Cadet Vidi couldn't help staring as the airlock opened, and everyone standing on the other side looked almost identical to former-Captain Geritt. They had different scars, some of them had tattoos, one looked to be half as old as the others, but….
"Who are they?" Vidi asked quietly.
Geritt's mouth had fallen open in shock. "My brothers," he said quietly, and then aimed a finger at the youngest, who grinned toothily. "How the hells are you even- What the fuck, Kix?" he bellowed, startling Vidi. He stomped forward and seized the younger man in a tight embrace, practically lifting him off the floor.
"Well, hello to you too, Commander. Only been, what, fifty years?"
Vidi had found it difficult to believe, when Geritt had told her that he'd served in the Clone Wars as one of the clones - one of the highest-ranking clones, in fact - but seeing him among dozens of identical men?
Nope, it was just weirder.
But they had more urgent matters to attend to, and Vidi cleared their throat. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but-"
"Yeah! Right!" Geritt - everyone was calling him Cody, so maybe that was his real name - waved his arm, summoning a group of people who looked like medics. "A bunch of the kids collapsed an hour ago, about the time everyone got a splitting headache. Cadet Vidi here is in charge." He nodded to Vidi, who nodded back.
The lead medic stopped at the airlock entrance. "CMO Byrne," she said. "We're prepared to treat everyone, if necessary. We would also like to offer blood tests for anyone who wishes to locate their family."
Vidi bristled, but Byrne's face was politely blank. The cadets might have been trained to accept the First Order as their home and family, but Vidi knew several even in their own final year of training who whispered remembrances and prayers, who wondered what their siblings might be doing. "That… is an offer you should make individually," they said. It might possibly be considered treasonous to allow it, but if Vidi didn't know who'd accepted, they wouldn't be obligated to discipline anyone.
The knowledge that several cadets might choose to stay with their former Captain hung heavy over Vidi's head. Especially the little ones, who'd been clingy once they learned that Geritt was going to leave. Returning to the First Order with depleted ranks would likely earn them a severe punishment - but Vidi couldn't justify forcing the others to stay.
They led the medics through the connecting tube into the transport, and retreated to the command pod once it seemed the medics had things in hand. If Vidi hovered around, the other cadets might feel pressured to turn down the medics' offer. Captain Phasma would want Vidi to do that, but….
But.
Eventually someone tapped on the door; it was Geritt. Cody. His name was Cody. Vidi looked at him, struggling to control their expression.
"It looks like… a bunch of cadets want to stay," he said hesitantly.
"Are you happy?" They didn't mean for their tone to be so spiteful, and winced. "I'm-"
"No, it's alright." He settled onto a jump seat, fiddling with something he was holding. "Nobody is pushing them to make a choice, but as soon as they heard that I'm staying… well."
Vidi turned their blaster over in their hands. "I should execute you. That's what Captain Phasma would want. I should execute all of them."
He didn't say anything, just looked at Vidi with that expression of gentle patience they remembered from the time they were four years old and freezing because Starkiller Base was the cold, dark opposite of the desert. 'Captain Geritt' had never shouted, never disciplined without reason, and he never judged. He'd been safe, approachable, and he remembered everyone's chosen names. And he wasn't judging even now.
"I can't do it, sir." They rubbed their face, exhaustion creeping through their bones. "I can't kill my friends. I can't kill you. Does that make me a traitor too?"
There was a long silence, but Vidi refused to look back at him. "I was once ordered to fire on my friends," Cody finally said, his voice barely above a whisper. "And if any of my other friends had refused the same order, I was to kill them too. And I did it. For years. I have never forgiven myself for it, even though it wasn't… technically my fault for doing it." He brushed his fingers over the little white scar near his hairline. "They used control chips to make us do it, to make us think what they wanted us to think. And still… I'm atoning for it. I'll never clear it from my conscience. And part of that atonement was making certain you would get to have a choice, Vidi. You and all the others. So you can pin your reluctance to follow orders on me, too."
It wasn't an answer, but it really was a much more complicated issue than a simple 'yes' or 'no' could resolve. Vidi frowned and looked away.
"We don't have the resources to manage this many kids," Cody admitted. "We're going to keep the transport. There's a stolen First Order shuttle here that I know you're trained to operate. We'll get whoever wants to go back onto the shuttle, and you can claim you stole it back." He held out the thing he'd been fidgeting with - a blood-draw unit. "Do you want to find your family, regardless?"
Screams, the high-pitched shriek of blaster fire, the deep concussion of bombs. A hand, much larger than Vidi's own but just as vivid pink, limp between theirs as they tugged. "Papa, come on!"
They shook the memory away. "My family is dead."
"Alright. All of you will be staying on the transport to minimise contact until everyone has chosen what they want. The Resistance is offering rations and supplies, if you need them. You have some time to consider things. We've posted a security detail at the airlock; when everyone has made their choice, ask for me."
Three days later, Vidi made sure everyone on the shuttle understood the story - that they had run away and stolen their ship to return to the First Order - before showing Cadet Trigger how to run the preflight check. The only person in the hangar to see them off - the only person they had been allowed in contact with beyond the medics and the security detail - was Cody.
Vidi had shaken his hand before boarding the shuttle, pressing the used blood-draw unit into his palm.
"You're all set. Clean bill of health."
Finn blinked up at Kix from his seat on the medical bed. After his collapse when Starkiller Base had exploded, the Resistance medics had kept him - and several others who had also reacted badly - overnight for observation. The human woman everyone called The General and an older Togruta woman named Ahsoka had come by the day before. Kix had tried to explain what Ahsoka was doing when she touched the sides of Finn's head and closed her eyes in intense concentration for a minute, but all Finn really understood was that she was making sure the weird mental shockwave hadn't hurt him.
Slip and Tane had come by to visit him earlier. The Raddus was crowded already, and they'd been put in the first spare bunks available - Slip was in with a group of mechanics, while Tane was sharing space with a pilot and a pair of sisters who sounded nice. The three of them had been given clothes, datapads full of information about sentient rights, and shipboard IDs that allowed them access to communal areas.
When he'd initially offered to help Kix, Finn hadn't even considered what the Resistance might do with him; even the few concessions they'd been given were far more than the First Order would have granted.
"Okay. So what now?" Finn asked.
The look Kix gave him was gentle and understanding. "Technically you're a civilian traveling with us, unless you make the choice to join up. It's tough to suddenly have to make your own choices, so my recommendation is to make a schedule for yourself. There's the gym, several lounges with holovid setups, the commissary, and hydroponics. Just don't pick any plants," he added. "A lot of that stuff goes to the kitchen."
Finn shrugged into the jacket he'd been given; it was a pleasant shade of blue which looked nice with the golden-yellow shirt and grey pants. He could barely remember the last time he'd worn colours at all, and he reveled in the indulgence. "What if I want to join up?"
"Colonel Andor would do a full investigation, and Ahsoka would likely be called in again to make sure you're not a sleeper agent. You'd have interviews with several ranking officers, including the General, and because of your isolation, you'd likely have to take a few tests to see where your knowledge is at." Kix grinned at his expression. "It sounds worse than it is."
Finn nodded slowly. "I'll think about it."
He ended up in the commissary, catching the end of the mid-shift service, and grabbed a tray. Most of the food was unrecognizable, but the stuff intended for different species' consumption was clearly labeled. A passing protocol droid with an incredibly prissy manner explained what things were with obvious pleasure.
"Thanks, C-3PO, I appreciate the help," he said quickly, before the droid could fully launch into what sounded like a long digression about the merits of different fruit in the bowl of stew he'd selected.
"You are most welcome, Sir Finn!" the droid gushed, and toddled off on its way.
"Finn? Hey, Finn!" someone called. It took Finn a moment to notice a man waving him over to an empty seat at his table.
The man was grinning, and the other people at the table didn't seem put out by Finn's presence, so he claimed the space and said, "Hi there."
"You probably don't know me, Jess and I gave your shuttle an escort in," the man said, gesturing to the pretty, dark-haired woman sitting on Finn's right. "I'm Poe. That's Rose, and that's Paige."
Poe looked like a holoflick's impression of a hotshot pilot: wavy dark hair, refined good looks with just enough stubble that it looked intentional, and an easy, confident manner. The kind of character who was a complete asshole, but Poe didn't look like he had a single asshole bone in his body.
Jess managed to look like a model even in her civvies, with her long hair in a braid down her back. She had her own air of confidence that made her seem almost distant, but her smile was real.
The other two women were a direct contrast to her: Paige and Rose were clearly sisters. Rose was dressed in a mechanic's coveralls and had a smudge of grease on the side of her jaw, with cheerful round features; her older sister had the same thoughtful dark eyes, but more mischief in her grin, and was clearly off shift with her hair in a messy knot at the back of her head.
"Nice to meet you," Finn said. "I'm Finn- but I guess you already knew that." Poe had just called his name, and Finn felt a little silly, but none of them seemed to be laughing at him.
"You're Tane's friend, right?" Rose asked. "She's been bunking with us."
He shrugged and tasted some of the stew; it was alright, a bit tangy and savoury in unfamiliar ways. "I didn't know her until a couple days ago. The First Order didn't really encourage us to be friendly with people outside our squads," he said around bites. The others were mostly finished with their own trays, but they still allowed him the time to talk, which was… novel.
Paige's mouth turned down. "Really?"
"Not after we were promoted to Senior Cadets, anyway. Captain Geritt encouraged us to… mingle?" Finn frowned. "He's one of your people, isn't he?"
Poe was nodding. "I never met him, myself, he was undercover for years. His brothers are really nice, though. Assholes," he said with a laugh, "but nice."
"I know Kix," Finn said. "I haven't seen the rest of them since the battle."
"Yeah, there's nearly five hundred of them, they have their own cruiser," Jess chucked her thumb over her shoulder, even though there was no way to tell where the other ships in the fleet might be. "But they're back and forth a lot. General Rex is a lot of fun. But never play sabacc with them. Ev-er."
Finn filed that information away for later. "So you and Poe are pilots. What do you do?" he asked, looking at the sisters.
Rose popped her hand up. "Mechanic!"
"I'm a gunner," Paige said.
Having so many different service levels all socialsing together was unusual in Finn's experience - after First Order cadets graduated to Senior Cadet level, they were funnelled into various roles and rarely saw anyone else. The others' reactions when Finn explained this were a mixture of fascination and sadness. "I don't know what I could do around here," he mumbled, mostly to the piece of fruit in his hand. "But I don't have anywhere to go, either."
"There's no need to rush that decision," someone said from behind him. Finn turned to see Ahsoka standing with her hands clasped behind her back and a funny little smile on her face. "Can I have a word with you in private, Finn? It's nothing bad!" she added in a rush. "But it's a personal matter, and it should be up to you if you tell other people."
"Uh. Sure?" Finn scraped up the last of his meal and collected his tray to return it.
"We'll catch up later!" Poe promised, the others nodding happily.
"See you later, Finn!" Rose added. She tossed him a fruit from off her tray, a bright red thing that smelled amazing. "Try that one!"
The Togruta woman absolutely towered over Finn as she led him to an office - her office, he realised, when she took a seat behind the cluttered desk. "I know we talked a bit before, when you were in the medbay. Do you understand what all the tests we were doing were for?"
Finn frowned. "I figured it was basic physical stuff, and to make sure I was okay after passing out."
Ahsoka tilted her head with a wry grin. "Mostly. You're not wrong. Part of the blood sample we took came back with some names of potential relatives, if you have any interest in looking into finding your family. But everyone who reacted badly to Ilum being destroyed-"
"Ilum?" Finn grimaced at interrupting her. "Sorry-"
"No! It's alright." The face she made wasn't exactly unhappy, but it wasn't comfortable either. "Starkiller Base was built into a planet called Ilum. It was sacred to the Jedi, but also to many other Force traditions, because it had one of the largest deposits of kyber crystals in the galaxy. Kyber crystals are used in lightsabers. They're also, sadly, used in super-powered destructive laser cannons, like the two Death Stars," she said, and now she did look unhappy. "Ilum was so much worse. When all those crystals were destroyed like that, it sent a shockwave through the Force. Everyone felt it, no matter how Force-sensitive they are, but people who are more sensitive than most were affected quite strongly."
It took him a moment to really register what she was saying. "You want me to be a Jedi?"
She smiled gently and held a hand up. "I'm saying you have the potential for it, if you want to choose that path, Finn. A lot of potential, in fact." She slid a datapad over. "That's the result from your blood test."
There were four names listed as potential near relatives. Nothing for his parents at all, he noted with sadness, but one of the names for potential second-generation relatives was highlighted. "Who's Mace Windu?"
Ahsoka's smile broadened into a grin. "He was the Head of the Jedi Order during the War. And he's still alive. I asked him to go looking for someone a while ago, and he's been out of contact for a long time. But he never mentioned he'd had a family," she added with a teasing pout. "It's likely he's your grandfather or grand-uncle, if he has siblings. We'd have to find him to ask him."
She accepted the datapad back. "You have a lot of options available to you, Finn. Until you make a decision, you're welcome to stay with the Resistance. There's no reason to separate you from the friends you've been making."
"I'm a security risk, though…."
"Not so much." Ahsoka gave him a knowing look. "It's a huge change, and you're going to be overwhelmed for a while. Allow yourself to relax. Master Skywalker will be visiting in a week and you can talk to him if you want."
Finn stared at her. "The Luke Skywalker? Seriously?"
She laughed. "You're on a fleet full of legends, Finn. But I bet you didn't know your Captain Geritt was one of them." She got a look in her eyes that hinted that she had an idea. "You should go see him. He rescued a whole bunch of cadets, I bet he'd appreciate some help wrangling them."
"Yeah!" He was already on his feet before he realised- "Sorry, are we, uh…."
Ahsoka grinned and nodded at his eagerness. "That's all I had for you. We have a room assignment for you, you're sharing with three pilots. It's going to be a tight squeeze until we meet up with the rest of the fleet, unfortunately."
She showed him the way; when he opened the door, a familiar voice cheered, "Hey!" The two lower bunks, on either side of the room, were already occupied, one by a familiar figure.
"Poe?" Finn stared. "This is your room?"
"Our room," the pilot said with a grin. He pointed at the older man in orange pilot's coveralls on the opposite bunk. "This is Temmin. Tem, Finn."
"Hey." The bearded man leaned over and shook Finn's hand. "Something you needed, Tano?"
She was still standing in the doorway, arms folded and grinning in a decidedly predatorial way at Poe. "Yep. A certain someone neglected to report to medical after nearly passing out when Ilum exploded. Dameron."
"Whoa, hey, no I didn't!" Poe held his hands up. The spherical droid resting on the floor beside him rolled over and knocked into his leg, scolding in Binary. "Beebee! You snitched on me?!"
Ahsoka crooked a finger at him. "Come on, Poe. Don't make me tell Leia."
The pilot's eyes got huge and he hurried to put his datapad away. "You wouldn't dare." He gave Finn's shoulder a friendly punch as he passed and hurried after Ahsoka, the little round droid following in their wake.
Temmin grinned at Finn's mystified expression and pointed to the bunk over his head. "Guess that one's yours. The other is Ak'o's. Welcome to the Resistance."
When the shit with Tup went down - when Fives had found out about the chips, and then the Chancellor himself had not only confirmed what the biochips were for, he'd claimed responsibility and then attempted to kill Fives - the number of people he thought he could trust had suddenly shrunk to a very lonely, very terrified one. He was certain Nala Se had drugged him at some point, which meant the Kaminoans had been in on it, too.
Then Fives had woken up with a splitting headache to Fox staring down at him like he was some sort of puzzle, and felt his world shatter.
"I believe you. Tell me everything," had been the first words out of Fox's mouth. Having someone just sit and listen to him, without asking questions until he was finished, and then ask the right questions, had been the first ray of hope he'd seen in a week.
Fox had brought the rest of his squad in on it - a squad which included poor Dogma, and Fives had never thought he would be so happy to see the kid - and they made plans. They couldn't trust anyone - especially not the Chancellor or anyone close to him - and Fox had assigned a replacement squad to cover their detail, citing distress over the situation.
They'd still been in the middle of laying the groundwork for dealing with it all when the bantha shit hit the propeller on a galactic scale and they'd been forced to steal a ship and run. They'd hit up a smuggler haven on the Outer Rim and were trying to barter their GAR suits in exchange for something more unremarkable when the Bothan shopkeeper had given them a Look and said, "I can do you one better."
They'd ended up with a former Separatist cell that had joined the Alliance, eventually landed the attention of a Fulcrum agent, and got folded into the network. It wasn't so bad; the Seps didn't carry a grudge, not when they all had a much worse common enemy, and Fox's crew were tolerable. Rys was a prankster, Stone got his name for his horrible stone-faced pun-mongering, Jek snored like a gundark, and Thire was a filthy pazaak cheat.
It almost felt like home, except the enemies and allies had swapped sides. Still-chipped brothers among the Imps would attempt to hunt them down as 'traitors', and having to fight back damn near broke everyone's hearts. They did what they could, notifying the network of the brothers' locations; whether Fulcrum was able to get to them after the team had moved on was anyone's guess.
It was kind of a relief that they never ran across anyone from the 501st.
The second Death Star had been space dust for a year when a request came down the pipeline to follow up on the unexplainable disappearance of a substantial chunk of the Imperial fleet, and they'd dumped their collective stipend into some gear that would keep them alive and a ship that wouldn't be noticed. It was a long-haul, risky, and thankless job following other Fulcrum agents' breadcrumb trails into the Unknown Regions, but the group of them was already well-acclimated to each other's quirks in a way few nat-borns could be.
It took years with minimal contact with the network - and a couple unfortunate encounters with an insular alien empire who refused to communicate with anything other than blasters - before they were able to track things down. Fives and Dogma had been on piloting shift when they came out of hyperspace over-
"Is that a superlaser built into a planet?" Dogma had stared at the monstrosity in horror. "That must have taken decades to construct!"
Fives had already been running their usual comm scan. Fulcrum had agents across the galaxy, and every time they found something, they would check for allies. It had only taken a few minutes before the system popped up a green light. Fives grabbed Dogma's arm so hard he'd left bruises. "Someone's out here!"
Fulcrum communications were necessarily short and to the point, carried on single-burst code packets rather than streams, to reduce the odds of an agent being found. Fives had tapped in, Status report, and waited.
And now he found himself, ten days later, lying with his head on Echo's chest in his quarters on the Atin'la Oyayc, listening to his riduur' s heartbeat. He'd had no idea that Echo had survived their ship being blown up during that disastrous run on the Citadel - apparently nobody had known for years, and didn't that just make his heart want to break? The weird dataports dotting Echo's skin, and the scars left behind where a few had been removed, were going to take some getting used-to.
His partner had warned him that his right arm and both legs were cybernetic replacements, although the arm had some damn realistic synthflesh covering. Fives' fingers gently traced the faint ridge of scar tissue on Echo's upper arm where the join was, wondering if things might have been different if he'd just been faster, if he had gone back after the explosion. If he'd just… tried harder for Echo's sake.
Echo's fingers tensed in his hair. "Stop that. Stop blaming yourself."
Fives' lips twitched in something that was too unhappy to be a smile. "Can't help it. I keep waiting for this to be a dream. If I let myself sleep, I'll wake up and you'll be gone."
A soft kiss landed just above his eyebrow and Echo murmured, "How do you think I feel? How all of us feel? We thought you were dead. And poor Fox got so much shit thrown at him for not using the stun setting…."
He tightened his arm around Echo's ribs. "That was the worst part, knowing he was literally taking the hits for everyone's sake. We had no idea who we could trust."
"Fox is never going to pay for another drink again if anyone from Face Division is in the room."
Fives traced his fingertip over the old scarring in the centre of Echo's chest, over his breastbone. His riduur had been entirely up-front about everything he'd been through - it was carved into his skin - and he must have needed years of counseling to deal with it all. But it had been a long time, the old wounds long since healed over. Like the void in Fives' heart, so patched-over in the decades since the Citadel, he feared he might not be able to let Echo in again. "It's been fifty years. Why didn't you try to find someone else?"
"Who says I didn't?" Echo's fingers combed gently through his hair, soothing. "But they weren't you." He sighed. "A lot of the guys learned that… with nat-borns, sometimes it's difficult. We grew up so differently, there's barely anything relatable. Some of them did find someone - ask Rex about his on-again, off-again fling, it's complicated - but they were all also fighting from childhood. Some started out fighting the CIS, others were Seppies until the Republic died. People who had normal lives before things went to shit, though… they don't quite get it."
Fives frowned. He wasn't jealous that Echo had tried, just bothered that it hadn't been good. Echo deserved nice things, especially after everything he'd been through.
Then his brain caught up and he propped himself on his elbow to stare at Echo. "Wait, wait… who's Rex seeing?!"
Echo laughed. "Oh, no, you've gotta ask him about that yourself."
"No, come on, I gotta know who finally managed to get him to pull the stick out of his arse," Fives whined. It wasn't fair, not sharing vital information like that!
"No, really, it's worth it to see him blush. I promise he won't hit you!"
"Now I really feel like you're setting me up."
"Psh." Echo poked him right where he was ticklish, making him yelp. "I just got you back, you think I'd set you up to be murdered by our CO?"
Pinning the offending hand, Fives looked at him. "Do you want me back?"
Echo cupped his cheek and pulled him in for a gentle kov'nyn. "Mhi solus dar'tomë, remember?" he murmured, quoting part of the Mandalorian marriage vow: We are one when we're apart. "I meant it then, and I mean it now. Will you stay?"
The grin that stretched across Fives' face was probably really stupid, but he didn't care. "You'll have to kick me out before I'll leave."
The Resistance fleet had been forced into a fuel-draining series of jumps to shake off any First Order pursuit. Once he'd been checked over by both Perrin and Ahsoka and been cleared, Kix went right back to work in the Raddus' medbay. Face Division had suffered some injuries in the assault on Starkiller Base, but nobody had died - the worst off was Huck, who'd needed surgery to remove pieces of his rifle from his face and arm. He was still in the medbay for another day and kind of twitchy to get out.
Kix had a bad start when he passed Huck's alcove at one point. Cody was there chatting with him, and for a moment Kix saw them both as the much younger Commander and Lieutenant they had once been. Blinking the ghosts away, he wandered over.
"Hey, Cody, Huck."
"Kix!" Cody grinned but there was something behind it. "I was looking for you. Got a minute?"
Kix tilted his head in the direction of his office. "I can make time."
Huck waved off Cody's apology with a grin. "I'll catch you later."
Kix waited until they were seated with the door closed for privacy before saying, "So what's up?"
Cody grimaced and rubbed the back of his head. "It's not about me, for once. Some of my kids were on the track to be medical personnel. I was wondering if you needed a few apprentices."
"You want to put former First Order cadets into the Resistance?" Kix squinted at him. "They're driving you up the wall, aren't they."
"Like you wouldn't believe. I already got some maintenance crew to take on some of our budding mechanics, and talked a few of our brothers into training with the soldier types." Cody gave him a wide-eyed stare. "That trooper you rescued, Finn? He's been helping me wrangle them, but they're children, and for the first time in their lives, they're bored."
"Got pranked, did you?"
"Now that they no longer have any fear of repercussions, it's a daily trial just to find my underwear. I talked things over with the General and she thought it would be a good idea, anyway. Get them used to being people, you know?"
Kix pulled up the schedule; now that the worst of the post-battle casualties were taken care of, it was mostly business as usual for a fleet medbay. They had enough people on staff and a light enough load that they could take on some trainees. "If the kids want to, sure. Got a list?"
It was a lot longer than Cody had implied,and Kix stared at him for a moment. "Eighty-six kids? Cody-"
"I know, I know. We can do this in shifts, and some are more advanced than others."
Kix ran his hands back through his hair. "We are so not equipped for this." Only a fraction of the cadets had any living relatives on public record, leaving the Resistance with nearly a thousand homeless former child soldiers to fold in or find someplace for them to go. "How many of them want to stay?"
"Of the ones with no families? All of them. They have friends here, and they trust me." Cody grimaced, embarrassed. "We're still working out how to handle them all."
"So you're foisting them off on the crew."
Cody pulled a face. "The transport is not designed for this but it's better than the alternative. Lando and Karrde are sending people to collect a few each… and by a few, I mean a few hundred."
Kix scowled. "I really want to have a few sharp words with whoever designed their recruiting system."
"He's dead." Cody sighed. "It was really suspicious; I think he was murdered, and I couldn't blame anyone for doing it. But his son's continuing the family tradition of being a complete reprehensible bastard."
"Oh how charming. Are you ready for the Jedi's visit?" Luke was going to be having a chat with the kids whom Ahsoka had gauged as having potential.
"I don't even know how to introduce the subject to them," Cody grumbled. "First Order education teaches them that the Jedi are extinct for the good of the galaxy."
"I noticed that." His conversation with Finn and Slip in Starkiller Base's interrogation room had warned him that they would likely have some differences of opinion.
"I don't want to keep these kids, Kix," Cody said suddenly. "They need a chance to actually be kids, dammit!" He shoved his chair back and paced the limited space in front of Kix's desk. "And we can't even trust the Republic to help with them without remanding them back to the First Order as a gesture of good faith."
Kix tapped his chin, thinking. "There might be something we can do about that…." He prodded his terminal comm and got a response a moment later.
"Erso."
"Hey, Commander. Got a moment?"
Cody was squinting at Kix suspiciously. He grinned back and held up a finger in request for patience.
"Sure, what's up?"
"Remember how you were complaining about nobody taking the First Order as a serious threat? We now have a thousand eyewitness accounts to what it's like there."
His grin widened as Cody's jaw dropped. Over the comm, Erso made a thoughtful noise. "We'd be accused of scripting. Coaching the cadets in what to say."
"That's never not a risk, honestly, but somebody will listen. Get your kids out to the transport with holocams and let them document things? I can send Cody up to coordinate with you."
"Alright, let's do it," Erso said with satisfaction.
Kix grinned at Cody. "Maybe we'll get lucky and some specialists will see it and volunteer to help. Go on with you, I have work to do." Cody took a moment, looking dazed, and Kix chuckled as he retrieved his datapad to continue his rounds.
The metal corridors of the Supremacy echoed with Phasma's bootsteps as she marched, General Armitage Hux at her side. The General was a horrible, self-absorbed little man, but still better than his father had been. Phasma had taken some pleasure removing the abusive stain of Brendol Hux from command at his son's order. Brendol had seen her as an ignorant thug, just another thing to be used and controlled; his son, at least, respected her intelligence and understood the value of unfettered loyalty.
The younger Hux kept pace with her from the hangar to the throne room, lips pursed like he'd bitten into an unripe muja fruit. They had nothing to say to each other, preferring to share their information only once.
The throne room door opened silently as they approached, and their guard detail remained behind on either side of the threshold as Phasma and Hux continued down the walkway. It was just wide enough for them to pass without squeezing together, with mirror-still, triangular pools of water to either side. At the far end, framed by red-draped walls and flanked by his personal guard, Supreme Leader Snoke hunched in his throne, looking uncharacteristically haggard; arrayed to either side were the holographic projections of the other nine Generals of the Supreme Council.
Phasma and Hux stopped together in the projection circle inlaid into the glossy black floor and waited.
The Supreme Leader's eyes were bloodshot, one of them badly enough that the entire sclera was crimson. His expression was pinched, and he was seated carefully, as if in pain. Maybe he was. He regarded them solemnly before declaring, "Kylo Ren… has betrayed us."
"He attempted to take control of the Starkiller superweapon, Supreme Leader," Hux offered, his tone clipped with fury. "He claimed that there was something on the Jedi world he wanted."
"His… sister," Snoke hissed. His breath was laboured.
Behind her helmet, Phasma's eyes narrowed. "Lord Ren does not strike me as the sentimental type, Supreme Leader. What would he need his sister for?"
The Supreme Leader's smile was pained. Whatever had happened to him, he didn't seem interested in mentioning it. "The matter of his sister is what brought him to my side. She would have made a magnificent apprentice. Now, she is merely one more Jedi who must be eliminated. Kylo Ren cannot comprehend the full scope of the risk the new Jedi pose to the First Order." His fist clenched for a moment. "Tell me how Starkiller Base came to be destroyed."
"Kylo Ren's captive, a member of the Resistance, subverted three of our troops," Phasma reported, through the sour taste in her mouth. "Two of our best assisted him in reaching the weapon's designer, who then aided them in overloading the reactor. Additionally," she said, before Hux could add anything, "it appears that my counterpart trainer, Captain Pfie Geritt, was a Resistance spy. He abducted the entire cadet corps and only a few were able to escape. Their leader, Senior Cadet VD-5644, reported that the others chose to defect."
The entire situation looked bad. It was bad. "Further, I have personally reviewed all captured footage from the Resistance assaults on Starkiller Base: only a few faces were bared, but all of them bore Geritt's likeness. I believe Captain Geritt was a former clone trooper."
There was a murmur of disbelief from the arrayed Generals; someone sputtered; "It's been fifty-two years since the fall of the Republic. None of them should even be alive anymore!"
Phasma remained staring straight ahead at the Supreme Leader as she replied, "I invite the General to review the battle footage."
"Captain Phasma is correct," Snoke declared. His hand cut the air, signaling an end to that line of questioning. "But the presence of a clone in the First Order is not its point of weakness… nor is Kylo Ren's betrayal. The Resistance has spies within our ranks. With care, we may unmask them."
Snoke's hand curled and the sound of crisp metal-shod bootsteps approached from the door. Phasma and Hux turned to watch a man - an alien, humanlike in form but with blue skin, glossy blue-black hair in a regulation cut, and red eyes that seemed to glow with their own light, dressed in an unadorned white uniform - as he moved to join them in the projection circle. Mutters arose from the gathered Generals, some of whom clearly recognised the man. Phasma frowned: her personnel files indicated that Grand Admiral Thrawn had disappeared, presumed dead, during the pacification of an Outer Rim world thirty years earlier.
He smiled thinly. "They call it the Fulcrum network. I have a great deal of experience with its method of operation. With my help, not only will we be able to smoke them out of hiding, but we can turn the Resistance's own intelligence service against it."
.
This epilogue could have been massive; it was a real challenge to reduce the number of characters to follow up with. But don't worry: everyone will be back in Part Two for next year's Big Bang!
I have a real soft spot for how Samuel L. Jackson adopted John Boyega as his Jedi son, and decided to use it :P