So who talks first? | Calibrations

[happybeeps]

WHO: Poe Dameron, OPEN
WHERE: Poe's Calibration room
WHAT: Calibrations
WHEN: 3 June - 10 June
WARNINGS: Torture, War, Weapons of Mass Destruction



You step out into a hangar, half sheltered, but open to the air along one side. The sky is blue, and in the distance there's scattered chatter from resistance members passing by as Poe and BB-8 work. Poe's perched atop the broken wing of his X-wing, scorch marks on her belly suggesting they'd recently come out of a tough scrape.

Poe's still half in his flight suit, the upper half tied round his waist, his old jacket sitting off to the side, draped over a ladder rung with care. There's scattered tools and wires to navigate, a makeshift workbench set up with his helmet and blaster abandoned there, next to his data pad which flashes at him with some unread message, though Poe seems to be pointedly ignoring it. Looking quite out of place, there's a tooka doll, not the sort of sentiment one might associate with Poe, and beside it, and old model of an A-Wing.

Comments

[deal_me_in]

Cayde's almost disappointed at that, but he gives the blaster a spin, resuming the inspection he'd meant to carry out with the weapon as though he hadn't just been subjected to a random memory coinciding with the thing.

"No?" he replies as he pretends to take aim at something far off, sounding perhaps a little disappointed at Poe's clarification. Turning back, he sets the blaster back down with care. "So how'd that go? That was a gutsy thing to do."

[happybeeps]

"No so much. Haven't got the cleanest past, but uh...none of that at least," he laughs like he might not be serious, watching Cayde inspect the blaster.

"Yeah, I thought so too, at the time. It uh, didn't work out super great. I got stunned by my commanding officer, who filled me in and what Holdo was actually trying to accomplish. Not my finest hour if we're being honest."

[deal_me_in]

"Well, that's the thing with going with your gut. You're totally convinced it's a good idea at the time. Until something rudely proves otherwise." He glances back up at Poe. "Like what you said. At least you looked cool when you pulled it off. That deserves some credit."

He plays around with some of the tools, trying to guess at what they'd be used for. There's a lot of unfamiliar things here. "So did things work out?"

[happybeeps]

Poe snorts and shrugs a shoulder, "I do have that going for me," he agrees, giving BB-8 a look as the droid rolls by to insist Poe regularly looks far less cool.

"Not ideal. But uh...I didn't mess things up too badly. The General set me straight, and Holdo...she gave us time to get away from the real threat. At least for a bit."

[deal_me_in]

Cayde looks at BB-8, head tilting a little at whatever the rolly droid might be saying, not that he can translate. Poe's look however tells him enough to make him smirk.

"Oh, that's good at least." He wonders what exactly was at stake. With admirals and generals in the mix, he figures it was some kind of military operation. "Why didn't they let you in on the plan before you potentially screwed it up?" he asks, turning his attention towards the helmet, but he pauses from picking it up to look towards the blinky datapad, reaching for that instead.

[happybeeps]

"It was need to know. I didn't trust that they knew better than me." Looking back it seems obvious, though he's not sure he wouldn't make the same mistake again, much as he wants to have learned from this.

He tenses up, watching Cayde's reach shift. "That one's not pleasant-" he warns.

[deal_me_in]

"And they apparently didn't know you well enough to consider how far you'd go," Cayde notes. "Need to know still needs some know and trust in both directions. You survived. And now you all know a little more."

He's already picking up the datapad at Poe's warning. "Huh?"

sorry for some copy-paste between you and tony, lol

[happybeeps]

Abruptly the location shifts, it still seems to be part of this base, but no longer with the clear few that hangar offers. Poe is sweaty and battle worn, and the few Resistance officers that mill about looked equally apprehensive. Poe nods towards the holo file, "Just...play it," he instructs, sighing and placing a reassuring palm on the shoulder of his General.

A blue tinted holo lights up, showing a face Cayde might recognize, General Hux in all his finery, stood before impossibly large First Order banners. Other high ranking officers are assembled behind him, and though they aren't in frame he seems to be addressing his troops.

"Today- is the end of the Republic-"

XD 's cool

[deal_me_in]

It takes him a moment to place the face. The voice is certainly a distinct one. So there's some history with those two. Cayde's aware that some people around here are from the same places, but this one he's just piecing together.

He can't help but frown. Stating the end of anything is never a good sign. Sure, one can scoff at such things, because words are just words until there's something to back them up. From the tension of the others watching within Poe's memory, Cayde can't help but have a bad feeling about this.

[happybeeps]

"The end of a regime that acquiesces to disorder," Hux continues, speech was full of poignant pauses, and his audience is silent, hanging on his every word. "At this very moment in a system far from here, the New Republic LIES to the GALAXY while secretly supporting the treachery of the loathsome Resistance.

This fierce machine which you have built, upon which we stand will bring an end to the Senate, to their cherished fleet. ALL REMAINING SYSTEMS WILL BOW TO THE FIRST ORDER AND WILL REMEMBER THIS AS THE LAST DAY OF THE REPUBLIC!"

There's the sound of saluting troops and the room seems to brace for what's about to come next.

[deal_me_in]

The Exo makes a face. Nothing worse than a high-ranking bad dude who liked to hear himself talk. There's no questioning the feeling behind those words, however.

Now here's a guy who needs to be punched, he thinks. And yet that air of foreboding hasn't dissipated. This show's not over, and he's not sure if it's just the memory itself or actually him dreading what will come next.

[happybeeps]

What comes next is about as bad as it can possibly be, and all of them seem to be bracing for it, knowing the outcome, but needing to see it for themselves.

"FIRE!" Hux shouts, and the view abruptly cuts to show the planet Starkiller Base from a short distance, a red beam igniting and firing out into the stars with a massive force. A different cut follows the path of the beams, where they split into five distinct lines and then- each finds their target, all five planets of the Hosnian system obliterated in a violent and fiery display.

The Resistance members gasp, and Poe squeezes his eyes shut in horror, forcing himself to look back and see what they have done, pulling Leia close to offer her comfort.

[deal_me_in]

"...aw hell."

The Exo shakes his head slowly, the event cutting uncomfortably close to things that could have been, back home. That's too far, to make an example of anything. No one had the right to that kind of firepower.

...and yet it seems it's always the worst kind who manage to get their hands on it. How's that for fairness?

[happybeeps]

The memory fades away back to the hangar and Poe sits heavily on the wing of his starfighter, rubbing at his temple like he can scrub the sight away again.

"That one's hard to shake once you've seen it, I'm sorry."

[deal_me_in]

Cayde sets the datapad down, folding his arms.

"I'd ask how someone can make such a thing under everyone's noses but we had somethin' similar to deal with back home," he says before glancing back at Poe. "That one wasn't mobile, was it?"

His gaze drops towards the floor as he's back to frowning. That was an awful thing to bring back up and he feels bad for it. "...sorry you had to go through that," he murmurs. In person, in recollection. It can't be a thing so easily forgotten, but it shouldn't have had to be brought up like this.

[happybeeps]

"They'd been working on it in secret for a while. We saw some of their tests, but- they kept it well hidden until they fired it. It was uh-...it was a planet. They turned it into a weapon..."

He offers a faint smile in return, nodding his understanding, "You didn't know. Besides...it's good to remember what we're fighting for. I've been here so long, I was starting to forget..."

[deal_me_in]

The Exo looks back at Poe then. "A planet?? Seriously? How the-" It's just insane to even process. The worse thing is that Poe's hardly exaggerating.

"That's sick. There are some sick people out there. We lucked out. The Red Legion had a ship, the Almighty. They go crashing through systems, and once they're done with 'em, they wiped out their sun with that thing. Didn't exactly believe in leaving anything behind." Except space dust. "It was a near thing, but one of our's managed to put the Almighty to rest before it could do a number on our solar system."

He shakes his head again, slowly turning back towards the pilot. "You're right though. You can't forget stuff like that. They're awful things, but they drive you."

[happybeeps]

Poe raised his palms in the air to indicate he really didn't know any better than Cayde. They'd seen super weapons before, but never anything quite like that. Even the Death Star couldn't compete.

He winces sympathetically, it sounds far too familiar a story. "I'm glad you were able to stop them."

[deal_me_in]

"You an' me both, buddy. So uh," Cayde tilts his head. "Please tell me there's a good ending to that whole thing."

The bad thing about stumbling across memories like this is that you have no specific timeframe. Did the mutiny happen before or after? His grabby hands want to wander back to that helmet there but after what he'd seen with the datapad, the Exo tucks them under his armpits as he folds his arms to keep them from wandering.

[happybeeps]

"Dunno yet," Poe admits, "We uh...we blew up Starkiller Base, but...there's only a handful of us left, and last I was there things seemed pretty bleak."

He watches Cayde's gaze and considers a moment. "...If you want a happier one, try the model ship," he offers.

[deal_me_in]

"But you blew up the thingy- that's good, right?" The less blowing up of planets and things, the better.

Things aren't over. Cayde looks down again as he thinks about it. "I hope things turn around for you," he says quietly. He's not sure how he'd sit if he was caught up here before anything had been resolved with the Red Legion.

His head turns towards the A-wing, glowing gaze flicking back at Poe before he loosens his arms and steps over by the model. "Happy's good. I can go for happy," he says as he reaches out to carefully take up the thing.

[happybeeps]

"Yeah, it's good. Should take them a while to be able to build something capable of that kind of destruction again," he agrees, at least he hopes it will.

"I hope so too..."

And then the world shifts again, a young curly haired boy sitting inside the cockpit of an A-wing, settled in his mother's lap as she runs him through the pre-flight. He's unmistakably Poe, and he looks every bit his mother's son.

The starfighter lifts off, giving a good view of the ranch and colony below, and then the jungles of Yavin 4. In the distance you can see the Grand Temple, ancient and towering above the trees, and Shara Bey points it out to her son as she guides his hands. Eventually she lets go all together, letting him steer on his own, and Poe gives a giddy laugh, looking just as at home here in the sky as his mother does.

[deal_me_in]

Cayde finds himself smiling at this one. He also feels a pang of something else, and while he knows sadness is in the mix, he's not sure what else it is.

"She teach you to fly?" They don't have to go through any fancy maneuvers for him to see how good she is. It's in her movement, the practiced flow even as she goes through things with a young Poe in her lap.

[happybeeps]

They're back in the hangar and Poe smiles fondly, giving a nod. "She did. That was her old RZ-1, part of her compensation when she retired," he explains, "Doesn't have quite the kick of the newer ships, but I love that thing."

[deal_me_in]

"Eh, sometimes new is overrated. You can never quite replace a classic," Cayde grins as he gives the model a closer inspection before setting it down.

"Sounds like a nice retirement package. I wonder if I'll get anything fun if I ever retire."