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Chapter Text

Finn stood in the middle of the bustling marketplace at Niima Outpost. It was warm and dry, hot like a fryer, and the whirling sand from the streets got stuck in his throat whenever he opened his mouth to speak. The dusty streets around him were filled with merchants selling everything from dried fruit to ration packages and engine oils from small stands. Customers circulated the stands like animals huddling around a watering hole, a blend of locals, migrant workers, scavengers, and off-world smugglers, all too busy to even notice the robe-clad padawan.

It was just past nine in the morning, and the heat was already relentless.

Jakku lived up to its reputation, Finn mused. A poor hellhole under a scorching sun with a small population. Many were without means and lived from day to day by scavenging the metal skeletons of the Galactic Empire’s fallen star destroyers and the Rebellion’s crashed battleships. 

From where Finn stood, he could see the new concession stand on the outskirts of the outpost. The new owners had rebuilt it in exactly the same spot as the old one. A few meters away, out in the desert, he spotted the remains of the deformed, unusable pieces from the old stand. It seemed like the new owners hadn’t even been bothered to have the debris removed.

Two years ago, there was a massacre at Niima Outpost. Unkar Plutt, a local junk boss, was deemed by the local militia to be the target of the attack. Plutt was killed along with several of his men, but while the cold-hearted crolute might have been the primary target, he wasn’t the only one who died. Several independent scavengers, militiamen, local civilians, and unfortunate bystanders had also fallen victim to the merciless perpetrator.   

An eye witness had said the perpetrator was a single cloaked figure who had approached the junk boss’ heavily armed stand from the desert. The stranger had set the building on fire and slaughtered everybody in sight.

Finn closed his eyes and took a deep breath to calm his mind and tune in with the Force.

As he searched in the echo of the past through the Force, he sensed a mixture of different emotions; despair, sorrow, and anger, but first and foremost, fear. The fear and panic of all those innocent people who were killed during the attack felt in their last moments. 

Finn shuddered unwillingly, despite the heat. The massacre had truly been a horrible bloodshed. While there was nothing he could do to prevent the victim’s unfortunate death, he could at least try to bring them justice. 

“I’ll do my best,” Finn silently vowed as he gazed out over the desert behind the concession stand. “For all of you”.

“Hey, you’re Finn, the Jedi right?” a voice spoke out behind him.

Finn turned around and was met by a young man with blonde hair, dressed in a mismatched outfit composed of beige linen rags, leather scraps, and sturdy cloth.

“I’m Sam, the guide,” the man said with a polite smile. “Hsu from the Church of the Force reached out to me, said you guys could use some help”.

“Yeah, that’s me,” he replied with a nod. “You can take me to Cratertown, right?”

“Yep,” Sam replied, making a gesture to a well-used green speeder with four seats. “Just hop on and we’ll get going! Better hurry, ‘cause I hear a sandstorm is on its way”.

“Right”. Finn tossed his backpack into the backseat before he climbed into the dented speeder. On the dashboard, he spotted a small bobblehead figure that looked suspiciously like Master Luke’s famous brother-in-law.

“Han Solo?” Finn asked with a nod to the figure.

“Yeah. I made it myself,” Sam said with a proud grin as he sat down in the driver’s seat and tapped the figure, making its head bobble. “I’m a big fan”.

“Yeah, I heard he’s popular around here,” Finn chuckled.

“You bet! He’s a legend among the smugglers”.

Sam then pushed the throttle, and the speeder took off with a roar. It was surprisingly swift and Finn had to use the seatbelt to keep himself from bouncing around in the backseat. 

While he drove, Sam talked constantly. He told Finn about his parents, two migrant workers coming to Jakku to set up moisture collectors on the behalf of the local clan. After the job was done, they started working in the recycling business and they now worked for a junk trader in Niima Outpost, exporting spare parts and valuable materials to the core worlds.

Sam also revealed that there was an enormous demand on the black market in the core worlds for war memorabilia; things like insignias, officer’s uniforms, and helmets from special forces.  

“A regular stormtrooper helmet isn’t worth anything. But, say you get your hands on a helmet from a Death Trooper or even a Purge Trooper, then we’re talking big money! I know a guy who sold one of those for like thirty-thousand credits to some high roller on Corelia, can you believe that?”

“I don’t see why anyone would want to have that kind of thing at home,” Finn muttered.

The Galactic Empire had brought so much suffering to the galaxy. His stomach turned when he thought about how the Purge Troopers had hunted down the Jedi in the past. Killing the defenseless younglings, the padawans and the remaining Knights in cold blood, and then, almost thirty years later, some people bought the weapons and the equipment of those killers and put it on display like it was a statue or a piece of art?

Macabre. That was what it was, he thought to himself.

“So, is there anything special you hope to find out in the desert?”

“I don’t know,” Finn replied, and it was not a lie. He didn’t know what he was looking for. Anything, anything at all that could help him answer why the massacre occurred and, most importantly, who committed it, and could the killer pose a threat to the revived Jedi Order?

Did Unkar Plutt meet his fate by bad luck, or design?

Was it a Sith, a bloodthirsty darksider, or just a regular madman?

“Hsu said you guys were investigating the massacre at the Concession Stand”.

Finn nodded. “We do. Do you know anything about the massacre?”.

“I didn’t see it myself,” Sam said. “I arrived at Niima Outpost late in the afternoon, and I almost got a heart attack when I saw the destruction, and all the… blood.” He swallowed as he gave Finn an uneasy gaze. “There were still some… body parts lying on the street”.

“It was just awful,” he continued. ”I thought to myself, this can’t be real. I must be dehydrated and hallucinating...”.

Finn nodded in silence as he listened to Sam’s story. Everybody he had spoken to since he arrived on Jakku said the same thing; a dark phantom came from the desert and slaughtered everyone in sight.

Even the Hutt clan that ruled Jakku was worried. His mentor, Jedi Knight Voe, had managed to get an audience with the leader of the clan earlier in the week and although they couldn’t give her any straightforward answers, they said they would have known if the murder belonged to one of their rivals. 

Niima Outpost hadn’t seen such violence since the war, people said. Many still remembered the Battle of Jakku. It was the reason why the planet was littered with the wreckages of star destroyers, corvettes, fighter ships, transport vehicles, and bomber ships. They laid halfway burrowed into the sand, some fanned open like carcasses.

As they entered the Goazon Badlands, Finn caught sight of three thin figures making their way into the open wreckage of a lone fallen destroyer.

”Scavengers,” Sam said with a nod to the children. ”Many of them live in makeshift houses in the desert. It barely pays enough to stay alive these days, but it’s better than being a slave for the hutts”.

After nearly thirty years of scavenging, most of the valuable materials and parts had already been taken. It pushed the remaining junk pickers and scavengers deeper and deeper into the most dangerous areas of the wreckages in search of anything sellable. 

Finn shook his head. ”It’s horrible”.

It made him sad to see such poverty.

Although Jakku often was referred to as a ’backwater planet in the middle of nowhere’, it was actually located in the Western Reaches, a region that belonged to the Inner Rim. While there was poverty on Coruscant, Corellia, Hosnian Prime, and the other core worlds, too, it wasn’t like this; whole families living in make-shift homes out in the open desert without water, electricity, and proper sanitary provisions. 

The uneasy feeling followed Finn as they reached their first stop; Cratertown. It was one of Jakku’s oldest settings and the home of both scavengers, miners, and migrant workers employed in the metal industry. The town mainly consisted of rectangular buildings in a cluster, made of clay and sandstone. Above the rooftops, weather-beaten red banners fluttered in the air.

Just like Niima Outpost, the inhabitants of Cratertown had a ‘mind-your-own-business‘ mindset, and few were willing to speak to strangers. Finn and Sam wandered around the city, stopping at the marketplace, the local cantina, and a few shops. They also visited the newly built kelsium gas refinery just outside the town.   

But no matter where they went, the answers remained the same and as the hours went by, Finn grew increasingly frustrated.

Eventually, they ended up at Ergel’s bar, a place frequented by miners, mostly humans and uthuthmas, a native sentient species. The bar was like a dark cave. Its walls were made of some kind of material similar to concrete and the furniture reminded Finn of an ancient factory with old, scratchy metal chairs and tables illuminated by weak, industrial lighting. Instead of glasses, they served the drinks in metal jugs and there was only one kind of beverage on the menu; Knockback Nectar. 

The bartender was an old man in his middle sixties, clad in a white linen shirt, brown cargo pants, and an old, stained leather apron. He had a weary expression on his face and when Finn and Sam entered the bar, he raised an eyebrow and gave them a skeptical gaze. It was obvious that off-worlders didn’t come often to Cratertown.

“Have you heard anything about the massacre at Niima Outpost?” Finn asked.

“I thought after the war ended, Jakku had seen enough senseless violence,” he said in a tired voice. “Unless you boys are going to buy a drink, I have nothing else to say”.

The young Jedi sighed within. The galaxy would be a much better place if people were a little more cooperative and helpful to each other... Fortunately, he was a warrior of the light and if he could use his power to make other people do good, he would do so without hesitation.

“You feel helpful today,” Finn said as he pinned his gaze on the bartender, channeling the force into every single word. “Tell me what you heard”.

The older man blinked. For a split second, it looked like he was about to object, and Finn felt how his shoulders tensed. But then the man put down the rag and spoke again.

“The massacre was nothing but the deed of a lone madman. An outsider coming here, looking for blood”.

Sam sat down at one of the metal chairs at the bar desk, his gaze alternating between Finn and the barkeep.

“Do strangers often come here?”.

“Other than you?” the man replied, and Finn’s already thin patience dwindled further.

“I’m here to help make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he explained in a calm voice. “Help me find answers”.

“Strangers come and go on Jakku all the time,” the bartender continued. “Most of the off-worlders who come all the way out here are treasure seekers”.

“Treasure seekers?” Finn inquired.

“Yes. It’s said that the Emperor’s most valuable treasure was stolen and hidden on Jakku after the war”.

Finn was baffled; this was completely new information to him. He turned his gaze to Sam, who just shook his head.

“That’s just crazy rumors,” he said, waving his hand in the air as if to illustrate just how far-fetched the idea was. 

Finn was inclined to believe him. It was known that the Emperor had secret stashes of valuable objects. Master Luke himself had discovered one on Pillio, for example. But that someone had stolen and buried his ‘most valuable treasure’ on Jakku? 

It didn’t seem plausible.

 “Like I said. Treasure hunters have come here for over ten years, searching through all the old bases and settlements from the war”, the bartender grunted and returned to wiping the bar counter with the old rag. “But as far as I know, nobody has found anything yet”.

“What did you do to him?” Sam asked as soon as they stepped out of the bar. “I’ve seen nothing like that before!”.

“It’s the Force,” Finn revealed. “He just needed a little nudge in the right direction”.

Sam looked at the Jedi as if he just had revealed that magic existed.

“Wow, that’s just….”.

“I wished it could have been more helpful,” the padawan sighed. “I didn’t find out anything I didn’t already know. Well, except the treasure rumors, but that’s not what I’m here for”.

“How about Constable Zuvio?,” Sam suggested as they made their way back to the speeder. “Have you talked to him?”

“Spoke to him the first day we arrived here,” Finn replied in a tired voice.

Constable Zuvio was a kyuzo who kept order in Niima Outpost on behalf of the Hutt Clan. He had a strong sense of justice and he tried to help the two Jedis the best he could, but like the other settlers of the outpost, the massacre had severely shocked him and Zuvio didn’t have a clear memory of the timeline.

Afterward, the kyuzo had done his own investigation, trying to understand why such a disaster had occurred. Unkar Plutt had enemies, but none of them were capable of such violence. He also mentioned that neither Plutt’s rivals nor a regular bounty hunter would have killed both the guards from the militia and the civilians.

The perpetrator had been familiar with the outpost, but despite that, Zuvio was convinced that he, or possibly she, had been an outsider.

Just like the bartender at Ergel’s thought.  

The sun stood low on the horizon. It was getting dark, and the wind was picking up. Small groups of miners in dirty overalls and workers from the refinery passed them on their way out of the town and the shops closed up one after another and the owners started boarding the windows.

 “We better hurry back,” Sam said as he looked out over the desert with a troublesome look on his face. “It’s just a matter of time before we get sandblasted if we stay here”.

“Fine by me,” Finn said. “Just drop me off at Clinkenbeard’s Inn”.

Sam drove even faster on the way back and the small bobblehead figure wobbled furiously on the dash pad as he crossed between sand dunes and wreckages at a breathtaking speed. It was almost as bad as that one time when Finn flew with his friend Poe through the Shosho Belt.

While Finn was a man of many skills, there were two things he never had much luck with; The first one was flying. He had never gotten the hang of piloting, despite countless hours in different flight simulators. Well, he could fly freighter through a hyper-road from point A to B with the help of a good droid, but that was pretty much it. 

The second was fencing. He trained and trained, but his skills improved hopelessly slowly despite his strength and excellent knowledge of the Force. Truth to tell, Finn thought his modest fencing skills were the only thing that kept Voe from letting him undertake the Trials of Knighthood and finally become a knight himself.

“Look,” Sam suddenly said, pointing his fingers at a collapsed AT-AT walker in the sand. “Many years ago, there lived a little girl there. An orphan. She used to work for Unkar Plutt”.

“That’s awful,” Finn replied as he peered at the fallen walker. It hardly seemed like an appropriate home for a child, or any other human, for that matter. “Where is she now?”

“Now?” the other man shrugged his shoulders. “Dead, most likely. She was just gone one day. Probably died while trying to extract rare metals from one of the destroyer’s engines. Still a lot of live wires down there...”.

Exhausted, Finn leaned back onto the passenger seat. He felt miserable just thinking about the little girl and the other children he had seen scavenging earlier in the day. The galaxy had certainly a big problem with inequality, Finn thought bitterly. While some people starved in the fruitless badlands of Jakku, others bought useless memorabilia for ridiculous amounts of credits. 

He had certainly had his fill of hopelessness and misery for today.

When Sam dropped Finn off outside the inn, it was almost completely dark outside and the wind had picked up significantly since they left Cratertown.

The inn’s small cantina was old and rustic, decorated with recycled furniture and materials from the wreckages in the desert. Its walls and floor were made from cut sandstone and the floor was covered with old rugs that were so worn out that Finn could count the few threads that kept them together. The cantina was lit up by soft yellow lights in the ceiling and heavy red curtains made from repurposed imperial banners hung from the ceiling.

It was almost empty, except for an iktotchi and a quarren sitting at the bar counter, murmuring something to each other when Finn passed them by. 

His mentor Voe waited for him in one of the booths. She seemed lost in her own thoughts where she sits, reading through a report on her holopad. At the small table in front of her, there was a metal tray with an untouched glass kettle of redbush tea and two small cups.

“How did it go?” she asked without looking up from the reports.

Finn let out a sigh as he slumped down onto the sturdy seat. “My local guide was very chatty. After two hours, I knew his complete life story. But, he couldn’t tell me something I didn’t already know about the massacre”.

Voe looked up and gave him a knowingly gaze. “I see”.

“What about you?”

While Finn had spent his day traveling the desert, Voe had visited Lor San Tekka and the Church of the Force at their settlement, a small village called Tuanul, at the ridge of the Kelvin Ravine. The members of the church lived a simple life; they rejected modern technology and sought to live a life close to nature, in harmony with the force. They lived in clay huts and practiced a gatherer-peasant lifestyle, growing cassava roots and white yams.

“A handful of them are mildly force sensitive,” Voe revealed. “They said they had a sense of ‘something being wrong’ and one boy described it as if a ‘cold hand’ grabbed his heart. But other than that, they knew nothing. San Tekka himself visited Niima Outpost two days after the attack, and by that point, the corpses had been removed and the locals had already begun to rebuild the destroyed buildings”.

Finn nodded. He had hoped that his mentor would return with more useful knowledge, but it seemed like they both had been unlucky.

“I wonder what more Master Skywalker expects us to discover here,” he sighed. “I’ve talked to at least twenty different people today and yet, I haven’t found out anything new”. 

“Master Luke sent us here to determine if the perpetrator might pose a threat to the New Jedi Order,” Voe reminded him. “It could be a darksider”.

“From what I’ve seen on Jakku, the locals and the Hutt clans’ guards are ill-equipped and most of their weapons are over two decades old. A well-geared bounty hunter could probably have done the same damage to Niima Outpost with a flamethrower as our perpetrator did,” Finn argued.

“You’re not wrong”.

“But...?”.

“Our mission was to collect information,” Voe repeated. 

“I know,” Finn nodded. “It just feels... like we failed if we don’t return with anything more than this”.

“Master Skywalker does not expect any miracle from us,” Voe said as she poured herself a cup of the rich, woody-smelling tea. “We do our best, and that’s it. If we find nothing here, we don’t”.

The next day, the sandstorm had reached full force. It ravaged the desert around the outpost, leaving them no choice but to stay inside.

“Well, we might as well start with the paperwork,” Voe said as she picked up her dicta-phone and recording while Finn slumped down on the lower bunk bed.

“Day five on Niima Outpost, Jakku. This is Jedi Knight Voe speaking. I and my padawan Finn were sent on a mission to locate traces of a possible dark force user who is believed to have committed the massacre in Niima Outpost two years ago. We know the perpetrator came from the desert in the evening, and that he attacked the owner of the concession stand. Once the stand was laid to ashes and its owner was dead, he worked his way to the center of the outpost and didn’t stop until he set everything on his way there to flames”.

Finn shifted on the uncomfortable bed as he listened to his mentor. When they had been given the mission, he had been excited, and anxious, to see if they could track down an actual darksider.

From the other Jedi Knights, Finn had heard stories about the Knights of Ren, a ruthless band of marauders who used the Dark Side of the force, and how Master Luke had single-handedly defeated all six of them on Elphrona.

The knights had been strong, yet their power in the force was nothing compared to the legendary Jedi Master. Still, Finn couldn’t help but wonder if they one day would run into a darksider who actually could pose a threat to the New Jedi Order. The Force always strived for balance, Master Luke said, and if so, didn’t it mean that the Dark Side of the Force eventually would conjure a warrior strong enough to rival the light?

“We have only found two eyewitnesses who survived the attack,” Voe continued, unconsciously playing with the end of one of her long braids. “They both say they saw a lone individual cloaked in black. The perpetrator was armed with…, and I quote, ‘a glowing, red spear’, according to the first witness”.

“I don’t think it’s a Sith,” Finn commented. “But whoever he, or she might be, that spear must have been a lightsaber”.

Voe shrugged.

“It could be,” she said, pressing pause on the recorder. “But it could also have been some kind of enchanted vibro-weapon, or maybe an electro-pike”.

“So, you don’t think it’s a Sith either?”.

His mentor sighed and gave the padawan a tired gaze. “Let’s say it was an actual Sith. Why would he attack a bunch of merchants and civilians but leave the members of the Church of the Force alone? Their alliance with the New Jedi Order is well-known, their location is no secret, and they are as good as unprotected. It makes little sense”.

“No, it doesn’t,” Finn agreed with a sigh as he sank deeper back onto the bunk bed, suddenly feeling frustrated. “What about a darksider who suddenly felt like using some bloodshed to channel the dark side?”.

“Why would he stop, then?” Voe challenged. “It’s been two years, and nothing like this has been reported since”.

Finn nodded again.

“I know, I know. There is no obvious logic behind the attack,” he groaned, pulling his hands through his crew cut.

In Luke Skywalker’s Jedi Order, apprentices didn’t need to wear the traditional Padawan cut, but Finn did so anyway. He even had the traditional single padawan braid at his left ear.

“I’m just as frustrated with the lack of answers as you are, Finn,” Voe offered, and a soft gaze briefly flashed in her vivid green eyes. “We can’t do anything more than we already have done”.

Finn nodded in silence. His mentor was right. 

Again.

On the outside, the sandstorm raged on and the innkeeper, an old ithorian, came into their room to make sure the windows were still properly boarded. He left without saying anything and Finn wondered what it was with the people of Jakku and their unwillingness to talk to strangers. 

In the afternoon, Voe and Finn went down to the cantina for dinner.

It was crowded with freighter pilots of various species who were waiting for the storm to clear up. 

The cantina’s selection was meager; one dish with recycled protein and one vegetarian. As they stood in the line to order, Finn cast a gaze at the plates of the other guests and noticed the majority of the pilots had chosen the dish with recycled protein.

“We should take the other option,” Finn mumbled to Voe. “That protein looks like something a happabore coughed up”.  

Finn and Voe sat down at a table in the back and a couple of minutes later, a serving droid arrived with two plates of pea fritters with green pepper and yogurt. Compared to the ration packs and the bars of recycled protein they have been living on the last weeks, it was pure luxury with real, fresh food.

“The first thing I’m going to do when we get back to Coruscant is to go out and eat,” Finn vowed. ”Even the sloppiest street food in the industrial district tastes far better than the ration packs here”.

Voe gave him a rare smile. “I’m sure that can be arranged”.

They ate in silence with a good appetite. Once their plates were empty, Voe ordered a big pot of tea and a small bowl of rice cakes as dessert. 

“I think we deserve some sweets after what we’ve been through this week”.

 “Agreed,” Finn said as he took a bite of a rice cake. It was just as dry as the desert, but with a mouthful of tea, it wasn’t so bad. 

“By the way, have you heard anything about the Emperor’s treasure?”.

Voe nodded as she followed Finn’s example and soaked a rice cake into her own cup. 

“I heard a couple of treasure hunters outside Old Meru’s shop at the pilgrim road talk about it. I asked them what kind of treasure it was and they told me it was a chest full of flawless Ghostfire crystals,” she chuckled. “On my way back from Tuanul, I spoke to two scavengers. They were also familiar with the treasure, but they said it was a crate filled with credit ingots”.

“Oh...”.

Voe tilted her head to the side as she looked at the younger Jedi. “It’s just a tale, Finn. If the Emperor actually had been robbed of something utterly precious of actual value for us, we would have known. Master Skywalker would have told us”.

“You’re right,” Finn agreed. “I guess I’m gripping after straws”.

Despite the lack of physical activity during the day, Finn fell asleep at once when the night came, lulled to sleep by the subsiding sandstorm. He slept like a rock through the night and didn’t wake up until a voice called out his name in the morning.

“Finn! Time to get up!”

Once Finn had rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, he saw that Voe was already dressed, her belongings were packed and her sleeping mat was rolled up and tied to her backpack. 

Voe stood in front of the scratched mirror in the tiny bathroom and braided her silvery hair into multiple cornrows.

“What’s going on?”.

 “I spoke to Master Luke,” she replied, eyes still peeled on the mirror as she started working on a new section in her hair.  

“A transmission from Master Luke? Why didn’t you wake me up?” Finn groaned with disappointment.

“Relax,” Voe gave her padawan a slight, apologetic grin. “I have good news; our mission here is complete”.

“Already?” he frowned. “What did he say?”.

“There had been a breach on Kef Bir. The forbidden sanctuary moon. Apparently, one warden is slightly force-sensitive and said she had felt something. A disturbance in the force. It could be our lost killer”.

The eagerness in her voice was almost palpable, and Finn recalled they said that Voe always had been one of the most ambitious among the new generation of Jedi Knights. 

“Great!” Finn pushed himself off the bed and straightened his tunic. “When do we leave for Kef Bir?”.

“You and I are going back to Coruscant,” Voe said with a displeased grimace. “Master Luke has already sent Solo to the Endor system”.

“Solo, as in Ben Solo?” Finn frowned. “Why?” .

Voe scoffed softly as she finished braiding her hair. She stepped out of the bathroom and sat down on the chair in front of the small desk in the middle of the room.

“Master Luke said Solo would already be in the Mayagil Sector by now,” Voe explained with a nod to the chronometer on the desk. “It’s close to the Sanctuary Pipeline. They can use it to reach the Modell Sector faster than us”.

“Huh?” Finn looked at his mentor with a puzzled gaze. “But isn’t he…. Isn’t he still, you know, crazy?”.

Voe grimaced slightly and gave the younger Jedi a tired gaze. 

Ben Solo had once been the most prized student in the revived Jedi Order, always exceeding all his peers, no matter the subject. In the past, the two of them had always competed, though it didn’t matter how hard Voe fought, or how much she trained ― she could never beat him.

But, it was as the saying went; the higher the fall, the harder the crash.

It had certainly been true for Ben Solo.

He went from being an extraordinary young Jedi to a severe mental case within a day. After that gruesome day on Ossus, when Ben attacked Master Skywalker and his sister had stopped Ben before he could flee. Only the maker knows how they managed to get him to the psychiatric clinic in Polis Massa. After that, it took almost a year before he came back again. 

Ben was out for four months until he got a relapse, and they sent him back for another six months. The next time, he lasted almost a year until he became so unstable that Master Luke thought it was time again and they placed Ben Solo under custodial care for the third time.

“He’s still struggling with mental health illness, if that’s what you mean”.  

“Yeah. Wasn’t he dispatched to the Service Corps?”.

“He was supposed to, I think,” Voe replied. “But the revival of the Service Corps has been postponed yet another year. At least that’s what Hennix said”.

Hennix was a tall male quarren, a species that reminded Finn of a humanoid with the face of some sort of octopus. He, along with Tai, another human Knight, was Voe’s best friend in the Jedi Order. The trio had initially been friends with Solo, but after the incident on Ossus where one of Solo’s outbursts resulted in Hennix being impaled by a sharp piece of wood, the three friends kept their distance from Master Skywalker’s nephew.

“Anyway, let’s not dwell here any longer,” Voe said as she rose from the chair. “Start packing your things, I’ll go get Verity ready”. 

Verity was their ship, a prototype of a T-wing model that never went into serial production. It was clumsier with poorer aerodynamic qualities than a regular T-wing interceptor, but on the other hand, it had bigger fuel capacity and could be used for long-distance travels.

“You got it”, he replied with a nod, eager to get going.

It relieved Finn to hear they would finally leave. Out of all the different systems he had visited, Jakku was definitely one of his least favorite planets.

Chapter Text

Wherever he was, it was close to midnight. The dark sky was colored in a red hue, filled with smoke, ash, and embers from the burning battlefield underneath. Kylo stood at the frontline, flanked by a division of heavily armed stormtroopers. 

When the enemy appeared to defend their base, he surged forward and the faceless bodies of rebels, slain by his blade, fell to the ground. One by one. His anger felt like an endless ocean, and the rage that fueled him appeared just as infinite. As he pushed forward, a swarm of green laser bolts fired from a turret at the top of the base flew above his head and the ill-equipped rebel troopers had retreated to the barricades around the command center. They fought hard to keep the enemy at bay, but the battle was already lost it didn’t take long for the stormtroopers to break through the makeshift barricade, and once the entrance to the command center laid open; it took less than ten minutes until the base fell.

When Kylo finally broke his stride, the bodies of the fallen soldiers lay around his feet like a bleeding game of jackstraw.

But their screams… they still echoed inside his head.

They always did.

He gazed over the battlefield, counting the casualties. Among the defeated enemies, he spotted a few of their own. The fallen stormtroopers’ once-white armors had turned gray and black from soot and fire and the charred plastic filled the air with a toxic smell. 

The captain seemed unaffected by the loss of her men. Kylo saw her return from the conquered command center, walking past her dead colleagues like they never existed. Her chromatic armor gleamed like a prism in the fire-lit environment, unharmed by the flames.

“Sir?”

He nodded at the captain. “You know what to do,” he said flatly.

She nodded back and turned her gaze to the remaining troopers. “Destroy all evidence,” she commanded the soldiers armed with flamethrowers. “Make sure there are no survivors left”.

Once the division had cleared the base and the surrounding area and made sure there were no survivors, they disappeared along with the captain through the debris, leaving Kylo alone at the conquered base. The fire from one of the flametroopers had caught on the settlement next to the command center. It burned viciously in the dry environment and thick, black smoke erupted from the building. The fire spread quickly and the sound of exploding unsealed magnetic canisters with tibanna gas from the hangar accompanied the distant thundering of bombers ships. 

As he made his way through the fallen base, Kylo caught sight of his reflection in a pool of spilled oil. A tall masked knight, all dressed in black, looked back at him through a faceless visor.

 A cold-blooded Neo-Darth Vader.

A monster.

He was just about to move on when he sensed an approaching presence; someone was watching him from the shadows. Kylo frowned. Could it be a rogue Jedi or a gifted force-sensitive his mother had swayed to do her bidding?

It was hard to see who, or what it was, through the chaotic scene. When the stormtroopers had stormed the base, they had somehow managed to hit the power generator, causing all the lights to go out and the only source of light that remained was the burning debris. 

But with the Force, Kylo didn’t need to see to know there was someone there.

“Reveal yourself!” he commanded, pointing his crackling saber at the lurking figure in the dark. It chuckled softly at his demand, and Kylo took a step backward, confused and angry. Only a madman would dare to laugh at him, the Heir of Lord Vader!

“Step out of the shadows; I won’t ask again!” he snarled.

The stranger only snorted as a reply.

But his anger seemed to have some effect; the figure started to move in his direction. Kylo gritted his teeth and stepped into a battle stance, ready to fight, and then, the stranger finally stepped out of the shadows. As it did, it pushed back the hood of its dark robe, revealing pale skin, white like milk, and glittering, yellow-tinted eyes.

The sight paralyzed Kylo like an E-11 Blaster Rifle, set on stun.

It was the loveliest girl he had ever seen.  

“Such a demanding demeanor…,” she replied with a grin so big that Kylo could see her sharp white teeth, even the pointy molars in the back of her mouth. “... and here I thought an actual prince knew how to treat a lady”.

Normally, the mere sight of him was enough to dread and fear in most people, but this girl… he couldn’t even sense an inkling of fear from the girl. If anything, she seemed excited, happy even. 

“Who are you?” he asked again, so stunned that he didn’t even correct her about his royal heritage. His mother might still be the princess of the dust that lay on the coordinates of the annihilated Alderaan, but he’s never been a prince.  

The girl moved closer, stepping over the dead bodies with long legs as if they were mere nuisances in her way.

“Tell me who you are,” he repeated.

“You know who I am,” she replied with a soft scoff as if she thought he was pulling a joke.  

He didn’t have a single clue in the entire galaxy who she was. A girl like her ― if he had met her before, Kylo would certainly not have forgotten it. Still, he retracted his blade. It made little sense to do so. But, for some odd reason, he felt… at ease in her company, and the rage he had felt earlier on had completely disappeared.

“I don’t,” he truthfully said.

 She stopped at a pile of burning tarp, just two, three meters away from him, and looked at Kylo with an almost devastated gaze.

“You don’t? But… It’s me?” the girl asked with a deep frown on her face, clearly surprised that he didn’t recognize her. “You… you do feel something, right?” She said the last part in a soft voice as if she was afraid he’d say no. 

“I do,” he replied. He felt something. Something odd, something he never had felt before. A connection, a belonging.

“You do?” Her eyes flashed with relief at his answer, and Kylo could almost see how the tension left her lithe body. 

“… and yet, you don’t know my name?“ she blinked and a frown appeared on her pretty face. “Did they do something to you?”

Kylo remained silent, clueless about what she was talking about. At the back of his mind, he couldn’t help but ponder how utterly unreal the whole situation was. They were standing in the middle of a massacre among the slain, exchanging pleasantries like they met each other on the streets of Hosnian Prime.  

The girl moved closer, stepping over the dead bodies with long legs as if they were mere nuisances in her way. With a long leap, she sprinted over the debris from the ruined barricades and landed graciously on the bloodstained ground. With certain steps devoid of hesitation, she approached him, eyes glittering with anticipation under long, dark lashes.

All Kylo could do was watch as she moved closer, spellbound with fascination, and in the blink of an eye, she was so close that he could count the weak traces of freckles on her pale skin. Unabashed, she wrapped her hands around his hand and a jolt spread through Kylo’s body at the sudden touch. The girl’s smile grew wider and her sharp nails scraped against the synth leather of his gloved hand as she trailed her long fingers over his knuckles. 

“You have such large hands…,” she said with a soft chuckle. 

“This… can’t be real,” he said, looking into her eyes. Kylo felt her touch, the warmth of her hands through the material of his gloves, but yet it all felt too surreal to be true.

An almost sad gaze flashes in her eyes, confirming his suspicions. 

“It doesn’t matter,” she assured him, her hands coming up to rest on his cheeks. “I’ll find you one day,” the girl vowed as she looked at him with a burning gaze and the yellow in her eyes seemed to be almost fully luminant now. 

“No matter who you are, where you are, or whatever it takes; I will find you, and then, I will tell you my name”.

Subterrel Sector; 3 GSH into the day cycle

Within a moment, it was all gone. 

The cortisol surged through his body and forced him back to reality. Ben woke up with a gasp, startled by the nightmare. He immediately pushed himself into a seated position, having completely forgotten where he was, and his head struck something hard with a thump. Dazed, his eyes peered around the dark, narrow space, but there were no dead bodies, no blood, and no girl with big, luminous eyes. Just the dark metal hull, and the spartan, cramped sleeping quarters that were so typical for old freighters. 

A wave of relief washed over him when he realized the battle had just been a nightmare, despite it being far from the first time he had suffered from that kind of horrible dream. Ben had been having nightmares ever since he was a child. But the older he became, the more brutal the dreams got, and these days, they were always filled to the brim with blood and gore.

The girl was a new addition, though; Ben couldn’t remember that his nightmares had been so… bizarre before. 

“Bizarre, or not. It was just a nightmare,” he mumbled to himself. “Nothing new, nothing to be concerned about”.

He reached after his holopad on top of the narrow cabinet at the side of the bed. One look at its chronometric application told Ben the day cycle had just begun in the Subterrel sector and Belshazzar II, the small, outdated freighter he was traveling with, would reach Polis Massa within the designated time frame.

Ben sighed as he ran both of his hands through his thick hair. His head throbbed from the impact with the ship’s durasteel hull and he was certain that his newly gained bruise would swell up into a small bump.

“Ah, you’re awake! I thought I heard a weird nose. Did you bang your head into the hull?”.

A pantoran woman with pastel-colored hair, dressed in a gray jumpsuit, stood at the pneumatic door. Her name was Kala Arula, an animal inspector from Coruscant, and Ben had aided her expedition on behalf of the Jedi Order for months.

“Yes, it seems that way,” Ben replied, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. 

“I just wanted to say that we’ll arrive in Polis Massa in three, maybe four standard hours,” she said as her yellow eyes examined his face. “You look like you could use another hour of sleep. Do you want me to wake you up when we enter the asteroid field?”. 

Ben shook his head. It would be pointless to go back to sleep now. His pulse had returned to normal, but the anxiety gnawed at him from within, and Ben already knew he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep again without sleeping pills. He was only supposed to take over one pill per cycle and if he took one now, he would risk walking around like a bantha on tranquilizers for the rest of the day.

Still, considering that he would arrive on Hosnian Prime within a standard day and reunite with his family for the first time in almost an entire year, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea... 

The calmer and the more docile he was ― the happier everyone around him seemed to be. 

Especially Uncle Luke and his mother.  

But before his return to the core worlds, Ben had an appointment with his psychiatrist at Polis Massa and if he showed up drugged at the clinic, the kallidahins might feel tempted to lock him up again

“Are you certain?” Kala tilted her head to the side. “You sure look like you could use it”.

“Thank you for your concern. But… I’ll think I’ll manage,” Ben replied.

The pantoran nodded. “Of course. Why don’t you get yourself some breakfast? Bashir just turned on the percolator”.

“Thank you,” Ben replied with a nod. “I’ll be right there”.

Satisfied with his answers, Kala returned to her duties, and Ben exhaled deeply. Relieved. He sank back onto the hard bunk and rested his head on the flat pillow.

Today was his last day on Belshazzar II and in less than twelve hours, his long mission would end. He had already finished his report and sent it in with an extensive description of how he had spent the last months visiting over twenty space stations in search of illegal pit fighting operations. 

The galaxy had a long history of pit fighting. 

It was a popular bloodsport, mainly in the criminal underworld and other shady environments, where beasts like nexus, borheks, narglatches, and even krayt dragons, in rare cases, fought each other until death.   

But an unusually compassionate senator had managed to get through a bill that forbade pit fighting in the territories that belonged to the New Republic, and they had employed animal inspectors like Kala to make sure the bill was followed. 

Subterrel Sector; Polis Massa, 8,5 GSH into the day cycle

“How are you feeling?” the translation droid asked.

Ben just shrugged. What was there to say? The answer remained the same as always. Nothing had changed since his last visit. The darkness he felt within, the nightmares, the feelings of alienation… 

It was all still there despite that it had been roughly seven years since Luke considered splitting Ben into two halves for the sake of the greater good.

“I’m… feeling fine,” Ben elaborated when his psychiatrist, Oona Euola, gave him a questioning look. 

Oona was a kallidahin; a four-fingered, short humanoid-like cetacean with pale lilac skin and a blank face that lacked both nose and mouth. Like most of her species, his psychiatrist also lacked vocal cords and used a translating droid to communicate with non-kallidahins.  

“Are you sure?”

Ben nodded. 

It was not really true; he hadn’t been ‘fine’ for as long as he could remember. ‘Functioning’ would be a better word; he does his duty as a Jedi while using the force as sparsely as he can to avoid the deceiving whispers that found their way into his head every time he opened his connection to the Force. 

“No urges hurting yourself?”

Sometimes, he thought of it. Sometimes he was sure everything would be better if Luke had killed him. 

Or if he wasn’t born at all.

There were days when he felt nothing but emptiness inside. Days when he was certain his family was far better without him. Someday, they will turn away from him, abandon him and after that, they will turn on him. 

He was convinced his family’s eventual betrayal was just a matter of time. But he couldn’t tell the psychiatrist that, so Ben lied again.

“No,” he shook his head.

“If it gets worse, come back here right away,” the droid continued while the kallidahin looked at him with a serious, yet caring glance in its small, red eyes. 

Ben nodded. 

“I will,” he promised in a soft voice and the faceless being seemed content enough with his answer. Perhaps she does already know that if he doesn’t, Leia Organa would force him back by any means necessary. 

It’s been three years now since Ben’s last hospitalization at the psychiatric clinic in Polis Massa. For being in an asteroid field, in the remains of what once had been an actual planet, the Polis Massa Base was a rather nice place, and its medical center wasn’t too bad either; its clean and spartan environment appealed to Ben. Dim white lights, gray metal walls with sections of teal padding, enormous windows, and reinforced glass corridors that displayed the asteroid field on the outside beautifully. But despite that, Ben always got a claustrophobic feeling whenever he stayed too long at the clinic.

It had been Leia’s idea to get him hospitalized here. Like some sort of last resort to get him away from Snoke’s influence and get Ben’s soaring mental health issues under control at the same time. It had gone so far that it wasn’t safe to say what issues originated from Ben’s inherent darkness and what originated from psychical illness anymore. 

Like Obi-Wan Kenobi once had hidden the infant twins away from Darth Vader, Leia hid her son away from Snoke.

 “Any issues with the new medication, any sides?".

Ben took antidepressants, two kinds, for anxiety and depression, sedatives for insomnia, antihistamine against anxiety attacks, and if the antihistamine didn’t work, he took an antianxiety agent. He was also on some kind of antipsychotic drug, purely because Leia had insisted.

Whenever he read through his medicine list, it always felt like he was beyond repair.

Ben shook his head again. “No”. 

“Are you certain?”.

“Yes. I’m certain”. 

The kallidahin canted her head slightly to the side and gave him a long gaze. She had been struggling for years to find a mixture of medicines that worked for him, but Ben is a hopeless mess and he doesn’t respond nearly as well to the drugs as a normal human should, thanks to his force sensitivity.

“I know it can be hard, but we have to keep trying,” the translator droid said, like the kallidahin’s telepathic abilities suddenly worked on humans, too, and Ben nodded despite that he felt more and more like a laboratory critter for every minute that passed. 

“I don’t think those work properly,” he protested half-heartedly when they reached the antihistamine he took to keep the anxiety attacks at bay.

“It’s like I’m stuck in planetfall for hours every time I take them”.

The kallidahin raises an invisible eyebrow. “You should not be feeling… We can try to adjust the dose if it makes you feel dizzy, but you need to keep taking them. If you don’t, you risk getting ill again, fast”.

Ben nodded in silence. He had heard these things more than once. He knew everything there was to know about how to stay sane. It was a full-time job.

“We have talked about self-care before, and how important it is. But everything is best in the right amounts and I have to remind you that if you exercise too hard, it will only harm your body,” the droid continued, and Ben could feel how the kallidahin’s small red eyes bored into his own.

“I don’t exercise too hard,” he assured the psychiatrist in a flat tone. “I feel fine”.

“Any nightmares?”.

“No,” Ben lied again with a blank face.

He hated lying. But over the years, he had become an increasingly good liar and there wasn’t a point in letting them know. It would only make his mother worried when one of her subordinates secretly accessed his medical records and shifted through his inner fears and secrets.

Leia was still an admired and respected leader and her influence reached wide over the entire galaxy. If his mother didn’t have the right connections herself that allowed her to get what she needed, she would either find someone who had, or create them herself.

Finding someone who could access the clinic’s journal system and find his medical records wasn’t an issue for someone like Leia Organa-Solo. Ben was certain that as soon as the droid had transcribed their meeting and uploaded it to the clinic’s data system, there would be someone at Leia’s office on Hosnian Prime to look at it within minutes. That person would then inform the matriarch if anything seemed to be even the slightest bit out of order.

“You look unwell,” the kallidahin pointed out. “Exhausted”.

“I feel fine,” Ben repeated for the third time in a firm voice. He felt slightly annoyed as the appointment seemed more and more like an interrogation for every minute that passed than an actual check-up.  

“I always look like this,” he insisted when the kallidahin remained silent. The black marks under his eyes, his pale complexion. He has spent most of the last ten months aboard spaceships, space stations, and in the dark underbellies of a dozen capital cities in just as many star systems.   

After almost one and a half hours, the kallidahin finally let him off the hook and Ben returned to Kala Arula and the rest of the crew on Belshazzar II.

Subterrel Sector, 10,5 GSH into the day cycle

”Ben,” the blue, flickering hologram of Luke Skywalker on Belshazzar II’s instrument panel, greeted him in a fuzzy tone. The reception was always bad in the Polis Massa area because of the asteroid field. “Are you on your way home?”

“I am. We just left Polis Massa,” Ben replied as he ripped open a package of dry-frozen King-crab soup from Mon Cala.

“I see”. Master Luke nodded and stroked his beard with a thoughtful expression on his face. 

His uncle remained silent, quietly observing as his nephew stirred down the soup powder into a Thermo mug. The powder dissolved in an instant and transformed the hot water into a clear broth with small pieces of crab meat and scallion. 

“Is something wrong?” Ben asked.

“There has been a disturbance at Kef Bir,” Luke finally said. “The wardens have requested our aid”.

Ben looked up from his soup with a puzzled gaze.

“What kind of disturbances?”. 

The New Republic had sealed the entire Endor system off to its inhabitants since the end of the old war, thanks to a bill Leia helped to push through in the senate. After the fall of the Empire, many of the places where famous battles occurred had turned into hot spots for tourism, and Ben suspected his mother felt a moral obligation to protect the Ewoks from future mass tourism and exploitation after their crucial aid during the Battle of Endor. But now and then, brave adventurers and curious tourists breached the ban. Usually, the wardens caught them and sent them straight to the court on Coruscant, or Hosnian Prime, where a hefty fine awaited.

“Not of the usual disturbances,” Luke explained. “There were no trespassing tourists this time, Ben. I want you to visit Kef Bir and talk to the warden, see what she has to say".

Ben nodded. “Okay. I... I can do that”. 

After seeing nothing but dirty, dark space stations for months, he wouldn’t turn down a visit to the sanctuary moon. Maybe he would even have time to see the remains of the MK Death Star II with his own eyes. 

“Excuse me, Master Jedi,” the animal inspector interrupted. “We are happy to help, but we still have our duties to tend to. How long will this mission…”.

“Please, don’t worry,” Luke said. “We will compensate you for the trouble. Just drop off Ben on Kef Bir. That will be sufficient, you don’t need to wait”.

Ben raised an eyebrow. “And how am I supposed to get from Kef Bir to Hosnian Prime, then?” he asked.

“I spoke to Han earlier,” his uncle replied. “He and Chewie are doing a job for the SAC. They’re transporting a shipment of Ruva grains from Moorja to Sullust. When they’re done, they will fly straight to Kef Bir and pick you up”.

Ruva grains?

It surprised Ben to hear that his father had started doing jobs for the Salliche Agricultural Corporation again. Han usually preferred more well-paid jobs like collecting exotic beasts, transporting expensive fuel additions, or other valuable goods. But his reputation as a forwarding agent had become quite dented over the years, and Ben suspected that was the reason why his father had started accepting routine transports from corporations.

“Fine,” Ben nodded in agreement. “Let’s just hope dad doesn’t take any detours and forget all about it”.

While Leia sent him messages, even letters of actual paper, now and then, Ben hadn’t heard from his father for several months. As far as he knew, Han was still struggling to keep the ‘Han Solo’s shipping company’ up and running between racing events, book deals, and the mostly unpaid, spontaneous adventures he always seemed to get caught up in. 

“Good,” Luke said with a slight smile on his lips, as if he hadn’t heard Ben’s last sentence. “We’ll talk later. I look forward to your report”.

Ben nodded in silence as the hologram of his uncle dissolved.

“You’re alright with that, Solo?” Kala asked.

“It’s alright,” Ben assured her, despite that he didn’t trust his father to remember to pick him up in time. “I’ll be fine”.

He had enough rations for at least a week and a water purifier. It should be enough to keep him alive until Han showed up. Not that he would need it; the wardens had supplies and food at their station and they were relieved by another team of wardens after three standard months.

“Kef Bir it is then,” the pantoran said with a nod to the sullustan pilot. “Set the course to the Endor system, Kang”.

Chapter Text

Although he had read many books about the old war and heard stories about the Endor system and its legendary moon, Ben had never visited it himself. 

Until now.

The Belshazzar II landed on a smooth cliff in the middle of a green field. Ben took his equipment and bid Kala Arula and the rest of the crew farewell. He felt a sting of sadness within his chest when he saw Belshazzar II descend into the sky and exit the troposphere. The ship had been his home for ten months, and the implementation of the bill had been his purpose in life for just as long.

Ben took a deep breath, realizing it was the first time in months that he breathed fresh air. It was salty, a telltale sign of the nearby ocean. 

He peered out over the landscape; the moon consisted of open fields, high cliffs, long, rocky beaches, and a vast ocean. Kef Bir was smaller than he had expected, and the MK Death Star II was visible from where he stood. The remains of the imperial battle station lay like a stranded ship between the crashing waves. 

The sky was cloudy above him, but stray rays of light seeped through in scattered shafts. In the distance, the gas giant Endor loomed— an enormous light blue orb streaked with long white and turquoise trails of gas swirling in the troposphere.

It glowed faintly in the rays of Iblem, the system's primary star.

Ben remained still, taking in the impressive scenario. Further out, he spotted the small forest moon where the Ewoks lived. The once insignificant moon where his parents fought the battle that brought the Empire to its knees and made them celebrated intergalactic war heroes, legends etched in history.

“Enjoying the view?”.

He turned around and saw a dark-skinned woman on a majestic orbak with shining dark gray fur. She was clad in heavy boots, green cargo pants, and a matching utilitarian jacket and Ben instinctively knew that she was one of the wardens.

“Yes, I… I’m Ben,” he stuttered, deliberately avoiding telling her his surname. 

“You’re the Jedi Skywalker sent?” The warden said as she eyed Ben from top to toe with a slightly skeptical gaze. 

He nodded. 

“Well, you came prepared, I see!” she commented, and a slight grin appeared on her face.

“Uhm... what?” Ben blinked, not catching the drift.

“Your gear,” the woman clarified with a nod to Ben’s attire. “It looks like you’re getting ready for a two-weeks long expedition into the deep woods of the forest moon”.

“Oh… No. I’ve been out on a mission for a long time… and uh, some places I visited were kind of dirty,” he explained, feeling a little sheepish in his oversized rain poncho, rubber boots, and enormous backpack. Some of the space stations he visited had been nothing more than dirty sewers, and to avoid having to do laundry every day, which wasn’t even an opportunity on Belshazzar II, Ben had bought rain gear after his first day on the job.

“Yeah, well, at least you get to put those boots into good use,” the warden said as she climbed down from her orbak. “It’s been raining for almost a whole week and the fields are drenched… ”. 

Ben nodded. He couldn’t help but notice how familiar the warden looked, and he was almost certain that he had seen her somewhere before. She was a beautiful woman with brown eyes, black coily hair, and a warm, friendly smile. 

"You don't remember me, do you?” the warden said as if she had read his mind and already knew the answer to his query. She gave him a playful, amused look and an anticipatory smile.

“Eh… I’m..”, he said as the orbak gave him a nudge with its large head. The animal ventilated loudly, taking in his scent, and Ben patted it awkwardly, not sure whether it was a good sign or not.

“I’m Jannah,” she chuckled, clearly amused by his reaction to the orbak. “That tells you something, right?”.

A city among the clouds, luxurious quarters with wall panels in white and beige, soft lights, and the most fashionable furniture in the whole Outer Rim Territories.

He must have been… thirteen, maybe fourteen years old the last time he visited Bespin? 

Ben had joined his parents on a trip to the sand-colored gas giant to celebrate Lando’s forty-fifth birthday. Jannah had just been a toddler back then. Clad in a golden, glittering dress that seemed fit for a princess, Lando had carried her on his hip as he welcomed the guests to the Calrissian family’s lavish apartment in Cloud City.

How could he have forgotten that?

“You’re Lando’s daughter?” Ben asked. “I’m... I’m surprised that you even remember me”.

“I recognized you at once,” she confessed with a small grin. “You look just the same as you did back then. Just taller”.

Ben gave her a weak smile as he tried to keep the orbak from licking his face. “You think so?”.

“Yeah. Nice to meet you again,” Jannah chuckled as she gave him a firm handshake. “You have to excuse Ferrule. He is not used to strangers,” she said with a nod to the orbak. “Anyway, let’s head back to the camp and get something to eat. You can leave your packing there, and I’ll take you on a little hike to shore. Does that sound alright?”.

“Sure”.

“We’re used to aggressive, pesky tourists around here,” Jannah explained as she led the path to the base camp over a miry field. “Usually, we just stun them before they start climbing on the wreckage and lock them up here until the police of the New Republic come and get them… It doesn’t happen that often, one or two ships a week perhaps, depending on the season”.

“I heard last night's visitors weren't one of those”.

“Yeah, believe me,” Jannah gave him a knowing gaze over her shoulder. “Yesterday, that was something entirely different”.

“What happened?” he asked. “Master Luke said you had sensed some sort of disturbance”.

“Yes,” she said, letting out a frustrated sigh. “I did. It was just… a very odd feeling, like a dark presence came to haunt us. It’s a little hard to explain,” she added with an apologizing gaze. “None of us remembers what happened. We just woke up out in the field in the morning”. 

“Remember?” Ben blinked.

Jannah suddenly got a troubled look on her face. “That’s the odd thing. All of us are certain that someone came, that someone was here. We saw the prints from where the ship had landed, but none of us can remember anything of it”.

“Are you sure?” he carefully asked.

“I knew they were here,” she insisted in a firm voice. “I felt it… it was like an icy hand gripped me before everything turned black”.

An icy hand? 

That didn’t sound good, Ben thought. It didn’t sound good at all. On the way to Kef Bir, he had read through Voe’s dictated report from her mission to Jakku, and if he remembered correctly, that was the same description one of the church members had used to describe his sensation when the massacre occurred.

Ben remembered that day clearly, even though it was two years ago. The massacre on Jakku had occurred during his last hospitalization at Polis Massa. He had woken up in cold sweat at the clinic, bathing in anxiety and turmoil, just as if Ben himself had been forced to carry out the horrible deed. 

Ben shivered unwillingly at the unpleasant memories and the reminder that it could have been him. The Maker only knew what he would be today and what he would have done if his parents hadn’t stopped him from seeking out Snoke that night.

He'll be the end of everything and everybody I love.

His uncle’s words. It was the explanation Luke had given when he tried to explain to his sister why he, for that fleeting moment, considered killing his nephew.

There is just too much of Vader in him.

His father’s words. Han never really understood much of the Force, but he knew enough to conclude that the same darkness ran in Ben as it had in the feared Sith lord. 

“Are you alright, Ben?” Jannah suddenly stopped and gave him a concerned look. “You almost look like you’re going to be sick”.

“I’m fine. Just… uh, low blood sugar”.

“Good thing it’s close to lunch, then,” she said, giving him a light pat on the back. “It’s Chun’s turn to cook today, and he has promised to make kelp soup with pork bones”.

After a short walk, they arrived at the warden’s base camp. The base was an old concrete structure, a former mineral research station once built by the old Galactic Empire.

The Death Star had first been planned to orbit around Kef Bir, but its lack of valuable resources led the Empire to choose the forest moon of Endor instead, leaving Kef Bir untouched with the expectation of the small base and a few abandoned drilling rigs.

Jannah removed Ferrule’s reins, and the orbak immediately started to poke into the ground to Ben’s relief. He put down his heavy packaging and took a seat by the campfire. A big, well-used pot stood over the fire, simmering. It was the broth to the soup, Ben concluded.

Shortly after they arrived at the camp, Ben and Jannah were joined by the two other wardens, Mischa and Chun, who arrived with a plastic bucket full of long, brown tendrils of kelp fresh from the ocean.

While Chun prepared the kelp, he told Ben his version of last night and it was just the same story as Jannah’s; an unauthorized ship had landed last night, left without a trace, and none of them remembered anything more than that.

“I don’t remember what happened, but I’d swear someone tampered with our memories,” Chun explained while he scooped up the soup into a bowl and handed it over to Ben. “This is my seventh season as a warden and I’ve never experienced anything like it before”.

“There is nothing of monetary value here,” Mischa filled in. 

“Some people are still after ‘souvenirs ’,” Jannah corrected her colleague. “You know, nostalgics, weapon collectors, treasure hunters…”. 

Ben nodded while he stared into his bowl, watching slices of scallion swim around between the seaweed and the pork, trying to gather his thoughts. 

After lunch, Jannah took Ben on a hike down to the shore which lay closest to the wreck of the Death Star. On the way down to the ocean, they passed a flock of Cliffspringers, grazing on the wide grasslands.

The Kef Sur ocean was dark, deep, and violent. The water had a deep blue, almost petroleum-colored hue. Wanderwings and Cloudrippers, two local bird species, circulated over the windy beachfront.

“An impressive sight, isn’t it?” Jannah said.

“It is,” Ben agreed as he took a deep breath of the ocean air. It was wonderfully refreshing to feel the sea breeze against his face after spending months on the old freighter and its forty-year-old air recycling system.   

But despite the fresh breeze and soothing sound of the crashing waves, there was something about the place that made Ben a little uneasy. He couldn’t put his finger on what it was, but it was something strange. 

Like a vague, ominous aura.

“You don’t even have to be force-sensitive to feel the remains of the evil that once lingered here,” Jannah said with a gesture to the wreck of the Death Star, and Ben nodded in agreement. 

“It’s the grave of countless stormtroopers and imperial personnel,” Jannah explained in a hushed tone as she led Ben down a narrow trail to the beach. “Some even say the remains of Sheev Palpatine are buried within it… The New Republic is afraid that it might attract ‘Sith acolytes’ who want to pay their respects to him, or perform rituals…” she revealed, giving him a slight grimace.

“What kind of rituals?” Ben inquired, curious.

 “Rituals to hear whispers from the old emperor, split souls, or revive people from the dead? I’ve only heard rumors about what they do, some crazier than the others”.

Ben gazed around the beach to see if he could spot any sign that might suggest that some Sith acolyte had tried to perform a ritual, but he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. 

No fire pits, no piles of skulls, or ritual offerings. Just dark cliffs and wet sand. The most outstanding thing he saw was the remains of an old stormtrooper’s helmet, laying in a heap of sea foam, eelgrass, and other species of seaweeds on the shoreside.

“I guess that rules out crazed cultists trying to summon the spirit of the Emperor,” Ben mumbled to himself and turned his gaze back to the Death Star. It lay pinned between the sharp, black cliffs out in the water and the waves crashed repeatedly against it, slowly tearing it apart. 

“As I said, they didn’t leave any traces except the landing marks from the ship,” Jannah repeated with a sigh. “And it's useless to look for footprints here because of the wind and the tidal water”.

“I see”.

Ben and Jannah walked along the shore until they reached the small harbor where the wardens kept their sea skiffs. They seldom used them as the ocean often was stormy, and the violent waves could reach breathtaking heights; the biggest wave ever recorded had been well over 120 m.

There wasn’t much else to see at the harbor except different kinds of seabirds who nested at the nearby cliffs. As they stood on the wooden dock and peered out over the Kef Sur ocean, it started to rain, and Ben and Jannah returned to the camp.                                               

As they made their way back, the thoughts were churning inside Ben’s head like a maelstrom; what was he going to tell Master Luke? 

That none of the wardens could remember anything useful, and the only tangible thing he found was tracks in the mud from a ship? He groaned at the thought. It wouldn’t do ― he couldn’t return to Hosnian Prime with next to nothing.

But what was he supposed to do about it?

There were a few Jedis who could use the Force to channel echoes of the past. Ben wasn’t one of those who were naturally gifted with the skill, but his strength in the Force would probably be enough for him to pull it off, anyway. Still… considering how close to the Death Star and all those unfortunate souls who had died within it he was, it couldn't be dangerous. 

On second thought, Ben decided he couldn’t take the risk of ending up swimming in the anxiety of thousands of dying stormtroopers if he failed with the channeling.

“Let me search your mind”.

“Excuse me?” Jannah placed her hands on her hips and gave Ben a doubtful gaze.

“From what you have told me… I think you saw what happened. But for some reason, you have suppressed the experience,” Ben clarified. “I can look into your mind and see if I can locate the memory. If you consent”.

He was certainly walking on thin ice with the mind-reading; it was a skill that Ben had learned from Snoke. His master would not approve of him using it. Jannah maintained her suspicious gaze as she eyed him once again, but eventually, she dropped her hands from her hips and gave him a nod. 

“Alright, let’s do it, Solo”.

“Are you certain?” Ben asked. “You can’t tell Master Luke about it”.

“Yeah. I want to know what happened,” Jannah said as she sank down on the camping chair next to Ben. “But you better not snoop around!”. 

“I’ll promise”.

He placed his fingertips at the edge of Jannah’s temple and closed his eyes. “Just relax. Try to remember,” he instructed, praying that the suppressed memory was still intact. 

With the aid of the Force, Ben carefully shifted through Jannah’s memories, and it didn’t take long until he found what he was looking for. 

Through Jannah’s eyes, Ben saw a velvet sky with distant stars shining like small rhinestones. Among them, Alprezar, the small metallic moon reflected an almost rose-colored tone of light. It was late at night, and the cicadas were singing in the bushes around the base. The three wardens sat around the campfire outside the base, eating pudding made from leftover bread, milk, and syrup. 

Suddenly, a ship approached from afar. Ben couldn’t see what kind of ship it was in the dark, but its hull reflected the weak light like a prism so he concluded that it must be chromatic to some degree. It was certainly not a regular freighter or a fighter ship, then ― chromatic hulls were expensive and usually only used for luxury yachts. 

“Looks like we’re getting some late-night visitors,” Chun said as he put down his bowl.

“Well, we better get up in the saddle and tell them this place is off-limits,” Janna replied in a tired voice as she mounted her orbak. “Let’s go!”.

Jannah dismounted and grabbed the reins of the animal in one hand while she let her other hand rest on the handle of her blaster. 

Three cloaked figures emerged from the ship’s innards, all clad in black. Their faces were covered by the hoods of their cloaks, but their slim appearances and narrow shoulders led Ben to believe that the intruders were women. 

“This is restricted territory! Leave immediately, or there will be consequences!” Jannah called out to the cloaked strangers.

“Jodzok”.

Unaffected by Jannah's warning, one of the women murmured something in a language Ben didn’t understand and in the next moment, she reached out a well-manicured hand against the wardens. In an instant, Jannah and her crew collapsed to the ground like they had been stunned by a blaster. 

Through Jannah’s clouded eyes, Ben could see how one of the cloaked figures crouched down next to Mischa and reached out a slim, gloved hand to examine his gear. With swift fingers, she searched through his pockets and equipment belt.

“Who are these people?” the woman asked in a dry voice. “Some sort of guards? As far as I recall, this place was listed as uninhabited in our records”.

“That must have been over thirty years ago,” the woman with the sparkling nail polish snickered. She spoke with a bright, girly voice that could have belonged to a schoolgirl from the Core Worlds. “They are wardens from the New Republic. After the war ended, the new senate voted through a ban for visitors in the entire Endor system”.

“Hmmph”. The woman rose to her feet and dusted off her robe. “We better not waste our time. Lead the way,” she said with a nod to the younger woman.

“Mari, you stay here. Guard the ship, there might be more wardens around,” the girl with the nail polish ordered the other one of her two cloaked friends.

“Yes,” the third woman murmured.

The two women didn't waste any time. They left the ship at a fast pace, marching with determined steps in the Death Star’s direction. The remaining woman, Mari, sat down on a flat rock and sighed as she watched her friends disappear into the darkness.

She stretched out her legs, revealing knee-high boots and pale thighs before she pulled off the hood of her dark cowl. 

Mari seemed to be in her late twenties. She had a pale complexion, platinum blonde hair, and eyes that almost seemed to glow in the dark. Her faintly yellow-tinted eyes were framed with black eyeliner and mulberry red eyeshadow. Ben couldn't help but stare at her; she looked more like an exotic dancer from a nightclub on Umbara than a potentially dangerous darksider. 

The woman picked up a small holopad from the pockets of her cowl. With a bored gaze, she started to scroll through profiles on a site for hook-ups on the HoloNet. 

“Men these days..,” she muttered to herself after a while. “Such weaklings… Isn’t anyone into breath-play anymore? I can almost understand why Rey is so infatuated with that imaginary man of hers…”.

Ben felt like he watched the remaining woman turn down potential dates for an eternity until her two friends returned.

“Did you find it?” Mari asked.

The girl nodded. “After all these years I’m surprised Skywalker never managed to retrieve it,” she snorted softly. “Its location was surprisingly predictable, even without the dagger”.    

She then handed over something with a slight green glow to Mari. With big eyes, the blonde balanced the pyramid-shaped object between her fingers, inspecting it with a mesmerized look on her face. The object reminded Ben of some sort of Holocron, but it could also be an artifact, or maybe a relic? 

Ben would bet on an artifact; the object seemed a little too small for a holocron and Darth Sidious was said to have owned several Sith artifacts. Still… the Rebellion had searched through the Death Star after the Battle of Endor, and later on, the forces of the New Republic had conducted a search, too. If they had found any Sith artifacts, Master Luke would most likely have taken care of those.

“Fascinating,” Mari commented before handing the glowing object back to the cloaked girl. 

“Indeed,” the girl replied, content with her find. “As much as I would love to stay longer and explore the wreckage, I have errands to tend to in the core worlds. We should leave”.

“What about the wardens?” The second woman asked. “Shouldn’t we kill them?”.

The cloaked girl turned her gaze to the wardens who still lay collapsed on the ground in the wet grass and thought for a moment.

“No,” she finally said. “Doing so would cause us unwanted attention from the New Republic. It should be enough to suppress their memories of the evening”.                    

“What in the whole, wide universe was that about?” Jannah asked as soon as she snapped out of her trance. Ben found himself unable to answer. He was just as surprised as her. Whatever he thought he’d see; this was certainly not it. 

“I have no idea,” he truthfully admitted. “That… that wasn’t what I expected to see”.

“Do you think they’ll come back?” Jannah asked with a troubled look on her face. She was clearly worried about an enemy against which blasters posed no threat.  

“I don’t think so,” Ben said, shaking his head. “It seemed like they got what came for''. 

Still, the intrusion was not to be taken lightly. They could have killed wardens, and while Ben thought the women wouldn’t return, there were no guarantees.

While Ben waited for his father to come, he sent Master Luke a message and started to write his report. The similarities between the three women on Kef Bir and the killer on Jakku didn’t pass him. But they were subtle. Too subtle. The unidentified murderer had killed both civilians and guards alike, while the leader of the trio had spared the wardens. Perhaps more out of practical reasons than out of the goodness of her heart, but still.

With a sigh, Ben rested his heavy head in the palm of his hand. 

What was going on?

In the evening, Mischa appeared to tell him they had gotten a transmission from Millenium Falcon. It was sent by his father’s first mate, Chewbacca, who informed him that they were stuck at a shipping hub outside the city of Pinyumb after a minor volcano had erupted in the nearby area.

“Looks like you’re stuck here with us, Jedi,” he said with an apologetic smile.

"It's alright," Ben replied. "I counted on it".

Almost twelve standard hours later, his father’s pride and joy finally appeared between the heavy clouds on Kef Bir’s grey sky.

“Hey kids, long time no see!”

A smiling Han Solo stepped out on the landing hatch of the Correllian freighter. In the pale morning sun, his father looked older than Ben recalled. The wrinkles at the edge of his eyes had grown more prominent and his hair had gotten thinner and greyer. At sixty, the injuries from his time as an imperial footsoldier and a rebel fighter had caught up with the once strapping captain and his movement was stiffer and slower than they used to be. 

While Han spoke with Jannah, Ben gathered his packaging and carried it onboard the Falcon.

The corridors of the circular ship were stacked with sealed crates from Kashyyk, and a few empty containers with the SAC logos, and Ben noticed traces of spilled grain here and there. If a family of rats had nested in the storage slots, he wouldn’t be surprised.

Lando Calrissian used to shake his head over how the ship had worn down in Han Solo’s possession. Back in the days when Lando owned it, the interior was spotless in soft gray-blue hues and its accommodations were modern and functioning. Nowadays, the standard was barely above Belshazzar II which was about as luxurious as a container freighter from Bracca.

Ben dropped off his packaging at an unoccupied bunk bed in one of the deckmen's quarters and returned to say goodbye to Jannah, Chun, and Mischa.

Fifteen minutes later, the Falcon was heading for Hosnian Prime, and Ben headed to the ship's kitchenette in search of something drinkable. The kitchenette was more than well-used and the stationary appliances were mended with tape, glue, and Han’s homemade wiring that looked like a schoolbook example of a potential fire hazard. Ben boiled himself a bottle of water. Han barely drank anything other than alcohol and caaf, but Ben found some vacuum-sealed instant rootgrass tea from Tatooine at the bottom of one drawer. 

“Best before 22 ABY...” Ben muttered to himself. Of course, it had expired. Just like everything else on his father’s rustbucket. Oh well, tea hardly got bad anyway, did it?

He ripped open the package, poured the tea into his thermos cup, and returned to the cockpit, where Han and Chewbacca squabbled over whether they should accept a job that involved shipping twenty containers of frozen Nerf meat from Coruscant to Carida.  

“Tea, huh?” Han fired off his regular to-go grin at his son. ”Luke said you were at Polis Massa. How is it going with the…?”.

“I’m fine,” Ben said as he sank down on the third seat in the cockpit. He repeated his mantra without a second thought, and when Han gave him a wary gaze, he just shrugged. 

“I’m alright, dad. I am”. 

Despite his assurance, Han kept looking at him with a worried gaze, and Ben concentrated on looking busy drinking his tea. It tasted horrible, like a mixture of grass and dried mud.

“Is it good?” Han asked in another attempt to make a conversation. “I got it as a gift from Gorga the Hutt when we delivered a precious urn to him ages ago”.

“It’s… drinkable,” Ben replied with a tired voice. 

“So, you… uh, sleep well these days, kid?” 

Ben shook his head. “Just nightmares. Same as it’s always”. 

He decided to tell the truth, at least partially. Ben spared Han the details of his gruesome nightmares where he found himself transformed into a dark phantom who slaughtered innocent civilians in cold blood.  

“How was the trip to Kashyyyk?” he asked Han in an attempt to change the subject. “I saw the crates in the corridor".

“We.., uh, we visited Chewie’s home village, stayed with the tribe for a couple of days,” Han explained. “It was a...”.

“A recreational visit,” Chewbacca growled.

“Right, we got a gift for you!” Han exclaimed as he ventured out of the cockpit to get whatever it was that he had gotten for Ben.

Ben frowned as he examined his gift. It was a brown glass bottle with a metallic lid. The label was written in shyriiwook, but someone has adjusted the prescription in aurebesh with a black marking pen. 

Sleeping pills.

“Dad... These are for wookies. Not humans,” he remarked.

“Yeah. I know, I know,” Han waved away Ben’s protest like an annoying insect. “They work on humans too; just take a half pill instead of one. Right, Chewie?”.

The Wookie growled in response, assuring Ben that it would be alright.

“I see. Uh, thank you. It was kind of you to think of me,” Ben said as he put down the brown jar in the pocket of his robe. 

He then unpacked his holopad and continued his work with the report. When the draft was done and the cup of root tea was empty, Ben uploaded it to the New Jedi Order’s intranet on the holoweb. Ben wrapped himself up in a coarse blanket, closed his eyes, and leaned his head back against the seat. He tried to meditate but instead, he slipped into a semiconscious state. 

Ben saw Jannah’s memories on the inside of his eyelids, playing over and over again like a hologram. The girls with the dark nail polish and well-manicured nails in their long robes. It was fair to say Ben couldn't get the mystic women on Kef Bir out of his head. 

Over the years, he had met a few darksiders. Most were shady cultists that could not wield the force, despite that they were force-sensitive. The Knights of Ren had been the most powerful darksiders that he had encountered, and yet Master Luke had called them ‘crude and clumsy’.

But those women…  

They were nothing like the darksiders he had seen before. To take out a whole group of wardens without any effort whatsoever. That was far, far beyond the powers of any rogue force wielder or darksider he had met before.

Maybe they were secret agents of a Neo-Galactic Empire?

It was told that Emperor Palpatine had a protocol that would be activated if he was killed, a plan that would revive both the Empire and the Emperor. But as far as Ben knew, that was nothing but farfetched rumors.

Halfway on the hyperlane to Hosnian Prime, Chewie woke Ben up for an incoming message. The holo of Luke Skywalker appeared on the Falcon’s control board, sharper than it was a day cycle ago in the Subttereal sector. The Jedi Master was wearing a white cotton tunic and a beige robe. His blond hair was grayed and his skin wrinkled, but his bright blue eyes were as vivid and curious as ever.

“Han, Chewie,” Luke greeted them with a warm smile. He then turned his gaze to his nephew. “Ben. I got your message. You said there was a need for improved security on Kef Bir?”

“Yes. The intruders were three women,” Ben said.” One of them retrieved an object from the wreckage of the MK Death Star. It looked like a pyramid-shaped holocron with a green glow. The same woman also put the wardens to sleep and suppressed their memories ”.

Luke’s faint smile disappeared. As the realization of what they were potentially dealing with crept over the Jedi Master, his gaze hardened,  and he suddenly looked way older than his mere fifty standard years.

“I have to ask, again. Ben, are you certain of this?” his uncle asked. Luke both looked and sounded skeptical. Concerned too, as he so often did when he spoke to his nephew. While Ben might not be in perfect mental condition, he was nowhere near being a hallucinating lunatic who couldn’t separate dreams from reality.

“I’m absolutely certain,” he replied in a firm voice.  

“Thank you, Ben,” Luke said. “You did a good job. I will make sure that this is investigated further, and I will suggest that the New Republic increase the security on Kef Bir”.

Ben was not surprised that his uncle once again had deemed him unfit for a mission and he didn’t even bother to ask who of his fellow Jedi knights would get the assignment. It would be his old rival Voe, obviously.

“What about me?” he asked. “My earlier mission is completed and I’ve already transmitted the report”.  

Luke remained silent, stroking his beard while a bewildered look played on his face, and Ben’s heart sank at the sight. His Master had, as usual, no actual plan for him at all. 

The New Jedi Order was only a fraction of what the old order used to be, before the Clone Wars. They were a dozen knighted Jedis and maybe fifteen padawans, including the younglings Luke taught in the new temple. The old Jedi Order used to have a sister organization called the ‘Jedi Service Corps’, which was split up into four different branches; the Educational Corps, the Agricultural Corps, the Medical Corps, and the Exploration Corps. 

Maybe today was the day when Uncle Luke finally decided that Ben was the chosen one to revive the Service Corps and send him to Taanab to hybridize sugar beets?   

“I need to look at our current commitments,” Luke finally said. “You have been gone for a long time and Leia misses you. Why don’t you stay on Hosnian Prime for a couple of days? I’ll contact you later”. 

“Yes, master,” Ben nodded, silently making peace with his destiny.

Luke bid the trio farewell, the hologram dissolved, and Ben sank back onto the seat again.

He was going to Taanab. No doubt about it. 

Ben groaned within at the thought; the only son to the legendary Han Solo and Leia Organa ― a failed Jedi Knight turned mental case turned farmer. The press in the Core Worlds would be relentless if they found out, and his mother’s upcoming political campaign would suffer from such sensational news.

Maybe that was why Luke wanted him to stay on Hosnian Prime without a mission? 

Maybe he was just waiting for the right time to announce the revival of the Service Corps and Ben’s departure from the New Jedi Order.

“You’re not gonna go after those cultists?” Han asked with that adventure-longing look Ben knew so well in his eyes.

"No," he muttered.

He couldn't help but feel a little annoyed about it. Despite all the treatments at Polis Massa, Ben had only gotten marginally better over the years. Perhaps it was true as they said; maybe he had been doomed from the start in more ways than one. 

Han gave him a comforting gaze and didn't push the subject further.

“Alright… We got about six hours left, I’m gonna hit the sack for a while”.

Han went to his quarters for a nap. While the Millennium Falcon’s captain slept, Chewie and Ben took turns to pilot the ship and watch over the autopilot. Traveling through a hyperlane wasn’t very exciting; nothing to see except empty space and a blur of blue. 

After a few hours, Ben fell asleep in his seat while Chewie piloted the remaining distance to the Hosnian system. Ben slept for nearly six hours and when he woke up, they had already reached Hosnian Prime. It was early in the afternoon local time and all spaceports were very busy. While they waited in Hosnian Prime’s exosphere for landing permission in the Diplomatic District, Han checked out the other ships in the queue.

Several bulky container freighters, small civilian short-distance ships, some regular freighters, and patrolling fighters from the New Republic fleet. Nothing too impressive, in other words.

“Did you see what ship they had?” Han suddenly asked.

“Some sort of sleek ship with a chromatic hull,” Ben replied. “A corvette, or maybe a yacht, I think. But not a Naboo-yacht. It looked similar to the old ones that were produced by that orbital shipyard on Castell”.

Those yachts were something special; from afar they looked like a sleek, sophisticated version of the Gungan submarines. They were shaped like sharks and coated in a layer of shimmering blue titanium alloy with red accents.

“You mean one of those yachts from the RSS that can carry gravity mines? I’ve only seen one of those during the last six months,” Han grunted, as he shifted into a more comfortable position in the pilot’s chair. “Lando once stole one of those from CC-24 and wrecked it on Quantxi. It belonged to the old Emperor, but I can’t remember what the model was called…”.

“Where did you see it?”.

“Saw it in orbit around Coruscant two months ago. It was in pristine condition. Must have been a replica, or a restoration job, because it was shiny like that crystal chandelier your mother bought last year for the living room,” Han mused. “I think it was waiting for clearance to land in the Financial District”.

“Hmm”.

“It could have been the same as the ship you saw on Kef Bir,” Han filled in.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Ben said. “It doesn’t matter; it won’t be my mission anyway. Luke probably wants me to chase down overdue holobooks from the Main Library on Hosnian Prime for the next six months”.

It was not meant as a joke, but Han let out a dry laugh anyway.

Chapter Text

The Millennium Falcon stayed in orbit around Hosnian Prime for merely ten minutes before they got permission to land in the Senate District. 

Han effortlessly piloted the ship through the busy afternoon traffic before he landed on one of the landing platforms that belonged to the skyscraper complex where Leia Organa owned a penthouse apartment. 

When Ben stepped out of the freighter, he had to shield his eyes from the bright sunlight. It was midday and the sun stood high in the light blue sky over the Republic City. The capital city of Hosnian Prime was just like he recalled; an enormous ant’s nest, crawling with activity day and night alike. The streets under the platform were filled with pedestrians and above his head, sky cars, skytrucks, and speeders zoomed by at breathtaking speeds. 

But despite the familiarity, Ben sensed that something had changed since the last time he visited the capital planet of the New Republic. He walked over the edge of the platform and gazed out over the cityscape.

Ben’s eyelids fluttered shut and, for a brief moment, he felt a weak ripple echo through the Force, a fleeting presence.

It felt familiar.

He couldn’t quite put his finger on who, or what it was, but somehow it made him remember Snoke. Or, more precisely how Snoke always had been there in the past for him, as a presence in the back of his mind, a whisper in his ear.

His body unconsciously tensed at the memories despite that Ben hadn’t heard Snoke’s voice for years, and this, whoever, whatever it was… it didn’t feel like the disfigured creature’s ominous presence.

It was tempting to reach out with the Force to see if he could get a clearer picture of what it was, but Ben reminded himself that he’d only had to resort to using the Force if it was absolutely necessary, and him being curious was hardly a reason enough.

“Ben! Don’t just stand there and gawk, come and help us unload,” Han called out as he struggled with the crates from Kashyyyk.

“I…,” Ben whipped his head around to explain, but before he could form a complete sentence, the presence was gone.

Han looked at his son with a confused, almost annoyed gaze. “What’s the matter?”.

Ben shook his head. “Nothing, I just… forget it,” he said as he hurried over to help his father with the crates. 

“Leia is hosting a party today,” Han said as they started to make their way through the glass tunnel which served as a bridge between the landing platform and the skyscraper. “That purple-haired narcissist has gotten promoted from Vice Admiral to Admiral and your mom wanted to celebrate”.

“You mean Holdo?” Ben asked. “I thought she seemed nice...”.

“Yeah. I’d probably think she’d be nice if I was on happy pills, too,” Han scoffed under his breath, and Ben just shook his head at his father’s comment.

The small crates turned out to contain wheat flour and canned wasaka-berries from Kashyyyk. The trio unloaded the crates in the kitchen and the stressed kitchen droid berated Han for taking so long. It asked him if he knew how long it would take to make twenty servings of wasaka berry pie before it tossed them out of the kitchen with an upset noise.

“You know you’re in the center of the Core Worlds when even the droids are stressed, “ Han chuckled as he ushered Ben in the direction of the living room.  

Blithe chatter and clinking glasses sounded through the hallway, and the strong sunlight shone through the transparent semi-curtains, coloring the apartment in a golden hue. 

The vast living room on the etage floor was filled with women, clad in elegant, yet proper costumes. Two chromatic serving droids navigated skillfully between the guests with refreshments and finger foods on large silver plates.

Ben immediately spotted the famous admiral among the guests; the tall Amilyn Holdo was dressed in a long-sleeved, metallic knitted dress that glittered in the sunlight. She stood with a glass of bubbling liquid in her hand, talking to Iden Versio, a former Imperial Special Forces commander turned Rebel Alliance hero, and Iden’s daughter Zay.

Among the chattering females, Ben caught sight of Poe Dameron. The renowned pilot sat on a beige ottoman with a glass of wine in his hand, deep in conversation with two young women who smiled and giggled at whatever Poe said.

They have known each other since they were children, Poe and Ben. Poe’s parents, Kes and Shara Dameron, were close friends with Leia. 

Sometimes, in dark moments, Ben thought that if Leia and Han could have replaced him with Poe, they would have done so without a second thought. The short man was everything Ben never would be; Poe was witty, charming, and easy-going. He was one of those people who had more friends than he could count. People tended to be naturally drawn to Poe and Leia was just as smitten; she had praised his bravery on more than one occasion.

Speaking of which…

Ben turned his gaze away from Poe as he heard the characteristic voice of his mother. Leia Organa herself stood in the middle of the room, exchanging pleasantries with a group of young women who looked at her with bright, admiring eyes. She was dressed in a gray, regal costume and her graying hair was braided like a halo around her head. 

For a moment, Ben contemplated whether he should go and say hello to his mother or not, but the mere amount of guests surrounding her was discouraging and he was not in the mood to be subjected to their curious gazes, either.

“You want something to eat?” his father asked, unaffected by the chattering crowd in the living room. “The krill canapés from the catering firm weren’t so bad”.  

“No. I’m… I’m going to start unpacking,” Ben excused himself. 

He quietly slipped up the stairs to the second floor while Han and Chewie joined the festivities. The apartment was large enough to house three guest rooms, and even though he didn’t live at home anymore, Ben still had his own room. It was small, barely a third of the size of Leia and Han’s bedroom, but as a Jedi, he didn’t have many belongings except for his clothes, his books, some equipment, and other necessities, anyway. 

Ben unpacked, sorted his stuff into different piles depending on what needed to be washed, mended, or put away, and went through his long list of prescriptions. He went through his inbox, read reports from his fellow knights on the intranet, and did laundry. 

Once Ben was done with his chores, a sense of restlessness crept over him. The anxiety was never far behind, it followed him wherever he went like a shadow. Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to take a walk? He could go to the pharmacy and stock up on tranquilizers and maybe swing by the local library and see if they had any interesting books.

Said and done, Ben to the library and he stayed far longer than he had intended to. For once, luck seemed to be at his side and they actually had the book he wanted to read. 

Cere Junda’s memoirs.

Cere Junda had been a Jedi Knight who survived Order 66. Eventually, she got caught by the Empire which tortured her until she revealed the location of her padawan and a few younglings. Junda’s padawan fell to the dark and became an inquisitor.

Upon seeing the fallen girl, the Jedi Knight cracked and tapped into the dark herself. She killed all in sight, except her padawan, and fled from the inquisitor’s fortress. 

Afterward, a devastated Cere cut herself off from the force, afraid that she might fully succumb to the dark. She lived in seclusion for some time after the escape from the Empire. One day, Junda crossed paths with another Jedi survivor; the young padawan Cal Kestis. Together with the laterno captain of a ship called the Mantis, the two Jedis then traveled the galaxy in search of a holocron containing a list with names of force-sensitive children, hidden by Jedi Master Eno Cordova.

It was a fascinating journey, and Ben lost track of time as he read. In the memoirs, Junda described how she had fought against the darkness within, her anger, remorse, and guilt, every day. He could truly empathize with Cere, who had tried her best to do her duty as a Jedi Knight, but despite her good intentions, failed fatally. 

By the time Ben got back from the library, the sun had gone down, the guests had left and C-3PO was busy cleaning up in the living room together with the housemaid droid. Except for the sounds of the droids, it was quiet in the apartment and a relieved Ben assumed his parents had gone to bed early.

He was just about to walk up the stairs to the second floor when his mother came out of her study.

“Ben!” Leia exclaimed with wide, surprised eyes. “When did you get here?”.

“A few couple of hours ago,” he admitted, suddenly feeling a little awkward. In hindsight, he should probably have dealt with the curious gazes and greeted his mother properly upon his arrival. “I, um, I needed to run some errands…”.

For a moment, it looked like she was about to scold him for his bad manners, but eventually, Leia let out a small, relieved sigh. “Oh well, now you’re here,” she said, wrapping her arms around her son’s waist. Ben almost had to fold himself twice to return the embrace.

“I have spoken to Luke,” Leia said with a soft smile as she let go of him. ”The Hosnian Prime Police has requested our aid with a disappearing case, and we think it would be a suitable mission for you”.

Ben blinked in surprise. “What?”. 

The Core Worlds had been suffering from an economic recession for months, but they were hardly so defunded that they hadn’t enough personnel to find lost people, Ben thought. At least not if the lost person was a prominent citizen, or politician, which he assumed since someone had asked Leia to use her influence to request help from the Jedi Order.

“I don’t see why finding a lost person requires the aid of a Jedi Knight,” he flatly said. 

“It’s Chairman Ikari from the City Council,” Leia replied, confirming Ben’s suspicions and ignoring his objection in the same sentence. “He has been lost for two months”.

He let out a frustrated sigh. “I’m not…”.

“Please, Ben,” Leia interrupted him with a pleading, yet demanding gaze. “I know what you are going to say. But ― this is exactly what a Jedi is supposed to do; serve the people of the Republic”.

“I know,” he replied, well aware of the Jedi Order’s purpose. “But wouldn’t it be much easier to just hire a bounty hunter to find him?”.

Bounty Hunters were professionals who often dedicated their whole lives to the art of finding people for credits ― regardless if they wanted to be found or not, and the New Republic was on good terms with the Bounty Hunter's Guild. Surely, they wouldn't mind to help the City Council out.

Leia pursed her mouth and gave her son a stern gaze, clearly not fond of the idea of hiring a bounty hunter.

“Being a Jedi is about much more than fighting with lightsabers,” she pointed out, and Ben groaned on the inside. This wasn’t the first time he had been given this kind of lecture. 

“I know, but…”.

“I know you might feel frustrated with the kind of missions Luke has chosen for you during the past year”, Leia interrupted him again. “But, remember, there is no prestige in how we serve the greater good. Just like serving the Jedi Order as a member of the Service Corps is no less an honor than serving it as a Knight”.

“Alright, fine! I’ll look into it,” he surrendered.

He was not in the mood for another long lecture. Besides, it was pointless to argue with his mother. She always got her way, one way or another. 

“Good,” Leia said with a nod. “You will get further instructions from Officer Suwan at the Police Department tomorrow. Be there before lunchtime”.

The next morning, Ben arrived at the inner city of Hosnian Prime’s capital for a meeting with  Arpa Suwan, the officer who had been assigned to Ikari’s case. 

The police force on Hosnian Prime resided in an enormous copper-colored skyscraper. Inside, it was bustling with activity; bounty hunters were arriving with their fugitives to collect their payment, citizens standing in line to access services like visas, ID papers, or report crimes, and guards from the New Republic Correctional Corps waiting to transport prisoners, security droids, and service droids trying to direct the visitors.

Ben made his way through the crowded lobby and accessed the turbolifts. The skyscraper consisted of over a hundred levels, including ten basement levels and Officer Suwan had her office on floor 126.

Despite the massive amount of floors, it took Ben less than three minutes until he had reached his destination. Once he stepped out of the elevator, a gray service droid stood ready to guide him through a corridor to Arpa Suwan’s office. 

Officer Suwan turned out to be a petite human woman with shiny black hair and tan skin. When Ben arrived, she was seated behind a massive desk, littered with holofiles in a dark office. She looked tired, overworked, and she barely looked up from her holopad when Ben entered the cramped room. 

“Excuse me?”.

“Oh Master Solo, you’re early,” Arpa apologized when she caught sight of Ben. “Please, sit down,” she said, gesturing for him to take a seat at a scrawny metal chair in front of the desk.

Although he was pushing thirty and his strength in the Force exceeded everyone, well, not uncle Luke obviously, Ben had not yet obtained the honor to be called a ‘Jedi Master’, but he didn't bother to correct her. 

“I was sent here to help with the Ikari case”.

“Ah, yes, yes. Chairman Ikari,” Suwan mumbled while she typed something into the computer and a split second later, a hologram of a middle-aged, stern-looking human male in a stiff posture appeared.

“We had just started investigating him for corruption when he disappeared. He got ill-concealed connections to the weapon industry, political separatists, and the New Techno Union... The Tax Agency is investigating him as well, for tax fraud, and tax evasion”. 

Ben leaned over the massive desk to get a closer look at the file and the officer scrolled through the information they had collected on the chairman. 

“Otori Ikari, 57 years old, born on Coruscant. Got married five years before the fall of the Empire and lived in Timira City on Kamino…”.

“Kamino?” Ben asked with a frown. “Did he work for the Empire?”. 

“Yes. He was a lab assistant working on one of their secret cloning projects,” she explained. “The first wife worked for the Empire, too”.

Even though the old war had ended over twenty years ago, many people, at least in the circles Han and Leia socialized within, were still slightly on their guard whenever they met someone who had worked for the Empire. Considering that the Galactic Empire had been one of the biggest employers in the entire galaxy among humans back in the day, it wasn’t uncommon to encounter ex-stormtroopers and other former Imperial staff. 

“What happened to her?” .

“She and their infant son died a few years later when an escort frigate crashed in Timira City… After the war, Ikari returned to the core worlds, got into politics, remarried, and fourteen years after that, a Kira Ikari from Arkanis was registered as their adopted daughter”.

Ben nodded. “It looks like you have thoroughly investigated his background. Anything that stands out?”.

“Compared to other politicians?” Arpa raised an eyebrow. “Nothing that I’m aware of. Ikari had some debts and a mistress on the side, but isn’t that almost mandatory among the rich and powerful?” she sighed and gave him a tired gaze.

The more information they went through, the more clueless Ben felt. While the New Jedi Order taught the padawans everything from mathematics to politics, he had no experience looking for lost people. Chairman Ikari might be in debt, but his wife and daughter didn’t seem to be out of credits according to the records Arpa had shown him. It would be much more effective if they just hired an experienced bounty hunter to find the lost man.

“I…  don’t see how I can be of any aid,” he confessed.

“We have some good information, but not enough, and at the moment, the investigation has stagnated,” Arpa said. “I spoke to his estranged wife, a bioscientist on Coruscant, and she couldn’t tell us much; they lived parallel lives. She works full-time in a prosthetic lab in the industrial district and hasn’t seen her husband since the beginning of the year”.

“What about the daughter?” he asked. “Have you talked to her?”.

“One of my colleagues, assistant Abashi went to question Kira, but he didn’t get anything useful out of her”.

“I see,” Ben replied. “But, I still don’t understand what you expect me to contribute with?”.

“I assume my boss, who requested aid from the Jedi Order, though you could… use the Force to make the family more cooperative?” the officer suggested with a slight grimace. “I have a feeling the daughter knows far more than she is willing to admit”. 

“Oh... I’m not… sure if that would be a good idea,” he replied, baffled by the suggestion. 

While it was possible to give feeble-minded people a nudge in the right direction, it was downright unethical to force the truth out of people with the aid of the Force.

Suwan noticed his discomfort, seemingly not entirely convinced herself. “Of course, we respect your code of ethics”.

“I’ll… I’ll see what I can do,” Ben replied.

“Good,” Suwan nodded. “We are grateful for all the help we can, Master Jedi. You will report directly to me. Our resources are limited, but we can offer you an assistance droid”.

Ten minutes later, Ben stood at one of the levels underground. The humid corridor was made out of grainy concrete and it was sparsely lit up by yellow, flat fluorescent panels in the ceiling. A tattered, ancient poster from a campaign warning about the dangers of death sticks hung on the wall.  

At the end of the corridor, an enormous underground storage appeared. The walls were covered with countless robust, high shelves, filled with crates of all sizes, containing spare equipment, gear, shields, signs, spare parts to speeders, and deactivated droids. A thin layer of dust covered most of the crates and the stale air carried an odor of chemicals and oil.

The light in the ceiling flickers and for a brief moment, the presence is back. Like a toxin, it spread through his entire being. He unconsciously held his breath, waiting for it to reveal itself. But just like before, it disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared.     

Something then rustled behind and a screeching metallic sound emerged from a small booth. Startled, Ben turned around to see a hatch open up and in the next second, he was met by two small eyes and the wrinkled face of a male ugnaught.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing here?”.

“I…, uh, Officer Suwan sent me here,” Ben explained. “I was supposed to get a droid”.

The porcine humanoid gave him an annoyed glance, muttering as he typed something into a terminal. “ID-P01,” he muttered. “Stands on shelf 03-457”.

Just his luck as usual. Ben gnashed his teeth as he wiped the dust off the ancient droid with the sleeve of his tunic. It looked like it had been stuck in a power-saving mode for years, hidden away in the basement. 

“This is just pathetic,” he muttered to himself. 

When he returned to the booth to ask for another droid, it was closed and the ugnaught was nowhere to be seen.

“Great… just great,” Ben groaned. “I’m an unqualified police assistant with a malfunctioning protocol droid. How am I supposed to get anything done like this?”.

The anger and frustration came creeping over him. Ben felt like he wanted to strangle someone, and he leaned his head against the wall, exhaling deeply to calm down. 

It was all Luke's fault, he thought bitterly. If his uncle just could be honest for one’s sake and speak his mind instead of bothering Ben with these charades.

It felt like Luke just wasted his time, delaying the inevitable. It was just a question about when, not if, his uncle would kick him out of the order and send him into exile. 

Make him a pioneer moisture farmer in the most hostile desert on Tatooine, send him on a ten-year coral research project to the uncolonized planet Pillio, or maybe officially announce him as the guardian of the swamp where the Grand Jedi Master Yoda spent his last days on Dagobah. 

Eventually, the anger faded away and Ben returned with a slight amount of newfound patience to tinker with the droid. While he was pretty good at repairing ships, he didn’t know a thing about repairing ancient droids. 

After twenty minutes, Ben had managed to turn off the droid’s power-saving mode, but it refused to sync with his holopad and it wouldn’t let him access any of the Core World’s law enforcement databases either. 

“Can you at least move on your own?” he sighed. “I refuse to carry you all the way down to the station”.

The droid replied with a screeching sound, which led Ben to believe that its voice mechanics were faulty, but at least it followed him when he started to move toward the turbolifts. 

Once he was home, Ben kept struggling with the malfunctioning droid. After three hours, he gave up and settled for exercise to blow off some steam instead. 

On the second day of his new mission, Ben woke up with a migraine. He ventured into the kitchen to get himself something to eat, he noticed neither Chewie nor his father had returned home.

It was too bad; Chewie was good with droids and Ben could really use help with ID-P01…

While he ate breakfast, Ben searched the HoloNet for information about the Ikari family. He found a couple of old articles about the chairman’s alleged tax evasions, his failed campaign for some sort of ‘planetary defense system that Senator Xiono had turned down.

Ben went to the three rugged bars at the local shipping hub without finding a trace of the duo. Two hours before lunch, he had searched every nearby location that Han and Chewie used to frequent without success, and the only place he hadn’t looked was at Leia’s campaign office at the center of the Republic City.

It had been a long time since he visited his mother at work, and over the years, Leia had used so many similar offices on different planets that Ben barely could tell them apart. Of course, the office had also been rebuilt since the last time he visited. The pale turquoise walls had been replaced with more discreet shades of beige and light gray and his mother’s head office had been replaced with the office for one of her many pet projects; a foundation for children’s right to education in the poorer districts of the core worlds.

Ben made his way through small booths with assistants tinkering with life-size holograms of his mother, chattering droids, analytics with furrowed brows, video editors uploading propaganda to the HoloNet, and a multitude of other professionals, but his parents were nowhere to be seen. 

Fortunately, he ran into Kaydel Connix, one of his mother’s assistants.

“Hi Ben!” she said. “What are you doing here?”.

“I’m looking for Chewie and dad… I haven’t seen them for almost two days and I thought maybe they were here”.

 “Oh, right. Leia told me you would stay here on Hosnian for a while. You were gonna help the police with a mission?”.

“Yeah, but I can’t get the assistant droid the police gave me to work properly,” Ben admitted. “I hoped Chewie could help me”. 

“I haven’t seen them here, but maybe I can help you?” Kaydel suggested. “Not with the droid, but I can help you find some information at least. What are you looking for?”

“Anything useful on Chairman Ikari would be great,” Ben said, relieved. “And his daughter”.

“Otori Ikari?” Kaydel grimaced slightly at the name. “I haven’t seen Ikari for quite a while, actually. His political career hasn’t gone very well lately”.

“How come?”.

“Well, after Senator Xiono turned down his proposal for the Planetary Defense System, Ikari changed. He became… I don’t know how to describe it, increasingly anxious? Almost paranoid”, Kaydel said as she led him away from the bustling office.

They walked into a passway that led to the upper floor where she and the other assistants shared an impressive office.

His mother’s assistant's office was painted in bright, soothing colors. On the walls, there was a framed poster from Leia’s first political campaign for the Galactic Senate, an enormous framed photo of Alderaan before its destruction, taken from space, and several framed art prints picturing stormtrooper helmets decorated with painted-on sigils of the Rebellion in various colors, a memory from the art installation in Hanna City on Chandrila after the war. 

The open office landscape was almost empty except for two of Leia’s subordinates, a female togruta, and an older human woman. They sat crouched with deep frowns at their desks behind holograms of recent statistics, not even looking up when Ben and Kaydel entered the room.

They sat down at one of the empty desks, and Kaydel logged onto the computer. “I can’t access the local police force’s database, or the New Republic Correctional Force’s systems either, but I’m sure I can dig up something useful”.  

Ben nodded. “Why was he so anxious about getting the defense system?”

Kaydel shrugged. “I don’t know actually. But I heard that he was afraid that someone might build another battle station like the Death Star”.

“Did he state any reason for his fear?”.

“No,” the blonde replied. “That was part of why Xiono turned him down. Ikari’s fears were disregarded as irrational”.

“Were they?” he carefully inquired.

Ben hadn’t heard about someone who had a genuine fear of planet destroyers since his last stay at the mental clinic. There had been another patient there, a young engineer with paranoid schizophrenia who constantly babbled about a secret army that was planning to transform a whole planet into a weapon of mass destruction.

Kaydel looked at him like she was trying to determine if he was insane or not.

“Believe me, if some left-over of the Galactic Empire would show up, your mother would be the first one to take action,” she said in a serious tone that resonated with her devotion to Leia Organa. 

He nodded. “Of course”.

Kaydel was loyal to his mother with what at times almost seemed like fanaticism. Ben couldn’t help but wonder how Leia managed to attract all these young men and women who were willing to do anything for her. 

“I’m gonna go through our archive with records from the city council’s meetings, but it might take a while,” Kaydel said. “There’s a dispenser of mintea in the staff room if you’d like some”.

“Sure,” Ben nodded. He pushed himself off the chair and strode over to the staff room. Mintea. A frosty, slightly sweet brew from Alderaan. He retrieved two plastic cups from the cupboard and poured the green liquid from the dispenser.

“So, what do you know about Ikari’s daughter?” Ben asked as he returned with the mintea to Kaydel’s desk.

“Kira? I don’t have much actual information on her, other than she is some sort of… advisor for the InterGalactic Banking Clan,” she replied. “Don’t ask me how she managed to get that kind of prominent position among the muuns at such a young age”.

“She works for the Banking Clan?” Ben blinked. 

The InterGalactic Banking Clan, the IGBC, was a powerful commerce guild, led by a tall, thin humanoid species with elongated heads known as muuns, from the snowy planet Scipio. The Muuns tended to regard themselves as superior to others, and thus they very rarely employed other species. 

“Yep,” Kaydel nodded. “She actually does. Their homepage on the Holo even says that she got an office at their skyscraper on Coruscant”.

The surprises never seemed to end when it came to the Ikari family, Ben thought to himself. According to the file on the Ikari family, Arpa Suwan had shown him, Kira was born almost two decades after the battle of Yavin... If the information was correct, the girl would be nineteen, which was way too young to hold enough experience and knowledge to be given a job at IGBC.

“Odd, I know,” Kaydel filled in, giving him a knowing glance. 

“It’s more than odd,” Ben said as he sat down on his chair and reached over one of the glasses to Kaydel. “How could she possibly get that kind of job?”

“I don’t know,” she chuckled. “Maybe Kira is an extremely sophisticated android?”.

“Maybe,” Ben couldn’t help but grin at the thought.

He and Kaydel drank their mintea in silence while the computer transferred the records over to his holopad. Just when they were done, a lilac-skinned, plump mirialan entered the office.

“Kaydel!” she blurted out. “Are you still here? I hope you had lunch at least!”.

“Hi Bina,” Kaydel chirped at her colleague. “Yes, I did. How was your meeting?”. 

“Good. Everything is coming along smoothly, we’ll kick off the fundraiser next week,” Bina said as she sat down on an empty chair and kicked off her high heels. “Ugh, the fashion these days...,” the near-human woman complained as she massaged her sore feet. “Who’s your friend?” 

“This is Ben,” Kaydel said with a nod to the Jedi. “He’s helping the police investigate the disappearance of Chairman Ikari”.

“Oh,” Bina looked at him with big eyes. “Chairman Ikari… I almost forgot he had disappeared. Rumor has it that he fled the agents from the Tax Agency with his young mistress…”. 

“Is there any substance to those rumors?” Ben said, raising an eyebrow.

“Probably not,” the miralain admitted. “I heard it from the nikto behind the reception desk in the lobby of the city council spire”.

“I thought you knew her?” Kaydel frowned.

“I only met her once,” Bina excused herself. “From what I know, when she isn’t traveling on behalf of the IGBC, she spends most of her time socializing with the elite of the Core Worlds. I heard that the muuns pay her for that, too,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I’ve never met anyone who knows her on a personal level, though”.

He nodded. “I see. Thank you both for your time, I appreciate it,” Ben said as he rose from the chair. He said farewell to Kaydel and Bina and started to make his way back to the station.

To be honest, Ben didn’t feel much wiser. What the two women had told him was interesting, but he preferred facts over rumors.

Kaydel had transferred over a hundred records to his holopad, and even if Ben read fast, it would be impossible to go through all within a reasonable time frame without a droid. That meant his only option would be to start looking through the most recent ones and carry on with the rest once he had gotten the assistant droid fixed.

Still, there were some things he could do without the droid… The Ikari family owned two apartments on Hosnian Prime; one in the Senate District and one in the Financial District. Ben decided he would take a look at the nearest in the afternoon, to see if there was something the police might have missed that could give him an inkling of what had happened to the lost chairman.

Chapter Text

Luke Skywalker didn’t like Coruscant much. 

It was always noisy, day and night alike, and the light pollution made it impossible to see the stars at night. Every inch of the capital planet was urbanized, completely devoid of any nature. 

Often, he found himself longing back to Ossus and the simple temple he had built there. The silence, the peaceful breeze, the lush nature. The lake with the frogs. The bamboo thickets, the rivers, the wetlands, the deep forests, the mountains…

But the temple had been destroyed, and the peaceful aura that once had surrounded it was gone. After the incident, Luke had decided to move the order to Coruscant, back to what once was the Jedi Grand Temple. During the war, the temple had been modified and used as a residence for Emperor Palpatine. After the fall of the Empire, under the New Republic’s rule, they had restored it to its former shape and purpose.

As he sat in the circular room where the old Jedi Council used to have their meetings, sipping his afternoon tea, Luke thought about his last conversation with Ben.

“One of them retrieved an object from the wreckage of the MK Death Star. It looked like a pyramid-shaped holocron with a green glow”.

To Luke, it was clear that the mysterious object the women on Kef Bir had found was the Emperor’s Wayfinder. 

One of two legendary Sith wayfinders.

Luke himself had searched for the wayfinders for years. He had even searched through the wreckage without luck. It had been anything but easy to find. According to Ben, the two women hadn’t been away for more than a few hours at most, which made the old Jedi Master assume they knew exactly where to look for it. 

Their leader had been young, Ben said. Barely an adult woman, it seemed. 

Far too young to know such a thing, Luke mused, and as he did, he felt increasingly worried about who had given away the location of the wayfinder. Whoever it had been, must have been someone who once had a close position to Darth Sidious.

The matter immediately needed to be investigated further, and Luke had at once realized that it was a mission far too dangerous for his unstable nephew. Leia had agreed on the matter and suggested an alternative mission for Ben that would keep him occupied without adding any unnecessary risks.

Luke had decided right away that he would give Voe and Finn the mission. They had done a good job on Jakku, and he was certain that the duo was the right choice for this kind of challenging mission.

Finn was in many ways the opposite of Ben; the young man wasn’t good at flying and his fencing skills left, well, a lot to be desired, but the Light was unusually strong within the padawan. Finn carried a rare warmth with him that left nobody unaffected; he was the kind of person people were unconsciously drawn to, and the younglings at the temple loved him for his mild manners and sense of humor.

A transmission from his sister interrupted his train of thought. Leia had sent him a transmission earlier in the evening and she told him that Ben hadn’t been too happy about his new assignment, but he had accepted it without arguing. 

Now, two days later, Leia noticed that her son’s mood had worsened. His psychiatrist at Polis Massa had raised no red flags during Ben’s last visit, but she seemed concerned nonetheless.

“I think the disturbance in the force here affects him,” Leia said. “We need to find those acolytes fast. What if they’re working for Snoke, and this is another attempt to sway Ben to the dark?”.

Luke had felt the disturbance on Hosnian Prime, too. Barely ― it was small, a mere ripple in the Force, and the Jedi Master doubted Snoke laid behind it. It could be a natural occurrence. Still, Ben was very sensitive and if such a small abnormality would affect someone, it would be him.   

The Jedi master sighed for himself. 

Perhaps it had been a bad idea to let Ben return to the core worlds? 

During his mission for Senator Maalim Guhad with the animal inspectors, Ben seemed to have been doing just fine. Of course, his nephew was never truly well, Luke knew better than most. Still, there was a significant difference between inspecting space stations for illegal pit fighting and finding a lost person on a planet with trillions of citizens.

“Do you think we should call this off and find Ben a simpler mission?” Leia asked with an almost stated voice. “Maybe I could pull some strings and get him a spot on the environmental protection agency on Naboo? They announced yesterday that they will launch a new research project with the gungans on the importance of swamps in the local ecosystem”.

Before he answered, Luke took a large sip of his tea, herbal tea with green sea sow milk, and thought about their options. 

Naboo was a peaceful planet that still had a lot of its original nature intact, and force-sensitive individuals were very rare among the Gungan population. Theoretically, was the perfect environment for Ben. But Luke had a feeling his nephew would be very upset if they suddenly suggested a long-term stay in Otoh Gunga.

“No, I don’t think that is necessary,” Luke replied. “Finn is going to Hosnian Prime tomorrow to search for the acolyte’s ship. He is methodical and has a better hand with people than most. I will ask him to help Ben out with his mission. Maybe he just needs a little help”.

From the window of the commercial transport cruiser ‘Aashvi III’, Finn could see how the sun rose over Hosnian Prime, creating a ray of light that spread through space. From the exosphere, the planet looked like a dark orb with countless small, glowing veins of light. 

It had been a long time since he last visited the cosmopolitan ecumenopolis, and Finn had initially been delighted when Master Luke announced he would be sent to Hosnian Prime. He looked forward to doing more assignments on his own to prove himself ready for knighthood.

Luke had Finn had been tasked with tracking down the intruder’s ship. Chromatic hulls weren’t common with the help of the BSS records, the Bureau of Ships and Services on Hosnian Prime, Finn planned to use the process of elimination to make a list of glittering ships owned by suspicious types.

It wouldn’t be much of a problem, Finn thought. If he planned his time carefully and worked hard, he would have time to meet his friends, too. Both his best friend Poe and the Tico sisters worked at the Republic Navy’s airbase in Republic City.

But just before he was about to leave the temple, Master Luke stopped the padawan and asked him for a favor.

“I would be grateful if you could pay my nephew a visit and help him out with his mission”.  

While Finn had been looking forward to doing assignments on his own to prove himself ready for knighthood, this assignment was not something he looked forward to at all. The extra assignment itself wasn’t much of a problem; he could handle helping out with the investigation, and work on his and Voe’s mission at the same time.

But spending time with the disreputable, mentally ill Ben Solo? 

Finn silently cursed himself for always being too nice. In hindsight, he should have turned down the mission. He didn’t even know the man!

And why in the whole wide universe did Master Luke pick Finn for the mission? 

Of all the other Jedi knights and padawans at the temple, the only one who was still on friendly terms with Solo was Tai. But Tai was on a mission to Felucia, a terrestrial jungle planet in the Outer Rim to study its native population, the felucians, who were unusually force-sensitive. 

“Just do what Master Luke told you,” Voe had advised him. “Solo is looking for Chairman Ikari. You probably just have to talk to employees and secretaries at the City Council Spire”.

“Well, it’s too late to do anything about it now,” Finn mumbled to himself as the cruiser’s captain announced they would dock at bay 167 within ten minutes.

He cast one last look at his holopad and the file with details of Ben’s mission. A lost politician with an estranged wife and an uncooperative adult adopted daughter. Some debts, signs of corruption, nothing out of the usual, Finn thought to himself. He packed down the holopad in his backpack, emptied his cup of Jawa juice, and made his way toward the queue for the exit.  

The cruiser landed at the grand terminal in Republic City, and Finn quickly made his way through the stream of morning commuters to the regional terminal where he boarded a public transportation speeder heading for the Senate District where the Solo-Organa family lived. 

There was only one free seat left on the speeder and Finn had to squeeze himself through two heavyset ladies to reach it. Crammed between one of the female gilliands and the side of the speeder, Finn sighed and leaned his head against the window of the speeder to gaze out over the vast urban landscape. The remains of the porridge he ate for breakfast on the ship churned in his stomach as an unpleasant reminder of how nervous he was. 

As a Jedi, Finn was familiar with both Senator Organa and her husband. He had met the senator at several formal events and he had traveled with the Millenium Falcon and its famous captain on a mission to Corellia five years ago. They were both nice people, and Senator Organa was a very kind and humble person, which was rather unusual among the political elite, at least in Finn’s experience.

The urban landscape on the other side of the window transformed from shipping hubs, bays filled with container ships, and dented industrial buildings to imposing skyscrapers built by the galaxy’s most celebrated architects.

The senate district was one of the fancier districts on Hosnian Prime and the skyscraper the Solo-Organa family lived in was a magnificent piece of architecture; a tall, curved building in a smooth shade of anthracite. 

Finn took a moment to admire the impressive building before he entered the lobby on the entrance floor. A silvery droid, P-1, manned the lobby, and it registered his ID and purpose for the visit before he could proceed. After the formalities were done, Finn passed the automatic security check within ten seconds and then he proceeded to the turbolift.

“Upper floor, please”.

The lift brought him over a thousand meters up in the sky with a breathtaking speed and when it reached the upper floor, Finn almost felt a little dizzy. Once he stepped out of the lift, he was met by a short corridor with beige walls, illuminated by soft lights, and at the end, there was a single pneumatic door. 

Finn took a deep breath before he pressed the doorbell. The door opened up immediately with a soft hiss and before he could step over the threshold, Finn was greeted by the smiling face of Han Solo.

“Hey! I remember you! How is it going, Big Deal?” Han said as he greeted Finn with a friendly pat on the back.

“I feel like I could take a whole planet on,” Finn joked in an attempt to hide his nervousness. 

Han just laughed and gave him another pat on the back, easy-going as always.

“Sounds good, kid,” he grinned. “Ben could probably use some help. Take a seat and have some snacks. I’m gonna go and wake him up!”.

Finn nodded. “Uh, sure… thank you”. 

Han disappeared up the stairs and Finn sat down on one of the beige sofas with his hands clasped together. He looked around the lavish apartment, feeling a little out of place. The Jedi Temple was a place that breathed humbleness, and it was hard to think that the sister of Master Skywalker belonged to one of the richest families among humans in the galaxy…  

“Padawan Finn! How good to see you again!” a voice exclaimed behind him and Finn turned his head around to see the family’s golden protocol droid standing with a tray in his hands. Threepio put down the tray on the table and served Finn a small cup of sweet tea before he could protest.

“Master Ben has overslept again,” the droid lamented. “I’m afraid you will have to wait for him to get ready”.

Finn nodded. “I see, thank you, Threepio”.

The droid left Finn with the tea and from the upper floor, he heard rustle and father and son Solo squabble over something, but he couldn’t quite make out the words.

A few minutes later, Ben stormed down the stairs, and when he caught sight of Finn, he stopped dead in his tracks, just looking at the younger Jedi with a questioning gaze.

Ben had darker features than his dad, raven hair and dark brown, almost black eyes, skin pale as a sheet. The Jedi Knight was just a few years older than Finn himself, but despite his rather boyish appearance, Ben looked old beyond his age, tired and just… worn out. His Jedi robes were wrinkled and his hair tousled as if he woke up two minutes ago in a panic.

“I’m Finn, Voe’s Padawan. Master Luke said you could use some help,” Finn politely reminded the older man as he rose from the sofa. “You got the message, right?”.

“Right. I’m sorry, I forgot, I’m just…. tired,” Ben apologized quickly, running a hand through his thick hair. “Would you like caaf or something?”.

“I’m good, thank you,” Finn declined. “Take your time, I’ll wait here”.

Ben had stayed up until three in the morning, reading through the most recent of the documents Kaydel had transferred him until he couldn’t see straight anymore. He then went to bed, but despite that he had been tired, Ben hadn't been able to fall asleep and after an hour of tossing and turning back and forth, he had decided it wouldn’t hurt to try out the new sleeping pills Han had gotten for him on Kashyyk.

The black market pills had completely knocked him out; Ben had slept through his alarm and when he finally woke up, it was by Han shaking his shoulders and barking straight into his ear.

Ben jumped into his clothes and brushed his teeth at record speed. He grabbed his backpack and was just about to run to the kitchen to grab some quick breakfast when he spotted Voe’s padawan in the living room.

Finn.

He had actually read the message from Luke. Well, he hadn’t read it through properly, because his uncle just sent him the same kind of nagging messages anyway, but in hindsight, Luke had probably written something about sending the padawan over… 

Exactly why Luke had sent Finn over was something he could worry about later; Ben was past his schedule and he wouldn’t have time for a proper breakfast. He quickly searched through the cupboards and, to his relief, he found a package of vacuum-sealed instant soup.

He turned on the water boiler, poured the hot water along with the instant soup into a thermal cup, and tossed it into his backpack along with a protein bar. It would have to do.

“Ok, let’s go,” he said to Finn, who already stood ready at the door. 

“So… what are we doing today?” The padawan gave him an uneasy smile.

“We are going to the southern part of the Senate District,” he explained. “Chairman Ikari’s second apartment is there. If we’re lucky, there might be a maid, or a servant around that we can talk to. I visited his primary residence yesterday. There was none but a cleaning droid there and it wasn’t very helpful”.

“Sounds good,” the padawan replied. ”I’ve read up on him and his family so hopefully I can be of some help”.

Ben had felt a wave of relief wash over him that Finn seemed to have read through the memo already. He felt so tired that he could barely function today, let alone exercise his lacking social skills. If he was lucky, Ikari’s second apartment would be just as empty as the first one. Then he could dismiss the Padawan early, go home, and go back to sleep.

Finn nodded. “Alright, let’s go”.

The southern part of the Senate district was filled with deep red, high skyscrapers with accents of shining brass. Ben looked up in the sky and noticed patrol ships with guards and two high-tech security droids circling between the tall buildings and private floating gardens, a telltale sign they were in a wealthy area.

“Let’s see, it should be the fifth skyscraper to the left, and then the first apartment on the twelfth floor…”. 

The lobby was just as fancy as the outside; the walls and floor were made of polish-white marble and shining golden stucco work. The sides of the circular room were decorated with bushy mountain palms in tall ceramic pots. 

The door opened up and instead of the servant Ben had been expecting, a girl appeared at the door opening. She glanced at the visitors with curious eyes and when her gaze reached Ben, her pupils dilated and a surprised, almost shocked look appeared on her face.

“Is… that you?” she whispered. 

Ben opened his mouth to tell her his name and explain why they were there, but his mouth suddenly felt all dry and the words got stuck in his throat. 

The girl was tall with an athletic build, and pale skin scattered with small freckles. Her hair was dark brown and her eyes were golden; hazel-colored eyes that bordered on amber-yellow. He had never seen such beautiful, vivid eyes before, and Ben found himself unable to think or speak. 

He just remained frozen at the doorstep, staring at the girl like she was a ghost in broad daylight. 

From the corner of his eyes, Ben saw how Finn gave him an odd, puzzled look. He knew he should say something, do something, anything. But, it’s like he’s been caught in a trance and even if his life depended on it, Ben couldn’t take his eyes off the girl.

She looked at him, or rather, she pinned him with her sharp gaze, and Ben sucked in a breath, stunned by the intensity in her eyes. The girl narrowed her eyes like she was trying to determine whether she knew him or not.  A frown then appeared on her face and her eyes flickered with conflict. 

“No, it can’t be,” she mumbled in an almost inaudible voice. “You’re not him”.

Him?

Had they met before? There was something strangely familiar about her, something that told Ben he knew this girl, although he couldn’t put his finger on where or when he had seen her before. Could it be from the HoloNet, the senate, or one of his mother’s many events?

“Um, Solo…?”. 

The padawan looked to the older Jedi, waiting for him to say something, but Ben didn’t even register Finn’s gaze. He stood quiet, frozen to the ground while frenetically trying to remember where he had seen the girl before.

At his side, Finn waited for another two seconds until he cleared his throat. 

“Miss,” he said with a clear, steady voice. “I’m Finn, and this is Ben. We’re Jedi Knights”.

“Oh,” the girl blinked, and a gravely disappointed look appeared on her face for a split second. “My bad, I thought… I thought you were someone else,” she apologized, giving Ben a flickering gaze as if to make sure he wasn’t the one she had thought him to be.

“No worries,” Finn politely replied. “And you are?” 

“Just… call me Kira. Kira Ikari,” she replied with a hint of wariness in her voice.

It looked like she’d just gotten out of bed, Ben noticed. Despite it being past lunchtime, Kira was clad in a long black satin dressing gown with lace trim, and her dark brown hair was made into a messy bun.

”Can I ask what brings you here?” Kira asked. She pulled the dressing gown tighter around her chest as if chilled by the mild breeze that swept by.

As an answer, Finn gave Kira a bright smile that could have melted through durasteel. “We are looking for Chairman Ikari, is he at home?”

The younger man’s baby face and his friendly smile were some of his biggest assets; Finn was the type of person who always made people feel relaxed and comfortable around him in a way Ben only could dream of. 

Kira shook her head. “Not at the moment. But maybe I can help you?” she suggested, seemingly relieved by the answer. 

“I hope so,” Finn quickly replied, still smiling like a speeder salesman on Corellia. “May we come in?”.

“Of course”. The tall girl gave Finn a nod before she turned around and stepped back into the apartment, motioning the two Jedis to follow her.

The apartment’s walls were painted in an ultra-white shade and its sparse furniture is in several shades of white. In the hallway, there is a ceiling lamp, shaped like a circular helix, and Ben could hear the electricity pulsate through it, just like a bloodstream. 

Strange.

“I wasn’t aware that the Tax Agency employed Jedi Knights these days, nor that you did home visits,” Kira said as she led them into the living room. ”I’ve lost count of how many times I told my father to get a better accountant…”.

Ben couldn’t help but notice an amused tone in her voice. If she had been nervous at the door, it seemed to be all gone now.  

Speaking of nervousness…

Ben cleared his throat. He needed to speak — he was a Jedi Knight, finding Chairman Ikari was his mission and there was no excuse for him to tag along behind Voe’s padawan like a mute oaf. 

“We’re not working for the Tax Agency,” he said, focusing all his effort on keeping his voice steady. “We… We seek Chairman Ikari on the behalf of the New Republic”.

“Naturally”.

Kira gave him a sly look over her shoulder as she stepped into the living room. 

The living room was vast and painted in the same shade of white as the hallway. Ben noticed the curtains were withdrawn and there was a tray with unfinished breakfast on the table.

Kira gestured for Finn and Ben to take a seat in one of the white coaches before she sank down in front of her unfinished meal. “You don’t mind, do you?” she said. ”I haven’t finished eating yet”.

Ben shook his head. ”Not at all”.

Kira slumped down on the sofa and threw herself over the breakfast tray with a greedy enthusiasm Ben never had seen among upper-class girls before. With wide eyes, he watched the girl eat like she hadn’t seen food for days.  

“So, Ms. Ikari,” Finn continued in a calm voice, completely unaffected by Kira’s odd behavior. “When did you last see your father?”.

“He went on a leisure cruise with his mistress last month,” she replied with a small shrug before taking a sip of her black tea to swallow down the cereal. “I haven’t seen them since”. 

A leisure cruise?

The HPPD might be short of funding, but finding a well-known politician on a cruise was hardly a demanding task. Most likely, they would have found him drunk on a yacht circling the artificial lake on Cantonica within a day, Ben thought to himself. 

“Could you be a bit more specific? Finn tried. ”We need to know where they went”.

“Fhloston Paradise. I think?” Kira shrugged, obviously more interested in her breakfast than her family’s whereabouts. 

She might belong to the upper class, but she clearly lacked proper table manners. Ben hadn’t missed how she held the spoon in the wrong hand, picked in the food with her fingers, and talked with food in her mouth, a mortal sin when it came to table manners according to his mother. The way Kira ate puzzled him. She acted like she was raised on a backwater planet in the unknown territories, and not among the upper class on Hosnian Prime.

“I never heard of a place called Fhloston Paradise,” Finn said, giving Ben a questioning gaze like he wanted confirmation that he was on the right track. “In which star system is that?”

“I don’t remember,” Kira replied as she mashed an orange fruit into a pulp with her fork. “Somewhere in the Ash Worlds, maybe?”.

“The Ash Worlds?” Ben repeated.

As far as he knew, there was no such thing as a resort in the Kiirium Reaches because the entire sector was devastated by radiation from an old war between the Hutt clans. 

“Yes, I believe so,” Kira said, now blending the fruit pulp into a half-eaten bowl of cereal and plump seeds. Once the contents were fully blended, she devoured the whole bowl in five seconds and swallowed it down with a mouthful of tea.

“You believe, you mean you don’t…, I mean, you don’t know to which system they went?” Ben asked while he tried to force himself to not stare at her. He hadn’t seen someone eat so viciously since he saw a moray eel devour another fish whole on Vendaxa eight years ago. 

“Yes,” Kira gave him a sharp gaze over the edge of her teacup. “I’ve already told you I wasn’t certain,” she added, and this time there was a hint of irritation in her voice.

“Ms. Ikari,” Finn interrupted, once again saving the day, “Are you sure that your father didn’t tell you anything more? Which travel agency did they use, what company were they traveling with, when they planned to return, and so forth?”.

“No, he didn’t. We’re not close — we don’t talk very often”. 

“What about his mistress?” the padawan pressed on. “Do you know her name?”

“No”.

Finn questioned Kira further, and she answered all his questions in an unamused, bored tone like they were just wasting her time.

Her gaze adverted from Finn to Ben, training over his neck, shoulders, and further down his chest. Ben felt how his face flushed up involuntarily. He swallowed down the unwilling embarrassment and adjusted his tunic, pulling the neckline tighter together so that it concealed his collarbones and the beginning of the slight gap between his pectoral muscles. He glared back at her, but Kira just returned the gesture with a sly, unashamed grin. 

“Are you nervous, Master Jedi?” Kira questioned and when Finn didn’t reply, Ben realized that she was addressing him.

“What?” Ben cawed and Finn gave him an unimpressed glance. “Excuse me?”  

If Ben had known that Chairman Ikari’s daughter would outright ogle him the way she had, he would have worn one of those standard-issue white underskirts that reached up to the neck, just like Master Luke.  

“Your hands,” Kira pointed out with an amused, slightly mischievous smile playing on her lips. “They’re trembling”.

“Too much caaf,” Ben excused himself as he clasped his hands together. He was not trembling; it was just a very slight tremor, barely visible at all. One of all the side effects of his medication. 

“Is that true?” Kira challenged as she leaned over the table, pinning him with her sharp gaze. The expression on her face has gone from amused to outright sly.

Ben didn’t reply. He felt certain he was seconds away from breaking out into a blush. At his side, Finn pursed his lips and Ben saw how the frown on the padawan’s face grew deeper. 

“Thank you for your help, Ms. Ikari. We won’t take up more of your time, I’m sure you have plenty of things to do,” Finn said, coming to Ben’s aid a second time. “Please let your father know we’re looking for him”.

“Of course,” Kira smiled.

“Oh, and you might want to check the electricity,” Finn said as Kira followed them back to the door. “It’s not supposed to… pulsate like that. Maybe there’s a broken wire or something”.

Kira nodded.

“I’ll see to it. Goodbye, Finn. It was nice to meet you,” she said before turning her gaze back to Ben. “Master Jedi,” she added with a nod. 

“Well… that wasn’t very informative,” Finn sighed as soon as they were alone again. “I don’t think she was telling us the truth”.

“No… she probably wasn’t,” Ben mumbled in agreement.

He felt airheaded after the encounter with Kira. His thoughts were slow and he couldn’t think straight. It was like his neurons had clogged up, encapsulated in guck. If Luke had sent Finn to his aid hoping Ben would teach the younger man something useful today, his uncle would most likely be sorely disappointed.

“Weird girl,” Finn continued. “Did you see how she stared at you?”

He nodded. Even if he had been born blind, Ben was positive that he could have sensed her penetrating gaze. He couldn’t even remember the last time someone had been able to throw him off as Kira had done. It made him feel uneasy, and the more he thought about it, the more bizarre the whole situation seemed in hindsight.

“Are you okay?” Finn suddenly stopped in his tracks. “You seem…”.

“It’s nothing,” Ben quickly replied. “I’m alright. It’s just...  my new sleeping pills“.

“Okay,” the padawan replied, although he didn’t seem entirely convinced. “Maybe you should, uh, get your shrink to exchange them, or something?”

Shrink.

He hated that word. It made him feel like a madman. Crazy. Completely off the bat. Anyone could go to a doctor or a medic, but when you went to a shrink, everybody knew you were not…. right in the head.                         

Ben nodded, deciding it was pointless to deny his obvious issues. Everybody already knew, although nobody ever dared to say anything to his face. 

“I will,’ he promised.

He wouldn’t. 

Ben wasn’t even sure if it was the medicine. The presence, the force disturbance he had felt since he arrived on Hosnian Prime, if it was Kira, or something else. He had been a Jedi for almost two decades and never had someone affected him like that before. 

It was unsettling.

After he had met Ren the Nameless and the Knights of Ren, he had nightmares and anxiety for months afterward. But that was different, Ben reminded himself. The knights of Ren were rogue darksiders, and Kira was just a regular girl. When they had entered the apartment, he had felt absolutely nothing in the force, rather the opposite; it felt like entering a vacuum, which led him to the conclusion that the girl was as force-sensitive as a door-knob. 

The Jedi Knight sighed.

Regardless of the cause; Ben felt completely drained of energy after the encounter with Chairman Ikari’s daughter. He wanted to lie down and pull a blanket over himself for the rest of the day, but he had a visit to the Vice Chairman of the local council scheduled in two hours, so he had no choice but to keep himself together until the evening.  

“You know what, I have a meeting in two hours and I thought I meditate before that, so you’re free to go,” Ben said as he turned to the Padawan. 

“You sure?”

He nodded. “Yes. Thank you for your help. I appreciate it”.

After he had bid the Jedi knight farewell, a relieved Finn hurried back to the local station and threw himself onboard a public speeder set for the New Republic Starfighter Corps base on Hosnian Prime.

His friend Poe Dameron had sent him a message with the coordinates to a cantina near the base where they would meet up for a late lunch. 

The rustic cantina was full of guests. Finn looked around but didn’t see the pilot among the crowd, so he turned his gaze to the screens presenting the menu with bright letters in aurebesh. Paella, hot pot, stewed cabbage rolls, biryani rice… 

The list of available dishes went on and on, and when Finn stood trying to decide what to order, he heard a familiar voice call out behind him.

“Hey, buddy! Over here!”.

Finn turned around and saw his friend Poe at the other end of the cantina, waving his hands over his head.

“Hey Poe, I’m just checking out the menu!” Finn shouted back. 

“No, no, there’s no need for that. I’ve already ordered for both of us!”.

Finn was a little surprised, but shrugged his shoulders and made his way through the crowd back to his friend’s table. Poe greeted him with his usual smile and a big hug.

“It’s been way too long since I last saw you,” Poe said as they sat down at the table. “I almost thought you would settle down on that dusty rock”.

Finn laughed. “On Jakku, a desert planet? Oh, no, no, that’s not for me”.

They sat and chatted over the time that had passed since they last saw each other. Finn told Poe about his travels and the hunt for the darksiders while Poe told him about the recent advertising campaign for the New Republic Starfighter Corps he had fronted and how odd it was to see himself on recruitment ads all over the core worlds.   

“Two Castilon Clam Chowders,” the droid buzzed as it put down a tray with two large bowls of soup at the table.

What was it, oysters, slices of conch…. and lampreys?

It smelled good, but it looked suspicious; gooey parts of meat floating around in a mixture of milk and broth with pieces of onion and freshly chopped herbs.

 “Don’t look at it ― just eat it,” Poe advised with a grin when he saw Finn poking at the ingredients of his dish with skeptical eyes.

Finn shrugged his shoulders. He was not a picky eater, but he liked to know what he was eating at least. Fortunately, it tasted way better than it looked. While he ate, Finn realized how hungry he was as he hadn’t eaten anything since the porridge he had for breakfast on the cruiser.  

As he ate, Finn thought of Kira. Her primitive table manners and the way the older Jedi had looked at her, bewitched, like she was some kind of fairytale creature. While hanging out with Ben hadn’t been nearly as bad as he had feared, Finn couldn’t help but be perplexed by how odd the older Jedi had acted, and he wasn’t sure if the issues with his medication were the whole truth.   

“By the way, is Solo doing spice or something?” 

“Who?” Poe frowned as he gazed up from his bowl. “Ben Solo?” 

Finn nodded.

“Nah, don’t think so”. The pilot shrugged and turned his attention back to his meal. “Maybe he’s a roid juicer, though?”.

“Roid juicer?” Finn frowned as he leaned closer to his friend. “What is that?”.

Poe met his friend’s puzzled gaze with a crooked grin. “Anabolic steroids, Finn. You know the stuff that makes you build muscle easier”.

In his earlier years, during the previous economic low conjecture, Poe had tried his hand at a short-lived, but educating, career as a spice smuggler. His parents eventually found out and convinced him to enlist as a fighter pilot for the New Republic instead of running glitteryll to wealthy patrons in the core worlds.  

“Does that make you act odd?” the padawan questioned, still looking puzzled. He was not very familiar with spice and performance-enchanting substances. 

“I don’t know.”

Poe’s grin grew wider, clearly amused by his friend’s confusion. “Why don’t you ask him?” the pilot suggested as he fished up a slippery piece of mollusk meat with his spoon. “This stuff might look sketchy, but it’s so good. It tastes just like the clam chowder from Aunt Z’s cantina…”.

Finn grimaced and leaned back in his chair with a displeased look on his face. “I can’t just accuse a Knight of substance abuse, Poe”.

“Too bad,” Poe said as he emptied his bowl in one big gulp. “Why were you hanging out with Solo, anyway?”

“I was just helping him out,” Finn explained. “We questioned Chairman Ikari’s daughter in the Diplomatic District earlier today… and when she opened the door, Solo just stood there, staring at her without saying a word”.

Poe grinned. “Was she cute?”.

Finn chuckled. 

“I guess you could say that. Yeah, she was pretty,” he replied after a moment. “She looked like a little girl who had stolen her mother’s clothes, though,” he added and Poe just laughed as he leaned back in his chair.

“Oh yeah? Maybe that explains his reaction”.

“Mhm,” Finn gave his friend a knowing gaze. “But, I’m serious, Poe… Is Solo doing something?”

“Other than prescription drugs? Nah, I doubt that,” Poe admitted. “Ben is just a little… weird, for lack of better words. It’s nothing new  ― he’s always been like that. I don’t know him well, though, never had, he likes to keep to himself”.

“None seems to know him very well,” Finn replied, thinking of all the crazy rumors he had heard about Solo that seemed extravagated now in hindsight when he had met the man in person.

“Yeah. It gotta be hard to grow up with three living legends in the family when you’re struggling with mental illness,” Poe said, suddenly serious. “I mean, Leia and Han, they’re intergalactic heroes who have done so incredibly much for the republic and Ben…? The only thing he is known for is being… well, their crazy son who set the Jedi Temple on Ossus on fire”. 

Chapter Text

It was quiet in Rey’s white-painted, spartan apartment. Just the gentle humming of the ventilation system, the subtle noise of the refrigerator in the kitchen whenever it entered a new cycle. She could hear her heartbeat clear, hear her eyelashes scrape against the pillow. Feel the blood rushing through her veins like a wild spring river. 

Rey rolled onto her back. It helped against the scratching noises, but she could still hear her blood pumping at a rapid pace. Far above her normal pulse rate, a clear sign that the excitement was still singing in her veins from her encounter with the two Jedis yesterday.

It was four in the morning and the first rays of the morning sun would soon find their way through the window blinders. Rey had spent the entire night tossing and turning between the sheets. No matter which sleeping position she resorted to, the mattress either felt too hard, the sheets too stiff, too scratchy, or too warm.

Rey let out a frustrated groan.

It was impossible to fall asleep when it felt like every cell in her entire being was filled with fire, just waiting to burst out in flames. Her body was restless. Eager. Like a nexu in the deep woods of Malastare, smelling fresh blood. 

Until yesterday, Rey had felt like she had been walking through a thick, gray mist her whole life. But now, that mist had finally cleared. The moment she had been waiting for her whole life had come; Rey had found him. 

The Force had led him to her. 

She took it as a sign that they were meant to be. Fated to be. But his reaction, or rather his lack of an appropriate reaction to the situation, still gnawed at the back of her mind and filled Rey’s head with a myriad of unpleasant questions.

Why didn’t he recognize her?

Didn’t he feel it?

To Rey, it was crystal clear. In the same second as she laid her eyes on him, Rey knew who he was.  

Kylo.

Her Kylo.

It had to be him. Nothing else could explain the instant connection she had felt to the tall stranger. It had felt like every cell in her body had been set ablaze, and it was a lesser miracle that Rey had somehow managed to keep her cool. On the inside, a tsunami of different emotions had overwhelmed her. 

But he — he had just stood there. 

Dumbstruck. 

Staring at her like a clueless moron.

His reaction had struck Rey like a punch in the face of disappointment and, as if that wasn’t bad enough, he had turned out to be a Jedi knight. 

A Jedi named Ben.

The revelation instantly transformed her euphoria into confusion — and disappointment. It made little sense to Rey; how could that awkward, stuttering person possibly be the same person as her fierce dark knight? 

Kylo was like a force of nature; breathtakingly powerful, mercurial, and imposing. He fought flawlessly with a brutal grace that made Rey’s head swim with awe and desire.

In Rey’s eyes, he was truly everything a girl could wish for. His devotion to her knew no boundaries. If she asked him to, he would drown the entire galaxy in blood without question.

Just for her.

Could he really be the timid Jedi Knight who had appeared on her doorstep?

For a moment, Rey thought maybe she had made a mistake. Maybe her relentless longing and eagerness had caused her to see Kylo in strangers? 

She needed to know more and three minutes after two Jedis had left, Rey deeply regretted that she hadn’t just thrown on some proper clothes and followed them to see where they stayed. But her alter-ego Kira had a job to go to, and Rey couldn’t just forsake Kira’s duties to spy on her new, potential boyfriend.

While Rey kept up the charade, she had put her handmaidens on the task of finding out who Ben was, why he was investigating her fake father’s absence, and most importantly ― where he stayed for the mission.

As a former inquisitor for the Empire, Trilla Suduri was an expert in finding people, and Rey was positive that she could find out everything there was to know about Ben in an instant.

What was taking her so long? 

Rey pushed herself up from the bed and reached after her holopad on the nightstand. No messages. She pursed her lips. It had been hours since she had sent Trilla the request and she hadn’t answered yet. 

She scrolled down her contact list and pressed Trilla’s number. A couple of seconds later, the hologram of her second handmaiden appeared. She was a tall, slim, tan-skinned woman with vivid green eyes and shiny, page-cut black hair that reached her shoulders. 

“The Jedi Order has updated their security since I was a padawan,” she said before Rey could form a sentence. “It will take some time before I can access their database and I might not be able to do it unnoticed within the timeframe you wished”.

Rey groaned out loud with disappointment. Waiting was not an option; she couldn’t handle the suspension of not knowing. She needed to know who Ben was, and where he stayed, and she needed to know that now.

“I don’t care if you have to crash their entire intranet,” she bluntly told Trilla. “Just get me what I need and cover your tracks properly”.

Trilla let out a soft sigh. 

“Hux won’t be happy about this,” she carefully pointed out. “I’m sure you remember how he specifically told you to keep a low profile until the issue with Chairman Ikari is over”.

Right, Hux. 

Rey had almost forgotten about her neurotic chaperone. He could be troublesome, but at the moment, it felt like his disapproval was a small price to pay to satisfy her curiosity.

“Hux is visiting Illum to inspect how the construction of the Starkiller Base is going,” she said with a shrug to Trilla. “He won’t be back until after tomorrow”.

The Starkiller project was the crown of the First Order's arsenal. For years, their engineers and terraformers had worked to turn the arctic planet into a battle station unlike anything the galaxy had seen before. It was a planetary version of the Empire's old Death Stars, but with far greater power and range. It could fire from the Unknown Regions and annihilate a target in the Core Worlds. Once it was battle-ready, its mere existence would force the entire New Republic into submission.

“And when he does?”. 

“I’ll take care of him,” Rey promised, ignoring the warning gaze in Trilla’s eyes. “Get it done”. 

Despite his uneasiness after talking to Kira Ikari, Ben had pulled himself together for the meeting yesterday with the Vice-Chairman of the City Council, Eetu Attila. 

”Ikari grew increasingly stressed after his proposition was rejected. Paranoid, even. His popularity had been dwindling for some time, but in the HoloNew’s last poll, he had reached a record low. With less than 4% of the voter’s support, Ikari would lose his chair at the council”.

Just like Kaydel, Eetu painted a picture of a man under pressure. According to the Vice-Chairman, many of the local politicians and the staff at the council spire had noticed a change in Ikari’s behavior after Senator Xiono turned down his proposition about a new planetary defense system. 

As he ate breakfast, Ben searched the HoloNet for more information on what the ‘real folks’ thought about Ohtori Ikari.

Was he truly as unpopular as Attila had said? 

On one of the most popular message boards among humans on the HoloNet, Ben found a complete section dedicated to gossip about local politicians. The users discussed everything from Ikari’s alleged paranoia to his fraudulent tax returns and, between that, wild allegations about the chairman buying sex from underage trafficking victims and attending council meetings while under the influence of a spice called Pyrepenol.

During his lengthy stay at the Mental Health Clinic at Polis Massa, Ben had met more than a few other patients who had been suffering from substance-induced psychosis with paranoia. For some, it took weeks until the symptoms wore off.

“Maybe the spice could explain Ikari’s paranoia?” he mumbled to himself. 

“You shouldn’t believe everything you read, kid. It’s just a bunch of conspiracy theorists and liars who write on the HoloNet,” a familiar voice sounded behind him. Ben tore his eyes away from the holopad to his father, who stood at the kitchen door with his leather jacket slung over his shoulders and his old, battered travel bags packed.

“Where are you going?” he asked with a nod to the bags. “Chewie said you didn’t have any jobs this week”.

“We’re going to the Blackspire Outpost on Bantuu,” Han explained. ”Your mom needs supplies for her begging party next week”.

“You mean her fundraiser?” Ben corrected his father.

“It’s all the same thing to me”.

He smirked. “Yeah, right”. Han might have grown up poor with an absent father on the streets of Corellia, but for the last three decades, he had been living among the wealthy elite in the Core Worlds. 

“What did you say?” Han gave his son a disapproving gaze.

“Nothing,” Ben replied. “I’m just… relieved Chewie had time to repair the droid before you leave again”. 

“You were damn lucky he could fix that rust bucket. The D9-model was outdated already back when I was young”. 

A loud, rustling noise sounded from the hallway and Chewie growled, urging Han to hurry before the airspace got too crowded.

“Yeah, I’m coming!” Han growled back before he turned his attention back to Ben. “Alright, you will be on your own for a few days, you know what that means right? Don’t set the spire on fire while we’re gone now”.

”I won’t,” Ben bit back. He glared at his father and a flare of regret flashed in the older man’s eyes.

Han mumbled an almost inaudible excuse before he made his way out of the apartment and hurried after his first mate.

Ben remained seated at the kitchen table, staring down at the empty hallway. He knew Han didn’t mean any harm with what he said. His father wasn’t cruel. His father always spoke before he thought and not the other way around, Ben reminded himself. But that knowledge didn’t do a thing to curb the rage that built up like a storm within his ribcage.

No, he firmly told himself. You will not go down that road.

Control your feelings — or they will control you.

He refused to allow himself to brood over Han’s unintentionally hurtful words.

”I don’t have time for this,” he said to himself as he rose from the kitchen chair.

Ben needed to work. Officer Suwan expected a status report at the end of the week, and he was eager to put the mission behind him. The faster he could help Arpa Suwan and the HPPD to solve the Ikari case, the faster he could get a new mission.

A part of him desperately hoped that his uncle would see that Ben had improved and that he could handle regular missions. He longed to travel on his own again, and see the places he had only read about. Ben secretly dreamt of traveling to the old Sith Worlds and look for hidden temples, catacombs, and lost holocrons. 

Dromund Kaas, Ziost, Nicht Ka, Korriban. 

Ever since Ben found out his grandfather Anakin Skywalker also had been the feared Darth Vader, he had felt a need to know more about the Sith’s history and the ideology that made his grandfather turn his back to the Jedi Path. If Ben could understand what had driven Anakin to the dark, maybe he could also understand his own issues better.

Of course, neither Luke nor Leia would allow him to go on such a journey as long as they lived and breathed…

Focus, he reminded himself. I said no brooding today.

Ben’s plan for the day was to stay at home and work with the information he already had gathered. With the help of the droid, he could analyze it and hopefully put together a viable theory of what had happened to Ikari.   

He made himself a large can of tea and sat down on the sofa on the upper floor with his material. After that, Ben connected his holopad to the droid to sync over the reports he had stored on the Jedi Order’s intranet. But to his dismay, the intranet kept loading and, after almost five minutes, an error message popped up on the holopad’s screen. 

“Down for maintenance?” Ben sighed. “What is this?”

Fifteen minutes later, the error message persisted, so Ben went to the storage and searched through the dusty moving boxes for his old calligraphy supplies. Calligraphy and handwriting were a forgotten art in the high technologic societies of the core worlds. But there was something oddly soothing about writing by hand, and Ben had spent countless hours trying to master the art to perfection.

He ripped out a blank paper from one of his old notebooks and cut it into six squares. Out of the squares, he made small notes, one for each clue. The mistress, the alleged cruise, the debts, the corruption, the paranoia, the dwindling popularity in the polls, and the upcoming election.

Once he was done, Ben laid out all the notes on the coffee table. He sat back and let his gaze sweep over his work. It was like a puzzle or a game of strategy; all he had to do was to find the common thread.    

“Take a look at what we got,” Ben said as he tapped the droid’s head with his pen. “What do you think?”

With a series of short beeps, the bronze-colored droid stirred to life. “Understood. Initiating scanning sequence,” it replied with a monotone, synthetic voice that was common among older droids. In the next second, a blue light flickered through the room as IA-D9 scanned Ben’s handwritten notes.

“The data you presented suggests Ohtori Ikari was under mounting pressure,” the droid said. “Under these circumstances, he might be prone to irrational behavior”.

Ben sat straight up on the sofa. “What do you mean by ‘prone to irrational behavior’?”. 

“My algorithm shows it is likely Ikari went on a cruise to relieve stress. When his alleged substance abuse and debts are considered, the risk of an….”.

“Wait, wait,” Ben interrupted. “You think he went on that leisure cruise Kira talked about? And then, something went wrong during his spontaneous vacation and he either had an accident, got kidnapped or arrested, or…?”.

“Correct. His debts…”.

“His debts were to one bank controlled by IGBC. Not some shady loan shark,” the Jedi pointed out. “The IGBC doesn’t kidnap people for late payments”.

“With the information you provided, this is the most probable outcome. If you wish to see another result, you need to provide new data”.

“Are you joking with me?” he spat back at the droid.

IA-D9 assured Ben it was not joking and repeated its request for more material. Which he didn’t have because the intranet was still down.

Just his luck as usual in other words.

The sunrays shone through the panorama transparisteel windows of the IGBC spire in the Financial District on Hosnian Prime where Rey Palpatine sat at a marble longboard in one of the bright conference rooms on the 346th floor.

A mining company on Hays Minor in the Otomok System with debts to one of the IGBC’s banks had gone bankrupt and Rey had spent the whole day discussing with the liquidator, two representatives from the company, and its stockholders how to restructure the company’s unmanageable debts. 

“All sales will go under the Bankruptcy Code, as usual, but since Hays Minor lacks a local court…”.

Rey tried to focus, but she couldn’t concentrate on the liquidation procedure. Instead, she stared like transfixed at the sleek water dispenser in the corner of the room. It rustled softly, and a lone bubble floated to the top of the surface.

“Miss Ikari? Do you want to take a break?”

“It’s unnecessary,” Rey gave the liquidator a distant gaze. “Please, continue”.

Normally, she would have been more interested in the meeting because the First Order was always on the hunt for new mineral resources. Equipping an army that craved enormous amounts of metal and a company that bled credits was easy to infiltrate the legal way.

If she could arrange so that a majority of the company’s shares were to be sold for a good price to an investment company the First Order controlled, in exchange for influence on decisions and a couple of board seats, she might even get a personal thank you note from Brendol Hux. But at the moment, Rey couldn’t care less about the First Order’s need for raw material. 

All she could think about was Kylo. 

For years, Rey had dreamt about him at night, and during the days he filled her daydreams. When she closed her eyes, Rey could hear him say her name, could feel the texture of his synth leather-clad, powerful hands as they ghosted over her face, her neck...  

Rey.

Their encounters always felt so physical, even if they just occurred inside Rey’s head. Just thinking about it made her body flare with heat and Rey pressed her thighs together for some relief. Just the thought of him and all the hard lines of his body made her embarrassingly wet.

Was it because she had been lonely for so long, or was it because of their bond?

Ever since she first became aware of Kylo, Rey had sensed a connection between them that defied explanation. On more than one occasion, she had wondered if their connection was a dyad. It meant that those two beings were one in the Force, and the power that bound them together was strong like the power of life itself. Her grandfather had described it as an incredibly rare phenomenon. So rare that it had been unseen for many, many generations... 

"It must be," Rey mused to herself. "We're destined to be together... like soulmates".

"Ms Ikari?".

"Huh?".

Rey blinked. She had barely noticed that the room had grown quiet and the faces of the executives seated at the conference table were etched with confusion. Everyone was looking at her. Or rather, staring at her so intensively that it looked like their eyes were about to pop out of their eye-sockets any second. Rey sighed. She had been so caught up in her fantasies that she had forgotten all about Tonmak Offworld Mining's bankruptcy. 

"Forget what I just said," she said, pulling out their memories with a subtle flick of her wrist. "Let's take a break. Why don't you all.... take the elevator down to the 184th floor and take a look at the lovely oil painting in the lobby?".

Like clockwork, the others rose from their seats and collected their datapads while mumbling about the fantastic painting the Insurance department had acquired. As they left the conference room, she let out a relieved breath 

'I better not let that happen again; I need to stay focused,' Rey thought to herself.

Hopefully, Trilla would get back to her with the information she craved.

Fast.

Three hours later, the Jedi Order’s intranet was finally back online. Ben noticed the tax agency had sent him copies of the Ikari family income-tax return and Suwan’s assistant Abashi had sent him a summary of their own investigation of the chairman’s personal finances along with a message to Ben.

“We didn’t find any transactions that suggest Ikari purchased or booked any kind of leisure trip or other trip either, for that matter. His last purchase was made at the convenience store outside the senate building”.

Unfortunately, the Ikari family’s economy was like a proverbial stack of hay and the more Ben tried to make any sense of it, the more confused felt. He discovered that the chairman only owned one of his apartments. The one Kira lived in and the one on Coruscant seemed to be owned by some foundation with its seat on Muunilinst and the wife’s apartment was owned by the biotech company she worked for.

But if Ikari’s economy was messy, it was nothing against Kira’s. From what Ben could make out, she was the manager for at least one hedge fund, the trustee of five different trust funds, and the beneficiary of another. As if that wasn’t enough, she was also involved in at least eight different companies.

“Ugh. What a mess…,” Ben muttered to himself as he scrolled through the report. “No wonder the Tax Agency’s investigation has taken so long”.

Kira seemed to like to move around assets and ownership of properties and spacecraft between the funds and companies she managed like it was some sort of game of hide-and-seek and it was impossible to pin out what the girl actually owned.

With a sigh, Ben leaned back onto the couch and stared up at the ceiling. The feeling of being severely unqualified grew stronger with each hour he spent trying to figure out what had happened to the Ikari family’s patriarch.

As if he hadn’t had enough problems with the case, he had also noticed that the disturbances in the Force had grown more intense since his return to Hosnian Prime. Fast. What had started as a brief presence had gradually increased to the point that Ben feared it might threaten to burst through his carefully constructed defenses sooner or later.

Maybe Uncle Luke had been right, maybe the dark side was on the rise again and the darksiders on Kef Bir were only the beginning of what was to come? 

"There’s no point in pondering over that", Ben thought to himself. "Your mission is to find Chairman Ikari. Nothing else".

To keep himself from entering a spiral of destructive thoughts, Ben took a break and made himself dinner. Buckwheat noodles with cabbage and slices of canned, fried bean curd. While he ate, Ben went through his notes again and despite the significant amount of caaf he had been drinking, he felt exhausted.

Surely he would think better after a quick nap. It couldn’t hurt, could it? 

When the meeting with the liquidators and the company representatives finally was over, Rey hurried back to her office.

Just as she expected, Trilla Suduri was waiting outside. She sat in one of the white lounge chairs with a half-empty plastic to-go cup in her hands and a tired expression on her face.

”You’re late,” Trilla flatly remarked. 

”I’m aware of that,” Rey muttered as she swiped her keycard to open up the door.” The liquidator just kept on and on. I almost thought I’d have to choke him to make him shut up”.

Trilla rolled her eyes and emptied the cup of guanabana juice before she rose to her feet and followed the heiress into the office.

Rey’s office was an impersonal room painted in a pale, almost white shade of green. It was decorated with a large desk made of gray marble and two matching upholstered chairs. Along the walls stood several cabinets, picked out by one of the IGBC’s interior designers. The ceiling was high and linen with white, classical stucco work. Right above Rey’s desk hung an antique crystal chandelier, made of crystals from the mountains of Muunilist.

“Here,” Trilla said, tossing a neatly wrapped gift package with lokum to Rey before slumping down in the chair in front of the desk. 

Rey ripped the package open and fished up a piece of light blue confectionery. It tasted wonderful and gave her a well-needed boost of sugar. The muuns preferred their traditional cuisine, even on Hosnian Prime, and the only restaurant in the IGBC’s skyscraper served nothing but seafood dishes, which primarily consisted of mollusk meat served with different kinds of algae and seaweed. 

“So, what did you find out?” she said, turning her gaze to the Second Sister.

“I did what you asked me to”.

“And?”. 

“And you won’t like it”.

"Won't I?" Rey scoffed softly and tossed another piece of candy into her mouth. "Don’t tell me he’s my long-lost cousin and you worry our children will be ill and deformed".

Trilla gave Rey a tired gaze, unamused by her poor attempt at a joke.

“On the contrary; He is Darth Vader’s grandchild ― his parents are Senator Organa and Han Solo”.

Rey blinked in surprise and Trilla took the opportunity to snatch one of the plum-colored candy cubes from the gift bag. 

Was Ben the child of Leia Organa, the senator the HoloNews revealed to be the daughter of Darth Vader a few years ago?  The very arch-nemesis of her own family. After Vader’s betrayal, her grandfather had developed a deep hatred for the entire Skywalker bloodline, and Rey was sure he had gruesome revenge planned for his former apprentice’s offspring in the not-too-distant future. 

“Are you serious?” she said with a frown, mouth still full of candy. ”He is a Skywalker then?”.

Trilla nodded. 

“Vader’s grandchild…,” Rey mused to herself as she sank back against her chair. "How curious".

The odds for her to find her soulmate in Anakin Skywalker’s grandchild must have been microscopic. At the same time, it also made sense, and it explained why Kylo was so powerful. The heir of Darth Sidious and the heir of Darth Vader. It was almost poetic, Rey thought.

They sat quietly for a couple of minutes, chewing on the remaining candy while Rey contemplated her next move. 

“Where is he now?”

“He is staying with his parents in Republic City for now,” Trilla revealed. “Luckily for you; the Millenium Falcon left Hosnian Prime for Batuu in the morning and Senator Organa is on Coruscant for a political debate show tonight”.

Rey’s eyes gleamed. “Maybe I should pay him a visit?”.

“I figured you would say that,” Trilla replied. “Here,” she said as she picked up a memory stick from her purse and handed it over to Rey. “It contains the blueprint over the skyscraper they live in, complete with security information”.

Rey raised an eyebrow. “How well-guarded is it?”. 

“Organa has her personal security guards, but they will be with her on Coruscant. A security company guards the skyscraper with both regular personnel and droids. It shouldn’t be an issue for you though, unless the Jedi puts up some resistance”.  

“I almost wish he would,” Rey replied with a smirk. “I would very much like to see what he can do...”.

One hour later, Rey stood outside the anthracite skyscraper that harbored the Organa-Solo family. It shimmered beautifully as it reflected the last rays of the afternoon sun.

I’m coming for you.

Rey pressed her clutch against her chest as she took in the sight of the impressive building. Ben was there. She could feel him like a slumbering presence at the back of her mind. 

She had already figured out that Ben kept himself cut away from the Force, just like Rey herself did occasionally. As the heir to the Sith and a Palpatine, she had a good reason to hide her true identity, but why a common Jedi would do such a thing had first perplexed her. But as soon as Trilla had revealed who Ben was, it became clearer. 

As Vader’s heir, Ben was bound to have darkness within, and now when he was unguarded, Rey could feel it clearly. His loneliness, frustration, anger, and fear. 

All those forbidden feelings he did his best to keep hidden, both from himself and others. There was nothing the Jedi feared like the dark, and Luke Skywalker probably preached the same narrow-minded doctrine as his predecessors had done. 

'I could show him', Rey thought to herself. 'Show him there is another way'.

”Excuse me, miss,” a voice cawed.” Was it you who called before and requested help?

A green-skinned rodian in a dirty blue jumpsuit stood behind the desk, examining the silvery droid with a puzzled expression on his face.

Before Rey had left her office, she had given the company that took care of security and maintenance a call and complained about the droid having issues. 

“It was,” Rey said, giving the technician her regular polite smile. “How is it going?”. 

“I’m sorry, miss, but I find nothing wrong with the droid,” the rodian replied. “What did you say your issue was again?”.

“Oh. There isn’t anything wrong with it,” Rey grinned mischievously. 

The rodian unconsciously took a step back. With her strength in the force, Rey could compel most beings without effort. She could compel them, play with their minds as if they were mere mindless puppets, and the rodian in front of her was no exception. 

“If I were you, I would take the system down for about two-three hours”.

The insect-like humanoid stared back at Rey, trying to make sense of what she said.

“What? Why would I do that?”.

“Because I said so,” Rey replied. “If anyone asks, you’re performing emergency maintenance”.

”I’m going to do an emergency maintenance,” the rodian repeated, now completely under Rey’s spell. ”It’ll take at least two hours”.

“Excellent”.

With the security system down, it was easy to pick the electronic lock to Senator Organa’s floor. One tiny pulse of Force Lightning was all it took for Rey to force the lock open. The pneumatic door slid open with a soft hiss, revealing a hallway lined with light grey tapestries. 

At the end of the hallway, a golden protocol droid stood with an old-fashioned duster, carefully dusting a white bust of the late Bail Organa. The droid froze, its photoreceptors flickering as it turned to Rey stepping over the threshold.

“Hello! I came to see Ben,” she said brightly to the startled droid.

“Oh, Hello! I’m afraid you arrived at a bad time. Young master Ben has fallen asleep”.

Rey grimaced. “Asleep?”.

“Yes. Would you like me to wake him up?” the droid asked, seemingly anxious. 

Rey hadn’t made up a plan for what she would do once she had made it into the Solo-Organa family’s home. Once she stepped over the threshold and spotted the golden droid, her first thought was to pretend Kira had suddenly recalled some new information about her father’s cruise that she wanted to share with Solo. 

It would be a good way to further test how susceptible the Jedi Knight was to manipulation. Considering how nervous he had been yesterday, Rey was absolutely thrilled to see how he would react to a personal visit from Kira.

But if he was asleep… that could offer a rare opportunity for her to snoop around and see how close to the truth Ben’s investigation was. 

“There is no need for that. I’m not in a hurry,” Rey replied, quickly putting the facade back on again. “Would you mind making a cup of tea while I wait, please?”.

Despite she had been brought up with a religion that didn’t teach compassion, Rey had always had a weak heart for droids and non-sentient beings that not even the Sith Eternal could take away. She would have to adjust the droid’s memory before she left, but for now, Rey decided to let it be. 

“Certainly!” the droid happily exclaimed as it made its way to the kitchen.

Once the droid was out of sight, Rey’s curiosity got the better of her. She couldn’t simply resist snooping around the apartment just for fun. 

Quietly, she ventured into Senator Organa’s private study where heavy burgundy curtains, soft, beige tapestry, and synth wood furniture with golden decor met her. It made Rey think of the Theed palace on Naboo and she wondered if the senator had her biological mother in mind when she had decorated the study. 

If the study was inspired by the architecture of Naboo, then the bedroom was inspired by Alderaan. It was decorated in soft shades of blue and gray. There were sheer curtains, a lavender-colored carpet, a perfectly made bed decorated with a gray throw made of a velvet-like material… Big, antique alabaster lamps. Probably from Alderaan, too, Rey thought as she ran her hand over Leia Organa’s sleek bed throw.

But what caught Rey’s attention in the room was a collection of old holos at the top of a big, antique drawer.

The first one showed her the image of a young man with golden-brown hair, sparkling blue eyes, a bright smile, and the typical complexion of a teenager. 

“Luke Skywalker,” Rey murmured to herself as she inspected the holo carefully. The Jedi Master looked so young and impossibly innocent on the holo compared to the images Rey had seen of him in the Sith Eternal’s archives on Exegol.

Maybe he once was.

She put back the holo and picked up the next one. The image of a young Han Solo looked back at her with a crooked, mischievous grin. The intergalactic heartthrob was dressed in a yellow shirt, unbuttoned down to the chest, a black vest, and blue trousers with a red facing. His grin was captivating, and it was easy to believe how the senator eventually fell for his roguish charm.

Han Solo had been really handsome back in the days, and Rey suppressed a giggle as she studied the holo. 

There were more holos, mostly of family and friends of Leia Organa, and Rey didn’t recognize many of them. One of the oldest, tattered holos showed a young woman dressed in the kind of gaudy, extravagant costumes the royalties on Naboo favored. Her brown hair was braided into an extremely advanced haircut and, although there was a faint smile on her lips, the woman’s brown eyes carried an unmistakable sadness.

“This must be her birth mother, Padmé Amidala,” Rey mumbled to herself. 

Rey’s grandfather might be full of secrets, but he had generously shared all his knowledge about the Skywalker family with her. 

Another one of the old holos, also from the era before the Clone Wars, showed a man in Jedi regalia in front of the old Jedi Temple on Coruscant. He had blue eyes, red-brown hair, and a thick beard. On his lips, Rey saw a small, humble smile.

“Ben Kenobi… No wait, Obi-Wan was his real name, wasn’t it?”.

Rey scrutinized the holo of the young Kenobi for almost an entire minute before she put it back onto the drawer. She made sure to arrange the holos back in the same order the senator initially placed them before she continued to investigate the room. The door to the closet stood half-open, and Rey couldn’t resist taking a quick peek into the Senator’s wardrobe to see if she still had one of her white, iconic dresses left.

Sadly, she didn’t find it. Senator Organa’s wardrobe mostly consisted of boring, strict formal wear meant for the senate. But at the back of the wardrobe, in an antique hardwood chest, Rey found a treasure.

Proper dresses.

The chest was full of colorful gowns and dresses. Without thinking, Rey slipped out of her black spandex bandage dress and slipped into the floaty vintage gown. She had never seen Organa wear anything like it. It didn’t seem like her style either; too girly and romantic for the senator who preferred stricter dresses with full coverage, so Rey concluded it must have belonged to Padmé.

Rey twirled around in front of the mirror and the lightweight fabric of the dress floated around her legs like sheer banners fluttering in the wind.

“I look like a fairytale princess”.  

Enough of silliness—she hadn’t broken into the senator’s home to play around. Rey quickly changed back into her own clothes and put the dress back into the chest.

As soon as she stepped out of Leia Organa’s room, the golden protocol droid approached her with a serving tray in its hands.

“I regret to inform you we only had Cassius spruce tea at home,” the droid said. “It’s rather bitter, some people say, but I hope it will suffice!”.

“It sounds lovely,” Rey said with a smile. “Thank you”.

With the tray in her hands, she ventured to the upper floor. The living room there was more modest than the luxurious living room on the entry floor; walls painted in a soft shade of gray with a speck of blue that reminded Rey of the color of the senator’s bed throw and they had covered the wide windows with white sheer curtains for privacy. The floor was covered with a loop pile rug in a darker shade of gray and heavy wooden bookshelves covered almost all the walls.

In the middle of the room, there was a group of three white sofas surrounding a circular coffee table of glass with wooden legs. On one of the sofas, Rey spotted Ben Solo asleep under a thin blanket, clad in a beige heavy cotton tunic with matching pants and white ankle socks. He looked so young and innocent while he slept and Rey couldn’t help but wonder if Kylo was alive, somewhere deep within the man in front of her.

She sat down on the sofa that stood opposite to the one Ben slept on. 

The coffee table between them was cluttered with holobooks, notes, a long handwritten to-do list, and an empty glass. Rey smirked as she peered over Ben’s notes. 

Such an idle researcher. 

It looked like he had been in the middle of going through information from the Tax Agency and the Hosnian Prime Police Force when he took a power nap and unintentionally fell into a deep sleep.

Carefully, Rey searched through Ben’s stack of hand-written notes and, to her relief, she saw that he had found nothing substantial. Still, he was on the right track. Rey had to give him that, even though he was not close enough to the truth for her to be worried.

She still had plenty of time to decide Otori Ikari’s fate.

For years, Chairman Ikari had been an asset. One of many tools for the First Order to use, but with his increasing paranoia, the man had become a nuisance instead of an asset. Rey suspected Ikari had somehow had snapped up information about the Starkiller Project and even if the man sympathized with the First Order’s ambition to recreate the Galactic Empire, he seemed to have been deeply disturbed by the thought of a weapon with a capacity surpassing the old MK Death Star. 

Paranoid or not, Ikari might still hold some value, Rey thought to herself.

She then turned her gaze back to Ben. Being so close to him was like being in a magnetic sphere; the force literally radiated from him. It was so strong that it was almost palpable, even if he slept.

“That kind of power… The other Jedis must be quite uneasy around him,” Rey thought to herself as she took another sip of her tea. 

Despite his strength in the Force, Ben seemed to be nothing like the brutal warlord in her dreams. The darkness Kylo wielded… it was potent, like botulinum toxin. Even if the same darkness slept within Ben, Rey was certain that the sleeping Jedi in front of her wouldn’t be able to wield it. Not in his current state, at least.

Rey leaned back on the sofa and let out an inaudible sigh.

It was fair to say Ben wasn’t quite what Rey had expected him to be, and in all honesty, it made her a little wary. How in the whole wide universe was she going to usurp her unimaginably strong grandfather with the aid of a struggling Jedi?

Rey tilted her head to the side as she let her gaze wander over the sleeping man. Although he wasn’t what she had expected him to be, at least Ben had the kind of powerful body Rey appreciated when it came to men. 

She sat with the empty teacup in her hands for what felt like an eternity, just watching Ben Solo sleep while her thoughts churned inside her head — what was she supposed to do now?

Chapter Text

When Ben finally woke up from his nap, the sun had almost gone down completely and the sky above Republic City had turned into a rose-colored hue. Stiff from hours on the sofa, Ben stood up and cracked his neck.

He glanced over at his paper notes. Did he leave them in that order? Ben furrowed his brow. Something was wrong. He had felt it as soon as he regained consciousness, like a prickling sensation on his skin. 

Someone had been in the apartment while he had slept.

Startled by the realization, Ben reached for his lightsaber. He slid his finger above the activator switch, pondering whether he was justified to activate it. For being a Jedi, Ben used the saber extremely seldom. Master Luke preferred it that way. Leia insisted, too — the two of them never lost an opportunity to remind him that you didn’t need a lightsaber to be a great Jedi or serve democracy and the people of the New Republic.

But none of them were there now.

Ben activated the lightsaber, and within a split second, its blue blade appeared with a soft hum. 

With the lightsaber in his hand, he hurried downstairs. Ben inspected the apartment, room by room, as carefully as he could. The living room, Leia’s study, his parent’s bedroom, the terrace, the storage, and the washing room, but there was nobody there and nothing that seemed to be out of order, or stolen. Leia’s safe still stood untouched.

Perplexed, Ben deactivated his lightsaber again. 

The only sign of forced entry he could find was in the hallway, where the panel to the door displayed an error message.

F25: Electrical overcharge. Service required.

“An electrical overcharge, straight after a system maintenance?” Ben frowned as he tapped at the panel to see the log. “What happened here?”.

In the kitchen, he found Threepio, standing before one of the cabinets, polishing Leia’s ancient silverware. The dishwasher was on, halfway through its program. A wooden serving tray and a half-filled teapot left on the counter caught his eye. That had not been there earlier and while Ben had many issues, sleepwalking wasn’t one of them. 

“Threepio!” he growled at the droid. “Did you let anyone in while I was asleep?”.

C3-PO ceased with the polishing and turned his gaze to Ben. 

“I certainly did not!”.

“Then answer me this; who did you make the tea for?”.

“Tea? I did not…,” Threepio replied as he turned his head to the counter where the teapot stood. Like most droids, the old protocol droid only had one facial expression. But if he could display a shocked face, Ben was certain he would.

“Oh my... I'm afraid I don’t remember,” the droid said, clearly confused. “My deepest apologies, young Master Ben. There was system maintenance in the building in the afternoon. Maybe it somehow affected me, too?”.

Ben felt the unwelcome sensation of rage swell within. 

The acolytes on Kef Bir suppressed Jannah’s and the other warden’s memories, and now, someone had done the same thing to Threepio.

“Forget it,” he snapped back at the droid. “I’ll find out for myself”.

Sadly, the surveillance footage didn’t offer him any clues. It revealed nothing out of the ordinary. But straight after the system maintenance began, there was a static noise that lasted for almost two hours. Plenty of time to lurk around, do maker only knows what, and have Threepio make tea.

But for what purpose?

Ben swallowed as he felt the panic rise along with the paranoia in his chest.

What was this, some sick game? 

One thing was for certain; he needed to be much, much more careful from now on.

In a modest apartment on the 147th floor of an old durasteel skyscraper in Galactic City, Coruscant, Armitage Hux woke up to the sensation of being trampled by four small paws. He slowly opened up his sleep-riddled eyes to see a big red cat standing on his chest. The cat looked back at the redhead with its green eyes for a long moment before it let out a demanding meow.

Hux leaned his head back against his pillow with a groan. His alarm hadn’t gone off yet, which meant it was before five in the morning. Armitage was a morning person, but this was way too early, even for him.

“For the love of our Supreme Leader, Jonesy, it’s barely morning! How can you possibly be hungry already?”. 

Jonesy looked back at his owner with a questioning gaze and let out another high-pitched meow. The sound caught the attention of Hux’s other cat, a red female named Millicent. She sat down on the threshold to the bedroom and chimed in the lamentation with Jonesy. 

With a sigh, Hux gently pushed the cat off his chest and pulled the cover over his head. He had a headache and absolutely no motivation to get out of bed at such an ungodly hour.

His trip to Illum had been educational and disappointing at the same time. As soon as he visited the building site, he spotted flaws in the construction and the workforce was poorly organized. The overseer his father had picked was a complete imbecile without a proper technical education, and he had no sense of order, either.

No wonder the battle station was months behind schedule.

Back on Coruscant, Hux decided he deserved some leisure and went on a date. His busy schedule seldom allowed him such indulgences, so he spent the entire flight from Illum searching for a date who met his standards. Yesterday, they met up at a nightclub in the Entertainment District.

But, just like his trip to Illum, the date turned out to be a disappointment. The man was at least ten years older than his profile claimed and nowhere near as fit as his photos suggested. Worse, he had been rude and to top it off, he wanted Armitage to pay for his drinks when the miserable evening was over.

Just thinking of yesterday’s disaster was enough to make Hux’s headache worse — if there was one thing Armitage Hux couldn’t stand, it was bad manners.

Eventually, he gave up on trying to sleep and got out of bed. He fed Millicent and Jonesy, who devoured their meal as if he hadn’t been feeding them like clockwork three times a day, before making himself breakfast and brewing a full can of his favorite tea.

Once they were content, Jonesy returned to his favorite spot on the sofa while Millicent jumped up onto Hux’s lap.

“Yes, I know, I know,” Hux mumbled as he scratched the cat’s head. “You miss our quarters on the Finalizer, don’t you? This womp rat nest is certainly below our standards…”.

How a man with enormous potential, like Armitage Hux, ended up at the First Order’s Propaganda Office on Hosnian Prime instead of the main bridge of a cutting-edge star destroyer was nothing but a cosmic joke.

Hux had, with the aid of Captain Phasma, tried to assassinate his father in order. But General Brendol Hux had miraculously survived the poison and Armitage’s short-cut to promotion had backfired. His father might be mad, but he wasn’t stupid; Brendol understood that his son probably had something to do with the assassination. He couldn’t prove it, of course. But the old man had pulled every string he had, and Armitage had been reassigned to the propaganda division as punishment.

Armitage saw himself foremost as a military man ― he was no bureaucrat. 

Even if he was passionate about the First Order’s mission, bringing back order to the galaxy, his talents could have been put to so much better use elsewhere. As the local chief of the propaganda division, Hux’s mission was mainly to enlighten people about the flaws in the democratic system and create distrust and discontent among the voters. It also included seeking politicians and prominent citizens with influence who were eligible for corruption and paying them to push the First Order’s narratives.

But today, he would devote the day to damage control of Rey’s actions. Hux relished the bitter taste of his tea while he flipped through the schedule for the day on his holopad. Meetings, meetings, and lunch with Rey. It had been a while since he last spoke with the girl in person. 

When he had received a transmission from a First Order security officer questioning him about the Jedi who had been assigned to the Ikari-case and the data intrusion of the Jedi Order’s intranet the following day, Hux knew in an instant that Rey was behind it. 

Watching over the young Palpatine had been a fairly simple task when she was young, but the older she got, the more she acted out. Lately, Rey and her whims had been nothing but a headache for Hux.  

Hux’s assistant had called him at once when the two Jedi had shown up at Rey’s apartment, but the visit itself had not worried Armitage. Naturally, Ikari’s disappearance would stir some attention because of his position in the local council and Rey could easily handle being interrogated by two common Jedi. 

Her following stunt, however, had come as a shock. Breaking into Senator Organa‘s private residence and hacking the New Jedi Order’s Intranet. It was unusually foolhardy, even for the young heiress.

He opened up his inbox where a gigantic file with scanned copies of Ben Solo’s journals awaited him, straight from his contact at the First Order’s investigation bureau. Armitage ran a hand through his unbrushed hair, unsurprised with the content. 

“Snoke’s failed pet project resurfaces, I see”.

Hux knew of Ben Solo. A couple of years ago, Snoke had tried to recruit him to the First Order, but the plan had backfired and Solo’s parents had hidden him away on Polis Massa.

Unfortunately, the First Order’s investigation bureau didn’t gain access to this information until much later, and when a delegation from the Final Order arrived at the Supremacy with Rey Palpatine, Snoke put his plan on recruiting the mentally ill Solo as an apprentice permanently on ice. 

Hux eyed through the files with mild interest until a picture attached to the patient profile caught his attention. 

The holographic picture of Ben Solo looked suspiciously similar to a mugshot. He wore a loose-fitting plain, short-sleeved blue tunic. Raven-black tousled hair. Dark circles under his wide eyes, dilated by the cocktail of drugs the kallidahins had given him, and his blank facial expression told the story of a young man who had crumbled under the pressure on his shoulders.

A story Armitage himself was all too familiar with.

Hux tilted his head to the side, resting his chin in his palm as he examined the hologram closer, his gaze lingering on Solo’s impressive shoulders.

He wouldn’t call the man handsome, not with his slightly incoherent facial features and prominent nose, but there was something undeniably alluring about Solo Hux couldn’t put his finger on.   

Could that something have been what caught Rey’s interest?

The poor man probably didn’t have a clue that the heiress was after him, Hux thought, and couldn’t help but pity the unfortunate Jedi Knight. Rey could be relentless. If he knew the girl right, she would gladly sell her grandmother, if she even had one, to get her way.

One thing was for sure; if Ben Solo wanted to escape Rey’s claws, he should have been on an unregistered ship destined for the wild space, and he should preferably have boarded that ship yesterday.

At the First Order’s Propaganda Bureau, the morning meetings leaped by smoothly. Hux had hand-picked his staff to make sure they were all as hardworking, competent, and devoted as he was. He worked without breaks from early morning to midday, and when it was time for lunch, Hux went to meet Rey. 

The restaurant was located at one of the highest levels in the Financial District of Galactic City with an incredible view over the urban landscape. They had built it on a gigantic terrace enclosed between three connected skyscrapers, which housed a luxury shopping mall for wealthy tourists and rich locals. 

Just in time, Rey appeared in the restaurant like a whirlwind. 

She looked unusually nice today, Armitage noticed. The girl wore a floaty gown in pale lilac with silver details, clearly from Naboo. A subtle nod to grandfather’s home planet perhaps, or a stolen token from her visit to Senator Organa’s apartment?

Once a scavenger, always a scavenger.

“Hux,” Rey greeted him with a curt nod. All business, not even a fake smile today. She probably knew what was coming, Armitage thought. The girl was one of the most obstinate persons he ever had met, and she hated to be corrected.  

“It’s nice to see you again, too, my dear Rey,” he said, trying his best to keep down the sarcasm in his voice. “Please tell me you had a temporary slip of judgment when you broke into Senator Organa’s apartment and promise me it will never happen again“.

“I don‘t know what you‘re talking about,” the girl said as she slumped down in the white rattan chair at the other side of the table and picked up the menu. “Have you ordered anything yet?”

”Did you even hear what I just said?”.

Rey didn’t answer.

Hux just sighed as he watched her eye through the list of dishes, completely obvious to his accusations. Sometimes, he let Rey get away with minor misconduct, but this was a mistake he couldn’t let go unnoticed. Forcing Suduri to crash the New Jedi Order’s intranet to find information about Solo and then break into his parents’ home was unbelievably rash and stupid — even for the impulsive heiress.

Not to mention how dangerous it was. The First Order was still under a… constructional phase and it was critical that they remained discreet. In other words, he needed to make sure Rey kept a low profile, and going after Luke Skywalker’s nephew was quite the opposite of that.

Skywalker was a living legend with a complete collection of force-sensitive puppets at his disposal and the old man wouldn’t just sit down and let Rey corrupt his nephew either.

“Rey, please. Listen to me,” Armitage tried again. “I know you’re going after Ben Solo, but let me assure you, it is a bad idea. Snoke didn’t get anywhere with him and neither will you. Have you seen his medical journals? I had Kaneda send me them last night and they clearly state that Solo is sick”. 

Rey didn’t look surprised at all, and what was worse; she didn’t even look the slightest bit alarmed. If anything, she looked slightly bored as she continued to study the menu with a thoughtful gaze.

”I think I’ll take the fermented vegetables with the spicy rice cake,” she said. “... and the veg meat strips with noodles, or maybe the green sea urchin soup?”.

”Rey!”.

“Armitage,” Rey countered. “I understand that you’re worried, but you have no reason to. I’m not looking for an apprentice.

Hux was baffled at her snide comment. Not looking for an apprentice... Did she think he was stupid? He knew enough about the Jedi and the Sith to know that Rey was neither experienced nor mature enough to be a Master.

No, there had to be other reasons for her sudden interest in Skywalker’s nephew.

A serving droid swept by and took their orders, a light salad with raw spiced scalefish for Hux, urchin soup, vegmeat steak, and pancakes with syrup for Rey.

While they waited for their dishes to arrive, Hux noticed how restless Rey seemed to be; drumming her long nails against the table, shifting in her chair, stabbing the slice of citrus in her glass of water with the metal straw…

Armitage leaned back into his chair as he studied Rey’s behavior. She had never been a patient person, but this was uncommon even for her, and Hux couldn’t help but wonder if it had something to do with Solo.

If Hux were to guess the girl’s motive behind her interest in the wayward Jedi Knight, he would say that Rey was looking for a future partner in crime. Someone who could help her stand against Snoke and possibly even the old Emperor himself. Rey was defiant by nature, and it was probably just a question of time before she had enough of doing the bidding of two old men.

She was also barely an adult, with hormones still flowing through her system like turbulence. Maybe she saw a potential boyfriend in Solo? A future partner in crime?

After all, Snoke had said he was the only one except Luke Skywalker, who could rival Rey when it came to strength in the force.

“Are you aware that Jedi Knights pledge to live in celibacy? He will most likely be a terrible lover,” Hux said, unable to resist shattering whatever illusions Rey might have in that department.

Rey returned his comment with an ice-cold glare.

“Sex is hardly a skill that isn’t teachable,” she snorted, now clearly annoyed. “Besides that ― it’s none of your business”. 

“Rey, I‘m serious,” Armitage replied in a stern voice. “The man is clinically insane. Let him be. 

In a way, it was such a shame that the son of Leia Organa and Han Solo had turned out as he had, Hux thought to himself. The Skywalker-Solo bloodline certainly had potential: Ben Solo could have been wise and calculating like Senator Organa, whose political career had been successful for decades. 

Strong and visionary, like Darth Vader, who once had put terror in the whole galaxy. Resourceful and skilled like Han Solo, who had been successful both as a smuggler and a general. 

But he wasn’t, according to the data Kaneda had gathered. The journals from Polis Massa painted a clear picture ― Ben Solo was nothing but a force-sensitive headcase. How disappointed Snoke must have been when he discovered that his prospective apprentice had displayed such… fatal flaws. But the Supreme Leader of the First Order was wise, and he had done the only thing that made sense, to leave Solo be, and let him rot on Polis Massa along with the other lunatics.  

“Excuse me?” Rey waved to the serving droid. “Can I have some extra heavy syrup, please?”.

“Ponder, you’ll be able to turn him to your side,” Hux suggested. “But what will happen after that? He might snap. He might turn back, or worse, turn on you”.

To him, it was obvious. Whatever plan Rey had for Solo, the risk was significantly higher than the potential gain. As a fund manager, Rey was more than used to calculating risks and weight investments against probable losses. This was something Hux knew the girl was good at, so why did she refuse to listen to his warnings about Solo?

“No,” Rey simply replied without even bothering to look up at him this time. It was a bad sign and Hux felt nervous. This conversation had not gone the way he had wanted it to.

”No, what?”.

“He won’t,” she stated in a voice full of conviction. ”Not on me”.

The service droid returned with a bottle of syrup. Rey drenched her dessert in the sweet, sticky substance and Hux can feel how his teeth crumble just looking at it.

Dear maker ― Rey had apparently developed a severe case of hubris, too. Perfect, just perfect. That was about the last thing Hux needed in his life. He took a deep breath to calm his nerves. This was bad; he needed to nip this crazy fantasy of hers in the bud, and he needed to get the girl back on the ground quickly.

“Rey, please. Listen to me,” he almost pleaded.

The girl sighed as she leaned back in her chair. “Let me clear up a few things for you, Armi,” she said. “One, I know what I’m doing. Two, none of this is your business. Three, you better keep Snoke in the dark about my plans, or I can make your life very unpleasant“.

“Rey…”. 

“Now, are you going to waste my time with more worthless advice, or do you have something that I need to take into consideration?”.

“Actually, there is something else I wanted to talk to you about,” Hux confessed. “Your father is still at Oovo IV, and I don’t know if I can cover it up for much longer”.

Rey raised an eyebrow and glared at him. “What did you just say?”.

Hux sighed deeply. 

”As I told you before, Ikari got arrested for misconduct with a minor in Cantonica. Guilty or not, Ikari’s political career will be over when, if, this comes out. Under these circumstances, he might be tempted to talk...”.

“Make sure he doesn’t,” Rey said with hard gaze. “I might need him soon”. 

The girl started to wolf down the last of her dessert and Hux couldn’t do anything but stare at her with disbelief. What in the whole wide universe was she planning now? 

“And exactly what kind of usefulness do you think you can wring out of Ikari?” he asked.  

Rey flashed a smile at him. “You’ll just have to wait and see”.

Chapter Text

The thoughts of Kylo continued to keep Rey up at night. What once had been a distant presence, a phantom figure in her daydreams, seemed to grow more real for each day that passed. 

What had started out as a light infatuation that had grown into a violent love that bordered on obsession.

As much as Rey was into it, she was a little overwhelmed by how strong the feelings Kylo incited in her were.

Some girls said one’s first boyfriend would always have a special place in the heart, but it wasn’t like Kylo was the first man Rey had met. She had been with a few boys in the past. Well, two of them had been Kira Ikari’s boyfriends, and the last one had only been a summer fling.

Rey had liked them enough to sleep with them, thought mostly out of pure curiosity and, well, basic human desires. 

Unlike the Jedi, the Sith didn’t advocate abstinence — no feelings were forbidden, no desires condemned. 

She had never fancied any of those boys for real and at the end of the day, none of them had made her feel anything special at all. With Kylo, everything was completely different. He dominated her thoughts and Rey could recall she ever had wanted anything so badly in her life before. 

He was like a toxic that infected every cell in her entire being and rendered her unable to resist.

Rey sighed as she swiped the keycard to her office. Ever since Ben Solo had showed up on her, her life as Kira Ikari had felt increasingly pointless. Unlike what people seemed to believe, Kira’s life consisted more of dull office meetings and countless hours researching the market than parties and events. 

R'iia, she had no motivation to do her job at all today.

With yet another sigh, she slumped down on her chair and logged onto the terminal on her desk, and opened up the HoloNet platform the IGBC used for trading. The funds she managed had held up fairly well against the recession, but the profits were still a little on the low side. 

Rey chewed on the inside of her cheek. Her wealthy investors surely expected her to do something about that…

“Let’s look at our options today then, shall we?” she muttered to herself.  

Engineering, mining and metal works were the sectors of the market Rey knew best. They were big sectors, which meant there were plenty of options. Yet, there was none that stood out. Rey eyed through page after page of stock analyzes with mild interest. The dry air and the soothing, humming sound of the ventilation system in combination with too little sleep made her drowsy. 

“Trilion Inc has laid on the same price all week, same with Tangan Industries… Utilitech has risen by 1.9%. GoCorp is stable at 236 credits. Pricon Metals is down to 3.40, really?”. 

Pricon Metals was a company based on a corporate owned planet called 244Core, earlier known as Sraato. 244Core was an arid planet with rich mineral foundations and despite the recession in the Core Worlds, the mining industry was going fairly well. 

Last year, one of the biggest worker’s rights organizations in the Core Worlds had sued Pricon Metals for using forced labor in their supply chain. The case had been postponed twice. But today, it would be judged in a corporate court on Corellia. 

“Right, the trial is today… I almost forgot that,” Rey rested her cheek in her hand as she studied the numbers. “They have been doing well until now. 3.40… That’s quite good, actually”.

As a reaction to the uncertainty, the price of Pricon Metals stock shares had fallen, and Rey was sure that the judges on Corellia valued cheap raw materials for their industries more than they valued the working conditions for mainly non-human miners and metalworkers in the unknown regions. Surely, they would write off the case.

The marginals weren’t steep, but if she sold at the right time, the profit could still be good.

“It’s worth a shot, I guess. I’ll buy… six hundred”. 

Now, all she had to do was to sit back and wait for the HoloNet News to announce the outcome of the trial. Rey yawned as she sank deeper into her chair. The chair was rigid and hard, but she had slept in worse places.

All those lonely nights on Jakku…

When she was a little girl, she lay awake night after night on her makeshift bed, waiting for her parents to return. The sense of loneliness she had felt during her time on Jakku had etched itself into her being.

With Kylo, she’d never have to be alone anymore.

Rey dozed off in her chair, lulled to sleep by the humming sound of the ventilation system and the subtle noise from traffic outside.

“Miss Ikari, is something the matter?”

Startled, Rey looked up from her desk. A tall muun clad in a dark green robe stood in front of her. It was Mi Fahla, her supervisor. She peered down at the girl with stern eyes and her thin arms were crossed over her chest, obviously displeased with something.  

“Huh?”

“Ms Ikari, the stock exchange closed twenty minutes ago. Pricon Metals sank down to 3.25 and your investors lost almost seven hundred thousand credits,” the muun replied dryly. “Do I need to be worried?“.

Rey turned her gaze back to her desk where a hologram showed a series of graphs representing the stocks in her funds.

A new red graph with a steep downward slope had appeared; it was the shares in Pricon Metal she had planned to sell. 

Wonderful, she slept for far longer than she had intended, and missed not only when the index jumped up to 4.10 straight after the HoloNet reported that the trial would be postponed for a third time in the last minute ― and when the price of the shares sank again as other fund managers who had done the same thing sold.

“No,” Rey replied nonchalantly. “They are aware of the risks“.

She knew it was a terrible excuse, and so did Mi, but Rey refused to admit her mistake. False bravado was her middle name and, technically, she hadn’t lost anything until she sold the shares off. 

“I’m sure the judges on Corellia eventually will judge in the favor of their Starship Industries. Ships are still one of their biggest exports”.

“Time is credits,” Mi replied dryly. “The unknown regions are unregulated, and I know that many mining companies use forced labor. The awareness of this has increased, most are against slavery, and it’s only a matter of time before the Senate will demand action against them”.

Rey gave the muun a forced smile. “So they say”.

Growing up on Jakku had taught her that neither the Senate, its voters, or companies cared about slaves, child workers, or forced labour outside the Core Worlds. Sure, they might bring it up in the senate, or file a case like they had against Pricon Metal. But in the end, everything would remain the same; credits ruled the galaxy and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon.

Fortunately, Mi didn’t linger. After her little speech, the muun left Rey’s office without a word and a relieved Rey leaned back against her chair. Her working day was over and she could finally give her full attention to things that really mattered. 

“Time to see what our idle Jedi Knight has been up to…”.

Full of anticipation, she picked up her private holopad and opened up the program that logged her seeker droids activity.

To keep track of Ben Solo, Rey had sent Trilla to buy a trio of dwarf seeker droids from Arakyd Industries on Vulpter. The droids were small, about the same size as a tea saucer, and had a cloaking device that allowed them to blend into different environments. They had been terribly expensive, but Rey thought they had been worth every credit as they allowed her to track Solo’s whereabouts in real-time. As soon as the Jedi left his parent’s apartment, the droids followed him from a safe distance, logging where he went and how long he stayed there. 

Still, while the droids were practical, Rey preferred to watch over the wayward Jedi with her own eyes.

She shut down the stationary terminal, cleaned off the desk quickly, and slipped out of the modest, gray dress she used for work. Underneath, she wore a long-sleeved crop and matching high-waisted leggings made of a flexible blend of synthetic fabric. She stuffed the dull dress into one of the cabinet drawers, put on her training shoes, and shrugged her backpack on.

Twenty minutes later, Rey stood on the ceiling of a bridge between two skyscrapers in the southeastern part of Republic City. The buildings were placed very narrowly to each other, and with help from the Force, she could jump like the dune crickets on Jakku to between the skyscrapers and the bridges that connected them.

It was almost like when she climbed in the open carcasses of the fallen Star Destroyers as a child.

Climbing up through a series of balconies, Rey swiftly made her way to the top of the burgundy-copper-colored building that housed apartments for the citizens in the upper middle class. Once she had reached the top of the complex, Rey picked up her Holopad to see how close Solo was.

Unaware of Rey’s tiny droids and their prying eyes, Ben had kept on struggling with his doomed mission to find her lost fake-father. Rey couldn’t help but giggle a little as she looked at the position tags on the map that revealed where the Jedi had been during the day. 

Aimlessly wandering around the block between two and four in the morning. Then, he went back to the apartment and slept for another two hours. After that, the Jedi had gone to the city council, supposedly to talk to Ikari’s colleagues and secretary again. After a few hours, he left the council building and went to the IGBC’s local office to meet with Ikari’s personal banker who managed his loans.  

Once Ben was done at the bank, he had ventured to the shadier, lower levels of Republic City in search of one of Ikari’s more questionable acquaintances. 

The Jedi was persistent and Rey almost felt bad for him; he worked so hard and yet, it would all be for nothing…

According to the map, Ben was near, and Rey picked up her binocular from the backpack. She turned it on and swept her gaze over the dim-light streets. The city council had kept street lights at a minimum to save credits on electricity ever since. A lone GNK-droid, a flock of commuters, a trio of scaly trandoshans in work wear, a group of prostitutes of different species stood in the alley, debating wildly over something. 

A street vendor selling roasted silkworms in different flavors crossed the stream of commuters, and behind him, Rey saw what she had been looking for.

Finally.

There he was, clad in the standard Jedi attire, white linen clothes and a heavy robe, carrying a heavy bag on his shoulder. Rey’s heart fluttered at the sight. It seemed like Ben was on his way to a training facility that belonged to the Republican Navy. 

“You decided to give up on your pointless investigation for the day in favor of some exercise?” Rey murmured to herself. “This could be interesting. Dare I to hope for some sword practice?”. 

She sat down on the rooftop, legs dangling over the edge, and picked up a thermos bottle with Corelli-Cola and an energy bar from her backpack. While she didn’t expect him to fight with the same brutal grace Kylo possessed, Rey hoped to at least see a glimpse of it.

“Show me what you got”. 

He was not bad. Rey had to give him that. Sadly, she was not very impressed by his swordsmanship either. Technically, there was nothing to complain about; Ben Solo knew his forms well. He seemed to master both form III and IV to the same extent as Rey herself. The problem was that he clearly lacked vigor and spirit. Lacked passion. She tilted her head to the side, not sure what to think of it.

For being such a large man, Ben was surprisingly agile, but despite that, it was almost like watching three training droids fight each other. The Jedi seemed terribly distracted and unfocused. She could see the droid’s strike come from miles away, but somehow Solo missed it and the droid hit him on the shoulder.

Rey took a bite from her berry-flavored bar. Running all the way from the IGBC skyscraper had taken a toll on her energy. As she ate, Rey kept watching him with keen eyes.

Sadly, he didn’t get better. After one and a half hour, Solo’s moves were so sloppy and unfocused that the droids managed to strike him again.

Over and over again. 

“Maker, what is he doing?” Rey thought to herself as she chewed down the last of the bar. ”It almost seems like he enjoys getting beaten up like that…”.

He continued to fight the pair of droids for almost two hours until he gave up. With a slouching posture and a new interesting constellation of kinesiology tapes plastered on his body, Ben Solo made his way home on the empty streets. He looked like a defeated man with slouched shoulders and an empty gaze in his eyes.

Rey grimaced as she turned off her binocular. This was not what she had expected from her future husband. With that kind of lousy swordsmanship, he would barely be able to kill her grandfather’s hallway guards.

At home, Rey threw herself on the sofa with a deep sigh. What a day; first her fiasco at work and then watching Solo getting beaten up by those training droids… She needed to evoke the kind of furious passion Kylo had in him, or they both would end up dead.

The question was just how.

It was tempting to just drop the bomb, tell him who she really was, and simply hope that the confession would bring out his true nature. Still, that was more wishful thinking than a working strategy and Rey didn’t even need Hux to tell her it was not a good idea.

The truth would most likely scare the living daylights out of Ben Solo.

The classical “friends-to-lovers” approach could be an option, too. Sadly, being social and making friends wasn’t one of her strong sides, and slowly building up a friendship would take a lot of time she didn’t have.

“Give me a sign, anything,” Rey mumbled, hoping that one of the old sith lords might feel inclined to help. “How do I turn Solo to the dark side?”.

But the Force remained silent and Rey let out a frustrated groan.

”I’m the heir to the Sith and they don’t even bother to give me some advice,” she scoffed to herself.” Such arrogant pricks. If they don’t listen, maybe I won’t even let the Sith live on once I’ll become empress…”.

Kylo wasn’t too fond of the Sith; he called them an ancient religion that had lost its purpose, just like the Jedi. He wanted to put an end to both the Sith and the Jedi and create a whole new religion. Rey herself wasn’t anywhere near as philosophical as Kylo was, and religion didn’t matter that much to her either.

But as far as Rey was concerned, Kylo could do whatever he wanted. Just as long as they could be together, and he never betrayed her the way her grandfather had.

”I won’t. I would never lie to you, Rey”.

With closed eyes, Rey laid down on the sofa. The thoughts of them together were intoxicating, and Rey could almost feel his fingertips ghosting over her thighs, gently prying them apart. She swallowed hard, worried she would lose her mind if she had to endure another day without the dark knight.

”Can’t you see how I’m suffering without you?” the heiress murmured to herself as she let her hand slip into her panties. 

With Rey’s long nails, it was tricky to use her fingers without accidentally hurting herself on the sharp edges and she had to try her way forward.

While she struggled to find a good angle, she unconsciously rolled onto the HoloCaster’s remote control. The remote was a slim black control without physical buttons and Rey was so caught up in her erotic fantasies she didn’t notice. Just as she had begun to finger herself, the HoloCaster went on and cast a live stream of the annual pod race around the royal Theed Palace on Naboo.

The race went off to the tones of a deafening start signal and the startled Rey almost fell off the sofa with a yelp. Of course, she accidentally poked herself with the sharp tips of her nails.

”Ouch!”

She swore quietly and pressed her thighs together. The sharp sensation of pain had effectively killed her burning need for Kylo, just in a less pleasurable manner than she had preferred.

The pod race track around the Theed Palace was short, and after fifteen minutes, they only had one heat left. But before the last race, there was a break for repairs and the live stream was interrupted by colorful commercials. Not in the mood for either pod races or commercials, Rey franticly searched after the remote, which seemed to magically have disappeared. 

After two flashy holographic ads for canned soda and an explore-the-Core-Worlds-cruise with Galactic Starcruise’s new flagship Halcyon (a five-day cruise for only 7670 republican credits per person!), the green face of Naboo’s gungan senator popped up. With a steadfast gaze in his eyes, the senator gave a short but powerful speech. He believed in democracy and therefore he would vote for Leia Organa as the new chancellor of the Senate.

“Of course! The fundraiser!” she exclaimed. “Why didn’t I think of that before?”

Rey sat up straight on the sofa. That was it. She needed to go to Leia Organa’s kick-off fundraiser!

A quick search on the HoloNet told her it was due in one and a half weeks, at the Statuario Spire in the Financial District. 

So… how could she get an invitation?

Political campaigns were like black holes when it came to money. Exposure, especially through the popular media channels on Coruscant and Hosnian Prime cost a fortune. 

“She has used her own money, donations from wealthy friends, and crowdfunding to finance her earlier campaigns?” Rey raised an eyebrow. “That’s unusual”.

The Republic’s laws on political funding were very generous and allowed donations from both companies and labor organizations. Many candidates were supported by organizations and companies who benefited from their politics. Campaign data such as funding and donations was public knowledge, of course. The system was heavily criticized, as many meant it increased the risk of corruption. 

Unsurprisingly, Leia Organa was one of those critics.

So, making a donation through one of the companies she was controlling was out of the question, then. Rey rested her cheek in her hand as she continued to browse the data of Leia Organa’s earlier campaigns. It would have been so much easier if she had been like Ikari, willing to bend the rules just a little. Rey logged onto the IGBC’s intranet, hoping to find someone, or something with economical ties to Leia Organa that she could use. 

It turned out that Organa had built up and funded her charity organizations with no help from the IGBC. There were no loans, no accounts, no nothing. Same went for her husband; Han Solo didn’t appear in any records either. 

But, her brother did…

Rey’s eyes dilated as she spotted Luke Skywalker’s name in the database. Her heart rate picked up, and she could sense how her heart beat within her ribcage. This was almost too good to be true. What business could the Jedi Master possibly have with the IGBC?

“The Jedi Service Corps?” Interesting. “I wonder who’s his personal banker?”.

A Saante Plan at the Public Service Department had issued an enormous loan on behalf of the Republic to help fund the revival of the Service Corps. 

“Very well then,” Rey grinned to herself, stoked. “I guess I have to schedule a meeting with M.s Plan first thing in the morning”.

When Ben stepped over the threshold to his parent’s apartment, it was close to midnight. The hallway was dark, so was the kitchen too, and the doors to Leia’s study and bedroom were closed. It would have been all dark if it wasn’t for the light from Leia’s crystal chandelier in the living room that cast a soft, golden glow on the gray walls. 

Kaydel sat on the large, beige sofa in the living room on the entry floor, working on her holopad. Chewie was seated beside her, looking at a soap opera on the Holocaster like he was caught in a trance.

An arm’s length away, Han sat in a matching armchair with his eyes closed and mouth slightly open, fast asleep. Threepio sat alone on the other sofa with his lights switched off, sleeping in power save mode. Leia was nowhere to be seen, and he suspected that she slept at her office again.

Quietly, Ben snuck by the trio in front of the holocaster and up the stairs to the second floor. He was so tired, weary to the bones, and not just after his workout.

Despite all his hard work, his investigation had hit a dead end. He had talked to Ikari’s colleagues, the staff at the local council and even the shady homeopath Ikari bought remedy from for his impotence, and yet, nobody knew anything and nobody had seen anything. 

He tossed his backpack on the floor, shrugged off his heavy brown robe, and shuffled over to the bathroom. Just as he had flipped open the cap of the toothpaste tube, his holopad lit up. 

It was an incoming transmission from the Jedi Temple on Coruscant.

Ben blinked in surprise. Could it be that Master Luke was displeased with his lack of progress? He pursed his lips, tempted to dismiss it. However, it wasn’t like his uncle to call so late and there was an opportunity that it could be Tai.

Tai was the only one of his fellow Jedi Knights that Ben had remained relatively close to after the incident on Ossus. It had been a long time since they spoke; Tai had been away on a mission to Felucia for several months. Felucia was a humid jungle planet in the Thanium Sector and Master Luke had sent Tai there to conduct a field study on its native population which had an unusually high grade of force sensitivity.

Maybe he finally had returned? 

Ben clicked on ‘accept transmission’ and in the next second, a shaky hologram of a person clad in the standard Jedi regalia appeared. To his surprise, it was neither Tai nor uncle Luke.

“Finally! I’ve been trying to contact you all afternoon!” 

“Who… who is this?” Ben asked tentatively. 

It was impossible to see who the sender was. The shaky hologram had taken the form of something that looked like someone had painted it with aquarelles. It kept swaying for a few more seconds until it finally stabilized. 

”It’s me, Finn!” the padawan said, seemingly a little agitated, as if he thought Ben had forgotten who he was and what he looked like.

“I recognize you now ― when you’re not just a blur of blue,” Ben replied dryly.  

”Ok, good! Hey listen up, I have something I need to talk to you about,” the padawan said.

”You have?” Ben blinked.

This was unexpected, the Jedi Knight thought to himself. He couldn’t imagine what Finn could be so urgent to talk about with him.

“Yes, but I can’t tell you now,” Finn said in a hushed tone. “After the intranet got hacked, it’s not safe”. 

Ben pulled a hand through his hair. The intranet. Right. He had almost forgotten about that. It had been down a few hours before someone broke into the apartment. 

“Hacked?” he asked, feeling a little anxious. “Did they find out who was behind it?”

Lately, the realization that he might be watched, or being followed, had been growing stronger. It was on his mind constantly, and it was taking its toll on Ben’s already volatile mental health. If things didn’t get better soon, he would be forced to contact his psychiatrist again.

“No, not yet,” Finn shook his head. 

Ben nodded. “I see”.

”Master Luke asked me and Voe to attend Senator Organa’s fundraiser, just to be on the safe side,” the padawan continued.” You will be there, right? If so, we can talk then”.

Ugh, the fundraiser. 

Ben had conventionally forgotten about that, too. His mother always had a project, a social gathering with underlying purposes, or an event in the planning. These days, he didn’t even try to stay à jour with Leia’s incredibly busy schedule.

She hadn’t told him he needed to attend, but since he was on Hosnian Prime anyway, Leia probably expected him to. Even if only to parade around the guests to show that he wasn’t crazy enough to be locked up in a padded cell on Stygeon Prime.

Yet. 

”Of course”.

”Good,” Finn said, relieved by his answer. “I’ll see you then. Keep your eyes open”.

Ben nodded in silence. The padawan returned the gesture before he served the connection, and the hologram vanished into the air.

Ironically, seeing Finn worried about the data intrusion made Ben a little calmer. It wasn’t just himself who was paranoid — they all needed to be more careful.

Chapter Text

The Entertainment District on Coruscant was both wide and steep. It had fancy sky bars where a single drink could cost as much as the minimum wage for a migrant worker at the docking bays in the Industrial District. In the lower levels of the district, there was a wide variety of affordable leisure options for the less fortunate: questionable nightclubs, dive bars with cheap contraband alcohol, and secret spice dens offering Glitterstim from Kessel.

At one of the massive shopping malls in the middle of the Entertainment District, Rey’s two handmaidens did some last-minute shopping for their mistress before the fundraiser. The beauty store in the mall was like an enormous maze, with the stands reaching almost up to the ceiling. In the middle of it, there was a glass sculpture shaped like a pyramid, illuminated from beneath that gave the impression that they set it a glow.

“How did Rey manage to get herself an invitation to Senator Organa’s fundraiser through the New Jedi Order?” Komari asked.

“It’s not a secret that Skywalker and the Senate are planning to revive the Jedi Service Corps. Funding those things costs credits,” Trilla mumbled as she dabbed another dot of rouge on her underarm. “Mmm… not this one either”.

“I’m aware of that,” Komari said as she gave the Second Sister a glare. “Isn’t Rey a fund manager, though?”.

“I think the muuns let her be whatever she wants to be. Makes me wonder what kind of deal they have with Snoke and the First Order”.

“Staying clear of the Muunilist system when the next war breaks out?”.

“Probably,” Trilla replied without taking her eyes off the color chart. “Can you try this on? Maybe it’ll look different on you”.

“Do you even think she will notice?” Komari sighed as she reached for the tester box of an apricot-colored shade of rouge. 

"I wouldn’t want to try my luck,” Trilla confessed. “She sent me a transmission saying this was very important".

It was hard to pick out a suitable color for someone else. Trilla had tan skin with a warm undertone, and Komari had pale skin with a cool undertone. Rey was paler than Trilla, but far darker than Komari, with a warm tone. It was tricky, but eventually, they settled for a rouge in a soft pink shade of peach. The shade wasn’t perfect, but it would have to do.

“We need some eye shadow, too”.

Komari took the lead and marched to the section with the eye shadow. They crossed the section with perfume where vapor lay like a thick haze in the air after a female, pink toydarian had tried on every available tester. With a headache and running eyes, they searched for an eye shadow. The stand was filled with every shade one could imagine, and it would take an eternity to browse through all the colors one by one.

“What color is this?” Komari asked with a skeptical look on her face as she studied a glossy box with metallic eyeshadow.

The fashion scene on Coruscant had always been diverse when it came to style, and the make-up stores in the Entertainment District sold everything from neon green lipstick to blue metallic mascara and fancy eyelashes, as long as feathers.

“Let me see,” Trilla said as she snatched the eye shadow from Komari. The second sister studied it with narrowed eyes for a moment before she put it back on the stand. “It’s not her color, and it doesn’t fit. Look at the dress, the fabric is so dark blue that it’s almost black, we need a shade that complements it”.

Trilla opened up the bag she was carrying and gave Komari a glimpse of the dress she had picked up earlier in the day for Rey. It sparkled like a million rhinestones under the shop’s bright lights.

“So pretty,” Komari murmured. “She’s really going all out, isn’t she?”.

The Second Sister chuckled softly. “So it seems”.

Secretly, Komari and Trilla used to joke that Rey’s interest in beauty didn’t extend beyond soap, shampoo, and maybe antiperspirant. Their mistress didn’t care about clothes either, but at least she had enough sense to consult someone who did. The designer who had made her dress was the same who had made uniforms for the First Order officers.

Trilla had taken it upon herself to help the heiress with makeup. Just like Komari, she preferred dramatic make-up, with shades of red or purple. It would probably look good on Rey, too, she imagined. But it was a little too much for a fundraiser. At least if Senator Organa, the queen of neutrals, was hosting it.

“We should aim for something elegant, yet subtle,” Trilla concluded.

“Subtle yet elegant. I like that”.

Komari tried on shade after shade. She smeared a streak on her underarm and examined the color under the bright lights. Trilla watched over the process with a keen eye until the other woman picked out the perfect color ― a dark shade, a mixture of black, green, and blue with a tint of metallic shine.

“It’s subtle enough for a fundraiser,” Trilla decided. “We’ll take it”.

Happy with their finds and eager to get away from the cloud of perfume vapor, the women made their way to the checkout. The sales clerk, an elegant twi’lek with purple lipstick, clad in a sleek, golden dress, packed down their purchases in a glitzy paper bag with nimble fingers.

“That’ll be seven hundred seventy-five credits, please,” she said, revealing her bleached teeth in a broad smile. “Are you two ladies members of our customer club?”.

Trilla swiped one of Rey’s debit cards with a smile on her lips. “Of course”.

“Thank you, please, come again,” the twi’lek said with a slight bow.

They left the shopping complex and walked out into the streets of the Entertainment District. It was just after midday, and most of the streets were empty except for maintenance droids that swept the streets or collected trash. The countless neon signs were turned off, the nightclubs closed, and the bars were empty, too.

The Entertainment District was a place that only came alive during the night.

“We still have plenty of time before the fundraiser starts,” Komari pointed out. “How about a drink?”

Trilla nodded. “I don’t see why not. Is anything open at this time, though?”.

Her friend smirked. “There is always happy hour somewhere. Especially on Coruscant”.

If you wanted to drown your sorrows but wanted to refrain from spice and prescription drugs, alcohol was the option that remained, and Trilla Suduri was a woman who had many sorrows.

An hour later, the women sat at one of the countless sky bars at the highest level of the Entertainment District on Coruscant. Trilla stirred her drink carefully with a transparent purple spoon as she gazed out over the impressive skyline and the bustling traffic.

In the distance, she can see the spires of the Jedi Temple in the Senate District. It was mind-boggling to think of all those days she had spent in the temple as a young girl, almost seventy years ago. Trilla fixed her gaze on her hand, flexing it. Her skin was still smooth, supple. Just another reminder that her body was not her real body. Not the one she had been born into, at least.

“If I hadn’t become a Jedi, perhaps I would still have been alive today,” Trilla mused. “I would have been… almost seventy-five, I believe”. 

Komari chuckled. “I would have been nothing but dry dust, resting in an urn on Kohlma”.

Trilla smirked and took a large gulp of her drink. Before her revival, she rarely drank. It had been out of the question when she was a padawan, and during her time as inquisitor under Darth Vader, she hardly had time for anything but work.

“These are quite good actually,” she said, examining the empty glass. 

“I told you so,” Komari grinned as she waved to the serving droid. “Another round, please!”

A silvery droid appeared with their drinks. ’Deep Core’ for Komari and a ’Bloodsour’ for herself.

Trilla’s gaze drifted over to Komari. The other woman was clad in a simple black slip dress, held together by two strings knotted behind her neck. It revealed her figure in a flattering way, but it also showcased the traces of the ugly purple bruises that remained from the healed abrasions on her neck, arms, hands, and calves, hidden under a thick layer of concealer.

When they had been brought back to life, if you could call it that, their mistress had gathered their souls and forced them into the lifeless bionic replicas of their original bodies, which had been crafted with DNA from the Imperial Biobank. How such a thing was even possible, Trilla didn’t fully understand, but she took it as a sign that the Palpatines truly had powers that bordered on the unthinkable.

But, as it always was with the Dark Side of the Force, it came with a cost. Just like the decaying old emperor on Exegol, Trilla and Komari’s cloned bodies were torn apart from within by their own force sensibility. 

For Trilla, the disintegration manifested as bruises, red rashes, spontaneous abrasions, and a weaker immune system. The more she used the Force, the worse it got. However, neither her own nor Komari’s strength in the Force was comparable to their mistress’s grandfather, and thus, they weren’t dying from it.

It was more like… a chronic illness.  

Komari put down her glass and rested her arms on the table. She reached out her fingers over the glass and the two salakberries her drink had been garnished with levitated up into her hand. 

“I wonder what our little mistress is up to…?” she said, chewing on the liquor-drenched berries with a thoughtful gaze. 

“Plotting on how to best seduce the Jedi?”

“Do you think she’ll manage?” Komari said, eyes glittering with amusement.

“I certainly hope so,” Trilla replied.

She knew they both did. Rey was their only hope for revenge ― and freedom. As long as Darth Sidious lived, they would continue to live in fear. He could kill them on a whim, with a mere snap of his fingers. 

“What’s so special about him, anyway?” Komari said as she emptied her glass in one large gulp. “I have never seen Rey being anywhere near this obsessed about a man before”.

Trilla snorted. “If you had lived to see the power of Darth Vader, you wouldn’t ask such a silly question. He is Vader’s grandchild and Rey believes he is that Kylo person she’s been talking about for months”. 

“Is he?” Komari leaned over the table and gave Trilla an intrigued gaze. “If he is, don’t you think it’s just a question of time before she is going to run off with him to some romantic ocean planet in the Wild Space?” she added with a small smirk.

“I doubt that. Do you really think Sidious would let Rey go?” Trilla replied, giving her friend a dark look. “She is the heiress to the Sith, after all”.

“No,” Komari rolled her eyes at the other woman and took another sip of her drink. “I’m nowhere near being that naïve ― she’d have to kill him if she wants to be free”.

“A girl can always hope for that, can’t she?” Trilla suggested. 

In secret, they both wished that Rey would one day be powerful enough to slay Darth Sidious. He was the one behind both their deaths, and despite his natural lifespan being long overdue, he was still alive and plotting his return to power. As Trilla saw it, her dying wish had not yet been fulfilled, and while she and Komari didn’t stand a chance against the Sith Lord, their young mistress did.

“Let’s cheer at that,” she said, clinking her glass against Komari’s.

They kept nursing their drinks for another half hour, debating how Rey would proceed once she had won over the Jedi. Would they run away together, or would they start a crusade to take over the First Order? If Rey felt bold, she might head directly to the Supremacy and take Snoke himself on. The two women couldn’t quite agree on which scenario was the most likely, but they put the discussion to an end quickly when Trilla’s holopad lit up.

“Finally,” Trilla said as she picked up the holopad from the table. “Imperialis III is ready to take us to Hosnian Prime. We need to head back”.

Komari nodded. “I’m ready. Let’s go,” she replied, swallowing the remains of her drink in one gulp before she rose from her chair.

Imperialis III was Rey’s ship. The yacht was one of several replicas of Sheev Palpatine’s original ship, Imperialis. It was a beautiful, sleek ship with a shape that reminded Trilla of a gracious shark. The hull was prismatic and gleamed like a blue topaz in the sunlight; the glass was red-tinted, and so were the metallic parts. 

Imperialis III had been made by the Republic Sienar Systems over four decades ago, and Armitage Hux had used his connections in the Techno Union to restore the ship to its former glory. While the ship was beautiful, like a piece of art, the most outstanding part of the ship was its software. Imperialis III was equipped with an artificial intelligence computer mainframe that allowed the ship to fly, even without a proper pilot droid. 

Meanwhile, in another part of Coruscant…

With gritted teeth, Armitage Hux stood bent over his ironing board, trying to iron his best shirt into shape. On every Star Destroyer in the First Order’s fleet, there was an entire staff of droids specialized in clothing care, and the officers never had to worry about wrinkled uniforms. 

How he missed such luxury.

There was a dry cleaning service three blocks away, run by two chatty bothans Hux had used in the past, but after they pressed his suit pants wrong last month, he didn’t dare to take his chances. Not when the fundraiser started in merely six hours.

As he ironed, Armitage silently prayed to the maker that they would cancel it. Rey often had bad ideas, but this was her worst by far. Leia Organa wasn’t just any senator ― she was a living legend. Although she was no Jedi, it was known she was force sensitive, too. One wrong step and Rey would risk revealing herself in front of the enemy. Hux could not allow that to happen. As soon as the news had reached him that the heiress was going, he had sent his assistant Mitaka over to Organa’s campaign office to sign him up as Rey’s plus one.

Hux didn’t have any love for either Senator Organa or her politics.

As far as he was concerned, she was just another rich anarchist who tried to bring back the entire galaxy into another era of chaos.

The only reason he would go to an event with such… decadent people was that it was his responsibility to keep the girl in check. Snoke would be very displeased with Armitage if he didn’t. As the Supreme Leader of the First Order, he was the only one who was more powerful than Hux's father and his generals. The old deformed humanoid would be Armitage Hux’s ticket back into the military, and the only way to regain his trust was to handle his mission on Coruscant spotlessly. 

The fundraiser wasn’t due until a few more hours, but Ben had arrived early to look at the security arrangements, along with Voe and Finn. 

The Statuario Spire, placed in the middle of the Financial District, was an impressive building in a pale material that mimicked marble. Spacious, elegant, and classical, just the way his mother preferred it, Ben mused as he strolled through the half-empty corridors. 

It was an odd feeling, knowing that his mother could actually become the new chancellor of the Republic. At first, Ben almost thought Leia was joking when she announced her candidacy. A couple of years ago, her political career took some substantial damage when the secret about her heritage leaked to the HoloNet. Ben could still remember the headlines, written in blood red as a reminder of her father’s crimes.

Daughter of Darth Vader.

However, Leia Organa was tougher than durasteel and more stubborn than sin. She fought tirelessly, and she had turned the odds around. Now, the odds seemed to be in her favor. The princess of Alderaan was once again loved by the common people and had a good chance of winning the election.

A small group of guards in white, beige, and blue clothing with electro-pikes in their hands and oval, beetle-shaped helmets with brown visors on their heads passed him by. They belonged to Leia’s personal guard squad and, in addition to that, the Senate of the New Republic had sent two dozen guards to watch over the event. That, along with two Jedi Knights and a padawan, was to be considered as a heavy security arrangement for a fundraiser. 

The interior of the spire reminded Ben of a classical opera house, without the seats. Once he had walked around the circular corridor, he continued up the stairs to the first balcony. From there, Ben could gaze down at the large, ellipse-shaped ballroom. The floor was decorated with mosaic tiles in a plethora of different geometric constellations, enormous chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, holographic banners, and fresh flowers on every table.

The crown of it all was a large hologram of Leia. It displayed his mother in her younger years, dressed in white with her iconic braided hair, slowly transforming into the image of the woman she was today. At the end of the hologram sequence, Leia transformed into her political tagline. It was an extravagant sight, and it seemed like Leia had increased her party budget tenfold since her last campaign.

The servants had set the tables. The buffet was ready, and the rented orchestra went through the repertoire one last time before the guests arrived. 

A dozen guards in blue armor from the Senate crossed the floor, and among them, Ben spotted Finn chatting with the captain. The young Jedi was dressed in a grey-white linen-blend tunic with matching pants, a beige tabard, and knee-high brown leather boots. At the sight of Ben, the padawan diverted from the guards and headed up to the balcony where the older Jedi stood.

“Hey,” Finn greeted him with a nod. "How are you?”

“What was it you wanted to talk about?” Ben asked, completely forgetting his manners. Finn gave him an odd look but didn’t comment on it.

“Here.” The padawan retrieved an old-fashioned data chip from his robe. “It’s security footage from one of the corporate-owned, private terminals in the Financial District. I found it when I was looking for traces of the yacht on Kef Bir”.

“Is it Chairman Ikari?”

Finn made a small grimace. “It sure looked like him, at least.  Drunk to the boot . Seems like Miss Ikari didn’t lie about him going on a leisure cruise”.

Ben blinked. Could it really be that Finn had found Ikari? Ben silently prayed that the padawan was right and that this would be the beginning of the end of his career as an amateur detective.

“Thank you, Finn. I owe you one for this”.

“Don’t mention it,” the padawan replied. “I thought maybe you could help us out with some research once the Chairman has been found”.

Yeah…  Uncle Luke won’t probably think that is a good idea, Ben thought to himself. “How is the mission going?”

Finn sighed. “I and Voe have tirelessly searched for traces of the acolytes on Kef Bir, but we have found nothing yet. There are over a hundred ships with prismatic hulls registered, just on Hosnian Prime. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack”. 

If Voe and Finn’s only clue was the look of the ship, it would be next to impossible to track the acolytes down. “What about the object they retrieved? Could Master Luke tell you anything more than that?” he asked.

Finn shook his head. “No. The only thing he said was that he didn’t believe it was a Sith holocron”.

“Hmm, I see, “Ben replied. He found it hard to believe that his uncle couldn’t tell them anything more than that. As a young padawan, Ben had joined his uncle on many travels searching for stolen Jedi artifacts, holocrons, and scriptures. On those travels, they also found hidden Sith temples and ancient relics and holocrons within them.

Before that, Luke did similar travels on his own for many years. It was fair to say his uncle had excellent knowledge about the dark side of the Force and its secret treasure. However, the old Jedi seemed to prefer to keep that knowledge to himself.

The two Jedis remained on the balcony when the guests poured in downstairs. Among the rapidly increasing crowd, Ben spotted Jannah with Lando Calrissian and Han. They really stood out among the other guests; Jannah wore a long-sleeved dress covered with countless golden sequins that made her sparkle like a treasure chest. Lando himself wore a suit and a navy blue cape with gold accents that matched his daughter’s dress. 

Han had dressed up for the occasion, and he seemed to be in a good mood. The ex-smuggler has always been something of a natural social chameleon, easily adapting from mingling with rich socialites in the core worlds to hanging around with criminals and thugs in dive bars on the outskirts of the galaxy. 

After Han and the two elegant Calrissians came a horde of well-dressed politicians and bureaucrats from both the local governments and planets beyond the outer rim. Of course, no fundraiser would be complete without friends and family attending, and while Leia’s family was small, her circle of friends was the size of an asteroid belt.

Among the guests, Ben spotted the newly promoted admiral Holdo, former chancellor Mon Mothma, with her daughter and Senator Hamato Xiono. Amilyn embraced his mother and handed over an enormous flower arrangement to C3-PO that almost caused the old droid to buckle under its weight. Luckily, Chewbacca swept in and saved both the flowers and the droid from falling to the ground.

“Hey, there’s my buddy Poe,” Finn suddenly exclaimed.

The dream of every mother-in-law, Poe Dameron, entered the ballroom with a trail of young cadets from the Republic Navy in gala uniforms behind him. Dameron smiled like a commercial, and both Leia and Amilyn gave him a warm embrace.

“You want to go down and say hi?” Finn asked.

Ben shook his head. “No”.

He usually kept himself in the background at Leia’s parties and events. Whenever he ended up surrounded by his mother’s friends, it felt like he was a non-sentient being, trapped in a cage for display.

In the past, his mother’s friends always liked to talk about Obi-Wan Kenobi with him. Kenobi was the legendary Jedi whose alias Ben was named after. Sometimes it felt like they thought he was supposed to be like a reincarnation of the old Jedi Master, and it made him endlessly frustrated.

But after the incident on Ossus, Leia and Han’s friends became more tentative whenever they met Ben. They didn’t ask as many questions as they used anymore, and certainly no personal questions. Ben thought that most of them knew he was ill. Even if Leia had revealed nothing, it was like they could sense that there was something wrong with him. 

From behind, Ben could hear certain steps approaching, and he turned out to see the face of Voe. She was full of energy and determination, just as he recalled.

“Why are you two hiding up here?” she questioned, her arms crossed over her chest. 

“I’ve been here for three hours. I’ve already inspected both the building and the security arrangements,” Ben said, ignoring her question.

“Good,” Voe replied. “I have seen nothing suspicious yet, but there are a lot of guests”.

Ben’s gaze swept over the floor downstairs. The stream of arriving guests had subsided, and people had gathered in small groups, exchanging pleasantries while they sipped on their welcome drinks.

“Look, over there,” Finn suddenly said. “Isn’t that Kira Ikari?”

Ben sucked in a breath. The Padawan was right. There she was, dressed in some sort of dress comprising a thin, black, layered fabric decorated with countless glittering rhinestones. Kira wasn’t alone, though. Her cavalier for the evening was a red-haired, gangly man clad in a sleek, black costume with an annoyed expression on his face. Ben kept staring at the impeccably dressed couple for longer than was socially acceptable. Seeing Kira hanging on the arm of the scrawny redhead made him feel…  displeased, even though he had no reason or right to. 

He didn’t even know the girl.

“Who is that skinny man over there?” Ben asked, still staring at Kira and her shimmering dress.

“That’s Armitage Hux,” Finn replied. “He’s a lobbyist for the reformed Techno Union, I think”.

“Is that Kira Ikari?” Voe said as she pinned her eyes on the socialite. ”What is she doing here?”

“Yep, that’s her,” Finn confirmed. “Ehum, didn’t either of you read the guest list? She’s here on behalf of the IBC”. 

“She looks like she dressed for a nightclub,” the Jedi Knight snorted, oblivious to her padawan’s question. “If it were my father that had been missing for several weeks… I would search for him night and day, not partying around without a care in the world…”.

“Rey, for the love of our Supreme Leader, stop pulling!  I’m supposed to lead,” Hux hissed in her ear as he narrowly kept them from crashing into another couple on the dancefloor. 

“I know, I’m trying,” she hissed back through gritted teeth. “I hate ballroom dancing!”.

“I don’t care whether or not you fancy it. We need to make a good and subtle, very subtle impression here”.

Rey scoffed. “I didn’t ask you to come,” she said with narrowed eyes. “In fact, I asked you not to”.

“Have you forgotten where we are?” Hux leaned forward and snarled into her ear. “We are surrounded by enemies”,

Surrounded by enemies or not, Rey barely listened to Hux and his nagging. They were far from alone on the dancefloor, and nobody seemed to pay them more attention than a few curious glances here and there. As they swirled around under the massive chandeliers that hung from the ceiling, Rey scouted after Ben.

There were plenty of well-clad guests circling the long table with the buffet, politicians and celebrities alike. Many famous faces. Rey recognized more than a few guests from the historical records dating back to the beginning of the old war.

On the first balcony, Rey finally saw what she was looking for. The Jedi, and not just him either; there were three of them. A well-groomed young man in a buzz cut with the traditional padawan braid hanging over his shoulders and at his side stood a dark-skinned female Jedi with silver-dyed braids and red lipstick. Ben stood a little behind two others, gazing out at the dancefloor.

He was searching for something.

Rey’s lips curled into a smile.  

Could that something be me?

The music ended, and before Rey and Armitage could return to their table, they were stopped by a middle-aged woman in a curly wig. She had her eyes pinned on Hux and a bedazzled gaze in her eyes.

“Excuse me, sir. I couldn’t help but notice you on the dance floor. I have to say, your technique is superb…”.

At her side, Rey could almost see how the irritation rose within her cavalier. He was not in the mood for another dance. But the woman seemed to be completely oblivious to it. Instead, she turned to Rey with a smile.

“Would you mind if I lend him for the next dance?”

”Oh, no. Not at all,” Rey said, giving the lady one of her sweetest smiles.

Armitage gave the girl a dark gaze. “Rey…” he whispered in a warning tone.

But Rey just smiled. She already knew Hux wouldn’t make a scene. They were on enemy ground, surrounded by a horde of prominent people, and Armitage was far too polite and modest to act out in front of a crowd. As she walked away from the dance floor, Rey could almost feel Hux’s furious gaze like daggers on her back.

Maker, he was mad at her now...

Fortunately, Armitage was as Force-sensitive as a doorknob; otherwise, Snoke might have considered him for apprenticeship, and she would have a rival to worry about.

“Serves him right for tagging along in the first place,” Rey snickered to herself. “I do hope that lady is a brutal dancing partner”.

She turned her gaze back to the balcony. But the Jedi was no longer there. Ben had disappeared, and the other Jedi had joined the group of cadets at the table. Rey made her way through the crowd and slipped out of the ballroom. In search of Ben, she followed the corridor that encircled it. 

Rey passed by the lobby, the wardrobe, and the bathrooms with no signs of the tall knight. At the end of the corridor, Rey caught a whiff of a really pleasant scent. The scent led her around a corner to the kitchen, where the kitchen staff was busy preparing the dessert for the evening. Curious as she was, Rey couldn’t help but sneak into the kitchen to see what smelled so good.

Roasted koja nuts…

They were probably meant to be crushed and used as a topping for the dessert, but the nuts smelled so good that Rey couldn’t resist. She quickly snatched a handful when the kitchen staff looked away and snuck out of the kitchen unseen.

The circular corridor ended, and Rey was back where she started without even a glimpse of the Jedi. He couldn't have left already, Rey reasoned. It didn’t seem likely that he would leave without the two other Jedi knights.

Rey cast an eye on the stairs that led up through the first balcony. Maybe he had just gone outside? If she recalled right, there was a terrace on the outside that you could access from there.

On one bench on the terrace, Ben sat and gazed out over the urban landscape. The sky above the spire was clear, without a single cloud in sight. The hectic afternoon traffic had thinned out, and the sun had moved toward the horizon.

Ben leaned back against the wall and let out a small sigh. He felt tired. Being around so many of his mother’s friends was stressful. It put him on edge, and although he had wanted to go down and say hi to Lando and Jannah, he had sneaked away instead. Hopefully, they would stay until the end of the fundraiser, and Ben would get a new chance to talk to them after most of the other guests had left.

A breeze swept by, making the leaves of the small potted trees placed along the white balustrade. It was peaceful outside, but he could still hear the chatter and the music from the ballroom.

“There you are. I was afraid you might have gone home already”.

Without warning, a girl’s voice cut through the air, and Ben snapped his head around to see who the intruder was.

“Kira? W-what are you doing here?” he stuttered, startled by her sudden appearance.

“I’m like Jango Fett ― nobody can hide from me,” Kira said with a content grin as she slumped down beside him on the stone bench. 

Ben pursed his lips. There was plenty of space, and yet Kira sat down exactly where he sat as if she had no sense of the concept of personal space at all.

“So, why are you hiding out here?” she asked, leaning so close to him that their noses almost touched. “Don’t you like ballroom dancing?”

“I-I’m not hiding,” he protested. A wave of heat traveled over his face, and frustration rose within his chest, along with the unwelcome sense of embarrassment. “I just needed to get some air”. 

Kira gave him a sly look and batted her dark lashes. If she knew how nervous she made him, it only seemed to amuse her, and Ben got a feeling that she was toying with him.

“I see,” she smiled.” I saw you earlier, and I just wanted to ask how the investigation is going; are you getting any closer to finding my father yet?”

“If we had, you would have known,” he retorted in a curt tone. “Why are you even here? My mother has no business with the IBC”.

“I admire your mother’s work…,” Kira said with a slight shrug, oblivious to the hardness in his voice. “... and while she isn’t a client of ours, your uncle is. We recently approved a loan for the funding of the Jedi Order’s Service Corps project”.

Ben felt dumbstruck. The Intergalactic Banking Clan was funding the revival of the Jedi Service Corps? How fitting that both his uncle and his mother had failed to mention that when they asked him to take the mission...

Kira frowned slightly as she studied his reaction to her disclosure. “You didn’t know that, did you?”.

“No,” he admitted. The realization angered him and reminded him of how much he hated the twins’ tendency to withhold information and keep everybody else but each other in the dark.

“I see,” Kira said with a thoughtful gaze.

Ben remained silent, unsure of what to say. The information about Luke’s involvement with the IBC was unexpected, and Ben wasn’t sure what to make of it. Kira kept her eyes on Ben like she was waiting for a prolonged reaction. When he remained stoic, she leaned back against the wall and retrieved a nut from an invisible pocket in her dress. Unabashed, she cracked the hard shell of the nut with her bare teeth, and Ben could just marvel at her weird behavior.

She is the banker responsible for lending out millions to the Jedi Service Corps project, and she still behaves like she’s coming from a backwater planet in the Outer Rim…

Kira picked out the soft nut from the cracked, hard shell and tossed it into her mouth. She had long fingers and firm hands, Ben noticed. Surprisingly, he could see signs of calluses on her fingers, too. It was easy to miss when her long, glittering acrylic nails stole all the attention.

“You have unusually rough hands for being a socialite,” he remarked.

”What sharp eyes you have,” she replied with a smile. “I like mountain climbing and parkour. It’s a pleasant relief from sitting behind a desk and staring at holograms all day”.

“I see,” he replied. It seemed like two unusual hobbies for an upper-class girl, but then again, nothing about Kira was usual.

”What about you, Ben? What do you like to do when you’re free?” Kira asked with an almost sly look in her eyes.

”Eh…”.

Once again, Ben found himself at a loss for words. Hobbies? He hadn’t had time for hobbies since he was a boy, and still lived with Han and Leia.

“All work and no fun?” Kira asked as she tossed away the cracked nutshell. It flew in a perfect arc through the air into a pot standing about four meters away from their bench.

”You hit the pot,” Ben remarked. “From here”.

”I did,” Kira grinned again. “I have sharp eyes, too,”.

“I noticed that”. He couldn’t help but smile a little. It was an impressive throw, Ben had to admit that.

The sound of marching boots sounded from the corridor, and both Kira and Ben turned their heads around to see Voe standing at the entrance to the terrace.

“Your neurotic cavalier is looking for you in the ballroom, Ms. Ikari,” Voe said in a calm voice, but her eyes were shooting daggers at the younger girl. “You might want to head back before he gets a panic attack”.

Unaffected by the Jedi Knight’s harsh tone, Kira rose from the bench and straightened out the thin, layered fabric of her dress. “I nearly forgot,” she smirked. “Thank you for reminding me, Master Jedi”.

“By all means,” the woman replied dryly. 

Kira gave Voe a fleeting gaze before she turned her gaze back to Ben. “I’m going to the Hanging Gardens after the ball. You should come,” she said casually before she disappeared down the corridor.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” she scolded Ben as soon as Kira was out of sight. “You’re supposed to investigate her father’s whereabouts, not flirt with her”.

Flirt? 

Ben was stunned by Voe’s unfair accusation.  Had she been drinking while he was gone?  He was a Jedi — he had never even tried to seduce anyone, or anything, in his entire life. Just like his predecessors, Master Luke urged his students to refrain from emotional attachments.    

“I wasn’t flirting with her!” Ben barked back at Voe. “I went out to get some air and she followed me!”.

“It wasn’t like you made any effort to stop her, either,” she remarked, giving him a sour gaze.

Chapter Text

Two days after Leia Organa’s fundraiser, Armitage Hux was contacted by one of his spies, Balin Janci. Janci was a detention officer at the Republic Judiciary Central Detention Center, and he was one of the many moles working for the First Order. 

“My contact at the HPPD told me the Jedi came to Officer Suwan yesterday,” Janci said. “He bought a datastick with surveillance footage of Chairman Ikari boarding a ship”.

Hux clenched his teeth. Wonderful, just wonderful. That meant it was just a question of time before the HPPD would send someone over to Cantonica to investigate the matter, and if he was unlucky, Hux himself might get a personal visit.

“Thank you,” Hux said. “You will be compensated for your contribution to our cause”.

“Sir,” Janci said with a nod.

The mole disappeared down a narrow backstreet and Armitage was left alone at the back entrance to the building where the propaganda bureau lay. The sun stood high in the sky, but its rays barely reached down to the lower levels of the Collective Commerce District.

Hux leaned back against the concrete wall and closed his eyes. The pile of issues on his desk seemed to grow by the minute. Rey had been playing with fire and now the fire had spread, and yet, Hux doubted that the girl understood exactly how dire their situation truly was. 

The First Order was in a critical expansion phase, and with the battle station on Illum behind schedule, they had to be extremely careful to stir up unwanted attention. If the Republic found out their plans at this stage… Well, Hux could kiss his dream about bringing the galaxy back in order as a top general goodbye.

Armitage let out a deep sigh before he opened his eyes again. He had no choice but to discipline Rey. Until the Starkiller Base was operational, they couldn’t allow any more mistakes.

Hux returned to his office where his assistant, Dopheld Mitaka, was busy working with their new recruitment campaign aimed at poor youths on backwater planets in systems the New Republic didn’t bother about, like Jekara, Trask, Malastare, and Zanbar.

”I need a shuttle to Hosnian Prime immediately and you will have to take over the rest of my meetings for today!”.

Mitaka looked up from the desk with an uneasy gaze in his eyes.

”Is there trouble again, sir?”.

”I’m afraid trouble doesn’t even begin to cover it,” Hux replied as he sent a transmission to Rey’s office at the IGBC skyscraper on Hosnian Prime.

Within seconds, a holographic image of the girl appeared before Armitage and Mitaka. Rey sat hunched over her desk with a gloomy look on her pretty face. It was obvious that the girl was displeased with something and Armitage would bet his credits on that she still was sulking over Solo, who had ditched her invitation to the Hanging Gardens in favor of running to the HPPD.

“I need to talk to you in person. Now,” Hux said without pardon. “Meet me at the orchid section of the Hanging Gardens in three hours”. 

“Is there an actual reason you’re pestering me today?” Rey snapped back at his attempt to pour salt in her wounds.” Or do you just want to be insufferable?”.

Hux took a deep breath. On the inside, he was seething. If he could send the brat back to the creepy old wizard on Exegol for good, Armitage would have done so without hesitation.

“I’m serious,” he said, holding his ground. “Go home early. Tell them you have menstrual cramps or headache. I don’t care which, just get there”.

“This better be important,” the heiress hissed back before she severed the connection.

“Miss Palpatine seemed to be angry,” Mitaka pointed out with a worried expression on his face.

“She can be as angry as she wants,” Hux said as he shrugged on his coat. “Right now, we’re caught between a rock and a hard place and Rey keeps fooling around like it’s all fun and games”.

The Hanging Gardens was a popular place to visit for the citizens of Republic City, who wanted to feel closer to nature, even if just for a moment. The major attraction was a large, layered sandstone pyramid filled with planter boxes. From the boxes, all kinds of tropical plants and flowers grew, and in the middle of the hollow pyramid, there was a pair of tall, flowering willow trees.

The orchid section of the Hanging Gardens consisted of a greenhouse in the shape of a dome, filled with orchids hanging from the ceiling, planted in wooden boxes with sphagnum moss, or simply tied to branches of deadwood covered with green fluffy moss.

The air was humid and carried a scent of water, sweet nectar, and lush leaves.

A true Eden among all the metal, concrete, and durasteel.

Normally, Rey enjoyed visiting the garden. But today, there was nothing but rage swimming in her veins. She was angry and disappointed that Solo hadn’t shown up after the fundraiser, and she wanted nothing but to be left alone and lick her wounds. But, of course, life had other plans for her. 

Like a geonosian gladiator, she marched on a narrow trail that cut through the green grass to the Orchid Section. At the side of the greenhouse, Rey caught sight of Armitage at the cafe’s outdoor seating. He sat at one of the small, white tables with a cup of tea in his hands and a strained look on his face. Whatever Hux wanted to talk about, Rey sensed it would be bad.

Without a word, Rey sat down at the table and poured herself a cup of tea from the transparent glass kettle. The tea was almost pink and had a floral, fruity smell. She wrinkled her nose. 

Too sweet. 

Rey’s gaze traveled over to a small bowl with slices of Roonan lemons into it. Hux watched her crush the lemon slice into a pulp over the edge of his own cup, waiting. 

She wiped off her hands with a napkin and looked to the red-head.

“Just spit it out”.

Hux put down his teacup and cast a look around the area to ensure they were still alone at the outdoor seating.

“One of my sources contacted me in the morning and informed me the Jedi had somehow gotten his hands on surveillance footage of Ikari at the terminal,” he said in a hushed tone.

Rey snorted. “You can’t possibly think that I  was the one who gave it to him, do you?”. 

“The existence of the footage lands on me,” Hux confessed. “I carefully instructed my men to make sure all evidence of Ikari boarding that ship was to be destroyed as soon as he got arrested. But a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, after all…”. He said the last part with disgust in his voice and Rey raised an eyebrow. 

“So you dragged me all the way here to tell me that your men are incompetent..?”.

“Let me remind you that this spells trouble for both of us,” Hux replied dryly. “If we want to avoid a very unpleasant turn of events, you need to act immediately”.

Rey grimaced. She didn’t like to be told what to do, no matter the circumstances.

“What do you have in mind?”.

“Find out exactly how much Solo knows,” Hux demanded.” After that, either you, or I, need to make sure Ikari is taken care of”.

“Don’t worry about Solo,” she replied. “I got it under control”.

A sneer appeared on Hux’s lips, revealing what he thought of her ability to handle the situation. Rey’s grip on her cup hardened, and she had to restrain herself from letting the teapot tip over and spill the rest of the hot tea onto Hux’s lap.

“Of course you do. But what about Ikari?” he pushed. “You know, it’s just a question of time before the Jedi and the HPPD wrings the truth out of the local police on Cantonica. Right now, I would say it’s a question of a few days before they send someone to Oovo to retrieve him”.

From the outside, Rey knew her plans might look like a mess from the mind of the lovesick teenager Hux seemed to have reduced her to. In reality, there was a calculation behind the chaos, and despite some bad luck, the heiress still felt she had control. 

Always watching from the shadows, controlling the game from behind the scenes, just like her grandfather had taught her.

“I said I got this,” she repeated.

”Ikari cannot fall into the hands of our enemy,” Hux reminded her. ”You saw what Solo did to the warden on Kef Bir! If he gets to Ikari, he won’t probably hesitate to do the same and if he does, your dear father will spill secrets like a waterfall".

A chill ran down Rey’s spine. As much as she hated to admit it, Hux was right. If Ben looked into Ikari’s mind, he would not only be aware of the Starkiller Project, but he would also learn about Rey’s origins in the worst way possible.  

Although Ikari didn’t know the entire truth, he knew enough to raise suspicion among the Jedi. Rey gritted her teeth. She could not allow that; it would put her entire plan to win over Ben in jeopardy. 

”I understand your worry, but let me assure you it’s unnecessary,” Rey said, trying to sound as calm and collected as she could. ”I will take care of both Solo and Ikari”.

For a moment, Hux looked like an inflated balloon, and Rey sensed that his anger had evaporated. He then regained his straight posture and cleared his throat.

”I’m glad we have cleared this out,” Hux said. ”I suppose I don’t need to repeat that I expect no half-measures from you”.

“I can only say the same about you”.

Satisfied with her answer, Hux then returned to the shuttle on the landing platform underneath the garden, and within a minute, it was airborne again.

Rey watched how it descended into the air, and she kept it pinned with her eyes until all that remained was the sight of the blue fire from the thrusters on the skyline.

While she finished the tea, Rey contemplated the past two days. She had been so disappointed that Solo ignored her invitation. Almost heartbroken, even. Being sensitive, so easily hurt, was a new experience to Rey, and she didn’t like it one bit. 

Still, sulking wouldn’t get her anywhere, and in the long run, it didn’t matter that he hadn’t shown up after the fundraiser. She was a patient and persistent woman. If it didn’t work out one way, she would just try another.

If Ben Solo were a fly, then Rey was a spider. 

A fly blissfully unaware that he already was caught in the web, stunned by her poison. All that remained for her was to keep him there while she wrapped him into a cocoon of spider silk, and once he emerged from it, he would finally be the one he was supposed to be.

Rey emptied the tea cup and picked up her holopad. It was time to send a transmission to the Knights of Ren. As much as she hated to deal with the unkept marauders, she needed someone else than Trilla and Komari to carry out the dirty work this time. 

“Miss Palpatine”.

“I have an urgent job for you,” Rey said, not wasting any time on pleasantries. “It’s in the Tharin Sector, on Oovo IV’’.

“Can’t do,” Ren the Nameless replied. “We’re on Glee Anselm until next week, then we’re heading back to Varnak for some recreation. After that, maybe we can look at what you need”.

 “Do that and I’ll make sure there is nothing left but ashes of your filthy hideout”.

The masked man gave her a sour gaze. “Getting to Oovo IV unnoticed isn’t a walk in the park… Is Snoke aware of this little plan of yours?”.

“Snoke?” she snorted. “The Starkiller Project is months behind schedule and the Sith Eternal is displeased, to say the least. I think it’s fair to say he has much more pressing issues to worry about at the moment”. 

“You’re playing the high stakes,” Ren replied after a moment’s silence. “But fine, we will accept your request. Who are we talking about this time?”.

“Chairman Ikari. He is held captive at cell block 137”.

“In the underground levels of Oovo IV?” Ren scoffed. “You’re out of your mind. Do you know what kind of security they have down there?”.

“Watch your tongue, Ren,” she replied with a stern tone. “One man has done it, without even the slightest aid of the Force. It shouldn’t be an issue for you and your men”.

“I’ll get it done,” the man replied through clenched teeth. “But you better pay up”.

Rey grinned. “That won’t be an issue. Remember, time is of the essence. Get it done and make sure you leave an impression. Do you understand?”.

“I understand”.

The connection died away, and Rey leaned back into her chair with a sigh.

Maker, what a bother dealing with those imbeciles was…

Ren the Nameless had clearly forgotten his place, and despite that, he accepted the job; Rey would be forced to teach him a lesson. The entire philosophy of the First Order, and the Sith, was built on strict hierarchies with clear lines.  

Those lines were not crossed without consequences. 

She didn’t have time to fly out to the unknown regions and burn down the knight’s hideout, and even if she tasked Trilla and Komari with setting their bar on fire, Rey would still need to discipline Ren the Nameless personally. 

After he had taken care of Chairman Ikari for her, of course. 

At home, Rey lay down on the sofa and scrolled through the text messages on her holopad. Among the massive amount of work-related messages, Rey found an unpleasant surprise. An encrypted message. She didn’t even need to open it to know that it contained a request from her grandfather; she had been on Hosnian Prime for months and Darth Sidious wanted her to come home to Exegol.

Rey herself had no desire whatsoever to leave the vibrant Core Worlds for the dark and depressing rock that harbored her grandfather and his most loyal followers in the Sith Eternal, but as the heiress of the Sith, she simply had no choice but to obey.

“But that will have to wait until I have the situation under control there…” Rey mumbled to herself as she opened up the application that allowed her to keep track of the droids. 

A quick look at the history told her that Hux had told her the truth. It seemed like Ben had gone straight to the HPPD after the fundraiser, and he stayed there for hours. 

Thanks to Hux’s incompetent lackeys, Ben and the HPPD weren’t far from the truth now.

Rey let out another sigh. Hux acted like it was her fault, but one could argue it was his fault in the first place for not being able to find her a better adoptive father.

Ikari had been on a leisure cruise to Canto Bright with Hux’s weapon-selling friends in the Techno Union. The chairman had been drunk already before he sat his foot on Cantonica, and after a wild night in the shadier parts of the town, he had ended up with a young prostitute.

Unfortunately for Ikari, the prostitute turned out to be an underage trafficking victim, and the local police raided the hotel Ikari stayed in and arrested him on the spot. The local government of Canto Bright often saw through their fingers when it came to the crimes of wealthy and influential people. However, recently, they had been pressured to take action on the misery behind the surface, and cracking down on guests who exploited minors was an action they were willing to take to improve their standing with the public.

That Chairman Ikari had been caught up in the middle of it was nothing more than bad luck.

After a swift trial, the Chairman had been shipped off to the prison moon Oovo IV. Hux and his staff at the propaganda bureau had done everything they could to cover up Ikari’s side-step, and it had gone unnoticed until someone had pleaded to Leia Organa for help.

Rey rose from the sofa and stepped over to the closet in her bedroom. She needed something else to wear than the modest dress she used for work. Something that was alluring without being too obvious or too revealing. 

Her droids had gone into power save mode, which meant Ben was home at his parents’ apartment. It wasn’t optimal, but Rey had no choice. She would need to pay him a visit and come up with a solid excuse for doing so. 

“But should I tell him? “, Rey mumbled to herself as she started to search through the piles of clothes for a suitable outfit. “He is so suspicious…”.

The soft afternoon sunlight sipped through the window blinds, and Ben shifted under the terracotta-colored cotton sheets. His head felt heavy like a rock, and there wasn’t a single fiber in his body ready to get up and face what remained of the day.

During the night, he slept poorly, haunted by nightmares. Blood and gore. War. Ben saw himself morph into a dark, faceless monster who slaughtered his mother’s guards without hesitation. Within the dark depths of his psyche, there was something feral; a longing for revenge and retribution.  

You know it’s inevitable. 

It’s in our nature.

The Dark Side.

He had woken up at four in the morning, and the anxiety was strangling him like a serpent. It had been unbearable, and Ben had instinctively reached for the brown jar with the sleeping pills he had gotten from Han and Chewie. He took a half sleeping pill along with one of his prescription drugs.

Just like the last time, the sleeping pills from Kashyyyk knocked him out completely, and Ben had slept until early afternoon. But at least the anxiety was almost gone, and the heavy feeling in his body was a small price to pay for that.  

He closed his eyes, concentrating on his breathing in an effort to banish the lingering anxiety. 

Breathe in. Count to four. Breathe out.  

Ben lay still, trying to find focus until his concentration was broken by a rustling sound from the first floor. Someone was in the hallway. The noise grew louder, and Ben recognized the sound of Han’s heavy armchairs being dragged over the living room floor.

Then he heard the familiar sound of Han’s voice and Lando’s chuckle. The sound of the wooden cabinet doors opening and the clinking of glass bottles.

It seemed like Han had invited Lando over for a glass of whiskey.

A nagging voice at the back of his mind told Ben to go up and get dressed so that he could go down and say hello to Han and Lando. However, he felt like a wreck, and there was no doubt he also looked like one, too. The unwillingness to appear before his father and Lando in his current state won over the pressure to be social, and Ben remained under the sheets. 

As soon as the two men downstairs had seated themselves in the living room, their voices became clearer and Ben could make out their voices.

“I’m getting too old to fly back and forth across the galaxy for all these parties and events,” Lando said as he shifted on the sofa, trying to find a more comfortable position between the vintage pleated cushions from Alderaan. “I’m thinking of retiring and moving to Numidian Prime…”.

“You? Retire?” Han replied with a grin as he opened up the whiskey bottle. “If I got a credit for every time you said you wanted to retire, I’d be richer than Leia”.

The older man chuckled. “This time, I’m actually serious. The tropical climate there would do wonders for my joints”.

Han just shook his head as he poured the whiskey into two straight-sided glasses and pushed one over the table to his friend. 

Lando was just a few years older than Han himself. He didn’t like to admit it, but his strength and stamina weren’t what they used to be, and his back and his knee ached from time to time. However, his aim was still sharp, and the restlessness, the yearning for adventure, hadn’t died yet.

“Can’t your daughter just take over?” Han suggested as he nursed his amber-colored whiskey. The taste was perfect. Woody and spicy at the same time, just as it should be. If there was something the corellians were unbeatable at, it was making ships and whiskey. 

“Jannah is still young and far too idealistic,” Lando sighed as he sank deeper into the plush sofa. “She doesn’t want to take over the business. Not yet, at least”.

Han nodded. Lando was still in the energy and gas mining business. He had expanded his gas mining operations from Bespin to Kril’Dor. It was a lucrative business; tibanna was a versatile gas that could be used for a wide range of industrial applications, from simple explosives and heating fuel to hyperdrive coolants for starships.

“Kids these days,” Han chuckled. “What does she want to do, then?”.

“Who knows? She almost gave me a heart attack when she told me she had gotten a seasonal contract as a warden on Kef Bir,” Lando sighed. “Six months on that muddy, rainy moon, watching over the sad remains of the Death Star…”.

A couple of years after the Battle of Endor, after the last remains of the Galactic Empire had fled into the unknown regions, war tourism grew. It was mainly wealthy citizens from the Core Worlds who wanted to see where the rebellion had once fought for their freedom, and, of course, see the Empire’s super weapon with their own eyes. Eventually, Kef Bir had gotten so crowded with tourists that the New Republic had no choice but to shut down the moon and forbid all entry.

“Leia has a few charity projects that could use someone like Jannah if she wants to do something else than selling your space fuel,” Han suggested. 

“I think Leia has already talked about that with her,” Lando replied, giving Han a knowing gaze.

“She’s always up to something,” he agreed. “Luke is just the same. Last time we spoke, he was planning some agricultural projects for the Jedi. Not sure what the purpose of it was though, grow vegetables through the aid of the Force?”.

Han laughed at his own joke, and the other man just gave him a tired smile. 

“Still skeptical of the magic Force that binds everything together, I hear,” Lando chuckled. “Speaking of that, how is Ben doing? He disappeared before I got a chance to talk to him at the fundraiser”.

At the mention of his son, the smile on Han’s face turned into a scowl, and he emptied his whiskey tumbler in one large gulp. Lando gave his friend a worried gaze.

 “Is anything the matter?” he asked.

Han snorted. “When is anything ever not the matter with that boy?”.

Lando crossed his arms over his chest and gave Han a questioning gaze.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Jannah told me Ben seemed to be just fine when she met him on Kef Bir”.

“Oh, come on,” Han muttered as he refilled his glass. “When we were at his age, we fought for years to save the Galaxy from those imperial bastards, putting our lives at risk every single day, and nobody ever complained. Ben… Sometimes, he is just like a... spoilt, overemotional little girl”. 

“The times have changed, Han,” Lando said. ”You shouldn’t be so hard on him. People who were born after the war ended… It’s a whole different world now. They have other issues than we did”.

When Han was young, he lived a rough life on the streets of Corellia. His mother died, and his father drowned in his sorrows in alcohol. Han moved away from his father at a young age and became entangled with a street gang. As he grew older, he attempted to flee the harsh life on Corellia with his girlfriend, Qi’ra. However, their plan failed, leading Han to spend three years serving as a foot soldier in the Galactic Empire.

Eventually, Han deserted from the Empire and started a career as a freelance smuggler. For years, he smuggled everything from spice to weapons across the galaxy until he crossed paths with Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi on that fateful day on Tatooine.

Compared to Han, Ben had grown up in excessive privilege. A galaxy in peace, free from the tyranny of the Empire, a family, two loving parents, and material wealth far beyond the imagination of most other children.

Han refilled his glass a second time while Lando kept nursing his own whiskey in silence, each caught in their own thoughts. 

“I think… I think he even waxes his chest,” Han blurted out. “When we were young... just women did that”.

Lando raised an eyebrow at his friend. “I don’t know what kind of women you socialized with in your youth, but I have never met a human woman who had to wax her chest!”.

Han groaned and gave his friend a sour gaze. “Not there! You know what I mean!”.

Lando smiled and shook his head. “Well, what can I say? Kids these days..,” he chuckled as he slowly stirred the remains of the whisky around in his glass. “Is Ben better off these days? As I said, I only saw a glimpse of him yesterday”. 

Han grunted. “Same as always; depression, issues with anxiety, nightmares, insomnia…”.

Lando put down his glass on the table and shot his friend a perplexed look. 

“You’re telling me it’s still that bad?”

“Yeah. It is. I thought that maybe he would grow out of it,” Han admitted. “But he’s almost thirty and nothing, nothing has changed for the better. Ben is more like an anxious, oversensitive fourteen-year-old girl than an adult man… “.

Lando raised both his eyebrows at his old friend. “Couldn’t they help him at Polis Massa?”.

“No. He has been there four times. It hasn’t helped. Nothing helps,” Han brushed the other man off. “After that… thing with Luke happened on Ossus, he spent almost a half-year with those creepy, small headshrinkers, and when Ben got back… he was so drugged he couldn’t even see straight”.

It had been a nightmare. Leia, who never lost her face, had been on the edge of being hysterical, and Han himself had never felt so powerless in his entire life.

“Do they know what’s wrong with him?”. 

 “They have never given us a straight answer. Leia says that it’s most likely a combination of his force sensitivity and some sort of personality disorder.” Han shrugged. “Whatever that is…”.

“I’m truly sorry to hear that, old friend,” Lando deplored. “I knew he had issues, but I never thought it was this bad”. 

“Yeah, it is as it is,” Han said, shaking his head. 

“You know what?” he said. “I know a nice restaurant not far from here that has the most delicious salted oysters I've ever tasted! Why don’t we head over there and get ourselves something for dinner? It’ll cheer you up”.

“Salted… oysters?” Han grimaced. “You must be joking”. 

“Salted, fermented for five days, spiced, and then served with rice, julienne radish, and pickled pear, “Lando chuckled as he tapped at his commlink. “It’s a delicacy, but they also serve excellent roasted quail, which I think our furry friend would enjoy”. 

On the upper floor, Ben’s thoughts were spinning like a deep-sea maelstrom, and the anger was boiling in his blood. He stood up, hands shaking and heart racing. 

See?

That’s what that old, spineless fool truly thinks of you. 

You’re nothing but a disappointment to him.

He knew his parents might not have the highest thoughts of him. But hearing Han speak about him in such a manner… The feeling was indescribable.

Ben curled his hand into a fist and punched the wall. The outer layer of the wall cracked under his fist. He punched it again, harder. Small pieces of the wall crumbled into dust, revealing a layer of white gypsum. 

He threw a series of punches at the wall until the sadness and anger had been drained away, and the only thing left was the physical pain in his hand. 

The pain felt good. Soothing. Almost comforting even, and Ben closed his eyes to relish the sensation for a moment before he came to his senses. 

“Don’t go there. You promised yourself you wouldn’t,” he told himself.

As soon as he let go of the dark, the pain became worse, searing. Ben swore quietly to himself as he inspected his bloodied fist with clenched teeth. The wound didn’t look good, and it wasn’t so superficial that Ben could patch it up on his own at home. He needed to get a medic, or at least a proper medical droid, to look at it.

“Young Master Ben,” the golden droid wailed in anguish. “You are hurt!”.

“I know, it’s alright,” he assured Threepio. “It looks worse than it is”.

Ben wrapped up the hand the best he could with a bandage from an old first aid kit he found in one of the kitchen drawers. He knew he would probably have to get a proper casting, but the bandage would have to do for the moment.

The doorbell rang, and while Threepio hurried over to get the door, Ben quickly showed the first aid supplies back into the drawer and tossed bloody cotton pads into the trash.

When he turned around his head, the droid stood alone in the door opening.

“Who was it?”. 

“It’s a… Ms. Ikari,” Threepio replied.

“What did you say?”.

At first, he thought the droid was pulling a joke on him. But Threepio’s sense of humor was close to non-existent, and even so, he wouldn’t know that Ben didn’t want to see the Chairman’s daughter. 

 “Ms. Ikari,” the protocol droid said, “Shall I let her in?”.

“No! No, no! Make her go away!” he barked back in panic at the startled droid. What in the whole, wide universe is Kira doing outside his home? How did she even know where he lived?

“But, but… what should I tell her?” Threepio replied, confused, and Ben just stared back at the droid, completely clueless.

Tell her what? 

Before Ben could think of a good explanation why he couldn’t let her in, Kira showed up in the hallway behind the droid. Threepio turned around and gasped when he registered that she didn’t wait at the door like he had asked her to.

“Oh! Ms. Ikari, I’m certain I told you…”.

She certainly was bold, Ben thought. Letting herself in without an invitation, like they were old friends. 

“It’s alright. Thank you,” Kira interrupted the droid as she swept around him to make her way to Ben. 

She was clad in something that looked like a crimson-colored curtain that someone had braided into a dress around her slim, athletic frame. It looked impractical as if it could fall off her with a slight jerk.

When she caught sight of the bandage, the socialite stopped dead in her tracks and gave him a puzzled look.

“What have you done to your hand?”. 

“It was… an accident,” Ben replied. 

It had been an accident, sort of. He had gotten those violent tantrums before, although it had been a long time since it had happened last time. The rage that took over him was endless, like an ocean. It made him blind and deaf to anything else.

“It needs to be looked after,” Kira said as her gaze traveled over his bandage. “Your hand looks swollen”.

“I know. I was just about to leave for the medical center”.

“You were?”. 

“Yes,” Ben assured her in the calmest, most assuring voice he could muster. “However, before that, I would very much like to know why you are here, and how you know ―”.

“You’re pale. It looks like you could faint any minute,” she interjected before Ben could finish his sentence. “Let me come with you. I couldn’t possibly let you go on your own with a clear conscience”.

Ben scowled. He wasn’t that pale, and he was certainly not about to faint. 

But if he did, he wouldn’t be surprised. It would be just his usual luck.

“Let’s go,” Kira said as she wrapped her hand around his wrist in a firm grip. She was strong. Stronger than her looks gave her credit for, and before Ben could protest further, Kira had dragged him out of the apartment and pushed him into the turbolift.  

“You don’t have to come with me,” Ben tried again. “I can take care of myself”.

The mere thought of hanging out with Kira alone, if you even could call it that, made him uneasy. 

If they were unlucky enough to bump into Voe and Finn, Ben was certain he would get a call from Uncle Luke and a demand for an explanation as to why he was fraternizing with the Chairman’s daughter again. Voe hadn’t forgiven him for what happened on Ossus, and she didn’t trust Ben either. Perhaps that explained why she seemed to have taken it upon herself to keep him in line.

As if Master Luke already hadn’t limited him enough…

“I never said you couldn’t,” Kira replied. “But you’re hurt, and I’m only doing what any decent person would do. If I were hurt badly, would you really leave me on my own?”.

Ben gave her a tired gaze. 

Did she try to use some master suppression technique on him? It almost felt like he was talking to his mother. Just like Leia, Kira seemed to be a person who didn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, and she also seemed to be deaf to things she didn’t want to hear.

“That’s what I thought,” Kira said with a triumphant grin, taking his silence as a victory. “Now, why don’t you stop being so terribly stubborn and accept my help?".

Chapter Text

It took the medical droid at the Emergency Clinic less than five minutes to perform a quick scan of his wounded hand.

“There is a crack, but nothing is broken and the bones are still aligned,” the droid explained in a monotone voice. “A cast and a bacta wrap will be sufficient, but I must advise against further self-mutilation”. 

Ben simply nodded in silence, well aware of how reckless and stupid he had been. After spending almost twenty years studying the arts of mindfulness and inner peace, he should be much better at keeping his temper in check than he actually was.

The cold lights in the examination room were blinding, and Ben had to squint as he looked around the room. Blank surfaces, shiny metal, blue and green. Softly chirping droids. It reminded him of the clinic on Polis Massa. 

The medical droid worked fast. It discarded Ben’s old bandage and wrapped his hand and underarm into a blue synthetic cast of fiberglass over a stockinette and cotton padding. 

“Can you move your fingers? It’s not too tight?”.

Ben nodded. “It’s fine”.

“Excellent,” the droid replied. “I have prescribed painkillers that are compatible with your current prescriptions. Come back for a check-up in four to six weeks”.

“Thank you”.

After he had retrieved his prescription code for the painkillers at the reception, Ben went back to the lobby of the clinic. There, he found Kira in front of one of the vending machines, studying the selection. When he approached her, she spun around and faced him with a smile.

“The color on your face is back,” she said with a satisfied look on her face. “What was it I told you?”.

“You were about to tell me the reason for your visit,” he reminded her.

Kira grimaced and gave him a disappointed gaze. “Actually, I was just passing by and since we were interrupted the day before yesterday, I never got to tell you how worried I am for my father”.

“You are?” Ben raised an eyebrow. Right. So now she was worried? 

“Yes,” Kira said, resting her hands on her hips. “It’s been over a month, and I have heard nothing from the HPPD. I’m worried that they don’t prioritize the case as high as they should”.

Ben wasn’t sure if he was supposed to laugh or cry at Kira’s statement. Until this very moment, she had shown zero interest in her father’s whereabouts and he hadn’t forgotten what Arpa had said about Kira being uncooperative when he first got assigned to the case.

“So…,” Kira’s mouth once again curled into a small smile. “I thought I’d come by and see if you wanted to share anything more with me”.

“As I told you before,” Ben replied. “When we find him, you will be the first to know”.

“You speak like you’re a droid in the banking, or the insurance business,” Kira said as she pinned her gaze on him. “When was the last time you did anything fun?”.

A slight blush appeared on Ben’s cheeks. The way she looked at him… It sparked something within him. Her gaze was undeniably alluring. Those big eyes, glittering with mischief. But he had already decided he wouldn’t give in to temptation.

Kira tilted her head to the side, eyeing him with curiosity in her gaze. “Does the Jedi take a pledge against having fun?”.

“Your concern for me is… touching,” he replied, feeling the need to draw a line before this impossible girl got any ideas. “However, I’m afraid I can’t help you further. If you want more information about the case, I suggest you contact Officer Suwan. Now, if you excuse me, I’ll need to go to the pharmacy”.

With those words, Ben made his way to the exit. He heard a soft sigh behind him as Kira left her spot at the vending machine and walked up to his side.

“I’d fancy a bubble tea, but the vending machine only had regular iced tea,” she said, unabashedly linking her arm with his unhurt left. “However, I know a place close to here. Let’s get your prescriptions and go there?”.  

“I… I don’t think that is a good idea,” Ben said, not daring to look in her direction.

Having her body so close to his own was distracting and it made him confident that it was worse than a bad idea to spend more time alone with Kira. It would probably be a terrible idea. Ben knew that because there was a part of him who longed to go with her. Longed to do the opposite of what he was supposed to do.

Say yes.

I can’t.

He couldn’t. Ben was the most scrutinized member of the Jedi Order and he had enough issues as it was. Diverting from the narrow path of the Order was not an option.

“I’m not asking you to break your vows,” she replied with a light shrug. “It’s just tea”.

Ben sighed. He had met bloodsucking leeches in the deep swamps of Dagobah, who were less persistent than Kira. “It’s not personal,” he assured the girl, as if it would do the trick and make her give up. “We just don’t do such things”. 

Kira looked at him with scrutinizing eyes for a moment. “Are you afraid I’ll do something to make you look bad?” she suggested, looking at him through her long lashes. “Maybe try to lure you astray?”.

“Why would I think that?” he replied, trying to sound as unaffected as he could. “As I just said, it’s just not suitable”.

Kira didn’t let go of his arm until they reached the pharmacy which was squeezed in between two tall apartment complexes. It was a small, bright shop with a tiled floor and a fully automated checkout. Along the wall stood large, stationary droids that dispensed the medicine. They looked like vending machines without glass panels.  

“I think you’re afraid,” Kira said. She was leaning lazily against one of the white vending machines, eyeing Ben with an amused gaze as he tried to remember the code the droid in the reception had given him. 

Scan your ID and type the six-digit code given by your health care center.  

“I’m not,” he replied. 

The vending droid beeped in protest when he entered the wrong code and he didn’t even need to look at Kira to know that she was smirking. It took Ben three tries until the machine spewed out his pills, neatly packed in a roll of small plastic bags. 

“Prove it to me,” Kira pushed. “I promise I have no hidden intentions. 

“This is getting ridiculous,” Ben shook his head. “But, fine. I’ll go with you”.

They ended up in a small cantina at the central plaza. It was simple for something placed in the Senate District. A long counter in brushed steel with red accents, manned by a droid. Kira ordered tea, a quince-flavored bubble tea with tapioca pearls for herself and Sencha for Ben.

“I like this place. They serve the best tea drinks in the entire district,” Kira said as they sat down at a table at the cantina’s outdoor serving. A large, red, coarse fabric was rigged like a sail over the seating area, shielding it from the summer sun and the occasional rain.

Like Coruscant, Hosnian Prime was a fully developed ecumenopolis. There was no nature left and the last ecosystem collapsed thousands of years ago. Nowadays, a rigorous weather-control system managed the climate.  

Kira stirred her drink with a metal straw and the black tea merged with the purple fruit syrup and the white oat milk into an abstract swirly pattern on the surface. Ben stared at his own glass as the tea leaves dissolved into the hot water, coloring it into a soft shade of green. He was an idiot, that he knew, but since when had he become such a pushover? 

He sighed softly to himself. Well, now that he was already there, he would have to make the best of it. 

“Tell me about your relationship with Armitage Hux,” Ben asked.

“Hux…?” Kira blinked at him with wide eyes. 

“He was your cavalier at the fundraiser”.

“Oh. You mean Armitage,” Kira reluctantly said, taking a sip of her tea. He is a… friend of the family”.

“A friend of the family as in a friend of your father, too?”.

“You could say that. Both our families come from Arkanis,” she said. “Before Othori adopted me, I lived there with my grandfather. Hux’s mother was our neighbor, and he often came to visit her”.

Arkanis was a rocky planet with vast oceans in the Outer Rim. It was known for its fishing industry and its military academy. During the war, Arkanis had been under the control of the Empire for decades. Today, however, it was a wealthy system loyal to the New Republic.

“You have a grandfather?”.

She nodded.

 “I do. Once, he was a scholar who worked for the Empire. After the war, he fled from the rebels to Arkanis. Already back then, he was too old and sick to take care of a child on his own”.

“Does he still live on Arkanis?” Ben asked.

“No,” Kira said. “My grandfather lives on a quiet rock in the Unknown Territories, far too sick to travel any longer. He spends most of his days in bed, dreaming about a miracle ― or death”.

Ben rose an eyebrow. The Unknown Territories? That was a largely unexplored region also known as ‘Chaos’, and the reason for that was that it was filled with black holes, gravity wells, large asteroids swarms and other phenomena that made navigation as good as impossible.

“….I see”.

He wasn’t sure what kind of backstory he had expected from Kira, but it didn’t surprise him she came from a family who had served the Empire. Chairman Ikari had worked for them, too, after all. If he looked into Hux’s past, Ben was certain he would find ties to the Empire as well. 

“What division of the Techno Union does Hux work for?”.

“He is just like any other corporate lobbyist,” Kira said, shooting him a bored gaze. “What he does depends on which branch they’re pushing at the moment”. 

“It wouldn’t be the branch that sells planetary weapon systems, would it?”.

“The sky is so beautiful during this season,” Kira said, licking the remains of syrup off her straw. “It almost looks like an ocean of stars and satellites. Very romantic, don’t you think?”. 

“We’re not on a date, Kira,” Ben reminded her. 

“Fine. Not date then,” she replied, still smiling. “But it’s not an interrogation either. Now I think it’s my turn to ask the questions, so tell me a little about yourself”.

“About myself?” Ben repeated. 

“Yes”.

It wouldn’t be much to tell, Ben thought to himself. At least nothing she didn’t already know, and the rest wasn’t very interesting. A summary of enormous expectations that turned into a long series of disappointments, one worse than the other.

“There isn’t much to tell,” he flatly said.

Kira shot him a skeptical gaze. “I can hardly believe that,” she said as she put down her half-empty glass and leaned over the table, looking him straight in the eyes with that intense gaze again.

“Tell me why you wanted to become a Jedi ― what was it with the ascetic life as a humble servant to the New Republic that drew you in?”.

“I didn’t choose. My family chose it for me,” Ben curtly replied. 

He couldn’t help but feel annoyed at her demanding tone and something told him that Kira was already aware of how one became a Jedi, but she brought up the subject, anyway.

“That’s such a pity,” the girl said as she looked up at him with an affected look in her eyes. “I heard a Jedi Knight isn’t even allowed to fall in love”. 

“There are worse occupations than serving the Jedi Order,” Ben replied, avoiding the subject. He wasn’t in the mood for this. Far from it, all he wanted was to go home, lay down on the sofa, and pull a blanket over himself. The day had been a disaster from the moment he woke up in the morning, and his patience was running dangerously low.

“What about sex, then?” Kira suggested. “Is that allowed?”.

Her eyes glittered dangerously again, colored amber by the tea lights on the table. Ben sucked in a breath, shocked by her straightforwardness. Did she really ask him about sex, just like that?

“That… that’s a little too private to ask, don’t you think?” Ben protested between gritted teeth, relieved that his voice still sounded steady. His face was flushed, and he felt like he could die from embarrassment. 

“My bad. I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I was just being curious,” Kira apologized, but her eyes still glittered and Ben had a feeling that she wasn’t sorry at all for asking such personal questions. If anything, the more intrusive the questions were, the more she seemed to enjoy asking them.

“Let’s talk about something else. What do you do when you don’t serve the Light and the Republic?”.

“I collect butterflies and meditate,” Ben replied, not even bothering to hide the sarcasm. 

He rose from the table.

“This has been lovely, but I need to go. Thank you for the tea”.

Kira’s amber eyes had turned cold, but her gaze was still burning. Such an odd contradiction. Frozen, like frost on fire. 

“Very well,” she said. “Until we meet again”.

When Ben returned home, Leia was still away, but Han’s worn boots stood in the hallway, so he assumed Chewie and his father were back. His venture with Kira had taken less than three hours, but apparently, neither Lando nor his father had the stamina to go out on the benders they used to in the past.

Ben stopped in the hallway and peered into the living room.

Just as he had predicted, Han sat parked on the sofa with his wookie companion. He was scrolling through a site with job offers for freight companies and Chewie looked like he had fallen asleep. 

The living room was dark, only lit up by the chandelier hanging from the ceiling and the weak lights at the facing of the skyscraper. It cast a soft orange glow over the greyed man and the wookie.

Ben shrugged off his brown robe and took off his boots as quietly as he could. He had no desire to speak to his father tonight, and Han had not yet noticed that he had returned. Hoping that he could sneak up to the second floor undetected, Ben walked into the living room with careful steps. He walked like he was treading on thin ice, staying as close to the wall as he could.

“Hey kid, where have you been? I haven’t seen you all day!”.

Damn it.

“I… I was out for a while”, Ben replied, remaining in the shadows by the large wooden cabinet at the wall. He clutched his robe to his chest, inhaling deeply. 

“Is that a casting on your arm?” Han asked as he squinted, struggling to see in the dim-lit room .

“I hurt my hand in the disposal grinder. I had to go to the clinic”.

“The disposal grinder, huh?” Han shook his head. “I told Leia that thing is lethal. I don’t understand why we still have it…”.

“It just was an accident,” Ben mumbled. 

Maker, why was his father suddenly so chatty?   

“Yeah? Be glad it didn’t grind your entire arm into meat slices,” Han muttered as he turned his gaze back to the holopad. “I’m looking for a new job. Preferably something less lethal than hunting ranthars, or acklays, and something that isn’t as tedious as shipping grains”.

“Using non-sentient beings for pit fights is illegal”.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” the older man grunted, giving his son an annoyed glare. “I just said I was looking for a new job. Come and keep me company for a while”, Han said, gesturing for Ben to take a seat.

Reluctantly, Ben walked over to the sofa. The whiskey bottle stood on the table again, Ben noticed, and the glass beside his father was almost empty. 

“Is the freight company doing bad?” he asked.

While most common people in the Core Worlds only knew Han as a war hero from the Rebellion, his reputation in the rest of the galaxy was slightly more tarnished. An excellent pilot and a crafty ex-smuggler? Certainly, but there was also a significant amount of people who saw Han as a scammer, someone who talked big but couldn’t deliver on his promises. 

“The freight company is doing… okay,” Han replied with a wavering voice that confirmed Ben’s suspicions. It made him wonder how his father defined ‘doing okay’. 

Close to bankruptcy, but not quite there yet, perhaps?  

Frankly, it didn’t matter; when Han Solo’s projects failed, which they all eventually did, because he still had his rich wife to rely on when things turned south. As far as Ben knew, his mother had saved more than three failed start-up companies for her impulsive husband over the years.

“Here is something; an archeological project on Moraband! Seeking help to move supplies and equipment to set up an excavation site…”.

“You mean Korriban?” Ben sat straight up on the sofa. “You can’t be serious. That planet belongs to the Old Sith worlds! Who in their right mind would get the idea to dig there?”. 

Korriban was a hot, dry, desolate planet in the Esstran Sector. To the Jedi, it was mostly known as the resting place of Darth Bane, an ancient Sith Lord. But Bane was far from the only Sith buried there; the Valley of Dark Lords was filled with the tombs of fallen Siths. 

“The project is sanctioned by the Jedi Council and the New Republic. Look for yourself”. 

To Ben’s surprise, Han was actually right. The project was going to be carried out by the archeological branch of the Jedi Service Corps in a couple of months. At the bottom of the page, he spotted his former friend Hennix’s name listed as a representative for the project.

“I didn’t know Luke was planning this…” Ben admitted. 

“Luke was on Moraband after the war ended, searching for something,” Han revealed. “Not sure if he found what he was looking for back then, maybe he is giving it a shot again?”.

“Maybe,” he shrugged.

“Since the Jedi Service Corps is in charge of this project, maybe you should apply for it?”. 

Ben blinked. “And why should I do that….?”.

Luke wouldn’t allow him to set foot on Korriban for as long as he lived. The planet might have been abandoned by the Sith long ago, but their spirits still lingered among the ruins. Not to mention that Hennix would certainly refuse to work with Ben. While the quarren’s physical wounds after the incident on Ossus had healed long ago, the trust between the two Jedi Knights had remained broken.  

“I’d just thought it could be fun if we did something together again,” Han said, scratching the back of his head. “It was ages ago since we last went on a job together”.

Ben’s jaw dropped at his father’s words. 

What was this, an attempt to soothe his bad conscience? 

When he was younger, Ben would probably have appreciated the offer. As a young padawan, Han had once joined him and Luke on a short mission to Dantooine and the old Jedi Temple there.

But now…? 

“I’m going to bed,” Ben said as he rose from the sofa. “I think you should stick with the grain transports. That’s what you do best”.

The living room bathed in the morning sun and, despite his fit yesterday, Ben was filled with a rare sense of inner peace. Filled with hope ― today could be his last day on the Ikari case. Arpa Suwan’s assistant Abashi had left for Cantonica yesterday morning, and Ben expected him to send a status update within a few hours. 

Ben brushed his teeth, took a quick shower, and dressed in a fresh set of loose-fitting linen pants and matching undertunic. He had no plans of leaving the apartment until he had spoken to Abashi, so he didn’t bother with the entire ensemble of over-tunic, tabard, and sash. 

On his way to the kitchen, Ben saw Han had left both his glass and the empty whiskey bottle on the coffee table. The apartment was quiet, and the door to his parent's bedroom stood open enough for Ben to see that the bed was made and unoccupied. 

On the kitchen counter, Ben found a note from his father.

“On a job. Will be back in a few days”.

He put the note to the side and made himself breakfast. Oatmeal porridge with dried pieces of fruit and a cup of instant caaf.

Once he was finished making breakfast, Ben sat down at the kitchen table, scrolling through his messages on the holopad while he waited for the porridge to cool down a little.  

A report of how the re-building of the Jedi Service Corps was proceeding, some formalities about the training facilities the padawans shared with the Republican Navy cadets, an automated letter from the library reminding him to return Cere Junda’s memoirs. 

Ben shut down the holopad and took a sip of his caaf. It was bitter, and he blended a spoonful of cocoa into the brew to even out the flavor. 

His thoughts went back to Kira. As much as it was annoying, her odd, irrational behavior intrigued him. It made him want to find out the reason behind it, find out what secrets she was undoubtedly hiding. Her backstory about the grandfather on Arkanis was probably true, but Ben had a feeling she had left out vital parts of the complete story. Despite his curiosity, Ben was also wise enough to know that he should stay away from her. 

He was no stranger to the story of his grandparents and the tragedy their forbidden romance had culminated in. Luke was firm on that point, too ― no romantic involvements were allowed in the New Jedi Order. It was just too dangerous, his uncle meant. 

While love undeniably was a strong positive feeling, it could also stir a plethora of negative feelings, such as jealousy, obsession, compulsion, and fear. Once the mission was over, he would probably never see Kira Ikari again, and it was probably for the better, Ben reasoned. It wasn’t like he was in love, but for someone who had felt alone his entire life, the attention was hard to resist.

After breakfast, Ben dutifully pushed away his thoughts of Kira and started to work on his report on the Ikari-case.

Two hours later, Leia appeared at the door opening with the newly polished Threepio. Her gray hair was braided like a halo around her head. Her short-cut nails were painted in an almond brown shade, golden jewelry without stones, and a tailored, stylistically pure costume in the same color as her nail polish. 

“Are you going to another event this early?”.  

“No, this was for a magazine shoot,” Leia said as she met Ben’s puzzled gaze. “The stylist was adamant about a down-to-earth look”. 

“It was a very good choice,” C-3PO chimed in. 

She turned her gaze to the golden droid. “Threepio, make yourself useful and make me some rooibos, please”.

With those words, the senator sat down at the kitchen table. Since she had announced her candidature, Leia had been working day and night. 

Yesterday, she had been at a conference in Galactic City and before she left; she had attended yet another talk show and an interview for one of the most popular magazines targeted to humanoid females in the Core Worlds. Being a politician today was a lot different from how it had been thirty years ago. Today, one needed to fight much harder to be visible and get the political message out on as many channels as possible. 

“What did you do to your hand?” Leia asked with a nod to the casting.

“The disposal grinder. I slipped,” Ben said, surprised at how easily the lie rolled off his tongue. “But I’m fine. It.., it was just a scratch”.

Leia sighed softly. “The casting tells me it was more than just a scratch. What were you doing, Ben?”.

“I told you. I was just being clumsy,” he replied, waving away her concern.

Still, his mother kept looking at him with a mix of worry and disbelief in her eyes like she usually did.

“How was the conference?” Ben asked, in an attempt to try to divert Leia’s attention from his wounded hand.

“It was very educational,” Leia replied. “We have a long way to go with equal, basic rights for all races, but we’re going in the right direction”. 

Threepio returned with a teapot and two tea mugs on a tray. With a certain hand, the droid poured the hot brew into the mugs. 

“I see you have already started to write on the report,” Leia said with a nod to the holopad. “Has Chairman Ikari finally been found?”.

“Almost,” Ben admitted. “Finn found surveillance footage of Chairman Ikari boarding a ship registered on the Techno Union. Drunk”.

The senator shook her head. “I will discuss Ikari with Senator Xiono next week. We will have to take another look at our anti-corruption policy for local politicians. It’s not acceptable to go on party cruises with representatives of the weapon industry. It puts us all in a bad light”.

Ben nodded in agreement. “Hopefully, it won’t take too long until he’s back here. I can’t wait until this mission is finished… I would have been lost if it wasn’t for Finn”. 

“You have done a good job, too, Ben,” Leia said. “I know how hard you worked”.

“Thank… you,” he replied, surprised by the unexpected praise.

On the table, Ben’s holopad lit up with an incoming call from the HPPD. He accepted the call and a small, blue hologram of Arpa appeared, greeting them with a light bow.

“Ben, Senator Organa”. 

“Officer,” Ben said, returning the gesture.  

“I will not waste any time; the good news is that we have found Chairman Ikari,” the officer said. “The bad news is that he is dead. He was found murdered in a prison cell hours ago on Oovo IV”.

Leia and Ben exchanged an equally shocked gaze. 

“What, but how…, how is that even possible?” he questioned Arpa. 

“Assistant Abashi will remain on Canto Bight, trying to sort out what happened there and how Chairman Ikari could be sent to Oovo instead of the correctional center on Hosnian Prime,” she replied. 

She looked just as shocked as Ben felt. He sank back onto his chair, trying to wrap his mind around the situation. Ikari was dead, murdered… How did he go from being drunk on a leisure cruise to Canto Bight to being murdered in a cell on Oovo IV?

“This is unfortunate news, officer,” Leia said, keeping her calm like usual. “I expect you to go to the bottom of this”.

“We will, senator. I can assure you that”.

The thoughts continued to swirl around in Ben’s head. What was going to happen now, with the case, with him, with Kira? Yesterday, she had told him she thought they hadn’t prioritized the case high enough, and now her father was dead. Was it a coincidence?

It seemed unlikely.

“What about Kira?” he carefully asked. 

Although he had done his most trying to find Chairman Ikari, Ben couldn’t help but feel a sting of bad conscience that he wasn’t able to do more.

“Don’t worry about Ms. Ikari. The case is my responsibility. I will talk to her,” Arpa assured him.” You, on the other hand… I must ask you to go to Oovo IV and verify the information we have retrieved”. 

Ben nodded. “Of course”.

“Thank you,” the officer said with a nod.  

With that, they took farewell to Arpa and the hologram died away.

“I’m concerned,” Leia admitted as she turned her gaze back to Ben. “The murder of a representative for the democracy, ill-rumored or not, is a serious matter. Go back to Luke on Coruscant, before you leave for the Oovo system. He needs to know what has happened”.

Ben nodded. He wasn’t keen on either seeing his uncle in person or returning to the Jedi Temple. But he needed Luke’s permission if he was to travel to Oovo on his own.

The Oovo system lay far out in the Outer Rim, bordering the Ash Worlds. Oovo IV was one of several moons orbiting the gas giant Oovo. A vast asteroid field surrounded the prison moon, and there were no commercial transports available that flew there.

With Han away on whatever job he had managed to find on such short notice, Ben would have to wait for one of the New Republic’s supply transports, or he would have to fly there himself. Or, the Maker forbids, perhaps Leia would suggest he’d hitch a ride with the Republican Navy. Getting flown to Oovo by Poe Dameron would be a very awkward experience in more ways than one, and Ben wasn’t sure that his pride could survive that kind of humiliation.  

He silently prayed that the best pilot in the Republican Navy would be busy shooting a toothpaste commercial or visiting a children’s hospital somewhere in the opposite direction of the Oovo system.

Chapter Text

Through the window of a shimmering gray air speeder, Rey saw the white and mother-of-pearl-colored skyscrapers of Upper City emerge among a soft veil of clouds. 

Upper City was a part of the Financial District on Coruscant. Here, Rey owned an old, but impressive penthouse apartment through one of Helgo Damask’s old trust funds. It once belonged to Senator Trell from Ryloth, and Damask gained it through foreclosure after the senator’s death. After her grandfather had murdered his old master, Darth Sidious also took over the muun’s assets, and that was how the apartment ended up in Rey’s hands. 

With its three floors, five bedrooms, four bathrooms, and a private landing platform, the enormous apartment was something out of the ordinary, even for Upper City. The interior was impressive too, although it was very old-fashioned and on the verge of being gaudy if you asked Rey. White walls, alabaster banisters, giant golden chandeliers, and blood-red wall-to-wall carpets in every room but the bathrooms and the kitchen. 

The most impressive feature of the apartment was a series of levitating fountains, as big as small bubble baths, in the living room. When Rey saw it for the first time, she thought it was pure madness. Such a large amount of water only for decoration! On Jakku, it would have been worth more than a good scavenger earned in an entire year.

The airspeeder landed at the elevated landing platform next to the skyscraper where the droid staff that belonged to the property awaited. While the droids took care of her luggage, Rey walked down the stairs that led to the entrance. The door was framed by a three-point white arc that complimented the color of the rest of the building, and when Rey swept her fingers over the lock, it opened up with a soft hiss.

The hallway that met her was spacious and light, lit up by the daylight from the enormous windows, the white ceiling high and decorated with classic structures. 

A spiral stair with white banisters led to the upper floor. There, Rey found her handmaiden Komari lying on one of the sofas. She was dressed in a skimpy black slip dress with slits on the sides that almost reached up to the hip. 

The blonde lay with her back against the seat and her bare legs resting over the armrest, scrolling through a list of potential matches on one of the dating services on the HoloNet. As she caught sight of her approaching mistress, she quickly shut down the page and sat up straight on the sofa.

“Welcome back to Coruscant, Miss Palpatine”, she said, greeting Rey with a smile. “What a surprise to see you here”.

“I needed a change of environment,” Rey replied as she sat down at the other end of the red velvet sofa.” I had such bad luck on Hosnian Prime that I’m on the verge of believing the place is cursed”.

The blonde grinned slightly. ”Let us hope Upper City isn’t”.

“I do certainly hope so… Are you going to eat that?” Rey asked, making a gesture to a takeaway lunch that stood on the gold-gilded coffee table. The former Jedi shook her head and shoved the half-eaten dish over to Rey. 

“Eat your heart out”.

Rey’s stomach groaned. She hadn’t eaten since yesterday and the smell of whatever it was the blonde had bought for lunch reminded her of how hungry she was. Her failed date with Ben yesterday had thrown her into such a bad mood that she had spent the entire morning sulking in bed, not even bothering to eat breakfast.

“It doesn’t taste bad, but the consistency is odd. What is it?”.

“Spiced bean curd with Mon Cala-style seaweed noodles,” Komari yawned. “Did you get anywhere with Solo yesterday?”.

“I got somewhere,” Rey said. “Not just where I wanted to”.

Komari chuckled as she stretched out on the sofa again. “You should just have stripped down and pinned him to the floor. Jedi, or not — no man with a pulse will resist”.

Rey laughed so hard that she almost spilled bean curd on her dress. Her sultry handmaiden was incorrigible and sometimes Rey wondered how the woman had lasted as long in the stiff Jedi Order as she had.

“I asked him about sex,” she confessed. “And you know what? He got upset that he left. Didn’t even finish his tea…”.

Komari chuckled. “I suppose you don’t know what it’s like to grow up in an environment where celibacy is the norm. “When I was a padawan, sex was taboo. It was like an unwritten clause to the “No attachments” rule,” she said with a thoughtful look on her face. “Everybody knew, but nobody ever spoke about it openly”.

“How boring that sounds,” Rey replied as she fished up a mouthful of spiced noodles with her chopsticks. She let the sauce drip off before she swallowed the last of the noodles in one big gulp like a deep-sea anglerfish. 

From her point of view, living the Jedi way seemed more like a punishment than the honor they said it was. Through visions and dreams, Rey had gotten glimpses of what her own life as a Jedi would have been like. A maiden in white living an austere existence devoted to spreading Skywalker’s teachings over the galaxy.

Smiling on the outside while what was left of her mutilated soul crumbled away on the inside like footsteps in the deserts of Jakku.

“It is the way of the Jedi,” Komari said with a slight shrug. 

“… and my mission is to lead him off that road,” Rey reminded her. “But I need a more permanent solution, or this will never work out”.

It had been painfully clear that her current strategy didn’t work. No, she needed Ben in a position where he couldn’t run away as soon as it became uncomfortable. 

Komari studied her from the other end of the sofa, her yellow-tinted eyes searching for a clue of what was to come.

“I assume you have a plan,” she said.

“I do,” the heiress confirmed. “I didn’t come here just for fun ― I need you and Trilla to pack your bags. We’re going away for a while”.

Komari’s smile died away, and she looked at her mistress with a close-bitten expression on her face. ”We’re going back to Exegol, aren’t we?”.

”We have to,” Rey admitted. 

Although she wasn’t scared like her handmaidens, she didn’t like it either. Last night, she had gotten yet another encrypted message from the Sith Eternal. Her grandfather insisted on seeing her in person, and Rey was in no position to deny him.

Meanwhile, in the Senate District on Coruscant…

For the first time in over a year, Ben was back in Galactic City, where the rebuilt Jedi Temple was located. Even among the myriad of impressive buildings on Coruscant, the Jedi temple was a majestic sight ― over one kilometer high and rebuilt with a turquoise-glowing outer layer of transparisteel. It certainly stood out among the myriad of other buildings. 

As Ben walked up the polished stone stairs to the entrance, he couldn’t help but reflect on the hypocrisy of the grand temple. 

The entire philosophy of the Jedi was to live a humble life and devote yourself to the Force and the Light, and thus, the Jedi knights were not allowed to own anything but the absolute necessities. 

And yet, they resided in an enormous, palace-like building that had cost a vast fortune to restore after the war…

In that aspect, Luke’s self-built wooden temple on Ossus had been more fitting. But after the incident, his uncle felt it was time for the revived Jedi Order to return to Coruscant and rebuild the temple that had been closed off since the Galactic Empire fell and the Emperor left.

Being back at the temple filled Ben with a mixture of contradicting emotions. On one hand, he was happy to finally see the temple again after the restoration had been completed. On the other hand, he was nervous about meeting his master and fellow Jedi Knights again. 

Since he first was hospitalized, Ben had only visited the temple a few times when it still was under construction, and construction workers tore down every change to the temple that the Emperor had done during the time he used it as a residence after the Republic lost the clone wars. 

The vast halls on the inside of the temple looked just like they must have back when his grandfather was a young Padawan; impressive valves made of beige, polished stones, and the afternoon sun lit up the building with a pleasant, warm light.

Since Ben was early, he took a stroll through the temple before his meeting with uncle Luke. He looked through the newly renovated training rooms and the archives, which were filled with construction droids setting up a new row of bookshelves. 

At the part of the temple dedicated to the public, there was an interactive exhibition with life-size holos of the most prominent female Jedis during the pre-imperial era. A gangly padawan guided a group of humanoid schoolchildren through the holos with great enthusiasm.

The padawan, whose name Ben had forgotten, gave him a fleeting, anxious look when their gazes met. She had joined the Order after the incident on Ossus, so the young Jedi didn't know Ben. Yet, she looked at him with the same eyes as those who had been there and seen the destruction.

Ben left the public section and walked back into the temple, deciding to go the terrace at the top of the temple instead. The courtyard on the terrace was tiled with terracotta-colored bricks and small sections with fine gravel raked into patterns. Around the courtyard, there were several brass statues of the old Jedi Masters. Ben recognized a few of them; Master Yoda and Obi-Wan, Mace Windu, Ki-Adi Mundi, and Plo Koon. 

Among all the statues, a rare, young specimen of the force-sensitive Uneti tree was planted in a raised bed of bricks. Its golden green leaves rustled gently in the light breeze. Since his last visit, Master Luke had raised a new memorial monument dedicated to all the younglings and the padawans that were slain in the temple by Anakin Skywalker. It was a large, rectangular piece of stone with the names of the fallen children carved into the smooth surface. As he watched the monument, Ben felt his body turn cold despite the fair weather and the warming sun. 

“This is what it means to give in to the Dark Side,” he thought to himself. "Being able to kill innocent children in cold blood". 

To think that he had been so very close to giving in to the Dark was sickening, and Ben felt so physically ill that he had to leave the courtyard with the statues and walk back into the temple building again. He sat down on a stone bench that stood along the wall and leaned his head back, closing his eyes. The anxiety rippled through his body, putting pressure on his chest and he had to struggle to keep his breathing calm. 

Luckily, the panic attack barely lasted for ten minutes, and Ben let out a relieved breath as he felt it fade away. He had lived for so many years with the anxiety that it didn’t scare him anymore, but it was still a very unpleasant experience. Ben remained on the bench for a few minutes until his pulse had returned to its normal pace before he made his way to Luke’s office, which was located in the Tranquility Spire.

Ben took a deep breath. It was almost more than a year since he had seen his uncle in person and ever since the incident at the temple, their relationship was strained, to say the least. Bad conscience still weighed on Luke and Ben didn’t fully trust his uncle, either. What had happened on Ossus had created a rift between the two men, and despite over seven years had passed, had remained as deep as ever.

The door to Luke’s office opened, but instead of his uncle, Ben was met by the familiar sight of a white and blue astromech droid. He stepped over the threshold to Luke’s office and R2-D2 lit up to greet him with a series of beeps in binary.

“Master Luke had to leave?” Ben repeated after the droid. ”He left you in charge?”.

The droid chirped affirmatively and a small storage slot opened up on its front. R2-D2 loudly as he retrieved a piece of plastic from the slot with his clasper arm. 

“For me?” Ben said as he crouched down and took the plastic piece from the droid. 

It was a temporary keycard; the kind given to guests that stayed at the temple for shorter periods. At a closer examination, Ben noticed it was valid for four days. Luke seemed to count on that he finished business quickly and returned to Hosnian Prime in the same manner.

“Enough for me to go to Oovo and back again, I guess,” Ben mumbled to himself as he put the keycard into one of his pockets. ”Did Luke mention where I should stay?”.

R2-D2 chirped anew and rolled out of the office. The droid led Ben to one of the smaller dorms reserved for the guests of the New Jedi Order. The rooms were small and contained only the necessities; a simple bed, a small desk, and a chair. A small locker to store clothes and personal items in, a minimal bathroom, and a mat to sit on while meditating.

Hardly surprisingly, the entire dorm was unoccupied at the moment. Ben didn’t mind — if padawans who didn’t even know him reacted to him like the girl at the exhibition had, he better keep a low profile during his stay at the temple. 

As soon as he was done at the temple, Ben headed over to the New Republic Naval Base in the Military District. 

It was two hours past lunch and the air base was bustling with activity when Ben arrived; guards and soldiers, ground crew in vivid orange and yellow overalls with white helmets, astromech droids, maintenance droids, GNK-droids, young cadets in uniforms and old, rugged Navy-pilots in their iconic white and orange flight suits.

“Hangar D-4…,” Ben mumbled to himself. “That’s one of the lower levels”.

In search of an elevator that led to the D-level, he walked past a hangar with an entire squad of the latest models in the X-wings series lined up. During the glory days before the fall of the Republic, the Jedi Order had an entire fleet of its own with modern ships.

Sixty years, five recessions, and two wars later, the picture had changed dramatically. The few ships that belonged to Luke Skywalker’s revived Jedi Order were old fighters, decommissioned light bombers, and small freighters. Most of those ships were leftovers from the Rebellion’s fleet that survived the war. Except for the X-wings, of course. They were put back in service for the New Republic, and the Jedi Order simply had to settle with the ships that the Navy had rejected. 

When Ben reached the hangar on the D-level, an X-wing stood in the center of it. The fighter had its engine bared, the wing panels open and there was a blue tray under the left wing’s gun system, collecting leaking hydraulic fluid. 

A short girl with pale skin and shiny black hair tucked into a ponytail stood on a steady ladder next to the ship, digging into the electronic components in the left wing panel with a deep frown on her brow. Beneath the wing there was another mechanic, a dark-skinned girl in a blue jumpsuit, searching for the source of the fluid leak.

“All the circuits have been burned, we have to replace them,” the short mechanic in the brown overall said. “I haven’t seen this kind of damage before… Do you know who attacked them, Tam?”.

“No. Kaz said it was confidential,” the girl called Tam snorted. “But he was far more nervous than usual, so it’s obvious that something is going on out there if you ask me”.

“Excuse me…?”.

“Hi,” the fair-skinned girl replied as she rose to her feet and wiped off her dirty hands on an oil-stained cloth. Her gaze quickly flickered over Ben, examining him from top to toe with an uneasy gaze. 

Her response was identical to how most human girls responded to. Even if he kept himself closed off from the force, and even if the girl completely lacked a connection to the force, they still behaved like they could feel the darkness radiating from him.

Behind her, the other girl left her spot under the wing and Ben felt how his pulse picked up again.

“... you’re a Jedi Knight?” she asked with narrowed eyes, putting her hands on her hips.

“Um, yes”. He cleared his throat. “I’m Ben”.

“I’ve never seen you around here before,” the short mechanic blurted out. Her eyes were slightly narrowed, suspicious, and her right hand slowly crept toward a large pocket of her overall where Ben thought he could see the outline of an electro-shock prod.

“I…, uh, Master Skywalker sent you a message earlier, I believe?” he quickly said, taking a step back. “I need to borrow a ship”.

“Oh, of course. Right. I almost forgot that,” the girl replied, seemingly relieved now when she knew his purpose. “I’m Rose, and that is Tam,” Rose said with a nod to her colleague in the blue work suit.

“Nice to meet you”.

They walked into a small office, which was just as worn as the hangar. The mechanic sat down on a padded steel chair and started up the stationary terminal.  “Let’s see… First I need your ID,” Rose said as she tapped something into the terminal. 

Ben handed over his ID, thankful that the mechanic didn’t seem to know who he was or who his parents were.

The chair intended for visitors looked so scrawny that he didn’t dare to sit down on it. Instead, he resorted to leaning against the wall next to a brand new recruitment poster that pictured Poe Dameron and Katzuda Xiono smiling in their jumpsuits in front of an X-wing.

“Alright, you were going to Oovo IV, which is in the Outer Rim, Tharin sector..,” she continued, more to herself than to Ben. “… and you hurt your arm, so you’ll need a ship with an assisting droid”.

Rose rested her cheek in her palm as she looked through the records of available ships and droids with pilot programming. By the look on her face and the way her eyebrows were knitted together, Ben had a feeling that the options were meager.

“We don’t have much to offer at the moment, but we have a Delta-7…,” Rose finally said, looking up at him from the terminal.  

“A Jedi interceptor?” Ben asked in disbelief. “You have one of those?”.

Built by Kuat Driveyards, especially for the Jedi Order, the Delta-7 inceptor was a light aircraft, intended to be used as transport for diplomatic missions. But the ship was a relic, and the model had been outdated and replaced by the Eta-2 Actis model already back before Uncle Luke was born. 

“We got it about three years ago. One of our scouts caught sight of it at the top of a glacier on Bahryn, buried under the ice. It took us months to restore it”.

“Fascinating,” Ben said, leaving his spot at the wall to steal a gaze at the terminal, wanting to make sure it really was the only suitable ship available. “How many pressurization cycles does it have left, one or two?”.

Rose gave him a subtle glare. “It’s been renovated,” she said. ”But if you feel insecure, you’re more than welcome to wait until one of our pilots has time to fly you there”.

“No, I’m fine with it,” he despondently replied, stepping back from the terminal. “I do however hope you have a hyperdrive ring that’s compatible with it. Otherwise it will take me weeks to get there”.  

The mechanic blinked and looked at him with a puzzled gaze for a moment before she spoke again.

“Right… The Delta 7 models don’t have an integrated hyperdrive,” Rose confirmed as she scratched the back of her head. “About the hyperspace ring… We do still have a few, but they’re all in our deep storage below ground so Tam will have to tow one into the exosphere for you”.

Tow the hyper ring into the exosphere…? 

Once they were done with the formalities, Rose led Ben down to the hangar where the ships that belonged to the New Jedi Order were parked. There was an old Y-wing, the two-seated version, a Rho-1 Limulus-class courier, shaped like a horseshoe crab, a consular-class space cruiser half-hidden under an orange tarp and behind it, Ben spotted the interceptor. 

“Righ, there is one more thing. The built-in R-4 unit is a little unstable,” the short mechanic said as they approached the rust-red interceptor. “We haven’t been able to update the software, so he still thinks it’s 23 BBY”.

“That sounds... interesting,” Ben replied. 

As far as he could see, the ship looked good enough; there were some small dents and some scratches on the hull and the warhead lancer had been taken away, but there were obvious damages. Even if the droid’s maps were outdated, they would still have to be intact. Otherwise, he might actually be in trouble despite his stellar piloting skills.

“But you should be alright,” Rose quickly added, as if she could read his thoughts. “I mean, Oovo IV still lies at the same coordinates, so…”.

“I’ll be fine”.

The mechanic nodded. ”If not, just send out a distress call and we will come to your aid”.

In the evening, Imperialis III stood ready for departure at the white, clover-shaped landing platform. Its hull subtly glittered in the twilight like an opal among the surrounding grey and white skyscrapers. 

Rey had recently spoken to Officer Suwan, who had called her and offered her condolences over Othori Ikari’s death. Suwan also assured her they would do all they could to find the one responsible for her father’s death and assured Rey the case had the highest priority. 

It would just be a question of time before the HoloNet News would publish the news of Chairman Ikari’s death and it was time for Rey to strike while the iron was hot. While Komari and Trilla loaded the last of the luggage onto the ship, Rey sent a transmission to Hux.

“I hope this is a social call,” the redhead said dryly. “Because I told you more than once that we need to meet in person to discuss our business”.

“Listen up,” Rey said, ignoring his protest. “I’m going away for a while and while I’m gone, I need you to trash my apartment on Hosnian Prime”.

“You want me to stage a home invasion on such short notice?” Hux spat. “Regardless of what you might believe, I do actually have other things to do than catering to your whims...”.

“The time to strike is while the iron is hot, Armitage,” she said. “See it done”.

With those words, Rey served the connection. Komari stopped in her tracks and gave her mistress a clueless look, but at her side, Trilla chuckled.

“I know what you’re trying to do,” the Second Sister said. “Do you really think they will fall for that? Solo hasn’t been very receptive to your efforts yet. What if he refuses to be your personal bodyguard?”.

“It doesn’t matter what Ben thinks,” Rey replied. “Skywalker is the one in charge and he doesn’t trust him. To him, Ben is like an unsecured grenade he doesn’t know how to handle. I’ll offer the old man an arrangement he can’t refuse, and Ben… Ben will simply have to obey his uncle regardless if he likes it, or not”.

Komari sighed softly from the passenger seat behind Rey. “Playing out the Skywalker family against each other… I admire your creativity”.

“The plan exploits their weakness. I have to admit, it’s a good move,” Trilla agreed. “But once you get Solo where you want him, it also means you will be more exposed“.

Out of her two handmaidens, Trilla was by far the most cunning. She was a skilled manipulator and an excellent strategist. During her time as an inquisitor, she had hunted down countless runaways for the Empire. Trilla had a sense for games, too, and with traits that bordered on sociopathy, she was a force to be reckoned with, even without a lightsaber in her hand. 

“I’m aware of that,” the heiress admitted.

“Once he is in your hands, you need to work fast, “Trilla continued, giving Rey a serious gaze. “The longer it takes, the higher the risk”.

Rey nodded. She knew of the risks, knew it was a gamble with high stakes. If she failed, the consequences would be dire, if not fatal. But at the end of the day, she was more than willing to risk it all for Kylo’s sake. 

“And the knights?”.

“I’ll guess I could always buy them a container filled with alcohol and leave them on a deserted island on Trask, where they can hide out for a couple of months,” Rey suggested with a soft sneer. 

Towing the hyperspace ring into the exosphere during the rush hours was easier said than done on a planet as crowded as Coruscant, and it took more than four hours until Ben was able to dock the interceptor with it.

The integrated astromech droid, R4-P29, was delighted to have been waking up from a long period in storage with its internal battery removed.

“Yeah, it’s nice to meet you too,” Ben said to the integrated droid. ”We’re behind schedule, so we will have to take Parlemian Trade Route all the way to the Meridian Sector, and then we’ll take off and head into the direction of Kessel…”.

The Parlemian Trade Route was one of the primary hyper routes in the galaxy and once they reached the Meridian Sector, it wouldn’t be far to the Tharin Sector which lay between the Ash Worlds and the upper part of the region known as Hutt Space, an autonomous territory controlled by the Hutt Clan.

The interceptor was surprisingly swift, despite the clumsy hyperspace. When they reached the border between the Meridian Sector and the Jospro Sector, they had managed to make up for the time Ben lost on Coruscant while the mechanics struggled to get the hyperdrive ring into the air.

“Good job,” Ben praised the droid. “We’re getting close, so I’ll take over from here”.

It had been years since he last piloted a ship, but flying was like swimming and when Ben took over the controls, it felt like it was yesterday he last flew. Without supervision, he could do as he pleased and through the next two sectors, Ben pushed the ship to its limits. 

Once they reached the Oovo system, Ben dropped the hyperspace ring and started to circle the moon, flying crisscross among the sea of red-brown, iron-rich asteroids. After a narrow loop around a large asteroid, the integrated astromech started chirping nervously, urging him to switch back to autopilot. Clearly, it was not used to leisure flying. 

“No, I don’t need help to land,” he chuckled. “This is just for fun”.

Without the hyperspace ring, the Interceptor had almost as great maneuverability as the X-wing. Ben flew around aimlessly, just enjoying the rare moment of freedom. Oovo, the gas giant, was an enormous planet that glowed in a soft orange light. It lit up the asteroid field around it with an orange glow, almost like a star. 

“Alright, you can tell them we’re here now,” he told the droid after nearly another twenty minutes of fooling around in the asteroid field.

R4-P29 sent a landing request and when the ground control had confirmed their arrival, the energy shield that surrounded the small moon dissipated, allowing them to enter the restricted space. 

“Welcome to Desolation Alley, Master Jedi,” a male voice greeted him through the ship’s commlink. “You’re permitted to land in the eastern hangar”.

Oovo IV was a dark, dry, and rocky world and the hangar Ben had been directed to was just as dark and depressing; nothing but durasteel and reinforced metal. On the outside, the wind had picked and as it swept over the desolate terrain, it omitted a creepy, howling sound. 

“Cosy…”, Ben mumbled to himself as he climbed out of the cockpit. 

He looked around the hangar. It was vast and empty, save for a lone Firespray-40 ship. At the side of the hangar, a reinforced, red door opened up and a guard in green armor, helmet, and ballistic goggles walked over to Ben. 

“Follow me, Jedi,” the guard grunted. “I’ll give you a quick tour of the facility“.

Desolation Alley reminded him of the isolation ward at the mental health clinic at Polis Massa, just ten times more depressing. Light gray and beige walls with red accents and simple steel furniture bolted to the floor. Interns in orange jumpsuits and rubber slippers, triple-sealed blast doors, heavily armed security droids, and autonomous wall-mounted turrets.

At every corner, there were guards in the same type of green armor with military-grade, heavy blasters and electrical flagellation whips that could render a man unconscious with just one strike. The chemical smell of scorched plastoids was prominent in the corridor and Ben noticed large black patches of soot on the walls from blaster fire. 

“The killers came from the north,” the guard said. “Hidden inside a container of vacuum-sealed meals on a container ship from Batuu. They killed over twenty of my mates and a handful of other prisoners who got in their way”.

Ben nodded in silence. Even without tapping into the Force, he could feel the anger, the sorrow, and the fear that radiated from the guards. Security breaches on Oovo IV were very rare, and most of the incidents were either prisoners who tried to escape or unscrupulous bounty hunters in disguise who tried to sneak out prisoners with high prices on their heads.

The closer they came to the cell where Chairman Ikari had been, the more marks on the walls. Not only soot, but also oil from the security and blood from the guards who had been injured or killed during the attack. 

Whoever was behind the attack had used excessive violence, and Ben had seen nothing like it before. The only thing that could compare to the destruction was his violent nightmares and old holovids from the war.

Othori Ikari’s cell was at the end of cellblock 137. It was a small, rectangular cell, sealed off with yellow and black tape. The prison staff had done their best to clean up the mess, but Ben could still see traces of blood on the light sections of the walls. As he watched the crime scene, he couldn’t help but get the feeling that it was a conscious choice to leave the entire cell block painted in blood. 

After the tour, the guard took Ben to the head of security’s office. It was a grey, dim-lit room, filled with security monitors and panels. A man in a gray-green uniform sat bent over panels, and when Ben and the guard stepped into the room.

“Welcome, Master Jedi. My name is Srihan Bawa,” the man said as he rose to his feet to greet Ben. “I’m responsible for the security here”.

“Nice to meet you”.

“A dozen of my men are dead. I would like to know why we weren’t informed about the threat against the politician before he was taken here,” Bawa said with a barely concealed anger in his voice. “If I had known, I would have directed him to Stygeon Prime. They’re more suited for that kind of prisoner than we are!”.

“We were not even aware that Chairman Ikari was here until three days ago,” Ben retorted. “Something obviously went wrong when he was arrested on Canto Bight since it never got reported to the police on Hosnian Prime”. 

Cantonica lay in the Corporate Sector, which was an autonomous system governed by the Corporate Sector Authority. Their laws were often very strict compared to the laws on the Core World planets.

”I can hardly believe how any of this could happen,” the security officer sighed. “Several of my men are dead and the damages on the property will cost us a fortune to repair… I’ve worked here for almost twenty years and I have never experienced anything like this before”.

“You’re not alone about that,” Ben thought to himself. All the guards he had passed on his way to Srihan Bawa’s office seemed to have been pierced by the brutal attack.

“We kept the politician at the isolation ward,” Bawa continued as he sank back onto his chair. “He was beyond hysterical, kept yelling that it was all a big mistake, and said he wanted to appeal. But we don’t rule over those things, here, we just keep people in detention”.

“You are under the jurisdiction of the New Republic, though,” Ben reminded him. “Surely, Ikari must have been allowed to communicate with his lawyer?”

“That is correct,” the man agreed. “But we heard nothing from any lawyer regarding Ikari. The only information we got was a detention request from the local court in Canto Bight…”. 

Ben sighed. It was evident that something had gone awry already back on Cantonica. Still, it was not his job to find out why Ikari ended up on Oovo IV in the first place and whether he had been treated properly according to the Republic’s directives, or not when the court on Canto Bight decided to send the chairman to Desolation Alley. 

“Who handled the request from the court?”.

“My assistant, Riela Pezer,” Bawa replied with a solemn voice. “She died in the attack”. 

That the person responsible for accepting the transfer request from Canto Bight was didn’t surprise him at all. Since day one, working on the Ikari case had been like solving a puzzle someone deliberately had picked out the essential pieces from. 

“Is there any security footage of the incident?” Ben asked. “If so, I’d like to see it”.

“Yes, yes. Of course,” Bawa said. 

The security officer pressed a few keys on the panel and the image of the cellblock Ikari had been detained in popped up on one of the screens.

At first, Ben didn’t want to believe his eyes. But there was no denial about it — the seven masked intruders were the Knights of Ren. He recognized their black armor, their weapons, the swords, battle axes, rifles, blades, a scythe, and the red lightsaber that their master, Ren the Nameless, wielded.

Ben froze in the chair as he watched them cut through the first guards like they were made of paper. It felt like he was on Elphrona again, twelve years old, and the only thing that stood between him and them was Master Luke.

Luke took them on alone, all of them, while Ben looked after Lor San Tekka. Ben’s memory of the fight was crystal clear, and he never had felt so proud to be Luke Skywalker’s nephew as he had been in that moment when his uncle defeated the Knights without even breaking a sweat.

Back then, Luke had been a man full of good faith and mercy, and he had let the Knights of Ren leave Elphrona alive. None had seen the Knights of Ren since then, and now, they suddenly showed up from nowhere, murdering a politician in a high-security prison? 

Anxiously, Ben gnawed at the inside of his cheek as he watched the rest of the security footage. There was no doubt that it was the knights of Ren. He recognized every single one of them like it had been yesterday. Force-sensitive bounty hunters turned force-sensitive butchers. 

By using the Force, Ren and his men got the guards to shoot at each other instead of the intruders. They ripped the security droids apart with the Force while they still were in the air and they deflected the fire from the mounted turrets.

Chaos erupted among both guards and prisoners alike once they realized the whips and guns didn‘t work against the masked knights. The scenes that followed looked like something out of holos from the war when the rebels and their allies stormed the Imperial forced labor camps on Narkina V after the battle of Endor.

“They didn’t even bother to take out a single one of the security cameras..,” Ben mused to himself. “Why?”.

The only sensible answer he could think of was that they wanted to be seen. Perhaps they knew that he was working on the case, perhaps they knew he would watch the surveillance footage. Ben swallowed. Could it all be a part of some sick trick to lure him into the dark, could it be Snoke who was behind this?

After watching Ren the Nameless impale a screaming chairman Ikari, Ben felt nauseous. Kira might have said that she wasn’t close to her father, but he was certain she would be deeply disturbed when she found out there wasn’t even an intact body left for her to say goodbye to. 

”I have seen enough,” Ben said as he rose from the chair. 

Bawa nodded. “I understand, it’s hard to watch… Let me show you the way to the morgue”.

“The morgue?”.

“Yes. You need to confirm the identity and sign the transfer papers. We have a scheduled transport next week that will take the body back to Hosnian Prime”.

Ben pursed his mouth. Did he have to do that? Neither Abashi nor Suwan had said anything about it and he wasn’t keen on looking at what remained of chairman Ikari personally.

“It’s nothing to worry about, it’s standard procedure,” Bawa assured as he led Ben out of the office and around the corner to an enormous shaft elevator, operated by a green-skinned abyssin in an orange jumpsuit.

“Stay inside of the yellow markings,” Bawa said to Ben before he turned his attention to the prisoner. “Take him to the morgue, Hosk”.

The tall cyclopean elevator operator smiled at Ben, revealing sharp teeth.

“A Jedi,” he said in an amused tone. “I’ve been here for over a hundred years, and I’ve never seen one before”.

“What kind of crime gave you over a hundred years here?” Ben asked.

Hosk smiled again. “Tax fraud”.

The temperature sank as quickly as the elevator took them deeper down into the bedrock, and Ben pulled his coarse outer robe tighter over his linen clothes.

When the elevator finally stopped, it was like he had arrived at the bottom of a mining shaft. A new guard in green armor then appeared to lead Ben to the morgue. They walked through a dark tunnel on a galvanized steel walkway for almost ten minutes until they finally reached the morgue.

Once inside, the guard pulled out a stretcher from the cold storage with a black body bag on it. He unceremoniously pulled down the zipper on the body bag and gave Ben a nod.

Ben nodded back with clenched teeth as he stepped forward, trying to get his swirling thoughts under control. He held his breath as he peered down on the stretcher where Chairman Ikari’s severed and beheaded corpse looked back at him with empty eyes. He shivered at the sight of the remains of Kira’s father and the memory of just how close he once had been to slipping off the edge emerged from the back of his mind.

It could have been you, a low voice whispered in his mind. You could have done this.

Chapter Text

Like a flash in the night, Imperialis flew through space on autopilot while Rey sat behind the controls, eating frozen yogurt. Komari and Trilla sat in silence on one of the white couches in the passenger lounge with almost lethargic expressions on their faces. 

Rey sighed for herself as she dug deeper down into the yogurt with her spoon. She could understand their worry. Grandfather never explicitly told her the purpose behind his wish to see her in person again. No, he liked to keep them in the dark so they could spend their time brooding over his intentions until they arrived.

With Darth Sidious’ rapidly declining health keeping him from leaving Exegol, or even the Sith Citadel, Rey supposed it was a way for him to feel that he was still in control over something. He had never been a kind man, but his illness and fear of a death the Sith Eternal couldn’t save him from sometimes brought out the worst of what remained of his tar-black heart. 

Rey yawned and stretched her arms over her head. They had crossed the border between the Outer Rim and the Unknown regions a couple of hours ago and from now on, there would be nothing but empty space until they reached Exegol. 

She rose from the seat and padded over to the passenger lounge. Trilla had fallen asleep under a blanket while Komari sat with her head in her hands, staring blankly at the ship’s holotable.

“Here, eat some,” Rey said as she put down the yogurt container on the table.

“Fruit yogurt as my last meal?” the blonde said as she eyed the ingredients list at the back of the container. “How depressing. We should have stopped at Trask to get some sliced pufferfish before we left”.

“Arkanis is almost in the opposite direction of Exegol and should you wish to die by food poisoning, I can ask the kitchen staff at the citadel to prepare something equally toxic”.

With those words, Rey left her handmaidens and returned to her cabin. She stripped down to her underwear and changed into the long-sleeved dress and matching cowl she always wore when she visited the Sith citadel. Then she combed her hair back and re-did her buns more tightly for a more strict appearance.

Satisfied with her attire, Rey returned to the pilot’s seat. A glance at Imperialis’ computer mainframe told her they now passed the Cscilla system, home of the mysterious blue-skinned chiss, and it was less than three hours left until they would reach Exegol.

It had been a long time since Rey last saw her grandfather and the reunion filled her with ambivalence. As much as she hated Darth Sidious, she also felt sympathy and some sort of unwilling allegiance to the old Sith lord.

Maybe it was only natural.

She was his blood after all.

Rey’s background was complicated, and as the years had passed, her memories of the time when she lived with her parents grew weaker and weaker with each day. 

The fraction of memories she still had left was of a poor nomadic life; always moving from one place to another. Together with her parents, Rey had lived on many dirty space stations, a remote farming moon in the Outer Rim, among migrant workers in factories that didn’t bother to ask for ID papers, and unnamed dark mining worlds in the Wild Space.

As Rey grew older, her family moved frequently. It seemed like they were always on the run from an invisible enemy.

One day, when she had just turned six years old, her parents took her to Niima Outpost on Jakku. They told her to be brave. Then, they turned her over to Unkar Plutt, a local junk trader, and left.

From that day on, Rey became a scavenger. 

Children were practical to use as scavengers thanks to their small size; they could climb into narrow areas adults couldn’t reach, and disassemble small parts. Despite her young age, Rey had to work from early morning to late afternoon. In exchange, Plutt gave her shelter and food. But he was not a generous creature, and she often went to bed hungry. It was a rough life, but Rey lived in the hope that her parents would return.

They didn’t. 

Three years later, Sidious’ henchmen found her and took her to Exegol. While Rey had hoped that her mother and father would come back and get her, she was grateful to be saved from the harsh life and the relentless heat on Jakku. 

Somebody had been looking for her.

Somebody came for her. 

Somebody still cared about her.

To Rey, that was all that mattered.

Under the tutelage of her newfound grandfather, Rey studied the teachings of the Sith. She was an exemplary student, and Darth Sidious was pleased to have such a talented and eager heir. But his knowledge didn’t come for free and Rey soon discovered that her grandfather expected far more from her than she ever could have imagined. 

One day, he asked for the unthinkable.

“I… can’t,” Rey dared to protest. Unkar Plutt had been harsh, unfair, and sometimes downright abusive, but without him, she wouldn’t have survived at all. He had taken care of her until she could fend for herself, and despite Unkar’s unkind, almost cold persona, he hadn’t broken that promise. 

“He looked after me...,” Rey said, hoping that her grandfather would offer her some sort of relief, even if she knew the Sith didn’t value gratitude or honesty, and they didn’t teach mercy.

Sidious had only smiled at her explanation and looked at her like she was a silly child who didn’t understand.

“He took care of you when nobody else did,” he said in a soft voice. “You feel gratitude towards him, perhaps even compassion? Which is why you have let him die”.

It was the way of the Sith, Rey later learned. Like her grandfather’s old master, Darth Plagueis once had ordered Sheev to murder the rest of the Palpatine family on Naboo, Rey now had to murder the only one she ever had that even remotely resembled a family since her parents abandoned her.

There was no way out of it.

Her grandfather wanted blood.

Killing Unkar Plutt had been just as gruesome and sickening as she imagined. Yet, Rey had done it despite how her heart screamed in protest. The first blow was the hardest. Then the darkness consumed her and with it came the indifference to innocent lives. When Rey left Niima Outpost, Plutt wasn’t the only one that lay headless bleeding on the sand.

Once the deed was done, her grandfather was most pleased and left her in her chamber to contemplate the experience. 

The guilt and horror came gradually to a point where Rey felt sickened of herself, broken to the core, and more alone than ever before. She had to run to the bathroom to throw up and when she washed up afterward, one glance at her reflection in the mirror was enough to know that she would never be the same.

The endless deserts on Jakku in her memory seemed more and more like an almost pleasant place compared to her new life at the Sith Citadel on Exegol. 

She had just been sixteen. Still caught in the borderland between child and adult, and yet she had already committed such a heinous act. If that was what Sidious demanded of her now, what would he ask of her in the future? Where would the path he led her on end?

One thing Rey had known for sure was that it would render her unrecognizable. A far cry from the girl she once used to be. 

Kind-hearted, pure, a flower in the desert. 

It would all be nothing but a pale memory, just like the life she had lived with her parents. Rey felt like she was an urn that had been thrown on the ground, broken and repaired, repeatedly. Each time when the urn broke, the cracks and the flaws on the surface became more apparent and the small pieces that disappeared after each impact with the ground disappeared, never to be found again. 

“We are not made of porcelain that shatters when it breaks,” one guard from the Sith Eternal once told her in an unexpected attempt at comfort and encouragement. “We are like steel ― through hardening it becomes stronger”.

The guard wasn’t wrong. The philosophy of the Sith was to put the apprentices through as much as they could endure, both mentally and physically. Only the very few worthy, the ones who were strong enough to prevail, would ascend.

It helped that the Dark was forgiving in a way the Light wasn’t. Like a drug, it relieved her guilt, anxiety, and disgust until she felt nothing at all. If the price was that it would strip her of her initial personality and identity, then so be it.

In the end, Rey continued down the path her grandfather had led her onto, desperate to hold on to the only family she had left. 

But it was a family that turned out to be nothing but an illusion.

When Rey turned eighteen, she accidentally discovered that Darth Sidious intended to use her as a vessel to save himself from his dying body. After that, Rey’s entire world crumbled to pieces. It wasn’t enough that her parents had abandoned her; her grandfather was going to use her as a sacrificial animal to save his own skin. 

Since she was a child, Rey had learned to fight to survive and somehow she found the strength to continue. She had been devastated and heartbroken but knew it didn’t serve any purpose to sit and cry over her grandfather’s eventual betrayal. 

If Rey wanted to survive when the day Darth Sidious had deemed her ready to reap came, she needed to be prepared.

But just as the Force had brought her death and despair into her life, it also gave Rey something far more precious than she ever could have imagined.

”Kylo,” Rey whispered to herself as she leaned her head back against the seat.

The first time Rey saw Kylo was in a vision.

She had dozed off at the Citadel’s archive while studying Darth Plagueis’ teachings, hoping to find something that could help her figure out how she could kill Darth Sidious. When she opened her eyes, Rey found herself in a dark, rocky world with high cliffs and a gray sky covered with heavy rain clouds.

Was it a vision, a dream… or something entirely else?

It seemed to be Vjun, a planet in the Nuiri sector, infamous for its heavy skyfalls and unfriendly terrain. Darth Vader once had a castle there, Bast, and the planet itself had a history with the Old Sith that reached back to the days before the Republic was formed. 

Rey’s eyes swept over the terrain, looking for a sign of Vader's old stronghold but all she could see were high cliffs, rocks, and gravel.

She closed her eyes and tapped into the Force for guidance.

For once, the response was instant. Something was calling her, like a siren’s song from the depths. A presence. Rey recognized it, it was the same faint presence she had felt over the years now and then. Until now, it had been like a shy, imaginary friend. A fleeting, weak presence that could be gone in the blink of an eye. 

But here... here, it was something entirely else. Strong, clear, and vigorous. It seeped through every cell in her being like osmosis.

Rey opened her eyes again. Wherever it came from, whatever it was..., she had to know.

Despite the hard terrain, Rey moved with ease, following the Force where it led her. She sprinted through the rain, and her long black cloak whipped behind her like a banner on a stormy night. When she reached a cliff, Rey stopped and peered out into the distance.

There it was, Vader’s castle. It was a menacing sight, the way it towered over the desolate landscape. Rey admired the castle for a brief moment before she continued to make her way toward the castle. For every step she took in the direction of Bast, Rey could feel how the presence grew stronger and stronger.

Thunder cracked in the distance and the rain picked up. When Rey finally reached the castle, it was pouring down violently and the soil on the ground had gradually turned into mud. From where she stood, Rey could hear screams from the castle and saw red laser bolts flare up in the grey sky. A few meters away, a body clad in armor lay fallen in the mud. On the trail that led up to the castle’s courtyard, there was another one, and further up the road yet another body. As she entered the courtyard, Rey caught sight of the intruders. There were six of them, men in crude black armor, armed with vibro-weapons.

She recognized the hexad. Vicrul, Cardo, Ushar, Trudgen, Kuruk, and Ap’lek. They were all her grandfather’s henchmen. But there was one missing; Ren the Nameless was nowhere to be seen.

Instinctively, Rey knew he was dead.

The Knights of Ren were no loyal followers of the Sith. Still, they followed some aspects of its doctrine, and one of those was that a leader could only be replaced by another through death. A flash of red that suddenly cut through the gray scenario caught her attention. There he was, the one who had slayed Ren the nameless.

The new Master of the Knights of Ren. 

Rey just stood there in the rain while looking at the stranger with wide eyes, completely spellbound. He was tall and imposing. A masked knight out of a beautiful nightmare all clad in black who fought brutally with effortless grace and agility despite his massive build. 

The air charged with electricity, and Rey felt something stir up within her chest like a gravity bomb detonating in slow motion as she watched the stranger fight. He wielded a strange kind of crossguard lightsaber, she noticed. It was so unstable that the plasma crackled like flames as he took on the last standing guards with a set of erratic, long swipes fueled by raw strength and an ocean of rage in the Force. 

Such unbridled power...

What form was he using, was it an attempt at the classical Form IV, or some variant of Shien? Rey couldn’t decide ― she had never seen anyone fight like that before. Although far from perfect, he was a lot more skilled than the other knights. While his skills didn't impress her very much, his strength certainly did.

Rey was mesmerized nonetheless and a thrill ran down her spine. 

It felt like love at first sight.

Or at least what Rey imagined love to feel like. She had never been in love before, but it didn’t matter. Just one look at the dark warrior was enough to make her breathless and Rey was certain that he was the one she had been waiting for all her life without even knowing it.

He stared back at her through the faceless visor, and Rey knew in an instant that he was as equally stunned as she was. She could feel it. His presence in the Force was like a dark nebula that clouded everything else. It was unlike anything else she had sensed, and yet it still felt so intimately familiar. 

“It is you,” he murmured in a soft, deep voice that sent pleasant shivers down her spine, and his words filled Rey with a strange sense of consolation. 

“Tell me your name,” the dark knight urged her with a nod.

“Rey,” she finally replied, grateful that her voice sounded just as steady and certain as it normally did. 

“Rey,” he repeated. The way he said her name was simple, yet thoughtful like he was trying to decide whether he knew her or not. Even though the mask he wore had a vocoder that distorted his voice, Rey liked the way it sounded.

“Rey Palpatine”, she added with a slight smile, eager to see his reaction.

“Ah. The heiress to the Sith”.

“You’re not surprised,” Rey narrowed her eyes. The way he spoke, was so infuriatingly calm. He almost seemed amused.  

”I knew you’d come to me,“ he said. “Sooner or later”.

“And why would you think that?” Rey snorted, annoyed by his certainty. She didn‘t even know his name, yet he seemed to know an awful lot about her.

”Isn’t it obvious?” he retorted. “The Force. It led you here, led you to me”.

There was no denial in that, Rey unwillingly admitted to herself. His presence had led her to him like a siren’s song from the dark depths.

“You’re the presence I’ve felt. The longing, the anger, the loneliness. It was all yours,“ she carefully said. “What is it you want?“.

“I’m the heir to Darth Vader,” the stranger said as he cast a look at the castle. “I seek to finish what my grandfather started”.

Rey couldn’t help but grin. He was Lord Vader’s heir, a Skywalker? Surely that was no coincidence. If the Force had led her here, if he had called for her…

“Whatever it is you seek to achieve, I’m not quite sure my grandfather would allow that,“ she said. “...unless you’re willing to take my place and sacrifice yourself”.

“I intend to let the old things die,” he offered cryptically as he reached out his hand to her. “With you by my side”.

She smirked. 

“What if I say no?” the heiress teased as she took his synth-leather-clad hand. A sense of pleasant heat spread through her body as he intertwined his fingers with hers and Rey had to steel herself to not wrap herself around him like a serpent.

”You wouldn’t be here if you were willing to die for Sidious”.

How very true that was, Rey thought to herself as she allowed him to pull her closer. At the back of her mind, her common sense screamed in protest. Allowing a stranger so close could be dangerous, if not lethal. He had strong hands, and with his power in the Force, he could snap her neck like a twig if she wasn’t careful. But if her common sense told her to run, the Force told her the opposite. She couldn’t sense any ill intentions from his side. If anything, his proximity filled her with a strange sense of inner peace and a calm Rey didn’t even know she was capable of feeling.

“You seem to know all my secrets,” she said, looking up at his masked face. “How about yours? Tell me why you would be willing to share the power and the glory with me”.

”Don‘t you feel it? We are two that are one. A dyad in the Force,” he murmured, confirming Rey’s suspicions. 

A Force Dyad was an incredibly rare phenomenon that connected, or rather united, two beings through the Force and allowed them to use unbelievable powers. The bond leaped through space and time and they said that the dyad shared one soul.

“One soul ripped in twice,“ she said, more to herself than to him. 

It explained it all.

Rey was well-familiar with the concept of a Force Dyad; her grandfather had tried to forge such a connection artificially with Darth Vader without success and before that, Darth Plaugeis had tried to do the same with her grandfather. 

The cultists of the Sith Eternal were firm believers in the ‘Doctrine of the Dyad’. Aco their prophecy, a Dyad would be born, and through them, the full potential of the Sith could be unlocked.

Could it be true, that they were the chosen ones from the ancient Sith prophecy? 

If it was, with their powers combined, she might stand a chance against Darth Sidious. 

“Rey? We’re almost there now”.

Trilla’s voice stirred her awake and Rey sat straight up in her seat. In front of them, Exegol floated in space like a dark obsidian orb lit up by the weak starlight and the violent thunderstorms of its stratosphere. 

Both Trilla and Komari had changed into the same kind of black, long-sleeved dresses with matching cowls. As a final touch, they had pulled the hood of their cowls over their heads like a veil to blend in among the Sith acolytes. 

They looked like moirologists on the burial moon of Bogden in those robes, Rey thought to herself with a small grin as she switched off the autopilot.

Exegol was a strange, lone planet, hidden away far, far away from the rest of the galaxy. In old scriptures, the isolated planet was known as Ixigul and it had served as a bastion for the Sith for centuries. Here, those who devoted their lives to the dark side of the Force could find sanctuary. But foremost, it was the stronghold for her grandfather and his most loyal followers in the Sith Eternal.

Rey landed Imperialis on a smooth cliff with a good view over the Sith Citadel. As soon as she stepped out of the yacht, she could feel the power in the air. The Dark Side was strong on Exegol. It was almost as if the power of the old Sith lords radiated from its surface. 

Between the violent thunderstorms, it was often quiet on Exegol, and today was no different. There was nothing but a weak rustle of the wind as Rey and her handmaidens made their way through a steep cliff passage on the trail to the citadel. 

The Sith Citadel was a large fortress shaped like a distorted cube, carved out of rock. It was sparsely populated with the members of the Sith Eternal cult; alchemists, scholars, servants, guards, a few droids, and her grandfather’s caretakers and his personal elite guard squad. Except for the Imperial guards in their red armor, they were all draped in black. 

As the trio entered the main hall of the citadel, the cultists stopped in their tracks to peer up at their future empress from under the hoods of their cloaks. 

Rey held her head high, but the members of the Sith Eternal always moved in silence with their heads kept down to show their deep respect, not only for her and Darth Sidious but for all the Dark Lords of the Sith that came before him. A sharp glare from Rey was all it took to make them bow and mumble apologies before they loomed down the hallway that led to the amphitheater where the cultists prayed in front of the Sith Throne. 

Nuyak Pasiais Kal.

While Trilla and Komari unpacked the luggage at her quarters, Rey went to see her grandfather.

She made her way through the empty halls of the castle with determined steps. It was late afternoon, and the cultists had gathered at the amphitheater to pray, and only the guards remained in the hallways. 

The citadel was so quiet that even through the massive stone walls, Rey could hear the cultists had started to chant in ur-Kittât, the ancient language of the Sith, at the amphitheater, 

Nwul Kash Zo Tash.

Nwul Kash Zo Tash.

Nwul Kash Zo Tash.

Outside the door to Darth Sidious’ chamber, his crimson guards stood like statues with their hands clasped around their electro-pikes. Without a word, they greeted Rey with soft bows before they stepped away from the door, allowing her to enter.

When Rey entered her grandfather’s dim-lit chamber, he lay motionless in bed, eyes closed and breath wheezing, resting after spending time in his ommin harness. The harness was a mechanical apparatus that allowed the decaying Sith Lord to move around. Without it, he would be bound to his bed.

Time had not been kind to Darth Sidious.

The curtains were pulled away from the windows and the weak light bathed the room in a soft hue of teal. Beside the bed, a glass container with some sort of yellow I.V fluid hung from a drip stand, and Rey noticed her grandfather looked worse than the last time she saw him three months ago. His skin was ash-gray, his lips dark with a blue tint and chalked. The necrosis on his hands and fingers had spread further since the last time Rey saw him.

The only thing that hadn’t decayed was his intellect ― and power.

“Grandfather,” Rey greeted the living corpse of the Emperor with a soft bow and a faint, almost unseeable smile. One day, she would do her most to extinguish that stubborn little flame of life that still burned in his chest. 

But today was not that day.

“Rey,” Darth Sidious’ yellow eyes flickered to life, and he gave her an eerie smile that revealed his gray teeth. “My dear girl, you have returned”.  

“Yes,” Rey replied softly as she took his decayed hand into her own and sat down on the chair at the bedside. “How have you been?”.

“My body grows weaker and weaker for every day that passes,” he complained, confirming what Rey already knew. He was dying, but then again, her grandfather had been dying for years.

“If I weren’t surrounded by such incompetent fools, we would have the Republic in a chokehold by now…,” Sidious added with a weak, wheezing voice before he closed his eyes again. He clenched his teeth as he suddenly writhed between the sheets and Rey’s gaze swept over the old man’s thin body. 

He was in pain, and Rey knew it was a sign the decay finally had reached his skeleton. His days were numbered, and those days were vanishing fast, all while General Brendol Hux was still having problems with the construction of the Starkiller Base.

Until it was ready, the First Order was forced to lie low in the Outer Rim. If it dragged on, they would have to execute the Final Order. Unlike the First Order, which was ruled by army veterans from the Empire with her grandfather’s puppet Snoke as a figurehead, the Final Order was ruled with an iron hand by the armed division of the Sith Eternal under Sidious’ personal supervision. 

As the heiress of the Sith, Rey technically belonged to Final Order even though her primary task on Hosnian Prime had been to secure finances for the First Order, she also monitored the projects tied to the Sith Eternal’s fleet. 

“Our collaboration with Kuat Entralla proceeds successfully,” she comforted him. “The testing of the Xyston-class Star Destroyer prototype is almost done. Our contact assures us they will be ready to start mass production within three months”.

Rey had been working for a galaxy ruled by the Final Order almost her entire life, but despite that, the development of the Xyston-class destroyers didn’t sit entirely right with her. A fleet of that caliber could destroy all planets in the known territories within a few months. If they abused that kind of power, there would be nothing but dust and dead space to rule over for the Sith Eternal.

Not long before his death, Darth Plaugueis had written that he thought the Force might strike back against the Sith for their abuse of its power. Recently, Rey had wondered if that wasn’t just what her grandfather’s hubris would do to them.

A fleet of planet-destroying ships… 

If the Maker truly existed, Rey couldn’t imagine that it would allow such abominations.

But the greatest abomination of them all was Sidious himself. It was over 130 years ago since Sheev Palpatine was born and his lifespan had long ago surpassed what was natural for a human. Just like Komari Vosa and Trilla Sundari, Darth Sidious’ consciousness, his spirit, had been put into a lab-grown biological replica of his old body by the experimental scientists of the Sith Eternal. 

However, it did not come without a price. His tremendous strength in the force was far too powerful for the artificially created body to contain and it caused his new vessel to slowly, but surely, disintegrate.

A Jedi would surely say it was the Force’s way to punish him for defying the natural order. 

But the Sith had always lived to bend the Force into submission. 

“I sense turmoil within you, my child”.

Suddenly, he was looking at her with vibrant yellow eyes again, and the pain seemed to have disappeared just as abruptly as it had come.

Rey bit her tongue. She had hoped that he wouldn’t sense it. But Ben’s complete unawareness of their bond and how he kept giving her the cold shoulder seemed to have taken enough toll on her for Sidious to take notice.

“Your burdens are my burdens,” she said. “It pains me to see you suffering”.

The first sentence was a twisted truth, the second was outright a lie. Sidious eyes gleamed dangerously as if he could sense that she didn’t care about his torment at all.

“You have acquainted Ben Solo,” he said in a silky voice. 

He knew.

Rey’s mouth went dry. She should have known; Hux weren’t the only ones who had spies and everything the First Order knew, the Sith Eternal knew as well. Her true intent with Ben Solo was carefully hidden at the back of her mind where not even her grandfather could find it, but she had to choose her words even more carefully to not raise the old Sith’s suspicion.

“I have,” Rey replied in a neutral voice. “He is a broken man, plagued by his mercurial nature. I have to say I’m surprised you let Snoke spend so many years trying to turn him”.

“Once, I thought he could surpass my old apprentice. His unbridled power, the potential in the duality of his being… I thought he could be of use,” Sidious mused. “But I was mistaken”.

”He is no Vader,” she truthfully said.

”No,” Sidious coughed. A dry, stubborn cough that made the bones in his brittle chest ache. With a tormented groan, he rolled onto his side and reached out a bony hand after a cup on the nightstand.

“Here,” Rey said as she quickly reached over the cup. 

The liquid in the cup had a strong, chemical smell to it, and she imagined it had to taste just as awful as it smelled. Judging by the look on her grandfather’s face as he struggled to swallow, it did. Surely it was something the alchemist had cooked up in yet another desperate attempt to keep Sidious’ decay at bay.  

“His power could rival yours, if he were to find his way to the Light,” he said in a weak voice as he gave back the cup to Rey with a trembling hand,

To her surprise, there was concern in the old Sith’s eyes. Was it the opportunity that she might be defeated by the Jedi that worried him? Without her, Darth Sidious would need a miracle of epic proportions to survive long enough to see banners of the Sith Eternal flutter in the Core Worlds.

”There is no need for you to worry,” she promised with a firm voice. “When the time comes, I will destroy him”. 

In a sense, she would and her answer seemed to be just what the old sith lord wanted to hear. His chalked lips curled into a wicked smile as he let his head sink back onto the pillow again. 

“I have faith in you, my child,” he finally said to his heir, clutching her hand to his heart. “As empress of the Sith, you will carry the galaxy into a new era of darkness… But you must hurry. Skywalker and his Jedi Order grow stronger for every day that passes”.

“I will,” Rey nodded, clutching his hand back.

“Oovo?” Luke frowned as the holo image of his nephew crammed into the cockpit of an old Interceptor appeared on the desk. “I thought you were going to the old prison on Belsavis?”.

“No, I went to Oovo to investigate the murder of Chairman Ikari!” Ben snapped. “You sent the request to the navy for me to collect a ship, don’t you remember that?“.

“Of course,” Luke cleared his throat. 

In all honestly, he had almost forgotten Ben’s journey to Oovo, and the lost Chairman amid all the other things that had been put on his desk lately. 

After the fundraiser, his sister shared some confidential information with him from her contacts in the Navy. According to Leia, there was a military junta in the Unknown Regions that recruited among the poor human populations on planets forgotten by the New Republic.

“.... do you listen to what I’m saying? The Knights of Ren killed Chairman Ikari on Oovo”.

Luke was baffled. Did Ben really say Knights of Ren? He hadn’t seen or heard anything about them in almost twenty years…

“It seems unlikely to me that the knights would be responsible for this,” Luke admitted. “Are you absolutely sure?”.

“It is them,” Ben said with a poorly hidden frustration in his voice. “There is surveillance footage of them slaughtering both the guards and Chairman Ikari. I recognize their weapons and how they fight. There’s no doubt about it”. 

Luke clenched his teeth. It had been his decision to let the Knights of Ren run free after he faced them on Elphrona almost twenty years ago. Already back then he had known they were dangerous, and he had known they were likely to take an interest in Ben when he grew older ― or the opposite. 

“This is very concerning,” the old Jedi said. “When will you be back on Coruscant?”

“In a couple of hours. I just crossed the border to the Inner Rim,” Ben replied with a tired voice.

“Good,” Luke nodded. “When you return the ship, I want you to come by the temple again. We need to discuss how we will proceed from here”.

“I will".

Ben served the connection and Luke sank back into his chair. Something was changing; he could feel it in the Force and what he felt gave him a bad feeling.

Three different groups of active dark force users in less than three years…

The Force always strived after balance and a powerful light craved strong darkness. It was inevitable. Over the last ten years, Luke had worried so much over his nephew that he almost had forgotten that there were other possible threats to the Jedi lurking in the shadows. 

“A Jedi always needs to have an open mind,” Luke mused to himself. “Perhaps even more so during hard and trying times”.

Despite his initial doubts, Ben had handled the Ikari case well. Leia thought so, too. Still, going after the Knights of Ren was a dangerous task that would have to be handled by someone else. Voe and Finn were still struggling with finding the three female acolytes and the Jakku-killer, so giving it to them was no option. But Tai’s research mission on Felucia was running toward its end and Luke could call him back earlier to take over from Ben.

Then there was the issue of finding Ben a new suitable mission, which was always easier said than done. Luke could give his nephew a couple of free days, but after that, he needed to occupy Ben with something, so he didn’t start brooding.

The Jedi Corps was always an option, but Luke had put Hennix in charge of it and the quarren hadn’t forgotten how Ben once had impaled him and Luke was confident that putting the two former friends on the same mission would be a mistake.

With a sigh, Luke opened up his overfilled inbox with requests about everything between the exosphere and the deep core of Coruscant.

Surely there had to be something that could fit Ben?

There were some letters from the Agricultural Department on Taanab which wanted to know when they could count on retrieving aid from the Service Corps and a personal holographic message from a young scientist at the academy on Chandrila who wanted an interview about the ethics of choosing the Jedi path for children…

“No, no, and no,” Luke muttered to himself as he eyed through his messages. “Why is there never anyone who needs a library assistant these days?”.  

In the corner of the room, R2-D2 suddenly lit up with a whistle.

Luke turned around in the chair. “What did you say, the old scriptures at the archive?”.

The droid chirped affirmatively in binary.

Now, when he thought of it, there was still a box with old Jedi scriptures in the archive’s basement that needed to be translated and digitized. Initially, Luke had planned to lend C3-PO to translate it at some point, but Ben was good with ancient languages, too. With a heap of dictionaries, he could probably translate the scripts, albeit slower, as well as the droid could. 

“Good thinking, Artoo,” Luke praised the astromech. “Now I have just one meeting left and then we call it a day”.  

In three minutes he had a scheduled meeting over holo-commlink with a representative from the IGBC, and Luke didn’t have the slightest clue what they wanted…

At heart, Luke Skywalker was an adventurer and an explorer ― sitting behind a desk managing business relationships was something he found incredibly boring. It simply reminded him too much of his youth and the administrative side of being a moisture farmer. At the end of the day, maintaining the relationships with the Jedi Order’s financiers was not very different from how the Lars family had made sure to stay on the water-mongerer’s good side, so they were paid a fair price for the water.

“What did the IGBC want?” he asked as he turned to Artoo again. “I thought we had everything covered with them at our last meeting?”.

The astromech lit up as it chirped energetically.

“Our new banker was mentioned on the HoloNews? A bomb detonated in her apartment?”.

With a sigh, Luke shook his head at the bad news. An attack in broad daylight at her home in the affluent Senate District, straight after her father’s death? 

“No wonder they were worried over at the IGBC… ” he mused, stroking his beard thoughtfully. 

Right on time, the holo-commlink on Luke’s desk lit up and produced an image of a female muun with pale grey skin, clad in a dark teal-colored robe with silver accents.

“Greetings, Master Jedi. I’m Berenice Plato, head of the InterGalactic Banking Clan filial on Hosnian Prime,” the muun said in a calm voice. If she was worried, it didn’t show the slightest. 

“Good day, Director Plato,” Luke greeted the tall humanoid with a nod. “I know you’re as busy as I am, so let’s get straight to the point. What can I do for you?”.

“I have a request,” Plato said. “As I’m certain you already know, our banker Ms. Ikari’s father was found brutally murdered yesterday, and while she traveled to visit her relatives on Arkanis to share the tragic news, a bomb detonated at her private home”.

“Terrible news,” Luke deplored. “How is Ms. Ikari doing?”.

“Unfortunately, like many human females, she is prone to hysteria. She is too scared to return to Hosnian Prime”. 

Luke wouldn’t call Kira’s reaction to having her home blown up a case of hysteria, but he supposed that in the eyes of a muun, it could probably seem that way. They were known for their intellect, not their great sense of empathy.

“Maybe it’s for the best if she stays away for a while? Give her some time to process her loss and grieve in peace?” the Jedi suggested.

He didn’t think Kira Ikari was in any direct danger, but it wouldn’t hurt to be careful if it turned out that the Knights of Ren were targeting her as some sort of proxy to get revenge on the Jedi Order through its financiers.

The muun gave Luke a long gaze before she shook her head. “While she can handle some of her tasks remotely, many of our customers prefer to talk face to face. Thus, we need to have her available in the Core Worlds, otherwise, it’ll hurt our finances,” Plato stated.

And when speaking of finances…

With the revival of the Jedi Service Corps, the Jedi Order’s expenses had almost tripled. The opportunity to charge the IGBC a good sum for putting aside a knight to watch over Kira would be a welcome addition to the order’s strained finances.

“If Ms. Ikari doesn’t feel safe on Hosnian Prime… Maybe you can look into the opportunity to relocate her to Coruscant?” Luke offered. “If she is here, it would be easier for us to protect her”.

“I’m sure that can be arranged,” the muun replied. “Thank you for your understanding”.

“However, this does not fall among our responsibilities against the Republic,” Luke reminded the banker. “The Jedi Order will expect monetary compensation for putting aside one of our knights to protect Ms. Ikari”.

”Of course… we will compensate you,” the muun agreed, not entirely unwilling, although she was seemingly a little surprised by his demand.

Luke nodded, satisfied with the answer. It might be very unorthodox of a Jedi to demand payment, but the Banking Clan was one of the wealthiest organizations in the galaxy and the money would go to a good cause.

”Thank you”.

“You are welcome,” Plato said. “Please, send us the details once you have made an arrangement with Ms. Ikari and we can look at the compensation”. 

”I will”.

Satisfied with their agreement, he bid the muun farewell and closed down the connection. The candidate for the mission was obvious. If he gave the assignment to Ben, it meant Luke could have his nephew closer without having him stay in the Jedi Temple for longer than necessary. 

After Ben had shown up at the temple yesterday, Luke had felt unease grow among the padawans and the younglings. Not that anyone had complained, but he didn’t need to use the Force to know that most of them would be less than thrilled if Ben were to live at the temple for a longer time.

Luke pushed himself off the chair with a groan. What he needed now was a nice cup of tea and a peaceful, quiet place to meditate. Maybe some light exercises too. After spending the entire afternoon behind the desk, he felt stiff like a board.

“Artoo! Can you send Kira Ikari an invitation?” he asked the droid. “I like to talk to her in person before I make my final decision”.

Chapter Text

Rey lay afloat with her arms and legs stretched out like a starfish, halfway submerged in Nur’s calm ocean. Above the horizon, she could see the imposing dark gas giant Jestefad, and behind it was Mustafar, glowing like a red, burning orb.

Out of all places in the universe, Nur was Rey’s favorite.

The water moon lay like a blue pearl in the Mustafar system. True to its name, Nur consisted of an endless, dark ocean with crystal-clear water. Under the surface, the aquatic life was thriving in the warm water, and millions of bioluminescent seaweeds lit up the ocean like glittering stars from the dark cliffs beneath the surface. If you dived down deep enough, you could see deep cracks in the black rock and open scars filled with magma.

Unlike the violent landscape of Mustafar, which was almost consumed by hot lava, the underwater volcanoes on Nur were mostly dormant and big eruptions were rare. 

Trilla sat on the edge of the concrete landing platform, bathing her feet in the water while she looked at the remains of Fortress Inquisitorius in the twilight.

Decades ago, this was where she ceased to be terrified, captured Jedi padawan. This was also where she turned into the Second Sister, an inquisitor under the command of Darth Vader.

Nur was the place where she had died and the remains of her original body still lay buried somewhere under the wreckage of the fallen fortress.

“Trilla, you have to get over it,” Komari berated the other woman with a deep sigh. “Own your pain. If you don’t — you’ll always be a slave to it”.

Still submerged under the water, Rey heard Trilla hiss something back at the other woman before she got up on her feet and returned to the ship. Komari let out a frustrated moan and plunged back into the dark water.

As she swam towards the surface, Rey’s gaze trailed along the transparent underwater passages of the fortress. After the destruction, the tunnels had been filled with water through large cracks in the reinforced glass. She saw schools of small, dark blue fish dart through the passages and a bright red starfish climb on the inside of the glass.

“I should find a building entrepreneur from Kamino and have them look at the fortress,” Rey mused to herself. “Soon”.

She liked to daydream about the day when she finally had seized the throne and claimed her birthright to the Sith. The first thing she would do as Empress would be to rebuild the fortress again. There was no way she would rule the galaxy from a dry rock with constant thunderstorms like Exegol, no matter how important it had been in the history of the Sith.

No, she would leave her grandfather’s court, his old scholars, and the Sith Eternal on Exegol and build herself a new home on Nur with Kylo. 

Together, they would rule over the galaxy and create a new era, free from the ancient ways of the Jedi — and the Sith.

They would be happy here, Rey was certain, and she had already a clear vision of what the rebuilt fortress would look like. 

Dark and imposing, yet elegant. Just like Rey herself. 

Rey swam a few laps around the landing platform. Breaststroke, backstroke, butterfly. She had learned to swim as an adult. Before she left Jakku, the largest amount of water Rey had seen at once was the tanks the merchants at Niima Outpost bought from the local moisture farmers.  

“You never get enough, do you?” Komari commented. “I’ve never seen a non-aquatic species like water as much as you do”.

“It’s a pleasant reminder that I’m in charge of my destiny and I don’t have to spend the rest of my days on a dry rock like Exegol,” Rey replied as she took a deep breath and dived under the surface again.

Or a hot hell like Jakku, or even worse, on Tatooine as the Last Jedi, trying to pick up the pieces after Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker to revive the Jedi Order.

Rey shivered at the thought despite the warm water. She had seen it in visions, the path the Light Side could lead her to.

A loveless nightmare in which Kylo and Ben both were dead and forgotten.

In a way, the Light was what Rey feared most. It promised serenity and inner peace, and in return, it gave nothing back but an ascetic life without passion, love, and freedom. How could that possibly appeal to anyone?

”I truly need to get Ben away from the Jedi Order,” Rey mumbled to herself. “He’s already so blinded by the Light and his uncle’s teachings that he can’t see how it eats his soul away”.

When speaking about Ben Solo… 

Despite her carefully laid plans, Rey was uncharacteristically nervous. There was an infuriating restlessness in her bones and an agony within her chest that not even the calm ocean could soothe.

At the moment, her future lay light years away in Plato’s hands and it all depended on how well she could sell Rey as a damsel in distress to the old Jedi Master. 

She had carefully instructed her boss at the IGBC what to say. If anyone could lie to a Jedi Master with a straight face, it was a muun and Plato was since long a supporter of the First Order’s philosophy. Like Hux, the pale muun thought the galaxy would be better if a firm hand and strict rules ruled it.

Still, for someone like Rey, who had relied on herself and herself only for so many years, it was pure torture to leave such a vital task in someone else’s hands.

Komari left the water and returned to the passenger lounge on Imperialis, while Rey continued swimming. It wasn’t until her fingertips had turned pruned and Trilla called out her name that she got out of the water.

“What is it?” Rey asked as she heaved herself out of the water and up on the landing platform.

”It seems to be your lucky day,” Trilla replied, handing over a white towel to her mistress. ”Skywalker has just sent you a transmission”.

Rey’s eyes widened. ”You’re not joking, are you?”.

”Come and see for yourself”.

Rey wrung out the salt water of her buns before she wrapped the towel around herself and followed Trilla back onto the ship. At the mere sight of the ‘transmission received’ on Imperialis’ computer frame, Rey’s heart skipped a beat and a swarm of butterflies emerged in her stomach. 

”Play it,” she demanded. 

A razor-sharp image of a middle-aged man in full color appeared. The man was clad in a beige robe over a white tunic, a broad leather sash with a silvery lightsaber equipped to it. Rey recalled the image of the blonde, smiling teenager on Senator Organa’s dresser. Luke Skywalker had aged, but his vivid blue eyes had remained the same over the years.

“Greetings, Kira Ikari,” the holo image of the Jedi Master said. “I am Luke Skywalker from the Jedi Order. I have spoken to your supervisor at IGBC about your situation, and we have decided to offer you protection. However, before we make any arrangements, I would like to speak to you in person”.  

A personal audience with Luke Skywalker.

Rey sank down in the pilot’s seat, still dressed in her wet bikini with the towel wrapped around her body, with a raging heartbeat and her breath caught in her throat. A mixture of excitement and fear shot through her body. 

She spun around in the chair and turned her gaze to Trilla and Komari. “Make yourself ready. We leave at once”.

The first thing that met Rey when she returned to Coruscant was a message from her insurance agent and the second was the realization that Hux had lied. Instead of the home invasion she had demanded, the lazy imbecile had placed a bomb strong enough to blow out both Rey’s and the surrounding apartments.

“I’m going to strangle him with my bare hands for this,” Rey seethed as she watched the footage of her wrecked home on the HoloNet News. “Does he even have the slightest idea what an apartment in that area is worth?”.

“You can worry about that later,” Trilla said as she slid the door to the closet open. “We need to make you look respectable before Skywalker”.

Rey raised an eyebrow. “Respectable?”.

“Don’t you know that the first impression is the most important?” Trilla continued. “You want to give the impression of being someone he wants to protect, someone he feels sympathy for…”.

Rey leaned her head back and groaned softly. Evoking sympathy in other people had never been something she had been good at, not even when she was a poor, orphaned child. 

With swift fingers, Trilla searched through the closet and she discarded them even swifter. Apparently, black robes, skin-tight training clothes, or trendy party dresses wouldn’t give the old Jedi Master the right impression of Rey. 

“... and to help you achieve that, you need to look humble and vulnerable”.

Rey tilted her head to the side and sighed. “Humble and vulnerable?”.

After years of pretending to be Kira Ikari, she could probably act like she was a humble person for a couple of hours. But the vulnerable part… There wasn’t a single meek bone in Rey Palpatine’s body, but maybe it would come naturally. After all, walking into the Jedi Temple as a Sith would be like entering a wasp’s nest full of enemies. 

”Being a Jedi Master is not just some fancy title, Rey,” Trilla scolded her. ”Do not underestimate Skywalker; one wrong move and you could risk everything”

Rey glared at the older woman. “I’m aware of that”.

Trilla gave her a tired look. ”Good. Do you have any other clothes than this?”.

“There might be some at my office,” the heiress offered with a light shrug. Clothing didn’t interest Rey very much. The only time when she really had put thought into what she was wearing was when she tried to attract Ben Solo’s attention.

“Good. I’ll send a courier to get them. You should do something about your nails, too”.

The next morning, a courier from Hosnian Prime arrived with a simple sand-colored dress with long sleeves and a high neckline, and a matching coat Rey had forgotten she owned. 

Yesterday, she filed down her long nails, removed the nail polish, and washed away the last trace of her black eyeliner. With no makeup on, she looked young, younger than she was, and most importantly — innocent.

As she carefully examined the mirror reflection, clad in her subtle working clothes, Rey gave herself an approving nod.

When I look like this, nobody can believe all the blood I’ve spilled.

Satisfied with her look, Rey left her room to join her handmaidens in the kitchen for a swift breakfast. But for once, she had no appetite at all. In less than four hours, she would sit face-to-face with the legendary Jedi Master and convince him she desperately needed his nephew’s protection. 

His and only his protection, to be specific.

Her plan depended on Luke to give the mission to Ben. Rey reasoned that the Jedi Master would deem the risk of the Knights of Ren showing up in the Core Worlds low enough to do. If there was a high risk of an actual confrontation with the force-wielding marauders, Skywalker would never send his unstable nephew to such a potentially dangerous mission.

But guarding the banker in charge of their very beneficial loan from a low-risk threat a mere district away from the Jedi Temple on Coruscant? It was the perfect mission for wayward Ben Solo, Rey mused to herself. 

In theory, it was a clever plan — but it required a good dose of luck.

Luke Skywalker wasn’t stupid by any means, and to trick him into doing her bidding would be a challenge. However, he was also a classic Knight in Shining Armor. Everybody knew the now legendary tale about how Luke, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Han Solo, and Chewbacca stormed the first Death Star to save princess Leia without a proper plan. If anything, it showed that Skywalker was the kind of man who could toss everything else aside to save a person in need. 

All Rey had to do was play her cards right and convince him she was a true damsel in distress.

An hour later, Rey stood at the bottom of the stairs that led to the Jedi Temple’s visitor entrance. She had never been to the temple before, not even the public section of it. Fear seeped through her as she watched the temple tower at the end of the stairs. Rey was no stranger to trials by fire, but this was unlike anything she had faced before.

It was still early, and there were only a handful of visitors except for Rey, who slowly made their way up the stairs. At the top, the others gathered around a large fountain, cut from red granite, outside the temple entrance, and Rey could hear them mumble something about a pre-booked guided tour.

The chatter when a stopped male czerialan in a brown robe appeared from the temple to greet them. The visitors quickly lined up behind the Jedi and Rey followed the group as the tour began. They walked into the temple with curious gazes, and the tour guide spoke enthusiastically about the story behind the construction of the Jedi Temple and its founding masters.

“Once, the images of the Four Masters were carved into the pylons of the temple’s formal entrance, but unfortunately those were destroyed just before the end of the Clone Wars, however…”.

The formal entrance was closed off to the public, which was only allowed in a special section of the Jedi Temple. The section was known as the public section and it consisted of a large hall that was used for temporary exhibitions, a small gift shop, and a museum dedicated to the history of the Jedi Order where the common citizens could look at old lightsabers, shards of kyber crystals, broken holocrons and ancient Jedi scriptures.

“This season, our exhibition hall is dedicated to the female Jedi Masters of the…”.

Once they made it through the entrance hallway, Rey diverted from the tour, which headed straight to the exhibition in favor of the gift shop. The shop sold souvenirs, small trinkets, and a plethora of other things loosely related to the Jedi Order and the way of life they promoted. 

There were hand–woven hemp mats for meditation, and natural rubber mats for exercise. Expensive, old-fashioned paper postcards for the rich, nostalgic visitors. Small die-cast tin figures of the old famous Jedi Masters. Posters, maps, and metal cups… Leaves from force-sensitive rare Uneti-wrapped in tiny, tiny cotton bags.

Rey frowned as she picked up one of the small bags and examined it. The board members of the New Jedi Order sure were crafty, selling small bags of dry compost for 250 credits each.

The thought of having a visitor section at the temple ruins on Korriban was laughable, and it would surely make the old Sith Lords tumble in their graves.

“What is this, tea?” Rey turned her head to the store clerk, a blonde padawan with a shaved head, who looked back at her with an almost shocked expression.

“They are for meditation help, not consumption!”.

“Meditation help?” the heiress blinked.

“Yes. We collect the fallen leaves of the tree at the top of the temple,” the padawan explained. “It can be hard to connect to the Force on urbanized planets, but the Uneti leaves can help guide you”.

“Lovely,” Rey mumbled, resisting an urge to roll her eyes as she dropped the bag back into the box. 

Meditation aid bags to help people with low force sensitivity connect with the Force…

To a Sith, such it seemed outright laughable and highlighted one of the main differences between the two ideologies — the Jedi cared about everyone regardless of force sensitivity while the Sith only catered to the most powerful, chosen few.

Quantity over quality, indeed.

Rey left the gift shop empty–handed and strolled down to the holographic exhibition of the old Jedi Masters. She wandered around in the exhibition area aimlessly, too distracted by the meeting with Skywalker to enjoy it to any higher degree than mild interest.

As she stood in front of a life-size hologram of the long-gone Master Yaddle, Rey could see in the corner of her eye how an orange-skinned, female twi’lek clad in a beige robe approached her from across the room.

“Kira Ikari?” the twi‘lek said as her gaze flickered over Rey and her neutral-colored disguise. 

“Yes,“ Rey nodded and gripped her purse, where she kept her lightsaber tighter to her chest. 

It might seem foolish to bring a lightsaber to a meeting with a Jedi Master, especially one as clunky as her large double-bladed saber, but Rey had stubbornly refused to go without it. If it all went to hell, at least she wouldn’t go down without giving them a proper fight.

“Welcome to the Jedi Temple. I’m Enyo,” the Jedi said with a smile and a soft bow. “Master Skywalker awaits you. Please, follow me”.

“Thank you,” Rey replied with a thin, polite smile.

The Jedi Knight led Rey out of the public section and down a sand-colored corridor that reminded her of Theed Palace on Naboo. Panels in natural wood. Imported from Kashyyk, Malastare, or some other arboreal planet. The donors who had helped to fund the rebuild of the Jedi Temple had been very generous.

They walked through a grand hallway in polished sandstone and a passing group of younglings with books in their hands greeted Rey and the Jedi Knight with small smiles and subtle nods. The temple was bustling with activity and Rey realized the estimation of active Jedis she had read from the First Order‘s investigation bureau was too low. 

“No wonder grandfather has been so worried; if all these younglings become padawans, we‘ll risk having twice the amount of Jedis expected within a few years,“ Rey mused to herself as another Jedi Knight and padawan crossed her step.

“Master Skywalker has his office in the Tranquility Spire,‘‘ Enyo said as she led Rey into an elevator. “It‘s on the 46th floor“.

The elevator was slow for a turbolift, and when they finally reached the door to Luke Skywalker’s office, Rey was all raw nerves and the confidence she had felt earlier had vanished. 

You can do this, she thought to herself. Skywalker might be strong within the Force, but he is not stronger than your grandfather. If you can fool him, you can fool Skywalker, too. 

”Thank you, Enyo. You can leave now,” Luke said as he turned his gaze to Rey. ”Miss Ikari, I’m glad you could make it here on such short notice”.

The Jedi Master looked far older than his fifty years, and he was shorter than she imagined him to be. Luke Skywalker was clad in a classic, simple Jedi robe, and his beard and hair were gray with speckles of white. He looked like he could be a pilgrim or a member of the Church of the Force.

Master Skywalker,” Rey greeted the old man with the same kind of soft bow Enyo had welcomed her to the temple with. “I am thankful for the audience”.

“You’re welcome,” Luke said as he motioned for her to sit down. “Please, take a seat”.

The room was circular with a low three low sofas made of woven strips of beige and brown canvas. Between the circle of sofas, there was a round wooden table with a pleated rattan tray, a simple brown teapot, and a set of small matching cups. The glass door to the balcony stood open and the surge of air from the outside made the thin linen drapes sway. 

Rey sat down on a sofa with her legs folded together under her heavy dress and hands resting on her lap, ladylike and sympathetic. She thanked him for the tea and sipped carefully on the brew while waiting for her host to start the conversation. 

By nature, Rey Palpatine was light years from being ladylike. It has taken her rigorous training in acting like she was. But she did her best, keeping her back straight and her eyes sad, channeling whatever was left of the pure-hearted girl she once had been. 

“First, I want to offer my condolences,” Luke said as he sat down on the other side of the round coffee table. ”The murder of your father is a loss for everyone who believes in the Republic and our democracy”.

“Thank you,” she replied softly. 

The fear held her in a chokehold, and Rey shivered unwillingly. Normally, she could tap into the Force and transform her negative emotions into power. But in front of Skywalker, Rey had no choice but to endure. 

“Are you alright?” the Jedi asked as he leaned a little closer. “You look a little pale?”.

He eyed her with concern in his sky-blue, piercing eyes. Even without being connected to the Force, Rey could feel his presence pressing against her temples like a wall of water and she steeled herself. This was a man who could see through common people with a brief glance. But Rey Palpatine was no ordinary woman, and she reminded herself to show no fear.

She cleared her throat.

“I’m sorry ― this is hard for me. My father and I were not close,” Rey said, repeating the same story she had told Ben Solo. “When he disappeared, I thought he just wanted to escape from the public eye so he could… lose himself in his addiction for a while”.

Luke nodded. “I understand. It’s seldom easy to be adopted”.

“The news of his death came as a shock to me, and after the attack on my apartment, I fear deeply for my safety,” Rey continued.

The Jedi Master leaned back a little, eyes still trained on her, with a thoughtful expression on his gentle face. Rey kept a solemn expression on her face, but she avoided his gaze. Instead, she locked her eyes on the edge of the teacup in her hands.

“I must ask… Are you familiar with the Knights of Ren?” he finally asked after what felt like an eternity of uncomfortable silence.

Rey shook her head. “I have never heard of them before”.

“Are you sure?” Luke asked in a soft voice as he leaned forward. “Think carefully”.

”Officer Suwan didn’t tell me any details. But she said as much that it would be better if I hung onto the memories of him instead of… taking farewell to him in the state they found his body”.

Skywalker nodded. “I see. I will make sure that you get protection”.

“Thank you, Master Jedi,” Rey said as she gave Luke a relieved, faint smile. “I appreciate it,” she truthfully added.

“I thought I’d let my nephew, Ben, watch over you,” Luke revealed. “I thought it might be easier for you if it’s someone you already know?”.

A wave of relief washed over Rey at the mention of Ben’s name. It was almost too good to be true. Now she just needed to seal the deal and convince Skywalker it was an excellent idea without going overboard.

“Yes, I believe so. I truly appreciate all the hard work Ben put down to find my father,” she said, silently praying that Ben had told no one about her previous complaints about the HPPD not doing enough to find Ikari. “He is a compassionate man”.

A relieved smile appeared on Luke’s smile. “I’m glad to hear that,” the Jedi said.

In the evening, Ben left his room at the Jedi Temple to continue his work with the translation at the Jedi Archives. The younglings had retreated to their sleeping quarters and most of the older padawans spent their evenings meditating or training with their mentors. 

The Jedi Temple was an enormous building, and it had been spacious already back in the days when the order was at full strength, which made it seem almost desolate in the evening.

Some would say the temple’s large, dim-lit hallways were almost eerie. However, it filled Ben with nothing but relief as he made his way to the archives. So far, he had kept a distance from the Jedis and saved himself from awkward reunions with the other knights who studied with him on Ossus. 

“Ben, wait!” a voice called after him. 

He turned around to meet the gaze of his fellow Jedi Knight, Enyo. She looked at him with nervosity in her eyes, and Ben wondered if she had gathered the courage to dare to speak to him again.  

“I heard Master Luke speak of the Knights of Ren today,” the twi’lek said anxiously. “Is it true that they killed that politician from Hosnian Prime?”. 

“Yes”.

Enyo swallowed. “Are we going after them?”. 

“I don’t know,” Ben truthfully said. “I’m… on standby here, I guess. Luke has given me a heap of books to translate”.

“Oh…,” a surprised expression spread across the twi’lek’s face. ”Is that why you’re sneaking around here at night?”.

Ben sighed. 

“I… just don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable,” he admitted.

The other Jedis preferred to use the training rooms during mid-day and early afternoon, so Ben trained at ungodly hours in the morning or late in the evening. He visited the common cantina as late as he could, and during the days, Ben mostly stayed in his room working on the translation assignment Luke had given him. 

When the evening came and most of the other Jedi had retreated to their rooms, he went to the Jedi Archive and continued his work there to see something else than the four walls of his room.

“I see,” Enyo said in a solemn voice. 

She looked at him with an almost worried gaze, and her long lekkus twitched restlessly at the ends, which made Ben wonder if she was nervous. This was the first time they had spoken in years. Like him, the twi’lek had been among Luke’s first twelve students and she had been one of the first padawans to become knighted and the first to lead a student of her own into knighthood. 

“For what it’s worth, I don’t think you should be so hard on yourself,” the twi’lek suddenly said. “It takes strength to resist the Dark, I understand that now”.

Ben stood silent, not sure what to say. Although they had grown up together and even taught padawans together, he and Enyo had never been close and they had certainly not talked about his personal struggles.

“Well, I must go,” Enyo said as if she sensed how uncomfortable he was with the discussion. ”Good luck with the texts”.

“Good night”.

The twi’lek disappeared down the hallway and Ben remained still, perplexed over her unexpected encouragement. When he first returned to the temple, he had taken for granted that most of the other Jedi would be disturbed by his presence. 

Perhaps that wasn’t the entire truth and Ben reminded himself to not automatically expect the worst as he made his way to the archives through the dim-lit hallways.

The Jedi Archives was like a grand hall filled with bookshelf after bookshelf with holobooks. Emerald green carpets with golden accents, long, brown wooden tables with small desk lamps. There were almost no other visitors. Just two older padawans too busy studying a holocron to take notice of Ben.

He retrieved a heap of dictionaries from one shelf and sat down at one of the long tables in the opposite direction of the others. Then he fished up a thermos cup with decaffeinated tea and his holopad from his backpack and started to work. 

The texts Luke had given him were written in protobesh, a script that was the precursor to aurebesh. Whoever had written the text had very compact handwriting, and the letters were very, very small. But the worst thing wasn’t the author’s tiny handwriting. It was how incredibly tedious the text was. The entire script consisted of page after page with poetic musings about the Force.

“The teachings of the first master spread like delicate petals in the stern spring wind, far beyond the rain-girdled shores of Ahch’To’s humble islands…”.

“Maker, help me…” Ben ran a hand through his dark hair. 

Delicate petals…? 

Just what kind of rubbish was it that Luke had given him? Maybe Obi-Wan Kenobi became a poet during his exile on Tatooine and these were his rejected drafts…

He took a sip of his tea, scratched petals, and wrote ‘brittle leaves’ instead. Leaves seemed to be a much better choice if the texts were referring to a tree. 

According to the legend, the first Jedi had used a hollow Uneti tree as a library for the sacred Jedi texts on Ach’To. Back in the early days of the New Jedi Order, Ben had accompanied Luke on several travels in search of the planet that was said to harbor the first Jedi Temple. They had found some good clues over the years, but the exact location of the temple planet remained a secret.

The hours went by slowly as Ben kept struggling with the translation. The text mentioned the first Jedi Temple on Ach’To several times and the descriptions of the planet and its islands were detailed, but the information on its actual location was just as vague as in the other old scriptures. 

With a sigh, Ben leaned over the table and rested his head on the book with folded arms. While he loved to read, dopey, poetic musings were not one of his favorite kinds of books and he felt tired.     

“Solo. Always with the nose in the books,” a familiar voice sounded from the hallway. 

Startled, he looked up from the book. A bald man stood between two tall bookshelves, clad in a coarse brown robe, well-used traveler’s boots, and a heavy rucksack. 

“Tai!” Ben exclaimed as he stood up from the table. 

He hadn’t seen his friend for over a year. Luke had sent Tai to a mission on Felucia just before Ben had accepted Senator Maalim Guhad’s mission to implement his bill. Since the last time they saw each other, Tai had grown a beard, and he had gained an almost weather-worn look after his months on the jungle planet.

“Ben,” Tai smiled as he hugged his taller colleague. “I was hoping you would be here. It’s so good to see you again!”.

“It’s good to see you, too,” Ben replied, still a little shocked by his old friend’s sudden appearance. 

As far as he knew, Tai wasn’t scheduled to return from his mission on Felucia until the end of next month and his friend’s monthly field reports hadn’t suggested otherwise either. If anything, it had seemed like Tai never wanted to return from the jungle planet and its almost mythical rainforests. 

Ben had never been to Felucia himself, but he had been to a holographic copy of its deep forests on Chandrila when he was a kid. It had been a rare occasion because both his parents had accompanied him to the exhibition. Together, they had walked through a scenario of meat-eating plants, bioluminescent mushrooms, vivid butterflies, tropical sarlaccs, and small jungle rancors.

Han had just laughed at the holograms of the rancors and told him how the rancor Jabba the Hutt kept had been at least three times as big as the ones on Felucia. Then, he told a starry-eyed Ben the story of how Uncle Luke had defeated the beast.

“I’ve envied you, “ he admitted with a faint smile. “Felucia’s nature is said to be extraordinary”.

“It is; the woods are resonating in tune with the Force. I’ve seen nothing like it before… I meditated for hours in the woods, every day,” Tai revealed. “When you’re surrounded by nature, it is so much easier to connect with the Force. I’m going to miss that a lot”.

“I see. How come you returned early?”.

“Master Luke sent me a transmission and asked me to return earlier two days ago,” Tai said as he dropped his packing on the floor and sat down on the chair next to Ben. “I flew with a courier from Felucia to Tanaab yesterday and from there, I took a commercial cruiser back to Coruscant”.

“Did Luke tell you why?”.

Tai shook his head. “No, but I guess it’s important. I heard you had seen the Knights of Ren on Oovo IV. Perhaps it was because of that?”.

“Maybe,” Ben shrugged. 

His friend gave him a disappointed look, and Ben could see that he probably was more disappointed to have been summoned from Felucia prematurely without a reason than he initially had let off. Ben wasn’t surprised to hear that he wasn’t the only one his uncle had kept in the dark. 

Like a card player, Luke kept every little secret close to his chest. 

Over the years, he had become more and more secretive, as if he wanted to shield his apprentices from truths they couldn’t handle. 

Soft steps echo from the hallway and Tai sat straight up on to the chair. Already before Luke entered the room, they could feel his presence in the Force. A bright and calm, almost majestic yet humble presence that could not be mistaken for anyone but a true Jedi Master.  

“Ben, Tai,” Luke said. “Tai, welcome back to Coruscant”.

“Thank you, Master Luke,” Tai replied with a polite smile, and Ben gave his uncle an acknowledging nod.

“I’ll let you two talk in private,” Ben said as he gathered his things. 

He had no interest in spending more time around Luke than what was absolutely necessary. Despite all the years that passed, he still felt on edge around his uncle. But before he could leave, Luke raised a hand to interrupt him. 

“I need to speak with both of you”.

Ben sat down again, and the two knights exchanged a confused gaze before they turned their attention back to their master.

“This might sound like an unusual request,” the old Jedi Master warned them. “But… Tai, I want you to take over Ben’s mission for the Hosnian Prime Police, and Ben, I have a special task for you”.

“Well, I…,” Tai said, his gaze alternating between the other men. “I have a lot of plant samples from Felucia to categorize and so…”.

”I know,” Luke nodded. ”The oldest of the younglings will be happy to assist you with that”.

Ben pinned his gaze on his uncle. He had expected to take a less active role in the case as soon as the Knights of Ren entered the picture. A confrontation with them was not something he was ready for and Ben had accepted that, but was it really necessary to completely cut him loose from the case? There was still a lot he could do, and for a split second, Ben had actually thought that Luke would let him and Tai work on it together.

“What kind of ‘special request’ are we talking about?” he asked.

“I need you to watch over Kira Ikari,” Luke simply said.

At his side, Tai blinked confusedly while Ben just stared at Uncle Luke in complete disbelief. 

Had he heard right?

While the motive behind Chairman Ikari’s death at the hands of the Knights of Ren remained a mystery, Ben couldn’t see any reason why they would come for Kira. As she had said; she had not been close to her father, and they didn’t have either a business or shared finances. Othori Ikari had been the official owner of the apartment Kira lived in on Hosnian Prime, but that was it.

”May I ask what for what purpose?”.

”After her father’s death and the attack on her home, she doesn’t feel safe”.

Luke’s voice lacked conviction and to Ben, the reason was crystal clear; the Knights of Ren had no history of operating in the Core Worlds and that they would attack an IGBC-banker in the middle of the well-guarded Senate District seemed unlikely. 

”She is a fund manager,” he retorted. ”If she doesn’t feel safe, she can afford to hire protection. It is hardly a task for the Jedi Order”.

A tired expression crept over Luke’s face and he didn’t even need to say a word for Ben to understand how annoying his uncle thought his objections were. For as long as the Jedi Order had existed, it was customary that the Knights and the Padawans trusted in their Masters and accepted his or her mission without complaints. Should they have opinions on the mission, they were to be carefully told with respect.

“Ben, the IGBC is one of our main contributors, and thus, it is our business. It will only be until we get the situation under control”.

“It’s unnecessary”.

Luke gave Ben a stern gaze and crossed his arms over his chest, and Tai moved uneasily in his chair. 

“It is a Jedi’s duty to serve the Light and the people of the Republic,” Luke scolded. “Have you already forgotten that?”.

“No,” he sighed. If Ben had a credit for each time Luke or Leia reminded him of a Jedi’s purpose and core values, he would be richer than King Prana. “I just don’t get along very well with Kira Ikari”.

“No?” Luke raised an eyebrow. 

“It is nothing personal,” Ben said flatly. “We just don’t see eye to eye on certain things”.

Luke stroked his beard thoughtfully as his gaze swept over the younger Jedi. “I talked to Ms. Ikari today. She praised your efforts on the case of her father’s disappearance and she told me she would be comfortable in your company," he said. “If you had corporation issues before, this could be a valuable lesson in diplomacy for you”.

Ben groaned on the inside. Had Kira asked Luke for him to play her bodyguard? After Chairman Ikari’s death, he had considered himself to be done with the mischievous banker and her alluring eyes for good. 

But as much as Kira annoyed him, he had to admit that it was… kinda nice to be around someone who wasn’t burdened by his previous sins and mercurial personality. Still, the thought of being near her for an extended amount of time alone…

“I don’t think that is a good idea,” he admitted.

Ben knew in his very bones it was a bad idea. Even more so, it was playing with fire. Kira filled him with a toxic mixture of emotions Ben didn’t dare to fully acknowledge.

Inquisitiveness. Longing. Physical attraction. Possessiveness. 

He didn’t even know where those feelings came from. It was like a wormhole opened up in his subconscious whenever Kira was around and flooded his mind with someone else’s feelings.

“Very well then,” Luke said in a tired voice. “If you feel it’s too hard for you, then I will see if Sala Zafar can switch assignments with you”.

“Sala?” Tai said. “I thought she still was Nuro’s padawan?”.

“No, she is a Jedi Knight now,” Luke said with a thin smile, proud to see yet another padawan reach knighthood. 

“What kind of mission is it?” Ben asked suspiciously. 

He had never met Zafar in person, but he had seen her name mentioned on the Jedi Order’s intranet a couple of times. She had passed the Jedi Trials almost two weeks, and her next assignment would be her first as a knight. That meant it would be a simple mission, and if Ben knew Luke right, it would be boring. Boring enough for Ben to reconsider.

Luke’s smile grew broader, and he seemed almost amused at Ben’s suspiciously.

“A research project on Parnassos,” he said. “Well, not physically on Parnassos. It’s here at the temple; a magnificent collection of two thousand fossil earthworm scales that needs radiocarbon dating”.

Chapter Text

Eventually, Ben decided to take the mission. Once they had reached an agreement, he left Master Luke and Tai to sort out the details of Tai’s mission and returned to his room. 

Frustrated, he threw himself on the bed and pulled the terracotta-colored cover over his head with a groan. Ben wasn’t happy with his choice, but watching over Kira felt like the lesser of two evils. Still, he couldn’t shake off the feeling that there probably wasn’t even an actual request from the nearby academy to help out with the worm scales, or at least that Luke had twisted the truth in one way or another to make him accept the mission. 

If so, it wouldn’t be the first time.

Aside from Ben himself, the rest of his family wasn’t opposed to lying. Neither his uncle nor his mother were outright liars, but they were both experts at telling others only the parts of the truth that benefited themselves. They could hold onto secrets for decades if necessary. Han was not Skywalker, but he still lied all the time. However, he did it seldom for tactical reasons like Luke and Leia. Most of Han’s lies were just pure exaggerations to make himself, or his stories, seem more interesting than they were. Ben still hated it nonetheless.

It was almost reason enough for him to accept the mission, just to get away from Luke again.

Almost.

Eventually, the anger and frustration dissipated and Ben drifted into sleep.

Gone were the Jedi Temple, Luke, and the thoughts of his family. Instead, Ben found himself standing in the middle of a room with wide panorama windows, gazing out over a landscape that was the complete opposite of Coruscant’s urban and trillions of citizens. Thunder rolled in the distance and the scenery outside the glass door was dry and barren. A dark wasteland. It looked like nothing Ben had seen before.

“What is this place?” he mumbled to himself as he gazed out over the strange landscape. “It almost looks like the bottom of a dried-up lake...”.

He then turned his gaze back to the room. It was dark, and it took some time until his eyes had adjusted. Once he could see better, he noticed that the walls and the floor seemed to be made of gigantic, uneven tiles of black slate that had been carefully forged together with mortar. Long, velvet-like curtains covered the windows. There were bookshelves, filled with a lot of books, and not just any books; old, dented books made of paper. Ben frowned at the sight; paper books were highly unusual these days.

A collection of shimmering rocks and kyber crystals rested on top of a drawer next to a pyramid-shaped holocron that subtly glowed in bright red. Stunned, Ben reached out his hand after the holocron. He was just about to touch it, but a sudden noise from another room made him stop dead in his tracks. 

”I thought about your uncle. How about we bury his ashes in the Valley of Dark Lords?”.

”And the Emperor beneath the remains of the first Jedi Temple on Ach’To? It would cause a permanent rift in the Force”.

A soft giggle echoed between the stone walls, and Ben tore his eyes from the glowing holocron. Whoever lived here was at home, and the two hushed voices sounded eerily familiar. With light steps, he moved across the stone floor in the direction of the voices. He stepped on something soft and when he looked down, black clothes were lying spread across the floor, like a trail that led to the next room. 

Carefully, he pushed open the door as quietly as he could.

The room was just as dark as the one he had just left, illuminated by nothing but the weak, teal-colored starlight that seeped in between the heavy curtains. A large rectangular mirror hung on the wall and beside it, there was a small black table with curved legs and a matching padded chair. On the table stood a few small bottles with metallic, shimmering liquid in them.

Nail polish.

A large bed with a black, metallic frame stood at the opposite wall. Shadows danced on the walls and someone, or something, writhed between the dark sheets, and it took Ben’s brain a couple of seconds to realize what was happening in the dim-lit room.

He saw the outline of a slender, naked female who sat up in the bed. As she turned her head to the side, Ben got a glimpse of a pair of yellow-tinted eyes and dark lashes. A hot blush spread over his face as their gazes met, and Ben quickly diverted his gaze. His body tensed and he prepared for her to lash out at him, but she just sat there, unaffected by his presence, as if her gaze went straight through him. Still blushing, Ben let out a breath, relieved that she couldn't see him.

“What is it?”.

“I thought I heard something…”.

As he dared to raise his gaze again, Ben found that he recognized her; it was the yellow-eyed girl. Although she had visited his dreams and nightmares more than a handful of times, Ben never remembered much else about her than the eyes when he woke up, but now… She looked suspiciously similar to Kira, with her firm hands, long nails, dark hair, and lithe body.

“Maybe it’s Sidious who’s coming for your soul”.

“Kylo!” she playfully scolded. “You’re insufferable”.

Ben stood frozen as he heard the yellow-eyed girl say the name. It was a name he once knew well, although he hadn’t heard someone say it for so many years that he had almost forgotten what it sounded like.

Kylo.

Skywalker, Solo. Ky, lo. Kylo.

Kylo used to be Ben’s secret alias. A silly name he made up when he was a child and wanted to escape from being Ben Solo. Back then, Ben sometimes liked to pretend he was another person to get a break from reality’s unyielding pressure. Ben became Kylo, and Kylo could be a pilot, an adventurer, a pirate, or maybe an archeologist. 

He dared to do all the things Ben didn’t.

He didn’t care the slightest what Luke, Leia, or Han thought.

Over the years, his once innocent childhood fantasy had gotten a life of its own in Ben’s dreams. Or rather, in his nightmares. Instead of becoming the adventurer Ben once dreamed about, Kylo had become twisted and turned to the Dark. What once used to be his ideal had turned into the personification of Luke and Leia’s worst fears.

A monster.

Ben remained frozen to the ground, unable to decide what he should do or not. But neither Kylo nor Kira’s doppelgänger seemed to either see or hear him. 

Kylo grabbed the girl around the waist and pulled her back between the sheets. They writhed like restless snakes around each other for what seemed like an eternity until Kylo pinned her down to the mattress. She let out another soft giggle as she wrapped her legs around his waist.

“Give it to me,” the yellow-eyed girl breathlessly said, her eyes brimming with eagerness.

“Get on your knees then”.

She snorted softly at his demand but released her grip on Kylo’s body. Obediently, she then shifted into position on her knees with her elbows resting on the bed. Ben’s mouth turned dry like sand and heat flared up on his cheeks as sheer panic ran through his body, along with a sense of mortifying embarrassment. This was far too perverse and bizarre, even for someone with as wild dreams as he was used to. 

There wasn’t a single part of him that could stand to watch how his alter-ego thrusted into the yellow-eyed girl, and in lack of better solutions, Ben simply closed his eyes.

“This isn’t real. This isn’t real,” he murmured repeatedly to himself to shut out the lewd sounds of bodies moving against each other. “It’s just another dream. You need to wake up”.

Ben woke up with a gasp like a freediver finally reaching the surface. Instead of dark stone walls, the familiar sight of light sandstone and sheer linen curtains met him. Gone was Kylo, the eerie teal light, the Sith holocron, and the yellow-eyed girl, and Ben let out a breath of relief. It was just a dream; he reminded himself. No need to worry. Kira didn’t live in some dark, creepy castle where she had sex with his evil childhood alter-ego. 

Not that it would do anything to stop him from having bad consiousness for the rest of day for dreaming of her in such… an inappropriate way.

The chronometer on the small wooden table next to the bed showed that there was an hour left until the sun, Coruscant Prime, would rise over the horizon. Ben sank back onto his pillow with closed eyes again, taking a deep breath. He would pack his things, take a cold shower, eat breakfast, and then he would meditate until it was time to leave for Kira’s residence in Upper City.

That would give him at least six hours to achieve some form of serenity before he would have to face what Ben suspected would become his most craving mission ever.

Eight hours later…

Like the humble Jedi he aspired to be, Ben used the public transportation system instead of a speeder. From the station next to the temple grounds, he took a large mustard yellow shuttle to the Financial District. The driver, a bulky besalisk in an ill-fitted uniform, greeted him with a nod as Ben registered his keycard, which also worked as a payment card for all members of the Jedi Order.

The shuttle was extensive with a capacity of over a hundred passengers and Ben sat down at the back between two young female rodians and an elderly ithorian who was busy knitting a long scarf.

It had been a long time since he visited the “Upper City” and its majestic skyscrapers among the clouds. Last time, he was just a kid, visiting Lando Calrissian and his wife with Han in their rented penthouse. 

“Raguso Station, last stop before the Financial District”.

It was Primeday, and the traffic was thick. The shuttle slowed down as it moved into the queue to enter the Financial District. Ben leaned his cheek against the window as he watched the endless lines of vehicles rush by in the direction of the Entertainment District. It was the same every day in the afternoon. The citizens left the district where they were working and either headed home to one of the multiple residential sectors or to the Entertainment District for a couple of drinks and some leisure.

If they could afford it, at least.

Millions of migrant workers, day laborers, orphans, refugees, penniless thugs, and poor citizens lived in Coruscant's lower, poorer districts, miles below the beautiful skyscrapers, where one couldn’t even see the sun during daytime.

Ben peered down to see if he still could see the beginning of the lower district from such a high altitude. But there was nothing but soft, gray clouds, hiding away the poverty and misery that dwelled down in the deep.

He shook his head at himself. There was no point in brooding over such things now. Ben was already feeling uneasy as it was. His hands were trembling again, not much but still enough to be visible. 

Ben let out a frustrated breath and hid his hands in the deep pockets of his robe. He was not afraid, but the thought of spending a considerable amount of time alone with Kira made him nervous. 

Especially after the yellow-eyed girl had taken the shape of her, and Ben had a feeling it wouldn’t be the last time. It had been a dream, but dreams were a mixture of experiences, thoughts, and memories. Would he truly have dreamed of such things if those thoughts weren’t already present in his mind, at least subconsciously?

Ben hid his face in his palms and groaned softly as the shame hit him like a sledgehammer, ignoring the rodian female’s curious whispers in the seat behind him.

He would survive this mission, someway, somehow.

It took the public transportation speeder roughly forty minutes in the busy afternoon traffic to reach the section of the district where Upper City was located. 

Upper City was usually cloudy, and today was no exception; the golden-white and gray skyscrapers were covered in an opulent veil of soft clouds and haze.

Just like Cloud City on Bespin, the buildings in Upper City reached all the way up into the troposphere of the capital planet, far, far above the dirty slum areas in the lower sections, the heavily polluted industrial district, and its factories, slaughterhouses, power plants, and freight terminals. 

“Next stop, Upper City station”.

The shuttle stopped at the terminal a few blocks away from the skyscraper where Kira now lived and walked the short distance from the station to the skyscraper. 

The sky-bridges he passed through were almost empty, except for a lonesome patrolling guard here and there, a protocol droid with a hull that sparkled like mother-of-pearl, and a handful of busy citizens in expensive robes.

“Can it really be the right address…?” Ben hesitated as he stopped in front of a giant building. The skyscraper was enormous and the penthouse at the top spanned over the whole building’s upper floor. It must be terribly expensive, even more so than his parent’s apartment on Hosnian Prime. 

At the entrance, there was a small sign with laser-cut letters that said “FD-UC-93 0.0.0 12.119.765.3’’ in aurebesh, and under it, there was an almost completely faded-away text that said “H.D Holdings, Mygeeto” in tiny, tiny letters.

Ben frowned at the sign. It was the right address, the right coordinates. He glanced up at the building again. It was one of the biggest penthouses Ben ever had been to and he couldn’t help but wonder how the heck his uncle had agreed to let Kira stay there. 

If Luke really had been worried about her security, wouldn’t he have sent her into hiding somewhere more discreet than a luxury apartment in the middle of the planet that was the galaxy’s center?    

Ben shook his head in vain at the whole situation before he tapped on the door panel. 

”Welcome Ben Solo!” the panel chimed. ”You are expected. Please, enter”.

The door lock clicked, and the door slid up without a sound, revealing a majestic hallway with an extremely old-fashioned interior ― it was all red, gold, and marble. At the end of the hallway, a large oval room opened up and in the middle of it, there was a massive spiral stair that led to the upper floor.

Kira stood at the top of the stairs, clad in a form-fitting neoprene dress with sections cut out to reveal her shoulders and the swell of her small breast.

Ben sucked in a breath. Just… what was it with her and those weird dresses? 

First the red curtain she wore when she showed up at his parent’s home on Hosnian Prime and now something that looked like a wetsuit someone had sewn a long, slim skirt onto. She gave him a satisfied, almost triumphant smile. 

“Welcome to the Upper City, Master Solo”.

“Kira,” he replied in a neutral voice. ”I’m sorry about your loss”.

“Thank you,” Kira said in a stoic voice. “If you don’t mind, I don’t want to talk about him”.

“Of course,” Ben nodded. 

She had certainly a very odd way of dealing with the loss of her father, but all people grieve differently. Some people preferred to suppress the loss and grief altogether. He would simply have to accept that. 

Kira walked down the stairs, trailing her fingers leisurely along the railing. She seemed relaxed. But as she came closer, Ben spotted how excitement glittered in her eyes, as if she had been looking forward to his arrival.

“Come, I’ll show you around. Just leave your luggage here, the droids will take them to your room”, she said with a slight grin, and before Ben could protest, she took his hand and led him through an arched passage.

She held his hand in a firm, yet gentle grip with her long fingers interlaced with his. Kira’s hand was warm and Ben felt a strange sense of calm fill as she guided him through the kitchen. Her proximity felt good, a little too good and he had to remind himself to stay professional. 

“Who owns this apartment?” Ben asked.

Kira gave him a tired gaze. “It’s owned by a trust fund I manage. I rent it,” she added with a light shrug.

“I see”.

They walked through bright, luminescent corridors and wide spaces with panorama windows framed by blood-red curtains until they entered an oval-shaped room. In the middle of it, there was a large structure made of glass and golden metal. Inside, it was decorated with red sand, large chunks of rocks, succulent plants with sharp leaves, dead trees, and branches. 

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Kira said with a soft smile as she nodded at the terrarium. 

Nice wasn’t quite a suitable word, Ben thought to himself. 

The terrarium reminded him of Snoke’s creepy, tropical biosphere at the Amaxine space station and Ben felt a chill run down his spine at the memory. After the disaster on Ossus, he had fled to Snoke at the ancient space station for guidance.  Snoke had advised him to seek out the Knights of Ren, and Ben traveled to Elphrona in search of the brutal quintet and its nameless leader. He never got further than to the old temple in the mountains until his parents showed up with half an army and took him to Polis Massa.

“What is in there?” he asked, pushing back the unpleasant memories of his slip to the dark side. 

“Look again,” Kira replied with a nod at the top of the terrarium. 

Ben peered through the glass. There was a snake with dark gray scales clinging to a piece of dried wood. It was a small subspecies of the Vexis serpent, a species native to Paasana. He doesn’t remember its exact name, only that it’s poisonous. 

Very poisonous.

“I think it has a certain charm to it,” Kira said proudly, still smiling as she looked at the snake with a fond gaze. “What do you think?”.

When the snake met Ben’s gaze, it opened up its mouth to show its sharp teeth in a hiss that revealed its long, forked tongue. Instinctively, Ben took a step backward from the enormous terrarium.

“It seems like a poor choice for a pet,” he replied dryly. 

In the biosphere, Snoke kept a few animals, mostly snakes and worms that had curled their long bodies around the remains of the sphere’s original caretakers. Their skeletons had been carelessly buried in the flowerbeds for all visitors to see, like a reminder of their failure to resist the darkness. 

Kira snorted slightly, disappointed with his answer. “There are some things in life one has to learn to appreciate”.

Ben shrugged.

Without dampened enthusiasm, Kira continued the tour. There were several bedrooms, bathrooms, two kitchens, and even a bar on the upper floor. Ben had been to the homes of the rich and powerful before, but this certainly took the price. Kira's new home was ridiculously large, big enough to house at least two dozen people. 

“My room is over there,” she said, making a gesture to a half-open door. 

Ben peered in through the door as they passed by. The room was dark; draperies covered the windows, but he could see the outline of a low, large bed with red sheets and what looked like a small pile of discarded clothes on the floor.

“Come. Over here,” Kira said as she led him into another room. “This is yours. You’ll have plenty of space to continue your work in peace”. 

Ben looked around the room. It was certainly spacious. White loop rug carpet, panorama windows in transparisteel from ceiling to floor, thick blood red drapery, a built-in wardrobe, a large bed, and two small white nightstands. It reminded him more of a hotel than someone’s home. 

“Are you nervous?” Kira asked with a small grin as she leaned against the door frame.

He was. The enormous apartment and just the two of them, all alone, for an unknown amount of time. Besides, if the Knights of Ren showed up, the building would be a nightmare to defend with three floors and over twenty rooms. 

“It’s a large building,” Ben retorted, avoiding her question. “Immense. It’s hard to defend from intruders”.  

“I thought Jedis could sense other Force users”.

“It doesn’t work like that,” Ben corrected her. “It’s not like a radar“.

“I suppose I better sleep with a frying pan under the pillow, then,” she said with a slight shrug. ”Or maybe you’d prefer to share a room?".

Ben felt the blood drain from his face. He couldn't almost believe how bold she was, and he turned around and gave her a questioning gaze.

"Excuse me?".

"For safety reasons, of course,” she added shyly, but the grin remained on her lips.

Kira spoke in a casual voice without the slightest sign of embarrassment, and Ben couldn’t tell if she was serious or not. Regardless, he felt terribly awkward and if this was how she acted when he barely had been there for twenty minutes, he would be dead before the weekend.

 ”No. This will be fine,” he mumbled, looking out of the window to avoid her gaze.

When the night came, Ben lay wide awake in his new bed. Stiff as a stick, waiting for Kira to come creeping into his bed like a lethal Wyyyschokk spider in the dark.

His entire body was on edge, and every single sound made him twitch. It was impossible to sleep. When the morning came, he was exhausted. Kira spent all day in her office and Ben allowed himself to fall asleep after she had announced that she would have a meeting over holo-link with the IGCB board on Muunilinst. Muunilinst, often called “Moneylend”, was a planet colonized by the muuns where the headquarters of the IGBC was located.

Ben slept for four hours until one of the household droids woke him up and informed him dinner was ready. Kira’s meeting had dragged on, and she wolfed down the food in less than five minutes before she returned to the office.

The rest of the day passed by with no surprises. Ben kept working with the translation of the old Jedi books and he didn’t see Kira again until the evening when she showed up in a long, red robe with a jar of frozen yogurt in her hand and bid him good night.

Ben went to bed, still laying restless between the sheets, but just like the night before, the morning arrived without the slightest sight of Kira.

Five nights later, with no nocturnal visits, Ben was mildly confused. Ever since Luke presented him with the mission, he had been convinced that Kira was trying to seduce him and that her asking Luke for protection was some sort of scheme to force him to spend time with her.

But after almost a week alone without her trying to push his boundaries, Ben was confused, to say the least. Had he read her wrong, or was it all just in his head? Maybe she just had a flirty personality and was not interested in him at all. 

The thought didn’t soothe him as much as he had hoped, and Ben gnawed restlessly on his pen. If anything, it almost made him feel disappointed.

“I’m truly beyond salvation..,” he groaned softly to himself. 

After spending a moment to dwell in self-hatred, Ben sat up straight on the chair and continued to work. He had eight chapters of poetry left to translate, and he was already beyond bored out of his skull. The next time Uncle Luke ushered him to translate something, he would ask twice about the content. 

He kept working for another hour until Kira showed up at the door opening, ready to go out with a clutch in her hand.

“You’re a real working ant, aren’t you?” she smiled. “I’d thought we’d go out and eat”.

Ben looked up from his holopad. “Master Luke would not approve,” he said out of reflex.

Kira snorted at his answer. “Well, we could stay in here for as long as it takes for your friends at the temple to find those you call the Knights of Ren. But if we do, we’re going to go insane eventually,“ she replied.

She had a point, Ben had to admit that. They hadn’t left the penthouse once since he had arrived and besides that, he really could use a break.

“Fine,” Ben said as he closed the book. “But we’re just going out to eat and then we return. Nothing else”.

“Of course,” Kira said with a faint smile that failed to disguise how satisfied she was to have gotten her way again. 

Kira took him to a nearby cantina catering to the migrant workers who cooked, cleaned, and babysat for the elite among the clouds. It was early in the afternoon and most of the workers would not get off their shifts until late in the afternoon.

A male human care worker with bleached hair sat next to a male twi’lek dock worker, talking about the odds for the pod race on Batuu next weekend. Then, there was a group of ugnaughts waiting for food and an elderly female gran who sat in front of the slot machine near the entrance.

Two droids managed the orders and the waiting while a four-armed laterno, clad in a worn leather apron, prepared the dishes at an inhuman speed. 

Ben picked a dish with string beans, potatoes, and vegetables with pepper. Kira ordered two dishes, one with pickled vegetables and one with slices of nerf meat, leek, and brown rice.

The crodium-plated waiting droid placed them next to the emergency exit in a corner of the cantina before it swished back to the kitchen.

On the table, there was a plastic pitcher with filtered water, a small metal tray with a jar of fish flakes for seasoning, a bottle of hot sauce, and something in a brown bottle that smelled like a mixture of vinegar and liquid soap. 

Kira fetched two glasses from a stand beside the counter and poured them water from the pitcher. It smelled faintly of monochloramine, a water disinfection chemical.     

After barely five minutes, the droid returned with their orders. The cutlery and plates were made of die-cast aluminum, old, well used and Ben’s plate had a large dent on it. The food was good, however, and Ben realized how hungry he had been. They ate in silence and just like when he had visited her on Hosnian Prime, Kira ate like she never had seen food before. She didn't speak until she had finished the meat and the rice.

“Tell me more about the Force,” Kira said as she emptied half of a bottle with hot sauce on her second dish. “What is it like for you?”.

What was it like? An ability to wield great powers and a never-ending source of worry and anxiety at the same time. The constant fear of falling into darkness, and becoming the personification of Luke and Leia’s worst nightmares.    

“It’s hard to explain,” Ben replied. 

“I find the Jedi’s fear of the dark hard to understand”.

“You do?”.

“It seems like a never-ending task to battle against something which essentially is a part of both the universe and human nature. Without the dark, there would be no light”.

“It is the path of the Jedi,” Ben simply said. “Through the ages, there have been several other religions with other views on Force, too”. 

He couldn’t argue with that. The Dark was just as much a part of the Force as the Light was. To a person who had grown up without the Jedi doctrine, both the Sith and the Jedi could probably seem like two extremes at different ends of the spectrum.

While Luke happily talked about balance, Ben had realized long ago that it would be just as impossible for a Jedi to reach a balance in the Force as it would be for a Sith. The gray force users who rejected both the Jedi and the Sith were probably the ones that came closest to it.

“You don’t seem happy,” she commented. ”Is it really that great?”.

“We all have our personal struggles,” Ben said with a light shrug as if it wasn’t something that didn‘t concern him personally. 

She smiled knowingly, with glittering eyes. “So very true”.

Ben let out a small sigh.

Over the years, he had thought of leaving the Jedi Order countless times and living ‘in the gray‘ instead. But unlike the Jedi, the gray force users weren‘t organized, there was no order to join. Many of them lived alone, like ronins, and even more of them lived ordinary lives where they simply incorporated their force sensitivity into their daily lives.

Kira rested her cheek in her palm as she leaned a little closer over the table with a curious gaze in her eyes and a firm grip around her fork. 

“Still… I thought the Light was all a Jedi needed to live a fulfilled life,“ she thoughtfully said.

“For some, it is,“ Ben unwillingly admitted.

For the ideal Jedi, it was. For Ben, it was barely enough to keep him away from the Dark. The reason why he hadn‘t left the Jedi Order was that he was too afraid of himself and the darkness he carried within. 

“But not for you…?“.

“There are things more important than my personal happiness,“ he said flatly.

Considering how much he had struggled, even under Master Luke‘s guidance, he didn‘t even dare to think of how hard it would be on his own. Therefore, it seemed like a better choice to sacrifice his own happiness for the sake of his family and fellow Jedi. A miserable life as a Jedi was better than a life as an unrestrained Sith acolyte with blood on his hands, he reasoned.

Kira grimaced slightly at his answer.

“So you mean that your happiness doesn’t matter?“ she asked.

“You do really like to pry into other people‘s secrets, don‘t you?“ he replied. ”I’m surprised you became a fund manager instead of a financial inspector”.

“Alright,” Kira said with an amused grin. She sounded far too enthusiastic like he had just given her a fun challenge. “I‘ll tell you one of my secrets in exchange”.

Ben blinked, surprised. 

“My real name isn’t Kira”.

“It isn’t?” he frowned.

“Not from the start,” she said, slowly rotating her fork with a piece of pickled beetroot speared onto it. “Othori named me Kira when he adopted me, after the Kira system in the Expansion Region”.

“That’s… an odd thing to name a child after,” Ben commented.

The Kira system had originally consisted of four planets, but through a catastrophe, three of its four planets had been destroyed and all that remained was Kira II and a massive asteroid field. What caused the catastrophe was still unknown, but some people believed it was the separatist alliance that had used the system to test illegal weapons.

Kira gave him a secretive smile before she turned her attention back to her dish.

“You’re not going to tell me your actual name?” he asked.

“No,” she grinned mischievously. “It’s a secret I’d like to keep for myself a little longer”.

Chapter Text

At the First Order’s Propaganda Bureau on Coruscant, Dopheld Mitaka stood in front of a holo projection of last month’s recruitment numbers. With his usual shaky voice, he presented the result of their efforts to Hux and an emissary from Snoke’s flagship, the Supremacy. 

”…. and as you can see, our recruitment campaign has been very successful, especially on Carida, Lianna, and Eriadu“.

A hologram of a cerulean planet appeared and cast a blue glow over the small audience in the dark conference room. 

The assistants in the second row of chairs behind Hux whispered excitedly to each other, thrilled over the excellent results. The emissary, a heavyset man in his middle sixties, old enough to remember the glory days of the Empire, nodded to himself with a content smile on his lips.

“You did well, Armitage,” he said to Hux. “The symbolic… this indicates that the people of Eriadu will support our cause when the time comes”.

Hux nodded in silence, well aware of the importance of securing support among the public before declaring war on the Galactic Republic — it meant fewer uproars, and less risk for sabotage and disruption by rebels and resistance groups.

Gaining the support of significant and poor systems didn’t matter of course. Eriadu, however, wasn’t just any planet; it was the homeworld of Wiluff Tarkin, one of the Empire’s most famous and feared generals. Just like Lianna and Carida, Eriadu was a planet that had flourished during the rule of the Empire. 

Although it was almost thirty years ago since the Empire fell, many people still remembered the good old days and some of them longed to once again live in a galaxy ruled by order.

“….and as you can see on the next graph here, we have also recruited a considerable number of promising candidates from Corulag”, Mitaka continued as the hologram of Eriadu morphed into a set of graphs showing the fresh recruits from the Bormea Sector.

The number of voluntary recruits from the sector was surprisingly high, considering that it lay to the Core Worlds and Chandrila, the birthplace of New Republic, lay close to Corulag.

“Senator Organa would have nightmares if she saw these numbers,” the emissary chortled. “I have to say, you have exceeded our expectations. I will return to the Supremacy with reports of your hard work”.

Hux returned the emissary’s smile with the best fake smile he could muster. 

“That would be much appreciated, emissary Khdrawi”.

Such praise would normally overjoy him, but today, his mind was elsewhere; the construction of the Starkiller Base was finally finished. 

The expectations with the First Order and its supporters had been sky high and the Supreme Council had already decided where they would strike first.

Yesterday, the First Order’s engineers conducted a demonstration of its battle capacity before an audience of carefully selected benefactors that longed to see the Republic in ruins, and Hux’s father had crammed himself into his best parade uniform to deliver a speech from Illum that were cabled out to all First Order personnel. 

Then the disaster had struck; the weapon had not been able to charge properly and the target for the test, an uninhabited rocky dwarf planet had barely been scratched,

For the First Order, it was not only an embarrassment; it was a major setback. The engineers had worked day and night trying to find the error without success. For Brandol Hux, it was just as much of a personal disaster as it was a professional failure.

For Armitage, however, it was a golden opportunity to convince the Supreme Leader that he was better suited to see the project to an end than his father. Hux’s allies had assured him that Snoke was furious with his father, but impressing the Supreme Leader was far easier said than done, and so far he hadn’t been very successful in that matter. 

Snoke liked to pit his subordinates against each other. He believed in ‘survival of the fittest’, and saw it as a healthy competition.

A sort of ‘natural’ selection. 

If Armitage and Captain Phasma’s assassination attempt on Hux senior hadn’t failed, the Supreme Council would have promoted him to General after Snoke’s blessing. 

Brendol was the most well-guarded person in the First Order after Snoke himself, thus, another assassination attempt was out of the question. 

But there was more than one way to gain the approval of the Supreme Leader…

A while ago, Hux had been on a trip with his good friend and fellow general, Domaric Quinn, to one of the secret drive yards in the unknown territories that belonged to the Last Order. 

There, he had run into one of Rey’s royal guards, Harpina. She belonged to the Last Order and was stationed on Exegol along with the rest of the royal guards as their mistress currently had no need for their services. 

Harpina had told him that the Emperor was more than disappointed with Snoke, that the Starkiller Base wasn’t battle-ready yet — and that was before the failed test. 

If there was a time to put pressure on Snoke, it was now, and who was better suited to convince him than the heiress of the Sith?

Hux leaned back in his chair as a thin smile spread across his pale face. Finally some payback, he thought to himself, eager to call in a favor from the troublesome girl. 

Hux hadn’t heard anything from the heiress since she had asked him to stage the home invasion on Hosnian Prime. Apart from a series of angry messages complaining about the renovation costs Armitage had just briefly eyed through, that was.

Once the meeting was over, Hux called a skycab to pay Rey a visit. 

Upper City was one of the most beautiful parts of Galactic City. 

’What is not to like about it?’ Armitage thought to himself as the skycab, a sleek, navy blue speeder manned by a chatty droid, crossed the border to the Financial District. The streets and public surfaces were clean and the crime rate was insignificant. The architecture was classic and timeless, and the air was far better than in the corporate district where the First Order’s propaganda bureau lay.

The speeder stopped at the landing platform outside the skyscraper Rey now resided in. Its metallic surface gleamed weakly in the afternoon as Hux walked down from the platform to the entrance. 

A light breeze swept by and ruffled his hair.

Hux took a moment to comb his hair back into place before he rang the doorbell. He heard steps from inside, and when the door opened up, Rey stood on the doorstep with her arms resting on her hips. She was clad in a white, form-hugging dress, and matched the outfit with small golden earrings in her ears and white nail polish on her short-cut nails. 

“Armitage,” she said curtly. “May I ask what brings you here?”.

Her hazel eyes gleamed behind her long lashes in the bright afternoon sun, making her look pretty like a piece of art. Like a proper lady. It was just such a shame her manners were more fit to a thug-for-hire in the lower levels of the docking bays.

“It’s good to see you, too, my dear Rey,” he said sarcastically.

“Quiet!” She gave him a sharp gaze and elbowed him in the stomach.

“Ouch! What is it with you?!” he hissed back through clenched teeth.

“Never come here unannounced again,“ Rey warned him in a low voice. 

Armitage grimaced with pain as he rubbed his aching ribs. The heiress was seldom more welcoming than what was necessary, but she had never been this hostile before. Over her shoulder, Hux spotted the silhouette of a tall figure approaching from the living room.

Ben Solo.

Hux immediately recognized the tall, broad-shouldered man from the images in the medical journal the First Order’s Investigation Bureau had sent him. Pale skin, dark, almost black eyes, wild wavy hair, a build like a mountain of marble. 

Armitage’s breath got caught in his throat. While Solo truly was an impressive sight, he was not someone Hux had expected to run into any time soon, and certainly not at Rey’s private property.

Dear maker, what was he doing there?

The Jedi Knight’s gaze trailed over him, a dark gaze filled with disdain and suspicion. Hux straightened his back and returned his gaze with a stern glare. He refused to be intimidated, or at least, refused to reveal that he was.

“This is Ben,” Rey said calmly with a gesture to the Jedi. “The Jedi Order has sent him here to protect me from my father’s killers”.

What…?

Hux was so shocked he almost couldn’t keep a straight face. When he had told Rey to ‘take care of Solo’, this was not what he had meant. She was supposed to find out how much the Jedi knew, and take appropriate measures to keep him from discovering Chairman Ikari’s ties to the First Order. 

Hux bit his tongue to keep himself from cursing out loud. He had been so busy with work that he hadn’t spared the reason behind Rey requesting a home invasion a second thought and his initial thought had been some kind of insurance fraud. Just another one of Rey’s thoughtless whims, like sending the Knights of Ren to murder her father.

But now, Armitage could see it crystal clear; the reason why Rey wanted Ikari dead wasn’t just to shut him up. It was to use his death as an excuse to press the Jedi Order for protection, and the home invasion was just a mock maneuver to give the impression that she would be next in line to die at the hands of the bloodthirsty knights.

It had all been a scheme to get close to Solo.

Hux cleared his throat and tore his eyes off the towering Jedi and back to Rey. “I would like to speak to you in private, Kira,” he said in a smooth voice. “Would you excuse us for a moment?” he added with a nod to Ben.

The Jedi returned the gesture and Rey led Hux out to the terrace and closed the glass door to the oval room behind them carefully. The terrace was large, shaped like a half-moon out of a marble-like material lined with a matching white railing. 

White pots with small trees with shiny, dark green leaves and fragrant white flowers stood against the wall, next to the glass door. 

“I hope you have a good reason for disturbing me,” she said, once again making it clear that she was unhappy with his unannounced visit.

Hux pinned his eyes on Rey. 

“Are you completely out of your mind?!” he hissed into her ear. “For how long is he staying here? I take my eyes off you for a second, and this is what you do?!”.

Controlling impulses had never been one of her strong sides, but bringing Solo into her new home was beyond careless, even for her. 

“Calm down, you’re acting hysterical,” Rey snarled as she pushed him away. “I got it all under control”.

Hux took a deep breath to calm his nerves. As upset with Rey as he was, there were things that were more important — like his future career. 

Of course, Armitage wanted more than just to reclaim his position as general in the First Order. Eventually, he aimed to claim the title of Supreme Leader himself. It would be the ultimate revenge against everyone who had dared to call him a mad mongrel.

“I need to ask you a favor,” he said, once again calm and collected, as if Solo’s presence hadn’t affected him the slightest. 

Rey looked at him with brewing suspicion in her eyes. She leaned against the white railing and crossed her arms over her chest. Coruscant’s afternoon sun cast a warm peach-colored glow over the heiress and her golden earrings reflected the light.

“Well, go on, then,” she said impatiently. 

”Are you aware of the current status of the Starkiller Base?”?

Rey nodded. ”I have my sources. How come?”.

“This is my chance to take revenge on my father. As you know, his position depends on how the Starkiller Project proceeds…”. 

“I know what you want and I can’t request an audience with Snoke, not now,” Rey snapped, and an almost vicious look appeared in her eyes. “The fleet is circling Castillon at the moment, and as you know, that is far, far away from here!”.

On any other day, Hux would have backed down after such a hostile response from the heiress, but not today. The importance of Snoke’s grace was essential to his return to the military, and with Solo present in the next room, Rey wouldn’t dare to fling him over the railing or choke him to death.

“You’re a clever girl, Rey,” he sneered, fully enjoying having the upper hand for once. “I’m sure you can come up with a solution”.

“I have convinced Skywalker himself that I’m living under death threat from the Knights of Ren,” she hissed through gritted teeth. ”Thus, I’m in need of constant protection. I can’t just tell Ben to stay put while I’m going away for two days!”.

Hux crossed his arms over his chest. If Rey thought she would get away because of her new roommate, she was wrong.

“Judging by the way Solo looked at me, I can tell that he still thinks I’m merely a greedy corporate lobbyist, and that leads me to believe you haven’t told him who you are. That can only mean you haven’t turned him to our side yet, so may I suggest that you work faster?” he said dryly. ”Then you can bring him with you to Snoke”.

Hux’s unannounced visit and his outrageous demand stuck like a thorn in Rey’s side for the remainder of the day.

When the night came, she could barely sleep at all. Rey lay buried between the crimson percale sheets, fuming as she looked up at the ceiling while dividing her options. Her thoughts churned like a maelstrom until she drifted into sleep. 

When the morning came, the anger was gone, but she was still as clueless as yesterday. 

Armitage Hux was a proud man with ambitions that reached beyond the stars. He had grown up as the illegitimate son of a father who constantly had picked on him for being too weak, too thin, too cowardly. His thirst for revenge had never been a secret, and Rey knew very well that he would ask for her aid in the matter one day. 

But pressing Snoke into reinstalling him as a general was no small favor. 

The old strandcast was a hard nut to crack. He didn’t respond well to orders from others and despite her strength in the Force, Rey couldn’t subtly manipulate him through the Force to do her bidding like her grandfather could.

Rey gnawed on the inside of her cheek. Damn it, she was not in the mood for a confrontation with Snoke anytime soon. But Trilla and Komari were nowhere near strong enough to subdue the Supreme Leader alone. They could probably handle the praetorian guards if necessary, but not Snoke himself.

That meant the only option remaining was for her to handle the issue herself.

Somehow, she had to manage.

Hux had been right about one thing; if she had been able to turn Ben, taking on Snoke would be a perfect opportunity to test their combined strength. Rey sighed deeply. Maker, how she longed to see him fight on life and death, see him bring out all that destructive power she knew rested within…

She was on the verge of slipping into yet another daydream of her dark knight, but then the sound of her commlink chimed.

“What is it now…?”.

Before Ben’s arrival, Rey had sent Trilla and Komari away. All the way to Kestro, the capital city on the planet Vardos, in the Jinata system. It was too dangerous for them to stay on Coruscant. Rey feared that Ben might recognize Komari from the warden’s memories if he spotted her. While they were her subordinates, the two women were also the closest thing to friends Rey had — and the only ones she ever had. She reached after the commlink at the bottom of her nightstand. It was early morning in the central districts of Coruscant, but midday in the region where Kestro lay.

“How is it going?”.

“Slow,” Rey muttered. “Very slow”.

She had kept herself in line, although it was ridiculously hard to be around Kylo’s body without him in it. It drove her insane, and not in a good way. To make matters worse, Solo still looked like a scared animal every time she said something even mildly suggestive. 

“You have to remember he has lived with the Jedi doctrine for almost twenty years. It doesn’t go away overnight,” Trilla said over the commlink. 

“If you want fast results, violence is the way,” Komari’s raspy voice sounded in the background.

“I already told you,” Rey cut her off. ”I won’t do that”.

“Maybe not now,” Trilla interrupted. “But if it doesn’t go as planned, you might have no other choice left. It’s better if you make peace with the possibility”. 

Rey clenched her teeth. She didn’t want to hurt Ben, she really didn’t. But Trilla was right. She could never let him go and if the choice stood between absolute failure and violence, Rey knew herself well enough to know she would resort to the latter. 

Her love for Kylo was strong like the gravity on Korriban. Inescapable like a black hole, and Rey was already lost deep within it, drowned beyond the event horizon. 

She would push Ben Solo to the brink of death if that was what it would take to set him free from his suffocating family and Jedi Order. 

In her heart, she knew Kylo would have done the same for her.

He would do anything.

Drown the entire galaxy in blood for her if that was what it would take.

They talked for another couple of minutes before Trilla cut the connection and Rey sank back into her bed. 

A single sunray had found its way into her dark bedroom by a gap between the two heavy curtains. The light teased her eyes and she couldn’t relax enough to fall asleep again.

Frustrated, Rey crawled out of bed and walked over to the window. She ripped away the curtains and the morning light flooded into the room. 

Yet another beautiful day orchestrated by the weather-controlling system.

Rey inspected her reflection in the window, still dressed in her pajamas, a pair of short, sheer midnight blue shorts, and a matching camisole. What should she wear today? Yet another form-fitting dress that might inspire something else than platonic feelings in the Jedi. 

If Solo disliked what she said, maybe she should try a more physical approach?

It was worth a try, Rey thought to herself. She shrugged on her morning gown and walked down the stairs in search of the Jedi.

Unsurprisingly, Ben was up early as usual. He sat at one of the tables in the sun-drenched living room with his tattered old books, resting his cheek in his palm as he flipped through the pages with a bored expression on his face.

A large glass pot filled with mint tea stood on the table, reflecting the sun's rays.

He looked up at her with a questioning gaze, and for a moment Rey thought he would say something. Tell her to put something on at least. Ben’s eyes widened, but he remained quiet. Still, she thought she could see a faint blush on his cheeks as their eyes met.

Did he check her out? 

With an ill-concealed, satisfied smile, Rey slouched down at the other end of the sofa and stretched out her long, bare legs. 

“So… how about some breakfast?”.

For some reason, Kira walked around in her pajamas until late afternoon. It was as weird as it was distracting, and when she finally left for a hololink meeting, Ben let out a relieved sigh. 

The meeting was a bi-annual meeting for the shareholders of a metal recycling company on Bracca, and it would keep her occupied for the rest of the day. 

Free from distractions, Ben finally managed to complete the translation of the ancient scripts. Content with his work, he leaned back onto the sofa with the teacup in his hands. He thought about his friends back at the temple, wondering how Tai was doing and how Voe and Finn’s hunt for the three women on Kef Bir went. 

He hadn’t seen either of them since Leia’s fundraiser and Voe had been unusually sparse with the weekly reports on their progress.

Nothing to report. 

There were no reports from the newly knighted Sala on the worm scales either, reinforcing Ben’s suspicion that Luke just had made it up. He hadn’t even started to write his own weekly report either, but it wasn’t like he had anything useful to report, anyway. 

No signs of the Knights of Ren. Proceeding with the arrangement as planned.

He spent the rest of the day lying on the sofa, reading Cere Junda’s memoirs until the sun went down and Kira reappeared from her office.

”I’m going to bed,” she said. “That was the messiest shareholder’s meeting I’ve ever attended,” she said in a tired voice. ”Since the last meeting, a pirate king seeking to diversify his investments had bought a considerable amount of shares, and his visions for the company’s future didn’t sit well with a pyke who owns almost the same amount. Nobody could agree on anything, and yet the numbers look terrific. Usually, nobody complains as long as you don’t lower the annual returns…”.

Ben nodded. “It’s probably a good idea”.

He bid Kira good night, brushed his teeth, changed into nightwear, and went to bed. With his head heavy against the pillow, he fell asleep almost immediately. Sinking deeper into a state of unconsciousness, the events of the day flashed like a blur of colors before his eyes.

Then, it all faded away and his consciousness returned like a tidal wave.

”No… Not again!” Ben cursed when he found himself trapped in a far too familiar scene; durasteel and plastoid panels. Triangle-shaped, gray corridors in every direction. 

A star destroyer.

But it wasn’t one of the old ones used by the Empire. No, this one was a brand new model, a flagship created for a warlord the galaxy was yet to know. Instinctively, Ben knew the name of the ship, Steadfast. 

The darkness lingered in every corner of the star destroyer, and it pulled Ben in like magnetism. He walked down the corridor, unable to resist its pull. The further down he got, the weaker the light from the ceiling panels got and the temperature seemed to have dropped as well.

He pressed his hand against the door lock, knowing it would open up. Just like he predicted, the door instantly opened up with a soft hiss. In the next second, harsh, white light met his eyes as Ben stepped into the room. It was all ultra-white plastoid panels and utilitarian decorations, no personal decorations or trinkets whatsoever.

Except one, Ben thought to himself as he spotted the disfigured remains of Darth Vader’s mask lying on a white pedestal in the middle of the room. He shook his head at the sight with clenched teeth. 

How could he possibly morph into someone so twisted, so…

“Do you like it?”.

Ben turned around and pale skin met his gaze, white like snow, and black eyes burning with rage and hellfire. He sat still, like an obsidian statue among all the white, looking out at the empty on the other side of the window with his mask resting in his glove-clad hands. 

“Kylo”.

“Ben”.

“Where is the girl?” Ben asked, looking around the room for the yellow-eyed female, but she was nowhere to be seen.

“What girl?” Kylo replied with subtle arrogance.

He liked to make people spell things out, liked to press them to say things out loud they rather not talked about. Essentially, Kylo was not only Ben’s alter-ego. At the end of the day, they were the same person. Thus, they shared the same bad traits, although Kylo took them far beyond what the well-behaved Ben ever would.

“The girl with the yellow eyes,” he clarified with annoyance. “The one you slept with”.

“Ah,” Kylo gave him an amused, almost smug gaze. “You mean Rey”.

“Rey?” Ben repeated. He was almost shocked to hear that she had a name. To him, she had seemed more like a dark creature from the Netherworld than an actual person, a human.

”What… who is she?” he frowned.

“She’s the heiress of the Sith,” Kylo said, cocking his neck. “Palpatines’ granddaughter”.  

Palpatine.

Ben stiffened, and his mouth turned dry. What did he just say, Palpatine, as in the Emperor? How could he have a grandchild? Sheev Palpatine had been old already before the Empire took the power and he had never been married, nor a romantic partner.

“You’re lying,” Ben said, and his heart sank as he heard how hollow his accusation sounded. He didn’t want it to be true, but while Kylo could twist the truth, he wasn’t a liar. 

”You do well to remember I hate lies just as much as you do”.

“But…. How is that even possible? Where did we… where did you meet her?”.

A faint grin appeared on Kylo’s pale face. He rose from his position and walked over to the window to lean against the transparisteel.

“I asked you a question,” Ben demanded impatiently.

“It wouldn’t be any fun if I just told you,” he said with a sneer and a smug, amused gaze in his eyes.

“What do you want?”.

“I’m going to put an end to it all,” Kylo said, more to himself than to Ben. He fixed his gaze on the silhouette of the frozen planet that appeared outside the window. 

“The Jedi, the Sith. It all needs to die. When I’m done, there will be no mythologies to follow”.

Well, that was a surprise, Ben thought to himself. He had expected Kylo to mention one of his darkest thoughts. That maybe, just maybe, he should kill Luke for revenge. Sometimes, he thought about it. Wondering if he was strong enough to do it. 

But those moments never lasted long. He knew such thoughts would lead him down a slippery slope to the dark and despite what had happened between them; he held no genuine desire to kill his uncle.

As for Kylo‘s visions for the Jedi and the Sith, it didn‘t interest him half as much as the mysterious girl.

“Even if I wanted to believe you… the emperor has been dead for almost three decades and he was old and sick already before the battle of Endor. That girl, whoever you think she is… she can’t be his grandchild”.

Kylo grinned and shook his head. “I’m disappointed in you, Ben. I thought you had figured it out. But I hear you still believe everything Luke tells you”.

“Figured what out?” he barked back in frustration. 

“The emperor’s treasure on Jakku”.

“What are you talking about? Uncle Luke looked on Jakku for that himself fifteen years ago and he came back empty-handed. We all heard the rumors about the Emperor’s treasure, about the secret bases, but nobody ever found anything,” Ben snorted. “It’s just a ruse to lure stupid treasure hunters and clueless tourists there. Not even dad would fall for it”.

“Mhm,” Kylo replied, unimpressed. “It’s true the Emperor never hid any precious gems, rare artifacts, or kyber on Jakku. However, something much precious was stolen from him and hidden there, near the Graveyard of Ships…”.

”Do you imply that the girl, this Rey… that she was the Emperor’s treasure, the heir to the Sith, and they hid her away in a dump like Jakku of all places?” 

If the Emperor somehow had managed to produce an heir, he certainly wouldn’t have left her to live in poverty among the scavengers in the desert, would he?

 “That is laughable”.

“You think so? Go ask Luke about it,” Kylo suggested with a sneer. “See if he laughs when you ask him”.

“Wha… what did you say?”.

Kylo’s eyes narrowed. “Luke knows,” he said, his voice cold and full of disdain and ill-concealed spite. ”He has known for over almost two decades”.

Ben woke up with his breath caught in his throat and a relentless headache. It felt like someone had thrown him off a speeder. 

On his way to the kitchen, Ben stopped in front of the mirror in the hallway, examining his reflection. He lacked the rage he had seen in Kylo’s eyes, but if he looked closer, he could see traces of it. Embers. He stepped back from the mirror, filled with disgust.

“Are you alright?” Kira asked when he entered the kitchen. “You look… troubled”.

”I just… have a lot on my mind,” Ben replied with a sigh.

The restlessness crept within his body and he felt uneasy. His nightmare had felt more like a bad omen than a dream. Until now, he hadn’t been able to actually talk to Kylo and Ben was certain it wasn’t a good sign,p. If anything, it was a sharp reminder that he had to be strong and push his alter-ego back to the back of the dark corners of his mind where he belonged.

Maker forbid he ever lost control again. 

After breakfast, Kira continued with her work and Ben kept on reading. But no matter how hard he tried to focus on Cere’s journey, he couldn’t stop thinking about the yellow-eyed girl.

Rey. Palpatine’s alleged granddaughter. Did she exist, for real, or was she just a dream? 

Kylo’s twisted fantasy.

It all seemed too farfetched to be true. Ben himself had never heard anything that indicated that Sheev Palpatine had living relatives. The entire Palpatine family, except Sheev himself, had been murdered long before the clone wars on Naboo.

Then there was what Kylo had told him about Luke. If his uncle had somehow gained some information about a potential heir of Darth Sidious and kept in the dark for almost twenty years, it would truly be bad. 

But if Luke had… it wouldn’t surprise him at all.

Not even the slightest. 

The thoughts of Kylo, Rey and Luke’s secrets spun around in his head like a locust swarm and by the end of the day, he felt severely restless. 

Ben rose from the couch and stretched out his arms over his head. He had to do some proper exercise, or he would go mental. 

“I thought I’d go back to the temple for some exercise,” he told Kira. “It won’t take long”.

So far, his stay in Upper City had been devoid of any surprises, and he deemed the risk for the Knights of Ren to show up to be beyond microscopic.

“Can I come with you?” she asked.

He hesitated for a moment. Luke would most certainly not approve, but Ben himself couldn’t see any harm in bringing Kira with him. Watching over her was his mission after all, and if someone caught them, he could always argue that the temple was safer than the apartment.

“I don’t see why not,” he replied.

It was dark outside when they arrived at the temple grounds, but if anything, Coruscant was more beautiful by night. Its skyscrapers and spires bathed in the shadows of the night, illuminated by countless lights that shined like distant stars. 

When they arrived at the temple, it was almost midnight. The pathway to the training rooms was lined with movement-activated lights which lit up as they made their way through the temple grounds.

The training rooms at the temple were built in a traditional style with white wooden walls framed by red panels, sliding doors with lattice frames clad with opaque fabric, and sturdy woven mats made of soft rush on the floor to give a more organic feeling. Over the entrance to the training room, the Jedi Order’s symbol was painted on the walls in black.

”Impressive. Real wood…”, Kira said as she ran a finger along one of the red panels. ”Your uncle has certainly spared no expense”.

“I guess he wanted it to look the way it did before the war,” Ben mused as he let his gaze trail over the training room. Here, in these rooms, generation after generation of Jedis and padawans had trained before them. It was more than a few centuries ago since the temple first had been built. It had been remodeled and renovated several times, and despite Luke’s efforts to make it look as authentic as he could, it was impossible to know exactly how it looked from the beginning. 

“Do you fence?” he asked. “Otherwise, there are other training rooms, too”.

Arkanis, the planet on which Kira used to live, was known for its fishing industries and military academy. The military traditions ran through the entire community and singlestick, fencing with wooden sticks, was often taught in schools as a part of physical education.

“I do,” Kira smiled, confirming his suspicions. “Do you fancy a duel?”.

”Uh, sure…” Ben replied. 

He directed Kira to the female locker room where there were clothes and towels to borrow. A couple of minutes later, she returned dressed in a set of loose white tunic and matching pants. With her hair tied back and no make-up on, she looked like a full-fledged Jedi.

“What do you think?” she playfully asked.

“You look… capable”.

He didn’t know what to say, to be honest. She looked lovely, but that would be inappropriate to say. Kira looked satisfied with the compliment nonetheless, and a ghost of a smug smile appeared on her face.

“So do you,” she replied, not missing a beat. “Are you going to show me what you can do?” 

“These are our training swords,” Ben said, pretending as if he hadn’t heard her ambiguous answer. He handed over one of the blunt wooden swords from the rack on the wall to Kira. 

“Here, have a look”.

She weighed the training sword in her hands with a skeptical look on her face, like he had just handed her a plain piece of wood. 

“This is a poor excuse for a sword, but it will do,‘‘ Kira replied with a shrug. “First blood?”.

Ben chuckled awkwardly. At first, he thought she was pulling a joke on him, but there was nothing but seriousness in her eyes. He cleared his throat. 

“Ehm… That’s a little too brutal, don’t you think?” he replied. “Best of three?”.

“First hit?” Kira gave him a fearless smile.

“If you insist”.

Without warning, Kira lunged at him, quickly like a viper. Ben was so startled by her sudden aggressivity that he lost his footing. He regained his balance and managed to parry her next attack at the last second. Kira lunged at him with surprising strength, and Ben had to defend himself. 

Her hits were hard, and the sound of wood clashing against wood filled the room. The longer the fight continued, the more intrigued Ben became. Kira kept up her assault at an impressive speed and he had to put in some effort to keep her from landing a hit. 

While he had expected her to have some experience, he could never have imagined that she possessed swordsmanship comparable to his own. Ben had always been a talented fencer, already as a child. None of the other padawans ever were able to beat him. 

“She must be a prodigy,” Ben thought to himself, bewildered. 

Kira was not only stronger than her looks gave her credit for, but she was also incredibly fast, too. Faster than him, and she easily avoided the few attacks he managed to get in between all the parrying moves. 

A rush of excitement ran through his veins.

If she had been force-sensitive, he could actually have been in trouble. 

But without the Force as an ally, the odds were in Ben’s favor. He was a lot stronger than her physically and had more stamina. All he had to do was to hold out until Kira started to lose energy, and then he could advance on her.

After fifteen minutes, Kira was starting to get visibly tired. The fire in her eyes didn’t diminish, but her moves became more and more sloppy and it allowed Ben to advance and force her into defense. She kept fighting with impressive determination despite her fading energy. It was a beautiful sight; such determination and fighting spirit…  

Ben purposely dragged on the fight a little longer, just to revel in her relentlessness before he landed the winning hit.

“That wasn’t fair!” she protested as she sank to the floor with labored breath, sweat dripping off her brow, completely exhausted. “You just parried all my advances until I was too tired to defend myself!”.

“I know,” Ben couldn’t help but chuckle. “You fought well, but you’re far too aggressive. Burning your energy like that…, I’m surprised you lasted as long as you did”.

“I wanted a quick victory,“ Kira admitted as she closed her eyes and cleaned her head against the wall, still struggling with her breath. “I thought I almost had you for a moment”.

“Almost,” he said, still smiling, as he reached out his hand to help her up from the floor. 

Chapter Text

The nightlights were on when they got back to the apartment. A line of dots of subtle blue light lit up a patch from the landing platform to the entrance door. 

Despite the early hour, the kitchen droid had prepared black tea and a bowl of sliced citrus.

”It’s a bug in its programming,” Kira said, as she gave the droid a fond gaze. ”KiMa-50 always makes tea every time I return home, if I’ve been away for more than three hours. Would you like some?”.

”Why not?” Ben sat down at the table, and the droid immediately poured him a cup of tea. Despite the late hour, he wasn’t tired. The adrenalin rush from their training session still seemed to linger in his veins. 

”I hoped you’d say that”. 

With a content smile, Kira squeezed a citrus half into her teacup. They drank their tea in silence while gazing out over the skyline through the glass walls on the upper floor.

The traffic had calmed down significantly since they left for the temple, now there was just an occasional flow of skycabs and sleek speeders, piloted by private chauffeurs, carrying home the rich and powerful from late-night benders at member-only clubs, or secret visits to luxurious spice dens.  

On the sky bridge that led to the nearest building, three republican guards in their beetle-shaped helmets and two-toned uniforms stood with their arms crossed. They watched an autonomous surveillance ship fly in circles around a nearby spire, drenching its blank surface in its floodlights.

“I’m impressed by your fencing skills,” Ben admitted. “Did your parents train with you? You couldn’t possibly have learned all that in a regular school”.

“No, “ she shook her head and a solemn look crept over her face as if the mentioning of her parents made her sad.

“You don’t have to tell me if you want to”.

“It’s alright, it’s not a secret…,’” Kira replied as she emptied her teacup. “...it’s just that I would rather not talk about it at the moment”.

He nodded. Maybe she was tired; the tea had grown cold, and the sun had begun to rise over the horizon.

“I see. Well, it’s late after all, I think I should…”.

A quirky smile appeared on Kira’s face. “It’s late,” she agreed. “But it’s a bit early to go to sleep, isn’t it?”.

With those words, Kira put down her cup and moved over to the other sofa where Ben was seated. Goosebumps broke out on his arms. She was so close that he could count the freckles on her face. Kira looked at him with an almost burning gaze in her eyes and Ben sucked in a breath as the nervousness spread through his body rapidly.

He should say something, anything.

But before he could come up with anything to say, Kira once again proved that she was just as fast as she was lithe, and before Ben could protest, she had climbed up onto his lap. He blinked and opened his mouth to speak, but the words wouldn’t come out, and Kira seized the moment to seal her lips over his. 

The kiss was hungry, and her lips felt near demanding against his. Impatient. Against better knowing, he let his eyelids flutter close and Ben mindlessly leaned into the kiss. Kira’s hand came up at the nape of his neck, and her sharp acrylic nails felt like dull claws against his skin. He wrapped his arms around her torso in an almost unconscious response and pulled her closer until he could sense her soft breast pressed up against his chest.

“You taste like salt,” Kira grinned softly as she broke the kiss. “Like salt and cassius leaf”.

“I… I do?” Ben stuttered.

His cheeks felt hot, his body restless and almost… tingling. It was a sheer miracle he still could speak at all; the kiss must have short-circulated his neurons because his ability to think rationally seemed as gone as the daylight. 

Kira chuckled at his reaction. “You’re not still thinking about going to sleep, are you?” she said, looking at him with eagerness in her eyes. “I think you should come with me instead”.

Ben blinked. It was almost four in the morning, and he couldn’t see where she possibly wanted to go. It was too early to go out and get breakfast, even for her.  

“Where do you want to go?” he asked, dumbfounded.

Kira’s smile morphed into a broad, mischievous grin, and her eyes almost gleamed in the dim-lit room. “To the deep end”.

A moment later, Ben stood in the middle of Kira’s bedroom. Filled with a conflicting mixture of emotions, he gnawed at the inside of his cheek. Whatever the girl had in mind, it was probably a bad idea. If Ben were to be honest with himself, he knew it was a bad idea before he’s even heard her suggestion.

Yet, there he was.

If Ben had been a good and true Jedi Knight, he wouldn’t have let the girl kiss him, much less kiss her back and then follow her into her bedroom. But he wasn’t, and he felt almost compelled to follow her. As if he was being pulled by the same kind of magnetism that had guided him in his dreams on Steadfast. 

The nervousness rose within his chest, and Ben looked around the room to distract himself from unwelcome thoughts. White walls, blood red curtains, and a rug pile carpet in a similar shade. The bed was the same kind, with the same red sheets, as the one which stood in his room. Decorticated without personal items, just like Kylo’s chamber on the star destroyer, and Ben wondered what her room had looked like in the apartment on Hosnian Prime.

His gaze drifted over to Kira, who stood at the window, fiddling with the thick curtain tiebacks. When their gazes met, she looked at him with an almost predatory gaze, and for a split second, Ben thought he saw a yellow flicker in her eyes.

 “So… what do you have in mind?” he asked sheepishly.

“Let’s forget the world for a while,” she replied, pulling the heavy curtain back, effectively shutting out the distant neon lights that dominated the night view of Galactic City.

”I’m not doing spice,” Ben warned her, but Kira just chuckled at him again, as if he was being silly on purpose.

”I think you know that was not what I had in mind,” she said, giving him a sly gaze as she stepped closer to him.

”I’m… not sure this is a good idea,” Ben meekly protested, more to himself than to Kira.

Sometimes, he was just so helplessly vacillant. Torn between what he wanted to do and, what was the right thing to do. His fear of the Dark usually kept him in check, but tonight, Ben found himself unusually willing to bend the boundaries.

”Says who…?”.

Kira gave him a knowing smile, as if she already knew of his internal dilemma. Her hands moved up along his forearms until they came up to rest on his chest. A faint blush spread over his cheeks, and Ben felt hot despite his thin linen clothes and the cool air in the room.

“You’re far too obedient for your own good,” she teased. Her eyes glittered with mischievousness as she played with the neckline of his tunic. “Does the feeling of righteousness it gives you make up for pain?”

“It’s not about obedience,” he bit back, feeling both awkward and frustrated to be written off as some mindless acolyte who blindly obeyed his master. “It’s the way of the Jedi, but I…”.

“It takes more than that to convince me,” Kira said. Then, without warning, she pushed him onto the bed with surprising strength.

“Show me”.

“Sh… show you what exactly?!”.

Ben almost panicked as Kira climbed up on him, swiftly straddling him as she put her hands on his shoulders to stop him from getting up. In his fantasies, he had imagined her quietly slipping into his bed at night, not forcefully like this.

“Kira...” he swallowed thickly.

“When people die…,“ Kira said as she unfastened the safety pin on Ben‘s tunic and pulled the fabric apart. “They only regret the things they didn’t do. I‘ve never heard of anyone who wished they had lived a stricter life“.

For someone who had thought as much about death as Ben, it was odd that the thought never had crossed his mind before. It was probably true, but he couldn’t gather his thoughts enough to come up with a sensible answer. 

Kira took his silence as a cue to contain and Ben almost lost his breath as Kira’s hands trailed over his body, exploring impatiently, as if she had been eager to do so for a long time. Her fingertips felt hot, almost scorching on his skin as she traced a path from his collar bones down the sternum and his abdomen to the beginning of his subtle inguinal crease. 

Ben whimpered unwillingly. It was going all too fast, and yet he couldn’t make himself tell her to stop, or simply throw her off him. Her touch was addictive. A warm feeling spread through his body as she bent down to kiss him again, filling him with a bone-deep longing for more. But while his conscience screamed in protest, the warmth persisted and Ben felt himself grow hard and aching. Kira guided his hand into her lace panties and Ben’s heart skipped a beat as their joined hands slipped down between her legs. 

“Don’t be afraid,” she whispered. “I’ll show you what I like”.

Ben Solo had been afraid of many things in his life; himself, his lack of self-control, the darkness. 

But this…? 

No.

Ben wasn’t afraid, but he was certainly nervous. While he wasn’t clueless about sex, he had been a Jedi since he was eight. Since that day, Ben had been expected to live a life free from such indulgence, and besides that, girls had always tended to avoid him. In other words, sex was something he never had expected to experience.

Kira moaned softly as he slipped his finger into her. The tissue was surprisingly supple, wet, and hot. The sensation sent tingles down his spine, and Ben rested his face against her shoulder. It was so mind-numbing that he couldn’t feel anything else, and Kira’s quickening breath and soft moans started to make him uncomfortably hard.  

Was this how it was supposed to be? 

He could never have imagined that it would feel so… immersive.

When Ben was a kid and Han still was relatively young and desirable, the stationary message terminal at their apartment on Chandrila had been flooded with admiring letters from women all over the galaxy. They had no qualms about Han being a married man with a son, and they had unabashedly sent the captain of the Millennium Falcon long and detailed letters about all the dirty things they liked to do with him.

One day, when his nanny droid had been in power-saving mode, Ben had accidentally managed to open up a newly received message from an unknown sender, and what he heard made his ears curl. It sounded outright gross, and he couldn’t understand how in the whole, wide universe someone voluntarily would like to do that… stuff to his dad.

It had traumatized him for weeks and when Leia discovered what had happened, she became furious. After that, they got a new, encrypted address for messages. The memory of Han’s dirty fan mail still filled Ben with disgust, but now he could understand why people enjoyed doing such things.

“Mmm, I knew you’d be a quick learner...,” Kira sighed seductively as she leaned her back against his chest and closed her eyes.  “I need you inside me”.

Oh. 

Hearing her spell it out like that made his mouth turn dry like the sands of Tatooine. She untied her dress at the back of her neck. Unabashed, Kira shrugged the dress off her body, revealing a lean, almost androgynous body, save for her small breasts and hips.

“Kira…”.

“I have an IUD,” Kira said as she slipped out of her soaked underwear.

“A what?” He blinked, mesmerized by the sight of her naked body. 

“An IUD. Conception. I can’t get pregnant,” she explained as crept up onto his lap and Ben leaned back against the pillows. 

She undid his pants and he had sense enough to help pull down his underwear. Ben’s breath hiked dangerously as she ran a finger along his hard length, looking at it with wide, curious eyes. A part of him felt like he could die from embarrassment while another was dying to thrust himself into her pussy. Kira was soaking wet, and yet she had felt so tight around his fingers that Ben doubted his cock could fit into her without hurting. 

“I’m not going to..,” he blurted out, but Kira swiftly put a hand over his mouth.

“It’ll be fine,” she assured him as she lowered herself onto him. He gasped. The sensation was intense, like a brutal fever dream. It felt as if he was being drowned in a dark, suffocating heat, and the sight of his cock slowly being pushed into her tight pussy was mind-numbing.

“Does it, ah, does it hurt?” Ben could barely form a coherent sentence, but he just had to ask. She was so impossibly tight around him that he couldn’t imagine it to be very pleasant for her. 

“No, it doesn’t hurt,” she assured him with a slight grimace that led him to believe it had to be uncomfortable, at least. “Just relax, and try to hold back,” Kira said as she leaned over Ben for leverage, her palms pressed down on his chest. Ben kept his hands on her thighs, fingers digging into the firm flesh. 

She moved slowly, deliberately, to see how much he could take. 

The sensation of being within Kira was intoxicating; it was like every cell in his body had caught fire. Ben cursed inaudibly as closed his eyes. If he looked at how the girl rode him for one more second, he would undoubtedly come undone.

“Don’t come yet,” Kira said as she stilled for a moment, giving him time to recover. 

Ben nodded. Holding back was about as easy as convincing Master Luke that he could take on regular missions without slipping off the edge. Ben kept his eyes shut and focused on keeping his breathing under control. He thought about the dust on the shelves in the Jedi archive, his lessons in bookkeeping, and the boring beige carpets in Leia’s study. 

Anything that could help him hold on a little longer.

It barely helped, and the sound of Kira’s quick breaths certainly didn’t make it easier. He could just imagine how obscenely alluring she must look in the act, with her hungry eyes and her sleek body moving over his. 

With each move, he was thrust deep into her wetness. It was like pure ecstasy, a feeling that clouded everything else and effectively blocked out everything in the universe except the two of them.

Breathless, Ben let his head sink down onto the mattress. He gripped Kira’s thighs hard, pressing down her on him, his fingers digging into the firm skin as he came. Shortly after, Kira stilled as she came, clenching her tights around him as she bit down on her lip to keep herself from screaming. 

Ben woke up by the soft chime of one of the household droids, a sleek model with a chassis of polished arodium. It chirped with frustration as it tugged at his sheet.

“Mmm… what is it?” he mumbled, still dazed from last night. 

”Laundry every zellday according to schedule,” the droid replied in droidspeak.

Unwillingly, Ben let go of the wrinkled sheet and rolled over to the side, surprised to see that there was not a trace of Kira and he couldn’t help but feel disappointed.  

Had she even stayed with him during the night?

After their lovemaking was done, Kira disappeared into the bathroom and stayed there for so long that Ben drifted off to sleep before she returned. 

With a soft groan, Ben pushed himself into a seated position. His body was strangely sore, as if he had been hiking through the dense forests of Ossus for hours, and his skin felt sticky, too. 

Whatever he had expected it to be, to feel like afterward, this was certainly not it.

In the heat of the moment, it had undeniably felt amazing, but now Ben couldn’t help but feel a little uneasy.

Lonely and…. used, perhaps? 

He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. Outside the window, the skyscrapers were covered in a thick veil of gray, fluffy clouds. The veil was denser than yesterday, and Ben could barely make out the shape of the corridor that led from Kira’s penthouse to the neighboring skyscraper. 

He needed to shower. There was no sign of his clothes, so Ben resorted to wrapping the other cover around him before the droid came back for it. Embarrassed, he padded over to the nearest bathroom, hoping that Kira wouldn’t come back until he had made himself presentable again.

Shower first, clothes later.

As he stood in front of the bathroom mirror, he noticed there was a bruise at the base of his neck. One more on his neck, too, and a third on his right shoulder. Three speckles of angry deep red and purple that stand out on his pale skin. Kira must have bitten him. Ben gnawed on the inside of his cheek ― were they what people called love bites?

Reluctantly, he ghosted his fingers over the bruises. They looked nasty, but at least they didn’t hurt. Ben pursed his mouth. He couldn’t help but feel annoyed with Kira. Surely, she must have given him those bruises on purpose…

As charming as she could be, there was undeniably a sinister streak in the girl.

“Nothing to do about it now, anyway”, Ben muttered as he turned on the shower. 

Unlike most of the homes on Coruscant, Kira’s apartment was equipped with water showers. The working class in the lower levels had to resort to public refreshers with sonic showers and even most middle-class homes had sonic or vapor showers.

Ben showered quickly, and when he emerged from the bathroom, another household droid had already returned with his clothes. Washed and ironed to perfection.

As if that wasn’t enough, they had made him breakfast, too. 

“Did Kira ask you to do this?” he frowned at the kitchen droid. “Where is she?”.

It replied with a series of unidentifiable chimes before it rolled out of the kitchen, and Ben sighed as he sank down at the kitchen table. He swallowed down his pills with a glass of water, but left the food untouched.

As he sat staring into the white walls of the kitchen, the realization of what he had done yesterday started to fully sink in.

There is only passion. 

The second sentence in Qotsisajak, the code of Sith. 

The Jedi didn’t condemn sex without reason ― passion was a path that clouded the mind and led you into the dark. An icy shiver ran down Ben’s spine at the mere thought. Maybe he would end up like Anakin Skywalker after all, despite his rigorous efforts to stay on the right path, just like his parents always had feared?

An hour later, Kira was back, dressed in a long-sleeved red embroidered dress that could have belonged to the Queen of Naboo and the long nails were back, too. Had she really dressed up like that just to go out and buy lunch and get her nails done?

He looked up at her. As awkward as it felt, they needed to talk.

“Kira, I…”. 

“Don’t,” she immediately snapped at him. “Don’t you even dare”.

“What?” Ben blinked, surprised by her sudden outburst. 

“Don’t say anything you’ll regret,” she replied in an instant, her voice just as sharp as the piercing gaze in her eyes. 

Was he that easy to see through? Ben turned away from her gaze, ashamed. It was true that he felt a sense of shame, guilt, and perhaps even regret. In hindsight, Ben wasn’t sure what he thought last night, but he hadn’t intended for it to go this far. Far from it. But Kira was like a wild river, and although he had only willed to touch the surface, he fell into it. 

Drowned in it. 

There was just something about her he couldn’t put his finger on, something that made him lose his ability to think rationally. The more time Ben spent with Kira, the harder he found the thought of saying goodbye to her. At the moment, he had no clue how he would be able to move on with his life when the mission was over. 

Was it love, passion, something entirely else, or all three of them?

Ben wasn’t certain; the feeling that grew within his chest when he looked at Kira reminded him more of possession than anything else. A want, a need for her to belong to him and him alone. Ben squirmed unwillingly at the thought, knowing very well how unhealthy such thoughts were.

“Those thoughts belong to Kylo, not me”.

He looked up at Kira again. ”Do you even like me?” 

At his question, a puzzled expression appeared on her face, as if she didn’t understand why he would ask something like that. 

”I mean… for real,” Ben clarified, reeling at how silly it sounded, but suddenly felt an urgent need to know if it all was just play and pretend. 

“Of course I do,” she replied with an annoyed shrug. “It’s obvious, isn’t it?”.

Ben shook his head; with her, most things were far from obvious. He knew as much that she was attracted to him physically, but was there anything else beyond that?

“I need to know why”. 

It was a demand, but it sounded more like a plea than anything else.

“Why what?” Kira sighed with irritation as she put down the food container on the coffee table and slumped down on the other sofa.

“Why do you like me?”.

“Why wouldn’t I?” she retorted in a sharp voice, as if was as obvious as the planet’s rotation around Coruscant Prime.   

Ben frowned at her display of frustration. She had to feel his mercurial, unsteady force signature, even if she wasn’t force sensitive. Even Han could, and that was saying a lot, since even after being around three of the most force-sensitive persons in the entire galaxy for almost thirty years, he couldn’t explain what the force was on a deeper level than “an invisible power that some people used to make things fly and deflect laser bolts”.

“Don’t you feel it at all?”.

“I do,” she admitted with yet another small shrug, like it was an unimportant matter.

“And?”.

“It doesn’t bother me,” Kira said flatly as she portioner out the food from the container. “I don’t see why you are so upset about it. Here, eat some, it’ll make you feel better”.

Ben snorted. His dual being, ever torn between the darkness and the light, was something that had tormented him his whole life. It made people wary of him, made them take detours in the temple’s corridors just to avoid something as plain as crossing ways with him, yet Kira talked about it like it was a mere nuisance. 

 “Both my mother and my uncle are terrified of what I might become,” he angrily admitted. “I’m nothing but a disappointment to them — a disaster waiting to happen”.

Kira returned his gaze with a dark look. “Listen to me. It doesn’t matter what they think or what they say. There is nothing wrong with you,” she firmly stated.

“You’re not force-sensitive,” Ben countered. “You don’t know what it is like”.

“Ben,” Kira said, looking him straight in the eyes. “Even if I was, it wouldn’t change anything. To put it simply; we are what we are. No matter what happens, our true nature remains intact. We can forget it, subdue it, but never destroy it. In the end, it always resurfaces”.

“What do you mean by that?” 

Kira gave him a tired gaze, as if his answer disappointed her, and took a sip of her tea. “I mean that you shouldn’t be afraid of who you are”.

“What if it’s something terrible, something dark?” he challenged.

“Is that what they tell you?” she asked. ”That all there is to the dark is damnation?” 

Ben leaned back onto the sofa and shook his head. Now he was positively shocked by her answer. He had expected Kira to react with fear and doubt, to come up with an excuse why last night had been nothing but a mistake, and instead, she scolded him for not simply accepting his fatal flaws.

“Who told you this?”.

“I’ve seen the galaxy with my own eyes,” Kira curtly replied. “There is not a single place where the light exists without darkness. If I am to be honest, the Jedi seems to have a rather extreme view on life”.

He sighed. There was no point arguing about that. That was how most common people looked at Jedi, and if he hadn’t grown up with it, he would probably have thought the same. While Ben found her views on the dark to be… unusual, he wasn't in the mood for debating whether the Jedi were extremists or not at the moment.

“Let’s talk about something else. Last night, you were going to tell me about your parents,” he reminded her.

“My birth parents abandoned me on a backwater planet when I was six,” Kira confessed in a neutral voice like she was commenting on the weather. “They sold me to a junk dealer”.

“They did?” Ben was bewildered. To him, it was unthinkable that parents could sell their own children, although he was vaguely aware that it wasn’t uncommon in some systems. 

During his own childhood, Ben had often been unhappy with his busy parents and he had often felt like he was nothing but an inconvenience to them. Still, while they had sent him away to Luke, they hadn’t at least sold him off to slave for the pykes on Kessel. 

“I’m… I’m sorry to hear that”.

“Don’t be. My grandfather found me after a few years and took me home again”. 

Right, Ben suddenly recalled that Kira had told him about a grandfather before. 

”Grandfather lives on a quiet rock in the unknown territories, far too sick to travel any longer.”

“How come you didn’t stay with him instead of Chairman Ikari?”.

“I did for a while. But like I said, he was old and sick already when I was little. That is why he arranged for the Ikari spouses to take care of me.”, she replied, playing with her teaspoon while she talked. “I still visit him sometimes, though”.

“On that quiet rock in the unknown territories?”.

“Yes”, Kira hesitated. ”It’s a… dry and dusty planet you’ve never heard of”. 

 “Really?” Ben replied. ”Try me”.

One of the perks with having Han Solo as father and Luke Skywalker as guardian was that already as a child, Ben had seen more of the universe than what the regular coruscant citizen saw in their entire lifetime. 

Chapter Text

As much as Rey would have liked to stay in bed with her limbs wrapped around Ben’s body and simply enjoy the afterglow, she couldn’t.

Not when she had an appointment with the Supreme Leader in less than four hours.

As soon as Ben seemed to have fallen asleep, Rey snuck out to the bathroom and carefully closed the door behind her. She showered in less than two minutes, careful to avoid getting her hair wet. Her body ached under the hot spray of water, and her legs felt like a tayberry jelly dessert.

She shrugged on a bathrobe, dabbed her face dry with a towel, and proceeded with the make-up. With a liquid, black eyeliner, Rey drew an upturned line from the outer corner of her eyelid, and then she continued to the inner corner, creating the classical, lid-elongating look with an upward flick.

Rey had never been much for make-up, or beauty at all for that matter, but she liked the eyeliner; it made her eyes look bigger, sharper. More alluring with a hint of seductiveness.

Satisfied with the make-up, Rey ripped out the red dress she had planned to wear from the package from the dry-cleaning service. She pulled it over her head and with a flick of her index finger; she called on the force to pull up the zipper in the back. Rey hadn’t worn the dress for years and it had been sewn for her when she was younger and thinner, and the seams in the back burst when she pulled up the zipper a little too forcefully.

She swore quietly as she turned around to inspect the damage in the bathroom mirror. The busted seam had created a tear between the zipper and the fabric, but hopefully, her handmaidens could help her mend it back together temporarily.

Everything, absolutely everything, had to go according to schedule or she would have to break her back to deliver Ben a believable excuse when she returned.

She cast a glimpse into the bedroom to make sure the Jedi had fallen asleep. He lay splayed out like a rag doll between the dirty sheets. The sight of his long, naked, muscular body alone was enough to make her wet again.

“Focus, Rey,” she quietly scolded herself. “Focus”.

The minutes passed by as Rey stood by the door frame, silently observing the Jedi. His face was halfway buried into the pillow and his ribcage slowly rose and fell with each breath, Once she had made sure that Ben indeed was asleep, Rey grabbed her long, red robe and snuck out of the apartment as quietly as she could.

Hux stood at the landing platform, clad in polished black boots, suit pants and a long, black overcoat perfectly tailored to his form. Behind him stood a ship, a small yacht with a hull coated with silvian iron. Rey would have preferred to travel with Imperialis, but the prismatic yacht raised too many curious gazes.

“It’s small,” Rey said as she glanced over the ship with narrowed eyes.

She had seen the model before, on Sojourn, when she attended a summit held by the InterGalactic Banking Clan last year, but she had yet to have the experience of traveling with one. The Crescent-class ships were small, sleek freighters, built for affluent travelers by the Hyrotii Corporation. They were considered luxurious ships, but compared to Imperialis, which were a combination of a corvette and a yacht, the ship was smaller, bulkier, and uglier, and the weapon systems were also less sophisticated.

“It’s fast,” he reminded her. “And it’s safe. No ties to the First Order. It’s registered on the Techno Union’s filial on Skako Minor”.

“It better be,” Rey muttered. “Mark my words, Armitage. I cannot be late”.

The First Order fleet was circling the border of the Expansion Region. It was the closest they had been to the Core Worlds in years and Rey suspected Armitage had pulled every string he had and then some to make the fleet take such an unusual route.

“We’ll be in the Sumitra system within three hours,” Hux promised her, although his strained facial expression told her that he wasn’t entirely sure.

“For your sake, I do hope so,” Rey replied with a glare before she strode up the ramp. Hopefully, she could harbor the anger and frustration within until she met Snoke.

Just in case she would be forced to show him who was in charge the hard way.

The ship was very small, indeed, Rey thought to herself as she spotted her eight royal guards, sitting crammed together like they were commuters on public transport in the lower districts on Coruscant. Still, they managed to look just as dignified as usual.

“We skip the formalities this time,” Rey said when they attempted to get up from the seat, afraid that they might spear each other if they tried to kneel with their long pikes in the confined space.

Wordlessly, they sat back at their places and Rey turned her gaze to the captain. She was a tall woman in her middle thirties who looked like she could have been Hux’s twin sister, and just like Armitage, her family had served the Empire ever since the end of the Clone Wars.

“Sanna,” Rey commanded, and the woman immediately looked up at her mistress through the slim visor of her red helmet. “How is my grandfather doing? Has he spoken of me recently?”.

“The Emperor always looks forward to your return, Lady Palpatine”.

Rey grimaced at the answer. “That was not what I asked”.

“He has complained that too long time passes between your visit,” Sanna replied in a low, almost whispering voice, obviously uncomfortable to speak about Darth Sidious. “He will call for you soon“.

The heiress nodded. “Even though he is in a palliative state, he still holds the entire court in an iron grip,” Rey mused to herself.

Satisfied with the captain’s answer, Rey continued to the ship's cockpit. Beige synth leather seats and plastoid panels in the same shade met her eyes as she stepped through the pneumatic door that separated the passenger space from the cockpit. Komari and Trilla were both seated in the co-pilot’s seat. They had ditched their normal attire for red, long-sleeved dresses and cowls with hoods. Trilla carried the color well, but the platinum-blonde Komari looked like a pale, dead fish in a pool of blood against the sharp red.

Not that it did matter. Just like on Exegol, they were supposed to wear the cowls with the hoods covering most of their faces when they landed, anyway.

The pilot seat was empty and an FA-series droid plugged to the controls.

“On behalf of the Reformed Techno Union, I welcome you aboard the Stellartica IX. If you have any questions about our journey, do not hesitate to ask”.

“Why, thank you,” Rey replied. “I hate to be rude, but the sooner this is over, the happier I will be”.

“Not impressed with the ship?” Komari chuckled.

“Honestly, I would never buy anything from the Hyrotii Corporation,” Rey sighed as she sat down beside the droid. “These ships are nothing compared to the ones from the Sienar Fleet Systems”.

The Sienar Fleet Systems had once been the company of Raith Sienar, one of the Empire’s most famous ship engineers. Raith had been just as much an artist as he had been an engineer. The ships he designed carried an air of beauty around them that couldn’t be found anywhere else.

Raith had not only designed the original TIE-fighters, but he was also the man behind Wiluff Tarkin’s personal ship, the Carrion Spike, a unique ship formed like a spike as a representation of Tarkin’s personality. While Tarkin’s ship had been impressive, to say the least, Imperialis was undeniably the crown of Rath’s career; a custom work, designed and built especially for Sheev Palpatine.

”The ship does not concern me half as much as our purpose for an audience with Snoke on such short notice,” Trilla said. “And when speaking about concerns; where is your Jedi friend?”.

“It’s a returned favor to Hux,” Rey unwillingly revealed. ”One that could not wait. As for Solo, there is no need to worry. He’ll be asleep for at least twelve hours from now on”.

Trilla narrowed her eyes. “Pardon my curiosity, but how can you be sure of that?”.

”I told my kitchen droid to spike his tea with a phenothiazine derivative”.

”You drugged him?”.

Her handmaiden looked outright shocked, and Rey grimaced slightly. Drugged. It sounded so harsh. Besides, Ben was already taking a plethora of drugs; sleeping pills, tranquilizers, antidepressants, and mood stabilizers and the Maker only knows what else.

”It’s not an actual tranquilizer,” Komari filled in. “It‘s quite harmless, it just makes sure you stay asleep“.

“But he is already…”.

“Enough,“ Rey said, giving the two other women a stern gaze that made them shut up in an instant. “I did what I had to do to solve the situation. Now, I need you two to focus on the task ahead of us”.

Thunder rolled like violent waves over the celestial sphere and the drawn-out storm had robbed Sheev Palpatine of the few hours of sleep he so desperately needed.

It was almost impossible for him to sleep more than a few hours. His lungs had grown so weak and as soon as he laid down, the mucus started to build up in the bronchial tubes, causing the old Emperor a terrible cough.

His caretakers helped him up into a seated position and Sidious remained on the bed frame as they prepared his mechanical spine, the ommin harness. Getting into the harness was a struggle for his weakened body, but without it, he would be completely bed bound.

Once the spine was prepared, the two caretakers helped him up from the bed. Sidious supported himself on one of the caretakers while the other fastened the harness.

“Rey,” Sidious said, his voice hoarse. “Has she left any messages for me?”.

“No, your excellence, she has not,” his caretaker replied.

“Too busy amusing herself with the Skywalker, boy, I assume,” Sidious said with a dry chuckle.

When Sheev was young, his father kept him under his thumb until the day he killed the Palpatine family patriarch.

Cosinga Palpatine had been a strict, controlling man who ruled his family with an iron fist. He had been a traditional patriarch, and thus he had seen it as his right, and duty, to decide what was best for his children.

Schools, mentors, friends, even hobbies... Cosinga micromanaged almost every aspect of his children’s lives and for Sheev, who had considered himself to have been ‘born an adult’, it had been downright suffocating. Therefore, he had pretty much given Rey free reins.

But perhaps he had been a little too generous.

It had soon been over two months since he last heard anything from the girl, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know what his grandchild was up to. Naturally, Sidious’ network of spies kept an eye on the girl, and thus, he had heard that Rey had taken an interest in the wayward Ben Solo.

“However, our contact on the Supremacy wishes to inform you that Lady Palpatine had requested an audience with Snoke today. On a very short notice, I might add”,

“She has?” Sidious said, and a curious smile appeared on his thin lips. “How interesting…”.

Rey hadn’t called for her imperial guards for almost a year. It could only mean that the girl was planning something, a visit to Snoke perhaps?

Sidious chuckled to himself. He could only imagine what favor Rey sought to press Snoke for. If he refused, she would need someone to take care of the praetorians and unless she wanted to press her handmaidens to the brink of death, that would be a task for her Imperial guards.

Maybe it was time for the strandcast to finally meet his destiny.

Snoke lived on borrowed time and had done so for a while. Decades ago, Sidious had created Snoke for Ben Solo. With his potent bloodline and promising powers, he had hoped that the boy would prove himself worthy of being his apprentice, and Snoke was the final test.

Once he had killed the strandcast, Sidious would have revealed himself to Ben and made his offer.

But Leia Organa had turned out to be far more troublesome, and bolder than he had expected. Without a doubt, she would have locked her son up for good behind the walls of the Spire Fortress on Stygeon Prime if that meant she would keep her son away from the Dark.

Her worries were not without reason; Ben Solo was unbelievably strong with the Force. Already years before his birth, Sidious felt his presence and heard his voice on a few occasions.

”The Jedi, the Sith. Let the past die”.

While he had been born in the light, the darkness brewed within Ben Solo like a dormant volcano, and in his visions, Sidious had seen what rested under the surface.

The other half of the boy’s second was an eternally mercurial person who could not be trusted with the future of the Sith.

Kylo was destructive to his nature, and if let loose, he would threaten to ruin both his own uncle’s ― and Darth Sidious’s work.

Thus, Rey was far the better choice to inherit the Sith Throne.

Ever since he first laid eyes on her, a thin, malnourished child who longed to be returned to her family with every fiber in her entire being, Sidious knew he had his future secured.

Just as he had foreseen.

But the Force was always in motion, and even for Darth Sidious, the future was seldom a clear picture.

From a distance, he had sensed how Rey’s obsession with Ben Solo grew with each day that passed. She had concealed it well on her last home visit, but all Sidious’ spies told him the same story; Rey had forsaken most of her duties to get close to the young Jedi Knight.

It was obvious that she would try to turn him, and should Rey succeed, Sidious had to admit it would be entertaining to see what the girl would do when she stood face to face with her dark, twisted fairy tale prince.

Surely, he would be far more than she had bargained for.

The freighter sailed smoothly through the constellation of Star destroyers in the dark space before the pilot droid landed in the main hangar of the Supremacy.

As she walked down the ramp, flanked by Trilla and Komari, Rey was met by an ocean of white plastoid armors and dark, perfectly ironed uniforms. Allegiant general Pryde had lined up officers and stormtroopers alike to give her and her entourage a proper welcome, just as if they were living in the glory days of the old Empire.

Rey couldn’t help but feel a tug at the corner of her mouth; this was the kind of thing she used to do before she became Kira Ikari full-time. It was nice to be herself again, if only for a few hours.

To be Rey again.

Through the Force, she could sense the thoughts and feelings of the troopers and the officers. Their helmets concealed their faces, but Rey could feel gazes. They all looked at her with awe, wonder, relief, curiosity mixed with fear… The hangar was so quiet that one could hear a pin fall to the ground.

Halfway to Pryde, Rey stilled for a second and gazed out over the sea of white helmets. The stormtroopers’ thoughts were usually rather uniform, but there was one that stood out. One of them was filled with terror to the point where Rey thought he would lose his senses and flee when her gaze landed upon him.

The fear cracked through him as if he had been struck by a whip.

She glanced at him before she continued to walk. He was no ordinary stormtrooper; his presence in the Force revealed him like a beacon in the night.

… so who might this unwilling intruder be?

Rey had a good hunch about who the distressed spy might be and she would make sure to deal with him later. But first, she would have to deal with Snoke.

“Lady Palpatine,” Pryde smiled as he greeted her with a bow. “It’s been far too long”.

The allegiant general’s smile was sincere, and so was his flattery. Enric Pryde was a true loyalist; he had served under her grandfather when he ruled the Empire, and he genuinely looked forward to the day the Palpatine family once again ruled over the galaxy.

“Likewise, general,” Rey politely replied, returning his smile. “You can thank Hux for this surprise visit”.

“I see,” Pryde gave Armitage a gaze that carried promises of a slow and painful death before he turned his attention back to Rey. “I hope he hasn’t been bothering you too much. It‘s a family trait of his, I fear”.

Rey smirked. “It has been manageable”.

Pryde’s dislike for both senior and junior Hux was as clear as the skies on Coruscant and he gave Rey a strained smile as if he already knew of her plan to reinstall Armitage as a general.

After exchanging the mandatory pleasantries with the other officers, Rey went straight to the turbolift that led directly to the Supreme Leader’s throne room.

“There was a Jedi among the troopers,” Rey revealed when the doors to the turbolift closed around them.

“Are you sure?” Komari frowned at her. “Here?”.

“Yes. I felt it. He recognized me”.

“Something leads me to believe he is not here on an official mission…,” Rey mused. “I doubt Skywalker would have sent such an… novice spy”.

Trilla’s gaze hardened. “If not, then what is he doing here?”

“I don’t know. Not yet,” Rey replied, weighing her options for a moment. “Go and talk to Kandia. She knows what to do”.

Tishra Kandia was one of the best intelligence officers in the First Order, and unlike Snoke, the woman was always eager to serve her mistress.

“Will you be alright?” Komari asked.

Rey nodded. “Of course”.

While Komari and Trilla departed to seek out Kandia, Rey waited in her guards before she continued to Snoke’s red throne room.

Snoke sat on his throne, surrounded by his praetorian guards. He was clad in his usual gaudy, golden robe. It made him look more like a sleazy nightclub owner than the Supreme Leader of the First Order. Just like Pryde, he greeted her with a smile.

“Lady Palpatine,” Snoke said in a smooth voice. “It’s a pleasure to see you again. You have been absent for too long”.

Rey resisted an urge to roll her eyes. Snoke and his false friendliness; such overplayed theatrics made her wonder if he truly was the best specimen of all the other strandcasts the Sith Eternal had produced.

“Thank you. Supreme Leader,” Rey replied with a smile wide enough to reveal her sharpened wisdom teeth. ”I only wish I could say the same”.

“Please, sit down,” he said, motioning to the slim, red metal chair and table that stood placed in front of the throne.

Rey sat down and crossed her legs under the dress skirt like a proper lady. On the table, there was a large teapot, filled with an orchid pink liquid that smelled like old, heavy perfume. She wrinkled her nose as Snoke lifted the pot through the Force and poured the tea into the cup in front of her.

“The delays at the Starkiller Base are unacceptable,” she said, jumping straight to business. “The Emperor is disappointed, and dare I say, displeased with how you have handled the situation”.

Snoke still smiled, but Rey could see how he frantically weighed on his answer.

“What do you suggest?” he smoothly replied.

“I’ve heard that our colony in the Otomak System still lacks a proper governor. I think it would be a fitting task for General Hux. Senior”.

Snoke raised his nonexistent eyebrows in a display of fake surprise.

“Oh, such a bold suggestion…”.

Rey rolled her eyes. She didn’t care for his theatrics and she wasn’t afraid to show it.

“If you had done your job properly — I wouldn’t even be here,” she retorted, giving the strandcast an icy gaze.

Snoke smiled again, but Rey didn’t miss the sneer behind it.

”A position as governor, you say? It would hardly be appropriate for a merited military like Brendol. You do well to remember he has served the First Order before you were even born”.

Rey snorted.

”General Hux has indeed served our cause well for over three decades,” she agreed, separating another piece of lemon from its peel. ”However, he has shown on several occasions that he is unable to handle the Starkiller project”.

”Even the sun has its spots, Lady Palpatine,” Snoke said as if he thought a veteran general failing on his duty was no big deal.

Rey scoffed softly. ”I can assure you the Emperor does not share that viewpoint”.

Snoke put down his teacup with a scowl. ”Let’s not exaggerate its importance,” he said with a stern gaze in his bright blue eyes. ”We both know its power is nothing compared to the Grand fleet of the Last Order”.

Their current supply of kyber wasn’t enough to power the entire fleet. Illum had been gutted out and stripped of all resources, and the rest of the findings that the Sith Eternal and the Last Order controlled weren’t simply enough. Not yet, at least.

Snoke’s taste in tea was as bad as his fashion sense and Rey swallowed down the last of the terrible tea with a grimace.

“Have you ever played cards?” she asked. “Then you should know one doesn’t reveal the entire hand in one move. The New Republic will be put in terror by Starkiller Base, and while they’re busy squabbling with each other about how to deal with it, the Last Order will move forward with their positions”.

“You do have a point. But yet, I’m afraid I have to decline,” Snoke said in a casual voice.

“You will do as commanded,” Rey snapped.

There, she said it out loud.

With or without Kylo, she would now have to be ready to take on the Supreme Leader if he didn’t heed her warning. The First Order, the Empire, and the Sith Eternal were built on the same hierarchy and there were no blurred lines; the only one above Rey was her grandfather.

Rage flickered in Snoke’s crystal blue eyes, and in the next moment, the strandcast rose to his full height, and with an extended arm; he called on the Force.

Snoke was swift, but Rey proved to be equally nimble. The heiress deftly pushed the table in front of her towards Snoke with the Force, causing the teapot and cup to fly into the air. Rey was on her feet and ready for action well before the broken pieces scattered across the floor.

“I will not be ordered around by a mere slip of a girl!”.

The Supreme Leader was true to his habits and Rey felt a pressure build against her temples. But if Snoke thought he could enter her mind and steal her secrets, he was about to be terribly disappointed.

“How do you dare?” Rey yelled at him with fury. “Know your place!”.

At her outburst, the imperial guards drew their weapons, and like clockwork, the praetorians did the same. Electro pikes against vibro-weapons, but none of them moved.

Like game pieces, they remained still, awaiting their master’s commands.

Snoke might still think of her as nothing but a spoiled brat, but she was the heiress of the Sith — and her grandfather was Snoke’s maker.

Anything he could create, she could destroy.

She called on the Force, and the Dark Side responded in an instant. Within a split second, the energy flowed through her body like electricity through a conductor.

If the darkness was that electricity, then she was the purest of haysian smelt.

The yellow glow in her eyes flickered back to life as Rey let the darkness engulf her. It had been so long that she had almost forgotten what it felt like, the power of the Dark Side, and how endlessly intoxicating it was.

Pure, unbridled power and it was all hers to command.

Rey reached out her hand against Snoke, directing her fingers against the disfigured shelf of the Supreme Leader. From her fingertips, purple lightning emerged, eating its way through the air until it crawled up over Snoke’s body like flames licking dry wood.

A thrill rippled through her as she saw a glimpse of terror in Snoke’s eyes, followed by a tormented groan. The wall of pressure against her disappeared as the strandcast’s concentration broke and he tried to ward off Rey’s attack with the same method.

Their different Force lightning clashed violently against each other, and Rey braced herself against the impact. Some of Snoke’s force lightning managed to penetrate her own. Rey took a deep breath, accepting the pain, welcoming it as the energy pierced every cell in her body. The rage was burning within her chest, and with renewed energy, Rey called forth a new bolt.

This time, it cut through Snoke’s lightning like a knife and engulfed the tall strandcast. He let out a screech as the impact threw him back against the wall before he fell to the black, shiny floor. Snoke grunted as he tried to get up on his feet, but the strandcasts’ strength failed him and he fell back onto the floor.

Over him, Rey stood tall, towering over the fallen strandcast like a conqueror in the Petranaki arena.

“Stay down,” she commanded in a glacial voice. “You’re just a puppet, Snoke. Don’t ever forget that again”.

“You play a dangerous game, girl,” Snoke warned her.

Rey smiled. “I never play, unless I know the odds are on my side,” she said, echoing Darth Plagueis’ teachings. “Now, you will do as I said. If I discover that you have disobeyed me — I will return and when I do, it will be your last regret”.

Finn bathed in cold sweat inside his plastoid armor and mesh suit. Forty minutes ago, he had just been an anonymous stormtrooper among countless others.

Now he was seated in a small interrogation room with metal-clad walls. The troopers that had brought him there didn’t say why, but they didn’t have to. He already knew why, she had recognized him.

Kira had recognized him.

‘If that even is her real name’, Finn thought to himself.

It probably wasn’t.

As a rookie, a low-ranking stormtrooper, he didn’t know much else than that a delegation from another, an allegedly secret branch of the First Order would come to see the Supreme Leader. But he had overheard two officers in the cantina speaking about the mysterious visitor.

The heiress.

That was what they had called her. But being alone behind enemy lines was stressful enough by itself, so Finn hadn’t given it more than a thought.

As the dark presence came closer, Finn deeply regretted that he had agreed to infiltrate the First Order alone.

It was all because of that damn ship.

To find the sparkling yacht Ben Solo had spotted on Kef Bir, Finn had filed an inquiry at the Republic Transport Bureau. A large yacht with a chromatic hull, shaped like an elasmobranch fish. It was an unusual design, and Finn was certain that someone must have seen it.

After a few weeks, he received a transmission from an ithorian couple living in the financial district. The ithorians told him that they had seen such a ship several times, parked on a landing platform in Upper City.

From the information the ithorians provided, Finn was able to track down the ship. Or well, partially at least. The yacht was owned by a company on Mygeeto, which rented out ships, everything from heavy freighters to small luxury yachts. They owned over a hundred different ships one could lease for a couple of weeks or several years.

He told Voe about his findings, and with Master Luke’s blessing, they traveled to the Albarrio sector where Mygeeto was located.

Mygeeto was a beautiful, frozen planet. A cold, crystalline colony with dome cities scattered between the crystal mountains and the glaciers. In the past, Jedis had traveled here to seek crystals for their training lightsabers, with the blessing of the muuns of course.

Finn and Voe landed in Mygeeto’s capital on a cold monoday morning to take a look at the ship renting company’s registries. Their office was fairly easy to find, but the droid at the customer assistance desk told them that they had sold the ship, and thus, they were unable to prove the two Jedis with the shipping log.

Unsatisfied with the droid’s answer; Voe demanded to speak to a sentient being and ten minutes later, a young lurmen appeared, simply to repeat what the droid already had said.

But with a little help from the Force, Voe made the customer agent show them the customer registry.

Mygeeto wasn’t a part of the New Republic, which meant the Jedi Order had no authority there, and thus, they had to tread carefully.

The log revealed that the last customer had rented the Prismatic ship for six months and paid in advance with a virtual debit card. The credit card had been provided by a local, independent bank on Didyma V, a mining world in the New Territories.

Voe thought that alone was suspicious enough to justify a visit to Didyma V.

It was a sad sight.

Just like on Rose Tico’s neighboring homeworld, Hayes Minor, the Didyma V had been heavily exploited by the intergalactic mining corporations.

Their corporate greed had destroyed most of the planet's natural environment, leaving the population poor, and the only job opportunities that remained were in the mines. Being a miner was heavy work, and the pay was barely enough to survive on.

Finn and Voe landed with the Verity at a spaceport on the outlines of the middle of the capital city. The town appeared worn and neglected, with most of the buildings appearing untouched by renovation for decades. The general atmosphere suggested a community that had seen better days, with little investment in the upkeep of the town’s infrastructure.

Stone dust covered the streets and heavy dust clouds from the nearby Lommite refinery filled the skies.

“Didyma V was ruled by the Empire during the war,” Voe explained. “I heard that after the battle of Endor, the governor and everybody associated with them fled for the unknown regions”.

“And then the corporations simply moved in and took over?” he filled in. “I’ve heard that story more times than I can count”.

“Unfortunately, yes. Greedy corporations have filled the power vacuum for many smaller systems in this region”.

“Believe me, I know that,” Finn said, thinking about Rose again. “Mining corporations funded by the IGBC have taken over the entire Otomak system as well”.

They found the bank, NovaCore Finances, at the bottom level of a small, underground mall. Unfortunately, the bank office was empty, and a sign nailed to the front desk revealed that the bank had been closed down for good. Voe let out a frustrated groan and Finn sighed deeply.

”There are just a couple of old chairs and a broken table in there,” the older Jedi said as she peered into the office through the window that had been used to separate the cashier from the customers.

“I guess we better start asking around,” Finn said. ”See if anyone knows anything of value,”

They kept exploring the town on foot; visiting a rustic cantina catered to the miners of the nearby mine, a spare part store, several temporary homes for migrant workers, and an overfilled health clinic, but just like on Jakku, nobody seemed to know anything of use for their mission.

As they walked through yet another block of shacks, Finn saw recruitment poster after recruitment poster for an organization called the 'First Order’ nailed to the rusty walls.

”The First Order?” Finn said as he ripped down a poster taped to an iron-clad power station. ”What is this?”.

”A study circle for people who like differential equations of the first order?” Voe suggested with a shrug.

The padawan shook his head. ”Hardly, take a look at this — it seems more like some sort of army to me,” Finn said as he handed over the poster to his master.

As Voe examined it, a frown appeared on her face and Finn spotted something uneasy in her gaze. ”Whatever this is; it concerns me far more than those girls on Kef Bir,” she finally said. ”Let’s see if the townspeople have more to say about the First Order than NovaCore Finances…”.

“The First Order? They pay better than the mining company,” a hollow-eyed teenager they met outside a dilapidated shack where an old iktochi sold bottled water. “My sister joined the First Order’s army years ago. Sends credits home every month”.

After spending a half-day talking to the citizens of the small town, Finn and Voe lost count of how many people had told them the same story; everybody knew someone who had left to join the First Order.

Neither Finn nor Voe had heard anything about the First Order before. Was it a company, a private army, or mercenaries?

Nobody they asked seemed to know anything else then how much money their enlisted family members sent home.

”If you want to find out more, they got a recruitment office behind the market two blocks away,” the iktochi said.

Voe raised an eyebrow. ”A recruitment office, you say?”

The horn-adorned humanoid nodded. ”It’s manned by a droid who takes care of the applications. If you’re selected for enlistment, the First Order sends a shuttle at the end of every month to pick up the potential cadets”.

”We need to inspect this further,” Voe said, pulling her padawan to the side. ”Finn, I want you to apply.

”What? No!” Finn protested. ”I’m not joining some shady army, it isn’t even our mission!”.

His master gave him a stern gaze. “If this is what I think it is; then the entire future of the New Republic can be at stake! There is no time to lose”.

The door to the interrogation room opened up and a young woman walked over the threshold with certain steps. She was clad in a long-sleeved, fishtail dress with a high collar, sewn in a thick, carmine-red woven fabric. Long, talon-like nails in the same color. Pale skin, vibrant, almost yellow, hazel-colored eyes, and dark brown hair.

She looked at him with a curious gaze in her eyes, almost like a child would inspect a new, curious puzzle.

“FN-285, or maybe I shall call you… Finn?” she said in a calm voice as if they were two acquaintances that accidentally had run into each other.

Finn sucked in a breath. She looked identical to the Kira Ikari he had met with Ben Solo on Hosnian Prime, but while the fund manager lacked a presence in the Force, this girl was like a gravity field of darkness that clouded everything else.

“You’re not Kira Ikari,” he said with a frown. "You cannot be her".

“No, I’m not,” she replied as she sat down on the steel chair in front of him. “Kira Ikari doesn’t exist. I’m Rey,” she said in a soft voice. “Rey Palpatine”.

“Wha… what?” he couldn’t believe what he had just heard.

Palpatine?

She just kept looking at him with an amused gaze, unmoved by his reaction.

“But that’s impossible…”.

“Is it?” She scoffed softly. “As much as I would like to sit here and let you amuse me with your theories, I’m on a tight schedule, so let’s get down to business. How did you end up here?”.

“I’m not going to tell you anything,” Finn said, shaking his head with determination. No matter if what she said was true or not ― she was the enemy.

“You don’t have to, actually,” she replied and in an instant, the amusement in her eyes had been replaced with a cold, blank gaze. “I can see for myself”.

Out of nowhere, a terrible pain swept over his head; it felt like invisible hands were bending up his frontal bone. Groaning, Finn sank his head into his hands. The pain grew more intense as they ripped through his cingulate cortex, the temporal lobe, all the way down to the hypothalamus where his memories were stored.

“The more you struggle, the worse it will be”.

Finn braced himself, but there was no use. She shifted through his memories like a librarian droid in the Jedi Archives shifted through records. The padawan could see flashes of his visit to the Entertainment District with Poe and Rose for his birthday, the scoring sun on Jakku. His trip to Mygeeto, Didyma V, the abandoned bank office, and the recruitment poster on the concrete wall outside the mine.

“I see,” she said. “Your feisty master talked you into this — without telling Master Skywalker. How curious… Voe is indeed very ambitious. It’s a dangerous trait for a Jedi to have. Funny enough, for a Sith, it’s essential to hunger for power”.

“Is that… what you are?” Finn groaned, completely drained of energy from the harsh treatment. His head ached terribly, and he was pretty sure that his nose was bleeding.

“Not all of us are old men hidden under black, hooded capes,” she shrugged.

“Are you going to kill me?”.

“Of course not,” Rey smiled. “I don’t kill people purely for fun. You are going to hand over that binary tracker you’re hiding,” she said, motioning with her head to the compartment on the wrist of Finn’s armor. “...and then, I’m going to send you to try out our brand new penal colony on Kijimi”.

Chapter Text

During the afternoon, the awkwardness lay over them like a thick, wet blanket. Despite their little talk earlier, Rey sensed that Ben still was uneasy about what had occurred between them.

Knowing her weak sides, Rey had to admit that she might have been a little too eager and maybe a tad bit too forceful with him. She had never had many of the qualities typically associated with human females, like being nurturing, emotional, and compassionate. After pledging herself to the dark side, Rey possessed even fewer of those qualities.

She cast an eye on the Jedi, who sat curled up in the other sofa, writing something on his holopad with a deeply concentrated look on his face. Whatever he was reading, it completely engulfed him. As she looked at his face, the heiress felt the urge to say something.

But what?

It wasn’t often Rey found herself clueless. She was a survivor at heart, and no matter what life had thrown at her, she had always found a way to overcome the hardships. But when it came to ‘matters of the heart’, as some people so cheesily called it, it was something she found incredibly hard to solve through her usual methods of manipulation, bribery, or violence.

”Are you still working on the old Jedi book?” She asked, hoping that some small talk could lighten up the mood in the lack of better ideas. 

“No, “ Ben replied without taking his eyes off the text. “My friend Tai sent me his thesis. It’s about force-sensitive plants on Felucia”.

“How fascinating”. 

Rey resisted an urge to roll her eyes. How typical of a Jedi to research to what degree vegetables were force sensitive… Not even Darth Plagueis, who had been obsessed with the midichlorians, had bothered to research plants on any bigger scale. 

“If you’re into botany, it probably is,” he dryly said.

”I suppose so”.

Ben was clearly not in the mood for talking, and Rey was both exhausted and out of better ideas. She lay down on the sofa, letting her head sink down on one of the velvet decorative cushions. Rey had been awake for more than twenty-four hours and disciplining Snoke had completely drained her of the little energy she had left. 

Heiress of the Sith or not, she was just human after all.

She closed her eyes and shifted into a more comfortable position on the sofa. Rey's eyes grew heavy and soon she was asleep, lulled by the hum of the ventilation system and the soft scrape of Ben's stylus pen.

Blurred images from the last twenty-four hours flashed like an unstable transmission on her retinas until it all morphed into a desert scenario bathing in the golden sunset. The twin suns in the sky told Rey that her dreams hadn’t taken her back to Jakku, but the now famous home planet of Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, Tatooine.

“And this must be the Dune Sea…”.

Rey scouted out over the lifeless desert landscape in search of any sign of the Skywalkers. In the distance, she saw several moisture collectors and a white farmhouse partially covered by sand, but nobody was around. Behind her lay a chain of steep sandstone cliffs, and between them lay a long path that led to Mos Espa.

A small ripple through the Force alerted Rey that she wasn’t alone, and from the corner of her eyes, she could see how a figure emerged from the shadows of the cliffs. Rey initially assumed it was a tusken scout, however, it was too short and wearing white, light clothes — not typical of a raider.

She turned around and pinned her gaze on the stranger, surprised to see that it was a woman clad in an outfit with accents similar to the classical Jedi garments. A white hood hid her face, but Rey didn’t need to see it to know who she was.

The Jedi girl.

Rey Skywalker.

An orphan, taken under the wings of the Skywalker twins. 

Once, she had been an independent woman struggling on a backwater planet in the middle of nowhere. 

A nobody, living day to day. 

But through an unholy union between the Force and destiny, she had been thrown straight into the arms of Han Solo and Leia Organa, and before Rey could say “I’ll drop you off at the Ponemah Terminal”, she found herself deeply entangled in what would be the beginning of her transformation into a mindless acolyte…

Rey inhaled, and her entire body tensed like a bowstring. She was more exhausted than she initially had thought, weakened by her fight with Snoke and sleep deprivation, and this was how the Light took advantage of it. The conflict within that Rey had thought to be solved flared up within her as an unwelcome reminder of the woman she could have been, should she not have pledged her allegiance to the Dark.

The sound of flat boots against the soft sand ceased as the woman stopped a few meters away from Rey’s position. Slowly, she pulled back the white hood to reveal her face. She looked at Rey with a tired gaze that seemed to belong to someone much, much older than a woman in her twenties.

Rey Skywalker had aged rapidly since she last dared to invade Rey’s dreams. She was thin, and her hair lacked luster. Wrinkles had begun to form around her eyes and mouth, but her hazel eyes were still sharp and purposeful.

Her long white sash fluttered softly in the desert breeze and revealed a new lightsaber hanging from her utility belt.

“She’s stronger with the Light than before…” Rey mused to herself as her gaze fell on the woman’s lightsaber. ”… is the new blade a sign that she’s officially replaced Luke Skywalker as the last Jedi now?”.

Unlike Ben, Rey had been spared from most nightmares and visions from the path of her Jedi alter-ego thanks to her grandfather’s training. But from the little she had seen, the heiress had an idea of where the alternative path the Light had carved out for her would lead, and Rey Skywalker was the living proof of what the Light would ultimately transform her into. 

“Rey,” the other girl said in a voice that was both familiar and foreign at the same time. ”You need to stop. Stop this game you’re playing. The consequences will be fatal for all of us if you continue”.

Rey snorted softly at the Jedi, narrowed her yellow-tinted eyes, and gave the Jedi a sharp gaze.

“I know what you want,” she said. “But your pleas are in vain; I made my choice long ago”. 

No matter what happened, Rey Palpatine would never surrender to the Light. The Dark was rooted in her very being, and although she sometimes felt conflicted, it was ultimately her nature. Thus, there was no turning back, and a true Sith would much rather die than face such humiliation. 

Over the last thousand years, only one Sith had sought aid from the Light — the internally, deeply conflicted Darth Gravid. The deluded dark lord had ultimately tried to destroy the Sith, which forced Gravid’s apprentice to murder him in order to continue Darth Bane’s lineage.

The Jedi’s eyes hardened. ”You’ll be the death of him,” she drawled.

Rey looked back at the Jedi with resentful eyes. 

”Just like you, you mean?".

Flashes of the sky above Exegol filled with star destroyers and a rag-tag army of various ships appeared before her eyes. Then the Jedi girl appeared again, sitting at the steep cliffs outside of the Sith Citadel with the body of Ben Solo lying motionless on the ground.

“This is the Jedi, this is the Light. Eventually, it will destroy you, too. It will eat you away like cancer until you’re nothing but an empty shell with a half-soul. You will die as nothing but the puppet of the Skywalker twins”.

Rey Skywalker flinched at her harsh words.

For a moment, Rey thought the other woman was going to start crying, but she collected herself at the last second and gave Rey a gaze filled with disappointment and disgust.

“Nobody is truly ever gone,” she spat back at the Sith heiress, with tears burning at the corner of her eyes. “When Ben died, his soul dissipated into the flow of the Force, and thus, he will live forever in it”.

Rey couldn’t help but laugh. It was so tragic, and yet hopelessly comical at the same time. Light or Dark, it didn’t matter — she had been born a good liar, and nobody believed the lies Rey told better than herself.

How else could she have lived over a decade in misery on Jakku, fueled by hope that her parents one day would come and save her?

Parents that she knew were dead all along.

”Is that what you tell yourself to feel better?” Rey said in mockery. “Maybe you’re even delighted that he is dead? It must have been so much easier for you to convince everybody and the world that you are a Skywalker after Ben died”.

The Jedi sniveled angrily as she reached for her lightsaber. She wrapped her thin fingers around the hilt and pressed the trigger. “You’re so blind that you can’t see how the Dark poisoned your mind and heart completely”.

“If anyone is blind, it’s you,” Rey corrected the Jedi as she drew her own blade, a double-edged saber blade with a crimson glow. It hummed softly in harmony with its mistress.

“I follow the Light,” the Jedi said as she stepped into battle stance. Her voice was wavering, as if she didn’t believe her own words. The look on her face was weary, almost crushed, and Rey knew she had won the battle already before it began.

“You let the Force rule you,” Rey retorted. ”I rule the Force”.

The Jedi charged against her, and Rey met her strike with her own blade. As their blades clashed, red plasma bled into bright yellow as they fell into a lock.

An internal fight between the Light and the Dark in the flesh. The Jedi and the Sith heiress kept on struggling with their blades locked for a couple of seconds until Rey pushed away the Jedi.

”The Dark won’t lead you to anything but destruction,” the other woman countered as she lunged against Rey, swinging her blade like it was a melee weapon.

Rey struck back at the Jedi, hard enough for the self-proclaimed Skywalker-heir to lose her footing for a fleeting moment. She saw her mistake, but Rey was faster and she relentlessly forced the Jedi backward down a narrow path that led to an abandoned sarlacc nest.

Despite her new status as Jedi Master, Rey Skywalker’s fighting style was a confusing mishmash of techniques and forms, clearly depicting her severe lack of education. The Jedi had learned to fence from old Jedi tomes and the Skywalker twins. Leia had learned everything she knew from her brother, and Luke had never gotten more than a handful of rushed lessons from Obi-Wan Kenobi and the dying Master Yoda. 

Rey alternated between blocking the Jedi’s blows and using the end of her blade like a pike to keep her opponent from escaping from the path. Her ancient blade was longer than conventional lightsabers, and it made it easy to keep the Jedi at a comfortable distance.

”This is certainly entertaining,” Rey snickered when her opponent sent loose rocks flying from the cliffs in a desperate attempt to break through her defense. “But what do you say about this?”.

With her free hand, Rey reached out against her opponent and called out to the Dark. In the next second, the electricity flowed through her body, along her arm, and out through her fingertips. The Jedi struggled to keep the lightning at bay with her lightsaber, but it crawled upon the hilt and engulfed her entire body in bright purple sparks.

”It’s quite something else than the Force lightning you used on Paasana, isn’t it?” Rey said, her eyes gleaming. “Any Jedi with sufficient strength in the Force can learn to use force lightning, but it’s only a pale comparison to the Sith lightning”.

The Jedi gave her a furious look before she fell to the ground, writhing in pain as the electricity rippled through every cell in her body. Rey sank down at the side of Skywalker, examining her face.

The lightning she could summon was not strong enough to physically alter the enemy to the same degree as a Sith Master, but didn’t the false Skywalker at least look a bit worse than before?

“Don’t be afraid,” Rey said in a calm voice as she wrapped her hands around the throat of the Jedi. “Nobody is ever really gone, right?”. 

“No!” the Jedi yelped, trying to bend her fingers away, but the heiress was stronger.

“There is no death, remember?“ Rey replied with a whisper, her voice filled with sadistic delight, “There is just the Force”.

”Don’t!” .

“It has long been debated however, the new generation derivatives of nysillin, a medical plant native to Felucia, should be put under restrictions, as hospitals and health care clinics all over the Core Worlds have seen a recent increase of nysillin-induced heart arrhythmia and respiratory depression…”.

”Tai must have been in a hurry when he wrote this. This isn’t like him to be this sloppy”, Ben thought to himself as he eyed through the result section of the thesis a second time. Tai’s conclusion was a mess that lacked a red thread. The method was poorly described, and there were at least two references that were missing from the reference list.

Ben exhaled softly, debating on whether he should just leave some helpful comments or simply correct the issues. Somehow, he felt responsible for Luke shuffling over his old mission on his friend mere hours after he had landed on Coruscant…

Resting his cheek in his hand, he cast another gaze on Kira. She lay on the sofa like a heavy sack of tubers, and he hadn’t missed how completely exhausted the girl looked when she returned. She looked pale as a sheet, her skin was clammy, and a slight wave of tremor ran through her entire body.

“Kira, are you alright?” he asked, putting down the holopad.

When she didn’t react, Ben got up and moved over to the other sofa. 

“Kira!” He growled at Kira in panic, grabbing her shoulders and pulling her up into a sitting position. She protested with a soft groan, brows knit tight together as she opened up her eyes. Her pupils widened, and she looked disoriented around the room as if she had forgotten who and where they were. 

”Are you alright?”?

“It’s nothing,” she assured him, rubbing her face with her palms. ”Just low blood sugar”.

”It didn’t seem that way, “Ben said as he unwillingly released his hold on her. “It looked like you were about to have some kind of seizure”. 

”No,” Kira shook her head as she rose from the sofa. ”I just need something to eat”.

Dutifully, Ben followed her as Kira padded over to the kitchen to make sure she didn’t suddenly collapse onto the floor. He sat down at the table, eyes peeled on Kira as she ransacked the freezer. With shaky hands, she dropped a handful of spirulina algae, frozen fruit, and some yogurt into the kitchen assistant’s dispenser. 

Ben rested his chin in his hand as he watched the kitchen assistant blend the frozen chunks into a smooth, cyan-blue liquid. Maybe she wasn’t sick, but something was definitely wrong with her. For a moment, he closed his eyes and tapped into the Force, looking for something, anything that could give him a clue. 

On a planet as densely populated as Coruscant, the Force was clouded with the presence of everyone from the slightest force-sensitive being to Master Luke and the other Jedis. The Dark was there, too. It lay like a gray mist over everything else, clouding his senses, although Ben could still feel the weak presence of Snoke, lurking in the periphery.

Should he wish to continue his journey to the Dark, his old friend was only a thought away.

He concentrated, shutting out Luke, Snoke, and everybody else but the two of them in the room. But there was nothing. Just like before, Kira’s presence barely existed, like a gravity field, but without the mass of a planet to generate it.

”Fancy a try?”.

When he opened his eyes, Kira stood in front of him with the mixture in a transparent plastic cup.

Ben shook his head. ”It’s enough with one of us feeling unwell”.

Kira snorted softly at his sarcasm as she sank down on the chair at the other end of the table.

“Don’t you ever dream of leaving everything behind?” she asked with a thoughtful gaze. “All the rules, all expectations…”.

“No, I’m not,” Ben gave her a tired gaze. How many times hadn’t they been through this already? They were just going around in circles; he already knew her opinion, and she knew his.

”No?”.

“No. The whole point of being a Jedi is to live according to the rules of the Jedi Order,” he sighed. “It’s just as with any other religion. Like the Mandalorians live by their creed, we live by the Jedi Code”.

“I’m relieved I don’t have to,” Kira smiled faintly and took a sip of the mixture from her cup. ”I couldn’t imagine living like that; I don’t like to be chained”.

“Literally, or figuratively speaking?” Ben replied, giving her a tired look.

”It depends on the situation,” she replied with a sly gaze.

He was almost tempted to laugh. For someone who was not a professional politician or swindler, Kira certainly had a way with words. 

”I think we can end the discussion here and simply conclude that we don’t see eye to eye,” Ben said as he crossed his arms defensively and leaned back in the chair. 

Getting him out of balance with subtle sexual innuendos might have worked on him when they first met, but after last night, Kira would have to try harder if she wanted to distract him. 

The sly smile on Kira’s face morphed into a scowl, and she put down her almost empty glass with a thud on the table.

“Look, I understand,” she argued, leaning slightly over the table with a fiery gaze in her eyes. “You have lived with a mythology for a long time that tells you some of the most basic aspects of human nature are bad. But — that doesn’t mean it is necessarily true”.

“It‘s not a question of whether it’s true or not,” Ben groaned as he ran a hand through his hair. Stars, he was not in the mood for having this kind of fruitless discussion again. Most people simply accepted that the Jedi lived according to a different kind of rules, and accepted that, but for some odd reason, Kira refused to let it go.

“Have you tried anything else?” she pushed. “Ever?“.

“I’ve already told you, Kira,” he scowled back at her. “That’s not how it works”.

A Jedi didn’t choose to become a Jedi. The Force chose which one to gift with force-sensitivity, and the greater the gift, the stronger the pull to the Light — or the Dark. 

“Then how can you possibly know it is the only way if you have never allowed yourself anything else?”.

“I just can’t,” Ben replied as he sank back into the kitchen chair. He had forgotten how many times over the years he had been playing with the thought of leasing the order. But each time he took the unyielding reality into account, the conclusion always remained the same — it was impossible. 

If only he hadn’t been born without the so-called gift from the Force. Then, he could have been anything, been anyone he wanted…

Chapter Text

Where she had gotten the energy from, Rey barely knew, but the fatigue in her bones seemed to diminish by the seconds as she saw the doubt in Ben’s eyes.

Even without the Force, she could feel it, see it in his eyes; the longing, the desire, hidden under his deceptively calm surface like violent undercurrents in the deep. He had such beautiful, entangling eyes, too, like a dark night sky, or the darkest depths of Nur’s ocean.

”You can,” Rey said, voice calm and assuring. ”Let go of your fear. I know you want to”. 

”What we want isn’t necessarily what’s good for us,” he replied with a defeated sigh, his hand sneaking up to pull a loose strand of hair back behind her ear. 

“I can ease your pain if you let me“.

“Or bring me more,“ he said darkly, an inkling that he unconsciously knew just what kind of poison she was.

Rey couldn’t deny that. At the back of her mind, she knew very well that she might have to hurt him someday in a not-too-distant future. But then again, Rey knew better than to live her life in fear of tomorrow. 

Like many other things, Jakku had taught her that. There might not even be a tomorrow for all she knew; maybe Hux had managed to get the Starkiller functioning, and Snoke demanded a rapid function test, with Coruscant or Hosnian Prime as its new target. 

It was unlikely, but not impossible.

“It‘s a risk worth taking,” she said, looking at him through long lashes.

He looked back at her with an ambivalent look in his dark eyes. A flicker of his inner turmoil, the fear of the dark, and the uneasy yet powerful longing to be released from the chains of the Jedi.

“Don’t you remember what I told you yesterday, that people only regret the things they never did?” Rey continued, reaching out her hand to stroke her thumb over Ben’s knuckles. His gaze softened, the tension in his shoulders eased, and he let out a defeated sigh as he let their fingers interlace.

“You never give up, do you?” he said with the ghost of a smile on his lips.

 Rey smiled knowingly, eyes glittering. ”If you only knew”.

He sat on the edge of her bed, watching her undress. Rey felt how his eyes burned as his gaze trailed along her body. It sent a thrill through her; it gave her a sense of power, of being in control.

Unabashed, Rey let her dress fall to the floor along with her bra before she shrugged on a short, simple nightgown. She let the clothes remain on the floor and walked up to Ben. 

“Do you plan to stay the whole night this time, or do you have more early errands?” he asked, placing his large hands on her hips. The sudden touch shot a warm, tingling sensation through Rey that ebbed out in a slight flush of her cheeks.

“I haven’t decided yet,” she sassed, despite having no intentions to leave the apartment, and certainly not without him. “Maybe you can convince me to stay?”.

Ben looked up at her with an unamused gaze that told Rey that her seduction skills hadn’t improved since the last time. ”Maybe I can,” he dryly said, his eyes dropping from her face to the black lace trim of her nightgown.

“You should,” Rey replied in a softer voice, and she hated how feminine, and almost begging, it sounded. She was much too proud to beg. For anything. But the way she felt, just by having his hands splayed over her hips, was intoxicating. A heady rush of dopamine, oxytocin, and norepinephrine through her system.

They suffered in silence for a couple of minutes until Ben finally pulled her into his arms. After he had taken the first step, Rey didn’t waste any time. She sank down onto his lap and kissed him. This time, he didn’t hesitate. Heat surged through Rey’s body as Ben kissed her back, following her cues almost seamlessly.

No wonder he had been the most prized student at the Jedi Academy…

… and she wasn’t a terrible teacher, either. 

Rey deepened the kiss, letting their tongues meet as she entangled her hands in the coarse fabric of his tunic. He moaned softly against her mouth while unconsciously tightening his embrace around her. It was a welcome sensation to feel his hands on her body again, and Ben was bolder this time, too.

One hand was at the back of her neck, and the other fisted in the thin fabric of her nightgown, hiking it up over her tights all the way to her hips.

Rey wrapped her legs around his waist and broke the kiss to lean down against the mattress, tugging at his clothes. Eager to feel the smooth skin and hard muscles hidden beneath the coarse fabric of his clothes. Ben chuckled as they pivoted, putting a steady hand on the mattress to keep them from falling onto each other.

”Are you always this impatient?”.

“I know you want me just as bad,” Rey replied as she let go of Ben and pushed herself backward further up onto the bed. Her entire body was hot and tense, aching for relief, and her tight, almost soaked-through synthetic panties chafed against her tender pussy.

“You certainly have confidence”.

“I do,” Rey couldn’t help but grin. “I know when I’m right, too”.

“Is that so?” Ben gave her a slight, crooked smile before he pulled the tunic over his head. Rey sat up again, eyes flashing with heat, before she leaned forward to trace her fingers down his torso and abdomen. 

Stars, just looking at him undressed, were alone enough to make her ache in a way Rey had never felt before. It sounded like a tired, old cliché, but it really did something to her.

Still, as exciting as exploring the sharp lines of his body was, Rey was far too impatient, and frankly too turned on, to spend more time on foreplay than necessary. 

She pulled Ben down with her into the sheets, slanting her mouth over his in a hard kiss. He groaned softly as Rey pressed her body against his, and she could feel how hard he had become.

Her breath hitched, and Rey broke the kiss when Ben’s hands reached the waistband of her panties. Then he continued to pull down the panties along her legs so slowly that it made her groan out of frustration.

It had been less than twenty-four hours since she coerced Ben to bed her for the first time, but while it had been good, it hadn’t not enough. Not even near — the desire that filled her was burning bright and hot. 

Like magnesium, she felt as if it could burn through steel. 

With their last garments shed, she lay down on her back, legs spread wide as Ben finally pushed inside her. Rey groaned, relishing in the sensation of being stretched out, a relief to the searing ache that plagued her for what felt like a damn eon.

Buried to the hilt, Ben shivered, his breath ragged, and she buried her fingers into the small of his back to keep him from pulling back.

”Fuck me“, Rey breathed out as she leaned her back against the pile of pillows at the bed frame. ”Slow, but harder”. 

A furious blush spread over Ben’s face, and she realized ’make love to me’ or something similar, more ladylike, would probably have made him comfortable. But Rey had never been the one to sugarcoat, and besides that, she was already on the metaphorical edge of climax.

Still blushing, Ben got up on his knees. He leaned over her with his hands resting on the back of her knees, gently pushing her down onto the heap of bedding. From the new angle, each of his strokes hit deeper, reaching that sensitive spot deep within her.

The shadows danced over his powerful body in the dim-lit room as he thrust into her, and Rey felt rapturous at the sight. Who knew corruption could feel so good?

Ben had fought the Dark with tooth and nail for so long, and finally, he gave in. 

Unable to resist. 

The darkness within him bled through.

Rey closed her eyes, relishing in the feeling of it while letting her fantasies of Kylo blend into reality. It drove her over the edge like a meteor. She pressed her head back onto the mattress, every muscle in her body tense as her climax ravaged through her.

A few hours later, Ben stirred awake when the first rays of Coruscant’s primal sun found their way through the gap between the curtains.

It took the Jedi Knight a few seconds to realize he wasn't in his own bed, and then he remembered having sex after a fruitless talk about the Jedi lifestyle.

“Maker, what’s wrong with me…?” Ben whispered to himself almost inaudibly.

It all felt like a déjà vu of yesterday’s events, but without the nervousness or the guilt. Today, he barely felt guilty, a stark contrast to how he had felt yesterday. Few feelings were as hard to get rid of as fear, guilt, and shame. For a long time, Ben had been a master of self-torment, allowing those emotions to consume him. But something had changed, and now he felt almost immune to their grip. As if he were made of fluoropolymer, and the guilt just ran off him like water.

“Is it the Dark?” Ben mumbled to himself in a low voice as he glanced over Kira’s sleeping form. 

She lay curled up like a feline, naked except for a new pair of panties that were made with about three times less fabric than the standard-issue underwear the Jedi Order provided for females. 

When she slept, she had such an innocent, peaceful look on her lovely face that made it hard to fathom how sly and calculating she could be.

But no matter how alluring she undeniably was, Ben couldn’t blame anyone but himself for taking the same side-step twice. He closed his eyes again and let his head sink deeper down onto the pillow with a soft sigh.

What would happen now?

He had broken one of the cardinal vows twice, and he had enjoyed it, too. By now, he was a greater shame to the Order than he ever had been before… and yet Ben didn’t feel like he was on the verge of falling to the Dark.

Maybe Luke and the old Jedi Masters had exaggerated the risks of ‘personal attachments‘ and condemned sex purely out of the religious and practical aspects?

What if sex and love weren’t the beginning of the slippery slope that always leads to damnation?

Maybe Kira was right; most people had probably experienced both relationships and sex at some point in their lives without becoming a lesser person. Besides, no sane person would ever claim that love caused anywhere near the same destruction in the galaxy as greed and lust for power...

The realization felt like someone had thrown a cold bucket of water over him, and for the first time since he left his long-term stay on Polis Massa, Ben wondered just how indoctrinated by Luke’s teachings he had become over the years.

Would a life without the Jedi really be a one-way ticket to senseless bloodlust and deprivation as he had feared for more than half of his life?

A sudden, soft chime from his discarded robe on the floor interrupted his train of thought. Ben sat up, the sheets slipping down his waist as he picked up his holopad. He frowned as he looked at the display; Luke had sent him a message.

Reconciliation meeting.

Today, after lunch.

As he read the message a second time, Kira stirred beside him. “What’s going on?” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes.

“I need to visit the temple after lunch, “Ben replied, his voice flat.

“After lunch? It’s barely morning now,” she complained, looping her arms around his waist like a sarlacc entangling its prey. “It’s barely morning now. We can sleep for a little longer”.

After yet another week spent mostly indoors, it was nice to feel the sun on her face again, and Rey enjoyed every step from the hangar to the temple grounds. Ben, on the other hand, seemed nervous. His shoulders were taut, his posture rigid, as if he was preparing himself for something very unpleasant, but he didn’t say anything. 

“You don’t have to come with me to meet my uncle,” Ben mumbled as he led her through a majestic sandstone corridor. ”I thought… maybe you’d like to wait at the library?”.

”Okay”.

“You’ll be safe here,” he promised her.

“I know,” she said, giving him an assuring look.

The library was rather impressive with its cathedral-like architecture, even though it was a far cry from its former glory during the days of the Empire. Her grandfather had renamed the temple ‘the Imperial Palace’ during his reign, which Rey found more suitable. After all, the Jedi temple had been built upon an ancient Sith temple, and she found herself wondering if it still was accessible through a secret tunnel…

If she had known the exact timeframe of Ben’s appointment, Rey might have been tempted to slip down to the basement level for some exploration. Even without aid from the Force, she had a knack for getting around without being seen.

As soon as Ben was out of sight, Rey took a stroll between the tall, dark bookshelves. Most of them were filled with the regular kind of blue-glowing, crystalline holobooks, but at the back, there was an entire shelf with paper books behind a desk, guarded by a copper-colored protocol droid. 

”Library card, please,” it said with a monotone voice in droidspeak.

”I’m just looking,” Rey replied, a little disappointed that she couldn’t pry into the ancient-looking books undisturbed.

She continued her stroll in the opposite direction, looking to see if there were any unguarded holocrons, but all she found were data tapes with maps. 

To keep her curiosity in check, Rey picked out a holobook with detailed descriptions of the Resistance and its allies’ battleships during the galactic war and sat down at one of the long tables. She flipped through holographic blueprints and images of ships such as the classic B-wing bomber, the peculiar Nebulon-B Frigate, and the U-wing used in the battle of Scarif.

As the minutes went by, Jedi, mostly younger padawans, came and went in a regular stream. Other than a curious gaze, they paid her no mind. They picked up books, looked at the archive’s encyclopedia, and the collection of maps, or requested aid with their writing projects from one of the library droids.

“The Light is still strong here,” Rey thought to herself, as she watched the young Jedi over the edge of her book. ”I should suggest that we relocate. Ben will be easier to influence the further from the rest of the Jedis he is”.

Despite Coruscant’s lack of nature, the Light Side was unusually strong thanks to the sheer number of Jedi residing there. In the past, when there had been more Jedi, the Light’s presence on the capital planet had been strong enough for Darth Plagueis to compare Coruscant to be the same for the Jedi as Korriban once had been for the Sith.

She had thought about it for a while now. The next natural step in her plan would be to isolate Ben further from his family and fellow Jedi.

 If she had dared to ask him earlier, Ben would most likely have protested vigorously. But after last night, Rey had a feeling he wouldn’t deny her.

With Kira safely in the library, Ben set course to Luke’s office in the spire. He had never felt very welcome at the temple, but today something was different. No strange gazes, none taking detours to avoid him… as if they suddenly had forgotten who he was and what he had done.

There was something in the air, a collective unease among the other Jedi he had never felt before. The young ones were worried and anxious, while the older ones looked serious, almost stern. Almost as if a full-scale war was on the verge of breaking out.

“Is something the matter?” Ben asked as he sat down on the wooden chair in front of Luke’s desk. 

“How so?” Luke said. He leaned forward over the desk, looking at his nephew with a mildly curious gaze.

“Everyone seems… worried,” Ben offered with a slight shrug.

A guilt-ridden, almost painful look appeared on the older man’s face, and he immediately understood that something out of the ordinary had happened. 

“Finn has disappeared on a mission to Didyma V”.

Was Finn gone? Ben looked at his uncle in disbelief. A Jedi didn’t just disappear, and a padawan, still under the supervision of a Jedi Knight, certainly did not. Not without his or her master’s approval, at least. 

Ultimately, Luke Skywalker was the one who made the decision, and he was the one responsible for the safety of the lower-ranking Jedis.

“Is Voe gone too?” he asked.

Luke shook his head. “All you need to know is that we’re doing everything we can to find him. Now, how is it going with your mission?”.

Ben shifted in the chair, suddenly worried that his uncle somehow could sense how far away from his professional role he had drifted, and even worse, that Ben had sex with Kira. He almost blushed at the mere thought, but thankfully, the Jedi Master didn’t seem to notice. Hopefully, his usual inner turmoil would mask his new… problems.

”It… wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” he carefully admitted. 

”Good,” Luke replied, seemingly revealed by his answer. “We continue as planned. Unless you have any more concerns, you may return to your commitments”.

Ben’s eyes widened in surprise. Was that it? Had Luke called him to the temple just to tell him that? 

Without any of his usual lectures?

He had expected nothing less than a cross-examination from Luke to make sure he hadn’t overstepped any boundaries after being locked up with the young banker for weeks, but it seemed like the Jedi master had far greater concerns than his worry Ben for the moment. Luke seemed uncharacteristically distracted, and Ben sensed that there was more that bothered the old Jedi than Finn’s disappearance. 

“What about the Knights of Ren?” he asked. “Have you found them yet?”.

“There have been sightings of their ship near Lothar. However, we have no indication that they’re heading for the Core Worlds. We’ll keep tracking, of course, so there is no need for Ms Ikari to worry”.

”I’ll let her know that”.

”Good”.

The Jedi Master then clasped his hands together as if to gesture that the conversation was over, and Ben rose from the chair out of pure habit. For the past ten years, he had always been keen on getting out of his uncle’s office as fast as possible.

Just as he was about to leave the room, Ben stopped at the door, hesitating as Kylo’s voice echoed inside his head.

”Luke knows. He has known for almost two decades”.

Ben inhaled sharply as he recalled the nightmare. The girl with the yellow eyes, the heiress. Rey. It was not without risk to ask his uncle about such a thing, but he had to know the truth, or whenever Luke would lie straight to his face. Bracing himself, Ben turned around and looked back at his uncle. 

“Was it anything else, Ben?“ the Jedi Master said in a tired voice.

”Have you ever heard of a girl called Rey?”.

”Rey who?” Luke raised an eyebrow, seemingly clueless about what he was talking about.

”Rey Palpatine”.

“Palpatine? Don’t believe everything you read on the HoloNet, boy,” Luke muttered, as if his nephew was merely wasting his time with such a silly question. But his expression hardened, and there was a look in his eyes that told Ben this wasn’t the first time Luke had heard the name.

“Why don’t you tell me the truth then?“ Ben demanded, the irritation seeping through his voice.

Luke sighed and gave his nephew another tired gaze before he leaned back onto his chair with slouched shoulders.

“She was a Palpatine, but never named one,” he admitted. “The father repudiated his heritage“.

“The Emperor had a son?“ Ben raised an eyebrow.  

”It was many years ago,” Luke said, as if it would explain his silence. ”Lando overheard a bounty hunter, Ochi, speaking about a mission to find an alleged clone of the Emperor, and the clone‘s wife and daughter“.

“A cloned son…?”.

”Yes. We knew that the Empire had several secret cloning projects where they tried to find a way to clone force-sensitive individuals. I believe the Emperor wanted to create a force-sensitive heir, or perhaps a spare apprentice who could have replaced Darth Vader”.

“But the Empire never succeeded in cloning a force-sensitive person,” Ben argued, crossing his arms over his broad chest. “As far as I know, their last project died when the New Republic arrested Dr. Pershing”.

”No, they didn’t,” Luke said as he rose from his chair and padded over to the small kitchenette at the corner of the room. “However, this clone was not created through any of Dr. Pershing’s experiments”.

Luke fetched a bottle filled with a mint green liquid and poured it into a kettle, along with a scoop of oats. In less than a minute, the stench of boiled sea sow milk filled the room. Oatmeal gruel with sea sow milk. It smelled weird and tasted ten times as bad. Ben had never understood his uncle‘s love for milk of all kinds.

It was repelling, and he pursed his mouth to keep himself from grimacing.

With the hot brew in a brown ceramic cup in his hand, Luke sat down behind his desk again. The old Jedi sighed softly as he stirred the cruel with a small wooden spoon while Ben waited impatiently to hear the rest of the story. 

“Lando and I investigated the matter. We found the clone buried in a pauper’s grave on Jakku,” Luke finally said before he took a sip of the hot gruel. “Our analysis of the corpse showed very low traces of midi–chlorians, too low to make him force-sensitive. The mother was not force-sensitive either”.

”As expected,” Ben shrugged. “What about the girl?”.

Clones may not keep force sensitivity, but there was always a chance that an eventual descendant of Palpatine could naturally possess it.

”A few years later, we came across an old blood sample from a maternal health clinic on Hyperkarn. It belonged to a girl named Rey, born in 19 ABY. The test results indicated traces of what seemed to be an extremely high amount of midi-chlorians, but the sample was far too old for us to be certain,” Luke sighed again.

Ben nodded. Unlike DNA, the midi-chlorians were living beings and couldn’t survive in a blood sample for more than a couple of minutes. If you wanted to take a sample, you had to be quick. However, with modern technology, it was possible to detect traces of midi-chlorians in old samples. Thus, one could get a fair estimate of what the individual's midi-chlorian count had been.

“What happened to her?“.

“Dead as well,” his uncle said in a solemn voice with a hint of guilt. ”The family left Hyperkarn when Rey was still an infant. They lived like migrant workers, moving from system to system, never staying more than a few months in each place. What brought them to Jakku, I don’t know but I assume they were looking for work”.

Luke took a sip of his gruel before he continued.

“Before Dathan and Miralan, as they were named, died on Jakku, they left Rey in the care of a crolut merchant in Niima Outpost. He used her as a scavenger and one day, he sent her out to retrieve electric components from the reactor core of a wreck“.

”He let a small child crawl into the reactor core of a fallen Star Destroyer?”.

Wrecks from the Imperial Fleet still lay scattered all over the galaxy, and Ben himself had been forced to climb through the wreck of the Star Destroyer Scythe on Ryloth a couple of years ago. Scythe had been destroyed in 5 ABY near the border of the wild space region, and the wreckage had been pulled to Ryloth by the planet’s gravitational force. It crashed in a swamp in the large jungle on the equator. The ship’s power system had been damaged in the crash, but the fusion reactor still had fuel for years to come, and it had electrified parts of the ship, making it a death trap. 

Those wreckages were certainly no place for children… 

”Things work differently on Jakku,” Luke reminded him. ”The last one who saw Rey was a scavenger named Devi. She saw Rey enter the Star Destroyer early in the morning, and when she didn’t return the next morning, Devi and her partner went looking for her. But the girl was nowhere to be found“.

“Why did they wait until the next morning before they went looking for her?“.

“Sandstorm. The worst Jakku had seen in decades“.

Ben shook his head in disbelief. It all sounded far too unlikely to be true; Emperor Palpatine’s heir, sold to a junk dealer, forced into child labor, and dead in a sandstorm by pure neglect? 

“How can you be sure?” he asked, pinning his gaze on Luke.

“Lando found the bounty hunter dead in a desert on Paasana long before the storm, and I visited Jakku myself after it,“ Luke argued. “If there had been a force-sensitive person of that degree there, I would have felt it. However, Force-sensitive or not, the chances for a six-year-old to survive a sandstorm on its own are non-existent”.

Ben didn’t know what to answer. He had come across a few rumors on the HoloNet of an alleged heir to the Empire. But he had never believed any of them to be anything else than wild conspiracy theories. 

”I can’t… believe it’s true,” he finally said, still struggling to take in the information. 

“It is, and as sad as the death of a child always is, I still wonder if it wasn’t for the best,” Luke said.

At his uncle’s words, Ben felt his chest constrict. There it was again, the willingness to sacrifice others for the greater good. Consequentialism at its finest, deeming a hideous act such as murder to be acceptable if it resulted in a consequence deemed as positive enough for a sufficient number of other beings.

When Ben’s struggle against the Dark pivoted and Luke decided to draw his blade against him, he had been on the verge of adulthood. Still a youth in the mind, but with the strength and body of an adult. He had been strong enough to defend himself, while Rey had been a helpless child who never even stood a chance to survive on her own.

“Why?” he questioned, purely out of defiance. “Perhaps she would be nothing like the Emperor”.

“Trust me when I say the galaxy has enough problems as it is,” his uncle replied, giving Ben a scolding gaze. “The last thing we need at the moment would be the sudden appearance of a highly Force-sensitive Sith heiress”.

Chapter Text

As Ben walked through the temple’s corridors back to the library, he felt perplexed, to say the least. Rey‘s story was similar to Kira‘s, who claimed that her parents had sold her as a child. The major difference was that Rey had died in the desert, while Kira‘s grandfather had found her and saved her from a life locked in poverty, or worse — it wasn’t uncommon for children born to poor parents in the Outer Rim to be forced into child labor, sold to slavers, or worse, trafficked.

The galaxy was a cruel, merciless place in many aspects.

Luke had told him the truth, Ben was certain of that. This was an issue because Kylo hadn’t lied either, and both of them couldn't be right.

The girl couldn’t be dead and live at the same time.

It had surprised him that Luke was so convinced that the girl had died. If she truly was Palpatine’s heir, Ben imagined that she would be far too valuable for both Sith acolytes and imperial loyalists to be left on a dump like Jakku.

Regardless if she was force-sensitive or not.

“I can’t imagine that they wouldn’t have been able to find her,” Ben mused to himself. “Jakku is nothing but a junkyard. There is no place to hide there”.

Ben had been to Jakku, once. It was about six, five years ago. The Millennium Falcon had gotten stolen by some resentful spice dealers Han had ripped off in his youth. The dealers had sold the ship to a metal recycler outside Niima Outpost who had been about to strip it for parts when Han, Chewie, and Ben arrived. How they had gotten the Falcon back, Ben barely remembered. Back then, he had been freshly permitted from the clinic on Polis Massa.

Docile and drugged out of his skull.

But for some reason, he still recalled what Jakku had been like; a small, dry planet with desolate deserts filled with old wrecks. The planet had only one primal, but the heat during the days was relentless and the nights were long and cold. Just like Tatooine and other similar planets, sandstorms weren’t an uncommon sight. When a storm came, the locals made sure to stay inside and the freight ships that flew scrap metals and parts to forgeries off-world delayed their take-offs.

However, some ships could handle landing and departing in sandstorms, and if Rey had been force-sensitive, it would have been possible for a prominent force user to locate her in the wreck from a long distance. Then, a ship could have landed during the night, covered by the storm, and taken the little girl without anyone noticing.

If it even had been a real sandstorm…

Ben’s stomach clenched as he thought about the thunderstorm on Ossus the night when the temple burned to the ground. It had come from nowhere without warning. Dark ominous clouds, followed by a thunder of apocalyptic proportions. The entire ground had shaken like an earthquake when the first bolt struck the temple.

Once, Ben had thought it had been his own doing.

But it had just been an illusion — he didn’t have that kind of power. Snoke didn’t either. Not even Master Luke could do such things — despite being a living legend. He recalled that Kylo had claimed Rey was ‘the heiress of the Sith’. If she truly was a Sith, then she had a master. There were many rumors about the Sith and their mystical powers. Could a master of the Sith have the power to control the weather and conjure storms out of nothing?

Probably.

He stopped abruptly in the middle of the corridor. Like a panic attack; his heart rate picked up rapidly and like a punch in the gut without the pain, Ben lost his breath for a moment. He supported himself against the wall with one hand, rubbing his face with the other. During the last weeks with Kira, he had been feeling unusually well and the anxiety attack had caught him completely off guard. It made his chest constrict, and hands tremble, and the Force filled him with an uneasy sense that something was wrong.

Something untouchable, something ominous that lurked beyond the ever-shining sun on Coruscant.

After the anxiety had faded away, Ben let out a frustrated breath before he spun on his heel and walked back into the temple. He couldn’t leave without knowing what happened to Finn, and Kira was safe in the library and could wait a little longer, he decided. Without the padawan, he wouldn’t have gotten the breakthrough in finding chairman Ikari, and Ben’s conscience wouldn’t let him just walk away without knowing at least what had happened to him. If Luke wouldn’t tell him, then he would simply have to ask Voe herself.

Perhaps she could tell him what else he had been missing out on.

Voe lived in the female’s dorm in the eastern part of the temple. It was a long corridor with a floor made of cut, polished stone, illuminated by the light from Coruscant’s primal, which shined down through the transparisteel roof. He knocked twice on the door until the other Jedi unwillingly opened up the door.

“Solo,” Voe said, eyes flicking over his form while her mouth stretched into a thin line. “What do you want?”.

Ben sighed softly. As he had expected, Voe was not particularly happy to see him. She stood in the door opening, arms crossed over her chest defensively, and looked at him with wariness. Her hair was messy, and she wore a large, light grey robe over a white tunic and matching pants. It looked like she just had gotten out of bed, despite that it was already early afternoon.

“What happened to Finn?” he said, deciding there was no point in beating around the bush.

”It’s none of your business,” Voe glared at him. “Besides, aren’t you busy playing bodyguard to that soulless fund manager?”, she added with a small grimace. “I heard she didn’t even attend Chairman Ikari’s funeral…”.

Ben glared back at her, disappointed in her poor attempt to provoke him. They hadn’t always gotten along, but she had never been outright uncooperative either.

“It does concern me,” Ben insisted, blocking the doorway just in case she would try to smash the door shut into his face.

For as long as he had known Voe, she always used to be so proud, so sure of herself. But now, with her flickering, guilt-ridden gaze, unwillingness, and hostility, one didn’t have to be force-sensitive to figure out that something had gone very wrong during that mission.

“Tell me what happened; Finn didn’t just get lost, did he?”.

Voe sighed in defeat.

“It was my fault,” she admitted in a small voice light years away from how she normally sounded, crackling with confidence and strength.

“What?”.

“We found the chromatic ship the warden saw on Kef Bir. It was registered on a leasing company on Mygeeto,” Voe mumbled. “But when we arrived, it had been sold off, and the payment had been made from a bank on Didyma IV”.

“Let me guess, either the bank didn’t exist, or it had been closed”.

“Yes,” Voe said. “They had picked their office clean before they left, there was nothing there”.

Then she told him the story of the dusty mining town, the empty mall, and the barracks plastered with recruitment posters across the small settlement. Nearly everyone they encountered during their visit had connections to someone who had enlisted with the First Order.

“They reach out to youths from poor worlds, claiming that the New Republic doesn’t care and offer them a remedy to the chaos that they believe the Republic has created”.

“As much as we don’t like to admit it, and pretend they don’t exist, some people preferred the galaxy when it was ruled by the Empire,” Ben replied. “A lot of people didn’t see any positive impact on their lives when it fell”.

It was a bitter truth to swallow, especially for a Jedi who valued freedom and democracy. But the further you got from the core worlds, the more people you met who simply didn’t care about such things.

To a slave in Kessel’s spice mines, whenever it was the New Republic or the Empire that ruled, the galaxy didn’t matter.

Voe nodded. “I’m aware of that. Nonetheless, it’s our duty to safeguard the Republic and make sure the power never falls into the hands of fascists again. That was why I talked Finn into signing up as a soldier for the First Order”.

“I thought they were some kind of private army that operated in the Outer Rim,” Ben said as he leaned back onto the wall. “Do they really pose a threat to the Republic?”.

“That they’re just a bunch of regular contractors?” Voe said. “They might have started like that, but they developed far, far beyond a regular private army!”.

During his previous mission for Senator Maalim Guhad, Ben had seen a First Order recruitment poster at the pit fighter’s arena on an old, pirate-run space station called the ‘Outlander Station’. They targeted the ads to young human males and females with promises of education, and eventually a job as a contractor. To him, it had seemed like an ad for mercenary work, like many others, and Ben hadn’t thought about it since then.

“They’re recruiting stormtroopers,” she hissed, grabbing him by the neckline of his tunic as if she could shake some sense into him. “Don’t you get it?!”.

Ben just stared at Voe, dumbfounded. Their faces were so close that if he bent his head further down, their noses would touch. She looked back at him with wide eyes, filled with anger and fear. There were dark circles under her eyes and blood vessels stretched out over her sclera like red tendrils.

“Stormtroopers?” he hissed back at her in a low voice. “What are you talking about? There are no stormtroopers anymore!”.
Voe let out a frustrated sigh as she let go of Ben.

“I didn’t believe so at first either, but it’s true,” she admitted with apparent bitterness in her voice. ”But that was what Finn discovered once they took him to their base training camp on a moon far out in the Outer Rim. The camp was enormous, he said — and then you have to think about the fact that they have been recruiting for years”.

“It can’t be true. How could some neo-imperialists build up an army in the Outer Region without anyone noticing?”.

“I didn’t think it could be that bad either,” she replied. “But when I told Master Skywalker, he was not surprised. He even revealed that he had been aware of it for quite some time”.

Ben inhaled deeply. It took all of his discipline to not rush back up to his uncle’s office and turn it upside down in a rage.

Luke and his infernal tendency to withhold vital information.

It was like they were children; children he had to protect from reality and only when there was no choice left, he portioned out the information, little by little. Never telling them more than what was absolutely necessary.

“Did Luke at least have the courtesy to tell you from where he had gotten this information?”.

Voe nodded.

“A couple of months ago, Poe Dameron recruited Senator Xiono’s son from the Republic Navy to keep track of the First Order’s activity on Castillon. Shortly before Finn and I landed on Didyma V, Kazuda reported to your mother that he had spotted stormtroopers on the Colossus, the fuel station. The captain, Doza, had hired the stormtroopers for protection against space pirates”.

As soon as Dameron’s name left Voe’s lips, Ben immediately understood that it was his mother who had sent out Poe and Kazuda on the mission. Possibly even without authorization from the New Republic Fleet itself.

Leia might be a politician, but she was as charismatic as the most refined of cult leaders, and nobody could sway the young and idealistic as she could.

“This is bad,” Ben concluded in lack of better things to say. “When was the last you heard from Finn?”.

“You don’t have to tell me that,” Voe snorted. “He had been sent to a star destroyer. On the day he disappeared, they were preparing for a special visit. From someone called the heiress”.

Back in the library, Kira sat, or rather, half-laid across two chairs at one of the long tables. She was flipping back and forth between holograms of old battleships with a blase look on her face. When she caught sight of Ben, she quickly gathered herself into a more ladylike position with her legs folded together.

“Finally!” she almost snapped at him. “I was almost about to go and look for you!”.

“I’m sorry,” Ben apologized, taken aback by how angry she sounded. “It took a lot more time than I had anticipated”.

“I have been choking on dust here for hours,” Kira muttered as she rose from the chair and grabbed her purse. ”It’s nice outside. Can we at least take a walk to the plaza? We could take the train back to Upper City from there”.

“I... don’t see why not,” Ben replied, biting back a comment on how Coruscant always had perfect weather.

Coruscant’s upper side had everything the lower levels didn’t have; natural sunlight, better air, and clean streets. It was in the middle of the week and the plaza was full of people; citizens and tourists alike. Guards in their navy blue and gray uniforms, small surveillance droids hovering in the air. No matter in which direction you looked, all there was to see was a sea of skyscrapers in soft metallic shades glimmering in the sun.

Ben was far too occupied with his thoughts to relish in any of it, and he almost lost track of Kira in a stream of tourists when she suddenly stopped at one of the vendors selling frozen sweets.

“Sorry — did you want one too?” she said when her eyes met his scolding gaze, waving a long, green–orange spiral-shaped popsicle that reeked of pentyl valerate mixed with a hefty amount of artificial sweetener in front of him.

“I’ll pass”. Ben wrinkled his nose. “What is that even supposed to taste like?“.

“Fuji apple, horned melon, and… sweet granadilla, I believe,” Kira said as she licked the popsicle with a thoughtful gaze. “Fancy a bite?”.
He shook his head. “No, thank you”.

“More for me, then,“ she replied with a slight shrug.

They continued their stroll along a sun-drenched boulevard in silence, Kira eating her popsicle while Ben tried to puzzle his chaotic thoughts together. There was so much happening around them, so many loose pieces, and the more he tried to comprehend what was going on, the more confused he felt.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Kira commented. ”What are you thinking of?”.

”Rey Palpatine,” Ben replied flatly.

“How come?” she inquired. “It’s just a myth”.

“You know about her?”.

“A little. Last year I was on a hunting trip to Sojourn and I met a young businessman there. Makoto Saji from Shu Industries on Corellia; he was very fascinated with the Empire. He collected imperial armor, and had the full set of a purge trooper armor on display in his hallway”.

“Hideous hobby,” Ben grimaced.

“It’s not unusual,” she shrugged. “Anyway, he also told me he was funding some HoloNet show that would unfold the secrets of the Empire”.

“Conspirator theories, you mean?”.

”Sort of. There are…. plenty of theories about a secret heir to the Empire somewhere out there, he said,” she replied. “Did you know some people think the Emperor was cloned by the Kaminoians long before the battle of Endor, and that those clones were frozen down and hidden away in a secret location, just waiting for the right time to claim back the power?”.

“I sincerely doubt that an old clone who has been frozen for almost a century would be able to both reunite the old supporters of the Empire and attract enough new acolytes to threaten the New Republic,” Ben scoffed. “Besides, even if you clone a force-sensitive person, the chance for the clone to be force-sensitive is just as low as for any child born in the general population”.

“I never said anything about probability,” she replied with a huff. “I merely pointed out that the HoloNet is flooded with conspiracy theories. The story about the “Emperor’s hidden treasure on Jakku” is just one of many”.

“I know,” Ben replied wearily as he paused, rubbing his face with his hands. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.”

Rey glanced at him from the corner of her eye, noting the crease of worry on his forehead. Whatever Skywalker had told him seemed to have stirred up some deep emotions. It piqued her interest even more when he mentioned her true identity. It wasn’t a complete secret — the Republic and the Jedi had known for long that a girl named Rey Palpatine had existed.

But they thought she had died on Jakku, just like her parents.

It was a narrative that Hux and his staff at the propaganda bureau had helped spread on the HoloNet for years, along with a couple of false theories like the frozen clones, a doppelganger on Vardos, and another one about acolytes salvaging the Emperor’s body and turn him into a cyborg like Vader, to mention a few.

After walking for another twenty minutes, they sat down at the flat edge of an enormous, circular fountain outside one of the countless terminals in the Senate District. The soothing, rippling sound from the water gave a false sense of nature and Rey leaned back her head, letting the rays from Coruscant’s primal warm her face. Ben sat beside her with crossed legs, looking at the stream of people from the terminal with a dark gaze. His eyes flicked from side to side, as if he expected the Knights of Ren to show up among the afternoon commuters any minute. Rey watched him out of the corner of her eye, sensing his unease.

“You really are in a mood today,” she observed after a moment, feeling the need to break the awkward silence that had descended between them. “Would you feel better if we went somewhere else?”

Ben turned to her, his expression guarded. “What do you mean by that?”

“I was just thinking,” Rey started, fiddling with the hem of her dress. “I just thought it could be nice. It feels like we have been locked up in the Financial District for ages”.

Ben looked at her for a long moment before sighing and relaxing his posture a little. “Where were you thinking of going?”

“My estate agent bought a property for me outside of Theed a while ago. I haven’t had a chance to see it in person yet”.

“Theed?” Ben’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Naboo’s capital city?”.

Rey nodded, feeling her pulse quicken. She knew it was a long shot, and if he turned her down, it would be a major setback. A setback her thin patience didn’t want to deal with the slightest.

“It’s almost summer there now,” she added, putting on her most persuasive smile. “It would be nice with some natural weather for a change.”
Ben studied her for a long moment, his gaze inscrutable.

“I don’t know,” he said at last, his voice low. “Maybe it’s a good idea”.

Rey smiled. “You won’t be disappointed, I promise”.

While she was smiling on the outside, Rey felt a twinge of guilt for manipulating him, but she pushed it aside. It was a crucial move in her plan to turn him to the dark, allowing her to nurture the seeds of doubt she had planted in his mind, far away from the influence of the other Jedi.

There, I can finally show you who you really are.

A man full of rage, full of fire.

“We should get back,” Ben said as he rose from his spot.

Rey nodded as she followed suit and followed the Jedi into the glass dome of the train station. The trains in the upper districts of Coruscant were mostly sleek, repulsor-powered hover-trains. When they made their way over the sky, the trains looked like enormous caterpillars made of brown, shimmering metal.'

As Ben and Rey reached the platform for the departures to the Financial District, the stream of commuters had thinned out and only a few other passengers were waiting on the platform. Their train arrived a couple of minutes later and the pair made their way towards the back and took a seat in one of the cars. The interior was sparsely decorated with minimalistic beige seats, which matched the color scheme of the rest of the train. Small, circular lights on the roof emitted a soft, blue glow that added to the train’s ambiance.

“I’m worried for my friends,” Ben revealed as leaned his head against the window, gazing out over the afternoon traffic. “One of the padawans disappeared recently, and... I don’t know what to make off it”.

Rey bit her lip.

At the moment, Finn, or FN-2187 as he now was named, was currently mining carbonite three kilometers under Kijimi’s deep frozen surface. She had made sure to place the young Jedi at one of the mines in the middle of the planet’s most hostile region under strict surveillance by guards Rey had personally picked out due to their ability to withstand mind tricks. On top of that, the First Order had arranged a blockade around the planet and nobody could leave nor enter Kijimi without permission.

“I’m sad to hear that,” Rey mumbled, avoiding his gaze. “Hopefully, he’ll resurface soon.”

Ben nodded. “I hope so, too,” he replied with a hint of uncertainty in his voice.

As they sat on the train in silence, Rey couldn’t help but feel the gravity of the situation. Ben’s concern for his missing friend was palpable, and the New Republic had started to become aware of the First Order’s activities. If the Senate grew worried enough to take counter-measures, they might involve the Jedi Order. If that happened, Skywalker could come to his senses and call Ben back.

With a sigh, Rey rested her head on Ben’s shoulder and closed her eyes.

The next morning, Ben stood at the panorama window on the upper floor, savoring his morning tea as he gazed out at the impressive view of Upper City. The white clouds lay like a fluffy veil between the skyscrapers, and their smooth, metallic surfaces almost seemed to glow in the morning sun.
Suddenly, a sleek, bronze-colored ship descended from the veil. Slowly, it lowered its altitude, clearly piloted by a droid, until it carefully landed on the clover-shaped, white landing platform. Ben watched as the ship’s hatch opened, but no one emerged. He frowned at the sight before he finished his tea in one gulp and made his way down to Kira’s room.

“A ship just landed outside,” he said. “Is it yours?”.

“It’s our ride to Naboo,” she said, flashing him a smile as she tried to close an overstuffed travel case by force. On her bed, there were two similar cases which were already packed and secured tightly with straps.  “You better start packing”.

“I’m already done”.

One of the perks of being a Jedi and having nothing but a few possessions was that he could pack all his belongings within ten minutes.

“Excellent,” Kira grunted as she secured her last case with an extra pair of straps. “I’m done, too. Let’s go”.

“Welcome aboard, sentinents!” a droid chimed as they stepped into the cockpit. “Thank you for choosing Kwilaan Starship Charter. I am RX-255, your pilot for this trip. Please take a seat and….".

”There is no need for that,” Kira interrupted. ”I’ll pilot. You can just sit back and relax”.

“I didn’t know you could fly,” Ben said, genuinely surprised as she slumped down on the pilot’s seat and unplugged the droid from the controls. It then rolled back to the passenger area of the ship and entered power save mode with a low buzz.

“I’m a never-ending box of surprises,” she said, giving him a small grin. “Flight simulators are available on almost all planets. If you’re interested and have the talent for it, it’s a skill that even the poor can learn”.

Han had lived on the streets of Corellia after running away from his deadbeat dad and learned to fly. From there, the step wasn’t that far to learn to pilot actual spaceships. Han had probably learned a thing or two from his days as an imperial cadet, too, even if that was something he would never admit.

“You’re not wrong about that,” Ben agreed as he leaned back into the co-pilot's seat. The seats in the cockpit were made of elegant, white flux leather with matched the ship's luxurious, yet simple interior. It was obvious that the ship was designed to take the wealthy on shorter tours; it lacked weapon systems and relied on its speed, and powerful deflector shield for protection.

”This flight won’t be much of an adventure, though. We can take the Hydian Way to Malastare, and from there, we’ll fly directly to Naboo. We should be there before dinner local time tomorrow,” Kira said as she tapped on the ship’s mainframe computer.

Ben nodded. The Hydian Way was a well-known hyperroute that stretched all the way from the core worlds to Polis Massa. After its crossing with the Corellian Trade Spine, it continued through uncharted territories, and nobody when where it ended.

”Sounds reasonable,” he said.

Although Kira appeared confident in her actions, Ben could tell that she wasn’t entirely comfortable with this particular spaceship model. He suspected that it wasn’t one she flew regularly.

”So… Where is your actual ship?”.

“My… ship?” she said, giving him a puzzled gaze.

”You’ve done this before,” he pointed out. “Don’t tell me you don’t have a ship of your own”.

”I do, actually, but it’s on… Vardos at the moment,” she revealed with a soft sigh. ”It’s quite an eye-catching ship, and after my father was murdered… I was afraid, and I thought I’d keep a low profile. A friend of mine is taking care of it. It’s an old yacht from Sienar”.

Ben nodded, letting his mouth morph into a small smirk.

Of course, her ship was from Sienar.

Sienar Fleet Systems, nowadays known as the ’Sienar-Jaemus Fleet Systems’, was owned by the IGBC. He knew Leia had been upset a couple of years ago with them when they had split up the company into S-J Fleet Systems and S-J Weapon Systems. Leia had claimed it was a ploy to undergo the Galactic Cordance-convention so they could sell weapons to organizations blacklisted by the New Republic.

”All set,” Kira said as she angled the thrusters downward to lift the shuttle from the platform. It hovered in the air like a Chrysotum fly for a few minutes before she pulled it out in the Financial District’s afternoon traffic. “Our first stop is the Theed Spaceport. I need to collect some files and the key cards from my broker”.

The flight to Naboo went smoothly without surprises, traveling through a hyper lane, and before Ben knew it, they were granted permission to land at the Theed Spaceport. It was unusually nice for being a spaceport, Ben noticed. Clean, well-lit, with potted plants at every door opening. A fair amount of posters were plastered on the brick walls, advertising concerts, glass-art exhibitions, and poetry festivals.

“Not a single recruitment poster for the First Order, or even regular mercenary work...,” Ben thought to himself as he rested his eyes on a quirky poster with ‘Study ingenious gungan handicraft over the summer’ as the headline.

“Come,” Kira said, cocking her head at the southern entrance. “This way”.

The fabric of her loose, ombre-dyed orange dress fluttered in the light breeze as they entered the streets of Theed and it felt like he had stepped straight into a storybook; the palace, with its turquoise domes, towered over the city and red banners fluttered in the breeze. Compared to Hosnian Prime or Coruscant, the capital of Theed was a rural, romantic city. It was filled with trees, elegant fountains made of cut stone, tiled, open plazas and there were flower arrangements on nearly every facade.

On Naboo, there were no sophisticated weather-controlling systems. The sun stood high in the sky, birds chirped in the distance, and a trail of gray-blue rain clouds lurked on the horizon.

“Here it is”. Kira stopped in front of a shop, the entrance framed by fire pineapples in large terracotta pots and display windows that showed flawless holographic images of different properties. A domed mansion morphed into a small castle, which morphed into a luxury apartment with an impressive terrace.

As they stepped into the store, they were met by hardwood furniture, beige carpets, and brown, transparent glass lamps shaped like clover flowers dangling from the ceiling. The secretary glimpsed at them with fleeting anxiety, but soon a woman with long, lustrous black hair and an apricot-colored two-piece suit emerged from behind two wooden doors at the back of the room.

“Miss Ikari!” the woman said, greeting them both with a broad smile as she clasped her hands together. ”How good to see you in person again”.

”The pleasure is on my side, dear Bhattacharyya,” Kira replied, firing off a sleek smile as if she were a politician on a campaign. ”If it wasn’t for you, this opportunity might have slipped through my hands”.

”It would have been a shame. Please, come with me”.

Bhattacharyya led them into her office, a large room in warm colors; terracotta-colored brick walls, a set of chairs in teak, a hardwood desk, circular white carpets, and transparent white curtains. In a basket made of pleated water hyacinth leaves, a loth cat lay curled up into a ball, sleeping.

”Please, sit down”.

The broker motioned to the two chairs in front of the desk while she sat down behind the desk and turned on the terminal. A shiny, silvery droid entered the room and offered them spiced tea from a tray, which Kira declined and Ben accepted.

”Let’s see… I have prepared all the documents. The sale deed, the sale and purchase agreement between you and the New Republic, the possession letter, the Khata certificate, and of course, the renewed completion certificate you requested”.

While Ben drank his tea, Kira eyed through the files with an almost inhuman speed. “I was concerned about mold… and the plumbing since it’s been abandoned for so long, but the certificate seems to be in order”.

“Of course,” the broker said with an almost offended look on her face. “I can assure you our property inspector has done a thorough job”.

Once she was happy with the certificates and legal files, Kira continued to examine the floor plan of the building. The desk terminal had produced a complete three-dimensional of the building which allowed her to see the floor plan of every room. 

“I need a terrarium for my pet snake,” Kira added as she enlarged the plan. “Perhaps in the living room on the entrance floor… Could you arrange that?”.

Bhattacharyya nodded. “I’ll see to it, is there anything else you would like?”.

Kira shook her head as she rose from the table. “Not for the moment, no”.

“As usual, it’s a pleasure working with you,” the woman said as she pressed two keycards into Kira’s hand. “Do not hesitate to give us a call if you have any issues with the property”.

Kira nodded and bid the broker farewell with a soft bow. ”Of course, thank you”.

As soon as they had left the broker’s office and stepped back into the street, a light rain started to fall over the city. On their way back to the spaceport, they passed by vendors and market stalls, selling trinkets to tourists, that had begun to pack up for the day. Drops of rain dotted the ground beneath them, and the sound of their footsteps echoed on the stone streets almost in sync with the rhythm of the rain, which grew heavier as they approached the terminal.

Back in the shuttle, Kira entered the coordinates from the broker into the ship’s mainframe and calculated a route for the last part of their journey.

”Let me see..,” she mumbled as she examined the map over the remote areas outside of Theed. “It will take about two hours to reach our final destination”.

”Is it still a secret?” Ben gave her a tired look.

”Not at all. I dare to guess that you have been there before,” the fund manager said in an amused voice as she powered up the ship. ”Your maternal grandmother’s family still owns land there”.

”The Lake Country?” Ben frowned. “I’ve never been there before”.

”No?” She raised a curious brow.

He shook his head. ”No“.

Kira gave him a strange gaze. “Hard to believe”.

“It is true”.

Leia had always regarded the Organa family as her true family, despite being biologically related to the Naberries through her mother Padme, and the situation was the same for Luke, who had grown up with the Lars family on Tatooine. Thus, neither of them had forged any natural connection with their distant relatives. As far as Ben knew, they had never bothered to keep in touch or reach out to the remaining Naberries.

They flew over farmlands that lapsed into a dense belt of green forests and a river that derived from Lake Varykino. Eventually, the forests turned into an enormous marshland surrounding a set of smaller lakes. After roughly a half hour, the scenery switched again; back to woods and low mountains covered by lush foliage. When they had passed the hills, the landscape opened up into marshlands again. Kira followed the large river until they reached the river mouth.

Beyond it, the Lake Country lay, surrounded by a chain of mountains and forests.

”Since you’re not familiar with Naboo, let me educate you,” Kira said. “The land of the Lake Country is divided between the noble families of Naboo; the Naberries, Veruna, Tapalo, and Prendergast, to mention a few”.

Ben nodded as he peered out of the window. Beneath them, the lake lay like a mirror, and in the distance, he spotted the lush green island of Varykino and the Naberries’ castle-like villa. The villa lay on a cliff right by the water; built of sand-colored bricks with roofs of copper alloy that had turned mint-green over the years.

”We’re not going to Varykino, are we?” Ben said, glaring at her. “I told you, I don’t know those people”.

“No, that wasn’t part of my plan,” Kira chuckled, the amusement apparent in her voice. “Though, I suppose we could if you want to. Your uncle’s cousins, Ryoo and Pooja, and their families usually stay there during the summers, I’ve heard”.

“Since you have an extraordinary ability to get your way; maybe they will invite you over for a cup of tea,” he replied dryly. “Then you can sit down with them and gossip about my family”.

Kira suddenly lowered the shuttle and drove it in a half-circle around the island, causing a splash of water near the villa.

“Let us not forget our manners because we have left Coruscant, shall we?” she snickered softly.

With those words, Kira maneuvered the shuttle away from Varykino, setting course against the eastern shore. The closer to the shore they came, the thicker the layer of mist on the surface became. Eventually, it grew thick enough to trigger the shuttle’s mainframe alarm for low visibility.

“And now?” Ben asked, curious to see what she would do.

“Don’t worry about the mist,” Kira replied as she brought down the shuttle. “We’re almost there”.

The shuttle dived into the mist, and for a second, all he could see was white. Kira seemed unconcerned, and as the shuttle lost altitude, the mist cleared up again. They had reached the shore, and just above it, Ben spotted a large building in the same classical design as the palace in Theed and the Naberries’ villa on the island.
The villa stood tall among the trees, built with sand-colored bricks with towers and domes out of copper alloy. As they came closer, Ben saw that it was surrounded by a wide garden that bordered the lake and there was a large terrace with a view over an ellipse-shaped swimming pool.

“Finally.” Kira let out a relieved breath as she stepped out of the shuttle. “I knew Bhattacharya said it was located ‘remotely’, but this is certainly the middle of nowhere…”.

“If you’re used to the core worlds, yes,” Ben replied as he looked around. The building was nothing less than majestic — it was certainly a residence fit for the rich and the powerful. The location was not as desirable as the Villa on Varykino, but the property itself certainly held the same standard. It must have cost a lesser fortune…

“Who did you say you bought this from?” he asked as they walked down from the landing platform to the entrance.

“The New Republic,” Kira replied as she gazed at the building. “Bhattacharyya bought it for me at an executive auction three months ago”.

“Was it confiscated by the Republic?”

“No, but the former owner had been… collaborating with the Empire. The war tribunal ruled that he was to pay a hefty compensation for the damage he had done,” Kira explained. ”But when the economic recession struck, he began to have financial troubles, and then the New Republic seized the property and sold it on auction…”.

“I see,” Ben replied.

The stairs were overgrown by vicious tendrils of poison ivy, the flower beds rampart, and it was obvious that the garden had been left unattended for years. The woods that surrounded the property were calm and quiet, with only a rustle of leaves in the light breeze and the buzzing sound of a droid that worked feverishly to restore the garden.

As Kira opened the entrance doors, the sight of a long, dark hallway greeted them. It was decorated with a long, red carpet, and the smell of chlorine filled their noses. Kira had been right; the place had been abandoned for quite some time. The interior, with its old-fashioned decorations and the hand-painted art on the walls, looked nothing less than ancient. The walls were adorned with brass sconces and several old hunting trophies, while stone statues and traditional armor from the Naboo Royal Guard were displayed along the walls.

“What is this place?” Ben asked. ”They must have built it way before the clone wars…”.

“This villa was once the primary residence of the older noble families,” Kira replied as she cocked her head at a large portrait of a tall, elderly, silver-haired man and his wife, surrounded by five red-haired children with freckles. “An old legend said that Naboo was once protected by six impenetrable gates that held back the chaos. This family belonged to one of those dynasties…”.

“Six impenetrable gates?” Ben said as he examined the portrait. “Who were they?”.

It was embarrassing to admit it, but he was almost clueless when it came to Naboo.

As far as he knew, it was a small, rather insignificant planet. He knew only about Theed Palace Engineering Corps and the pod racing track near the palace, besides the plasma export. It might have been the home planet of his grandmother, but just as with their cousins, neither Luke nor Leia had shown any interest in Naboo.

“Cosinga Palpatine and his family,” Kira revealed, almost with reverence, as she looked at the portrait with something sad in her gaze. “And thus, this is the house of Palpatine”. 

Chapter Text

Palpatine?

“You can’t be serious,” Ben said, bewildered. “Is this…. Did they live here?”.

“Yes.” Kira gave him a slight grin, amused by his shock. ”The villa was owned by the Palpatine family until Cosinga’s death in 65 BBY”.

Ben shook his head in disbelief. It was hard to fathom. Everybody knew Palpatine had once been the senator of Naboo, so of course, he was from Naboo. 

But still… 

When people spoke of him, especially those who had been active in the Rebellion, it sounded like he had been a soulless demon from the netherworld and not a man of flesh and blood who once had a family. 

“They were a patriarchal family,” she continued as they walked through the hallway. “The eldest son always inherited the father. However, Sheev Palpatine sold it almost a century ago, and the new owner sought to transform it into a conference hotel”.

“A hotel?” Ben scoffed softly. ”Here?”.

“It didn’t go well,” Kira revealed. ”The reconstruction was so riddled with accidents that the new owner eventually put the project on hold. After ten years without progress, he sold it. The new owner did the same thing. After the war, the third owner sought to turn it into a museum, but couldn’t afford to go through with it”.

“I would lie if I said I’m surprised to hear that,” he replied as they stepped into the next room.

The room turned out to be a large living room; antique furniture hidden under white covers, a crystal chandelier made of brass hanging over the massive hardwood table. A large, open fireplace, carved out of a marble-like material with golden streaks. Thick, inquisitive woven mats laid on the beige stone floor, and blood-red, long curtains hung from the brass-colored curtain rods.

The smell of chemical cleaner mixed with the telltale scent of old textiles and stale air revealed that it had been a very long time since someone had lived there.

“This reminds me more of a… museum than a hotel or a resort,” Ben mused to himself as he looked around the grand living room. 

While the estate itself would be fit for a resort, the villa had the air of something dark and eerie, like the Black Forest on Kashyyk, a forest the Wookies believed to be haunted by evil spirits. When speaking about spirits, despite being cut off from the Force, Ben felt as if the spirits of the Palpatine family still were present. They had never been a happy family, and their distrust, sorrow, and anger still lingered between the walls like an omnious aura. 

“Why did you buy it?” he asked, turning back to Kira. “I thought you were a fund manager, not a real estate investor”.

She gave him an amused grin, hazel eyes glittering, and Ben couldn’t help but wonder if Kira possibly was the least force-sensitive person he had ever met. Even Han, who was as force-sensitive as a brick, would have felt at least a little uneasy.

 “You Jedis aren’t much for worldly things like finances, are you?”.

“It’s a truth with modification,” he replied dryly. “We’re taught basic economics and bookkeeping”.

“Allow me to teach you something new, then,“ she said, still grinning. “It’s important to diversify assets. Place everything in funds, or the stock market and you can lose it all over a night — if you’re unlucky. Properties are historically a stable alternative”. 

Ben nodded in silence. He couldn’t argue with that. Except for the lavish apartment on Hosnian Prime, Leia still owned the apartment they had lived in during Ben’s childhood on Chandrila. She also had some smaller properties in former colonies that had belonged to Alderaan. 

But the childhood home of the old Emperor wasn’t just any house.

“What are you going to do with it?” he asked. “Try your luck in the hotel business as well?”.

“I don’t know yet,” Kira admitted with a small grimace as she ran her finger along the dusty frame above the fireplace. “Cleaning it properly comes first. Then I’m going to demand a partial refund from the cleaning company — they promised me it would be spotless”.

Ben snickered softly at Kira’s pettiness. A speck of dust here or there wasn’t anything to argue about in his book, even if he preferred his surroundings to be neat and clean.

“They turned my grandfather’s childhood home into a tourist attraction on Tatooine,” he revealed. ”For the equivalent of two Republican credits, you’ll get a guided tour through the house and a peek into what used to be his owner’s workshop”.

His feelings about his infamous grandfather were ambiguous, to say the least, but Ben had always felt sympathy toward the slave boy Anakin once had been, and in that aspect, he found it disturbing that they had turned his home into a tourist trap.

Kira gave him a wicked smile. 

“Maybe we should start a business together and offer package prices, then? Experience the childhood homes of Darth Vader and the Emperor, pay for one”.

“Very funny,” Ben commented dryly. “I can see why the IGBC hired you”.

He sank down on one of the stiff, red leather sofas in the middle of the room, letting his gaze travel around the room. Paintings, statues, glass sculptures and trophies. Bookshelves filled with dusty paper books. An old-fashioned oil painting of a red-haired man with a stern gaze, full of disdain, hung on the wall over the desk. 

Ben turned his gaze back to Kira, who was ransacking one of the cabinets. With the gaze of a child who had found a new, shiny toy, she examined the contents of the drawers, picking among Cosinga’s old stationery, seals, holodisks, personal letters, and trinkets.

“He had a mistress,” Kira giggled with excitement as she eyed through a yellowed letter. “And not just anyone; she was the sister of Bon Tapalo, the king himself! How scandalous…”.

“The family… How did they die?” Ben asked. 

“How did they die?” Kira’s smile vanished in an instant, and she put the letter back into the drawer. “Their ship exploded somewhere along the Hydian Way, killing the entire family, their servants, and bodyguards. All except Sheev, of course, who was studying on Chandrila at the time. Or so they say at least…”.

“It exploded, just like that?” Ben raised an eyebrow. “What kind of ship was it?” 

“I don’t know,” she replied with a thoughtful gaze. ”But maybe we can find out…”. 

With those words, Kira walked up to the stationery terminal on the stone desk in the corner. She pulled out the antique office chair and sat down at the hardwood desk with her legs neatly folded.

”Let’s see if the ship’s data is still available…,” she mumbled to herself. It took her a couple of minutes, but eventually, the terminal produced a shaky hologram of a crimson red, sleek yacht, decorated with the Palpatine family’s crest.

“There it is!” Kira exclaimed as she tried to stabilize the hologram. ”Dolovite-alloy… That’s highly unusual. It must have been custom-made for the Palpatine family by the Theed Palace Space Vessel Engineering Corps“.

“It seems so,” Ben said as he leaned into the desk to get a better look at the hologram. “Such a shame it got torn into pieces”.

It had truly been a majestic ship, similar to the one his grandmother had used during her time as queen, but without the chromatic hull.

They spent almost thirty minutes exploring the terminal, which contained old records, protocols for the household droid, and saved transmissions. Kira fiddled with the droid protocols, increasing the time they spent cleaning and adding gardening to the schedule of another.

“It’s a protocol droid,” Kira mumbled to herself. “But it has arms, so it should be able to help out with the pruning…”.

“Probably. As long as you’re not too picky about how, or what it prunes”.

At his words, her mouth curled into a grin. “It can hardly be worse than it is. Let’s continue the tour, shall we?” Kira said as she got up from the chair and grabbed his hand.

Ben nodded.

With big eyes, he followed Kira as she guided him through the mansion. It was like walking through a living museum — bizarre, creepy, and fascinating at the same time.

The property was larger than he first thought; it had several floors, and everything one could wish for; pool, garden, hangar. Droids scrambled through the corridors with cleaning supplies, and an old circular droid cleaned the long red carpets at a slow pace. Some rooms stood empty, some seemed almost untouched, and some had furniture covered in white, thin drapes. 

“Is it all original?” he asked as he peered into what seemed to be a tearoom.

“Not quite. Some of it is old, some is new,” Kira said as she ran a long finger over a drawer. “The former owners had stored a lot of Palpatine’s old furniture in the basement. Bachattaya’s team put back some of it that still was in good shape, and discarded some that weren’t”.

An enormous oil painting of a pod of starwhales sailing through hyperspace was framed on the wall at the end of the corridor, and beneath it, there was a glass sculpture of an aquatic sando monster, native to the deep lakes of the planet.

”They certainly spared no expenses on the decorations…,” Ben commented as he examined the sculpture. It was massive, made of clear glass with streaks of turquoise, blue, and black.

“Cosinga was a true patriot, and a man of refined taste,” Kira said as her gaze traveled from the glass monster to a piece of stonework that stood next to the door. 

“Poetry and art is what Naboo is known for. Ever heard of Omar Berenko?”.

Ben shook his head, clueless. “No”.

“How uncultivated you are, Master Jedi,” she grinned. “Looks like I got more to teach you than I first thought“.

“And here I thought you had nothing but corruption on your mind,“ Ben drawled.

He‘d meant it as a joke, but his voice came out harder than he had intended to.

“Me?“ her entire face lit up with amused delight at his accusation. “I might have shown you another path… which you willingly stepped onto,“ Kira said as she gave him a flirtatious wink before slipping behind a massive wooden door.

Upon pushing open the door, Ben found himself in yet another room with terracotta-colored walls, a high ceiling with stucco work, and a glass door that provided access to a terrace.  

“This must be the master bedroom,” Kira said as she looked at the bed with big eyes. “Have you seen anything like it before, a bed with a roof and curtains?”.

She sounded fascinated, but all Ben could think about was how utterly creepy it was to stand in the bedroom of Sheev Palpatine’s parents. 

“You’re far worse than any armor-collector I’ve met,“ Ben groaned as he glanced over the bed. It was massive; tall enough to almost reach the ceiling and carved out of the same type of wood as the desk in the living room. Just looking at it was enough to give him the chills. 

“I hope you’re not planning for us to sleep here”.

“Why?” Kira replied, looking at him with a puzzled gaze. “It’s just things. Why would you throw something away if it’s not broken? Besides, the mattress and the sheets are new,” she added with a small shrug.

“Don’t you even think it’s a bit…macabre?” Ben sighed as he watched Kira unabashedly try out the bed. With almost child-like enthusiasm, she pressed her weight up down onto the mattress and the bed protested with a mechanical squeak.

“Don’t worry. If the ghost of the Emperor comes for you during the night, I’ll protect you,” she giggled. She then started weighing up and down to test out how much power the metal springs could withstand. 

“Powerful force users actually can manifest as ghosts,” Ben sighed again as he slouched down in the antique armchair in the corner. He wasn’t genuinely worried about the prospect of Sheev Palpatine manifesting as a ghost. But, sleeping in the bedroom of the old emperor’s parents… it just felt too uncanny.

“For real?” Kira snickered. “I must send the housekeeper a message and ask if she has seen any ghosts, then”.

“I can sleep in the shuttle,” he countered in a tired voice. 

“Are you serious?” she raised an eyebrow and gave him a disappointed gaze. 

“I don’t mind — I’m a Jedi, remember?” he said dryly. “Asceticism is an integral part of our lives”.

Kira scoffed as jumped off the bed and spun around to face Ben with a rapacious gleam in her eyes. She collected the skirt fabric of her dress in her hands and walked over to Ben.

“Are you sure about that?”.

“K… Kira?” a blush spread over his face as she climbed up onto his lap, straddling him with her thighs. Despite she was as alluring as a woman possibly could be, he hadn’t even thought about sex since they had left the shuttle. 

There wasn’t anything even slightly erotic about the room, or the entire house, for that matter.

She didn’t care to answer, instead, she slanted her mouth over his in a kiss as she pressed her body against his. Hands traveling from his shoulders, tugging at the neckline of his robe to pull him closer. His hands traveled over her smooth, strong tights. A surge of heat leaped through his body and he splayed his fingers over her thighs, digging into her skin.

Kira broke the kiss to nibble at the skin of his neck. With closed eyes, Ben leaned back his head against the chair’s seat, biting back a moan. He heard her let out a soft giggle, and then she took his hand, guiding his hand down between her legs.

“Kriff, you’re crazy,” Ben groaned as he felt her wetness on his fingers. “How can you possibly get turned on in here?”.

“It doesn’t matter where we are — you do this to me,” she murmured, her breath hot against his skin. 

He didn’t doubt her, not for a minute. 

It was hard to make out in the chair, and somewhat uncomfortable. Somehow, he managed to keep Kira on his lap, holding her up with one arm around her waist and the other buried between her thighs. He rubbed his finger back and forth over her entrance, circling around it. Careful at first, slow, building up an anticipation that got her to squirm impatiently. 

Kira shuddered with a muffled cry as she came. Her body relaxed, and Kira eased her claw-like grip on his clothes with a soft sigh.

“We should look for another room to sleep in,” he said. 

Kira shook her head as she rose from the chair. “Later. We should take a shower first,” she said, looking at him with renewed energy.

Ben just blinked.

Stars, she was insatiable.

The bathroom had been renovated, thankfully. Simple white ceramic tiles without any excessive decorations or golden-girdled furniture. Utilitarian white furniture that looked like it had belonged on an old, imperial space station. The metallic hardware was old-fashioned with a tap you had to turn on the water with and another to adjust the temperature. The water itself came pouring down from a metal plate with countless small holes that were integrated into the ceiling.

“Fascinating,” Kira mused as she turned on the water. “I think it’s supposed to mimic rain…”.

”I find it more fascinating that the heating system still works..,” he replied, reaching out a hand to the water. 

A shower that mimicked rain... It was something that only could be available on sparsely populated planets with large water reserves. In most corners of the galaxy, it would be seen as an unfathomable luxury. 

“Can you try to enjoy yourself for once instead of having a bad conscience?”.

“I don’t,” he said. “I just…. You know, on some worlds, there are full-scaled wars over the scarce water reserves”.

After they had left Coruscant, Voe had sent Ben a message that she had joined another Jedi Knight, Himari Shio, and her padawan Abel to search for Finn on Garel. It was a desert planet in the Lothar System, plagued by water shortage and high rates of organized crime. Hennix, the quarren Jedi Knight Ben accidentally impaled with a piece of wood on Ossus, had written a thesis over how water scarcity had triggered conflicts on Gavel, and how the crime syndicates had used this to increase their control of the planet.

“There are, but there is nothing you can do about that here, or now”.

Kira gave him a tired look as she loosed the neck straps of her dress and let it slide down her body to form a pool of fabric around her feet. “So please, stop tormenting yourself, and try to enjoy life a little”.

It was pointless to argue against that. Ben shrugged off his robe and stripped down to join Kira under the warm spray of water. It was a delight to feel the hot water stream over his body, washing away the weird smell of cleaner and old furniture that seemed to have latched onto his skin. 

“It’s nice, isn’t it?”.

“It is,” he admitted, placing his hands on her hips. “Especially the company”.

“Good,” she said with a small grin, tracing her fingers down his chest and his abdomen until she reached his hips. “But I’ll know something you’ll like even better”.

Then, without warning, she dropped to her knees and Ben inhaled sharply, sensing what she was about to do.

Ben blushed involuntarily as a strange mixture of curiosity and shame filled his mind. Normal sex was one thing, but this seemed so much… dirty, somehow. The Jedi religion was all about purity, and yet, Ben didn’t find the thought half as off–putting as he thought he would. 

He swallowed thickly.

“Do you… really like to do that?“.

A dark gleam appeared in Kira’s eyes, and her lips curled into a wicked grin.

“Sometimes I do”.

 In the next second, he felt how Kira took him into her hot mouth. She was gentle, and careful, and he only felt the slightest scrape of teeth. He felt dizzy and Ben had to support himself with an arm braced against the tiled shower wall.

Kira alternated between running her tongue along his length, licking and sucking. Eyelids heavy, a slight blush on her face, and tiny droplets of water spread over her naked body. She had her right hand buried between her tights, as she let two of her fingers slide in and out of her pussy.

While it felt good, purely physical, the psychological effect was… nothing short of mind-blowing. 

One could have thought that after such a day, Ben would stumble into bed and fall asleep like a rock, but when the night came, he felt nothing but restless. While they had been busy exploring the upper floor and trying out the shower, Kira’s kitchen droid had made them a simple, but rustic dinner, and the household droids had prepared one of the guest rooms.

When the night came, Kira fell asleep almost immediately, but Ben remained awake at her in the dark. On the outside, the cold moonlight lit up the landscape, giving a silver shine to the gray night. The lake lay calm, blank like a mirror, and in the distance, Ben could see the weak lights from the other villas. 

Even if he didn’t know them, it was an odd feeling to be so close to his grandmother’s family, and even weirder to know that he was barely a mile away from where Anakin and Padmé were told to have gotten married. There were many theories about why the once pliable young Jedi had turned to the dark, and while most of them put the blame on Darth Sidious, some also blamed the young senator...

Eventually, Ben drifted into a light sleep. 

He dreamt of a past he never had experienced. A Naboo before the separatist crisis, before the system joined the Republic. It was spring, and the sun stood high in the sky over Theed University. and the lush parks and stately buildings that surrounded it.

Outside of the university library, in the middle of a sea of students emerging from their classrooms, a young man was standing in front of a tall, old muun. The man was tall, and gangly, with wavy red hair and blue eyes. The elderly muun was even taller and had grey, almost ashen skin, and small, yellow eyes.

The scene eventually faded into black, and voices filled the dark void.

“How would you know what’s good for me?”

Ben woke up with a sharp breath and an unfamiliar voice ringing in his ears. The air in the room had grown cold, and Ben sucked in a breath, digging his hands into the mattress to brace himself.

“Have you ever even cared?”

It wasn’t a ghost; it was the Dark. Like a selenicereus cactus, it bloomed out in the middle of the night. Ben could sense it with every fiber of his being, feel the echos of the deadly tumor that had grown in the Palpatine family. Their suppressed anger, grief, and sadness. 

“I hated you more than you know. Enough to kill you from the start”.

He turned between the sheets, waiting for it to fade away, silently berating himself. If he had known Kira would have taken him here, he would have refused without hesitation. 

“You’re an animal at heart”.

“King of the beasts, father”.

Ben lay frozen between the sheets, just letting it flow through him, and eventually, the voices of the two men faded away.

He understood that the dream had shown him the moment when the young Palpatine had met his master, Darth Plaugelis. Or the Magistrate of Damask Holdings, as he was known by the public. The friendship between the rebellious student and the magistrate had divided father and son Palpatine even deeper. A split that culminated when the patriarch revealed the ugly truth; Cosinga had known, already from the day Sheev was born, that something had been terribly wrong with his son. He hadn’t been force-sensitive, but yet he had sensed the evil that rested within his son.

Just like how your own family always knew something was wrong with you….

“No, no, no!” Ben mentally berated himself.

He was not going to listen to those traitorous thoughts. Ben closed his eyes and took a deep breath, forcing his body to relax as he cleared his mind with thoughts of empty space and nothingness. It took a while, but an inner sense of calm eventually returned to him. But the unwanted echo from the past wasn’t all that the Dark had bought with it. As soon as the darkness had faded, Ben became aware of another unwanted presence.

Kylo.

Ben gritted his teeth. He had no wish whatsoever to deal with Kylo now, and considering how strong the Dark Side of the Force seemed to be in the villa, it was probably a bad idea, too. But whether he liked it or not, it seemed like the dark knight had appeared out of Ben's dreams again. Like a poltergeist, his dark self wandered around somewhere in the building.

Ben cast an eye on Kira. She still slept peacefully at his side, completely unaffected by the surge of darkness. 

“Damn it”.

Carefully to not disturb her sleep, Ben slowly crawled out of the bed and padded out of the bedroom. Bad idea or not, he had to deal with Kylo. The hallway was pitch-black, and he almost collided with one of the old armors. It swayed dangerously, but he managed to catch it before it fell to the floor. By a miracle, the rustle didn’t seem to have woken up Kira and Ben let out a relieved breath. 

The wooden planks squeaked with each step as he walked down the stairs. Other than that, it was dead silent. Once he reached the entrance floor, Ben turned on the dimmed night lights.  

 If the mansion was creepy during the day, it was twice as bad at night. 

The night lights lit up the entrance floor in a weak, purple-red glow. It was easy on the eyes, just bright enough for one to move around without bumping into anything. 

“Where are you?” Ben mumbled. “I know you’re here!”.

After a couple of minutes, he found Kylo standing in the hallway. Casually examining the portraits with mild interest, as if he were at an art exhibition. He was pale as a ghost and dressed in black from top to toe, with a heavy hooded cloak draped over his shoulders and the gruesome mask tucked under his arm.

“You talked to Luke,” Kylo flatly said, without turning his gaze away from the portraits. “What did he say?”.

Ben let out a soft sigh. Carefully, he approached his alter-ego.

“Luke knew of Rey,” he finally admitted with a slight grimace. As much as it irked him to admit that Kylo had been right, there was no point in struggling. 

“As I told you,” the dark knight replied, grinning to himself. “Was it enough for you to drop the blinders?”.  

Ben glared at his alter-ego. “Where is she then?”.

“Rey?” Kylo said with feigned surprise. “You know where she is”.

Ben let out a frustrated sigh. Kylo was a pain to talk to, and Ben couldn’t help but wonder if he was the same, at least to one degree. Every question was constantly being answered with another question or a suggestion the fallen Jedi expected his second self to know the answer to. It was like an annoying quiz. 

“I don’t”.

Kylo scoffed nonchalantly as he reached out a gloved hand to pull a loose strand of hair away from his face. “No?”.

“No,” Ben firmly stated, with venom in his voice. “Kira isn’t force sensitive. She can’t possibly be the Sith Heiress”.

A smirk appeared on Kylo’s scared face. Ben hadn’t really thought about it before, but it was truly a hideous, unsightly scar that stemmed from a deep, deep cut.

“She’s an… extremely talented liar,” the dark knight said as he wandered along the corridor to the living room, the tattered end of his battle-worn cloak dragging across the floor. “You might have noticed — it runs in the family”.

“It’s impossible,” Ben reminded himself. The emperor had died during the battle of Endor thirty years ago, and although he was old and sick, Kira’s grandfather was still alive.

“So is the infamous ‘House of Palpatine’. I was wondering where you were,” Kylo said as he looked around the room with an amused gaze, as if finding himself in the childhood home of Darth Vader’s slayer was an interesting experience. “I’m surprised — I thought she would take you to Nur, her retreat on Sojourn, or maybe even the citadel…”.

”The citadel?”.

”On Exegol,” Kylo smirked. ”Surely you remember — you did read Luke’s secret notes without permission. That time when he left Ossus to go and chase ghosts with Lando”.

”I do,” Ben replied.

How could he have forgotten that? Luke had kept the notes in a box in his office, carelessly hidden under a pile of meditation mats. By chance, the door to Luke’s office had been open, Ben had seen the notebook stick out from the mats. It was almost like it was begging to be read. He knew very well snooping around was bad, and that he shouldn’t pry into his uncle’s things, but Ben couldn’t simply resist. 

Luke always kept all the interesting stuff to himself, and in hindsight, it had been worth it as it was the most interesting thing Ben ever had read.

The legend of Exegol, the hidden world of the Sith.

Unlike Korriban, Dromund Kaas, and the other known Sith planets, no Jedi had ever been there.

“Exegol,” Ben whispered, his mouth dry like the cracked surface of Crait. “The planet where the ancient Sith Lords Darth Noctyss and Darth Sanguis were said to have sought immortality”.

Kylo nodded in acknowledgment. 

”Her grandfather lives there. Nothing but a living, rotten corpse,” he said with a slight, unconscious grimace of disgust. ”Yet, he remains as powerful as ever. When he is dead, I’m going to lay it in ruins and bury him beneath it”.

”My grandfather is too old and sick to travel”.

He could hear Kira’s voice ring in his ears. He still remembered every word of their conversation in the cantina on Hosnian Prime. 

“It can’t be true. She can’t possibly be the….”.

Ben closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He was having a relapse and Kylo was nothing but a hallucination; there could be no other explanation. 

Throughout the last couple of weeks, Ben hadn’t been as careful with his medication as he usually was. He had skipped a couple of pills now and then. Lowered the doses of the antipsychotic on his own accord, although his shrink on Polis Massa had strictly forbidden him to do so.

In hindsight, it had probably been foolish.

When he opened his eyes, Kylo was still present, just as vivid as before. The dark knight turned his gaze back to Ben and gave him a tired look.

”Don’t even think of it,” he snorted softly. “No amount of dibenzodiazepine in the galaxy is going to make me disappear”.

‘Obviously not’, Ben thought to himself.

It had been so much easier when Kylo had been contained in his nightmare. Dealing with him as a hallucination was far harder.

“If this is true — how can you possibly know all this?” Ben demanded.

“It’s the bond, the Dyad. It leaps through time and space. She can hardly keep any secrets from me,” Kylo revealed. ”Just as I can’t keep mine from her”.

“A Dyad?” Ben snorted. “That’s nothing but an ancient legend,” he hissed in a shunned voice. “Just like the prophecy about our grandfather being the chosen one who would bring balance to the Force”.

“Why don’t you find out for yourself?” Kylo replied, and something impish flashed in his dark eyes. “Take a look inside Kira’s mind. If you’re right, just make her forget about it. But, if I’m right… ”.

“I… I can’t do that to her,” Ben protested. “It wouldn’t… It wouldn’t be fair”.

“Fair? You truly are naïve like a child,” Kylo said, tilting his head slightly to the side as he looked at his alter ego with disappointment. “It’s nothing against what she will do — to you”.

Chapter Text

It was long ago since Rey had slept so well. The Dark Side was strong in the villa, strong on the entire estate. The house of Palpatine was like a black spot in the otherwise so idyllic Lake Country. A dark, delightful black spot. No matter where she was, whenever Rey felt its pull, the magnetism. She felt at home. It gave her energy, fed her power, and protected her from the light. 

On Hosnian Prime, and even more so on Coruscant, she had felt the pull of the Light. It irked day and night alike. The worst was that infernal Jedi girl. She usually rested deep, deep within her mind, but she had a nasty tendency to come alive when Rey stayed too long in the light.

But on Naboo, it was as if the Dark and her ancestor had woven a protective cocoon around her.

Rey sat up and stretched out her arms over her head with a yawn. The curtains were thin and the beams of the morning sun filled the room. The window was slightly open to let in air. It was a delight to be so close to nature and to breathe fresh air again after months of filtered air on the core worlds. In the distance, she could even hear the calls of the birds in the woods. 

At her side, Ben lay buried between the sheets, sleeping like a nerf under anesthesia. She reached out a hand, pulling it through his raven-black wavy hair. He had such beautiful, though wild hair. Truly worthy of the prince he could have been, should Alderaan not have been annihilated.

“Hey… You want to get breakfast?”.

Ben mumbled something inaudible, turned over the other side, and pulled the cover over his head. She gave him a soft smirk as she shrugged on a sleek, dark robe.

“Perhaps later”.

Her droids had done a good job cleaning, Rey mused to herself as she walked down the stairs. The odd smell of chemical cleaner had almost disappeared completely. If she left the doors to the terrace open for a day or two, it would be enough to vent out the last lingering smell. 

With a snap of her fingers, the glass doors to the terrace parted.

Rey turned around, hands on her hips, and cast a long gaze over the living room. It was undeniably old-fashioned, and much more so than Senator Trell’s apartment ever had been. Her eyes landed on the skull of a stuffed fyrnock from Anaxes. Its empty porcelain eyes seemed to meet hers, prompting her to ponder relocating the trophies to the basement.

“What do you think?” she asked the flat floor-cleaning droid. “Should we bid farewell to the trophies? I appreciate keepsakes, but the appeal of dead beasts staring at me eludes me.”

When the droid didn't answer, Rey simply shrugged her shoulders and walked over to the table where her kitchen droid had left her breakfast. Proper breakfast; black tea with lemon slices, toast with Muja fruit marmalade, with pudding for dessert. All served on a large silver plate. Rey took a bite of the toast as she poured herself a large cup of tea and pushed two pieces of pudding over to a small dish plate. Satisfied, she sunk down onto one of the red velvet sofas.

Hopefully, Ben would be full of energy once he was awake, because she was aching to feel him inside her again. Being fucked until she was light-headed and her body felt like jelly. It was addictive, that feeling of breathless bliss. 

Ben had gotten better faster than she had dared to anticipate. He still had much to learn, but considering how well it went yesterday, Rey was eager to continue.

And once she’d turned him, it would be even better.

Rey closed her eyes, and leaned back her head against the sofa’s hand-carved headrest. Oh, Ben... He was so sweet and gentle, and the way he looked at her, it was like she was his personal salvation. 

She had him right where she wanted him. Just a few more weeks AND he would be ready. All Rey had to do was keep him calm. Distracted enough to prevent him from realizing the transformation happening within him; that he was slowly, unconsciously drowning in the dark.

A subtle discomfort pricked at her ribcage, and Rey winced at the unwelcome sensation. Was it anxiety, a pang of guilt?

“No,” she mumbled to herself. “I don’t feel those things, especially not here.”

Yet, the persistent, albeit dull, pain remained. Rey attempted to shift her focus, allowing her gaze to wander around the room until it settled on two old-fashioned swords mounted on the wall.

A relic from the old Plasma Wars.

Long ago, the gungans of Naboo fought against a foreign mercenary army. Despite heavy losses, the native amphibians had managed to hold their ground against the intruders. Sometime after the war, Cosinga’s grandfather found out that the two of the other royal houses, Tapalo and Veruna, had funded the foreign army. By doing so, they had hoped could take control over the territory and extract the valuable plasma. 

To bring justice, he challenged the patriarch of the Tapalo family to death on the terrace. Palpatine fought bravely but lost and died from the wounds inflicted by his opponent.

Cosinga had eventually inherited the dueling swords, and mounted them in the living room for all visitors to see. A token of House Palpatine’s courage and dedication to justice, just as much as it was a piece of Naboo’s modern history.

She had another cup of tea and enjoyed some sticky toffee pudding while daydreaming about the glory days of House Palpatine, nearly two centuries ago. How it would have been to grow up with them instead of a life on the run with her alcohol-addicted parents who eventually abandoned her to a life in poverty on Jakku.

Eventually, it got too much. Rey didn’t see herself as an emotional person, but if there was something that could bring her to tears, it was the thoughts of her family.

The past still had her in a mental chokehold, whether she liked it or not. 

She left the pudding half-eaten on the plate as she went outside, still clad in her short, silky nightgown and matching robe.

Rey strolled through the garden barefoot. It was still early enough for the grass to be covered in morning dew. For someone who had grown up on dark space stations, unforgiving mining worlds, and in the relentless desert on Jakku, there was something almost magical about water and grass. The gardening droid was pruning a large, wild-grown bush with glossy, green leaves. When it caught sight of Rey, it let out a series of inconsistent beeps, pointing to the eastern end of the garden where the protocol droid struggled to get poison ivy under control with a manual hedge trimmer. 

“Don’t fret about it,” she comforted the gardening droid. “It’s not the Royal Palace Garden in Theed. It doesn’t have to be perfect”.

There were quite a few statues in the garden, too. Stoneworks, overgrown with green, plush moss. Rey brushed away the moss from the face of one of them.

Were they mythological figures, or historical persons from the time the first human pioneers landed on Naboo? 

With the state that they were in, it was impossible to tell.

Rey turned her gaze back to the villa, and a sense of melancholy struck her as she gazed over the property and the lawn that bordered to the veranda where the legendary duel had taken place.

“They did really love this planet..,” Rey quietly mused to herself. “Enough to die for it, and yet grandfather thought so little of his own family”.

Her grandfather had never felt anything but contempt for his family, but to Rey, they gave her a sense of matter, of belonging. Even if they were long done, they were her family, her blood. 

With them, she was like a link in an ancient chain. A chain her grandfather so thoughtlessly had broken and refused to be a part of.

Lost in her thoughts, Rey continued her stroll through the garden, circling the property until she reached the hangar. The smooth stone was cold under her feet as she walked down the stairs. It was dark and the further she got, the colder it became. Spiders climbed along the walls and tiny droplets of water stuck to the porous surface like tears. At the bottom of the stairs, there was a heavy metal door.

Rey swept her fingers over the keypad and the door slid open to the hanger.

The hangar itself was shaped like a circle. The walls were made of concrete and the roof was made of thick metal that could open up like the petals of a two-dimensional flower. Markings on the floor revealed where the family yacht once had stood. The tool cabinets, the shelves, it all had been cleared out. All that was left was a pile of dusty brown boxes in the corner of the storage.

“Spare parts for a repulsor-lift engine from SoroSuub Corp on Sullust,” Rey mumbled to herself as she examined the dry, old package slip. “Still wrapped in plastic and all..,” Rey mumbled to herself.

There wasn’t much else to see in the hangar, so Rey returned to the surface and walked back to the villa the same way that she had come from. The weather had cleared up again, and the primal cast its warm rays over the garden.

“Maybe I should try out the pool…” Rey mused as she looked down at the pool area from the terrace. She was feeling hot, and it looked clean enough. There were a couple of leaves floating around in the bright blue water, but no visible signs of algae or pests. 

On the upper floor, Ben stirred awake between the orange sheets. He hadn’t slept well and his head felt heavy like a rock. His usual headache had found its way back, and judging by the harsh sunlight that teased his eyes, it was already way past lunch.

He opened one sleepy eye and found the bed to be empty, Kira had already gone up. Ben let out a disappointed sigh, just for how long had he slept? He didn’t even remember when he went back to bed…

Ben pushed himself off the bed and padded over to the nearest bathroom. He stopped at the sink, turned on the water faucet, and splashed the cold water into his face. 

What had happened last night, had Kylo actually been there? The dark knight had looked so real, and in hindsight, Ben regretted that he hadn't reached out and tried to touch the other man. It would have been an easy way to determine if Kylo had been real or not.

Rumors said the witches of Dathomir could summon demons from the Netherworlds.

How wonderful it would have been if it turned out that his nightmares and now recent hallucinations about Kylo were just the result of a demon possessing him. Then he could have just followed Chewie to Kashyyyk and let the tribe shaman drive him away…

”Demon possession, Ben? You’re getting disillusioned for real now. If I were you, I’d start taking those antipsychotic drugs again”.

Ben gripped the sink with both of his hands and exhaled deeply. It was all getting too much. Kylo in the flesh, his talk about a dyad, a magical bond between himself and the Sith heiress, forged by the Force itself...

As much as Ben hated to admit that it made sense somehow, he also refused to believe it was true. It just seemed so incredibly far-fetched; that they, the offsprings of Darth Sidious and Darth would be connected by a mythological force-connection. 

“It sounds like something Lor San Tekka and his cultists on Jakku would come up with. Or something ripped out of a storybook,” Ben snorted to himself. “It’s nothing but pure nonsense”.

Just like the old rumor that Anakin Skywalker had been conceived by the Force itself to bring balance to the Force.

Ben believed none of that either. As gifted as he was with the Force, he was also a rational person and some things were just not physically possible. 

Anakin’s mother Shmi had probably been raped and dealt with the trauma by making up her own reality that she had gotten pregnant without the involvement of a man. 

Rey laid a float in the swimming pool. Caught between the cool water and the warming rays of the sun. She had her eyes closed, just enjoying the silence and the sensation of being surrounded by water again.

Suddenly, the sunrays faded and Rey peered up at the sky. Seemingly out of nowhere, gray clouds had appeared, blocking the morning sun. A chill traveled through her body and the water immediately felt cooler, the air brisker now when the warmth of the sun faded away.

"Grandfather".

Even though Darth Sidious was lightyears away, Rey could feel him — feel his suffering, his impatience.

His power.  

Such was the strength of Darth Sidious and the Dark Side.  

”You should not be doing this,” Rey softly scolded him. ”Save your strength”. 

“I’m simply worried about you, my dear girl,” he murmured back. “You have been away too long. Again”.  

“There is no need for you to worry,” she replied in a calm voice. “Thanks to Armitage Hux’s efforts, the Starkiller base on Illum is ready for battle, and our fleet will be prepared if the Republic is foolish enough to engage”.

She knew that Sidious already was aware of the good news that Hux had managed to do what his father could not, and in addition to that, the first of the new Xyon-class Star Destroyers had joined the First Order fleet a mere week ago. But none of that was his concern. No, he was worried about her. Or more specifically worried about what she was doing. Despite her effort to keep a low profile, Sidious knew about her acquaintance with Solo, and if Rey knew her grandfather right, he had at least an inkling of what her endgame with the conflicted Jedi Knight was.

“You managed to lure Solo away from the other Jedis on Coruscant… to what once was my home”. 

“The estate is my birthright, don’t you agree?” Rey replied. “Besides, I found…”.

“I don’t care about my pathetic father’s house,” Sidious snapped, breaking his loving facade. 

It seldom lasted long, she knew that by experience. Rey shivered unwillingly at the venom in his voice before she could steel herself. Her grandfather might be the most powerful man in the galaxy, but she refused to be intimidated.

“Skywalker is old, his mind clouded, and none of his other apprentices compare to Solo,” Rey retorted. “If I can turn him, the Jedi Order will no longer pose a threat to the First Order’s expansion”.

It wasn’t her main purpose, but it was a valid purpose nonetheless. One Sidious couldn’t argue with. But Sidious snorted softly, clearly unimpressed.

“Foolish girl; did you ever wonder why I instructed Snoke to cease his work with the boy?” he scolded her. ”Once, I thought his being, equally split between the Dark and the Light, could be an asset. I was wrong”. 

“It can still be done,” Rey said slowly, refusing to back down. “Jedi Knights with a deeper connection to the Light have fallen before”.

”Solo is volatile, like mercury,” he continued, his voice stern and obvious to her arguments. “I have foreseen it — he cannot be trusted“. 

”Do you doubt my abilities?”. 

“No,” Sidious said in a softer voice. “I am simply warning you, my dear child. You might be able to control him at the moment, but should he turn, there is no telling“. 

”I’m in control,” Rey argued, refusing to step down despite knowing that she was out on thin ice. False bravado was her middle name; she had always been like that. It didn’t matter if she was shivering by fear on the inside, she could still put a brave and confident facade on the outside.

“Are you?” Sidious chuckled. “Think of it as water, as the oceans you love so dearly“. 

As he spoke, Rey noticed how a leaf from a nearby willow tree singled down from the sky to land in the water beside her. The leaf had a slight curve to its edges, and it floated like a small boat on the water's surface.

“One moment, it’s calm and you think you are safe, but in the next…”. 

Before Rey could react, a strong gust of wind appeared out of nowhere. It swept over the pool, causing the water to ripple into currents that were strong enough to pull the unprepared Rey under the surface. In an instant, it was like the water had gotten a life of its own. The pool was deep; it was almost four meters to the bottom, well enough for Sidious to keep Rey helplessly tumbling in the water. No matter how hard she fought, Rey couldn’t make it to the surface. It was like swimming in a stream with awfully strong undercurrents that kept dragging her back to the bottom. The panic within her rose as her lungs screamed for air, but Rey refused to give in.

“I’ll be damned if I’ll drown in a swimming pool!”. 

She reached out to the Force, stretched out her arm, and pushed back against the currents. Sidious laughter echoed in her head as Rey summoned a wave of her own to counter his. The water now surged upwards. Like a tornado it rose over the pool, reaching up against the sky before Sidious broke the connection and it immediately dissipated, splashing water over a wide radius that almost reached the terrace of the villa.

“You’ll suffer for this,” Rey thought to herself as she lay draped over the pool’s edge, coughing up water. “I’ll make you regret it all”.

Eventually, Ben collected himself enough to brush his teeth and get dressed. White, short-sleeved tunic, white pants. It used to be his favorite back in the days when he still was a padawan. He even took time to wrap his old armguards from the wrists to the elbows before he ventured downstairs.

The elusive Kira Ikari was nowhere to be seen. Not in the hallway, not in the tearoom, the living room, the kitchen, or on the terrace. But the breakfast tray in the living room revealed that she had been there at least.

Dessert for breakfast.

He snatched two pieces of toast and padded over to the kitchen to look for something to drink other than the remains of Kira’s black tea. If he’d known her right, it had probably been sweetened enough to make his teeth ache.

To his surprise, there was no regular caaf to be found in the kitchen. Only de-caffeinated caaf. The tea selection was better; black tea and several herb blends. He put on the water kettle and settled for a blend of hawthorn and mallow.

A large splash sounded from the outside. It was worse than an extremely intense downfall, more like an enormous water bomb had been dropped in the garden, and Ben immediately hurried outside.

“What the…?”.

“Care to join me?“ Kira said, resting her arms on the pool’s tiled border. She looked stunning, her hazel eyes glittering, wet, dark hair slick, and her black swimsuit clinging to her body like a second skin.

“I prefer the view from here,” Ben replied as he sat down on the stone wall that separated the pool area from the garden. “The weather seems awfully fickle”.

It was an understatement; the terracotta-tiled floor was soaked and small pools of water had formed in the uneven areas, the poolside furniture and Kira’s towel that lay on the stairs were wet as well. 

“Fickle weather is normal for the season,” Kira said as she heaved herself out of the swimming pool. “It never lasts long”.

“This isn’t normal,” he interjected, putting down his tea cup. It wasn’t enough that the house was creepy as hell; the entire property, including the garden, seemed to be cursed, too. “The water level in the pool is far lower than yesterday. The sky was clear, the terrace and the path were dry, and yet the stairs and the area around the pool were soaked”.

Kira just smiled at him, pulling her hands through her dark, wet hair. A stray drop of water ran down her throat, her collar homes, and down her between her breasts.

”Has anyone ever told you that you worry way too much?”.

Ben gave her a stern gaze. “Kira”.

“I’m just going to wash away the chlorine smell”, Kira said as she got up on her feet, her eyes glittering with the usual mischief. “Don’t go anywhere. It won’t take long”.

Rey sighed, leaning back against the cold tiles after peeling off her swimsuit. The pool incident had been unpleasant, yet it offered a temporary reprieve from her grandfather's intrusion. Reaching out to her across the galaxy had strained his already fragile health. It would be more than enough to keep him powerless in bed for at least three days. 

“But let’s not dwell on that for now...”.

Turning on the water, Rey rinsed herself off under the cool spray. Once finished, she dried her hair and slipped into a simple bathrobe. The white, standard-issue garment made of thin cotton was a remnant from the hotel-aspiring previous owner, and there were at least fifteen robes in different sizes in the cabinet outside the bathroom. Rey grimaced as she studied her reflection in the foggy bathroom mirror. The robe looked fine but wasn't exactly sexy. 

Oh well.

While something black, silky with lace might have suited her intentions better, she wasn't planning on staying dressed for long anyway.

Ben sat on the sofa in the living room when she returned. Arms crossed over his chest and a gaze that bordered between expectation and unconscious wariness in his dark eyes. 

“We need to talk”.

Rey smiled lazily as she sat down beside him on the sofa.

“Can’t it wait?” she asked. “There are other things I would much rather do”.

“Like what?” he replied, giving her an almost tired gaze. 

“I want you to lick my pussy”.

His eyes widened, the Rey couldn’t help but smile. It was cute. But it didn’t last long.

“Now?” Ben looked at her like he couldn’t decide whether she was out of her mind or not.

Rey nodded, leaning a little further back at her end of the sofa. The antique sofa itself was stiff and hard, but the decoration cushions were plush and soft. Ben sighed softly as he moved closer to her. Then, he reached out a hand to trail his fingers up along her smooth, long legs. Whatever it was that she made him feel, it was more addictive than anything else he had ever encountered in his entire life.

“I’ve been thinking about what it is with you…,” Ben murmured. “That makes me forget about everything else. My vows to the Order, my duty to serve the Republic, and my common sense”.

Rey grinned softly, channeling whatever inner sweetness and innocence she still had left. 

“Maybe we’re just meant to be…?”.   

“Maybe”.

As he spoke, Ben’s fingers traveled further and further up her thighs. Rey let out a soft sigh and she could feel how the tension in her entire body disappeared. Like hot wax melting in the sun. A pleasant shiver ran through her body as his fingers reached her pussy. He ghosted his finger over her, deliberately avoiding touching her where she needed it the most.

“Lick me,” Rey repeated. “Slow and gentle. It’s not like eating a papaw”.

He couldn’t help but smirk. “I don’t know how you eat fruit, but…”.

Ben sat down on the floor, arms wrapped loosely around her tights. He leaned forward and dragged his tongue across her opening. It tasted like sweet fruit in salted brine and flesh. Odd, but it wasn’t unpleasant. It was both arousing and… almost relaxing. 

Kira moaned softly and leaned her head further back as she closed her eyes. Ben kept licking her, careful and slow. She squirmed, and Ben looked up at her.

“I need more. Use your fingers“.

Ben nodded in silence before he sank back to his position between Kira‘s legs and resumed to lick her. Carefully, he allowed his one finger to slip into the wetness of her warm pussy. Kira gasped, and Ben had to brace his free arm around her tight to keep her in place.

“Sit still“.

“It feels a lot,“ Kira sighed, all flustered. “But it’s good”.

Her response was so satisfying, and to see her so… vulnerable, wanting, and needing at the same time did unspeakable things to him. Ben found it bewitching. She was such a lovely sight where she lay, eyes soft, cheeks flushed, arms resting at the chair’s armrest with clenched hands, and legs spread wide so invitingly.

“Come for me,” Ben said as he let his thumb slide over clit.

Her breath hitched at his words, and Ben let a second finger slide into her. Kira had turned soaking wet, and he met almost no resistance at all. Just a glorious, slick heat that made his head dizzy with want.

“No, enough with the foreplay,” Kira groaned as she pushed herself up into a seated position again. “It’s all too much and not enough at the same time. Let me ride you instead”.

“Maker, you’re really indecisive,” Ben mumbled, feeling a bit disappointed. 

But his protests fell short, and before he could say anything else, Kira had pulled him back up on the sofa and ripped off his tunic. Her nails dug into his shoulders as she straddled him and guided his hard length into her pussy.

This time, it was Ben who lost his breath.

Kira shrugged off the bathrobe, pushed him back against the sofa, and then started to ride him almost aggressively. Their ragged breaths echoed against the walls, and Ben held Kira’s hips in a firm grip as he tried to settle with her almost brutal pace.

It took less than a minute before Kira came undone, and Ben spent himself inside her in the same moment. Like a fading flower, she collapsed onto him, arms around his neck.

A while later, Rey and Ben settled on the terrace, the warm glow of the sun casting a golden hue over their surroundings. A fresh pot of tea sat on the table between them, steaming gently with tendrils of fragrant steam.

"It's so beautiful and serene... Yet, the dark side of the Force is very strong here," Ben remarked, his expression serious as he gazed out at Lake Varykino. His words hung heavy in the air, laden with a sense of foreboding. "When I slept... I saw glimpses of the past… when the Emperor met his master."

Rey contemplated his words, her brow furrowing slightly. "Well, we talked a lot about the emperor yesterday," she responded with a casual shrug. "Dreams are said to be fragments of our thoughts, right?."

"Sometimes it's more than just a dream," Ben remarked, taking a sip of the tea. 

Rey stretched out her long legs with a soft sigh, her eyes scanning the tranquil scenery. It was really beautiful. She tilted her head to the side, her expression mildly teasing. "You truly are the worrying kind, aren't you?" she quipped, attempting to lighten the heavy atmosphere.

"I've been to ancient Sith temples less shrouded in darkness than this place," Ben said, his voice tinged with a hint of unease.

Rey couldn't help but chuckle softly, a playful glint in her eyes. "And yet, here you are, unscathed," she remarked, her tone lightened with a touch of reassurance. "Maybe it isn't as ominous as you initially thought."

Ben's features shifted, his expression still clouded with concern.

"Let's talk about something else; why don't you enlighten me about what you know about the First Order?".

Rey sucked in a breath. His knowledge about the existence of the First Order was no surprise, given the recent resurgence of Hux and the frenetic pace of the First Order's expansion. It had only been a matter of time before their actions would draw the attention of the New Republic and the Jedi…

"They're a military junta operating primarily in the Outer Regions," she divulged, her voice steady. "A private army, among many others."

Ben almost dropped his cup in surprise, and Rey gave him a grin. He hadn’t thought she’d reveal anything, had he? But Rey knew it was impossible to keep on lying without telling the truth now and then. Grandfather had taught her that; the trick was to twist it, just enough to get away without revealing the vital parts.

“So, you do know,” he said, and something hard appeared in his eyes.

“I do,” Rey replied. “Investments aren’t made in a vacuum. I would be irresponsible if I didn’t keep up with what's happening in the galaxy”.

“Why don’t the New Republic?” she shrugged. “It’s up to the senate if they want an intervention or not. I’m just a fund manager”.

"Mhm," Rey responded nonchalantly, taking a sip of her tea. She could sense Ben's skepticism, his intuition telling him that she wasn't revealing the full truth.

"We should pay a visit to your grandfather on Arkanis," Ben suggested, his tone holding a mixture of curiosity and determination.

The suggestion caught Rey off guard, and she quickly composed herself, her defensiveness rising. Her eyes flickered with a flash of shock, a mask of resistance settling over her features.

"Why would you suggest such a thing?" she retorted sharply, her gaze unwavering. "I already told you; he is very old and sick."

Leaning closer, Ben locked eyes with Rey, his gaze intense. 

"The greater reason for a visit, then”. He spoke in a low voice Rey never had heard him use before, and something dark flashed in his eyes. "I'm convinced it would bring great joy to an old man to see his only grandchild".

“No!” Rey's voice held a hint of desperation as she repeated her rejection.

"Why?" Ben probed further, his persistence undeterred. "Arkanis is close to Naboo. Just over the edge of the Outer Rim. It wouldn't take us more than a day to get there."

"I said no," Rey insisted, her voice now laced with frustration. "We came here to look after the villa! What's the matter with you today?" she countered, shooting him a sharp look. 

"Everything is in order with the property, isn't it?” Ben said, his tone tinged with nonchalance. "It shouldn’t be a problem for us to leave it for a day, or two"

"Are you deaf?" Rey stated firmly, her response hanging heavy in the air. “We aren’t going anywhere”.

"What is it with you and the Palpatine family?" Ben continued, his eyes locked unwaveringly onto Rey's. "And don't tell me it's just another one of your hobbies ."

An icy silence fell between them as Rey absorbed his words, her jaw clenched in frustration. Suddenly, she stood up abruptly from the table.

"You know what? I don't like your tone," Rey hissed, her voice laced with annoyance. "You can talk to me again when you have gotten your manners back!"

She then turned on her heel, leaving Ben alone on the terrace.

Kira might be mad, but Ben had no intention of apologizing. He was going to give her some time to calm down, but that was it. This time, he wouldn’t settle for anything but the truth.

The entire truth.

While he waited for her to cool off, Ben decided to take a hike through the woods. It was still light outside. The woods weren’t as dense as they looked from above. The sun found its way down to the leaf-covered ground through the canopies. Cluster pines, white willow, carob trees, black poplars… 

It was a relief to get away from the villa and his mind felt clearer the further away from it he got. He walked through open valleys with small lakes, and farmlands with grazing cattle. After an hour, he stopped a moss where remains of an entire pluton of broken, old B1 battle droids lay halfway submerged. Black and green algae grew on their bleached, beige chassis and one of them had been impaled with what looked like a gungan vibro spear.   

He was just about to go close and take a look when his holopad chimed in his backpack.

“It must be Voe,” Ben thought to himself. “She and Himari should have made it to Garel by now”.

Ben picked up his holopad from his backpack and accepted the transmission. He then put it down on the ground and sat back on a fallen poplar as he waited for the hologram to stabilize.

The hologram blurred back and forth for a few seconds until it morphed into an almost perfect blue-tinted image of the female Jedi Knight.

Garel was a desert world with long, hot days and cold nights. Voe sat on a roof terrace of a sandstone building with a blanket swept around her shoulders. Behind her, Ben could see a glimpse of the Garel’s purple night sky and the desert that surrounded the capital city.

“Solo,” Voe said. “I can’t pin your location. Where are you now?”

“Ms Ikari wanted to inspect a property she had bought,” Ben mumbled, avoiding mentioning he had left Coruscant for Naboo. 

Voe looked at him with a tired gaze, as if she had a hunch of what was going on, but for some reason, she decided to drop the subject.

“I see,” she replied in a dry voice.

“How is Garel City?” Ben asked, eager to switch conversation subjects. 

Since he had Voe was on good terms again, even if only temporarily, he was unwilling to disclose his new milestone in breaking the rules.  It would certainly upset her, and at the moment, they had far more important things to worry about than Ben’s sidesteps. 

“Dry and dusty,” she replied. “Are you familiar with it?”.

“I know as much that the planet has struggled with Black Sun, the Broken Horn Syndicate, and other criminal organizations in the past,” Ben said. “But I’ve never been there myself”.

“The situation here is not unlike Didyma V,” Voe explained. “There are not many opportunities here for the young and poor unless they want to work for the syndicates. It seems like many in the slums have left the planet to join the First Order… Unfortunately, we haven’t found any information of where Finn could be”.

Ben nodded in silence. The galaxy was large with over 3.2 billion inhabitable star systems. Still, considering the massive amounts of recruits the First Order had taken in, it shouldn’t be impossible to find someone who knows where they went. Keeping an army of that size also required massive amounts of water, food, armor, equipment, and ammunition, which in turn demanded a steady stream of credits from wealthy donors.

“What do they promise the recruits?” he asked. “Other than a stable income?”.

“Order,” Voe replied in an instant. “Believe it or not, but many I’ve talked to here long for stability. They’re tired of seeing how criminal gangs tear their community apart, and many rather live under an authoritarian leader than in a democracy with corrupt politicians serving as puppets to the criminal leaders”.

“And they believe an army led by neo-imperialists can give them that?” Ben sighed softly.

The thirst for safety and order above all else was what had brought the emperor and the Empire to power, Leia used to say. Maybe democracy wasn’t the optimal governance, but it was better than living under a dictatorship, oligarchy, or a technocracy run by droids. 

“It seems so, and I’m concerned,” she admitted. “We have received intel from the Republican navy that suggests that the First Order doesn’t have a permanent base. The report suggests that they only use temporary training camps on rural, or uninhabited planets, and they never stay in one place for more than a couple of weeks”.

“If that’s true, it will be much harder to find them — if not impossible,” Ben replied.  

“We have to put our faith in the Force, in the Light,” Voe said with a serious expression on her face that told him she was more than aware of the obstacles that lay in front of them. 

“Is there anything I can do?”.

“I’ll keep you updated. Even if this is not your mission, you can help us by looking for traces of the First Order where you are. Everything we have learned so far indicates that they are a much larger organization than we ever could imagine, and running a private army costs a lot of credit. It wouldn’t surprise me if your new banker-friend knows a thing or two about who’s funding them”.

He hadn’t thought about it before, but Voe was right; it was likely some of the sponsors behind the First Order were among Kira’s clientele. Of course, she had to know something. If she was willing to share, or not, that was another matter…

“I will,” Ben replied with a nod.

“You better,” Voe said with a little grimace. “You know, the man she was with at your mother’s fundraiser is the son of Brendel Hux, right?”.

”I’ve never heard of him”.

”He was an imperial officer who escaped the New Republic during the siege of Arkanis. He is still wanted for the crimes he committed during the war. But nobody has seen him since the siege. Nobody but your friend Kira”.

”What?” Ben frowned.

”His name was on the guest list on a hunting trip to Sojourn, arranged by the IBGC three years ago. Kira was the hostess of that event, and the moon is owned by one of her funds,” Voe said, pinning her eyes on him like she expected him to lash out any second.

Sojourn… wasn’t that one of the places Kylo had mentioned it last night? Ben had never heard of it before, but it wasn’t unusual for companies or rich persons to own moons, or sometimes even entire planets. Once, Lando claimed to have won a tropical moon in Sabacc.

“Guess which company owned it before?”  Voe said, ripping him out of his thoughts.

“The muuns?” Ben sighed. He didn’t like where this was going at all.

“Hego Damask Holdings,” Voe said, her voice cold as ice. “If I were you, I’d be very careful. This is most likely just the tip of the iceberg”.

Owning the remains of Darth Plaugeis’ company, buying the childhood home of the Emperor, going on hunting trips with old imperial officers… Ben closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Damn, it was hard to take in.

“You think Kira funds the First Order?”.

Either Kira was the worst neo-imperialist he had met, or everything he had heard about her was true.

Voe shrugged. “It’s not unlikely. She is rich, and seems to have nothing against hanging out with war criminals and fascists, at least”.

“I need to go,” Ben mumbled. 

The sun was starting to fade over the horizon, coloring it in a hue of pink and orange. He had been gone for hours, and if he didn’t start to walk back now, it would be pitch-black until he made it back to the villa.

“May the Force be with you,” Voe replied with a nod.

For the first time in a very long time, Rey felt panic. A deep, all-consuming panic that twisted her insides and threatened to drown her in its suffocating hold. How in the whole, wide universe had he grown so suspicious within just a day? 

It was too early for the next step in her plan, but Rey had no choice. If he tried to intrude on her thoughts, with actual force, she wouldn’t be able to resist. 

Her secrets would spill out like a waterfall.

Whatever had gotten into Ben; it was a bad sign. Rey had planned to reveal her true identity when he was ready, and despite her recent success, he wasn’t quite ready yet.

Was it the bond?

Her mind raced with questions and doubts. The ancient texts she had pored over in the Sith Eternal's archives were frustratingly vague in their explanations of the bond. They offered no insights into its inner workings, leaving her to navigate uncharted territory alone. Yet, one thing was crystal clear — the bond wasn't a one-way street. It was possible that Ben could have the ability to extract information from her without her knowledge.

Perhaps through Kylo?

The thought sent tremors down Rey's spine, causing her to shudder involuntarily. Maybe the dark knight wasn’t as dormant as she first had thought. Maybe her grandfather had been right…

“No, it can’t be like that,” Rey mumbled to herself as she stroked her finger over the communication unit. “Besides, it doesn’t matter at the moment. I need to get Ben under control”.

The path ahead was treacherous, but she couldn't afford to falter.

Rey took a deep breath before switching it on. The seconds that passed by after she had sent the transmission away felt like an eternity. It was so quiet in the room that she could hear her own heartbeat. Then, the device clicked and a familiar, modulated voice filled the room. 

“Lady Palpatine. What a surprise to...”.

“Cut the pleasantries,” Rey snorted. “It is time to finish what you once started. I want you to drop everything else and head to Naboo. You know where we are”. 

Chapter Text

Rey sat at Cosinga’s hardwood desk in the living room, dressed in one of her old, black dresses. Tight with long sleeves, decorative, cut-outs to reveal part of her skin at the ribs, and a mermaid-tail skirt for dramatic effect. As Kira, she had dressed according to the current fashion in the core worlds. As part socialite, part high-profile banker, she had to blend in and as a woman in her younger twenties, it would be seen as odd if she didn’t spend some credits on fancy clothes.

Now that life was coming to an end, and with that, the need to pretend to be something she wasn’t. 

While it was a relief to revert to her true identity, Rey also worried about how Ben would react. It was obvious that he carried a lot of resentment against his own family for their lies, and he would most likely react negatively to her disclosure. 

She exhaled deeply. On the surface, she kept her cool, but on the inside, she was being torn apart. The uncertainty was torture, and Rey no longer had complete control over the outcome. Her skin was crawling, her bones aching, and her heartbeats were fast. 

The knights were on their way and there was nothing back now.  

For either of them.

“We both have to accept who we are,” Rey mumbled to herself as she sank back onto the chair, curling her hands over the armrests. She leaned her head back and connected to the Force. It was almost like diving on Nur. Sinking into the dark, deep depths, surrounded by the warm water.

“Lend me the strength to do what I must,” she whispered. “Daboti Nun Sulig Tave Irus'”.

They were out there somewhere, the old masters of the Sith. Long after their ashes had spread through the universe like dust in the wind, they still lived and breathed through the Force.

Nuo Tave Irus'….

Mes Valia Nenx Kots.

Rey shivered as she heard their hollow whispers echo through the Force. She had lost count of how many times she had sought them out in meditation without success. Hours and hours in trance without the slightest inkling of an answer. But now she felt their presence like a stream of electrons rushing through a conductor.

Mes Kioska Su j'us.

Rey opened up her eyes and her lips curved into a broad smile. Finally. Her luck had turned; they were with her.

Ben navigated his way through the dense woods, the cool shadows of the trees offering a stark contrast to the surge he felt in the Force. A sudden chill ran down his spine, a prelude to the massive wave of dark energy that tore through the Force like a violent chain reaction. The impact was visceral, shattering the mental walls he had meticulously constructed. It left him momentarily breathless as if he had absorbed a punch to the gut.

"What... what is this?" he exhaled, his voice barely above a whisper.

A lump had appeared in his throat, and fear grew within his ribcage. The darkness was so strong. He hadn’t felt anything like it, not since that disastrous night on Ossus. 

”It’s their power. Darth Sidious’s…. and Rey’s”.

Kylo’s voice echoed in the back of his head. It was curious, calm, and almost soft. As if he had anticipated all this, and now he was curious to see how it all would fan out. 

”I’m not going back there,” Ben replied, clenching his teeth. He felt as if he was back at the temple grounds, surrounded by burning rubble and broken boards, filled with fear, anxiety, and confusion. 

His dark alter-ego snorted softly.

”You are. A Jedi must face his fears, remember?”.

Ben swallowed thickly. Ironically, that was exactly what Uncle Luke would say. But damn, he was just so terrified to lose control and this time, Ben didn’t either have his friends, or family around to save him if he slipped off the edge.

For every step he took in the direction of the House of Palpatine, he felt the pull of the darkness increase. It was the kind of magnetic pull he had felt so many times before, just stronger. He had to force himself to continue the last part.

As Ben emerged from the woods, he sensed a sliver of hope that maybe, just maybe, he could reason with Kira. Perhaps she was ensnared by the Darkness, much like his grandfather once had been. Leia had told him that story more times than he could count; how Luke had managed to bring Darth Vader back to the light after decades in the dark.

”I was so afraid, the the night before the Battle of Endor. It all seemed so hopeless, but Luke refused to give up. He felt the Light. Even in Vader, and that was when your uncle knew he could be saved”.

Despite that Ben was far from being as strong in the Light Side of the Force as Luke had Ben, he knew that Kira was not as tightly held by the darkness as Anakin once had been. It gave him hope that perhaps, just maybe, he could persuade her to let go of it.

Maybe he could save her.

But when he entered the house and caught sight of Kira, his spirit faded. She had switched her flowy orange dress for a black, long-sleeved dress. As their gazes met, her eyes flicked and an icy shiver ran down his spine as he saw the hazel of her irises fade into yellow.

She looked far more similar to the girl from his nightmares now than the sleek, smart-mouthed socialite he had gotten to know her as.

“Tell me the truth,” he said. “Who are you?”.

It might seem like an obvious question to ask, now that he already had come to peace with his suspicions that Kira had lied about far more than her identity. But he was just human after all, and some naïve part of him still yearned to hear her say that it was all a misunderstanding and confirm that it wasn’t as bad as he had thought. Or even ask him to help her break free from the Dark.

She looked up at him with a firm gaze through her long lashes, eyes glittering dangerously in the dim-lit room to the point that they seemed to be almost illuminated.

“I think you know very well who I am,” she replied, voice calm and clear. 

“But it can’t…”.

“Did you think Ochi was the only one the Sith Eternal contracted to find me?“ Rey said with an almost disappointed look on her pretty face. “There were others, too. I was taken to Exegol by two bounty hunters from Barab the night before the sandstorm on Jakku”.

Ben stared at her like she was a ghost in broad daylight. Her words made his heart clench, and even if he had been prepared to hear something like this, it still hurt. He didn’t want it to be true. 

“No… Uncle Luke, my mother… you were at the Jedi Temple several times,” he stuttered, still struggling to grasp reality. The cognitive dissonance he had been relying on the past months to keep Kira separated from the Sith Heiress was about to break down, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. Every cell in his body was on alert and what common sense he had left told him to run. 

Rey sneered softly. “Force suppression. Same technique as you use, but I’m better at it than you. A lot better. Not even your uncle suspected a thing… But then again, you Skywalkers have always been quite gullible, haven’t you?”.

Unconsciously, Ben continued moving backward against the door. His body was tense as a bowstring and his mouth was dry as sand. Slowly, as if he was moving away from a predator that might jump at and rip off his head without warning. He didn’t want to fight, didn’t want to hurt her. 

“You’re not going anywhere,” she snapped at him, and at the same moment, he could hear how every door in the entire building slammed shut. 

A chill ran through his body and rendered him cold despite the lukewarm summer evening outside. He didn’t want to hurt her, but suddenly Ben became very aware that she might want to hurt him. There was something new in her eyes, something he had never seen before. Something cold and relentless.

Rey pinned her eyes on him. “This circle is about to come to an end,” she said in a low voice. “You can’t run anymore, Ben“.

Before Ben could answer, he heard the sound of locks clicking back into their places, as if invisible hands had locked all the doors. He was trapped now.

”Why are you doing this?” Ben asked, still hanging onto a straw that he somehow, someway could reason with her. 

“I have invited over a few of your old acquaintances,” she said, gaze cold like the surface of Hoth. “You need to deal with them in a... satisfactory manner".

“Deal with them?” Ben repeated, the panic rising within his chest like a tidal wave. He didn’t like the sound of that. Not at all. The vast living room seemed to shrink with every word that came out of her mouth, and a sense of claustrophobia crept over the Jedi Knight. “What are you talking about?”.

In the darkness of the hallway behind him, Ben suddenly felt an approaching presence. He turned around to see movements in the dark, figures cloaked in shadow approaching them. Had they been inside the house the entire time? He couldn’t tell, Rey’s presence in the Force was so overpowering that it eclipsed nearly everything else. 

“You sure took your sweet time, didn’t you?”.

Ben froze to the ground in shock at the sound of the voice. It had been a long time, almost ten years, but he recognized the voice as if it had been yesterday. It belonged to Ren the Nameless, Master of the Knights of Ren. 

The masked, grey-haired man stepped out of the shadows, followed by his men. Just like the rest of the knights, Ren was clad in dark, well-worn armor that looked like it had been scavenged from their victims. An old lightsaber hung from his belt, and Ben instinctively knew that Ren had pried it from the cold, lifeless hands of a fallen Jedi during the war.

Ren himself seemed to have remained the same over the past ten years, he was confident and relaxed and his voice sounded almost amused as he turned his gaze to Rey.

“You are full of surprises, Lady Palpatine,” he said with a humorless chuckle. “I didn’t know you two knew each other”.

“The Force brought us together,” Rey replied as she looked at Ren with mild aversion. “Just like it brought you together on Elphrona all those years ago”.

Ren nodded. “It’s true. Already then, the darkness within him was… undeniable. I was certain we would eventually meet again. Never thought it would take this long, though”.

“Good things come to those who wait,” Rey said. “But let’s not drag out on it, shall we? You know what you’re here for, make him submit, or kill him”.

Ben didn’t want to believe what he just heard; did she just tell them to kill him? Nothing could have prepared him for that, but in an instant, it became painfully clear that Kira Ikari had never existed. Nothing that had occurred in the past months had been real. It had been nothing more than a game, and it wasn’t until this very moment that Ben fully realized that he had been just a pawn in it.

”You’re a monster,” Ben growled with disgust at Rey. “You planned this all along!”.

Rey rolled her eyes as if he was being overly dramatic. “I have to admit, this wasn’t how I envisioned it to turn out, but in the long run, it’s all the same. You need to see who you really are”.

“I don’t know what you’ll get out of this, but we’re happy to oblique, as usual,” Ren said with a shrug of his shoulders and the knights tightened their grip on their weapons. He then turned his gaze to the Jedi. “Let’s see how special you are… or not”.

With their weapons firmly in hand, the knights formed a semi-circle, blocking the exit to the hallway to prevent Ben from escaping. They moved slowly and deliberately, resembling predators stalking their prey. The Jedi swallowed thickly, feeling outnumbered with six knights against him. Although Ben was stronger in the Force than them, it would be difficult for him to hold his ground unless he took them down.

"You don't have to do this," Ben called out to the Knights. "I don't want to fight you."

He had never killed anyone before. Sure, he had been forced to mutilate a thug, or two on his last mission to save the entire team from being shot, and he had directed a few laser shots back onto the shooter which had caused them permanent, severe damage, but he had never killed anyone before and for all what he was worth, Ben had no intention to change that.

Ren just laughed at him. "I know you don't want to. I can feel it. But we do."

As Ren's words fell silent, the five other knights charged at Ben, all at once. He called upon the Force and pushed them back, giving him enough time to retrieve his own blade from his robe's deep pockets. He shrugged the heavy robe off, letting it fall to the floor as he activated the lightsaber. The blade sprung to life immediately with a soft hiss. 

"Don't do this", he warned them. 

His plea fell on deaf ears as Vicrul, the 'reaper of the fallen,' lunged furiously at Ben with his blunt weapon high over his head. Ben narrowly avoided the blow and Vicrul drove his weapon into the wall with full force, causing wooden splinters to fly into the air. Vicrul ripped his weapon out of the wall, the red-golden tapestry came apart with a rip. When Vicrul got back into the fight, two of the other knights had already cornered Ben.

Their humming vibro-weapons and beskar-reinforced weapons clashed with Ben's plasma blade like a deadly stick of straw game, falling into blade-lock after blade-lock. It took all his energy to keep up with the knights, and he barely managed to keep their blades from his throat. He struggled hard to keep them at bay, and the longer the fight continued, the more desperate he became, The panic clouded his mind enough to allow his opponents to draw blood.

He didn't even feel it. 

The fight continued. Ben moved backward into the kitchen, throwing tables, chairs, and anything else he could grab onto with the Force simultaneously as he struggled to fend off their attacks from all angles. His energy depleted at an alarmingly fast rate, and there was nothing he could draw his energy from in this house of darkness. As one of the knights slipped through his defense and left him a deep cut over the arm, Ben's lightsaber started to flare.

Its usual, monotone hum transformed into an almost crackling sound, and its plasma flickered like a burning candle in the wind. The sight made him break out in a cold sweat out of fear. He had never seen, or heard of anything like it before; was it about to break down?

He was a hair's breadth from being overtaken by panic; if Ben lost his lightsaber, he wouldn't stand a chance.

"What the hell are you doing?" Kylo's voice echoed in his head. "Stop playing around with them."

"I don't want this," Ben hissed back at Kylo in desperation as he fended off blow after blow from Vicrul's mace-like weapon. From the left, Trudgen joined the fight, wielding a vibro-cleaver. When Ben ducked for the first blow for the cleaver, Vicrul's mace struck him in the side. 

"Get a grip on yourself and kill them!" 

He couldn’t give in to the Dark, anything but that. If he lost control now, Ben wasn't sure he would be strong enough to retake control afterward. If Kylo broke loose, there would be a bloodbath, and there was no telling where it would end. The hatred, anger, and fear would consume him and transform him into Luke’s worst nightmare.

“No!”.

"And allow us to die like dogs?" Kylo snarled. “All because you are so weak and useless?”.

What happened next was difficult to describe. A pressure began to build inside Ben's head, reminiscent of the way Snoke's mind-probing techniques had felt. It grew stronger and stronger and Ben felt his consciousness fade. He struggled to resist, but it was impossible to fight both the knights and Kylo simultaneously.

His senses faded away, and his body seemed to continue fighting against the knights on its own accord. The panic rippled through his body and he lost his breath. Maybe it was anxiety, maybe Vicrul had managed to hit him in the stomach; it was impossible to tell.

For a fleeting moment, they were the same. Light and dark united in one being. Then the darkness consumed him, pulling Ben down into its depths like a violent undercurrent. The metamorphosis sent shock waves through the Force, as if a supernova had exploded, drenching everything else in Ben's inner chaos.

And then, like a specter born out of the chaos, Kylo emerged.

Not wasting any time, he harnessed the profound desperation pulsating within Ben, using the Force to repel the knights in various directions. The sheer power of his force push was enough to make the entire bottom floor shake as if a smaller earthquake had erupted; the cupboards fell to the floor in cascades into glass splinters, objects flying into the walls, tearing the ancient tapestry apart like silk paper. Four of the black-clad, masked knights threw themselves on the floor to avoid getting hit by the myriad of flying objects. Ren, who wasn't fast enough, got hit by a bookshelf in the stomach, Vicrul succumbed with a scream to the impact with one of Cosinga's stonework statues, blood seeping from his metal facemask like fruit juice from a grater.

Kylo cast a gaze over his surroundings as he ran his thumb over the hilt of Ben’s lightsaber. It wouldn’t hold together for much longer, there was the beginning of a crack in the kyber crystal, but that was an issue for later. 

His gaze swept over the chaos and the knights, who struggled feverishly to get free from the debris, until it landed on Rey. During the fight, she had remained seated at the desk, just casually directing away the rubble that flew in her direction with a passive face, almost as if she was bored. But now, she looked almost upset. 

"I told you to kill them, not tear down my entire house," she said with a glare. 

"Did it never occur to you to just ask me nicely...?".

"You have to prove yourself," Rey added, voice softer, but eyes still glacial. 

"By slaughtering your servants?" Kylo scoffed as he peeled his eyes on Vicrul had gotten back on his feet again.

He knew what she had in mind. Palpatine was dying and looking to use her vessel. Either she had to accept the destiny her grandfather had laid out for her, or she would have to take his life in the same as the old Sith apprentices all had defeated their masters. Although Rey's raw power was nothing short of mesmerizing, she was far too young and inexperienced to take down the Emperor on her own. 

With him, and their combined power as a Dyad, they would stand a better chance…

"But it's not that simple, and I won't have a hand in reviving the Sith,"  Kylo thought to himself as he watched Vicrul, Trudgen, and Kuruk advance on him. 

Ren, still buried under debris, taunted, "Finally got enough of running around, eh? To tell you the truth, kid, I ain't very impressed. Thought you were supposed to be some kind of prodigy."

"Don't worry. I'll give you the 'good death' you've been yearning for," Kylo retorted as he stepped into battle stance and signed to Vicrul to come forward. "I'll tear your knights apart first, though."

The trio lunged at him simultaneously, but Kylo was faster and threw himself to the side, just to avoid the edge of their weapons. Now behind the knights, Kylo spun around, severing Trudgen's arm and shoulder from the rest of his body in a perfect, acute angle, before propelling him into a heap of rubble. Ap'lek and Vicrul turned around, and Kylo felt their rage and fear flood through the Force as they saw their fallen brother.

Kylo then advanced on the two knights, effortlessly breaking through their defenses. He took down Vicrul with a clean cut right under the edge of the helmet. As Ap'lek saw the oldest of the knights fall, he panicked and released a canister of smoke to disorient his enemy. It filled the already dim-lit room with a thick, black smoke, making it impossible to see.  

He smiled to himself. Kylo didn't need to see the knights to know where they were. Uncle Luke had been right about one thing; the Knights of Ren were nothing but a band of thugs using the Force like a blunt hammer. Kylo stalked up to the Ap'lek, who swung his ax blindly in desperation. Kylo caught it in the middle of the shaft with one hand, and as Ap’lek stumbled against him, he gutted the knight with Ben’s lightsaber. In the periphery, he could see how Rey grimaced as Ap’lek’s intestines splattered all over her great-grandfather’s hand-knotted rug from Pasaana.

Kuruk was enraged after seeing Ap’lek fall, he tossed his rifle to the side and charged at Kylo with a durasteel sword. Kylo dropped down to the floor, supporting himself on one arm as he drove his lightsaber into Kuruk's chest. He rose, pushing the fallen knight off the blade and into the same heap of rubble as Trudgen had fallen into.

"You will regret this!" Ren snarled furiously and discarded his mask, his blue eyes ablaze with murderous intent.

"Come at me then. See how you like it," Kylo replied.

As the leader of the Knights lunged at him, the two engaged in a duel. His fencing skills were far from being anywhere near impressive, but it had been so long since Ben had fenced anything else than the tired, old selection of battle droids at the Navy's training center on Hosnian Prime that Kylo decided to drag out the fight a little. 

Ren stabbed and slashed at him furiously from all angles, while Kylo effortlessly kept up his defence. After a series of vicious lunges, he advanced on Ren, striking back with his signature long, sweeping, and heavy blows. Ren countered as good as he could, but he was not used to being the weaker opponent. Soon, Kylo had caught him in a corner, panting hard as the situation was reversed and Ren was forced to go into defense.

"You once claimed you were no friend of the Sith," Kylo quipped. "How does it feel to die like a pawn, knowing that Rey sent you here like a sacrificial animal?"

Before Ren could respond, Kylo seized him by the throat, driving the lightsaber through his back. The plasma blade sliced through Ren effortlessly, leaving him lifeless on the floor. Witnessing the gruesome spectacle, Ben recoiled in horror within their shared body.

"They were nothing," Kylo mumbled, watching Ren's corpse with an indifferent gaze. "Luke spared them once, told them to stay away. They should have heeded his warning".

"They were people," Ben growled with anger. "They were living beings, and now, their blood is on my hands!". 

While Kylo had saved them from imminent death, Ben understood the peril of succumbing to the darkness — precisely what Rey had intended by pitting the Knights of Ren against him.

To bring Kylo forth.

He felt her presence, as vivid as she had been in his dream. A flash of glowing yellow eyes, and a grin with sharp, white teeth covered his vision, followed by glimpses of a moon covered in dense forests. 

Hyperkarn.

Another planet filled with wrecks, scrap, metal junk, and carcasses of once majestic battleships, dirty, dark space stations, the burning heat of Jakku, and finally, the forbidden world of Exegol and the Sith Citadel. 

Ben didn’t even bother trying to catch his breath. The wound in his abdomen hurt and it felt like he had cracked a rib or two. Furiously he stalked back to Rey.

“Is this what you wanted?” he growled at her. “Is this, is this what you want me to be?!”.

Rey sighed as she rose from the chair and dusted the sprinters off her dress. “They’re just pawns. None of them hold any value”.

Dear maker, just how demented was she?

It suddenly struck him that Rey must have been the one who orchestrated their attack on Chairman Ikari.

“How can you say things like that?” Ben was bewildered. “They’re people, not machines, and you… you used them like them like mindless droids. Just as you had them kill your own father on Oovo!”. 

Rey seemed completely unaffected by his accusation.

“And? I killed all those innocent people on Jakku, too,” she said. “It doesn’t matter, nothing else does. The only thing that matters to me is you”.

“You’re sick,” Ben bit back, appalled. “This isn’t love”.

Something flicked in Rey’s gaze, and she suddenly looked worried.

“Don’t you understand? We’re the same. One soul split into two bodies — a dyad in the Force”.

She reached out her hand, and with a flick wrist, the wreckage lifted from the floor; glass splitter, wood splinters, pieces of rock from damaged statues. The glass glittered among the other splinters in the light from the chandelier in the dark room. Rey held the myriad of pieces still in the air for a moment before she let everything fly back to its place. 

The stone statues, glass art, the furniture; all were mended back seamlessly together. If he hadn’t been in such emotional turmoil, he would have been impressed.

”I’ve known you for my entire life,” Rey continued, voice thick with emotion. “I felt you through the Force like a presence for years until I met Kylo in a vision, and when I met you, I realized that you’re the vessel of him”.

Vessel… Ben gritted his teeth, sickened by her confession. He was himself, and not just a mere vessel to Kylo. Was that the only thing she had liked about him, his inner, twisted darkness? No matter what he might have felt for her before, this made him feel nauseous.

”I could have the Jedi Order for you,” he replied. “I could have tried to lead another life, but you manipulated me…”.

”I did what I had to do; the Dark is our true nature,” she said. ”You need to let go of the Light to become what you were always supposed to be. You need to let go. Let go, Ben, and let the Dark take away all your suffering”.

”No,” Ben shook his head firmly. “I neither want, will, or can give you what you want. Do you understand that? I won’t give you anything”.

”But you can,” she insisted, and Ben could hear an edge of desperation in her voice. The confidence he had seen in her earlier was as gone as the daylight. Rey’s voice was laced with an unabridged longing, but her eyes were burning like embers, and for the first time, he could see her for what she was. The heiress of the Sith. Palpatine’s granddaughter and she was a woman possessed by the Dark; there was no point in reasoning with her. 

“Ben…,”.

Rey made a movement towards him, but Ben was faster. He grabbed Rey with the Force and threw her backward into the hallway. The heiress was caught off guard by his attack, and before Rey could react her body was slammed into the fireplace in the living room. The impact knocked the air out of her lungs, and out of pure reflex, Ben forced the entire upper floor down onto her.   

Before the last board fell from the carrying structure, Ben was already running down the courtyard. The adrenalin surged through his body and he could hear his blood pumping inside his head. Ben could barely think straight, but he knew one thing, and that was that he had to get away from Rey. 

He ran through the garden, through the walls overgrown with poison ivy. It was dark outside now, only a sliver of red left on the midnight sky. The Night Buzzard stood on the landing platform, lit up by a circle of tiny lights in the ground. The hatch was still open as if Ren and his men had expected it all to be over in a minute. 

There was no time to spare; Ben rushed to the cockpit through the long, dark ship. He threw himself in the pilot’s seat, closed the hatch, and started the take-off sequence. The Night Buzzard was a heavy freighter that had once been used to transport prisoners on Osseriton. It had a lot of power and heavy armor, but it wasn’t a fast ship.

“Please, be fast enough,” Ben prayed through gritted teeth. “Please”.

He steered the ship out over the lake, hoping it would keep Rey from using the Force to pull it down. He hadn’t dared to stop, not even for a second, to look over his shoulder. While throwing Rey into the fireplace and bringing down the entire upper floor on her seemed brutal, it was far, far from enough to kill a true Sith.

A Sith.

Kira was a Sith.  No, Rey was a Sith.  Heiress of the Sith.

He started to feel dizzy again, his head heady, aching and he felt sick enough to throw up. 

”Focus,” Ben scolded himself as he took the Night Buzzard up into Naboo’s troposphere. ”Just a little longer”.

First priority was to find a safe place to land and check the ship for trackers. Somewhere he could lay low for a day or two while figuring out how to deal with the entire situation. Naboo laid close to the border of the outer rim. There were plenty of insignificant moons, old space stations, and uncharted planets where he could hide.

It wasn’t until Ben had left the Naboo system that the sense of panic in his system started to fade away. Eventually, he landed at the Gorinchem Space Station. It was a small station that lay between the Quence and the Bajic sector. 

”Permission to land in hangar B-23”.

The hangar was rust-brown, lit up by a series of yellow lights in the ceiling. Posters on the walls revealed that the station’s only cantina offered spicy bean broth, stone oven-roasted and cheap rocket fuel, and a security droid that dated back to the era before the galactic war strolled across the hangar floor to make sure Ben hadn’t brought along a pack of pirates on the ship, or illegal goods.

It scanned the Night Buzzard within thirty seconds before it continued to the hangar, not even bothering to ask Ben for his ID papers when he paid the docking fee.

“I should probably get a forged ID anyway,” he mumbled to himself as he watched the droid disappear through the pneumatic door.

Ben felt sick to his stomach, heartbroken and the anxiety clawed restlessly within his chest. But at the moment, he had more pressing concerns than his emotional misery. With great effort, Ben pushed away the anxiety and started to search through the ship for trackers.

It took him almost two hours to search through the ship properly, but when he was done, Ben was positive that there were neither physical trackers nor tracking algorithms in the ship’s computer mainframe. Exhausted but relieved, Ben sat down in the pilot’s seat and rested his head in his palms. Now when the adrenaline had left his system, he started to come back to his senses.

Everything hurt.

His head, his body, and his heart.

“What the hell am I supposed to do…?”.

He couldn’t go back to Coruscant — what would he tell Luke? If he told the truth, they would lock him up for being a security risk, and he would never see daylight again. If he turned to his mother, surely she would reason in the same manner as his uncle. 

Han?

Ben shook his head. No, he couldn’t do that either. Han wouldn’t understand; he would most likely just try to talk Ben into returning to Luke and Coruscant, anyway, because that was what he thought Leia would want him to do. 

He let out a deep sigh. Ben had felt lonely his entire life, and yet, nothing compared to the feeling that clawed inside his chest now. He had been so utterly blind — and stupid. Endlessly stupid. The signs that something was wrong with “Kira” had been there all along; her odd behavior, the unnatural gleam in her eyes, the indifference towards the death of Chairman Ikari, and her apparent aversion to the Jedi way of life. 

“I’m such a thoughtless fool," he thought bitterly.

He rose from the seat and grabbed his brown robe from the passenger seat. As he did,  a blue, shimmering object fell out of one of the pockets. Ben frowned as he picked it up. It was the holobook he had borrowed when he first arrived on Hosnian Prime; Cere Junda’s memoirs.

It could be useful as a distraction, he thought to himself and put it back into the pocket. While the robe was just dusty from having laid tossed on the floor during the battle, his pants and especially the white tunic were in a far worse condition. Large tears and blood stains. It looked like a rag someone had tried to clean up a wound with it. 

"I can't go around like this. It'll draw attention," Ben mumbled to himself as he pulled the dirty tunic over his head and tossed it onto the floor. 

Next on the agenda was tending to his wounds. The cuts on his pale body stood out like angry red tears, fortunately not as deep as he had initially feared. A sizable hematoma had formed on his torso where Vicrul had struck him, its purple hue already showing. It was tender enough to make him hiss when he wiped off the dried blood a bit too forcefully.

Like most larger freighters, the ship was equipped with sonic showers, which, to Ben's relief, wasn't half as nasty as he had feared. He peeled off the rest of his blood-stained Jedi uniform and showered.

The Night Buzzard lacked a medbay, but he found some stolen medical field equipment in one of the metal storage cupboards in the middle section of the ship. Having dealt with broken ribs before, he knew they usually healed in about a month. Bacta patches on the cuts and some painkillers would have to suffice.  Then, he patched himself up as well as he could and switched clothes to some of the knight’s spare clothes.

Once ready, Ben grabbed Cere Junda’s memoirs and set out to locate the cantina.

Clad in dark brown utility pants, boots, a dark long-sleeved shirt, and his heavy, tightly-knitted brown robe, Ben blended in well with the rest of the guests at the old space station. The corridors were coated with salvaged metal sheets from what probably once had been the coating of imperial star destroyers. Each section was a little different from the previous; some were rusty and had black stains from burns, and some were not. 

Ben could tell when he approached the cantina; a long garland of warm, yellow lights hung from the ceiling, and the drinking menu was written on a particularly rusty section of the wall with what seemed to be white chalk.   

The cantina itself was like any other space station he had visited over the years; rustic and dim-lit. It was filled to three-quarters. Mostly freight pilots, migrant workers in the agriculture business, and some smugglers. There was a small scene in the corner opposite the bar stand, but no sign of a band or even a droid to act as entertainment.

"Only on zhelldays," the clerk, a purple-skinned toydarian, behind the food stand said as if she had read Ben's thoughts. "And special occasions. What'll you have?". 

Ben ordered a bowl of broth and sat down at one of the tables, an enormous cable reel, in the back of the room.

A moment later, a decade-old serving droid arrived with his broth. Pieces of sea mustard swam around in the broth along with chopped spoon cabbage, roasted seeds, and deep-fried, fermented bean curd. 

“Interesting recipe”.

“It’s a bargain at two credits,” the droid replied as it put down the bowl on the table. “After midnight, standard galactic time, we offer rocket fuel at half the price.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Ben said with a nod. "Thank you".

While it was very tempting to drown his sorrows in alcohol, Ben couldn't take that risk. Not yet at least. Instead, he picked up the book and opened it up. The first page that met his eyes was the tenth page of chapter five which described the young Cal Kestis’ journey to the Tomb of Miktrull, deep into the ground of the isolated alpine planet, Zeffo. He had to keep himself occupied with something safe, and neutral, otherwise, he would go insane. 

“Zeffo..,” he mused to himself as he ran his finger over the book’s edge. ”Where was that again, somewhere in the Outer Rim?”.

Ben let himself sink into the book and the adventures of the two Jedis. The zeffonians, their ancient tombs and relics. Krane and Project Auger… all the secrets buried deep under its snow-covered mountains.

As the evening passed by, more guests arrived at the catina. An old zabrak and his two furry bothan friends sat down at the table next to Ben’s.

They were all clad in orange and brown, dirty utility clothes that reeked of crude oil and turpentine. Perhaps were they engine workers on a larger freighter, or maintenance personnel at a mineral refinery on a nearby planet. They all ordered the soup with recycled protein and a large keg of rocket fuel. It didn't take long until the alcohol had loosened their lips, and they talked loud enough for Ben to pick up their voices from the buzz in the cantina.  

“Did you hear what happened on Castilon? The Colossus is gone…”.

“I was dreading that. Damn, just when I spent my entire bonus from the job we took from Molina betting on Hype Fazon on 1st place in the upcoming Platform Classic. I paid in advance, too”.

Ben was familiar with the Colossus, he had been there with Han once, almost two decades ago. It was a supertanker fuel depot, once built for the Empire by Kuat. It was famous for its various racing competitions, such as the Platform Classic, that attracted professional racers from all over the galaxy. 

“I knew it would happen, I knew it,” one of the bothans complained. “Ever since those stormtroopers from the First Order showed up…”.

Stormtroopers? Ben leaned a little bit closer. This was certainly interesting. The First Order seemed to be a lot more known than he had previously thought, at least outside the core worlds.

The old zabrak nodded. “And it will be worse, mark my words. The war is coming to the Inner Rim. I hear they have an entire army hidden somewhere near the unknown regions”.

“No,” the other bothan said. “Our gas supplier on Bespin told us that they’re near Maher, training their newest recruits”.

"That's not what I've heard...".

The three travelers kept discussing the First Order and rumors about how their fleet crept closer and closer to the Core Worlds. The zabrak thought about retiring to his homeworld on Iridonia, the bothans on taking on a mining job at the Sina Glacier. Anywhere were they avoid being dragged into the war they all seemed convinced were coming.  

When their bowls were and the keg was empty trio left, and Ben sank back onto his chair with a sigh.

During the evening, he had gradually made up his mind. First, he would send Voe and Tai a report with what he had learned of the First Order, and that the emperor probably was somewhere out there, alive and biding his time. Then he would disappear. Going into exile was hardly the most honorable thing to do when the galaxy faced the threat of another intergalactic war, and certainly not the bravest, but it was the best he could do under the given circumstances. 

Chapter Text

Banners in red, black and white with the First Order’s emblem fluttered over Trilla’s head as she walked down the avenue. Stormtroopers in every corner, simplistic propaganda posters plastered in every alley. It reminded her much of Vardos during the Empire’s rule. Everything looked the same; the tall, minimalistic silver-gray buildings, the streetlights with their soft, purple-hued light, the perfectly paved streets decorated with red-leafed trees in rows.Everything but the symbols on the banners and the faces on the posters had remained.

She stopped in front of a poster with Hux’s portrait. Perfectly combed hair, not a strand out of place, a pitch-black uniform with silver details and serious look on his face; the redhead looked handsome like a holostar and lethal as an executioner at the same time.

”Is that what he wants?” Trilla thought to herself as she kept walking. ”To be both admired and feared at the same time?”.

Rey’s gamble with Snoke had paid off; after Hux’s installation as general, the pace of the First Order’s advancement had tripled. Oru, Tevel and Varkana were planets that had fallen under his command. Hux might not be the most popular of the generals, but there was no denying in his skills. It was as if the redhead had spent all his time on Hosnian Prime planning how he would lead the order to success in the slightest detail. He had scrutinized the failures under his father‘s leadership to the point that it seemed like he had a solution to every possible obstacle.

She was aware that Hux and Rey had some sort of deal. When Palpatine and Snoke were gone, they were the ones that would rule the galaxy. Exactly what that plan looked like she didn’t know, would Rey be empress and rule over the order with Hux as her general Tarkin and Solo as her Vader?

Perhaps. But while Hux had performed his part flawlessly, Rey was yet to deliver. It was obvious that her plan with Ben Solo had gone wry. The man was tainted with darkness to the core of his being, yet he refused to fall. Trilla found it to be outright remarkable, was the love he had for his family that held him back?

 It wasn’t his ideals or his devotion to the Jedi Order, that was for certain.

Just like Exegol, Vardos was a planet with constant thunderstorms. But unlike the dry and dusty environment on the hidden Sith World, rain was common. The lavender-colored sky was almost always dark and ominous, covered with heavy grey clouds. It had been raining all day and Trilla shook the water off her umbrella before she entered the building‘s lobby. 

The receptionist droid greeted her welcome before she slipped into the elevator. The apartment she shared with Komari was at the very top of the skyscraper with an amazing view over the city. Rey always bought penthouses when she could, she liked to be close to the sky.

As Trilla stepped into the apartment, she spotted Komari, sitting on the sofa in the living room with a white plastic jar of hot wax in her hand and a wooden spatula in the other.

“Did you feel it?”.

Even with her weakened senses, Trilla had felt it. Whatever that had gone down on Naboo, it had caused ripples through the Force, strong even for the mildly force-sensitive to pick it up. If Luke Skywalker and his ensemble of young, inexperienced Jedis hadn’t been afraid of Solo before, they would certainly be it now.

”I did,” Trilla replied as she placed her long coat on the hanger in the hallway. “Harpina said Rey is back on Exegol and Solo ran away”.

”What a surprise,” Komari said with sarcasm as she smeared out some hot wax on her calf. It smelled like perfume and looked like liquid honey. “How did Rey take it?”.

”About as bad as you’d expect”.

Harpina, one of Rey’s royal guards, had sent her a message early in the morning, confirming that the heiress had arrived on Exegol two days ago. Inconsolable, apparently. But Trilla knew the heiress well enough to know that as soon as Rey was done licking her wounds, she would be beyond furious — and eager for revenge.

Trilla looked out through the window, pinning her gaze on the skyline. It seemed like it was about to clear up. Their mistress might be sulking for the moment, but that was no reason for them to slack. 

“We need to find Solo nonetheless,” she said. ”And when we do, we need to make sure he won’t escape again”.

”You can hardly blame Rey for her inexperience,” Komari said, ripping off the wax stripe without even the slightest flinch. ”I think the concept of ‘seduction to the dark’ sounded more appealing to her than driving him insane by torture, even if it would have been the best option. I read his entire medical journal during the weekend — that man is an unsecured grenade. Pitting him against the knights should have been to make him snap”.

”In theory, yes,” Trilla agreed. ”If he had been willing, but he’s not. I think Solo is aware of what he is, but he resists it with every fiber of his being. He doesn’t want to turn”.

“But turn, he shall,” Komari said with a grin as she ripped off yet another wax stripe. “I assume you got a plan, Suduri”.

“I do. I’ll explain in a moment”.

Trilla walked over to the kitchen and turned on the water boiler. She always had a plan, one for each different outcome. She hadn’t been surprised to hear that Rey’s plan had failed. Like Komari had said, Rey was still young and inexperienced. 

She had been too soft on the Jedi. 

Only a few of the brothers and sisters who worked as inquisitors under Darth Vader had chosen it willingly and Trilla hadn’t been one of them.

She still recalled the day when the Empire came and took her to the inquisitor’s castle on Nur. Trilla had been so afraid that she shook uncontrollably. Her master was gone, the younglings dead, the Jedi Order fallen, and already before they strapped her to the torture rack, she knew that nobody would come for her.

The sound of the boiling water in the kettle put an end to her train of thought. Trilla fetched a tea strainer, two cups and a bag of rose hip tea from the cupboards. She poured the hot water into a kettle, put everything on a tray, and returned to Komari in the living room.

“We need to make him despair, and to keep him from running away again, we need leverage,” she said, sinking down beside the other woman on the white sofa. “The rest will be up to Rey, but I suggest we start working now”. 

“You find him and I’ll arrange the rest,” Komari said as she ripped off her final wax stripe. ”Do we have anything other than the padawan on Kijimi to use as motivation?”.

”Not at the moment”.

The padawan was a good start, but more was needed. They needed someone important enough to Solo that he wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice himself for that, or those persons, if needed. 

“How about the parents?”.

”We can get to his father,” Trilla said. “His mother is far too well-guarded. Until the First Order has the New Republic on its knees, we can’t kidnap such a prominent senator as Organa”.

”As far as I know, Han Solo runs a shipping company these days,” Komari said. ”It seems like he and his old wookie-crewmate do all the runs themselves. Interesting career choice for the husband of a royal woman who ran for chancellor ”.

”Interesting indeed,” Trilla replied. “Maybe it's true that opposites attract?“.

She didn’t have any personal experience with romance. Unlike Komari, who had been deemed to be unfit for knighthood due to her infatuation with her master and unstable personality, Trilla had been a well–adjusted padawan who never stepped out of line. No forbidden desires, no secret crush, no unhealthy amount of ambition, no excessive arrogance, no nothing.

“Maybe. Anyway, we got the padawan, the father, his furry friend… how about his bald comrade from the temple?” Komari continued. “They seemed to have been close friends before until Solo tried to kill him and the other two on Elphrona”.

“Mhm, I forgot that he did that…,” Trilla said as she sipped on her tea. “He ruined the entire temple there, didn’t he?”.

“He did,” Komari grinned wickedly. “I can understand what Rey sees in him. He must be absolutely vicious at heart. I honestly don’t see what’s keeping him together”.

Trilla snorted softly.

“It doesn’t matter; we know what drove him to the edge last time don’t we? All we need to do is to put him back in that state — without any salvation in sight”.

”Let me get this straight; your name is Kenwan Ibo?”.

“Yes,” Ben bit back a chuckle when he heard the name of his new alias. It was a silly choice, but it gave him some odd satisfaction to use Kenobi’s real name for his new identity. Like some sort of revenge for his mother’s lack of imagination that made her name him after the old Jedi Master’s alias.

Truth to be told, he had never liked to be named Ben Solo.

Those names were both lies. Ben had just been Kenobi’s alias, and Solo wasn’t Han’s true family name.

Shira Schalit, frowned as she scrutinized Ben’s freshly forged ID papers. They sat at her office in a small building at the biggest settlement on Zeffo. It lay in a low valley, surrounded by high mountains. The settlement's buildings were all old and fortified, built to withstand Zeffo’s harsh, long winters. 

“That’s an unusual name,” the woman finally said, taking another long hard look at the papers while she chewed on her snuff. “Where are you from, originally?”.

”Chandrila,” Ben replied truthfully.

That was how all the sleek liars got away, they mixed the truth with the lies until it was impossible to separate them. That was what Rey had done, what her entire family had done for generations; lied, bribed, manipulated.

Hiding in plain sight.

Shira nodded. ”I see. That’s in the Bormea Sector, correct? It’s very far from here, may I ask what brought you to Zeffo?”.

“I’m fascinated by the history of zeffonians,” he replied casually. “Their culture and heritage lack equals during the early days of the galaxy”. 

Before the clone wars, Cere Junda’s old master, Eno Cordova, who was both a Jedi and a decided scholar had studied the zeffonians and written a handful of books on the subject. Ben had read most of them to kill time when he was a kid and it had just been him, Luke, and R2-D2 at the temple on Ossus.

The Zeffonians were an ancient tribe that had utilized the Force long before the first Jedi was born. They built amazing temples, tombs, monuments, and flourishing cities on several planets. However, the Dark Side of the Force slowly corrupted the zeffonians, and through a string of tragic events, their numbers diminished. Eventually, the last zeffonians went into an exodus into the unknown regions, looking to rediscover the peace they once had lived in.

Years later, the legendary zeffonians had been what drew the Empire to Zeffo. During Project Auger, the Empire built multiple bases and mining sites as they pillaged the ancient tombs and underground temples in the hunt for valuable artifacts.

The woman raised an eyebrow, surprised by his answer. “You’re both a scholar and a phillak-herd? That’s highly unusual”.

Ben gave her an awkward, forced smile. “Not really….”.

Maybe he should have spent more time than the fifteen minutes it took to walk from the spaceport to the settlement to think up a more believable backstory.  

“….. it’s more of a hobby,” he explained. “I’m not a professional anthropologist”.

Shira still looked very suspicious, and Ben called on the Force to make her more cooperative. It was a common misconception that only “feeble-minded” people could be affected by the mind trick, but the truth was that the stronger one was with the force, the easier it was to manipulate others.

“You think my backstory makes perfect sense,” Ben sighed. “You have no bad feelings about this and if people ask you, you’ll tell them I’m just another migrant worker looking for a job in solitude”.

Shira looked at him with the blank stare of a dead dish before she snapped back to reality with a jerk.

“Alright, you’ve come to the right place then, ‘cause isn’t much else to do here,” she said as she shuffled the papers into her desk. “Zeffo was sparsely populated before the war and now… well, let’s say the village where you are going to stay isn’t exactly crowded”.

These days, the population on Zeffo consisted mostly of migrant workers who were either metal workers, scavengers, miners, or engineers specialized in remanufacturing. When Project Auger was finally shut down, the Empire left as quickly as they had appeared on Zeffo, leaving many resources behind in the form of deep mining equipment, broken ships and vehicles, bases, docking bays, and material storages that attracted scavengers, junk dealers and metal recyclers.

“I don’t mind,” Ben replied.

“Good,” she smiled. “Because the cabin fever got the best of my last phillak-herd. He jumped off a cliff and we found him in the ruins upstreams in a river two months later. Completely out of his mind”.

On Coruscant, Luke sat in his office, looking through a heap of requests from various benefactors and associates. He sighed softly as he read through a letter from a senator from Ord Mantell, asking for help to teach former child slaves galactic basic on Nal Hutta. The Jedi Service Corps had been a success from day one, but the amount of people in need of help was endless and his heart ached every time he had to make tough priorities.  

“We need to prioritize the children,” Luke mumbled to RD-D2 as he stroked his grey beard. “With education, they’ll have a chance at having a better future than their parents. “We should send Inten Gunawan to Nal Nutta and Arturo Garcia to Tatooine. They both have teaching experience and the amount of patience needed”.

He was just about to write the senator a reply when he spotted a new message in the terminal’s inbox. A cold shiver ran down Luke’s spine as he saw his nephew’s name as the sender from an unknown ship. 

Luke had tried to get a hold of Ben and Kira Ikari since he felt the disturbance in the Force two weeks ago. Neither of them had replied to his requests and after three days of silence, Luke had sent a padawan to the Upper City to check on them. The padawan had returned the same afternoon with an anxious look on his face, telling Luke that the enormous apartment was empty, except for a few droids.

It had worried him, but not enough to take action.  

Luke put his cup to the side and opened up the recording. The blue-tinted image of his nephew flared up on the desk and The old Jedi Master leaned forward to see better. Whatever ship the recording had been sent from seemed to be old and dark. Ben sucked in a breath and ran a hand through his wild hair before he started to speak. 

He told the story of how he had followed Kira Ikari to Naboo to look at a property in the Lake Country she had bought. From there everything seemed to have gone awry, Ben told him about the House of Palpatine, how strong the presence of the Dark was, and when he finally the girl, she had called on the Knights of Ren to kill him.

“It can’t be possible… how could I have overseen this?” Luke mumbled to himself in disbelief. The girl was a Sith. He, a legendary Jedi Master had met the girl in person, and not for a second had he felt anything strange about her.  

“... there is no doubt that she is Rey Palpatine,” Ben continued. “Kira Ikari is just an alias she’s been using. The First Order must have recruited Othori Ikari to help create a viable cover and backstory for her”.

As he heard the name “Palpatine” his body grew rigid in sheer shock. 

“I have sent you all the information I have on the matter,” Ben continued, his voice hollow and shaky. “From what I have learned, Darth Sidious is still alive on a planet called Exegol. I don’t know where it is, or how to find it. It pains me to say this, but I cannot be of any further aid…” Ben’s gaze flickered, he paused and swallowed before he turned his gaze up again, looking straight into the camera sensor with his dark eyes. “I hereby resign from the Jedi Order”.

The hologram died away and it took Luke a few minutes to gather himself and collect his thoughts enough to realize what Ben just had said. Slowly, he turned to the droid.

“Artoo, send Leia a message. Tell her it’s urgent”.

After the formalities had been handled, Shira took Ben on a tour through the snow-tinted settlement. There was a cantina, a rustic-looking tavern, some kind of small establishment that looked like a hostel, a closed merchant row, and a large metal foundry from which white-gray smoke poured out from a large funnel.

“They’re recycling aluminum,” Shira said. “From the star destroyer in the eastern lake”. 

Small snowflakes started to fall from the sky as they continued the tour, walking past a row of dented durasteel construction barracks. Make-shift homes for the scavenengers and the off-world metal workers.

“You’ll be living in a small village further up in the mountains,” Shira continued as she led Ben to the outskirts of the settlement. “My, colleague Hao Jiang will help you take care of the practical stuff”.

Jiang waited for them at a small, empty barn on the outskirts of the settlement. He was a short, but broad man with spiky hair and a weather-worn face, clad in hiking boots,  cargo pants, a thick, rugged coat, and a knitted long scarf. 

“This is Kenwan Ibo from Chandrilla, he is our new Phillak herd,” Shia said with a nod to Ben. “Show him to the village and help him settle in, will you?”.

“You got it!” Jiang said as he clasped his hands together with enthusiasm. He then turned his gaze to Ben. “So, Chandrilla, huh? Have you ever worked with phillaks before, Kenwan?”.

Truth to tell, Ben had never seen a phillak in reality before. While he was a man of many talents, he had never done anything that even remotely could be compared to herding. But considering that his life had turned into a catastrophe of epic proportions, he was certain that philak herding would be a breeze compared to pretty much everything he had gone through lately.

“No, but I have worked with animals before,” Ben replied. 

It wasn’t a complete lie, not if he counted his eight-month-long mission with animal inspectors from Coruscant.

“Okay, that can be an issue,” he said with curbed enthusiasm. “Phillaks are pretty large, and they can… uh, they can be a little fickle if you don’t know how to handle them properly”.

“It’s nothing I can’t handle,” Ben assured the shorter man.

“Yeah… We’ll have to see about that. Anyway, let’s get going. We’re wasting daylight,” Jiang said as he shrugged on a large backpack with an ice pick fastened hanging from the side. “The village isn’t far from here, but I hope you like hiking”.

They walked up on a large metal staircase that led up to a blown-out path between two high cliffs. The plateau was covered with a drapery of long, thin icicles that reached all the way from the top of the cliffs to the ground. On one of the moss-covered rock ledges, he spotted an empty bird’s nest. 

“It’s quite a sight, isn’t it?”.

“It is,” Ben replied.

“I’m a veterinary technician, actually,” Jian continued. “I was born on Morlana I, in the Corporate Sector. But I never liked it there; all the noise, the pollution, the materialism… Everything was about credits. That’s why I came here — to live a simple life, closer to nature”.

Ben nodded in silence, mesmerized by the scenario as they stepped out on a small alpine meadow. The ground was covered with high grass and in the middle of it laid a pile of large rocks, covered with white lichens and moss, that seemed to once have been part of an old stone bridge that once had leaped across the meadow.

“Up there, on the cliff, is the entrance to the tomb of Eilram. An ancient elevator,” Jian said as he pointed to a flat surface on the eastern rock. “But it’s very dangerous down there, so don’t even think about going there, you hear me?”.

“Got it,” Ben nodded. “Is that the phillaks over there?”.

Behind the fallen bridge and the pile of rocks, a small herd of animals grazed, unaffected by their presence. The phillaks were large, majestic ram-like creatures with shiny blue-gray, or silvery fur with a crown of three heavy horns. 

“It is. Compared to banthas and nerfs, phillaks can be aggressive, especially during the mating season. They can charge you, kick you, or give you a hell of a head-butt, so always approach them carefully. If they show signs of aggression, thread away”.

The phillaks looked up at them as they walked onto the path that led them out of the meadow, but they remained still and resumed grazing once Jian and Ben had passed.

The path continued through a cave passage, lit up by motion-activated headframe lights, a remainder from the mining days of the empire. Just as they stepped back out in the daylight a large, shaggy, bipedal rat hissed at them from a narrow cliff before it crept back into a large crack.

“What was that, some kind of womp rat?”.

“Those are scazzes, native to Zeffo,” Jiang replied. “Nasty creatures; tastes like recycled protein. They live in caves and cracks in the mountains. Very aggressive, so keep an eye open, especially if they’re more than one”.

”You can eat those?“ Ben frowned.

Jiang nodded. “Yeah, we do. The meat works well in a stew with mountain sage. But — you need to boil the meat for at least an hour unless you want to get trichinosis”.

“I’ll keep that in mind”.

It didn’t take Ben and Jiang more than thirty minutes until they arrived at the small mountain village, but the sun had already started to sink down behind the horisont. It was early spring on Zeffo and the nights were far longer than the days.

As they entered the village, Ben noticed that the buildings mostly were made out of granite and limestone, some were reinforced with metal. Besides the housing buildings, there was also an outpost with a guard tower which looked almost like a tiny, tiny stone fortress.

The village had been abandoned during the war, and since only a few of the villagers returned after the Empire had fallen, many houses had been remade for temporary migrant- and seasonal workers by the local government. Fully furnitured and equipped with the basic necessities to a low monthly fee.

“Let’s see… Shira said you’ll be staying at M-12,” Jiang said as he stopped in front of one of the houses. “Tomorrow, I’ll take you to meet the animals”.

“Great,” Ben said with a nod as Jiang handed over a keycard to him. “I’ll see you at sunrise”.

Jiang then bid him good night and left Ben to settle in.

The house was small; barely larger than the guest rooms at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. There was a tiny bathroom with a water shower, a combined living room, and a kitchen with a bed built into one of the walls, only separated from the rest of the room with a drapery. A portable, cube-shaped radiator stood in the middle of the room. It emitted a soft blue glow and at a closer inspection, Ben discovered that it was powered with hyperfuel leftovers, probably extracted from the fallen star destroyer in the lake. The floor was covered with woven mats, made of a rough yarn of colorful rags and the sturdy furniture was either made out of wood or repurposed materials. 

Ben sighed to himself as he put down his backpack into the corner of the bedroom and threw himself on the bed. He hadn’t slept properly since he left Naboo, almost two weeks ago.

He had only dared to stay at the rundown space station for one night. After that, Ben had flown to the Spice Terminus, another sketchy space station in the Parmic Sector to get forged identity papers and get rid of the Knights of Ren’s looted weapons and equipment he didn’t need. Once that was handled, he stopped at Equator City on Rodia for supplies before he began his journey half-across the galaxy to Zeffo. 

The arctic, wind-ridden planet lay isolated in the M-3 grid square, between Dantooine and the border to Wild Space. It was as close as one could get to ‘the middle of nowhere’ without entering the unknown regions or uncharted territories in Wild Space.

Ben was without doubt that Rey would look for him. The question was just how she would do it, and how much resources she would put into it. 

By revealing her true identity to the Jedi Order, he had at least managed to burn some bridges for her, meaning that she couldn’t manipulate Uncle Luke, his mother, or use the New Republic’s resources to go looking for him under false pretenses. She couldn’t use the Bondsman’s Guild to find him either as they were affiliated with the New Republic.

After the First Order’s attack on the Colossus, the Core Worlds seemed to be trembling in fear and his mother had far better things to do than to send a search party after him. Unless her spies found him standing among the First Order’s stormtroopers with a red lightsaber in his hand, and say, Poe Dameron’s decapitated head in the other, that was.

So what options remained?

Even without her false identity, Rey had access to plenty of resources, and it wasn’t impossible to find bounty hunters who were willing to work without legal permits if one had enough credits. She could also use the First Order to find him, certainly, they would have a large amount of spies and sympathies that would gladly keep an eye open for him.

Ben chewed on the inside of his cheek as he considered the different scenarios one after one in his mind. He could stay on Zeffo for one, or two seasons perhaps. Then he would need to move on; perhaps Koboh, Concorde Dawn, or maybe Taanab could be an option, depending on how fast the First Order advanced through the galaxy.

His conscience turned heavy like lead just thinking about it. If the war would come to the core and the New Republic, the Jedi Order would be expected to partake, even if they essentially were peacekeepers and not warriors.

Ben rolled onto his side and pulled a blanket over himself. As the night approached, the temperature outside sank fast, and he could see how frost began to develop on the outside of the small window.

His thoughts wandered back to Rey and he couldn’t help but feel disappointed with himself. Not only because she had deceived him, but also because he had let his fear and anger get the best out of him. Rey’s mindless talk about the dyad, their alleged connection to the force combined with her betrayal and relentlessness had caused him to attack her and flee. But even if it was undeniable that she was strong with the Dark Side, there was conflict within her, just like there was in himself.

It annoyed him. Luke hadn’t turned Darth Vader during their first encounter, after all. Should he have stayed, should he have tried harder?

Although Ben knew he wasn’t anywhere near as strong with the Light as his uncle was, there was still a part of him that desperately wanted to save the girl from whatever clutches that kept her in the Dark.

Chapter Text

What Jiang had said turned out to be true; the phillaks weren’t half as troublesome as Ben had feared. All he had to do was follow the herd around and make sure they stayed in the designated areas and kept their distance from wanderers, scavengers, and villagers taking a stroll in the mountains.

With a little help from the Force, the job was child’s play and Ben could spend most of his time reading or exploring ancient ruins or the old, abandoned imperial facilities.

The weeks passed. The nights became shorter, and the wind felt less like icicles against his face. As long as he kept himself occupied and his mind busy, Ben felt fine. The nights were the hardest. The image of Rey haunted his dreams. Her glittering eyes, her smile, her voice… But the dreams always ended up in her forcing him against the Knights, over and over again. His bad conscience over not being strong enough in the Light persisted. He could have saved her, could have been an asset instead of a liability. When the news came that the First Order had been scouted in the Inner Rim, Ben’s bad conscience hung like a gray, wet blanket over him.

It was like the entire galaxy was holding its breath — who would take the first step?

His new neighbors on Zeffo weren’t concerned, though. Most of them had never even been to the Inner Rim, let alone the Core Worlds, and they knew the planet lacked valuable natural resources that might attract unwanted attention. 

”The First Order? They won’t come here,” Bell, one of his neighbors, said when Ben met her on the path back to the village. ”Not for the ore. There isn’t anything to mine here but iron, quartz, and maybe some amethysts if you’re lucky”.

“How can you be so sure?” Ben asked.

“Believe me, I know,” she replied with a small shrug. “I used to work for the mining guild”.

Ben nodded in silence, contemplating. He had a feeling that the woman was more worried than she let off, and maybe she knew more than that, too. When they walked through the mountain passage, he gave in to the temptation to peek inside her head.

A blur of colors morphed into a hull of brown metal and a large cockpit with well-worn seats as the former deckhand’s memory came alive inside his mind. 

The cockpit belonged to a colossal container freighter known as the Scharnhorst V. It had sailed through the galaxy for decades, transporting recycled metal from the scrapyard planet of Bracca to various industries across the galaxy. Among the crew, Ben spotted a younger version of Bell, dressed in an oil-stained, orange jumpsuit. She stood next to the pilot's seat with a datapad in hand and her perplexed gaze shifting between the data on the device and the ship's mainframe.

“You must have done something wrong when you calculated the route," she said to the pilot. "This isn’t anywhere near the fuel depot on Rakata Prime”.

The pilot, an old tholothian female turned her head and gave the Bell an annoyed gaze. 

“Human, sit down and keep your trap shut,” she snapped. “We’ll be docking in less than fifteen minutes. Prepare to unload the cargo and when you do, you’re not allowed to talk to anyone on the station, do you understand?”.

“What? We’re in the middle of nowhere!" Bell barked back. "There is nothing here and we need to refuel within two hours!”

As the pilot and Bell kept arguing, Ben saw an enormous orbital shipyard come into view. It had a distinctive aesthetic, characterized by towering orbital stations and immense dry docks. Gigantic gantries spanned across the void, holding what looked like ships in various stages of assembly.

“Where is this?”, Ben thought to himself, surprised. He had seen similar structures, although larger, on Kuat. But the Kuat system was located in the Outer Core, and wherever this was, it seemed to be worlds away from the bustling confines of the Inner Rim.

As the freighter closed in on an open docking bay, the memory swayed dangerously. It seemed like Bell was about to grow conscious about the intrusion, and Ben didn’t dare to press further, so he severed the connection.

“Maker, what was that…?” Bell stopped dead in her tracks with panic in her brown eyes as she unconsciously raised her hands to her chest. “I just felt… like a chill from within”.

“Maybe it’s just a cold sink in the passage,” Ben mumbled, feeling a sting of a guilty conscience as he saw her wide, panicked eyes and pale face. 

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, shaking her head. “It must have been that”.

They kept on walking and once they left the passage; the color returned to Bell’s face, and she seemed relieved. The path grew steeper, and when they were almost near the crossing where the path split up, when Bell suddenly pulled at the arm of his brown robe.

”Hey Kenwan, let’s take another trail back to the village. I want to show you something!”.

“Go ahead”.

Veering away from the main path, Ben followed Bell onto a well-worn trail that led them down to a lower plateau. The sound of trickling water accompanied their every step as a small stream emerged, and the ground transformed into a carpet of vibrant moss and soft lycophytes. Amidst the greenery, a few twisted pine trees and clusters of juniper bushes swayed in the wind.

The terrain changed from marshy to rocky as they ascended onto a fenced mountain trail, seemingly carved into the face of the towering peak. A weathered sign, marked with signs of aging, cautioned hikers about the potential slipperiness during springtime. Moving cautiously, they proceeded along the trail, occasionally pausing to savor the breathtaking panorama that unfolded before their eyes.

”Amazing, isn’t it? You can see the ocean from here,” Bell enthusiastically said as she pointed to the northeast. ”That’s the harbor, over there, where the crab-fishing boats are”.

Zeffo was truly breathtaking; high, steep mountains covered with snow and ice, green valleys with small settlements, surrounded by rivers with cold, crystal clear water. But it wasn’t all picture-perfect; large water power plants, enormous wind turbines, and old imperial digging sites and mine shafts stood out like an eyesore in the otherwise idyllic landscape.

”You’ve been to the wreck yet?” Bell asked as she nodded down to the lake. “It’s quite the sight, too”.

“No, but I heard of it,” Ben said as lowered his gaze down onto the lake where the wreck of a star destroyer lay. It was one of the older, smaller destroyers, a venator-class ship. Yet, its broken hull looked gigantic, even from afar.

“That ship has lay there for over fifty years and it still keeps the entire scavenger team from the metal recycling plant busy,” she replied. “It’s unbelievable how big those things are, yet, it’s one of the smaller classes, I think”.

“It is,” he nodded in agreement. 

After a few minutes of admiring the landscape in silence, they continued their journey back to the village, keeping an eye on the sprawling landscape.

Upon their return, they spotted Jiang outside his house, busy chopping wood. A large dog, with thick and fluffy fur, lounged nearby, gnawing on a massive marrowbone from a jotaz.

"Hey Bell, Kenwan! I'm glad you made it back safely!" Jiang greeted with a nod towards Ben. "I heard there was a ravine near the grazing area I sent you to. Did everything go well?"

"Yeah, I took a different route back. The phillaks are safe in the valley enclosure," Ben replied.

"Good," Jiang said, setting down the axe and tossing the last piece of wood onto the stack. "It's Zhellday, so I thought of going to the pub. You guys want to come along?"

"I'm not sure," Ben hesitated. He had always been more of a solitary person and enjoyed his own company. However, anything that could distract him from brooding over Rey was a welcome change.

"Oh, come on. What else is there to do here once the workweek is over?" Bell insisted. "If you do, I'll treat you to a steam-cooked crab!"

The nightlife on Zeffo was as sparse as its population; the settlement had one drinking hole and if you didn’t like what they served, the nearest bar was to be found miles away at the harbor. When Ben arrived with his neighbors, the bar was almost full and they sat down at the last free table. Jiang brought his dog along, and as soon as they were seated, it crept under the table where it lay down, still with the marrowbone in its maw.

The pub was simple and had a rustic charm, like a cozy haven from Zeffo’s cold, harsh environment. It was constructed with sturdy logs and adorned with weathered wooden panels that seemed to have been salvaged from an older building.

A gran in rugged clothes and an old leather appeared with a tray to take their orders.

“What’ll you have?”.

”Three beers, two steamed crabs with dill sauce,” Bell replied without hesitation. ”Jiang?”.

The vet tech shook his head. ”No. I want food, not a de-assembly project. I’ll have the fried beetroot pancake”.

“Coming right up”. The gran was faster than he looked. In less than two minutes, he reappeared at the table with the beers.

It tasted like a brew of bitter fruit and hops, and Ben struggled not to grimace. A Jedi seldom drank alcohol. It was seen as an indulgence, even if they could use the Force to lower the effects of alcohol.

“Good, right?” Jiang said as he chugged down his beer.

“Unforgettable,” Ben replied.

Along with a second round of beer, the gran arrived with their food. The steamed blue-brown crabs were large, shaped like spiders with six long legs. The shell was hard like a rock and full of sharp, spike-like outgrowths, and as cutlery, Ben was given a sharp pick, a think fork, and a ”crab cracker”.

“How do you eat this thing…?” he asked, perplexed. 

“I’ll show,” Bell said. “First, you crack the limbs apart, like this…”.

She picked up her crab and carefully bent the legs in the opposite direction of the body until they broke loose with a sound crack. Then she continued to crack the leg at the joins, and when that was done, Bell skillfully picked out the meat from the legs with the pick.

“.... and you’re done! We take legs first, then the claws and the carapace”.

A well-worn wooden bar stretched along the opposite of the room. Behind it, a small holocaster stood on a counter next to a row of bottled liquor, projecting news from the HoloNet. A pink-skinned female twi’lek commented on clips with recent happenings from all around the galaxy; a series of fires on the agricultural planet Taanab, sightings of the Colossus in the Outer Rim, and yet another crisis in the senate.

Ben only listened with half an ear as he tried to mimic how Bell cracked her crab apart. The extraction of the succulent meat turned out to be an art, and determining the right angle to crack the shells without squandering the meat seemed to be a skill of its own. 

When Ben had just succeeded in picking out the succulent white meat from the third of the crab legs, Jiang, who had already finished his dish long ago, nudged his shoulder.

“Hey,” he said with a nod to the holocaster. “Take a look at that”.

It was as if someone had cast a spell over the bustling ensemble of scavengers, metal workers, and migrant workers; the buzz in the bar died away in an instant as all the guests turned their gaze to the holocaster.  

It projected what looked like drone footage of snow-covered woods, and for a split second, Ben thought it was Zeffo. But the landscape was different; there were dense woods with tall spruces, and flat plains, and there were broad, deep abysses in the ground that he never had seen during his journeys in the mountains. In the distance behind the woods, Ben spotted a familiar sight; a tall, ice-clad structure that towered over the powder-white landscape.

A Jedi Temple.

It was Illum, Ben immediately realized. An arctic planet covered with permafrost where the Jedis of the past had gone to find kyber crystals for their lightsabers from the caves under the temple for generations.

The clip only lasted for a few seconds before the camera switched to what looked like hundreds, maybe thousands of stormtroopers standing in formation in the snow. Blood-red banners fluttered in the air, and then the camera zoomed in on a group of officers in black uniforms and long winter coats, flanked by what looked like a new generation of purge troopers. 

Ben’s heart skipped a beat at the sight, and when one patron dropped his fork in shock, the sound echoed through the entire room.

At the front, there was a podium, and a uniform-clad stepped up on it and adjusted his hat before he opened his mouth to speak. Or rather; yell.

“The future citizens of the Core Worlds will look back with pride upon this day, as this is the day when we, the First Order, will stand up and demand an end to the chaos inflicted by the New Republic!! For decades, the galaxy has suffered under the careless and corrupted….”.

”Look at his gaze,” Jiang said. ”Completely unhinged… I can’t believe why the senate hasn’t done anything to stop them; they have taken over at least five worlds near the border to the Inner Rim”.

“This is madness,” Bell mumbled in a thin voice as she looked at the holocaster with terror in her eyes. “Will they really wage war on the Republic and the Core Worlds?”.

Ben was speechless. He recognized the redhead, it was Armitage Hux. The skinny Techno Union lobbyist Rey had brought to Leia’s fundraiser and who had visited them on Coruscant, at the apartment in Upper City. Hux being a general in the First Order was not something Ben could have anticipated in his wildest dreams. 

Was it Rey’s doing?

He swallowed thickly. She couldn’t be that cruel, could she? The thought of Rey bringing the New Republic to its knees just to force him out of his hiding place seemed out of proportion, even for her. Still, people didn't say 'hell hath any fury like a woman scorned' for nothing, and from what he had seen, Rey was more than willing to sacrifice others to achieve her goals.

As the unwelcome thoughts of Rey once again filled his mind, Ben was overcome by a wave of discomfort and nausea. Losing all appetite, he knew he had to leave. He thanked Bell for the crab and left them to process Hux's disturbing speech along with the rest of the patrons.

In the early morning, Ben walked on a narrow mountain trail behind the herd of phillaks. The ground was stony with slippery frozen patches. If you stepped wrong and slipped, you could slide off the edge to a certain death. The height was staggering; if he peered down, all Ben could see was milk-white mist and the steep, flat surface of the rock wall.

The phillaks seemed unconcerned by both the surface of the path and the heights. Despite their size, they walked the trail with ease, stopping now and then to nip at patches of green grass that popped out of the snow.

 Jiang had sent him a virtual map of all areas that were supposedly snow-free. The map was updated daily with data from a satellite. Today, the nearest snow-free zone was opposite the Gusty Bluffs, a cliff ridge with several enormous wind turbines mounted on the mountain face. The area was protected from the wind by the mountains from both sides. There was barely any snow left, just some close to the mountains where the sun didn’t reach. 

“I’ll guess this spot will be as good as any”.

While he put up the tent, Ben thought about the holoclip with General Hux’s speech. What bothered him more than the redhead’s boiling hatred for the New Republic, was that the First Order seemed to have built a base on Illum. The Empire had been on Illum as well; mining kyber to use in the focusing lasers of the Death Star. Whatever they were doing there, it couldn’t be good.

Ben sighed as he put down the last pole into the semi-frozen ground. His entire body was itching to go there and find out what they were up to. He knew the coordinates to Illum, and the Nightbuzzard had a cloaking device.

While it was tempting, it would also be incredibly reckless, and if something went wrong he would be stuck without any kind of backup.

“Maybe tomorrow,” he murmured to himself. "I'll sleep the matter" 

Once he finished setting up his camp, Ben went on to explore the nearby ruins. He came across what appeared to be a collapsed mining shaft, with large pieces of rock blocking the entrance and broken metal beams scattered amidst the debris.

Using the Force, Ben effortlessly lifted the rocks and gravel into the air, creating a floating effect similar to soap bubbles. After clearing the shaft, it was time for some spelunking. He suspected that this particular shaft was just one of many that had been excavated during Project Auger and likely led deep down to the former underground headquarters of the imperial digging site.

As he ventured deeper into the shaft, he found a cracked stormtrooper helmet overgrown with green algae, some empty plastic containers, oil canisters, and broken drilling equipment. He also spotted the rusty remains of what once seemed to have been a large droid lying at the bottom of a large, deep crack in the rock. Curious to see if it was the remains of one of the bounty hunter droids from Haxan Brute Cal Kestis once had fought, Ben climbed down into the crack to take a closer look. Sadly, the droid’s chassis turned out to be almost completely consumed by rust and it was impossible to see what model it once had been. 

Disappointed, he climbed up and continued down the shaft until he was stopped by a large pool of clear, ice-cold water. The water-filled mining shaft didn’t offer much else to explore, so he ventured back to the outside.

It was just before midday, and the sun stood high in the sky. It was a beautiful day, the mountain breeze was cool like usual, but as long as he stayed in the sun, it was actually quite warm. Ben retrieved his thermal cup from his backpack and sat down at a sun-drenched spot in the tall grass.

Even though his life as a phillak-herd was relatively uneventful, it wasn't so bad. He had a thermal sleeping bag, dry-frozen instant meals he could cook over a field kitchen, and a two-day ration of instant caaf.

One of the younger phillaks walked up to him and gently nudged him with its large head, curious to see what he was drinking. He reached out the cup and let the animal sniff the bitter liquid. One whiff was enough to it make snort out loudly and rush back to its herd.

“No caaf?”.

Ben drank his caaf as he peered out over the Gusty Bluffs. Some wind turbines were old and rusty, some new, but all rotated at an even pace in the wind. He thought about Rey again, even if had promised himself not to. Despite all her lies and her outright diabolic scheme to turn him to the dark, Ben missed her. 

Were they truly a dyad in the Force?

It both seemed too far-fetched to be true and made sense at the same time.  

“One soul in two bodies…” Ben mumbled to himself as he lay down and gazed up into the blue sky. It was almost romantic; in a strange, twisted way. It also sounded like the stuff nightmares were made of; what if that other person you were bonded with turned out to be a heartless monster?

Suddenly, Ben felt a familiar sensation of pressure at his temples, followed unnerving chill that left him shivering, even in the presence of the hot caaf and warm sunlight. It was as if a cold breeze had swept through, and when he turned his head, he stopped Kylo standing next to him.

He looked terribly out of place, a dark phantom in the bright daylight.

”Go away,” Ben sighed as he dropped his head back into the grass and closed his eyes. “I have enough troubles as it is”.

“Every time we meet, you always remind me of why I hate you so much,” Kylo said. His voice was calm as usual, but the disappointment seeped through it like thick tar through the water. “Instead of facing your destiny, you run away to an isolated, forgotten system to … herd goats and play archeologist”.

“Besides, phillaks are not goats, they're hybrids between the Ovis and the Rhinocerotidae family,” he replied, not taking Kylo’s bait.

Kylo gave him a hard glare before he turned his back against Ben with an arrogant snort.

“Is that your plan, to lay here while the First Order wages war on your home, your family?” he said after a few minutes in silence. “You’re not just weak and pathetic then, you’re a coward, too ”.

“I'd rather be a weak coward than a murderer,” Ben clipped. “You might be fine ending up like Rey’s puppet and doing her dirty deeds, but I’m not“.

One thing was for sure; his days taking orders from others were done.

He had clung to the Order out of fear, terrified that without their set beliefs, he would succumb to the darkness within himself. Looking back, he realized the Jedi Order had only perpetuated his anguish and self-loathing. The truth was, life was not composed of absolutes; there were no pure blacks or whites, only varying shades of gray with fleeting glimpses of an elusive light. In reality, there was no such thing as black or white. Everything was just different shades of black and gray with small glimpses of a fickle light. 

”She’s not looking for a puppet,” Kylo replied. 

”What does she want, then?” Ben asked, pinching the bridge of his nose. ”I understand that she thinks we’re connected by Force, and that we… have the same soul. Is it true?”.

“I think you know the answer to that yourself. As for Rey… She might be the heiress, but to claim the throne Rey must kill Darth Sidious, or merge with him.”.

Disturbed, Ben sat straight up and gave Kylo a deep frown. ”Merge… with him?”.

”I told you already. Sidious is alive, but dying. Not even the Sith Eternal’s most refined alchemists can prolong the life of his body much longer. To survive, he must merge his soul with Rey. If he does, it means our soul will be shared with him too“.

Share his soul… with Sidious? 

If that happened, it would be game over for him. No matter how much effort he would put into staying sane, he wouldn’t stand a chance against that.

“Rey wants to use the alleged power of the Dyad to defeat him, as she fears she isn’t strong enough to defeat Sidious by herself”.

”Is she?” Ben asked, daring to look Kylo in the eyes. It was like looking into the pits of hell. Dark, almost black orbs with a gleam of orange.

”You ask the wrong question,” Kylo said, and Ben saw a ghost of a smirk on his lips. ”So does Rey. But, you’ll both understand. Eventually”.

It took the phillaks less than a half-day to clear the area of fresh grass, and in the morning Ben took them back to the enclosure outside of the village. It was the end of the month and once the animals were secured, Ben walked down to the settlement to meet with Shira at her office.

The winter season was coming to an end, grazing areas that previously had been covered with snow and ice became available and in a week, Jiang would start the yearly vaccination for enzootic pneumonia.

After the meeting, Ben took a stroll through the town.

Outside the laundry facility, he caught sight of Bell. She stood leaned against the wall at the sunny side of the laundry facility, clad in a thick knitted cardigan, a white cotton dress, long woolen socks that reached up to her tights, and a pair of well-worn boots.

“Hey Kenwan!” She said with a broad smile. “You want some caaf?”.

"Why not?" Ben replied, still curious about the shipyard he had seen in her memory. "Are you done for the day?"

"Yeah, we just wrapped up the final batch. Brewed enough caaf for a half platoon, and it would be a shame to let it go to waste."

He followed Bell back into the laundry facility, their footsteps echoing on the concrete floor as they strode between the rows of big blue, industrial-grade washing machines. At the back of the laundry, there was a spacious break room, adorned with plastic rag rugs made from pieces of old tarp and sturdy chairs and tables that reminded Ben of the furniture at the clinic on Polis Massa.

"So... How are you holding up?" Ben inquired as he settled into one of the chairs. "You seemed a little shaken back at the bar."

"I'm alright," Bell assured him, selecting a pair of cheap ceramic cups from a cupboard with cracked blue paint. "It's just... I'm not concerned for myself, but I dread witnessing the galaxy descend into another civil war."

“I’m alright,” Bell said as she picked out a pair of cheap, ceramic cups from one of the cupboards with cracked, blue paint. “It’s just… I’m not worried for myself, but I don’t wanna see the galaxy get thrown into a new civil war”.

She retrieved a large pot from an even larger percolator and served Ben and herself before she sat down and pulled her knitted cardigan tighter around herself. 

Ben took a sip of the brew. The caaf was strong without being bitter. Hot.

“So.. what about you, do you have a family somewhere?“ she asked.

“I’m divorced,” he replied flatly.

“Oh, sorry to hear that,” Bell quipped, embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to pry, or anything”.

“It’s alright… Why don’t you tell me a little of yourself?” Ben suggested, calling onto the Force again. He didn’t need to force her to spill her secrets, just make her a little more willing. 

"Tell me how you ended up here," Ben probed gently, his eyes fixed on Bell. As he spoke, he subtly tapped into the Force. In an instant, Bell's expression softened and her words flowed freely, seemingly compelled by an unseen force.

"My grandfather was an admiral in the Empire. My family is from the Core, but we had a good life on Nova Garon during the glory days. However, after the battle of Endor, things took a turn. We couldn't return to Coruscant due to the... umm, the reprogramming program?"

"You've spent your whole life on the border of Wild Space after the Empire fell?"

“No. I lived on Bracca for a while," she continued. "Eventually, I got a job on one of the Mining Guild’s container ships. We flew from Bracca to Raxus Prime and Kuat. But after a year or so, we started flying to Kuat’s building site in the Unknown Regions”.

"Do you remember the coordinates?" Ben pressed. "Think hard".

Bell's gaze became distant, her eyes seemingly lost in a trance. Furrowing her brow, she struggled to recall, but eventually shook her head.

”No," she slowly said. "But it must be 4-6 hours away from Rakata Prime”.

“What did they build there?”.

"We were never officially informed," Bell confessed. "But I met a welder who mentioned prototypes."

Ben leaned forward, resting his elbows against his knees, fingers fletched around the blue cup. Now, this conversation was starting to get really interesting.

“What kind of prototypes, Star destroyers?”.

Kuat had manufactured destroyers for centuries, selling battleships to both the Empire, the Republic, and a handful of other factions. To them, war was simply business.

Bell nodded. “They were testing prototypes for the new Xyston class”.

The Xyston-classed star destroyers? While Ben was certain he had never heard of the class before, yet sounded oddly familiar. Like an elusive memory, he was unable to recall. 

“What got you to quit your job? he pressed. "It seems like you enjoyed it”.

Bell squirmed slightly in her chair, an expression of unease clouding her features.

“I’m a pragmatic person…. But they’re something else,” Bell admitted quietly, fingers curled around her cup in a firm grip as her face grew paler. “One night when I was waiting for the ship to get refueled, I overheard some technicians. They said that an entire moon got destroyed during a weapon test with the prototype”.

Planet destroyers.

He didn’t even need to ask who had commissioned that kind of ship. It was as obvious as space was infinite that it was the First Order. If the odds had been bad for the New Republic before, they would be less than microscopic against that kind of weapon system.

How long ago was it since the imperial engineers developed the first Death Star? 

Fourty-fifty years?

As thoughts of the potential connection between the Empire, Kuat Drive Yards, and the First Order swirled in Ben's mind, his concentration on the Force wavered. The once-strong connection dissipated and Ben snapped back to reality as he noticed the woman's sudden distress.

"Bell?".

"I'm sorry, but... I don't feel so good," she said, her voice trembling with unease as she apologized, her face paling noticeably. "I don't know what just happened, but I think I have to... you can find your way out, right?"

She looked like she was going to throw up any second and before he could answer, the former deckhand had stormed out of the room and down the corridor, behind the large washing machines, to where the locker room and toilets were.

If Bell had grown sick because he had made her think about things she’d rather forget, or if it was because he had pushed her too hard, it felt like a secondary issue when Ben walked out of the town to the hangar.

Did the Jedi Order know about Kuat, about the new destroyers? 

Did his mother? 

Exiled or not, he couldn't take the risk that they didn’t. 

If the First Order advanced on the New Republic, with a fleet of those. The rag-tag fleet of old X-wings and relics from the civil war he had seen at the hangar on Coruscant wouldn’t stand a chance.

Hidden under a large, green tarp, the Night Buzzard stood parked in an old imperial hangar outside of the main town. It was cheap and discrete. Manned by an old, re-programmed security droid all days of the week.

Ben sat down in the pilot’s seat and turned on the power. The usual anxiety clawed within his chest as the mainframe loaded and searched for a signal. Once the connection had stabilized, he started recording a transmission for Luke, telling him what he had found out about Kuat’s unknown shipyard.

“It’s likely to be located somewhere between, or near, H-14, B-10, and E-16. It seems like they shipped raw material from Bracca, diverting from their normal route to the Unknown Regions,” Ben said. “See if you can get some information from either Kuat or the Mining Union”.

Once the message was sent, Ben locked down the ship and walked out on the landing platform. It was mostly empty, except for a pile of sealed brown-green cargo containers that awaited to be picked up. It was late in the afternoon and the sun was on its way down behind the mountains.

Ben took a deep breath as he scouted out over the scenario. It felt like the situation with the First Order, Rey, and Sith grew more complex and more dire with each day that passed. Still, the question that concerned Ben the most was Darth Sidious.

Could Luke stand against him, could his mother?

“The galaxy had never seen anyone as strong with the Force as Anakin Skywalker was, and yet, he was unable to defeat the emperor…,” Ben mumbled to himself. “Then how could we stand a chance?”.

“You seem worried, Jedi,“ a female voice behind him said. “And you have good reason to; the end is inevitable. The question is just; how will you face it?“.

Startled, he spun around and pinned his eyes on the stranger. The woman was clad in a black, skin-tight suit with a long, army coat resting on her shoulders. Instinctively, Ben knew she was one of Rey’s henchmen. She looked familiar, too.

Black hair, tan skin, vibrant green eyes.

“You... look identical to Trilla Suduri,“ Ben slowly said. “What are you, a clone?“

“The Sith Eternal grew this body at their lab on Exegol. It’s derived from an old DNA sample extracted from the Empire‘s secret bio-vault on Mygeeto,“ the woman said as she ran her right hand along her left arm. “Thus, this body is just a bionic copy. But I am the only Trilla that ever has existed — or what‘s left of her anyway“.

“How is that even possible?”

“The Sith Eternal grew a copy of my body. Rey harnessed my soul from the Force”.

Ben clenched his jaw. It couldn’t be possible, could it? The entire Dyad thing and that the Emperor still was alive had been hard to take in, but this was even more unbelievable. If they had managed to reanimate old inquisitors, what else was the Sith Eternal capable of? 

“Don’t look so surprised,” Trilla scolded him. “It shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering that you already know the Emperor is still alive”.

“Emperor is dying,” Ben countered, repeating what Kylo had revealed.

“He is,” Trilla gave him an eerie smile as she sat down on a cargo box. “Everything comes with a cost. The deeper your connection is to the Force, the more severe the decay becomes; it eats you from the inside”.

“Then it’s all true,” Ben whispered, more to himself than to the woman. Kylo had been right all along, and Rey would stop at nothing until he had turned to the Dark as her own life depended on it.

“The Light cannot save you, Ben,” Trilla said, daring to step a little closer. “It cannot save anyone. Not unless you’re looking for redemption at your deathbed. If you want to survive, you have to let it go”. 

“I know what she wants,” he clipped. “I also made it clear that I won’t do that”. 

“Would you rather die?”.

Ben sucked in a sharp breath. Over the years, the thought had occurred to him. Mostly during his time at the clinic on Polis Massa. Once they had taken him off the initial heavy sedation, the truth had started to sink in that maybe, just maybe Luke hadn't been wrong when he tried to kill Ben for the greater good. 

His control had slipped on Elphrona. He hated to admit it, but it was true. He had thrown Voe into a chasm in a rage, regretted it a split-second later, and used the Force to keep her from falling into a certain death. Then he changed his mind again and brought down the entire stone temple on his friends, including Tai, with the full knowledge that it would kill them.

Never again, he would let that happen.

“I won’t cause my family or my friends any more harm than I already have”.

Trilla gave him an almost empathic gaze as if she understood that being gifted could be a curse just as much as it could be an asset.

“Then your next decision should be simple," she said. "A couple of weeks ago, Rey discovered your friend Finn when she visited the Supremacy. I hear the Jedi Order has been looking tirelessly for him. Now's your chance to make things right".

"Finn?" Ben's face darkened as he locked his gaze onto Trilla. "What have you done to him?"

"They're all unharmed and safe... for now," Trilla stated casually. "Their fate rests in your hands. If I don't return in time, or if you fail to arrive within three days, they will meet their end".

 "They?" Ben snapped at her in frustration. "Where are they?”.

“Geonosis,” she revealed with a humorless smile as she got up on her feet. “Don’t be late — we got Tai, your dad, and his wookie”.

Ben's heart skipped a beat at hearing his father's name and the anger bloomed out within his chest like a poisonous flower. Rey had not only taken his friends, she had gone after his family, too. It hadn't even crossed his mind that she would do something like that and Ben felt furious with himself for not anticipating it.

“You better keep that promise,” he warned her through gritted teeth, each word dripped with determination.

“Be there before dawn in three days and I promise you no harm will be done to them,” she said, giving him a sharp gaze over her shoulder before she disappeared into the darkness of the hangar.

Chapter Text

It was midday when Ben reached Geonosis. 

The journey from Zeffo had taken three days, and he had barely slept, too consumed by angst. He had sat in the pilot’s chair, staring into the empty space. No matter how hard he thought, Ben couldn’t come up with a solution to save his friends, Chewie, and his father without complying with Rey’s terms. 

The closer he came to her, the more obvious her dark presence became in the Force. It was like being helplessly pulled into a massive, black hole. 

His nerves were on edge; Ben had been stewing in his angst ever since he left Zeffo, and he was scared. Terrified. Maybe he had the strength to take Rey on, but could he defeat her, and what would he do if he somehow did — bring her back to Coruscant?

No. 

Uncle Luke wouldn’t let her live; she was far too dangerous for that. No matter how Ben divided his options, it seemed more and more like a fight he couldn’t win. 

Regardless of the outcome.

On Geonosis, the sky was clear and the air dry. The landscape consisted mostly of mesas, deserts with red, sandstone mountains, and deep chasms. He was about six miles away from the Stalgasin Hive, the geonosian equivalent of a capital city.

Trilla had sent him the coordinates to the meeting point. It was an arena a few miles away from the border to the E’Y-Akh desert. The geonosians loved to gamble. Bloodsport, betting, cards, dejarik, sabacc… You name it; they had it, and every major hive had at least one big casino.

Ben landed the Night Buzzard a half kilometer from the meeting point, stirring up a cloud of dry dust and sand. He decided to walk the last part. One last futile attempt to calm his nerves and keep an eye for traps, just in chase Rey wanted to play dirty. 

It was winter on Geonosis, and despite that the weather wasn’t as hot and arid as it could be during the summer, Ben was sweating. His hands were clammy and his pulse was beating rapidly in his veins. It felt like his legs were made of lead, and as he caught sight of the arena, a sense of déjà vu washed over him.

Whatever Rey had in store for him, it would be just as bad as when she had pitted him against the knights.

Probably even worse. 

The path to the arena went through an enormous, makeshift graveyard. Unnamed gravestones in sandstone as far as the eyes could reach. Here, the victims from the clone wars were buried. Some separatists-sympathizers and native geonosian soldiers, but most graves belonged to unnamed clone troopers.

He wondered why Rey had chosen Geonosis out of all places. Was it because it lay in the Arkanis sector, close to Kira Ikari’s supposed home planet, or was it because of what the planet symbolized; the beginning of the end for the Jedi Order?

“This is a place of death and sorrow,” Ben mumbled to himself as he glanced out over the sea of gravestones.

His thoughts churned inside his mind as he approached the arena, or rather, the ruins of it. The circle-shaped arena was partly collapsed; it looked like it had been bombed during the Clone Wars and the local government hadn’t been bothered to renovate it. 

As he walked through the rubble of what had once had a grand entrance, Ben caught sight of Rey. She stood alone in the middle, waiting for him. In her hands, she held two long identical lightsabers. Ben sucked in a sharp breath at the sight. 

She looked like a beautiful nightmare, every inch the heiress of the Sith. White, sharp teeth, pale skin, and a sharp eyeliner that highlights her eyes. Her black form-fitting body armor was made from of reinforced synth leather. The fabric of her hip cloth-like skirt was long and thin and the end of it danced in the light breeze.

In the periphery behind her, her handmaidens stood, hidden from the sun in the shadows. Behind them, there was a large portable cage, sealed with a purple magnetic field. It hummed gently with the occasional spark. On the floor of it, he spotted Chewie’s gigantic form. Han lay beside him, and at the other end of it, Ben spotted Tai and Finn slumped against each other like two sacks of beets.

“Dad, Chewie…!”.

“They’re merely unconscious,” Rey said in a flat voice. “Unharmed. Just like I promised”.

Ben swallowed with dread as their gazes met; her once warm, hazel-brown eyes had morphed into the sharp yellow-tinted color, lit up with an unnatural, luminous glow.

“This isn’t necessary,” he said, pinning his eyes onto her. “Let them go, Rey”.

“You’re afraid,” Rey continued. ”You fear that you won’t make it out of here alive”.

”It’s not beneath you to kill to get what you want,” he clipped, his eyes hard.

A part of him was still furious at her for pitting him against the Knights of Ren and their nameless leader, but the kidnapping of his friends and his dad was even worse. They were all good, innocent people, and none of them deserved to suffer because of Ben.

”I would never truly hurt you,” Rey said and her eyes narrowed as if she didn’t quite understand why he would say such a thing. ”Not like your uncle and Snoke did”. 

“What is wrong with you?” Ben snarled at her. “First you force me to commit murder, then you hurt my friends, you kidnap my dad, and then you say you’ve never hurt me?!”.

Her severe cognitive dissonance made him absolutely furious, both at himself and Rey. Nobody had been even anywhere near hurting him as badly as she had, not since Luke’s betrayal.  

“Snoke and your uncle ruined you,” Rey replied, locking her sharp eyes on him. ”But they’ll get what they deserve, just like the rest of your family and so-called friends”.

“And you won’t?” he snapped. “Are you so completely unhinged you’ll think we’ll live happily together after you coaxed me into murdering my family?”.

It wasn’t beneath her. That he knew. If he joined her, Ben was certain that she would manipulate him into it, eventually. She was a Palpatine; there would be no way in hell that she, or her grandfather, would let either his mother or uncle live if they ruled the galaxy.

Just like Luke wouldn’t let Rey or the Emperor live on if he had the chance.

”You’re worried about Skywalker, after everything he did to you?” A wicked grin appeared on her pretty face and Rey’s eyes glittered with excitement, like they were just playing a game. “Well. Maybe he doesn’t have to die… None the less, he has to pay for his sins, just like everybody, and I think I know just how”.

“Forget it — I’m not going to let you harm anyone else,” Ben bit back with vitriol. 

Rey rolled her eyes at him, like he was being ridiculous, and motioned for her two henchwomen in the shadows to stay back before she stepped into a battle stance. 

“I would have preferred to do this in another way,” she flatly revealed. “But I’ve been patient enough with you. “This ends now!”. 

“I don’t want to do this either, but you give me no choice,” Ben replied as he summoned his own blade. It hummed to life in an instant, and he unconsciously curled his fingers hard around the durasteel hilt. 

He would be damned if he went down without a fight. Whatever happened, whatever treacherous feelings he might still harbor for the girl, he wouldn’t let her hurt Han, Chewie, Tai, or Finn.

Rey just snorted softly before igniting her sabers. The two red blades snarled and crackled for a split second before they stabilized into a firm, sharp glow.

“Have it your way, then,” she said, batting her lashes before she hurled herself into the air. 

One split-second later, she came at Ben from above, blades crossed like a scissor. In one smooth motion, Ben blocked and struck back as hard as he could, sending Rey backwards into the stone wall.

She grimaced with pain as her body slammed into the wall. The blow was hard enough to knock the air out of the heiress, but not enough to keep her down for more than a split second. In an instant, she’s back on her feet, lashing at him wildly, ferocious like a wild animal. 

Ben’s anxiety disappeared, bit by bit, as they fought. He’d already come to peace that he might not survive. 

Rey continued her offense with Jar’Kai, a chaotic whirlwind of erratic blows 

Ben stuck with the defensive stance, dodging and blocking Rey’s furious strikes while he tried to drive her backwards, closer to the cage where his friends lay. Physically, he was a lot stronger, and he had more stamina, but Rey was so fueled by her rage and adrenaline that she didn’t feel anything else than sheer anger. 

He switched from Form IV to V and surged against Rey. She snarled at him like a furious animal, gritted teeth and all. The Force surged around them, wild like a storming sea. 

“Let go!” Rey furiously yelled as she blocked his strike and forced his blade into a lock. “Let the past die, there is nothing left for you!”.

“You will have to do better than that to convince me!” Ben yelled back as he broke the lock, forcing Rey backwards once again with a set of hard strikes. 

The heiress gritted her teeth before she threw herself up in the air again, landing graciously on a fallen pillar. With a soft click, Rey assembled her two blades into a single blade. Now equipped with a long, double-edged blade, she switched to Juyo, the old Ferocity Form.

Juyo was known for being unpredictable, but it was also a demanding fighting style that craved a lot of stamina. She was being surprisingly reckless, and maybe, just maybe, could Ben lure her into making the same mistake twice. If he could wear Rey out and force her down near the tunnels that went from the holding cells to the arena, he could bring the brittle structure over her. It would give him enough time to free his friends and deal with Trilla and the skimpy-clad blonde he recognized from Kef Bir. 

Rey’s rage fueled her movements like hyperfuel, but it was as effective as hammering at a blast door with bare fists. No matter what moves she’s pulled at him so far, Rey hasn’t been able to break through Ben’s defense. Not even once, despite that she was giving it all she had. 

Like his false namesake Kenobi, Ben stuck stubbornly to defense. But as soon as Rey showed the slightest sense of faltering, he attacked.

Ben was neither as agile nor fast as she, but he was more experienced and his strikes were hard, terribly hard. While her rage made her numb to the more part of the pain, each blow Rey blocked still made her arms smart by the impact.

She kept losing ground, slowly but surely, and Rey realized Ben was trying to force her down into one of the tunnels that led underground to the holding cells under the arena. 

He’ll force me down and then he’ll bring down the entire arena onto my head… just like he did on Naboo!

“Like I would let you do that to me again,” she furiously hissed at him. “Enough!”

She jumped over him through a smooth somersault in the air. He struck after her, missed her legs, but cut off the hem of her shirt. The thin fabric burned up in an instant. Before the ashes could hit the ground, Rey charged back at the Jedi. Ben spun around just in time to parry her blow and then he was pushing her backwards again. 

As the fight went on, Rey could feel how Trilla and Komari grew more uneasy for each second that passed. She was panting hard. The lactic acid was starting to build up in her bones, and every breath felt like breathing in fire. Ben kept alternating between Form IV and V. He kept his defense up at her furious attacks, but whenever Rey fell back, even the slightest, he attacked again.

It was a predictable strategy, but most of all, it was tedious and incredibly frustrating. Rey realized he was doing the same as he did when they fenced in the temple on Coruscant. His strategy was to make her burn all her energy and only then, he’ll go into full offense.

It was unfair, Rey decided. But then again, she didn’t have to play fair either.

Auktoi Nun Tyûk.

The young heiress called out out to the old Sith with the Force, and just like they had answered her prayers on Naboo, they once again came to her aid. In an instant, Rey could feel how power surged in her veins along with the noradrenaline. The pain, the exhaustion disappeared, and her mind became focused, sharp like a razor blade. 

“Let’s see how you’ll fare against this!” Rey snapped at him, bringing the Jedi back with the hardest blow she could muster with one-hand. At the same time, she conjured up electricity from the Force with the other hand. 

Before the Jedi could recover from the blow, Rey attacked him with a burst of Sith Lightning. Ben’s eyes widened in shock as the purple-tinted electricity crept along his lightsaber, over the hilt and over his hands. 

He gritted his teeth in pain as he struggled to fight off the lightning.

She didn’t like to see him suffering, not a bit. None the less, Ben Solo had to go down. It was purely essential ― another failure was not an option.

With a growl, Rey attacked the Jedi Knight with renewed fury. 

Ben managed to redirect most of the lightning, but the little that struck him caused terrible pain. Rey seized the moment, and he didn’t even have time to react before her first blow hit him. Like a whip made of plasma, one of her red blades struck him over the face. The edge of her blade carved him up like a butcher’s carved up the nerfs down in the slaughterhouses in the industrial district.

Ben faltered and when her second strike hit him, he was already stumbling backward and the metallic tangle of blood appeared in his mouth. The pain was overwhelming and his vision started to swim. His knees buckled, and he slumped down onto the sand-covered ground.

Rey, her handmaidens, the arena… It all turned into a landscape with a blur of contours. 

The force must have a sense of irony, Ben thought to himself. Anakin Skywalker once had survived death in a Geonosian area, and now, his life was about in a similar matter. In a way, Ben was also relieved that it’s finally over. 

All the struggle, suffering, the pain, and the disappointment.

Gone.

Leia could finally be proud of him, Ben thought. Dying while trying to do the right thing. Fight on the right side. Yes, she would have liked it. 

Uncle Luke, too. 

His eyelids fluttered close and his head felt heavy against the said. Ben was certain that the whole martyr thing appealed to the living legend. Luke will probably feel regretful, feel bad over how he has mistrusted and treated his nephew. 

But ultimately, Luke would be thankful. 

If Ben had to sacrifice himself for the greater good… if he had to die, then that was how it was going to be.

It happened so fast that Rey barely had time to react, or even think about anything else, when she finally spotted an opening in his defense.

Fast as a viper, she struck on pure instinct.

Then everything became surreal. As if she was watching a holovid filmed in ultra-rapid, she saw how horror spread over Ben Solo’s face and his eyes widened in panic.

The kyber crystal in his lightsaber cracked at the same moment as Rey’s red blade slashed him over the face. Blood flew into the air like a soft rain as her blade carved up a patch from the side of his face, over his collarbone, shoulder, and arm.

The reality of what she actually had done didn’t hit her until the first drops of Ben’s blood landed on her face. She sucked in a sharp breath as she saw her opponent fall to the ground.

The Jedi girl within in her screamed in despair.

What am I doing?

Rey’s breath hitched as the realization struck her like a recoil from a heavy blaster rifle. She has almost killed Ben Solo in her eagerness to force him into the dark. Essentially, Kylo and Ben were the same person, two sides of the same credit chip.

If one died, so die the other.

Without thinking, she dropped her lightsabers and ran forth to the fallen Jedi.

“Ben..,” she breathed out as she pulled him onto her lap. This was not how she expected things to go; she had gone too far.

“It’s alright, Rey,” Ben replied in a soft mumble, almost like he was trying to comfort her. “I’m fine with this”.

“What are you talking about?” Rey yelled. “Ben?!”.

She shook his shoulders, hard, but Ben barely reacted. He just mumbled something inaudible. Trilla and Komari left their spots in the shade to join their mistress on the ground. Rey just stared back at the two older women, unable to speak as Trilla crouched down at her side and swept her eyes over Solo’s fallen body. 

“He’s merely unconscious,” she stated.

“For now, you mean,” Komari commented. “He is going to bleed out if we stay here. “Get on with it”.

Rey remained immobile on the ground as she clutched Ben to her side. Her head was ringing, and a turmoil erupted inside her like a gravity bomb. She couldn’t move. It was as if the shock had frozen her to the ground.

“Rey!” Trilla snapped at her mistress. “Get a hold of yourself, woman! If you’re going to do it, you have to do it now!” 

“Calm down!” Komari scolded the other women with apparent annoyance in her voice. “One can think neither of you two has seen blood before”.

For Komari, who had fought and single-handedly killed over a dozen of mandalorian warriors at the Jedi-sanctioned massacre on Galidraan, this was nothing. Both Trilla and Rey had seen their fair share of violence and mutilation before, but to Rey, this didn’t compare to anything she had done before.  

When Rey didn’t react, Trilla slapped her over the face so hard that her nose started to bleed. The sting of pain over her face brought Rey back to reality in an instant. She nodded and turned her attention to the fallen Jedi.

”I can do this,” she mumbled to herself in a voice that was almost inaudible. ”I can do this”.

Rey reached out to the Force, to the bond between them until she had found that thread that leapt through time and space that bound them together.

One soul in two bodies.

She pushed the light back into the dark depths of Ben’s mind. It was an ocean of feelings of abandonment, unfulfilment, loneliness, disappointment, and, most of all, sorrow. But while his flickering light still was strong, there was little left of it and now, Rey had buried it so deep within his mind that it was like gazing at stars from afar. 

Nothing but a speck of light in the distance.

When he woke up again, Ben would be weakened enough for Kylo to finally push through for good. 

“It’s done,” Rey said, eyes wide and gaze blank, as if she couldn’t take in what she just had done. “Now we just have to wait".

Chapter Text

For years, he had been watching, waiting in the shadows. 

Waiting and waiting. 

Seen Ben Solo take one disastrous decision after another. Wavering between the Light and the Dark, caught between his longing for truth, freedom, and that stubborn instinct to please his mother and uncle.

Without Ben’s influence, he could feel the bond through the Force, feel Rey's emotions as if they were his own. Her mind was like a wild ocean, torn between the love she still held for her grandfather and the cruel reality she knew awaited. 

He could tell she had spent a lot of time thinking about it, and from the moment Rey had discovered their connection, there was only one acceptable ending in her mind. Together, they would face the old emperor in an epic duel that would be remembered for centuries…

Gradually, the senses returned to Kylo’s body. When his eyes flickered open, he found himself lying in the medbay on a ship with a bright white interior and an old protocol droid with multiple appendixes looming over him. A thin plastic tube leaped from an IV catheter inserted into his arm to a plastic bag filled with opaque fluid.  

His entire body ached, and the wound that leaped over his face, his neck, and shoulder burned like fire. Kylo let his head sink back and relaxed his body. There was nothing else to do but to accept the pain.  

He had always liked to read, and like the avid student he was, Kylo had read everything that had been written about the Empire and Sheev Palpatine. 

After the Empire was defeated, Leia and Mon Mothma, among others, funded several research projects to study how one man managed to manipulate both the Jedi Order and the Galactic Senate into his bidding. 

“We need to do what we can to make sure this never can happen again”.

The story started when Sheev Palpatine met the powerful magnate Hego Damask in his youth. The rich muun had used his influence to boost Palpatine’s political career, by functioning as a mentor to Sheev, funding his campaign, and smearing his political enemies. 

All the way to the top of the Galactic Senate.

It was in the Senate the duo came in contact with the doubting Jedi Master Sifo Dyas and the dissatisfied Master Dooku. Damask had, like any successful business leader, a way of convincing people. Together, he and Palpatine convinced the two Jedi Masters to aid their cause. While Palpatine manipulated and used Sifo-Dyas as a pawn, Dooku went one step further and became Palpatine’s second apprentice.

The day before Sheev got elected to chancellor, Hego Damask was found dead at the Kaldani Spires. They performed an autopsy and concluded that the muun had died because of an unfortunate combination of intoxication and suffocation. Damask had previously been injured in an assassination attempt, and because of that, he was forced to wear a respiratory mask. 

The official story was that Palpatine and Damask had met the night before Palpatine’s successful election to celebrate his very successful campaign. The two men drank wine at his luxury apartment in the Spire, and after Palpatine had left, the drunk muun had fallen asleep on the sofa in a position that made his mask slip, and thus, Hego Damask had died in his sleep.

“Such an undignified death of a Sith Master…,” Kylo thought to himself. 

To him, it was crystal clear that Palpatine had gotten Damask drunk and killed the muun in his sleep.

Outside the medbay, he could hear female voices arguing. A second later, the pneumatic doors opened up and Trilla Suduri and Komari Vosa stepped into the room. 

Out of all the fallen Jedis he could have picked to cater to his grandchild, Sidious had chosen Darth Vader’s former inquisitorin and the once infamous, unhinged Bando Gora cult leader. Now they were Rey’s handmaidens and occasional henchwomen. An interesting choice, he had to admit.

“I don‘t like this. We have no idea how he’ll react…“.

“How many times have I told you that you need to let it go? You act like your old master has returned from the grave“.

Kylo closed his eyes and pretended to still be unconscious when they approached him. Trilla and Komari kept bickering as they checked the infusion pump and the stats on the monitor that presented his vitals. 

“Blood pressure is low but stable,” the protocol droid acknowledged in a voice that sounded surprisingly human for such an old model. “I followed the transfusion protocol for trauma. The patient’s risk for hypovolemia and shock has been reduced. I recommend another infusion of 5% albumin”.

“You did a very good job sealing the cuts for being a protocol droid, ID,” Trilla said as she visually inspected Kylo’s wounds.

“Thank you,” the droid replied. “I have medical programming”.

Sidious must have deemed Rey’s handmaidens to be weak enough to pose no threat to him. But a chain was only as strong as its weakest link and while the two women no longer possessed the strength in the Force they once had, they both had other equally useful skills.

Especially Vosa.

Ben hadn’t recognized her from the flimsy hologram of past Jedis in the archives, but Kylo had recognized the former leader of the death cult had once put the entire Outer Rim in fear. If her memories were intact, she could be useful to him. 

Very useful, even.

Since Suduri and Vosa were far weaker in the Force than him, Kylo was positive he could take them both on, even in his injured state. He just needed to gather his strength for a little longer… 

“Go and take care of Rey. Let me and ID handle this“.

“Fine, but mark my words, Mari. Be careful“.

Trilla let out a frustrated sigh before she walked out of the door and left Komari and the old droid alone with him. Even with closed eyes, he could sense her position in the room, feel her unnatural presence in the Force, like a shadow in the periphery of Rey’s majestic presence.

He drifted to sleep. Kylo didn’t know how long he had slept, but when he woke up, he was no longer aboard the ship. The room was large, painted in a soft shade of gray, stuccowork lined the high ceiling, and transparent curtains covered the windows. The initial sharp pain had transformed into an obtuse, lingering pain. It still hurt, but it was manageable.

Ready to set his plan in motion, Kylo reached out to the Force. 

The desperation and anxiety he had felt from Rey earlier had ebbed out, and it seemed like she had fallen asleep. Suduri was in her proximity, and he could feel her gnawing worry that he would cause trouble for her mistress. Her worry was surprisingly similar to the worry Han had felt from time to time. 

The mere knowledge that Darth Vader’s blood floated in his veins was more than enough to make his otherwise once-so-cocky father uneasy. Vosa, on the other hand, seemed more intrigued if anything. But unlike Suduri, the blonde didn’t seem to have a cautious bone in her body. 

Her wedged heels scraped against the floor as she moved. He heard a faint clicking as Komari adjusted carefully the dose on the analgesia cassette. Once she was done, she put the cassette into the infusion pump and then she walked away.

He opened his eyes, just enough to take a peek at her from under his lashes. The blonde still sat at the window, head leaning against the broad window frame. Vosa looked tired. It seemed like she had been awake since they left the ship. 

Behind her, he could see a city landscape with skyscrapers bathed in the morning sun. It wasn’t impressive enough to be Coruscant, Hosnian Prime, or even Corellia, but it sure looked like it was somewhere in the Core.

He curled his fingers around the soft plastic tube, bending it together to trigger the infusion pump’s blockage alarm. At the window, the sleep-deprived woman jerked to life at the beeping noise.

“What the…?”.

She pushed herself off the spot and walked up to the pump. As Komari bent over Kylo to check where the tube was bent, he grabbed her by the throat. Before she could react, Kylo got up from the bed and pushed her up against the wall. 

 “I was hoping that you would stay, and I was right; Suduri has been far too suspicious of me,” Kylo said. “But you don’t scare so easily, do you?”

“Wh… what do you want with me?” Komari choked out, struggling in his grip. She tried to pry his fingers away, but he was just too strong.

“You have a very special talent that the Palpatines have been foolish enough to overlook,” Kylo murmured. “You and I are going to put that talent to proper use. But first, we need to get out of here”. 

“No,” she gritted her teeth, eyes hard and furious. “You can’t ―”.

“Watch me,” he replied as he slammed her head back into the wall, knocking her unconscious.

The beautiful luxury apartment stood in chaos, with broken porcelain, scorched curtains, and ripped furniture as a testimony of her rage. When Trilla showed up in the doorway, pale and shivering, and told her that Kylo had woken up, kidnapped Komari, and fled Vardos with the Night Buzzard, Rey saw red and went into a blind rage. 

She could barely remember the last time she had felt so betrayed.

Was it when she first discovered her grandfather’s cruel intentions with her?

After she had torn up the entire flat, she threw herself on the bed in the room she usually stayed in when she visited Vardos, head buried in the pillow that had gradually turned wet from her sobbing.

Rey hated to cry. It was unproductive, a sign of weakness, and it didn’t help against anything. Ben’s hesitation, that she could understand. He had been confused and shocked, but Kylo…?

Not in her wildest dreams could she have anticipated that he would turn on her, too.

In Rey‘s fantasies, Kylo would always wake up in her arms. He would look at her with his beautiful, dark eyes and smile at her. Then, they would kiss passionately and make love on the spot.

There was not a word in her vocabulary that could describe how utterly disappointed Rey Palpatine was with reality. 

“I must be cursed by the Maker,” she muttered into the pillow. “There is no other explanation”.

While Rey had thrown a fit, Trilla had fled her mistress’ wrath and taken shelter inside Imperialis in the hangar. She was shaken but forced herself to remain cool. They had let him escape once, but Trilla would be damned if that happened twice.

She sank down in the co-pilot’s seat and turned on the power. Imperialis’ retro-fitted mainframe flared to life in a split second, and Trilla activated the subspace transceiver.

The image of a lieutenant in a perfectly ironed uniform at the commando bridge of the Finalizer visualized within seconds.

“How may I be of aid?”.

“Get me Hux. We have an issue”.

The lieutenant nodded. A couple of minutes passed by, and then General Hux appeared with a sour expression on his clean-shaven face. 

“Suduri,” Hux said in an unamused voice. “To what do I owe the unexpected pleasure?”.

“Solo is gone,” she said, not bothering to sugarcoat the embarrassing situation. 

Rey had been too proud to ask him for help last time. A week ago, Solo had been a simple Jedi who wanted to hide from the world, but now… Now he was something else, something far more potentially dangerous, and Trilla had a feeling he wouldn’t go into hiding this time.

Hux blinked, and it took him a moment to comprehend what was going on. A deep frown gradually appeared on his face and his lips turned into a thin line.

“What makes you think that I’m interested in Rey’s very personal issues at a time like this?”.

The First Order had never been busier. The fleet was just right outside the Taanab system in the Inner Rim, waiting. Armitage planned to put the grain-producing planet under siege. 

Coruscant, Hosnian Prime, and the rest of the ecumenopolises in the Core were heavily dependent on imported foods and by taking control of Taanab the First Order would have an advantage against the Republic. As one of the old military strategists at the Military Academy on Arkanis always used to say; an army runs on its stomach.

“Rey turned Solo. He got wounded during the process,” Trilla replied. “We brought him back to Vardos and patched him up. Six hours after that, he went from being unconscious to kidnap Komari and fleeing with her in the Night Buzzard”.

Hux sucked in a deep breath as he sank back into a chair. “And…?” he asked.

The young general tried to put on a poker face, but Trilla could read him as easily as an open book. He was worried, and he had more than one reason to be so. 

The Emperor favored General Pryde, a veteran from the days of the Empire, and it was common knowledge that Snoke thought Hux to be crazy. Without Rey’s influence, his place in the hierarchy of the First Order could change in the blink of an eye.

“Her problems are our problems,” she reminded him in a low hiss. “If Rey doesn’t claim the throne, our mutual goal is jeopardized and you can forget about having a statue raised to your honor at the Senate Plaza on Coruscant”.

The redhead gave her an angry glare. “I will take adequate measures, but you better get her under control. This is beyond absurd…!” he said through gritted teeth.

As the night fell over Kestro City on Vardos, Rey could hear how Trilla had started to clean up in the living room. The clattering sound of porcelain and glass pieces being thrown into the garbage bin created a symphony of sounds together with the monotone noise of the vacuum cleaning droid sweeping over the expensive slate floor from Iego.

“I‘ve become such a ridiculous, emotional mess,“ Rey muttered to herself. “How did it come to this? I‘ve always been strong on my own and I have never shredded a tear over a man until now…“.

Darth Plagueis’ old holocrone on the bookshelf gleamed in the dim-lit room. With a sigh, Rey rolled over to the side and reached out with the Force. The pyramid-shaped holocrone lifted from its place levitated over the room and landed in the palm of her hand. 

“What’s the meaning of this, am I to face grandfather alone?” Rey murmured as she stroked her thumb over the holocrone. It immediately opened up, projecting the image of the tall, elderly muun.

“Remember why a Sith is more powerful than a Jedi,” the gatekeeper said with Plagueis’ deep, raspy voice. “We embrace all emotions. From the deepest of despair to the highest euphoria”.

Rey sighed as she let her head sink back onto the pillow. What was that supposed to mean? That feeling like this was a good thing, because a Sith could turn every feeling into power, into determination?

“Without fear, we walk the path the Dark Side has set us on, and without hesitation, we accept our destiny,” the gatekeeper continued, and Rey groaned softly.

Accept her destiny?

“We, the Sith, are not tranquil stars but exceptional singularities. Rather than glow with muted intent, we distort space and time to twist the galaxy to our desires”.

Rey rested her chin on her palm as she listened to the gatekeeper. Distort space and time to twist the galaxy to our desires. It surely sounded tempting. Did it mean that her destiny was in her own hands, then?

She stood up. Determination once again surged through her veins. They were a Dyad. The Force itself had connected them through the bond. How could it be any other than destiny for them to face Darth Sidious together, for them to rule the Galaxy together?

She would find him and when she did, that deceitful snake better have a bloody good excuse for his behavior.

If he even thought for a moment that he could trick her, and use Komari to find Exegol and claim the throne for himself, he was dead wrong.

Neither Trilla nor Komari knew how to navigate to the hidden Sith world on their own. If he wanted to go there, he would need a Sith wayfinder. Darth Vader’s wayfinder rested on Mustafar and Rey had the other one stored on Imperialis in a hidden compartment.

The security cameras from the hangar showed that Kylo had gone straight for the Night Buzzard. That left him with only one opportunity — and it would take him at least a half week to reach the Outer Rim with that bulky prison transportation ship. 

“You’re not getting away with this, Kylo,” Rey murmured, tapping into the Force. “Do you hear me? The only way you are coming to Exegol is with me”.

When Komari woke up, was lying on a large, rectangular crate in the cargo hold of the Night Buzzard. Her head pounded and her vision was slightly blurry. It was dark, only lit up by red lights in the ceiling of the hull. Warm, too. The old ship had poor insulation, and the enormous thrusters generated a lot of heat. 

Behind her, Komari heard a subtle noise of metal scraping against metal along with the soft clicking of a small screwdriver. 

Slowly, she turned her to the direction of the noises. Kylo sat at a workbench at the back of the cargo hold, working on something.  

“Why are you doing this?” Komari groaned, pushing herself up into a seated position to cradle her aching head in her hands. “This makes no sense, Rey did everything to set you free!”.

There is no need for you to be concerned,” Kylo said flatly, not taking his eyes from whatever it was he was working with. “Rey will get her wish”.

“I don’t know what you have in mind, but none of this can hardly be her wish”.

Rey had struggled so hard and this was how he repaid her? Komari gritted her teeth. The anger was clawing inside her chest, but she was in no condition to fight him, or even sit up straight without support.

Silently, she cursed herself. She should have listened to Trilla, and Rey should have listened to Komari in the first place. If they had tortured Solo under controlled measures, this would never have happened.

“We’ll arrive in the Dustig Sector shortly,” he said, still not bothering to even look at her. “You should rest some more”. 

“Rest?” she spat at him. “You betrayed Rey, and you kidnapped me. Why the hell would I even consider helping you?! ”.

“You do as I say. If not, I’ll make you,” Kylo said, finally looking up to give her a tired glare. 

She glared back at him with equal fervor. Komari was never afraid, not even of death itself. Just like Ben Solo, Komari had once been an exceptionally gifted student. But she could not have beaten him, not even back in her glory days. Even if he still was young, she could tell his power reached far beyond the strength of her old master. 

“Just like Rey…. their Force signature is the same,” Komari thought as she felt the Force take hold of her, making her head heavy. Slowly, she slid back down onto the crate, back into unconsciousness.

She couldn’t fight him.

All she could do was hope that he was telling the truth.

Hux sat at the viewport in the officer’s lounge on the Finalizer, quietly watching the planet Taanab in the distance. From afar, it looked like a shiny green orb in the darkness, bathing in the light of its primal star, Tive.

At the moment, it was harvest season on the northern hemisphere of the planet, and one of his most trusted local spies had been kind enough to send him a bag of freshly harvested green tea. It tasted delicious, the pure essence of lovely leafy, green bitterness.

“Perfect, simply perfect,” Hux mused to himself. “I will have to make sure that area doesn’t get damaged if the Republic is to intervene”.

He leaned further back onto the decorative metallic chair, enjoying the view and the calm before the storm. Rey had sent him a transmission declaring that she was on her way from Vardos, and Hux expected the heiress to arrive any minute. 

Oh, how tired he was of having to clean up her messes. Once her identity had been revealed to the Jedi Order, the First Order’s Intelligence Bureau had worked night and day to make sure to eradicate any information Rey had left behind that the Republic or the nosy Jedis could use to their benefit.

Fortunately, the intelligence officers had done an excellent job and the Jedi Rey had placed on Kijimi for weeks didn’t seem to have been able to gather anything useful from his time as a stormtrooper either.

Still, it bothered Hux that a Jedi had been able to enlist. He had proposed to the Supreme Council of the First Order that they needed to improve the background control of their recruits, but so far, he had been speaking for deaf ears.

“It’s not a priority at the moment,” was all that the Allegiant General Pryde had said, and nobody else had wanted to disagree with him.

“A chain is only as strong as its weakest link,” Hux scoffed. “That pompous old relic should know that after all his years in the Imperial army…”.

Suddenly, the doors opened up and Rey marched in with her entire entourage of Royal guards in tow. The expression on her face was thunderous and if he hadn’t known her so well, he would have been afraid.

“Rey,” Hux stood up as he greeted the heiress. “I hope your journey has been pleasant. Please, take a seat. I have prepared tea,” he said, making a gesture to the other chair.

”You!” Rey snapped at him like a ferocious beast. “I want you to free whatever resources you can to find Kylo!”.

”Don’t you think I’m already at it?!” Hux snapped back, appalled by her rudeness. “I sent a squad of purge troopers to Mustafar, just in case he’s thinking of picking up the Wayfinder his grandfather left behind. So far, my men have seen nothing but local cultists and two tourists with a death wish”.

Rey snorted as if his answer offended her. “A squad of purge troopers? Please. Even if he is wounded, your men don’t stand a chance”.

Hux made a small, unapproving noise at the back of his throat. He was tempted to argue, but he knew Rey was capable of and he suspected that if Solo couldn’t dish out the same level of violence, she wouldn’t have been interested in him in the first place.

“If your Prince Charming starts to slaughter our elite troopers, I will have to insist that you deal with him personally,” he replied. ”But as I said, we have seen no sign of the Night Buzzard in the Mustafar system yet. Are you sure he is going there?”.

“I don’t know,” Rey exhaled. “Obviously, I did not expect any of this to happen…!”.

She sank back onto the chair like an inflated spacesuit and signed for her guards to leave. Wordlessly, the masked women fell back and positioned themselves at the door.

“You don’t know?” Hux repeated. “Not even a single clue? Surely You do understand that how fast we find him entirely depends on how well you can narrow down the search area for me?”.

On the inside, he was screaming. The galaxy was as good as infinite, and there was plenty of uncharted territory where Solo and the reanimated Death Stick queen could hide for years, if not decades, unless Rey gave him something more to go on. 

“No,” Rey replied in a voice that dripped with bitterness. “I thought he planned to use Komari to try to find Exegol, and when he discovered that she doesn’t know how to get there, he would go to Mustafar… Why else he run away and take Komari with him?”.

Hux had no idea, no idea at all why someone would want to kidnap that woman. Komari was obnoxious, dressed like a whore, drank like a sponge and when Rey wasn’t around, she took enough glitteryll to give an entire platoon severe amnesia. 

No man with self–respect would want to even get near that sad excuse of a woman. But then again, Solo was clinically insane, and thus, one couldn’t expect him to make depictions based on logic…

“Either he is looking to do spice with her or rape her. Possibly both, in no particular order,” Hux thought to himself, knowing better than to say such things in front of the heiress. 

Still, he couldn’t help but feel a sliver of pity as he looked upon the girl’s tear-streaked face. As annoying as Rey could be, she deserved better than that wild–haired madman.

“Do they know each other somehow?” he asked in a softer voice. “A connection through the Jedi Order…?”.

“No!” Rey snapped angrily. “They have never even met before”.

Hux sighed softly as he picked up his datapad and opened up Komari’s old file from the Imperial Archives. 

Over a decade before the Clone Wars, the voluptuous blonde had been a Jedi apprentice under Count Dooku, alias Darth Tyranus. At this time in the galaxy, the Bando Gora, a cult-like group consisting of grave robbers and plunderers from Kohlma, had spread terror in the Outer Rim for years. The cult grew larger and stronger and eventually, they dared to attack the planet Baltizaar in the Mid Rim. 

This bold move caught the attention of the Galactic Senate, who requested an intervention from the Jedi Order. The Jedi Order obliged and sent Jedi Master Dooku, Vosa, and a dozen other Jedis to fight the cult. It turned out that the Jedis were ill-prepared to fight the vicious assassins of the Bando Gora and the mission was a complete failure. 

During the last fight, Vosa got split up from her group, and the other knights, including her master, thought her to be dead. While Dooku and the other surviving Jedis fled back to Coruscant, Komari was taken hostage by the cult and tortured until her mind cracked and she fell to the Dark.

With the aid of the Dark Side of the Force, Komari found the power to strike back at her tormentors. She killed them all and took over the cult herself. With the fallen Jedi as their new leader, the Bando Gora expanded their business even more aggressively than before, cooperating with intergalactic corporations, corrupt politicians in the Senate, the notorious Crimson Dawn, and Gardulla the Hutt on Tatooine, to mention a few. 

Eventually, Komari caught the attention of Darth Sidious himself who thought the Bando Gora had grown too much of a threat to his interest. He ordered Dooku, who now had left the Jedi Order, to get rid of his former apprentice...

”We know that Count Dooku killed and buried her on Kohlma,” Hux offered. “Have you considered looking there? As far as I know, the entire Bogden system is still a hideout for criminals, smugglers, dealers, cultists, and whatnot…”.

“Komari died almost seventy years ago,” Rey said with another glare. “The Bando Gora citadel and the other facilities that belonged to them were ransacked decades ago. It’s nothing but ruins left there now. Why would he want to go there?”.

Before Hux could answer, his commlink activated and a lower-ranking officer informed him that he was needed at the commando bridge at once. The Republican Navy had been sighted and a squadron of X-fighters would be in range of the fleet within minutes.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Hux said as he rose from his chair and shrugged on his impeccable black, silver-lined coat. “I have ordered Officer Kandia to assist you. She is one of our absolute best intelligence officers. Now you have to excuse me, but my duty calls”.

Humid air, dense jungle. Chirping insects and large mosquitos everywhere. Enormous trees with trunks thick enough to have a diameter of at least three meters. Large ferns, small shrubs, and massive tangles of lianas covered the ground. Exotic orchids hung from the tall trees, chirping insects and long snakes hissing at them whenever they got too close.

Wherever Komari had expected Kylo to take her, Malastare’s jungles were certainly not what she had in mind. 

But there they were, walking through the bright green scenery like two dark phantoms in broad daylight. Malastare was sparsely populated, and ten miles away from Pixelito City, it was nothing but wilderness as far as her eyes could reach.

The sun stood high in the sky and it was warm, even though most of its rays didn’t make it through the canopies. Komari’s synth-leather bodice clung to her skin like a wet, plastic sheet and she almost regretted that she hadn’t taken other clothes.

The Knights of Ren had left behind quite a collection of spare clothes to use in different environments, but they were all ugly, ill-fitting men’s clothes that Komari wouldn’t even want to be caught dead in.

”Can you at least tell me where we are and where we’re going?” Komari grumbled as she struggled to keep up with Kylo’s long strides. He still hadn’t told her anything useful and whenever Komari tried to press him on why he would do all this if he cared for Rey, he told her that she would understand. 

Eventually.

”You’ve never been here before?” he replied without turning around.

”Would I ask if I had?” she snarled at his back. 

”We’re going to visit one of the production plants your old producers used”.

”What?” Komari couldn’t believe what she heard.

As if it wasn’t enough that she had died and the Bando Gora had ceased to exist before the separatist crisis on Naboo had been resolved, her entire business had been destroyed as Jango Fett had murdered most of her associates, suppliers, and producers on the hunt for her head.

There was nothing left of it.

”You can’t be serious,” she spat after him. ”The only producer I had on Malastare was Sebolto, the dug king, and as you probably already know, Fett threw him into an industrial boiler”.

“Don’t be naïve. There is always another one waiting in the shadows,“ Kylo said with a shrug as he marched on, oblivious to the hard terrain. “After your friend died, his cousin took over the operations and found a new partner in the pykes. Now, the cousin’s grandchild runs the business“.

Did he want… death sticks? 

Why in the whole wide universe hadn’t he just flown to the nearest populated world and bought some instead of going to a death stick plant hidden deep within the unforgiving terrain?

Komari shook her head at his explanation. Nothing he said made any sense at all, and that was saying a lot, considering that she had spent the last years of her life in a graveyard with blood-drinking cultists, praying to a death deity.

Eventually, the terrain eased somewhat and when they walked into a passage with large, cliffs covered with wet moss, Komari could spot a path that seemed to have been used somewhat recently. There were tracks on the ground after humanoids in heavy boots and the distinctive footprints after several dugs.  

Pieces of a broken, brown glass bottle lay in a puddle, an old, broken blaster under a large plant with colorful leaves and there were soot marks on the mountain walls from blaster fire, both old and new.  

The mountain passage opened up and in the distance, there were even more large trees, but these had something that looked like wooden hang-bridges between them. As they came closer, it looked like people were standing on the bridges and there were small guard posts up in the trees, too, manned by grans, dugs, and a few humans with blaster rifles.

As they strode into the settlement, the guards immediately opened fire. Kylo wasted no time igniting his lightsaber. It wasn’t the same saber he had used on Geonosis, and Komari realized that he must have bled the crystal and crafted himself a new saber while she had lay unconscious on the Night Buzzard. His new blade resembled a burning cross and the plasma snarled as it clashed against the blaster shots.

The guards’ fear reverberated through the Force like a wildfire. Komari stood frozen, her wide eyes locked on Kylo as he single-handedly confronted the entire camp. Blaster bolts streaked through the air like a storm of fire, all aimed at Kylo. With seamless precision, the dark knight deflected the incoming shots with his lightsaber while simultaneously wielding the Force to redirect the energy bolts back toward their origin. Komari’s breath caught in her throat as she watched the first thug fall, struck down by his own blaster fire.

Her old master had been powerful, and so was Rey, despite her young age. But this.. this was just something else. 

One by one, the guards fell from the bridges between the enormous trees, crashing toward their deaths while screaming.

“You…,” Komari said as she glanced over fallen guards, who lay like crushed berries in the lush grass. “You do possess a power that is unlike anything I’ve seen before. If what Rey says about this ‘Dyad’ you share is true, you can defeat Darth Sidious together... Why are you doing all this?”. 

”Going straight for Exegol would be predictable,” he replied. 

”But you have to,” Komari swallowed hard. ”Don’t you know what Sidious is playing to do to Rey?!”.

Her voice sounded uncharacteristically nervous and desperate, and she reeled as her own painful memories threatened to rise from her subconsciousness. To be killed by one’s master, the father figure that had guided you from childhood into adulthood. It was just too cruel, and it reminded Komari far too much of how her own, once so beloved, master had killed her. Strangled her from the shadows like a coward when she lay broken on the stairs to the citadel.

After what Rey had done for her, Komari couldn’t just stand by and watch Sidious rob Rey of her power, her body, her future, her everything…

“You have to help Rey,” she pleaded, swallowing whatever of her pride that she had left. “You’re the only one who can”.

”I never said I wouldn’t…,” Kylo said, putting his hands on her shoulders, and locking his gaze on her. It was like staring into oblivion and a sense of calm spread through her body. “... and it takes more than strength in the Force to kill a Sith”.

As the evening descended over Malastare, casting long shadows across the landscape, Komari and Kylo finally arrived at the production plant.

It loomed before them like a colossal monolith, an amalgamation of industry and darkness. Komari leaned over the railing, peering down into the depths below. The yawning chasm of the mining shaft stretched out before her, its depths plunging at least two kilometers to the unseen bottom. Descending into the underground production plant felt like entering the belly of some mechanized hive. It wasn’t just a factory; it was a labyrinthine complex of machinery and chemicals, a hive of illicit activity hidden beneath the surface.

Three complete production lines hummed with activity. Alongside them stood a vast chemical storage facility, its shelves lined with barrels and containers of volatile substances. Through a transparisteel-wall, Komari caught sight of a full-scale laboratory. It buzzed with activity as ughnaughts, humanoid lab workers, and droids worked alongside each other, quality testing the finished batches, and sealing them for export.

As they navigated the large corridors through the cave to the entrance of the laboratory, they encountered resistance at every turn, but Kylo effortlessly cut through them with his crossguard saber like they were just minor nuisances.

Eventually, they reached the laboratory. The air was heavy with the smell of chemicals, a heady mixture of solvents and reagents that smelled like acid and spice.

As the last of the guards fell before Kylo’s blade, Komari ventured deeper into the facility, her eyes scanning the rows of stacked containers. Large, industrial barrels and containers stood stacked on the roof. Cyclohexanone, Phenyl magnesium bromide, and Piperidine along with various solvents and reagents. In one corner, she discovered a cache of sealed crates, each one bearing the mark of Fergriss Pharmaceuticals. 

“These were shipped from Balsosar three months ago,” she murmured to herself, her voice barely audible over the hum of machinery. “It doesn’t surprise me to see that they’re still in business…”

Death sticks weren’t as popular as they once had been. But they were cheap drugs that were made of basic chemicals and Ixetal cilona, a mushroom extract with hallucinogenic properties, and thus, they were still popular in certain areas among poor, unhappy people who looked for a quick escape from reality.

“Komari”.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Kylo’s voice, pulling her back to the present moment.

“Now the rest is up to you,” he said, retracting his crimson blade. “I hope you remember the formula. If not, I might be able to help you jog your memory…”.

“You want me to make you… slaves?” she asked, her brow furrowed in confusion.

The Bando Gora slaves had been a significant factor behind her success. People had called them her army of ”braindead minions”, but that wasn’t quite the truth. 

When a person consumed a death stick spiked with the neurotoxin, their brain structure was slightly changed to make them much more prone to being mind-controlled by Force-users. Over time, the victim’s body began to develop spots of black, mottled skin that spread until they were completely disfigured. The disfigurement was not only cosmetic, it also increased muscle mass and physical strength, and the end product was a deformed, but powerful slave that someone strong in the Force could control and make the slave do whatever they desired.

”Yes,” he said, lips curving into a smirk. “I want you to make me the two versions of the neurotoxin you used to control your slaves,” he replied. ”One that disfigures the user, and one that doesn’t”

“I can isolate the part of the molecule structure that gave my slaves their appearance, but if I do, their strength will remain the same,“ Komari explained as she turned on the stationary terminal that was used for synthesizing.

A holographic image of the current chemical pounds of the death stick fluid visualized over the terminal. Seventeen carbon, twenty-five hydrogen, and one nitrogen atom. The chemical structure of the active component in the death sticks wasn’t more complicated than that.

“They will obey and they will be loyal to death,“ Komari continued as she adjusted the long molecular chain at the terminal‘s synthesizer. “But they won’t be anything but a bunch of regular drug addicts. At best, their capacity will match a low–ranked stormtrooper“.

“It’s good enough,“ Kylo said as he eyed the hologram. “Begin the synthesizing process. I‘ll get someone to test it on“.

Chapter Text

“This, my dear Rey, this is power”.

Rey stood next to General Hux, gazing out at the green-turquoise orb of Taanab from the viewport of the Finalizer’s officers' lounge. It had been months since their last meeting, and now the agricultural giant was firmly under the control of the First Order. The Senate was in an uproar, finally beginning to grasp that their enemy was far more than just a shady military junta operating in the Outer Rim.

Behind them, Trilla sat in a metal chair, her legs crossed under the long skirt of her black dress. On the table before her was a pot of tea in black porcelain with the First Order’s emblem in enameled silver, and a matching bowl filled with dry biscuits.

“I thought you’d set it on fire,” Rey commented.

She saw Trilla smirk at her comment from the corner of her eye, and Rey allowed herself to grin in satisfaction.

“I want the people of the New Republic on their knees, not in their graves,” Hux snorted softly, giving her an unamused gaze. “When we arrive on Coruscant, I want the people to see us as... liberators.”

Rey hadn’t expected anything else ― Hux had always been a visionary man. If she knew him right, he had already planned to drape Galactic City with blood-red banners bearing the First Order's emblem and parade countless stormtroopers in shiny armor before the Senate Plaza.

“Your army of spin doctors must be working night and day then".

“Everyone under my command works night and day,” he replied. “Regardless of responsibility. Speaking of which, there is something I’d like to show you”.

Still holding his teacup and saucer, Hux gestured for the two women to follow him. They left the lounge, ventured to the commando bridge, and then down a long triangular corridor to the nearest turbolift. The Finalizer was a Resurgent-class Star Destroyer, nearly three kilometers long, powered by a hypermatter reactor, and it housed over eight thousand stormtroopers and officers.

They stepped into a lift, and Hux scanned his ID to access to the restricted levels, selecting sub-level 7 on the panel.

All star destroyers of this class were identical, and the detention block was always on the same level. Rey raised an eyebrow, curious. None of Hux’s men were capable enough to capture Kylo, and she would have sensed his presence if he were aboard the Finalizer. So why were they going there?

Hux strolled along the rows of prison cells, almost leisurely, as if he were in the hanging gardens of Hosnian Prime. The sterile, cold corridors echoed with their footsteps, and stormtroopers on guard duty stood like silent statues with straight backs as they passed by.

The cells were filled to about a quarter of the detention block's total capacity with deserters, freedom fighters from Taanab, and Republican war prisoners. The general didn’t even glance at them. It wasn’t until they reached the last security cell, at the very end of the block, that he stopped, waiting for Rey and Trilla to catch up.

Behind the thick glass were five creatures with dark, mottled skin and glowing red eyes. As they caught sight of the visitors, they crawled up to the glass, letting out a series of bone-chilling screeches—haunted, inhuman sounds more fitting of demons than humans.

“What... are they?” Rey asked with a deep frown.

“Bando Gora slaves...” Trilla murmured, watching the creatures with wide eyes as they clawed at the glass. “I never thought I’d see one.”

Rey inhaled deeply, pinning her gaze on the odd creatures. Their movements were sleek, smooth, and full of power. They seemed to have lost the ability to speak; they only screeched, and their presence in the Force felt corrupted.

“These are why your blonde friend was once greatly feared throughout the entire Outer Rim,” Hux said, watching the creatures with apparent disgust. “They have appeared on more than a handful of worlds, wreaking havoc on our operations. Apparently, the underworld of Vardos is now crawling with them, and Governor Myoeng has requested our aid to deal with them.”

Rey’s mouth turned into a thin line as the creatures started to lunge at her, slamming themselves against the unbreakable glass with surprising force.

Kylo.

‘So this was why he took Komari,’ Rey thought to herself. ‘He wanted to use her knowledge of the Bando Gora’s mind-controlling toxins to create mindless minions he could control through the Force…’.

But why?

“He can’t possibly think he can defeat our troopers with these...?” she said, turning to Hux.

“They can do a lot of damage in close combat, but they’re nothing but a nuisance at the moment,” the general replied. “However, if their numbers were to increase... As you can imagine, the Supreme Council is concerned. Pryde especially so.”

Of course, they are.

Concern flickered in Hux’s eyes, but he didn’t need to speak for Rey to understand what he was worried about. It was obvious—they needed to find Kylo, and they needed to find him now. Not because the slaves posed a significant threat, but because it made Hux and Rey look incompetent and weak in front of her grandfather and his trusted Allegiant General.

Tishra Kandia and her team at the First Order Intelligence Bureau had worked around the clock to track him down but without success. The newly awakened darksider was always on the move, never staying anywhere longer than absolutely necessary.

As they stood in silence, watching the inhuman prisoners, Rey suddenly felt a familiar presence approaching. She turned her head just as General Enric strode out of the elevator.

Pryde was an older man with gray hair, sharp features, and an even sharper gaze. Like Hux, he was always impeccably dressed without a crease on his uniform. But while the two men might seem similar at first glance, they were like night and day in many aspects.

What mainly separated the two generals was their experience; while Hux had never fought on an actual battlefield, Pryde was a war veteran who had served the Empire during the Galactic Civil War.

His vast military experience and unquestionable loyalty to her grandfather commanded a whole other level of respect that Hux could only dream of. Darth Sidious trusted and respected Pryde, a respect that even Rey herself had to conform to.

“Lady Palpatine, General Hux,” Pryde greeted them politely, inclining his head. “I’ve just returned with the Steadfast from Exegol. I regret to inform you that the Emperor is not pleased with how the situation with Ben Solo has developed. These… abominations have now appeared in larger numbers in Eriadu’s capital today,” he added, gesturing to the screeching creatures.

“I am aware of his discontent,” Rey acknowledged in the calmest voice she could muster.

Pryde looked at her with concern in his cold eyes. She wasn’t naive enough to think he was personally concerned for her; rather, he worried about how her failure would affect her already impatient grandfather. The old general was deeply devoted to Sidious and his vision for the galaxy, and he had been so since he was an imperial cadet.

“With all due respect, this is an issue that needs to be dealt with immediately".

Rey took a deep breath as she met Pryde’s gaze. While she managed to keep her exterior cool, Rey was on the verge of throwing a fit on the inside. Being scolded like this, like a child, was humiliating. But Pryde was right about one thing—the situation had spiraled out of control, and Sidious’ patience had run out.

It was a lethal combination.

Hux, sensing the charged atmosphere, shifted the conversation. “General, has the Supreme Leader given any orders for our next advancement on Brentaal IV?”.

Brentaal IV was a planet in the Core Worlds, and invading it would escalate the war with the New Republic to a new level. Once they went for the Core, the entire galaxy would know their true ambition to rule like a Neo-Empire, and there would be no turning back from a full-scale war with the 700,000 systems that belonged to the New Republic.

“Supreme Leader Snoke is currently at his meditation retreat on Amaxine. We await his further directives".

Rey’s breath caught in her throat at Pryde's words.

Meditation retreat…? 

That could only mean one thing — the Amaxine space station. Amaxine lay like a secluded bastion of darkness, hidden in the middle of nowhere in the J-19 grid square of the Outer Rim. Snoke had lived there for many years before the First Order rose from the ashes of the Empire. The Dark Side of the Force was strong on Amaxine, and the station was infested with a slumbering, sentient plant species, the Drengir, which had been sealed there during the High Republic era.

Normally, Rey couldn’t care less where and when Snoke meditated, but with Kylo running wild and possibly anywhere, Amaxine was the last place she expected Snoke to go. Yet, there he was, vulnerable and exposed without his praetorians. It was a window of opportunity for Kylo that Rey knew he wouldn’t be able to ignore. No, she had sensed the dormant rage in Ben and if Kylo could take revenge on Snoke for lying and manipulating him as a child, he would do so without hesitation.

She glanced at Trilla, who returned her gaze with a subtle nod. As their eyes met, a silent understanding passed between them. Trilla, too, had realized the significance of the situation, and they both knew they needed to act immediately.

“Gentlemen, you have to excuse us,” Rey said, putting on her best ladylike facade. “General Pryde, General Hux, I need to attend to something”.

"Lady Palpatine," Pryde and Hux nodded in unison.

The space station that floated in front of the Night Buzzard’s viewport was beyond old; it was truly ancient. It had been built in the dawn of the Galactic Republic by the mystic Amaxine warriors. A society of warriors with sophisticated technology that had let the station prevail for more than two millennia after it had been abandoned.

Calm and collected, with his mind as silent as the space around them Kylo walked up the stairs from the hangar up to the glass dome of the station. It was dark and quiet, only lit up faint lines of fluorescent blue light in the ceiling. The station had an ecosystem of its own, and it smelled like a greenhouse.

Water, moss-covered tree trunks, lush leaves..

Death and darkness.

The last steps were damp with water, and a species of fluorescent, purple fungi had started to make its way out of the biosphere and crawled along the concrete floors toward the hangar.  

It had been ten years since he last visited Amaxine. Last time, Ben had been angry, confused, and scared, but as Kylo now stood in Snoke's garden of evil, he felt nothing but resolve. The time for reckoning had come.

He felt it in his heart, in the Force. 

The biodome looked just as Kylo recalled it, a tropical forest, drenched in the Dark Side of the Force. Orchids, ferns, jade vines, rose grapes, and torch gingers. Large, turquoise-green fungi grew among the exotic flowers. Different species of the protea family grew side by side with large shrubs with petal-like structures of vivid bracts in purple and green. Slumbering drengirs with their thick manes of leaves in various hues of green and brown, twisted tentacle-like vines, and large maws lined with sharp teeth... They were truly a sight to behold.

"I heard the stories of how the old Jedi fought the Drengir," Komari said as she appeared behind him. "They were said to spread a darkness so potent that it unsettled and ensnared Jedi Knights within their shared consciousness, inflaming the chaos and imbalance upon which the Drengir flourished...".

"Fascinating, isn't it?" Kylo smirked.

"Indeed," Komari nodded as she sat down on the trunk of a large specimen, stroking her hand over its moss-covered body. "Even in the presence of Snoke, I can feel them in the Force".

Snoke was strong in the Force, and his presence loomed over the garden like a dark shadow, his power palpable like electricity in the humid, recycled air. But he wasn’t invincible and his weakness lay in his overbearing arrogance and grandiose self-image.

Kylo shut his eyes tightly, drawing in a succession of deep, steadying breaths. With each inhale, he willed himself to sink deeper into his consciousness, delving into the dark depths of his mind where the painful memories of Snoke from his childhood lay.

It was an unpleasant journey. One he had taken many times before, and each recollection more agonizing than the last. But now, he needed those memories more than ever if he wanted to fool Snoke, and Kylo didn't stop until he felt like his entire being was being drowned in Ben Solo's old sorrow and anger. Then, he turned to Komari.

"You know what to do," he said.

She nodded in understanding, and with those words, Kylo left her at the entrance.

A surge of determination flowed through his veins as he strode forward with long steps, making his way deeper into the heart of the garden. The ground was wet and water pooled in the lower areas of the metal-coated pathway. Above his head, the weak light of the nearby dying star shined through the hexagon-shaped pattern of durasteel that kept the glass of the dome together, and there, amidst the lush scenario, Kylo found Snoke.

The tall strandcast stood in the middle of a pool of twisted Drengir vines and as he caught sight of Kylo, his pale lips curled into a friendly smile. But Kylo knew better; through his bond with Rey, he had come to understand that Snoke was nothing more than a puppet.

A puppet that had been created to lure him into doing the old emperor's bidding, making the sacrifice if Rey didn't grow strong enough.

"Ben Solo, or is it Kylo Ren now that you have defeated the Knights of Ren?".

"You know why I'm here," Kylo declared, his voice low and steady. "I know the truth".

"Ah, but do you truly know the entire truth, or have you merely glimpsed a fraction of it?".

Snoke's eyes gleamed with amusement as he responded and his voice was calm, betraying none of the malice that Kylo knew lurked beneath the surface.

"I know enough," he retorted, gaze hard and mind clear.

"And what promises has that foolish little girl made you? That the two of you will rule the galaxy together, that she loves you?".

He scoffed at Snoke's feeble attempts at manipulation. Ten years ago, he could have twisted Ben's mind any way he wanted, but Ben Solo was dead and Kylo would have none of it — he wasn't going to bow anyone ever again.

"You hold no power over me anymore. All you've ever done is deceive me, and for that, you will pay".

"Very well, Kylo Ren," Snoke's voice dripped with malice. "If you seek to defy me, then you leave me with no choice but to crush you".

With a flick of his wrist, Snoke unleashed his first attack, crackling tendrils of Force Lightning. But Kylo stood firm, drawing upon the Force to shield himself from the onslaught. He ignited his lightsaber and within a split second, he unleashed his rage upon Snoke. But the strandcast was prepared and he met Kylo’s onslaught with a new barrage of Force Lightning. Kylo caught the unnatural electricity with his saber, pushing the lightning back against the standcast. 

Before Rey, he had only heard of this power before, a technique only ever used by the Sith. His uncle had called it 'the ultimate physical manifestation of the Force' and told him, it was also one of the most malicious forms. 

The air crackled with energy as they clashed. 

As he struggled to push back the lightning, Kylo delved deep into the Force, tapping into its dark currents and channeling his willpower towards the slumbering drengir. Komari had injected the specimen at the entrance with the mind-controlling toxin and since the drengirs had a collective consciousness, it was enough to control one to control them all.

He forced the plant-like creatures to awaken from their slumber, and the strandcast's eyes widened in shock as the Drengir rose from their dormant state. Under Kylo's control, the meat-eating creatures lashed out their vines at Snoke from all angles, hungry for his flesh.

For every vine that the lightning charred, a new one emerged from the soil and Kylo felt how the panic of his enemy rose in the Force. 

Good.

Now it's your turn to suffer.

His own rage at Snoke only strengthened the Drengir and their savage ferocity along with Kylo's long, sweating strikes was more than he could handle. Kylo forced the beings into a simultaneous attack on Snoke. Their twisted vines and terrifying maws engulfed the Supreme Leader in a relentless barrage of attacks.

As Snoke struggled to defend himself against the onslaught, Kylo seized the opportunity. He ducked a poorly aimed wave of force lightning and lunged his blade at the strandcast's unguarded backside. The strike cut through Snoke's spine and he immediately fell to his knees in the shallow water on the ground.

Mortally wounded, the defeated strandcast raised his head to meet Kylo's gaze, his eyes filled with pure shock. But before he could utter another word, the crimson blade of Kylo's lightsaber sliced through the air with deadly grace, severing the head of the Supreme Leader of the First Order with a clean cut.

Blood erupted from the severed arteries and the jugular veins, spraying out like a stream. The life drained from his eyes as his heart faltered and as Snoke's blood pressure plummeted, his body collapsed to the ground. A trickle of blood continued to flow from the wound, forming a dark pool beneath his lifeless form.

The twisted vines of the Drengir immediately began to writhe and coil around the body, tearing at his flesh as their instincts drove them to consume the fallen strandcast. Kylo watched with grim satisfaction, his lips curling into a satisfied smile as he looked upon the macabre scene before him.

With a final glance at the ravenous Drengir, he turned on his heel and made his way back through the foliage to Komari.

The former Bando Gora leader stood at the entrance, her posture tense with anticipation as she waited for his to return. Her ice-blue eyes widened in disbelief as she took in the sight of Kylo emerging from the garden. His dark robes were stained with blood but the triumphant expression in his dark eyes told Komari everything she needed to know.

"You did it," she breathed, her voice tinged with awe. "You killed Snoke".

"I did..," Kylo replied as his large, gloved hands came up to rest on her shoulders. "..and you have served your purpose well, Vosa. However, I have no further use for you now".

As the Imperialis IV cut through the darkness of space toward Amaxine Space Station, Rey sat in the pilot's seat, body tense like a bowstring and within her chest, there was a tornado of contradicting feelings. 

With a frustrated sigh, Rey leaned back against her seat. She hated the uncertainty, hated the feeling of being so completely out of control. 

Closing her eyes, she surrendered to the Force, allowing its gentle flow to guide her. Instantly, she felt Kylo's presence. It was like a jolt of electricity, and with it, unwavering determination, and seething hatred for Snoke. His thirst for rage burned brightly, like a beacon in the darkness. The intensity of his emotions was almost overwhelming, and it became clear that he was too consumed by his own turmoil to maintain his mental shields. Rey inhaled deeply, focusing her mind and for a moment, it seemed as if they were truly one being. 

One soul split into two bodies, just like the legend said.

His power pulsed through their bond like a live wire. But the connection was fleeting, and like a snapped thread, it broke apart, leaving her feeling drained and disconnected. The darkness closed in, and Rey's eyes flew open with a sharp intake of breath. Her vision blurred, and her senses reeled as dizziness washed over her.

She let her head drop into her palms, her elbows propping up her chin as she struggled to regain her footing. Trilla's concerned voice pierced the haze, and Rey's gaze drifted up to meet her friend's worried face.

"Rey, are you alright?" Trilla asked again, her brow furrowed with concern.

"Yes," Rey replied, her voice firm. "I felt a disturbance in the Force. Something's off."

Hours passed until the dark, foreboding biosphere of the Amaxine Space Station finally loomed before them. As they approached the southern hangar, Rey's mind churned with worst-case scenarios. She knew that if Snoke had indeed fallen to Kylo's hand, her grandfather would be far from pleased. The weight of her family's legacy and expectations hung heavy on her shoulders, making her stomach twist with anxiety.

They landed at one of the two hangars and as Imperialis' hatch slid open with a hiss of pressurized air, Rey's heart pounded with anticipation.

The station's central sphere was an arboretum that hosted an exotic, jungle-like garden, that teemed with a multitude of hawk moths, long centrioles, and shiny bugs. Old bone remains laid halfway buried in the soil under the vegetation along with the twisted vines of the drengirs.

As they stepped into the garden, Rey immediately felt that Kylo was no longer on Amaxine, and she couldn't feel Snoke's presence either. Except for the insects, the only beings on the space station were a couple of small 8-T garden droids which kept the garden from being overgrown.

The two women continued deeper into the vegetation, and at the heart of it; Rey’s worst fears were realized. There, amidst the shattered remnants of the garden, lay the remains of Snoke’s body. The strandcast had been torn into pieces, and only remains of his clothes, bones, and dried blood remained. A few meters away, the strandcast's decapitated skull lay among the purple proteas, staring blankly into the abyss.

A sense of dread washed over Rey as her eyes fixed upon the fallen form of her grandfather’s creation. She had seen carnage before, caused it even, but the sight of Snoke's bloody head among the flowers was enough to send a cold shiver down her spine. Still, at the same time, Rey couldn't help but feel a certain... almost unwilling sense of satisfaction.

Kylo had once again proved that he was strong, cunning, and merciless. 

All those things she wanted in a man.

"The drengirs," Rey mumbled to herself as she cast an eye at the tangle of vines. "Kylo must have used them to overpower Snoke".

Trilla stood beside her in silence, but the concerned look on her face told Rey that she was already trying to predict the chaos that undoubtedly would come with the strandcast’s demise. 

Her grandfather would not be pleased.

The thought of her grandfather's reaction created a knot in Rey's stomach. It wasn't that Snoke was crucial to the First Order's survival, but rather that he was an extension of Sidious himself. An attack on the strandcast was an attack on her grandfather, and she knew that wouldn't go unpunished.

As they scanned the station, Rey's eyes roved over the familiar landscape, searching for any clue that might lead them to Kylo's whereabouts. Trilla disappeared into the control room, leaving Rey to explore the stone structure where Snoke used to meditate.

But just as Rey stepped onto the stone platform, Darth Sidious reached out through the Force from the darkness of the Exegol citadel. A cold, invisible grip wrapped around her throat, squeezing the air from her lungs. Rey's eyes widened in terror as she stumbled backward, her vision blurring from lack of oxygen. Her hands flailed wildly as she struggled to break free from Sidious' telekinetic hold.

Trilla burst through the foliage, her face etched with worry, and reached out to help Rey. But even her friend's grasp was no match for the Sith Lord's unyielding power.

“You cannot run from me, my dear Rey,” the old Sith Lord's whisper echoed within her skull, his smooth voice dripping with venom. “I will not tolerate any further delays and I will not tolerate more failures.”

Rey's heart pounded in her chest as she fought against the crushing pressure. She gritted her teeth, refusing to yield, but the darkness closing in around her was almost overwhelming. Her vision began to blur, and she felt herself falling to her knees.

"I... won't disappoint you... again," she coughed out, her voice barely audible. "I'll find him."

“Within three days, you will return to Exegol the Skywalker boy,” Sidious said. ”If fail me another time, you must be prepared to pay the price”.

"I... am". 

"Good," Sidious fading voice said in a content tone. "I look forward to your return".

The connection between Sidious and Rey severed, leaving her gasping for air. Trilla rushed to her side, concern etched on her face as she helped Rey to her feet. 'This is it', Rey thought to herself as she carefully massaged her throat.

Her time had finally run out. Now it was up to the Maker to decide how she would meet her destiny.

With, or without Kylo.

"Here, he left a note," Trilla said, reaching out a small piece of paper to Rey. "I found it in the control room".

Rey's fingers hesitated over the paper, her numbness slowly giving way to a sense of foreboding.

"How thoughtful," she said, her tone dripping with sarcasm as she unfolded the paper.

Come to my grandfather's grave.

I'll wait for you there.

"What does he mean?" Rey's brow furrowed in confusion. "Vader's corpse was burned on the moon of Endor by Luke Skywalker. He has no grave."

Trilla's expression turned thoughtful. "Your grandfather had a tomb prepared for Vader at the Valley of the Dark Lords. It was never used, but... "

A thrill ran through Rey’s body at the mention of Valley of the Dark Lords. Korriban. If Kylo thought he could challenge her on the sacred ground of the old Sith, he would be gravely mistaken. Korriban had been ransacked over the years, but the spirits of every buried Sith Lord still lingered in the temple and Rey could draw power from them if she had to.

Finally, it seemed like Kylo had made a grave mistake.

“Good,” Rey said with determination. “I will go there myself and deal with him immediately”.

There was no time to lose. Rey sent a message for Hux to send someone and pick Trilla up, and then she set to course to the isolated, old Sith World. Korriban, also known as Moraband, lay in the Esstran Sector of the Outer Rim, where it was the only planet in orbit around its primal in the Horuset system.

Despite what one might think, Rey had actually never been to Korriban before. Both Plaugeis and Sidious had seen the plundered planet as insignificant, and despite that the Dark Side still was strong on Korriban, it held little else than symbolic value for the Sith.

As Rey brought down Imperialis through the stratosphere to the troposphere, the landscape unfolded like a dark canvas, and the ship's mainframe started an automatic scanning sequence for the Night Buzzard.

“You won’t escape me this time,” she muttered to herself, as she approached the Valley of the Dark Lords. “This is your last chance, Kylo”. 

The landscape of Korriban was similar to Dathomir, except for the swamps; dry, barren lands covered with red sand, twisted rock formations, and high mountains with sharp peaks under a sky colored like burning embers. The valley was surrounded by cliffs and there weren’t many good spots to land a relatively long and large ship like Imperialis.

“Seems like I can forget about a stealthy approach. There is no place to land here except the temple grounds…”.

She circulated in the air above the temple grounds for a few minutes until she found a good spot to land. Imperialis' thrusters whirled up a cloud of crimson-colored when Rey carefully brought down the glittering ship on the dry red soil of Korriban. 

The hydraulic hatch opened up and the weak sunlight from Korriban’s primal cast a soft red glow over the heiress. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply as she opened up to the Force. The Dark Side’s presence was truly strong on Korriban, almost as strong as it was on Exegol. Here, she felt Kylo’s force signature clearly, too. It was like a calm but treacherous ocean that could transform into a wild storm within the blink of an eye.

He’s waiting for me.

Catching her reflection in Imperialis’ prismatic hull, Rey couldn’t help but give herself a small approving smile. It felt good to have her old clothes back again, to look like Rey Palpatine again, and not some silly socialite from core worlds.

Rey slowly ran her hands over her chest, down to her abdomen. She wore a similar outfit to Komari, but unlike the sultry blonde, Rey’s was far more modest. Her woven arm guards reached all the way up her arms, her back was completely covered and she always made sure to wear something more than just a pair of tanga panties underneath.

She gave her reflection a small approving nod before she started to make her way to the temple's entrance. Rey was usually a confident person, but at the prospect of confronting Kylo, Rey almost felt ill by nervosity. Nothing had turned out as she had anticipated and the Kylo that had awakened was nothing like the man she had dreamt of. So far, turning Ben to the Dark had been nothing but a disappointment, and Rey couldn’t help but think of what would happen if he refused to side with her.

What if he didn’t want her anymore, or worse, maybe he had never felt the same as her in the first place?

“No,” Rey scolded herself. “Do not think about that now. First, I’ll find him, then we'll see about everything else”.

She let out a soft sigh as she let her gaze travel over the temple ruins. What once had been an imposing, majestic temple now looked more like the remains of a war zone. Large chunks of rocks from the badly damaged walls lay scattered everywhere and the main entrance was blocked by the remains of three broken obelisks and an enormous fallen statue.

But despite that the Great Temple of the Sith had been both heavily damaged and plundered over the years, Rey could feel the presence of the Sith spirits, waking up from their slumber to greet their heiress. Their whispers echoed against the stone walls, guiding her towards the intruder as if they wanted to see the issue being resolved just as eagerly as Rey herself.

As she delved deeper into the temple, Rey encountered heaps of abandoned equipment, broken weapons, and the remnants of an explorer droid. She paused beside the dust-covered droid, but ultimately decided it was beyond repair. With determined steps, she continued towards Vader's tomb. As she approached, she caught sight of a figure draped in black robes.

There he was.

Just as tall, dark, and menacing as he had been in her dreams. The mere sight of him was enough to make her ache, almost enough to make her wet. It was as unhealthy as it was a nuisance, but it did nothing to damper her anger. 

“Tell me,” he said. “How does one kill a Master of the Sith?”.

His flat, icy voice echoed against the stone walls. It carried an arrogant undertone that Ben’s voice never had, and Rey seethed with unhappiness at his cold welcome.

What was wrong with him?

After months of trying to free him, she finally succeeded. But instead of gratitude, he repaid her by kidnapping Komari, fleeing from her, and wreaking havoc with the Bando Gora slaves, and Snoke's death had drained her grandfather of his last patience with her. As she stood there, Rey couldn't help but wonder if Ben's fall to the dark side had driven him into the madness Hux had warned her about so many times?

“You!” she yelled at him. “You better have a bloody good excuse for what you’ve done and an even better apology!”.

He turned around and looked calmly at her as if her outrage was something he found amusing. His subtle smirk and arrogant look made Rey’s blood boil with anger and she bit her tongue to refrain from cursing out loud. 

“Is that so?" he sneered softly. "You should have kept Ben if you wanted someone to obey you".

Chapter Text

Rey clenched her teeth, torn between the conflicting feelings that bubbled within her rib cage. She ached to touch him, wanted to run into his arms and relish in the sensation of finally being able to touch the real him for the first time. However, just as much as Rey longed to do that, she wanted to slice off his head to wipe that infuriating calm, arrogant look off his face.

“I’m not looking for an acolyte,” Rey sneered angrily. “I just hadn’t foreseen that when I finally released you from Ben’s hold, you would act like a mindless fool! Now tell me, what did you do to Komari?”.

Kylo didn’t answer, he didn’t even look back at her. Instead, his gaze trailed over the scriptures on the wall like he had all the time and not a single care in the world.

“Answer me!”.

He turned his head around and gave her a disappointed, slightly annoyed gaze as if she was nothing but a pesky child disturbing him. 

“Don’t worry about Vosa,“ he said. “I left her in a bar on Cantonica”.

“That’s just brilliant..,” Rey muttered. “Would you care to tell me why you dragged me all the way out here then?”.

This tomb is the newest of them all,” Kylo said as he absentmindedly trailed a long finger under a text passage carved into the stone monument in the middle of the room. “But it was never used. Do you know who it was intended for?”.

"Vader,” she replied.

“Indeed. Strange enough, there was never one created for Sidious… which brings me back to our common issue — what is your plan for your grandfather?”.

Now Rey was positively fuming; was he a complete moron? The main reason that he was standing in front of her, and not Ben Solo, was to kill Darth Sidious so that they could claim the Sith Throne and rule the Galaxy, side by side.

“I’m glad that you asked,” she spat at him. “I planned that we would kill him together”.

“Just like that…?” He said as gave her a disappointed, almost bored glance and leaned his back against the wall with a soft sigh. “Do you know how Sidious killed Plaugeis?”.

“What?”.

“How did Plaugeis the Wise die?”.

“Everybody knows that, It’s one of his favorite stories to tell,” Rey barked, offended that he assumed she was so clueless. When it came to the history of the Sith, she was well-educated and knew more than anyone schooled by a Jedi ever could. 

Darth Plagueis had been a Sith Lord with immense power and deep knowledge of the Dark Side of the Force. He had delved so deeply into the secrets of the Force that it was said that he could manipulate life itself. His abilities were extraordinary, but once Sidious felt that his wise Master had taught him everything there was to know,  he betrayed Plaugeis and took his life while the muun was both drunk and in a weakened state after an earlier assassination attempt. 

“I can imagine,” Kylo gave her a half-smile. “How about how Plaugeis killed Tenebrous?”.

Darth Tenebrous…? 

Rey blinked, puzzled by his question. She was aware of Plaugeis’ Master, a bith Sith Lord who had been known for his brilliant intellect and engineering skills. One of the Sith Eternal’s legions of Sith troopers on Exegol was named after him. Rey had studied Plaugeis’ old holocrons, and she was aware of how the bith had died. 

It wasn’t a very spectacular story .

“Plaugeis simply seized the moment and killed him when Tenebrous lay wounded, crushed under a large rock. What does it matter?!” she snapped. “We’re a dyad — we have the power to do it and my grandfather doesn’t know that, not yet. We can turn it to our advantage!”.

“Didn’t you hear what I just said?” he asked, unimpressed. ”If history has taught us one thing, it's that it takes more than power, Rey, more than strength in the Force and swordsmanship to kill a Sith Master”.

Rey scoffed softly as she crossed her arms over her chest.

”What is your great plan, then?” she said, unimpressed. “To let a couple of drengirs loose on Sidious as you did with Snoke?”.

“No,” Kylo said. “As you already know, the drengirs have been present on Amaxine for centuries. With your grandfather, we need to create our own advantage”. 

Create it?

They already had it; Anakin Skywalker was said to have been conceived by the Force itself, yet even he succumbed to Darth Sidious. The strength of both their bloodlines was legendary and they were both heirs to two of the strongest Sith Lords that ever had lived.

Together — together, they would be unstoppable.

There was not a single doubt about that in Rey’s mind. They were meant to be. Their destinies had been woven together by the threads of the Force itself already either of had been born. 

“We are our advantage!” Rey gritted her sharp teeth as she summoned her blade, enraged that he seemed to have so little faith in their shared strength. “I heard enough ― if you don’t believe my words, I will show you!”.

She stepped into battlestance and pointed her blade at him, her gaze hard and serious. A slow smile spread across Kylo’s face at the sight. 

“Very well,” he said, pinning her with his gaze. “I accept your challenge”.

His voice sounded almost intrigued and the anticipation glittered in his eyes as he watched her in the dim-lit chamber over the red, angry glow of her blade.

With a swift motion, Kylo ignited his lightsaber. The crimson blade came to life in an instant and the plasma crackled, just like a fire. Rey sucked in a breath through her nose; it looked just like it had in her dreams; an ancient, unconventional design, made to hold an unstable kyber crystal… 

They began circling each other, the silence of the temple broken only by the crackling of Kylo’s saber and the soft humm of Rey’s dual blade. 

Rey struck first, starting with Niman, Form VI, this time instead of Jar’Kai. No matter Kylo’s talent and heritage, Darth Sidious had been one of few who had mastered all seven forms, and her grandfather had trained Rey well. Sparks of plasma flew through the air when their blades clashed, over and over again.

It was as if they were testing each other’s strength and resolve, each of them equally unwilling to back down. Rey’s movements were fluid, a dance of precision and power, while Kylo’s strikes were forceful as if he wanted to overwhelm her with sheer power.

As Rey parried the first series of his heavy blows, her muscles strained against Kylo’s superior strength. But if he thought it was enough to intimidate her, he was wrong. A true Sith welcomed the pain, welcomed suffering, all emotions and sensations that could be turned into power.

“You underestimate me,” she said through gritted teeth. “You cannot win over me. Not here, not like this”.

Kylo scoffed softly.

“You’re too predictable,” he arrogantly retorted, twisting his blade to break her defense and then he was lunging at her again, forcing her backward against the stairs from which she had entered Vader’s empty tomb. 

Unlike on Geonosis, where they had fought under an open sky, the old Sith Temple was a dark labyrinth of narrow corridors between the different halls and chambers. As with any Sith Temple worthy of the name, it was filled with deadly traps and hidden passages. 

Unless you wanted your next step to be your last, you had to tread carefully.

Fortunately, for a Force user as adept with the Dark Side as Rey was, it was of little concern; every step she took was guided by the spirits of ancient Sith and the Force itself and she met Kylo's every move with precision.

Sensing that he was about to lose the upper hand, Kylo swung his blade in a wide arc, aiming dangerously close to her neck. 

Rey quickly ducked and rolled, her lightsaber slicing through a nearby pillar as she regained her balance. The pillar collapsed in an instant, filling the air with dry dust and debris. 

Harnessing the Force, she directed the broken pieces from the pillar toward Kylo, forcing him to redirect his attack. Swiftly seizing the opportunity, Rey launched a counterattack with a rapid succession of strikes. Through the Force, she could feel his determination, steadfast as the tide, mixed with the lingering anger and disappointment over her previous lies.

‘I had to do it, to set you free, why can’t you see that?!’

The duel intensified, illuminated by the weak light from the torches that were fixed to the temple’s smooth stone walls. 

‘It’s a poor excuse for such deception. But what else is there to expect from a Palpatine?’

Without showing any signs of exhaustion, Kylo pressed furiously forward, driving her out of the tomb and through a corridor flanked by ancient tombs until they entered a vast, dusty hall draped with large, old spider webs. 

Tall, imposing pillars rose from the floor to the vaulted ceiling, their surfaces intricately carved with ancient Sith runes and symbols that shimmered faintly in the dim light, and standing along the smooth walls, there were several obsidian statues of the old Sith Lords.

Marka Ragnos, Tulak Hord, Ajunta Pall and Naga Sadow… 

The statues seemed to watch them with their hollow eyes as the battle unfolded and Rey felt the presence of the old Sith’s spirits closer than ever in the Force. Their whispers, always spoken in the ancient language of the Sith, echoed through the Force as she drew on their power, feeling the very might of all of the Sith in her veins.

She was their heiress, their future empress. 

The Queen of the Sith; ready to claim the throne.

Rey’s determination burned within her chest like the lava boiled on Mustafar. With a surge of energy, she advanced with renewed fury each strike aimed to bring the dark knight down to his knees. 

With a powerful Force push, Rey sent Kylo stumbling back. She lunged forward, her blade aimed for his chest, but he sidestepped at the last moment, bringing his saber up to deflect. Their blades fell into a lock between them. She leaned forward until their faces were mere centimeters apart, dangerously close to the edge of his crackling blade.

“You can’t win this,” Rey whispered through gritted teeth. “You don’t have the strength”.

“You never listen, do you?” Kylo’s dark eyes blazed with equal determination. “I’ve already told you twice. It’s not just about strength”. 

“For a true Sith, everything that matters is power, but power can come in many shapes and forms!” she snarled. “Why don’t you let me show you?!”.

With a surge of energy, Rey broke the saber lock, spinning around to deliver a swift kick to Kylo’s midsection. He staggered back, colliding with the unforgiving stone wall. The impact knocked the breath from him, causing Kylo's guard to falter.

Advancing like a predator smelling blood, Rey struck with precision, disarming him with a decisive blow that sent his lightsaber clattering to the ground.

Kylo fell to his knees, breathing heavily, his eyes locked onto Rey’s. She stood over him, her lightsaber poised but not striking. 

“Yield,” she commanded, her breath shallow, but voice steady. 

Her pride forbade her to reveal how nervous she was. Rey hadn’t truly wanted to fight him, but more often than not, her anger and impulsiveness got the best of her. 

Please. 

She had won, fair and square. However, there was a part of her consciousness that suspected that he hadn’t fought anywhere nearly as hard as he could. It puzzled her a bit, but Rey quickly shrugged away the concern, he was probably just tired after fighting Snoke and having been on the run for several months.

As if he could read her mind like an open book, Kylo’s gaze softened and something that looked like a grudging respect emerged in his eyes. 

“I yield,” he said in a surprisingly calm, almost unaffected voice. “You fought well”.

Rey let out a sigh of relief she didn’t know she had been holding. “We’re stronger together, Kylo, trust me,” she replied. “We’re stronger than anything, or anyone, the galaxy has seen before”.

With those words, Rey deactivated her lightsaber and extended a hand to him. 

“As you wish,” he said, taking her hand without hesitation as he rose to his feet. “I will go to Exegol with you, Rey. Or, maybe you prefer Lady Palpatine now?”.

Rey’s eyes flickered at the name, a faint smile curling her lips. It was nice to be called by her true name instead of a silly alias. But she hadn’t forgiven him yet.

“Rey will do fine,” she replied, letting her gaze travel over his formidable figure. He really was everything she dreamed of, minus the rebellious streak she had failed to anticipate. 

Kylo’s lips twisted into a dark smile. “Together, then, Rey”.

Rey studied him for a long moment, the silence between them thick with unspoken words. His new dark clothes suited him well, but they seemed to be leftovers from the Knights of Ren, and made him look more like an assassin than the consort of an empress. If he were to rule by her side, he would need a more worthy attire.

“Yes,” she agreed, her voice unwavering. “Together. But know this, Kylo. If you ever leave me again, I might not forgive you so easily the next time”.

“Forgive me?”

Her breath caught as he moved closer still, the intensity of his presence almost overwhelming now when the adrenaline of the battle had faded. Despite what had occurred between them earlier, Rey still felt the same pull to him that she always had. The attraction was gravity, a force of its own that she couldn’t resist.

”You’re already asking for much,” Kylo said, catching her cheek between his thumb and index finger as he examined her face. ”Considering what you’ve done to me”.

“I had no choice but to break him to free you,” Rey replied, looking at the ugly scar on Kylo’s face. She felt a tinge of guilt at the reminder of how badly she had hurt him. 

But, she wasn’t going to admit that out loud. 

Not yet, at least.

Kylo let go of her chin and stepped closer to her. Rey unconsciously took a step backward, hitting the edge of the table. He leaned forward, trapping her between the edge of the table and his body. She looked up at him through her dark lashes.

“What would you have me to do?” she asked.

Forgiveness was hardly something a Sith practiced. But Rey and Kylo were unlike anything the long history of the Sith had ever seen. He was a part of her soul and their fates intertwined in ways that went far beyond any alliance. 

“Forget the past,” he said without any hesitation. “Let it die”.

“The only thing that keeps us back is my grandfather,” she replied, letting her hand come up to his cheek, tracing a line along his scar. 

“Stand with me, and I’ll give you whatever you want”.

Kylo’s breath a little hitched at her touch, and through the Force, she could feel how the warmth of her fingers ignited a spark deep within him. Her lips curved into a small smirk and she hoisted herself up onto the table, wrapping her legs around his waist.

His hands came down to rest on her hips, and Kylo leaned further down until their faces were so close that their noses almost touched. Kylo's eyes were dark and his gaze was as intense as Rey remembered it to be, filled with a mix of awe, desire, and something that reminded her of pure fascination. 

She felt it, too.

The desire ebbed through their bond like the countless rivers in Naboo's countryside. 

Rey held her breath as she looked back into his beautiful eyes, spellbound. He cupped her face and in the next second, she felt how his lips brushed over hers. She closed her eyes, relishing in the sensation for a moment before she kissed him back eagerly.

Jakku might taught her patience, but Rey had enough of waiting. 

She took his hand and guided it down between her legs. He used his thumb to simply slide the fabric to the side while he let his index finger and a long, thick finger slide in between her folds. Despite that he barely had touched her, her pussy was already soaked, wet and ready for him.

”Always so impatient,” Kylo scolded as she tugged at his clothes, feeling him through the fabric of his pants, looking for the zipper. 

It was hard not to be. 

He looked like something out of a dark fairytale; the monster and the prince.

Both united in one hauntingly, alluring single being. 

The strong presence of the Dark Side seemed to heighten every sensation and magnify the feeling of every touch. Rey’s head was swimming with lust. She had dreamt of being with him like this, fantasized about it, more times than she could count. 

“Say it,” Kylo demanded, as he continued to work her with his fingers slowly, carefully, deliberately holding back.

“I need to feel you inside me,” Rey panted. “Now”.

There was no denying just how much pleasure he took in having her pleading and Rey was certain a part of him wanted to continue until she literally begged him to fuck her hard.

But to her delight, Kylo decided that her confession was enough, and he chose to not drag out the foreplay any longer. Partly because he had grown unbearable hard while teasing her. Even through the thick synth leather of his pants, she could both see and feel how his cock strained against the fabric. 

He stepped back, helping Rey to discard her leggings and panties before he shrugged off his cowl, letting it fall to the fall, and pulled his shirt over his head. With his raven black hair, dark eyes, and pale, well-muscled form, he was truly a sight to behold and Rey felt another surge of desire ravage through her.

She sat back on the table, leaned back onto her elbows, and let her legs fall apart. The surface of the stone table was cool under her naked, hot skin and Rey sucked in a breath as she watched him unzip his pants, revealing his impressive, hard cock. 

He lined himself up at her entrance, and Rey cried out, loud, when he finally thrust into her. It felt nothing less than divine to have him inside her again.

Kylo held her still for a brief moment, just breathing, relishing the sensation of being buried to the hilt into her warm pussy. His large hands slid up over her stomach, up over her clothed breasts. Rey bit her bit as he gently pinched the nipple of her right through the thin synth leather of her top. He was being far too gentle and teasing for her taste and the slow torture was driving her wild.

“You can really be infuriating beyond … Ah!”.

As an answer, he seized Rey by the hips again, keeping her position on the table fixed as he thrust hard into her. Rey panted heavily and clenched her hands around the table's edge as he hit deep into her.

The feeling was intoxicating; pure ecstasy. 

It was far better than their first times together and her breath grew shallow, hiking with each of his deep, measured thrusts, until her muscles contracted around him as she came.  

She didn’t even need to touch herself once.

As the aftershocks rippled through Rey’s body, Kylo trusted him into her a few more times before he came apart, spilling his seed inside her with a groan.

A few hours later, the reunited lovers were en route to Exegol. 

Hair still damp from a quick shower, Kylo sat in the co-pilot’s seat, his gaze fixed on the swirling blue of hyperspace, while Rey was seated behind the controls. Despite that everything finally seemed to have gone her way, there was a nagging feeling at the back of her mind that refused to disappear.

“I look forward to seeing Exegol with my own eyes,” Kylo said, his voice laced with anticipation. “My uncle searched for it in the past… Naturally without success”.

“There are many worlds connected to the long history of the Sith,” Rey replied, her tone contemplative. “But in modern times, Exegol is the most important. It was here my grandfather took refuge after he initiated Operation Cinder, the grand plan for an Empire reborn.”

“And now its revival is all in your hands…”.

“It’s in our hands,” she corrected him, her gaze unwavering. “With Sidious gone, you and I will claim the Sith Throne together, just as we will rule the galaxy as one”.

Kylo's eyes glinted with a mix of ambition and admiration. “What does your scrawny, red-haired friend think about it?”.

Rey gave him a tired gaze, the corners of her lips twitching in a faint smile. “He’s eager to see the results of our alliance,” she replied. “Don’t forget that we need him; Hux’s resources and connections are invaluable. Without him, it will be much harder to take control of the fleet. I have instructed him to gather and prepare all officers who will side with us. Generals Engell, Parnadee, and Quinn have received these instructions as well.”

Her plan was simple; first, they would meet with Hux on the Finalizer to go through the strategy for handling General Pryde and the other officers loyal to her grandfather. Pryde’s loyalty to Palpatine could make him a significant threat, and they needed to neutralize him to ensure their control over the fleet.

However, it was also fully possible that Pryde would accept Rey and Kylo as the new rulers once the old Emperor was dead. He had been around long enough to know how ascension worked within the Sith, and if there was something Pryde respected, it was power.

“Allegiant General Pryde has taken over Snoke’s position as the leader of the First Order,” Rey explained. “Even though he is not force-sensitive, he understands the ways of power. If we demonstrate our combined strength, he will fall in line. His loyalty is to the Sith Eternal, not just to Sidious”.

“Then so be it,” Kylo nodded, eyes glowing with determination. “Let us crush anyone foolish enough to defy us”.

Rey smiled at him, a broad, appreciative grin.   

“I was just about to suggest the same”.

After crossing half the galaxy, Imperialis III finally exited hyperspace and the dark, stormy world of Exegol came into view. Kylo watched the rocky planet with a steadfast, determined expression from his spot beside Rey in the cockpit. Exegol’s atmosphere crackled with energy and the Dark Side of the Force was even stronger there than on Korriban. 

Rey felt a shiver of anticipation through her body as she guided Imperialis toward the main hangar of the Finalizer. She could almost taste her future as ruler of the galaxy with Kylo by her side at the tip of her tongue. It was so close now, everything she had dreamed of, planned for. She stole a glance at Kylo where he sat beside her. His face was impassive and his presence in the Force was calm like Nur's ocean. 

If he was nervous, he hid it incredibly well.

In the vast hangar, General Hux awaited them with Captain Phasma at his side, surrounded by an entire battalion of perfectly lined-up stormtroopers. Armitage looked more pale than usual in his impeccable, black uniform and his jaw was set tight.

The tension in the air was palpable as Rey and Kylo walked down Imperial’s ramp. She could see how the stormtroopers tensed more than usual at the sight of them as if they could feel something vital was about to change soon.

Hux kept his rigid position, but as he caught sight of Kylo, his face transformed into a mask of skepticism and barely concealed contempt.

"General Hux," Rey said in her best diplomatic tone. "Thank you for having us”.

“I hardly have a choice, do I?,” Hux said, his voice dripping with contempt as he glanced over Kylo. ”Prince Charming here has proven on multiple occasions that he is not only mad but also an enemy of the First Order. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't have him arrested on sight”.

"Because we need him," Rey replied in a low, but stern voice. "And as much as I appreciate the grand welcome, is there somewhere we can speak more privately?".

“Of course,” he said as he shot Kylo another dark gaze. “Please, follow me”.

With those words, Hux spun around his heel and led Rey and Kylo into the labyrinth-like, triangular corridors of the Finalizer. The sleek, metallic walls reflected the harsh, cold light from the panels in the ceiling and the sound of their boots echoing off the cold, durasteel floors. 

The Finalizer's main bridge bustled with activity when the trio stepped in through the pneumatic doors; officers working on their stations and enlisted crew members in sleek uniforms moved between the different stations purposefully to assist with various tasks. Captain Moden Canady stood at the center of the bridge, overseeing operations with a watchful eye. Canady was a middle-aged man, with a rugged and stern look, clad in the standard grey uniform.

As soon as he spotted General Hux, Kylo, and Rey approaching, he quickly stood to attention and saluted them.

"General Hux, Lady Palpatine; welcome back!".

"Captain," Hux greeted him with a nod before gesturing for Kylo and Rey to move towards the holotable positioned in the middle of the bridge. A large blue hologram displayed a map of the Exegol system, showing all the First Order's destroyers, the entire Last Fleet, and the legions of soldiers belonging to the armed division of the Sith Eternal.

"Kylo and I will take care of my grandfather," Rey said, looking at the holographic projection of Exegol. "Hux, you'll be in charge of the officers and ensure the rest of the fleet is ready to follow our lead".

Hux nodded slowly. "I'll start coordinating with the officers. But remember, the First Order is filled with people who won't hesitate to turn on us if they sense weakness. There can be no mistakes".

Rey nodded. She was fully aware of that. Should she and Kylo fail their mission, Pryde wouldn't hesitate to have Hux executed for treason.

"There won't be any," Rey responded, meeting his gaze. "We'll show them strength. Make examples if you must. I won't have anyone question my authority."

If there was one thing a Sith knew, it was power. The entire Sith philosophy revolved around it, and the most important trait all true Sith shared was an unquenchable desire for power.

Rey turned her gaze away from the holotable and looked out over Exegol from the viewport. She felt a powerful connection to the planet. It was a symbol of her destiny, a source of power, and just by looking at it, she felt a mixture of pride, ambition, and a sense of dark satisfaction, a reflection of her embrace of the dark side and her role within the ancient Sith hierarchy.

Above the thunderous stratosphere, the Last Order’s fleet of Xyston-class Star Destroyers floated like a swarm of locusts. So far, they had allowed the First Order’s fleet to engage the New Republic and local armies independently.

But that was all about to change; soon, it would be hers and Kylo’s to command.

“Once Sidious has fallen and we have seized control of both fleets, we will advance on the Core,” Rey declared, turning her gaze to Hux.

“Very well,” Hux replied with a nod. “I will begin the preparations immediately…”.

Through the Force, Rey heard Sidious call out her name. While she couldn’t see him, she could feel him, feel his brittle body float in the cold vacuum of space among the fragments of the planets. He had survived the impact, but it had taken every ounce of his power.

Rey!

In the absence of atmospheric pressure, his lungs began to expand, and the gas in his bloodstream dissolved, forming into bubbles. It went fast, his consciousness was fading like the dew from the night under Jakku’s morning sun.

”Grandfather!” Rey called out, eyes wide in horror at the sight. “Grandfather!!”.

”What in the whole, wide universe is happening…?!”.

She heard Hux yell behind her as the first wave of large chunks of rocks struck Finalizer's deflector shield, making the ship rock by the impact.

"Redirect all powers to the shields immediately!" he bellowed.

But before Rey could form a verbal response, the auxiliary laser rays from the Last Order’s fleet were re-directed to each other like a perfect weave, and within in the blink of an eye, the entire fleet exploded in a burst of fire. Sidious, who had tried to use the Force to pull himself against the nearest destroyer, was now being pulled straight into a new explosion.

She breathed in, fighting to keep herself from panicking.  All she could feel was his pain and bottomless despair. Sidious was barely conscious now, with no power left to block out the energy of the explosion. The heat melted through his skin, his flesh, and bone before it tore apart his body as if he was made of silk paper.

Hysteria broke loose at the commando bridge at the sight of the perfectly synchronized destruction of the Last Order’s fleet, and yet another wave of debris hit the shield.

Was it the New Republic, or was it the rebels?

Nobody knew for sure.

“Stay calm!” Hux yelled, his face just as red as the First Order banners on Illum, at the top of his lungs. “There is no reason to panic!”.

The Finalizer was far enough from the collapsing to not be in any direct danger from the explosion, and its shield generator was one of the most powerful versions available. The redirected power gave the shields a surge of power, and a pale lilac, shimmering energy field became visible around the ship. It rippled softly as another wave of rock and debris from Exegol struck it. 

Rey screamed in agony as Sidious pain seared through the Force. She barely noticed how Kylo came to stand behind her, pressing her body against his chest in a comforting gesture.

“Let him go, Rey,” he calmly said, wrapping his strong arms around her. “Let him go”.

”It wasn’t supposed to end like this…!” she cried out, half-heartedly struggling to get loose from his embrace as if there was some way she still could save her grandfather. Tears burned at the corner of her eyes and a sharp pain tugged at her heart. "He wasn't supposed to die like... not like that!.

But Kylo held her firm and as Rey watched the flames die out, she suddenly understood why he had remained so calm during the catastrophe when nearly everybody else lost their cool.

This was Kylo's doing, he was the one who had orchestrated it all. How he had done it, she didn't know, but she knew it was him.

"Come," she said, taking his hand. "We need to talk".

She left the situation on the main bridge to Hux and Canary to handle. At the back of her mind, she knew nothing had changed, this didn't affect their plan. Even with Exegol gone, they still had the fleet, still had enough to battle the Republic. But the Sith throne, the citadel, the Sith Eternal, all invaluable ancient Sith relics, holocron, and objects had been turned to dust along with Darth Sidious...

Rey practically dragged Kylo into the officer's quarters, her steps heavy with a mix of anger and disbelief, pushing him through the doors to the chambers she typically commandeered aboard the Finalizer. The atmosphere inside crackled with tension as they stood face-to-face, the weight of their tumultuous history hanging between them. Rey's eyes blazed with fury as she whirled around to confront him.

"You played me," she snarled, her voice dripping with anger over his betrayal.

"Just as you played me," Kylo retorted coolly, his tall frame towering over her. "For months."

"That was necessary," Rey shot back, her hands trembling at her sides. "How many times do I have to tell you?! I did it for you!".

"So was this, and so did I..," he said firmly. "... and you, you did certainly teach me what a useful skill manipulation can be".

“His death was necessary, yes, but not like this!” Rey protested, her fists clenched tightly, nails digging into her palms. “You let him die like a vermin!”

Rey had envisioned their ascending through a traditional lightsaber duel countless times. In her dreams, it was a way to prove both herself and Kylo worthy of the Sith throne. Blood, sweat, and tears. They would fight together against Darth Sidious in perfect harmony, and nobody would question their victory, hard-earned at the brink of death...

“What did you expect?” he asked sharply. 

“For him to die with some honor!”

Despite that she had wanted to see him dead, Rey had harbored a deep respect for her grandfather and a lingering affection — he had saved her on Jakku and he had trained her to become a formidable, fearsome warrior and an excellent swordsman. Rey bore his power in her blood, and if only for that, he deserved an honorable death in battle.

She recalled her great-grandfather, the duel on the terrace in the twilight — an honorable death. That was the path she had envisioned to claim the throne. Now, there was nothing left of Exegol but dust, no Sith Throne left for her to claim. Everything was gone, and she couldn't help but wonder if an unconscious part of him had resorted to destroying the entire planet as punishment for how her grandfather's Empire once had destroyed Alderaan in the same manner.

“There was no honor in your grandfather, Rey. He deserved to die without it,” Kylo said bluntly, his voice devoid of sympathy.

Taking a deep, shaky breath, Rey steadied herself. "Tell me," she demanded, her voice stern, though it quivered with emotion. "What did you do?"

"When I saw Vosa with you on Geonosis, I knew Sidious had made a mistake," Kylo smirked again. It was that annoying, self-satisfied expression that always tempted Rey to strike him, to wipe that arrogance off his face.

"And why is that?" Rey scoffed, masking her inner turmoil behind a mask of defiance. Komari Vosa had been strong in the Force, strong enough to make her a being seen as a rising star among the Jedi Order, but none of that was impressive to a Sith.

"Vosa's true strength was never her skill in the Force," he revealed. "It was in her ability to build the Bando Gora into an organization even your grandfather feared... and her skill with chemistry. I used a modified version of her neurotoxin to control the Last Order's crews".

"What?" Rey frowned, her brow furrowing in confusion.

"The toxin is much like the inhibitor chips your grandfather had placed in the clone troopers during Order 66," Kylo continued. "It was so powerful that by that it got them to slaughter the Jedi they had fought alongside for years in cold blood, without even the slightest speck of hesitation".

"I know," Rey said sharply. "I don't need a history lecture on the Clone Wars!".

Kylo sighed softly, giving her a disappointed gaze. 

"Then I assume you already know that the modified neurotoxin worked in a similar matter. Once the unaltered slaves infiltrated your fleet, I simply waited for the right moment to give them the command to fire on Exegol".

It turned out Kylo had compelled the dugs on Malastare to spike their entire production of death sticks with Komari's formula for weeks. Then, he simply stepped back and let the crime syndicates carry on with their business as usual. Once the death sticks had reached the users, one hit was enough to let Kylo control them through the Force from afar.

Just like Komari once had controlled her followers.

One by one, Kylo’s army of death stick-addicted puppets had enlisted in the First Order. The lower-ranking stormtroopers were mostly thought to serve as cannon fodder, so the requirements were low enough for more part of the puppets to pass. Some ended up guarding outposts on Illum, some as kitchen personnel, technicians, or maintenance personnel, and some ended up swabbing the floors of the new Xyston-class destroyers. 

When a puppet boarded a new star destroyer, he or she was instructed to contaminate the water system. All the star destroyers had water recycling systems that never needed to be refilled. The water kept circulating in a closed loop, just like a real ecosystem. Naturally, the water was tested for impurities like bacteria, drugs, and harmful chemicals.

However, nobody had thought of testing the water for an unusual neurotoxin that hadn’t been used for almost a century, and thus, it had slipped through the controls. Over the months that passed, the contamination was spread through the entire fleet of the Last Order’s star destroyers.

Rey's head was reeling. Not as much by the shock of what he's done, but just how badly he had her fooled. Had everybody fooled. She honestly thought he was careless enough to try to archive some damage to the system loyal to the First Order with the Bando Gora slaves with black, mottled skin.

"If this was your plan, why use the old version of the Bando Gora slaves to create chaos on Vardos and Eriadu?" Rey asked with a frown. 

"Because that was the path Sidious expected me to take," Kylo replied. "Like Snoke, and you, he underestimated me and believed I was foolish enough to think I could accomplish victory against your forces with those mindless creatures".

“You went to all this trouble... for a diversion?” Rey asked, shocked.

She was struggling to comprehend the extent of his machinations. The plan was brilliant, she had to admit that. Brilliant enough to fool her grandfather and that was no small feat. Rey felt a reluctant respect stir within her. Despite their differences and their recent conflict, she couldn't deny that his ability to remain composed under pressure and to manipulate situations to his advantage was truly impressive.

"It was necessary".

“I cannot say I'm not disappointed,” Rey admitted reluctantly, her voice tinged with a mix of grudging respect and lingering anger, “But... you've proven yourself”.

He nodded subtly, acknowledging her words with a faint smile.

“Know this, Rey,” he said in a softer voice as his hand came up to cradle her cheek. “Everything I did, I did it for you”.

Something warm blossomed inside her chest and Rey inclined her head in slow contemplation. A renewed sense of unity flickered between them, once more. She couldn't ignore the sincerity in Kylo's words, nor the undeniable truth that he had liberated her from her grandfather.

“And now?”. 

“Let the past die,” Kylo murmured, and with a gentle stroke of his thumb, he traced the curve of Rey's cheek.

“It's the only way," he said, looking her in the eyes. "You know it is”.

Rey met his gaze, her expression guarded yet contemplative. “You've already killed it for me,” she replied evenly. “So, what about the Jedi Order and your uncle?”.

“I’d say we pay him a visit,” he said with a soft grin.