Chapter Text
"You have a plan?" Connix asked.
"Sort of," Poe nodded, settling in the command chair on the battle-scarred dreadnought's auxiliary bridge, punching in command codes that would bring up helm and engine metrics on the captain's touchscreen. "What's the recharge rate of those big guns?"
In the curved pane of the viewport in front of him, he saw her reflection move across the bridge, squinting into a sensor binacle.
"About one shot per second. A lot slower than when they started."
"That's good," he growled, only to scowl when a holographic figure flickered into view in front of him.
"Admiral Holdo."
"Commander Dameron. Your insubordinate fighter jocks agreed to let me try and talk some sense into you."
"I think they just wanted a break from listening to your incompetence," he answered, tapping more instructions into his interface.
"I'm going to start by reminding you what happened at D'qar." Holdo sounded like she thought she was being reasonable.
"Yeah?" Poe was mad now, and he didn't have the time to hide it. "What happened there happened because you and Leia and Ackbar and the rest of the committee have been doubling down on the wrong tactics for this rebellion from the start. I did my best to clear a route that would minimise flak casualties, and your bomber wing still got scrapped, along with half my fighters. So don't blame me for trying to work as best I could with the dreck you gave me." Poe didn't feel good about telling her the truth, but it might make her throttle back a little.
"This isn't an X-wing, captain."
"No. I'm just gonna have to fly her like one." Poe killed the comm, and slewed the rudder round. "Connix! You're going to have to play astromech. Everything you've got into ion drives and front deflectors. This is going to get a little rough...."
Connix moved across the bridge, a gliding shimmer in the viewport pane. "Aye aye, captain!"