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Honestly, I have no idea how long this is going to end up- it looks like it might be a bit of a long one. Here's the first part though.

When he first came aboard the Finalizer, Tarkin Hux found that the onboard computer system was… a little different than normal.

For one thing, it was alarmingly sentient, and very clearly had different users that it liked better than others. If it didn’t approve of whoever was trying to get it to work, it would lock itself down and spit out sarcastic error messages. If it liked (well, more accurately, didn’t hate) whoever was trying to use it, it would still spit out sarcastic error messages, but it would do whatever it was supposed to do eventually. And it remembered things. Not in the way that a normal computer would save information in its databanks, but more like a droid’s dynamic recollection process. But even that was not a perfect comparison- sometimes it would seem as though the computer actually forgot information, the way a sentient organic being would. But that was ridiculous. It was just a highly advanced piece of machinery, it couldn’t forget things. Hux brushed the anomalies off as some stupid minion misplacing a data stick or something, and the computer’s programmed personality being sarcastic about it.

That alone would have been enough to make the computer strange, but it also had a strange program that was extremely accurate at making predictions. Not perfect, of course, the computer couldn’t account for every possible variable that could happen in a battle, or always accurately predict human behavior, but about eighty to ninety percent of the time, the predictions from the simulations it ran were so correct it was almost spooky. Hux had asked Snoke about it once, but the Supreme Leader had just smirked and told him, “the programmers were very good at their jobs.” And that was that. The official explanation was the only explanation that made any sense. After all, what else could it be? Hux didn’t really understand much about computers, but he knew they weren’t people. And no matter how many times some of the junior officers muttered to themselves about the damn computer being haunted, that wasn’t an explanation either. Ghosts had better things to do than play around in machinery and taunt First Order officers. Even if sometimes it did seem like the computer knew too much about human anatomy to be able to come up with such creative insults.

Still, there was something about the system that unsettled Hux. And it didn’t help that sometimes, he felt like there was someone watching him from the other side of the screen. It was ridiculous, and such superstition was unbecoming of a First Order officer, but he couldn’t shake the feeling. It made him uncomfortable, and he really did prefer to leave operations of the computer to Mitaka- it seemed to like him better anyway. At least it never shut itself down or dumped the data when that skinny lieutenant tried to use it- it just insulted him and pulled random files up to the screen.

Still, there was something about the system that unsettled Hux. And it didn’t help that sometimes, he felt like there was someone watching him from the other side of the screen. It was ridiculous, and such superstition was unbecoming of a First Order officer, but he couldn’t shake the feeling. It made him uncomfortable, and he really did prefer to leave operations of the computer to Mitaka- it seemed to like him better anyway. At least it never shut itself down or dumped the data when that skinny lieutenant tried to use it- it just insulted him and pulled random files up to the screen. Even though, of course, the feeling he had was probably just paranoia from hearing some of the scary stories the Stormtroopers told to freak each other out. Of course the computer wasn’t haunted by the ghost of a Stormtrooper who had died in an industrial accident while building the proton cannons, and it also wasn’t haunted by the ghost of an officer who committed suicide after her affair with a trooper was discovered. It wasn’t haunted by any kind of ghost at all! That was just stupid.

So of course, he almost had a heart attack when he woke up in the middle of the night, a young man’s pained voice calling out to nobody reverberating from a speaker embedded in his personal computer system. He'd forgotten to turn it off before he'd gone to bed. Getting out of bed, Hux walked over to switch it off.

And then his sleepy brain actually comprehended what the voice was saying.

“There’s no one… no one left… I wish I could die, I want to die, why won’t someone kill me? Please let me die.”

OP is bouncing in her seat in anticipation now.

And I see Ben Solo retained that sarcastic Solo charm.

AYRT

I'm glad you're enjoying it so far! Yeah, Ben/Kylo kept the snarkiness he got from his dad, although he'd never admit it.

Before I continue with the story though, I thought I'd ask you- how far do you want the Kylux to go? And are you okay with some fairly graphic descriptions of illness and injuries? I'm picturing this Kylo to be in pretty poor shape- Snoke fucked him up pretty badly, I'm thinking- but I can tone it down if you'd prefer.

OP here. Thank you again for writing!

Everything can go as far as you want. Go wild. Go free.

Intriguing! I like the choice of 'Tarkin' as Hux's first name and how Mitaka is somehow favoured because the computer just insults him, it doesn't shut down. Sassy OS.

Looks like you doubled up on your middle paragraphs, btw.

“Who’s there?!” Hux practically shouted, looking around his quarters wildly, illogically- he’d already determined it was coming from the computer.

There was a pained sound, a cough, and then… “You can hear me?”

“Yes…” Hux replied, hesitantly. The computer laughed. It was not a pleasant sound- bitter, malicious, and it trailed off into more of those sickly-sounding coughs.

“Are you a ghost?” Hux found himself asking when the coughing died down. Maybe there was something to the “haunted computer” theory after all- what if the ghost had died of disease, and that’s why it was coughing even now? Of course, that only set the voice off into another bitter round of laughter.

“A ghost?” it asked back, incredulous. “You seriously think I’m a ghost?”

“Well, everyone says the computer is haunted,” Hux answered, feeling very stupid. Apparently the voice in the computer was just as sarcastic as its pop-up messages.

“It’s not,” the voice replied, before coughing again, “Not yet anyway. I don’t know what will happen when I finally die.” Another laugh. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve been dead for a while, I just have to wait for my body to catch up with the rest of me.”

“If you want to die so badly, why don’t you end it yourself?” Hux asked. While suicide wasn’t particularly common in the First Order, it also wasn’t completely unheard-of. There was the lieutenant who’d thrown herself out an airlock after Phasma had discovered the relationship she had been in with a Stormtrooper, and everyone still talked in hushed whispers of the time that a computer technician had stabbed himself in the abdomen, then slit his own throat with the remainder of his strength on the bridge, right in front of everyone. It had been bloody- so bloody, and the man had laughed as he died, cursing the First Order and everyone in it. Even Phasma, who’d seen more death up close than probably everyone else put together, said it was one of the most disturbing things she’d ever seen. If this voice in the computer really wanted to die, there were ways to do it, weren’t there?

“I’ve tried,” came the disgruntled response. “You think I haven’t tried? I’ve tried every day of my miserable life. But that bastard made it impossible. I collapse before I can do anything.” Another violent coughing fit. Once it had calmed down, the voice continued. “Look, just forget about this. Go back to sleep. I apologize for waking you.”

“I can’t do that,” Hux replied.

“Why not? Nobody gave a damn about me before, and you’re not going to convince me you do after talking to me for five minutes.”

“I’m talking to a suicidal computer. That’s not the sort of thing you can easily forget.”

The voice laughed. “You still think I’m a computer? Maybe it’s better that way. Like I said, just forget about it. It’s not going to matter in a few days, I don’t think I have much time left.” And that was that. No matter what Hux said, he couldn’t get the computer to respond to him.

Uneasily, he crawled back into his bed and tried to go back to sleep, but sleep never came. He knew he shouldn’t care, he knew the computer enjoyed messing with users, as much as a computer could enjoy anything, but he had gotten a sense of abject despair from the machine’s words. What if there was more to the system than he thought?

OP here. Ah now we hear Ben's real voice, not the one he uses to talk with others from behind a machine in loneliness.

The next day, Hux paid a visit to the systems maintenance department and spoke with a dour-faced man who introduced himself as the department head. “Where is the central drive of the system kept?” Hux asked him. The man looked at him blankly.

“In the mainframe room of course,” he replied.

“Take me there, immediately,” Hux ordered. The department head looked uncomfortable.

“Supreme Leader Snoke informed me that I was not to allow anyone to access that part of the ship,” he informed the general. “I apologize, but I cannot allow you to do that.”

“Is the Supreme Leader on the ship now?” Hux snapped. “I understand your concerns, but this is a matter of the ship’s safety. There may be a problem within the computer itself- doors have been opening and closing at random,” he lied. “If you want to die horribly because there was faulty wiring that opened the airlock while you were standing next to it, be my guest, but I would prefer to stay alive. Sanitation thinks the problem may require high-level credentials to fix, within the computer itself. As I said, if you want to die then feel free to ignore the problem. I would suggest that you do as I order you to.”

“I haven’t noticed any doors opening…” the other man said suspiciously. Hux rolled his eyes, drew his blaster, and held it to the man’s head. The man’s eyes widened, to the point that they looked like they were about to pop out of his head.

“I will not ask you again,” Hux said. “Take me to the mainframe room, or I’ll kill you and get someone else to do it.”

The department head looked like he was having an argument with himself, but eventually gave up. “Fine, but if the Supreme Leader finds out about it, this was your idea.”

“Of course, of course,” Hux said lazily, putting the blaster away. “Now get on with it.”

The other man led him down a part of the ship he’d never been before. At first he tried to explain what everything did, but Hux made his lack of interest very clear, and he gave up. Finally, they stopped in front of a heavy door, deep in the interior of the ship. “This is where the core of the systems is located,” he informed the general.

“What are you waiting for?” Hux snapped. “Open it up!”

“Open it, sir?” the systems tech asked. “What do you mean, open it?”

“Exactly what I said, you idiot. Open the door.”

“I can’t do that!”

“Oh yes?” Hux asked, smirking. “I wonder what would happen if I just shot the lock out. Would it open then?”

“Please don’t do that, sir.”

“Then open the door.”

“I can’t do that!” the other man reiterated.

“Fine then,” Hux said, drawing his blaster again. “I would stand back if I were you, I don’t know if it will ricochet.”

“Please don’t do that! Fine, fine, I’ll open it! You’re a lunatic!” The systems tech shrieked, digging around in his pockets to find a key. Hux would never admit it, but the man’s utter panic was actually pretty funny. Now he knew why some of the other officers liked to mess with Mitaka- the lieutenant overreacted to everything, and got scared easily. This guy seemed to be much the same way, and there was something sadistically satisfying about watching him squirm.

The systems tech stuck the key in the lock, turned it, and both men watched as the door swung open.

“What the fuck,” Hux muttered. The tech looked horrified, even more horrified than he had when Hux held a blaster to his head.

“I had no idea, I swear, I don’t know who this is, I had no idea he was in here! If I’d known-“

“Shut up,” Hux snarled.

It looked like something from a trashy holodrama, but a million times worse. There was a man imprisoned within the tiny room, a heavy chain shackling his ankles to one of the walls. There was a small chair with a keyboard set up, a bed, and a toilet in the corner. The man himself was deathly pale, with an alarming gray tinge to his skin, as though he hadn’t seen even starlight in years, and thin- painfully thin. It was clear that the only thing keeping him alive was the IV line stuck into his arm- it had to be, there wasn’t any evidence of food or water otherwise. There was blood splattered everywhere- on the walls, on the floor, down the man’s front, and a thin line of it trailed from his mouth. There was a pile of red-stained rags in the corner- at one point it looked like it had been a blanket, but it seemed as though the imprisoned man had torn it up in order to make bandages some time ago.

The man blinked rapidly, trying to adjust to the sudden light flooding his prison in order to focus on whoever had opened the door. He opened his mouth to try to say something, but all that came out was more of those horrible hacking coughs that Hux had heard the night before. The general watched, disturbed, as the man doubled over, blood spraying from his mouth as he coughed. Once he’d managed to get his breath back, he looked up again, blinking confusedly at his visitors.

“You are the voice from the computer,” Hux stated. It wasn’t a question.

“I spoke to you,” was the man’s response.

“Yes. Last night.”

“I thought I told you to forget about it,” the dark-haired man said, wiping the blood he’d coughed up from his face with one of the dirty rags.

“And I said I wouldn’t be able to forget about a conversation with a suicidal computer,” Hux replied. “But you’re not a computer. And you’re dying anyway.”

“I never said I was a computer,” the man responded. “And I told you I was dying.”

Hux didn’t address that. “So you’re the reason the computer system is so alive. Because you are actually alive- you’re the CPU. And you are the one who runs those simulations, I bet.”

“Yes, that’s true.” The man looked like he was going to say something else, but coughed violently again. At least this time, his blood stayed within his body, but the hacking coughs looked excruciatingly painful, and it took him even longer to be able to breathe normally. “Well, get on with it, then.”

“Get on with it?” Hux asked, blankly.

“You have a blaster,” the man said, as though he was talking to a particularly slow-witted child. “Kill me already.”

I'm on the edge of my seat. This is amazing.

AYRT

I'm glad you're enjoying it so far, and I'm glad it's working out. I usually write crack so this is a bit of a departure from normal for me. I hope you'll continue to enjoy it!

Oh wow. I usually write only crack as well, and know how hard a long serious story is to write. Love what you have so far!

Hux stared. It was true, the man was in very poor health, and likely would die anyway, but there was something viscerally upsetting about being told, flat-out, to kill someone he was looking right at. It was one thing to kill someone in the middle of a fight, or a battle, but this… the man had closed his dark eyes, bowed his head, and just accepted the inevitability of death.

Hux had never seen anyone so calmly accept their own death before. And while part of him acknowledged that it might be kinder to kill the man before he choked to death on the blood he coughed up, another part of him raged against the idea. He had been raised to fight against one’s own death, to never give up and accept the inevitable, and only to die when all of his other options had been exhausted. Anything else would disgrace his family and the First Order.

The doctors aboard the Finalizer were some of the best in the galaxy. If anyone would be able to save this man, they would.

“Stand back,” Hux ordered the computer tech, who jumped back as though he’d been burned. Eyes still closed, the dark-haired man smirked.

Hux drew his blaster again, ignoring the noise of protest the tech made, and aimed it. He squeezed the trigger, and watched as the energy bolt severed the chains trapping the man in the room. The shackles fell away with a clank, and Hux put the blaster away.

“Your aim sucks,” the man said.

Hux ignored him, and turned to the technician. “Give me your communicator,” he ordered. Silently, the man handed it over, and Hux switched the channel. “This is Tarkin Hux,” he snapped. “I need a medical team down in the mainframe room immediately!”

Everything that happened after that was a blur. The medical team arrived, took one look at the scene in that room, and started swarming around like rathtars in a feeding frenzy. One of the nurses actually shrieked in horror when the man fell into another coughing fit and splattered more of his blood everywhere.

The man didn’t seem to appreciate the attention, and tried to fight off the doctors and nurses when they put him on the stretcher, but he wasn’t strong enough to do much damage, or even prevent being manhandled into getting medical treatment. He swore and fought and bit and scratched, but his imprisonment and malnourishment made his struggles futile. All he could do was curse Hux and the doctors as they carted him off to the medical bay, and beg whoever would listen to just kill him already, howl that he didn’t want treatment, and bemoan the fact that nobody was listening to him.

Two days later, Hux found himself in the medical bay, speaking with one of the highest-ranking doctors, an older woman who looked like she’d seen just about everything, good and bad, that the galaxy could dish out, but the way she was shaking her head and looking grim was probably not a good sign.

“I have no idea how he survived this long,” she said. “He sustained massive internal organ damage that probably should have killed him- instead, his body attempted to heal itself, although that may have caused more problems than it solved. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I think he may be a Force user,” Hux replied. The woman nodded.

“That was my thought as well. The medical establishment doesn’t really understand the effects of the Force on the bodies of sentient beings that can control it. But that’s not the half of it- I don’t think he’s eaten any solid food in years, his stomach has shrunk. He also has the absolute worst lung infection any of us have ever seen- we can’t even identify whatever pathogen it is. By all rights, he should be dead. He would have been dead in a few days if you hadn’t found him.” She looked around, as though checking for eavesdroppers, and then continued: “Sir, if I may- whoever trapped him in that room didn’t just put him in there and forget about him. Someone had a reason for putting him in there, and it appears as though he wasn’t just tortured.”

“What do you mean?” Hux asked. The doctor grimaced.

“I have been a doctor for a long time,” she stated flatly. “I was with the Empire, and I treated survivors from the collapse of the Death Star, what few there were. I have served the First Order since it came into being, and I have seen a lot of injuries and illnesses. I am well familiar with the sorts of injuries that can occur from a variety of activities. If I may, I would suggest that you conduct an inquiry as to who put him there, because they didn’t just put him there and leave him. Whoever did it has been torturing him regularly.”

“That’s not possible,” Hux said. “That room was sealed, the only one who had a key was the department head of systems maintenance, and he had no idea there was anyone in that room. It looked like it hadn’t been opened since the ship was constructed.”

“Like I said before,” the doctor seemed to ignore Hux. “The medical establishment doesn’t really understand very much about the Force. But if I had to make a guess based on what I remember from my days working for the Empire, whoever was torturing this man was using the Force to do it.”

“Can I speak to him?” Hux asked.

“You can try,” the doctor replied. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up that he’ll tell you anything, though.”

Oh wow poor Ben. This is excellent so far. Can't wait to see where you go with it!

wow poor Ben. I like the head doctor, a professional.

Hux wasn’t really sure what to expect when he saw the man he’d rescued again, but a glower and a greeting of “you bastard” certainly wasn’t it.

“I saved your life,” he replied coldly, noting that the man was strapped down securely, like a prisoner that was expected to attack the jailor when food or water was brought.

“You condemned me to a long drawn-out death is what you did,” the dark-haired man snarled. “Your type is all the same, you think you know what’s best for the entire galaxy and you don’t care who you torture or how many lives you destroy in order to create your own short-sighted little utopia! But by not killing me, you’ve not only condemned me, you’ve condemned your own idiotic self!”

“Most of the time people beg me to not kill them,” Hux replied. “Perhaps you’d enlighten me as to what you mean by that. Who are you, and how did you come to be trapped on my ship?”

The other man smirked bitterly. “Wow. You really have no idea, do you?”

“If I did I wouldn’t be wasting my time talking to someone who obviously just wants to jump out the nearest airlock,” Hux answered.

The dark-haired man laughed again, his laughter turning into coughing again, as it had done the other night. Hux was somewhat relieved to see that it didn’t seem to last as long as it had before, however, and the amount of blood he spat up was less than previously. The First Order doctors truly were the best in the galaxy.

“Believe me, if I could jump out of the airlock I would, but I still have the same problem I have had, I collapse before I can do anything that would end my life. That bastard really thought everything through. I can’t die until he’s damn well ready to let me, or until someone decides to put me out of my misery.” More coughing. “To answer your question, I suppose you can call me Ben. As to how I ended up on this ship, the answer to that is that I’m an idiot. There, are you happy now?”

Hux was not happy, but he refrained from commenting on it. Ben would probably only have some snarky response, and if he was going to keep trading obnoxious commentary with the dark-haired man, nothing was ever going to get done. As it was they were still running around in circles. Instead, he decided to try a different tactic. “You keep mentioning this ‘bastard,’” he began. “Would you be able to tell me who he is?”

Ben laughed bitterly. “Who else? The so-called Supreme Leader of the First Order. Snoke.”

“The Supreme Leader?!” Hux gasped. Ben smirked.

“Surely you didn’t think he was a benevolent dictator, did you? No, he decided I was no longer of any use to him, but he didn’t want to kill me. What fun is it to kill your favorite toy if it’s not broken yet? No, he decided to put me somewhere I’d be out of the way, but where he could still violate me at his leisure. He decided his flagship needed a ‘state-of-the-art’ computer, so he trapped me in there and forced me to do all the menial tasks that a computer would do, and then he’d use the damn Force to keep me in line, and for his own entertainment.”

“By entertainment, you mean…”

“Do I really have to spell it out for you?” Ben looked disgusted. “Even before he trapped me in that room, I was his little pet, the only difference is that after he sent me away he did everything through the Force rather than with his body.”

Hux felt sick. He didn’t want to believe it. But how many times had he felt like the Supreme Leader was imagining things he didn’t want to know when he looked at him? How many times had he wondered if he really was doing the right thing? He was fighting to restore the former glory of the Empire, regain the dignity that his family had lost in the collapse, but how many times had he wondered about Snoke’s policies and if they really were for the best?

The Empire had at least been honorable, allowing captured worlds to swear their allegiance to the government and avoid wholesale slaughter. Hux’s own mother had come from one of those worlds; if the Empire had applied Snoke’s policy of immediate destruction with no notice to her planet, Hux likely wouldn’t even exist. But he’d never imagined that the Supreme Leader would do anything like… what this Ben was accusing him of.

He couldn’t deal with it. Turning on his heel, Hux fled the medical bay, pretending he didn’t see Ben’s disappointed expression.

Oh no. :(

Poor Ben indeed. All of his agency taken away from him. Also poor Hux as well. Looking forward to his further reactions. Now the Finalizer crew is in danger as well aren't they? - OP

Sorry it's taken so long for me to get this next part up- there was a crisis at my job and I had to pull double shifts, so by the time I got home I was way too tired to do anything other than take a shower and pass out, and then I got working on something else. Since it looks like things have calmed down some I shouldn't take this long in the future.

Despite the disturbing nature of their encounter, Hux didn’t have much time to dwell on the information Ben had given him. First, Lieutenant Mitaka had come down with a terrible case of the Kuyper pox, and had to be evacuated to the quarantine facility on Starkiller Base before the pathogens spread through the recirculated air and infected the entire crew. Upon arrival at the weapon, Hux was informed that there had been a setback with the construction. Apparently the building materials for the proton cannons had to be imported from one of the Outer Rim worlds, and the Resistance had taken it upon itself to set up a blockade between the source-world and one of the other planets that served as a refueling station. One of the ships had attempted to force its way through, only to be blown up.

Hux really hated the Resistance. How the hell had they even known that the transport ships were First Order? It’s not like the ships had the sigil of the organization painted on the side! All First Order transport ships were flagged as belonging to a neutral planet, usually one of the planets that was known as a pirate world. In general they didn’t care one way or another who flew their colors. Was there a mole somewhere? No, that wasn’t possible- none of the troops would know how to contact the Resistance, none of the officers would commit treason like that, and none of the transport crews were suicidal enough to run the risk of being executed by either the First Order or the Resistance. There must have been another explanation. There were some neutral planets in that area of space- maybe the Resistance had business at one of them or the other and had thought there was something suspicious about the ships. That had to be it.

Hux was in the middle of a discussion about the building delays with Lieutenant Parsons, one of the engineers in charge of the project, when his communicator chirped. “What?” he barked into it, aggravated.

“General Hux, sir? This is Doctor Arkkriss, of the Finalizer.” Hux recognized the voice of the female doctor who had explained Ben’s medical status to him a week earlier. “Please return to the medical bay at once… we need your orders as to how to proceed.”

“What’s wrong?” the general asked.

“Ah… it’s probably best if you come here and see it for yourself…” came the reply. “The patient you asked us to treat… he’s not doing well.”

“Explain,” Hux demanded.

“He had a lung hemorrhage,” the doctor replied. “We were able to aspirate most of the blood from his lungs, but he’s still in severe respiratory distress and is showing signs of going into septic shock. I have never seen anything like it. We await your orders on whether to continue treating him, or to let him die. It would probably be best if you saw the situation firsthand before making a final decision, sir.”

Before Hux even really could process what he was doing, he had terminated the connection on his communicator, made an excuse to Lieutenant Parsons, and started off at a full run back towards his ship. He didn’t know why he was doing it. Why did he care so much, whether or not that man died? He didn’t even know him, and the few sentences they had exchanged had been full of vitriol and bitterness. Ben was essentially suicidal anyway. He’d begged for Hux to kill him the first time they’d met. Maybe it would just be kinder to let him die, to order the doctors to stop treating him. Obviously it was what the man would want. Maybe he’d even gone so far as to sabotage the medical equipment in order to let himself die naturally.

Really, there just wasn’t a good reason to continue trying to save someone who didn’t want to be saved. But at that moment, Hux didn’t really care much for reason. For some reason he just wanted to keep Ben alive, no matter what.

The medical bay on the Finalizer looked like the aftermath of a battle. The doctors and nurses were covered in blood, and it was splattered everywhere, even moreso than the tiny room Ben had been imprisoned in. The man in question was unconscious again, and hooked up to several medical droids and an oxygen tank, a mask covering his nose and mouth. Even with all of the equipment keeping him alive, it was clear he was fading fast.

Doctor Arkkriss stood to greet Hux, her previously blue scrubs now bright red and dark brown. “General Hux,” she stated.

“Doctor,” Hux responded.

“As you can see, we’re doing everything we can to keep him alive, but it doesn’t seem to be helping,” she explained. “His system is rejecting the drugs we’ve been using to treat the infection- in fact, we think that is what triggered the hemorrhage. The red droid is a blood-replenishing unit, but even with us supplying it with the raw materials it needs to manufacture new blood, it cannot keep up with the demand. The gray and black droid is an aspirator- it suctions the blood out from the patient’s lungs, but we have to empty its collection tray at least once an hour. The third droid is providing medicine, but we’ve disconnected that one temporarily until we can be sure that wasn’t what caused the hemorrhage.”

Hux nodded. “And you’re sure that’s what caused it?”

“I think so,” the doctor replied. “Although to be honest with you, it could have been anything. As I mentioned before, we’ve never seen anything like this, not even in the educational holos from medical school.” She paused, looking thoughtful. “Right before the hemorrhage began, however, he tried to say something. Nobody caught what it was- it was probably nothing, or he was trying to warn us that it was coming.”

“I see,” Hux said, looking dispassionately at the unconscious man. How horrifying would it be to know you were about to start bleeding out from the mouth and nose? He shuddered, not wanting to imagine it. Such unpleasantness was best left unexamined.

“What do you want us to do?” the doctor asked. “Really, it might be kinder to disconnect him from the droids and let him die. He’s been asking us to do that since you brought him here.”

Hux replied immediately. “No. Do whatever you can to keep him alive. I still have questions for him.”

“Sir,” the woman inclined her head, not voicing her thoughts. If you really had questions for him, why didn’t you come here while he was awake and alive? It really was counter-intuitive, but then again, who was she to question the motives and tactics of a general of the First Order? For years it had been her duty to serve first the Galactic Empire without questioning the orders of her superiors, and after that regime had fallen, she had gone to the First Order with the other survivors. In her line of work, she had seen a lot, and dealt with a lot. She’d seen the aftermath of torture and rape, serious illness, suicides, and she’d treated survivors from the Death Star. In all her years of medical treatment, she’d never seen anything as brutal as what had been done to the man the general had brought in for treatment. By all rights, the man shouldn’t even be alive, but he’d held on this long, despite his clearly stated desire to die.

But Doctor Arkkriss also wasn’t stupid enough to ignore a direct order to keep treating the man, even if she thought it was futile. After spending so long in her line of work, the doctor well understood the inevitability of death. Everyone eventually dies, but she was also in no hurry to speed up her own death through being executed for treason.

Op - thank you so much for the updates despite work. But work first, leisure later, something even general Hux would agree with.

Very interested in seeing how the medical care for Ben would go.

The last thing Ben Solo remembered was an excruciatingly painful stabbing feeling in his lung, and then what seemed like a veritable explosion of blood. The last thing he remembered was the frantic beeping of one of the medical droids he’d been connected to before the darkness took him.

When he awoke, the first thing he thought was that the medical bay he’d been in had been bombed, but as he looked around, he realized that wasn’t what he was seeing. He was in some sort of infirmary, true, but everything was so much grayer and... dead-looking, than the Finalizer’s medical bay. None of the corpses strewn around were of the doctors who had been looking after him, and upon closer inspection, this room was in an actual building, rather than a starship. Looking out the window, he realized he was not on any planet he recognized- at least, if it was, it was no longer a world that could support life. The barren ground had no vegetation except for a few blackened, scorched trees, and a red sun beat heavily down on the landscape.

He was so focused on looking around at his surroundings that he didn’t notice one of the corpses in the infirmary begin to drag its torso across the ground with its arms, towards him, until it reached up with a decayed, clawed hand and grasped his ankle. Startled, Ben looked down only to see the dead eyes of a teenage girl staring up at him. Coagulated blood poured from the thing’s mouth as it hissed his name, clawing at his legs.

Horrified, he realized he recognized this creature. At one point, in life, it had been a girl he’d known- she had been another one of his uncle’s students. He couldn’t remember what he name was now, but he remembered striking her down like he’d only done it yesterday. She’d tried to protect some of the youngest students at the academy- she’d jumped in front of them to shield them from his saber. It had been futile, really- he’d sliced her cleanly in half, killing her instantly, then killed the younger children anyway. At the time, he’d laughed at her stupidity- no one would stand in the way of the Supreme Leader’s goals, it was foolish, essentially suicidal, to try, but now, here he was, dead because of that same Supreme Leader. Who was getting the last laugh now? He wasn’t really sure what a bloodied, semi-undead corpse missing half of its body would be able to do to him- after all, it seemed he was already dead- but it looked as though he would be punished all the same.

All around the room, more of the bodies started moving towards him- some he recognized as people he’d killed himself, others he suspected were victims of plans he and Snoke had put into motion while he was still in the Supreme Leader’s good graces, and still others he thought must have been killed by the First Order, using the information he’d provided as the “computer.” All of them scraped, dragged, shuffled, and lurched their way towards him, crying out their condemnations of his actions. Blindly, Ben kicked out, trying to drive them off, but they just kept coming. Was this the fate of murderers, to be haunted after their own deaths by the spirits of their victims?

Suddenly, a woman’s voice rang out, clearer than any of the groans of the corpses. “Begone! You have no right to him, he is not one of you!” Hissing, the walking corpses drew back.

Ben turned in the direction of the voice, and blinked. A beautiful woman in an elaborate dress, with a complex hairstyle, was shooing the creatures away, coming towards him. “Ignore them, they cannot actually harm you.” Then, she took a closer look at him, and visibly recoiled. “What are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be here! Go back!”

Ben didn’t respond to the woman’s order. “What are they? Where am I? Am I dead?” he asked.

“I’m not exactly sure what they are,” the woman replied. “All I know is that they’re not whatever they appear to be- they take the form of whatever you fear and then attack you, even though they cannot do anything to you. You’re not quite dead yet, but this is where you go if your death was caused by someone else. I’m dead, but you’re not. You need to go back!”

Ben took a closer look at the woman, and realized that her dress was soaked through from the waist down with blood. Just like him, whatever had killed this woman had been bloody, and messy, and likely painful. The woman shook her head. “You’re not supposed to die yet! My husband and I wait here for our children, you weren’t supposed to come before them! You don’t understand, you need to go back.”

Ben snorted. “Ma’am, I’m sorry about your children, but I won’t go back. If this is death, I have no intention of returning. I’ve been trying to get here for years. I tried to kill myself multiple times, I begged the man who found me to kill me, and I tried to get the doctors to let me die! Now that I’ve finally gotten my wish, I intend to stay dead.”

“Do you think I wanted to die in childbirth because my husband was reckless, stubborn, and angry?” the woman snapped. “Do you think my husband wanted to die right after he got to meet his son? We didn’t get to choose these things! But you still have a body to go back to. You must go back. The reason you are coughing up blood is because there is an improperly installed killswitch in your lungs. Snoke put it there to kill you if you ever disobeyed his orders, but it wasn’t done right. If you can get the doctors to remove it, you will recover, and you will be able to help destroy the man who did this to you.”

She paused to let that sink in, then continued. “My husband has always been able to see potential futures, even when he was alive. It’s what caused him to accidentally kill me while I was in labor- he was trying to prevent my death. Being dead, he can see even more potentialities. If you die here, billions more will die. The man who found you- Tarkin Hux- he will fall under Snoke’s control, and he will slaughter entire systems with the push of a button, until Snoke determines he is no longer of any use, and tortures him to death. That young dark-haired man- Dopheld Mitaka, I think his name was- he will rise to the top of the hierarchy until that Stormtrooper woman poisons him, only to be assassinated herself by one of her troopers. Snoke will kill every single one of the Stormtroopers as punishment, and then he will set his sights on your parents. He will kill your father quickly, but your mother...” She let herself trail off, then shook her head. “You must live on, if not for your own sake, if not for the sake of the galaxy, then for the sake of your family. While I want to see my children again, I do not want it to happen under those circumstances. Please, Ben, go back, you must go back.”

All of a sudden, Ben realized who the woman was, and why she seemed to be so familiar with him. All of a sudden, a half-remembered story came flooding back- his mother and uncle hadn’t been raised by their biological parents because their father- Darth Vader- had accidentally killed their mother while she was in labor. “Grandmother?” he asked. The woman smiled.

“I wish I could have met you under better circumstances. Your grandfather will be disappointed he didn’t get to see you, but there is no time, you must go now. Someday, however, you will get to meet us both. But now there is no time. Please, go back!”

“But how?” Ben asked.

“You are still alive. All you have to do is open your eyes.”

“Open my eyes?”

“Open your eyes!” Padme Amidala reiterated. “Focus, and open your eyes. And remember what I told you! You need to get that switch out of your lung, or you’ll end up right back here the next time your body tries to purge it! Now, go back!”

A most interesting take on the underworld!

With a pained gasp, Ben’s eyes shot open. He was back in the medical bay of the Finalizer, the doctors lurking around, doing their various tasks. For once they weren’t gathered around his gurney looking at him like he was a particularly interesting specimen. A few of them were tending to a man Ben recognized as Dopheld Mitaka, who was wearing a breathing mask. Briefly, Ben’s heart stuttered- had what his grandmother warned about already happened? Had the other man been poisoned already? Then logic reasserted itself- Mitaka was lucid, and was only hooked up to an oxygen machine and one IV- it was probably just a minor illness.

Nobody seemed to have noticed that Ben was awake yet, so he coughed loudly. Everyone, including Mitaka, looked up in surprise. Ben waved his hand weakly, and the doctors immediately started swarming around him. The other man must have been stable enough, because even the medics attending to him came over in a hurry.

“I need you to remove something from my lungs,” he tried to say, but because his mouth was covered with an oxygen mask, it came out more like “Inffytrffsfffffmffflfff.”

“What’s he saying?” one of the doctors asked.

Doctor Arkkriss rolled her eyes, and disconnected the mask. “How are you feeling?” she asked Ben.

“I need you to remove something from my lung,” Ben repeated. “There’s something in there- it’s what’s killing me.”

“And how do you know that?”

Ben hesitated. If he said “I sort of died and met my grandmother, who told me that I had to live on to save the galaxy and that the Supreme Leader put a device in my lung to kill me if I ever disobeyed him, but he didn’t install it right so now it’s killing me slowly” he would sound insane, and he might be put back under anesthesia for his own safety, and the safety of everyone else around him while he died, helpless to stop the horrible fate his grandmother had warned him about. He’d probably choke on his own blood and drown anyway. And while he still wasn’t convinced it was worth it to try to continue living, he also didn’t really want to have to face his grandmother again this quickly- how would she take his failure? And if what her husband, his grandfather, had foreseen came to pass, would he really be able to face his parents when they inevitably ended up in that same bleak afterlife with him?

There was also the possibility that the whole thing had just been an insane dream. Maybe it was simply his subconscious coming up with a ridiculous excuse to keep him alive. Was that a thing that was possible? It had seemed so real, though- but all dreams tended to seem real while you were dreaming them. Usually, though, on awakening it was obvious that the dream hadn’t been an actual event at all. This one still did.

But even if he did get them to operate on him, and there was nothing there, there was still the chance he wouldn’t survive the procedure. And wasn’t that what he wanted? He could die peacefully, and since he wouldn’t have committed suicide, whatever Snoke had done to him to prevent that wouldn’t kick in. Either way it was a win-win- if the dream hadn’t been a dream at all and there really was something there, he’d be able to get the switch removed and protect his mother from whatever Snoke intended to do to her. And if there wasn’t anything there, and he died, then he got his wish anyway.

Taking a breath, and immediately coughing in response, Ben waited until the fit passed before he continued. “I can feel it- there’s something there. I think the hemorrhage broke something loose, and now every time I try to breathe I can feel it moving around.”

“That’s not possible,” one of the other doctors said. “We did imaging and there was nothing there!”

Doctor Arkkriss looked thoughtful. “Doctor Eyeuro is right- we did do extensive testing on you at the request of General Hux, and we did not find anything internal that could be causing, ah, your problems,” she said delicately. “But that does not necessarily mean there is nothing there,” she added, with a stern look at the other doctor. “You say you can feel it moving around when you breathe?”

“Yes,” Ben replied.

“We have orders from the general to keep you alive at all costs,” Doctor Arkkriss said. “If we were to do an exploratory surgery it would be very risky for you- you are still not stable, but if you are right, and there is really something in your lungs, another hemorrhage could kill you, and the risk involved in that would be even higher than that for the surgery. If we were to do this, we would need permission from the general. I’m not taking the risk without his knowledge.”

Ben had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. Why did that guy care so much whether he lived or died? He’d known the man for only a few days, and they’d only met because the idiot hadn’t turned off his speakers before he went to sleep, and couldn’t help but follow the temptation to go find the “suicidal computer” he thought he’d been conversing with. They weren’t friends, they weren’t really even connected to each other at all.

Maybe the general found his predictions from using the Force useful? That had to be it- it was very useful for gaining a military advantage. If Ben died, he would lose that advantage.

“Fine,” he sighed. “Do what you have to do. But hurry, I don’t know how much longer I will be able to breathe with this thing loose.”

I am on the edge of my seat.

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