maskormenacelogs | [closed]

[Poe had absolutely no idea what to expect, from this meeting. If Finn had still been around, he'd be more confident- would have brought him as back up, along with his ability to make ten of himself. But the Porter had done its thing again, and Poe didn't want to endanger anyone else, so he was here. Alone. Unarmed. Planning to meet with an Imperial Grand Admiral.

Fuck, his life was weird.

He drew in a breath, squaring himself, and then knocked on the door.

Here went nothing.]

[He'd been allowed inside, but he hadn't given his report yet, standing at ease but tense. Maybe he'd arrived early and the Grand Admiral cared about punctuality. He didn't know. Maybe this was waiting on something else.

Like that knock at the door.]

Just a moment, Sergeant.

[ Crossing to open the door, Thrawn stood aside to let Poe in, showing absolutely no concern. He did have a very cold look for Poe as he passed - although that was for a different reason. No explanation is given yet either. ]

Uh. Hi, Admiral.

[Not awkward at all, and he stepped inside as he was bade, padding his way into the room - to see 622. He froze abruptly, and then immediately turned back to Thrawn.]

Look, you really don't need to do this, I already told him--

Edited 2018-04-21 18:03 (UTC)

[He remained utterly still until the door opened, jolting him into taking a half-step back. Him. This wasn't supposed to happen. He had his orders not to engage, this wouldn't be allowed, but this wasn't Dameron trying to contact him. Evidently he hadn't know this would happen either. This was the Grand Admiral's doing and he didn't know why.

He didn't know what to do.] Sir? [Please, tell him there's an orderly and rational explanation for this.]

Enough.

[ Thrawn did not raise his voice, but there was more than enough weight behind the word to call for silence from both of the others. Poe staying frozen in the door was his business, but Thrawn took up a position halfway between both, with his hands still clasped behind his back. ]

As you have both no doubt gathered, there are very few of us from the same galaxy. Up until very recently, it made no difference to our collective survival that old grudges from that galaxy carried over. It does now.

[ Thrawn looked between Poe and 622 both. ]

Who is Imperial and who is Rebel no longer matters when all of us have been targeted. You both proved that and so you both will now work together.

[ This from the guy that spent four years hunting Rebels. He does pin Poe with a Look. ]

You, commander, have the chance to prove yourself capable of greater integrity. I suggest you do not waste it.

[Okay. In a week of really weird shit, this was definitely in the top five weirdest things that had happened to him. He relaxed, but only a little, looking around the room as if he expected a platoon of stormtroopers to jump out at him.]

Uh-- While I- basically agree, Admiral, if we're talking about integrity then I need to tell you that this? [He gestured between himself and 622.] This has already had my friends lives threatened. You may not care much about the distinction, and I may not - well, I mean, I care but definitely not as much as I used to -- that's not the point. You might not care, but you also weren't the one who said he would murder my friends if I ever tried to contact 622 again.

I've been ordered by Emperor Hux to inform him or Lord Ren if Commander Dameron attempts contact, sir, [he said, trying to... trying to act like Dameron wasn't there. If they didn't really make contact, then the order wouldn't go into effect and the truce would still hold.]

General Hux. He cannot be Emperor without an empire and there is no Empire here. Whatever title he calls himself, I am the one that called you both here, therefore neither of you have disobeyed this order.

[ Thrawn looks instead at 622. ]

Hux has a grudge of a personal nature with Commander Dameron and I believe this is clouding his judgment and making him paranoid. As your superior officer, I am ordering you to work with Commander Dameron. Whatever personal issues the two of you have should, therefore, be worked out.

[ Thrawn then looks at Poe. ]

Vanto thinks highly of you and so I must trust in his judgment of character. Let me worry about Hux. Here is a chance to prove that your Resistance is capable of better moral fiber than your enemy.

Emperor? [The incredulous word was out of his mouth before he could stop it. Luckily Thrawn got to that particular issue first, before Poe could say the word 'Emperor' three times at increasing volume. Instead, he managed to hold his tongue until the Admiral was done.]

I mean, that's not exactly going to be hard if he's running around calling himself Emperor. He's not even part of the Empire, let alone an Emperor.

[He didn't totally know what to do with his hands, a nervous sort of energy making him twitchy.]

Look, I know I can work with Tai-- with 622. I'm not about to forget what he did - for me and for everyone else - during the attack. [He also wasn't about to forget the pictures that Bodhi had sent him, any time soon.] But I need a little more than 'let me worry about Hux'.

I'm not putting my friends on the firing line just to - just to hang out with one of them. [He was very deliberately keeping his eyes on Thrawn for this. If he didn't speak directly to 622, that wasn't making contact - right?]

[No. Whether this was Imperial space or not, whether there were ten trillion of them or just five, there was still an Empire and he was still a stormtrooper. That was how it was, that was how it had to be.

There had to be a chain of command. Until that was settled, nothing else mattered. He couldn't let himself think about anything else.] Sir, if he's not the Emperor, why is Commander Vanto following his orders?

Edited (whoops prose WHOOPS FORMATTING) 2018-04-21 21:19 (UTC)

[ That is a difficult question. While it had been explained to Thrawn, it came down to a very simple reply; ]

I do not know, Sergeant. I suspect it is familiarity, though.

[ Looking at Poe for a moment. ]

Time is a luxury I do not have. You have some specific thing you either fear or have been threatened with. What is it you are afraid that the General may do?

[Poe pierced his lips, shooting a glance at 622 before catching himself and training his gaze back on Thrawn.]

Yeah. Contact 622, see my friends get killed. I know he can do it. He's done it before. He bur-- he killed one of them, in my first couple months being here. [His face was very grim.

He's not mentioning that he then went and shot Hux in the head. Doesn't really feel like a safe admission right now.]

I can- if it was just him, I could deal with it. We could deal with it. But I'm no Jedi. I can't fight Kylo Ren, and he knows that. He's not kidding when he says he could start a war and he's not - He doesn't care. About casualties.

You can ask him, if you want to hear him brag about it.

[5 planets.]

[His face is hidden behind his helmet, but the slight twitch is as close to openly gaping as a trooper will get in front of officers. That's not how it's supposed to go. You don't run an Empire based on personal ties, that was how criminal organizations did things.

He barely hears the rest.]

Sir, what is the chain of command here?

[ Thrawn raised an eyebrow at Poe. ]

If you are speaking of Mr. Rook, you do him a disservice by saying his person is somehow your responsibility.

[ Thrawn didn't like doing things this but the lack of a fixed time for Porting out and the looming threat of missiles from space meant he had to work within a time limit. At the moment he might very well be burning what credibility he had left with Imperial officers. He had exactly no patience for sentiment. ]

Sergeant, there is regrettably none. If you think of it in terms of being stranded, free of any semblance of military order, then think of all of us as individuals.

[ Thrawn pinned Poe with a Look. ]

Simply tell Hux what I have done. As I am considered an Imperial officer the truce is unbroken. While the truce holds, this conflict does not escalate. As soon as Hux finds out I called you both here he will be far more livid with me. Then assuming the others that you fear for do actually go along with it, have them move from residence to residence.

Kylo Ren would not be the first Force-wielder I've dealt with.

[ Thrawn glanced at 622 briefly. He knew he was on a ticking clock now. But he had explained the purpose for doing this already. ]

Edited (html fail) 2018-04-24 02:42 (UTC)

Bodhi is my responsibility. [All of them were. Every single one of his friends, he felt responsible for. Especially when he knew that he could save or condemn them with his actions.]

And you've - you've met Hux, right? It doesn't matter who's idea it was. There were no qualifiers on his threat. No 'well if an imperial admiral says it's okay, then it's okay'. He won't care. He would be all too happy to take anything I'm could conceivably be seen as doing as an excuse.

There's a lot that I would happily put at risk. But not my friends. Not for this. I sat up in orbit, in that debriefing, across the room from Kylo Ren himself and I am willing to work with whoever I need to, in order to protect everyone, but I am not going to tempt a pyschopath to fuck with my friends.

You 'deal' with Kylo Ren, and then you'd have to deal with Anakin. You deal with Anakin? Then you have to deal with Luke. It's a cascading issue.

[There was a reason he hadn't attempted to just deal with Hux, since Ren appeared.]

All due respect, Admiral. I'm willing to work with you. And force knows I'd be happy to work with 622, but I've put my friends through enough damn grief the last few weeks, without forcing them through more.

That isn't--[That isn't possible.] Sir, I--I was conditioned to function as a part, not--[And that's the same reason why he can't manage to tell a Grand Admiral he's wrong about something. The words just won't come out.]

[Same reason he was still keeping his eyes averted from Dameron, even though there's a horrifying hole in the natural order of things right now. He thought he knew who to follow. Did he make the same mistake twice here? Once with Dameron, and again with Hux?]

[ Thrawn rolled his eyes at both statements ]

Commander, I am not willing to work with you. Your assumption that I am talking about violence against Force-wielders aside, I must remind you that this 'truce' was always unstable because Ren is unstable. General Hux knows this and is taking advantage of it. While both Hux and Ren present significant dangers, you are not taking into account the greater danger posed by OTO and the Phobos station. Because of this, I must do the best I can with the tools available to me. By this meeting alone I have given you a distraction from the target your friends present and with it you may move them away from an imminent threat. You are deluding yourself if you believed there to be any form of 'safety'.

[ Thrawn was already short on patience so dealing with a clone's crisis of identity was likewise handled badly. ]

Sergeant, I do not want to debate the finer points of what consists of Trooper conditioning. If you are not capable of adapting, then I suggest you leave tactics and strategy to those who can and leave now to have a mental breakdown elsewhere.

You asked me here because I, of all people, know pretty damn well the threat that OTO poses to all of us.

[Poe was not a tall man, but something in him made him seem a little taller, at that moment, as if he was drawing himself up.]

And I, out of all people, have been doing my damndest to stop it. Do you know how many of us are in the native military here? Because I'll tell you. It's me. Just me. And with all due respect, sir, I am more than capable of being aware of multiple threats as once.

[He couldn't help the glance at 622 when Thrawn spoke to him, before the turned his eyes back to the Admiral - to the once-Admiral, visibly bristling.]

Working together doesn't include berating your men for something that isn't their fault, sir. We all need time to adjust to this place when we're brought here, some more than others, and if you push too hard you're going to make that transition even harder. [His voice was even, but it was still easy to tell he wasn't pleased. Force. Standing up for a stormtrooper's need for Imperial hierarchy...]

Sir, [His voice was shaking in a way it hadn't since the day he found out who Dameron really was.] I have been trying to leave that to the officers. I've still found none.

[You couldn't selectively be an officer when it was convenient. That wasn't how the galaxy worked. He'd just been told there was no chain of command, and now there suddenly was. He couldn't deal with this. Couldn't.

And he'd been told to leave, so he turned to do so. Any more of this and he was going to lose his mind completely.]

[ Thrawn said nothing, only watched 622. He could point out that he was not angry so he couldn't berate 622. But since Poe would probably take that badly too, he didn't.

In truth, this entire meeting had gotten tense. ]

Commander, if you are aware of multiple threats you should know that it is not possible to guard all your friends at all times.

[ It's not really possible to guard them at all in Thrawn's opinion but he's not bringing that up again. ]

If you still fear reprisal from General Hux, then there is nothing I can do about that. I have given you a course of action that will buy more time. And since it is only borrowed time we all are living on, no more can I do.

[Every step was painful. He shouldn't have said that. He didn't know where to go. What to do. Didn't know what was happening.

He left, speeding up once the door closed behind him, some dumb animal instinct trying to propel him away from a problem that couldn't be escaped. The Empire was broken here.]

[He breathed out, hard, through his nose, gaze flickering between Thrawn and 622, as the other man fled.]

Shit. [The smart move? Don't follow him, Poe. Don't go after him. You literally just spent the last ten minutes explaining why you and 622 couldn't be in the same room, but--

But 622 was in crisis, and Poe couldn't help himself. He raised a finger towards Thrawn.]

I'm not afraid of anything. [Absolutely and completely untrue, but it didn't matter. Pretending to be fearless was half the point.]

Fine. I'll figure out a way to handle it. You should figure out how to handle your shit, too. [Before Thrawn could really reply, he was already turning his heel and heading out after 622 at a jog. Look. No one said he was smart.]

[closed]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

one week later...

Worth the wait

no subject

no subject

no subject

moving up the turn order

Re: moving up the turn order