“Where’s your droid, Captain? I don’t know that I’ve ever seen you without your floating orb.”
Cardinal almost stumbles but finds something close enough to truth. “On duty, sir. Can’t leave my responsibilities behind.”
Armitage smiles, a slinky thing that suggests he smells a lie. “True enough. Now, this emergency?”
“Sir, I’ve recently learned some troubling news about Captain Phasma.”
“I thought you said this was about my father.”
“It is. And also Phasma.”
Armitage sits forward, one eyebrow cocked. “What about Phasma?”
Cardinal clears his throat. “She’s not what she seems. Not a loyal soldier. Her past includes betrayal, murder, genocide. She is not worthy of her captain’s cape, nor of your faith in her. She’s performed atrocities that go against everything we stand for.”
“And did she do this on the Finalizer ?”
“No, sir. On her home planet, Parnassos.”
Armitage smirks and leans into the cushions, one long arm draped over the back of the sofa. “Then how, pray tell, is this my problem? Many of our recruits, yourself included, lived violent lives before they swore their allegiance to the First Order. We are very forgiving of those who choose to serve us.”
Cardinal stands tall, considering how to make Armitage understand without overstepping himself. “It goes deeper than that, sir. We entrust our recruits to her, and she’s already betrayed the First Order’s laws. She would move against us in a heartbeat if what we wanted didn’t serve her needs. She’s a risk.”
Armitage shakes his head in a sad sort of way. “Cardinal, you’re speaking in hypotheticals. I can’t admonish someone for something they haven’t done or might yet do. Captain Phasma’s service record is exemplary, and she turns out stormtroopers that meet my own father’s rigorous requirements. She has been commended, again and again, for her fine work. If you don’t have some sort of direct evidence against her, against actual deeds she’s performed since taking her vows and joining us, then I might as well go shout at the stars.”
Cardinal’s hands clench into fists at his side, but he’s careful, so careful, not to make any sort of move that could appear threatening to a superior officer. “Sir, if I may say so, if Admiral Sloane were here—”
“Well she’s not,” Armitage snaps. “Any other threats you’d like to hold over my head?”
“Phasma killed your father,” Cardinal says, going right to the heart of the matter.
Armitage jumps to his feet. “Did she? And you have proof? Show me. Tell me. And do not disappoint me.”
“I…I can get proof. It was a beetle. From her own planet. From Parnassos. Its bite causes the victim to liquefy. That’s why the med droids couldn’t identify it. They never saw the beetle, just its bite and the effects of its venom.”
“But where’s the proof?”
“Let me go to Parnassos, and I can find a beetle and bring it back. The med droids will match the chemical signature to your father’s records.”
“But you don’t actually have one with you? Or proof that one bit my father at Phasma’s behest?”
“No, sir.”
Armitage sits back down, a smug smile on his face. “Good.”
“Good?”
“Cardinal, you’re an idiot. My father knew it, and so do I. I know Phasma killed him, and I’m glad the old bastard is dead. We agreed on the right time for it to happen. I told her it had to be untraceable, and it shall remain so.”
For a long moment, Cardinal can only stare.
“You…knew?”
“Of course I knew. I always know. I know everything. Now the question is this: What else do you know, and what do you think you’re going to do with that information?”
Cardinal takes a step backward and feels as if he might be floating in space, on his way to his last breath and utterly lost.
“Nothing, sir. I know nothing, and I have no proof.”
“Good. Because if you attempt to speak to anyone else about this matter, I can make you disappear, too. The thing is, you’re a good man. A good soldier who does his duty, who follows orders. We need men like you in the First Order. I need men like you on my side. So the next question would be…are you on my side?”
Cardinal is nodding before he finds his voice.
“Yes, sir. My loyalty remains with the First Order and with you.”
“Good fellow. I’ll see you at the assembly today, then? And you will remain, as always, silent and steady?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Excellent. Because for all that Phasma does an excellent job with our older recruits, and for all that she’s always arguing against my harsher indoctrination, I just don’t think she could be trusted with your little ones. Do you?”
Cardinal shudders at the thought. “No, sir.”
Armitage sits back into his couch and smiles beatifically. “Then you’re dismissed. And thank you so much for bringing this information to my attention.”
ARMITAGE HUX LEANS FORWARD, STUDYING CARDINAL as he exits. Even under the bold red armor, it’s clear that something about the captain has been broken, which is a shame. Cardinal is an ideal officer, and his mixture of patience and sternness has turned out flawless recruits that even old Brendol couldn’t complain about. No, Armitage doesn’t have a single argument with Cardinal.
At least he didn’t until today.
The chuff of the man, coming to tattle on Phasma like that. It’s two strikes against Cardinal. One for the tattling, and one for being foolish enough to mess with Phasma. Three, actually. Cardinal thought Armitage himself was too dull to know what was occurring right under his nose.
Leaning back into his couch, Armitage flicks his comm.
“Officer Bolander?”
Her voice is crisp. “Yes, sir?”
“Please send over the guest list for today’s assembly. I have some changes to make.”
Like a good officer, she doesn’t question him or his command.
“Yes, sir.”
Perhaps Armitage should worry about Cardinal. The man has clearly become unstable, and he has a grudge. He has also inexplicably gotten his hands on some highly confidential information that should be destroyed or buried so deep that a hungry wampa couldn’t find it if it were soaked in blood. That dig about Brendol? Hilarious. Cardinal saw how the man treated his son. If he knew anything about the human heart, he should’ve understood that the stronger Hux would rise to supplant the weaker, older Hux eventually. Armitage has apparently done an excellent job of hiding his lesser traits from his inferiors. The ends justify the means, and the First Order cannot be held back by outdated ideals.
Armitage considers his comm and flirts with the idea of letting Phasma know her erstwhile rival has some unwelcome intel, but Cardinal himself admitted he has no evidence. Armitage is the highest authority on ship; who else could Cardinal possibly tell?
Better to let this little conflict play itself out. If Armitage understands anything about Captain Cardinal, having known him for well over a decade now, he knows this: Cardinal will do what he considers to be the right thing. And that means he’ll continue to fulfill his duties promptly and to the best of his significant abilities. He will probably wrestle with his own conscience, fighting his First Order conditioning, until he has no choice but to confront Phasma himself.
Which is just fine.
Phasma is good at making problems disappear.
For now, Armitage has to get ready.
Kylo Ren doesn’t like to wait.
THE DOOR TO THE HUX SUITE slides shut behind him, and Cardinal feels truly adrift for the first time since his mother died on Jakku, leaving him entirely alone. Ever since Brendol found him and gave him a purpose, something to aspire to and something to believe in, he’s known that he was right where he was meant to be. The stars felt more like home than the hovel of salvaged metal where he grew up. But now the halls of the Absolution seem cold and impersonal, and he ca
n feel the eyes of every security officer watching him through the cams that blink at regular intervals. Up here, among the officers and the elite, his every move is monitored. The dark room in the bilge where Vi waits now feels less like a prison and more like a haven.
Still, he has his duties, and they won’t wait. The spy will. She has no choice. And if she tries anything, Iris will take care of her. The droid is beginning to feel like the only member of the First Order that Cardinal can actually trust. All this time, he thought Armitage was an ally, or at least a bastion of shared loyalty to the First Order. But as he’s recently learned, the younger Hux is just as dangerous as Phasma.
Cardinal’s training kicks in, and his posture straightens. How did the rhyme go? Chin up, shoulders back, stand up tall, don’t be slack. Even the tiniest of his recruits can sing along, and the slogan is printed on one of the many posters plastered around their barracks and the youth cafeteria, along with an image of Captain Phasma at attention, her chrome armor shining and her cape rippling behind her. The little ones look up to her, want to be her. They think of Captain Cardinal as their teacher, but it’s Phasma who has become their idol.
They’ll be waking up shortly, the klaxon calling them out of their bunks, where Brendol’s carefully designed program feeds them subliminal messages all night long. Recognizing the value of the system in molding young minds, Armitage has changed nothing about the program since Brendol’s death. Cardinal finds it comforting, when he checks on the children at night, to hear the soft murmur of the First Order’s doctrine droning on, the same as when he was a child. He used to lie in bed and pretend it was his mother’s kind, loving voice, even if it spoke of loyalty, courage, and the rule of law, all things his mother never mentioned as she struggled to keep them alive.
In his own quarters, Cardinal shucks his armor and hangs it neatly, noting a few smudges from his time with Vi. There, on the glove, where he spilled some caf. There, on the shin guard, a stain. He didn’t even look in the mirror before confronting General Hux. He’s slipping.
He goes through the standard ablutions taught to him when he first came to this ship. The right way to shower, the correct way to clean his teeth and shave. His new bodysuit waits in the closet fresh and sharp, but he won’t put his armor back on until it’s clean. As he polishes the shining red, his thoughts drift to the day he received his first armor, the standard white trooper suit given to every recruit. Back then, he was just a boy learning to fight, and his number was CD-0922. He was so proud as he accepted the helmet and learned the subtleties of keeping a tidy kit. Standing there with his first platoon, chin up and shoulders back, a training blaster hooked on his hip, he’d never felt prouder. Brendol’s hand had landed on his shoulder, and at the time it felt like the highest he could ever rise.
He’d aced every sim, mastered every weapon. Won accolade after accolade and left his platoon behind to help a less accomplished platoon find their feet. Brendol had called him a natural leader and lauded his patience and composure when teaching even the clumsiest or most nervous recruits how to shoot a blaster or wield a riot baton. He never lost his temper or had an unkind word. He took each new challenge in stride and enjoyed the process of finding ways to reach the unreachable, soothe the unsoothable, and boost the confidence of the insecure. In the early days of the First Order, there had been more of these negative traits, back when the recruits were all teens who arrived damaged in heart or mind. Once Brendol had perfected his methods and found younger children to indoctrinate, there were fewer such duties for Cardinal. He was able to focus on weapons and running the elaborate sims programmed by both Huxes.
There were many fine recruits, but in the end Brendol chose Cardinal above all others for this responsibility. Out of thousands upon thousands of troopers, it was CD-0922 who was called to lead and given the high honor of acting as the personal honor guard of Brendol Hux as they refined the training program together. The first time Cardinal saw the red armor was when Brendol Hux presented it to him in a ceremony in front of thousands of his fellow troopers. Although CD-0922’s helmet had shown only the smooth, white face, inside, he’d been incandescent, joy beaming out of his eyes and stretching his smile to unseemly proportions.
“Thank you, sir,” he’d said.
Brendol had looked at him, then…well, like perhaps a father would.
Which was a way Brendol had never looked at his own son, Armitage.
Cardinal recalled one conversation in particular, once he was considered a trusted part of Brendol’s life and long before Phasma came along. Brendol has been preparing for a big meeting with Grand Admiral Rae Sloane and the other leaders of the First Order—well, the first set of leaders. Cardinal was waiting in Brendol’s suite—the very one where Armitage was now staying—and Brendol had poured his customary glass of port from a crystal decanter and offered a glass to Cardinal.
“Thank you, sir, but it’s against regulations,” Cardinal said.
Brendol had smiled that smug but indulgent smile he used only when he was in the best of moods. “Ah, CD-0922. So upright in your red uniform. That’s why you’re first among my men. Cardinal, even.” He laughed at his own joke. “How would you like to have a name other than a number? Captain Cardinal has quite a ring to it, does it not?”
It was an unusual honor, and Cardinal’s heart had swelled. “As you wish, sir.”
“That’s what you always say. I wonder what you would do if I, as your superior officer, insisted you share a drink with me. Would you honor your First Order teachings or follow my direct command?”
Cardinal had flushed under his red helmet, panicking a bit. It was as if two thoughts were running through his head, separate but opposed, and neither was stronger than the other. Brendol poured a glass and held it out, but Cardinal didn’t reach for it.
“I’m sure it is against your orders to invite me to go against regulations, sir,” he finally said.
At that, Brendol had thrown back his head and laughed.
“Good answer, Cardinal. More for me, then.”
The older Hux had swallowed both glasses happily and gone to his meeting in good spirits, Cardinal walking before him, blaster at the ready and captain’s cape flowing behind him. When he’d served as Brendol’s guard, he’d always felt larger than life, untouchable and grand. The red armor, Brendol often reminded him, invoked power. Out of all the identical troopers, one had risen above. One had flown higher. Cardinal was to be more than just a stormtrooper—the highest of the stormtroopers. Hence the color, hence the unique name. Cardinal for the red bird, Cardinal for his standing as the first of his kind, the first trooper with a name and with red armor.
And then Phasma showed up.
She never had to give up her name for a number, as Cardinal had. She didn’t get red armor, thank goodness, but it was obvious that Brendol considered her special, too. Given a captain’s cape early in her career, the only one other than Cardinal. Offered the chance to mold the training program to her specifications, to program the sims and find new ways to challenge the teens who’d graduated from Cardinal’s own curriculum. It had seemed…well, he felt guilty for even thinking it. But it had felt as if he did the heavy lifting, primed the pumps, and then she took his perfect troopers and twisted them to suit herself.
The more he thinks about it, the angrier he becomes.
It’s unclear whose work is more important. They are two halves of the same whole. When the troopers perform ideally and are triumphant, it’s considered a joint victory. When Brendol had stood before the assembled troopers to report a job well done, Cardinal and Phasma had flanked him to share in victory, and now they do the same under the new General Hux. But for all that their lives are intertwined, Cardinal has never known Phasma personally. At all. He has his academy on the Absolution, and when he deems a platoon ready, they get shipped off to Phasma’s academy on the Finalizer. Even though he’s the one that trained her, teaching her the intricacies of the First Order and even how to read, he still know
s virtually nothing about her as a person. She has always shunned small talk.
One thing he does know is that Phasma memorizes her troopers’ numbers. He once considered this a sign in her favor, an attention to detail that shows how much she cares about her responsibility. But now he sees everything she does in a more sinister light. Cardinal learns the troopers’ numbers because he is proud of them and enjoys seeing them succeed. Perhaps Phasma keeps track of the numbers in case she needs to make someone disappear. Like Frey. Her own niece.
As these thoughts stream through his head, he polishes his red armor to a high shine and goes through the once comforting ritual of getting dressed. The klaxon blares, and he hears the sounds of footsteps and shouting. Brendol offered him quarters among the officers, up high where Armitage now stays, but Cardinal chose to be here, near his charges, acting as a living example of his service and modesty within the First Order. At first, being so near the chaos of thousands of children irked him, but now it feels like home. Listening to them now, even filtered through his helmet, he smiles.
These children will one day be the greatest fighters the galaxy has ever known, but just now they’re jostling for showers and toilets and measuring their hair to make sure it’s trimmed to regulation length. He gives them time to dress and get their breakfast before checking his reflection in the mirror. The outside shell doesn’t show the cracks within. Perhaps this is a crisis of faith, but he will perform his duties. If nothing else, they give him time to decide what to do with the Resistance spy. It’s too late to tell his superiors about her, to admit that he’s been secretly tracking her and has her locked up on ship, all records of her presence cannily erased by Iris. But it’s never too late to kill her and kick her body out of an air lock, distasteful as that seems. She is an enemy of the First Order, after all. A member of the Resistance. Her intel on Phasma, while elucidating, isn’t enough.
When the time is right, Cardinal stands to go. But before he leaves, he turns back. His quarters are spare, nothing like the glowing elegance of the Hux suite. Growing up on Jakku and then sleeping in the barracks, he couldn’t get comfortable on the soft mattress Brendol had originally supplied with his captain’s commission. Now his bed is a spare thing, matching his equally austere furnishings. There are no rugs, no art, no cut-crystal decanters. No softness or color here. Just a few hard, basic chairs and a small table—strangely similar to the room where Vi waits. He kneels before the table and pulls out the single drawer. The box inside seems so childish in his gloved hands, the wood simple and rough, cradled in the shining red. He slides back the lid to reveal the only remnant of his life before the First Order.