Star Wars fic: Sacrifices that Count (4/4)
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
-o-
“I don’t know,” Poe admitted later when he visited Finn. “Maybe she has a point.”
He had to consider it, if only a little. It was not the first formal reprimand that had been put into his file, and she’d threatened to demote him.
“I just don’t know what else I’m really supposed to do,” Poe continued with a morose shrug. Hopefully, he lifted his eyes toward Finn, as if the younger man might have an answer.
But Finn was still sleeping.
And Poe’s answer was still the same.
-o-
The next mission wasn’t authorized, but it still needed to be done.
Need, of course, was somewhat open to interpretation.
Poe was being pretty liberal about these things.
-o-
See, the thing was, Poe had the intel. He had access to the weapons. He knew his flight team would follow him out, down to the very last man. And the possibility of capturing a spy drone?
If this worked, the General would have no choice but to give him a commendation.
If it failed -- well, Poe wouldn’t have to worry about anything if it failed.
-o-
To be fair, Poe didn’t take a lot of fighters with him.
Still, he was the only one who came back.
But the prize, an intact but disabled spy drone, was safely in tow with BB8’s help.
The Resistance talked about what made them different.
But the raucous cheers and applause at his return told the truth that no one wanted to admit.
-o-
It was a hero’s welcome.
Until he got to the briefing room.
At the table, General Organa was bent forward, hands splayed out as she chewed her lip in obvious contemplation. He knew it was customary to wait for her to speak, seeing as she was a General and he was a captain, but the lingering silence and the inevitability of her lecture was more than Poe could deal with.
Not that he could deal with much.
Poe was an impetuous bastard these days, and he knew it.
He just couldn’t bring himself to control it.
“Look,” he said, breaking formalities and defying his rank against her. “I know what you’re going to say.”
She looked up, sharp and abrupt.
He wet his lips, but the daggers in her eyes didn’t deter him this time. “I know you’re going to say that it was unsanctioned for a reason. I know you’re going to say that I lost a lot of lives out there, that I took a lot of risks. I know you’re mad and disappointed and--”
This time, she shook her head with a rueful laugh.
“I know it,” he said, gesturing aimlessly. “But I can’t be sorry for it. I mean, have you seen the drone we got? Do you know the intel it holds? You can’t tell me it’s not worth it. You can’t.”
Slowly, deliberately, she wet her lips again. The breath she drew was long and even as she stared down her nose at Poe with a look that seemed to see right through him. “This isn’t about the mission, Poe,” she told him quietly. “Sanctioned or not.”
At this, he hesitated. “So,” he said, trying to find his next words carefully. “What is it about?”
“It’s about you, Poe,” she said, and it was hard to tell if she was more sad than angry at this point. She shook her head, brows knitted together. “You’re the best damn pilot I have, but this is a galaxy full of pilots. I’m looking for good men, good women, good people.”
He took a step forward, more insistent now. “I’ve given everything I have, everything I am for this fight,” he said.
“But I don’t want another soldier,” she said, her temper flaring. “I told you before, that dinner we had, the kind of man I wanted you to be. The kind of man I knew you could be.”
It was his turn to frown. “But then you sent me on a mission and revealed the kind of man I am. The man you knew I was otherwise you wouldn’t have sent me to Jakku in the first place.”
This time, his words seemed to genuinely hurt her. “That’s not fair, Poe.”
“No,” he said, and he gave a small, incredulous half-chuckle. “None of this is fair, but isn’t that the point? Isn’t that why we’re willing to make these compromises?”
“But we’re on the same side,” she said. “You know this. You know that order is necessary in order to overcome the darkness.”
He took another step forward, more vehement now. “And everything I’ve done, I’ve done it for the Resistance.”
“The Resistance didn’t give those orders,” she told him seriously.
“But they were still necessary, weren’t they?” he retorted, all inhibitions gone now. “To keep the darkness away when it closes in faster and faster and faster.”
“So fast that you don’t even see it, lurking inside of you,” she told him grimly. “You can beat every foe except the one inside of you. That’s the battle you’re losing, a little more with every mission you go on.”
He let out a breath, almost like he’d been hit in the gut. He was trembling now, and he blinked hard, once and twice. “Some casualties are acceptable,” he told her, a little numbly now. “The ideals of the Resistance must be upheld.”
“They must be lived,” she said. “And what you do out there, the killing and the disobeying and leading other people to their deaths. Is that what the Resistance is all about?”
He hemmed himself back, feeling suddenly much smaller than he had before. “No….”
“Then shut up,” she said. “Listen and follow. And for the love of the Force, Poe, show some restraint until I get back.”
He tipped his head, surprised. “Get back?”
“I have a few things I need to do,” she said.
He knew his look was incredulous. He didn’t care. “Now?”
She looked at him blandly. “Yes, now.”
“But you can’t leave now,” he started.
Her look was beyond incredulity, and he remembered, almost for the first time in this meeting, that she was his general and that he was nothing but a captain. “I don’t have to explain myself to you, thankfully,” she said, brushing past him to the door. “Because this base runs on my orders.”
“But General--”
She turned at him, abrupt and drawn to her full height now. “You are to do nothing,” she said. “You will not get in a cockpit unless there are express orders from me allowing you to do so. Is that perfectly understood?”
He stared at her.
“Is that understood, Captain?” she repeated, more forcefully this time.
“Yeah,” he said quietly.
Her eyebrows arched.
“Yes,” he repeated, a bit more chagrined. “Yes, ma’am.”
With that, she swept out of the room.
-o-
General Organa made it sound so easy.
A few days later, sitting idly next to Finn, Poe knew it was never that easy.
“See, I know that she has reason, because she’s a general,” Poe said, leaning down with a conspiratorial air to Finn’s side. “I mean, she’s a princess.”
Finn didn’t move; didn’t twitch.
Poe bit the inside of his lip, shaking his head. “But I just can’t see how those reasons are more important than my reasons,” he said. “I mean, this war, this Resistance, it’s been going on my whole life. And you learn the history, man. You learn it, and you see that it’s been going on for so much longer than that. At this rate, it’s never going to end.”
He thought Finn would understand that; he knew Finn would. Finn was a Stormtrooper; he knew what it was to act when the time was right, all orders be damned. Granted, he was working for the First Order and Poe was actively defying the most amazing military leader he’d ever seen, but still.
“I want to do the right thing, I do,” he said. “And I know that there has to be rules and regulations, but I want to win, too.”
The admission made him feel guilty, and he dipped his head to look at his hands.
“Not for me,” he said. He looked up again, into Finn’s face. Funny how he’d hardly seen it when they first met, yet he knew every inch of it now. “For all of us. I keep thinking if I sit here, doing nothing, then I’m not going to outlive this fight.”
He sighed, thinking about that. He thought about all the times he should have died, all the times he didn’t.
“And if I go down fighting, with or without orders, at least I’ll go down on my terms,” he said. “My life isn’t make much of a difference these days, but my death….”
He let it trail off, wondering if this was a sign of a problem. If he was suicidal. If he’d been so steeped in this culture of war that he’d actually forgotten why. If the ideals he claim to fight for were nothing more than talking points. If he was just like a Stormtrooper when you stripped away all the armor.
But here he was, sitting next to a Stormtrooper.
“You defied orders to save my life, and you saved the Resistance at the same time,” he continued with a stoic nod. “No one can give orders to make a hero. The choices you make, that’s what makes you a hero.”
On the bed, Finn slept on.
Poe frowned, thoughtful. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
Finn didn’t disagree.
He was also in a coma, but that was neither here nor there.
It was all the affirmation Poe needed.
-o-
Maybe General Organa did want to save his life for some reason.
That was nice and all.
Poe wanted to save the Resistance.
That was better.
-o-
(Poe probably never wanted to be a hero.
He didn’t want to be a coward, either.
What was left….
Well, he was okay with that.)
-o-
All Poe needed was a mission.
And with the First Order rebuilding frantically?
Hell, missions were around every corner. You just had to look for them.
There was no sign that the commanders left in charge of the base had any interest in finding them, that was true, but Poe had more initiative.
He just didn’t have any power.
Fortunately, there were ways around that.
-o-
“They’re getting closer every time,” Poe argued to another pilot at breakfast one morning.
“It’s just routine recon,” the pilot replied, shaking her head. “If they knew we were here, they would have made an aggressive sweep.”
“So we’re going to let them get closer until they get lucky?” Poe retorted.
She huffed. “I’m not saying I like it,” she said. “I’m just saying, we don’t have orders.”
-o-
At lunch, he found a group of mechanics to talk to. “All we have to do is time up with their next sweep,” he reasoned. “They won’t see us coming, and we can blast them out of the sky before they have a chance to radio back that something’s wrong.”
One of them shook his head. “It’s risky, though,” he said. “If the First Order gets any confirmation--”
“They won’t,” Poe argued. “Not if we do it right.”
“Sure, maybe,” another replied. “But do we have orders?”
-o-
At dinner, Poe managed to find one of the shift commanders doing her last inspection of the night. “No, I agree,” she said. “It makes me nervous, too, but until we have orders.”
“General Organa never wanted us to sit idle if a threat was coming,” Poe said.
The commander turned to him, head cocked. “Did she tell you that?”
Poe paused, considering the question. She hadn’t exactly told him that, but her history suggested that it was true. She always urged caution and restraint, but she was also the one that had sent him to Jakku on what should have been a suicide mission. All her lectures were good for something, but her actual orders meant more.
He nodded, finding some resolution in that. “She did.”
“And it was an order,” she said, as if to clarify the statement. “She wanted us to act to defend this sector?”
“It is our last stronghold,” Poe said. “She’s said all along that if we don’t hold here…”
The commander looked pensive for a moment. “I’ll call the other commanders and wake the lieutenant general,” she said. “Tell them what you told me, and we’ll see what happens.”
-o-
That was how Poe ended up in the briefing room, all the officials still on base gathered before him, waiting and watching. The introduction from the commander wasn’t nearly long enough, and Poe was faced with the plain reality of his situation.
He could tell the truth, that he thought the fight was the right choice but that he had no authorization.
Or he could tell a slight variation of the truth. That General Organa would see them defend this space or the Resistance was lost.
“Those were her exact words?” her lieutenant general asked, sounding uncertain.
“You know she’s said them before,” Poe argued reasonably. “You know that she’s sent each and every one of us to our deaths because it had to be done. For the Resistance. And she told me, right before she left, that the cause mattered.”
The lieutenant general looked at him; he looked at the intel. “You think you can plan a tactical strike that eliminates the threat with minimal risk? If word gets back to the First Order--”
Poe was grinning, already on his feet. “They won’t, sir,” he said.
“Then, with the General’s confidence, you have your orders, Captain.”
-o-
Poe felt a little guilty for his manipulation of the truth.
But organizing the mission, coordinating his squadron, rallying the troops for a good cause.
Yeah, that felt a lot better.
-o-
In his defense, he hadn’t actually expected it to work. He’d always taken it for granted that there was actually a command structure in the Resistance, and he’d always sort of figured that his place was as the smart-ass pilot who found rules to be malleable. It was pretty damn easy to play that roll, to buck the greater order of things and trust that the checks and balances would keep him from doing something completely insane.
Turned out, he was wrong about that.
Insubordination was a lot easier than people thought it was.
Sure, there would be hell to pay when the General got back, but until then, he had the confidence of the entire Resistance at his back.
That was enough for Poe.
-o-
(Besides, he told himself in the back of his mind, maybe he wasn’t coming back. Luck only lasted so long, and Poe had pushed and pushed and pushed.
So far, so fast that he didn’t even realize he was falling off a cliff until he was in free fall.)
-o-
Poe did come back.
Of his squadron, three other didn’t. On top of that, the slipshod plan made under the guise of fabricated orders had worked. The drone was gone, and the fake ion trail they left in its wake would be a dead ringer for the pirates operating in the next quadrant. When the First Order investigated, it’d be an obvious lead to follow, and it might even kick up some skirmishes that took the heat off the Resistance.
All that for three lives?
All in all, Poe had done worse.
-o-
It was a celebration when he got back, and someone was breaking open a bottle of something bubbly and hopefully very alcoholic. Everyone was cheering and patting him on the back, telling him that he’d done a hell of a job. A hell of a job, indeed.
Poe was starting to believe it, just like all the other success, when one of the other pilots pulled him aside and said, “Hey! Have you seen the General?”
“The General?” Poe asked. “I thought she was still off world.”
“Got back today,” the pilot said. “She wants to see you in the briefing room.”
Poe had to wince at the prospect. “Now?”
“Yeah, now, man,” the pilot said, making his way off through the crowd. “But I’m buying you a round tonight!”
Poe grimaced, turning toward the command center and away from the celebration. Something told him he was going to need more than a round to make tonight feel good.
-o-
She was alone in the briefing room.
And she looked pissed.
This time, she made no attempt with pretenses. The second the door closed, she rounded on him, fast, furious and relentless.
“You forged my orders?” she asked caustically. She was shorter than he was, but when she approached him, he still felt himself cower.
“Not technically,” he said. “I made some assumptions, and no one else questioned them.”
She didn’t crack a smile. “You lied, then.”
“I insinuated a few stretched truths,” he said, trying to cushion his total disregard for anything resembling the command structure. “Someone else gave the orders.”
“Based on the assumption that you had gotten input from me!” she said, jabbing a finger at him.
“I didn’t know they’d go for it,” he said, and the minute he said it, he regretted how petulant he sounded. Like a little boy telling his father that he’d had his reasons for being stupid.
“But you didn’t stop them,” she said, eyes flashing with an even starker rage. “The time I’ve spent trying to mentor you and teach you, and this is what you do with it? You use the effort I’ve put into training you and used it to completely ignore everything I’ve ever said!”
She was right, but Poe wasn’t about to concede anything. She made it a fight, and Poe did the only thing he’d ever done in conflict: fight back. It was his nature, and he couldn’t fight it.
Or hell, he just didn’t want to.
Squaring his shoulders, he stepped forward with a note of defiance. “It was the right call, and without you here, no one else was willing to make it.”
“There’s a chain of command for a reason,” she told him, voice pinched. “You think you’re the only one I’ve taken time to mentor? The people I leave in charge here know what I want them to do, and I trust them a lot more than I trust you.”
“But they weren’t doing anything,” Poe said, more emphatically now. His frustrations were impossible to hold back now, and he had officially run out of the ability to care.
“Maybe nothing needed to be done,” she said, enunciating the words clearly. “There was no indication based on the intelligence that the strike was necessary. It was more likely that the drone would have moved on and never found our base. That’s why we’ve invested so much in security.”
“I’m tired of leaving all this to chance, of waiting to see if the First Order gets it right or not,” Poe said back, shaking his head. “We’ve lost too much.”
“Which is why we need to be careful,” she said.
“No, it’s why we need to act,” Poe said.
“Believe it or not, you don’t have all the information,” she retorted.
“Then how the hell is anyone supposed to know what to do?”
“Then why the hell do you think we have a command structure?” she said. “I tell the people I trust, Poe. I tell them and not you for a reason. Surely you can understand that.”
He huffed, gesturing with one hand in futility. “I can’t, though,” he said with a haphazard shrug. “I can’t understand why we keep losing and losing and losing, and the one victory we get, we let it go to waste.”
“This isn’t a single battle,” she said. “There’s a bigger picture, that’s why we rely on the Force.”
Poe groaned, turning away. “We keep saying that, but what has the Force done for us lately? If the Force cared about us and our cause, then why are we even in the mess?”
Her face darkened. “You know that’s not how the Force works.”
“Oh, I know,” he said. “That’s why I’m sort of done with all this Force talk. I trusted in the Force, and it got me nowhere. Then, I trusted myself and my x-wing, and I started seeing results.”
“Results?” she retorted, anger spiking again. “You call losing close to 15 pilots within the last three weeks results?”
At that, he had the decency to at least cringe. “We’re all dying, one way or another. I’d like to think it’s all for a good cause.”
“You’d like to think, sure,” she said. “But I have to know. When you give an order, you have to know, because when people die, that’s on you. You can’t just make these things up and hope for the best. That’s not a leader, Poe.”
“Yet, here we are,” Poe said. “Everyone following me.”
“Because you’re good and you’re lucky,” she said tartly. “Someday, you’ll run out of chances.”
He shrugged diffidently. “I’ve always been okay with that, and you know that’s the problem. This back and forth that we do; I know it all, and I’ve heard it.”
“But you’ve not learned it, Poe,” she said, more tiredly now. She shook her head. “I keep hoping you’ll learn it.”
“And I keep hoping we’ll win,” he said. “I mean, I know this doesn’t surprise you. So why do we keep doing this? Another formal reprimand on my file?”
“No,” she said, drawing her mouth into a terse line. “Not this time.”
He actually scoffed. “So, what, then?” he said. “Another attempt to convince me to change?”
“That, among other things,” she said, pursing her lips now.
“What other things?” he asked.
She drew a breath, and she looked like she regretted the next words out of her mouth even before she said them. “Things like the fact that the ruling council has decided to promote you.”
Poe opened his mouth, ready to retaliate.
It took him a long, weird moment to realize there was nothing to retaliate against.
He frowned seriously. “What?”
She looked extremely disappointed by the entire situation. “Based on the way you rally people to a cause, the ruling council is impressed by your ability to mobilize troops in difficult times,” she explained. “Even I have to admit that you’re impressive. You’ve got the worst record of any squadron leader I’ve got, but everyone wants to fly with you, no questions asked.”
He let out a breath of absolute disbelief. “I don’t understand.”
“I might have tried to overrule them, but when they asked me to present a better candidate, I realized that there wasn’t anyone that you hadn’t already gotten killed,” she said with a grim little huff. “It’s a supply and demand issue. Desperate times and desperate measures.”
His quizzical expression darkened. “You’re not exactly making this sound like a good thing.”
“I’m not exactly sure it is,” she said. But then she shrugged in a off handed, defeated sort of way. “But I can hope that you might stop disobeying so many orders if you’re the one giving them from time to time.”
“Oh,” he said, his confusion settling into vexation. “You’re not making this sound very special.”
“That’s because I don’t want you to think it is,” she told him flatly. “I want you to see this as a responsibility, and I want you to take it seriously.”
“I always take this job seriously,” he replied.
“Uh huh,” she muttered, shaking her head with something akin to disgust. “Starting right now, you hold the rank of commander.”
He brightened at that, almost out of reflex. “You’re really going to promote me?”
“I was outvoted,” she admitted.
“Yeah, I was hoping for something a little more encouraging,” he admitted.
“And I was hoping you’d stop acting without thinking, but we all have to take what we can get, Commander,” she said. “That’s the way this whole thing works.”
“Do I get a party at least?” he asked.
It was her turn to look vexed. “You need a party?”
“It is a promotion,” he said.
“And I just told you I thought it was a terrible idea that I voted against,” she reminded him.
“Not even a small party?” he asked.
Her eyes narrowed and her glare intensified. “Get the hell out,” she ordered curtly, tilting her head as she added. “Commander.”
The vitriol was evident.
But so was the promotion.
Poe had never been picky about these things.
He started to grin as he left.
He wasn’t about to start now.
-o-
There actually was a celebration, even if it wasn’t specifically for him. Still, they toasted him, they cheered for him, and he led them in a chant to plan another victory.
They believed him in ways Poe would never understand.
(They believed him, even when Poe was pretty sure they shouldn’t.)
-o-
On his first mission as commander, he was brought into the briefing room and asked for his opinion. Looking at the full scope of the mission, Poe was somewhat moved by the shift in position. His opinion was being weighed in full consideration, and his recommendation had implications for the entire fleet.
When he got in the cockpit, however, things were the same as they had always been.
To hell with orders, even when he’d been the one to help make them.
To hell with everything except ridding the galaxy of the First Order once and for all.
-o-
The bombing run didn’t go off without a hitch, and he knew it. They lost more people on this one, all because Poe had disobeyed another direct order.
They also got the job done, for what that was worth.
He was readying his defense for the inevitable debrief with the General when BB8 gave him better news.
Following a stream of beeps, Poe looked up and saw Finn, dazed, confused and very, very awake.
-o-
Finn, awake and alive and full of questions.
Poe had just lived through another bombing run, but face to face with the former Stormtrooper for the first time in weeks, and he’d never felt more invigorated.
All these weeks, all these years, Poe’s whole life -- he’d been looking for a cause worth dying for. Something to give his life the kind of meaning people talked about in stories. He wanted -- he needed -- something that was worth everything, nothing held back, even if it cost him everything.
Lucky for Poe, Finn was full of ideas in that regard.
-o-
Poe went to his debriefing with his usual expectation. It was the same old story, but when she stripped him of his rank -- after only one mission -- he expected it to hurt.
It didn’t, though. It didn’t even make him flinch, not yet. None of the sacrifices did, not the list of pilots he’d lost and x-wings he’d gotten destroyed. These sacrifices didn’t mean anything to him yet.
Not with a fight to fight, and a Stormtrooper to partner with.
-o-
(They didn’t make him flinch, not yet.
They would, Poe figured.
They would, Poe feared.)
-o-
Demoted and grounded, Poe probably should have taken that as a cue to stop when he was really far behind.
But Finn had this idea, you see.
An idea that could save the galaxy.
That was all Poe had been looking for all this time.
-o-
So, he defied orders. So, he planned a covert mission. He’d been there; he’d done that.
What was mutiny on top of that?
Nothing much, he decided when he made his move.
Nothing much, he decided when the blast doors opened and he saw a bright light before the world blinked out.
-o-
(Poe wasn’t scared of the dark. In fact, he always sort of felt that was how he’d end up. Some men fought and lost their souls to the Dark Side. Poe wasn’t sure where he’d lost his soul during his time with the Light, but the Dark didn’t look so scary anymore.
It could take all he had.
Not that much was left anymore.)
-o-
To his surprise, Poe woke up.
In sick bay.
With General Organa sitting at his side.
He was sore, weak and totally blasted to hell, but he was going to be fine.
That was oddly disappointing, somehow. He’d sort of been hoping to wake up to something more dramatic with mutiny.
Or, more to the point, he’d sort of been hoping that he wouldn’t wake up at all.
-o-
Then General Organa explained it to him, the big picture. The real escape plan that he might have known if he hadn’t been an asshole.
But that was the thing, wasn’t it? Poe was an asshole. He was disrespectful and brash and really kind of stupid, and this wasn’t the first time that someone had died for him.
In an x-wing, it all happened in a flash.
From a distance, he watched it happening with a far greater sense of dread. He watched, with excruciating clarity, while a good woman laid down her life for the cause.
That was what a hero looked like, he realized.
A hero wasn’t planning failed covert missions without authority. A hero wasn’t throwing people who trusted him into the line of fire without proper backup.
A hero was someone who looked at all the options, considered all the options, and then made the right choice.
A hero looked like a battle cruiser blasting its way through a Star Destroyer.
He didn’t look like that.
Hell, he wasn’t sure he ever would.
-o-
(There was a futility about it, though. The war they could never win. The sacrifices they had to make. How did you know the difference? How did you weigh the factors and make a decision that made sense? How could you be sure you were making a sacrifice and not just being stupid?)
-o-
Finn and Rose got back, against the odds, and damn, it was really good to see them.
There was no time to celebrate, not when another mission was bearing down on them, more pressing than the last. He knew that the General was asking him to make a stand.
Poe had never balked at that before.
But as he charged the line, out matched in every way, he saw the first pilot go down. Then a second.
He could hear Finn and Rose over the comm link.
And, for the first time in years, he wished that he’d had them stay back. He’d never doubted his position on the front lines, and he’d never known any of the other pilots well enough to doubt theirs. But this was Finn; this was Rose. They’d already survived one of Poe’s stupid missions, and he wanted them to survive this one, too.
Was his personal attachment more important than the cause?
No, probably not.
But would their sacrifice make any difference in the cause?
No, definitely not.
That was when Poe got it.
That was when Poe realized what General Organa had been telling him all along.
“Pull back,” he ordered, admitting a preemptive defeat. “Pull back now.”
-o-
(Funny, he made the right call.
Funny, Finn ignored him.
General Organa was rocking back on her heels, shaking her head.
“I told you so.”)
-o-
Poe pulled out, probably for the first time in his life. The other pilots broke free, heading back to the relative safety of the bunker. But not Finn.
And not Rose.
Finn barrelled forward, heedless and determined. He was aimed, straight at the weapon. Once it fired, he’d be instantly incinerated. If he managed to get there before it fired, he’s jam the weapon. And then the First Order would pull out their next weapon of mass destruction and finish them off just the same.
That was futility, then. Not the orders that failed to win a war, but the sacrifice that never amounted to anything. You couldn’t win a war if you lost the things that made it worth fighting. That was the thing that defined a leader. Heroes died on the battlefield, but leaders brought their people home. As a hero, Poe might have measured up from time to time.
As a leader -- well, none of his people had ever lived long enough to tell the tale except BB8, and most people didn’t speak that language. Now that he’d figured it out, he’d have to watch as his would-be best friend did exactly what Poe would do.
He could issue orders, but that couldn’t make anyone follow them. He could beg and plead and ask and cajole, but that didn’t change the actions someone made in the field.
The Force help him, Poe was the first one to break formation on that last suicide run.
And it gave him the perfect perspective to watch Finn hold the line, faster, harder, right to the end.
-o-
A second before impact, Poe closed his eyes.
He didn’t want to see.
He didn’t need to see.
Because it took a hell of a long time and more than his share of knocks, but Poe Dameron had finally learned his lesson the hardest way imaginable.
-o-
(Just in time to save his own life.
Not in time to save Finn’s.)
-o-
There was a crash and an explosion, but the blast wasn’t what Poe would have expected from a collision with the weapon. Instead, he opened his eyes while BB8 beeped at him. The weapon was intact, still bearing down on the bunker.
Off to the side, in the sand dunes, Finn’s sand skimmer was wrecked.
Crumpled in a pile alongside Rose’s.
-o-
(Finn had a lot to learn from Poe.
They both had more to learn from Rose.
About how to be a hero and a leader: the best the Resistance had to offer.)
-o-
When Finn was back, Poe was the one who pulled him aside. He checked him over for injury, inspecting every cut and bruise. When he was certain that the Stormtrooper was okay, he shoved him back hard and asked, “What the hell did you think you were doing?”
Sure, he had no authority. True, it was humiliating to do it in a public hallway. And yeah, Poe had no room to talk.
Still, he chewed Finn out for everything. “You had an order, and you disobeyed that order, and now an innocent girl is fighting for her life!” he yelled at Finn, emotion pulsing through him. “You have to think about these things! The Resistance doesn’t survive on our stupid sacrifices!”
He as fuming now, his emotions reaching a boiling point. He advanced on Finn, fists curling up in anger when a gentle hand pulled him away.
“That’s enough, Poe,” General Organa said, giving him a knowing look.
Poe struggled to catch his breath, looking around in shock at the crowd that had gathered. He looked back to Finn, who was blinking at him with dull, shell-shocked eyes, wet with tears.
General Organa inclined her head. “Finn, go get looked at by medical,” she said. Then her eyes narrowed on Poe. “You and I need to have a talk, Dameron.”
-o-
This time, Poe spoke first.
He didn’t offer an explanation. He didn’t tried to defend himself. This time, all he could say was, “I’m sorry.”
She turned to face him, and Poe had to note that the look of mild surprise on her face appeared to be for his benefit. “You’re sorry?”
Poe felt rattled in more ways than one, which was why it was so important to actually face the consequences of the thing. “I’m sorry for pushing for the mission in the first place,” he said, shaking his head. “It was a stupid idea from the start, and I didn’t even get the job done this time. We lost fighters, and that thing is still ready to blast down our door.”
“Which is why we really don’t have time for this right now,” she reminded him gently.
“Okay, yeah,” he said. “So, let’s skip to the easy part. Do you need to demote me again? A formal reprimand seems too slight--”
She chuckled. “I didn’t call you here to berate you, Poe,” she said, sounding vaguely bemused.
He gave her a look of sheer disbelief. “But we’re in a worse position than we were before.”
“But you pulled your team out before it was a lost cause,” she said. “You saw that the sacrifice would be pointless, and you conserved our resources.”
She made it sound really logical when she put it like that. In the past, he might have taken the compliment. This time, he shook his head. “I just didn’t want to see Finn die,” he admitted. “I don’t know why; I care about him. I didn’t want him to die when he didn’t have to.”
Now, she was smiling. Earnest and true, not a general for a moment. But a princess. “You’ve always had the grit and the smarts and the skills, but this Stormtrooper of yours, he gives you something more than all of that combined,” she told him, crossing forward to take his hand in hers. “You’ve always had a cause to die for, Poe. But he’s given you a reason to live.”
Something churned in him, hot and cold all at once. He shook his head, miserable. “For all the good it did,” he said. “Rose is still half dead, and the battle is lost out there, General. We lost.”
She nodded, this time in sympathy. “That’s the hardest part about being a leader: making the right call and knowing it’s not going to fix everything like you want.”
He inhaled, trying to gird himself. “Then how do you do it? All these years as general, making these calls?”
“Because it’s a cause I believe in,” she said simply. “And these people are my family now. How could I not do it?”
He understood that, now. Now, when it was probably too late. Now, when there was no time left to use it.
“Come on,” she said, squeezing his hand again. “I’m not sure this battle is quite as over as you think it is.”
-o-
There was no way she could have known, looking back, that her very own brother would return from exile to save them all. There was no possible way she could have predicted that a Force-sensitive girl, awakened by the Force itself, would lead them all to safety. There was no way she really should have seen their victory coming, when defeat was so pressing and so evident.
Still, on the other side of the battle, seeing the bleakness of victory, the scarcity of hope, he wondered if she did know.
He wondered if knowledge was just belief.
If belief was just hope.
If hope was just one person left, knowing when to make the sacrifice count.
-o-
They were broken, in many ways. All of them, in unique ways. But standing together, they were stronger. Time would tell if they were strong enough.
Poe stood, shoulder to shoulder next to Finn, nodding a salute at the General as she passed.
They would bury their heroes. They would honor their corpses. They would forgive their cowards.
And the heroes would rise.
-o-
Three weeks and three missions later, Poe was beat to hell. He’d lost a few more x-wings, and he’d acquired none of his targets. It was like hitting his head against a brick wall -- and it felt like that, literally. Worn out and miserable, Poe just wanted to sleep.
“The General wants to see you.”
He closed his eyes and sighed, thinking about the weapons he’d failed to secure, the trade line he’d failed to break and the outpost he’d failed to destroy.
It was a string of failures, impressive only for how bad they’d all gone, one right after another. BB8 rolled slowly to a stop next to him, and Poe wondered if Finn would be available for a drink later. The Force knew they both would need it.
Opening his eyes again, he gave a weary nod. “I’ll be right there.”
-o-
“I know,” he said, not letting her get the first word in. “I know it’s been one disaster after another out there, and I know I’m not giving you the results we need, and I know--”
She shook her head, holding up a hand. “Stop, Poe.”
“No, I know,” he said. “I used to be good at this stuff; I used to be an asset. If you need to reassign me, I know--”
“Poe,” she said, more forcefully this time. “Stop.”
He shook his head, adamant. “But I know--”
“No, you don’t,” she said. The smile on her face was sad, a little. But there was something else there as she took a step toward him. “You don’t know.”
Warily, he regarded her. “But we’ve had this conversation before.”
“We’ve had conversations,” she agreed. “But not this one.”
“I don’t understand,” he said, shaking his head again.
She drew a breath, looking at him fondly. “Yeah, the missions have been terrible lately,” she said. “We haven’t really done what we wanted to do, and we know that.”
His stomach churned at the truth; it was one thing to think it. To hear it, though.
She pressed on. “But you’ve followed my orders,” she continued. “And when you were required to make quick decisions in the field, you prioritized your fleet over your ambition. You brought your pilots home.”
He drew a thoughtful breath of his own. “But the mission to defeat the First Order--”
“Starts with putting value on every life we come into contact with,” she said. “It took a Stormtrooper in a mask to finally show you that all of these people have a story, a background, a future. It’s hard to care when we suffer so much loss, but that’s what makes us different, Poe. That’s what makes us more than heroes when we live, more than corpses when we die.”
The pieces fall into place, and he nodded his head. “Leaders?”
“Leaders, carrying hope like a beacon to the darkest places of the galaxy,” she said. “We’ll never save everyone, but all we have to do is save the one in front of us, and the next one after that.”
He let out a rueful breath. “I wish that made it easier.”
“You and me both,” she told him with an air of secrecy. Then, she gave an offhanded shrug. “But we don’t get to pick.”
“I know,” he commiserated. Then, he paused. “But if I’m not here to be chewed out--”
“Ah,” she said, turning back toward the table. She collected a data pad and turned it on. “Yes, there is one matter to attend to.”
“A mission?” he asked.
Her smile was wider than before. “A promotion.”
He blinked, trying to make that parse. “I’m sorry?”
“You’re being promoted,” she said. “Commander.”
Poe gave her a look of absolute incredulity. “The council talked you into it again?”
“It was my idea, actually,” she said. “But the instant I brought it to the table, they all voted in unanimous agreement. We need you, Poe. We need you to lead your squadron, lead the fleet. We need you to help us lead the Resistance.”
He stared at her, moderately dumbfounded. “But,” he sputtered, not sure what to say. “Really?”
She nodded, looking thoroughly bemused now. “The rank is effectively immediately, but you’ll have to wait a few days for the party,” she said. “We have a few outlying ships we’re trying to recall. No one wants to miss your big event.”
With a scoff, he was shaking his head again. “I don’t need a party.”
“Oh, come on,” she cajoled. “Last time you begged me.”
“Well, sure,” he said. “But I’ve learned a few things since then.”
This time, she was beaming with pride. “Exactly,” she said. “And that’s why you’ve earned one this time.”
-o-
Poe didn’t need a party.
Still, he had to admit it was nice.
Sure, he’d been praised and lauded during most of his time with the Resistance. But this time, when the others looked at him, he looked back. He saw them, diverse fighters, joined by a common cause. He saw them, ready to die, ready to live. Here, he’d been thinking he was the only one.
The galaxy was a lot bigger than he thought it was.
He smiled, shaking hands with Rey and giving Finn a big hug. BB8 beeped at him appealingly, and Poe nodded back. “It’s going to stick this time,” he promised. “I’m sure of it.”
At the front of the room, the General inclined her head. She wasn’t in General mode tonight. No, her hair was down with large earrings and a ceremonial necklace on top of her ornate gown. Tonight, she was a princess, no doubt about it.
Poe had had a lot of good moments in his life.
A lot of bad ones, too.
This moment, short as it was, really was about perfect.
Now, Poe knew it couldn’t last -- these things rarely did -- but he was sure as hell going to enjoy this moment.
Before bracing himself for the next.
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
-o-
“I don’t know,” Poe admitted later when he visited Finn. “Maybe she has a point.”
He had to consider it, if only a little. It was not the first formal reprimand that had been put into his file, and she’d threatened to demote him.
“I just don’t know what else I’m really supposed to do,” Poe continued with a morose shrug. Hopefully, he lifted his eyes toward Finn, as if the younger man might have an answer.
But Finn was still sleeping.
And Poe’s answer was still the same.
-o-
The next mission wasn’t authorized, but it still needed to be done.
Need, of course, was somewhat open to interpretation.
Poe was being pretty liberal about these things.
-o-
See, the thing was, Poe had the intel. He had access to the weapons. He knew his flight team would follow him out, down to the very last man. And the possibility of capturing a spy drone?
If this worked, the General would have no choice but to give him a commendation.
If it failed -- well, Poe wouldn’t have to worry about anything if it failed.
-o-
To be fair, Poe didn’t take a lot of fighters with him.
Still, he was the only one who came back.
But the prize, an intact but disabled spy drone, was safely in tow with BB8’s help.
The Resistance talked about what made them different.
But the raucous cheers and applause at his return told the truth that no one wanted to admit.
-o-
It was a hero’s welcome.
Until he got to the briefing room.
At the table, General Organa was bent forward, hands splayed out as she chewed her lip in obvious contemplation. He knew it was customary to wait for her to speak, seeing as she was a General and he was a captain, but the lingering silence and the inevitability of her lecture was more than Poe could deal with.
Not that he could deal with much.
Poe was an impetuous bastard these days, and he knew it.
He just couldn’t bring himself to control it.
“Look,” he said, breaking formalities and defying his rank against her. “I know what you’re going to say.”
She looked up, sharp and abrupt.
He wet his lips, but the daggers in her eyes didn’t deter him this time. “I know you’re going to say that it was unsanctioned for a reason. I know you’re going to say that I lost a lot of lives out there, that I took a lot of risks. I know you’re mad and disappointed and--”
This time, she shook her head with a rueful laugh.
“I know it,” he said, gesturing aimlessly. “But I can’t be sorry for it. I mean, have you seen the drone we got? Do you know the intel it holds? You can’t tell me it’s not worth it. You can’t.”
Slowly, deliberately, she wet her lips again. The breath she drew was long and even as she stared down her nose at Poe with a look that seemed to see right through him. “This isn’t about the mission, Poe,” she told him quietly. “Sanctioned or not.”
At this, he hesitated. “So,” he said, trying to find his next words carefully. “What is it about?”
“It’s about you, Poe,” she said, and it was hard to tell if she was more sad than angry at this point. She shook her head, brows knitted together. “You’re the best damn pilot I have, but this is a galaxy full of pilots. I’m looking for good men, good women, good people.”
He took a step forward, more insistent now. “I’ve given everything I have, everything I am for this fight,” he said.
“But I don’t want another soldier,” she said, her temper flaring. “I told you before, that dinner we had, the kind of man I wanted you to be. The kind of man I knew you could be.”
It was his turn to frown. “But then you sent me on a mission and revealed the kind of man I am. The man you knew I was otherwise you wouldn’t have sent me to Jakku in the first place.”
This time, his words seemed to genuinely hurt her. “That’s not fair, Poe.”
“No,” he said, and he gave a small, incredulous half-chuckle. “None of this is fair, but isn’t that the point? Isn’t that why we’re willing to make these compromises?”
“But we’re on the same side,” she said. “You know this. You know that order is necessary in order to overcome the darkness.”
He took another step forward, more vehement now. “And everything I’ve done, I’ve done it for the Resistance.”
“The Resistance didn’t give those orders,” she told him seriously.
“But they were still necessary, weren’t they?” he retorted, all inhibitions gone now. “To keep the darkness away when it closes in faster and faster and faster.”
“So fast that you don’t even see it, lurking inside of you,” she told him grimly. “You can beat every foe except the one inside of you. That’s the battle you’re losing, a little more with every mission you go on.”
He let out a breath, almost like he’d been hit in the gut. He was trembling now, and he blinked hard, once and twice. “Some casualties are acceptable,” he told her, a little numbly now. “The ideals of the Resistance must be upheld.”
“They must be lived,” she said. “And what you do out there, the killing and the disobeying and leading other people to their deaths. Is that what the Resistance is all about?”
He hemmed himself back, feeling suddenly much smaller than he had before. “No….”
“Then shut up,” she said. “Listen and follow. And for the love of the Force, Poe, show some restraint until I get back.”
He tipped his head, surprised. “Get back?”
“I have a few things I need to do,” she said.
He knew his look was incredulous. He didn’t care. “Now?”
She looked at him blandly. “Yes, now.”
“But you can’t leave now,” he started.
Her look was beyond incredulity, and he remembered, almost for the first time in this meeting, that she was his general and that he was nothing but a captain. “I don’t have to explain myself to you, thankfully,” she said, brushing past him to the door. “Because this base runs on my orders.”
“But General--”
She turned at him, abrupt and drawn to her full height now. “You are to do nothing,” she said. “You will not get in a cockpit unless there are express orders from me allowing you to do so. Is that perfectly understood?”
He stared at her.
“Is that understood, Captain?” she repeated, more forcefully this time.
“Yeah,” he said quietly.
Her eyebrows arched.
“Yes,” he repeated, a bit more chagrined. “Yes, ma’am.”
With that, she swept out of the room.
-o-
General Organa made it sound so easy.
A few days later, sitting idly next to Finn, Poe knew it was never that easy.
“See, I know that she has reason, because she’s a general,” Poe said, leaning down with a conspiratorial air to Finn’s side. “I mean, she’s a princess.”
Finn didn’t move; didn’t twitch.
Poe bit the inside of his lip, shaking his head. “But I just can’t see how those reasons are more important than my reasons,” he said. “I mean, this war, this Resistance, it’s been going on my whole life. And you learn the history, man. You learn it, and you see that it’s been going on for so much longer than that. At this rate, it’s never going to end.”
He thought Finn would understand that; he knew Finn would. Finn was a Stormtrooper; he knew what it was to act when the time was right, all orders be damned. Granted, he was working for the First Order and Poe was actively defying the most amazing military leader he’d ever seen, but still.
“I want to do the right thing, I do,” he said. “And I know that there has to be rules and regulations, but I want to win, too.”
The admission made him feel guilty, and he dipped his head to look at his hands.
“Not for me,” he said. He looked up again, into Finn’s face. Funny how he’d hardly seen it when they first met, yet he knew every inch of it now. “For all of us. I keep thinking if I sit here, doing nothing, then I’m not going to outlive this fight.”
He sighed, thinking about that. He thought about all the times he should have died, all the times he didn’t.
“And if I go down fighting, with or without orders, at least I’ll go down on my terms,” he said. “My life isn’t make much of a difference these days, but my death….”
He let it trail off, wondering if this was a sign of a problem. If he was suicidal. If he’d been so steeped in this culture of war that he’d actually forgotten why. If the ideals he claim to fight for were nothing more than talking points. If he was just like a Stormtrooper when you stripped away all the armor.
But here he was, sitting next to a Stormtrooper.
“You defied orders to save my life, and you saved the Resistance at the same time,” he continued with a stoic nod. “No one can give orders to make a hero. The choices you make, that’s what makes you a hero.”
On the bed, Finn slept on.
Poe frowned, thoughtful. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
Finn didn’t disagree.
He was also in a coma, but that was neither here nor there.
It was all the affirmation Poe needed.
-o-
Maybe General Organa did want to save his life for some reason.
That was nice and all.
Poe wanted to save the Resistance.
That was better.
-o-
(Poe probably never wanted to be a hero.
He didn’t want to be a coward, either.
What was left….
Well, he was okay with that.)
-o-
All Poe needed was a mission.
And with the First Order rebuilding frantically?
Hell, missions were around every corner. You just had to look for them.
There was no sign that the commanders left in charge of the base had any interest in finding them, that was true, but Poe had more initiative.
He just didn’t have any power.
Fortunately, there were ways around that.
-o-
“They’re getting closer every time,” Poe argued to another pilot at breakfast one morning.
“It’s just routine recon,” the pilot replied, shaking her head. “If they knew we were here, they would have made an aggressive sweep.”
“So we’re going to let them get closer until they get lucky?” Poe retorted.
She huffed. “I’m not saying I like it,” she said. “I’m just saying, we don’t have orders.”
-o-
At lunch, he found a group of mechanics to talk to. “All we have to do is time up with their next sweep,” he reasoned. “They won’t see us coming, and we can blast them out of the sky before they have a chance to radio back that something’s wrong.”
One of them shook his head. “It’s risky, though,” he said. “If the First Order gets any confirmation--”
“They won’t,” Poe argued. “Not if we do it right.”
“Sure, maybe,” another replied. “But do we have orders?”
-o-
At dinner, Poe managed to find one of the shift commanders doing her last inspection of the night. “No, I agree,” she said. “It makes me nervous, too, but until we have orders.”
“General Organa never wanted us to sit idle if a threat was coming,” Poe said.
The commander turned to him, head cocked. “Did she tell you that?”
Poe paused, considering the question. She hadn’t exactly told him that, but her history suggested that it was true. She always urged caution and restraint, but she was also the one that had sent him to Jakku on what should have been a suicide mission. All her lectures were good for something, but her actual orders meant more.
He nodded, finding some resolution in that. “She did.”
“And it was an order,” she said, as if to clarify the statement. “She wanted us to act to defend this sector?”
“It is our last stronghold,” Poe said. “She’s said all along that if we don’t hold here…”
The commander looked pensive for a moment. “I’ll call the other commanders and wake the lieutenant general,” she said. “Tell them what you told me, and we’ll see what happens.”
-o-
That was how Poe ended up in the briefing room, all the officials still on base gathered before him, waiting and watching. The introduction from the commander wasn’t nearly long enough, and Poe was faced with the plain reality of his situation.
He could tell the truth, that he thought the fight was the right choice but that he had no authorization.
Or he could tell a slight variation of the truth. That General Organa would see them defend this space or the Resistance was lost.
“Those were her exact words?” her lieutenant general asked, sounding uncertain.
“You know she’s said them before,” Poe argued reasonably. “You know that she’s sent each and every one of us to our deaths because it had to be done. For the Resistance. And she told me, right before she left, that the cause mattered.”
The lieutenant general looked at him; he looked at the intel. “You think you can plan a tactical strike that eliminates the threat with minimal risk? If word gets back to the First Order--”
Poe was grinning, already on his feet. “They won’t, sir,” he said.
“Then, with the General’s confidence, you have your orders, Captain.”
-o-
Poe felt a little guilty for his manipulation of the truth.
But organizing the mission, coordinating his squadron, rallying the troops for a good cause.
Yeah, that felt a lot better.
-o-
In his defense, he hadn’t actually expected it to work. He’d always taken it for granted that there was actually a command structure in the Resistance, and he’d always sort of figured that his place was as the smart-ass pilot who found rules to be malleable. It was pretty damn easy to play that roll, to buck the greater order of things and trust that the checks and balances would keep him from doing something completely insane.
Turned out, he was wrong about that.
Insubordination was a lot easier than people thought it was.
Sure, there would be hell to pay when the General got back, but until then, he had the confidence of the entire Resistance at his back.
That was enough for Poe.
-o-
(Besides, he told himself in the back of his mind, maybe he wasn’t coming back. Luck only lasted so long, and Poe had pushed and pushed and pushed.
So far, so fast that he didn’t even realize he was falling off a cliff until he was in free fall.)
-o-
Poe did come back.
Of his squadron, three other didn’t. On top of that, the slipshod plan made under the guise of fabricated orders had worked. The drone was gone, and the fake ion trail they left in its wake would be a dead ringer for the pirates operating in the next quadrant. When the First Order investigated, it’d be an obvious lead to follow, and it might even kick up some skirmishes that took the heat off the Resistance.
All that for three lives?
All in all, Poe had done worse.
-o-
It was a celebration when he got back, and someone was breaking open a bottle of something bubbly and hopefully very alcoholic. Everyone was cheering and patting him on the back, telling him that he’d done a hell of a job. A hell of a job, indeed.
Poe was starting to believe it, just like all the other success, when one of the other pilots pulled him aside and said, “Hey! Have you seen the General?”
“The General?” Poe asked. “I thought she was still off world.”
“Got back today,” the pilot said. “She wants to see you in the briefing room.”
Poe had to wince at the prospect. “Now?”
“Yeah, now, man,” the pilot said, making his way off through the crowd. “But I’m buying you a round tonight!”
Poe grimaced, turning toward the command center and away from the celebration. Something told him he was going to need more than a round to make tonight feel good.
-o-
She was alone in the briefing room.
And she looked pissed.
This time, she made no attempt with pretenses. The second the door closed, she rounded on him, fast, furious and relentless.
“You forged my orders?” she asked caustically. She was shorter than he was, but when she approached him, he still felt himself cower.
“Not technically,” he said. “I made some assumptions, and no one else questioned them.”
She didn’t crack a smile. “You lied, then.”
“I insinuated a few stretched truths,” he said, trying to cushion his total disregard for anything resembling the command structure. “Someone else gave the orders.”
“Based on the assumption that you had gotten input from me!” she said, jabbing a finger at him.
“I didn’t know they’d go for it,” he said, and the minute he said it, he regretted how petulant he sounded. Like a little boy telling his father that he’d had his reasons for being stupid.
“But you didn’t stop them,” she said, eyes flashing with an even starker rage. “The time I’ve spent trying to mentor you and teach you, and this is what you do with it? You use the effort I’ve put into training you and used it to completely ignore everything I’ve ever said!”
She was right, but Poe wasn’t about to concede anything. She made it a fight, and Poe did the only thing he’d ever done in conflict: fight back. It was his nature, and he couldn’t fight it.
Or hell, he just didn’t want to.
Squaring his shoulders, he stepped forward with a note of defiance. “It was the right call, and without you here, no one else was willing to make it.”
“There’s a chain of command for a reason,” she told him, voice pinched. “You think you’re the only one I’ve taken time to mentor? The people I leave in charge here know what I want them to do, and I trust them a lot more than I trust you.”
“But they weren’t doing anything,” Poe said, more emphatically now. His frustrations were impossible to hold back now, and he had officially run out of the ability to care.
“Maybe nothing needed to be done,” she said, enunciating the words clearly. “There was no indication based on the intelligence that the strike was necessary. It was more likely that the drone would have moved on and never found our base. That’s why we’ve invested so much in security.”
“I’m tired of leaving all this to chance, of waiting to see if the First Order gets it right or not,” Poe said back, shaking his head. “We’ve lost too much.”
“Which is why we need to be careful,” she said.
“No, it’s why we need to act,” Poe said.
“Believe it or not, you don’t have all the information,” she retorted.
“Then how the hell is anyone supposed to know what to do?”
“Then why the hell do you think we have a command structure?” she said. “I tell the people I trust, Poe. I tell them and not you for a reason. Surely you can understand that.”
He huffed, gesturing with one hand in futility. “I can’t, though,” he said with a haphazard shrug. “I can’t understand why we keep losing and losing and losing, and the one victory we get, we let it go to waste.”
“This isn’t a single battle,” she said. “There’s a bigger picture, that’s why we rely on the Force.”
Poe groaned, turning away. “We keep saying that, but what has the Force done for us lately? If the Force cared about us and our cause, then why are we even in the mess?”
Her face darkened. “You know that’s not how the Force works.”
“Oh, I know,” he said. “That’s why I’m sort of done with all this Force talk. I trusted in the Force, and it got me nowhere. Then, I trusted myself and my x-wing, and I started seeing results.”
“Results?” she retorted, anger spiking again. “You call losing close to 15 pilots within the last three weeks results?”
At that, he had the decency to at least cringe. “We’re all dying, one way or another. I’d like to think it’s all for a good cause.”
“You’d like to think, sure,” she said. “But I have to know. When you give an order, you have to know, because when people die, that’s on you. You can’t just make these things up and hope for the best. That’s not a leader, Poe.”
“Yet, here we are,” Poe said. “Everyone following me.”
“Because you’re good and you’re lucky,” she said tartly. “Someday, you’ll run out of chances.”
He shrugged diffidently. “I’ve always been okay with that, and you know that’s the problem. This back and forth that we do; I know it all, and I’ve heard it.”
“But you’ve not learned it, Poe,” she said, more tiredly now. She shook her head. “I keep hoping you’ll learn it.”
“And I keep hoping we’ll win,” he said. “I mean, I know this doesn’t surprise you. So why do we keep doing this? Another formal reprimand on my file?”
“No,” she said, drawing her mouth into a terse line. “Not this time.”
He actually scoffed. “So, what, then?” he said. “Another attempt to convince me to change?”
“That, among other things,” she said, pursing her lips now.
“What other things?” he asked.
She drew a breath, and she looked like she regretted the next words out of her mouth even before she said them. “Things like the fact that the ruling council has decided to promote you.”
Poe opened his mouth, ready to retaliate.
It took him a long, weird moment to realize there was nothing to retaliate against.
He frowned seriously. “What?”
She looked extremely disappointed by the entire situation. “Based on the way you rally people to a cause, the ruling council is impressed by your ability to mobilize troops in difficult times,” she explained. “Even I have to admit that you’re impressive. You’ve got the worst record of any squadron leader I’ve got, but everyone wants to fly with you, no questions asked.”
He let out a breath of absolute disbelief. “I don’t understand.”
“I might have tried to overrule them, but when they asked me to present a better candidate, I realized that there wasn’t anyone that you hadn’t already gotten killed,” she said with a grim little huff. “It’s a supply and demand issue. Desperate times and desperate measures.”
His quizzical expression darkened. “You’re not exactly making this sound like a good thing.”
“I’m not exactly sure it is,” she said. But then she shrugged in a off handed, defeated sort of way. “But I can hope that you might stop disobeying so many orders if you’re the one giving them from time to time.”
“Oh,” he said, his confusion settling into vexation. “You’re not making this sound very special.”
“That’s because I don’t want you to think it is,” she told him flatly. “I want you to see this as a responsibility, and I want you to take it seriously.”
“I always take this job seriously,” he replied.
“Uh huh,” she muttered, shaking her head with something akin to disgust. “Starting right now, you hold the rank of commander.”
He brightened at that, almost out of reflex. “You’re really going to promote me?”
“I was outvoted,” she admitted.
“Yeah, I was hoping for something a little more encouraging,” he admitted.
“And I was hoping you’d stop acting without thinking, but we all have to take what we can get, Commander,” she said. “That’s the way this whole thing works.”
“Do I get a party at least?” he asked.
It was her turn to look vexed. “You need a party?”
“It is a promotion,” he said.
“And I just told you I thought it was a terrible idea that I voted against,” she reminded him.
“Not even a small party?” he asked.
Her eyes narrowed and her glare intensified. “Get the hell out,” she ordered curtly, tilting her head as she added. “Commander.”
The vitriol was evident.
But so was the promotion.
Poe had never been picky about these things.
He started to grin as he left.
He wasn’t about to start now.
-o-
There actually was a celebration, even if it wasn’t specifically for him. Still, they toasted him, they cheered for him, and he led them in a chant to plan another victory.
They believed him in ways Poe would never understand.
(They believed him, even when Poe was pretty sure they shouldn’t.)
-o-
On his first mission as commander, he was brought into the briefing room and asked for his opinion. Looking at the full scope of the mission, Poe was somewhat moved by the shift in position. His opinion was being weighed in full consideration, and his recommendation had implications for the entire fleet.
When he got in the cockpit, however, things were the same as they had always been.
To hell with orders, even when he’d been the one to help make them.
To hell with everything except ridding the galaxy of the First Order once and for all.
-o-
The bombing run didn’t go off without a hitch, and he knew it. They lost more people on this one, all because Poe had disobeyed another direct order.
They also got the job done, for what that was worth.
He was readying his defense for the inevitable debrief with the General when BB8 gave him better news.
Following a stream of beeps, Poe looked up and saw Finn, dazed, confused and very, very awake.
-o-
Finn, awake and alive and full of questions.
Poe had just lived through another bombing run, but face to face with the former Stormtrooper for the first time in weeks, and he’d never felt more invigorated.
All these weeks, all these years, Poe’s whole life -- he’d been looking for a cause worth dying for. Something to give his life the kind of meaning people talked about in stories. He wanted -- he needed -- something that was worth everything, nothing held back, even if it cost him everything.
Lucky for Poe, Finn was full of ideas in that regard.
-o-
Poe went to his debriefing with his usual expectation. It was the same old story, but when she stripped him of his rank -- after only one mission -- he expected it to hurt.
It didn’t, though. It didn’t even make him flinch, not yet. None of the sacrifices did, not the list of pilots he’d lost and x-wings he’d gotten destroyed. These sacrifices didn’t mean anything to him yet.
Not with a fight to fight, and a Stormtrooper to partner with.
-o-
(They didn’t make him flinch, not yet.
They would, Poe figured.
They would, Poe feared.)
-o-
Demoted and grounded, Poe probably should have taken that as a cue to stop when he was really far behind.
But Finn had this idea, you see.
An idea that could save the galaxy.
That was all Poe had been looking for all this time.
-o-
So, he defied orders. So, he planned a covert mission. He’d been there; he’d done that.
What was mutiny on top of that?
Nothing much, he decided when he made his move.
Nothing much, he decided when the blast doors opened and he saw a bright light before the world blinked out.
-o-
(Poe wasn’t scared of the dark. In fact, he always sort of felt that was how he’d end up. Some men fought and lost their souls to the Dark Side. Poe wasn’t sure where he’d lost his soul during his time with the Light, but the Dark didn’t look so scary anymore.
It could take all he had.
Not that much was left anymore.)
-o-
To his surprise, Poe woke up.
In sick bay.
With General Organa sitting at his side.
He was sore, weak and totally blasted to hell, but he was going to be fine.
That was oddly disappointing, somehow. He’d sort of been hoping to wake up to something more dramatic with mutiny.
Or, more to the point, he’d sort of been hoping that he wouldn’t wake up at all.
-o-
Then General Organa explained it to him, the big picture. The real escape plan that he might have known if he hadn’t been an asshole.
But that was the thing, wasn’t it? Poe was an asshole. He was disrespectful and brash and really kind of stupid, and this wasn’t the first time that someone had died for him.
In an x-wing, it all happened in a flash.
From a distance, he watched it happening with a far greater sense of dread. He watched, with excruciating clarity, while a good woman laid down her life for the cause.
That was what a hero looked like, he realized.
A hero wasn’t planning failed covert missions without authority. A hero wasn’t throwing people who trusted him into the line of fire without proper backup.
A hero was someone who looked at all the options, considered all the options, and then made the right choice.
A hero looked like a battle cruiser blasting its way through a Star Destroyer.
He didn’t look like that.
Hell, he wasn’t sure he ever would.
-o-
(There was a futility about it, though. The war they could never win. The sacrifices they had to make. How did you know the difference? How did you weigh the factors and make a decision that made sense? How could you be sure you were making a sacrifice and not just being stupid?)
-o-
Finn and Rose got back, against the odds, and damn, it was really good to see them.
There was no time to celebrate, not when another mission was bearing down on them, more pressing than the last. He knew that the General was asking him to make a stand.
Poe had never balked at that before.
But as he charged the line, out matched in every way, he saw the first pilot go down. Then a second.
He could hear Finn and Rose over the comm link.
And, for the first time in years, he wished that he’d had them stay back. He’d never doubted his position on the front lines, and he’d never known any of the other pilots well enough to doubt theirs. But this was Finn; this was Rose. They’d already survived one of Poe’s stupid missions, and he wanted them to survive this one, too.
Was his personal attachment more important than the cause?
No, probably not.
But would their sacrifice make any difference in the cause?
No, definitely not.
That was when Poe got it.
That was when Poe realized what General Organa had been telling him all along.
“Pull back,” he ordered, admitting a preemptive defeat. “Pull back now.”
-o-
(Funny, he made the right call.
Funny, Finn ignored him.
General Organa was rocking back on her heels, shaking her head.
“I told you so.”)
-o-
Poe pulled out, probably for the first time in his life. The other pilots broke free, heading back to the relative safety of the bunker. But not Finn.
And not Rose.
Finn barrelled forward, heedless and determined. He was aimed, straight at the weapon. Once it fired, he’d be instantly incinerated. If he managed to get there before it fired, he’s jam the weapon. And then the First Order would pull out their next weapon of mass destruction and finish them off just the same.
That was futility, then. Not the orders that failed to win a war, but the sacrifice that never amounted to anything. You couldn’t win a war if you lost the things that made it worth fighting. That was the thing that defined a leader. Heroes died on the battlefield, but leaders brought their people home. As a hero, Poe might have measured up from time to time.
As a leader -- well, none of his people had ever lived long enough to tell the tale except BB8, and most people didn’t speak that language. Now that he’d figured it out, he’d have to watch as his would-be best friend did exactly what Poe would do.
He could issue orders, but that couldn’t make anyone follow them. He could beg and plead and ask and cajole, but that didn’t change the actions someone made in the field.
The Force help him, Poe was the first one to break formation on that last suicide run.
And it gave him the perfect perspective to watch Finn hold the line, faster, harder, right to the end.
-o-
A second before impact, Poe closed his eyes.
He didn’t want to see.
He didn’t need to see.
Because it took a hell of a long time and more than his share of knocks, but Poe Dameron had finally learned his lesson the hardest way imaginable.
-o-
(Just in time to save his own life.
Not in time to save Finn’s.)
-o-
There was a crash and an explosion, but the blast wasn’t what Poe would have expected from a collision with the weapon. Instead, he opened his eyes while BB8 beeped at him. The weapon was intact, still bearing down on the bunker.
Off to the side, in the sand dunes, Finn’s sand skimmer was wrecked.
Crumpled in a pile alongside Rose’s.
-o-
(Finn had a lot to learn from Poe.
They both had more to learn from Rose.
About how to be a hero and a leader: the best the Resistance had to offer.)
-o-
When Finn was back, Poe was the one who pulled him aside. He checked him over for injury, inspecting every cut and bruise. When he was certain that the Stormtrooper was okay, he shoved him back hard and asked, “What the hell did you think you were doing?”
Sure, he had no authority. True, it was humiliating to do it in a public hallway. And yeah, Poe had no room to talk.
Still, he chewed Finn out for everything. “You had an order, and you disobeyed that order, and now an innocent girl is fighting for her life!” he yelled at Finn, emotion pulsing through him. “You have to think about these things! The Resistance doesn’t survive on our stupid sacrifices!”
He as fuming now, his emotions reaching a boiling point. He advanced on Finn, fists curling up in anger when a gentle hand pulled him away.
“That’s enough, Poe,” General Organa said, giving him a knowing look.
Poe struggled to catch his breath, looking around in shock at the crowd that had gathered. He looked back to Finn, who was blinking at him with dull, shell-shocked eyes, wet with tears.
General Organa inclined her head. “Finn, go get looked at by medical,” she said. Then her eyes narrowed on Poe. “You and I need to have a talk, Dameron.”
-o-
This time, Poe spoke first.
He didn’t offer an explanation. He didn’t tried to defend himself. This time, all he could say was, “I’m sorry.”
She turned to face him, and Poe had to note that the look of mild surprise on her face appeared to be for his benefit. “You’re sorry?”
Poe felt rattled in more ways than one, which was why it was so important to actually face the consequences of the thing. “I’m sorry for pushing for the mission in the first place,” he said, shaking his head. “It was a stupid idea from the start, and I didn’t even get the job done this time. We lost fighters, and that thing is still ready to blast down our door.”
“Which is why we really don’t have time for this right now,” she reminded him gently.
“Okay, yeah,” he said. “So, let’s skip to the easy part. Do you need to demote me again? A formal reprimand seems too slight--”
She chuckled. “I didn’t call you here to berate you, Poe,” she said, sounding vaguely bemused.
He gave her a look of sheer disbelief. “But we’re in a worse position than we were before.”
“But you pulled your team out before it was a lost cause,” she said. “You saw that the sacrifice would be pointless, and you conserved our resources.”
She made it sound really logical when she put it like that. In the past, he might have taken the compliment. This time, he shook his head. “I just didn’t want to see Finn die,” he admitted. “I don’t know why; I care about him. I didn’t want him to die when he didn’t have to.”
Now, she was smiling. Earnest and true, not a general for a moment. But a princess. “You’ve always had the grit and the smarts and the skills, but this Stormtrooper of yours, he gives you something more than all of that combined,” she told him, crossing forward to take his hand in hers. “You’ve always had a cause to die for, Poe. But he’s given you a reason to live.”
Something churned in him, hot and cold all at once. He shook his head, miserable. “For all the good it did,” he said. “Rose is still half dead, and the battle is lost out there, General. We lost.”
She nodded, this time in sympathy. “That’s the hardest part about being a leader: making the right call and knowing it’s not going to fix everything like you want.”
He inhaled, trying to gird himself. “Then how do you do it? All these years as general, making these calls?”
“Because it’s a cause I believe in,” she said simply. “And these people are my family now. How could I not do it?”
He understood that, now. Now, when it was probably too late. Now, when there was no time left to use it.
“Come on,” she said, squeezing his hand again. “I’m not sure this battle is quite as over as you think it is.”
-o-
There was no way she could have known, looking back, that her very own brother would return from exile to save them all. There was no possible way she could have predicted that a Force-sensitive girl, awakened by the Force itself, would lead them all to safety. There was no way she really should have seen their victory coming, when defeat was so pressing and so evident.
Still, on the other side of the battle, seeing the bleakness of victory, the scarcity of hope, he wondered if she did know.
He wondered if knowledge was just belief.
If belief was just hope.
If hope was just one person left, knowing when to make the sacrifice count.
-o-
They were broken, in many ways. All of them, in unique ways. But standing together, they were stronger. Time would tell if they were strong enough.
Poe stood, shoulder to shoulder next to Finn, nodding a salute at the General as she passed.
They would bury their heroes. They would honor their corpses. They would forgive their cowards.
And the heroes would rise.
-o-
Three weeks and three missions later, Poe was beat to hell. He’d lost a few more x-wings, and he’d acquired none of his targets. It was like hitting his head against a brick wall -- and it felt like that, literally. Worn out and miserable, Poe just wanted to sleep.
“The General wants to see you.”
He closed his eyes and sighed, thinking about the weapons he’d failed to secure, the trade line he’d failed to break and the outpost he’d failed to destroy.
It was a string of failures, impressive only for how bad they’d all gone, one right after another. BB8 rolled slowly to a stop next to him, and Poe wondered if Finn would be available for a drink later. The Force knew they both would need it.
Opening his eyes again, he gave a weary nod. “I’ll be right there.”
-o-
“I know,” he said, not letting her get the first word in. “I know it’s been one disaster after another out there, and I know I’m not giving you the results we need, and I know--”
She shook her head, holding up a hand. “Stop, Poe.”
“No, I know,” he said. “I used to be good at this stuff; I used to be an asset. If you need to reassign me, I know--”
“Poe,” she said, more forcefully this time. “Stop.”
He shook his head, adamant. “But I know--”
“No, you don’t,” she said. The smile on her face was sad, a little. But there was something else there as she took a step toward him. “You don’t know.”
Warily, he regarded her. “But we’ve had this conversation before.”
“We’ve had conversations,” she agreed. “But not this one.”
“I don’t understand,” he said, shaking his head again.
She drew a breath, looking at him fondly. “Yeah, the missions have been terrible lately,” she said. “We haven’t really done what we wanted to do, and we know that.”
His stomach churned at the truth; it was one thing to think it. To hear it, though.
She pressed on. “But you’ve followed my orders,” she continued. “And when you were required to make quick decisions in the field, you prioritized your fleet over your ambition. You brought your pilots home.”
He drew a thoughtful breath of his own. “But the mission to defeat the First Order--”
“Starts with putting value on every life we come into contact with,” she said. “It took a Stormtrooper in a mask to finally show you that all of these people have a story, a background, a future. It’s hard to care when we suffer so much loss, but that’s what makes us different, Poe. That’s what makes us more than heroes when we live, more than corpses when we die.”
The pieces fall into place, and he nodded his head. “Leaders?”
“Leaders, carrying hope like a beacon to the darkest places of the galaxy,” she said. “We’ll never save everyone, but all we have to do is save the one in front of us, and the next one after that.”
He let out a rueful breath. “I wish that made it easier.”
“You and me both,” she told him with an air of secrecy. Then, she gave an offhanded shrug. “But we don’t get to pick.”
“I know,” he commiserated. Then, he paused. “But if I’m not here to be chewed out--”
“Ah,” she said, turning back toward the table. She collected a data pad and turned it on. “Yes, there is one matter to attend to.”
“A mission?” he asked.
Her smile was wider than before. “A promotion.”
He blinked, trying to make that parse. “I’m sorry?”
“You’re being promoted,” she said. “Commander.”
Poe gave her a look of absolute incredulity. “The council talked you into it again?”
“It was my idea, actually,” she said. “But the instant I brought it to the table, they all voted in unanimous agreement. We need you, Poe. We need you to lead your squadron, lead the fleet. We need you to help us lead the Resistance.”
He stared at her, moderately dumbfounded. “But,” he sputtered, not sure what to say. “Really?”
She nodded, looking thoroughly bemused now. “The rank is effectively immediately, but you’ll have to wait a few days for the party,” she said. “We have a few outlying ships we’re trying to recall. No one wants to miss your big event.”
With a scoff, he was shaking his head again. “I don’t need a party.”
“Oh, come on,” she cajoled. “Last time you begged me.”
“Well, sure,” he said. “But I’ve learned a few things since then.”
This time, she was beaming with pride. “Exactly,” she said. “And that’s why you’ve earned one this time.”
-o-
Poe didn’t need a party.
Still, he had to admit it was nice.
Sure, he’d been praised and lauded during most of his time with the Resistance. But this time, when the others looked at him, he looked back. He saw them, diverse fighters, joined by a common cause. He saw them, ready to die, ready to live. Here, he’d been thinking he was the only one.
The galaxy was a lot bigger than he thought it was.
He smiled, shaking hands with Rey and giving Finn a big hug. BB8 beeped at him appealingly, and Poe nodded back. “It’s going to stick this time,” he promised. “I’m sure of it.”
At the front of the room, the General inclined her head. She wasn’t in General mode tonight. No, her hair was down with large earrings and a ceremonial necklace on top of her ornate gown. Tonight, she was a princess, no doubt about it.
Poe had had a lot of good moments in his life.
A lot of bad ones, too.
This moment, short as it was, really was about perfect.
Now, Poe knew it couldn’t last -- these things rarely did -- but he was sure as hell going to enjoy this moment.
Before bracing himself for the next.