Star Wars fic: Sacrifices that Count (3/4)
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
-o-
They were in lightspeed when the reports were confirmed.
Three planets were gone.
No survivors.
Nothing left to salvage there.
Poe beared down, focusing himself as they reached their destination of Takanado. When they pulled out, he looked down at the planet, green and blue through the atmosphere, swirls of white clouds eclipse the southern hemisphere. BB8 was down there, and the Force only knew what else.
He had to hope against hope that there was something to salvage here.
-o-
There was shocked, quiet chatter throughout the fleet as they came into formation, quickly assessing the planet. Pilots were distracted, worried about the Resistance, their friends and families, everything.
They were scared, and it wasn’t that Poe didn’t get it.
He just didn’t have time for it.
There was a time and place to be scared.
This wasn’t it.
Now was the time to strike back.
“Alright, everyone,” General Organa announced over the comm link. “You have the coordinates, you have your orders. Engage at will.”
Poe leveled down, piloting through the atmosphere with a jolt.
For once, General Organa agreed with him.
-o-
The thing about pilot was that they lived in the moment.
Sure, the Resistance and the Republic were dealt a horrible blow today.
But that was a different moment.
This moment, on the other hand.
Well, this was a moment that Poe was going to win.
No matter what.
-o-
(In battle, all fights seemed the same. The same adrenaline pumping through his body; the same skill as he eased his hand onto the control of his fighter. Shoot the bad guys, bam, bam, bam.
Instinct and skill, diversion and determination.
They were all the same.
Even when he knew they weren’t.)
-o-
In truth, Takonado was theirs for the taking. The First Order didn’t see them coming, and their retreat is short lived and messy. They lose a few fighters along the way, but the First Order flees before they can inflict much damage, Kylo Ren’s shuttle at the front of the force as it pulled out over the clear blue waters of Takonado.
Landing triumphantly, Poe mentally surveys the damage, both to their own fleet and to the civilian population. The buildings had been decimated, but the damage was localized. There was no way to tell how many civilians had been killed or injured in the crossfire, but recovery efforts were already ongoing and looking promising.
As for the Resistance, they incurred minimal casualties.
This was a good win.
But standing on the shoreline, waiting for instructions, Poe looked up at the burning holes where planets used to be.
This wasn’t the time to be scared.
And, he resolved quite suddenly, it wasn’t the time for regret.
-o-
He led the first wave back to the Resistance base, transporting supplies scavenged from the First Order wreckage. His squadron was still mostly intact, and between them they were able to load up on weapons, energy sources, electronics and protective gear. The remainder of the fleet, under the direction of General Organa, would bring any other salvageable goods or people who wanted asylum back.
The tide would turn after this.
It had to.
Poe would fly as many missions as he needed to just to make sure.
-o-
(Hope, they said. Rebellions were built on hope.
Hope didn’t get an x-wing in the air, but it sure as hell made sure Poe got back home.
Hope would take him through the next mission, the next and the next.
Until he ran out of missions.
One way or another, he knew.
One way.
Or another.)
-o-
If Poe had reservations, there were gone the instant he saw BB8 rolling his way across the tarmac. He’d been doing his landing checklist and documenting his cargo when he heard the familiar sound.
Looking up, he caught sight of a white and orange ball hurtling toward him with a friendly bleep.
“BB8!” he yelled, going down to a knee with his arms wide open. “Buddy!”
The emotions flooded back, and Poe readily embraced the droid as it scrambled toward him, beeping happier with every rotation. It had been the right thing, to separate from BB8 on Jakku. Tactically, it had made sense.
But having his droid back to him -- that was better, so much better, mission be damned.
That was his resolution for all of two seconds.
Before he looked up and remembered that he why he’d joined the Resistance in the first place.
-o-
It was Finn, of course.
Battered, weary, and wearing Poe’s jacket.
It was Finn, running toward him, arm extended.
Poe didn’t hesitate, just like he never did under pressure. His instincts were damn good, and he followed them now.
Getting to his feet, he stepped out to meet his Stormtrooper savior.
Failure was sobering.
Success was intoxicating.
Considering Poe hadn’t actually failed, then this mission was looking pretty good after all.
-o-
See, the Stormtrooper was wearing Poe’s jacket.
Poe wasn’t particularly possessive, not of anything but his droid, but the sight still gave him pause as he realized it’s metaphorical implications.
A Stormtrooper wearing a Resistance jacket.
Not only had Finn saved Poe’s life, but he’d somehow managed to protect his droid and complete his mission on Poe’s behalf.
Now, Finn was wearing Poe’s flight jacket, and what the hell.
He took Finn by the arm, lowering his voice as he looked him in the eyes. “We need to talk.”
-o-
(They needed to talk, maybe, but Finn was more than a Stormtrooper in a jacket. He was Poe’s friend, his copilot when things got tough. Of all the trained Resistance pilots he’d lost in the field, it was this one who survived.
This one.
It felt like something had been completed.
It felt like he’d found something he thought he lost.
Something he thought he didn’t have.
It felt like hope
Force help them all, it was hope.
-o-
With the still surging adrenaline and rapidly firing endorphins in his brain, Poe couldn’t bring himself to be scared or worried when Finn told him everything he knew, about the weapon, about Kylo Ren, about Rey and about the First Order’s plans.
That wasn’t why he believed the kid, though.
No, that was something different than biology.
After all, Finn was a lot like him, impulsive and really not afraid of being really wrong. That had been enough for Poe back on the Star Destroyer, when some random Stormtrooper had promised him salvation.
Poe had trusted his word, completely, emphatically, unequivocally.
Standing there, BB8 chirping by their sides, there were probably reasons to doubt him now.
Poe didn’t give a damn about a single one.
-o-
The thing was, Poe wasn’t particularly gifted at this sort of thing. He wasn’t exactly one for nuance, debate and diplomacy. Despite General Organa’s hopes, he was still mostly a flyboy.
Except, for as little as Poe knew, Finn knew even less. Finn might have been the Resistance’s golden goose through all this mess, but no one would know it if the kid didn’t learn the dynamics of a free order system.
“You have to be clear, sure,” Poe explained, not for the first time as he ushered him down a crowded corridor toward the briefing room. “They’ll want the facts, all of them. But you have to be level-headed, too.”
“Level-headed?” Finn repeated, clearly sounded vexed. “I don’t understand.”
“If you push too hard, you’ll freak them out,” Poe said. “But if you don’t push hard enough, then no one will be motivated to act.”
“So you want them freaked out but not too freaked out,” Finn tried to clarify.
“Exactly,” Poe said, slapping Finn on the shoulder. “You have to remember: you have to convince them that what you’re saying is real, that it’s actionable.”
Finn pulled him to a stop, shaking his head. “You’re the one who wanted me to come talk to them,” he hissed under his breath.
“And you’re the one who wanted to go,” Poe argued back.
“So let’s go,” Finn said. “I don’t get what this has to do with the whole Resistance anyway.”
Poe gave a short, incredulous laugh. “You have information that we can use to stop the First Order. Don’t you think that’s important?”
“Sure, give them a file that tells the truth,” Finn said. “They can do what they want with it.”
Poe arched his brows. “The truth isn’t always enough.”
“It’s the truth, of course it’s enough,” Finn snapped.
“You’re assuming that everyone wants to do the right thing,” Poe said.
“But you’re the good guys!”
Poe gathered a breath, finding patience he didn’t know he had. “But we’re all here by choice. The truth doesn’t have the same implications for all of us.”
“All of you?” Finn repeated. “Someone just needs to give an order!”
“This is a democracy,” Poe found himself saying, though the words sounded funny coming out of his own mouth. “We have to work within the system, follow those orders. Otherwise it’s chaos in the field.”
Finn was staring at him, as if he couldn’t make heads or tails of what Poe was trying to tell him. “Do you think the Resistance is ever going to win when it gets slowed down by all this?”
And wasn’t that a hell of a thing to ask someone like Poe. Someone who disregarded orders all the time, who openly questioned them. When he did it, it seemed necessary.
He had to wonder if this put it in perspective, just a little bit. “We can’t become the First Order to defeat the First Order.”
“Yeah, well,” Finn said. “Will you keep saying that when everyone is dead?”
Funny enough, Poe usually did.
He wet his lips, shifting his stance uncomfortably. He was starting to understand this system, and General Organa’s dogged defense of it.
Still, that didn’t mean he liked it.
He patted Finn on the shoulder reassuringly. “Just go in there, and tell them who you are and what you know,” Poe said. “I’m sure it’ll go fine.”
-o-
It didn’t go fine, naturally.
The leaders were debating their way into oblivion when the call came in.
Poe would like to think he was surprised by absolute relief that a mission would push their hand.
All he felt was relief.
Not all battles were fought in a cockpit, maybe.
But Poe’s favorite ones were.
-o-
Poe had his droid, his x-wing and his mission.
The last few weeks had been hell, that much was absolutely true.
And sure, there was impending disaster as the galaxy faced its most pervasive and pressing threat yet.
But Poe Dameron had never felt better.
-o-
There was nuance to the plan; details, even.
Poe knew that stuff mattered.
But for him, he was a pilot. From the surface to the stars in the blink of an eye. And that wasn’t just how he fought in battle.
It was how he lived his life.
Jakku had been a mission full of tough breaks, no doubt about it.
But light speed was just a button away.
He failed one mission.
This one, however, he was going to blow out of the water.
-o-
They lost some pilots on the first run. They lost more on the second. There was no change to the shielding, and Poe had a moment to doubt.
What if Finn’s plan failed? What if the First Order was too strong? What if this was the mission that Poe didn’t come back from?
The what-ifs were too much.
Poe took another bombing run.
Because reality was overrated when you still had a payload to spend.
-o-
And it worked.
Weapon destroyed; First Order base disabled. The Resistance flew away before any of the fighters could track them.
Poe wasn’t so conceited to think that was all about him.
But damn.
Some of it was.
-o-
Not everyone came back, maybe.
But the mission was intact.
Poe had always told himself that was enough.
Until he saw Finn, lying limply on a stretcher.
-o-
Poe knew how this worked. He knew that everyone went out to fight the battle, and not everyone came back home. He’d accepted that, a long, long time ago. Hell, he’d never even flinched, not even when he was the only one who returned from a full squadron upon deployment.
So why did this matter? Why did some kid, some Stormtrooper, matter? Because he’d saved Poe’s life? Because he’d made the hardest choice imaginable for all the right reasons?
Because, for a moment, they’d been more than acquaintances, more than allies?
Because Poe had always had a cause to fight for but he’d never had someone to fight with?
Was it because this was real, this was a consequence, this was the aftermath? Was it because this was an obstacle he couldn’t blast his way through or fly around? Was it because somehow, for the first time in his life, Poe had a glimpse of what it meant to deal with the outcomes of the missions he so brazenly committed himself to?
He wasn’t sure what made this time different.
Watching Finn’s lifeless body, hooked up to machines, he just knew that it was.
-o-
It was weird, too, because he didn’t really know anything about Finn. Sure, he’d trusted the kid with his life on multiple occasions, and he had vouched for him in front of the General and the whole Resistance, but the kid was still a stranger to him. He didn’t know what he liked to do for fun, what he wanted to do with his new-found freedom. He didn’t know if he had a favorite food, a favorite color, a preferred sleeping position?
He didn’t even really know why the kid had turned traitor. He didn’t know how the kid went from wearing a white helmet to helping him escape. He didn’t know how he survived on Jakku, and he didn’t know what he’d really been thinking when they went on that last mission.
He didn’t know anything.
And that should have made it easier.
It didn’t.
Because there’d been a connection there. It’d started as a bond of convenience but it was more than that, wasn’t it? Because here Poe was, holding some kind of bedside vigil for a stranger while other people mourned the pilots Poe had flown by for years.
He couldn’t bring himself to move, though. The doctors said that Finn was out of immediate danger, but there was just no way to tell how he’d recover. If there’d be permanent impairments. They would have to wait, and see.
Since Poe was so damn good with patience.
All he could do was sit, wait and wonder.
Because he didn’t know what to say, what else to do. He didn’t know Finn.
He just had to sit here and wait and hope against hope that he got the chance to someday.
-o-
(Why, Poe didn’t quite ask himself. He never quite pushed that hard, never, never, never. It was easier to not think so much, to not realize that he could be shallow and impulsive. He didn’t want to think about how it was easier to destroy and so much harder to rebuild.
He heard the sounds of ships being repaired.
Drowned out by the sound of Finn’s heartbeat as Poe turned to leave.)
-o-
Poe had to walk away, of course. He had to be debriefed. That was his duty.
Funny, a guy like Poe, talking about duty.
-o-
“The toll was worse than we’d hoped,” General Organa said with a long, weary sigh. She shook her head, looking at Poe. “I won’t lie to you, this victory cost us more than we might be able to afford to give.”
Poe shifted his stance. What he lacked for reasons, he made up for in pure grit. “We had no choice,” he said. “You saw that weapon.”
“And I also see our depleted forces,” she said. “Our losses leave us at almost untenable levels. I’m going to have to pull troops from a couple of bases to reinforce our core.”
“But that will leave our exterior positions exposed,” he argued, almost reflexively.
“If the First Order strikes our main fleet now, we’re more than exposed,” she replied frankly. “We’re done.”
Poe scoffed. “It’s not that bad--”
She arched her eyebrows severely. “We have no more than a dozen fighters left. Our supplies are holding up all right, and we still have our transports, but our ammunitions reserves are nearly depleted. Not to mention the fact that I don’t even have enough pilots left to man the craft we do have.”
“But General--”
She held up her hand abruptly, shaking her head. “I just want you to understand, Captain,” she said harshly. “That we can win the battle and still lose the war.”
“But we won’t” he started.
The coldness in her look stopped him. “Spare a minute to mourn, Dameron,” she ordered. “And get the hell out of my sight until I need to deploy you again.”
He stifled the argument, swallowing back through his tight throat. With a nod, he saw himself out.
-o-
After leaving his debriefing, which had been less about what had happened on the mission and more about what would happen next, Poe resigned himself to eating. In the mess hall, he heard the gossip immediately.
About Poe’s last bombing run.
About the Stormtrooper on life support.
About Kylo Ren embracing the Dark Side.
About Han Solo never coming home.
Half chewed food in his mouth, it was all Poe could do to swallow without gagging.
Spare a minute to mourn, she’d said.
And that was all she’d take -- a moment.
A moment to mourn the man she loved, the father of her child.
A moment.
Because the Resistance -- and the galaxy -- could spare nothing more for her.
-o-
That was the way it was, then. Two steps forward, one step back.
They stopped the weapon, but the First Order was already recovering. Intelligence suggested that they were regrouping, just as powerful as ever. And retaliatory strikes had been suspected in several outlying systems, and there was an increase in violence against neutral parties.
No one buried Han Solo. No one else visited the mysterious Stormtrooper in the sickbay.
Triumph had never felt so hollow.
And the next mission had never felt like such a burden before.
-o-
(There was always another mission. And another and another and another. Missions were like soldiers, necessary and expendable all at once.
The cause went on.
The cause always went on.)
-o-
For the lack of something better to do, Poe split his time between the hangar and Finn’s bedside. He worked with BB8 to get his ship back in working order, and the pair of them managed to salvage enough to fix up several other bedraggled vessels as well. Several squadrons had been recalled, and they would be here in several days while the Resistance regrouped.
When he needed a break from the technical work, Finn made good company. That was to say, he at least didn’t require Poe to say anything particular and he never complained when Poe was an absolute idiot. He liked that he could tell Finn everything and anything, all his doubts and his fears and his frustrations. It was nice to confess to someone that he wasn’t sure what the hell he was doing half the time, and that sometimes he wondered if this was a war they could win.
Finn didn’t answer, of course.
But, then again, Finn was there. A defected Stormtrooper.
If that wasn’t a sign that victory was possible, Poe didn’t know what was.
-o-
(Collateral damage, Poe had always said. Acceptable losses of life. The perils of war.
Poe had always embrace such as ideals as necessary if unfortunate realities.
Sitting by Finn, he wondered what category Finn fell into.)
-o-
When there are no ships left to repair, the other squadrons arrived. Most people were invigorated by these new additions, but they made Poe uncomfortable. They were friendly enough, and most of them seemed to get excited to meet him, like he was some kind of hero.
Sickbay got overrun with wellness checks, and Poe learned the art of a graceful and expedient retreat.
In his quarters, alone with BB8, he tried to sleep.
He was, after all, very tired.
To his credit, he slept a lot.
And every time he woke up, he was more exhausted than before.
-o-
At the sickbay, the doctor smiled at him. “It’s nice of you to visit,” she observed.
“Well, he saved my life,” Poe said, and it was true. He shrugged, but then fell silent for a moment. “And he doesn’t really have anyone else. I’m not sure it all would make sense to him, the Resistance. Just because he left the First Order doesn’t mean he knows anything about what it’s like here.”
She considered that with a thoughtful frown. “I think you’ve made a decent example for him.”
Poe’s gut churned as he thought about that. “Besides, we haven’t got another mission yet,” he said, trying to deflect.
“Rumor has it that that will change soon,” she said.
“Not soon enough,” Poe muttered, a little more negatively than he intended.
“Ah,” she said, making a small sigh. “It’s still a good thing you’re doing here.”
He smiled at her, and seemed to see her for the first time. “I’m glad you’re helping him.”
“I heal the body,” she said. “It takes something far greater to heal the spirit.”
He thought about that, studying Finn closely. The cuts were starting to heal, and his vitals were stable, but his face and figure remained unchanged.
“Maybe you can take care of these,” the doctor said, handing a bag to him.
Poe took the bag with a curious frown. “What’s this?”
“His things,” she said. “I’m not sure there’s much left in there to salvage, I’m afraid. But when he does wake up, it might be nice if his things were in a bit more order.”
Poe looked through, the blood-stained pants. His own flight jacket, seared with black across the back. “I can take these?”
“I don’t think he’ll object,” she said kindly.
Poe gave Finn another glance, hastily closing the bag as he got to his feet. “Thank you,” he said again, nodding at her as he made his way out.
Poe Dameron, as it turned out, had a plan.
-o-
Most of Poe’s plans were slipshod and questionable.
This one, however, was pretty good.
Even for him.
-o-
Outside of flying, Poe had few demonstrable skills. Despite the General’s best efforts to turn him into a well rounded officer, he’d honestly lacked any skill sets to make him qualified for anything outside a cockpit.
It was hard to remember that he’d had another life, once. Not a life he’d liked, but his mother had shown him how to tend to the house and prepare the meals. When money got tight as the First Order’s hold constricted on their planet, she’d shown him how to take needle and thread to keep their clothes from falling apart for just a few more months.
That threadbare existence was one he’d left behind -- and without regret.
But he could still remember.
Finn made him remember.
Holding the damaged jacket in his hands, he knew this decision was like most of the ones he made. By the time he realized that he was making a choice, he was already committed.
No turning back.
-o-
It took some work to scrounge up a needle and thread. When he tried to explain that he wanted to fix something, everyone just looked at him funny.
“It’s easier to get a new coat,” one of the other pilots told him with an indifferent shrug.
“Easier, yeah,” Poe said with a half-smile. “But not better.”
-o-
(All Poe’s mission, all his success, somehow he knew this would be the task General Organa would be most proud of him for.)
-o-
Of course, it couldn’t all be well intentioned acts of good will. No, there was still a war going on.
And the rumors were mounting.
After enough whispers, the General convened a meeting. Not just of the leaders or even the officers, but everyone.
At the front, she was poised and determined, but somehow the pain of recent events was still evident in her resolve.
That wasn’t what a General did.
It was what a Princess did, though.
-o-
“It’s impossible to say,” she explained, after the reports had been given. “What’s true and what’s not. But the conclusion doesn’t change very much, no matter what you believe. Our situation is dire. The First Order is rebuilding, and it is rebuilding fast. It will see the destruction of its weapon as a sin that can’t be overlooked.”
“Which is why we need to act,” one of the other generals insisted.
“No, it’s time for us to pull back further,” another argued. “We need to regroup, possibly for months. Maybe years.”
“Every second we delay is a second the enemy grows stronger,” the first returned.
“We can’t beat them, not like this,” the second countered.
There was murmuring from the group. Disagreement wasn’t a surprise, not with this lot, but the Resistance was barely holding together sometimes. Now, more than ever. They were at risk of falling apart. If they didn’t find a point of agreement; if they didn’t settle on a cause to fight for.
The General held up her hand. “We cannot do anything without a plan,” she said. “What we’ve heard is all rumor and hearsay, but that’s not the problem. The problem is that we haven’t agreed amongst ourselves what we hope to accomplish.”
“We want the First Order gone!” someone called out from the crowd.
“We want freedom for our families and planets!” someone else said.
“Which is why we must attack!” the first general exclaimed.
“We could relocate even further out, beyond the outer rim,” the second suggested.
“For now, we do nothing,” the General announced.
There was more tittering, this time more discontented.
The General noticed. “We’re too busy fighting ourselves still,” she said. “We’re in no position to do anything until we have solidified our leadership and our purpose and our vision. Remember that the Force isn’t just about Good and Evil, Light and Dark. It’s about balance. That’s restraint, not war or retreat.”
The answer was the one the General always gave, wise and just and utterly restrained.
Poe watched her, wondering how she did it.
How did she talk about restraint when it was her son wreaking havoc on the galaxy?
How did she urge calm when it was her husband that wasn’t coming home?
If this didn’t make her lose her cool, Poe wasn’t sure what would.
-o-
Calm and restraint weren’t in Poe’s wheelhouse, so he did what action he could. Sure, he would have preferred an x-wing with a full payload, but there was something satisfying about watching the needle bring two singed pieces of fabric back together.
He took each stitch slow and meticulous, watching his lines. When he was finished, he cleaned the leather and minimized the appearance with a fabric spanner he nabbed from utility. It took him the better part of a week to finish, but he had to admit, it looked almost as good as new.
Admiring his work, he nodded in approval.
No almost; it was as good as new.
Curious, he slipped it on, to see if it still fit the same. In the mirror, everything look right, but his arms felt out of place in the sleeves.
Frowning, he took it off.
From the corner, BB8 beeped inquisitively. “No, it’s fine,” Poe said. “The jacket’s fine.”
BB8 seemed to have a thought, but he turned his electronic head away.
They both knew that it was Poe who had changed.
-o-
He cleaned the jacket a few more times, perfecting the stitching. When it was just right, he packed it in a bag and left it with the doctor at Finn’s bedside.
“For when he wakes up,” he said, offering a smile. It was meant like hope, even as Finn slept on, hooked up to machines and bathed in bacta. It was supposed to be hope.
It felt like desperation.
-o-
Pilots who weren’t in the cockpit still had duties. There were maintenance checks and reports to write. When things were really slow, there was cleaning and additional onsite security. Sometimes pilots were assigned to count inventory, to prep meals, whatever needed to be done.
The Resistance was small; everyone was expected to do their part.
The other pilots joked about having a second to breathe.
Funny, Poe felt like he was suffocating.
-o-
Counting blasters.
224.
Checking clothing rations.
13 flight jackets, 22 pairs of boots, 123 yards of quality combat-grade material.
Logging the number of processed food packets.
339.
Hours in a cockpit.
0.
-o-
(Hours at Finn’s bedside.
Poe had stopped counting.
He yelled at BB8 when the droid tried to do it for him.
Not all data was worth collecting.
-o-
Calm and restraint, the General had called it.
Calm and restraint.
More like frustration and insanity.
Poe was frustrated -- the opposite of constrained. All this calm was making him impossibly restless. He needed to move; he needed to act. All that they’d lost, and she wanted restraint?
What the hell had people died for?
What was the point of Finn’s sacrifice?
Were they going to let their victory count for nothing?
They were all here, they were all willing to fight. Poe needed to fight.
And he didn’t much care what the battle was about anymore.
-o-
“I keep thinking, maybe today,” Poe explained to Finn, who was still unconscious. The doctor said that he was showing signs of improvement, but Poe honestly couldn’t see a difference. “I mean, it’s bound to happen sooner or later.”
He was attempting to sound rational as he gave voice to the irrational frustrations he felt inside. He had cleaned toilets yesterday. Toilets, while Finn slept and the First Order regathered itself. It made him wince, just thinking about it.
“I mean, there’s a bigger picture, right?” Poe said, trying to sound like he believed it. “And I trust the General. I do.”
Trust, though, only went so far between a General and her Captain. Between a Princess and her Subject.
He wet his lips, looking at Finn again.
“Maybe you can talk some sense into people,” he suggested lightly, patting Finn on the arm. “When you wake up.”
Because trust was hard to give and impossible to earn, but Finn wasn’t just an asset for the Resistance. Not really. He was a friend.
Poe hadn’t really had a friend before, not outside of BB8, and he had to admit it gave him perspective. If Finn were awake, he might be able to talk some sense into Poe about calm and restraint.
The problem was, naturally, that Finn wasn’t awake.
Poe forced himself to smile. “When you wake up.”
-o-
Given enough time on solid ground, it was possible that Poe might break. He might learn a thing or two, even admit he was wrong.
He was close to it, somewhere between stir crazy and unhinged, and he thought maybe, just maybe, this would be the time that he understood the bigger picture.
Not just understand, but accept.
Change.
Poe was a Resistance fighter, but everyone had their limits.
Then, the order came in.
“The General would like to speak with you, Captain.”
Poe blinked, then nodded as if he’d just remembered himself. “Right,” he said. “Okay, then.”
-o-
“I want to be clear,” the General explained to Poe in conclusion. “This is a mission of opportunity. I still think we need to lay low, but the cost-benefit analysis on this one is too compelling to pass up.”
“Of course,” Poe said, nodding his agreement. “It’s a relatively unsecured weapons cache. We could use it.”
“We could,” she said with a grave bob of her head. “But it’s not necessary, do you understand?”
Poe cocked his head. “But it’s an order--”
“To take acceptable measures within reason,” she said clearly. She narrowed her eyes on him. “If things get too dicey, I want you to pull out with your squadron, no matter how many guns you get or do not get.”
Logically, this made sense. “Understood.”
“Are you sure?” she clarified, looking plainly skeptical.
“Of course,” he said, almost too tired to be exasperated by her obvious doubts. “I get it.”
She drew herself back in, wetting her lips. “Very well, then,” she said. “Just remember: we want the weapons, but we need our personnel. Don’t take unnecessary risks, Poe. Not with your life. Or anyone else’s.”
-o-
Logically, the orders made sense.
In the field, when they came under fire, Poe heard one of his fighters explode mid-air. He remembered what the general had told him, about people over weapons and how much sense that had made at the time.
As he dodged the debris, he wondered if it made sense to his fellow pilot before she’d been blown up or sucked into space to suffocate.
The life was already lost.
There was no price to justify that.
But the weapons would help, he decided.
“Go in again,” he ordered, driving his x-wing for another dive. “Let’s get that payload.”
-o-
Of six pilots, four came back.
That wasn’t what the orders had been.
But when the weapons were unloaded, the General rocked back on her heels, giving him a wary look. The reprimand was there, lurking beneath the surface, but as the tactical team swooned over the high velocity launchers, her own resolved wavered.
Pursing her lips, she gave him a short, curt nod. Enough to show her disapproval.
And her tacit consent.
-o-
(She gave him an inch, on this one.
It made him stupid enough to take a whole damn mile.)
-o-
See, inaction was hard on a man like Poe. Caution and restraint -- those weren’t things he knew how to deal with. They made him weak and vulnerable. They made him question everything.
Action, on the other hand, was the ultimate drug. All his doubts, all his concerns, all his vulnerabilities -- they were gone the instant he was in the cockpit. And hell, once he started firing -- blast, blast, blast -- the thrill was enough to propel him through anything.
Poe could take his time, learn a lesson, grow up.
Or he could blow stuff up.
Now that he was given the choice, it was pretty clear which path he’d take.
-o-
Poe knew what he had to do, at least. Missions were all about orders and objectives, parameters and cost-benefit analysis. They were action.
When no one would give him a mission, Poe volunteered.
When there were no missions to volunteer himself for, he actively pursued his own, pitching them to everybody and anybody who was listening.
It wasn’t like there was anything else to do. Finn wasn’t waking up, and he had no clothing left to fix. BB8 puttered around anxiously, and Poe wasn’t about to start thinking again.
“If you’ll just give me authorization,” he said, too aware that he was trying the general’s patience. Too aware but not nearly concerned enough because that itch inside of him was going to be scratched one way or another, and if he didn’t get authorization, he’d probably settle for insubordination when the day was done. “I can do it; I know I can.”
The General wanted to tell him no.
She always did, like she could see what was inside of him, like that scared her in a way the First Order never could.
But this was a war.
And Poe was the best pilot the Resistance had.
“Fine,” she said. “But you know that the boundaries haven’t changed, Captain.”
He nodded, but he wasn’t listening. She was spending her time trying to tell him no.
But he’d already heard yes.
That wasn’t all Poe probably needed.
He’d make it work, though.
-o-
(The boundaries had never changed, probably. Because Poe knew something he didn’t want to admit, something that the General saw inside him with every mission she authorized.
Poe didn’t really want to be a hero anymore.
And he was no coward.
Which left just one other option.)
-o-
He flew faster, harder. He cut more corners, defied more orders. He made a mess wherever he went, and that usually hit the First Order hard.
It hit the Resistance, too, and he knew he came back with fewer pilots every time he took off.
The big picture, though. Poe had to remember the big picture.
Whatever the hell that was now.
-o-
He took a mission a day for a week. Finn had been unconscious for nearly three weeks, and Poe was running out of things to blow up.
So, this time, he took a recon run through a nearby sector.
And turned it into a full on weapons run.
All it took was one shot; the freighter, being minimally armed and not combat ready, didn’t even see what happened before Poe and his surviving pilots scooped up the wreckage for their own benefit. Just the weapons, not the bodies frozen in the vacuum of space.
Casualties, Poe told himself, as he ordered his team home.
Casualties like his mother and his planet and Finn and the whole damn galaxy.
The cost-benefit analysis still favored Poe at the end of the day.
-o-
The General, however, did not.
“You fired on an unarmed freighter,” she fumed, alone with him in the briefing room. “You fired, completely unprovoked.”
“Well, this is a war,” Poe said. “Those weapons were going to another base or another star destroyer -- they were going to be used on us sooner or later.”
“That doesn’t mean we should stoop to that level,” she said. “I’m all about embracing shades of gray in this galaxy, but some things are right and wrong, Poe.”
“Sure, we’re right, they’re wrong,” he argued. “The longer we let this mess of a war go on, the sooner we forget that.”
“No,” she said, holding up a stern finger. “We forget that every time we break our protocols and act just like them.”
“I appreciate the difference, General, I do,” he said, shaking his head in futility. “But what does it mean if we’re all dead?”
She drew back at that, sighing. “What do you think I’ve been trying to tell you all this time?”
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
-o-
They were in lightspeed when the reports were confirmed.
Three planets were gone.
No survivors.
Nothing left to salvage there.
Poe beared down, focusing himself as they reached their destination of Takanado. When they pulled out, he looked down at the planet, green and blue through the atmosphere, swirls of white clouds eclipse the southern hemisphere. BB8 was down there, and the Force only knew what else.
He had to hope against hope that there was something to salvage here.
-o-
There was shocked, quiet chatter throughout the fleet as they came into formation, quickly assessing the planet. Pilots were distracted, worried about the Resistance, their friends and families, everything.
They were scared, and it wasn’t that Poe didn’t get it.
He just didn’t have time for it.
There was a time and place to be scared.
This wasn’t it.
Now was the time to strike back.
“Alright, everyone,” General Organa announced over the comm link. “You have the coordinates, you have your orders. Engage at will.”
Poe leveled down, piloting through the atmosphere with a jolt.
For once, General Organa agreed with him.
-o-
The thing about pilot was that they lived in the moment.
Sure, the Resistance and the Republic were dealt a horrible blow today.
But that was a different moment.
This moment, on the other hand.
Well, this was a moment that Poe was going to win.
No matter what.
-o-
(In battle, all fights seemed the same. The same adrenaline pumping through his body; the same skill as he eased his hand onto the control of his fighter. Shoot the bad guys, bam, bam, bam.
Instinct and skill, diversion and determination.
They were all the same.
Even when he knew they weren’t.)
-o-
In truth, Takonado was theirs for the taking. The First Order didn’t see them coming, and their retreat is short lived and messy. They lose a few fighters along the way, but the First Order flees before they can inflict much damage, Kylo Ren’s shuttle at the front of the force as it pulled out over the clear blue waters of Takonado.
Landing triumphantly, Poe mentally surveys the damage, both to their own fleet and to the civilian population. The buildings had been decimated, but the damage was localized. There was no way to tell how many civilians had been killed or injured in the crossfire, but recovery efforts were already ongoing and looking promising.
As for the Resistance, they incurred minimal casualties.
This was a good win.
But standing on the shoreline, waiting for instructions, Poe looked up at the burning holes where planets used to be.
This wasn’t the time to be scared.
And, he resolved quite suddenly, it wasn’t the time for regret.
-o-
He led the first wave back to the Resistance base, transporting supplies scavenged from the First Order wreckage. His squadron was still mostly intact, and between them they were able to load up on weapons, energy sources, electronics and protective gear. The remainder of the fleet, under the direction of General Organa, would bring any other salvageable goods or people who wanted asylum back.
The tide would turn after this.
It had to.
Poe would fly as many missions as he needed to just to make sure.
-o-
(Hope, they said. Rebellions were built on hope.
Hope didn’t get an x-wing in the air, but it sure as hell made sure Poe got back home.
Hope would take him through the next mission, the next and the next.
Until he ran out of missions.
One way or another, he knew.
One way.
Or another.)
-o-
If Poe had reservations, there were gone the instant he saw BB8 rolling his way across the tarmac. He’d been doing his landing checklist and documenting his cargo when he heard the familiar sound.
Looking up, he caught sight of a white and orange ball hurtling toward him with a friendly bleep.
“BB8!” he yelled, going down to a knee with his arms wide open. “Buddy!”
The emotions flooded back, and Poe readily embraced the droid as it scrambled toward him, beeping happier with every rotation. It had been the right thing, to separate from BB8 on Jakku. Tactically, it had made sense.
But having his droid back to him -- that was better, so much better, mission be damned.
That was his resolution for all of two seconds.
Before he looked up and remembered that he why he’d joined the Resistance in the first place.
-o-
It was Finn, of course.
Battered, weary, and wearing Poe’s jacket.
It was Finn, running toward him, arm extended.
Poe didn’t hesitate, just like he never did under pressure. His instincts were damn good, and he followed them now.
Getting to his feet, he stepped out to meet his Stormtrooper savior.
Failure was sobering.
Success was intoxicating.
Considering Poe hadn’t actually failed, then this mission was looking pretty good after all.
-o-
See, the Stormtrooper was wearing Poe’s jacket.
Poe wasn’t particularly possessive, not of anything but his droid, but the sight still gave him pause as he realized it’s metaphorical implications.
A Stormtrooper wearing a Resistance jacket.
Not only had Finn saved Poe’s life, but he’d somehow managed to protect his droid and complete his mission on Poe’s behalf.
Now, Finn was wearing Poe’s flight jacket, and what the hell.
He took Finn by the arm, lowering his voice as he looked him in the eyes. “We need to talk.”
-o-
(They needed to talk, maybe, but Finn was more than a Stormtrooper in a jacket. He was Poe’s friend, his copilot when things got tough. Of all the trained Resistance pilots he’d lost in the field, it was this one who survived.
This one.
It felt like something had been completed.
It felt like he’d found something he thought he lost.
Something he thought he didn’t have.
It felt like hope
Force help them all, it was hope.
-o-
With the still surging adrenaline and rapidly firing endorphins in his brain, Poe couldn’t bring himself to be scared or worried when Finn told him everything he knew, about the weapon, about Kylo Ren, about Rey and about the First Order’s plans.
That wasn’t why he believed the kid, though.
No, that was something different than biology.
After all, Finn was a lot like him, impulsive and really not afraid of being really wrong. That had been enough for Poe back on the Star Destroyer, when some random Stormtrooper had promised him salvation.
Poe had trusted his word, completely, emphatically, unequivocally.
Standing there, BB8 chirping by their sides, there were probably reasons to doubt him now.
Poe didn’t give a damn about a single one.
-o-
The thing was, Poe wasn’t particularly gifted at this sort of thing. He wasn’t exactly one for nuance, debate and diplomacy. Despite General Organa’s hopes, he was still mostly a flyboy.
Except, for as little as Poe knew, Finn knew even less. Finn might have been the Resistance’s golden goose through all this mess, but no one would know it if the kid didn’t learn the dynamics of a free order system.
“You have to be clear, sure,” Poe explained, not for the first time as he ushered him down a crowded corridor toward the briefing room. “They’ll want the facts, all of them. But you have to be level-headed, too.”
“Level-headed?” Finn repeated, clearly sounded vexed. “I don’t understand.”
“If you push too hard, you’ll freak them out,” Poe said. “But if you don’t push hard enough, then no one will be motivated to act.”
“So you want them freaked out but not too freaked out,” Finn tried to clarify.
“Exactly,” Poe said, slapping Finn on the shoulder. “You have to remember: you have to convince them that what you’re saying is real, that it’s actionable.”
Finn pulled him to a stop, shaking his head. “You’re the one who wanted me to come talk to them,” he hissed under his breath.
“And you’re the one who wanted to go,” Poe argued back.
“So let’s go,” Finn said. “I don’t get what this has to do with the whole Resistance anyway.”
Poe gave a short, incredulous laugh. “You have information that we can use to stop the First Order. Don’t you think that’s important?”
“Sure, give them a file that tells the truth,” Finn said. “They can do what they want with it.”
Poe arched his brows. “The truth isn’t always enough.”
“It’s the truth, of course it’s enough,” Finn snapped.
“You’re assuming that everyone wants to do the right thing,” Poe said.
“But you’re the good guys!”
Poe gathered a breath, finding patience he didn’t know he had. “But we’re all here by choice. The truth doesn’t have the same implications for all of us.”
“All of you?” Finn repeated. “Someone just needs to give an order!”
“This is a democracy,” Poe found himself saying, though the words sounded funny coming out of his own mouth. “We have to work within the system, follow those orders. Otherwise it’s chaos in the field.”
Finn was staring at him, as if he couldn’t make heads or tails of what Poe was trying to tell him. “Do you think the Resistance is ever going to win when it gets slowed down by all this?”
And wasn’t that a hell of a thing to ask someone like Poe. Someone who disregarded orders all the time, who openly questioned them. When he did it, it seemed necessary.
He had to wonder if this put it in perspective, just a little bit. “We can’t become the First Order to defeat the First Order.”
“Yeah, well,” Finn said. “Will you keep saying that when everyone is dead?”
Funny enough, Poe usually did.
He wet his lips, shifting his stance uncomfortably. He was starting to understand this system, and General Organa’s dogged defense of it.
Still, that didn’t mean he liked it.
He patted Finn on the shoulder reassuringly. “Just go in there, and tell them who you are and what you know,” Poe said. “I’m sure it’ll go fine.”
-o-
It didn’t go fine, naturally.
The leaders were debating their way into oblivion when the call came in.
Poe would like to think he was surprised by absolute relief that a mission would push their hand.
All he felt was relief.
Not all battles were fought in a cockpit, maybe.
But Poe’s favorite ones were.
-o-
Poe had his droid, his x-wing and his mission.
The last few weeks had been hell, that much was absolutely true.
And sure, there was impending disaster as the galaxy faced its most pervasive and pressing threat yet.
But Poe Dameron had never felt better.
-o-
There was nuance to the plan; details, even.
Poe knew that stuff mattered.
But for him, he was a pilot. From the surface to the stars in the blink of an eye. And that wasn’t just how he fought in battle.
It was how he lived his life.
Jakku had been a mission full of tough breaks, no doubt about it.
But light speed was just a button away.
He failed one mission.
This one, however, he was going to blow out of the water.
-o-
They lost some pilots on the first run. They lost more on the second. There was no change to the shielding, and Poe had a moment to doubt.
What if Finn’s plan failed? What if the First Order was too strong? What if this was the mission that Poe didn’t come back from?
The what-ifs were too much.
Poe took another bombing run.
Because reality was overrated when you still had a payload to spend.
-o-
And it worked.
Weapon destroyed; First Order base disabled. The Resistance flew away before any of the fighters could track them.
Poe wasn’t so conceited to think that was all about him.
But damn.
Some of it was.
-o-
Not everyone came back, maybe.
But the mission was intact.
Poe had always told himself that was enough.
Until he saw Finn, lying limply on a stretcher.
-o-
Poe knew how this worked. He knew that everyone went out to fight the battle, and not everyone came back home. He’d accepted that, a long, long time ago. Hell, he’d never even flinched, not even when he was the only one who returned from a full squadron upon deployment.
So why did this matter? Why did some kid, some Stormtrooper, matter? Because he’d saved Poe’s life? Because he’d made the hardest choice imaginable for all the right reasons?
Because, for a moment, they’d been more than acquaintances, more than allies?
Because Poe had always had a cause to fight for but he’d never had someone to fight with?
Was it because this was real, this was a consequence, this was the aftermath? Was it because this was an obstacle he couldn’t blast his way through or fly around? Was it because somehow, for the first time in his life, Poe had a glimpse of what it meant to deal with the outcomes of the missions he so brazenly committed himself to?
He wasn’t sure what made this time different.
Watching Finn’s lifeless body, hooked up to machines, he just knew that it was.
-o-
It was weird, too, because he didn’t really know anything about Finn. Sure, he’d trusted the kid with his life on multiple occasions, and he had vouched for him in front of the General and the whole Resistance, but the kid was still a stranger to him. He didn’t know what he liked to do for fun, what he wanted to do with his new-found freedom. He didn’t know if he had a favorite food, a favorite color, a preferred sleeping position?
He didn’t even really know why the kid had turned traitor. He didn’t know how the kid went from wearing a white helmet to helping him escape. He didn’t know how he survived on Jakku, and he didn’t know what he’d really been thinking when they went on that last mission.
He didn’t know anything.
And that should have made it easier.
It didn’t.
Because there’d been a connection there. It’d started as a bond of convenience but it was more than that, wasn’t it? Because here Poe was, holding some kind of bedside vigil for a stranger while other people mourned the pilots Poe had flown by for years.
He couldn’t bring himself to move, though. The doctors said that Finn was out of immediate danger, but there was just no way to tell how he’d recover. If there’d be permanent impairments. They would have to wait, and see.
Since Poe was so damn good with patience.
All he could do was sit, wait and wonder.
Because he didn’t know what to say, what else to do. He didn’t know Finn.
He just had to sit here and wait and hope against hope that he got the chance to someday.
-o-
(Why, Poe didn’t quite ask himself. He never quite pushed that hard, never, never, never. It was easier to not think so much, to not realize that he could be shallow and impulsive. He didn’t want to think about how it was easier to destroy and so much harder to rebuild.
He heard the sounds of ships being repaired.
Drowned out by the sound of Finn’s heartbeat as Poe turned to leave.)
-o-
Poe had to walk away, of course. He had to be debriefed. That was his duty.
Funny, a guy like Poe, talking about duty.
-o-
“The toll was worse than we’d hoped,” General Organa said with a long, weary sigh. She shook her head, looking at Poe. “I won’t lie to you, this victory cost us more than we might be able to afford to give.”
Poe shifted his stance. What he lacked for reasons, he made up for in pure grit. “We had no choice,” he said. “You saw that weapon.”
“And I also see our depleted forces,” she said. “Our losses leave us at almost untenable levels. I’m going to have to pull troops from a couple of bases to reinforce our core.”
“But that will leave our exterior positions exposed,” he argued, almost reflexively.
“If the First Order strikes our main fleet now, we’re more than exposed,” she replied frankly. “We’re done.”
Poe scoffed. “It’s not that bad--”
She arched her eyebrows severely. “We have no more than a dozen fighters left. Our supplies are holding up all right, and we still have our transports, but our ammunitions reserves are nearly depleted. Not to mention the fact that I don’t even have enough pilots left to man the craft we do have.”
“But General--”
She held up her hand abruptly, shaking her head. “I just want you to understand, Captain,” she said harshly. “That we can win the battle and still lose the war.”
“But we won’t” he started.
The coldness in her look stopped him. “Spare a minute to mourn, Dameron,” she ordered. “And get the hell out of my sight until I need to deploy you again.”
He stifled the argument, swallowing back through his tight throat. With a nod, he saw himself out.
-o-
After leaving his debriefing, which had been less about what had happened on the mission and more about what would happen next, Poe resigned himself to eating. In the mess hall, he heard the gossip immediately.
About Poe’s last bombing run.
About the Stormtrooper on life support.
About Kylo Ren embracing the Dark Side.
About Han Solo never coming home.
Half chewed food in his mouth, it was all Poe could do to swallow without gagging.
Spare a minute to mourn, she’d said.
And that was all she’d take -- a moment.
A moment to mourn the man she loved, the father of her child.
A moment.
Because the Resistance -- and the galaxy -- could spare nothing more for her.
-o-
That was the way it was, then. Two steps forward, one step back.
They stopped the weapon, but the First Order was already recovering. Intelligence suggested that they were regrouping, just as powerful as ever. And retaliatory strikes had been suspected in several outlying systems, and there was an increase in violence against neutral parties.
No one buried Han Solo. No one else visited the mysterious Stormtrooper in the sickbay.
Triumph had never felt so hollow.
And the next mission had never felt like such a burden before.
-o-
(There was always another mission. And another and another and another. Missions were like soldiers, necessary and expendable all at once.
The cause went on.
The cause always went on.)
-o-
For the lack of something better to do, Poe split his time between the hangar and Finn’s bedside. He worked with BB8 to get his ship back in working order, and the pair of them managed to salvage enough to fix up several other bedraggled vessels as well. Several squadrons had been recalled, and they would be here in several days while the Resistance regrouped.
When he needed a break from the technical work, Finn made good company. That was to say, he at least didn’t require Poe to say anything particular and he never complained when Poe was an absolute idiot. He liked that he could tell Finn everything and anything, all his doubts and his fears and his frustrations. It was nice to confess to someone that he wasn’t sure what the hell he was doing half the time, and that sometimes he wondered if this was a war they could win.
Finn didn’t answer, of course.
But, then again, Finn was there. A defected Stormtrooper.
If that wasn’t a sign that victory was possible, Poe didn’t know what was.
-o-
(Collateral damage, Poe had always said. Acceptable losses of life. The perils of war.
Poe had always embrace such as ideals as necessary if unfortunate realities.
Sitting by Finn, he wondered what category Finn fell into.)
-o-
When there are no ships left to repair, the other squadrons arrived. Most people were invigorated by these new additions, but they made Poe uncomfortable. They were friendly enough, and most of them seemed to get excited to meet him, like he was some kind of hero.
Sickbay got overrun with wellness checks, and Poe learned the art of a graceful and expedient retreat.
In his quarters, alone with BB8, he tried to sleep.
He was, after all, very tired.
To his credit, he slept a lot.
And every time he woke up, he was more exhausted than before.
-o-
At the sickbay, the doctor smiled at him. “It’s nice of you to visit,” she observed.
“Well, he saved my life,” Poe said, and it was true. He shrugged, but then fell silent for a moment. “And he doesn’t really have anyone else. I’m not sure it all would make sense to him, the Resistance. Just because he left the First Order doesn’t mean he knows anything about what it’s like here.”
She considered that with a thoughtful frown. “I think you’ve made a decent example for him.”
Poe’s gut churned as he thought about that. “Besides, we haven’t got another mission yet,” he said, trying to deflect.
“Rumor has it that that will change soon,” she said.
“Not soon enough,” Poe muttered, a little more negatively than he intended.
“Ah,” she said, making a small sigh. “It’s still a good thing you’re doing here.”
He smiled at her, and seemed to see her for the first time. “I’m glad you’re helping him.”
“I heal the body,” she said. “It takes something far greater to heal the spirit.”
He thought about that, studying Finn closely. The cuts were starting to heal, and his vitals were stable, but his face and figure remained unchanged.
“Maybe you can take care of these,” the doctor said, handing a bag to him.
Poe took the bag with a curious frown. “What’s this?”
“His things,” she said. “I’m not sure there’s much left in there to salvage, I’m afraid. But when he does wake up, it might be nice if his things were in a bit more order.”
Poe looked through, the blood-stained pants. His own flight jacket, seared with black across the back. “I can take these?”
“I don’t think he’ll object,” she said kindly.
Poe gave Finn another glance, hastily closing the bag as he got to his feet. “Thank you,” he said again, nodding at her as he made his way out.
Poe Dameron, as it turned out, had a plan.
-o-
Most of Poe’s plans were slipshod and questionable.
This one, however, was pretty good.
Even for him.
-o-
Outside of flying, Poe had few demonstrable skills. Despite the General’s best efforts to turn him into a well rounded officer, he’d honestly lacked any skill sets to make him qualified for anything outside a cockpit.
It was hard to remember that he’d had another life, once. Not a life he’d liked, but his mother had shown him how to tend to the house and prepare the meals. When money got tight as the First Order’s hold constricted on their planet, she’d shown him how to take needle and thread to keep their clothes from falling apart for just a few more months.
That threadbare existence was one he’d left behind -- and without regret.
But he could still remember.
Finn made him remember.
Holding the damaged jacket in his hands, he knew this decision was like most of the ones he made. By the time he realized that he was making a choice, he was already committed.
No turning back.
-o-
It took some work to scrounge up a needle and thread. When he tried to explain that he wanted to fix something, everyone just looked at him funny.
“It’s easier to get a new coat,” one of the other pilots told him with an indifferent shrug.
“Easier, yeah,” Poe said with a half-smile. “But not better.”
-o-
(All Poe’s mission, all his success, somehow he knew this would be the task General Organa would be most proud of him for.)
-o-
Of course, it couldn’t all be well intentioned acts of good will. No, there was still a war going on.
And the rumors were mounting.
After enough whispers, the General convened a meeting. Not just of the leaders or even the officers, but everyone.
At the front, she was poised and determined, but somehow the pain of recent events was still evident in her resolve.
That wasn’t what a General did.
It was what a Princess did, though.
-o-
“It’s impossible to say,” she explained, after the reports had been given. “What’s true and what’s not. But the conclusion doesn’t change very much, no matter what you believe. Our situation is dire. The First Order is rebuilding, and it is rebuilding fast. It will see the destruction of its weapon as a sin that can’t be overlooked.”
“Which is why we need to act,” one of the other generals insisted.
“No, it’s time for us to pull back further,” another argued. “We need to regroup, possibly for months. Maybe years.”
“Every second we delay is a second the enemy grows stronger,” the first returned.
“We can’t beat them, not like this,” the second countered.
There was murmuring from the group. Disagreement wasn’t a surprise, not with this lot, but the Resistance was barely holding together sometimes. Now, more than ever. They were at risk of falling apart. If they didn’t find a point of agreement; if they didn’t settle on a cause to fight for.
The General held up her hand. “We cannot do anything without a plan,” she said. “What we’ve heard is all rumor and hearsay, but that’s not the problem. The problem is that we haven’t agreed amongst ourselves what we hope to accomplish.”
“We want the First Order gone!” someone called out from the crowd.
“We want freedom for our families and planets!” someone else said.
“Which is why we must attack!” the first general exclaimed.
“We could relocate even further out, beyond the outer rim,” the second suggested.
“For now, we do nothing,” the General announced.
There was more tittering, this time more discontented.
The General noticed. “We’re too busy fighting ourselves still,” she said. “We’re in no position to do anything until we have solidified our leadership and our purpose and our vision. Remember that the Force isn’t just about Good and Evil, Light and Dark. It’s about balance. That’s restraint, not war or retreat.”
The answer was the one the General always gave, wise and just and utterly restrained.
Poe watched her, wondering how she did it.
How did she talk about restraint when it was her son wreaking havoc on the galaxy?
How did she urge calm when it was her husband that wasn’t coming home?
If this didn’t make her lose her cool, Poe wasn’t sure what would.
-o-
Calm and restraint weren’t in Poe’s wheelhouse, so he did what action he could. Sure, he would have preferred an x-wing with a full payload, but there was something satisfying about watching the needle bring two singed pieces of fabric back together.
He took each stitch slow and meticulous, watching his lines. When he was finished, he cleaned the leather and minimized the appearance with a fabric spanner he nabbed from utility. It took him the better part of a week to finish, but he had to admit, it looked almost as good as new.
Admiring his work, he nodded in approval.
No almost; it was as good as new.
Curious, he slipped it on, to see if it still fit the same. In the mirror, everything look right, but his arms felt out of place in the sleeves.
Frowning, he took it off.
From the corner, BB8 beeped inquisitively. “No, it’s fine,” Poe said. “The jacket’s fine.”
BB8 seemed to have a thought, but he turned his electronic head away.
They both knew that it was Poe who had changed.
-o-
He cleaned the jacket a few more times, perfecting the stitching. When it was just right, he packed it in a bag and left it with the doctor at Finn’s bedside.
“For when he wakes up,” he said, offering a smile. It was meant like hope, even as Finn slept on, hooked up to machines and bathed in bacta. It was supposed to be hope.
It felt like desperation.
-o-
Pilots who weren’t in the cockpit still had duties. There were maintenance checks and reports to write. When things were really slow, there was cleaning and additional onsite security. Sometimes pilots were assigned to count inventory, to prep meals, whatever needed to be done.
The Resistance was small; everyone was expected to do their part.
The other pilots joked about having a second to breathe.
Funny, Poe felt like he was suffocating.
-o-
Counting blasters.
224.
Checking clothing rations.
13 flight jackets, 22 pairs of boots, 123 yards of quality combat-grade material.
Logging the number of processed food packets.
339.
Hours in a cockpit.
0.
-o-
(Hours at Finn’s bedside.
Poe had stopped counting.
He yelled at BB8 when the droid tried to do it for him.
Not all data was worth collecting.
-o-
Calm and restraint, the General had called it.
Calm and restraint.
More like frustration and insanity.
Poe was frustrated -- the opposite of constrained. All this calm was making him impossibly restless. He needed to move; he needed to act. All that they’d lost, and she wanted restraint?
What the hell had people died for?
What was the point of Finn’s sacrifice?
Were they going to let their victory count for nothing?
They were all here, they were all willing to fight. Poe needed to fight.
And he didn’t much care what the battle was about anymore.
-o-
“I keep thinking, maybe today,” Poe explained to Finn, who was still unconscious. The doctor said that he was showing signs of improvement, but Poe honestly couldn’t see a difference. “I mean, it’s bound to happen sooner or later.”
He was attempting to sound rational as he gave voice to the irrational frustrations he felt inside. He had cleaned toilets yesterday. Toilets, while Finn slept and the First Order regathered itself. It made him wince, just thinking about it.
“I mean, there’s a bigger picture, right?” Poe said, trying to sound like he believed it. “And I trust the General. I do.”
Trust, though, only went so far between a General and her Captain. Between a Princess and her Subject.
He wet his lips, looking at Finn again.
“Maybe you can talk some sense into people,” he suggested lightly, patting Finn on the arm. “When you wake up.”
Because trust was hard to give and impossible to earn, but Finn wasn’t just an asset for the Resistance. Not really. He was a friend.
Poe hadn’t really had a friend before, not outside of BB8, and he had to admit it gave him perspective. If Finn were awake, he might be able to talk some sense into Poe about calm and restraint.
The problem was, naturally, that Finn wasn’t awake.
Poe forced himself to smile. “When you wake up.”
-o-
Given enough time on solid ground, it was possible that Poe might break. He might learn a thing or two, even admit he was wrong.
He was close to it, somewhere between stir crazy and unhinged, and he thought maybe, just maybe, this would be the time that he understood the bigger picture.
Not just understand, but accept.
Change.
Poe was a Resistance fighter, but everyone had their limits.
Then, the order came in.
“The General would like to speak with you, Captain.”
Poe blinked, then nodded as if he’d just remembered himself. “Right,” he said. “Okay, then.”
-o-
“I want to be clear,” the General explained to Poe in conclusion. “This is a mission of opportunity. I still think we need to lay low, but the cost-benefit analysis on this one is too compelling to pass up.”
“Of course,” Poe said, nodding his agreement. “It’s a relatively unsecured weapons cache. We could use it.”
“We could,” she said with a grave bob of her head. “But it’s not necessary, do you understand?”
Poe cocked his head. “But it’s an order--”
“To take acceptable measures within reason,” she said clearly. She narrowed her eyes on him. “If things get too dicey, I want you to pull out with your squadron, no matter how many guns you get or do not get.”
Logically, this made sense. “Understood.”
“Are you sure?” she clarified, looking plainly skeptical.
“Of course,” he said, almost too tired to be exasperated by her obvious doubts. “I get it.”
She drew herself back in, wetting her lips. “Very well, then,” she said. “Just remember: we want the weapons, but we need our personnel. Don’t take unnecessary risks, Poe. Not with your life. Or anyone else’s.”
-o-
Logically, the orders made sense.
In the field, when they came under fire, Poe heard one of his fighters explode mid-air. He remembered what the general had told him, about people over weapons and how much sense that had made at the time.
As he dodged the debris, he wondered if it made sense to his fellow pilot before she’d been blown up or sucked into space to suffocate.
The life was already lost.
There was no price to justify that.
But the weapons would help, he decided.
“Go in again,” he ordered, driving his x-wing for another dive. “Let’s get that payload.”
-o-
Of six pilots, four came back.
That wasn’t what the orders had been.
But when the weapons were unloaded, the General rocked back on her heels, giving him a wary look. The reprimand was there, lurking beneath the surface, but as the tactical team swooned over the high velocity launchers, her own resolved wavered.
Pursing her lips, she gave him a short, curt nod. Enough to show her disapproval.
And her tacit consent.
-o-
(She gave him an inch, on this one.
It made him stupid enough to take a whole damn mile.)
-o-
See, inaction was hard on a man like Poe. Caution and restraint -- those weren’t things he knew how to deal with. They made him weak and vulnerable. They made him question everything.
Action, on the other hand, was the ultimate drug. All his doubts, all his concerns, all his vulnerabilities -- they were gone the instant he was in the cockpit. And hell, once he started firing -- blast, blast, blast -- the thrill was enough to propel him through anything.
Poe could take his time, learn a lesson, grow up.
Or he could blow stuff up.
Now that he was given the choice, it was pretty clear which path he’d take.
-o-
Poe knew what he had to do, at least. Missions were all about orders and objectives, parameters and cost-benefit analysis. They were action.
When no one would give him a mission, Poe volunteered.
When there were no missions to volunteer himself for, he actively pursued his own, pitching them to everybody and anybody who was listening.
It wasn’t like there was anything else to do. Finn wasn’t waking up, and he had no clothing left to fix. BB8 puttered around anxiously, and Poe wasn’t about to start thinking again.
“If you’ll just give me authorization,” he said, too aware that he was trying the general’s patience. Too aware but not nearly concerned enough because that itch inside of him was going to be scratched one way or another, and if he didn’t get authorization, he’d probably settle for insubordination when the day was done. “I can do it; I know I can.”
The General wanted to tell him no.
She always did, like she could see what was inside of him, like that scared her in a way the First Order never could.
But this was a war.
And Poe was the best pilot the Resistance had.
“Fine,” she said. “But you know that the boundaries haven’t changed, Captain.”
He nodded, but he wasn’t listening. She was spending her time trying to tell him no.
But he’d already heard yes.
That wasn’t all Poe probably needed.
He’d make it work, though.
-o-
(The boundaries had never changed, probably. Because Poe knew something he didn’t want to admit, something that the General saw inside him with every mission she authorized.
Poe didn’t really want to be a hero anymore.
And he was no coward.
Which left just one other option.)
-o-
He flew faster, harder. He cut more corners, defied more orders. He made a mess wherever he went, and that usually hit the First Order hard.
It hit the Resistance, too, and he knew he came back with fewer pilots every time he took off.
The big picture, though. Poe had to remember the big picture.
Whatever the hell that was now.
-o-
He took a mission a day for a week. Finn had been unconscious for nearly three weeks, and Poe was running out of things to blow up.
So, this time, he took a recon run through a nearby sector.
And turned it into a full on weapons run.
All it took was one shot; the freighter, being minimally armed and not combat ready, didn’t even see what happened before Poe and his surviving pilots scooped up the wreckage for their own benefit. Just the weapons, not the bodies frozen in the vacuum of space.
Casualties, Poe told himself, as he ordered his team home.
Casualties like his mother and his planet and Finn and the whole damn galaxy.
The cost-benefit analysis still favored Poe at the end of the day.
-o-
The General, however, did not.
“You fired on an unarmed freighter,” she fumed, alone with him in the briefing room. “You fired, completely unprovoked.”
“Well, this is a war,” Poe said. “Those weapons were going to another base or another star destroyer -- they were going to be used on us sooner or later.”
“That doesn’t mean we should stoop to that level,” she said. “I’m all about embracing shades of gray in this galaxy, but some things are right and wrong, Poe.”
“Sure, we’re right, they’re wrong,” he argued. “The longer we let this mess of a war go on, the sooner we forget that.”
“No,” she said, holding up a stern finger. “We forget that every time we break our protocols and act just like them.”
“I appreciate the difference, General, I do,” he said, shaking his head in futility. “But what does it mean if we’re all dead?”
She drew back at that, sighing. “What do you think I’ve been trying to tell you all this time?”