Armitage Hux

Silence fell over them like a shroud, and slowly, when that look he cast up at her did not morph into anger, Phasma slowly released his wrist, as if entrusting him with his own limb after taking it from him because of its gross misuse. Unlike Brendol, perhaps even unlike him, Phasma knew when to stop and withdraw.

“I will be a Captain after my unit’s graduation, which means you and I will have to collaborate on training strategies. I expect to overhaul and improve several of the sims…with your approval, of course.”

She stepped back and gave him room to collect himself and breathe his own air, and slipped her helmet back on, shoulders rolling back to reclaim her calm and resolve.

“Will there be anything else, sir?”

He snatched his wrist back, almost cradling it to his chest. The anger wasn’t gone, but was simply put back away, out of site. All emotion was gone, the soldiers voice flat and plain. 

His words slid through her like a cool breeze, never swaying her, never cutting against the grain, but it raised her hackles with a chill, all the same. She recalled her father snarling down at her, scolding her for straying too far from their territory, for disobeying. 

She saw the flash of his hand before it even swept toward her. Saw it in the shift of his shoulder, the flare of his nostrils, a subtle expansion of his chest and the lean of his hip. Her own gloved hand shot up and caught his wrist just shy of her jaw, her face tightening with outrage.

Her teeth flashed, a hiss of breath drawn in between them, and in an instant she’d braced her arm against his chest, and with one sharp lunge pinned Armitage to the wall. She was nose to nose with him, cold blue eyes boring into his as she drew a shallow breath through arched nostrils. He could order her death, if he saw fit, Brendol’s haughty bastard. If only his father wouldn’t over-rule the order, and favor her over the son he so clearly detested.

“Raise your hand to me again, Hux…” she began in a tightly contained whisper. “And I will blast it from your wrist. I’ve read the histories of how the First Order came to power…what birthed it into being…and the failures of its soldiers. And I’ve killed countless fools running headlong to their deaths on orders. I did not kill my way off of that wretched planet, protecting your useless father the whole way, just to fall in line and be kicked like a domesticated dog.”

She had only been with the First Order for a little over a year, but already she had mastered modern Basic, mastered her training to the point of leading other Cadets. As Phasma slowly eased her weight back and off his chest, the defiance in her eyes cooled, the fire in her chest calming as she steadied her breathing.

“I am not disloyal to the Order, sir…but as you know, the Order is not contained in any one man. I will obey, when it is to the benefit of us all. But I will not lick your boots as Cardinal licks your father’s. I trust he’s told you he means to promote me.”

He’d given beatings to troopers before, of varying degrees of violence. He’d even given orders for troopers to punish one another, when he didn’t feel like doling out the punishment personally. But he would give it himself, when it was necessary. A soldier had to know their place, and that it was under his command. And they would take the beating and then crawl away to recover and learn their lesson. 

So it was with complete surprise that he found himself pinned up against the wall. Phasma moved so swiftly, and with such strength, he didn’t have time to react. Slammed against the wall, Armtiage let out a squawk of surprise, green eyes wide and with genuine fear in them. He spluttered for a half a a second and then went silent as she spoke, feet dangling in the air. 

Phasma sneered behind the helmet, hesitating a long moment before she finally complied. Most troopers only ever removed their helmets in their personal recreation time. She prefered it that way. The fewer people who knew her face, the fewer people could track her if she ever found the need to escape the First Order.

With a faint hiss, the helmet slipped off with ease, revealing a stern expression that didn’t flinch away from his piercing gaze. “Unlike the other cadets, I have seen battle, and experienced life and death scenarios first hand. War never goes to plan…sir…and the simulation’s battle plan was inferior. My command saw to a more efficient result. Do you not agree?”

The fact that she didn’t immediately yank off her helmet irked him, and he inhaled sharply. Soldiers obeyed orders from their superiors, this was how this was supposed to work. 

“I am aware of your unique background, Cadet, my father has told me bits and pieces of what he experienced and the potential he sees in you. But your past is behind you now, and you are part of the First Order now. You are a cadet, becoming a trooper and a trooper obeys orders. Whether it is battle plans, or ... to remove a helmet promptly when directed. If you have problems with these most basic of commands, how can we trust you out in the battlefield?” He scoffed, and stepped nearer. “But you are not the first strong willed solider I have dealt with, and you will come to see your place.”

Not a word was spoken, but Phasma could hear the faint shuffle of unsteady weight, the turn of helmets as the troops…her troops, so far as she was concerned, looking at each other as a nervous energy slithered through the sim room.

Phasma stepped free of the crowd, her head high and shoulders broad, ever the example of excellence. When she disappeared beyond the door, to the troops she was a proud soldier off to accept her reprimand, without question, without shame, a perfectly neutral and unemotional cog in the great machine of the First Order. Someone to aspire to. They murmured among themselves before another Officer came to collect them and usher them toward their next simulation.

When she stepped through Hux’s door, she was a statue, offering no arguments and no clear defiance. None that could be seen, at least. “Cadet Phasma reporting, sir.”

"Cadet Phasma. When the First Order gives commands, it expects its troopers to obey them, yes? Surely, you have been able to grasp that in your education here.” Armitage strode forward, eyes narrowed, pale face contorted in obvious displeasure. 

“You and your fellow cadets were given a battle plan. You were given orders to obey that battle plan. And yet you saw fit to disobey those orders and take up a command position amongst the cadets. One that neither I, nor anyone else gave to you.”

Phasma had risen faster than any single soldier. She’d flown through the sims, the lessons and was now spoke of in hushed, revered tones by the troops. Skilled troopers were useful, but she wasn’t like Cardinal, she didn’t take orders without argument.

Now, he watched as she ran a sim with another group of students, ignoring fully the battle plans that they’d been given. She instead barked her own orders to the others, and Armitage had visibly flinched when they’d obeyed. The sim was completed, but he stopped the higher ranking trooper from marking the sim as being passed. A red light would blink instead, and a harsh noise sounded, indicating that they had failed the test. 

“Cadet Phasma.” The crisp tones of Armitage Hux sounded out over the room. “Report to my quarters for reprimand. Immediately.” 

For once…Ren would agree. He was indeed splitting their resources for a specific purpose. Before it had only been his belief that the matters of the Force be untouched by those who could not understand it. Who could never grasp it. Now, he had his more singular agenda, where the traitor, he had hoped, would occupy Hux. 

And the fool man wasn’t taking the path away. He could resolve his own easily enough, if he could lead her away. It was possible. Still, he had to give Hux the greater benefit of the resources. He was about to say the good General was too focused on the past, when those words sparked a rage in him unbearable even to him: 

He reached out and pushed the man back, pushed him, into the corner of the vast room. 

“Spite, Hux,” he hissed out. “Spite! Revenge.”

It was part of his constructed story now, implicating Luke’s ability to reach out that far. It was how Rey had gotten the impossible advantage. Then he let go. His intentions….

“You will never know how powerful Luke Skywalker was,” he said, darkly. And Skywalker had, again, locked him in a trap. 

“Don’t speak of it again. Once more, I will try to make you understand that I am offering…” He could barely say it. “A compromise.”

It was always unnerving. To be moved like this, the power behind it unseen. There was no physical arm pushing him back, but something invisible. And he greatly disliked it. Both Snoke and Ren had known that. 

Ren remembered now with vivid relentlessness the other’s capering satisfaction at his defeat at Star Killer base, and it took every ounce of his fraying self-control ….

He remembered seeing the traitor there, the traitor standing seeing everything, and he had the absolute will to blame the man before him for that intolerable disgrace. 

“I’ll handle her,” he said, a repetition, his voice barely above a whisper but seething. “You handle the traitor.”

The meaning was clear. Hux and his methods. His lack of control had brought about a far more dangerous implication. A free Stormtrooper. What a story that made, what a story the fight had made. Yes, a dangerous coldness was seeping through him now. 

“What of it?” He almost smiled then, and he imagined that could have been alarming. “Do you really believe my abuse of your ships, your men, was without thought? You know me better than that.” 

 He tilted his head. 

“No, you don’t, do you?” He paused. “I’m willing to change tactics with you now. The First Order has to win. At all costs.”

“She and the traitor are on the same side,” he replied, the exasperation plain. “You are so focused on your own agenda that you don’t realize you are splitting our resources.” Certainly, the traitor was worrisome. The First Order prided itself of swift retribution to those troopers that disobeyed orders. With this one free... twice, it wouldn’t do good for overall respect of authority.

Phasma huffed, but her grin hadn’t faded, propping herself up on one elbow as she carefully pulled the rag away from her face to fold it to a clean side, and returned it to its place.

“Understood…”

It would be three long weeks before the doctor finally cleared the Captain for regular, active duty again. The scar on her face had finished knitting, and the burns across much of her body had healed, her damaged skin a little pinker, like marbled patterning, but otherwise whole. Fully armored and hidden behind her helmet, no one could see evidence of her injuries, except perhaps for the faintest limp in her otherwise proud gait. The doctor assured her even that would remedy itself once she built back her strength.

Now, for the first time in far too long, Phasma was on her way to the General’s office to report for duty, and discuss the future of the First Order.

His private working quarters were unsurprisingly neat and tidy. It was a small space for a man with such a rank, but he preferred it that way. Less room for clutter. Other generals bedecked their own quarters with art and comfort, Armitage took a stance that it was not a room for comfort, but work.

I had no idea you held such a high opinion of me.

And you seem to be in good spirits, General Hugs.  Did your Supreme Leader pay you a compliment?