased to meet the Resistance, but had insisted on meeting ranked officers only. Despite Poe's and Finn's attempts to dissuade him otherwise, he refused to relent.

"Nobodies are strictly not allowed into the hidden airbase."

It hurt, but when Rey waved her friends off, she put up a cheerful front and assured them that she didn't mind staying behind on the Falcon; after all, someone needed to be in the ship in the event of any emergency. As for the droids, BB-8 tagged along with the Resistance officers, while C3P0 and R2D2 remained on board. She liked R2D2, and wouldn't have minded fixing things on the Falcon with the droid by her side, but C3P0 liked to enter into arguments with him. Rey found it best to let the two droids bicker rather than try to stop them.

Instead, she settled in the cockpit and contented herself with a view of Daxam IV's tundras. She was told by Poe along the way that it was a desert, so she had expected it to be something like Jakku, just its inverse. Whereas Jakku was hot sun and endless sand dunes, Daxam IV was extremely cold, filled with snow and ice. Rey wondered where amidst all of this the Pamarthe Resistance kept their fleet, especially since Daxam IV was (according to Poe) apparently teeming with crime syndicates that sprung up after the collapse of the Centrist coalition. [3] It seemed impossible to operate on the planet without an arrangement with at least one of the syndicates.

But seeing the endless sheets of snow and ice also reminded her of other things, other encounters... Starkiller Base, for example. It wasn't a particularly pleasant memory, but it was where everything started, where she wielded a lightsaber for the first time and began to understand the flows of the Force. It was the site of her first battle. No girl would forget an incident like that... nor could she forget her rival.

Rey had tried to keep him off her mind since 'running into him' at Chandrila. But now, the expression on his face resurfaced in her memory. It was a face conflicted by sadness. She wished she could laugh at the absurdity of it, that his conflict was because he wasn't sure if he ought to feel sad at his mother's passing. But in that moment when their eyes met, she had understood. Which was why she was initially uncertain how to call out to him...

Shaking her head, Rey got up from the cockpit seat. She can't be mulling over something like this. There were other things she needed to do. She headed into the sleeping quarters and pulled out her bag. She had been studying the Jedi texts on her own where possible. Much of it was philosophical, and in all honesty, without a teacher, it was a struggle.

As for constructing lightsabers, unfortunately, the Jedi texts made scant mention. They told her that the source of power rested in the kyber crystals, which were a part of the wielder as it was a part of the Force. Crystals choose and call out to their owner rather than the other way round. The texts reminded her that crystals were sentient objects, and ought to be revered and treasured as life itself. But that was about it. No mention on the mechanical workings of lightsabers.

Rey sighed as she once again held up the broken halves of the Skywalker lightsaber. To be honest, by now she had an idea how its mechanics work. She had even thought of constructing a new one, perhaps something that can give her the same feel and the same wield as her quarterstaff. But for some strange reason, she sensed that the crystal was refusing to budge from its existing host. Maybe crystals have attachment issues, too. Who knows. But that definitely wasn't going to stop her from trying to disassemble the lightsaber until she succeeded.

She shifted to sit on the floor so she could use the bed as her makeshift working table. "Battery cell, switch... yeah okay, let's try to remove the crystal from the casing today... are you stubborn today... Oh?"

To her surprise, the crystal was more pliant today, it actually slid out of the casing without any resistant. Rey looked at the crystal in her hand and grinned. She had a good feeling about this.

Chapter notes:

[1] Dead at the hands of General Hux and Captain Phasma, who teamed up to assassinate him.

[2] Pamarthe was a planet located in the Outer Rim territories, well-known for its pilots. It was also close to Daxam, so according to the SW universe, many Pamarthens sought jobs on the subarctic planet.

[3] Daxam IV was a member of the New Republic and belonged to the Centrist faction. Many Centrists liked the Empire/pre-fans of the First Order due to their preference for stronger galactic government and stronger military. The New Republic under Mon Mothma's chancellorship had favoured decentralization and greatly reduced military spending. A great scandal came to light when it was discovered that Daxam IV's Amaxine warriors, Rinnrivin Di's cartel, and Lady Carise Sindian were involved in a scheme which saw to money diverted to support the building up of the First Order.