To Be So Lonely // Ben Solo

22

The following day, Ben and Cyra woke and started combing through the archives of known Resistance and Rebel bases from the culmination of both wars, as well as places battles took place, to compile a general trend or narrow down places the Resistance could have escaped to. They found five before feeling it was enough to convince the Council of their estimated two week leave.

Cyra decided to stay in their room and finish breakfast when Ben decided to speak with the Council. Soon after he parted, a droid had come to their quarters to collect their dishes. Cyra was bending down to its level, settling the dishes evenly on the platter, when her a sharp pain pushed the air out of her lungs. She dropped the glass of blue milk from her hand, barely registering the shatter of it against the ground in her ears.

Her hearing muted. She could hear a dull voice speaking miles away between her ears, subtle, muddled, but accompanied by a felt a dark, unsettling feeling, and she knew at once she had to find Ben.

She sprinted past the droid. It didn't cross her mind to change into her proper attire. She was wearing tight pants and a baggy black t-shirt that belonged to him--a highly unprofessional look that she was sure Hux would throw a fit over, but there was no time. She didn't know what she felt, if it meant was Ben in trouble, if something shifted in the Force... She sprinted through the halls, dodging and bumping into Stormtroopers to find the corridor the Board Meetings took place.

As soon as she entered the hall, skidding around the corner on those oddly slick black floors, the doors at the end of the hall slid open. Ben stood there, having felt her approaching presence.

Cyra slid to a stop in front of him, panting. "You felt that?" she asked immediately. "What was it?"

"Come," he said, extending his hand.

Ben led her into the room. He stopped at the head of the table, dropping her hand to lean on the edge of it with his hands. Cyra crossed her arms over her chest.

She had never seen the Council Members before, she thought, but she could truly never tell. They were all dressed similarly. She assumed the color coded squares on their breast pockets said something of rank, though she wasn't bothered enough but it to ask. They barely looked at her, whether it be from intrigue over the fumbling of the radio by two members, or fear of looking at her wrongly in the presence of Kylo. This, of course, did not include Hux, who stared at her with his consistently scrunched face. She flashed an awkward smile before returning to watch the radio.

"At-at-at--" the radio chirped, and everyone's breaths fell still, desperate to listen. "At last, the work of generations is complete. The great error is corrected: the day of victory is at hand; the day of revenge; the day...of the Sith!"

The frequency fell short. Static returned to the station. Their eyes remained on the radio, waiting, for several minutes, before it was assumed that was the message in its entirety and someone reached to turn off the radio. The Council turned expectantly to the two Force-users at the head of the table. Cyra turned to look at Ben.

"Do you recognize that voice?" asked Hux, staring between both of them.

"I don't, but knowing it's rallying for the revenge of the Sith has to narrow it down," guessed Cyra, when Ben glanced at her. "The Sith have been dead for decades, there can't be--"

"It's Emperor Palpatine," interrupted Ben, his head low.

Cyra turned to look at him. She was not familiar with the name.

"Emperor Palpatine was a Sith Lord in disguise during the First Galactic War," he told them, raising his head to look at the Council. He avoided Cyra's eye. "He was killed in the explosion of the Death Star, it was assumed, but there have been cults dedicated to he and Vader since the fall of the Empire... Trying to harness the dark energy that powered them. I know of a few, I've been drawn to them by the dark energy they maintain there. It can feel different than anywhere in the universe."