A/N: Mild warning – discussion of disaster situation and famine, and the effects of such on infants, small children, the population in general, etc. Possible parasites and body horror.

For those new to Grey Order, the Downworlds, the Downs, Lanson Down, Epsom Down, etc. refer to a binary pair of habitable planets (Lanson and Epsom) in the Unknown Regions that the First Order uses for raising, training, and educating people. The planets are dotted with schools and academies which specialize in different ages and/or curriculums. Hux's father was in charge of the place until his death. Armitage continued to work there for six years until Snoke showed up.

This chapter is set about nine months after Snoke showed up. So it's been 2-3 months since the official kickoff on what will become Starkiller Base. Hux was given the project and six months to assemble a team, timeline, and get everything staged, then the kickoff meeting happened. He has five years to complete the project from that kickoff date.

From Grey and Complicated, "Rey and Hux Talk It Out", chapter 22:

"Where do you think the First Order finds all of these slaves that we train into citizens who become workers or troops?" … He continued, "We're nearly all pure human and no planet in the Unknown Regions has a native human population. What remnants of the Empire that formed our core certainly didn't reproduce that quickly and I have refused to go the route of clones so long as there are such recruits available.

"Why do you think I have such disdain for the self-righteous, hypocritical lies spewed by the New Republic? When I have millions of their children enrolled in my training programs, when every day I see the sons and daughters of their people, treated like trash, thrown away for a few credits and sometimes not even that?" His voice quieted, "Sometimes, Rey, they're given to us, especially after war. The poor and the desperate of the New Republic sold us their children in the hope they will have enough to eat, that they would grow, learn discipline, and bring justice to the galaxy." With a vicious, passionate tone, he concluded, "The ruling classes of the New Republic can burn for all I care. The First Order has risen to make things right!

"… finding purpose for the dregs of the galaxy is a central motivation here. Deny it as you wish, but we have other options. I have dedicated my life to these people – to the First Order, not to Snoke, or Ren, or the High Command. None of them! To the Order. Itself."

At the Battle of Crait, reports are that the First Order fielded thirty star destroyers and the Supremacy, whose combined complements totaled a little less than five million adults. This was not the entirety of the First Order fleet. Half, maybe. To use very round numbers, one can assume the Order has at least ten million people aboard ships. These would be supported by a hinterland of populated infrastructure, dispersed through their core worlds. Ratios are difficult to come up with for a technologically advanced but early stage civilization, but doubling the population to twenty million seems as good a number as any.

If we assume an average lifespan of seventy-five to one hundred years, then under normal conditions, the population will need an influx of two to three hundred thousand new members per year. The First Order has only been around thirty years, it is often in a semi-wartime-posture, and life is cheap. As a result, they probably need to add new members even faster. But let's run with that number for now.

In most populations, new members are born to them. But the First Order allows procreation among only a small percentage – all officers and those technicians above a certain rank. Their contribution would make up a statistically insignificant fraction. The bulk of the Order's new members must come from outside. For indoctrination reasons, they choose to recruit children, infants if possible.

This means each year their harvesting missions must bring in an average of a quarter million young children and infants. Most are picked up for free, especially in disaster areas, war zones, or districts which are perpetually poverty-stricken. In the absence of those situations, the Order can be persuaded to pay nominal fees for children and so there exist factors (also known as slave traders) who will gather children and sell them to the Order at regularly scheduled intervals and mutually arranged pickup points (also known as slave markets). Often, these are the children of slave populations in various pocket empires that flourish in the Outer Rim, whose existence is officially denied by the New Republic, but they exist nonetheless.

The rumors that the Order steals children are filthy lies spread by the Republic scum to cast aspersions on the heroic work the Order does in providing good homes and careers for the unwanted of Republic society. Also, it would be dangerous, tedious, and inefficient to go door-to-door locating and abducting people. How the factors manage to acquire the children, and whether the parents (slaves themselves in most cases) had any meaningful consent to the sale, is not something the Order looks into too closely. By design, the children are too young to say. Even if they could, everyone has a sob story, as tragic as they are difficult to verify. Armitage Hux followed his father's policy of pretending everything was aboveboard even though he strongly suspected it wasn't.

Because of this hypocrisy, he preferred not to buy from factors. He wouldn't be disappointed to see their ilk vanish from the galaxy altogether, along with slavery itself. It was one of the reasons why he stubbornly insisted on calling the harvesting program 'slave harvesting' even though that wasn't its official name and the vast majority of their intakes went on to be troopers or workers.

He didn't want anyone forgetting what they were actually doing – perpetuating one of the very things the Order existed to destroy. He kept careful notes on the slave traders he dealt with so that when the day came that the First Order overthrew the Republic and restored civilization, he could turn his attention to dealing with them the way they deserved.

In the meantime, the Order needed children and the children deserved better than what the galaxy would otherwise give them. If he could get them under honorable terms, he would move heaven, hell, and the entire First Order fleet to do it.

It started with a news report. Hux hadn't followed the news since he'd met Snoke, but he did keep up with communiques and whatever correspondence people sent him within the Order. It was always work-related, so he always needed to do this. Occasionally this included reports of news from the larger galaxy, as these things could effect shipments of supplies for the base or a potential harvesting mission. This time, it was the latter.

It was sent by Phasma, which was singular by itself, since it was text. She was not the most literate individual he knew, which wasn't surprising given her background. Speaking of which, that was all the message said: 'Anotther Parnassos in proccess' [sic – she could at least spell her own home world correctly, so there was that]. Then a link to a Republic news article. The article wasn't ranked as breaking news, urgent, or any other priority headline, so he wondered how Phasma had found it. But there it was.

He read it. He agreed with her assessment. He immediately convened his staff on the Finalizer by holo and on the planet's surface in person. He gave guidelines and orders, then left by shuttle to meet personally with Leader Snoke. This was going to be a big one.

He sincerely hoped whatever Snoke was eating was noodles. It didn't really look like noodles, but there were many strange foods in the galaxy. Hux decided to pretend they were noodles.

He said, "Sir, there is an urgent crisis situation on the Outer Rim planet of Lebeka. In the Republic Senate, the controlling faction has downplayed the fallout from their recent civil war, but we have reliable information that the planet's ecosystem is in collapse. They had a population of half a billion at the last census, which was more than a decade ago, before their political upheaval. It's believed to be less now."

"Is that relevant?"

Hux paused. "The crisis is, sir. Due to the scale, this would not be a normal slave harvesting mission. Since we have the Resurgent-class vessels available, we have the capacity to make a single mass evacuation-"

"My compassion is limited. Is this relevant to my interests?" There was an edge to the repetition of Snoke's question that made Hux tense all over.

"Sir … from a resources standpoint alone, this would fill our quota for recruits for at least a year, possibly several, with a single mission. We won't have to expose ourselves as much in the Outer Rim. We can be more strategic in our presence and more easily keep the Republic in the dark about our numbers and strength."

Snoke stared at him for a long moment, sifting through Hux's thoughts. The alien pulled a small frown and went back to his meal. Purple-blue wormy-looking things disappeared into his mouth.

It was not approval. "I don't understand, sir." It was a perfect situation. He couldn't see why Snoke wasn't immediately onboard with it. He was at a lull with the megaweapon project as the construction droids worked non-stop in phase I excavation. They could (and were) staging and prefabricating sections in orbit for later installation, but largely they were waiting for the digging to be complete. The only thing he'd been doing lately was aggravating Peavey by continuing to use his brand-new, top-of-the-line battlecruiser as a cargo freighter. (Though he had to suppose that using it as a nursery ship for infants wasn't going to go over any better.)

Snoke left him standing there uncertainly for a quarter of his plate before finally addressing him. "Anyone you recruit today won't even be a subadult by the time your megaweapon is ready. They are useless to us. A distraction. Your free time should be devoted to the training program refinements you implemented after your father's inevitable death. The cohort which was your primary focus should be transferred to the Finalizer where they will continue to receive your personal attention. When they are nearing graduation, I will want them transferred to my flagship so I can examine them personally."

"The whole class?"

"The best among them. The special group you have Captain Phasma overseeing. There may be some among them of use. But they are too many, too weak, and too unformed for me to detect it at this time. Continue your efforts in molding them. Some among them will have important roles to play in our eventual victory."

"What you are proposing is a longer-term distraction than this single harvesting mission. This will take no more than two weeks."

"We no longer need harvesting missions. Once your weapon is ready, the Republic will fall. We will have their armies to assimilate and command. We will no longer need to hide in these so-called 'Unknown Regions'." Snoke went back to eating.

Snoke seemed so certain. Hux's brows drew together as he tried to decide what he should do here. Snoke had not actually given him an order. Was this … a discussion? Was he supposed to explain his logic further? Or did Snoke merely want someone to agree with him? There was a place for both. Hux knew well the value of unquestioning obedience and in some circumstances, it was called for. Was this one of them?

Initially, Snoke had punished him for having the temerity to speak to anything but a direct question, but now … what was he supposed to do with this? Guess? He supposed he would. He had before survived Snoke's displeasure and he was sure he would again. If he didn't, well.

Hux said, "We already have the facilities and the personnel to handle the recruits. It is a sunk cost. Trained soldiers are versatile in ways droids and war machines are not. There are many things that can go wrong between now and the fall of the Republic. Even after the fall, it may be years before we finish consolidating our power. I don't want to rely on converted Republic personnel. Our people will be loyal. Theirs? They are faithless by definition. It costs us little to mitigate a great deal of risk."

"How much does it cost me to listen to you whining about it?" Hux winced, but he didn't take any of it back. Also, he knew a concession when he heard one, even if it was surprisingly coming out of Snoke's mouth. "I know your true reasons here. You have gone soft on those teaching worlds. You have lost the fine edge your father sharpened into you." Snoke pushed aside his empty plate and used a napkin to pat dry the skin around his mouth. "You wish to do this thing?"

The insults didn't sting much. It wasn't something he didn't know about himself. "Yes sir. I do."

"If it delays any of my projects, then I will dismantle the harvesting program altogether. I will be sending two of my enforcers to observe."

Hux decided to pretend it was the authorization he was asking for. "Thank you, sir. I will make preparations."

Snoke waved at an aide who had been standing off to the side, either to bring another course or clear the table. Hux didn't stick around to find out. He made a short bow and saw himself out.

"We're not going to show up to get shot at," Hux said with a chuckle. He was standing in front of the video pickup, his image (two-dimensional, given the limitations of the encryption and the infrastructure on Lebeka) being transmitted to the sovereign of the planet. "You must be able to give us some assurances of safety, your majesty."

"The Republic controls commerce and industry. They are the ones who hold the true power. They own what passes as a government here. I can only speak for the people."

"Then control the people who are manning the defense stations. Unless you have an automated system, it will be people making the decision to fire on us."

"This is not so easy. They live within those stations and intercept everything that comes in from other worlds. They support themselves thusly and claim they do not receive enough to share. When we rose up to contest the inequality, the split of resources where they kept everything for themselves, they used their nuclear weapons and their warships, telling us it was a police action, necessary to keep the peace. They have advanced their technology and automated until they do not need us. We are surplus now. Three hundred million people they would rather see gone. It is genocide. They think of it as pest control." The monarch spoke with a calm and grave voice, as though he were dispassionately stating facts.

"Three hundred million against a few tens of thousands? Why don't you fight back?"

"We have no weapons. We were a simple people. In the time of the Old Republic and even the Empire, there was no need. But now the Republic only cares about taxes, not the welfare of its people. We are unnecessary."

"It is hard for me to believe this is as skewed as you say."

"Then you, too, will fail to help us. Neutrality always favors the oppressor." The king looked down, the weight of an impossible burden pressing down on him. He made no further attempt to persuade. He didn't beg or engage in histrionics. The time for weeping and wailing had long since passed.

Hux studied him. He didn't end the transmission. He didn't speak for a while. The king was still. He was either patient or utterly hopeless. Finally, Hux said, "My father told me, 'It is a characteristic of the powerless that they don't have anything to offer you.'" Although Brendol had meant it as justification for why you shouldn't bother to negotiate with the weak, his son had ended up taking a different lesson from it.

The king looked up and feigned politeness. "Was your father a wise man?"

"He said many things I have had reason to reflect on over the years. What I am thinking is that if you were able to do what I am asking, then you wouldn't be asking for my help."

"Your father was, truly, a wise man."

"We have a new assignment," Hux told the command staff in the morning meeting. "The royal structure on Lebeka has finally admitted the obvious, which is that the New Republic will not be sending relief or assistance for the planetary famine that has resulted from their failed revolt against the wealthy class. Their ecosystem has collapsed. Food production effectively ceased months ago. The population is starving and their government, propped up by the Republic, is fine with that. Prime conditions for a harvesting mission.

"The effected population is larger than any we've served previously. I am capping our intake at five hundred thousand." There were gasps and expressions of consternation around the table at the scale. "I've done this before on the Absolution, but it was only the one ship. We'll be taking three: The Finalizer, the Absolution, and the Harbinger will be diverting from current activities to serve as primary transport. We'll be bringing some Imperial-class destroyers as escort and other transports as drop ships. I should have the fleet defined within a few hours. We are already in route to the Downs for rendezvous."

Hux turned to Major Vannd. "I need you to review this with the resources director and make sure I'm not making promises we can't keep. We'll need to feed and house only. Clothing and anything more complicated than first aid or minimal washing will be dealt with on the Downs. They've been alerted. We will be picking up supplies and transferring personnel before we get underway." To the rest, he said, "This one mission is equivalent to a year's worth of harvesting. Maybe two. Overall, it frees up our ships for other assignments."

"Five hundred thousand … children, sir?" Captain Peavey asked.

"Yes." As he had expected, Peavey was peeved.

"Where?"

Hux smiled thinly. "Here. One hundred-sixty-five thousand per ship."

"That … exceeds our complement by … nearly a hundred thousand people. We can't support that many. Sir."

"There might be more. The count is never accurate. Get some food in them and they run all over the place." Hux was vastly amused by Peavey's expression. He tried not to smile too much. "In any case, the ship's complement is based on adult humans in long-term residence, not children or even infants kept for a few days."

"Infants?"

"Yes. Infants," he said firmly, waiting to see if Peavey would argue. He did not. He never did. He typically confined himself to silence, stiff posture, and refusing to look at his commanding officer. Every now and then, Hux would catch an expression of ridicule or disdain out of the corner of his eye, but Peavey fixed his face if Hux looked at him directly. It was far from Hux's most important personnel conflict, but he had to admit he took a certain joy in needling the old man.

Hux said, "We will have to support them for no more than week, depending on delays in loading and unloading. The bigger problem will be successfully tending them for the journey, since we are at a skeleton crew. All adult crew will be involved. Even you. You're a family man. Aren't you, Captain?"

Peavey stared at him in horror. "Those were my own children, sir. Not … plague victims."

Hux regarded him for a long moment. "Well. Yes. Successful decontamination might take longer than the mission itself. It's a price we will have to pay." He took a moment to savor the captain's unhappy expression before turning to the rest. "We will be on double shifts – emergency protocols to be in effect."

Hux continued, "Briefings and what training we have time for will be provided to all personnel tomorrow at end of shift one and then again at beginning of shift two. Everyone on a duty roster needs to attend one of those two sessions. No exceptions. Two of Leader Snoke's personal enforcers will be arriving tomorrow to monitor performance, so," Hux paused, smiling slightly at everyone, "let's make sure we don't have complications. Any questions at this point?"

All were silent.

"One other point before we dismiss," Hux said. "The economic history of this planet has led to wealth, technology, and power accumulating in the hands of a privileged class. That class is, of course, loyal to the New Republic who enables them to continue hoarding. When the people rebelled, they bombed them, destroyed the environment, and retreated into sealed habitats. They have not been informed of our coming. It is not my intention to inform them until we're there, so they can't panic and summon aid from the Republic. If they interfere with our operations, we're going to destroy them."

"Is that … Wouldn't that be a declaration of war, sir?" Captain Peavey asked.

"First, we're already at war with the New Republic. We have been since they rebelled against the Empire. And second, no. We were merely assisting the legitimate king in routing the parasitic corporations who were attempting to murder an entire population. Any open investigation will reveal that the Republic was standing by idly while this atrocity played out under their noses.

"The government doesn't want that. I doubt they'll start anything, but if they do, we'll finish it. Should Leader Snoke authorize it, we can return later and add another planet sympathetic to our side, although it would take extensive disaster remediation. Even in that case, the evacuation should proceed as planned."

"All ships are in attack position?" It was the start of shift after an uneasy night of sleep. Hux had toyed with the idea of hitting stims and double-checking everything, but he needed to trust his team and he needed to be as fresh as possible.

"Yes sir," Peavey said. Their shifts overlapped now. Peavey would be in charge of the battlespace for the first shift, then it cycled to the captain of the Harbinger, then the Absolution, then back to the Finalizer. It left Hux free to oversee the extraction itself, knowing the best the Order had was covering his back.

Hux squared up before the holo pickup. "This is Colonel Hux of the First Order. We are here by invitation of King Raftsa, the recognized monarch of Lebeka. We take no stand in your internal political dispute. We will be providing humanitarian assistance to your people in the form of food and nutrient packs, and by evacuating the youngest and most vulnerable of your population. We will be gone within two standard cycles. All inquiries about our deployment and authorization can be directed to the king. Any attempt to interfere with our mission will be met in kind."

He waited. Minutes dragged on. A quarter hour. Hux checked in with the royal representative to make sure all ground arrangements were going smoothly and the pickup schedule hadn't changed. He turned to Peavey when he was done. "Nothing yet?"

"No sir. All quiet."

Hux nodded. "Good. That's about what I expected. I hand command over to you, Captain. Inform me of any developments. I'll be on the first transport down. Do make sure it doesn't get shot out of the sky, will you?"

Up. Down. Up. Down. One hangar bay after another. People hustling. Space at a premium. Everything smelling wrong. His eyes itched from the polluted air and the back of his throat burned. He had to wonder how long it would be until the very air on Lebeka was too contaminated for life. What if they had come too late? What if the children they were evacuating were the only survivors? Even then, he supposed, it was better than Parnassos.

He tried to shake those thoughts away. Tiny infants gave way to wobbly toddlers who were replaced, a few trips later, by young children. It was exhausting work. Meal breaks were short and taken standing. Stims were distributed at the end of second shift and again at the end of third.

Hux tried stay close to Snoke's observers, the two Knights of Ren, but they split up the first time they landed. He ended up with one he judged to be male, if the tone of the vocoder and the manner of his gait was any indication. The other one walked like a woman, which wasn't conclusive, but Hux went with the mental label for now. Equally, he assumed they were both human or near-human going off their proportions and joints. But it didn't really matter.

He was more concerned about what they would report back. Neither showed any interest in his people or the cargo they were dropping off. They ogled at Lebeka like rubes. They seemed uncomfortable in their roles. The male took the orders of anyone who told him what to do. In what little Hux had seen of her, the female ignored everyone like their words were inapplicable to her. They certainly didn't stick together, back each other up, or show any signs that one commanded the other. Interesting.

They were on the last pickup of the night when the Order's run of good luck on the mission finally began to peter out. It started with the protesting crowd, then escalated quickly after the male knight was suckered by some mother's tale of woe and let in a girl who was twice the maximum age Hux wanted. The knight tried to threaten him with Snoke. That was laughable, really, but all Hux could think about as he stared into the man's inscrutable black visor was watching this same person cuddle and coo at a baby earlier. Tender and sweet.

He was a sentimental fool. One of Snoke's enforcers was a sentimental fool. Hux knew he could harden this man up just like Brendol had showed him – show them how things had to be, force them to do it themselves, then congratulate them after with plenty of social support for the activity. It was simple. Formulaic. All he had to do was shoot the child to make his point. Hux let the girl go.

As the knight went back down the ramp, Hux looked to the cargo containers that had been offloaded earlier. They were at the back of the landing area. Everywhere else they'd landed, the emphasis had been on loading the children, with the containers left locked until the transport lifted off. They never landed in the same place a second time.

But here, the situation was disintegrating. No one was in command. Looters were already breaking into the supplies. He yelled down at the knight to warn him, then turned to a petty officer and gave orders to begin an orderly exit. They managed to lift off with only three corpses aboard, none of them Order personnel, and no serious injuries.

They'd already passed half a million intakes the flight before, so all in all, Hux counted it as a win. He'd just wanted to drop off the last cargo containers. The kids were extra.

A few weeks later …

"Sir, there's been an irregularity in the inventory."

"What would that be?" Hux looked up at the supply technician. Her superior officer stood behind her, obviously not wanting to be the direct bearer of bad news.

"It seems that in the shuffling of supplies for the last harvesting mission, we … some of what was sent …"

"Spit it out, Petty Officer."

She glanced back at her boss, who nodded encouragement. She turned to Hux and said, "You see, the weapons for the graduating class of stormtroopers have gone missing, as well as munitions, armor, environmental suits, and equipment for training exercises over the next year. The best I can track it down, it appears that when food and relief supplies for Lebeka were sent up, these other containers were sent as well. You … wouldn't happen to still have them, would you?"

"No, of course not. Everything we had was unloaded on Lebeka." He gave a disinterested shrug. "What a tragedy," he added dryly, "that those starving Lebekans were expecting nothing but food and ended up getting weapons and survival gear mixed in with it." Behind the petty officer, her commander's expression shifted slightly. He knew this was no accident.

"Can we get them back?" she asked.

"No. Last I heard, Lebeka had another civil war – a brief one, but it was an utter rout. Seems they're declaring for the First Order now, but there's still a lot of chaos. No way to track what happened to what we sent down. Most of it was food, after all. Right?"

"Yes, but ..." She said nothing else. She looked at her datapad.

"Who was responsible for this mishandling?" Hux asked.

"Cap- uh, Captain Phasma, sir."

"She's virtually illiterate," he said. "Probably misread it. I will have her transferred to the Finalizer where I'll oversee her remedial education personally. There's a cohort of students I'll need her help with anyway."

"Yes sir. But … what do we do about the supplies?"

"It doesn't matter," the manager said behind her.

"Buy new ones," Hux directed.

The petty officer still didn't understand. "The expense, sir!"

Hux humored her with an explanation. "What expense? The weapons cost us less than it would if we'd had to buy slaves for two years. Also, I've seen the shipments of kyber coming out of my project. The Order has the money. Buy new. I consider this matter closed."

"Yes sir," the manager said, stepping in to usher away the petty officer. "It is."