Keldo sat still as stone on his throne, glaring at Phasma. He was livid, but he was hurt. Siv knew him well, and she had never known the siblings to fight. Everyone was on new ground—a rare thing in the Scyre. Phasma stepped forward, but he held out a hand as if commanding her to come no farther.
“Brother, listen. This is for the best. My warriors and I will take Brendol Hux and his people to find this ship. I have seen the unclaimed wastelands beyond Balder’s territory, and it is like nothing we have seen before. Land as far as the eye can see, barren and covered with only sand. No rocks, no water. Without your leg, you will be unable to make this journey with the required speed, so I beg you, stay here where you will be more comfortable, and I will deliver glory to the Scyre when the goal has been achieved.”
“But sister, you brought me a new leg.”
“But brother, you must first learn to use it.”
The inside of the Nautilus suddenly felt far too small, and the Scyre folk huddled together, confused by their leaders’ hostility and by the presence of strangers from space. They looked to Keldo and Phasma for answers, but all they found was tension. Somewhere, softly, Frey began to cry.
When Keldo spoke again, his voice was unfriendly and cold, far from Phasma’s warm, anxious pledge. “But sister, the ship is past Balder’s territory. Do you know whose territory that is, or how they fight upon their ground? The Claws will have chosen a new leader by now, and they may even be planning a counterattack that would bring violence to our land. We have lost several of our own warriors, and I see wounds among our remaining people already beginning to fester. It’s simply too risky for you and your fine warriors to leave us here, unguarded, when you’ve upset the balance of peace.”
“But brother—”
“Phasma, hear me. People of the Scyre, hear me. Brendol Hux, hear me. I forbid any of my people from pursuing this quest. Brendol Hux and his people are welcome to stay here and join the Scyre, but the risk of leaving is simply too great. Our people have fought and died to protect this cave and this land. You may have destroyed our hard-won peace with our greatest enemy, Phasma, but I will not let you destroy the Scyre. A recovery mission is out of the question.”
He slammed his staff on the ground, and the sound echoed throughout the now silent Nautilus, rippling down through all the hidden caves and out, somewhere, to the sea.
“The Scyre has spoken.”
Phasma said nothing; when the Scyre had spoken, there were no further arguments. Tonight, her brother had chosen to take on the formal mantle of rulership, denying her the place she’d earned at his side, as his sword arm. As she well knew, there was no fighting among the people of the Scyre; here, in the Nautilus, the gathered people were his to command. She nodded her acquiescence, turned on her heel, and strode off into the darkness.
If only Keldo had understood his sister better.
That night, while the Scyre folk slept in their hammocks among the rock spires, Phasma crept into the swiftly filling Nautilus cave and loaded several packs with the tribe’s collected food, tools, and water, the carefully scavenged and hoarded stores they kept for emergencies. Perhaps she reasoned that the First Order would be more than happy to replenish everything she took. Perhaps she cared only about forging an alliance with Brendol. Whatever reason she gave herself, Phasma headed out into the night with her four closest warriors, Brendol Hux, and his three troopers, leaving a crippled and defenseless tribe behind them.
“YOU SEE WHAT PHASMA WAS DOING, don’t you?” Vi asks.
Cardinal shrugs. “Aligning herself with the stronger party while getting rid of her weaker brother’s influence. But all of that is well in line with the First Order’s ways. She was loyal to her people first, and when she didn’t agree with her brother’s decision, she did what she thought best. If he’d been her true superior, I would object. But as you’ve described it, they were equals. Therefore, she broke no covenant.”
“So you think she did the right thing?”
Vi appreciates the care Cardinal puts into his answer. It’s clear he’s frustrated, but he’s also willing to debate. It’s a rare thing to meet someone willing to challenge their own prejudices, especially on a topic as important as this one is to Cardinal.
“It doesn’t matter if Phasma did the right thing. My loyalty is to the First Order and what happens within our ranks. Whatever happened before Phasma pledged her loyalty to us is not my business. I have no way of knowing the intricacies of their culture and leadership structure. What you’ve told me so far might be an interesting character study, but I need documented proof of Phasma’s wrongdoing within the First Order. And you still haven’t told me about how General Hux died.”
“I’m getting to it,” Vi says. “But I need a medpac. If I get much weaker, I won’t be able to talk. And what about my personal needs? It’s not easy to tell a tale when you’re about to bust.”
Cardinal leans in, shakes his head. “Time for all that later. Tell me about Brendol.”
Vi steels herself. “Medpac first. I need to be fortified for this part.” She drops her head and grins wryly. “You’re not going to like it.”
Cardinal stands to check the readout on the panel by her head, the one tracking her vitals. Whatever he sees must confirm what she’s saying. The droid gives a reluctant beep, and Vi realizes she’s begun to think of Iris as the friendlier of her interrogators.
“Your personal needs are your own problem. I will bring a medpac and more food and water. Try anything, and the deal is off. And remember: I know where your brother is. And Iris is watching you.” He puts on his helmet and goes to the door.
Before it opens, Vi says one thing, carefully chosen to trouble him.
“Tell me, Cardinal. Do you remember when Phasma first came to the Finalizer ?”
CARDINAL STEPS INTO THE HALL, LOCKS the door, and checks it again. This Resistance spy must remain his dirty little secret—at least until he gets the information he needs from her. He checks the time and mutters a curse, vulgar slang from Jakku that would be frowned upon if there were anyone nearby to hear it. Captain Phasma and Armitage Hux will be on the Absolution for a meeting tomorrow, which means Cardinal doesn’t have long to wring Phasma’s secrets out of his prisoner.
It feels good to think of her as Phasma, rather than Captain Phasma. A dirty, ignorant, desperate, traitorous villain from a dying colony, willing to do anything to get offplanet. Yes, that sounds like the Phasma he knows—or, at least, what he’d like to assume. He knows practically nothing about her, but everything Vi has said rings true. He’s taken into consideration that the spy might be lying, but the stories are too specific, too easily matched with his rival. It’s odd, that he could hate Phasma with such intensity. On the surface, they have so much in common. Young, scrappy fighters snatched up by Brendol Hux and driven by the promise of a better life in a ship among the stars.
Ha. Cardinal was Brendol’s first and finest project. Phasma was a later addition. An afterthought. And one given unfair attention.
As he marches toward the mess, Vi’s final words ring in his head.
Does he remember the day Phasma came to the Finalizer ?
Of course he does. How could he forget?
That was the day he lost half of everything he’d fought for.
With Brendol gone on a recruiting mission, Cardinal was left to steer the training program. It was a job he loved and one for which he was uniquely qualified. Who else could soothe and inspire new recruits as well as a man who had once stood in their heavy, ill-fitting boots? Ever since leaving Jakku with Brendol, Cardinal had either been in the program himself or helping shape young minds into perfect soldiers for the First Order. Brendol’s officers handled the programming, but Cardinal handled the actual physical instruction. Hand-to-hand combat, blaster practice, running simulations, testing their mettle again and again, and subtly shaping their young minds—he was the ideal leader. No one believed in the First Order like Cardinal did, having been lifted from crushing
poverty and given a purpose, and he prided himself on helping each young orphan find inner strengths and tap into that resilient core within that would one day live to serve the First Order.
He’d been training a battalion on the use of riot-control batons when the order came in from his comm.
“Cardinal, report to meeting room one-oh-seven immediately, on orders of General Hux.”
When such orders came, much like for the meeting tomorrow, there was no questioning them, no asking if he was being called in for commendation or reprimand. There was also no delay. He left Iris and the next most senior officer in charge of training, gave clear orders, and hurried down the corridors toward the familiar meeting room, anxious to learn what his superior wanted. Although he was formally Brendol’s personal guard and accompanied the man on all important errands of state, Cardinal was well aware that Brendol often made such recruitment trips, generally to scout a new planet for cadets with the right combination of disadvantage and strength. The galaxy was full of orphans who had grown up, as Cardinal had, alone and struggling on a hard planet. To such children, the First Order was the ideal savior. Even the unwilling cadets—those taken against their will but for their ultimate good— would learn to see it as such, eventually. So perhaps Brendol had brought a new cadre of students for Cardinal to gently introduce to the wonders of clean water and regular food. That was the best-case scenario.
But when Cardinal arrived in the meeting room, armor and helmet fully polished and posture straight, he found not the usual group of scruffy children or a datapad of new identification numbers, but a single, tall figure at Brendol’s side. He—for at the time, Cardinal was sure it was a man—clearly wasn’t a proper stormtrooper, but he wore white stormtrooper armor, ill fitting and utterly filthy. Blood, muck, and scorch marks were everywhere. Under the armor, he was blasphemously wrapped in red fabric instead of the requisite black body glove, standing taller than Cardinal or Brendol and giving off an air of quiet menace.
From the very beginning, Cardinal knew this new upstart would be trouble.
“Cardinal, this is Phasma,” Brendol had said. “You will introduce her to the ship and to her duties. The training program has grown beyond our greatest hopes, and once her own training is complete, your current role will be split between the two of you. Cardinal will continue to handle the new and young recruits, while Phasma will eventually take over the teens and adults, especially in regard to combat and terrain simulations. Cardinal, I will be taking on a new personal guard. You have performed admirably, and I now wish you to focus on our expanding program and training Phasma in all our weapons. Be sure to get her up to speed on using datapads, tech, that sort of thing.”
This introduction caught Cardinal entirely off-guard.
Not only was he not prepared for the tall intruder to be female, but he had also lost his highest honor as Brendol’s guard—and half his training program. All that, and he was expected to train her, too.
If anyone else had required such a task from him…
But it was Brendol Hux.
“Has she been assigned a number, sir?” he asked, hating the squeak of desperation in his voice.
Brendol smiled that secret smile of his and chuckled. “Oh, no. Like you, she is a special case. She will also require an armor fitting. I’ve already had her assigned a separate suite. We’ve had a long journey, so we will rest today. You will begin her training tomorrow morning. And now I must go make sure our other new recruit starts out on the right foot. I have great expectations for these warriors of Parnassos.”
Cardinal saluted, but Brendol was acting strangely. He’d been watching his mentor for years, ever since that first flight off Jakku, and he’d seen Brendol on good days and bad, under great stress and when gloating over a bureaucratic victory. Something was off with him today, something more than just his sun-reddened skin, but Cardinal couldn’t say what. Perhaps the older man was simply exhausted from whatever had happened on Phasma’s planet.
Brendol left, and Cardinal felt like he’d lost something valuable and was being given a pathetic replacement. He turned to Phasma, determined to make the best of it. Because that was what Brendol and the First Order required, and if nothing else Cardinal wanted to do his job and do it well.
“What planet did General Hux say you were from?” he asked, opening the door and waiting for her to pass through.
“Parnassos,” she said, her accent as clipped and flawless as Brendol’s but, Cardinal noted, nearly emotionless.
“I haven’t heard of it.” She still hadn’t gone through the door, so he added, “After you.”
Phasma shook her head. “You go first. I don’t know my way.”
Cardinal had shrugged it off at the time. She was tired, had clearly been fighting, and was obviously from some war-torn backwater planet. Of course she wouldn’t want to speak of it. So he nodded and led her from the room.
Now, walking the halls of a different but identical Star Destroyer, his Absolution instead of what has become her Finalizer, Cardinal is forced to remember that Phasma never mentioned her home planet again, that she has always sidestepped any mention of her origins or previous training. Any digging, and she simply digs in harder with silence or doubles down on her onslaught in what should be a friendly training exercise.
No wonder Vi’s past destinations struck a chord with him. Although he looked it up on the star charts and saw that it was labeled DESTROYED, he’s never heard the name Parnassos again, has he? Until today.
As he enters the mess, Cardinal lets his concerns slough off his shoulders so he can stand tall. He moves among his soldiers, nods back to those who nod deferentially to him. Sure, he thinks of them as soldiers, but they’re all under sixteen, aren’t they? Ever since the division of training programs, Captain Cardinal’s older recruits leave to complete their training on the Finalizer with Captain Phasma, while the younger cadets stay on the Absolution with him. Cardinal has no idea what happens to the older ones, over there. Judging by the military victories celebrated on both ships, he suspects Phasma’s methods continue to be exemplary. He knows his own are flawless.
In line, he selects several water bottles and another protein pack, this one in a different flavor. Not that his prisoner will care for it, but he wants to keep her alive so she’ll keep talking, which means she needs to eat. Iris confirmed that her stats weren’t good, so Vi wasn’t lying about that. Even though he’s learned plenty from her stories so far, he feels certain that she’s holding something back, drawing the story out for longer than is truly necessary. She knows something about Phasma—something that can help him. If he can just pry that intel out of the spy before Armitage and Phasma arrive, if he can obtain real, concrete proof, perhaps he can get rid of his rival once and for all.
Not because she’s better than him, and not because he’s worried about friendly competition. But because the more he learns about Phasma, the more he believes that she’s not the perfect soldier she appears to be. That there’s something dangerous about her, something potentially threatening to the First Order. She’s like a ball of rot in an otherwise edible protein pack, something that shouldn’t be allowed to exist and that is controlled for…but that has somehow passed inspection.
And it’s all going to hinge on the story of Brendol Hux—Cardinal just knows it.
And that’s personal, too. When Phasma showed up, Cardinal was relieved of duty as Brendol’s personal guard, and that distance prevented Cardinal from protecting Brendol when he needed it the most. Brendol had been just fine before Parnassos, and he was fine for a while after he returned. But then he grew more and more sickly and just…died. Or so young Armitage Hux said in a particularly poignant speech before the entire crew of the Absolution. Brendol’s true cause of death was never disclosed, and Cardinal’s inquiries were ignored, as if he’d been just another nameless stormtrooper.
His recruits look so young in the mess, their helmets carefully placed on numbered shelves so they can eat. They wa
ve to him cheerfully, and he waves back. Here, dining and drinking in groups of their own choosing, they are simply children. Collected from some of the loneliest of the unclaimed territories of the galaxy, they come together to become great soldiers under Cardinal’s watchful eye. Their hair and skin cover every possible shade from pale to dark; their eyes range from ice blue to pitch black and every hue in between. Their buzzed scalps show sweat from training, and their laughter defies the misery of their origins and histories. They have risen from their own ashes.
Cardinal feels a swell of pride. This, this is what the First Order is all about. Giving everyone equal opportunity to succeed, no matter how lowly their beginning or how far-off their planet. There are no rich kids here, lording it over the orphans. No lobbyists or interest groups or bribes. No one is starving or thirsty or dying of exposure. As far as Cardinal is concerned, anyone who opposes the obvious benefits of the First Order is a fool.
And anyone who swears an oath to the First Order and betrays it will answer to Cardinal.
He looks over the mess one last time before heading back into the hall. Cardinal should be going to sleep for a four-hour shift now, but that’s not going to happen. He is, however, required to attend his nightly morale session, which is mandatory and monitored by the officers upstairs. Slipping into his room, he takes his place before the screen and relaxes as he absorbs the message. When he was young, he found it a little terrifying, watching all the horrible things happening in the galaxy under New Republic rule, the chaos and tragedy caused by terrorists and rebels. But now it’s relaxing, because he knows that the First Order will rise above to conquer all that oppose it. He’s had a hand in training the troopers who will fight for stability, and he is confident in their prowess.
When the session is completed, he stops by the barracks medbay, tells the droids he’s feeling under the weather and could use some vitamin packs and stims. And he’s Captain Cardinal, so they give him what he requests with no question. He takes a circuitous route back to the lower-level room where the spy is waiting. And, if she’s smart, not trying anything stupid. She has to see by now that it’s foolish to resist—both him, and the power he represents. No one can fight the First Order and survive. And despite her obviously rebellious nature, there’s something about her that he likes. It’s a gamble, questioning her independently. This interrogation is his first instance of defiance within the First Order. Iris, at least, has covered his tracks. Anyone searching the logs will find an anomaly, as if the spy never existed or someone else botched the records. It’s a bold play, and possibly a damning one. But for him, this is the last straw. He has one chance to remove the cancer that is Captain Phasma, and he’s willing to bet his gambit will pay off. This spy—she knows how to end Phasma.