Chapter Two – The Final Days of the First Order

Alone in his white walled quarters aboard the First Order flagship, Kylo Ren sat with his helmet in his hands, thinking about what Rey had said to him and staring at the helmet of Darth Vader on the Pedestal he had created for it. After considering it for a while he reached his hand out as though to touch it. "You're not there," he said before standing and donning his helmet.

After exiting his quarters and entering the black hallway of his ship he turns to the Knight of Ren, who have been waiting for him to emerge. "Has the command staff arrived?" he asks in his distorted voice. One of the Knights nods and the group sets off down the corridor towards the council room.

In that council room four men, General Hux, General Pride, and two other Generals, are arguing with each other as they wait, surrounded by more than a dozen empty chairs, for their Supreme Leader to arrive. One of the First Order generals yells at Hux, "…as if you could do better! I was outnumbered and outgunned."

"You were outnumbered and outgunned because you took the bait in what was obviously a trap," Hux spat back at him. "As if the flagship of the Resistance's second in command was going to be left without guard and in reach of our forces."

"We are no in the position to play it safe," the general replied. "We need victories! We need to inflict losses on them. Every day they gain new recruits, eager to join before the war ends so they can say they were members of the Resistance. So they can be generals and admirals in a New Republic fleet. Every time we run away we make that expectation stronger. We must have a victory!"

"Do you call this a victory? We had two working fleets left…," General Pride yelled back

"If you could call them fleets," Hux chimed in.

"…and now we have one!" General Pride finished.

"I returned with my flagship!" the first general yelled back.

"Your flagship?!" Hux laughed cruelly. "The flagship that was entrusted to you, along with a dozen other ships that did not return, was not yours. And you brought it back to us barely functional!"

"If I could have destroyed Dameron's flagship…," the general started to respond.

The door to the Council room opened, revealing Kylo Ren flanked by the Knights of Ren. The Generals went silent. Kylo Ren walked slowly to the head of the table and looked out the window into space, while calmly saying, "Destroying Dameron's ship should not have been your goal. They have dozens of capital ships. We had two. You should have tried to capture his ship, not destroy it. But you failed not only to think of the correct move, but even to carry out the unimaginative plan you came up with, and so now we have only one."

"Supreme Leader, we can get the Vengeance functional again," Hux said confidently. "My engineers are already hard at work…" Hux stopped talking as he noticed that the general with whom he had been arguing was no longer in his seat, but was rather hanging in midair, his hands grasping at his neck as he choked. Meanwhile, Kylo Ren had his back to the generals as he looked out the window.

"Your engineers were re-assigned, given that the task you set them was pointless," Kylo said flatly. "We need a fully functional shipyard to repair the Vengeance's systems, and we haven't controlled a world with an operational shipyard in over a year." As he said this the general slowly ceased to struggle, his legs kicking less and less forcefully, until he became entirely still, and his limp body fell to the floor. When the sounds of struggle finally stopped Kylo said, "But now that we are down to one capital ship, we have no need of four generals."

Hux looked at the other generals out of the side of his eyes, and saw that they have were doing the same. Kylo Ren turned and sat down at the head of the table, with the windows out to space behind him. The three remaining generals sat down as well, while two of the Knights of Ren slowly dragged the body of the dead general out of the room. "So now we can discuss what our options are," Kylo said as they left.

The generals looked nervously around the table before General Pride stood up to say, "Supreme Leader, we will not survive another encounter with the Resistance fleet. They know which sector we are in, and we would be hard-pressed to destroy even their patrols. It is only a matter of time before they corner us, and then we are done. They will jump their whole fleet in, and we will be destroyed in a matter of minutes."

Kylo Ren tapped his fingers on the table as he replied, "Repeating what we all already know is less than helpful General."

General Pride swallowed nervously as he continued, "The only way we can win is to break their fleet, but we can't do that in battle. We have to break the connections that bind their fleet together. Whatever may come, there is no New Republic now. There is no state to which they are all loyal. Half their forces joined up in the last two years. A quarter only joined up after the Battle of Taris and have never seen a pitched battle. What has held them together is their leadership."

Kylo Ren cocked his head to the side and said coldly, "You think my mother's death is an opportunity for us?" Pride took a short step back out of fear he had overstepped.

Kylo stared in his direction for a moment before asking "Your plan is that they will fall apart on their own now?"

"No Supreme Leader. Your mother was the focal point of loyalty. But in my opinion their loyalty will transfer to their younger leaders, those who were with Princess Organa after the Battle of Crait. It was their story which spread after our victory…," General Pride said. At the word 'victory' Hux failed to conceal a sneer. A slight movement of Kylo Ren's head showed he saw this expression, but he said nothing as Pride continued, "…and helped them rebuild their numbers. It was after Crait that we started suffering those interminable uprisings across every damned world. It was under the command of the survivors of Crait that Resistance began picking off our forces, bleeding us dry. It was their legend that created the fleet we now face. So long as their legend lives, their fleet will live. We must cut the head off the snake."

Kylo Ren sat silent for a moment before saying, "Can it be done?"

Hux could not stop himself from loudly interjecting, "Of course not! They will be surrounded by their fleet at all times now! We can't take on a patrol and you want us to assault their central command? The latest in a long line of foolish dramatic displays!"

As General Hux said this he was looking at General Pride, but nonetheless Kylo Ren responded by saying, "Look at me when you speak to me General."

Hux turned slowly, overcome with rage and fear at the same time. As he did so Kylo Ren continued, "You have something you have been dying to say I suspect. You will do so now." For a moment the only sound in the room was the soft creaking of leather as the Knights of Ren moved their hands to their weapons. The other two generals had unconsciously pushed their chairs away from Hux and were staring at him in shock.

"There was no victory on Crait!" Hux yelled at last. "Our core fleet was destroyed. Our quarry escaped! They lost foot soldiers, and we lost our Supreme Leader! All the while you wasted time fighting a figment of your imagination!"

General Pride jumped in, saying, "General Hux, you speak to our Supreme Leader!"

"Our Supreme Leader?!" Hux laughed maniacally. "Where has he led us? If our enemies are held together by a story, it is a story of his failure. Supreme Leader Snoke called the First Order forth from the ashes of the Empire. He made us strong. He set in motion plans that all but guaranteed our victory. His only mistake was bringing this boy on board! This boy who, in a day, got our true leader killed and turned us into a galactic laughingstock."

Hux stopped, clearly aware he had gone way too far. He looked at Ren, whose head had not moved during Hux's entire diatribe. Then Ren lifted a single finger from the table and Hux flew backwards and out the door to the hallway, which had opened at the same time. The Knights of Ren who had taken the first general's body away seemed surprised to find a live Hux in the hallway. A gesture from Ren led them to pick Hux up and drag him down the hallway as well.

Kylo Ren turned towards General Pride and says, "Tell me of your plan General." The two remaining generals sat wide-eyed, forcing Kylo Ren to yell, "General!"

"Yes, my lord," Pride said nervously. "General Hux was right that if they stay with the main fleet then no raid can be successful. We must come up with a way to separate them."

Kylo Ren said "I have one. Can we still track them?"

"It seems so my lord," the other general said. "The asset still functions."

Kylo Ren nodded and said, "Begin your preparations, General Pride."