3/22/2

Technically, General Threepio is not on the list of diplomats getting a copy of the New Alderaan Non-Aggression treaty.

That lasted exactly .00098 seconds, which is the amount of time it took him to find out that he was not on the list of diplomats getting a copy of the New Alderaan Non-Aggression treaty. Then his name went to the top of the list of people not just getting a copy, but who had to sign off on it as well.

Which is a good thing, because some idiot, and he's got an awfully good idea of who the idiot in question is, formally relinquished the use of the name Ben Organa-Solo as a bid to sweeten the deal. Likely because said idiot, hating that name, didn't consider letting it go to be any sort of issue.

But said idiot is bloody well keeping a hold of that name, at least if Threepio has anything to say about it, and since he promoted him to General to do things exactly like this, he's damn well got a say in it.

3/24/2

"Master Ren."

Kylo is beyond surprised to see Threepio in his office. He not only can't imagine why he's here, but he also can't read it off the droid. His thoughts are moving much to fast for Kylo to get a sense of anything beyond annoyance.

"General…"

"I've modified the treaty Rey taking to New Alderaan."

That's… well, he likely should have expected something like that. New Alderaan is the sort of thing that would have gotten Threepio's attention.

"Okay… Modified it how?"

"Struck the paragraph formally rescinding your birth name."

Kylo blinks at him, and the annoyance coming off of him now mirrors the annoyance coming off of Threepio, but he tries to rein it in. He has Threepio here for a reason, so… "I don't want the name. It's not mine… It's… not me. And she thought so little of it, she bargained away my birthright claim, so… why keep the name?"

Again, Kylo can't, or at least shouldn't, be able to feel Threepio, but he gets a sense of exasperation off the droid.

"Do you know when your mother signed that treaty, the one where she relinquished her birthright and supposedly yours?"

"No."

Threepio fiddles around with his datapad for a moment and then pulls up the agreement. "Check the date."

He's pulled up a copy of the document where Leia Organa, Princess of New Alderaan gave up her claim to both the throne and her, and more importantly for this discussion, his, royalty. There is a date on it, he recognizes it, but… It doesn't mean anything to him. It's just a day, shortly after the Concordance celebrations of ABY 23.

"I don't get why it matters."

More exasperation off of Threepio. Kylo can feel that if he could roll his eyes, he'd have them so far back he'd be looking at his brain... central processing unit… whatever is in the inside of his head.

Which is annoying Kylo to no end. "Look, pretend for a moment that you are aware of the fact that my mother tossed me aside like her democratic principals as soon as I became inconvenient, and that I did not spend my childhood learning how to do this political stuff, and that this date doesn't mean anything to me. It's not my birthday. It's close, but… Three days after my eighteenth birthday on a treaty I wasn't consulted about," and he's still angry about that, because it was his fucking birthright she signed away, "means nothing to me."

"She did not throw you away," Threepio hisses.

Kylo wasn't aware Threepio could even make that sound. "Uh huh… You know what I've noticed since I've let people know what my birth name is? Ben Solo didn't vanish at the age of twenty-two; he vanished at the age of eight. Poe, her personal security, didn't know who she was visiting. Barely knew I existed. These Organas… They didn't know I was still alive because the last time they heard anything about me was when she signed that paper, five years before I defected from Luke. So, don't give me any bantha shit about not being thrown away."

"She was protecting you!"

Kylo slams his fist against his desk, glaring at Threepio. "Not from anything I needed to be protected from!" He's about to leap up and push the droid back, hit him, too, because there's so much of his mother coming off of Threepio right now. But Threepio won't stand for that. Do it once, and he'll leave, and he needs what Threepio can offer. Like useful advice on fucking New Alderaan. Kylo bites his lip, makes himself look away, makes himself settle back into his chair. His voice is sharp, hard, but calmer when he continues, "Now, because her idea of 'protecting' didn't involve me being trained in skills I'd sorely need, like, for example, whatever the fuck it is you're trying to draw my attention to without outright saying it, I don't know what you want me to see. So, stop being a shaft and just tell me."

He absolutely knows that Threepio would blink if he could. He just stands there for a moment, shocked.

"Stop looking stunned. You're fluent in over six million forms of communication, I know for a fact you understood what I just said to you."

"No one's ever called me a shaft before."

Kylo snorts. "Stop acting like one, and I won't do it again." Then he sniggers, quietly, and thinks to himself, dildo.

Do I really want to know what's going on? Rey thinks back to him.

Probably not. I didn't mean to project that.

Ah… I'll let you get back to it then.

Thanks. If I remember, I'll tell you about it later.

Uh huh… Dildo jokes…

Yeah… Just another day with General Threepio.

He feels her giggle a little, seeing how he must have come up with that, and then her mind recedes from his.

"If you're done communing with Mistress Rey..."

Kylo mentally glares at himself. He has not, as of yet, apparently mastered not making it clear when he's chatting with Rey. "Yes, I am. What's the point of this date?"

"It is, as you noticed, close to, but not your birthday."

He nods. "Yeah. Three days later. Was she tied up in some Concordance celebration, couldn't get out of it, so signed this after? Her last to-do as Princess Leia?" He really wishes that less sarcastic vitriol colored that last sentence, but it did, and he can't take it back, so…

"She certainly explained it like that. And they certainly understood it that way. Likely because they didn't know your birthday. If they had, they would have demanded she sign immediately."

"Great. I still don't get why the fact that this was signed three days after I turned eighteen is important."

"It matters, Prince Ben, because, on Concordance Day, ABY 23, you turned eighteen, making you, by the laws of Alderaan, legally an adult. Which meant, that as of Concordance Day, ABY 23, your mother was no longer your legal guardian, and no longer had any standing to sign anything for you, let alone relinquish your right to the throne of Alderaan. The day you turned eighteen, you were legally the second in line for the throne of Alderaan, and when your mother abdicated her position, it was after you were legally an adult, meaning you are legally the legitimate heir to the throne of Alderaan, and she bloody well did it intentionally."

Kylo blinks at that. "I… didn't know."

Threepio's more or less vibrating with well you should have but he doesn't say it.

Kylo feels his eye twitch. "Really? How? I didn't know about that treaty until after it was signed. She certainly didn't mention it to me. Luke kept us away from the news. You knew about it and apparently never thought to wander over to Luke's and say anything to me about it. Snoke told me about it, and you can bet he enjoyed that. And on top of that, again, no one ever thought that it would be even remotely useful for me to learn things like when you legally became an adult in Alderaanian society, let alone what that might have had to do with me." He's glaring again, at the mental image of his mother, who he finally, after three days, got on the holo, so he could righteously yell at her about this. She's looking annoyed at him because he was yelling at her about it. Then concerned. That's utterly obnoxious, deep, anxious concern when she realized that there was no way he should have been able to know about the contract, because no one within a light year of him knew about it.

He looks up at Threepio, annoyed at him, too. For acting like he wasn't part of this. Not like he was some sort of innocent bystander. Chewie at least owns up to the fact that he had a hand in the disaster that was Ben's childhood. If Threepio's even aware of the idea that he had a hand in it, he's keeping it hidden. "I've never seen New Alderaan. Remember? Not like it was my summer home as a child. She kept me so far out of things; I didn't know I was Prince Ben until I was eighteen. Until it was gone. All those years… I mean, I knew she was Princess Leia, and I knew she was from Alderaan, but that was ancient history, and… It wasn't anything real. It didn't matter. She was Senator Organa, and that was that, and Alderaan was just… a thing that died a long time before I was born. And suddenly, it's not, I'm actually Prince Ben, and there's this whole planet I should have a birthright too. That I should have memories of. That I should have known. A history and culture and life that never more than brushed against mine, but it should have been mine.

"And it was gone before I ever got to even get to know it, and the only thing she could muster when I was angry about it was annoyance and fear that I'd somehow found out about it."

Threepio cocks his head a bit. "How did you find out?"

"I learned it because Snoke was in my head, taunting me about how my mother didn't think I was good enough to be trusted with that. How I was too dark, too unstable, too evil for it. How she denied me my birthright, because she didn't think I was fit for it. And, maybe if the bloody thing hadn't been hidden from me my whole life, I might not have believed it, but you know what, when no one ever tells you anything, it's really hard not to believe the one person who is saying something." His teeth are gritted, and he's breathing harder than he'd like. And he almost, almost wishes Threepio would tell him that he had it wrong, that that's not why she kept him out of things.

But he doesn't. Instead he says, "Then I'm saying it, now. Monarchs in Alderaan are chosen from a collection of people with a blood claim, who then go on to complete the Day of Demand trials. As of right now, you have the strongest blood claim to the throne of Alderaan of anyone living. Your claim was not relinquished when you were eighteen, and you are not giving it up."

"Why not? I don't want it." Eighteen-year-old Ben wanted it desperately. He craved the idea of a place that wasn't Luke's school. Somewhere he could maybe be good at something. But Ben is, as much as he can be, dead, and Prince Ben isn't so much dead as something that never existed, so... He sees no need to cling onto it.

"Too bad. Names have power. Blood has power. You never know when this may come in handy, and if not for you personally, then for your children. So, you will bloody well keep your name and your title, and we are going to make it clear that you are the legitimate heir of the Alderaanian people."

Kylo blinks again. "You're angry."

Threepio steps a bit closer and leans toward Kylo. And right here, right now, sitting at his desk with Threepio standing over him, eyes wide and unblinking, he's almost imposing. "Of course, I'm angry! They stole it from your mother. They had no right, no cause, no… anything. But because of the poison that was your grandfather's name, they neutered her ability to do any good. Once they smeared her with the taint of Vader, claimed she was a fraud and a liar for using her own name, hinted that she wasn't stable enough for the job, she lost her power and credibility in the Senate. They used him to take her down, and to make themselves more powerful. And before three years were out, Snoke was rising, rising fast and steady, because she was no longer in a position to rally people to take him out."

Kylo inclines his head. "Sounds like Snoke. Whispered the right bit of intel in the right ear. Added a bit of motivation to the right people. After all, he never forgot Vader and who his children were."

Kylo's fairly sure that Threepio would narrow his eyes if he could, but he can't, so that's that.

Kylo nods to him. "Strike the paragraph. Now tell me this. I'm sending Rey in with a non-aggression treaty, that's apparently also cementing my formal claim as a—"

"The"

"legitimate heir to the Alderaanian throne, while at the same time refusing them proof of my parents. This feels like I'm making things stupidly complicated for her."

That appears to be a concern that Threepio thinks may be warranted. He straightens back up, thinking about it, before saying, "I'm going with her, and so is Lady Kinear. By the time we get into orbit, Rey will be ready for anything and everything."

Kylo nods at that, and spends another minute just feeling Threepio. He's been a person so long; he really is starting to feel like one. Eyes closed, Kylo would know he's not organic, but… He's certainly, at least on any level that matters, alive.

And living things have wants and needs. What is Threepio trying to do with this? It's not just… holding onto the past. Names have power.

"You want my daughter on that throne."

Threepio's head jerks in a way that tells Kylo he wasn't expecting that comment. "I want the throne of Alderaan back where it belongs, in the hands of the Organa line."

There's something else there, deeper, less well formed, moving too fast, and Kylo can't grab it, so he moves with what's on the surface. "Why? We're talking about a child who doesn't even exist. Who might never exist."

Threepio just looks at Kylo, and it's clear that he absolutely believes that one day there will be a dark-haired baby girl who will go by the name of Ren, though he'll call her Princess. "It's the least I could possibly do for your mother. Give her back what was stolen."

There's an image, and for a moment, Kylo thinks it's Leia. Young, dark hair, fine features… Curling hair… Loose, curling hair… Fine, resplendent gowns… Not Leia.

His eyes narrow. "Are you thinking of… That's my grandmother, right?"

"Are you actually reading my thoughts?" Threepio sounds very startled at that.

"Are you actually thinking of Padme Amidala?"

"Yes."

"Then, yes, I must be. Congratulations, you're a person."

Threepio looks unsettled by that.

Kylo would be unsettled by Threepio's image of Padme, but the possible future for his child matters more than whatever's going on with the droid and his dead grandmother. "I don't want people scheming behind the scenes, using my children as puppets."

Threepio looks relieved to be on the future and off the past, too. "Then you best not have any, because that's going to be the only way to avoid that fate. Since I put the odds of you and Mistress Rey not having children at one in 3,756,383,027, I might as well scheme in a direction that's to their benefit."

"Would it be? You have no idea where this child might come up. It's possible I'll be stable and well-adjusted in comparison."

Speaking of sounds Kylo wasn't aware Threepio could make, the little snort of derision that prefaces: "I doubt that highly. Between the lack of Snoke and Rey, your children should be stable enough to at least figurehead a functional government," is at the top of the list.

Kylo blinks at that. "Is that supposed to be reassuring?"

"I'd assume you'd find it so."

Kylo thinks about that for a moment, too, and then says, "You're really quite good at subtle insults."

Threepio's voice is Tatooine dry as he replies, "Most people would have found that about as subtle as your shaft comment."

"Ah." Kylo sits back. "Anything else?"

There's a pause, long for an electronic mind. Not for an organic one. Then Threepio says, "Not now."

"Good. Before you head off to New Alderaan, have Jon set you up with a uniform. If you're going, General, you might as well look the part."

Threepio nods, and heads off.

"Are you still in your office, Jon?" Threepio asks over his comm.

Jon looks at the pile of datapads in front of him before saying, "For the next twenty years, General."

"Ah…" Threepio responds. "I've been told I need to talk to you about laying hands on an Order uniform before joining the New Alderaan delegation."

Jon does not grit his teeth or moan at that. "Technically, no longer my department, but I'm on very good terms with the person whose department it is."

"Yes, of course." Threepio did in fact know that, but he was ordered to see Jon, and well… He's not exactly proud of this, but he's still annoyed at Kylo and his attitude toward Leia, so, like any sentient droid with an attitude, he's perfected the art of following orders exactly, and annoying the shit out of people by doing it.

"Come on down… up? I'm up from you, aren't I?"

"Yes, Jon."

"Great, it'll be a long night, bring food for three… You don't eat… two."

"Any specific sort of food?"

"Em and I are easy. Surprise us."

Threepio isn't thrilled by that idea, but he figures he can 'surprise them.' He's less sure about it being a pleasant surprise. "It might be a better idea to hold off on surprises until you are talking to someone who does eat?"

"Just make sure you buy it from somewhere on the F-Deck, and it'll be fine."

"That's not wildly reassuring."

Jon smiles. "You'll do fine." Then he pauses, and thinks. Threepio doesn't eat. "Have you ever… bought anything before? I mean, like at a stall, not signed an order to get 50,000 tons of plastcrete delivered to the right place at the right time."

"I've never purchased anything at a food cart before. I have organized and paid for entire banquets in the past."

"Do you have a credit account with us?"

"Yes, I am fully set up as a member of the staff here." It's not like Threepio actually does anything with money, but… He's a General so he's being a general and Generals get both paid and good accommodations. He's got a very nice apartment that he makes sure to go visit at least once a week, though he doesn't exactly have a very good idea of what to do when he's there, and an account that's piling up credits rather quickly, because he doesn't buy anything.

"Great. Your treat then. By the time you get up here, Em and I'll have at least the start of an idea of what we need to do to make a uniform work for you." Jon thinks for a moment about that, too. "Do your ankle joints bend?"

"I have a forty-five degree range of motion in my ankles."

"That's a yes, but not well. Okay… Uh… toes?"

"I do not have toes. Why would that be important?"

"Just figuring out what I've got to do to cut trousers so we can get them onto you."

He's staring at the bag with the food in it. It's looped, awkwardly, over his wrist. That's pretty much the only way he can carry it. His fingers don't do well with holding things that are heavier than a few hundred grams, the metal surfaces mean that most things don't have enough friction to stay put, and the strength he can muster will crush most delicate things if he's trying to keep them from slipping against his metal finger tips. (Attempting to use his credit stick is a trial unfit for any sentient. He can hold it, but it's made of a perfectly smooth plexiplast that's thinner than he can easily get his fingers together. Luck was with him, and he didn't drop it, and did get it into the payment slot, but it wasn't easy. Artoo's extendable dataprobe makes a lot of sense to Threepio right now.)

Threepio sighs at it. More and more these days, as his job evolves and shifts, and he does… people stuff… the physical limitations of his current body are becoming more annoying.

Artoo tells him to just chuck it and upload himself into a new body. It'd likely take less than an hour all told, and then he could be… Well, depending on the body, almost indistinguishable from the humans around him.

Given the resources at his current disposal, he could have the highest tech, most secure, most lifelike chassis on the market. No one even audits his account statements, at least, not so much as he can tell. (Not that that matters, his accounts are scrupulously kept, and when he's found people under his command who haven't done so, they've rapidly left his command. It does make him mildly uncomfortable that he doesn't know what happens to them after he's called the Order Security Services on them for embezzling, but… Not so uncomfortable as to check.) But, if he wanted to, he could requisition the funds for a really good upgrade, and it's likely no one would ever notice.

Except, of course, when he walked into his next meeting, and… well… walked. Instead of his current jerky shuffle.

He's idly wondering about how much processing he'll have to add to have proper locomotion. He'd definitely need to upgrade his primary processing cores if he upgrades the body. Just keeping all the parts moving the way he'd need them to would completely shoot his current processor to bits.

But… again… He could do it. It's not like he's got to stay tied to this body.

This ship is too bloody big.

That's the primary thought going through Threepio's mind as he's gotten himself (slowly, with a lot of grumbling from some of the passengers behind him) seated on the tram, and is running across the deck.

The secondary thought is that, yes, higher functionality of knees and hips and whatnot really would be useful if he's stuck in a job that requires multiple daily commutes over and over and over.

Which brings up the tertiary thought, And, since he's not planning on leaving… (His eyes would narrow at that if they could, and speaking of odd thoughts to be having within one's head, the ideas of what expressions he'd be expressing if he had a face that could express, is on the top of the list.) because, apparently, when he wasn't looking, he got fairly comfortable doing this General thing, and now he's sort of attached to it, and while he might enjoy being able to tweak Ben with the idea of leaving, he's not, actually, going to. At least not if the status quo remains.

And under, and behind, all of those thoughts, is Kylo's comment about being too dark and too evil and the extremely open and begging look on his face. Even Threepio could read how badly he wanted to be told that he misunderstood the situation.

Threepio certainly can lie. He's not particularly good at it. But, if needs be, he can spin a whopper. But, in this particular case he didn't see any need to layer a comforting lie onto Ben's psyche. He was too dark, and too unstable, and too prone to temper fits to be allowed anywhere near the idea of Prince Ben. Snoke, apparently, got that one dead on.

There was no way a woman who lost her world, her literal world, to a Force-mad darksider would ever let her own, potential, Force-mad darkside within a lightyear of any real power. And New Alderaan, in the years when Prince Ben could have been the darling baby boy and the poster child for the image of a new start, would have adored a new little mascot to rally around and hang their future on.

They would have lapped up the whole thing, if Leia could have been roped into it. An actual royal family, again. Their Princess, now a Queen, a hero in her own right, and maybe not the image of her mother, but the feel of her, calm, collected, working for the good of Alderaan. And maybe they wouldn't have known, exactly, what to do with Han, but… he was, when he worked at it, charming, and people will forgive a charming rogue, especially their charming rogue, a whole lot. Add in a pleasantly tempered, plump and adorable toddler with black curls and big brown eyes… Yes, the image of it… The fiction.

New Alderaan would have adored it.

Prince Ben, if he'd been… more stable… Less likely to burst into fits of temper… More… Less… Kylo. If he'd been Ben… They would have, as best they could have, given him all the power he could have wanted, and he could and maybe would have turned that, like his mother, into a Senate seat, and from there, maybe like Palpatine, he might have turned that Senate seat into trouble.

And until Luke could fix Ben, there was absolutely no chance of that happening, and that was that.

But Ben wouldn't fix. The dark didn't go away. And…

And now he's here, in the service of Master Ren, on a ship that's too bloody big, in search of a General's uniform, because…

Because maybe the universe needed someone really dark and twisted to actually fight Snoke.

And maybe if there had been a Prince Ben, one who took that power and used to to make a new Empire, the Hosnian system would still be around.

Because, and of this Threepio is sure, if there had been a Dark Prince Ben, and if he had shaped the senate to his will, there would not have been a shattered population scattered among the galaxy, waiting for Snoke to come and scoop them up.

And that's a line of thinking that Threepio finds distinctly uncomfortable.

Uniforms are, distinctly, uncomfortable, too.

Dinner has been supped. Sketches have been made. Jon does appear to really enjoy shucking off his reports and job responsibilities to sit back with Emily, and begin playing with this.

There are practical considerations to think of. Mostly, his arms do not fully extend. And they have the stabilizing pneumatic on each elbow bend. He cannot, on his own, do up the traditional hooks and eyes that are used to fasten Order uniforms. Likewise, he cannot, on his own, tie anything. His hands do not have the dexterity for that. Most fabrics will, unless fastened somehow (Em's thinking zippers or hookmesh pads) slip right off of his body. Anything they manage to keep on him has to keep his midriff clear, or else it will mess with his heat exhaust systems. And trousers need a wide enough pelvis and leg to get his feet through.

Jon's idly sketching something Em looked at, laughed, and then said, "Booty shorts and a midriff baring tube top, really?"

"I'll stick a giant Order hex right on the ass, put his general's stripes vertically on the hips, and it'll get the point across."

And both of them are practically rolling around on the floor they're laughing so hard.

Threepio knows there's got to be some context on that outfit, which, actually, looks the most functional of anything they'd sketched yet, but he doesn't know what it is. (Though, given the way they're wiping laugh-induced tears from their eyes, he assumes it's got to have something to do with sex. Humans only laugh like that when they're thinking about sex.)

Later that night, as they're settling into bed, Kylo says to Rey, "Apparently, Threepio's decided he wishes to be a Queenmaker."

She raises an eyebrow.

"The New Alderaan treaty. I'd tossed in a paragraph about formally giving up Ben Organa-Solo as my name, and he just about had a conniption. Apparently, my mom very carefully timed signing my birthright away so that I still have a birthright claim on New Alderaan, and Threepio very much does not intend to see us lose that."

"Because he wants to put… one of our children on that throne?"

"Apparently."

"Is that why you were calling him a dildo?"

Kylo smirks at that. "I was thinking that earlier, but… I told him he could strike the paragraph where I gave up my name, but… If you don't want our children to have that claim… I'm fully comfortable with calling him back in and putting that paragraph back in there."

She thinks about it. "I'm not sure I like the idea that some people are born kings or queens."

He nods along. "I understand that." Unspoken, but she can feel it, is the fact that he agrees, too. "I also understand that's part of the claim we're making with ourselves, prettying us up so we're not just the two people with the biggest navy."

After all, it's the Handsome Prince and His Lady.

"I know. And if we make too much of a stink about it, that undermines the story the Kinears are trying to spin for us."

"Yeah…"

"Why does this have to be so complicated?"

He stares at the ceiling. "I really don't know."

After the start of first shift, and even more designs, several of which that make the booty shorts and midriff baring tube top look like a respectable uniform for one of the highest ranked diplomats of the Order, Em says, "Gentlemen, if you'll allow me to be so bold," looking at the collection of crumpled sketches and half thought out ideas. "This is stupid as fuck. You may be a person, but you're going to look like an idiot in clothing designed for a human, because you aren't one. On top of that, we stick clothing on ourselves mostly to keep us warm and protected, neither of which you need."

"The Master told me…"

Jon's mid-waving that away as he presses the call button on his comm and keys in Kylo's code. A moment later they hear, "Jon?" Kylo's voice sounds sleepy, and it's occurring to Jon that maybe the Master isn't burning the midnight oil.

But, if he's got to burn it for this, then Kylo might as well, too. "Yeah. Okay, a uniform for Threepio, are you just pulling a shaft move and attempting to stamp a claim on him, or do you actually think it's important to try and stuff a 1.7 meter tall pile of gold into an Order uniform?"

Em's biting her hand, trying not to laugh, somewhat shocked at how Jon's asking it, and Threepio's about to have a mental breakdown at the idea of someone talking to Kylo like that.

They hear rustling, and the sound of someone, likely Kylo, shifting around. "He was annoying me. Bad idea?"

"Flamingly terrible. I can probably get some sort of badge of office and an Order Hex on him somewhere. Honestly, I'm thinking a nice, respectable arm band with the Order hex over his stripes. But he'll look… just… stupid… in a uniform."

"Yeah, fine. Great." They can hear Kylo fiddling with something on his end of the comm. Rey's voice, softly in the background, and then he says, "Do you think it matters that right now, no one going on this thing will be in uniform?"

"We will have an escort, Master," Threepio says.

They hear a sigh. "Threepio is with you, Jon?"

"Seems obvious now, doesn't it?" Jon's smirking a bit.

"You're an asshole."

"So, I've been told. Anyway, they'll be in an Order-branded ship, with Order-uniformed pilots, and Order-uniformed security, though none of them will be carrying weapons because that's part of visiting New Alderaan. That said, we will have enough City Killers just outside of the range of their scanners to obliterate anyone who tries anything untoward."

"Great," Kylo says, sounding mostly grumpy about being woken up. "General?"

"Master."

"As the only one of us who's been to New Alderaan, do you think it would be more impressive to go there wearing some sort of Order uniform, possibly an armband, or go there as you are, and as they remember you?"

That's a good question, and it's one reason why Threepio isn't immediately jumping for a new body. "I think, sir, that going as I am is likely the better course. Most anyone of any real power there will at least recognize me, and many of them know me, as well."

"Then do so. Likewise, you are allowed to tell me, to my face, if you think I've come up with a stupid plan, rather than following my orders to the letter, wasting the time of the people around you, and waiting for someone else to tell me it's a stupid plan."

"Noted, sir."

They hear Rey's voice again.

"Rey would like to make sure that the two of you are meeting tomorrow?" Rey's voice. "Today." Jon can feel Kylo glaring at him for waking him up in the middle of the night for this.

"With Lady Kinear, Mistress, to go over the particulars and set you up with the information you'll need to study beforehand."

They hear Kylo say, "You'll have homework, fun."

Again, Rey's muffled voice in the background.

"Anything else?" Kylo asks.

"No, I think we're set," Jon replies.

"Great. Good night. And Jon, unplug, call it quits, and take a break. It's late enough you shouldn't be in the office, either."

Jon rolls his eyes. "Yes, sir."

"Yeah, see, I already know you're lying to me."

"Yep. You going to do anything about it?"

"That's extremely unlikely. I could go ask Poe to check in on you."

"Now who's the asshole?"

Kylo laughs and comms off.

Threepio looks interested in that. It's starting to dawn on him what sort of interested in Poe Jon might be. "You asked me about Admiral Dameron before."

"I did." Jon looks nervous as he suddenly sees the trap that's laying at his feet.

"Dameron, is that short, dark, and handsome's last name?" Em asks.

Threepio chirps, "Admiral Poe Dameron, last commander of the Resistance. Second-in-command to Leia Organa. Hero of the battle of Starkiller Base. Black Leader. Formerly Commander Dameron of the Resistance, and previous to that Captain Dameron of the Navy of the New Republic."

Em's just looking at Jon, eyes boring into him.

Jon shrugs.

"Oh, do you fucking know how to pick 'em. Really?"

He rolls his eyes a bit. "Yeah, well…" He glares at Threepio.

"It would have come out eventually, Jon."

"Only if…" Only if they kept at this long enough for it to come out… Which certainly seems to be where Poe wants it to go, and… when he's not mentally freaking out at the idea, Jon does, too.

"Oh, it would have come out!" Em says. "I watch the way you moon around when he comes to visit. Your Dameron isn't stupid. He's figured out that this boy's middle name is 'love 'em and leave 'em,' so he's busy showing up to chat and have tea and play footsie under the table and then tease Jon into a puddle of goo and head off."

It's clear that if Threepio could blink, he would, but he can't, so… "That's likely more information than I needed on that subject."

"Stuff it. You were looking to stir up trouble, that's why you gave his former rank. While you're at it, Threepio, wanna tell where you're from?" Jon adds.

"Oh, honey, I know, remember? Film studies. Please, he's in a third of the propaganda videos I did my dissertation on," Em replies, smoothly. Having been born after the war, and well outside of any of the hot spots, most of this is… interesting… for her. It's something she could study. Not something she and anyone dear to her, lived.

Threepio cocks his head, and his voice makes it clear he's confused by Em's statement. "You studied… propaganda videos? And I'm in them? Wait… Do you mean the historic re-enactments?"

Em rolls her eyes. "Sure, you can call them that. Propaganda. That's the correct word. Anyway, you're in the background of a lot of the newsies footage, and in some of the re-created parts, too."

For once, Threepio's round, wide opened eyes are the right expression for the moment. "Propaganda!" he sounds horrified. "I'll have you know that—"

"Stuff it, General," Jon says. "Yes, I'm pulling rank on you. This is the wrong crowd to attempt to argue that all of your Rebels were pure as the light of the stars, and only in it for the good of the universe, and all the rest of that bantha shit. We've all seen the holos, and they absolutely are propaganda, designed to legitimize an illegal rebellion when a bunch of sore losers lost an election."

Threepio's livid. "That was not what happened. That election. Palpatine put the crisis into motion. He was behind the attacks that he then asked for troops to defend against, and then over the intervening years, he murdered most anyone who looked like they'd do a decent job of getting enough support in the Senate to take him out."

"That's not in any of the histories," Em says, sounding jaded. "And talk about missed opportunities for propaganda. That should have been in every history of the rise of the Empire, if it had ever really happened."

"I was there, girlie. I watched him do it." Which isn't exactly true. Padme was there. Anakin was there. He… meaning Artoo, overheard some conversations, and he's putting that together with a few things he does know about what happened later, and…

Em's supremely unimpressed. "And you didn't bring it up on the floor of the senate before the vote. You've got recording capability, right? So, boo hoo. If you've got information like that, and you sit on it, you're just as guilty as the guy who does the shit in the first place." Em is not at all uncertain about that in the least. "If you knew, and you did nothing, then it's as much on you as it is on him. So, you wanna try that story again? What did you actually see and know?"

Threepio's mentally cursing Bail. Artoo doesn't have proof. He's got a collection of overheard conversations and bits and pieces. And… He can see in Artoo's memories, based on where he is in those memories, that he's got to have more. He was there. But what he saw and heard is gone.

He does say, "After the vote. I knew it after the vote, not before. And by that point he had too much power."

"Oh, please! It's not in the propaganda films, or your historical recreations. It's not in your official Declaration of Rebellion. Your side did years worth of films of the injustices of the Empire. Any planet that looked even close to friendly to you got holovids of starving people being marched into slave labor on the farm planets, inter-spliced with fat, rich, slovenly Imperials chowing down on the food they produced. I've seen hours of footage of neighborhoods being cleared by fire to 'pacify the situation.' I compared and contrasted the top three Rebel filmmakers and how they built the images of the Rebellion as the moral high ground, but nothing, in any of those videos, is about the election being rigged. If you knew this, why isn't it in the footage? Your side figured starving people would win support but 'the Emperor was the guy who actually set up the crisis that got you all to vote him the power to put the crisis down' wouldn't? I don't know who fucked with your programming, General, but they did a number on you. If that happened, it would have been all over everything. That kind of scandal doesn't stay quiet, not if it's real." She's fiddling with her pad, not really looking at it, but keeping her hands busy as she talks, "Hell, just one defector from Palpatine's side could have made billions of credits by credibly showing proof of what happened. And you're saying none of them did it? Not one? Your Rebels couldn't turn a single one of them? Please. Even the Hux method couldn't beat people into perfect compliance, and Palpatine didn't have anything like that."

Threepio would be quivering with indignation if he could quiver. As it is, he's very, very still.

Em can… feel… probably, that she's metaphorically stepped on all of his toes, so she backtracks a bit. After all, the General does outrank her. "Look, I'm not saying you're lying, but you've got those memories, you did nothing with them, and no one else did, and that stinks like the garbage planets of the Rrelling Rim. The only person who benefited by none of that getting out was Palpatine, so you've got to wonder why it didn't get out."

Threepio bites out, "I do wonder that, all the time." Bail had… not proof, but two droids full of something very close to proof, and all the leads he needed to find proof. A… map to that one Imperial who could have been swayed with money and fame to break open the story. So, he blanked out the memory of one, and refused to use the other and…

According to Luke, no one is ever really gone, and right now he really wants to talk to Bail, to know… why. Bleeding, thrumming, screaming WHY?

Instead of that, he says, "I think the idea of the armband is probably a good one. When I get to New Alderaan, they will recognize me, but some mark of rank may be useful."

Em decides not to poke him further, and nods along. "Sure. A micromesh patch, we can use a mild adhesive on your arm, and that'll keep the band in place."

"That would be acceptable."

3/25/2

"Lady Kinear," Threepio says, as he comes up beside his… co-tutor… on all things diplomatic as they wait for the lift to take them from the F-Deck to Kylo's private suite.

"General," she says back to him as the doors open. She steps in first, inserts her ID chit, and he presses the button that grants them access to the AAA-Deck. She glances over to him. "I think, the thing I miss most about living on a planet, is weather. I can't just say to you, 'lovely day we're having' or 'I hope the heatwave breaks soon.'"

Threepio's never thought of that, though he does nod. "I have 78 million variations on the theme of that conversation in more languages than you can imagine in my databanks. It's a very common way of starting up a friendly conversation. So, are you hoping to engage me in friendly conversation?"

"It occurs to me that… our time with Rey will likely go more smoothly if she's not wondering if we're about to start fighting."

"We're never about to start fighting, Lady. I just don't trust you, nor do I think Rey should."

"Why? I know you have our records in your databases. There's nothing in there to make you unsettled."

"You and your husband owe primary allegiance to clan Kinear, first, last, and always. Anything and everything else can go by the wayside in the furtherance of your family."

"And that's different from your devotion to clan Organa, how?"

"Among other things, I didn't join Snoke, and I haven't personally murdered anyone to keep my secrets safe."

Ellie smirks a bit at him. "But would you? I'm sure you've got an override in there, that makes it so that not only won't you kill anyone, but you'll never even think of it. Try. Contemplate a murder, see what happens."

"I do not—" And now she's got him thinking of it… He wants to curse under his breath. He can't do it. He's mentally incapable of even beginning to plan something like that.

"Exactly," she smirks a bit at that, too. "It's easy to take the moral high road when you literally cannot even fathom setting foot upon the low one. In the meantime, me and mine… We keep them safe, no matter what, and these days, Kylo and Rey are part of mine."

"Until they decide to do something you don't approve of."

"Which should be a consolation to you, because if I don't approve of it, you likely won't, either. You are, after all, a creature looking to create a stable and functional governing body set to protect those who join it, correct? We want that, too, for our children, and grand children, and great grand children."

"You want to rule it."

Ellie shrugs a bit. "Not personally, and not this generation, and likely not the one after. In fifty to a hundred year, maybe. Besides, since when have you been against desiring to rule something. You've worked with a Prince Consort, a Princess, a Senator, and the commanding General of a Resistance. For the last fifty years, you've been next to power, and for most of it appeared to have no qualms about it."

Threepio's quiet for a moment, as they continue downward. "Not just functional and stable, Lady Kinear. I think that is the biggest difference. It's not enough that the borders are safe from raiders and the currency sound. There has to be more than that."

"Kylo is offering more."

"I know. I do not trust that a Kinear dynasty would, though. Not for anyone not named Kinear."

Ellie smiles at him, but her eyes are sharp. "How little you know, General. How little you know. But, I will point this out, it's only in a place where the border are stable, where goods and currency can flow without or with only minimal fear of raiders, where homes can be left during the day, their owners sure that when they come back, they'll still be standing, that you can begin to move onto bigger and better things.

"And, whether you agree or not with the side we backed, the Empire was all about getting that groundwork into place so they could move to bigger and better things. And yes, in your beloved Alderaan, which had been that kind of place for centuries, the work necessary to pacify those who would steal, rape, kill and destroy seemed barbaric, but in places where the locals could finally leave their homes and be sure they were still there when they got back—"

"You and yours burned a lot of homes of people who had nothing to do with the problems in your enthusiasm for 'pacification.' The Emperor wanted nothing more than power for himself and trampled anyone who got in the way, looked like they might get in the way, or were located near someone who might get in the way."

"The Emperor was not immortal, General, and we had plans for what came after."

"Which is exactly why I'm wary of Clan Kinear. Kylo and Rey are not immortal either, though apparently you and the Grand Marshall appear to be. Who knows where your plans will go once they're no longer in the game?"

Ellie laughs at that. "Fear not, General, we've got maybe a decade left, probably less."

Threepio is silent for a moment, checking his rosters. "You have twenty-two descendants in the Order now, or Order adjacent spaces."

"All the more reason to trust me, then. I'm motivated to make sure the Order thrives and survives." The lift slows its downward trajectory. "And we're just about here," Ellie says.

"Indeed."

Rey's in a better mood about… well, everything, by the time the meeting is getting ready. She's still not relishing moving, but the kids are enthusiastic about trying somewhere new (or maybe just not having to dig out from the snow again) and that helps. (Granted, she's also not fond of having to dig out, and this morning, with a fresh twenty centimeters on the ground, and temperatures so cold those twenty centimeters were sheer powder, meaning they just slipped right back onto the ground after being lifted up, resettling somewhere warm is tickling her fancy, too.)

She's in the not remotely a throne room right now. Right now, it's mostly just empty, though she understands there are plans to put some plants in there, and some sort of path, maybe a reflecting pool and fountain.

She'd been thinking of meeting in either Kylo's office, or their room, but he's in the office with the men he calls 'the numbers wonks' so she's out here, not disturbing them. (Or as Kylo put it, 'I have a hard enough time following the numbers when I don't have my favorite person sitting next to me chatting in my head. There's no chance at all of me following along if you're there to help me amuse myself.' That seemed relevant to Rey, so she's in the not-a-throne-room.)

She's a bit surprised to see Ellie and Threepio come down together. And they look a bit surprised to see her out here. They don't say anything though, and join her, overlooking the galaxy spinning around beyond them.

"Do you know where New Alderaan is?" Rey asks Threepio.

He looks out for a moment, running the images in his head against what's in front of his face. "We're not correctly situated to point New Alderaan out. It's behind us. Alderaan, though," he gestures to a bit of space that looks like every other bit of space. "Thirty-seven years ago, it would have been there."

Rey nods. "Okay. So… I go with the non-aggression treaty, where we formally declare that we've got no interest in doing anything remotely harmful to New Alderaan. Buried in that treaty are the seeds of you," she's talking to Threepio, "formally setting up a potential Queen Ren of Alderaan one of these days."

Ellie doesn't look satisfied or smirk. She doesn't let her pleasure at that get to her face. There or not, Threepio does not, for an instant miss how she reacts to that news. Nor does Rey.

"Am I correct in assuming that Queen Ren to be your daughter, and not you," Ellie says.

Rey nods. "All I've got to do is show up, look pretty, hand this thing over, and not embarrass myself or Kylo."

Ellie does smile at that. "In a nutshell. Though, like anything else shoved into a nutshell, you've only got the high points. The details are where this will get interesting. First of all, while it's true that you're going to hand this thing over, the way you do that is about making a warm, encompassing, welcoming entreaty. By the time we're done with this, we want New Alderaan to feel like we're… well, a long-lost child, coming home, and offering a new home to distant relatives."

Threepio sighs at that. Being wary of Lady Kinear would be so much easier, and more satisfying, if she weren't so damn good at the job. He says, "She's not wrong. Part of what I've added to the treaty is formal recognition of our two sovereignties, an exchange of embassies, and the ability for full joint citizenship."

Ellie glances up at Threepio, and again looks very pleased. "You've planned this well, haven't you?"

"I certainly hope so."

Rey looks between them, getting a sense of what they want, and aren't saying. "I'm… Oh… Kylo is the heir of New Alderaan, but not their king. He doesn't want to be their King either. But if an Alderaanian wants him to be their King, they come to us."

"Exactly," Ellie says. "But in five years, they don't have to abandon their Alderaanian citizenship when they become Order Citizens. Likewise, and this'll be interesting, if anyone who has already chosen Kylo decides that New Alderaan looks like a nice place to settle, New Alderaan, assuming they go along with this, won't force them to drop Order citizenship, or ban them outright from Alderaanian citizenship, or settling there."

"You're… tying the two societies together," Rey says.

Threepio nods.

"Will they go along with it?" Rey asks.

"That's the question, now, isn't it?" Ellie responds, looking at Threepio.

He'd shrug if he could. "I put the odds of them taking us up on this at two in five." Rey blinks, she's never heard Threepio come up with odds that aren't astronomical. "The question is, how closely do they want to be tied to the First Order," she's about to say the First Order is dead, but stops herself, and decides to listen to what Threepio is saying. "How much do they trust that the First Order really is dead, how confident is Queen Heloise in her throne, how well can she imagine the angles and options that come with aligning with the Order, and, of course, just sheer perverse human cussedness. The current terms are, of course, favorable to everyone. There's no downside on this, as it stands, on it's face, for either of us, now."

"That's a lot of qualifiers for one sentence, General," Ellie says.

"The situation warrants them. How this treaty may color and shade the future though, that's where the insecurities lie."

He just watches Rey, and she can feel she's supposed to glean something from what he's said. Ellie's waiting too, letting her suss it out.

"There are no agreements that are favorable to everyone?" Rey says after a moment.

Threepio would smile if he could, and Ellie nods. "The current agreement… Have you read it?"

Rey shakes her head. "No."

"Well, that's going to be the first homework assignment, then. But, unless The General changed it well beyond the last version I saw, this treaty shifts the status quo in ways so that Queen Ren does become a potential. In that Queen Ren is not only not yet born, but might never be, there is only potential here. That said, Queen Ren is destabilizing because she provides options that are not currently on the board."

Rey looks between them. "But that's why they came to visit us in the first place, right? Prince Ben came back into play, and that's making them nervous."

"Exactly, Lady Ren."

Rey wrinkles her nose at Threepio. "I really don't like you calling me that. I know, formal, whatnot, but…"

Threepio would side eye Ellie if he could, but again, he can't, so he just stands there for a moment, We are not in private radiating off of him strongly.

Rey grits her teeth.

"Fine, Rey. Because of the genocide of Alderaan, and how the monarch is chosen, people with the correct lineage are limited. Fifty years ago, there were twelve families the monarch could come from, and at any given time, at least a hundred people who could put forth a claim. As of this time last year, there were only two surviving lines that monarchs could be chosen from, and four people who could make the claim. Adding a third, even if said third is strenuously claiming he's got no interest in being King of Alderaan, makes the other two nervous."

"This treaty doesn't exactly calm their nerves," Ellie says, "but it does offer a superficial balm, and makes sure that for at least the next twenty years the status quo remains the same. Likewise, depending on local temperament, they should recognize that having a good relationship with the Order can come in handy on myriad levels."

"Among other things, New Alderaan is somewhat less secure in the trappings of peace than Alderaan was," Threepio says. "Its official positions are pacifistic, but given how badly 'we have no weapons' hurt them last time, it's likely they may not shun the companionship of an extremely well-armed friend who has… reasons… to be defensive of her."

"What happened with them during the Resistance years? Did Snoke have any interest…" Rey begins to ask.

Ellie shakes her head. "Too tiny to matter. New Alderaan has… ten million people? Twelve? If it were anything other than New Alderaan, no one would pay it any heed."

Rey spends a moment thinking about 'well-armed-friend.' "Is an alliance with someone who is explicitly non-pacifistic part of what may be making them nervous."

Ellie smiles, and she has the sense of pleasure off of Threepio. "That's where two in five comes in," he says. "A formal alliance with any combatant would involve a serious shift in their current attitudes. The question is, do they trust that Kylo has no interest in New Alderaan? If they think that he'll abide by what he's said, they may not take us up on this offer. They'll settle back, and rest assured that he'll be here, doing what he does, and it won't touch them."

"But that sort of thing didn't work out well for them in the past," Rey says.

"Exactly," Ellie replies. "So, do they choose to get into bed with us, hoping to control the outcome. Do they look at our treaty, and re-write it substantially, and hope that eventually, we'll work out a deal more to their liking?"

"And will that deal involve him formally dropping his claim, and the claim of any children we may have?" Rey asks.

"Probably," Threepio replies, "but that will be a sticking point for us. We're not going to budge on that."

"Even if it's a deal breaker?" Rey asks.

"Rey, they are maybe twelve million, mostly unarmed, people on the far side of the galaxy of us. There is literally no upshot for us by dropping Kylo's claim."

"I believe what the General is trying to say, dear, is that while we can enforce any treaty agreement we come up with, or break it, they cannot. And they know it. They don't have the manpower, let alone the firepower, to do anything to us, so to a degree this is bargaining with nothing but charm and the affections of the party in power in your hand."

"This is about image, Rey. The Talmasch and the Antillies, the two remaining royal families, do not want the Organa line resuscitated. They also don't want to look like they snuffed it out in the first place. Which is why they are not seeking to ban Organa from the line."

"Can they do that?" Rey asks.

"Any population that's motivated can remove a ruler, or potential ruler," Ellie replies. "That's how they got rid of the Emperor."

"But, image matters," Threepio says. "If Alderaan is to be Alderaan they cannot do certain things. Which means they have limited tools at their disposal. The best option for them is to discredit Kylo as an Organa. That way they never have to even touch any of the deeper issues."

"And we're going to just gloss over the whole Organa thing, and act as if it's so blatantly obvious that it cannot be challenged," Rey says.

Ellie grins at her. "You've got it. But they'll want the challenge."

"And that's where you come in," Rey looks to Threepio. "I know we can't do a DNA claim because Kylo's mother was adopted. I know we don't want to do a DNA claim because that'll… complicate… the situation. But you can… You can prove he's Ben Solo, right?"

"I can prove he's Ben Solo. Retina scans, facial recognition, I have family images in my memory banks, and R2 does, too. Between the two of us we can provide images of Ben growing up until the age of twenty-two."

"But we're not doing that because…" Rey says.

"Because it's not unfakable," Ellie says. "Because it's possible that there was a Ben Solo, but there isn't any longer. Because retina scans can be sliced. Because the Empire ran the register, and then for a while there was no register, and then the Senate had it, and then the First Order, and as the man who runs the Order, Kylo would have the access to shift the scan to match him, retroactively."

"But no one wants to make that claim, either," Threepio adds. "The galaxy works better if we believe the register is inviolate."

"This might be stupid, but… What are the odds that there's a man who just happens to look like Ben Solo, exactly, down to the retina pattern, and is Force sensitive? I know… surgery is a thing. I guess you could build a face to match Ben, but… You can't fake Force sensitivity, right?" Rey says.

"And that's likely why they won't attempt to challenge us on who Kylo Ren used to be," Ellie replies. "They don't like it, but everyone knows who Luke Skywalker was, and while images can be recreated, Kylo's skills can't be faked, so…"

"Knows Luke, but not Leia? She was Force sensitive, too," Rey says, and then sees the way Ellie responds to that. "Oh."

Threepio nods. "Most of the galaxy did not know that."

"Interesting," Ellie responds.

None of them seem to have anything to say after that, so Ellie turns to Threepio, "Do you know the current queen?"

"No. I knew her predecessor, of course. But Queen Heloise was still a child when I was last on New Alderaan. We have met, but I do not know her, on any functional level."

"And her predecessor…" Rey pauses, "was her mother? So…"

"Could be very similar, could be as close as Kylo and Leia," Ellie says, all but daring Threepio to expand on the idea of Kylo and Leia and how similar they may be.

He doesn't take the bait. If Rey had asked that question of him, privately, he might have been tempted to respond, but he's not about to give Ellie Kinear that information. He does begin briefing them on the Talmash family. He wraps with, "And here is the other homework assignment," he hands Rey a datastick. "History of Alderaan and New Alderaan. This should round out that last few minutes, and make it make more sense."

"So, reading? That's what I'm doing to get ready for this?" Rey says.

"For now. We'll get you properly kitted out closer to time, and when we have the schedule of events, we'll walk through them, but for now, read," Ellie replies.