Convincing Poe was a doddle. On the shuttle, his fingers traced the cut down my cheek, his touch gentle, voice concerned. Always keen to be the hero, there to help, make it better. He'd agree to my plan, his guilt for me having been lost in the First Order for so long written plain on his features.
"Tell me what happened. How did you survive, how did you escape?"
"I, I can't talk about it yet…I did what I needed to do to survive" Which was mostly true. I thought about how much relied on this plan working and tears welled up "I need to tell you something, you need to tell the Resistance, there's something terrible coming"
The plan was simple. Correction, the plan as I told Poe and his Resistance cell was simple. It was just a matter of getting them to believe me and do what I needed them to do. Which I did, convincingly.
Unfortunately, that hadn't stopped it going completely tits up once on Kessell.
I'd followed Poe to the Resistance ship Ackbar and his team, rigged up a connection for the datapad I'd 'stolen', and told my tale. Looking around the small group I recognised one or two of the old faces, including Connix, a blonde woman who had been around before I left with Hux. Her expression wasn't friendly.
"I managed to escape with this. It shows the plans for a First Order installation on the planet Kessell. The planet was formerly a spice mining operation but that closed down some years ago. This was what they are doing now."
I hoped the diagrammatics and pictures would tell a thousand words. It was pretty terrifying stuff - chemical stores, pictures of prisoners who had been test subjects. It turned my stomach and I been truly horrified when Hux had shown it to me and only slightly reassured when he told me that it has been started by a First Order scientist but then abandoned as it didn't work. Well, it worked, but just not as well as they had hoped; it couldn't wipe out an entire planet fast enough. So the project and planet had been abandoned for years. But that's not what I told the Resistance. I needed them on Kessell.
"It's chemical warfare. It's been developed over the last few years but is now ready to go into full supply and shipment in weeks." There was silence in the room.
"It doesn't need a death star, or a star killer to attack a planet, it can be released at atmosphere level by any adapted vessel. It enters the atmosphere and can kill any living being at low concentration levels."
"And does Kylo Ren, the new Supreme Leader, know about this or is this one of Hux's pet projects" Connix asked. It was an interesting question.
"It was Ren's idea to bring forward production. Look, from what I know its 30 days till the shipments start, but in 2 weeks there is a change of all personnel at the base. They use slave labour of course, and they have a regular schedule of 'renewal' of employees." And disposal of the old ones, according to what I had learnt from First Order files on similar planets.
"It will be the most vulnerable time to attack"
Will such a compelling case put forward, and I assume Poe vouching for me, he got permission from high command to go ahead with the raid.
As I keep saying, the plan had been simple. Get the Resistance to Kessell by a certain time, which would then alert the FIrst Order to move into position. Kylo Ren would be alerted to our position on the ground and swoop in for a ground attack as he'd been told that our compound was underground and therefore an air assault would be ineffective. The moment he landed, First Order fighters and canon fire from a star destroyer would take him out.
And us, the Resistance? Very kindly Poe hadn't taken my monomolecular blade which I had hidden in a boot. A gift from Hux, it was only sharp but also had a cloaked tracker in the hilt. So in theory the First Order could track our true position, actually a few hundred clicks away and not bomb us. Except some fucker did, taking out one of our shuttles leaving half of our squad on the ground, while the other half escaped and I got asked some very difficult questions.
This wasn't the way it was supposed to go. We were supposed to land, scout and then realise what I had known along, that the mines and research facilities had been abandoned long ago. Meanwhile our presence would lure Kylo to the surface, at another facility some distance from us where he would be bombed out of existence. From the explosions we'd seen in the distance, that part of the plan at least looked like it had worked.
Ackbar comms had alerted Poe to First Order ships, and we'd run back to the shuttles, only for the bombs to start falling on us. Most had got away, but leader Poe had held back for the last shuttle that had exploded in flames in front of us. We'd taken cover in a small underground storage bunker, with only one way in or out. We were trapped.
Poe and his people were understandably furious. I'd expected some anger about why there was actually no chemical weapons plant, but then when they started bombing us even Poe lost his calm and his trust in me.
I could only try and lie my way out.
"I didn't know! This must be why they let me escape, I'm so sorry. They must have set the whole thing up. I'm so fucking stupid" My tears came easily enough. That last sentiment was true, I had been.
I was expendable. I'd always been expendable and I had just been to stupid to see it. Opan had seen it, even in his way, tried to warn me by reminding me who Hux truly was. Maybe Opan was even leading this attack, another mess to clear up on his to-do-list. A loose end to cut away.
All the fight went out from me, it felt like the floor had fallen out from under me. Just the ache of pain and humiliation for being so deceived. I'd known Hux was ruthless, ambitious, a killer and had looked the other way and blanked it from my mind because it suited me to do so. My desire for him had overcome it all. The cries of the Resistance spy caught on Arkansis came echoing back; his panicked voice voice shouting defiance into the night. He'd been smart enough to know what was coming, unlike me.
Poe's voice dragged me out of my stupor.
"Fuck, FUCK, what do we do now?" This was the man who had always been so confident, so cocky. What had I done?
There were eight of us, with only a blaster pistol each, except me of course, I'd been disarmed the moment it was clear that the chemical factory didn't exist and that my plan was a sham.
The bombing outside had stopped, silence. We all knew what came next, the First Order didn't leave survivors. We had no way to get off the planet. The Resistance ship, the Ackbar, would have to jump soon before it caught the attention of the First Order fleet. Even if the Resistance tried a rescue mission we didn't have enough people to hold off the stormtroopers before they would arrive, and the rescue party would get picked off by TIE fighters before they ever got to us.
Poe had taken my blaster, but the attack on our position had at least convinced him for the moment that I had been played as much as them, or, at the very least the First Order considered me expendable. No, I corrected myself, Hux considered me expendable.
Connix rounded on me.
"I knew you had sold us out, all this bullshit of a chemical weapon and now the FIrst Order is coming to wipe us out. Bitch!" I flinched as she raised her hand to slap me, Poe holding her arm. Looking into his eyes I expected to see the usual Poe, kindness, humour, instead I found cold anger.
"You sold us out, I trusted you, I felt guilty I had let you get on that shuttle with Hux, and you sold us out. Who leads their friends into a fucking trap?" he spat
"I didn't know. They played me as much as you. Maybe that I why I got away in the first place, they used me to set a trap…" I heard my voice break with guilt
"Bullshit, you're on their side, you've always been on their side, and I've been too blind to see it. I should kill you right now for what you've done."
"What did they offer you to sell us out?" Connix stared at me "It would be nice to know, given I'm about to die for whatever it was. Money? Your freedom?" she laughed bitterly "How's that worked out for you?" her anger boiling up
I couldn't answer.
"Did you really think they would let you walk free?" Poe walked over to us, his tone mocking.
If I told them the real answer they would have laughed themselves stupid. And then shot me.
My voice was quiet. "This wasn't the deal, I didn't agree to this, We were only supposed to be the bait, not the target"
"What do you mean 'bait'?"
"To lure Kylo Ren to the planet, and kill him. Short range attacks don't work on force-user, too easy for them to influence the mind of the assassin, but an attack from long range, ostensibly aimed at another enemy, he would have never had spotted it."
"Why the fuck does the First Order want to kill it's own leader?" asked Poe
"Have you ever met him?" I laughed without humour
"So, they have killed their Supreme Leader and now they are cleaning up the job. Fuck. " Connix sobbed, slumping against the wall.
Fuck indeed.
"And Hux wins. He gets to be the Supreme Leader of the First Order" Poe said tonelessly, watching me closely. I nodded.
"We've got company!" We'd stationed one of our men by the front door. A blaster shot, a cry, silence. The heavy booted crunch of boots echoed down the corridor towards us.
The sound of side doors opened "Clear". The door of our room shook. "This one is locked Sir"
A crash as it was blown in, and in that instant Poe made a decision based on instinct and grabbed me from behind and put a blaster to my neck.
"Let's find out just how expendable you really are" he hissed as stormtroopers entered the room in battle formation. Connix and the others had drawn their weapons, but we were outgunned and outnumbered.
"Drop your weapons" shouted the a red shouldered stormtrooper.
"You first or she dies" said Poe, nodding towards the pistol at my head.
And then, he was there. He didn't even glance at me.
"Now here is a surprise General l Hugs" drawled Poe, as I winced at the nickname.
"What do we owe for this personal visit. Is it because you want your property back?'"
Hux still didn't look at me. But he was here. The question was why. Make sure the clean up job was done thoroughly, or could I let myself hope…
"You are surrounded, surrender before I wipe the ground with you and your Resistance scum" his tone was clipped, sneering.
"As I recall you once used a hostage to escape our hospitality, you can't deny us the chance to do the same. Oh, the irony, that it's the same hostage too" Poe laughed mirthlessly.
"You appear to be mistaken" his gaze moving to me for a second before it returned to Poe "This woman means nothing to me" Hux's tone was dismissive.
"Really?" the pistol dug into my neck harder. "Let us walk out of here, get us a shuttle, or I mean it, she dies right now"
I finally looked into Hux's face, and he caught my gaze. Without a question I knew why he was there, the same look was in his eyes as that day in his room after Kylo had attacked him. The same fear of loss in his eyes.
I had one chance. Muscle memory was my friend - I bent down, blade out of boot, sliced back, Poe stumbled back and as I launched myself down into a roll and on my feet, Hux grabbed me.
"Take Poe, kill the rest" Hux turned, his arms around me, to leave.
"No! No" I disentanged myself from him. "No, you have Poe, leave them" I could see he was about to argue. "Please". I won't stop them from hating me, but I couldn't have their deaths on my conscience as well. I wasn't that person. I wasn't Opan.
"Fine. Do what she says. Move out". I didn't look back.
The eyes of the crew, professional to the last and a credit to their training, followed me curiously when I returned to the Finaliser with Hux. The whole fleet was now Hux's though; the attack had been successful, Kylo's body had been found.
The news that Kylo was dead had already spread to this ship at least. The fact that Hux was accompanied someone they had thought was a fellow officer, then rumoured to be his mistress and now wearing rather bloody civilian clothes was a mystery they would put aside for another day.
Opan and Peavey greeted as we landed, Opan using the title that Hux would soon assume, Supreme Leader of the First Order.
We didn't speak of the Resistance, they could wait. I didn't want to think of Poe or what awaited him.
On the way to his quarters Hux told me that an enthusiastic officer on the Conqueror had seen our heat signature on his monitors and launched an attack without Admiral Dresus's authorisation. Not Opan, not Hux.
"I need to go and …" he started, his face concerned. There was an awkwardness between us.
"It's fine" I smiled. It wasn't, but I needed time to clean up. Time to think. Time to cry and time to work out what the fuck I did now.