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chapter forty-six: a two-way street
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IT TAKES A FEW moments for Poe to catch his bearings. Indira watches him wrestle with the truth, flickering through every stage of denial and disbelief before landing on something that appears to be close to acceptance. Even so, his face is still screwed up with confusion; lips pursed and nose scrunched as he squints at her. He opens and closes his mouth several times, searching for words that seem to escape him, until finally —
"Why didn't you tell me?" Poe asks, not quite accusatory yet still somewhat wounded.
Indira stifles a sigh before hiding her face in her hands. "I don't know," she admits guiltily, the words muffled. "I kept telling myself that it was because my mother asked me not to tell anyone, but the more time that passed, the less convincing that excuse became. I guess I just didn't want it to change anything. My life was already complicated enough and I thought that if I pretended that nothing was different, it would feel a little more normal."
"Normal," he echoes incredulously. "Indira, you're practically intergalactic royalty."
She looks up sharply and glares at him. "I am nothing of the sort."
"How long have you known?"
Indira frowns. "Since Starkiller," she replies. "Ren told me first. The reason he took my mother —"
"— was to try and get to Skywalker," Poe correctly assumes. "Kriff. And you've kept it a secret since then?"
She hangs her head in defeat. "Yes," she confirms, her voice small. "I wanted to tell you, so many times, but I was just —"
"Scared," he finishes with a sigh, rubbing the back of his neck. "I get it. I mean, I wish that you had told me a long time ago — I could tell that something was eating away at you for the past couple of months — but I get why you didn't."
"It doesn't change anything," Indira says, trying to convince herself more than him. "I mean, I'm still me and I don't even know if I've ever met Skywalker. For all intents and purposes, I never knew my father and I don't know if I ever will. At this point Leia feels more like family to me than he does even though she's only my aunt."
A laugh escapes his lips. "Your aunt," Poe repeats, shaking his head. "Gods, it all makes so much sense now. Looking back, it feels like it should've been obvious. I feel stupid for not realizing it sooner."
"Imagine how I felt," she gripes. "My entire life was a lie."
His brow furrows as he jumps to a new train of thought. "Does anyone else know?"
Indira shakes her head quickly. "No. Only Leia and my mother," she says before grimacing. "Technically, Holdo knows, too."
At that, Poe stiffens. "Holdo?" He repeats. "How the hell did she figure it out?"
"I don't know," Indira scowls, her expression darkening. "She said that she somehow pieced it together while she was serving in the senate — whatever that means."
"What the hell," Poe mutters under his breath, still frowning. "So if you're Luke Skywalker's daughter does that mean that you've got, you know," his voice trails off as he wiggles his fingers at her, "the Force?"
She gives him a helpless look. "Kind of?" Indira replies unsurely. "I don't know — I don't understand any of it. Leia tried explaining it to me, but I just wound up feeling more confused."
"Holy shit," he says for what must be the twentieth time. "This is absolutely unreal. Does this make you a Jedi?"
Indira makes a face at him. "No."
"Are you going to become a Jedi?"
"No!" She scowls. "Can you please focus? None of that even matters right now."
He straightens up quickly. "I'm focused!" He says, schooling his face into his most serious expression. "Really, I am."
Indira resists the urge to raise a skeptical brow at him and shakes her head. "Listen, Poe, I think that Jess and Kali might be in serious trouble. Actually, I think that everyone might be in serious trouble, but I'm especially worried about them."
At the mention of Jessika, he stiffens. "Why?" He asks immediately. "What happened? What did you see? Was it from your dream?"
She swallows thickly and nods. "It was only for a few seconds, but I think their ships were shot down somewhere and Jessika was really hurt. I don't know where they were or what was happening, but they need help."
"No," Poe mutters, shaking his head in disbelief before scrubbing a hand over his face. "No, no, no! This can't be happening right now. This cannot be happening right now!" He abruptly stands from her bed to pace back and forth, tugging at his hair with agitation before coming to a halt. "Did you see Snap or Karé?" He asks desperately. "Anything from them?"
She shakes her head. "No."
"Fuck," he mutters, throwing his hands into the air. "Fuck! I knew something like this would happen. I called it from the start, but no one listened to me!"
Indira stands and grabs his hands, forcing him to slow his movement and look at her. "Listen," she says evenly. "I know you're upset — I am, too — but I need you to calm down, so that we can figure out what to do next."
"What to do next?!" He demands, escaping her grasp. "There is no next until we can figure out a way to make the jump to hyperspace in this hulking piece of junk without being followed, but can't even do that until Rose, Finn, and Stefan disable the tracker — which, with the way our luck seems to be going lately, they probably won't even able to do!"
"I know," Indira replies forcefully. "But I need you to keep a level head in all of this. We can't risk creating more problems when everything is already a mess!"
"This situation cannot possibly get any worse," Poe says flatly, setting his hands on his hips. "It can't. There's no fucking way."
"Actually, it can," a third voice interjects from the doorway.
Indira and Poe both whirl around to find Kaydel Ko Connix standing halfway in the entryway to Indira's room, looking somewhat sheepish as she crosses her arms over her chest. "Sorry," the lieutenant apologizes. "I would have knocked, but the door was already open, so I figured it would be alright for me to come in."
"It's fine," Indira says, waving a hand dismissively. "What's going on?"
"It's the Ninka," she replies, looking distressed. "She ran out of fuel. Holdo had the crew evacuate to our ship, but that was the last of our fleet. We're the only ones left."
"Kriff," Poe mutters, running a hand through his hair so that it sticks up at odd angles. "That's it? All our ships are gone?"
Connix nods, casting her eyes downwards. "It's my fault," she mumbles. "I was the one in charge of the D'Qar evacuation. I was the one who told people to leave the fuel reserves behind. If I hadn't done that, we might have had enough —"
"Connix, don't," Indira interrupts her. "You can't blame yourself for this. None of us knew what was going to happen. How else could you have known about the tracker?"
"I don't know, but I was stupid," she rants, "and now we're all trapped onboard this ship. As soon as we run out of fuel, we're all dead and it will be entirely my fault."
"No," Poe says, crossing his arms over his chest. A dark expression covers his face. "Indira's right; it's not your fault, Kaydel. You aren't the one to blame. There's only one person on this ship who's at fault for this and it ain't you."
His eyes lock with Indira's and just from the look on his face, she can tell that he means trouble. "Poe," she begins warily.
"I'm sorry," he replies, raising his hands in the air in a gesture of surrender. "I'm really, really sorry. I've tried to be patient, but I can't do it anymore. Our friends are in danger and we might be dead in the next couple of hours, so forgive me if I don't give a fuck about being polite at this point. I'm done waiting around and I'm done being left in the dark."
Indira shakes her head. "Listen," she cuts him off, feeling her frustration rising once more. "I agree with you, one hundred percent, but we shouldn't provoke Holdo, Poe. You can't just —"
"No, no, no," he interjects. "There is no we right now. There's no us, there's no plan, there's no nothing. I'm going to get answers. You can either join me or stay behind, but I'm not wasting another second wringing my hands or debating pros and cons. I'm done."
Before Indira can get another word in and explain to him the delicate nature of her and the vice admiral's antagonistic relationship, Poe storms out of the room. For a moment, she is stunned at by sudden flare for the dramatic — although, at this point she shouldn't be. Even so, Indira blinks one, two, three times before shaking her head in disbelief. She couldn't believe he'd done it again; totally ignoring her, blatantly disregarding every word she'd said ... She grinds her teeth together before balling her hands into fists.
"Impulsive asshole," Indira seethes under her breath before scrubbing a hand over her face and squaring her shoulders. She cups her hands around her mouth to shout at him. "You're being a jerk about this!"
"I don't care," he yells back, rounding the corner and disappearing from view. "Testor is in danger and I'm sick of this shit!"
Indira rests her hands on her hips and lets her head fall back to look at the ceiling. "Idiot," she mutters before looking at Connix. "Come on, Kaydel. Let's go see if Poe gets himself thrown out of the airlock."
"IS SHE IN THERE?" Poe demands from Commander D'Acy as he rounds the corner of the hallway leading to the Raddus's bridge. His footsteps are heavy and loud as he walks, echoing through the dimly lit corridor. The ship's lights had been powered down to their emergency settings in an effort to conserve energy and fuel, leaving the hallway illuminated by a tranquil shade of blue, yet Poe feels anything but calm right now.
"The admiral has banned you from the bridge," D'Acy warns him. "Let's not have a scene."
His blood boils at that. "No, let's," he says, pushing past her to storm onto the bridge. "Holdo!"
The vice admiral turns around as soon as she hears him, raising a single perfectly manicured brow in his direction. "Flyboy."
Poe nearly growls at that. With the impending threat of the First Order breathing down their necks and the knowledge that his friends are in danger, Poe has no patience left for games, snark, or cutesy nicknames. He's almost ready to snap.
"Cut it, lady!" He shouts. "We had a fleet, now we're down to one ship, and you've told us nothing! We're running on fumes and your crew knows it. Tell us that we have a plan!"
He gestures around the room to the various crew members scattered around the bridge, including Indira and Connix, who are standing near the back of the room. "Tell us that we're not just running away until we die — that there's hope! Please."
For a moment, he thinks Holdo might slap him. The vice admiral's mouth falls into a hard line, turning her face to stone, before it softens slightly. "When I served under Leia," she says slowly, "she would say that hope is like the sun. If you only believe in it when you can see it —"
Poe sighs and hangs his head in defeat, feeling some of his anger dissipate at the mention of his general. Leia's absence weighs heavily on his heart as he finishes the quote. "— you'll never make it through the night."
"Yes," Holdo finishes, her voice softer than he's ever heard it. It makes it a lot harder for him to be angry with her. "Captain, you have been mistaking rashness for bravery. That is not how I do things. Follow my orders and I promise that you'll see the sun again."
For a moment, Poe almost agrees to surrender. For a moment, he thinks that Holdo just might be telling him the truth. For a moment, he believes that in spite of all her tight-lipped secrecy, the admiral knows what she's doing and that he was the one out of place in all of this — but then he hears something.
The soft beeping from one of the monitors drags Poe's attention away from Holdo. He fixes his gaze on the screen, gaping incredulously as he watches a virtual projection of their fuel reserves being emptied into the various different escape transports on the ship.
"No way," he mutters under his breath, feeling his anger building once more. He looks to Holdo with an accusatory stare. "Are you fueling up the transports?"
When she fails to respond, Poe brushes past her and approaches the screen to confirm his suspicions. "You are," he scoffs. "All of them?"
Still, he receives no response.
"We're abandoning ship?" Poe demands. "Is that — that's what you've got? That's what you've brought us to?"
They were as good as dead now. Poe can hardly believe it. The transport ships on the Raddus would be entirely defenseless from First Order weapons. They were equipped with no shields and no guns. Nothing on the shuttles would be able to protect the people inside them from their enemies. Holdo had effectively left them defenseless and, with all of their fuel nearly gone, there were no other options left.
A wave of unbridled rage and frustration courses through him and Poe kicks over a nearby box of technical supplies. "Coward!" He shouts before knocking over a chair.
He turns to face the rest of the room then, raising his voice to a new level. "Those transport ships are unarmed — unshielded! If we abandon this cruiser, we're done. We don't stand a chance."
Nervous whispers fill the room as the remaining crew members take in the new information. Poe observes their frightened faces and it makes him furious. He had wanted to help these people — his friends and his comrades — from the beginning, but he had been forced to stay out of it. Now, there is a high probability that all of those innocent people onboard the ship will die and it is entirely Amilyn Holdo's fault.
"This will destroy the Resistance," he continues his angry tirade, pointing an accusatory finger in the direction of the stricken face of their de facto leader. "No, you are not just a coward; you are a traitor!"
Having seen enough of the pilot's outburst, Amilyn Holdo narrows her eyes to slits before speaking. "Get this man," she says in a disgusted voice, "off my bridge."
Two soldiers step forward to escort Poe out, but he takes a step back and shrugs them off. He wouldn't give Holdo the satisfaction of watching him get dragged away by her guards. Instead, he preserves his dignity and nods at the guards before showing himself out.
His shoulder brushes against Indira's as he makes his way to the exit. Her gaze meet his — wide-eyed and full of trepidation — but he doesn't have it in himself to comfort her at the moment. Instead, he just shakes his head and leaves her behind. He has no hope to give and no optimism left to share. Their only chance of survival rests solely on the shoulders of Finn, Stefan, and Rose. Otherwise, they'll all be dead within a matter of hours.
THE BRIDGE IS SILENT in Poe's absence. The only sound that can be heard is the automated noises from the fuel monitor, updating the crew about the status of the Raddus's fuel supply. Indira watches as everyone slowly begins to return to their stations, wearing nervous expressions. Although the sentiment is unspoken, the feeling in the air is undeniable: what is the point of all of this, if they're all going to die soon anyways?
So this is it, she thinks dismally. The beginning of the end.
By nature, Indira Beren has always been something of a pessimist. She has never believed in happy endings or fairytales and has always done her best to prepare herself for the worst in life to happen. Even so, somewhere deep down inside, there had always been a small spark of optimism that glowed in her chest despite her best efforts to stamp it out. She had foolishly allowed that spark to trick her into thinking that by some miracle, they would prevail in all of this. She had allowed herself to have hope. It had been a terrible mistake.
Unarmed — unshielded! Poe had shouted. We don't stand a chance.
That had been the final nail in the coffin for her. If Poe Dameron — the most stubbornly optimistic member of the Resistance — had lost hope, it meant that it really was over. Death was coming for them. At this point, it was only a matter of time.
"I've gotta get back to my station," Connix mutters dejectedly. "Not that it really matters anymore."
Indira doesn't try to stop her. She just watches as the lieutenant returns to her assigned monitor, slipping back into position as if she'd never been gone at all. The technician sighs, rubbing her forehead at a loss of what to do. She could go after Poe, but the way he had brushed past her signaled that he wasn't interested in her company and, frankly, she wasn't sure if she was interested in his, either — not after he'd brushed her off so easily.
"Beren," a woman's voice interrupts her thoughts, hissing sharply into her ear. "What the hell was that?"
Indira blinks quickly and spins around, wincing when she finds Holdo standing a few feet away from her. "What?" She asks, not following the other woman's question.
Holdo glares at her. "I thought you said you could keep that pilot under control," she snaps. "His little tantrum could jeopardize everything!"
Indira scoffs. "I'm sorry," she replies angrily. "But it's not my responsibility to keep his emotions in check. And I think he was just a little surprised to discover that you've effectively signed a collective death warrant for all of us with your half-baked escape plan. I can't really blame him for being angry."
Holdo heaves a long-suffering sigh. "You agree with him," she says, sounding almost disappointed at that realization, though Indira doesn't understand why. "Of course you do. I suppose that I shouldn't be surprised, but I am." She shakes her head before looking at Indira reproachfully. "Silly girl, I thought you were brighter than that."
Indira's brow furrows. "What are you even talking about?"
"Nothing," the other woman cuts her off. "But I would ask you to have a little more faith in me than that laser-brained pilot does. You can rest assured with the knowledge that I would never willingly send the remains of the Resistance into a death trap."
"Faith requires trust," Indira shoots back. "And trust is a two-way street. When have you ever given me, or anyone else on this ship, a reason to trust you? Give me one honest answer. Just one."
Holdo sighs again, but remains silent. Her blue-eyed gaze is unflinching as it bores into Indira's, yet she is either incapable of or unwilling to defend herself.
"That's what I thought," Indira replies, giving her a disappointed look. "You can't even give me a single reason to trust you, yet you have the audacity to wonder why no one on this ship has faith in you. In case you haven't noticed, we are all terrified right now! All of us — including Poe — are scared shitless. We wanted to trust you, but maybe you should consider that the problem here isn't all of us — it's you."
For a moment, the vice admiral seems taken aback. Indira wonders if she's spoken too far out of turn this time, but to her surprise Holdo gives her a small, curt nod. If she had blinked, Indira would have missed it.
"I recognize that I have been an imperfect leader and that is my fault," she says with difficulty. "I take full responsibility for it. But I still need you to uphold our end of the deal. I do have a plan and it isn't as dismal or defeatist as the picture that your boyfriend painted for my entire crew a few moments ago. All I need is your guarantee that you will keep my plan from being sabotaged. If you don't trust me, then trust Leia. Trust that she had faith in me and would still have faith in me today, if she were with us. That's all I'm asking for."
Indira clenches her jaw, physically resisting the urge to respond with the snarky retort on the tip of her tongue. Instead, she forces herself to nod just once — for Leia's sake — before crossing her arms over her chest.
"I don't trust you," she warns the other woman. "But I do trust Leia."
Holdo exhales gratefully. "Thank —"
"Don't thank me," Indira interrupts, holding a hand up to silence the older woman. "I haven't forgotten what you said about my mother or the rest of my family and I definitely haven't forgiven you for throwing my friend in jail."
Holdo has the decency to look ashamed.
"Just remember that if this plan doesn't work," Indira continues, pointing an accusatory finger in the other woman's face, "all your secrets and insults and threats will have been for nothing. Our blood will be on your hands. Am I making myself clear?"
She nods stiffly. "As crystal."
Indira gives her a wan smile. "Good," she replies coolly. "I'm so glad we understand one another."
"I get the point," the older woman replies through gritted teeth. "You're —"
"— dismissed," the technician interrupts, giving the woman a sarcastic two-fingered salute. "Yeah, I know the drill."
EDITED ON:
11.08.19