Chapter 14

Truce

Asking for a ceasefire had been among the hardest things he had ever had to do. Keeping the trembling out of his voice as he contacted Clayn took more effort than he could possibly have imagined, but Morap was standing right behind him and he owed it to his boy to remain as calm and seemingly confident as he possibly could. The soldiers' presence didn't even bother him. They didn't matter. Not really. Their fate was as undecided as his own. His children and his wife had to be taken care of before everyone else. How could he have let this happen? How could he have let their lives be turned upside down in an instant?

He knew exactly what had gone wrong, he reminded himself. He had let others do the work he should have done and he had let too much control out of his hands and now he had to pay the price. Had he only given himself and the other former First Order officers more time to build up this organization, this wouldn't have happened. At least, he thought, Nataleeh knew exactly how to access the credits he had been able to stash away in an unnamed banking account a couple of months ago. If she and their children got out of here safely, they'd have enough to live on for a while.

The words had passed his lips and he felt numb, while at the same time the comm felt like a completely alien object in his trembling hand as he waited for Clayn's response. Moments, drawn out into what felt like hours, passed before the rumbling above their heads finally stopped. The sudden quiet told him like nothing else could have done that the few people around him were holding their breath.

The shuffling of feet announced Morap drawing closer and without taking his eyes off the door leading out of the detention block, Meelan put his arm around his son's shoulders. Only now did he realize how bony they were. On top of that they were also a bit higher above the ground than they had been the last time he had put even a single thought to the growth spurts Morap tended to have without the slightest announcement. When had been the last time Meelan had even considered his son's height? Meelan couldn't remember, but the mere thought brought tears to his eyes and he only just managed to fight them off. He was being too emotional and by far not composed enough for what was likely to come.

The voice issuing from his comm was undoubtedly Clayn's. "As you may have noticed the ships guarding your base from orbit have withdrawn. Your attempts of firing at us from that rock you're on have been futile." He sounded almost bored.

Meelan pulled his son closer to him. Whatever had happened between them this last week was of no importance anymore. None of it mattered. Yes, Morap had been disobedient once, had been reckless and foolish and whatever was going on with that crystal was utterly incomprehensible to Meelan, but Morap needed to know that his father was only concerned with his wellbeing. But of course Morap knew. Morap wasn't stupid. Far from it. In a way, he may be even wiser than Meelan. His questions had often managed to throw him off. As he realized that he was thinking of his time with his boy like it was already lost forever, he felt his heart rate pick up. What in the name of all the stars was he going to do if he lost his son or was responsible for his death? All of a sudden he felt like he should have spent even more time with his family. It hadn't been enough. It had never been enough.

Taking a deep breath, Meelan raised the comm to his lips once more, fully aware that everyone currently stationed in the control room could hear what was being said and was likely already expecting to hear what Meelan was about to announce. They had observed the ships retreating after all and one fool had apparently thought it a good idea to open fire at the Republic's ships in a pre-emptive strike without even bothering to evaluate what the consequences of such an action might be.

"We surrender, General," Meelan said in as neutral a tone of voice as he could muster. At the same time, he imagined the resigned looks on the faces of the people in the control room and the worried expression Nataleeh must have shown for an instant, before reverting to her usual mask of strength. She was strong, he knew, but was she capable of doing what must be done next on her own? Yes… probably. She was stronger than he was.

"You do?" The general's voice was dripping with sarcasm. "Very well, Mr Bendar. We accept. What about-"

"Our guests would like to be picked up, thank you," Meelan interrupted him, unable to listen to Clayn any longer. He'd probably have to spend more time talking to the man than he could stand anyway. "We'll be awaiting the pickup shuttle in front of the main building." He turned off the comm without even bothering to wait for an answer. By surrendering he had given up all control he had over their operation and whatever happened next would happen with or without his consent.

Not even taking a moment to compose himself, he bowed down to Morap, so they were face to face. "Morap, I want you to go to your mother."

He could practically see the "but" forming on Morap's lips, but the boy held himself back with what seemed to be a lot of effort. He turned to look around at the cell and the two guards standing in front of it. "Alright…", he whispered in a hushed voice, before looking at his father again. He understood that he had no place in what his father had to do next and that he had to be with his mother in case anything went wrong. But Meelan could also see that his son wanted him to come along to the control room.

"I will see you soon," Meelan said quietly, refraining from making any promises. He couldn't give any. Not anymore. It was very likely that he wouldn't be able to do so for a very long time.

With a nod, Morap hugged him one more time and then turned around to leave the detention block. Meelan watched his son's retreat only for a couple of heartbeats, then turned around to the guards. Nataleeh would know what to do, he reassured himself.

"Get them out," he said to the guards, who had surely been listening to every word that had been said these last couple of minutes. They didn't comment on anything, however, and one of them turned around to open the door and waved at the two prisoners to get out of the cell. The other one was already holding up two pairs of handcuffs, but as Meelan stepped towards them, he shook his head. "We won't be needing those."

Not for the first time he was glad that he couldn't see the soldiers' faces and instead turned to look at Dameron and his companion. "Follow me, please." Phrasing what would have been an order under different circumstances as a request, felt foreign, but he managed it without letting anything show on his face.

"Where to?" the former Stormtrooper asked.

"I- We have decided to let you go after all, Mr Finn," Meelan answered in as calm a tone as he could muster and looked the man up and down. He didn't notice the hole in the man's jacket and shirt for the first time and remembered the footage he had seen earlier. He had been shot down by a blaster, but there didn't seem to be any damage beyond the fabric, on his skin. He must have been treated on board the Endeavour.

"You surrendered," Dameron stated, but he wasn't smiling this time. He was staring at Meelan with an intensity Meelan didn't even want to analyse. Just returning the gaze made the bruise on his chin throb uncomfortably.

He shrugged instead and turned to the guards. "Stay here," he told them, unable to think of anywhere else they could possibly go. This place would be swarming with the Republic's soldiers sooner rather than later anyway. Without pausing another second to consider Dameron or Finn, he whirled around, telling the two former prisoners to follow him and started heading for the exit. "Do you know General Clayn?", he asked as they reached the door and he turned his head slightly to look at the two of them. They were standing close to each other. Very close. Closer than two friends would probably be standing. This alone would have confirmed Meelan's suspicions on what had happened in the cell shortly before he had turned up, and despite the desperate situation he was in, he couldn't help but wonder how concerned those two could have possibly been about their prospects if they had felt safe enough to engage in those kinds of activities. Just looking at the state their clothes and hair were in, would have been confirmation enough.

Meelan held back a sneer and opened the door, as Dameron made to answer.

"Not personally, no."

So Dameron was still serving in the Republic's military. This came as no surprise. From what Meelan had gathered from his interview with Dameron all those years ago, he wouldn't have thought Dameron, who must have spent most of his life flying, would quit doing so after the end of the war.

Meelan nodded as if he didn't really care, but Dameron's answer didn't help him in his assessment of the commander of the enemy ships. Of course he hadn't expected Dameron's help at this point. He kept walking for several more minutes, turning corners and up three flights of broad, barely used stairs, towards the main exit, the two men right behind him, when he heard quick footsteps approaching them from a corridor leading to the one they were walking along now. Kayla appeared as they reached the intersection and when she stepped right in front of him, he didn't pause to stop, but he saw her looking at Dameron and Finn, before falling into step next to him. Her hair was impeccable as always, but her expression showed all too plainly that she was worried.

"Sir-", she began, but Meelan shook his head.

"Forget it, Kayla," he said, refusing to call her by her rank in front of Dameron, lest he tell Clayn even more about the military structure they had set up here. The Republic wouldn't look too kindly at the soldiers or in fact anything they had set up here. "Go to your daughter. She's going to need you now." The words came to him easily, even if he felt like they should have been harder to say. This needed to be said and she needed to stop caring about their organization and start worrying about her family. "And take care of my wife, please."

Kayla didn't stop in her tracks, until they had reached the door. For the first time, since he had managed to drag her off the bridge on that fateful day on which the First Order had perished, just after Meelan had realized that she was pregnant with Mitaka's child and needed to be saved, he saw something on her face, which showed only too plainly that she didn't want to go and abandon what had been her way of life. But it had to be done.

He nodded in reassurance, ignoring the stares of the men behind him.

"You know very well that she can do that herself, Sir," she said hoarsely, but her eyes remained mercifully dry as she turned and walked back to the corridor she had emerged from without pausing to look at Dameron of Finn.

"You take better care of them than I would've thought," he heard Finn say and Meelan turned to look at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Really?", he asked, unable to fully keep the rising anger out of his voice. "What makes you think I wouldn't take care of my people?"

He could see the answer on Finn's face and for a moment he considered smashing his fist into that smug face. He was defeated and the way this man was looking at him was simply infuriating.

"No one took care of the Stormtroopers," Finn said quietly, his brow furrowed. "You remember that, don't you? And what about your Stormtroopers here? Who are they? Do you mind if they get killed if it gets you to where you want to be."

"You know nothing," Meelan hissed and turned to open the door and for a moment he considered telling this man that he had no right to assume anything, until he remembered that Finn had been a Stormtrooper once and of course knew that those soldiers had been considered expendable. "They aren't called Stormtroopers," was all he said. He didn't have the time or the patience to go into detail of their new recruitment process or discuss ethics.

"Really? What are they called, then?"

Meelan could hear the anger in the man's voice, but he still didn't reply. What use was it anyway? He held his hand in front of the sensor by the door, which scanned his hand and the door slid open shortly afterwards. The sun was shining brightly and it stung Meelan's eyes, as he stepped outside. The transport hadn't arrived yet, but he could see the Republic's starfighters flying overhead, obviously scanning more intensively for possible dangers. Just seeing them here and knowing that there was nothing he could do to stop them, made his insides clench, but he stepped outside nonetheless, doing his best at appearing like he was in control of everything going on around here, even though the very fact that he hadn't brought guards showed only too plainly that he wasn't. That he had given up and surrendered completely.

"Finn," he heard Dameron say, but he didn't continue, apparently unable to tell his partner off.

Meelan's lips were forming a very tight line. They had reached the centre of the training field and icy wind was blowing in their faces. High above them the sky had cleared and Meelan looked up, only to see that his ships had indeed left. He couldn't help but think that the commanders on those ships hat fled the Republic rather than protect the place they had once called home. Funnily enough he didn't feel betrayed or disappointed. On some level he hadn't expected anything else from those who hadn't been raised by the First Order and who were only looking for their own gain and trying to find it in his organization.

"They just work here," he said. "No one was forced into this the way the Stormtroopers were… maybe that was the whole problem." He didn't expect Dameron to understand what he was saying, but he was sure that Finn would and he had been the one to ask. Yes, the Stormtroopers had been considered expendable, but they had been more loyal to the Order than the people who had abandoned everyone on this base.

Meelan looked at Dameron and Finn over his shoulder. They weren't standing together as close anymore, but they were demonstrating only too plainly that neither of them was willing to show any kind of sympathy and Meelan didn't expect any. Who did they think they were, showing off their imagined superiority like a weapon, when it wasn't even necessary anymore.

They fell silent again and Meelan was grateful that he didn't have to talk. He only looked out at the forest stretching out at their feet, though he couldn't bear to look at the complex behind them. This place had been his home for such a long time and he knew that he would probably never see it or his family ever again.

He only just managed to keep his body from flinching, when Dameron stepped closer to him, leaving the sanctuary that his partner's presence must be, and stood next to Meelan. They hadn't known each other long, but Meelan knew that Dameron must be more aware of him than vice versa and Meelan couldn't help but admire the man's courage. Dameron had been a mess the day Meelan had led him to his execution, had done everything that had been demanded of him and demonstrated how broken he was. Meelan had saved him, had staged Dameron's death and helped him escape, but he had seen that he had been the one to break the best pilot in the Resistance. Probably not by mere torture alone, but by simply being who he was: the brother of Dameron's former lover who bore a significant resemblance to said man. Meelan himself had been able to blend out who Dameron must have been to his brother for the duration of the interview. It had been necessary to do so in order to be able to perform his duty, but afterwards… Meelan still remembered the moment he had stepped into his private quarters and had smashed his datapad against the wall in frustration. Just being confronted with Morap at this point in time, with his wife pregnant at home and his whole life heading in the right direction, had unhinged him. From that moment on he had known exactly that he couldn't just let Dameron die.

"How could you have been so stupid, Bendar?", Dameron said, his voice void of any kind of sarcasm or anger.

Meelan knew exactly what he meant. The last two days had been a fiasco and their undoing had started unfurling right in front of them the moment Dameron and Finn had been taken prisoner. "Not me," Meelan said. "My people." It wasn't entirely true, he knew, but he couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice. He had been responsible for them. For their stupidity.

Far ahead, he could see a ship, which must be the shuttle which would take the two of them away, rushing towards them over the lake, rippling the water underneath and then climbing up again over the treetops and heading in their direction.

"You put your family in danger here. You know that. Why?" Dameron didn't seem to be willing to let this go. Why the hell did he want to talk so badly? And why didn't Meelan seem to mind?

Meelan looked at the man, whose eyes were fixated on the shuttle heading in their direction. Dameron's face wasn't as lined as the grey in his hair would have suggested, but he still looked older than he had ten years ago. Who was this man? Meelan still wasn't entirely sure, and all of a sudden he remembered what he had told his son only about two hours ago. That if things had been different they might not be enemies today. The thought alone seemed ridiculous, but Meelan couldn't help but wonder why he had said it.

"Had the First Order won the war," he said quietly, "would you have acquired their lifestyle?", he asked, "Or would you, Finn, have just rejoined us? Gone back to living the way we did back then?"

Neither Finn, nor Dameron said anything to that and Meelan felt a certain sense of grim satisfaction at their silence.

"That's what I thought."

Dameron shook his head and as the shuttle was about to land in front of them, he faced Meelan. "But your son-"

"Will be fine. Thank you for your concern!" Meelan didn't even try to hold back the smirk. The shuttle had put down and he felt a sudden cold take hold of his entire being. A cold which had nothing to do with the smell of snow on the air or the wintry breeze blowing about them.

Dameron nodded and seemed to want to say something else, but then the shuttle's loading ramp was lowered and instead of saying anything else, he did something Meelan hadn't expected. He held out his hand and without even considering it for a single moment, Meelan took hold of it and shook it as the Republic's soldiers issued out of the shuttle's interior.

A/N: Thanks again to everyone involved!

Dear Reader, if you have come this far: thank you! Please let me know what you think! There are still two more updates to go (I'm going to update the last chapter in combination with the epilogue)