War and Peace
Disclaimer: all of the characters present here belong to their respective owners, unless they are my OCs…
Across the multiverse…
…When Luke Skywalker had finally died, (or faded, sometimes the Jedi terminology was so vague, that not even he wanted to argue a point), and emerged on the other side, the first person that he met was… a Zabrak, dressed in clothing of a Sith rather than a Jedi, yet not exactly hostile either.
"Greetings, Sir Luke!" the Zabrak proceeded to speak with an attitude that was again more Sith than Jedi, yet still not fully hostile. "I admit, I am touched to be the first to meet you!"
Luke blinked. Yes, the Zabrak was probably more Sith than Jedi, but after his failure with Ben, Luke was convinced more than ever that haste makes waste, plus he had never seen this Zabrak in his life, so he still was not fully convinced that this was enemy. "You have me at something of a disadvantage, Sir Sith," he decided to be courteous as well, aware that he wasn't doing as good a job as his twin sister would've done in this circumstance. "I don't know you-"
"My name," the Zabrak told him, "is Darth Maul. Or just Maul, I suppose – apparently, after I spent the rest of my life after my failure at Naboo doing my best to destroy Palpatine and all that he held dear, the Force no longer recognizes me as a full, proper Sith." He looked away with a grimace.
"I still never heard of you-"
"Obi-Wan is a bleep," Maul glared. "I was his archenemy since Naboo and he says not a peep about me!" He rolled his sleeves. "But then again, what do you expect from a Jedi?!"
"The Jedi are ancient guardians of order-"
Maul cut Luke off with a long, dark, heavy glare from his eyes. "Don't," the Sith/not-a-Sith said curtly. "Jedi, Sith, etc., etc., - they are all constructs of the various races, aimed to harness the Force. The Force will endure – everything else will eventually dissolve and collapse and a new age shall begin!"
"My nephew talked of something similar, thought of something similar, and where is he now?" Luke muttered, only in part to his new interlocutor, but was rewarded with a response from Maul all the same:
"Right where he wanted, I would say," the Zabrak now looked decisively Sith, and his smile was all teeth and no light. "But then again, how could he not? Not with such grandparents as he had!"
"And what do you know of Ben's grandparents – my parents?" Luke snapped.
"They'll be here shortly," Maul shrugged. "After all, they're your parents and want to meet you."
Luke froze. It has been a long time since he had seen his father last, in flesh or as a Force ghost, and as for his mother… "They do?" he asked in a tiny voice, sounding not that different from his nephew, whenever the latter learned something…personal.
"Yes, son," Anakin Skywalker spoke from behind. "We do-"
He did not finish, as Luke whirled around and hugged them both – hard. "Father! Mother?! I am sorry. For – everything. I did the best I could-"
"We know that you did, and that your heart was in the right place," Padme Amidala Naberrie spoke…with some effort, because Luke put all of him into the hug, and there was a lot of him in there. "Unfortunately, both you and your sister – and that Solo character – went kind of in a wrong direction – and Maul certainly made things worse…"
There was a pause as Luke twisted to look at the Zabrak – who had not left yet, but was sitting off to a side, watching the Skywalker family interactions with some sort of a bizarre interest. "Just who is he?" he asked both of his parents. "He mentioned Palpatine after I met him here-"
"Yes, and on some inconclusive evidence, he decided that Palpatine was also Anakin's father, especially in a biological meaning of the word, and he has been trying to destroy our family as well, ever since he became a Force ghost himself," Padme admitted with an eye roll.
Luke blinked and thought back over his own interactions with the late Emperor. They were not very long, but Luke had to admit that they had formed a lasting impression on him, because…reasons. Then he thought over what his mother told him right now, and reached a conclusion of his own. "Is the Zabrak insane or just an asshat?" he spoke with a deeper Tatooine patois than how he usually did.
There was a pause as all of the Skywalkers present looked at Maul, who just shrugged as if to say: "What?"
"Son, I hear you," Anakin Skywalker spoke in an understanding tone of voice, "but regardless, we're afraid that Maul had been more successful in influencing your nephew with his philosophy than we'd thought."
"What philosophy?" Luke frowned: he knew a thing or two about philosophy himself.
"Light doesn't have to be good and darkness – evil," Maul explained calmly. "Sith and Jedi appropriated the two for themselves and began to run riot with it. Maybe it's time for the old customs to be broken down and something new to rise from their ashes."
"And you think that my nephew is the right man to do that?" Luke frowned.
"No, I'm actually trying to destroy him, alongside the rest of your family," Maul explained patiently, "but just like the rest of your family, that is much harder to do than to push my other agenda."
Luke stared. "My old question stands: are you insane or just evil?" he tried to sound more like usual polite self this time.
"Ah," Maul smiled widely through his tattooed lips, "why don't we see instead what is going on in the world of the living?" He formed a Force bubble, which looked almost like a crystal ball. "Here, look!"
Luke blinked and looked back at his parents. "Don't worry," Padme smiled reassuringly at their son…but her own smile was sharp as well, not unlike Leia's, whenever Han used to annoy her really badly. "It's safe and more. Maul, we shall look."
And so they did.
/ / /
And back in the world of the living, the Supreme Leader of the First Order Kylo Ren and First Order's number one general, Hux, were busy securing First Order's new hold on Crait in a sort of a companionable silence. "So, Snoke is dead," Hux finally broke the silence by stating the obvious, again.
Sharp smells of blood and rot, rust and smoke, salt and various mineral compounds, were rising around them, and yet the new Supreme Leader of the First Order and his (current) second-in-command were standing, facing each other, and trying their best to out-man each other with some manly nonchalance.
"Yes," Ren agreed calmly.
"The Resistance is dead," Hux was not backing down.
"Mmm," Ren's reply this time was more of a grunt. "Hux, are you planning to off me for real now?"
"Mmm," Hux's reply was carefully nonchalant. "You're not the only opportunist here – Supreme Leader, sir!" he saluted sharply, but with a notable trace of mockery in the salute as well.
Ren stared at the other man. "Since when you have become such an idiot?" he finally asked.
"After all the smart ones got killed by Snoke," Armitage Hux shrugged. "So, now what?"
"We go and talk to our secret brain trust?"
"…We don't have a secret brain trust; the First Order doesn't have a secret brain trust…" Hux trailed off as one of the underlings approached them with a crystal fox carefully contained:
"Sir," the thick-skinned, and thick-headed, trooper said brightly. "We checked on the animal as you requested, for the commander. It's in perfect health!"
There was a pause as Hux was thinking over a reply, and then a second trooper appeared, with another crystal fox and practically the same message – albeit for 'the Supreme Leader Kylo Ren', and Ren's glare was apparently more intense than Hux's was, as the two troopers got the message this time and left as quickly as they had arrived on the scene.
"…Okay, since when are they a secret brain trust?" Hux clearly decided to change the topic here from the crystal foxes, (not that it was breached, but still).
"It just sounded more impressive – you're the one with the fancy names," Ren muttered as he looked down at 'his' crystal fox. Neither his animal nor Hux's seemed to be actually afraid – more like wary and unhappy, but not outright afraid.
"Yes, and as this example shows, there's a reason why," Hux muttered, as Ren glared at him, darkly. Before the Supreme Leader could do something else, say – choke him with the Force – another private-sized spaceship landed, and one of the two women that had emerged from it, looked enough like commander Phasma did to pass off as her clone.
Only it was not – rather, it was a clone who perished after the Resistance's ship had rammed Snoke's at light speed.
Meanwhile, the two men turned to the original with two identical crystal foxes in their arms and with almost identical looks of stubborn embarrassment on their faces.
"…" said the blonde-haired woman, who might have been the original Phasma. Before the situation could steer off into impromptu comedy even further, another woman – this one physically very similar to Armitage Hux said:
"For me? You shouldn't have!" grabbed the two foxes, and gave one of them to her companion and the other one for herself.
There was a pause in the action as both crystal foxes immediately weaseled out of the women's grasps, ran towards each other, ran in circles around each other, barking and discussing something in their own language, and then leaping back into the arms, leaving the four humans decisively confused about what has exactly happened here.
"…I think that our secret brain trust has increased up to six now," Hux muttered to no one in particular.
"…Since when are we a secret brain trust?" the other redhead, whose similarities to the good general were not restricted just to the hair color, asked.
"Ask the Supreme Leader over here – it's his idea…"
"And me and Arla have a better one," the apparently-not-dead Phasma said calmly. "We need to discuss it…just not out in the open. Let us get back inside, onto a proper ship, and away from this crazy-ass planet-"
"Aw, Phasma, come on!" the now-named Arla pouted. Considering that her facial features were also rather like those of Armitage Hux, it did not really go well for her. "We've been cooped on space ships for weeks! And the rebels are gone; can't we stretch our legs a little?"
"Sister," Hux puffed. "They are called the Resistance now, remember? They do not rebel, they resist. Yes, it is just semantics, but-"
"But what if they didn't have to resist," Ren said slowly, thoughtfully, but both Hux and his sister immediately stopped arguing and faced him. "What if we offer them…an armistice? They know now that they cannot defeat us, and while they can run and hide on their fumes again, what if they did not have to? Even if my mother was still alive, she'd be unable to hold them together…"
"A fine sentiment, Supreme Leader," Hux didn't sound very impressed, "but we're not the Empire of old either, though I get as to why you would wish that we were – but we cannot exactly proclaim an armistice with the Resistance-"
"Right now, our sources indicate that the entire Resistance was able to fit onto a single ship," Ren did not back down, though he did not use the Force on Hux either. "If we give them an option out instead, they just might take it-"
"…And Armitage just brought – sort of – my point about our discussion," Phasma raised her voice slightly, but the two men immediately began paying attention to her. "Since Snoke is dead, the Resistance is down to a single spaceship and we're not yet an Empire, we need to talk about our state of affairs."
There was a pause and then the two men exhaled, looked apologetically at Arla, and went towards the spaceship that had brought Phasma and Arla Hux down to Crait. "But, but," Arla pouted again.
"Don't worry, apprentice, you'll get your turn to shine," Kylo Ren said, and she immediately perked back up.
/ / /
Meanwhile, on another ship…
The Resistance was not having the best of days. They were down to the Millennium Falcon, fleet-wise, and soldier-wise they could all fit on it – and the Millennium Falcon was not the biggest ship in the galaxy; maybe the fastest, but certainly not the biggest.
"Hey again, Rey," Finn told his first and oldest friend as he hugged her. "Thank you for rescuing us from the First Order," he looked away. "Sorry that we needed a rescue in the first place."
"Don't," Rey looked away. "We all took a wrong turn in here somewhere," she blinked, realized that she was currently looking at Chewie, who was hugging the very much alive general Organa off the ground, (it's easy when you're a Wookie), and sobbing happy tears into her shoulder – not that general Organa herself was much better – and so Rey looked away. "We are lucky to remain alive, unbroken, and-"
It was Finn's turn to look away. He had no intention of arguing with Rey any more than he did with Rose, (Poe, while also an unquestionable friend, was another story), but while he agree with Rose's statement about hate and love, he couldn't feel that some other aspects of warfare – say, logistics and similar numbers – were important as well. That said, he had no idea as to how Rey would react if he said it – or even Poe – so he kept quiet…until he saw C-3PO. (R2-D2 was currently over at the side of Leia and Chewie, doing his best to remind them of his presence – clearly, the shorter droid was unhappy at being ignored).
Since it was almost impossible to be quiet whenever C-3PO was around… "Hey, what's up?" he told the robot instead.
"Well, master Finn," C-3PO spoke in his usual manner, "I was checking the airwaves for news and responses, to us or for the First Order, and I found something. Master Ben – I mean, Kylo Ren – has made a public statement."
There was a pause, and several very angry people, (at Kylo Ren in particular, at the First Order in general, or on anything in-between those two), got onto their feet and off their sulk.
"Show us," Rey snapped as she decisively stood up, and instinctively reached out to Kylo Ren via their force link. Surprisingly, it worked, albeit more weakly than how it did in the past, (perhaps Snoke's claims that the link worked because of him were not entirely lies), and Rey did indeed see Kylo, but this time he wasn't alone, but with some other woman, not exactly beautiful, (more like striking), but even that wasn't the most worrisome thing-
"Interesting…Who's that?" the redhead blinked, as she stared apparently right at Rey, which was ridiculous – other people couldn't see her and Ren when they were connected via the link, right?
And then the redhead jabbed at her, and Rey found the link broken, and-
"What was that?" Finn, who himself was becoming something of a Jedi, asked quietly.
"It's complex," Rey muttered. "Wait, did you see this too?"
"Some further definition would be nice," Finn did not back down. "Is it a Jedi mind thing? Can you help Rose?"
"…" Before Rey could answer that while yes, she did hear from Luke Skywalker that some Jedi of the old Republic had been healers of some sort, she certainly didn't feel like that, Leia spoke up:
"And where are you going?" the older woman spoke in a certain way – but was still surprised when it was C-3PO who answered:
"Mistress Leia, they're with me – master Ben, I mean Kylo Ren – has made a public statement and they want to see it…"
"Ben did what? Show me!" Leia snapped with a similar ire in her voice that Rey herself felt, (though in Rey's case it was tempered by something else – the presence of the redhead didn't improve her mood either, and the other woman had seemed somehow familiar), and C-3PO complied.
The holocron table of the Millennium Falcon wasn't the best, (neither Han nor the other owners of the spaceship cared much for the intergalactic news besides the basics), but it was working, and everyone around it could see and hear Kylo Ren (or Ben Solo) standing there, looking every inch a man of state, dressed in the First Order's robes of mourning, talking equally mournfully about the death of the great man and leader – i.e. Snoke – and how is it, with a heavy heart, to honor this great man's demise, he was offering a ceasefire and an official truce to the Resistance, to see if they couldn't see reason and make peace – and so on, and so forth.
"…Just who does he think he is?" Rey managed to speak once the red in front of her eyes abated. "He is the one who killed Snoke – really! I just helped!" she paused and added, more subdued. "Anyhow, what brought this on? When we talked last, he was all about finishing everyone and everything – the Resistance, the Jedi, the Sith, and so on. And now he wants to talk instead?"
"He's playing silly buggers," Finn answered her, even though Rey was not really looking for an answer. When everyone just turned to look at him, he flushed, but stubbornly continued. "It's when you're playing cards and make a move that passes the initiative to your opponent and they have to figure out what hand you got and how they can counter it-"
"That's not how we called it in the Republic, or even the Resistance," Leia interrupted the young man, (who actually looked relieved here), "but we hear where you're coming from. Also, yes, this might be what – he is doing, but we will worry about that later. First things first, we must land and hopefully get healed. Chewie?"
Chewie replied. Since the reply was in Wookie, some of the people presented looked at C-3PO for translation.
"Yes, we're landing at Coruscant soon," the gold-plated droid replied, helpfully.
"…at Coruscant? Why? We lost; we have no friends-" Poe asked, in a quieter voice than the usual.
"Perhaps, but just as sometimes you have to give initiative to your opponent and see what, develops, on other occasion you have to take risks just for the same purpose," Leia replied calmly replied. "Chewie, does the Millennium Falcon have permission to land?"
Chewie nodded in agreement, and the Millennium Falcon began to, well, land.
/ / /
…Rey's first look of Coruscant was just as she had imagined it, (the capital planet of the old Republic was known even on Jakku), but somehow it…did not come across as too pretentious as she imagined it. And so much greenery! And nothing as wild as Luke Skywalker's last home. And-
"Ah! Daisy! Grant!" general Organa spoke to the couple that came to meet the Resistance, (less than 50 people in it, by now). "Nice to see you too."
"General Organa," the man rumbled quietly. "The Force is with you."
"Yes, I suppose it is," Leia nodded regally. "We need help," she continued, even as the wounded (or otherwise hurt) members of the Resistance got unloaded with the help of their fellows. "Will you-?"
"Yes, we will," the woman nodded. "Hell, we'll even do it for free!"
Leia froze.
"Don't give us that look," the man growled. "It's either that, or turning you away outright, and you'll know the one we'll choose."
Leia gave him her best princess/senator/general look. "Do you still have to be an asshole about it? And Daisy? I thought that you would influence him, not the other way around."
"Mm-hmm," the younger woman nodded. "Speaking of assholes, have you heard your son's statement? Guess that the war is really over?"
"You let me worry about that," Leia shrugged dismissively, before changing her stance: "What does the rest of Coruscant say?"
"Not sure, but everyone is waiting to see who makes the next move," Daisy admitted. "You?"
"We'll see," Leia said regally. "I will need to make several calls from a secure location, and – see his broadcast from a better point of view."
"Done," the man – Grant – rumbled, before changing his demeanour as well. "On other topics, are those new Jedi in your entourage, or what?"
Finn stiffened. Rey, who until now was staring at an actual fountain, was a genuine childlike innocence, also. "Yes," Finn replied before she could, however. "We are. In training. Why? Are you also – Jedi?"
"We prefer the term Force-users," the man shook his head. "Neither of us ever had a light saber in their life, and my knowledge of the Force is mainly in healing and the like. So's Daisy's, though her take on the Force is more creative than healing…"
"Can you heal Rose?" Finn immediately changed topics as he pointed to the woman in question: so far, her case among the surviving Resistance fighters was one of the worse. "Please?"
"Let me see. So, her condition is stable, good, and-" Grant frowned, before digging his legs into the ground, reaching down to the unconscious woman and grabbing her by the sides of her head. "Easy now…" His hands began to glow, and Rey stiffened: this was the use of the Force, not unlike how she had cleared a path for her friends when they were escaping the First Order on Crait, but done differently, more precisely and in a way that she never thought about…
Rose opened her eyes, gasped, and vomited into the nearest patch of grass. "Easy, easy," the big man – Grant – rumbled. "You're away from the First Order now."
Rose blinked, looked around, saw Finn, and burst into happy tears.
/ / /
Things moved on quickly after that. Same went for people, though they moved inside, into various buildings of the complex where the Millennium Falcon has landed.
"So, you're healers? Force-healers?" Rey asked quietly the other woman – Daisy?
"Sort of," the latter admitted, sounding very quiet herself. "I'm more of a creative type; if I tried anything like that with your friend, I would've blown her up instead into mush."
Rey gulped and suddenly was very happy for Rose.
"Anyways," Daisy continued, "I was raised by my mother and her people, who didn't really believe in the Jedi way of life because of reasons, and so my take on the Force is…atypical. Grant learned to be… other things before he became a Force-user and it colored his own take on the Force. He's been teaching me, I've been teaching him, and it's tangled knot." She paused and added, looking askance. "And Force isn't a solution to everything either, no matter what such titans of the past as Sir Luke or Master Yoda believe!"
"I never met this Yoda character, and as for 'Sir Luke'…he didn't believe in that Force was an answer to everything either, not when I met him…" Rey trailed away: for obvious reasons, she and Luke had never talked about his past beyond the basics, (mainly regarding his nephew), so she did not really know him that well. Maybe the next time that she saw him, she would ask him…
"You met him?" Daisy looked at Rey with something suspiciously like awe in her eyes. "What is he like? We have some old holocron recordings of him when he was young, about our age, but since he vanished…"
"Can I see them? Then I will tell you all that I remember about him and his home," Rey immediately replied.
"Deal!" – and the two women exited the corridor and saw a cluster of young children besiege Finn with questions for the Jedi mister, while Poe and Rose looked upon the sight with some amusement.
"Ahem!" Daisy cleared the throat and the children scattered, with one boy running over to Daisy and hugging her:
"Mama!"
Rey felt uncomfortable now, so did her friends. "Tripp! Kara!" Daisy shouted, meanwhile. "Come over here!"
"Sorry for getting the children out of control," another man spoke as he and his partner, carrying yet another baby appeared on the scene. "It's just that-"
"You!" Poe switched from happy to indignant in a matter of seconds.
"You!" the newcomer – Tripp – matched him tone for tone.
"Oh, just no," the new woman – Kara – said, as she passed the baby over to Rose, (who instinctively took him, and then froze, as if either the baby or her will burst into flames if one of them would move), and grabbed both her man and Poe by ears. "I don't know what is exactly your problem is, but no manly posturing before the children or our guests."
Both men opened their mouths. Kara yanked on their ears, causing them to wince from pain.
"…I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for this," Rey said brightly, since neither Finn nor Rose did.
"Of course, men always do, it's just that you should always remember that while a man is the head of a house, you're the neck, and are responsible for the direction in which the head goes," the older woman responded with an easy smile. "On occasion this means some hands-on guidance, taking your man by an ear, or a nose, or – some other extremity and guiding him in the right direction." She finally saw Rey's light saber, and grew more seriously. "Oh, I'm sorry lady Jedi, I didn't mean for this to get out of hand." To emphasize the point, she yanked once more on the ears of her husband and Poe and then released them.
"I can see why you have married her," Poe winced, as he rubbed his ear.
"You want me to punch you for real?" the other man muttered, as Kara took their baby from Rose, and began to coo at him. Rose stared at them in some open fascination.
"Must be fun, living in a big family," Rey muttered. She would have liked to add that they lived as if the war was not in their lives, but considering how quickly Daisy's husband healed Rose, (and the rest of the wounded Resistance fighters were being treated now as well), she really could not.
"Yes! Much better than being an only child!" Daisy immediately saw something flicker in Rey's eyes – Rey still had distance to cover before she make a master Jedi – and asked: "Want a hug?"
As Rey alternated between telling the other woman that 'no, she was an adult now', and 'yes, that would be nice," Rose moved over to them and hugged her first instead.
"Next time – don't ask. Just do it," she told Daisy.
There was another awkward pause, which was finally broken by Leia. The older woman had disappeared in all the commotion surrounding Rose's recovery, but now she was back.
"Well, I talked to 'the Supreme Leader Kylo Ren'," the general of the Resistance said crossly. "He agreed to a parley. Now the snot-nosed kid is remembering my lessons in politics that I gave him!"
There was a pause as everyone looked at Leia waiting for the follow-up, except for one of the children. "You know," she said, sounding too innocent to be innocent. "When uncle Grant talks about politics-"
"Child," Leia smiled politely, "I know your uncle's views on politics, and while they are not unjustified, they are no applicable here."
"They aren't?" the girl, (rather tall and lanky for her age) blinked.
"Soledad, general Organa is a grown-up, so what she says goes," Kara said firmly. "Sorry about our daughter's behavior, your-"
"Kara, no explanations are required," Leia shook her head. "She isn't happy about her new brother?"
"Just as her sister was unhappy with her," Kara nodded. "It's a child thing, it seems." She paused and added: "And what about a parlay?"
"It'll be done here," Leia shook her head. "Well, not precisely here, but on these premises."
There was a pause as the others just stared at her. "This is the HQ for the biggest and best net of military hospital system in the galaxy," Leia said firmly. "It's the best neutral ground for this sort of thing too"
"This is CyberTek?" Rose interrupted Leia, and because it was so out of character for the younger woman, that Leia allowed the interruption.
"Yes."
"And you people run it? Like, you're the founders?" Rose's eyes bulged. "And you – healed me?" she sat down on the nearest sofa, heavily. "You know, when the recruiters for the Resistance said that we'll get to travel the galaxy and meet all sort of interesting people, I never assumed that it would happen to me. I thought that it would happen to someone else, someone more important, more worthy, better, and now they're all dead, and I'm not," and she burst into tears again.
"Hey, it's going to be okay," Finn gave his new friend an awkward hug. "General Organa actually spoke about a parley?" he shot their leader a look.
"Yes I did," Leia herself did not look very happy now. "Normally I would think twice, but they said something about a hostage, so if they have even just one of us I need to hear them out," she looked away. "And Ben has rediscovered his brain, so I doubt that it is going to be fun."
No one made a comment to her this time.
/ / /
The actual parley was not taking place in the building that Rey and co. were in, but in a different, smaller one, closer to the airstrip and the hanger where the Millennium Falcon was already located at. As they moved across the ground, Rey again was struck just how…civilized their surroundings were, much more so than any that she had seen before she joined the Resistance.
"Don't be so confident, Rey," Poe muttered, "I took a good measure of host – Ward – while we were talking, and while he probably isn't the best pilot around – that's why he probably has Tripp around – I wouldn't want to fight him even in a friendly fight." He gave a pointed look at Rey's laser sword. "And yes, I know that you're a Jedi, but still-"
"I got it," Rey muttered, remembering that their hosts themselves were skilled in the Force. The books that she got from Luke Skywalker showed that in the long gone, hoary past, there were many types of Force users, many types of the Jedi, but when the Empire made its bid, the Jedi got, well, killed off, regardless of their initial skills – but now they seemed to be coming back. And…they didn't want to be Jedi anymore?
Rey bit her lip. Leia, Finn, Poe and the others told her that Luke had seemingly sacrificed himself to let them get away, but…something gnawed at Rey, something that suggested that maybe Ben – or Kylo Ren now – did not see the last of his uncle.
…Of course, this epiphany did not give Rey much happiness, because reasons. She and Ben were done now, apparently, only now Ben wanted to parley, (whatever that meant). Why? What for? They already won-
"Not entirely dear," Apparently, as Rey had been thinking this over, Leia had come and was now sitting next to her. "We're still alive. The spark still burns. The First Order is not exactly a new Empire yet. People will join the Resistance in the future…"
"I know," Rey nodded. "It's just that, it's silly, but I wonder, if things will be different if we win. Or will the people still not care about what's good and what's evil-"
"…I see that you have really picked up Luke's philosophical take on life," Leia rolled her eyes. "He too was going on to such deep and profound meanings…while trying to rebuild the Jedi order the way it was before the Empire had slaughtered them all, instead of rebuilding it the way it was supposed to be. And then – Snoke…" Leia herself trailed away. "I knew him, you know? Snoke?"
Rey gaped. She possibly made some sort of a sound, but she would not bet that it was, well, coherent.
"Yes I did," Leia looked away. "At first he was just- and then he became just a-"
The external noises alerted everyone that the First Order's party were arriving, complete with a hostage, (or hostages?). Not surprisingly, the party consisted mostly of people that were well-known to the Resistance's fighters, but-
"Aren't most of you are supposed to be dead?" Leia asked with a barely suppressed rage. "And if you think that you can fool me with a clone-"
"Trust me, it's no clone," the big blonde woman, who sounded more familiar than looked, rumbled. "Apparently, the light sword is a precision weapon, and if you hit just right enough and at just the right angle, you'll miss all the vital organs. The shock and the fall can kill you, but if you fall on someone's rescue operations, say, mine-"
"Wait, what?" Leia blinked as she and the others finally stopped staring at what was either Han himself or a very convincing clone of him-
"When we infiltrated the Starkiller base, we chucked commander Phasma into a garbage chute – Han's idea," Finn muttered. "How'd you survive the next time?"
"It wasn't me," the blonde-haired woman glared at Finn, who paled, but did not back down. "It was a clone of mine. I contacted a disease or two in the chute, unfortunately, and CyberTek is not at its best when dealing with diseases, so I had to take more time out than I wanted to, and the idiots here decided to use a clone to plug the hole. It didn't work, I gather," she gave a look at the new Supreme Leader of the First Order and its' senior general, who carefully didn't meet her gaze, but-
"The clone did work!"
"…Just, not how we intended."
-still argued.
"Yes, that," Phasma muttered. "All men are idiots, you know?" She paused. "And on that topic, general Organa? You can have yours back – he isn't bad in small doses, but on a more constant basis? Just no."
"Excuse me," Leia took either her husband or his clone and led him away from the others, leaving them to their own devices.
"…Now what?" Rose asked quietly.
"Not sure," the redhead that was not Armitage Hux admitted calmly. "Maybe we're done? The truce, cease-fire, whatever, still holds?"
"Yes, well, who are you?" Rey muttered.
"His sister," the other woman jabbed at the other redhead. "See the family resemblance?"
"Yes. So, why haven't we seen you before?"
"I stayed behind the lines, helping Phasma here with intelligence, whenever she had to command troops instead," the other woman smiled back, or rather – also showed her teeth. "But don't worry – I'm used to this."
"And what have you discovered?" Rose asked, before Rey could rise to the bait, (whatever it was).
"Mmm," Arla Hux shot a look at the rest of the First Order party. "Should I tell them?"
"Tell us what?" general Organa returned, with her husband in tow.
"What I have discovered?" Arla was much more restrained now.
"Joachim Beck and Holstein Tarkin?" Leia seemed to have risen to the bait.
"What about Tarkin, are than him providing the cloning services?" Ren answered his mother with a question of his own.
Leia gave her son the new Supreme Leader of the First Order a long look – 'you're so clever, I'm so impressed, you want me to feed you your insignia?' – this sort of look. But Kylo Ren did not flinch.
"Firstly," he replied instead, "father stays with you. Period. It's non-negotiable."
"Son," Han Solo spoke for the first time, and he honestly even sounded the same. "I love you too."
"I know," Kylo twitched. "But Phasma is suggesting that she'll ask her father to beat the dust out of you again, and I would rather not have it." He shifted his attention to Leia. "You think that you know why the Resistance lost the support before the First Order did?"
"Yes," Leia exhaled. "For the same reason that Snoke got the support the first time around. Because – oligarchy."
"…I'm sorry, but what's that?" Rey said quietly.
"Basically, while the Emperor Palpatine has been a freak that everyone got fed-up after his Death Star fascination, and so everyone cheered when he went down, people had different ideas as to where to go next from there. Initially, the Republican Senate was one thing, but during Palpatine's tenure as the Councillor, it has grown really convoluted and uneven – something about 1 vote from Coruscant equal to 512 from the Outer Rim planets, or the like," Phasma exhaled. "My mother actually was a Senator there, but by now Snoke's cronies has practically pushed her into retirement instead. The senator – the general Organa tried to reform it, but it didn't work, she just tried to drain the proverbial swamp and it backfired," Phasma replied conversationally. "By now, furthermore, it seems that the last of her support in the Senate is gone, and even though Snoke is gone-"
"To put it succinctly," general Hux interrupted Phasma, (with a regretful look, but still), "after the Emperor died, there was still plenty of people who liked the Empire better than the Republic and have been trying to build one – an empire without an emperor – ever since. Snoke was one of them. Us…not so much."
"Oh?" Leia leaned forwards, for apparently a point has been made.
Hux – the male one – looked away first.
"Yes," Kylo Ren admitted, sounding unhappy himself. "We know how people down here work. This is not how we work. What will happen next is anyone's guess."
"Is the capital planet really that important to the First Order?" Poe asked, sounding genuinely thoughtful, for once.
"I suppose that it is. We're the First Order, not the warlords that have taken most of the eastern part of the galaxy by now," came an equally careful reply.
"Um," Finn looked apologetic. "Former Stormtrooper here. What warlords? The ones that the official First Order propaganda talked about as chaotic and lawless imbeciles?"
"Yes, those ones," Hux's sister replied. "They're all that, and they want an empire – one where each of them is an emperor. Since this is impossible, they have carved parts of the old galaxy into their own petty kingdoms and the like, and by now even the… now-established senate cannot ignore them anymore."
"And you want to use this as leverage?" Leia asked quietly, but with a notable bite in her words. "You think that you're smart enough to make it work?"
"Well, yes. We won't micromanage everything to the sarlacc and back though, as you would!" Kylo snapped.
"…I do not micromanage everything!" Leia snapped back, (the family resemblance was really noticeable here). "Han, tell him-"
"Chewie?" Han instead contacted his Wookie best friend. "Believe it or not, but it's really me, and while the Resistance is using the Millennium Falcon as their only ship, can you install a couch in there somewhere? Leia or me will probably need it-"
Chewie arrived on the spot with a super-Wookie speed, took a good look and a better sniff at Han, and then promptly hugged him. And he hugged Leia too, just for a good measure. And then, while everyone was gaping at his strength, (even for a Wookie to lift two humans off the ground was remarkable), he carried his human friends off to a corner, (followed by C-3P0 and R2-D2 – BB8 opted to stay with Rey and the others instead), and began to council their relationship in Wookie.
"…I miss him," Kylo muttered very quietly, but people have heard him all the same, including the older generation who had come back after some of Chewbacca's couple counselling. Before, however, anyone present and accounted in the parlaying chamber could comment on that, someone new did:
"I wondered why the old Wookie mop raced off faster than the speed of light. Hello, Correlian, long time no see!"
Everybody turned to face the newcomer: at about Han and Leia's age, he was still in a very good shape, (especially as far as Phasma was concerned), somewhat short, but stocky, and powerfully built. "Kiddo, you want to introduce me to your new friends?" he addressed the blonde-haired woman, and the family resemblance was evident in their faces.
"I wouldn't call them 'my new friends', but, everyone from the Resistance? This is my father, the famous or infamous bounty hunter, Boba Fett."
"Now retired," the man said with an easy grin that did not quite reach his eyes. "Princess- Senator- General Organa. Long-time no see. Solo – ready to have the dust beaten out of you again?"
"No need!" the latter said cheerfully. "I'm happily with my wife now, see?"
"…Han?" the woman in question asked flatly. "Just what you and Chewbacca had been up to in all of these years?"
"Nothing!" the couple in question said in human and Wookie languages. "Anyways, ah, the parlay is over and we'll be going our separate ways?"
"Why?" Fett said simply. "I'm not saying that you need to work together, but it would be better. Both of you need to secure the capital planet if you are to survive as something more than yet another warlord band…or not at all. Plus, my wife, her mother," he nodded in Phasma's direction, "loves this stinking cur of a planet and would be sad to leave it. Same goes for your sister," he gave Phasma a look.
"You've a sister?" Finn could not help himself. "Is she in the First Order?"
"No, she's a civilian, just as mother is," Phasma glared at her father with some sullen resentment. "That is possibly for the best – Bobbi has our mother's looks, while I look more like dad."
"You don't say," Han muttered further down back than he was previously.
Phasma's eyes narrowed, and she produced a holoimage. "This is my baby sister," she said calmly. "What do you think?"
"You're still the best," both the new Supreme Leader of the First Order and his primary general spoke brightly as they carefully avoided the image.
"…Ever since they walked on me and Phasma taking a shower they'd been like this with her ever since," Arla Hux commented from a side. "Usually it is manageable, but sometimes…just no."
"Been there with their mother, done that," Fett commented brightly. "Anyways, Corellian? I find you behaving inappropriately around my family, I'll beat the dust out of you again!"
Silence fell. "I think this really got down the wrong direction," Finn muttered to Rose. "Where shall we go from here, and where is the right track?"
"About that, Finn," Leia Organa said calmly, "the fact is that for now the Resistance has lost the war. We need to win the peace now. Same goes for them – they won the war, now they are figuring it out that they need to win the peace."
"You know," Fett just would not shut up. Organa glared at another controversial figure from her past. "My wife is still in town, and told me to invite you to her at our place. Want to come?"
"Yes," Leia exhaled. "I do."
/ / /
The two parties were leaving (still) separate, but side by side, (yes, because there was not enough space to be put between them, but yet)… "So, what now?" Finn muttered to Rey, (mostly because she was the closest to him, after Rose, in their party).
"I don't know," Rey began, when something happened: she saw her first ever Coruscant sunrise, and for a girl from Jakku it was amazing. The others were more inured to this sight, but they still stopped and looked at it, because it was a sight worth seeing, (and Rey was not the only one who had not seen it before, either). "The night is passing," she told Finn and the others. "A new day is coming. Maybe it'll be better."
"Maybe," Finn nodded, "but you know something else? In space, the dark and the bright coexist with each other; I cannot say that they get along, but the dark space does not smother the bright stars and they do not set it alight. Maybe we'll sort it out, complete with this whole 'empire without an emperor' concept in the future."
"Look at who has read the 'Musings of Maul'," Arla Hux muttered to the closest person in the First Order's party, who just happened to be Kylo Ren.
"Yes," the man nodded curtly. "This could've been my home once. Let's see just how it has changed, shall we?"
Han and Leia, who had heard this comment, said nothing, but exchanged some thoughtful looks with each other, (and Chewie)…
The end, (for now?)