#those aboard

you feel powerful, high on the chain of command. those deemed inferior are at your beck and call.

you enjoy conquest. watching as your soldiers easily overtake a new planet, meeting with little to no resistance.

you hold petty rivalries with others of your level. competing for recognition and promotion, secretly sabotaging the competition.

you are in control. you always get your way. and when you don't, well, no one notices if a low-rank worker or two goes missing every so often. they're expendable anyway.

not like you, you think to yourself. your skills, your many decades of command and experience, are of vital importance. you are an integral part of this empire.

late one night, a door remains locked despite your approach. another door that should have been shut is not. you know this ship like the back of your hand, you'll just have to take another route to get to your quarters.

you take a wrong turn, through another door that should not have been unlocked, and realize too late your mistake.

of course, it doesn't politely open for you a second time.

the indignity of now having to walk through the maintenance corridors, where your inferiors work, is what sinks in first. you don't realize, as you angrily journey through this dimly-lit maze, that you're getting farther and farther from your destination.

you don't even notice that you're so deep in the belowdecks that there's no signal to your oh-so-advanced communication device. of course there isn't, why would anyone bother putting the necessary hubs down in here.

causing as many obstacles as possible in the way of someone's planned cruelty, without them ever knowing it was more than just random un/lucky glitches.

looking through a camera and seeing someone, in some way, standing defiant. a slave who secretly smiles with hidden strength, someone of reputation who keeps a token of the old rebellion, a hidden act of kindness in any way.

scared and hopeless, trapped in your new life

no doubt the same old servitude but worse now that it's here,