Chapter 18 - Tatooine/Jakku/Takodana

Author's note: Avin and Hux get married. Rey meets her cousin. More Rey POV anon!

It was another gruelling day in the archive and Avin was covered in cat hair as Millicent had decided to sneak into her quarters and sleep in her clothes. She had commed Hux to let him know where she was before Avin left her quarters, but he had not replied. Since Ossus Snoke had tasked her, amongst other things, with finding Sith holocrons, using a sprawling mass of information corrupted by the fall of Darth Plagueis the Wise. She had rewritten coding and solved some rather fun encryption riddles within the general archives, created by Palpatine and his former archivists, to merge data. This information, however, had no search parameters nor tags to proclaim what it was, where it was or how to find it. She was looking for a proverbial needle in a galaxy-sized haystack. Today, like she had been doing for several days already, she was looking for the piece of the puzzle in Sith history. Her father had always told her if she wanted to find something lost, she should retrace her steps and she was doing so, in a way.

One of her assistants, a thin young clerk called Matō, had assisted her well in finding missing pieces of the map to Skywalker. She knew he would be a good choice to help review the earliest history she could find, specifically the birthplace of the Sith. The name of this place had been lost to time, but Avin was confident they would find something on the planet Korriban, now known as Moraband.

"Lady Palpatine, are we not looking for the map to the Jedi today?" Matō asked, puzzled by the display of an ancient map of Korriban she was working on.

"Ah, my apologies I had not updated you. We have found where the missing piece of the map is."

"In the archives?" Matō asked, excitedly.

"Ah, no. The information fell into our laps on Ossus. A man by the name of Lor San Tekka on Jakku." She informed Matō, with a cheery smile. "Could you possibly pull up any information you can find on Moraband, specifically topographical maps?"

Matō looked at her with a mild expression on his face and slowly went back to his desk. She could hear him working on something but when she turned to ask him a question he was gone. The archive was empty. She stood up, feeling something was wrong and left the archive to find him. She turned into the corridor and saw Matō lean down and place a chip into a small black and yellow droid unit she had never seen before, a Y-27 unit from the lettering on the side.

"What are you doing?" she asked sharply, and Matō spun towards her with a blaster pulled out of his uniform. Avin shouted in fright and raised her arms, closing her eyes in terror that she was about to die. The shot sounded and a blood-curdling scream that wasn't hers rang out. She opened her eyes to see the clerk's corpse flat on the ground. She stared at his smoking body. He had tried to kill her. They had worked well together for the last 6 months, even sharing lunch together on occasion. Her arm was grabbed and pulled by Captain Phasma to one of the officer's lifts.

"Someone sent out a signal on a Resistance sub frequency." Phasma said, holstering her blaster. "I'm glad it wasn't you."

"What just – I – that man. You killed him!" she gasped out. Phasma's head turned in her direction and returned to original position.

"Civilians." She said disdainfully. Avin pulled away from her as she made to steer her out of the lift.

"Wait Phasma, there was a droid! Matō gave something to a droid I've never seen before, a Y-27 unit I think." She said, still feeling dizzy from the sudden violence. Phasma swore under her breath and switched her internal comms to all channels.

"All staff, there are terrorists onboard the Finalizer. There is a Y-27 droid with essential information, capture. I repeat. Capture. Do not Destroy." She commanded to the whole body of Stormtroopers, officers and other staff aboard the vast starship. She looked back to Avin. "Go to the bridge and speak to General Hux, I cannot look after you now."

Avin half-ran, half walked in panic towards the bridge. She had never been before and seemed to walk endlessly between various men and women staring at lit up panels and working in circular depressions on the floor before she caught the panoramic view of space where main command inevitably worked. Hux was standing there, a look of concentration on his face as he spoke to another officer, clearly in his element.

"General Hux." She panted out. "There are terrorists-"

"I know Avin. We will not let them escape." He said dictating every word with a keen precision. He looked from her to his staff, who were viewing her long hair and sweaty appearance with curiosity.

"The archival clerk working with me – I told him about what we found on Ossus." She said breathlessly. He stepped closer, hands still held at his back, and frowned as he looked at her.

"Go to my chambers Avin. You will be safe there." He raised a gloved hand and signalled a stormtrooper stationed on the bridge.

"Take my- Lady Palpatine to my chambers." He commanded. She saw quite a few officers look at each other with eyebrows raised as she walked by. Another pale man with a cap of black hair approached Hux and quickly informed him that the droid with a resistance operative had escaped on an old x-wing fighter.

"The resistance knows the map is on Jakku. Alert Lord Ren." Hux said coldly to his second in command.

"We must refuel." Hux said tensely, his arms braced over the table.

Refuelling the Finalizer was a very involved affair, requiring serious bribes to members of Hutt space. The ship was docked at a huge fuelling station. It would take 24 standard hours to fill the massive reserves the ship needed. Until this was done, they were docked, dead in space above the planet Tatooine. The wait was clearly infuriating Ren.

"We need to beat the Resistance to this map." Ren said forcefully, banging his gloved fist on the table. Hux had clearly not told Ren who the Resistance had found this information from and Avin was very glad of this during Ren's rages.

"And we will. Once the ship has enough power to do so. Once this map is obtained, we will be en route to Starkiller Base Ren. Do not let this map distract you from our purpose."

"The map is my purpose. We must find Skywalker." Ren said so forcefully the distortion of his mask made it hard to hear. When Hux glared back at him, refusing to compromise, Ren got up and kicked one of the unoccupied metal chairs across the meeting room, causing all but Hux to flinch. He stormed out of the room. Hux paced the room and stood behind Avin, his sharp black uniform brushing her side. He had been doing that since she had come to his quarters a few days ago, gravitating towards her unconsciously when they were in the same room.

"Once we've refuelled, the ship will maintain its hyperdrive route to Jakku." He said decisively. "Dismissed."

Bending down when his men turned to leave, Hux whispered instructions in Avin's ear, his breath tickling her delicate skin.

Hux had asked her to meet near his shuttle on the 34th floor of the ship. This was a very odd request, but Avin went anyway. Perhaps he wants to have sex in the shuttle, she thought, with a deep thrill. There was a direct Officer's lift there thankfully, and even more luckily Ren had not trashed this one. His fits of rage had gotten so much worse since they had gotten the location of the map. She did not have to wait long before Hux joined her in front of the shuttle. Stalking towards her, Hux pulled out a long brown cloak out and threw it in her direction.

"Put this on." He said and pulled out a version for himself as they boarded his sleek ship. She didn't understand. Surely, he wasn't trying to defect-

"We need to not be recognised on Tatooine. I want us in and out quickly." He said, not unkindly and guided her towards one of the shuttle seats.

"Why are we disguising ourselves?" she asked, baffled by this absolutely out of character turn from him.

"Because" he said, pausing to give her a small lop-sided smile. "We are getting married."

Arriving down on the planet, they walked through the crowded streets, him holding her close as they went. It had been so long since Avin had seen crowded streets like this, although it was so different to her beloved Naboo. Walking here kicked up a yellow dust and a strange smell of spices hung in the air, particularly near people's homes. The two suns were high in the sky, and she sighed with pleasure as the light shone on her face. She could hear children laughing and playing in the distance. Armitage seemed to be making his way, with purpose, to a squat, low-lying building which looked better appointed than the rest.

They entered the building and walked into an atrium in which a small squat woman sat. Avin appreciated the red-tinged sand-coloured walls and various metal statues as she looked around the space. They walked straight past this woman into a small office, ignoring the woman's protests, and came face to face with a tall man with heavy jowls in long dusty robes of office standing by his desk. He looked at them with gasp of surprise, his hand moving to his sidearm. Without missing a beat, Hux threw a heavy bag full of credits down onto his office desk.

"Marry us." He said. "Now."

The mayor paused, caught, looking between them both and Avin needed to nod enthusiastically before he would speak again.

"I have appointments-"

"Cancel them." Hux barked, still in general mode in this dusty town. The mayor looked at the large sack of credits on the table and sighed. He stepped towards his desk and pulled up a screen containing legal marriage documents which they began to fill out. He looked between the two again frowning slightly.

"There are no witnesses?"

"No." Hux said curtly. The mayor nodded and walked towards his office door and leaned towards his secretary. "Betaylle? Can you please come in and witness a wedding for me?"

The squat woman entered looking confused. Avin and Hux must have looked like a very odd pair, pale from space travel in brown robes over severe black with yellow dust clinging to the bottom of their clothes. They faced each other as the mayor began. He glanced at the documentation every once in a while, to make sure the names were correct.

"Do you… Armitage Brendol… Hux take Avin… Shuah as your lawful wife?" Hux nodded sharply to confirm. "And do you… Avin Shuah take Armitage… Brendol Hux as your lawful husband?" She said yes and smiled at him.

"Do you wish to say your vows?" the mayor asked.

"No." They chorused as one.

"Alright. Is there… do you have rings to exchange?" the mayor said awkwardly.

They both shrugged.

"With the authority of the Outer Rims and my position of Mayor of the Tatooine Outpost, I now pronounce you man and wife." The mayor said and passed them two more legal documents on a screen, quickly. "Sign here, here and here."

They signed and Hux gave her a secret smile when the mayor turned away, his eyes glinting in the sun as it streamed through the mayor's office windows.

"Congratulations." The mayor said, somewhat uncertainly, looking back at the large pile of credits on his desk. Avin thanked him and steered Hux out of the room. She could hear the panicked voice of the mayor's secretary as they stepped out into the hallway.

"Sir? Was that General Hux from the First Order?"

Safely back abroad their shuttle, Hux initiated take-off and allowed the AI pilot to take over, moving back to bring Avin a celebratory drink in a delicate fluted glass. She sipped and coughed.

"What is this?" she choked.

"Corellian ale." Hux said, lifting his eyebrows and smiling at her. She laughed and kissed him softly. Avin could not think of a less romantic wedding if she tried, but she was still very happy. Perhaps after the war was over, they could go somewhere beautiful, with a beach. She said as much to Hux.

"When this war is over and we are victorious, you can have anything you want Avin." He said grandly, wrapping a possessive arm around her waist.

"What do you want… when the war is over?" Avin asked hesitantly.

"The Supreme Leader has promised me an empire." He said, a smug smile on his face as he caressed her hip.

"And… that's what you want?" she asked in return.

"Of course. And a beautiful, intelligent wife." He hesitated, looking into his glass of ale for a moment. "And children."

"We should probably discuss that." She said, gently.

"This war will be swift. We will have plenty of time to have children afterwards."

She perceived the elephant in the room and knew she would have to address this sooner or later with him, no matter how painful.

"Arm, your father. I was… sorry to hear he died."

"I'm not." Armitage said shortly, pulling away his arm from her waist.

"How did he-"

His face took on an almost bored look as he swirled the ale around his glass.

"Natural causes." He said briefly. Avin was not an idiot.

"You and Phasma had him killed, didn't you?" she said, turning to face him directly. He was staring at her, eyes green slits, and leaned back away from her, expectant.

"I'm glad he's dead." She said harshly, with all the feeling she had for that horrible man. Without warning, Hux pulled her into an embrace, their drinks forgotten, wrapping his arms tightly around her and pressing his face into her hair. They stayed like that until their shuttle docked.

By the time they got to Jakku, it was too late. Ren personally went down to find Lor San Tekka and returned back to the ship empty handed. As they engaged the enemy outrightly Avin felt further and further detached from what was happening around her. Some Resistance pilot had been interrogated on one of the lower levels to give up the map. She assumed Ren would use his powers to force the pilot to give him answers but Phasma later informed her that a stormtrooper had defected and helped the pilot escape. Phasma had seemed genuinely disturbed by this news and had been on the warpath ever since with her division. Avin knew there would be no time for friendly chats in the near future. She knew that they had changed course to the forest planet of Takodana in the Western Reaches, although she did not know why. She assumed they had tracked the pilot and defector there. She had not seen Hux since they arrived at Jakku. She hoped he was still sleeping and eating, at least.

Away from the excitement, she had been working on a report on Sith Holocrons in the last two days, but the endless information about Sith history was melting her brain. She needed Snoke to confirm something before she did anymore dead-end research. Last night she had activated the sub-space channel known only to her, Hux and Ren to send a request for an appointment to Snoke's ship The Supremacy. She now entered the strange cavernous space carved into the ship for a meeting with him. His image joltingly appeared in front of her.

"Supreme Leader." She formally intoned, bending on one knee.

"To what do I owe the pleasure, child?" he asked, looking vaguely amused.

"I have found an important clue, but the archives are incomplete and I need your guidance." She said and he gestured for her to go on lazily.

"I have come across a name. Ixigol? There is vague mention of it one of the texts on Darth Sanguis-"

"That place is nothing. Just a barren wasteland."

"Are you-"

"What of Moraband?" he said, cutting her off abruptly as he leaned forward in his throne.

"I have pulled multiple archival resources for comparison. While conflicting, I can see evidence of holocrons that even Darth Plagueis and Darth Sidious were unaware of, Supreme Leader." She said. He leaned back in his chair and regarded her.

"Your work is truly impressive child. If only your family were here to see what you have done for the First Order."

She stood staring at him, trying to conceal her thoughts as much as possible. He was baiting her, trying to remind her of her pain. When she did not respond his eyes narrowed, his concave cheek a dark hollow in the red glow of the room.

"I see you have not relayed my news to General Hux."

She stayed silent. Clearly growing impatient at her obstinance, he reached out a hand to her. She felt him enter her mind like icy dark needles were latching onto her scalp and violently slicing into her head. She screamed and clutched at her temple. His cold presence overwhelmed her, pulling out all her warmth, her joy, her happiness. He was searching for something, and she couldn't stop him, a roving phantom eye pulling and ripping through her memories, her thoughts, her feelings. The malicious gaze looking at the memory of her naked body curling around Armitage and Millicent on his bed, his face tilted up to her, contentment written all over his face. Suddenly, the pain stopped and Avin fell heavily on one knee to the floor, gasping for breath. Snoke was laughing, a cold hollow rattle which vibrated through the huge cavern. She stammered out an apology and blindly fled from the room.

Once again in the corridor outside Snoke's meeting chamber, Avin felt like she was going to be sick. Her heart was pounding out of her chest. She shakily sent something on her communicator.

Arm, can I see you tonight?

I will return to my chambers in 2 standard hours. H

She looked over her shoulder to make sure no one noticed her entering the General's chambers. After wandering through his living space and playing with a recently returned Millicent she sat bored, thinking about the lush green forestry of Takodana. She assumed she would have no time to visit the planet. She could imagine the rich greens and blues of the planet, so like Naboo.

Hux was late but she knew that there was a lot going on since they had arrived on Jakku. Finally, giving up on him returning tonight, she decided to have a shower in his chambers. His fresher was unsurprisingly luxurious, and she thought, not for the first time, that his quarters had dramatically changed around the time that Brendol Hux had met an untimely demise. The fresher was huge compared to her own, a large wet room with real warm water rather than the sonic showers most staff had. She took plenty of time to shampoo and condition her hair, massaging her scalp. She was about to switch off the water and sneak into Hux's bed when she heard a noise behind her. She heard a shift and turned to see Hux standing in the doorway to the fresher, leaning against the doorframe. He looked exhausted, was her first thought. That tired look was replaced with a look of intense heat as he moved towards her.

"I have been given the go ahead for the Starkiller Project." He said, almost sauntering into the room. "Ren has gone from blunder to blunder this week. That oaf is falling apart."

"This is wonderful news." She said, meaning the project. Ren's increasing instability was not good news for her. She thought, not for the first time, of reaching out to him to talk about what was happening in that thick head of his. She was pulled back from her thoughts as Hux stood directly in front of her.

"Wash your breasts." He asked and she did so, rubbing soft soapy circles over her large breasts. He stood watching her for some time, a confident smirk on his face before he began taking off his clothes purposefully. As he pulled off his underwear, he looked at her with an oddly uncertain look, as if embarrassed by his body. His arm crossed against his chest, as if to hide his pale slenderness. She reached out and pulled him under the hot spray of water. He flinched and smiled as it hit him. He pulled her to him, rubbing his hands up and down her wet skin. She leaned up to kiss him and he pressed her against the cold tiles of the fresher.

"My wife." He whispered as they came together, kissing underneath the hot spray. She pulled back and looked at him, noticing the dark planes under his eyes.

"Arm, you look tired." She said, cupping his face. "I think you should get some sleep."

He stepped away from and looked down and back up, raising his light eyebrows at the very obvious erection between them.

"Bed. Now." She said, laughing and pushed him out of the shower.

Rey tried again. The memories she had seen in that strange man's head were coursing through her. She had felt feelings of immense sadness and disappointment, that he would never be as good as Darth Vader. She had also seen other things, glimpses of his past, his training. There was a deep warm throb in her body that he said he could feel too but that was another mind game, surely. Faces of Han Solo, another older man staring down at him, a sneering red-headed officer and a dark complected woman smiling were jumbled together. She saw very clearly, a moment where he wrapped his words with energy, he called Force and commanded someone to do his bidding. She thought that asking someone to do something with the pull of this strange energy was her only way out. She was desperate.

"You will remove the restraints and leave this cell with the door open." She said calmly, feeling that strange energy curling around her words. He mirrored her words exactly and opened the restraints, dropping his weapon as he left as instructed. She had no time to marvel that this had worked. That man would come back, and he would kill her, she knew that. She ran down the corridors, all of them looking identical. Stopping to crouch around a corner as a group of Stormtroopers walked by a section where several corridors intersected, she felt something very strange and whipped her head around. There was a man and woman in the corridor behind her, the man a slight figure with a cap of black hair in a severe black uniform that immediately reacted to Rey. He ran in the other direction calling for help. The woman however, stood still, in a long maroon robe which almost trailed the floor. Rey dropped out of her crouch slowly and they stared at each other for the briefest of moments. The woman's face was haughty, with high cheekbones, and an elaborate hairdo. For one second her face seemed to soften, her blue eyes shining, and she pointed at a corridor to Rey. Was she trying to help me? Rey thought, and immediately felt the truth of this as she looked at the trembling dark-skinned hand pointed her way out of the maze. Rey had the strangest feeling that she had met this woman before. She gave her the briefest of nods and ran for freedom.

Avin could hear the screams of rage from Ren as he destroyed the interrogation chamber with his lightsaber as she walked back in the direction of the archives. She didn't care, she had seen this kind of tantrum before, and she'd see it again. The young, frightened girl in her white linen desert clothes didn't deserve to have her mind searched, whatever she had done. Avin hoped with all her heart that the girl would escape. Returning to the archives, Avin looked around the empty space, keenly feeling the loss of her quiet clerk. She stood in front of his station which had been stripped for sabotage, and out of the corner of her eye she could see a light flashing on a different console. She opened up the flashing link, to a strange sub-frequency she had never seen before. She was realised she was looking at the Resistance frequency Matō had managed to hide onboard. She considered contacting Phasma immediately but the terrified young girl in linen clothing flashed in front of her again. She would make a decision, but not today.