A knock at the door woke Rey entirely too early. She answered to find an extremely embarrassed Poe.
"Morning, Rey. Um...listen, I don't have a very clear memory of last night, but did I...did I come on to you?"
Rey crossed her arms and stared the pilot down.
"Yes, you did."
Poe's face turned an interesting shade of red.
"Damn, I was really hoping that was a dream."
"No such luck," Rey replied stonily.
"Look, Rey, I'm really sorry. Don't get me wrong, you're great, but…"
Rey relaxed. Poe wasn't really interested; he'd just been drunk.
Thank the Force.
Rey gave his arm a little pat. "You're a good friend, Poe."
Poe smiled. "Right, exactly, friends...just friends."
Rey laughed. Poe grimaced at the sudden increase in volume and grabbed his head.
"Ugh, I'm never drinking again. Get ready and come down to the conference room on the second level. The General wants a meeting."
Rey entered the conference room to find Poe and Finn in similar states of distress. The two were grimacing and groaned with every noise. Rose was there too. She grinned at Rey and rolled her eyes. The General entered and eyed the two men beadily.
"What's wrong with you two?"
"Nothing, General," Poe said, trying and failing to look innocent.
"Just tired," Finn supplied.
"Hmm."
Leia walked over and started raising the window shades. Poe and Finn whimpered and covered their eyes as the bright sunlight filtered into the room.
"You forget that I was married to Han Solo."
A shadow of grief passed over Leia's face, but she recovered quickly.
"Now, as I understand it, Rose has an idea for an attack on the First Order."
Rose blushed at being addressed by General Organa.
"Um...yes," she replied nervously. "I was thinking, well...we could introduce a virus into the First Order mainframe that would spread throughout their entire fleet on the backs of ship-to-ship transmissions. The virus would be created to cause a cascading systems failure with the input of a certain code. The failures would ultimately lead to each ship self-destructing. The code could be transmitted from outside the fleet to trigger the self-destruct. It would take a few weeks for the virus to work it's way through all the ships, but once it did, it would only take a matter of minutes once the code is transmitted for all of them to...to explode."
They were all staring at her in astonishment.
"That's...that's genius," General Organa said. "Just a few problems, who's going to write this virus, how do we introduce it, and how do we deactivate their failsafes?"
Rose's blush deepened at having General Leia Organa call her idea "genius."
"Well," Finn answered meaningfully, "We'd need a man on the inside, wouldn't we. As for writing the virus, I'm willing to bet that if Maz Kanata can't do it, she knows someone who can."
Leia nodded, "This could work."
"Wait…" Rey said, "So we're just going to kill them all? All those people? Without giving them the opportunity to surrender?"
Her voice had risen passionately with each word. She couldn't believe what they were suggesting, or that the General was agreeing to it.
"Rey," Finn said gently, "they'll never surrender, and they'll never stop. None of them. It's the only way."
"They destroyed the entire Hosnian system!" Poe exclaimed.
"Exactly! How would this make us any different from them?"
Rey was fighting back tears. She had not signed on for this. She was willing to fight the First Order. Willing to kill if necessary. But to kill them all with one swift stroke? No mercy? That was their way, not hers.
"Open the bond, Rey. We need to talk to Ben. Ask him what he thinks." Leia said.
Rey took several steadying breaths. She closed her eyes and concentrated on Ben. The bond opened. Ben was staring straight ahead and didn't acknowledge her.
"Ben?"
He shook his head almost imperceptibly indicating that he couldn't talk.
"Something's happening," Rey whispered to the group. "He can't answer me right now."
Ben's posture was rigid, his expression dark.
"Very good, General," he said forcefully. "Keep me apprised."
He maintained his demeanor for a few more moments before relaxing and looking at Rey.
"Hux was giving a report. He's playing nice for now, but it can't last much longer."
"Ben, we're in the middle of a meeting. An idea has been proposed for an attack on the First Order. We need your opinion."
Rose repeated the plan to her so she could explain it to Ben.
"Who's idea is this? Concentrate on them Rey. I need to see this person."
"Actually, try to bring us all in, so we can all see and hear each other," Leia ordered.
"You'll have to help me, Ben. I don't think I can do that on my own."
The two of them combined their focus through the bond. Finn and Poe glared as Ben became visible to them. Ben looked around.
"I can see everyone now."
His eyes lit on Poe and Rey could sense the return of his jealousy.
Ben, she spoke through the bond, you should know that Poe apologized to me for last night. He was drunk. He's not interested in anything more than friendship from me.
She knew he could feel her sincerity. Sightly mollified, he switched his attention to Rose.
"You're the one who bit Hux, aren't you?"
Rose's face turned defiant. "Yes!"
Ben smirked at her. "He's still moaning about it. This is your idea?"
Rose nodded.
"The failsafes have failsafes. It will be impossible…"
"The virus can be written to disable them all while making it appear that they are still functional," Rose replied.
"You're sure such a virus can be written?" Ben asked.
"Yes, I saw a similar virus take down a mining operation on my home planet. A competitor grew tired of fighting for clients."
"I can introduce the virus into the mainframe, if you can get the device containing it to me."
"But Ben? Killing them all? Are you certain that's the only way? Finn says it is." Rey was almost pleading.
"I'm afraid he's right. All the First Order officers know or want is power. Like I said before, most of them were Imperial officers. They'll never stop fighting until the entire Galaxy is under their control. As for the Storm Troopers, FN 2187…"
"Finn," Rey interrupted firmly.
"Right, Finn, sorry." Ben turned to him. "No offense, but you were an anomaly."
"None taken," Finn said, though he was glaring at Ben.
"They're brainwashed, programmed from infancy to do nothing but obey orders. You'll never get through to them."
"As much as I hate to say it, he's right, Rey," Finn said. "This is the only way."
"Look," Ben faced Poe and Finn, "I don't expect the two of you to forgive me. I've done so many things that are beyond forgiveness. I do want to say that I truly regret what I did to each of you. I apologize, whether you accept or not."
Poe was staring daggers at him, and Finn's expression wasn't much better.
"For Rey's sake," Finn ground out, "I'll give you a chance."
"It's far more than you deserve," Poe said, "but if you help us blow the entire First Order to Hell, I'll accept your apology."
Ben nodded. "Agreed."
A/N: Sorry for the late update, I've been out of town. Thank your for reading and for the comments. They help keep me motivated.
