Chapter Text
New coordinates had arrived without explanation from the fleet’s flagship, as had the command for Kylo Ren to report to the Supreme Leader immediately. Kylo strode toward the audience chamber fueled by a smoldering rage. No helpful development could have hindered the hunt for Luke Skywalker.
He arrived at the Star Destroyer’s audience chamber to find this was not a private meeting: Hux was already there. The general looked over his shoulder as Kylo entered, the ever-superior glint in his eyes on full display.
When he was parallel to Hux, he knelt before the massive projection of the Supreme Leader. Then, receiving a wave of Snoke’s hand, he rose.
“You have by now made the course adjustment I sent,” Snoke said in a low, even voice.
“Yes, Supreme Leader,” Hux replied with what Kylo thought was excessive fervor.
“Once you have collected the passenger I’m sending you, you will continue to the Sacred Villages on Jakku and obtain the cartographer.”
Hux nodded.
Snoke leaned forward. “The interception of this map is of the utmost importance for the First Order. The return of Skywalker and the restoration of the Jedi Order is a greater threat than either the Resistance or the New Republic.”
“We’re monitoring all communications carefully,” Hux said. “We will know if the Resistance makes a move.”
“Good.” Snoke paused and sat back. “A Sith ally of mine is sending me his apprentice to assist with this matter.”
Kylo couldn’t hide his sudden shock. If the Supreme Leader had said he was leaving the First Order to live out the remainder of his days as a monk, it could not have surprised him any more. Hux seemed equally flummoxed.
“A Sith ally?” Kylo said.
Snoke did not reply.
“In… what way will they be assisting us?” Hux asked tactfully.
“She will act as a military adviser during this and future missions.”
Kylo felt Hux’s sense of indignity. It matched his own.
“Her shuttle will arrive at the coordinates I have sent you within the hour. Make preparations to receive Darth Solus, Lady of the Sith, as a visiting dignitary.”
Hux squared his shoulders even more. “Of course, Supreme Leader. Will you wish to meet with her when she arrives?”
“That won’t be necessary. I’ll speak to her in my own time.”
With a wave of his hand he dismissed them, then the hologram vanished.
Alone in his room, Kylo sat contemplatively in front of the charred, warped mask of Darth Vader. This physical link to his grandfather had been his sole source of strength in times of temptation and faint-heartedness. He addressed it again now.
“Supreme Leader senses my doubt… my weakness. He’s sent for another. A Sith.”
He waited.
Nothing.
“He says I still think first like a Jedi. He thinks I need oversight. Help me show him that I know — and can wield — the full power of the dark side.”
As Kylo had often been told, in the Empire’s deciding moment, Vader had succumbed to compassion. The Emperor, and by extension the Empire, fell, and the political chaos and galactic turmoil of the New Republic rose. All due to a single instant of misguided sentiment.
Snoke saw traces of the same softness in him. After all, Vader had also been raised as a Jedi and blinded by the lies of their religion. However in tune with the dark Kylo’s true nature was, it had been corrupted — at least partially — by years of Skywalker’s instruction.
Now a Sith — a true Sith, unlike him or his grandfather — was coming to oversee this crucial mission.
And still no guidance from Vader.
As Snoke requested, a formal reception had been arranged. Officers and stormtroopers stood at attention, with Kylo and Hux at the front of the assembly. At the anticipated time, a shuttle appeared from hyperspace and entered the main hanger, raising its wings gracefully as it alighted.
Kylo and the rest of the assembly looked on as the ramp lowered. Four death troopers exited and formed parallel lines on either side of the ramp. A vanguard of two black-robed and hooded figures walked down next. Then a final robed form followed, moving with an unmistakably regal bearing. The hood fell low over its face, but Kylo spotted a black mask just visible beneath it.
The vanguard separated and stood to either side. As the final figure approached, one of them announced, “Darth Solus, Lady of the Sith.”
“Lady Solus,” Hux said, bowing politely. “Welcome to the Finalizer. I am General Hux.”
“General,” the Sith replied languidly, her voice only slightly distorted by her mask. Then she turned her head slightly toward Kylo. “And you are Kylo Ren?”
He nodded once but said nothing.
“I trust your journey was uneventful,” Hux continued.
“It was,” she said in the same languid tone.
“Excellent. It will my pleasure to show you the Finalizer.”
Darth Solus didn’t reply in word or movement.
After a brief pause, Hux said, “Well, this way,” and turned around.
He and Kylo Ren walked in tandem out of the hanger. Darth Solus followed as requested; two hooded attendants falling in step behind her.
Hux completed his cursory overview of the Finalizer on the command bridge. As they’d moved through the stormtrooper training complex, including the combat simulators and flight staging areas, Kylo had tried to get some sense of their new companion. She said little, and gave off no feelings of interest or surprise as Hux waxed poetical over his army.
Now, the general could barely repress his eagerness as he entered his security codes to call up a diagram of what he considered his own crowning achievement: Starkiller Base.
Darth Solus stood beside them, calm and poised as a queen. Neither her emotions nor her body language expressed any change when Hux began telling her about the base’s capabilities. Everything about her, from her gait to her clothes, seemed intentionally chosen to mask anything distinctive. She was exactly what Kylo had imagined the moment Snoke said he was bringing a Sith on board: statuesque and silent — as unremarkable as a shadow.
At some point during his prattling, Hux turned to her for a response.
“It’s a weapon,” she said, sounding as disinterested as ever. “Just like any other.”
“I beg your pardon, my lady,” Hux said, seemingly unable to hide his incredulity at this statement. “This is unlike any weapon ever before constructed. You may not appreciate its magnitude—”
“I do appreciate its magnitude,” she interrupted. “I believe it is you who fails to grasp it. It can destroy a planet. Five planets. Ten planets. The scale alone is unremarkable.
“I understand how this weapon operates,” she continued in the same tone. “Is there anything else you wish to show me, or can I be escorted to my quarters?”
Hux looked like he was in the process of choking back an impolite response.
Kylo said, “This way,” and walked toward the lift.
Solus, her attendants, and Hux followed.
Once inside the lift, Kylo took his turn to speak. “I didn’t know the Sith still existed.”
“You weren’t meant to,” she responded promptly. “Your uncle may have slain the last known Sith lord, but we have never disappeared, and never will. The Jedi, the Republic, New Republic, and the galaxy at large are far too content ignoring us to ever pose a real threat to the continued existence of the Sith.”
They reached the officers’ section and stepped into the corridor.
“Since there is only one Jedi left,” she went on, “that particular perversion of the true belief may finally come to an end. Once Snoke is able to locate and eliminate Skywalker, we’ll make ourselves known again.”
“Is that why you’ve come now,” Kylo asked, “when we’re hours away from finding where Skywalker’s been hiding?”
She turned her hooded head toward him. “You mean am I here to steal your glory? No. My master merely wishes to make sure nothing goes awry.”
Hux cut in. “Does your master think Supreme Leader Snoke will cede any kind of power to the Sith once Skywalker is dead?”
“My master knows yours far better than you do. Whatever his plans are, I’m certain they’ll come to fruition.”
“Who is your master?” Kylo asked. “What’s his connection to the First Order?”
“If either he or Snoke wanted you to know that, you’d know already.”
He looked at the low-hanging hood, the glint of a metal mask beneath it, but her mind was still closed off to him.
“Then who are you?” he asked.
“You already know. Darth Solus, apprentice of a Sith lord hidden in the Unknown Regions. And I know about you. Before becoming leader of the Knights of Ren, you were apprenticed to your uncle, Luke Skywalker, at his Jedi temple. Your mother was the princess of Alderaan, your father a war hero of the New Republic, and your grandfather one of the most powerful Jedi, and Sith, to ever live.”
“Where do you come from? Who are your parents?”
A twinge of surprise coursed through her — the first emotion Kylo had felt from her. Hazily, he perceived a vision of a thin child crouched by a metal wall, etching another mark in a long line.
But she pulled the feeling back and replied in a disinterested, though politely conversational, tone. “What makes you think I have any? Maybe I was designed by cloners to be a flawless Force wielder.”
“Your progenitors, then,” he pressed, undeterred.
“I couldn’t tell you,” she said, affecting an almost lighthearted tone of voice.
Kylo stopped at the door to her quarters.
Turning to Hux, Solus said, “Thank you for your tour of the Finalizer, general.”
Hux couldn’t seem to repress a sour look at being dismissed. He tilted his head toward her in an impression of a light bow, said, “Lady Solus,” turned, and walked away.
When he had disappeared from view, she turned back to Kylo. “You want an honest answer? I have no family casting their shadows ahead of me. I have only the expectations of my master and my people to live up to. And that’s weighty enough.”
She turned into her room, followed by her attendants, leaving Kylo Ren alone in the corridor.