by Rae Carson
Most pilots, when traveling faster-than-light for a while, used the time to stretch, do some interior checks and maintenance, or even sleep. But Kylo didn’t dare let his guard down. He had to be ready for anything. Besides, while tracking down Vader’s wayfinder, he’d heard whispers that time and distance became near meaningless in exotic space. He had no idea exactly when he’d revert to realspace or what would be waiting for him when he did.
It seemed as though only a short time had passed before his TIE lurched out of red zone and slowed. Kylo was prepared to attack or evade, but found himself on a perfectly normal approach, the planet Exegol looming before him.
From space, it seemed dead and gray, shrouded in massive dark storm systems. As he neared, the clouds burst with jagged light. It would be a rough ride down.
* * *
—
Kylo Ren strode away from his TIE whisper, across boundless cracked ground. The entry had been difficult, but the landing easy. The planet’s entire surface was a landing pad—flat and empty. Reaching out with the Force, he could detect a moderate amount of life nearby—most of it deep below the surface—but this planet made Mustafar seem like a lush garden by comparison.
The air was hazy and hot and dry, and lightning split the sky in unending rage. His boot knocked over a small silica tree, where lightning had turned grit and sand into a branching tumor of glass. He spared a concerned thought for his TIE, exposed against the barren landscape, and realized he had to get undercover fast.
The planet’s atmosphere didn’t afford much visibility, so he didn’t see the citadel until he was almost upon it; it hovered over the barren ground, a brutal edifice of stone towering high enough that its peak was nearly lost in haze. He ignited his lightsaber.
Kylo didn’t need to see the entrance to know where it was, because he could feel it beckoning him, welcoming him. It was not the soft, warm welcoming of home or safety but rather one of conquest and need. His skin prickled. The Force was strong here, but it was different. Twisted, rotten, as though filtered through a miasma of decay.
He reminded himself that new things grew out of old decay.
Lightning crackled in the gap between ground and edifice. The space was just high enough for him to stride comfortably. He felt the weight of the massive structure as he walked beneath, trusting it to not fall and crush him.
It took power to create something so awe inspiring. That power would be his.
Kylo’s footsteps echoed, and the bare stone ceiling seemed reddish in the light of his blade. Something clanged, like a gigantic gear moving into place. Suddenly the area he stood upon separated itself from the floor, becoming a floating disk that lowered him into the depths of the citadel.
As he descended, he found himself captivated by the wall before him, which was carved with colossal stone faces, all rendered in exquisite detail. Massive iron chains trailed down from the ceiling, as if mooring the statues in place. Something dark and inescapable moved within him, and he understood that he was viewing a monument. So much history and memory all in one place, and he was caught between reverence and rage. This was his inheritance; he knew it like he knew the feel of a lightsaber in his grip. But monuments preserved the past, and if he had learned anything recently it was that the past needed to die.
The disk came to a gentle halt in a vast space that brought to mind a cathedral. The stone faces were high above him now, crowning enormous statues of ancient lords. At his feet, dark chasms jagged through the floor, and Kylo could not gauge their depths. The chasms crackled with lightning, searing his vision, as though a bit of the planet’s sky had been trapped within its crust.
He was not alone. Figures moved in the shadows, slight and stooped. Not dangerous—not yet, anyway—as they went about whatever work they were doing. They wore black, threadbare robes, and bandages shrouded their faces.
“At last,” came a voice, and Ren whirled, seeking its source. It was raspy and half mechanized, straining as though in pain, and yet the sound reverberated within his very being. “Snoke trained you well,” the voice said. Kylo knew that voice. He’d heard it his whole life. As a young man it had been like the wisp of a dream, one he couldn’t quite grasp. Then the Emperor’s transmission had flooded the galaxy, and Kylo had begun to dread that Palpatine had somehow survived, that his had been the whispering voice that had comforted, guided, tormented him for so many years.
“I killed Snoke,” Kylo said. “I’ll kill you.”
“My boy, I made Snoke. I have been every voice you have ever heard inside your head.” He spoke slowly, deliberately, the timbre of his voice morphing, becoming first Snoke, then Vader, and settling on Palpatine. “I have been your Master all along.”
A figure began to materialize before him, still cloaked in shadow, silhouetted against the angry lightning flashes of the chasms around them. It moved oddly, as though with a mechanical gait. If not for the power emanating from the creature, Kylo Ren would not have been certain it was alive.
A flash of lightning illuminated a huge glass tank, containing three creatures, liquid life being pumped into them through mechanical umbilicals. They were all the same creature, he realized with a start, with wrinkled skin and an oversized bald head and features caught in a state of everlasting anguish. They were all Snoke.
Snoke came from this place. Yet Kylo’s former teacher had told him nothing about it. What else had he kept from him?
When Kylo didn’t respond, the robed creature added, “Do you know who I am?” He leaned forward, which disturbed his sleeve enough that Kylo caught a glimpse of his hand, half rotted away, leaving only a few fingers covered with skin like melting candle wax.
Kylo’s grip on his lightsaber tightened. He said, “I know you built the First Order. That I will not be your servant as Snoke was.”
“Snoke.” The voice filled with glee. “He was nothing but your test. You did well to destroy him.”
Kylo Ren was Supreme Leader of the First Order. Before that, he’d been the leader of the Knights of Ren. Before that, he’d been the presumptive heir to the Skywalker legacy and the son of a princess. So he’d been subjected to false flattery and sycophantic compliments his whole life, and he refused to give them power. Then, and especially now. “Who are you to speak of me?”
The voice deepened, shaking with barely restrained power. “I am the one who led you here. Who has foreseen your destiny…”
The figure moved closer. He was unspeakably frail, his body dangling from an enormous mechanism that disappeared into the darkness above. Kylo had seen this before, while studying the Sith, and again while researching clues about Vader’s wayfinder. It was an Ommin harness, a mechanical spine once worn by an ancient Sith king.
Without it, the emperor could not survive.
But the Force itself belied any perception of frailty because a cloud of darkness and need swelled from the creature, along with power like Kylo had never before encountered. It was exhilarating.
“The First Order was just a beginning,” the creature said. “I will give you so much more.”
“You’ll die first,” Kylo said.
“I’ve died before. The dark side of the Force is a pathway to abilities some would consider to be…unnatural.”
Kylo knew better than to allow himself to feel kinship with the creature, but there was no denying that the Jedi would consider Kylo Ren to be unnatural, too. An abomination. A monster, the scavenger had said.
He raised the tip of his lightsaber to the creature’s face, which brought clarity to his features. The Emperor’s eyes were filmed over with milky blindness, and vials punctured his neck.
All the vials were empty of liquid save one, which was nearly depleted. Kylo peered closer. He’d seen this apparatus before, too, when he’d studied the Clone Wars as a boy. The liquid flowing into the living nightmare before him was fighting a losing battle to sust
ain the Emperor’s putrid flesh.
“What could you give me?” Kylo asked. Emperor Palpatine lived, after a fashion, and Kylo could feel in his very bones that this clone body sheltered the Emperor’s actual spirit. It was an imperfect vessel, though, unable to contain his immense power. It couldn’t last much longer.
“Everything,” Palpatine said. “A New Empire.”
The creature raised his ruined hand; Kylo sensed him drawing on the Force, but before he could react, his surroundings disappeared as if into a fog, and a vision filled their place.
A black void, like space without stars. Then lightning flashed, revealing cracked ground. The barren landscape shook, then shattered. A mountain erupted onto the surface. Dirt and chunks of soil fell away, revealing a metal hull, striped with red. Around it, more mountains broke the surface, resolving into massive Star Destroyers, half again the size of the Destroyers from the days of the Empire. A single, giant obelisk erupted also, a navigation tower that would coordinate their final ascension. It unfurled like a metal flower, exposing its petal-antennae to the violent sky.
More ships rose—and more and more—until tens of thousands hovered in the atmosphere.
“For a generation, my disciples have labored,” Emperor Palpatine said, his voice dark and deep.
Kylo’s heart was racing. So much power. A starfield of Destroyers. The largest fleet the galaxy had ever known. The rumors were all true. Exegol was a world populated by the Sith Eternal, true believers in the dark side of the Force, devoting their lives to this.
“They’ve built a fleet that will bring an end to the galactic rebellion once and for all.”
The vision was whisked away, replaced by hundreds of thousands of stormtroopers, shining in crimson armor. Thunderous marching filled his ears, and with it came the barest hint of a scent he recognized…blaster-seared blood.
With tremendous effort, Kylo thrust the vision aside. Everything he’d seen would be his. But he was no fool. Nothing was really that easy.
No Sith willingly gave up a throne.
“The might of the Final Order will soon be ready,” the Emperor continued, his voice uncannily compelling. “It will be yours if you do as I ask. Kill the girl.” Kylo had no doubt as to whom the Emperor was referring. “End the Jedi. And become what your grandfather Vader could not. You will rule all the galaxy as the new Emperor.”
His breath became a mechanical wheeze, then stopped completely. The robed creatures hurried over, adjusted the machinery attached to his body. One quickly replaced a filter at the end of a tube. Another used a syringe to insert an additive into the remaining regeneration fluid. Kylo watched with detached interest, trying to gauge the creature’s strengths and vulnerabilities.
At last, speech returned to him. “As you can see, you must act now. Before my final breath.”
Kylo sensed deception in his words, but also truth. “If I don’t?” he said in challenge.
“Then the girl will become a Jedi. The First Order will fall. And you will die.”
No deception this time; only truth.
“You have already sensed this,” the creature added.
Kylo had tried to turn her once. His second-greatest failure, that he could not convince Rey to join him.
“But beware. The girl feels a stirring, that she is not who she thinks she is.”
Kylo’s eyes narrowed. Finally, he lowered his lightsaber.
He’d glimpsed her parents in a vision, a poor, frightened couple eking out a meager existence, surviving on the edge of desperation. He hadn’t been lying when he’d told her they were nothing, nobodies.
But Force visions were filled with tricky truths and potential realities. Maybe he had missed something.
Bringing all the power of the Force to bear, Kylo Ren demanded, “Who is she?”
The rotting remnant of Emperor Palpatine smiled.
CHAPTER 3
Rey told Leia after all—at least part of it—and she was so glad she did. The general thought her vision might be connected to the mysterious transmission coming from the Unknown Regions, which made it important enough to send her out for confirmation once the Falcon returned. Leia was considering it, anyway.
Even though they both knew Rey wasn’t ready to leave her training.
So Rey knelt on the ground near her workbench to do some aspirational packing. Leia and BB-8 watched as she shoved rations and supplies into her bag. Okay, mostly rations. Her Resistance friends were always complaining about the food, saying it was tasteless and unsatisfying, but Rey had no idea what they were talking about. She’d never eaten so well in her life, or so often. She always kept a few nutrient packs stuffed under her cot, though. Just in case.
She eyed the unfinished lightsaber on her workbench. It wasn’t ready yet, and the one she’d painstakingly repaired—Luke’s—didn’t belong to her. So her quarterstaff would have to suffice as a weapon. Which was just fine. It had served her well on Jakku for years. In fact, someday, once she had mastered this lightsaber-building business, she might design one that felt more like a quarterstaff in her hand. Familiar and hefty. Two business ends. Maybe with a hinge in the middle for portability.
She’d learned a lot about lightsabers by reforging Luke’s. His Jedi texts had offered some guidance—like how to repair the kyber crystal—and her experience building daily tools from scavenged parts had provided the rest. Rey was confident she’d eventually finish her own from scratch, even though there was no one to teach her how.
“Do you know where the vision came from?” Leia asked as Rey crammed one more ration bar into her pack.
“I wish I knew…but I can’t tell what the vision was. It…” Words failed her. How to describe something so intense? So strangely personal?
Rey hefted her bag and stepped toward Leia, carefully avoiding a power line snaking across the bare ground. Their base on Ajan Kloss was barely cobbled together. Consoles sat outside, exposed to the elements. A massive cave provided some shelter for sleeping, and an old rebel blockade runner called the Tantive IV—currently grounded while awaiting replacement parts—served as command quarters for Leia as well as a communications center. Rey, like many Resistance fighters, had chosen to sleep on a cot tucked against a wall of green jungle near the entrance. A footlocker, a workbench, and a lot of mud completed her personal “quarters.” Still, it was better than sand. Besides, she liked sleeping out in the open, her subconscious constantly monitoring the comings and goings around her. It was a reminder that she was part of something. That she wasn’t alone anymore.
“I’m listening,” Leia prompted.
“I didn’t finish the training course. I let the visions distract me. I’m just not feeling myself. I know it looks…it looks like I’m making excuses.”
Leia’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t tell me what things look like. Tell me what they are.”
Maybe trying to tell Leia about her vision had been a mistake after all. “I think I’m just tired. That’s all.”
Leia gave her an arch look that made her feel like the worst liar who had ever been caught lying.
Rey was relieved to be interrupted by Lieutenant Connix’s voice. “General?”
Leia looked over. Kaydel Connix wore her hair in braids now, wrapped around her head like a crown—just like Leia. A lot of the young woman were doing that, but Rey was willing to bet Leia hadn’t noticed that her Alderaanian hairstyle had started a trend.
“The Falcon still hasn’t arrived,” Connix said. “Commander’s asking for guidance.”
The general would have to go deal with that, so Rey grabbed Luke’s lightsaber and handed it to her. She always returned the lightsaber to Leia. The General had said she might give it to Rey someday, but Rey knew how hard that would be. The lightsaber was the only thing Leia had left of her brother. “I will earn your brother’s saber,” Rey told her. “One day.”<
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BB-8 beeped a question, which coaxed a smile out of Rey.
“No, you can’t do it for me.”
“Never underestimate a droid,” Leia said with a hint of a smile. Then she headed off after Connix, Luke’s lightsaber in hand.
“Yes, Master,” Rey murmurred at her back.
BB-8 whirred at Rey, and she knelt before him.
“I tried,” she said in a near-whisper. “But…I couldn’t tell her the whole truth. Who knows what she’d think if I did?” Rey had tried. Truly. She’d opened her mouth, but the words had caught in her throat. How do you say something so horrible aloud?
BB-8 beeped again, a little more demanding.
“No, I tell you everything. Let’s get you fixed.”
Rey headed through the base toward the mechanic’s station. She’d look for Rose first. If Rose wasn’t available, she’d fix BB-8 herself, so long as she could get her hands on the right parts.
BB-8 rolled after her, chirping sadly.
“Oh, don’t worry about them. They’re just picking up parts. I’m sure our friends are fine.”
* * *
—
They were not fine. Poe braced himself for the next hit. They were losing, their soldiers crushed by the onslaught, their enemy gloating in their faces. He loved to see them suffer. He gave them a sly look as he started to make a move…then changed his mind.
“Are you ever going to go?” Poe said to Chewbacca, as the Wookiee studied the holochess board. They sat around the table, Chewie on one side, Poe and Finn on the other. It was a long ride in the Falcon to Sinta Glacier Colony, and they had to pass the time somehow. This was their third game. On the last mission, they’d played two games. Before that…well, Poe had lost track.
