Taking Command Book 1 (Kylux) (#Wattys2016)

Chapter Thirty Nine: Break

Hux PoV

I was heartbroken. There was no other way to say it. I felt like there was no chance of my relationship with Kylo ever being healed. He did not want anything to do with me. It broke my heart to see what Snoke had done to him.

It made me furious. I knew that my thoughts were nearly insubordination, but I thought them anyhow. I hated Snoke and his brainwashing of Kylo. Kylo had had love. He had had something good: me. Snoke had destroyed that. He had completely taken over Kylo. Kylo was his now, and I could not pull him back.

Over the next couple weeks something happened to pique my interest. The main thing was the massive change in Kylo's temper. In a bad way. He became angry very easily and tended towards irrationality. What made it worse was his habit of attacking anything around him when he was angered. Walls, consoles, droids and storage areas were not safe from him when he became angry. We were beginning to rack up a decent expenditure in replacing items from when Kylo would throw a fit. It was quite tiresome and I despaired of bringing it up to Snoke or Kylo.

I wandered around one day about three weeks after Kylo's return. I was feeling a bit maudlin and listless and hoped to have an excuse to release my pent up energy. It did not take long for an opportunity to arrive. A trooper reported to me saying that Phasma needed to meet with me urgently.

"What do you need, Captain?" I asked when I had reached her quarters.

"I have word of a Resistance pilot trying to find this base. We have known about it for a little while but up until now, he has come nowhere near us. Now, however, he is within a mere star system of us. I do not believe you want to risk discovery." Phasma crossed her arms. "What should we do, General?"

"I'll handle this. What planet is this spy on?" I asked. I wanted to do this myself. It would give me something to take my mind off of Kylo.

"Seveda. In the nearest star system to the east of us. Are you going to go yourself, General?" Phasma was obviously surprised.

"Yes. I have not gone anywhere or done much since Kylo and I returned. I want to be active. What's the name of the pilot? I'll be back in a few days."

"Reports say he is a new pilot. Poe Dameron, a rising star of the Resistance. His flying skills are fairly well regarded in smuggler circles. Be careful."

"I'll be fine. If Ren asks after me, I'm on a hunt for Poe Dameron. Hopefully I can just shoot him from a distance. I don't fancy a dogfight." I hated doing fancy flying. I was a good pilot, but I was not fond of fancy air acrobatics.

"Yes, sir." Phasma went back to going through various reports. She was like me, fond of being at the front lines. I knew she hated the logistics side, but a commander needed to be informed.

I checked out the sleekest fighter in my arsenal, a Mon Calamari star fighter. Specially commissioned by my father, it was elegant with an interior of a diplomatic ship from a wealthy nation, but it also hosted a state of the art hyperdrive, two standard cannons, a turbo laser, a powerful shield, and an abundance of missiles. It was a perfect ship, fast, powerful, and elegant.

I climbed into the ship and did all the pre flight checks. Everything seemed to be in order. I flicked the ship on and pulled out of the landing platform and into the sky. Within seconds I was beyond the atmosphere of the planet that housed the base. I keyed in the coordinates for Seveda. I plunged into hyperspace. It was different from the last several trips I had taken with Kylo. All three had been eventful and tumultuous, but I missed them, even the bad things.

The time in hyperspace gave me time to mull over Ren's odd behavior. He had always been a loose cannon, but his temper had never been this bad. He needed to calm down. He seemed unbalanced and unstable. Maybe there was something up with him and his master. He seemed much more emotionally cracked than normal.

But why did I care? If he was broken, it served him right, right? But I could not quit thinking about it. Kylo was a nagging thought in my head lately. I did not want to for myself false hope, but a part of me wondered if perhaps he was upset because he was having second thoughts about us. Maybe he would come back to me.

In mid thought, the ship fell out of hyperspace and Seveda loomed in front of me. It was a sign for me to quit pining and so what I did best.

I was not broken. I would move on.