The man sitting in the opposite chair had been trying his best to explain the graph for the last twenty minutes. Every time she tried to concentrate her mind rebelled and slid away to something more interesting that she could have been doing, which was pretty much anything at this point.

'You see,' he continued. 'This line represents the finances of the Old Republic, funded by taxes, levies, subsidies and grants according to the breakdown I've explained. This line marks the downward trend in cashflow under the Empire, when most of the reserves built up by the Old Republic were used to fund major capital projects such as the Death Star. This further decline becomes more marked during the New Republic, which failed to create the lasting financial stability of its older form. This bar underneath compares these funding streams with that of the First Order. Note the similarity between the capital costs of the Empire and the First Order, compared to their revenue streams.'

Rey sighed. 'And what does all that mean for a scavenger from Jakku?'

Major Breen bent forward, interrupting his colleague. 'We haven't got any money, Supreme Leader. Essentially, the First Order is a small start up business, which has invested heavily in weapons and equipment and has an enormous, and rapidly expanding manpower budget. It's funded by credit, with the money to service the credit repayments coming from protection rackets, organised crime syndication and the theft and sale of natural resources from conquered planets.'

She put her head in her hands. 'We're broke. And all the money we do have comes from violence.'

'All hail the First Order,' said Captain N'doro, tapping his pointer against his leg.

'Then why haven't you two done anything about it? Captain Ocram said you were in charge of all the finances when I asked for someone to explain it to me. If you're in charge, why are we in this mess?'

The two men looked at each other, and Major Breen appeared to come to a decision. 'Because we don't sit on the military council. All the army cares about is where the next Dreadnaught is coming from, not whether we can afford it or not. They don't want to know about the detail.'

'Which brings me to you, Lieutenant Vanya. You're in charge of procurement, aren't you? I've heard about the union disputes affecting the supply of weapons, and uniforms, and I know General Hux is expecting a new Dreadnaught any minute now – how can we afford that if we can't afford blasters?'

The young woman passed a hand over her forehead. 'The shipyard at Kuat-Entralla Engineering is refusing to complete the fit out of the next Mega class Dreadnaught until we've paid the last six months of outstanding instalments. We owe them trillions of credits and they are not happy. I tried to explain it to the other Supreme Leader last week and he nearly choked me to death.'

Rey tapped her finger on her chin, sent a short, and succinct mental message to the man currently shouting at someone different in the room next to hers. 'Please stop choking our Head of Procurement. She is doing her best.'

He replied, 'Noted,' and that was it.

'I'll have a word with him about that. Carry on.'

'Military procurement is slow and difficult at the best of times, but I've never worked for an organisation before that thinks it can turn up on the doorstep of our biggest supplier, threaten them with a blaster and expect to get what it wants. And we don't even have any blasters.'

Rey turned back to the two other worried faces in the room. 'So, we need to do something about the personnel budget to free up some cash for purchasing, is that basically it?'

Major Breen spread his hands. 'Good luck with that. None of us has the ear of the generals and they need troops to keep the war going.'

'I have the Head of Personnel coming over tomorrow, I'll see what I can do. Now, I think we're finished, unless you want to stay for a game of dejarik, I have friends coming over.'

Haight and Janeek arrived ten minutes later, in the throes of a heated argument.

'Go on then, ask her.' Janeek pushed Haight forward, unwrapped the customary bottle of Corellian brandy and set it on the dining table.

'No, I can't she might...' The rest of the sentence disappeared into whispers.

'Ask me what?'

Janeek unscrewed the top, poured out three healthy slugs into the waiting glasses. 'There's a stormtrooper down in T8 section, Haight's so desperate to get his attention it's embarrassing. So, last night Haight's all giving it large about how he knows the Supreme Leader's girlfriend and I said that you're not his girlfriend because I clean both of your rooms and both your beds are always slept in, so you can't be at it.'

Rey winced.

Haight broke in. 'But I said that you've got to be his girlfriend or why would he go to so much trouble to look after you?'

'I'm not his girlfriend, and I don't want to talk about it. Switch the board on, I thought we were going to play.'

Haight wasn't giving up so easily. 'Wife then - are you secretly married?'

'Not unless it's a secret from me too.'

'Mistress?'

'I can't imagine anyone else is stupid enough to have married him, so no, I'm not his mistress.'

'One of those things where you're not quite a good as a mistress?'

'Concubine? I don't even know what that is, and if you say 'whore' next I'm going to throw you through the wall.'

'Then what are you?'

She shrugged. 'I'm a prisoner.'

The two of them took one look at each other and burst out laughing.

'And the joke is?'

'No one's stopping you getting out, it's everyone else they're stopping getting in,' Haight chortled cryptically.

'I don't understand.'

Janeek flopped into the opposite chair, set up the board for another game. 'About oh, six weeks ago Kylo Ren makes this announcement about how Snoke is dead. He's all scary mask and let's go smash the Resistance and everyone's all fine with that because that's what the army does, right? Then he says he's putting you in charge too, and says you were part of the Resistance and most of the generals go nuts about it. There's this big showdown.

They say they're going to blow you out of the sky, only he's put you in the middle of all the troops, so they can't touch you without killing their own men. They decide they're going to do it anyway, so he says, if they blow you up, they're going to have to blow him up as well. And they don't want to do that because they know they'll be dead before they can push the button. He has this weird - choke you to death without even seeing you - power.

They're all against him, apart from Hux, he's on your side as well. So, the two of them keep you out in space and there's a big row in the office next door. The other Supreme Leader must have killed like thirteen, fourteen of the generals maybe – there were an awful lot less rooms needing cleaning on this floor after that, believe me. The ones who are left promise they'll obey you, but they won't really, and he knows it. They'll kill you first chance they get.

So, he turns The Reaper into a fortress. You're too much of a target for them to resist if you go off the ship, so anywhere you want to go, we go too. He had fifteen legions looking out for you when you went down to Duuk, all making sure you were safe. None of the generals are allowed anywhere near you, so you don't go to any meetings, but he doesn't want you upset, so you can't have access to any communication from outside the ship in case someone tells you that the entire First Order wants you dead.

And now they're all doubting his motives because he's protecting you. They say you've turned him good and the generals are all plotting against him as well. It's a shambles, I can tell you.

So, Haight here thinks that no way would the Supreme Leader go to so much trouble for you unless you two were at it. But I know different.'

Rey rose to her feet. 'Excuse me. I just need to go next door for a second.'

He was in his room, she could tell that now without even thinking, because since she'd turned on her ability to locate other people touched by the Force, she couldn't turn it off. They were all around her at all times and he was the worst. She knew where he was, and something of what he was thinking every minute of every day – she carried him with her, whether she wanted to or not.

Since she always knew where he was, she made sure she was never in the same place, sending him mental messages whenever she needed to, which to which he would reply with one-word answers.

He spent most of his time angry, he slept very little, and he never, ever left the ship. She'd seen it as his need to keep her locked away, and closely guarded, but if she looked at it from the other perspective, maybe he was doing his best to make sure she stayed alive.

She didn't bother to knock, since he'd already know she was coming, just turned the handle and went in. His quarters were almost identical to hers except that his desk was bigger, with more flashing lights, and there were other chairs pushed back against the walls around it. A slew of devices littered the desk, blueprints and maps covering most of the available seating and spilling onto the floor.

He didn't look up as she entered, continuing to read, too worried by something to have much attention to spare.

She spoke almost as soon as she'd shut the door. 'When you asked me to join you, did you think it through? Practically I mean? Did you work out what I'd do, or how anyone else would feel about it?'

He looked tired, she thought, skin too pale, eyes shadowed with strain, his clothes rumpled and creased.

'It seemed like a good idea at the time.'

'And it doesn't seem like such a good idea now? I thought I was a prisoner, but that's not what's going on, is it?'

He threw the pad on the table. 'Almost everyone I know wants you dead. Most of them want me dead too, because of you. They think you've seduced me to the light side.' His mouth twisted. 'But nothing could be further from the truth. If they realised you actually were still working for the Resistance you'd be dead already.'

'Controlling me isn't protecting me. I can protect myself.'

He shrugged. 'If I allow you access to transport you'll leave immediately. I know what you think of me, I even understand it. You want to get away. But if you leave it will instantly become the First Order's top priority to hunt you down and wipe out everyone you know, to stop you using all the information you've had access to these last few weeks. If you think you can protect yourself from that then I'll revoke the commands and you can leave tomorrow.'

He made to carry on working, but she bent over the table and he flicked a glance upward. 'That vision I saw between us. That isn't going to happen unless I want it to, is it?'

There was a vehement shake of his head.

'Then you aren't a monster quite yet.'

She turned to leave but he called her back, his tone hesitant, almost, unsure. 'There's a raid tomorrow. On the Azaxi slavers' camp. We could go together, if you'd like?'

She gave him a hard look. 'Combat training?'

'A trust exercise.'

Turning the handle of her own room, she found both men in the process of jumping away from the adjoining wall, with guilty expressions on their faces.

'I hope you're not too drunk to sew, Haight,' she said, opening the wardrobe and surveying the contents with a disapproving eye. 'I'm going to need another outfit.'

Car Crash Bride and Postman's Daughter by Sally Anne Palmer, blah, blah, you know the drill.