Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters. Also, some ideas are sourced from the novelization by Alan Dean Foster, although not many, as I haven't actually read it yet.
FN-2187 stood in the packed shuttle, grateful for his helmet.
It wasn't because, in a few hours, the clunky object would be the only thing between his head and whatever projectiles the enemy managed to scrounge up. Nor was he grateful because the helmet, like so much else, had been provided for him by the ever-generous First Order (and we must always be grateful for the things the First Order provides).
He was grateful because it meant no one could see his face.
He knew he should have been excited. Tuanul was his first real mission, his first chance to prove himself in a combat situation. According to his reports, he'd shown promise as officer material-all he had to do was prove that his field performance lived up to his sim scores.
That, and allay concerns that had appeared in his reports about the "empathetic tendencies toward weak links" he had displayed in training. He'd heard the argument a thousand times: a team is only as strong as its weakest link. By unduly aiding weak team members, you weaken the entire team. Such behavior could cost an entire squad. Better to lose one member now than all members later. FN-2187's helmet hid his shudder as Captain Phasma's disapproving voice echoed through his mind.
He should have been excited. Instead, anxiety twisted itself into a coiled mass in his gut.
Slip.
A row over and two places ahead, FN-2187 could see the unsteady stance and ragged breathing of FN-2003, better known as Slip. Ever since they'd been assigned to a unit together, virtually all of FN-2187's warnings for excessive empathy were because of Slip, who had come by his nickname by literally and figuratively slipping up almost constantly. Of the four members of their squad, Slip was definitely the weakest link, and FN-2187 had been advised, by both his superiors and his squadmates, to let him fall behind and get their team a fourth member who could actually keep up. He'd been warned that he was in danger of a citation for preferential treatment if he continued. But really, it wasn't that at all.
Slip needed help. When FN-2187 saw someone who needed help, he needed to help them.
He'd always been that way. If any of the other Troopers felt the same thing, they'd successfully taught themselves not to let it bother them. FN-2187...couldn't.
It wasn't for lack of trying. He told himself that the First Order could only bring peace and order to the galaxy if all of its soldiers were up to par. He told himself that it was ultimately cruel and morally reprehensible to let the weak survive, that it only led to more suffering, and that the instinct that told him otherwise was a product of a shortsighted moral system that evolved to favor the self and that closest to it over the greater whole. He told himself that he'd never be like the others, never belong, if he couldn't fight the weakness inside him (and he wanted to belong, he wanted it so badly). He told himself that he'd get sent to reconditioning if he couldn't stop helping the weak.
(He told himself that the sinking shame he felt when he used that argument was over his weakness for being so intractably empathetic, that it didn't mean anything else.)
Still, when Slip fell behind, he needed to help in the same way he needed food after a day of endurance training on reduced rations.
Still, on the occasions when he convinced himself not to help, it hurt him.
Still, something inside said wrong, wrong, wrong, pounding out a rhythm like a second heartbeat.
Standing in the shuttle, grateful for the mask that hid his face from his fellows, FN-2187 worried. Slip was almost certainly going to get himself in trouble on this mission, and when that happened...
To distract himself, FN-2187 reviewed the mission parameters.
These enemies of the First Order have passed valuable intelligence to a Resistance spy hiding in their midst. The spy must be captured at all costs, and the enemies must be punished. Initial orders are to spread chaos in the village. Let no one leave. Await further orders.
FN-2187 had a suspicion about what those "further orders" might be, and quickly decided he'd prefer not to think about that until it became necessary. Intellectually, of course, he knew that these were enemies of peace and deserved whatever they got, but that didn't make dealing with them any more pleasant to contemplate. Okay, he thought, one thing at a time. Spread chaos. I can do that. I can spread chaos.
With a shuddering jerk, the shuttle landed, and the ramp went down. Troopers poured out into the desert night, over the unsteady sand and through the dry, windy air, and FN-2187 might have taken a moment to marvel at the strangeness of this new place, so far from the sterile corridors of a base or the humid air of a shuttle, but the tide carried him forward, and-
The world exploded.
Blaster bolts flew in all directions. Flamethrowers bathed every structure in billowing clouds of fire. Screams rang out, structures collapsed, people ran from their flimsy homes only to be shot down.
He'd meant to spread chaos. He hadn't truly understood what chaos meant.
A child was screaming for his mother. A blast of light and the scream ended.
Weren't they supposed to be the ones bringing order to the galaxy?
Weren't they supposed to be the ones bringing peace?
This wasn't peace.
This wasn't even war.
This was slaughter.
He kept moving, numbly propelled by the need to appear to be doing something.
Then Slip went down.
A blaster bolt, seemingly out of nowhere. These people don't have blasters, thought the part of FN-2187's brain that was still capable of tactical analysis.
The rest of him had ground to a complete halt.
Dimly aware of the fact that he was definitely getting a citation for this, FN-2187 fell to the ground beside his-squadmate? Friend?
"I'm sorry," Slip whispered through his helmet comm. Slowly, he reached up towards FN-2187's helmet, running bloody fingers along the hard, white surface. Then his hand went slack.
FN-2187 couldn't say anything.
Getting back to his feet, he looked in the direction the shot had come from and saw a burning X-wing, engines irretrievably damaged. Must have belonged to the spy. Which probably meant the blaster had, too. Mystery solved, one less thing to put in the report.
The shorter his report on this incident, the better.
FN-2187 didn't want to report how it had gotten really hard to breathe, or how he'd somehow started thinking of the enemies as people, or how he'd felt like curling up into a ball and crying, or throwing up, or both. He didn't want to report how much he would have given to be anywhere but where he was.
He didn't want to report how he'd found himself hoping against hope that the spy would get away, because he knew what would happen if the spy was caught, and the walls of the Finalizer were anything but soundproof, and if he never heard a scream again it would be too soon.
He didn't want to report how he'd been paying attention when the spy was captured, turning up his helmet's audio enhancers as high as they would go, listening to the stranger's words with the curiosity of one who'd just lost what certainty he'd had in the world and wondered what else was out there.
He definitely didn't want to report that he'd been impressed.
He didn't want to report how his stomach had sunk when he'd heard Kylo Ren's offhand order to "kill them all", and seen his fellow troopers round up the villagers without question-exactly what I'm supposed to be doing, what I thought ten minutes ago I'd be doing-and fire into their midst on command, cutting them down with no hesitation, no guilt.
He didn't want to report how he'd frozen, unwilling to fire, unable to think of a better solution.
No way to stop it. All just as dead as if he'd fired on them himself.
And, as soon as I turn in a blaster I haven't fired, I'm going to be much deader. Reconditioning at the very least, execution more likely.
FN-2187 was officer material, an excellent tactical thinker. By the time he made it back into the shuttle, standing once more in rows of masked troopers (and suddenly, despite the fact that he still needed to keep his face hidden, now more than ever, he wasn't grateful for the mask at all, he hated it, he needed it gone, and only the knowledge that removing a mask without permission would get him into even worse trouble than he was in already kept him from ripping it off then and there), memories and deductions were condensing into the beginnings of a plan.
Kylo Ren said the spy was a pilot, the best in the Resistance, I think. He came in an X-wing, which bears that out, the pilot bit, at least-X-wings only seat one. The way he talked to Kylo Ren-he's brave, crazy brave, and confident, almost cocky. I can use that.
FN-2187 could free the pilot, who could fly them both out of there in a TIE-fighter FN-2187 would show him how to steal.
It was perfect. A viable chance at escape from a ship considered escape-proof. Beyond that, the plan would also help the pilot. FN-2187 wasn't sure what it would be like to embrace the helping instinct he'd tried to suppress his whole life, but he was looking forward to finding out. Assuming he survived that long.
Assuming the pilot survived that long.
Biggest foreseeable problem with the plan: the only way FN-2187 could think of to free the pilot was to arrange to be the trooper charged with transporting him to his place of execution (or, failing that, surreptitiously replace the said trooper).
They wouldn't execute the pilot until they'd gotten what they wanted from him.
Which meant that, until the pilot gave up whatever information he had, FN-2187 couldn't do a thing.
Thanks to Kylo Ren's Force powers, that would take a maximum of ten hours. Standard procedure was to interrogate prisoners by more traditional means for nine hours, and, if they hadn't cracked, bring in Kylo Ren. The extra hour included Ren's travel time, time spent intimidating the prisoner, and time spent doing whatever in Jedi's name Ren did to people.
(The troopers had this down to a science. There was very little to talk about on the Finalizer, and propaganda and status reports quickly ceased to be interesting.)
Not that there was nothing else wrong with the plan. FN-2187's thoughts on the shuttle ride back to the Finalizer mostly consisted of they'll definitely shoot at us and what if they rush me into reconditioning or execute me before the pilot breaks? and he's an X-wing pilot, I'm relying on the survival instinct of a man who may not have one.
He could do something about the second factor-he knew how to stall for time-but the first and third were up to the pilot.
Any hope FN-2187's plan had of working depended on the piloting skills, courage, self-confidence, and will to live of the Resistance spy. He only hoped those qualities would survive the next ten hours.
FN-2187 took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. It was going to be a long night.
A/N: Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Anything you liked or didn't like? Anything confusing? Anything you want to yell at me for? Reviews are appreciated!