“With Brendol as her champion, she was welcomed into the First Order,” he continues, looking off into the dead air of the small space. “I trained her, as he asked, and then they gave her a captain’s cape of her own, and suddenly my own cape didn’t mean as much. Brendol gave me this armor, and a year later, she was wearing her chrome armor. I still don’t know how or where she got it. Brendol claimed he didn’t know, but he had that smile about him. She became their darling, their poster child, their legend. And even though I resented her, I believed it. That she was as great as they proclaimed her to be. But she was always so quiet, so enigmatic. And then I began doubting. And now here you come, with this story. Is Siv really alive after that?”
Vi smiles gently, the band across her forehead creaking as she inadvertently leans forward as if to, what? Conspire? Comfort?
“Siv lives, as does her child. The rest of them are gone.”
“But how?”
“Calliope Station was made to withstand anything, and it had already survived one radioactive event. She felt the hallway shake, but the Gand had told her to keep walking, so she got up and kept walking, right into the medbay. The Scyre breeds tough people. Even on her own, Siv was determined to live and to raise her child.” Vi grins, a real smile this time. “Beautiful kid, has Siv’s skin and Torben’s eyes. Can scream loud enough to stun a Wookiee. Anyway, Siv was smart enough to close the blast door, and the station got some new scars on its white walls. She’s been through a lot, still has lots of scars of her own. Not that there’s anyone around to see them.”
Vi tries to lift her arm to scratch her nose, but it’s just as pinned down as ever. She had forgotten, with the informality of their conversation, that she’s still in the interrogation chair, the remote for which sits on the table like a forgotten pazaak deck, and one stacked against her.
“But you saw her,” Cardinal muses.
“I scared the hell out of her. She hasn’t been outside in ten years. She’s worried the radiation might harm Torbi. Whatever caused the explosion, it turns out the rest of the station was running just fine, and the droids are more than happy to help her. Siv has a full complement of helpful servants and enough food to feed an army for a century. They’ve been there for ten years without seeing a single soul. She was so glad to see me, her story practically fell out of her.”
“Then why do you look troubled on her behalf? It sounds as if you got what you went there for.”
Now it’s her turn to look away. “I told Siv I’d come back. My starhopper—well, I’m sure your troops have turned it into component parts by now. I couldn’t fit two passengers on that thing, much less three. So I promised Siv that I would come back and help her and her daughter rejoin civilization. I didn’t tell—”
Cardinal perks up. “Tell whom?”
Vi sighs. “I didn’t tell my superiors about that part. That poor woman will be listening for engines every day, waiting for a better life for her child than biding her time on a dead planet. I don’t mind telling people they’re screwed, but I hate giving anyone false hope.”
He’s suddenly in her face, balling his fist in her shirt. “Stop that. Your guilt is not my problem. We’re running out of time. You said you had intel to help me take Phasma down, and you’re still holding it back.”
Iris beeps a warning, and Vi looks down at his hand and back up at his face. “You can let go of me, first.”
He releases her shirt and backs away sheepishly. Maybe he’s not used to losing control like that. Iris floats back to bob between them, as if reminding Cardinal that he must keep his distance. This is the first interrogation where Vi hasn’t taken a single punch, which says something else about her enemy. He might’ve shocked her a few times, but he’s still ashamed for grabbing her like that, droid reprimand or no. That kind of touch, that kind of rage, is simply too personal.
He’s right, though. This thing she knows about Phasma…it’s a doozy. She’s been holding it back, but she feels it’s finally time for the big reveal. He’s as open as he’s ever going to be, and if she continues to defy him, she’ll lose him completely.
She takes a deep breath and meets his eyes, commanding his full attention.
“What did they tell you about Brendol’s death? What’s the official word?”
He sits again, leans forward avidly like it’s his favorite part of the story, but his eyes suggest it’s going to be the worst part. “Unknown malady. I saw him that morning. He didn’t look good. Like maybe he was coming down with something. He was too pale. I suggested he hit the medbay, have the droids check him out.”
“And what did Brendol say to that?”
Cardinal’s smile suggests he might’ve once been a mischievous boy. “He told me to mind my own business and respect my superiors. But he went. He was like that—followed good advice, but put you down so you didn’t think it was your idea. And then…”
“You never saw him again.”
Cardinal doesn’t answer, just stares at the floor.
Vi licks her lips. They’re dry again.
“Tell me, then, Cardinal. That last morning, did he look…a bit swollen?”
Cardinal shrugs. “Sure, but he always looked a bit puffy after a night at the officers’ mess. Wasn’t the healthiest of men, and he was getting into his sixties then. I didn’t expect him to look the picture of health.”
“But you never looked up his records?”
Cardinal is up and pacing again, and Vi realizes that when it comes to Brendol Hux, he’s a raw nerve, utterly unschooled in concealing his moods or his tells. This is what he does when he’s truly upset: He can’t stop from moving, can’t contain his nervous energy.
“That’s not how things are done in the First Order. I can’t just go to Records and ask for details. Or to the medbay and have a private chat with the droids. You can politely inquire of your superiors once, but ask a second time and they get suspicious. They called an assembly, and I was standing at the head of ten thousand troops in perfect formation when Armitage Hux put his hat under his arm and told us all that his father had passed on.”
“Didn’t even tell you privately. Huh.” Vi tries not to look too smug. “And you didn’t ask for details. They really do have you trained well.”
Cardinal grabs the manacles around her upper arms and shakes the whole contraption, rattling Vi’s skull and turning her legs into jelly.
“Of course I asked for details! An unknown malady, that’s all they would say.” He pulls away and clears his throat. “Must’ve been something he picked up on one of his planetary visits. The med droids had never seen anything like it, had no records of similar symptoms in their data drives. A complete mystery. Just be glad I hadn’t gotten it, too, they said.”
“Well, I guess our slicers are better at solving mysteries than yours are, because they managed to get ahold of an old medical droid and unscramble its data. Let me tell you the symptoms that led to Brendol Hux’s demise. First he complained of a tiny bump on his neck, just under his collar, the skin red and hot and hard. Thought it might be a cyst, or possibly a bite from some strange and unfamiliar creature. The med droids couldn’t find anything unusual. Then Brendol started to puff up. His skin became swollen. His eyes began to bulge, and his hair fell out, and his fingernails popped off. He complained that he felt disoriented and weak. His skin became pale and thin and translucent. And then, floating in a bacta tank in the medbay…”
“No!”
“He just sort of…dissolved into the liquid. Leaving behind only a few shrunken organs, bare bones, and a patch of graying red hair.”
“So you’re saying that Phasma brought one of those beetles from Parnassos. That she, what? Planted it on Brendol?”
Vi raises an eyebrow and desperately wishes she could cock her head at him; she hates when smart people play dumb. “Unless you know another way that people casually turn into big bags full of water and explode.”
“But this is Captain Phasma we’re talking about. Why would
she kill General Hux? He was her savior, her superior. He made her what she was.”
Vi shakes and slams within her restraints, wishing she could get out and rough this idiot up a little for being so naïve. “Why? Because as far as she knew, Siv was dead, and Brendol was the last person who knew about her humble beginnings. The last one who knew her history. Brendol watched her betray her leader, fight her people, murder her own brother in cold blood. Brendol was the only witness to her crimes, the only witness in the entire galaxy who knew that she wasn’t the perfect soldier poster child for this lockstep hellscape you call the First Order. She needed him, though, for a while. Needed him to bring her back here to your floating paradise and tell everyone of her bravery, her strength, her resilience, her prowess. Needed him to think that he was her vaunted patron and mentor, and that she was his simple weapon. Needed to use him like a whetstone as she rose through the ranks, just as he’d foretold. And then, one day, when he’d forgotten she wasn’t merely a leashed wolf, she flicked that beetle into his jacket and walked away. The perfect crime.”
He’s somewhere behind her now. Maybe he’s leaning against the wall; maybe he’s in a ball on the floor. She doesn’t know. She wishes she could see his face, see how he’s taking it. See if he’s thinking about picking up the remote again. For all that he’s shown some rudimentary kindness, giving her water and food, and for all that the vitamin packs and stims helped, a little, she can feel damage in her body, nerves burnt and muscles unable to loosen up. When he lets her out—if he lives up to their bargain and lets her out—she may very well fall flat on her face, unable even to crawl away.
And that’s the best-case scenario.
For all she knows, he could still just shock her to death and be done with it.
Because the truth of it is this: There is no physical evidence. That beetle is long gone. Phasma made sure of that. “But what about Frey? She was a witness, too.”
She died six months ago in a training exercise, weapon malfunction. Or at least that’s how Phasma recorded it. Phasma is very good at getting rid of witnesses.”
For several long moments, he was silent.
“Does Armitage know? About Brendol?” It comes out in a flat voice from somewhere behind her.
“I don’t know what Armitage knows. I just know what was stricken from the original medbay records, which is a list of symptoms leading up to his death in the bacta tank. As you know, the official cause of death was recorded as Malady, Unknown.”
“And you’re sure?”
“I’m strapped into an interrogation chair with an angry man. This is as sure as I get.”
“I’m sorry about this.”
Vi tries to whip her head around but can’t. “Sorry about what? You don’t need to do anything you’ll be sorry for.”
The next thing she knows, electricity is coursing through her body, slamming her teeth together and making bright-red starbursts behind her eyelids. Vi Moradi goes unconscious.
AS SOON AS THE SPY GOES limp in her bonds, Cardinal releases the switch. He knows what he has to do now, and ironic as it is, he’d rather not have a witness for this next step. He’s worn ruts in this room, pacing and sitting and glaring at the walls as Vi has told her story. He demanded she tell him everything, and she certainly did. And it almost seemed like she enjoyed it. It’s strange, how obsessed a man can get with listening to dark truths about his enemies. Before, he knew nothing about Phasma. Now he knows everything. Or, at least, enough.
Although Iris beeps at him in irritation for doubting her surveillance, he checks Vi’s vitals to make sure he didn’t hurt her too much and tests that her bonds are still tight before putting his helmet back on. It’s become a part of him, an extension of his body like his blaster. The way it dulls some senses while expanding others soothes him. When Cardinal wears this helmet, he knows exactly who he is and what he was meant to do—so that’s at least one thing he has in common with Phasma. And right now, he has to find Armitage Hux. There are still several hours before the meeting, which means the general is most likely commandeering his father’s old quarters on the Absolution, brushing up on his intel and studying the agenda.
“Stay here and watch her,” he tells Iris, and the red light blinks as if to say, I know.
Locking the door as he leaves, Cardinal storms through the hallways, his captain’s cloak flying behind him. The turbolift takes forever, even though he stabs the button repeatedly. General Hux’s old quarters are high up among the senior staff, and the journey has always felt long even on the best of days, when Brendol lived here and Cardinal felt welcome. When the lift door slides open on the officers’ floor, Cardinal’s heart is hammering so hard that he can feel it in his temples. He’s slightly dizzy, as jacked up as he used to get as a kid recruit in a sim fight, when every nerve in his body was firing and his teeth refused to unclench.
For all that he’s accustomed to sparring one-on-one, it’s been years since he did his required tours planetside, helping to pacify rebellious worlds and leading his troops on missions. Those first few years after Brendol delivered him from Jakku were tough, as his body and mind hardened to focus on combat, but this will be a new kind of fight. Cardinal has never before been a man to question his superiors, and he’s never been the bearer of bad news. Then again, he’s never illegally detained a suspect and tortured them for hours in a hidden room in the bilge to gain secret intel on a colleague, either.
When he reaches Brendol’s old suite, a protocol droid answers the door, placid and refined. This model once belonged to Brendol, and Cardinal wonders if its memory was wiped after the older man died. Or perhaps it contains all sorts of secrets, including the ones Cardinal has recently learned. The way the First Order uses and wipes and reuses droids—and, sometimes, loses them—there’s a good chance this very model stood on that shuttle with Phasma, silently recording. Perhaps it was there the day Phasma released a golden beetle, unleashing her long-kept secret weapon on a high-ranking superior officer who had made the foolish decision to trust her.
“Can I help you, Captain Cardinal?” the droid asks.
“I need to see General Hux, please.” The helmet keeps his voice from trembling like a boy’s, and he puts his hands behind his back like he’s at parade rest to hide their shaking.
“I’m afraid the general is resting before the assembly.”
“It’s an emergency.”
“Oh. I see. How very unusual.”
“I’m afraid it is. Very unusual. But of utmost importance.”
The droid is still standing there looking befuddled when Armitage himself appears behind it. He’s not in his crisp uniform but instead wears a robe, black and composed of sharp lines and pleats. For all that the entire point of a robe is to appear casual and comfortable, Armitage Hux has a way of turning anything into a uniform, any interaction into a judgment.
“How very unusual indeed,” he says. “What is this emergency, Captain?”
In the lines of Armitage’s face, Cardinal sees what Brendol once was, before he grew old and soft. Confidence, vitality, sureness. And yet there’s something cruel and savage in the man, something forged by Brendol himself. Cardinal remembers hating Armitage when he first met him on Jakku. Spoiled, sullen, small, ratlike, soft while the orphan children were hard and sharp. But over the years, Cardinal was…well, not programmed. Taught. Sculpted. He learned that Armitage was untouchable, above him. Armitage is clever and wise and farsighted. Armitage will help the First Order eclipse the might of the old Empire and annihilate the New Republic. Cardinal was loyal to Brendol, and now he is loyal to Armitage. And Armitage appreciates that.
Of course, Armitage has always favored Phasma. They both reside on the Finalizer, and Cardinal has often seen them colluding. Together, they manage and control thousands of stormtroopers, planning invasions and attacks with Kylo Ren to lead the First Order to victory. In times of doubt, Cardinal wonders if Armitage supports Phasma out of spite for the Jakku orphan Brendol once took under
his wing. Even if Armitage doesn’t like Cardinal, he has long acknowledged the superiority of Cardinal’s training methods and lauded his success with young recruits. Perhaps the sneer Armitage wears every time he speaks to Cardinal is the same expression he shows everyone.
Such petty concerns don’t matter now. This is not an issue of personal politics. Since Armitage cares about the First Order as much as Cardinal does, he’ll appreciate learning what Cardinal knows. Loyalty to the cause is more important than interpersonal rapport. Together, they can oust Phasma and rebuild the training program to the younger Hux’s exact specifications. Once Armitage understands how his father died, there’s no way he’ll let Brendol’s murderer stay on those posters, much less remain alive.
“Well?” Armitage prods.
“I have new information, sir.”
“Spit it out. I haven’t got all day, as you well know.”
Cardinal draws a deep breath and holds himself up tall. “Sir, I’ve gained some intel you’ll want to hear. About your father. About his death.”
Armitage almost looks surprised, but he’s too well bred for that. Instead, he leans out the door to look up and down the hall before stepping back into his rooms. “Come in then. Hurry. And you’re excused, Kayfour. Please return in time for the assembly.”
“Yes, sir.”
The droid disappears down the hall, and Cardinal steps into Armitage Hux’s rooms. He was here constantly when the suite belonged to Brendol, but the décor has changed under Armitage’s rule. Brendol had liked classical, traditional styles, elegant rugs and fine artifacts and rich foods. But Armitage, just like Kylo Ren, seems to appreciate a certain starkness in his person and in his quarters. Everything is beautiful and comfortable and refined, sure. But each element is edged in silver that seems sharp enough to slice skin. Armitage drapes himself across a low, ice-blue sofa but doesn’t invite Cardinal to sit. Cardinal, ever the good soldier, remains standing and considers it his duty to do so.