It was hard to hear what Poe was yelling with her ears underwater so Rey pushed herself out of the bath, yanked a towel from the rack and tucked it around her chest. She made it to the door of her suite just as he started kicking it.

'Run,' he yelled, dodging around her without waiting to be asked. 'We're being attacked, we have to run.'

She blinked at him stupidly. 'Attacked? No one brings weapons into a truce situation.'

'What's the matter with you?' Poe was so agitated he hopped from foot to foot. 'Didn't you hear the blasters? There's a fight right outside your door and we need to get out. Now.' Her state of undress finally seemed to register. 'Have you just woken up?'

'I was in the bath,' she explained. 'I fell asleep. Who's attacking us?'

'No one's attacking us directly.' Poe flung a quick glance around the bedroom, spotting her bag and proceeding to push her belongings inside without taking time for the niceties of folding. 'They're attacking him. Get dressed, we're leaving.'

She hurried to the wardrobe to retrieve the white outfit she'd abandoned yesterday, gathering up her boots from the corner, hoping Poe wouldn't notice the ruined dress or the stains on the bedsheets. She left the door to the bathroom open while she dressed. 'Who is 'him'?'

'Kylo Ren. He's got a coup on his hands. I was on my way to lunch when Hux barged past me in reception with a couple of other officers, blasters out, chasing something. So I look round and there's Ren, no lightsaber of course, doing that freezing thing he does with blaster bolts, except that there's too many of them and he's only just holding on. Then Pryde appears and starts shooting at Hux and that's when it gets really messy. Pryde's got a lot more men and I can hear the tramp of stormtrooper boots coming along the corridor so I commed Rose to get out and she called Chewie with the Falcon. They'll be here in a minute to pick us up.'

Rey felt wobbly for a second, tried to smooth out the sudden twist of worry in her heart. 'What happened to Ben?'

'I didn't see. But if I'm any judge of character at all, I'd say he's in trouble. Pryde had this look on his face – like all his dreams had come true, and I'm willing to bet he has just as much interest in taking out Kylo Ren as Hux does. In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Pryde doesn't just assassinate the Supreme Leader himself and then blame it all on Hux. He could knock out both of them in one go if he plays his cards right. They've caught Ren off guard, he's alone and unarmed and they're going to take advantage.'

Rey strapped her belt around her waist, both its lightsabers securely attached. 'He's not alone.'

Poe gave her an odd look, before running over to the balcony and triggering the doors. 'He is. There's no way we're helping him.' He waved an arm. 'Come on Rey, I see them.'

She turned away without a second thought, making for the exit and the firefight beyond. 'I'm not leaving until I'm sure he's safe.'

Poe yanked her away from the door, hauling her in the direction of the balcony. 'He can take care of himself. We can't. I'm not going to get stuck in the middle of a First Order bloodbath. Leave now, be noble later.'

She wrenched her arm back. 'You can't tell me what to do.'

He threw up his hands in exasperation. 'I'm not telling you what to do. I'm strongly suggesting you get on the Falcon with me. I know you've spent a whole day giving Kylo Ren whatever he wanted but he can't have had that much of an impact on you. He's a big boy. He doesn't need you to rescue him.'

'I'm not leaving until he's safe,' she gritted out, in a tone that brooked no compromise.

Poe ran a hand through his hair, turning towards the balcony, his eyes darting across the room and Rey was very aware of what he saw - the unmade bed, of which both sides had clearly been used, the telltale pile of black fabric tossed in a corner, a colour Rey herself would never normally wear.

'What did you give him?' he muttered to himself, then shook his head. 'Never mind that now.' He pivoted back, shook her shoulders gently. 'Rey, you are the last Jedi. We need you. This isn't the time to change sides. If you are still part of the Resistance, I need you on the Falcon right now. Come with me.'

He was right. She knew he was right, she had to leave with her friends, continue the great battle of good against evil, stand up for the light against the darkness. That was her role, her purpose. That was what she had been born for. But standing there in her bedroom, next to the evidence of a night spent playing with the dark side it had never seemed more like a personal choice. Saving Ben was a good enough reason to leave the Resistance, she could feel it in her gut, it was a choice she wouldn't regret. But Poe was expecting something from her, and the weight of his expectation fell heavily on her shoulders. She wasn't ready to leave – she'd told Ben as much, and while the need to rescue him burnt within her, the compulsion to do the right thing was stronger.

She dropped her head, shied away from his earnest attention. 'I'm still part of the Resistance.'

'Of course you are,' he said, steering her past the bed with an expression of nausea on his face. 'Let's never talk about this again.'

Finn had the ramp of the Falcon down and it was hovering level with the railings as he stood just inside with his arm out. 'Jump, I'll catch you.'

Poe gave the breakfast table set for two a suspicious look and then dragged one of the dining chairs away, clambering onto it and launching himself off the balcony with one foot outstretched, reaching for Finn's hand. Rey simply took a few paces backwards, sprinted forwards and took to the air using the Force to propel her into the belly of the ship without requiring assistance.

'We have a problem,' Finn reported the minute they were both on board. 'Come and see.'

He powered away through the corridors, hurrying in the direction of the communal passenger cabin, calling an explanation over his shoulder as he went.

'We started receiving a transmission from the mole right after Rose asked for immediate evacuation. I was going to ignore it because we were busy rescuing you, but I thought it might be to do with what was going on with the First Order and when I looked at the message it was a set of co-ordinates. I plugged them in and they were really close by. Really, really close by. So we grabbed Rose and then we stopped by the co-ordinates and then we came for you and well... see for yourself.'

Poe made it into the cabin and stopped so abruptly that Rey nearly collided with his back.

General Hux was sitting at the dejarik table.

'Now this I gotta hear,' Poe announced, folding his arms.

'He's the mole.' Finn sounded like even he didn't believe what he was saying. 'And before you start arguing he showed me a list of all the transmissions he'd sent us, a list that only the mole would have.'

'Or a list that only someone who had tortured the mole would have,' Poe commented, darkly.

'I would prefer to be referred to as a dissenter.' Hux's nasal voice betrayed no sign of fear, despite the fact that he was sitting in the midst of his enemies, speeding away from First Order control as fast as the Falcon could manage.

'We can call you a traitor, if you like.' Rey wasn't quite sure where her antagonism towards this man was coming from, if Hux really was the mole then the Resistance owed much of its current strength to him but she found it hard to rein it in. This wasn't how she'd imagined her day going.

Hux blinked at her. 'I am loyal to the First Order.'

'And yet you've been feeding information to the Resistance,' Poe commented. 'And not fifteen minutes ago I saw you trying to assassinate Kylo Ren. What are you up to, General?' He took a seat opposite the other man, keeping one hand near his weapon.

'Ren murdered Supreme Leader Snoke and then usurped his position. He's no leader. He cares nothing for the Order, or its goals. For the last year, all we have done is pursue Ren's mad ideas, chasing Sith legends into the Unknown Regions. He brought in his own personal bodyguard, who don't recognise anyone else's authority and sent them out hunting for the source of Snoke's power – ignoring the fact that he'd already chopped the source of that power in half and thought I wouldn't notice. And he promoted Captain Pryde, a man so far below the rank of general that Leader Snoke used to have him out supervising trade runs. Neither of them has the aptitude or talent for high office. I am the rightful ruler of the First Order.'

'And you thought we would help put you on the throne because…?' asked Poe.

'Because you have no choice.' Hux bent forward, a feral gleam in his eye. 'You were nothing when I found you, floating in space on this ship with no resources, no power. Everything you have built since then you have done with my help. You owe me.'

'You were part of the negotiations. You know how strong we are. We're about to wipe the Order out. Exactly what do we owe you?'

'You owe me my rightful place on the throne.' Hux's fist hit the table.

Rey found it hard to believe that he hadn't completely lost his mind, negotiating for power when he evidently had no leverage left to offer. Poe clearly thought the same thing.

'I think you might have made a mistake here, buddy. The information you've been leaking us – it was all designed to help us knock out your rivals, wasn't it? You told us where the Emperor was going to be before his coronation so we could try to kill him, and you gave us the location of Pryde's new flagship because you thought he'd be on it. You arranged for that live broadcast from Kylo Ren's favourite swamp because you hoped we could stop him getting to wherever he was going. But we failed. We didn't manage to assassinate either of them, and we got so strong that now we don't need you any more. You weren't expecting that, were you? You thought you could use us to get rid of the two men who stood between you and absolute control, and instead we're going to take control ourselves. We don't owe you anything.'

Hux was grinning in a disturbing sort of way. 'And yet you are going to help me anyway.'

'I'll help you any way that doesn't involve putting you on the throne. I'm grateful for the intelligence, really I am, but you must realise that you've lost. The First Order is over. We know about the modified Imperial Star Destroyers. Our bombers are halfway to their location – in a few hours they'll all be floating around in pieces. The minute that happens I'm going to launch an attack and wipe out the rest of the navy, and then I'm going to take down the Order planet by planet. It won't be quick, and it won't be clean, but it will be successful.'

Hux chortled to himself, retrieved a pad from his pocket and started tapping on it, while Finn and Poe exchanged bemused glances. Ben was right, Rey thought, the man really was annoying.

The General placed the pad on the table, twirled it around so that they could all see the screen. 'These Imperial Star Destroyers?'

A live feed flickered into being, with a similar angle to the one that Finn had shown from his probe on Exegol. This time however, it was apparent from the blaze of light and colour across the sky, the sheer number of transports bustling between the giant vessels, the sense of haste and movement across the whole scene, that the ships were no longer in hibernation, but were in the later stages of being mobilised.

Poe shot Rey a horrified look. 'But he gave the order to stand down.'

'He did,' Rey confirmed. 'Ben gave the order to stand down two days ago. This has to be a hoax.'

Hux gave her another of his odd grins, tapping another few commands that replaced the picture on screen with a few lines of code. 'Supreme Leader Ren gave the order to stand the fleet down last night. Around dinner time. From your quarters.'

Everyone in the room looked at Rey. Rey looked at the screen. From her quick scan it appeared that Hux was correct. A transmission had been sent from a comms relay associated with her room number at around the time they had returned from the beach last night, when she'd still been battling a concussion and he'd appeared to be ordering food.

She squinted at the data, trying to make sense of it. 'This is a hoax. It has to be.'

Hux was staring at her now, the expression in his eyes pitying. 'You are going to help me,' he repeated, talking only to her. 'Not them. You.'

Poe pushed out of his seat. 'If he didn't give the order when he said he did then that means our bombers are flying into a trap. Those Destroyers will wipe them out as soon as they arrive. Rose – get a message through to the bombing squadron now. Tell them they need to turn around.'

Rose hurried away to the cockpit while Rey dropped onto the frayed padding next to Hux.

'I don't understand,' she muttered, still examining the pad for a mistake.

The memory was etched on her consciousness – she'd stripped and Ben had rejected her advances, saying that he was going to call off the fleet because it was the right thing to do. But he hadn't done it then, he'd given the order much, much later, too late for it to make any difference. He'd been angry with her that night, more angry than she'd ever seen him – had that been the reason he'd forgotten to follow through?

Poe nudged her. 'I don't understand either. That was the night you had that..' he waved a hand, uncharacteristically delicate. 'On your neck. I thought the two of you had come to an arrangement.'

'I thought we had too.'

Hux reached over and patted her hand before she could yank it out of his greasy touch. 'I came here to see you, because of what happened last night. I'm afraid there is more you need to know.'

'What happened last night?' Rey had forgotten that Finn was also in the room, and Connix too, and various other members of the Resistance hierarchy, all standing around ready to bear witness to Hux and his embarrassing revelations.

'I'll get to that. But first…' the General raised his pad, activating its scanning functions and waving it in Rey's direction. 'You need to give the order to evacuate the rebel headquarters on Kijimi.'

'Rey! You didn't tell them our location again? Are you completely incapable of hiding anything?' Poe did not sound pleased.

She waved her hands in defence. 'I didn't tell him. He already knew.'

Abruptly, Hux ducked under the table and Rey felt a tug on the top of one of her boots before the man reappeared bearing a tiny, translucent, wafer thin dot on the tip of one finger. He placed it on the table top and cracked his fist down on it hard.

'She didn't tell him. She's had a tracker on her since you left Ajan Kloss. If we hadn't had to participate in those ridiculous peace talks the First Order would have obliterated your base days ago.'

A sick, swooping vertigo blurred Rey's vision for a second as she stared at the smashed tracker, recalling how she'd found her boots neatly placed by the door the morning she'd woken to find him in her quarters on the jungle planet. He'd admitted to tracking her, but somehow she'd thought he hadn't meant like this, not using technology to monitor her movements – she'd thought he'd been sensing her through the Force, or had heard rumours of her activities from distant informants. This was something different. This was premeditated, the actions of an enemy, not someone with whom she'd made a lasting connection.

'Rose,' Poe yelled. 'Can you call the main base as well and signal another evacuation? Tell them to move to...' He stopped suddenly and cast a swift glance in Rey's direction. 'Just order them to evacuate and wait for co-ordinates.'

Rey threw him a wounded look.

'What happened last night?' asked Finn.

She gave her friend much the same sort of expression but Finn stuck out his chin bullishly. 'I think we have a right to know. You allowed yourself to be tracked, you've given away our location twice. And last night HoloNet was full of the ecological disaster on Dorumaa that mysteriously happened right in the middle of the peace talks. Did you know that all the oceans on the planet froze in the space of about a minute? All of them, all at once. All the marine wildlife is dead – all the turtles, everything. The planet is ruined, they're going to try cloning to recover some of the fish stocks but the seas are empty and the tourist industry may never be the same again. What can you think of that can freeze a planet, Rey? I think we have a right to know what happened last night.'

She passed a hand over her eyes so she didn't have to face the accusatory expressions around the room. She was with friends, comrades, allies, but right at that moment she knew she was alone. Only Hux threw her a crumb of comfort, in the form of a reassuring nod, and the fact that she was now receiving validation from her enemies succeeded in making her feel worse.

'It's easy to miss a tracker,' he said, queuing up something else on his pad. 'Ren has one on him right now and doesn't know it. That's how I knew where he was this morning so I could cause a diversion and have you kidnap me.'

'No one's going to buy this as a kidnapping,' Poe demurred. 'You were trying to kill your boss, I saw you myself. You're a traitor – I know it, and they know it too.'

'Quite the contrary. I am loyal to the First Order, as I said. I attacked the so-called Supreme Leader when I realised he had ordered our back up fleet to stand down, and that he had done so in the knowledge that the Resistance were on their way to attack it. I attempted to assassinate him because he is a traitor to the regime, but unfortunately, you came along and kidnapped me instead.'

'Literally no one is going to believe you.'

'They will when they see this.' Hux's fingernail clicked on his pad.

With lightning speed, Rey put the pieces together and buried her face in her hands. The Resistance had swept the planet for bugs and listening devices before anyone else had arrived, and she knew that the Order didn't routinely record its leader's private conversations because he'd told her so. That meant that whatever Hux was so smug about showing, it was footage he'd taken on his own. He definitely hadn't been lurking in the bedroom, but there had been one occasion last night when Rey and Ben hadn't been inside.

She heard her own voice on the recording. 'Wait. Don't go.'

A deep voice replied: 'Good night, Rey.'

'Stay with me. We haven't finished talking.'

'This is the crucial part,' noted Hux. 'This is what I'll use to prove that Ren's a traitor. This is why the First Order will welcome me back once I've done what I came here to do.'

On the tape, Ben said, 'You only want me to stay so you'll have time to destroy the fleet. Be my guest. I'm not going to stop you. We've been through this before.'

'That's enough now, isn't it?' Rey attempted to limit the damage. 'We don't really need to hear the rest.'

'I think we do,' said Finn and no one else in the room disagreed.

'No, stay with me because I want you to,' Rey begged on the recording and Rey in the room crossed her arms on the table and hid her head.

'You don't. You're not ready. You don't even know what you're asking.'

'I do. You say I'm not alone. Prove it.'

'I've heard enough.' Poe stepped in. 'I don't think we need to embarrass Rey by listening to any more.'

'Yes, we do,' Finn was almost at shouting volume and Rey could feel his vehemence from her hiding position. 'You heard what Ren said, 'you only want me to stay so you'll have time to destroy the fleet.' Rey didn't want him to stay with her last night, she was trying to buy us time. She was being a good little solider and doing as she was told so you could complete your plan. You put her in this position, Poe. You're a general, you pushed her into Kylo Ren's arms so you could destroy his navy. This is your fault. Rose told me what you did – you ordered Rey to go to his room in the middle of the night and ask for a favour. What did you think was going to happen?'

'I don't give her orders.' Anger threaded Poe's words and he rose from his seat. 'She's the last Jedi. I can't order her to do anything.'

'I know how this goes,' Finn's voice came out twisted. 'This is what you learnt from Leia isn't it? From Holdo. As long as you don't actually order anyone to do anything you can sleep at night. But if they decide on their own, if they decide to sacrifice themselves voluntarily then that's not your fault, is it? You didn't give the order. It isn't down to you. You forced Rey to offer herself to a man she hates for you. For the Resistance. For all of us. And I know how that feels because I nearly sacrificed myself too – I was willing to crash into a cannon for you.'

'I never ordered you to do that,' Poe yelled back, furious.

'That's exactly my point,' Finn shouted.

Hux tapped at his pad, and said in a musing tone, 'You know, I always imagined that the Resistance leadership would hate each other less than the First Order leadership do, but I see now I was mistaken.'

The tape resumed and Rey put her hands over her ears.

'Are you coming into exile with me?'

'I can't just leave.'

'Then I won't stay. I don't want one night, Rey. I want a future.'

'I think we've heard enough of that.' This was Hux again, making an executive decision. 'We can all imagine what happened next.'

Rey didn't want to look up. She knew exactly what the rest of the rebels must be thinking, how disgusted they must be with her now. Some, like Finn, might be sympathetic enough to think that she'd been coerced into bed, but she wasn't going to be able to let that lie continue for much longer.

But Hux wasn't finished. 'The Supreme Leader can be quite persuasive. At least, that's what I hear from the Knights of Ren. From one of them anyway. And he can also be quite rough, apparently. I expect she was grateful for a night off.'

Rey's head shot up, her eyes round.

Hux's expression had morphed from pity into something like sorrow, or as close to it as he could manage. 'There is more I need to show you. And you are going to need to watch this time, I'm afraid.'

Rey hardly dared to ask. 'What do I have to see?'

Hux went back to tapping. 'I need to show you what happened when Kylo Ren met his grandfather.'