Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Phasma isn’t sure what she was expecting her fate to be after the war was over (You expected to die, AS-1643, the little voice in the back of her mind whispers), but standing here in a slave’s collar and heavy manacles, listening to the New Republic’s newest leaders bidding for her, was not on the list of possibilities. For a while it looks like she will be bought by the cruel-eyed man from New Hosnian, or the sharp-toothed woman from Corellia, but then the young Jedi rises from her solitary chair, the girl who took Kylo Ren’s head in single combat, and says, her voice quiet and yet audible throughout the room, “She is mine.”

There is no argument. The girl is lightning made flesh, beautiful and terrible as death; no one present dares to say her nay. In other circumstances, Phasma might almost be amused at the way the sharp-toothed Corellian woman sits down so fast she nearly knocks her chair over, the way the cruel-eyed Hosnian man tucks his hands under his bottom so he can’t be thought to be signalling further bids. In this situation - well, Phasma understands why they’re so scared of the tiny woman with the quarterstaff slung over her shoulder. Phasma, too, is scared. She knows what sort of torments she might expect from a normal person, but who knows what sort of tortures the Force can cause? Phasma was prepared to go to her inevitable horrible death with as much dignity as she could muster, but this - this sets her shaking, just a little, and she curses her own weakness as the auction attendants lead her off the stage.

Phasma’s a little startled when the Jedi girl looks her over in the antechamber and then says to the attendants, “Take those chains off her.”

“Ma’am,” the attendant starts to protest, and the Jedi girl scowls. The attendant cowers.

“I can keep her under control without chains,” the Jedi girl - Phasma’s mistress, whom she should doubtless address with courtesy at least until the point when the girl starts torturing her - points out, and the attendant nods vigorously and unlocks the manacles around Phasma’s wrists, then scurries out of the room, bowing to the Jedi girl with every other step.

Phasma and the Jedi girl stand there looking at each other for a while. Phasma knows what the Jedi girl sees: a tall woman in a roughly made tunic and trousers, her hair shaved helmet-short, scarred and battered from so many battles Phasma has actually lost count, alive when she should not be - though doubtless the Jedi girl will fix that last. What Phasma sees is a lean young woman - possibly too lean, all muscle and bone and no fat on her - with her hair in an elaborate triple bun, wearing a sort of flowing variation on the plain tunic and trousers which Phasma herself is wearing, a quarterstaff slung over her shoulder which Phasma knows can sprout lightsaber blades from both ends. She’s a good nine inches shorter than Phasma, but doesn’t seem to notice the difference. She doesn’t look like she should have been able to defeat Kylo Ren in single combat, much less as comprehensively and viciously as she did; she doesn’t look like she should have been able to mangle half a Star Destroyer with her powers. But Phasma has seen her do both, and other things besides, has been near enough to witness half a dozen terrifying feats of Force and fury. And Phasma does not know what her new mistress intends to do with her. (Kill her, of course. But how?)

“Alright then,” the Jedi girl says at last. “I have no idea why the Force thinks I need you, but come along.”

Phasma trails in the Jedi girl’s wake, baffled all over again. She has only the barest understanding of the Force - she knows it can be used to create havoc, mostly - and she had always assumed that Kylo Ren’s occasional rants about how the Force wanted this or that were a product of his dubious sanity or a way for him to put weight behind his own desires; but this girl speaks as though she has taken possession of Phasma against her own inclinations, because the Force instructed her to do so. Phasma’s not sure if she should be even more terrified or not.

The Jedi girl leads Phasma out of the enormous building where the auction is being held, down to a wide plaza which honestly isn’t designed for spaceships, where a battered Corellian freighter is parked. Phasma recognizes the ship - everyone in the galaxy recognizes the ship these days, the fabled Millennium Falcon. Phasma follows her new owner up the ramp, stands out of the way while the Jedi girl slides into the pilot’s chair and sends the ship soaring up out of the plaza with a beautiful economy of motion. Even Phasma, who knows very little of ship handling, can tell that her new mistress is a true master of the craft. The Jedi girl sends the ship into hyperspace and stands, patting the console like a favored pet, to give Phasma a long, evaluating look.

“Can you cook?” she asks at last.

Phasma is completely blindsided by the question. Of all the things her new mistress might want of her - that didn’t even occur to her. “No,” she says, and does not wince, though she wants to, in anticipation of punishment.

“Huh,” says the Jedi girl thoughtfully. “Well, I can’t either, so we’re eating protein bars until we pick Poe and Finn up.”

Phasma blinks at her, so baffled she can’t even come up with an appropriate response.

“Bunks are this way,” the Jedi girl says, brushing past Phasma to lead the way down the corridor. “You can have this one; I share with the boys.” Phasma is astonished all over again as the Jedi girl gestures to a tiny, private compartment; and then she processes the rest of the sentence, and gives her tiny mistress a deeply startled look. Poe Dameron is a name well known to the First Order, of course, and Finn is the name the deserter FN-2187 took after his flight, and which he made so famous as to be a curse among his former masters, but Phasma had somehow never bothered to wonder what the relationship between Jedi girl, deserter, and fighter pilot might be. They were her enemies; what more was there to know of them? But now it probably behooves Phasma to pay attention to her new owner’s...preferences.

Assuming the Force does not choose to tell the Jedi girl to torture Phasma to death, which is still quite a probable outcome of this whole confusing situation.

“Refresher down here, kitchen to your right,” the girl continues, gesturing. “Engine room straight ahead of us, stay the hell out of it.”

“Yes, mistress,” Phasma says, almost grateful to have been given a comprehensible order.

“And don’t call me that,” the girl says. “My name is Rey.” She looks back over her shoulder and quirks a smile at Phasma. “Though I understand the First Order used to call me ‘that hellspawn.’”

Phasma gapes. She had no idea that this girl knew about that name - one Phasma never used, because she sees no point in petty insults. “If you wish to be called Rey, I will call you that,” she says, after a moment. Rey nods.

“Good,” she says. “Right. Here’s the main living space, obviously. Med kit on the wall there. Are you injured at all?”

“No,” Phasma says, quite honestly. The auction attendants were very careful to keep all the slaves in good condition. No point selling someone a defective slave.

“Good,” says Rey again. “D’you play holochess?”

Phasma has to stop gaping at this woman. “Yes,” she says at last. “But not well.”

“Well, I’m pretty crap at it too,” Rey says, shrugging, and sits down beside a table with a built in holochess set. “Finn kicks my ass every time. But it’s something to do, and we’ll be in hyperspace another eighteen hours. You can play me, or you can go get some sleep, or whatever you like, I suppose. Stay out of the other bunkroom and don’t break anything.”

Phasma decides that if her strange new mistress is going to give her the option of taking a hot shower - quite possibly her last - Phasma is going to take advantage of that kindness, and retreats down the corridor to the refresher. The water pressure is rather better than Phasma would have expected on such an old and battered ship, and Phasma honestly feels a lot more like herself once she’s properly clean. The auction attendants hosed the slaves down every day, but that was hardly the same as a proper shower.

There’s a clean tunic and a pair of pants laid out for her when she emerges from the shower - and Phasma is reluctantly impressed at how quietly Rey must move, to have not disturbed Phasma when she came in, though come to think of it perhaps she used the Force, which is even more disturbing - and Phasma puts them on. They’re not new, and Phasma thinks they may have been men’s clothing at some point, but they fit well enough to be going on with, and they’re not scratchy and filthy like the tunic and trousers she’s been wearing for the past month, so they’re honestly an incredible improvement.

She ventures out into the main corridor again, ducks into the kitchen and eats one of the protein bars from the covered bin on the counter with the speed bred of nearly three decades as a Stormtrooper, and then, since she’s not tired and suspects that lying awake in her bunk wondering about what the future holds would be just as unpleasant as finding out, she pads barefoot into the main lounge and sits down across the table from her owner.

Rey is looking down at a datapad, frowning a little in concentration. “What do you know about Jedi?” she asks after a moment.

“That they exist, and are the enemies of the First Order - or were, when there still was a First Order; that they are Force-users; that you are one, and that Luke Skywalker was one,” Phasma says after a moment’s thought.

“Mmmph,” says Rey. “Well, you’re not wrong. Mostly.”

“...Mostly?” Phasma asks, against her better judgement.

“I’m not a Jedi,” Rey says, not looking up from her datapad. Phasma blinks at her in renewed bafflement. “Master Luke tried to make me one, but Jedi must forsake all attachments and devote themselves entirely to the Force. I told him I wouldn’t give up Finn and Poe for anything, so I’m not a Jedi. Neither is Finn. We’re something else.” She shrugs. “He still trained us, because we were all he had. But I think he was sad that the Jedi Order would die with him. So we’re doing something about it, me and Finn and Poe. The Force wants us to, and these days, when the Force speaks, I listen.” She looks up and meets Phasma’s eyes squarely, and Phasma shivers at the depth of calm conviction in those eyes, like brown stones, harder than durasteel.

“The Force told me you would be useful to us,” Phasma’s owner says calmly. “Though I do not yet know how.”

Chapter Text

Phasma does end up playing holochess with Rey, because as Rey pointed out there’s not much to do while the ship hums through hyperspace. They’re about evenly matched, as it happens, and Phasma loses the first game and wins the second before retreating to her bunk and sleeping the sleep of the exhausted and deeply confused. She does not dream, which is a pleasant surprise. She has woken up, in previous days, screaming with the memories of fire and death. While she is awake, she can ignore her memories, tell herself they are the price of war; but when she sleeps, she does not have the same durasteel control.

She eats another protein bar when she wakes, deduces from the closed door to the other bunk and the empty living space that Rey is sleeping, and takes the opportunity to do a slightly abbreviated set of exercises and then shower. When she comes out of the shower, Rey has emerged from her bunk and is sitting in the pilot’s seat, watching the readouts carefully. Phasma sits down in the living area and composes herself to wait. She is good at that. Being a Stormtrooper involves a great deal of waiting.

It’s not very long - perhaps half an hour - before Rey says, softly, “Ah-ha,” and pulls a lever. The ship falls out of hyperspace without a wobble. Phasma is impressed. There were pilots in the First Order who could not have managed that, and no pilot in the First Order was anything but skilled.

There is another ship waiting for them, in whatever system they have reached, a tiny little two-person transport which zips up to the side of the Falcon and into the cargo bay when Rey pushes the button to open the doors. Phasma, considering relative sizes, realizes that the cargo bay must be only very slightly larger than the transport, and that therefore the transport’s pilot must be an extraordinarily talented one - ah. Of course. Poe Dameron, best pilot in the Resistance.

The man himself comes trotting up the corridor from the cargo hold moments later, with FN - with Finn hard on his heels and a tiny orange-and-white droid whirring along behind them. Rey leaps out of the pilot’s chair and goes hurtling across the main living area into her lovers’ arms, making a high-pitched and surprising noise of glee. Poe catches her and spins her around, then puts her down and bends her back in a deep kiss; Rey laughs against his mouth and bats at his shoulder until he lets her up, then whirls into Finn’s embrace and kisses him enthusiastically. Finn cups her face in his hands and kisses back so sweetly Phasma has to look away; the little droid warbles something that definitely sounds like approbation.

“We missed you, dearest,” Finn says when he lets her go. “Did you do what you needed to?”

“Yep,” Rey says cheerfully, and gestures towards Phasma. Finn and Poe turn to look at her. There’s a long pause.

“Sweetheart,” Poe Dameron says after a few minutes, “you didn’t mention that the Force wanted you to acquire her.”

“I didn’t know until I got there,” Rey says, a little sulkily. “And then it was very insistent.”

“Well,” says Poe. “It’s not that I’m arguing with the will of the Force, sweetheart, but I also don’t particularly care to be murdered in my bed.”

“You won’t be,” Rey says, smiling a little. “If she starts thinking about doing us harm, I’ll know. Don’t worry.”

There is another brief pause, in which Phasma finds herself exchanging a glance with Poe Dameron which says, quite clearly, Well, that’s the creepiest thing I’ve heard in a while. It’s very strange to be agreeing with an enemy about anything, but Phasma and Poe Dameron are apparently in full agreement about this. And Phasma’s not entirely sure Poe Dameron is her enemy at the moment. The First Order is gone, after all, and Phasma is Rey’s property. Presumably that means she should be at the very least polite to Rey’s lovers.

“Good to know!” Poe says after a moment. “Now, am I right in guessing that you have been subsisting entirely on protein bars for the last few days?”

Rey shrugs. Poe sighs. “Off to the galley with me, then,” he says, brushing a kiss over her cheek. “Got some new spices I think you’ll like.” And he goes sauntering off down the corridor to the kitchen, droid following him closely.

Finn leans back against the wall, observing Phasma carefully. After a long moment he shrugs. “Yeah, okay,” he says to Rey. “I see it. Don’t know what the Force wants with her, but I see it.”

“Oh good,” Rey says. “Come help me set a course - I had an inspiration last night.”

“Second star to the left?” Finn asks as he follows her into the cockpit. Phasma raises an eyebrow at the nonsense, but Rey bounces happily.

“Yes, precisely!” she says gleefully, and they bend over the console together. Phasma decides to leave them to it, and takes herself down to the kitchen, where Poe Dameron is cutting up some sort of vegetable and humming to himself. His droid is plugged into a charging compartment in the corridor outside.

“May I assist you?” Phasma asks carefully. Poe glances at her, then shrugs.

“Sure. Stir the pot, please.” Phasma obeys. There’s a long but not terribly uncomfortable silence, broken only by Poe’s humming - Phasma doesn’t recognize the song - and then Poe says, as the ship shivers into hyperspace again, “So, are they navigating by instinct and the Force again?”

“So far as I could tell, yes,” Phasma confirms. Poe sighs.

“I’d be more freaked out, but we do always end up somewhere interesting,” he says. “Usually somewhere with Jedi artifacts. But I can’t watch them set the course - it’s too jarring.”

“I agree,” Phasma says, nodding. Poe barks a laugh.

“You know, if someone had told me as recently as yesterday that I would be agreeing with Captain Phasma about - well, anything - I would have laughed in their face,” he says amiably.

“I am not a Captain anymore,” Phasma points out. “I am a slave.”

Poe grimaces. “Okay, yes, fair,” he says after a moment. “Leia tried to prevent that, you know.”

Phasma looks at him blankly. Poe sighs.

“She said slavery was an abomination, and we were better than that. Said putting you in prison would be right and proper, after a fair trial and a just conviction, but slavery was one of the things the New Republic stood against. She got shouted out of the Senate. I was watching. Didn’t matter what she said after that, they weren’t going to listen to her.” He slices a green vegetable with more vigor than is perhaps needed. “She saved all their asses, her and the Resistance, and they wouldn’t listen to a word she said.”

Phasma considers this while she stirs the pot, Poe adding vegetables to it as he slices them. She had not been aware that anyone had spoken against her enslavement. She’s not sure how she feels about it, now that she knows. Would long years in prison have been preferable to her current fate?

Well, they’d have been preferable to being tortured to death, which is definitely what is going to happen to all the other captured officers. Phasma is just lucky enough that apparently the Force wants her for something and Rey was willing to listen.

“Why?” she asks finally, baffled. “Why did she argue that? The First Order was her enemy.”

“Yes, I know,” Poe says, grimacing. “You killed her son and her husband and her brother - not you you, but the First Order. You nearly destroyed the Republic she’d spent her life rebuilding. And she still argued for justice. I don’t know; I’m not as good a person as she is. I would have had you all lined up and shot.”

“That would still have been kinder,” Phasma points out, and Poe sighs.

“Unfortunately true,” he says glumly. “Maybe whatever the hell the two mad creatures I’m in love with are up to will help - I don’t know. Restore sanity to the galaxy.”

“What are they doing?” Phasma asks. Poe shrugs.

“At the moment? They’re hunting down Force artifacts. Got ‘em all in the other hold. I don’t go down there - damn things thrum. I think when they’ve got enough - whatever enough is, don’t ask me - they’re going to try to find a place to settle down, maybe put together a new Order. Like the Jedi Order, I mean, not yours. Only not Jedi.”

“Rey said she was not a Jedi,” Phasma agrees. “Why do you follow them?”

Poe gives her a long look. “Because I love them,” he says quietly. “Because as mad as they are, they make the galaxy a better, brighter place. Understand me, Phasma: I would die for them in a heartbeat. I would kill for them, and I have. Do not think that because I understand they are quite insane I will turn my back on them. They’re Force-ridden, and they do its bidding; and where they lead, I follow.”

“I understand,” Phasma says solemnly, and she does. If she had wanted to try to overpower the madwoman who owns her, to turn this ship away from its insane quest and go somewhere isolated and peaceful, she would not be able to count on this man’s alliance. But, she is rather surprised to find, she does not. She had a purpose, not too long ago, and then it was taken from her. She is not comfortable without it; she feels rather like a small crab without its shell, naked and helpless in the wash of the ocean. Even if her owner’s quest is mad and doomed to failure, it is a purpose, and one which apparently wants Phasma. Building an order of Light-side Force users in a galaxy made mad and cruel by war is, perhaps, a purpose which will see Phasma dead sooner rather than later, but it is a purpose.

“I, too, will follow Rey,” she tells Poe. “What else is left for me to do?”

Poe snorts a laugh, one Phasma thinks is more kind than mocking. “Fair enough,” he admits. “Here, let me tip this cutting board in.” He adds more vegetables to the pot, and Phasma stirs obediently. Whatever it is, it smells good. Perhaps she’ll even be allowed to eat it.

*

She is, in fact, allowed and encouraged to eat the spiced vegetable mixture and the accompanying flatbread, and finds it tastes as good as it smells. She observes her companions closely during the meal, because frankly their behavior is like nothing she’s ever seen before. In the First Order, the Stormtroopers ate quickly and quietly, in tidy rows on their benches, with little or no conversation on pain of pain. The officers ate rather better than the common troops, but meals in the officers’ mess tended to be full of subtle insults and vicious accusations veiled in polite words; Phasma often ate with the Stormtroopers just so as to avoid the poisonous atmosphere in the officers’ mess. Better bland food in a calm setting than good food seasoned with endless bile.

Neither of those experiences has prepared her for the easy camaraderie of her current company.

“So what have you been doing while I was off in New Hosnia?” Rey asks once she’s devoured a really remarkable amount of vegetable mixture and bread. “Other than each other, I mean.”

Poe grins at her. It’s quite a remarkable grin, somehow managing to combine lechery and good humor. “Well, that cuts about eighty percent of the story out,” he says. Rey whacks him with her napkin, very softly, and he laughs.

“We spent a day at Maz’s,” Finn says, shaking his head at them and smiling indulgently. “Got plenty of gossip, and she says she’ll send word if she sees anything we need to know about. She’s got the tavern just about rebuilt. New statues everywhere.”

Rey giggles.

“Went shopping,” Poe says cheerfully. “Got spices, some new clothes for all of us, a couple interesting holobooks - oh, and this.” He pulls a sheathed knife out of his pocket and hands it to Rey, who unsheathes it gleefully and examines the blade with immense interest. “Water steel.”

“You bring me the best things,” Rey says contentedly.

“Still not as impressive as Kylo Ren’s head on a stick,” Poe says. Phasma blinks. That’s what Rey did with Kylo Ren’s head?

“Or General Hux’s,” Finn adds, looking a little dreamy.

Rey looks smug.

Chapter Text

Rey brings the ship out of hyperspace again in a system Phasma does not recognize - but then, Phasma is not trained as an astrogator, and there are few enough systems she knows by sight. Poe, though, squints up at the stars and then looks down at his little droid. “What d’you think, buddy, we out near Mirial?” he asks.

The droid warbles something, and Poe looks startled. “Telos, really? I thought that was a myth. Huh.” He looks out at the stars again. Phasma watches Rey and Finn steer the ship; they aren’t really looking out the front window at all. Indeed, Finn actually has his eyes closed, and is murmuring something. Phasma leans forward.

“...not the second, either,” she hears. “I think - I think the fourth one. Do you feel it?”

“Yes,” Rey breathes, the word almost inaudible. “Yes, the fourth one. Northern hemisphere.”

The ship swoops towards the fourth world in the system, flashing past an asteroid belt at dizzying speed. Poe claps a hand over his eyes. Phasma sympathizes. “Left,” Finn murmurs. “Left again - up a little - there!”

Rey sends the Falcon shrieking down into the fourth world’s atmosphere without hesitation. Phasma grabs the seat beneath her and clenches her teeth so she won’t scream in shock and more than a little fear - surely landing at this speed is not safe. But bare kilometers above the world’s surface the ship slows, turns, slows again, and settles to the earth as gently and silently as a feather.

Phasma breathes out and wants very badly to let herself slump back against the wall in relief. She doesn’t, because the only thing she still owns is her self-control, but she wants to. Poe takes his hand away from his eyes carefully, and Phasma sees him breathe a long sigh of relief.

“So,” he says, and Phasma thinks he’s trying hard to sound jovial, “are we there yet?”

“Yep!” Finn says cheerfully, hopping out of the copilot’s seat and offering Rey a hand up, which she takes. “There’s something here. You coming?”

“Do you need me?” Poe checks.

Rey hums. “Well, we always need you,” she says thoughtfully, “but actually I think - I think today will go better if we bring Phasma.”

“Fair enough,” Poe says. “BB and I will mind the store, then, while you three go have adventures in yet another abandoned temple.” He waves out the front window at the looming, vine-covered hulk of what Phasma can see, now, is in fact an ancient temple of some sort. Probably a Jedi temple, given what little she knows about the mad quest her mistress is on.

“Sounds good,” Finn says, and crosses the living area to a locker Phasma has not investigated - the large lock on it is probably a good sign that it’s not meant for her - opening it with a flourish and retrieving a pair of blasters. He tosses one to Phasma, and she catches it automatically, then blinks at him in confusion. She is their slave - why is he giving her a blaster?

“You can’t actually hit us,” Finn says, smiling thinly at her. “So don’t bother thinking about it. But temples like this often have dangerous things living in them, and since the Force says we need you, I’d prefer not to get you killed.”

Phasma nods, checks the blaster and straps it to her hip with practiced motions. She won’t say so, but having a weapon makes her much happier. She’s felt naked without her accustomed armaments - far nakeder than she did when she was stripped by her captors. She is a warrior, and she is meant to hold the implements of war in her scarred hands.

“Let’s go find an artifact, then,” Rey says cheerfully, and leads the way out of the ship, quarterstaff held easily in one slender hand. Finn and Phasma fall in behind her, and Phasma glances back to see Poe and his droid standing in the doorway, framed for a long moment before Poe nods and slaps the switch that closes the ramp, sealing the ship. Sensible.

The jungle is raucous with sound around their little party, creatures that Phasma cannot name calling in every note and pattern imaginable, and the ground is soft and spongy beneath Phasma’s rather ill-made boots. The sightlines are horrible, too; Phasma would be just as happy to have burnt a nice wide clearing to land in, because if something comes out of the trees right now, she’s going to have maybe a second or two to notice and respond. And the temple, as they approach it, turns out to be so crumbled by the years and the encroaching jungle that Phasma will frankly be astonished if it doesn’t collapse on their heads.

But Finn and Rey go up the leaf-slippery broken steps without a pause, so Phasma follows. The entranceway to the temple is dim and cool after the oppressive humid heat of the jungle outside - cooler than Phasma thinks can be explained by the stone walls and the shade, which worries her - but the dimness makes the treacherous footing even more dangerous. Great slabs of stone are cracked and shattered, tree roots poking up through the floor just waiting for an unwary foot, and Phasma watches her owner and her former soldier half-dance gracefully over the broken floor and decides that the Force must be helping them, because they aren’t watching their footing at all.

Phasma has no such help, and so she keeps a careful eye out for trouble.

*

Finn and Rey lead Phasma deeper and deeper into the temple, into corridors which would be entirely dark except for the broken walls and roofs that let the sun shine through, past chambers so battered by time and elements that Phasma cannot glean even an idea of what they might have been used for in years gone by, until at last they enter what must, undoubtedly, have been the inner sanctum. It is a vast hall, longer than the Falcon, and Phasma suspects it had a vaulted ceiling once, but now that ceiling has fallen, leaving blocks of shattered rubble scattered across the floor. Phasma hesitates in the doorway: the enormous stone blocks provide cover for anything that might be lurking in the room, and the uneven terrain is going to be a nightmare to cross. But Finn and Rey don’t stop. Their goal is, as far as Phasma can tell, the altar at the other end of the long room, and it seems to draw them forward inexorably. Phasma’s not even sure they see the obstacles in their way, their attention is so focused. That’s...worrying. Phasma draws her blaster and trots after them. If there’s going to be an ambush, it will be here.

And sure enough, Rey and Finn are about halfway across the hall, Phasma ten paces behind them, when there is a deafening, echoing roar which seems to come from every corner of the room at once, and while the two Force-users are still distracted both by the roar and by the lure of whatever artifact is calling them from the altar, a creature leaps from its hiding place among the tumbled stones. Phasma’s not sure what it is, honestly; it’s big and clawed and fanged, and it’s aiming for the people she’s duty-bound to protect, ignoring her - perhaps it thinks her less dangerous, since she has no trace of the Force about her.

Phasma shoots three times before it lands, and so what hits the ground in front of Rey is not a live and hungry predator but a tangled heap of fur and scorched flesh, dead as the stone around it.

“Huh,” says Finn thoughtfully, looking at what remains of the creature. “You know, I thought maybe I was misremembering how fast you were with a blaster, Phasma.”

“You weren’t,” Phasma says shortly. There are a lot of reasons why she rose from the ranks of faceless, nameless Stormtroopers to gain herself a name and a command. One of them is that there has never been a Stormtrooper faster than she is with a blaster, or more accurate. The closest anyone ever came was Finn himself, who was a bare half a point slower in the competition six months before he defected. Phasma was planning to see if he could make officer, someday, with scores like that.

He sort of did, the dry voice in the back of her mind observes, and Phasma, remembering seeing Finn at the head of an entire squad of Resistance commandos, cutting their way through battalions of her best Stormtroopers like a lightsaber through - well, anything - represses a snort of dry amusement. The Resistance officers were smart enough to see Finn’s quality.

“There aren’t any more of them,” Rey says, and Phasma glances over to see that Rey is glowing slightly. “But we shouldn’t have missed that one, either.” She sounds irritated, mostly with herself.

Finn pats her on the shoulder. “That’s why we brought Phasma,” he points out, and nods respectfully to Phasma. “These artifacts, they’re...they sing,” he explains quietly, and Phasma frowns a little, concentrating on his words. “Makes it hard to hear anything else - or - hear isn’t the right word. To feel anything else in the Force. That’s why we always bring Poe - or you, now. Or Chewbacca, back before he retired. Got to have someone who can’t hear it along.”

“Sensible,” Phasma agrees. “Does this happen to all Force-users?”

Rey sighs. “As far as we know,” she says, sounding very sad. “But then, we’ve really only got ourselves to go on.”

“Ah,” says Phasma, unable to think of anything else, and Rey shakes herself and shrugs and sets off across the broken floor to the altar, Finn on her heels. Phasma follows them slowly, keeping her blaster out and watching every direction as well as she can. Rey might say there aren’t any other creatures here, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be, sooner or later. And Phasma hasn’t lived this long by being complacent.

So she’s only got half an eye on her companions as they approach the altar, and at first she thinks she’s just not seeing correctly as Rey reaches, impossibly, into the stone of the table. But Rey’s hand emerges clenched around an - object is the closest Phasma can get to a description. It’s angular and sinuous at the same time, mottled in half a dozen iridescent colors, and Phasma has no idea what it could possibly be used for - for all she knows, it’s an eating utensil for a type of alien she’s never seen. But Rey, cradling the thing in her hand, seems eminently satisfied. Finn leans over to trace a finger over the object, as gently as though it were fragile - though surely it can’t be, if it’s survived this long embedded in the altar of a crumbling temple.

“That’s what’s been calling us, alright,” he confirms quietly. “Can you shield it till we get back to the ship, or d’you want me to take it?”

“I can do it,” Rey says firmly, and closes her hand around the object. Phasma suddenly and abruptly ceases to have any interest in it - indeed, she can barely bring herself to look at Rey’s closed hand before her eyes are wandering again to anything else in the room, even the smallest broken stone seeming vastly more fascinating than whatever Rey is holding.

“Sorry,” Finn says, smiling apologetically at Phasma. “But we found out the hard way it’s safer to keep them shielded.”

Phasma nods curtly. She does not like having her mind tampered with, even so mildly as this, but she can see the rationale behind it. “We should return to the ship,” she says, instead of any of the other myriad things crowding her mind, and Finn nods.

The return trip, thankfully, is far less eventful, and Rey vanishes down a hallway to the cargo hold as soon as they set foot in the ship, returning moments later with empty hands. Phasma is somewhat grateful that the strange shielding effect is gone. She does not like being forcibly rendered unaware of any part of her environment.

“Disconcerting as hell, isn’t it?” Poe says quietly as Rey and Finn pilot the ship up off of the planet and back into hyperspace. “That notice-me-not trick, I mean.”

“It is valuable and sensible,” Phasma says, then grimaces a little. “And disconcerting.”

“She did it with the whole ship once,” Poe says thoughtfully. “During the war. We had a cargo - nevermind what - that we couldn’t let your lot get their hands on, and there was a blockade where we didn’t expect one. She hid us for three hours, and then she slept for a week. Apparently it takes a lot out of her. But we made it through.”

Phasma can’t help smiling a little. “Well,” she says slowly, “that does explain something I’ve been wondering about for a while. We caught you on the scanners, you know, and for months every officer in the First Order was having fits trying to figure out how every person on every bridge just didn’t see what their computers were telling them. There weren’t even any executions - it was too clear that something strange had happened. We had to recondition half of them, though - they kept pulling false alarms, saying they thought they didn’t see something.”

Poe laughs hard enough that he has to sit down.

Chapter Text

The weeks pass quickly after that, and Phasma starts to get used to her strange new - owners? Companions? There doesn’t seem to be a good term for this strange, forced association. And Phasma still has no idea why the Force, in its infinite and ineffable wisdom, wants Phasma along with Rey and Finn and Poe in their mad quest. Oh, she’s been helpful more than once, between her marksmanship and her knowledge of the areas previously held by the First Order, but not so helpful as they couldn’t have managed on their own.

She is most comfortable, to her own vague surprise, in Poe’s company. He is teaching her to cook, that being something they can do while not watching Rey and Finn steer them through hyperspace by guesswork and intuition, and he is a garrulous teacher. Phasma learns a great deal just from listening, and also discovers that Poe will answer very nearly any question that she asks.

“So what is the Force?” she ventures one evening while Poe is fussing over a casserole. Poe laughs.

“Damn if I know,” he says. “Rey says it’s like sunlight, pouring over and through everything, and you need it to live but too much of it kills you sure as a blaster bolt. Finn says it’s the music of everything in the universe singing.” He shrugs. “I’m about as Force-sensitive as BB-8, though. I have no kriffing idea what it is or how it works, except that apparently it wants something, and it’s my beloveds who’ve been drafted to do it.”

“You don’t like it,” Phasma says, startled.

“I don’t trust it,” Poe corrects her. “Anything that has a mind of its own has motivations of its own, and the Force clearly does want things. I don’t know what its endgame is, though. All I know is that it was just as easy for Kylo Ren to use the Force to turn my mind inside-out as it is for my lovers to use it for - um. Other things.” His ears go pink, and Phasma thinks about that for a moment and then feels herself flushing lightly. Oh. “And it’s driving them back and forth across the galaxy collecting - things,” Poe adds slowly. “At this point I don’t even dare walk into the spare cargo hold. Those things they’ve got thrum so loud I can hear them. I keep worrying they’re going to short out, or something. Like putting too many energy-storage units in close proximity.”

Phasma imagines what the effect of having half a hundred Force-batteries short out might be, and winces.

“Precisely,” Poe sighs. “But - well. Sooner or later they’ll find the place they’re supposed to re-found the Jedi Order, and then...I don’t know what happens then.”

Phasma considers this while she kneads the bread dough - she’s learned that she quite likes making bread, the slow meditative movements of it - and is silent for a long time, listening to Poe sing softly to himself as he measures out the ingredients for tonight’s dessert. At last she says, “Will the New Republic want a new Jedi Order to rise?”

Poe startles a little and puts his stirring spoon down, turning to stare at her. “What?”

“General Organa was a Force-user, and so was her brother,” Phasma says slowly, working her way through the thought. “General Organa spoke out against many things, and her Force powers and charisma made her a natural leader. Even before the First Order attacked, she was not fully trusted by the rulers of the Republic - is that correct?”

“...Yes,” says Poe, picking his spoon up again and stirring the mess in the pot slowly. “They thought she was an alarmist and a warmonger, actually.”

“And Rey and Finn won the war,” Phasma continues. “Terrifyingly.”

Poe huffs a laugh. “Man, you should’ve seen some of the expressions when Rey came out of the Falcon with Kylo Ren’s head on a stick,” he says, smiling at the memory. “But yeah, you’re right. They’re all scared shitless of her, and of Finn too, after what he did to that fleet that attacked Corellia.”

“So are they going to want more people like General Organa and Rey and Finn?” Phasma asks. “People trained by Rey and Finn?”

“Um,” says Poe, frowning. “That is a very good question.”

*

He brings it up that night at dinner. Rey and Finn frown at each other.

“Is it really up to them?” Rey asks. “I mean, we’ll just be finding an uninhabited planet and - um - I guess the Force will send us students. We won’t interfere with them, and they won’t interfere with us.”

“Won’t you?” Phasma asks. “What happens when the Force tells you there’s something wrong in Republic space, and you need to go deal with it?”

“Um,” says Finn, frowning harder. “You know, she’s got a point.”

“Drat,” says Rey, subsiding back in her chair and gnawing thoughtfully on the heel of the loaf of bread. “We’ll need to have a planet - I don’t want to try training Force-sensitives on a ship, that’s asking for trouble - and that means supply lines and trade and people knowing where we are. I can’t hide a whole planet. I don’t think even the two of us working together could manage that.”

“And we’ll go when and where the Force sends us,” Finn agrees, “which will mean going into Republic space. You know as well as I do that there are places doing things the Force does not like. It’s only leaving us alone about them right now because this is more important.”

“So we’re going to be - what? The conscience of the New Republic?” Rey asks, grimacing. “Shit. That...sounds right.”

“It does,” Finn agrees, the peculiar abstracted look on his face that Phasma has learned means he is listening to the Force. “They’re going to hate us. A lot.”

“Guys,” Poe says dubiously, “I know the two of you are worth an entire battle fleet all by yourselves, but I don’t feel happy about needing to protect a whole bunch of kids with just us five.”

“Five?” Phasma asks, startled.

“Don’t forget BB,” Poe replies with a crooked smile.

“Ah.” Phasma subsides. It’s true, she does tend to discount the little droid, but she should really stop doing that. It’s a surprisingly dangerous adversary.

“You’re right, that doesn’t sound fun,” Finn tells Poe. “And we have to sleep sometime. But where are we going to find people to defend a fledgling Jedi Order, when the New Republic is going to want us all dead?”

Poe sighs. “Damn if I know,” he says wearily.

Rey grimaces. “I haven’t got any ideas either,” she admits.

Phasma says, slowly, “I might.” She looks at the startled, eager expressions on her companions’ faces and smiles crookedly. “I know what happened to the officers of the First Order, the ones who were captured,” she says, nodding to Rey. “But I never did find out what happened to the Stormtroopers. Were they all slain?”

“...No,” Finn says, realization dawning on his face. “No, they were sent to prison camps - I even know where.”

“And if there’s anyone who’d be willing to face off against the entire New Republic,” Poe adds, grinning, “I bet it’s a bunch of defeated Stormtroopers. Especially,” he nods to Phasma, “if one of their own officers leads the way…”

*

They’re somewhere near Commenor, according to BB-8 and Poe. There’s a backwater system a hop away from the Republican planet that has three worlds: one too hot for humans, one far too cold, and one so barren it can’t be used for anything but what it is being used for. Prison camps.

Phasma looks down through the viewscreen of the Falcon at ranks upon ranks of tents, each large enough for ten Stormtroopers, and grimaces. There are thousands - tens of thousands - of her troops down there, broiling in the sun and going slowly mad with boredom. They’re keeping good order, though, and Phasma is proud of them.

So far as Finn knows, there are no jailers here on this backwater planet. There hardly need to be: the captured Stormtroopers have no ships nor officers, and the stockpiles of food, First Order ration packs that the Republic didn’t care to use for anything else, will last years if the Stormtroopers retain their discipline and refrain from gorging themselves. It’s only been a few months since the decisive final battle; discipline still reigns supreme among Phasma’s former soldiers.

“This isn’t the planet the Force wants you to settle on, right?” Poe checks carefully. Finn shakes his head.

“No, not at all. That’s in towards the Core, where the Force runs strong.”

“Then we’re going to need a bigger ship,” Poe says. “There’s no way we can get them all onto the Falcon.”

“I can get us a ship,” Rey says absently. “I want to know if they’re going to try to slaughter us when we land. It’d bother Phasma if I had to kill a lot of them.”

Phasma is, frankly, startled that Rey cares that much.

“Let me speak to them when you land,” she says. “They all know my voice. They’ll heed me.”

Finn huffs a laugh. “Yeah, it’s sort of hardwired,” he agrees. “Phasma says hop, you’re in the air before you really realize you’ve been given an order.”

“Useful trick,” Poe observes. “Though I notice you haven’t been hopping, buddy.”

“Yeah, well, these days it’s the Force pulling my strings,” Finn says wryly. “No offense, Phasma, but it’s a bit more insistent than you were.”

“None taken,” Phasma replies, and it’s true. How could she be offended by that? The Force is far larger and more powerful than she is, and Finn is - by his own choice - no longer one of her troops. She’s beginning to suspect that even if Poe Dameron had not been captured by the First Order at a convenient time, Finn would have ceased to be under her command. The Force, so far as Phasma can tell, takes what it wants regardless of any other considerations. The First Order was probably lucky that losing Finn only cost them a valuable prisoner, several TIE fighters, and some damage to the Finalizer. Given what Finn did to that fleet off Corellia, the bill could have been much, much higher when the Force called him away.

“I think,” she says after a moment’s consideration, “that you should leave me here when you go to find a transport ship. My presence will help to reassure the troopers that you plan to return, and I will be able to organize them during your absence, and instruct them in their new duties. By the time you find a ship and return, we should be ready to embark.”

“Sounds suspiciously like a plan,” Poe says, grinning at her.

“Good thought,” Rey agrees, sending the Falcon down towards a bare spot in the middle of the vast camp. “And we will come back for you.” She slews around in her seat as the ship touches down, and pins Phasma with a piercing glare. “You’re ours now,” she says softly. “Don’t forget it.”

“I won’t,” Phasma promises, transfixed by her mistress’s blazing eyes. “I know where I belong.”

“Good,” Rey says, with a brisk nod, and turns her attention to Finn. Phasma shivers as that gaze lets her go. The Force moves through Rey like a flood, and Phasma is, to be perfectly honest, more than a little terrified of the vast power contained in her owner’s slender frame.

Chapter Text

The defeated Stormtroopers are almost painfully glad to see Phasma emerge from the Millennium Falcon. She’s not wearing her armor, of course, but nor is she wearing the shabby things she was given during her captivity; some weeks ago Poe returned from a shopping trip with a heap of comfortable tunics and trousers in Phasma’s size, for which she was and remains quite grateful, but none of it is anything like as intimidating as her chrome and cloak used to be. But enough of them have seen her with her helmet off to know her even now, and her amplified voice, still echoing around the camp as she trots down the ramp, is enough to tell every Stormtrooper within hearing range that Phasma has returned.

“Captain,” says the platoon leader who comes to meet her, a young woman whose fair skin has gone an unhealthy shade of red in the unforgiving sun of this planet, but who comes to perfect attention and salutes with admirable precision nonetheless.

“GZ-1800,” Phasma replies. Of course she knows the trooper’s designation. She always knows. That was her duty, and she did it well. “At ease.”

GZ-1800 drops her salute and relaxes a little. “Captain,” she says again, and flounders a little - this is not a situation which was ever covered in training. “We’re all very relieved to see you,” she says at last.

Phasma nods approvingly, sees GZ-1800 relax even further at the lack of reprimand. “I’ll want to meet with all platoon leaders in the mess tent,” she says, and GZ-1800 salutes again, nods briskly, and turns to issue orders to her soldiers, who scatter with pleasing alacrity to find the other platoon leaders. GZ-1800 turns back to Phasma.

“If you’ll follow me, Captain,” she says. “Mess tent’s right this way.”

Phasma nods and falls in beside the younger woman, observing with quiet pride the tidiness and organization of the camp, the cleanliness and good health of the troopers in their black skinsuits. Their armor and weapons have been confiscated, of course - if they are to be guards for the new Jedi Order, Phasma will need to find them new weaponry - but they still hold themselves like the well-trained soldiers that they are.

(Finn does not hold himself like that anymore. He does not move like a trooper, in perfect step with those around him. He moves like Rey, now: swift and sure and agile, dangerous and unpredictable as lightning. Watching them train together, which they do whenever there is time, is astonishingly beautiful and more than a little terrifying. They are forces of nature, the two of them, and Phasma honestly cannot blame Poe Dameron for the awed expression with which he watches them spar.)

The platoon leaders fill the mess tent, as Phasma had expected they would: ten soldiers to a squad, five squads to a platoon, means there are more than two hundred platoon leaders gathered here to hear her. But the mess tent is large - the largest structure in the camp, large enough for ten platoons to eat at the same time - and so they all fit well enough. Phasma gets up on the raised platform at one end, meant for situations much like this one, and waits while the platoon leaders shake themselves out into formation and turn to look at her with wide and hopeful eyes.

“The First Order is defeated,” she tells them, because she’s not sure anyone has actually bothered to inform the Stormtroopers, or if they were just dumped here and left. The latter sounds a lot like something the New Republic might do. “Your other officers are dead,” she continues. She’s reasonably sure she’s right about that - and if they aren’t dead yet, they most assuredly wish they were. The sharp-toothed woman from Corellia did not look like someone who would be kind to any enemy in her control, and she was not the cruellest of the bidders at that auction.

The platoon leaders do not move, their training holding them still even at this distressing moment, but Phasma can see the looks of hopeless resignation, of encroaching despair. Without their officers, without the First Order that created and trained them, what are they? What can they do? Will they be left here forever, to die of starvation and infighting on a nameless planet far from anywhere?

“I have taken service,” Phasma says, neglecting to mention to circumstances in which that event took place, “with the Force-user Rey and her companions, Commander Poe Dameron and the Force-user Finn, who intend to found a school for Force-users. They will require protection.”

She pauses. Platoon leaders are smart - she doesn’t need to spell this out. They know what she is leading up to. GZ-1800 steps forward.

“Why should we protect them?” she asks quietly. “They defeated the First Order - they are our enemies.”

“The Resistance defeated the First Order, but the New Republic left you here,” Phasma replies. “The Resistance captured your officers, but the New Republic sold them into slavery. The Resistance is dead, disbanded with the defeat of the First Order, its leader gone into exile far from the New Republic. The New Republic and its corruption remains alive, and they will kill you all, either by force or by neglect. The Force-users offer life, and work, and the promise that if you die, you will die with a weapon in your hands.”

Another platoon leader steps forward - GL-2230, this one is. “I had rather die fighting than rot here,” he tells GZ-1800. “The First Order is dead and gone, but I am not ready to die with it. If Captain Phasma says these people are worth fighting for, then I’ll take her word for it. And it’ll get us off this kriffing rock.”

“Language,” says Phasma mildly, suppressing a smile when GL-2230 jumps and gives her a mildly terrified look. Poe Dameron swears like - well, like a fighter pilot, and Finn has a rather surprisingly large vocabulary of expletives himself. Rey swears worse than the other two combined, in eighteen languages including Shyriiwook. It’s sort of nice to be around people who will tone it down when Phasma tells them to.

“There is,” Phasma adds, almost as an afterthought, “a very good chance that the people you will be defending the Force-users against will be the armies of the New Republic.”

GZ-1800 nods firmly. “Alright,” she says. “We go where Captain Phasma leads us. And maybe we’ll get a little bit of our own back from the assholes who dumped us here.”

That’s about as much as Phasma could have asked for, really.

*

Stormtroopers follow orders. That’s the basic premise of the entire Stormtrooper program. So when Rey lands a positively enormous troop transport outside the camp and Phasma orders her troops into it, they pack up their tents and their spare uniforms and the enormous heap of ration packs which was left for them and go tromping up into the transport in neat, obedient lines.

Phasma herself, once they’re all aboard and the nameless planet is as barren and uninhabited as it’s ever been, takes GL-2230 and GZ-1800 up to the bridge to find out where Rey got a ship like this. It’s not built for humans - the ceilings are too high, and the colors are strange - and it’s no make Phasma recognizes.

“It’s Wookiee,” Rey says, grinning at Phasma when she asks. “Chewie talked the planetary government into loaning it to us, but I have to return it when we’re done.” Her grin gets wider. “The eight little transports, though, we get to keep.”

“Little transports?” Phasma asks.

“They’ll be meeting us there,” Rey says cheerfully. “Chewie lent us pilots, too - they’ll be taking this old hulk home. Poe and Finn are showing them how to get where we’re going.”

“Where are we going?” GZ-1800 inquires, looking very nervous. Rey nods amiably to her.

“The Deep Core,” she says calmly. “Where the Force is strongest.”

Phasma twitches. “The Deep Core?”

“The Force showed us the way,” Rey says, as though it’s not at all worrisome that they’re going to be flying into the dangerous currents of the Deep Core without even a mapped route to follow. “There’s a planet there, one that will keep us safe while we gather students. I think it’ll be nice.”

“You’ve never been there?” Phasma checks. Rey shrugs.

“Only in my dreams,” she replies. Phasma shivers. Force-users. Can’t live with them, can’t escape them. Phasma has no idea how Poe can embrace his lovers so fearlessly, knowing that they are conduits for the vast, inexplicable, terrifying power of the Force.

*

The flight, thank the Force, is uneventful. Whatever strange course the Force showed Rey, it avoids all of the common hazards of the Deep Core - the black holes, the strange hyperspace currents, even the pirates, though Phasma would have kind of liked to see the faces of a group of pirates who attempted to hijack a freighter full of Stormtroopers.

The planet Rey brings them to is objectively quite lovely, all green and blue when viewed from space, with white clouds streaking its skies. Phasma’s not much for admiring natural beauty, but even she can admit that it’s quite pretty. Of course, how pretty it is doesn’t mean anything about how inhabitable it is - nor, for that matter, whether it’s currently inhabited. Phasma only thinks of that last as Rey puts the freighter into orbit around the planet to wait for Poe and Finn and the other transports, and heads up to the bridge to ask.

Rey shrugs. “It might have been, once, but it isn’t anymore,” she replies easily. “There are animals, I think, but nothing sapient.”

Which brings up another question: “We have a large number of ration packs,” Phasma points out, “but that will not sustain us indefinitely.”

“Um,” Rey says, looking startled. “We’ll have to ask the Wookiees for seeds, I guess. Do any of the Stormtroopers know anything about farming? I know Poe does - or at least gardening.”

“He has mentioned a garden, once or twice,” Phasma agrees, thinking of the peaceful evenings helping Poe in the kitchen, his constant soothing chatter about everything and nothing.

“Good,” Rey says, and smiles more broadly. “I’d like a garden. Green growing things, and ground that isn’t sand, and rain…” she trails off dreamily. “I’ve spent my whole life in a desert or on ships, pretty much. I think I’ll like living somewhere that it rains.”

Phasma can’t help thinking about the hassle of wet skinsuits and soaked armor padding, but her mistress looks so happy that she can’t bear to say any of that aloud. Instead she says, “Many of my ‘troopers were in the Horticulture branch. They will know at least a little about growing foodstuffs.”

“Oh good,” Rey says, looking relieved. “All I know is that plants need water - and there was little enough of that on Jakku.”

“All Star Destroyers have horticulture decks,” Phasma says, shrugging. “I will have the appropriate ‘troopers begin to prepare ground for planting once we have chosen our landing place.” She glances over at the viewscreen. “Scanners are picking up incoming vessels.”

Rey sits up and glances at the scans, then out the wide front viewscreen. “Finn,” she says, elated. “Finn and Poe! Hurrah!” She bounces out of her seat and goes bounding down towards the boatbays, leaving Phasma to trail bemusedly in her wake.

Chapter Text

Poe lands the Falcon in the enormous boat bay easily - at least, Phasma assumes it’s Poe flying - and scant moments later the ramp opens and Poe and Finn come running down it to catch Rey up in their arms, whirling each other around madly while BB-8 whirrs in circles around their feet and beeps excitedly. Phasma watches with a bemused smile, and then turns at a hint of motion out of the corner of her eye to see that there is someone else standing at the head of the ramp, watching the scene with a fond smile.

General Leia Organa.

Phasma has never actually met the infamous woman before, and her first impression, as the woman walks slowly down the ramp, is blank astonishment that the terrifying General whose tactics and determination defeated two empires is tiny. She doesn’t even come up to Phasma’s shoulder. Somehow Phasma thought that the woman who bore Kylo Ren would be - well, would be at least as tall as Rey. But no, General Leia Organa is so small that Phasma could pick her up with one hand.

And then she meets Phasma’s eyes, and Phasma feels her back straightening instinctively, all her well-trained responses to a superior officer kicking in. It doesn’t matter that this woman is more than a foot shorter than Phasma is: she is a General down to her bones, and Phasma only restrains herself from saluting with a great effort of will. General Hux would have killed his own mother with his bare hands to have the sort of presence and command this woman projects so effortlessly.

General Organa looks Phasma over, nods, and turns to the happy cluster of limbs and squeals that is Phasma’s mistress and her lovers. Rey comes wriggling out of the ball of people and flings herself across the space between them to wrap General Organa up in a hug. Phasma is faintly startled. She wouldn’t have thought you could hug durasteel.

“Auntie Leia, I didn’t know you were coming!” Rey says, delightedly. Auntie Leia? Phasma thinks in astonishment.

“Kashyyyk is a lovely place, and I was going out of my mind with boredom,” General Organa says, smiling a little. “I heard you were starting a doomed hope of some sort. Room for a retired General?”

Rey giggles. “Of course we have room for you,” she says. “Oh - this is Phasma. She’s - the Force said we should keep her, so we did. She’s got the Stormtroopers on our side now.”

General Organa looks up at Phasma again, and gives Phasma a startlingly friendly little smile, and holds out a hand. “Phasma,” she says, voice mild. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Phasma says, because it is what one says, and clasps General Organa’s hand in hers.

“I am glad to see that you live,” General Organa says, startling Phasma all over again. “I think you may be the only one of the captured First Order officers who still does.”

Phasma had honestly expected that much, when she saw the people who were bidding for her and her compatriots. She hopes, vaguely, that their deaths came quickly and without too much pain, but she’s fairly sure that they all died slowly and unpleasantly. “My mistress is a kind one,” she says finally. Rey winces a little.

“I don’t own you,” she objects.

“You do,” Phasma says. “You claimed me, and I swore myself to your cause.”

“Augh,” Rey says faintly.

Poe says, sounding amused, “You realize you’re in command of several hundred thousand Stormtroopers right now, right Phasma? You could easily overpower - well, okay, me and the General. I’m not placing any bets on how many Stormtroopers it would take to take down these two.” He has an arm around Finn’s shoulders, and Rey tucks herself under his other arm as he speaks.

“More than Phasma has,” Finn says, a little smugly. “But it’s true that you’re hardly a slave anymore, Phasma. If we’d realized earlier, I suspect Rey would have manumitted you - oh, months ago.”

“True,” Rey says instantly. “How do I do that?”

Phasma blinks. She has, she realizes, no actual idea how someone goes about manumitting a slave. It never came up in the First Order, after all, and she has not even bothered to think about it these last months in Rey’s service, not when she is so well-treated and trusted.

“There’s a planet,” General Organa offers, “whose people recognize a divorce if the partners say to each other three times, ‘I divorce you.’ You could try telling Phasma three times that she’s free.”

“Sure,” Rey says, and looks up into Phasma’s eyes. “Phasma. I free you, I free you, I free you.” Her voice is firm and strong, and though there is no echo of the Force in it, Phasma shivers.

For a long moment, there is silence in the boat bay. And then, slowly, Phasma says, “Free I may be, but I am still sworn to you, Rey, and to your cause. I and my Stormtroopers will serve you all your days.”

Rey nods solemnly, and reaches out to clasp Phasma’s wrist, warrior to warrior. “I am grateful for your service,” she says. “We’ll need you, in the years to come.”

*

When they land on the planet, Phasma sends her ‘troopers out to build a permanent camp around the landing field, which they do with their customary and well-trained efficiency. Phasma herself ends up in the main room of the Millennium Falcon with Rey and Finn and Poe and General Organa, discussing the future.

“The New Republic is not going to be pleased with you - with us,” General Organa says solemnly. “They won’t be able to find us easily, as Poe assures me that we’re so far off the mapped hyperlanes that we’re as lost as the Katana fleet, but if you’re going to be going out into the galaxy to collect students, every trip is going to be a dangerous one.”

Finn nods. “More so once we start having opinions about what the New Republic is doing,” he says soberly. “And we will, I know. Chewbacca said he’d send us regular messages about the Senate’s decisions, and while the Force is very sure it wants us to start a school, well, as soon as the New Republic makes another decision like - oh - enslaving their enemies rather than giving them fair trials, say,” he nods to Phasma, “I suspect the Force is going to want us to do something about it.”

“It is all very well for the Force to send you halfway across the galaxy in search of students or artifacts,” Phasma says, frowning, “but what does it expect you to do against the Senate of the New Republic, if they do not want to hear you? You have the Stormtroopers, but eight small transports is not a war fleet. And I do not think you wish to go to war against the New Republic.”

“I...don’t honestly know,” Rey sighs, leaning against Finn and knocking her forehead gently against his shoulder. “Maybe we’re supposed to show up and be so intimidating they have to listen to us? No offense meant, Auntie Leia, but they’re a lot more terrified of us than they are of you.”

“Gee, I wonder why,” Poe murmurs, and he and Phasma exchange a look that says volumes about how very disconcerting the Force-users can be when they want to be. Phasma has seen them destroy entire Star Destroyers. Poe has seen them rip apart Knights of Ren with bare hands and sheer will. Yeah, there’s a reason the New Republic’s Senate might be reluctant to piss off Finn and Rey.

That still doesn’t mean they’ll do what Finn and Rey want them to, but at least they probably won’t try to assassinate them out of hand. No one wants to see what happens when an angry Force-user gets shot at in the middle of a crowded city. Phasma suspects the only possible description of such a moment would be ‘apocalyptic.’

“So the plan, as I understand it,” General Organa says, smiling a little, “is to get set up here and then wait to see what the Force wants, and wing it?”

“Pretty much,” Finn says, shrugging. General Organa chuckles.

“I’ve worked with worse battle plans, and won,” she says easily. “Let’s do this thing.”

“Yes, ma’am,” everyone else replies, Phasma slightly startled to find her voice part of the chorus. Kriff, this woman has command presence. Phasma could stand to learn a thing or two.

Chapter Text

The Wookiee pilots take the huge transport and a carefully-plotted chart out of the Deep Core and head home, and Phasma settles in to the business of putting a proper settlement together. She’s made semi-permanent camps before, and presumably the difference between putting up tents in neat rows and putting up more permanent tents in neat rows is not an enormous one. Rey and Finn and Poe are still sleeping on the Falcon, but Phasma takes the offer of her own private tent with relief and gratitude. It puts her closer to her troops, for one thing, and also it means that she doesn’t have to worry about walking in on either strange Force activities or snogging. Rey and Finn and Poe have been very good about keeping that in their rooms for the most part, but still. Phasma would rather avoid the whole problem.

General Organa also has her own private tent, right next to Phasma’s, for what Phasma suspects are the same reasons. Which results - since the Stormtroopers are very good about things like ‘bringing dinner to superior officers’ - in General Organa clearing her throat outside the flap of Phasma’s tent and asking, quite politely, “Do you mind if I eat with you? Eating alone gets lonely after a while.”

Phasma agrees, baffled, and finds herself sitting at her little table with General Leia Organa across from her. Officers get actual meals rather than rations, of course, so the table is laden with bread and meat and fruit, and Phasma busies herself for a moment with the politenesses of filling water glasses and spreading her napkin, but then she finds herself rather at a loss. She usually ate by herself, back in the First Order, preferring her own company to that of the other officers, and she can’t quite imagine having the sort of pleasant conversation with General Leia Organa as she has learned to enjoy on the Falcon.

“I put my pants on one leg at a time, same as you do,” General Organa says after a little while, smiling crookedly.

Phasma blinks at her. “I - what?”

“You’re giving me the ‘oh kriff it’s General Organa what do I do’ look,” General Organa says, smile widening. “It’s unfortunately familiar to me. But here and now I am not a general. Call me Leia, please.”

“Yes...Leia,” Phasma says, astonished all over again. And then, feeling somehow that she needs to explain herself, adds, “You were something of a legend among the First Order, you realize.”

“In the monster-under-the-bed sense of a legend, I suspect,” General Organa - Leia - says wryly.

“Yes,” Phasma admits. “We were told you were the architect of the downfall of the glorious Empire, that you killed a Hutt Lord with your bare hands, that you were merciless and terrible and would destroy the First Order if you could.”

“Arguably, all true,” Leia says thoughtfully. “Though I used a chain to kill the Hutt. And he had it coming.”

Phasma snorts with laughter, surprising herself. Leia looks pleased at the reaction.

“We’re on the same side now,” she says, smiling up at Phasma, “and it’s really quite uncomfortable to be feared. Shall we have truce between us?” She holds a hand out over the table.

Phasma clasps it gently. “We shall,” she says, nodding. And then, to seal the truce, she says, “Has anyone told you the story of General Hux’s reaction to losing the Starkiller?”

“No,” Leia says, looking intrigued and picking her fork up again.

“He wept like a child, and cursed your name for three hours straight,” Phasma says. “And then he hid in his quarters for a week. Afterwards, if anyone mentioned your name, he’d go puce and lose the ability to speak coherently for at least half an hour.”

Leia grins. “Now that,” she says, “is the type of effect I like to have on my enemies.”

“It made budget meetings much easier,” Phasma says, and is rewarded by Leia’s startled guffaw.

*

Poe joins them for dinner the next night, bringing a spicy stew as his contribution. “They’re doing something Force-y,” he explains, “and I figured I’d better stay out of the way.”

“You don’t fear them,” Phasma says, helping herself to some of the stew, which is, like everything Poe makes, quite good. “You’re wary of their power, but you don’t fear them. Why?” It is a question she could not have asked on the Falcon, with Rey and Finn just down the hall, but here she thinks she can ask safely enough.

Poe chuckles. “That’s simple enough,” he says, “and Leia can vouch for it. Back when they were learning to control their powers, they had a lot of - explosions is the best word. Things would backfire, and once they took out an entire wing of the base. Nobody in it but them and me and Luke, of course, because no one wanted to be around, but still. Boom, and dust everywhere.”

Phasma nods, even more confused. This seems like more reason to fear them than less.

“But me - I was never hurt. They could explode everything in a mile’s radius, and I and BB would be standing there completely untouched. Not a scratch on me. Even the debris would stay away from me.” Poe shrugs. “They do it unconsciously, apparently. And only for me and children, actually, which is only a little embarrassing and certainly did not get me teased constantly by all the other pilots.” He’s smiling, a lopsided grin that makes Phasma’s lips curl up in echo. “Maybe everyone else in the galaxy needs to fear them if they get angry, but me - I never do. They’ll never hurt me. They never have, and they never will.”

Phasma blinks in surprise. That’s quite a gift Poe has, to stand in the middle of a Force-created explosion and never be harmed. No wonder he trusts his lovers so deeply.

Phasma, on the other hand, has seen the explosions Poe’s lovers can create from up close, and has escaped being slain by them by only the narrowest of margins. She does not have that bone-deep certainty that she will never be harmed by their powers. She has only their good will, and that is new indeed.

Leia chuckles. “They were even worse than Luke was,” she says fondly. “At least he mostly blew up Death Stars. But they’re fiercer than my brother was, too. He was raised in peace, and knew its sweetness, and yearned for it. They were raised in war, and while they look towards peace, it is the taste of war that they know.” She shrugs. “In that, they’re a lot like me, I suppose.”

“They could hardly have a better role model,” Poe says, grinning at Leia, who sighs.

“Dameron, you are a menace,” she says wearily. “It’s a good thing you’re pretty, or someone would have shoved you out of an airlock for excessive hero-worship by now.”

“Oh, believe me, people have tried,” Poe says cheerfully. “There’s a reason BB is so overprotective, you know.”

Phasma finds herself laughing helplessly, seated at a table with two of the people who masterminded the downfall of her former commanders, and takes a moment as the tears of glee roll down her cheeks to marvel at the way her life has changed.

And after that night of shared laughter, if she finds herself inviting Leia to have dinner with her every evening, finds herself looking forward to the hours they spend discussing the layout of the encampment and the plans for the future of the not-Jedi Order (no one has yet come up with a good name for the fledgling school) - well, surely it is no harm for Phasma to enjoy Leia’s company, her hard-won wisdom and her sharp-edged wit.

Chapter Text

Poe and Finn and Rey head out two days later, leaving Phasma and Leia in command of the Stormtroopers as they finish putting together the camp and exploring the surrounding area and beginning to lay out the fields which will, hopefully, soon be sown with edible plants. The planet is, as promised, completely uninhabited; there are enough large animals that the Stormtroopers must go out in groups, but since Stormtroopers are accustomed to going everywhere in squads, this does not dismay them at all. Phasma assigns GZ-1800’s platoon to Leia, to do whatever she needs; it’s a signal honor, and GZ-1800 and her platoon are suitably awed. Phasma herself takes GL-2230 and his platoon as her personal guards and message-runners.

It doesn’t take the Stormtroopers very long to get the camp looking like it ought to, nor to map the surrounding area out to the river that curves in a long arc about three miles away, or to the cliff in the other direction, which has quite a nice waterfall spilling over it - or at least Leia says it’s a nice waterfall. Phasma is more used to assessing land formations based on their defensive properties, not their scenic qualities.

Phasma’s not actually sure what Rey and Finn and Poe went off to do - they weren’t very forthcoming, which makes her think the Force had something it wanted - but she’s not exactly expecting them to return the way they do: with Rey piloting another ship behind the Falcon, its cramped quarters filled with fifteen terrified, Force-sensitive children. Phasma was expecting maybe one or two at a time, not fifteen. The Stormtroopers have put together an area for the school-to-be, with tents and an open area for exercise, but they were not expecting it to be filled quite this soon.

The fifteen children range from near-infancy to what Phasma privately thinks of as the awkward age, when cadets start to outgrow their bodysuits every month and trip over everything because their arms and legs are growing too fast for their reflexes to keep up. They all recoil at the sight of the waiting Stormtroopers. Rey, behind them, chuckles.

“So that’s Phasma, that I was telling you about,” she says, patting the tallest child on the shoulder. “She’s here to keep us safe, her and her ‘troopers.” She grins across at Phasma. “The Falcon is full of blasters and seeds,” she says, and Phasma feels herself grin back.

“We have been wishing for some weaponry,” she admits. “There are large predators - they have not dared to attack us, but we would be more comfortable with the ability to defend ourselves. And the seeds will be a great relief to the Horticulture squads.”

“Well, we’ve got at least one blaster per squad,” Rey says. “And we’ll get more every trip. Chewbacca’s collecting them for us. Actually, a lot of them are First-Order issue, off the black market.” She laughs. “Seems fitting somehow. As for the seeds, I hope the Horticulture ‘troopers know what to do with them, because I sure don’t.”

Phasma nods, and the rest of the day is given over to getting the children settled in, and assigning a squad of Stormtroopers to look after each one, and discovering all the many things that they don’t have that children need. It’s only over dinner, eaten in the open area meant for the children’s exercise so as to keep all the children in view, that Phasma has the opportunity to ask where they found fifteen Force-sensitive children.

Finn sighs. “There was a renegade Knight of Ren, apparently,” he says. “He was collecting kids. And killing their families, of course, because apparently you can’t go Dark Side without becoming a mass-murdering psychopathic asshole, so we’ll have to hope the next group of kids has families who want to come along, if we want to build an actual healthy community here, which of course we do.” He rubs his forehead. “I’m getting so tired of Dark-Side assholes and their kriffing assholishness…” he mutters, trailing off as Poe leans against him and begins rubbing the back of his neck.

“So we killed him,” Rey says, a little unnecessarily. “And took the kids. He’d only had them for a little while - a couple years at most - and he was very bad at teaching, so none of them are Dark-Side yet. Or hopefully ever.” She shrugs. “Finn and I will be taking turns going out, from now on, so there’s always someone with the kids.”

“Sensible,” Phasma agrees, and looks at the children scattered across the open area, and wonders what new chaos they will bring into her life.

*

Somewhat to Phasma’s surprise, though, the next bit of chaos in her life comes not from the children - who are kept well under control by their teachers - but from Leia.

GZ-1800 comes to Phasma several days after the children arrive, looking worried. Phasma makes time to meet with her immediately: GZ-1800 has a good solid head on her shoulders, and does not worry without good reason.

“It’s like this, Captain,” GZ-1800 says, standing at perfect attention but looking as though she would like to fidget uncomfortably. “General Organa keeps asking us these - questions. Are we happy. Do we want to be doing something else. Do we want to leave.”

“Ah,” says Phasma. “I will speak with her.”

“Thank you, Captain,” GZ-1800 says, much relieved, and Phasma dismisses her and heads over to the Horticulture areas, where Leia has her head together with half a dozen Horticulture-trained ‘troopers and is discussing - something, Phasma can understand maybe three words in ten. Whatever it is, it makes the Horticulture ‘troopers nod happily and then go off to instruct their squads, so probably it’s some new technique for working with the seeds they’ve been given. Phasma clears her throat gently.

“Leia - a word?”

“Of course,” Leia says, and Phasma heads for a large tree near the Horticulture fields, since one of the unpleasant things about not having armor is that her skin does burn if she’s not careful. Once they’re comfortably in the shade, Phasma turns to watch the Horticulture ‘troopers at their labors - taking a moment to boggle at the enormous floppy hats most of them are wearing, woven clumsily out of grass - and considers her next words.

“I was...informed,” she says at last, not wanting to get GZ-1800 in trouble, “that you’ve been asking the ‘troopers if they’re happy.”

Leia sighs. “I have, yes,” she says. “Rey and Finn and Poe and I have been discussing this. Has it occurred to any of you, Phasma, that when we say we’re going to stand against slavery, we mean the enslavement of the Stormtroopers, too?”

Phasma blinks. The words don’t make sense for a moment, and then, once they do, the sentence doesn’t make sense. “Stormtroopers aren’t slaves.”

“You were taken from your parents as infants, raised to be soldiers regardless of your personal desires, made to fight for a polity which poured out your lives like water, beaten or reconditioned or slain if you disobeyed any orders, and never given any other options - that certainly sounds like slavery to me,” Leia says softly.

Phasma says, “But -” and pauses, thinking hard. Then she says, slowly, “And what will you do if the Stormtroopers do not wish to fight for you?”

Leia shrugs. “We’ll manage somehow,” she says. “The Force will provide, or so Rey and Finn assure me.”

Phasma nods. That does seem likely, come to think of it. But - “What will the Stormtroopers do, if they do not fight for you?”

“That,” Leia says, “is entirely up to them. We’d be willing to give them transport to any world they please, inhabited or no, or they could stay here and do things that aren’t fighting - farming, or crafts, or what have you. We’re going to need teachers for the children, for reading and writing and things that aren’t Force use, after all. And we’re probably going to need a bureaucracy at some point.” She wrinkles her nose and sighs. “And - oh, all sorts of things. Though of course we don’t have any means to pay anyone yet, so going elsewhere would be more profitable. There are plenty of worlds that aren’t allied with the New Republic, that would probably accept them on my word and Chewbacca’s.” She rubs her forehead. “It’s not that I’m a stranger to running forlorn hopes on a lean budget,” she adds in a mutter that Phasma suspects she isn’t supposed to hear, “but usually there’s at least something to use!”

“I will...ask,” Phasma says at last. “If any of them want to leave.”

“Thank you,” Leia says, smiling up at her.

Chapter Text

Phasma does not speak to her ‘troopers immediately. She spends several days, instead, thinking hard about what to say. Stormtroopers do not understand the concept of ceasing to be Stormtroopers. There is only one way out of the ranks of the Stormtrooper army, and that way is dead. (Well, two, but none of her ‘troopers are like Finn; Phasma suspects that was the Force acting through him.) So if she asks her ‘troopers if they want to not be ‘troopers anymore, well, most of them will assume she is informing them of their imminent execution.

And then, when she has thought long and hard about how to phrase what she must say, she goes to Rey and Finn and asks them what their new Order will be called, these children and the others they will gather, who will be neither Jedi nor Sith nor Knights of Ren. Rey is hanging upside down by her knees from a tree limb when Phasma finds her, which is only a little disconcerting. Finn is leaning against the base of the tree, covered in children - the four youngest of their new students are clinging to him, the littlest asleep in his arms. Phasma boggles briefly at the scene, then clears her throat and asks her question before she is completely discombobulated.

“Hm,” says Rey, doing a neat flip off the branch that lands her on her feet. “We still haven’t got a name, actually. Finn?”

“I thought of one the other night, when we were watching that holo Auntie Leia found us, the history one,” Finn says thoughtfully. “It mentioned the Paladins, who immersed themselves in the Force, and used any tool which came to their hands. That sounds an awful lot like us.”

“Paladins,” Rey says thoughtfully. “I sort of like that. Yes, alright; let’s be Paladins.”

“Very good,” Phasma says, and leaves. It’s actively disconcerting to be around Rey and Finn, these days, as though every time Phasma leaves their presence she forgets about the near-palpable auras of power that surround them, the way the Force shivers against her skin when she’s near them; and every time she approaches them, it’s a surprise all over again, how worryingly powerful they are. They both give the distinct impression that they could break planets without much effort. Phasma is hard to scare, as a general rule - certainly Kylo Ren, even with his unpredictable rages, never discomforted her the way Rey and Finn do - and she doesn’t like feeling fear. It reminds her that there are things she cannot fight, that Rey could break her with a thought, that Finn would not need a blaster to remove her forever from the universe. Phasma has never liked to feel helpless.

The next day, she calls her ‘troopers together, each and all of them, and they line up in their ranks as perfectly as she could wish, squad by squad and platoon by platoon. Phasma looks at her army - at her ‘troopers, who followed her even into this insanity, who maybe fear her and maybe love her but definitely respect her down to their bones - and she sighs, and gets up on the platform where they can all see her, and begins to speak.

“The Stormtroopers are the fist of the First Order,” she says calmly, her voice ringing out over her ‘troopers. “But the First Order is dead and gone. Supreme Leader Snoke is dead. General Hux is dead. Kylo Ren and his Knights are dead. There is no First Order anymore.” She takes a deep breath. “And if there is no First Order, we cannot be its fist. If we are not its fist, we are not Stormtroopers.”

She sees her ‘troopers sway as though a strong wind has blown through the ranks, as though the earth has shaken itself beneath their feet. It is GZ-1800 who asks the question they are all thinking, though: “Then what are we, Captain?”

Phasma nods to her. “Right now,” she says calmly, “you are the best-trained and finest soldiers in the galaxy.” She sees shoulders go back, heads go up with pride, just as they should. “And should you choose, you will be the hands and the shields of the new Paladins as they go out into the galaxy. But.” She raises a hand before they can cheer - Stormtroopers know their cues. “Should you choose otherwise, you will be given the means to become otherwise. If you wish to be a farmer, a teacher, a medic, a cook - if you wish to leave for some other planet and create some other life - that will be allowed. There will be no penalty. There will be no punishment.

“You are no longer Stormtroopers. You may choose to become the Shields of the Paladins - or you may choose another path.”

There is a long, long pause. There is no cheering, as there normally is when Stormtroopers hear a speech from an officer; no one salutes. But they are not Stormtroopers anymore. Phasma waits, impassive and endlessly patient, while the perfect ranks break so that squadmates can murmur to each other, so that platoon leaders can consult with the squad leaders they command, so that the terrifying concept of not being Stormtroopers anymore can begin to sink in.

And slowly, slowly, the ‘troopers begin to move. One by one, sometimes in a squad, sometimes just a single ‘trooper, some of them begin to drift to one side, forming a little knot of ‘troopers that grows slowly larger as the minutes pass. The rest of them dress their ranks, filling in the spaces that their comrades have left, until finally all motion stills, and Phasma is left looking at two groups: the ‘troopers in front of her, in their perfect ranks, waiting with perfect stillness, and off to one side a rather smaller cluster of ‘troopers, still several thousand strong, maybe a third of her ten thousand ‘troopers in all.

“Captain,” says the most senior of that group - EK-2413, Phasma knows him well, a good ‘trooper but without that edge that the very best soldiers have - “Captain, we choose another path.”

Phasma nods to him gravely. “Will you remain here, or will you choose to go to a new planet, far from here?” she asks calmly. She can see EK-2413 relax, as though he had expected her to shoot him on the spot - which is a perfectly reasonable fear. In the First Order, desertion was punishable by death, and saying aloud that he wishes to leave the Stormtroopers - no, the Shields, Phasma must teach herself to think of them as such, for there are no Stormtroopers anymore - is definitely an act of desertion.

“We will stay,” he says firmly. “We will learn to be farmers and teachers and medics and cooks. We will serve the Paladins. But we will not be soldiers anymore.”

Phasma nods solemnly to him. “Very good,” she says, and watches EK-2413 and the ex-Stormtroopers ranked behind him relax. “You will report to General Organa, who will issue you assignments based on your aptitudes and preferences.”

EK-2413 salutes and leads his group away, down towards the little tent city where Leia is waiting. Phasma turns back to her - her Shields, who have dressed their lines while she was speaking with EK-2413, and who are waiting patiently for her further orders.

“This planet and its people are ours to protect,” Phasma tells them solemnly. “Some of you will be assigned, by squads, to guard each Paladin. Others will patrol, either on land or in the ships which will be acquired.” She looks around, meeting the eyes of as many of her Shields as she can. “I will have your assignments for you shortly. Dismissed,” she says at last.

As one, the Shields salute, and then disperse towards the tent city or the fields. Phasma stands still as a statue until they have all left, then sighs and steps down from the platform. The rest of the day is going to be full of rosters and reassignments - her least favorite part of being a commander - but at least the most painful part of the day is over.

She is still a Captain. She is still a weapon. Not everything has been taken from her - or, rather, much has been returned.

*

Leia joins Phasma in her tent, shortly after Phasma sits down, with a list of the ex-Stormtroopers who have chosen not to become Shields, and Phasma carefully marks them off of her own rosters, and tells Leia whatever she can remember about their aptitudes and attitudes, which ones had too much empathy to be good Stormtroopers and will therefore probably make good childcare providers, which ones are most skillful with plants or mechanical engineering or tactics.

And then she spends the remainder of the afternoon going over the long lists of her own Shields, reassigning those soldiers who belong to squads that no longer exist because half their members have chosen not to be soldiers anymore, choosing squad leaders of particular equanimity and good sense to assign as bodyguards to the Paladins, noting which soldiers have or would benefit from flight training, and which ones are best at ground patrols.

She doesn’t even notice that it has begun to grow dark until Leia comes into the tent with a tray of food and a lamp, and the light makes Phasma wince. Leia chuckles and sets the tray and the lamp on the table, sitting down across from Phasma with a wry grin.

“I always liked the action better than the paperwork myself,” she admits, as Phasma sets her datapad aside and reaches out to help unload the tray. “Sadly, shooting the paperwork never did help.”

Phasma finds herself laughing, somewhat to her own surprise. “Did you try it and find out?” she asks lightly, and is astonished to discover that she is teasing.

“Once,” Leia admits sheepishly. “It didn’t go well. I was very young.”

Phasma nods, unable to imagine the ever-composed General ever being so out of sorts that she actually took a blaster to a datapad; but then, once upon a time the General was young and foolish. Well, young and reckless, perhaps. It cannot be called foolishness when she succeeded so admirably at her goals.

“I am best suited to war, not paperwork,” she admits in turn. “But...I find myself hoping I shall be doing paperwork a great deal, in the years to come. The Paladins are not yet ready for a war.”

“No,” Leia agrees. “But when it comes, I have faith that your Shields will be as skillful and dedicated as their Paladins could desire. They could not be otherwise, with such a Commander.”

Phasma feels a flush rising to her cheeks, and covers it with a long drink of water. She should not care so much that Leia thinks well of her.

Should not, perhaps, and yet she does.

Chapter Text

The months roll by, this planet’s long summer fading almost imperceptibly into autumn - it has a long year and mild winters, or so say Rey and Finn, and Phasma, who frankly had enough of snow on Starkiller, is glad enough to hear it - and Phasma’s Shields settle into their new roles with a truly astonishing ease. The squads who have been given responsibility for the young Paladins begin, to Phasma’s mild astonishment, to adore their young charges; Phasma squashes the little voice telling her that Stormtroopers are not supposed to have emotional attachments by reminding herself that these are not Stormtroopers anymore. They are Shields, the Shields of the Paladins, and that means the rules have changed.

The ex-Stormtroopers who have chosen to be civilians, to learn new trades, eventually decide to call themselves the Service Corps, and as the months go on they begin to choose names for themselves, instead of the passionless designations of the Stormtrooper ranks. When Phasma makes no objection to this, her Shields, too, begin to choose names - or to be named, as the young Paladins bestow their protectors with appellations as they become more comfortable with the vigilant soldiers who are always at their sides.

Rey and Finn and Leia teach the younglings how to use the Force; and every few weeks Rey and Finn head out in a battered transport and return with another startled, Force-sensitive youngling to add to the growing crowd, sometimes with parents or siblings in tow. Phasma assigns new squads of Shields to each new Paladin, and being chosen becomes such a mark of pride that her Shields push themselves far beyond anything they managed to do as Stormtroopers in order to earn the honor. Poe teaches anyone who wants to learn how to fly - he can, as is his frequent boast, fly anything, and proves it more than once. Phasma oversees her Shields and teaches melee combat to anyone who wants to learn, sets herself to learning the intricacies of farming and house-building, sanitation and cooking. She fails entirely at learning the tricks of small talk, and knows that she intimidates the slowly-growing crowd of civilians whose children are among the youngling Paladins, but there is nothing to be done about that. She is who she is.

Even with so many more people to socialize with, though, Leia chooses to eat dinner four or five nights a week at Phasma’s table. Phasma doesn’t object. She likes the company, actually: Leia has a dry, warm sense of humor, and can speak knowledgeably about both battle tactics and the governance of large groups of people, among other topics. Poe, too, to Phasma’s surprise, joins them at least once a week, bringing bottles of wine and outrageous stories. Phasma finally gets up the courage to ask him why he spends time with her, when he could be with his lovers.

“I adore them,” Poe says easily. “I would kill or die for them. I will spend all my life with them, if they’ll let me. But sometimes they do get a little...intense. Besides, it’s good to give them a little time alone together. Burn off some of that youthful energy, if you know what I mean.”

Phasma sighs at him. Poe just grins. Leia tosses a balled-up napkin at him, bouncing it neatly off his shoulder, and then giggles behind her hand when he gives her a mock-wounded look.

It’s...oddly companionable. Phasma has never had friends before, not when she was a cadet marked for promotion by her immense skill, not when she was a common Stormtrooper always pushing herself to be better, and certainly not when she was an officer in the seething morass of political backstabbing which called itself the First Order. She thinks, though, that Leia and Poe might well be her friends, and she thinks, too, that she rather likes it. They’re irreverent and clever and kind and ruthless, and she likes their company.

How odd.

*

It’s been a year since they first landed on this nameless planet - Rey and Finn have started calling it Paladins’ Keep, which is as good a name as any so far as Phasma is concerned - and Phasma is standing under her favorite tree, watching some of her Shields drill and listening to the faint sounds coming from the Paladin practice grounds behind her - thumps and squeals and occasional delighted laughter. She is...contented, actually. She has work that suits her skills, under commanders who do not waste the lives of her soldiers for idiotic reasons; she has good company when she wants it and comfortable solitude when she pleases; she is listened to and respected, by commanders and subordinates alike.

Someday - perhaps someday soon - the Paladins will be plunged into conflict again, when they go out into the universe to act as the conscience of the galaxy. Phasma’s Shields will be beside and before and behind them, guarding them from all harm; and if some of her Shields die in the guarding, well, that is the duty of a soldier, is it not? They have all chosen to be here - choose each day to remain here - in a way that Phasma has come to value. The Stormtroopers did not choose to fight and die. The Shields do, and glory in the knowledge that they fight for something larger than themselves.

Phasma herself will fight and die, if it comes to it, defending Rey and Finn and Poe and Leia, who have become so unexpectedly dear to her. But she - and they - are very hard to kill. She is not worried about that.

*

Leia comes over to join her as the afternoon eases towards evening. She is wearing a broad, ridiculous hat that makes Phasma smile quite involuntarily every time she sees it, and the tip of her nose is pink despite the hat.

“How is it that you don’t sunburn?” she demands of Phasma as she reaches the tree’s spreading shade, grinning to take the sting out of her words.

“Superior training,” Phasma says, and holds her perfect deadpan for a long moment before adding, “And a great deal of sunscreen.”

Leia bursts into delighted laughter. “You know, Gzitha claims you haven’t got a sense of humor,” she says once she’s recovered a little.

“No more do I,” Phasma replies, letting her smile show just a little around the corners of her mouth. “Terribly inefficient things, senses of humor.”

“And you are all about efficiency,” Leia agrees, leaning back against the tree and tipping the brim of her hat back so she can look up at Phasma more easily. Phasma smiles down at her.

“Always,” she agrees.

“In the interests of efficiency, then, and not dancing endlessly around the point - as I believe our Poe did, once upon a time,” Leia says, smiling more broadly, “would you like to kiss me?”

Phasma has rarely been quite as startled - but then, being very startled has started to become a pattern in her life, these days. She blinks down at Leia and takes a long moment to consider the offer. Leia waits, eyes shaded by her ridiculous hat, lips still curled in a little smile. It’s one of the things Phasma quite likes about Leia, actually, that she is willing to wait for Phasma to think things through, to give Phasma the time to consider every option.

This is not the First Order. If Phasma says she does not want to kiss Leia, she has every faith that that will be the end of it - Leia will nod and change the subject, and they will continue to have dinner together regularly, and Poe will continue to drop by and be ridiculous, and they will continue to meet and talk about this strange little society they are helping to build, and life will go on. There will be no punishment; this is not a trap.

Like so much else about these bizarre people, this really is a choice.

So: does she, in fact, want to kiss Leia?

Phasma does like Leia’s company, far more than anyone else’s. She likes the way Leia laughs, and the way Leia thinks things through, and the way Leia refuses, adamantly, to be defeated. She hadn’t considered kissing her before, but the more she turns the thought around in her head, the more appealing it looks.

“...Yes,” she says at last, nodding firmly, and bends down, ducking under the brim of the ridiculous hat, to press her lips to Leia’s.

It is not a long kiss, nor a deep one, but when she straightens up again, the flush on Leia’s cheeks is not solely from the sun, and Phasma finds herself smiling.

“I suppose it is time I joined in the general insanity of my companions,” she allows, and Leia laughs and leans against her. Phasma puts a careful arm around Leia’s shoulders and turns back to watch her Shields at their training. Leia is warm against her side, and the training is going well, and really, Phasma kind of owes Rey a thank-you.

This is not how Phasma thought her life was going to go, when the First Order fell, when she was taken prisoner, when the terrifying Jedi girl laid claim to her. This is not who Phasma thought she would be, when she was AS-1643, when she was Captain Phasma, when she was a despised prisoner.

Maybe the dubious sanity of her companions has something to be said for it, though. This may not be anything like Phasma expected, but she thinks - she thinks, perhaps, that where she is, that who she is, is as it was always meant to be.

The will of the Force, doubtless. Phasma snorts softly at the thought and shakes her head a little. Leia makes a quiet, inquisitive sound.

“It is nothing,” Phasma says. “Only that I am happy.”

“That is rather more than nothing,” Leia says dryly, and she’s smiling when Phasma looks down at her.

“I suppose it is,” Phasma agrees, and bends down to kiss that smile.