50. Chapter 50

Kylo isn't sure when it happens, but he starts to have fun, and that scares him.

The Ground Crew bunks together, eats together, and even when training with the other Exes, they tend to stick with one another. Kylo works with all the Exes every day but the Ground Crew are his favorites. The camaraderie from their time in transit, without the supervision of the Resistance brass, persists past their return to the base. They look at him without fear, without hate, and they talk to him as though he's just another officer. They vie to sit with him at meals and ask for his advice. It makes him feel normal for the first time in his life . They work harder than anyone else, as if to prove that their rescue was worth the effort, and he takes grudging pride in their improved performance.

As if in response to the Ground Crew’s closeness, the original defectors, those who had stood with Finn in his holo and who follow him without question, start calling themselves the First Out, joking that the acronym ‘feels comfortable.’ A friendly rivalry develops between the two groups, showing itself in the evenings over hands of sabacc in the common areas and in weekend wrestling matches inspired by Kylo and Finn’s continual need to best each other in training. On the first day back from Capza, Finn traps Kylo in a perfect armbar and won’t let him free until Finn’s explained, in great detail to everyone watching, all the ways in which Kylo is a hero and a good friend.

Rey and Dameron sit with him and Finn at mealtimes, surrounded by Exes on all sides, run with them in the mornings, joke with them in their free hours. Their acceptance of the new people is infectious, and soon the pilots are jogging alongside them, asking to join their combat training.  After the pilots come the enlisted soldiers, and soon Finn and Kylo find themselves planning workout and training drills for most of the Resistance military.  When he complains to Kess that he's doing someone else's job, she laughs.

"Kylo, you never wanted the job we gave you.  Don't whine to me about the one you've made for yourself."

His complaints aren’t genuine, though. When he’s honest with himself, a rare thing that only happens deep in a post-coital haze when Rey pokes and prods, or late at night when he can’t sleep and Finn’s snores mix with Dameron’s steady breathing into something resembling calm, he can admit that this is the happiest he’s ever been. That terrifies him. He doesn’t deserve happiness. A murderer doesn’t deserve Rey’s tenderness, Finn’s partnership, Dameron’s jokes. He doesn’t deserve the respect or admiration of the Groundies, the easy friendship of Gun, the acceptance of the Resistance military. They keep calling him a hero, but he’s just a killer, a wild animal, and someday they’ll remember that and put him back in a cage.

In his dreams, Snoke exploits that terror, moving on from torturing Kylo to having Kylo torture his own people. Rey is destroyed, corrupted, ripped apart in a thousand ways each night by Kylo’s hands. Finn falls back in a storm of lightning, his skin crisping and burning away to reveal the muscle and bone underneath.  Dameron is shot out of the sky, maimed, strapped to the chair on Finalizer as Kylo tears chunks out of his brain and laughs. He shoots Gun in the head, runs through the Ground Crew one after another until he slips in their blood, stumbling, and falls on his own saber. He wakes panting, soaked in cold sweat, and there’s nothing he can do to stop himself from sobbing.  Every morning, Kylo shoves the fear and anxiety into the boxes in his mind. He gives himself one more day of happiness, one more drill with Finn and the Exes, one more night with Rey. It’s a delusion. He knows it will all be taken away, sooner or later, but he clings to it while he has it, greedy and desperate.

Kylo tries to turn the dreams into something useful, but there’s not much to report to the Leaders other than that Snoke is angry. He has no proof that the fury is due to their raid or to the death of Ajani beyond Kylo’s instincts and the timing. Still, he knows that his old master is planning something catastrophic and that the longer the Resistance prevaricates, the worse it will be in the end.

When he isn’t with the Exes or with Rey, Kylo is with the Leaders, seeing the General so often that he can now survive meetings without wanting to break things. Rey says this is progress.  He listens to reports from the field, gives his advice and opinions on the new information as it comes in. It’s less tedious than reading Thorne’s memos, and it gets him out of that tiny room, so he doesn’t protest the change in schedule. The reports get darker and more frequent as the days pass. The Lothal mines ship a load of weapons-quality Kyber crystals to the First Order, some large enough to be worrying. He’s confident the First Order can’t be close to completing anything like Starkiller this soon, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t rebuilding. Kylo is sure that it’s indicative of some plan of Snoke’s, some new horror he’s waiting to unleash on the galaxy.

Reports start coming in of attacks on their decoy bases, full-fledged bombing runs that destroy rather than cripple.  Then their allies are targeted. A bar in Cloud City where Coyle often meets contacts is bombed and dozens die. A prominent diplomat from Mon Calamari disappears en route to a meeting with the General and is later found dead on a First Order occupied world.  Uncle Chewie comes back from a supply run with a grievously injured Maz Kanata in his arms. He carries her broken body to the infirmary and stays with her until Kalonia assures him she’ll pull through before reporting to the Leaders. He describes the destruction of Maz’s new castle, how the First Order Stormtroopers slaughtered the patrons as they fled. Intel flows in from across their field of influence telling of similar attacks against Resistance sympathizers, systematic violence leveled against those who speak out against the First Order. The attacks are scattered across the galaxy, and the Resistance has too many allies to defend. It’s too dangerous to centralize all their allies on D’Qar, so they sit on the fence and watch their friends die.

“This is just the start,” Kylo rages in a meeting after hearing the newest travesty. “The First Order is doing what you did to them. They’re attacking your greatest assets. You can’t wait anymore, or you’ll have no allies left.” He slams a fist onto the table in front of him, upsetting his cup of caf. “We have to hit them as hard as we can, and we have to do it fast.”

Admiral Statura frowns. “We will not win a direct confrontation with the First Order, not now, not in a month’s time, but Ren is right. What do we have on hand, General?”

Shaking her head, the General’s eyes stay locked on the holo projecting images of the smoking remains of a building. “Not much. We can’t get stupid just because the situation is desperate.”

“Actually,” Kylo interjects, “I have the beginnings of a plan.” He’s done little else with his free time but think about this. “You have the First Order’s attention. That’s clear from the way they’re hitting back at your allies.” He doesn’t mention his dreams again. “We need to use that for something more than painting a target on our backs.” He looks straight at the General, the first time he’s initiated eye contact with her since he left to train with Skywalker when he was ten years old, and the Force shivers around him. “We need to run another mission. A big one, bigger than the raid on Capza, bigger than anything we’ve done yet.”

“What do you have in mind?” Her voice is steady, calm, and she doesn’t break his gaze.

Kylo takes a deep breath before speaking. “We take a page out of their book and attack their allies. We hit the Arkanis Academy.”

Coyle looks incredulous. “We’re down at least a quarter of our ships.  Remember when the First Order blew up Hangar 5? Taking down a school doesn’t seem like a great way to continue our PR campaign, either.”

“It’ll be a fake mission, a trap.” Kylo looks away from the General, his voice controlled. “Hux’s dear old dad still runs Arkanis. It’s where Hux grew up, where he and Phasma trained. If we leak plans that we’re going to bomb it, you can be sure they will be there person to protect it.”

Statura’s brow furrows. “You want to take out Hux. We can’t risk other people’s lives for a personal vendetta-”

“I want Snoke,” Kylo cuts over Statura, raising his hands in apology as the Admiral’s glower swings to him, “but Snoke won’t come out for anything. Hux will know where Snoke is, and he’ll come himself if the risk is big enough.”

“We haven’t seen much of the First Order’s navy.” The General contemplates this. “A few scouting vessels, some starships orbiting their allies. ”

“So, a fake mission to attack Arkanis Academy. I assume we capture Hux and force Snoke’s location out of him.  Then what?” Kess drums her fingers on the table.

Kylo shrugs. “We bring everyone and take the fight to Snoke before he can figure out what’s going on.”

“Everyone?” The General asks.

“ Everyone ,” Kylo nods. “I made the mistake of overestimating my abilities once before.” His eyes flick to Rey where she sits scribbling notes at the General’s side and her thoughts brush against his attention, steadfast and reassuring. “Snoke is unbelievably powerful. He won’t be with the main body of ships, but he won’t be alone, either. This will take an army.”

“An army.” The General tastes the word, nodding and she exchanges a quick side glance with Statura. “We need to think this through carefully. This will be our only chance and we’re not ready for a full-scale battle.” She taps her cheek and looks back at the attack points on the map, eyes hardening. “But I think we could be soon.”

The discussion turns to timetables and logistics, neither of which require his input, and he’s dismissed so they can hash out the internal politics behind closed doors.

Chewbacca rumbles a greeting from where he sits across the hall as Kylo leaves the conference room.

“Hey, Uncle Chewie!” Kylo returns the greeting as the Wookie falls into step beside him. “How’s Maz?” He hasn’t seen Chewbacca for more than a few minutes at a time outside of meetings since he landed a few days ago, but he has felt his Force signature haunting the med-bay at all hours of the day.

Chew growls an update on the tiny woman’s condition as they walk through the base towards the airstrip. She’ll be fine, but healing takes time. As they walk down the lawn to the landing strip and the Falcon , Kylo tells Chewie about the plan he proposed to the Leaders. Chewie loves it, especially the part about taking Hux hostage. Kylo really doesn’t want to get on the ship, but arguing with a Wookiee leads to getting arms torn off, so he follows his uncle up the ramp and into the main living quarters.

The Falcon smells like it always has, a combination of Wookiee, engine grease, and his father. Glancing around the interior of the ship, Kylo feels nauseous. Rey’s jacket is tossed, casual and rumpled, over the bench by the holochess board and that alone keeps Kylo from turning and running. Chewie puts a big hand on the top of Kylo’s head and pulls him in for a hug, patting his back before bustling back into the galley to make some food.

Swallowing the bile in his throat, Kylo strides around the ship, trailing the tips of his fingers along the walls he used to draw on as a child. He pokes his head into the sleeping quarters, finds his old bunk. It’s been converted into more storage, but the cot is clear, and there’s a dent in the pillow at the head of the bed, as if he’d just left it moments ago. Tears sting his eyes and he turns away.

Over xachibik broth spicy enough to clear Kylo’s sinuses, they discuss the raid on Capza. Chewbacca has heard the story from the General and Skywalker, who has apparently been spending more time on the Falcon than anyone else, but when Kylo tells him about going back for the Groundies, he roars as if hearing it for the first time.  

“Yeah, that’s what everyone’s been calling me.” Kylo sets his bowl down and takes a slurp of blue milk to cool his tongue. “It wasn’t about that, about being a hero. I wasn’t going to leave them to die when we were supposed to rescue them. Everyone knows I’m not a good guy. I wish they’d stop saying I am.” He doesn’t tell Chewie about the bloodlust, the perfect darkness that thrummed in his veins as he killed ‘Trooper after ‘Trooper. No need to bring that up over such a nice lunch.

Uncle Chewie tilts his head, ululating.

“You’ve been spending too much time with Skywalker. He always used to say the same things - our choices define us, our actions are more important than our words. If that’s true, then one good deed isn’t going to stack up against all the shit I’ve done. Doing one good thing doesn’t make me a hero.” Shaking his head, Kylo digs back into his stew.

Chewie growls, points at Rey’s jacket.

“Fine. Two good deeds weighed against a hundred or so murders.” His father’s laugh sounds in his head, as if he’s eavesdropping from  the cockpit, and Kylo’s stomach turns. He pushes away his bowl, no longer hungry.

Scooping Kylo’s leftovers into his own bowl, Chewie poses a question with a rumble.

Kylo rolls his eyes. “No, I haven’t talked to her or to Skywalker about it. They get their information on me from Rey or from Kess.”

Chewie narrows his eyes and mumbles.

“That woman can come talk to me any time she pleases. She’s the General and I’m a coerced asset. I’m still chipped, remember? That hardly seems like a dynamic conducive to familial reconciliations.” Uncle Chewie roars but Kylo is unmoved. “We work together in official capacities. I don’t want to tear my hair out when I see her in meetings. We even nodded to each other in the hallway yesterday. Don’t ask for more than that. It’s not going to happen.” He finishes his blue milk while Chewie grumbles and shovels the stew into his mouth. “As for Skywalker, the less I see of him, the better. We’ve got nothing to say to each other.” Chewie bleats softly, eyes sad. Kylo reaches out and pats his hand where it rests on the table. “Who needs other uncles when I’ve already got the best one in the galaxy?”

Placated, Chewie polishes off the last of the broth as Kylo’s eyes fall on Rey’s jacket again. “Did you get a chance to work on Rey’s staff?”

The electropike is complete and it’s perfect, well-balanced between the heavy cutting blade and the repulsion fields extending eighteen inches from either end. It’s a destructive marvel and he can’t wait to see what Rey will do with it. Chewie wuffs his agreement when Kylo expresses his gratitude.

Chewie grumbles an offering, pointing to the holochess table and wiggling his eyebrows, but Kylo shakes his head. “It’s always fun to get my ass handed to me, but I’m going to pass. Kess wanted to see this before I gave it to Rey.” He hugs his uncle, burying his face in the thick fur of Chewie’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

The staff feels good in his hands, light and strong. He can’t wait to give it to Rey, so he heads to Kess’s office to get the okay from her. He lengthens his stride and knocks on her office door not a minute later. Pushing it open, he is mindful of the razor edge on the pike as he angles it under the lintel and follows it into the tight space. “Hey, Kess.”

“Warn a lady if you’re coming in with one of those things.” Kess’s surprise fades to keen interest as she studies the weapon in his hands.

“I knocked,” Kylo shakes his head at Kess. “You said you wanted to see it when it’s done.”

“Well I can’t check it out properly here, can I?” Kess pushes her chair back, crosses to the door. “I’m glad you’re here. I need to talk to you, but first I want to play with that pike.”

Kylo falls into step beside her as she beelines for the practice rooms, sticking her head through the doors until she finds an empty one and they slip inside. She holds out her hand and he tosses her the weapon.

Kess grins, pointy and joyful, snatching the weapon out of the air, spinning it around in her hands as the blade thrums. “That Wookie is a genius. Can I assume this won’t blow my hands off if I see what it can do?”

Kylo laughs, “You just called him a genius.” He shakes his head, “Chewie wouldn’t give Rey something that would hurt her.”

Kess twirls the pike behind her head so it blurs before swinging it into in front of her body in three sharp striking motions. “Yeah, Rey will like this. Good work, both of you.”

She hands the weapon back to Kylo, who stands it up in a corner before joining Kess on the sparring floor.  “You said you wanted to talk to me about something. What did I do now, Kess?” He says it as a joke, but her face turns serious.

“You screwed up bad this time, Ren.” Kylo’s heart lurches. Is this it? Has she remembered what he is? His mind races through the past few days, trying to think of anything that he might have done to invoke her wrath. He hasn’t hurt anyone, gone out of bounds, or stayed out after curfew. He won a couple hundred credits in sabacc, but he can’t imagine Kess being mad about that, given the way she cleans house every time she deigns to play a hand. When he meets Kess’s eyes, she laughs. “You made us like you.”

His head pounds, confused. “What?”

Kess pats his arm. “Sit down, Kylo.” Kess turns and moves to sit astride one of the benches by the lockers, and Kylo twists as he sits to face her. When she smiles, there’s no threat, just sincerity. “Your work to date has been exceptional. You are still an enormous pain in my ass,” She scowls as a smirk stretches his face at that, “but you’re a pain in the ass that, despite my best judgment, I have come to trust and to respect.”

He’s not in any actual trouble, then. His brain restarts, comment ready as soon as she finishes speaking. “Stop it, Kess. You’ll make Thorne jealous.”

Kess rolls her eyes. “Thorne is a good lieutenant and a better man than you, but he’s suited for his current role. You are not cut out to be an intelligence officer.” As he opens his mouth to protest his ‘exceptional work,’ Kess raises a hand to hush him. “I don’t mean you aren’t good at it. I mean you’ll knock yourself out trying to hack that tracker out of your arm with a cafeteria knife if we keep you in that room with the flimsies much longer.”

He concedes that she has a point.

Before she speaks again, Kess runs a smoothing hand over her montrals. He’s only ever seen her do that once or twice before, an almost nervous gesture from the perpetually unruffled Captain. “I’m being promoted, and it is in no small part due to my work with you and the Exes.”

“Kess, congratulations! This is great!” His honest excitement at the prospect surprises him. “You’re the only one other than me and Finn who really knows the Exes, and you’ll be able to help them to integrate more fully from a position of greater power. Where are they putting you?”

Kess preens at his congratulations and her smile returns when he brings up the Exes. “Statura is retiring after this campaign, so I’ll get his old office and his old job. He wants a nice civilian life on the Core, stars alone know why.” She shudders at the thought. “So, yes. The Exes are going to be my responsibility, and, I hope, yours. I’m offering you a promotion. A full-time enlisted job working with me and the Exes. I want you to be my new captain.”

Kylo’s stomach drops to his feet and he stands. Kess follows suit. “Me? In charge of the Exes?”

“You and Finn will split the job. You’ve taken on many of the responsibilities already, so it makes sense to keep you together when we make it official. I offered him the position earlier today and he accepted as soon as I told him he could have my office. Said something about the tree outside my window being perfect for nesting.” Kess shrugs and heads to the door, grabbing Rey’s new pike as she goes. “He’ll be taking half of the Exes, his Firsties, and some others under the newly minted Lieutenant Reef. You will, of course, have Gun and the Groundies, and whomever else Finn hasn’t snatched up. I thought you’d like that - you seem to do well with the ones who get left behind.”

He tries to get his thoughts in order as they walk back to her office. The movement helps. Enlist? A captaincy? He’s still not here out of any allegiance to the Resistance cause, any egalitarian desire for a democratic governance throughout the galaxy. He doesn’t hate the base anymore, but he’s not free to leave it, either. He holds the door open for the Captain as they reach her office and she enters, taking a seat perched on her desk with Rey’s pike across her knees.  He leans against the bookshelf flanking her doorway. “I’m not qualified to be a captain. I’ve never held any sort of official rank before.”

“The Resistance and the Rebellion before it have a long history of appointing non-military advisors and allies to official positions, so don’t worry about your qualifications. You’ve shown that, given the right circumstances and the right freedoms, you can be an effective and inspirational leader. I’m not crazy about the plan you proposed today, but it’s the best we have, and the fact that you’re strategizing about potential avenues of attack makes me even more hopeful about your future promotional prospects. You could be Admiral someday, Kylo.”

Kylo almost laughs. Admiral? He allows himself a moment to imagine it, visualizing himself in Statura’s ugly olive uniform, standing beside Kess, stars on her shoulder glinting, sharp like her teeth. Apart from that horrible uniform, it’s not wholly unappealing, but is it what he wants ? Is it even possible ?

Rolling his sleeve up to the elbow, he flicks at the hard metal chip in his forearm. “ Who gets to push the sleepy-time button when  an admiral screws up? Would that still be you?”

“I’ve already put in a petition to remove the tracker, regardless of whether or not you take the post.” He opens his mouth to speak, thanks catching in his throat as the implications of that spiral through his mind, and she cuts him off again. “No promises there, but I’ve done it. I trust you. Sometimes I don’t like you, and, hell, you haven’t made friends with the Leaders, but I trust you. You could have tried to cut the tracker out at any point over those two days in hyperspace. You could have left those men behind. You did neither. You followed my rules to the letter, but it was only when you let yourself off the leash that you became a hero , Kylo.”

The word twists in his guts. “I wish people would stop-”

“I’m not saying I regret how we’ve treated you, but it’s time for us all to stop pretending that you’re a just a weapon. I want that stupid, reckless idiot who jumped out of a transport and ran back into a firefight because he wouldn’t leave his guys behind. I want the leader who spends his time working the Exes and my Resistance guys until they sweat like dewbacks and fight like rathtars. I want the man who yells in the strategy meetings, urges us all to move forward, keeps us from getting stuck in comfortable stasis as our friend’s get hit. I want you . I know this isn’t the grand destiny you had planned,” their eyes meet, “but it could be good.”

This is happening too fast. His grand destiny is so much dust, a bad joke. He’ll never complete what his grandfather started, not now, and certainly not as an Admiral in the damned Resistance. The awareness of that failure eats at him, but he can do nothing about it now. He’s strayed too far from the path of Darth Vader. Rey was right. She always is. The bottomless self-loathing that sits at the edge of his consciousness at all times slips in through the cracks, but he won’t break down in front of Kess.

“Kess, you know I don’t give a shit about the Republic or the Resistance. I just want to kill Snoke and get out of here.”

She narrows her eyes at him in skeptical analysis. “I buy the not caring about the Republic thing. We all know you’d put up old Imperial recruitment posters in your room if Poe and Finn would let you. That, by the way, will not help your promotional chances, so maybe use that library time you love so much to read some of your grandmother’s writing about the importance of democracy and the true purpose of the Republic, okay?” Kylo opens his mouth and, again, Kess speaks over him. He groans as she continues. “What I don’t buy is that you just want to kill Snoke. If that’s all you cared about, you wouldn’t spend every waking moment working with the Groundies. You wouldn’t be spending time with the ones who were partially reconditioned, helping them rebuild the defenses in their minds. You wouldn’t be making sure the Exes used the proper forms of address for Resistance members. You might not care about the Republic, but you care about these people. This could be your home, Kylo. ”

Anxiety flares in his chest. “You understand that I’ve fucked up everything I’ve ever done, right?” She raises the markings above her eyes at him. He counts his failures off on his fingers. “I was supposed to be a Jedi. That didn’t happen because I murdered the other initiates and ran off with Snoke. Then, I was supposed to find and kill the Skywalker, wiping out his order for good. Skywalker’s still walking around spouting his insufferable wise old man bullshit. I was supposed to turn Rey to the Dark Side. Then I was supposed to kill Snoke.” He spreads his hands, gesturing around the room. “Look how that turned out. I don’t have a good track record of success. You’re right,” he concedes as she begins to speak, cutting her off for once. “I do care about the people here. But if you put them in my hands, I can promise you, I will find a way to fuck it up.”

Kess smiles, her canines showing. “That’s why we have me.” Kylo scoffs and Kess’s smile fades. “You didn’t fuck up on Capza. I did, and that’s why I need you: so you can save my ass when I, occasionally, make a bad call. That’s what friends are for. Take the promotion. Help me do some good.”

More friends to worry about. Great. Thumping his head back against the bookshelf, he closes his eyes and sighs. It’s all too much to process. “I need to talk to Rey about this.”

Kess’s voice is light and laughing and he’s sure the marks above her eyes are raised. “Did I mention that officers get private quarters?”

His eyes fly open into a glare and he growls before she can stop him again. “Kess, please, can we not discuss my-”

“I’m just saying,” she laughs, “that there are arrangements that can be made to accommodate partners or spouses. Finn seemed quite interested in-”

“I really don’t want to talk about Finn’s love life, either. I’ve had to live with them for months .”

“Yeah, what’s that been like?” The heavy part of their conversation seems to be over, and Kess leans forward with interest. “Are they all smoochy?”

Kylo scrubs a hand over his face, exasperated. “No, they’re always prim and respectful when I’m-” He stops with a jolt, points a finger at Kess. “That’s none of your business. Leave them be.”

She throws her hands up and offers him Rey’s staff, which he takes. “Go. Talk to Rey. Talk to Finn and Gun, too, and then let me know.  Like I said, I’ve asked for the tracker to come out either way.”

Kylo doesn’t know what to say to that so he takes the staff back and nods farewell as Kess waves him away and returns to the work on her desk.

Can you meet me at the big tree outside? Rey’s mind is shielded, careful and controlled, indicating that she’s with the General, but she sends a quick affirmative back so he starts for the front of the base.

Gun nods at him as Kylo passes the cafeteria, eyes alighting on the pike and sparking with interest as he wipes crumbs out of his newly grown beard, a feature no one was allowed in the First Order. He alters the direction of his walk towards Kess’s training room and joins Kylo in going outside. “Hey, boss. What’ve you got there?”

Kylo passes the weapon over for inspection. “How’d afternoon drills go?”

Gun snorts, shaving the pike’s bladed edge over his thumbnail and nodding his approval. “We did skirmishes against some of the infantry and a squad of the new guys. They’re getting better. Pit, that sharpshooter from the Firsties, asked if she could give a clinic on proper blaster care. I think it’s a good idea.” He eases the pike out the base door and moves to a clear piece of lawn, hefting it, again and giving the staff a few practice spins. “You get this for your girl?” Kylo nods as Gun tosses the staff from hand to hand, testing its weight. “It’s small, not balanced for throwing.”

“Not everything needs to be ranged,” Kylo grunts and watches the soldier run through a few quick First Order forms with it. “I’m perfectly happy with my saber.”

“You’ll regret that arrogance someday. Having something to shoot never hurt anyone’s chances at survival.” They’ve hashed that particular argument every week since this odd conviviality sprung up between them. Gun is well named. He loves the things. “Did you talk with Kess? About her plans?”

“She always seems to do most of the talking.” Kylo Force-flicks a pebble at the spinning blade and his mouth twitches into a smile as Gun deflects it without Force trickery, just observation and reflexes. “Did she talk to you, too?”

Gun nods. “She wants me to be a real Lieutenant. It’d be good to have an official rank again.” He continues swinging, slashing, stabbing as he speaks. “These are good people to serve under, whatever their cause. I like it here. I like what we do, and I like who we do it with. I talked to Finn at dinner. He’s confident about it. So are the rest of the Exes. For people like us, this is as good as it gets.” He stops the pike so abruptly the head quivers at the sudden inertia, then he shifts it in his hands so the butt is presented to Kylo.

Kylo takes the pike back. “I don’t know if I’m built for good things, Gun.”

The giant sighs, cracking his neck. “You know what I like most about my life now?” Kylo shakes his head. “I like making decisions. I don’t know how much you know about life for the ‘Troopers in the First Order, but we didn’t get to choose anything for ourselves. We were told when to eat, when to shit, when to sleep, when to kill, when to die. They told us who we were, and we believed them.” Gun’s voice is casual, but his eyes are hard. “The holos from you and Finn helped change that. We started to decide for ourselves who we wanted to be. And now I get to make choices all the time.” He looks up, scratching at his new beard as he watches a flock of birds cross overhead. “What shirt do I want to wear today? Do I want to take a nap this afternoon? Will I say yes when Kess asks me to be a Lieutenant, or will I go over to the kitchen and ask if I can become a chef?” Gun drops his eyes back to Kylo’s face. “I get to choose who I want to be, and I can change those choices if I want to. Today I had milk in my caf. Tomorrow I won’t. You helped show me that having a mind means I can change it, and you’ve helped us all to rebuild ourselves into the people we want to be. Now it’s time for you to rebuild yourself.”

Kylo doesn’t know what to say for a moment. “You want to be a chef?”

“Maybe someday,” Gun laughs. “But for now, I’m going to say yes to Kess. You should, too.”

“I said I’d think about it.”

Gun nods and clasps him on the shoulder. “Then think about it. I’ll see you at drill tomorrow.” Kylo returns the gesture and nods.

Kylo shoulders the pike and heads to the tree, propping it against the gnarled bark and emptying his mind, halfway between contemplation and meditation. He works well with Finn and Gun, and Kess won’t let him fuck anything up too badly. The power that could come from an official position is appealing. His chances of promotion would be slim, and Kess is kidding herself if she thinks he’d ever make admiral, though her tip to look up Senator Amidala’s work is a good one. Gun’s advice sticks in his mind, too. He can’t pretend he’s the same man he was when he arrived on the base. Maybe he can change, remake himself again, but something about that rankles. Does he want to? Would it do any good?

More to the point, what are his options if he refuses Kess’s offer? There’s no point deluding himself. She may be willing to remove the tracker, but it’s not her decision. Will Statura and Ackbar let him off the chain to go off and be something else? He doesn’t think those are good odds, and can’t think of what else he would want to be. He turns the thoughts over and over in his mind, coming up with more questions than answers until Rey arrives.