PublicPrivate

by Keryl Raist

This is the third book in the Tao-of-The-Force-verse series. If you haven't read Tension/Balance or Rumors/Gossip, it's not going to make a lick of sense. If you have... We're starting off right where we left off. The First Year parties are ending, the Order is coming into it's own, and Rey and Kylo...

52. The Whole Survives

4/15/2

"Fucker." Jon says it quietly under his breath. He's on the YY deck, looking at what is starting to appear to be something like a layout for a functional diplomatic space. He's supposed to be meeting with the man in charge of explaining to him why nine weeks into construction, they're already four weeks behind.

That seems to be the entire thrust of this job, either whomever set up the schedule for it in the first place vastly over-promised, and under estimated how long each item would take, or the people actually doing the work are a collection of blithering idiots.

He's unfortunately got the sense that he's dealing with a decent-sized piece of both.

He checks his chrono. He came early for this. And now, his meeting is, officially, late.

He doesn't enjoy working with General Sanons of Physical Plant and Maintenance: Construction Division to begin with. Lots of excuses, not a lot to show for them, and it's clear that Sanons doesn't much like him, either. He's got the sense that Sanons remembers how Jon got his first promotion, and personally holds it against him. Hell, he might have been a friend of Captain Smanth's… They have similar management styles and are about the same age. Definitely both ex-Imperials…

Or maybe it's just that Jon is young, energetic, works all the hours of the watch, and is Master Ren's pet. However it is, he does not like Jon, and it shows.

This is the second time this week the bastard just didn't show for an appointment. He hits the call button on his comm. "R4-6837," he calls to his secretary, "Can you find out why Lord Asshat isn't here with me now?"

"Would that be General Sanons, Lt. Colonel Halsey, or Commander RY-9987?"

Jon rolls his eyes. He's been using that nickname too often. "The General, please. We're supposed to be meeting right now, and I'm here on my own, making the construction workers nervous."

"I'll get on it, sir."

"Thank you."

---

Ten minutes later, he's got R4-6837 on his comm. "General Sanons will not be making the meeting. His third-in-command is heading toward you as quickly as he can."

Jon blinks. "What happened?"

"Sanons died on the 5th, and his-second-in command, Colonel C'Rink passed on the 7th, and poor Lt. Commander JR-6687 is suddenly in charge of the entire department and desperately trying to put everything back into place."

"Fuck. Uh… I… Within two days of each other? Was there an accident or something?"

"I didn't ask. JR-6687 seemed… tense."

"I'll say." Jon knows all he ever wanted to know about the upper ranks suddenly being gone, and having to get everything else set all of a sudden.

He waits, and waits, and then queues up his unending stream of reports to at least do something useful with the time between now and whenever JR-6678 shows up.

---

Forty-five minutes, and from the looks of him, an absolute dead run, later, Lt. Commander JR-6678 shows up.

In that time, Jon's read the summary of his personnel file. Like many of the Numbers, previous to the destruction of Starkiller and the Supremacy he had been in military service, but military service as an engineer. When the Supremacy was cut in half, he turned his training in building stable platforms for temporary flight decking into a collection of floating construction zones from which to work on the outside of the Supremacy and from there he was shifted, or dragooned, into Physical Plant, along with a generous promotion.

Since then, he's mostly been working on Supremacy repair and maintenance. While it only took a few months to restore hull integrity to the Supremacy, and to get most of it up to 'battle ready,' meaning capable of hitting hyperspeed without rupturing, the actual construction to repair the damage took almost two solid years, and, of course, during that time, all of the ship's routine maintenance had to keep happening as well.

According to the file, he was put onto the Diplomacy Wing Project three and a half months ago, at the end of the planning phase, and three months ago, at the very beginning of the building phase, began writing notes along the lines of (and here Jon mentally translates the dry engineer-speak dense with obscuring verbiage like 'sub-optimal performance matrices' into Galactic Standard) 'No one on this project knows their ass from their elbow, and please, please, pretty please find us a fucking civil engineer, please!'

(Jon does make a note on his pad to go find out who the hell built the personnel decks and see if they can be shifted onto this project, assuming they're still alive. Apparently, if he's understanding what's between the lines in this report, building a functional, attractive place for people to live is not precisely the same thing as building a stable platform to stick a lot of weapons on. Or as JR-6678 puts it, 'Stylistic concerns are currently being overlooked in favor of functionality, but currently, the alignment of functionality and style appears to be of a higher level of optimal satisfaction for the designers of the project.' Jon's fairly sure he's one of the 'Designers' and damn right this bloody thing is supposed to be fucking stylish.)

Now, JR-6678 is standing in front of him, sweating slightly, out of breath, and looking deeply nervous.

Jon holds up his hands in a peace gesture. "At ease. I know you've been on the job approximately ten minutes and need a bit of time to get your bearings."

A wave of relieve washes over JR-6678. "Thank you, sir. I'm sorry, sir. I didn't think to look at my predecessor's calendars to see who they had meetings with. I was too busy trying to figure out exactly what they were doing."

"I understand." Jon shrugs a bit. "I was a Captain the day the Supremacy was attacked. I went from nine levels of senior commanders to being the top of the heap in less than a minute. It takes time to get things up and running, but, unfortunately, time is the one thing I can't give you more of."

"Yes, sir."

Jon gestures to the space around them. "I see you voiced comments about what's being done here."

JR-6678 almost looks nervous, but, well, anyone who might complain about him being out of line is gone, so… "Yes. This is…" his voice falters.

"Sub-optimal?"

"Indeed."

"And what can improve that?"

He's still looking nervous, but a different sort of nervous. Now he's wondering, what, if anything of how this is currently being done is Jon's plan. "I've got to get a good handle on what, exactly, we're doing before I can get any concrete plans into place, sir."

"Look, you aren't about to strangle my baby with your ideas, but even if you were, if it speeds things up, I'll listen. There are things you noticed before. How quickly can you get those fixes into place?"

JR-6678 relaxes, a little. He's been around long enough to know that just because you've been told to speak freely, doesn't mean the person who told you to do it really means it. "Already doing it, sir. Did you read all of my notes?"

Jon shakes his head. "I've only known you were on the job for forty minutes. I read enough to know you saw there were problems."

"Okay. First and foremost, our supply chain needs an overhaul. These floors are more than a hundred square kilometers, and Sanons decided the most effective way to lay out materials was to plop them all in the middle of the floor, assuming that having everything in one place would save us time in finding things, and in the middle would be the closest place to put them to everything else."

Jon can feel whatever ghost Lane may have moaning in pain at that plan. After all, he got his stripes as a logistics officer. "And you disagree."

"I disagree, and I've already gotten a move on that. We're re-arranging where things are stored, so they're closer to where they're being worked with. And so the things that are being worked with, and only the things that are being worked with, are near the site. It takes more set up than the dump everything in the middle technique. We probably lose a half day per set up, but it maybe saves ten minutes per supply run."

"I'll take the ten minutes, because multiplied by everyone, we're talking hours a day, days a month, correct?"

"Correct." JR-6678 leads Jon to one of the construction sections, where to Jon's eye, it certainly looks like things are swimming along. And then, as a man who's not just designed, but also built structural supports, he begins to explain what he's seeing, and what could be done better.

Jon would say, by the end of it, that A: this has been educational. B: their construction expense estimates are (unfortunately) off by ten percent, and not in the direction he wants them to be, and C: it's possible, in the sense of not being impossible, that they may be able to get this floor done in time for the Ren Wedding, Open the Order to the Galaxy, Grand Extravaganza of Lights and Beauty that Ellie is hoping to pull off as the crowning glory of 'Handsome Princing the Shit Out of It.' It's significantly more likely, that if they put up an attractive, and temporary wall, cutting this section in half, that they can absolutely get the half they work on done up to perfection and get the landing bay all spruced up, and still have enough budget left to actually host the wedding.

He okays the wall.

---

He's staring at his glass of wine. Only two seems to be going… most nights… easier. And tonight he's feeling pretty satisfied where he is, halfway through the second one, skimming through his collection of reports, not clicking on whatever fresh new hell R4-6837, Kylo, and C8 have concocted for him.

It probably involves time off which, since he doesn't have a pretty companion to go gallivanting about the galaxy with, and he does have more work than any three people should honestly even contemplate doing, does not sound fun to him.

There's a note from Threepio in there, and those he tends to like, because they very often run like this: "Whatever it is you told me to do is now done. Here are three other things adjacent to what you asked me to do. They're also done. Here are some ideas for what I think I should do next, and I've already put them into play, but I'm going to pretend this is a request because you outrank me." Followed by, "And if you have any comments or ideas for other things you think I should do, I've already thought of them, and likely am just waiting for you to get off your ass and request it so I can send you yet another of these notes telling you the thing you wanted done is done."

Kylo might be onto something with attempting to get more Threepios. He wonders idly at asking Threepio how he would feel about duplicating his processors and cloning himself so that he could get twice as much done.

He clicks on the note. It's about the landing bay in the diplomacy zone. Okay… Reading along, and… Huh… New guy on that, too. New guy looks promising though, and Threepio is feeling good about their continued working relationship.

Jon blinks at his wine.

New guy. What happened to the old one?

Then he looks in Colonel Suth's file. He died on the 6th. Turns out he was allergic to shrimp, apparently didn't know that, and ordered the shrimp bisque for supper, died before he could call for help.

"That's fucking scary." He shudders a little. One of the weddings he'd been at was in a garden. Everyone was having a very good time until one of the guests, who was from a different planet, got bit by something that, on world, is just a pest, but to the guest it was a lethal toxin. Poor man puffed up and choked on his own tongue before anything could be done to save him.

Sometimes the universe really is just out to get you.

He takes another sip, and reads another report, and…

Something's just niggling at the back of his head, annoyingly. So, he turns his attention to it.

Three dead physical plant officers in three days. That's… weird… right?

Sanons was pretty old, probably at least seventy, so… He pops off one day, well, people get old and they die, so… His second in command was… Jon only met him a few times, maybe… Forty-five? Fifty? Probably closer to fifty, he was an ex-Imperial, too. Which is… younger than he'd expect. And, okay, shrimp allergies are a thing, so…

Still, six million plus people on this ship, just pure numbers alone means they just die sometimes.

But it doesn't feel… right.

---

He's not sleeping. He should be. Tomorrow's going to start too freaking early, but… He grabs his comm. "Threepio, are you up?"

A moment of silence followed by, "What else would I be, Jon?"

"Good point. Uh… It's generally not polite to call upon people at 01:17, unless they work second or third shift."

"Ah." A moment of quiet. "And…"

"That note you sent me. Colonel Suth died?"

"That does appear to be what the reports say. And while I do not wish death on anyone, I cannot say that I'm particularly sorrowful to not have to deal with him any longer. He was not keen to take orders from me."

"Yeah, I know the feeling. Sanons and C'Rink died, too."

Quiet on Threepio's side.

"Uh… Threepio, I'm probably going to regret asking this, but… What are the odds that, when the Diplomacy Wing Program gets into the weeds, that the three commanding officers most thoroughly dragging it into those weeds all die within days of each other?"

Threepio is silent, and Jon's fairly sure it's not because he needs that much time to figure the odds. Finally, he says, "Jon, I think it is safe to say that you will not, on any level, find the answer comforting."

"Yeah, that's what I thought. Thanks, Threepio."

"You're welcome Jon. May I ask what you're going to do about this?"

He sighs. "Probably have a chat with Kylo. Do you want to come?"

"No. Not for this one. I have meetings with two delegations who are wishing to use us as a platform for hosting some delicate negotiations, and I'm set to show off the I-deck, and talk about what it is we can offer them in terms of hosting and also contract law mediation and enforcement."

"Sounds like a good day. See you."

"Good-bye, Jon."

He calls C8, sets up an appointment for the next morning, and then shoots a note to his secretary to shift his morning around and clear out the space. He's got… It's not proof, nothing like that. It's not even necessarily a hunch, so much, but…

If someone is… removing… inefficient officers… He's fairly sure who it's likely to be.

What he's not sure of is what the hell to do about it.

---

It turns out the morning couldn't be shifted around. Afternoon on the other hand, worked just fine. As soon as Jon enters Kylo's office, Kylo says to him, "I could feel the cloud from five floors up. Look, I know you don't want more off time, but you've also got to get something like some downtime or you're going to burn out, so… Yeah, you're coming with us for at least some of the fun diplomacy stuff."

And apparently that's the fresh new hell hiding in the missive he hasn't read yet. As fresh new hells go, it's not terrible, but… It also doesn't sound like, 'I found a way to make your job easier.'

Jon sits on the edge of Kylo's desk. "I hadn't actually read that note, and we'll talk about it later. I've got something else you're not going to like."

"Nothing new about that. Hit me with it."

So, Jon does.

Kylo thinks about it. "It could be a coincidence."

"Threepio didn't think so."

Kylo winces. He knows that Threepio can run the numbers. "Fuck," he mutters it, leaning back in his chair, staring out at the stars whirling past. For a moment, his mind is fairly blank, but the sense that there was something… And up it comes, more than a year ago now… Maybe… No, it was the day Paige was born, so less, but not by much, Kinear told him they were removing the people who weren't interested in helping him get where he needed to go.

He glances to Jon. Jon looks back at him, and they both think about a few wily old coots, who came up through the Empire, and have a vested interest in the Diplomacy department getting up and working.

"Do you think…" Jon says… "I mean… It's not like the Empire was shy about executing people for incompetence."

"Yeah. Fuck…" He'd been… trying to move away from that. Sort of. Without ever, specifically, ordering it. Which he really should have, but… He rubs his head. "I know."

"What do you know?" Jon says.

"A while back, Kinear told me that he was… removing people."

Jon looks tense. "Kylo, how many people has he… removed?"

Kylo feels tense now, too. He was, kind of… well… He did his best not to think about it, but now that he's got to, he was sort of thinking like… maybe… twenty? He really didn't think about it, because he knew he wouldn't like anything his brain came up with. And now he's got to think about it, again.

Kylo sighs. "C8, how many officers have died in the last—Never mind, that's the wrong question. They just die sometimes, right?"

"People die, and in our world, probably more than the average guy living peacefully planetside. Training accidents alone…" Jon starts.

Kylo nods. "C8, how many otherwise healthy, non-accident or combat related deaths have we seen among the officer class in the last month?"

"487."

Jon and Kylo stare at each other.

"That's not fucking helpful is it?" Kylo asks.

"Yeah, I've got no idea what the number should be."

"May I offer a suggestion?" C8 asks.

"Please," Kylo responds.

"How many of them had bad fitness evals, or personnel complaints against them? And the answer to that is, 147."

"Just this last month?" Jon asks.

"Just this last month," C8 replies.

Kylo gets something of a thought. "How many of them happened when I was off the ship?"

"58." C8 crunches some numbers. "About 50 or 60, usually ranked above Lt. Commander, die every time you leave the ship for more than a day. 271 died while you were sick."

That's… more than twenty. Which means he's got to deal with this. "Get Schiff and Kinear in here, we've got some talking to do."

---

"What are you going to do?" Jon asks.

Kylo shrugs. He really doesn't know. He's not even entirely sure he thinks what Kinear and Schiff are doing is wrong. Entirely. Maybe. If he knew… who… "I… Suggestions?"

"In the civilian world, we just fire people for not being good at their jobs. Maybe… We could just let them go? I mean… That's part of the idea of the Order, right, part of why we aren't the First Order?"

Kylo sighs. "Fuck."

---

Kinear and Schiff make it an hour later, which means they pretty much dropped everything, and as close to sprinted as their ancient bodies could sprint.

And it's clear on the looks on their faces that they know something is up.

"We've been having a bit of a conversation about what the Order does with incompetent officers," Kylo says, and he feels the wave of oh shit come off of both of them. "And I was wondering if we could, possibly, have a chat about firing people."

That was nothing either of them were expecting. They're both staring at Kylo in abject horror. He's fairly sure he could have suggested firing them, personally, out of one of the starboard cannons, and it'd get less of a sense of revulsion off of both of them.

Pat and Josh stare at Kylo and Jon, and then look at each other, and back to Kylo and Jon.

Both of them, are simultaneously, thinking something very close to: Good Gods, what could have possibly happened, here?

They look at each other again, and then again back to Jon and Kylo.

Pat rolls his lips.

Josh runs his hand through his hair.

They glance at each other again.

Finally, Pat says, rubbing a hand over his face. "C8, run a diagnostic scan on this room and the ones surrounding it. I want to make sure we're speaking alone."

C8 doesn't say anything for a moment, but they watch him staring at the walls, and then stride into the rooms that adjoin Kylo's office, and then a moment later, he's back. "There are no recording devices located in any of the Master's rooms. That said, I cannot ascertain if there are any devices on the floor above us, catching the vibrations through the floor."

Kylo sighs, glances to Jon, and then says, "It's good to be the king?"

Jon nods, remembering his comment about when it's okay to use 'magic' on people without their express permission.

He takes Pat and Josh by the hand, ports them to his kitchen, is back for Jon before the two of them have had a chance to even begin to digest what's happened to him, and then the four of them are in Kylo and Rey's house.

"I can assure, you, here we're free to speak."

Josh is turning, slowly, around looking at everything.

Pat's blinking. He mutters, "That's a hell of a trick."

Jon goes to the cooler, grabs the jug of… "What's this?"

"Pear cider. There's a bottle of brandy on the shelf if you want something stronger."

Josh slowly lowers himself onto one of the benches at the kitchen table. "I think I'm going to need something stronger."

Pat nods in agreement.

Jon pours the brandy. Kylo gets himself a cider, looks at it, and then pours it back into the jug and puts it on the cooker to warm up. He gestures to his kitchen table, and sits. "Pat…"

Pat sits down, too. "We're… at your home?"

Kylo nods. "Welcome. Now, I could feel both of you just about have an aneurysm when I suggested we start firing people rather than executing them, so just say it."

Pat's the one who pulls up his nerve, and reserves, first, "Josh, how long have we known each other?"

Josh shrugs. "I… Let's see, I got flag rank right after the first Death Star, and that's the first time we actually met. I knew of you, though."

Pat nods. "And I you. If you could dig up the paperwork, you'd see I'm one of the names recommending you for Admiral."

Josh nods a bit. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. But we didn't really ever work together in the Empire."

"It was too big for that."

"But, since…" Pat thinks a little. "Twenty-five years in the First Order?"

"On and off, I'd say."

"And we are of commiserate rank?"

"I got to Grand Admiral before you got to Grand Marshal, but you've got… what… twelve years service on me?"

"Something like that."

"So, yes, I'd say we're of commiserate rank."

"Excellent. Josh, I am hereby ordering you, that, if you ever, in your professional opinion, think that I am a danger to either the Order or yourself, to execute me, clean and fast."

"Of course, Pat. And Pat, I am—"

"Stuff it. You've got a lesson you're attempting to teach both of us, just spell it out and cut out the theatrics," Kylo says.

Pat turns his attention to Kylo and Jon. "We do not execute men on a whim. If you've gotten our attention on a level where we're going to end you, it's because you are a danger to the Order."

"We do not fire people, because if you can be fired, you're not dangerous enough to warrant our attention."

"Maybe you two work that way, but… Everyone in the Order used to execute underlings. No one ever got fired," Jon says.

"And maybe, for the lower levels, that's a policy we can revisit. Maybe. It isn't for us and our level," Schiff says.

Kylo eyes both of them. "You're shielding Pat, and Josh, you're working very hard to not think about something. I know you aren't lying, but there's something here you don't want me thinking about." Kylo smiles at them, sharp. "That did it. Danger to yourself or the Order. Schiff doesn't think I'd like that. And you think I'm too close to the New Republic to understand." Kylo's eyes are bright, and his expression hard. "Start talking, because here, on my home territory, I'm a lot more dangerous than either of you've ever dreamed of. And, not to put too fine a point on it, but I've got a long reputation of killing old men who do things I don't approve of." It's possible the fact that he gets up and pours himself a mug of hot pear cider might, possibly, pull some of the rug out of that statement. Though he sees Pat understand it as even killers have homes and lives and do things like drink their pear cider warm on a cold day. And more than that, Pat respects it.

Of course, Pat understands and respects it, because he is it.

Pat nods, shoots back his brandy, wiggles his cup indicating he'd like some of the warm cider, which Kylo pours him, and then says, as he adds some brandy to the cider, "You want to build a system that will outlive you. You want an ideal of laws and orders and you want it to not be dependent on you or any given person to run it."

Kylo nods. He'd like that. He puts the warm cider on the table so the rest of them can get some, and sits down.

Pat shakes his head. "It doesn't work that way. Nothing works that way. To even have a shot of being a system of laws, you have to be a system of men. The right men. Because without us, it all falls apart. Law, orders, power, it's only as good as the person wielding it. That's the long and the short of it.

"So, yes. We are professionals. We are dedicated to helping to create this ideal that you're working on. We are the men you need to make your system work. It cannot and will not without us. We trust each other, as men and as professionals. We trust our seconds and thirds and fourths in command, as men and as professionals. We have earned that trust through decades of service, billions of lives, untold liters of blood, and uncountable hours of pain.

"We have put our minds, bodies, families, power, and lives, literally, on the line to do this.

"So, if Josh decides I am a problem, to the Order or to him, personally, because he, personally, is one of the keystones keeping this organization standing, then I trust him to end me, and do it well, because it's time to go."

"And I extend that same trust to Pat. He's earned it. And if one of us has decided that someone needs to go, he needs to go."

"That's it. Your opinion on the matter, and it's sealed?" Jon says.

Pat and Josh sigh. They again share a look, and this one seems to be saying, Design Officer.

"Yes," Pat finally says. "I have these stripes for a reason, lad, and so does Josh. We are command officers. I have been a command officer since before either of you were born. I have been a command officer since before Kylo's mother was born, and yours likely hadn't threaded a needle for the first time, yet when I got my first stripes as a Coruscant copper. Galactic City, The Army of the Republic, The Empire, The First Order, and supposedly, The Order, have all employed me to do one thing, and that's decide who needs to die to enact the will of, protect, or enrich them, and then turn around and kill them as quickly and cleanly as possible with the least possible damage to ourselves. Not to be a smartass, but what do you think I do with the storm troopers?"

Josh slugs back his drink. Then he shakes his head. "Lads…" He rubs his eyes. "I know your father was dead and yours wasn't on the job, and for that matter even if he had been, his rank was honorary, so apparently neither of you ever got properly sat down and explained this, but… Killing people is what a soldier does. At the lower levels, you trust that your officers know what they're doing, and they point you at good targets, and you take them out. At our level, it's been… decades since either of us has personally handled a weapon, but we are killers."

"In the service of the Order," Pat adds.

At least for now, Jon thinks to Kylo.

Josh continues, "And it's our job to know who to kill, when, and how. And we are very good at our jobs."

Kylo and Jon both blink, because it's clear that this is not how they think about this.

Josh keeps going. "You would not second guess me for an instant if I were on the bridge and commanded my men to blow up a battleship, or a fleet of battleships, or an entire division. I could order the death of literal millions and you'd trust that I know my job. So, why then, would you question that I'm any less competent when it comes to weeding out our own men?"

Pat's just as cold as he says, "Rey's got you reading up on religions and stuff, doesn't she? Did you somehow get the idea that it's murder if it's our own men, but justified if it's the other guys?"

"No… It's… She doesn't have me reading anything. It's… just me, thinking." Jon says.

"And apparently talking to him," Pat says with a sigh. "Well, out with it, what's got you thinking."

"Feels stupid now."

"Better to feel stupid now, and just be embarrassed, than to be stupid later, and get people killed," Pat adds says.

Josh nods to Jon, and takes another sip of his drink. "We'll talk it through anyway, because part of being a good commander is listening when people you also think could be good commanders have issues and need to work them out. Bad commanders bark out orders without any reason and shut down questions even if there's time to talk them through. Good ones know they aren't bloody well immortal, so they teach." Schiff says. Then he goes back a bit. "We are both aware of the fact that neither of you came up the traditional way. Yes, you're an officer, though design isn't exactly the background that lends itself to this level of rank, and on top of that you came up adjacent to, but not through the Hux system, so you haven't seen it first hand, or tried to make Hux grads do anything other than follow simple and explicit orders. There's a reason we've killed and are killing them right and left as needed. And you…" he turns his attention to Kylo with a sigh. "Command privileges but not rank. Snoke was many things, stupid not among them. You, as he had you, were too dangerous to command anything larger than a squad. Which is part of why, in the beginning, so many of us were rooting for Hux to kill you off, and then we'd take care of him. You were too unstable to lead and too powerful to directly attack. And that's… a disaster that has to be, as best as possible, averted. So, we supported Hux, who was too cruel to lead, but at least predictable. None of us were sure if we could kill you, but we knew once you were out of the way, we could get him."

"So, to an extent this," Pat gestures meaning all of it, "is part of training both of you up. There's an opportunity here, and you have… good instincts, so… Talk. What's got you thinking?"

Jon almost blushes, but he doesn't. He pulls up his best shit kicking gaze and aims it at Pat, who looks mostly amused and a little condescending, but not so much in a mean way, more in a he's had that look aimed at him by men who not only knew how to use it, but had tens of thousands of trained killers at their command. "Would I be correct in assuming that by the time you sidled up to me to have a little chat about a party to make things look right, you knew everything there was to know about me including how often I trim my toenails?"

Pat smirks a little. "You've got a standing appointment with one of the Specs who does it as part of your monthly grooming session, and those are separate from your periodic sexual adventures, because apparently you've got one set of preferences for personal grooming, and another set for getting your tool serviced."

Kylo blinks and looks stunned at that.

Jon sighs and rubs his forehead, and then pours and takes that drink he'd been avoiding. "I thought they're supposed to be discreet."

"They are. I'm better. Yes, between Ellie and I, we knew everything there was to know about you within three days of learning that you were the Master's friend. And judging by how you responded to your mum joining us on the ship, it's clear we knew more about you and what you represented than you did."

Jon looks annoyed by that. "Captain Smanth. I've been thinking about him, and Lane, and what Lane did to him."

Pat nods, sips his drink, and then says, mostly for Schiff, because he doesn't know if Jon's ever told Kylo this story, "Smanth was your commanding officer. And if the records are close to correct, and the bits and bobs Ellie and I could glean close to correct, you and Keenadun got talking about the fact that you were doing the job of at least a Captain, but you had the rank of Ensign. You had a chat with Smanth about a promotion. Smanth shot you down. Keenadun put you up for promotion over Smanth's head. Smanth complained to the General in charge of Physical Plant, claiming that Keenadun was showing favoritism, and made a report on that, and that you were a substandard officer in need of reconditioning. Keenadun got sent a note from General Drevins with the attached reports and one order, 'Take care of it.' Keenadun marched up during Captain Smanth's shift, said to him, 'I understand you have an issue with the promotion I intend to give Ensign Frakes,' waited for Smanth to say you weren't competent for the job, and the only reason Keenadun wanted to promote you was your tight ass, and then, with a smile on his face, he shot Smanth in the head. Then, blaster still in his hand, corpse on the floor, he turned to the rest of the room and said, 'Any other complaints about me promoting Frakes? Comments about his competence or why he's getting promoted? No? Good? Comments about my competence and ability to decide who should be giving orders? Nope? Wonderful. How about the fact that I'm fucking him? Still no comments? Lovely. Back at it. Day after tomorrow, you're reporting to Frakes.' And then he holstered his blaster, stepped over Smanth's body, and walked out. Two days later, you had Smanth's job, because that's how long it took to get the paperwork processed, and a year and a half after that he married you."

Kylo's eyes are so wide they're about to fall out of his head, and he's just staring at Jon. Then he reaches over, grabs Jon's cup, and drains half of it.

Josh eyes Jon. "So, are you now thinking that… Keenadun's actions were inappropriate? No one else did."

"I… Not… I didn't at the time. Smanth was a shit, and he was terrible at his job. I was a fucking ensign and I was better at it than he was. But I don't know if he needed to die for it."

Pat says, "Smanth was a shit, and he was also abysmally stupid, both of which can be overlooked if a man is good at his job. But, on top of that, he committed the one grave sin of any officer, he was bad at his job. He was slowly killing men because his filtration units didn't allow enough oxygen into the gaseous mix. Not so low they were suffocating, but they'd get light-headed easily when exerting themselves, and the dizziness meant their aim and reflexes were off. He kept those reports quiet. General Drevins found them when he went looking into Smanth, and then Keenadun took care of it," Pat says.

"Snoke wasn't so flush with talent he could afford to lose people who were even vaguely competent. For that matter, we aren't, either. If Smanth had admitted the damn things didn't work, attempted to fix them—" Josh starts.

"That was my first non-clothing job, designing new filtration systems." Jon pauses. "Re-packaging them. I don't… Gaseous mixes, reverse osmosis units, chemical transfer… Not my thing. I just needed to find a way to make the thing fit into a package better."

"Smanth was likely hoping you could fix it."

Jon shakes his head. "Never even tried. Just rearranged the packaging to improve weight, range of motion, and energy usage."

"We think he was hoping you had some magic to get the filtration units to filter properly. One of the reports suggested that part of the problem was how they were carried in the armor. A theory that the jostling caused problems. Hopefully, you fix that problem. Then he'd slip it in and quietly pretend the whole thing didn't happen. But if you're not one of his bright boys, working in design, then you're not on that problem, so no promotion goes your way, and everything falls apart for Smanth, because he was too stupid to say his plan for a new filtration unit didn't work."

Josh continues, "So, if he'd admitted they didn't work, and if he'd been willing to take what was coming, likely a demotion and correctional reconditioning, your man could have had words with him, and probably beaten some respect into him, but that would have been it. But Smanth didn't do that, which meant Lane had a different job to do. The part where Lane shot him in front of everyone was certainly about you, or about keeping his own reputation intact, likely about making sure no one ever suggested he'd gone too soft over you to be proper officer material ever again, but he'd have had more to deal with than paperwork if it has just been about you." Schiff nods to Kylo. "He'd get lectured about breaking expensive computer equipment when he'd go into Darth Tantrum mode, and he was Snoke's pet. What could you possibly think would happen if Keenadun had killed a competent commander over a personal issue?"

"So… That's it. The General… just got to decide, filled out the report, and that was it?" Kylo says.

Josh nods. "Exactly. That's why he was an officer. That's what it means. You literally have the power of life and death, and the people under you survive based on your ability to make good decisions with that power. Not to put too fine a point on it, but that's also exactly what you did when you decapitated that officer in front of everyone else."

"That's why getting those stripes is a big deal," Pat adds. "Why we wear them with pride."

"That's why people call us, Sir. It's not just a spiffy title to stroke our egos. It's because we've, supposedly, proven ourselves capable of making very hard decisions and doing a good job of it."

Kylo and Jon look at each other. That's certainly not any angle either of them had ever thought of before.

So, they think, and then Jon's the one who says, "Smanth was an officer, too. Hell, Hux was a fucking officer. Junior or Senior, whichever one you want to take on." He nods to Kylo. "We all watched him execute training officers—"

Josh and Pat smile.

"We did now, didn't we?" Pat adds.

"Did you set that up?" Kylo asks, though now he's sitting in front of them, he doesn't need to.

"Of course we did. We're good at our jobs. Unfortunately, we inherited the Hux mess. Yes, he was an officer, an abysmal one. Senior, I mean."

"Except for the fact that he wasn't. Put to the right use, he'd have been… like his son, extremely useful. He had an abysmal commander who didn't know how to use him," Josh add.

Pat inclines his head. "Officer school, day one, lesson one."

Josh nods. "As an officer, your job is to balance two priorities. One is the commands of whomever is above you. Supposedly, that person is also good at their job, and has their head on right. Two, the needs of your men below you. It's your job to execute the orders of your commander as effectively as possible while not killing the men under you."

"This is, obviously, not always possible. You will get your men killed. That's a fact. There will be times when the survival of the whole requires the sacrifice of your men and possibly you, too. So, you do it. Because it's your job to make sure the whole survives."

"Which is why neither of us has ever looked twice at executing Hux grads, or even ex-Imperials who will make trouble, because the whole won't fucking survive if we leave them roaming about making trouble," Pat says. He glances to Josh. "Three years, gentlemen. That's, as best we can tell, how long of a grace period we've got."

Josh says, "The only good thing Hux did for us is take out the Hosnian system, and with it the entire command and organization of the New Republic's military. That's bought us time. The entire rest of the galaxy is in disarray, and we are the strongest military presence left."

"For now," Pat says. "As best we can tell, and, of course, this isn't certain, but… Intel shows us that the attack on the Hosnian system, and any of the other myriad atrocities committed under the name of the First Order have not been forgotten. The number of people who are building as hard and fast as possible for the express purpose of burying us is not insignificant."

Josh snorts. "Your mother's Resistance officially disbanded, but the Eternal Resistance, the Brotherhood of the Resistance, and Martyrs of Hosnia, are all working on building up."

Jon blinks at that. "Are they… more than fifty people each?" He hasn't specifically spoken to Poe about it, but…

Josh replies, "The intel we're getting is putting each one at close to a thousand people, and lucky for us, they haven't gotten organized enough to start the terror attacks, yet. It's absolutely certain that we're going to be attacked at the recruiting stations, likely before the year is done, and we're going to have to figure out what to do with that, because the easiest way for them to stir up trouble is to make it look like, say… Long's system, has attacked us, hoping to bait us into a battle we can't afford to fight."

Kylo feels cold at that, remembering Qualee.

"But, they're the least of the potential problems. The New Republic is scattered and broken, but it's not gone, and it's mad, and they're likely going to get enough people together to be trouble," Pat says. "And when they do, they'll have the one thing our terror cells won't, operating capital."

Schiff rubs his eyes. "When you liquidated the Raclan bank, we won a collection of supporters from that, because a large number of people also had their debts cancelled. We also gained enemies. Seven of the mega corps depended on the Raclan for financing, and those credits dried up and vanished as soon as they got done with their exuberant patriotism. Likewise, all of the mega banks worked with each other, and sold bits and pieces of their portfolios to each other. Generally speaking they did not make out well when the value of the Raclan stock dropped to zero and when Raclan debt just vanished.

"So, there are people working on building up against us, and so far they've done a splendid job of not allying with each other, but eventually they will. Sooner or later, money, strategic intelligence, and bloody vengeance for a cause will mobilize against us.

"And we need to be ready for it. On the one level, we have your City Killers, our military, our ability to bring more fight to the fight than anyone else."

Pat says, "But, the son of Leia Organa and Han Solo, of all people, should know that having the biggest military isn't a fail safe."

"Why I shifted to City Killers."

"Exactly. And why people shifted toward you and away from Hux." Josh says. "But even better tactics is only one line of defense. The one we need, the one that might work, is to become so valuable that attacking us makes enemies all over the place," Josh says.

Pat adds. "Which means we've got, as best we can tell, three years, to get this market/diplomacy/security thing into play. To be horrendously blunt, we want reams of 'innocent bystanders' on every one of our ships, shopping and selling in our markets, using our space to set up deals. We need every one of our capitol ships to have sovereign space for dozens of systems on them in the form of embassies. We want oodles of families with little kids in our recruiting centers. We need to be valuable, and as more than just a black façade filled with soldiers, because eventually, one of those bastards will destroy a ship, or a recruiting station, and probably more, and we want them to make a lot of enemies when they do it. Which is why Ellie's doing everything in her power to shine the two of you up and send you all over the galaxy to look pretty and sell the value of The Order to everyone still around."

"But that value will be significantly less if we don't have a functional diplomacy wing. And thus we get to General Sanons. You didn't enjoy working with him, did you, Jon?" Josh asks.

"Man was a twit," Jon says, remembering the few meetings that Sanons had bothered to attend. "And from what I could tell bad at his job. JR-6678 has been on the job for less than a day, and he already has three or four concrete ideas to speed things up."

"Good. Sanons didn't like working with you, did he? He was the sort of man who held respect only for other gray hairs who came out of the Imperial Training Corp the same way he did. You could feel how annoyed he was at how young you were and how you'd bucked the chain of command. He resented the fact that you're the Master's pet, and assumed that you got the rest of your stripes the same way you got your Captaincy," Pat replies.

"I really am good at my job! I didn't actually fuck my way into it."

Pat sighs, "Jon, most of the men who survive on this ship are good at their jobs. Just being good at your job doesn't get you a two rank lift in one go. Just being good at your job usually means you survive. The kind of jump you got involves being extraordinary at your job, insanely lucky, and the pet of someone higher up. You can't get that kind of promotion without that, unless someone cuts the bloody ship in half."

"So, yes, you are good at your job. From what we saw after the attack, you're excellent at your job, but what do you think Smanth's friends think about that?" Josh says. "What did they have to say at his funeral? What would have been on your next dinner plate if Hux hadn't also had the good idea to completely mechanize the kitchens?"

Jon rolls his eyes. "I figured that might have been part of it. Speaking of which… shrimp allergy? How'd you hack the kitchens?"

Josh smiles, just a tad. "I didn't. You can't hack the kitchens. Even I don't have the access to hack the kitchens. Hux bloody well knew what he was doing with that. You can however, hack the ordering system on a man's personal datapad. He was sure he'd ordered rytha chowder. It looks similar, tastes similar, and just… isn't similar."

Now it's Kylo rubbing his eyes, remembering that lecture about always securing his datapad. He's finally grasping the concept of why that tech wonk was so serious about it.

Pat barrels on with the larger lesson, "So, he's not doing the job. It is imperative that the job gets done, on time if not sooner, and right. As best we can tell, doing this, building the niche we belong in and then filling it is the way we're going to prevent, or at least minimize, the next major war, and he's got his thumb up his ass, nursing resentment because a man who's been dead for more than two years got sweet on you and then promoted you."

"And you can't fire him…" Kylo leads. He's pretty sure he knows why, but…

"Remember how I said maybe on firing people of lower levels?" Josh says.

Kylo and Jon nod.

"Do you know what happened to Starkiller?" Pat asks.

"I was on it during the attack," Kylo replies. "Hux built a stupidly large weapon, and anything that can harness that sort of power will be massively unstable. Some idiot… Shit… Poe probably… shot a hole in the right thing at the right time and the whole system blew."

Jon's nodding. "That's how he tells the story."

Josh and Pat share a look. They know Dameron's involved in this, on the Maji side, and from what they can tell is apparently not sleeping with Jon, though neither of them has been able to suss out why, but it's one thing to know that, and another to know it.

"How'd they get through the shield?" Pat asks.

"Finn says Phasma gave up the code." Kylo replies, and sees both of the older men go still. "And you didn't know that." Another quiet heartbeat. "Or that I know Finn."

"FN-2187?" Pat asks, looking angry.

"Finn," Kylo nods. "Yes. You're angry."

"No shit. FN-2187… Finn is why we don't fire people! He was a fucking janitor. A smart one, studied hard, learned the ships, and figured out how to get in. Starkiller blew because a low-ranked, below the notice of the higher-ups, Stormtrooper in the sanitation division went rogue and took everything in his memory with him."

"You want to guess what'll happen if the man who used to be the General in charge of physical plant gets fired?" Josh asks. "Or if we gently suggest he should retire? The best case scenario is that we suggest it's time to go, and the people he betrays us to take a while to find him, and shoot him up with ponylthibinal, because that one doesn't hurt, and a man with enough willpower and enough smarts can weave some lies in there. Worst case, we're sold out in a matter of hours, and two days later, an assault team, with all of our codes, shoot some more unstable things, and blow us out of the skies. Do you have any idea how fragile the reactor cores that keep the Supremacy going are? Use the right door code, and you can walk in and bugger us all to literal hell in a matter of minutes, as long as you don't care that you won't walk out of those doors, either."

That's another shivery sensation, and Kylo can feel that's the one that keeps Josh up at night. How vulnerable any of the reactors truly are and how they haven't, unlike the kitchens, figured out how to completely mechanize those systems.

"Every time I leave… You take more of them out." Kylo says.

"Of course. If it goes wrong… We don't want it blowing back on you. That's part of not mentioning it," Pat says.

"Part. The main part is you thinking I wouldn't like it."

"Well, you don't," Pat says. "That's clear on your face. It was clear the last time we talked about this that you didn't quite get the scale of what I was talking about, and that was fine by me, because liking it or not, it needs to be done."

A very cold feeling dawns on Kylo. His mouth starts to drop. "Wait… I've been letting them go. I had my guys write up the 'How to Retire' pamphlets. How many of them… Did they actually get to retire?"

Josh and Pat look uncomfortable. Pat drains his drink, and it's the first time Kylo's ever seen him afraid, of him.

He swallows, and then says, "I want you to understand, I know my days are limited. And not limited in the usual sense of being aware of mortality. My days are likely counted in months at this point, probably not years, certainly not decades. But this… The Order… This is my future. This is my hope for a better life, world, galaxy. I probably won't make it to see what happens in three years, so… I'm doing everything I can to make sure we're ready for it. That said, since we've gotten the training program to something like functional, two of my sons, nineteen of my grandchildren, seven of the great-grandchildren, and the one great-great grandchild who is old enough have enlisted in the Order. My wife is currently located in an Order vessel. Everything in the universe that matters to me is invested in the Order, either directly, or indirectly.

"My literal blood is in your hands, and I did not place it there hastily.

"And yes, of the people who have left, I have ordered the execution of something like 22% of them, mostly officers. That works out to about two hundred and forty-three thousand people, give or take."

There's a second where everyone is just silent. Kylo's not sure if he wants to pass out, throw up, or Force choke Pat to death right here and now. Possibly all three, though he's not sure how to do all three at once.

He must look pretty scary, because Jon just took his hand, and Pat has inched back and closed his eyes, waiting for the strike he cannot defend against.

But that moment passes. Kylo lets the rage bleed out. He can call it back, fast, if he needs it, but he can also feel that both of the men in front of him are certain this is the right path, and that, no matter how this works out, they did their absolute best.

"Explain," Kylo says.

Pat lets the breath he was holding out, and opens his eyes again.

And Josh, even half certain Kylo's going to attack in the next few minutes, is bizarrely proud of him for not attacking until letting them talk. He nods to Pat, and then says, "You're leaving the important details out, Pat. More than a million left. It's too many to keep track of. We have… a few…" He glances to Pat. "I have three, he's got…"

"Eleven. Army."

Josh nods, as if that explains everything, and to him, it does. Though it doesn't to Kylo, not immediately. "Off the books units. Loyal to me. They'll go visit ex-Order people, and see how interested they are in selling our secrets. See what they do when someone offers them a bounty of cash for intel. The ones who say no, who tell our guys to bugger off, we leave alone. The ones who report back to people in the Order, tell them that they've been approached for intel, they get lucrative offers if anyone else comes their way, along with an interesting collection of intel to give up. The ones who say yes… They get invited to a private meeting, if they give up good intel, that's their first and last meeting, and their next of kin get a good pension."

"You've turned them into spies," Kylo says, jumping on this so he doesn't have to think too hard about two hundred and twenty-three thousand men dead.

Jon blinks slowly, not sure what to do. "Is… twenty-two percent most of the non-Hux grads?"

Pat sighs. "It's a significant percentage. Most of the Hux grads… We've killed some of them, because some of them attack when you try to get them to sell out the Order, but… We haven't been as successful with buying them off. Enlistees and ex-Imperials are… more interested in credits, or less loyal to the cause, disapprove of where you're taking the Order. However, you like to think of it."

They're all quiet for a moment, and then Josh says, "For the ones who are still with us... Let me back up... The biggest problem is when the man at the top isn't invested in making sure the whole survives. If he's got no greater good than his own personal glory, you run into issues. So, for the Emperor, when he became the Emperor, Brendol would have been in charge of the prison system or something like that. Something where making sure people followed orders and just followed orders would have mattered. The problem is, Palpatine was slowly, or not so slowly, going insane, and like any other insane man, he started seeing enemies everywhere. And, of course, when you see enemies everywhere, you start making them everywhere, too. So, when Hux popped up with his ideas for how to turn men into robots, the Emperor jumped at the chance."

Pat takes over, "Then Snoke came around… and he likely never was sane, or it was so long ago none of us were born yet, so he let Brendol do whatever he liked, because the idea of soldier who would just follow orders made him… whatever it made him."

Josh continues with, "Which means that yes, by the time you got into play, we had a training system designed to turn out robots, not officers, and you cannot actually run a functional military, let alone a government, that way. I need to be able to tell one of my commanders, 'Secure the Halbrath system,' and know that when I check on him again, the Halbrath system will be secured or on the way to being secured, without me having to plan every step of the exercise. And I need to trust that he's competent to do it without getting all of my men killed. Which means, I, and Pat, and everyone else we've called back into play, or who Snoke didn't manage to kill, have been weeding out people who cannot do that. That's the absolute barest minimum of what we owe to our men, and to you, or the Order, however you wish to think about it.

"In a functional military, the men trust their officers not to get them killed unless it's absolutely necessary. They don't bloody well sign up if they don't trust that. And if we conscript them…" Josh shakes his head. "Conscript troops are useless... unless you literally just need a wall of bodies aiming fire at something, and we can buy robots for that. That's why Hux had to grab them so young. Instead of making something people would join, he tried to beat the desire to run away out of people we stole."

Pat continues. "That's also why we needed a weapon on the order of Starkiller. Because our individual troops and officers were beyond sub-par at tactical thinking, we needed something so big and terrible people wouldn't actually fight us."

"Likewise, even Hux grads don't want to see everyone around them get slaughtered. Which is the only thing that happens when your troops are only a hair above cannon fodder. So, even if they weren't people, it's bad for morale which is bad for getting what you need done, done."

Pat takes another long swallow of his drink, and a breath, and then looks right at Kylo. "So, yes, we have killed, and unless you put us out to pasture or bury us in your backyard, and as a side note, bury in the backyard is the correct answer because even if we didn't switch sides upon being released from service, someone else will grab us, and you don't want your secrets in someone else's hands."

Schiff interjects, "And you're going to want to put our wives, children, and at least a few of the grandkids in the ground next to us. Likely our second-and thirds-in command, too. Definitely, our personal commands. Otherwise... Well... It's not going to work out well for you if you don't, but it won't work out well if you do, so...

Pat takes over, "So, unless you end us, we will continue to kill anyone who looks like they are a credible threat to the continued building and success of the Order and its military functions. That's a good half of our job these days, the other half is getting other people who will also build and work towards the success of the Order into play. The only question is, do you trust us to have these stripes or not?"

Josh sips his drink, and Pat just stares at Kylo, who, given the throw down there, now pretty much has to decide what the hell to do with these two geezers more or less daring him to kill them.

He glances at Jon, who's got bugger all for a response to this, too.

---

You in your ship?

Poe jerks at the voice in his head. His heart is pounding, though he feels silly about that. Then he rolls his eyes, it's appropriate to be startled when a voice comes out of nowhere and talks in your head. He's glaring as he says, "Yes." Then he rolls his eyes because he's pretty much just talking to BB.

Is your ship on Lirium?

This time he tries thinking Yes.

Good, feel like coming over? I need some perspective.

Kylo?

You're the only other command officer I know and trust. Please.

Yeah, be there in a moment.

"Rey's coming?" Pat says.

"She could, but that's not who I was talking to. Is it really that obvious?" he asks Jon.

"Your eyes go completely blank when you do it. It's going to be glaringly obvious to anyone who's really watching."

"Great."

---

A moment later, the door opens, and Poe lets himself in, and all the warm air out.

And then there's a moment where he, and Kylo's high command stare at each other, and the temperature in the room drops another ten degrees as Admiral Dameron of the Resistance looks at Admiral Schiff and General Kinear of the First Order.

Then Pat says, "Admiral." Josh raises a brow. Pat nods to Poe as he sits at the table between Kylo and Jon, looking very wary. Though he doesn't move his hand to his blaster. (But Kylo can feel he wants to.) "Josh, this is Admiral Poe Dameron. Last known rank, second-in-command of the Resistance. Current affiliation… Maji? I told you he'd showed up for the K'Aran meeting as part of Rey's backup. And that, apparently, those three are doing something involving him and getting people out of places they don't want to be."

Josh nods slowly, still staring at Poe. "I never imagined… this."

Poe pulls up his inner entitled asshole, and flashes him a blinding, all teeth smile, and grabs a cup. "Never imagined sitting down for drinks with a war hero?"

Josh rolls his eyes, viciously, and pours Poe a drink. "The reports say you know your way around a bottle."

"You've got reports on me, I'm touched," he takes the drink. Kylo notices that he swallows, but the level of the liquid in the cup doesn't go down. He doesn't know if he didn't drink the liquid because he wants to be completely sober for this, or if he just won't drink anything Grand Admiral Schiff is pouring. "What's got you inviting me to the viper's den?" he says to Kylo.

Kylo explains the line of thinking Josh and Pat have offered him. He finishes up with, "I know they believe it. I know that everything that can be checked of what they're saying is factually true, and the rest is true enough. I know I wasn't trained as an officer, and that I probably don't have the temperament for this. So… Thoughts, Admiral?"

Poe sighs long and loud, and then takes an actual drink of the brandy in the cup. "Yeah, they're right. That's what you want to know, right? That's how the game really is played, not just some ultra-violent Empire version of it?"

Kylo nods.

"Yeah. That's… They won't give you your stripes, not in the New Republic, and you didn't get them in the Resistance, either, if you won't sacrifice your own men to protect the whole. That's…" He's glancing at Jon. "Didn't you get that, too?"

"Design officer. I mean, yes, it was part of the training, but like hand to hand and sniper rifle, I just had to pass the test, I never really used it again. Even the attack on the Supremacy didn't kill enough people to put me in a combat command."

"You trained as a sniper?" Poe asks.

Jon smiles a little. "I'm actually a very good shot, and have the patience to sit and wait for the opportunity to take it."

"Huh…" He glances at the older men. "We'll talk about that later." He nods to the older officers. "Wouldn't trust either of them out of my sight for a second, but they're telling you true on this. And… You know I've worked security, and… The way we did it, before you got up to a certain level, you had to pass a clearance exam. Get that clearance and you'd pretty much signed on for life. Especially when the war was hot, you couldn't retire. Too much of a risk."

"Did you… Were you killing people who left?" Kylo asks.

Poe rolls his eyes. "If you joined the Resistance in the first place, you were already committed. We didn't get people looking to retire."

Pat sniggers at that. Poe glares at him.

"They didn't live long enough to retire," Josh says. "Just because you didn't arrange for wet works doesn't mean it didn't happen. Especially in the early days. Your mom would have known about it." He looks to Kylo. And then back to Poe… "Wait… Security. You were Organa's security?"

Poe nods.

"Who were you defending her from when she left the New Republic?"

He glares at that.

Kylo and Jon are curious.

"Yeah, from them, too. For a while, there were factions in the New Republic who wanted us dead. The Resistance wasn't exactly legal. And the First Order had shoot to kill orders. And… It was a mess. Okay. And… everyone executes spies," Poe says.

"And they execute the people they think might become spies if the right incitements were offered. We're doing no different," Pat replies. "We just have a much larger pool of people to deal with."

Poe grits his teeth at that. "He's not wrong. Cassie's uncle." He knows that only Kylo knows who he's talking about. "Cassian Andor. You ever get into his file… before he died on Scarif Bay, he was a Rebel spy who killed a lot of other Rebel spies/contacts. Killed a lot of their guys, too, but… Cleaning up your own trash is one of the least pleasant parts of command."

"Elegant way of putting it, Admiral," Pat says.

"Commander," Poe shoots at Pat. "You want to use a title, it's Commander. Or just Poe. Master Poe of the Maji if you like. Admiral was just for the sound of it. Can't really be a bloody Admiral if you've got nine ships and barely enough pilots to get 'em all in the air at the same time."

Josh smiles at that.

"Don't give me that patronizing smile. Being aware of who you are and what you can do doesn't deserve a cookie."

"It's a rare trait, Dameron," Pat says.

Poe glances to Kylo. "These old coots your high command?"

"Apparently. And they've been off 'cleaning up the trash' as you put it, without telling me about it."

Poe looks shocked, and stares from Pat to Josh. "You're so fucking stupid as to try and lie to a mind reader?"

Pat smirks a bit. "No. We just… didn't mention it, or think about it, or put it in any of the briefings."

"And likely could have kept doing it indefinitely except this last sweep got too many people out of Physical Plant while Jon and Threepio were working with them." Josh glances to Jon. "Your boy noticed it."

Poe doesn't blink, or quibble at the characterization, he knows Josh is fishing, so he just says, "The man who thinks Jon's just a pretty face is too stupid to be on this level, so who in your chain of command fucked up?"

"And will they have the chance to fuck up again?" Jon asks.

"We have a list." Pat looks annoyed. "People who are problems get added to it. Whenever he leaves the ship for a few days, a random number generator picks numbers, and then we take care of them. We knew that if we were doing the picking by hand, eventually some sort of pattern would show up and someone would notice."

Kylo rolls his lips together. "Will of the Force."

"Or something," Pat says.

"How do you get on the list?" Kylo asks.

"By being so bad at your job that we hear complaints about it," Pat replies.

Jon winces. He knows he's the one who made the complaints. It's not like they were unwarranted. He just didn't realize he was signing men up to die by them.

"What did you and yours do about… incompetents?" Kylo asks Poe.

"They tended to die. Kylo, we weren't swimming in people the way you are. If an officer was bad at the job, that tended to be fatal." He glances to Jon. "Who's dead?"

"Top two guys in the diplomacy wing development plan, on the same weekend, and then Threepio noticed another one of them," Jon says.

"And the only reason they put it together is they're actively building," Pat says. "You did security work?" he asks Poe.

"For a while."

"If the General in charge of physical plant for the Empire had suddenly decided to retire, and they let him wander off, how long would it have taken the Rebellion to grab him?"

"I'm really not that old."

Both Pat and Josh shoot him the stink eye, and there's a definite sense that insubordination charges would have been forthcoming if they could have been.

Poe rolls his eyes a bit. "Half an hour, two or three if they hadn't been paying attention. Maybe a few weeks if he left with proper security. One way or another, they'd have gotten him before the codes on the doors had changed. But that's for the Empire. Don't you have most of your higher ups brainwashed into death before dishonor or something? We had a bitch of a time getting intel out of the men we captured."

"They don't want to retire," Josh says.

"Getting them out, competent or not, is difficult for different reasons," Pat adds.

"Finn wasn't the only Ex-First Order man you grabbed?" Kylo asks.

Poe laughs at that. "Of course not. But they generally didn't like to talk, and by the time we got enough drugs pumped into them to get them talking, we'd usually mushed their brains into soup. They'd tell us everything we wanted to know, after a point, assuming what we wanted to know were one word answers to things like: what color are the walls." Poe shoots him a grin. "You think I'd be willing to associate with you if you hadn't treated me with kid gloves in interrogation?"

Kylo's genuinely insulted by that. "You were screaming for most of it."

Poe shrugs. "I've never seen any reason to sit around and suffer in silence. The more you yell, generally the easier they go on you. And you're a fucking cream puff. Probably because you don't have to actually torture people to get intelligence out of them, and you know if they're telling the truth. So, I walked out, walked, with my mind and identity intact, no broken bones, all appendages attached, and no electrical burns. I've had worse than you over the years, and I've been part of groups that did worse. It was a war Kylo." He glances to the older officers. "What did he… do… during the war?"

They don't shrug, but it's clear they don't exactly know. Pat says, "Official rank: Master of the Knights of Ren, personal attache to Supreme Leader Snoke. Command privileges equal to that of a Captain, though the Captain who happens to be the personal adjutant of the man in charge." Poe understands that. If it really mattered you could tell someone like that to stop, but generally, you let them do whatever, because you knew the Man in Charge would hear about it, otherwise, and most of the time, you were pretty sure the Man in Charge ordered the damn folly in the first place. "Sometimes he'd show up, grab a squad or two, and do something. You mostly worked with Hux when you were working, right?"

"We were both stationed on the Finalizer, so yes. And," he shakes his head, "Just file it under Force stuff, and leave it there. Some piloting, a few battles. Mostly Force stuff." He shrugs again. It's been a long time, and it's over now. "Find Luke Skywalker and kill him. Find other Jedi, kill them. That's what I did."

"Oh."

"Find Force relics, grab them. Destroy them if they didn't help us find Skywalker. Occasionally, my cream-puff self was called in for 'difficult' interrogations of valuable prisoners. But Hux generally didn't like that because it meant admitting that I had some value to the group. In general, he'd rather, how'd you put it? 'Mush their brains into soup,' than call me in."

Poe rolls his eyes. "That's just stupid. If we had had someone who could—"

"How many interrogations did my mom run?"

Poe blinks.

Kylo nods.

"Oh."

"At the very least she always knew when people were lying to her. And if she'd bothered to work at it she could have developed enough voice control to compel them to talk. It's… you need to have a knack for it, but if you do, and she did, it's not freakishly difficult to use. Luke mastered it in… three days? It probably would have taken her a month or two if she'd felt like it." He glares a little at the idea of her, and his own past. "If she'd decided to take the time to hone the skills… Okay, she wouldn't have been," he floats the bottles off the table, spins them around, puts them back down again, and says, "And you just thought 'fucking shit' Josh, Pat thought 'show off,' Poe's starting to get angry at my Mom, and Jon's still thinking about Lane and Smanth. That sort of power takes a lot of training, and good control, and more talent than she had, but she absolutely could have trained up to the point where she could have done interrogation work a hell of a lot better than you could," he says to Poe.

"Why didn't she?" Poe asks.

"Probably because the only way Luke knew how to teach it meant not being Senator Organa, and not building the New Republic, and not being passionate and engaged and active and…" And all the shit she was willing to put me through, but not herself.

Poe nods at that. Talk later?

If you want to.

Kylo sighs, because killing that conversation means paying attention to the reason they're here. "How many people are still on the list?"

Josh and Pat mentally go blank while staring at each other.

"Do you really want a first hand demonstration of what me being a cream puff is like? He survived. He's young and healthy and didn't really try to fight me." What do you think will happen to you if you try… This time he doesn't have to think it out loud, it's enough that it's in his own head.

"Sixty-four thousand, give or take," Pat says.

"Some of them just die. Especially among the Imperials, a lot are rather old, and it's not easy work. The Hux grads who are flamingly incompetent at anything beyond order following, we… shuffle them around. What's his name… The Captain who was supposed to be reassigning the locations of the ships on the ZZ Deck. We just moved him. Try and put them in places where insane levels of loyalty can cover no tactical thinking skills, but… There are only so many jobs where follow orders is the only thing they've got to do," Josh says.

"Especially in a peacetime military. When we're actively fighting again… We don't like doing it, but you need officers who can be ordered into a suicide mission, and who will do it well. The Hux grads are great for that. You can even flat out tell them that the mission will get them killed, but as long as you point out why it's necessary, they'll go do it." Pat says. "We're… honestly, flogging a lot of them off into the different settlement programs. They don't like, 'Go to X planet, build a house, start terraforming, and settle down, then wait for orders, but they'll do it.'"

"And you can't do that with—Right, they'll just bugger off and start spilling secrets," Jon says.

"Yeah, the Imperials have active and functional senses of self, which means they need to feel valuable, even, and often, especially, when they aren't," Pat says. "And we have flogged some of them off into the re-settlement plans because… There's just not that much damage they can do out there. We're giving them instructions to work on fixing up planets we've beaten practically into dust. Sticking them in the new colonies to help shift the culture more toward the Order. If they fuck it up, well, the planet was already ruined."

"But that's still only some of them," Pat says.

Right now, Kylo's very much wishing he could go back to yesterday, and not know about this. And, he feels bad about it, but… He doesn't know what to do, so he punts it. "Three years? What do you think happens in three years?"

Pat takes another sip of his drink. "We're expanding the number of people we've got, but we're no longer doing anything but upkeep and replacement on our military hardware. In three year, assuming they get their heads out of their asses, and they actually manage to work together, and they decide to do it, the New Republic can have allied with the Mega Corps, and built up enough of a military to be a threat. And they'll have the cash to bankroll every splinter of the Resistance left, and set them on us as a million stinging gnats."

"Also, as you know…" Schiff says, "the large banking houses don't exactly love us. Partially because they saw what you did with the Raclan, and partly because we owe several of them a shit ton of credits, and… well, like they say, you owe the bank a hundred credits, it's your problem, you owe the bank 30 billion credits, it's their problem."

"So, they're in a situation where they can't afford to write our payments off, but they'd really rather prefer we didn't have the power to take them down by defaulting," Jon says.

"Exactly, so… Right now, we have the advantage on weaponry. Right now, they aren't sure if we don't have something along the lines of another Starkiller in the works, and we've worked very hard to make sure the rest of the galaxy thinks we do."

"No," Kylo says.

"Kylo…" Pat's voice is patient. "They—"

"No. Stop it. People join us because we offer them value. They don't join us because they're afraid we're going to kill them if they don't. 'We don't conquer' doesn't just mean that we don't land troops on the ground. Whatever the fuck it is you're doing to make the whispers of a new Starkiller go around, stop it."

"They're going to kill us if they think they can," Pat says. "A lot of people have vested interest in getting revenge on us.

"Not today and not tomorrow, and with any luck we can be in a better position by the day after, right?" Kylo asks.

"Part of being in a better position is making them think we're stronger than we are," Josh replies.

"Not like that. We're still making the payments to the banks, right?"

"Yes."

"Good. As long as we're more valuable alive than dead, they'll at least think twice about making it easier for someone else to make us dead." He feels like there's something else here, something important, something that… Matters.

Kylo gets up and starts to pace around, jittering a little, trying to get his brain to find the thing it's looking for. "Stop it," he says to Pat and Josh, who've never seen what it is he actually does between meetings and behind closed doors when he needs to think, and are starting to feel a little alarmed. "This is just thinking. I'd punch it out, but my bag isn't here, and I don't want to break my home."

Fuck.

Kylo? Rey's voice in his head.

Yeah… Fuck…

You need me?

Yes. Can you just listen?

Sure. You want me to come to you and actually talk?

Got a bunch of people here.

Okay.

So, he thinks about it, and paces up and down their living room, his long stride eating the small space in a few steps. He doesn't pay attention to Pat and Josh watching him, or Jon and Poe quietly talking with each other about nothing, because it beats just sitting there silently.

And Rey listens. And she thinks, too. And then says We could try to make them our allies. Like we did with New Alderaan. Take them, preemptively, a non-aggression treaty.

Kylo stops pacing. And he just stands there for a second. Thank you.

You want to talk some more about your officers?

Yes, but later. I think this needs to get out, now.

Okay. I can be there in a second if you need me.

I know.

He refocuses on the four men at his kitchen table. "How active is the New Republic now?"

"They have, loosely, more people than we do. Probably a few thousand active worlds. The same squabbles they had before the First Order fired on them, though they're having an easier time starting to come to a more centrist thrust at least in regards to developing enough of a military to engage in preemptive attacks," Josh says.

"Do they have… Formal meetings and a senate and stuff, like they used to?"

"Yeah," Poe says. "Security's higher. Even I don't know where the bloody capital is right now. They move it every few months, and last I heard they were looking to build a large enough ship so, like the Supremacy, they could keep it moving, but there is a senate."

"What would they do if we offered them a formal non-aggression treaty?" Kylo asks.

Kylo's best guess is that they'd stare at him the same way the four men are staring at him, now. Like he'd just grown a new head. He's completely flatfooted all four of them, and Pat's so shocked his brain just went legitimately blank.

Poe's the one who leaps back into action, first. "You want to… ally with them?"

"They're in no position to fight us right now. We don't want to fight them. If we make nice now, maybe by the time they're in a position to fight us, they'll have had a few years of getting along, and decide that they like getting along, because it's good for everyone involved?"

"Would we… seek to join the Republic?" Jon says, slowly.

Kylo rolls that over in his head. "I don't think so. That's… not going to be good for us. But… at least… fifteen years ago… Anyone who wanted to could send Ambassadors, right? Hell, even Snoke had First Order people in the Senate. You had to join to vote, but you could go and be represented and speak and whatnot, right?"

"Your mom hated that. She'd be up there trying to rally people to fight them, and then some slick son of a bitch would pop up and talk about how they weren't a threat, and that every system in the New Republic was allowed to engage in internal peacekeeping, and the stories of conquest were pure slander made up by the people who hadn't wanted to join the First Order and…"

While Poe's been saying that Pat and Josh have been staring at each other thinking. Finally, Pat says, "I don't think they'll let us do that, Kylo."

"Maybe they won't, but we at least try. If we send someone with a treaty, they won't attack them, right?"

The other four of his advisers all look at each other. None of them seem to think that's likely.

"They might attempt to put them in prison for war crimes," Jon says.

Kylo's eyes narrow. He and his did not blow up the Hosnian System. "That's on the Fir—" Kylo starts.

"Kylo, you're personally wanted in the New Republic on genocide charges for Jakku, and murder and theft for the Raclan Bank. So is anyone who wears an Order uniform," Kinear adds. "Those orders were absolutely war crimes, and anyone who chooses to be part of an organization that does things like that is a war criminal. Back when we were conscripting people, our foot soldiers could claim it wasn't on them. That we'd literally held a gun to their and their families' heads. And that was considered a 'mitigating factor' assuming you personally hadn't been involved in any actual war crimes. Now, though, they join, so they immediately become complicit in anything we do, have done, or will do.

"That's a big part of why we leave them alone. Sending someone in to get arrested puts us in the position of having to do something about it, and that goes against the image we're currently building. Getting too close to them basically means picking a fight, and one we have to win."

Fuck. Kylo mouths it. "What about… not wearing an Order uniform? Maybe someone they've got some history with?" Kylo just looks at Poe.

Poe holds up his hands. "No. No! They actually could toss me in jail for desertion. I didn't exactly… get permission to leave the Navy of the New Republic, you know?"

"Oh."

"And… uh… I… might have… in my New Republic uniform… engaged in some extremely illegal intelligence gathering."

"Oh."

"That… I mean that was sort of a game. Everyone knew I'd flipped sides, but most of the New Republic didn't like the First Order, but not enough of them to win the vote, so as long as I looked official, they'd be happy to have a chat and 'debrief' me on what was going on. And that way, if someone fussed, their ass was covered because I'd shown up in uniform and with the right credentials."

Pat and Josh look a little impressed at that. Kylo nods.

"And… I… sort of… used that uniform and my ID to borrow… some equipment, that I didn't exactly… uh… return."

"Uh huh…"

"And—"

Kylo raises his hands. "And I will not be sending you anywhere near the clutches of whatever is left of the New Republic." Both Pat and Josh seem to find that extremely amusing. "I do have one diplomat who didn't manage to do anything illegal, was on what the New Republic would call 'the right side' of the war, and would find any attempt to put her in prison extremely amusing."

The five of them sit there for a moment. Pat exhales a long breath. "She's… an option." One more, long, breath. "Kylo, we saw what appeared to be holos of your mom when you were on New Alderaan. And, until then, we were awfully sure we knew the right answer to this, but… Uh… Is she… Actually dead?"

Kylo nods. "Yeah, otherwise, I would have suggested it."

"Okay," Pat replies.

Josh rubs his hand over his face. "They're going to want blood. Which means… even Rey… is likely going into jeopardy doing that, and… If they play nice… There's no possibility that they'd even consider accepting a non-aggression treaty from us without… strings… meaning at least a trial for you, which will result in an execution, attached."

Kylo can remember saying to Rey, 'My opinion on being executed for war crimes hasn't improved' and it still hasn't. He could, probably, wiggle out of a lot of what the First Order did, but… Not Jakku. That's on him, and only him, and he can't shirk it off. "As long as they sit down and talk with us, we can, negotiate the strings, right? And if they're talking, they're not shooting? Or less likely to shoot? Maybe?"

The older men look at each other. "It wouldn't be soon," Pat says.

"We'd likely need… at least a year and two is better, of building up alliances and treaties with others, making a good show of being legit," Josh adds.

"We'd have to do the work of building the reputation of being solid about this, and honestly, if I didn't think they were going to attack us as soon as they could swing it, I wouldn't even think of suggesting it until after you're done Mastering," Pat says.

"We can do that. We are doing that," Jon says. "And… we wouldn't move on the New Republic until we've got our own diplomacy house in order, which… Shit… Brings us back to why we're here, right?"

"Right," Pat says. "This last week, how are things going?"

"They're in complete upheaval as JR-6678 tries to figure out what his higher ups were doing, and where all the bodies are buried," Jon replies.

"It will get better," Josh says.

"And if it doesn't, I know who to blame?" Jon replies.

"Yes, you do. The question is, do you know what to do about it?" Pat replies.

Jon sighs, looking at the men around him, wondering if, with his rank, he'll one day have to be the man who orders the execution of thousands. "I guess we'll find out."

Another quiet moment passes, and then Kylo says, "I understand why you didn't feel the need to tell me how many people you were killing. I don't understand why your three-year time estimate is just hitting my ears now."

Josh and Pat both look a little sheepish on that, but Pat's the one who straightens his shoulders and gets right to it, "A good commander can look at his men, see where the pressure points are, and do everything in his power to not lean on them if it means that the job's less likely to get done to his satisfaction. We need you and Rey up and ready and charming and doing everything in your power to make us look like a story book fairy land of goodness and light. Neither of us thought that you two thinking that every misspoken word, lost deal, botched treaty, unintentional slight, or just bad hair day is a catastrophe is a good plan, because if you do, your nerves will show through, and if you look nervous, people will think you are nervous, and that will be counter to what we're trying to do."

Kylo can feel that's not a terrible consideration to keep in mind.

Then he notices something. Pat and Josh are considering something. He knows another weight is about to fall.

"Just out with it."

"We… don't know, for sure. Uh…" Pat looks nervous, and Kylo can feel that he doesn't know, intentionally, because this is the kind of thing he and Josh don't want to know, but… "We'll talk to C8 and get it on the books."

"I'm not going to like this, am I?"

"It'll take a little while to get it set up and ready, but… Yeah, probably," Josh says.

"Are you trying to spook all of us," Poe says. "Be a little less vague so at least we know the flavor of the problem."

"The same problem any organization this size has, income, outlays, credit, debt, a growing body of people, and all the things in the galaxy needed to tend to them," Pat says.

Poe growls. "And this is why I'm not an Admiral. I hated dealing with the money stuff when our budget was in the tens of millions. I can't imagine it's any more fun in the trillions."

"It's not," Josh says.

"But, if you really want the whole mess in your lap, it means we've got to sit down with someone who can take those expense reports none of us actually read and our income statements, and tell us how far above, or below, water we are," Kinear says.

"I read th—" Kylo starts.

"No, you don't," Rey says appearing in their home. "You look at them and then fall asleep or go and run around to burn off the jittery."

"Trust me, Kylo," Kinear says, "so does just about every other commander, too. It takes a special sort of person to get into those numbers and not go cross-eyed or stupid, and it's probably about time for us to get one of them up to talk with us."

"Shit," Kylo says.

"Exactly." Josh looks at Rey. And then his chrono. "And I take it we're intruding on your supper time."

Rey nods, but she also says, "But you're welcome to stay if you like." Then she glances at the table, and Kylo, and the lack of food on it.

"I'm the one in charge of supper," Kylo says. He offers his hands to his high commanders a subtle, but not unnoticed revocation of Rey's dinner invite. He's going back to get food, and they're going back with him.

They don't misunderstand, and nod. "Not tonight, Lady," Schiff replies. "We've got things to ponder and set in motion."

And then Kylo pulls them back to the Supremacy.

---

It's later. A lot later. And Poe, and Jon, and Kylo, and Rey are sitting around Rey and Kylo's kitchen table, eating, sort of, mostly poking at, dinner.

Kylo really doesn't like the way this feels. It's just… mucky and gray.

Rey's holding his hand, but also not saying anything. This is… icky compromise and doing things you think are wrong but… Maybe for the right reasons, and if they're wrong, they should keep being wrong, but…

Poe's the one who says it. "Welcome to adulthood."

Kylo vicously rolls his eyes. "Stuff it."

"Nope. That's part of why you two are pouting like that. I don't blame you. Especially after Snoke… You're trying to re-write yourself as the good guy and…"

"I'd be one thing if I'd done it myself," Kylo says.

"Like the training officers," Jon provides.

"Like the training officers. I could go in, take a look, rage, and destroy. I'm good at that."

Rey's still holding his hand. "Do we know… who? Or why?"

Kylo groans at that, too. "They've probably got another bloody list."

"I promise you, they don't," Poe says. "Unless it's mental. They have to have a list to keep track of that many problems, I can promise there isn't one of who they've taken care of. And honestly, the list of terminations is probably labeled something like, 'Administrative Reprimand Count' or something tame and bloodless. There's no chance they put down how many people they've killed, anywhere."

"Fuck," Kylo says it, voice flat and listless. He's fiddling with his spoon.

"It really does come down to trust, doesn't it?" Jon says. "If they'd landed the list in front of you, and you picked and chose, you'd… Probably not make the exact same decisions they did, but… It'd be okay if you'd done it?"

Kylo doesn't like that answer, either, because it's a bright, flaring YES all through him. He trusts himself to wield his violence to his own liking, to his own sense of 'right.' "The worst part of it is, that, like they said, if we were in a battle, I honestly would never second guess either of them for any tactic they picked. They could literally destroy tens of millions of lives on the bridge of one of their ships, and I'd just nod and move onto the next report."

"Do they know… If they fuck up badly enough, they'll die for it?" Rey asks.

Jon shrugs. "It'd be hard to imagine they don't know. Snoke didn't go easy on people who didn't do what he wanted to, but… He also didn't encourage doing anything other than exactly what you told them to do… I guess that's part of the difference, we're not… giving the sorts of orders we used to give. We're making them do stuff other than land on a planet, crush it, and then give it to the miners."

"More training…" Rey says, half wondering, half suggesting.

Poe shrugs a bit. "You won't like this, but… If he's right about this mostly being the old coots left over from the Empire, they already got the sort of training you'd likely give them. And, he didn't say it, but… Competent officers got slaughtered en masse under Snoke." He shakes his head a piece of the puzzle falling into place. "We'd get reports, and for a while, the Old Imperials held their places, and positions, and from time to time we'd flip 'em and use them for intel. Then the Hux method started turning out officers, and we started getting reports of Imperials dying." Poe takes a sip of his drink. "How did you get those two?"

"Both of them managed to locate nooks of the First Order located on the far sides of the galaxy away from the rest of the First Order. I understand they skedaddled, sent in glowing reports that whatever it was Snoke wanted was happening, and made sure they were so far away from the rest of the First Order that no one would bother to take the multiple weeks of travel time to actually check and see if those reports were anything like correct."

Poe tilts his head a bit, and sips his drink. "Wouldn't be the first time someone made a long and glorious career out of not being in the direct view of the guy in charge."

"Lane was under Schiff, at first. In the Empire. He was a kid, then. Tested into the logistics program, was a seventeen-year-old Ensign, on the Excelsior."

"Fought at Endor?" Poe asks.

"Not exactly. His ship did. He was logistics. Schiff's fleet was part of what got brought in for that final battle. And at that point his job was mostly just making sure that things got loaded up correctly to get them from the landing bays to wherever they needed to go next on the Excelsior. The Death Star blew, and Schiff got his fleet, what was left of it, out. Way out. Didn't bother to see if it could be salvaged. Just picked up and buggered off."

"I know Kinear turned himself and his command in. Schiff didn't," Kylo says.

"Kinear was… I don't know, out in the boonies doing pretty much nothing. Schiff provided transport, naval superiority, and tactical support for the pacification of the Raynelian, Sthetherine, and Vlan systems," Jon says.

Poe winces. "He'd have been executed for war crimes, along with everyone with a rank above Captain."

"And most of the rest of his command would have joined my mom's buddies for 'an extended vacation on beautiful Celjonia.'"

Rey and Kylo wince at that.

"So he got his command, and took them out, far, far beyond the edge of the Rim, and apparently ran into Snoke, and came to the conclusion that his men could die out there, get picked off one by one as they ran out of fuel and friends, or join up with Snoke and survive," Jon says.

"And in one agreement, Snoke's military gained a third again it's numbers," Poe says.

Jon nods. "And got one of the best naval commanders of likely the last sixty years. That's how he got a lot of his ex-Imperials. I'm not saying that the New Republic was… wrong, about what it did. I'm sure they needed to prove that they could be strong and keep the people who got hurt happy by hurting the ones who wielded the blade in the first place, but… I lived it, and Lane talked about it, a hard peace doesn't make friends, it just encourages the next war."

Kylo drums his fingers against the rim of his plate. He doesn't like thinking about what Kinear and Schiff are doing 'so the whole survives.' He does like thinking about how to not get into another war with the rest of the galaxy, and how to learn from the mistakes of the New Republic.

"They'll absolutely execute me for Jakku if I let myself fall into the hands of the New Republic," Kylo says. It's mostly a statement with a hint of question.

Poe nods. "That'll be the 'official reason.' They'll really execute you because you're the highest ranked member of the First Order left, and even if you hadn't blown Jakku, they'd kill your ass dead because if they don't, what's the point of their existence?"

That's a good point. One they all sit there quietly and just feel.

Kylo looks at Rey. "Ten years… That was the idea." He takes a drink, and then another. It's easier to think, let alone say things like this, if you're at least a little drunk. "I'm awfully hard to kill, you know? And I'm sure I can fake it better than anyone else in the galaxy. Jedi… Force sensitives… They just vanish when they die." And then he's on the other side of the room. "I'm good at that."

That gets a very quiet moment, followed by three long exhales.

"If that's the kind of thing that could buy peace. It's not… impossible," Poe says, voice very tentative.

Rey sighs, long and loud. She opens and closes her mouth. "I… Think we'd have to be damn certain that you can pull that sort of trick off, and we've got to make it extremely clear that Jedi do not leave corpses, so that when they do… whatever it is they do, and you vanish, that's it. It's just done."

"You're thinking in ten years, though, not now," Jon says.

"Not now. Maybe not then. Maybe not ever. See how it goes. See where we are. I'd want to get past the first spate of elections at the very least, but… I don't know, maybe the next Master, feeling… conciliatory or something, might offer me up as a peace gift."

Jon just stares at him. He knows that Kylo thinks that he's the next Master. Or at least the one he'll personally vote for. "I'd hate to do it. Even knowing it was fake, I'd hate to do it."

"If it bought peace, real peace, between us and the New Republic…"

"Big if, Kylo," Poe says. "And none of us have such good prescience as to have any idea if this is even going to approach a feasible situation in the future."

"Yeah. I think we table this for much, much later," Rey says. "Much. Let's focus on the first part, making the Order so bloody useful that other people won't want to take it down."

And maybe that's not the solution to everything. Maybe it's kicking bigger issues down the road, but it's something concrete they can all work on.