AN: Thanks for sticking around after last chapter, also thanks for reading. Extra thanks to the handful of y'all that comment.

.***.***.***.***.

Four days had passed, and Vanya hadn't mentioned Lori's late night out.

Not to Lori at least, but she was pretty sure the others knew. Every once and a while she would catch one of them glancing at her, or having a hushed conversation that would end the second she stepped into the room.

It was mostly Vanya and Quin. Sydney was far too no non-sense to get caught up in gossip about her roommates love life.

No one in the office had said anything. Lori was pretty sure none of them ran in the same social circles as the lieutenants.

After the third day, Lori half thought that she might be have gotten away with her miss-step all together. She still hadn't talked to Hux about it, and she didn't plan on telling him that her roommates were even a little bit suspicious of her. She had sent in a report on her other activities, mostly updating an elaborating on what she had already told him. He replied in a perfectly professional way that Lori had dreaded reading.

Normally, she could read anyone she wanted whenever she wanted to, but she was wrong about the general. Some detail had escaped her that she knew would be the secret to unraveling the rest of him. She hadn't been trying to fish for information when she kissed him, but now she worried that the general had taken it that way.

Clinging to her own thoughts and worries, Lori only answered in nods and gestures when one of the servers along the lunch line asked her a question. When she finally did have a full meal on her tray she walked to an empty table in a haze.

She didn't have long to wallow in her stupor before captain Cray sat next to her.

The logistics officer served as the de facto head of the group of rebels that had slid their way into the First Orders ranks. Mina Cray was an unassuming captain with a respectable working record. Second daughter of a family with a history in the empire, no one would ever suspect she would have anti-First Order leanings.

"Good afternoon, captain Gallus." She spoke with the almost core-world accent that many of the legacy officers had inherited from their parents

"Afternoon, captain Cray." Lori was quick to push her bit of melancholy away and resume her overly-helpful officer act.

"Are you free at 2000?"

The lack of any other details told Lori that this had something to do with the conspiracy.

"Yes ma'am."

They were of an equal rank and position, so there was no real reason for the tacked on formality, but Lori was still a very junior member in the conspiracy.

"Brilliant. My office."

Lori nodded in acknowledgment and went on eating her lunch as if nothing had happened. More people came and went, a few of them sitting nearby.

Looking for anything to think of besides the other night, Lori took mental note of what she had learned.

Cray was at the head of the ring, with sergeant Vaylor acting as a second in command. The two stormtoopers didn't actually know that they were in on a grand conspiracy, and thought that they were only just trying to murder the general. The radar technicians name was Jenu and he had apparently been smuggled in just over a month ago from some planet in the expansion region.

Vaylor thought that Lori was in the clear, as did Jenu. It was Cray that had been the most cautious about a new face, and the fact that she had been the one to approach her in the lunch room set off an alarm in Lori's mind.

Two days ago had been her first trial. She slipped a data file into a shipment bound for the Absolution. She didn't know what was on the file, and she had told Hux about it in her report. He had it intercepted. As far as the conspiracy was concerned, their data file was found during random inspections by someone in the security office.

As far as Lori could tell, they were searching for an accomplice somewhere up the chain of command. She would have loved to see what was on the data file, and she especially wanted to know who aboard the Absolution was meant to receive it.

She finished her lunch without another word and went back to her room. She debated on whether or not she should update Hux yet. Half way to her suite, she decided that she could manage the meeting just fine, and that she would put a report together afterwards.

Walking through her living room and to her private bedroom, Lori had just enough time to get a night's sleep before her clandestine rendezvous.

.***.***.***.***.

The general stepped into his official office. Over a week without Kylo Ren aboard had left him with time enough to actually be productive. Finally out from under the back log of work that had built up offer the last month, the general booted up the computer and checked his inbox for new messages.

There was a pang of disappointment when he didn't find anything from his agent.

He didn't let himself hold onto it for long. Normally he would have been ecstatic to have a moment to himself, but as it was he wished that he had a mound of work to distract him.

Lori's last report lead to his confiscating of a data file. He'd looked through it that same day, and it only added to the number of things that Hux would rather not think about. How the traitors had unearthed that particular bit of information, he had no idea.

The general leaned back in his chair, half reading a holonews feed that scrolled across the screen.

As much as he was ready to put a blaster bolt through the head of his traitors, the general needed to know their source. More importantly, he needed to learn what they intended to do with the information.

Against his better judgment, he leaned back over his desk.

Hux knew that if Lori learned what was in the data file, she would never look at him the same again. He tried to tell himself that it didn't matter, but even just making a request for specific information felt like telling her too much.

His message was as short as he thought he could get away with:

"Concerning the data file: What was the source? Who was the recipient?"

His hand hovered over the send button.

Hoping the answers wouldn't give too much away, he pressed it.

.***.***.***.***.

Lori woke up to a dark room. The only thing to cut through the gloom was a softly blinking green light from her data pad. Fumbling for a second, she squinted her eyes against the suddenness of the bright screen.

A message with no sender: "Concerning the data file: What was the source? Who was the recipient?"

She deleted the message and checked the time. There was still hour to spare before her meeting with Cray. Lori took her time leaving her warm bed. Getting dressed didn't take long, she ran through the motions and made her final check in the mirror.

From unkempt and half asleep to perfectly uniformed only took ten minutes.

No one was in the living room. Vanya's shift lasted until 0000. Quin and Sydney both worked second shift, so they were asleep.

Lori poured herself a mug of caf. The message picked at Lori. Hux didn't know she was about to walk into a meeting, he didn't have anyone looking into the case besides her, she was sure of it. She was also sure that she had completely evaded the FOSB.

It wasn't like him to tell her how to do her job. The man wasn't quick to trust people with personal issues, but he allowed his men more autonomy that she would have expected.

She took it as a sign that it was something personal.

She tried to keep herself from looking too deeply into it.

She didn't do a very good job of it.

Leaving her suite with a hot cup of caf in one hand, Lori made her way to captain Crays office. The walk was a long one, and it ate up most of the time Lori had remaining. On her way there she fully committed herself to learning what exactly had been on the data file.

A unit of storm troopers walked along one side of the hall. Lori wondered if any of them were sympathetic to the conspiracy.

The captain's door was locked when she came to it. Lori gave a simple knock, the small whir of a camera came from over one of her shoulders before the door slid open.

Inside the room was the captain, as expected. Sergent Vaylor was there as well, along with the previously unknown member that she had only been somewhat aware of.

Another enlisted man, a pilot by his uniform. She wondered if he had been piloting the shuttle when it got searched.

Waiting for them to begin, Lori nodded at each of them as she entered the room.

"Captain Gallus," Cray spoke first, "I don't think you've met Wilt yet."

"Haven't had the pleasure." She looked at the pilot. Medium build with light colored hair, she could have seen him a thousand times in the hall and not remembered one of them.

He nodded back. A fragile silence settled over the room. Lori hadn't been expecting anyone besides the captain. She searched her co-conspirators faces for a hint about their plans. She didn't like the guarded expression she saw on Cray. A thin layer of shame had draped itself over Vaylor.

Lori kept in character, "I didn't realize it would be more than just me and you here, captain Cray. Do we need extra chairs?"

"That won't be necessary." Wilt the pilot spoke first.

"Oh, okay."

Cray stood on the opposite side of her desk, the two men were only a few feet away from Lori, one on each side. She had her back to the door, but she took some solace in the fact that no one stood between it and her.

The sergeant spoke first, "I'm sorry about this, ca-"

"Vaylor! Not now. Sit down Gallus." Cray cut him off.

Lori used a look of confusion to hide her suspicions. She was outmatched and trapped, there was no way she could fight her way out. Never mind that she was unarmed and smaller than Vaylor and Wilt, she had never been good at hand to hand combat in the first place.

Still acting the well-to-do captain, she did as Cray ordered.

A second after she sat in the chair opposite Cray the conversation began.

"Our data chip was intercepted." It was a statement rather than the accusation that Lori had expected.

She wasn't sure if that meant the captain's mind had already been made up, or if that meant she was more free from suspicions that she had assumed.

"What? When? How?" Lori responded with just enough worried shock to sell the act that she had no part in it.

"I don't know," the pilot spoke up, "but for whatever reason they were only checking flights bound to the Absolution."

"Wait, really?" Lori wasn't sure where they were going with this one, but she felt the tension in the room lessening.

"Don't act surprised, captain." Cray brought the conversation back under her control, "Now, unless I've gone blind, we're running an air tight operation here aboard the Finalizer. It seems that our contemporaries on the Absolution, however…"

Lori only took a second to realize a few key things. She wasn't under suspicion at all, they had completely bought her story and persona. Part of her story being, of course, that she had just transferred from the Absolution.

They were looking for their leak, but they mistakenly thought it was coming from the Absolution.

"Captain Cardinal does run a tight ship. I didn't know we were there. I mean… Captain Cardinal is one of the good ones."

He was well liked among the lower ranks of the first Order. It would only make sense for the character Lori had created to be a fan of the man. Or at the very least, less likely to speak ill of him.

"Which is why we need to get that data file to him!" Vaylor spoke out of term again.

"What?" Lori didn't have to fake surprise this time.

"Sargent, you're out of line!" Cray was more upset than Lori had ever seen her.

"Sorry captain, but we got our backs against the wall on this one. We've been tap dancing around for months and have nothing but a dead friend to show for it. We need a big get, or I don't even know why the hell we're still here."

"Matthias knew what he was risking." Cray regained some composure. Lori was more than happy to let the two go one.

"Did he? Did he really? You kept him in the dark and left him for dead!"

"Hey now," Wilt put up his hands, trying to calm to other two.

Seeing that they were about to regain their composure, Lori took her chance to knock them back off center.

"What's going on? What about Captain Cardinal? Is he working with us?"

"Not yet." Cray answered through gritted teeth.

Vaylor grumbled under his breath, "not ever, at this rate."

Wilt caught the comment, "Hank, don't be a dick."

"Captain Cardinal has more principles than the average commanding officer." Cray talked on, purposefully ignoring Vaylor, "our agents on the Absolution are looking for their leak, but in the mean time we need to get our intel to them. The captain won't believe us unless we can show him the reports."

Lori make a risky move, "what does it say?"

"That's none of your concern Gallus." Cray was quick to stop the attempt

Unsurprised but still disappointed, Lori couldn't help but notice that Vaylor didn't agree with the secrecy.

Wilt spoke, "We can't transfer the file electronically, the First Orders data filter will catch it the moment we try. You were aboard the Absolution, is there any back door we could use?"

"Maybe…" she pretended to think about it. In reality she was trying to figure out if she could get her hands on their master copy and then destroy it –after reading it herself.

"We need to figure something out, quick," Wilt urged her on, "we don't have a real dead line, but life would be better if we got this to Cardinal by the end of the week."

Lori noted the date and told herself to look for anything important in once weeks' time.

"Ok. I'll figure something out," she settled on a conflicted agreement.

A small thankful nod came from the pilot. Cray only just kept herself from staring daggers at the sergeant, and he didn't even try to hide his displeasure with the captain.

Lori kept her expression blank.

She could work with this.