Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I.

374 days.

That was all that remained of this hellhole. Perhaps it was silly of Hux to track each cycle like a prisoner nearing sentence end, but that was exactly what it felt like in the four-by-four meter block.

At least this one had a view of the cliffs and the coast. All that it lacked were a few bars over the window and he’d have himself a proper cell. So perhaps it was only fitting he chose to mark the occasion—day one—by carving a notch into his bunk with a tiny vibroblade he had squirreled away.

Hux took no pleasure in defiling property. Not generally speaking, anyway. But this was academy property. The Commandant's property. The infraction, should he be discovered, carried corporal punishment and yet somehow, today, twenty theoretical lashes seemed more than worth the risk.

Tomorrow, he would add another notch. And then and another and another, until before he knew it, he would fill his entire bed post with notches, all up and down the arms and legs and the wooden headboard until completely covered like those full-body tattoos on the Nightbrothers of Dathomir. Except not nearly as cool.

There was probably no academy for Nightbrothers. Hux assumed they just dumped Zabrakian babies into the wild and whoever survived won. Hux would not want that. If the academy worked that way he’d be nothing but bones by now.

No, the academy had much more cruel but civilized ways of weeding out the weak.

Hux reached under the edge of his blanket to caress his new memento. Perhaps one day, these notches would mean something to someone else. Some lonely cadet, whoever inherited this bunk long after he abandoned it, might one day find them and might run their fingers over each notch, just as he did now and they might realize they weren’t the only ones to suffer. That they weren’t alone.

“Hey there!”

And now neither was he.

Hux’s hand snapped back, legs swinging over the mattress edge as he rose to study his new cellmate, the one with which he would share this last year in captivity. The boy looked slight, especially from up on the second bunk where Hux watched him shrug off a fraying duffle with all the finesse of a farm hand. And that was when it struck him. He’s never seen this cadet before.

Had to be a transfer. Smaller academies, low on staff and the advanced curriculum senior cadets required, often funneled them out into bigger academies like Arkanis in the year before placement. Unfortunately, those transfers rarely came well-prepared and usually left with a posting on some derelict Destroyer parked in the Outer Rim’s furthest edge, helmed by an Imperial has-been for whom no amount of boot or even prick licking could wrench a command from their superior’s arthritic grip.

“I’m new here,” the cadet said, neck craning up to meet Hux’s relentless stare. No way this boy was eighteen. Of course, the same could have been said of Hux had he not grown three more glorious inches over the summer, that last stretch of puberty leaving him tall enough to look down on most of the academy. But it wasn’t just his dormmate’s stature that made him seem younger than his purported age. It was his features, how they settled on that forgettable face; eyes, dark and round, hair to match, his small mouth stretching into a smile. Like a child.

And his boots were scuffed. Hux noted the leather, second-rate. Probably from some backwater outpost like Corellia or— “from Ord Mantell.”

Hmm.

Close enough.

“Didn’t know OM had an academy,” Hux drawled, his reply nearly lost to the rain pinging the dormitory window.

“Well,” the boy laughed, his pale cheeks blooming pink. “Academy’s a bit of a…loose term.”

Great.

And now Hux was stuck with this starry-eyed nerf herder every night. No doubt forced to endure endless blubbering about how big the grounds are and how many options they have at every meal! And stars! So many cadets in all his classes, how will he ever remember their names?

Hux spared him a doleful glance. On the bright side, maybe Veers and his cronies finally gained a new toy to break in.

“What’s your name?” the boy asked, leaning against the edge of his dorm-issued desk. It shifted under him and he let out a startled screech when it bumped the wall. Clearing his throat in an attempt at recovery did little to wipe the smirk testing Hux’s lips.

“It’s Hux,” he finally shrugged, knowing what came next.

“You mean like the Comm—”

“—Yes…” He flopped back on his bed in avoidance of the classic derision this discovery so often inspired.

“He’s your father?”

Here we go, Hux thought, staring up at the ceiling, gaze tracing the leaky watermarks forming over his head. No sense in denying it. He would find out sooner or later.

“Yes.”

“That’s lucky.”

“Lucky?” Hux scoffed. The poor little idiot. “You’d be the first to think so.”

“I just meant—if he’s your father—then I bet you really know the ins and outs of this place.”

“Outs, mostly.” Speaking of, was there some way out of this? How hard could it be to slice into the housing records? Hux had never tried it but considering all the Empire kept stored at the academy’s data servers, he highly doubted housing records were kept under strict security. And if few transfers came over this year, perhaps he could find an empty room and dump this dormmate. “Sorry—what did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t,” the boy replied, sitting up on the desk this time, legs criss-crossed. “But it’s Mitaka.”

“Listen, Mitaka,” Hux blurted, crawling to the foot of the bed and climbing down the rungs. “I don’t know if this is going to work out.”

“But…” Hux could already hear the despair in that middling register. “I just got here.”

“I know.” What was the polite thing to say? It’s not me, it’s you? No. Other way. “It’s not you.” Hux said, popping open the top drawer of his own desk. “It’s me.”

He grabbed a handful of code cylinders and plucked a double banded one from the pack. Would the records office require level two clearance or something higher? Perhaps level three? Best to take both just in case. “See you at orientation.”

Hux tossed a breezy wave to Mitaka and slipped out into the hallway, leaving his bewildered dormmate behind.

Except Hux was wrong. The next time he would see the guileless cadet was not at orientation the next morning but back in their dorm room later that night. As expected, the records office lay empty, clearance level two worked like a charm, but to his dismay, the records in question delivered a disappointing verdict. All dorms were completely full. And unless he fancied cuddling up to a couple of nerfs in a barn stall, he really was stuck with this cadet.

By the time Hux headed back, the light drizzling turned to pouring rain and the wind billowed off the nearby coastline, battering the ancient walls, tiny streams slipping through the cracks in the stone facade. He folded his arms against him, shoring up whatever warmth he could gather in the drafty corridors and hurried back to his room. He was halfway there when something popped, then a sizzle, like lightning but louder. Like it had struck something. Then a smell wafted through the walls. Acrid. Hux knew that smell—burning plastoid.

The hallway lights flickered, once, twice and then cut completely. Must have been the power grid. Though rare, if a storm grew bad and a stray bolt struck the decrepit system, it was known to cut from time to time. Luckily, Hux knew the academy like the back of his hand and in a few more turns he would be crossing his own corridor.

His room sat at the very end of their dormitory wing and when he arrived, the door was closed. Hux pushed down on the handle, the old hinges creaking as he slipped inside.

“Hux?” called out Mitaka. “Is that you?”

“Who else would it be?” Hux fired back. Definitely not some girl sneaking in. Not many of those around and of the few that were, none would dream of coming here.

“I don’t know,” the pitch dark answered back. Thunder roared nearby and Hux could’ve sworn he heard a strangled gasp from somewhere close to the window. Probably still perched on his desk like an awkward gargoyle. “I…I thought you weren’t coming back.”

“I wasn’t so lucky,” Hux countered, blindly grasping for his desk’s edge. “Are you just sitting here in the dark?” His arm grazed the overhang and from there he swiped down the column of drawer pulls. There was a hand torch somewhere in one of these, if only he could—there it was.

Hux flipped it on, following the sound of Mitaka’s voice where he found him huddled up on a bench beneath the window, shielding his eyes from the spotlight now pouring over him.

“I didn’t know where the emergency torch was.”

“Here—catch,” Hux tossed the torch to Mitaka who clumsily bobbled it before clutching it to his chest.

“Thanks,” he murmured.

“It’s a spare,” Hux said, dipping back into the drawer. “You can keep it.”

Where the hell was it? He reached deeper inside, the extra code cylinders rolling beneath his fingers. He anxiously swatted them away, stretching even further back until his hand brushed a silken ribbon. The glancing touch brought a stinging pain but he pushed it down in search of the flimsicard box.

That box would take it all away if only he could find it, if only he could—a wave of relief fell over him as he closed around it. Thank the galaxy. He snatched the box up and carried it over to the window bench, settling across from his dormmate on the opposite side, the hand torch between them spouting a beam of light to the ceiling, its harsh flare ringing those boyish features in deep shadows.

A shuddering boom rattled the dorm around them. It might’ve hit the roof.

Wouldn’t that be a shame? Hux thought, flipping the carton’s lid as he watched Mitaka pull out his datapad and search for the on switch.

“Don’t bother,” Hux grunted, turning the carton over and plucking a clear stick from the few that slipped free. “If the power grid is fried, all systems are down. Your datapad’s useless until it’s fixed.”

His earnest eyes flickered in the light, gaze falling down to Hux’s fingers where he twisted one end of the stick until it lit up, its banded tip glowing in red and yellow rings. Hux pointed the tube down, the liquid bubbles racing to the top and he could feel Mitaka tracing the movement. “Then what do we do?”

“We wait,” Hux replied, bringing it to his lips and taking that first glorious drag.

“Is that a…”

“Death stick?” Hux pulled it back, resting it casually between his fingers. “Why? Are you wanting one?”

He looked suspicious or perhaps torn, as if a part of him did but the more level-headed part won out. “No.”

“Good, because they’re hard to come by,” he said, taking another drag.

“Aren’t they against the rules?”

“You planning to report me?”

“No…” He fell quiet and even in the dim light Hux could see his face flush. “But what if you’re caught?”

“The only way I would be caught is if you reported me,” Hux muttered.

“No! I wouldn’t—I meant other cadets. What if someone else sees?”

Hux glanced out the window, watching the rain batter the ocean in rippling sheets. “No cadets are coming here.”

Lightning struck again, the bolt crashing into the sea; the bright flash bleaching the room and Mitaka visibly flinched.

“They don’t have storms on OM?” Hux asked, the stick sliding through his fingers as he watched the bubbles roll from end to end.

“No. It’s not that. I just don’t…don’t like the sound.”

Hux stopped to look at the boy. There was more to this story, he was sure of it. Too bad he didn’t bother enough to ask.

“Here,” he said, one long arm lazily extending toward Mitaka, the glowing tube pinched between his index and middle fingers.

“But I don’t—”

“Just try it,” Hux snapped. “You’re starting to make me anxious.”

Despite the offer, Mitaka didn’t immediately reach for it. Instead, he sat there for a good minute, staring at it with a furrowed brow as if Hux had asked him to snort spice…

Another lightning strike lit the room and Mitaka snatched the stick away. He took a deep drag. Hux shook his head. He knew how this would end.

“That’s—” Mitaka sputtered, coughing into his uniform’s sleeve. “—terrible!”

Hux swiped the stick back and took another drag, blowing a stream of smoke in the air, watching it veil the lantern light. “Feel better?”

“I can’t breathe!” he wheezed.

“You’ll be fine,” Hux droned, rolling his eyes. “Just go slow—and don’t breathe so deep.” He pushed the stick back at Mitaka. “Try again.”

Mitaka frowned, his wide, dark eyes looking so irritatingly pitiful. He put it to his lips again and inhaled, slowly this time as Hux instructed.

“I don’t like the taste.”

“No one does,” Hux sneered. “You don’t do it for the taste. You do it for the—” He stopped then, listening to the waves crash on distant shell-crushed shores. “You do it because you want to.”

When he looked back, he saw Mitaka holding the stick aloft, offering it back to him. Hux leaned in to retrieve it, holding it up to the light. He turned it upside down, watching the last few drops of cilona roll to the end. It was almost empty now but enough for one last take.

He closed his eyes, the familiar press of plastoid between his lips. Then he breathed in, the last inhale billowing across his tongue, rolling in heated skeins toward the back of his mouth and when it hit that spot, that perfect pitch in the hollow of his throat, it rebounded up in a buzzing rush, equal parts thrill and calm. Then it was only calm. It was only the waves. Only a quiet rumble of thunder, the storm in retreat.

“I’ve been meaning to ask…”

Then it was Mitaka’s voice, grating his nerves.

“What?” Hux replied, eyes open again, quiet tone betraying the edge of annoyance rising to the surface.

“What is that?” Mitaka twisted around, hands perched on the window ledge where he looked out.

“You’ll have to be more specific.”

“That tower,” he whispered. “Out in the water.”

“Oh.” Hux twirled the empty tube over each knuckle, wishing he had one more drag left. Maybe he would have if Mitaka hadn't wasted it. “That’s Area Null.”

“Area…Null?”

“That’s the name of it.”

“But why is it called that?”

“I don’t know,” Hux shrugged, holding the tube up like a dart before pulling it back and letting it fly toward the rubbish bin.

It missed completely, clattering to the floor before rolling out of sight. “Do you always ask so many questions?”

“But you don’t think it’s strange?”

Of course it was strange. But if Mitaka thought it strange enough to comment on, clearly he had never been to Arkanis.

A lot of strange things lurked in the planet’s fog-laced forests and murk-filled ocean floors. And yet some of the strangest things came from within the academy’s ancient walls and as the Commandant was so quick to remind him that ‘none of which is any concern to you!’

So Hux learned not to ask.

And soon, Mitaka would learn the same.

Chapter Text

II.

They despised her, that much was clear.

Kit Valeen had occupied all kinds of rooms. Dark, smoke-flavored dens bursting at the seams with the who’s who of the galaxy’s unscrupulous and unsavory. She knew the look of leering all too well and yet never felt more exposed standing in that academy gym on her first day at the Imp farm.

She surveyed the cadets around her, all dressed in identical gray shorts and t-shirts, all similarly avoiding her gaze while staring ahead at the empty stage.

Somehow they knew. How exactly was impossible to tell, but they did. Somehow they knew she was different. Well, besides the obvious part, of course. That she was, in fact, a girl and only one of a handful it seemed.

Were there always so few women in the incoming ranks or had most of them dropped out at this point? She encountered scores of “ex-Imperials” on her home planet and come to think of it, not a single one female. Maybe this was the reason.

Kit shivered, and not just from the chilly reception of her classmates, but the cold wind now billowing in from a newly opened door at stage right. Through it strolled several instructors, all wearing the same dull gray uniform of academy personnel as they filed past the podium at center stage. Like a row of weathered dominos, they took their places, standing straight at attention, no doubt waiting for whoever would eventually take that podium.

But they would not wait for long. Just as the last instructor took his post, a rather portly, middle-aged man stalked through that open door. He stood tall and yet carried the beginnings of a paunch that his black dress uniform could not completely hide. Even from a distance, Kit could see he possessed cold, piercing eyes, glassy like a claw fish, though his most striking feature was the coppery hair thinning atop his wide, square-set face. She had heard at one point red hair was more common across the galaxy but now exceedingly rare in this day and age.

He paused behind the podium and something in the room changed, a silent unease spreading out among the cadets as they all waited for him to speak, his placid expression raking over them in a look that couldn’t be mistaken for anything but deep disinterest.

“For anyone who doesn’t know me,” he said, “My name is Brendol Hux and I am the Commandant of this fine academy. If you’re returning to us for your final year, then I welcome you back.” The ghost of a smirk crossed his lips before his jowls suppressed it. “And if you’re recently transferred, then we’ll soon know whether you’re worthy of such a title as Arkanis cadet.”

Two boys standing in front of Kit, one blonde, the other brunette, ribbed each other, laughing at what exactly, she couldn’t guess. The Commandant shot them an unforgiving look, their laughs silenced as they straightened beneath it.

“I know you all anxiously await your final placement, but as of now that prize is far ahead of you and a test of your resolve awaits. Regardless of your tenure here, you will complete the same assessment as all those who came before you and you will earn your place among our growing ranks.”

Two giant blast doors bisected behind the Commandant, unveiling a much larger room, stretching both up and out beyond the gym like that of a hangar. Within it, an enormous structure jutted straight from the floor toward the ceiling above, its outer faces a glossy black where it arched at a near ninety degree angle, almost like a tower to nowhere. On closer inspection, Kit saw its surface was not completely smooth, but pocked with hundreds, maybe thousands of tiny holds all the way to the top.

“That assessment begins now, starting with your physical fitness.” A quiet murmur flitted through the crowd. They had yet to receive a single ration and the academy wanted a fitness test? “You have thirty minutes to complete the course. Failure to complete within the allotted time will be sent home. Good luck,” the Commandant added all too casually.

A bell tolled and on instinct, the crowd surged ahead like an angry hive. Bodies pressed in around Kit, bashing her chin into another boy’s back as they moved at once, rushing toward the stage. Some raced up the stairs while others hurdled the barrier, stumbling in their frantic scurry across the dias. Kit opted for the hurdle, grappling the platform’s edge, the force of other bodies launching her up and over in mere seconds.

Once atop, she scrambled to her feet and leapt off the platform, careful to avoid her classmates even as another wave crashed from the landing, pummeling slower cadets beneath them. A few cried out, but Kit was up and away, the tower’s base at her toes when a scream pierced the crowd. She jammed a foot into the first hold. The shriek tore through the hangar, louder this time but when she looked back, the cadet hoard blocked any view.

Surely an instructor would help? She reached for the nearest open hold, searching for a path above but only more arms and legs sprung up around her, stretching for the same grips as they all clambered up. She reached blindly this time, fingers catching on a free ledge, her grip firm in the hold and just as she pulled up a shoe stamped down. A deafening pop where a rubber toe box ground them up with a single sickening crack. Her scream escaped silently, the sting rattling through her entire arm as the world turned to a watery blur.

Fuck-fuck-fuck!

She forced her hand back in the hold, veins ballooning with blood in each of her pulsing fingers as she pushed herself up, both calves and thighs carrying more of her own weight.

Just don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop.

That single mantra rolled in an endless loop; her teeth grating together, her injured hand shrieking with every new hold. More cadets raced up on either side, the army of shoes passing in her periphery left her flinching every time.

But then she looked up and saw the summit not even a meter above. It looked flat on top like a platform where the other cadets ahead of her climbed over it. Almost there.

Kit reached up, fingers searching for the next hold, but it was wet, slippery from sweat. Her fingers scrabbled for purchase, grasping at the surface again and again, too slick to grip, her feet twisted in each hold, her arm anchored, but shaking with effort, threatening to buckle under the strain and she gave one last try, crying out as she stretched and stretched and—

But it wasn’t enough. The other holds lay out of reach. And then her muscles melted, the strength in them giving in to greater forces, to gravity and the inevitable fall below. Until something charged toward her, something pale, something from above—a hand and a wrist and an arm that wrapped around hers.

For a second, she froze, stunned at the sight of it—of him, a dark-haired boy bent over the platform’s edge, face twisting with effort as he struggled to pull her up. His other hand joined the first and her legs found new strength, pushing her toward him as he hauled her up.

Once her top half made it over, she swung one leg to the side, hooking it on the platform’s top and rolled onto her back. Gasping for air, she laid there for a second, staring listlessly at her unlikely savior as other cadets poured past them.

“Thank you,” she breathed, gaze flicking to the platform’s opposite edge where heavy ropes dangled from a row of giant looped hooks.

“Don’t mention it,” he said, grabbing a rope and wrapping it around his hip. He tossed the slack over his shoulder and gathered the rest of it in both hands, walking backward to the edge until he slowly eased over it. She crawled after him, watching as he and the other cadets repelled down the opposite side.

Kit took a deep breath, heart battering against her chest and stifling the tears pricking her eyes. If getting up had been a miracle, getting down would be impossible. She tried picking up the rope, but her fingers barely flexed around it. She could never hold it like this. She’d fall. And then shatter something else, not to mention her ego. If only there was another way…

Kit peered back over the other side. Only a few cadets left. Now or never, she thought, grabbing the hem of her shirt and wrestling it over her shoulders. Two more cadets crested the platform just as she stripped it off. One stopped suddenly, staring in dead shock at her compression top, the only shred of modesty left as she wrapped the t-shirt around her hands and grabbed the rope.

Without another thought, Kit shoved off, every muscle clenching the rope, holding on for dear life as she swung freely. Beneath her, other cadets touched the floor as more repelled on all sides.

Then she loosened up, the slack zipping between her legs as she fell, first slow and then fast. Then faster and faster until she flew past other cadets who kept repelling, watching her descent in stunned horror.

Halfway down, her abs and thighs burned where the rope seared a line down her stomach. With only a few meters left, she let go, dropping to the floor in a gangly pile. A few cadets whistled and laughed. Go ahead, she thought, charging to her feet and pulling her shirt back on as she left them behind.

Up ahead, a crowd gathered around a scaffold of metal bars hanging parallel to the ground. The cadets bounded up a ramp one by one, each boy springing from the edge, hands hooking the bar, legs dangling below as they swung from one to the next. She saw one kick another cadet in the back and heard something like a splash.

As Kit moved closer, she saw the blue reflecting off their shoes and realized the floor was not a floor, but a sparkling pool of water. When it came time for her to jump, she put both arms up forming a V…

And dove straight in.

The frigid water hit like a durasteel wall. And then Kit remembered. She never learned to really swim. Instead, she flailed about, the water rippling around her and even her wild kicking seemed to propel her forward. Then she heard more splashing, not just her own, but a string of other cadets piling in behind her, swimming the length of the course as she did. Other boys pushed her aside, speeding past and even more dropped from above to join the fray but she was still toward the front.

At the other end, she reached for the edge, but something, a hand, grabbed her wrist and another one pushed her head under. She struggled, air bubbling from her face, a gulp of water filling her lungs. Something pushed her down. Her feet hit the tiled floor and with all her strength, she pushed off. Breaking the surface, she sucked air as if there would never be enough and heaved herself over the pool’s edge, several more cadets pushing up behind her.

Water dribbled from her sopping wet clothes, her shoes squishing as she raced toward the finish line where a few others were already standing. When she looked back, nearly half the academy was behind her, on bars and emerging from the pool, all running toward that line in the floor.

She then sprinted too, wet ponytail flapping at her back, trying to keep up with the small hoard of boys in front of her. As one boy ran past, another wet cadet, his blonde hair slicked back, braced his elbow out, ramming it right into her shoulder.

Kit stumbled, falling against another cadet, but he pushed her away and she recovered, picking up the pace, sprinting with all reserves on empty, determined to beat that little blonde bastard. With seconds away from the finish, she sped up even more, legs bounding beneath her, both feet pushing off the ground and leapt over the line. Throwing her arms out, she wrapped them around his back, throwing them both to the floor, tumbling over the finish line. Their bodies rolled in a tangle of limbs, the boy’s knee pummeling her stomach and for a second, they both laid there, a small crowd of cadets gathering around them.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” the boy sneered, raising up to his knees and then to his feet where he towered at least another head over her.

“Wrong with me?” she fired back. “The fuck is wrong with you?!” She jumped up. “You know what you did, you cheating snake!”

He took a step forward, his clear eyes flashing dangerously. “You’re the one cheating. I saw that shit you pulled with the ropes!”

He began circling her then, as if he might pounce. Kit mirrored him, edging around the human loop enclosing them. She couldn’t take him. He weighed at least fifty pounds heavier. That much was sure. But she’d rather take a busted lip or a bruised rib than cower beneath this piece of shit.

“You wanna go?”

“Maybe,” he laughed, mouth cracking into a derisive grin. “But I think a scrawny thing like you would look better on your knees—”

“Silence!” snapped Commandant Hux, his imposing figure parting the crowd. The boy turned then, his expression not so confident now. “Such insubordination won’t be tolerated here!”

The boy’s beady, pale eyes returned to Kit, daring her to blink. But she didn’t. She couldn’t. Not after everything. Showing fear now would only reveal herself. Would make her the target they so desperately wanted.

“Veers, get back to the locker rooms,” Hux scolded, grabbing him by the collar and pushing him away. Then he turned on Kit. “And as for you, follow me.”

The other cadets snapped to attention, a mix of shock and terror shining in their faces as she followed in the Commandant’s wake. Kit had no idea where he planned to take her but wherever it was couldn’t be good. Which begged the question, why was she the only one being punished?

The Commandant siphoned any further thoughts as he led her into the hallway, not even bothering to see if she trailed him. At corridor's end, he stopped at a pair of doors where he whipped out a code cylinder and engaged the turbolift within. She could only assume it led to his office. But why rebuke her in private? Wouldn’t humiliating her better deter other “insubordinate” cadets like herself?

A ding snapped her from this silent spiral. Commandant Hux stalked out, heading toward a door clearly marked as his own. He used the same code cylinder to open it but when she followed him through the threshold, they both found it occupied.

Behind his desk sat a tall, executive style chair. It faced a giant viewport that stretched the length of the office wall, but it was not the forests of Arkanis that Kit saw there. It was the hangar she had just left. This room must have resided somewhere on the second or third level of the academy like a viewing deck for the training exercises carried out below.

“Cadet Valeen, Grand Admiral.”

The chair spun and if Kit had expected some aging administrator like the Commandant himself, a face mired in wrinkles and a stomach soft around the middle, then she was sorely mistaken. The person sitting in that chair, in the Commandant’s chair—no less—was not a man at all, but a woman. Her dark skin contrasted brilliantly to the white of her uniform where two golden epaulets flashed at each shoulder as she turned to face them both.

“Please sit down, Cadet,” she said calmly, her intelligent, dark eyes sizing Kit up, making her terribly aware of each squishy step between the door and her destination. “That was quite the performance out there.”

The Commandant let out a huff of disapproval as Kit took the seat in front of his desk, but if the Grand Admiral heard his little harrumph, her face betrayed her completely. No, her expression remained impressively neutral and she couldn’t help but feel a sense of awe at the way this woman commanded the room with little more than a few words where Kit suddenly found herself at a loss for them.

“You showed a lot of ingenuity.” Her eyes seemed to soften a bit and a blush swept Kit’s cheeks. “I have to admit I was impressed.”

Hux huffed all too loudly this time and the Grand Admiral’s gaze narrowed. “Is there something you need to express, Commandant Hux?”

“I only wish for you to consider the nature of this ‘ingenuity,’” he replied.

“And what nature would that be, Commandant?”

“A proclivity for non-conformance—I’m sure you realize how dangerous such a mentality would be for any future officer.”

So that’s what this was about. The Commandant sided with that little shit Veers and hoped this Admiral, whom he appeared to answer to, would punish her accordingly.

“With all due respect sir,” Kit interjected, twisting in her chair to face him. “The only rules were to finish in thirty minutes.”

A smirk tested the Admiral’s lips and only a second later did Kit realize her mistake. So much for proving the Commandant wrong.

“It seems the Cadet has a point,” the Admiral replied, taking in the matching looks of surprise from Kit and the Commandant.

“Sloane—” Hux scoffed, but her brow snapped in challenge and he quickly retreated. “I mean—Admiral, I’m merely voicing my concern for this…behavior. It needs to be sorted out.”

“What’s wrong, Hux?” she jeered, a spark in her eyes as they landed on the rankled administrator. “Upset that she bested some of your cadets?”

“She did no such thing,” he snarled back, striding toward the window, surveying the other boys and girls who still mingled in the hangar below. Kit wished she was with them. Better there than up here, forced into a pawn position for whatever power game these two were playing at.

And it was about that time she checked her chrono, ready to inquire on the exact point of this meeting when the Admiral’s tone turned genuine, the mocking delight from earlier all but erased. “And how did your own boy do?”

The Commandant snapped from his perch, those hooded eyes flicking irritably and the room seemed to drop another ten degrees. So the Commandant had a little progeny running around here somewhere…?

“As expected for his utter lack of physicality.”

The reply, not to mention the contempt lacing it, surprised Kit because even though nothing about him screamed doting father, wouldn’t an Imperial man take some measure of pride in one of his own?

“He made it through though,” Sloane grinned, a relenting smile pulling at the corner of her mouth.

“Barely.”

“Still counts.”

“He has a long way to go.”

“Perhaps,” she replied. “But so do you because I’d like the room now.”

The Commandant opened his mouth as if to protest but the words came out quite different. “As you wish, Admiral.”

“Thank you,” she replied, her amused gaze tracking his every movement as he made for the door before returning to Kit on its close.

“It never gets old,” she shrugged. Kit wanted to laugh, but that too probably furthered the argument in Hux’s favor so she opted for blank professionalism instead. “Do you know why you’re here, Cadet Valeen?”

Officially? No. Unofficially? Because the alternatives were jail or a Republic labor camp. But as to why that particular man (later revealed to be an Academy recruiter) helped her specifically, well, that didn’t require a keen intellect to work out. Kit assumed he merely liked the look of her. She had seen men do much more for far fewer reasons in her short eighteen years.

“No ma’am, I don’t.”

“Surely you’ve noticed something peculiar about this academy? About your fellow cadets?”

“Like that I’m one of the few without a Y chromosome?”

“Exactly.” A knowing look shot her face, lips twisting into a smirk. “And I plan to change that.”

“So I’m…? What—some kind of…quota here?”

“Don’t think of it like that, Cadet.” Sloane leaned back into Hux’s chair, arms crossed. She looked like the statues Kit had once seen at the old Imperial Palace. Untouchable, impervious. “You weren’t handed any opportunities. Just the invitation to compete. But it won’t be easy.”

“Yeah,” Kit replied, fingers grazing her broken knuckles. “I’ve noticed.”

“It never has been for us.” Us. Right. Kit doubted she had much in common with this Admiral beyond aforementioned chromosomes. “That’s why I’m counting on you—to help me.”

“Are there not many… like you?”

Sloane let out a dry laugh. “No. But there should be,” she said. “We need more women serving the Empire. Strong, capable women.”

“Oh I’ve seen plenty of women serving the Empire,” Kit replied, before quickly adding, “though not like you.”

That caught her attention as she leaned forward onto Hux’s desk, fingers steepled together.

“And where are you from?”

“Coruscant, ma’am.”

“A topsider?”

“No, ma’am.”

“But your basic is…” she paused, gaze drawn out to the window. “Accentless. Most of the undersiders I’ve met sound…a little different.”

A little poor is what Admiral Sloane meant. Kit knew the accent well and all the polite and not so polite ways the galaxy described it. She spent years dismantling it from her own voice. Nothing clients would have hated more than their one-thousand credit champagne touching a peasant girl’s tongue. That was the first thing to go.

“I had one,” Kit finally admitted. “But this one serves me better.”

“Ah.” A small, almost conspiratorial smile touched her lips. “Fair enough,” and then her cool expression settled back on Kit who neither withered nor wavered under it. No woman got to the top of a man’s world without a few tricks up her sleeve and Kit had a feeling they mutually, if not silently, agreed on this point.

Then a chirp broke the lingering quiet and Sloane rolled up her sleeve where a wristcomm flashed.

“Admiral Sloane, Counselor Rax is seeking a meeting,” said the voice on the other side.

“Tell him, I’m b—”

“He says it’s urgent, ma’am.”

Sloane rolled her eyes at that. As if this Rax deemed every meeting ‘urgent.’

“Thank you, Lieutenant Rite. I’m due back on the Ravager this evening, but if it’s urgent I’ll comm him from Hux’s office in fifteen minutes.”

“Yes ma’am,” replied Rite. “Over and out.”

She looked up then, her serene gaze returning back to Kit. “Please excuse me, Cadet. It was a pleasure meeting you and I’m certain we’ll see each other again.”

“Yeah—I mean, yes ma’am,” Kit replied, leveling her voice to a dutiful tone, one she imagined her subordinates used. “I’d like that.”

Who exactly this Admiral Sloane was and why she took a particular interest in Kit remained an open question, but she seemed rather powerful even beyond the Academy walls. And if Kit knew anything, it was just how useful ‘friends in high places’ could be.

“And Cadet!” she called out, stopping Kit at the threshold.

“Yes ma’am?”

“You should go to the medbay.” Her chin ducked, eyes signaling to Kit’s side. “Get a bacta patch for that hand.”

“Oh…” Kit blushed, suddenly realizing she had been holding the injured hand. “Yes ma’am. Thank you.”

“No need, Cadet,” she said, pressing a button on the desk. Hux’s office door opened and Kit began to leave once more until the sound of Sloane’s voice suddenly stopped her. “And good luck at the trials.”

Kit spun back around. “The what—?”

But the door’s magnetic click signaled its sudden close.

Chapter Text

III.

The trials?

Images of Commandant Hux in robes and a gavel sprung to mind as Kit followed signs for the medbay.

Would there be a jury? Was that what this was? A bootcamp for young criminals who needed “sorting out”? At least that would explain the win-at-all-costs ferocity on display in the hangar. But surely if someone had mentioned a trial, she would’ve remembered that.

With those errant thoughts swirling through her head, Kit turned down another corridor until she arrived at a nondescript entry point. Flashing her code cylinder up, the durasteel doors bisected next to a display panel projecting her name and face on it.

The waiting area lay directly inside. It looked completely empty except for one other boy who stood at the reception window talking to an intake droid. Surprising, considering the chorus of shrieks she recoiled from during the exercise. It seemed like half the school should be here…

Unsure of how to proceed, Kit filed in behind the boy, secretly eavesdropping on his conversation to see what she should expect.

“Name?” barked the droid.

The boy mumbled something Kit couldn’t hear, prompting her to lean in a little closer.

“Speak up, please,” the droid buzzed. “My auditory upgrade is overdue.”

“HUX!” he snapped, the declaration loud enough to have Kit nearly jumping from her skin. With heart pounding in her chest, she took a step back, carefully studying the cadet’s lanky silhouette.

Hux.

Then she saw it. Fiery, red hair. Like his father but not yet faded with age.

Boy Hux.

“And what is your visit concerning?” the droid asked, its mechanical voice a monotonous buzz in the room.

“This,” boy Hux spat, pointing to something Kit couldn’t see. The droid scanned him for half a second and then typed away at its databoard. Kit could have sworn it let out a static shrug.

“Code cylinders pl—” The sound of metal slapping the flexiplast tray cut the droid off but it spared him no reaction, its mechanical joints scissoring as it retrieved the durasteel stick and plugged it into some other machine. “Take a seat, Cadet Hux. A nurse will be with you shortly…”

Kit turned to catch his eye but he seemed to be either completely oblivious or purposely ignoring her.

“NEXT!” the droid shouted, startling Kit once again and she stepped forward as commanded.

“What is your visit concerning?” the droid spat back at Kit, who stood lifelessly, staring into those arthropodic eyes and barely registering the same bank of questions clearly on repeat.

“I-I just need something for my hand.” She held it up where it flapped awkwardly in the window.

“Code cylinders, please.”

Kit fished them from her pocket and slid them under the window tray where the droid retrieved them. The machine beeped, all data transfers complete before it was pushed back to Kit.

“Take a seat, Cadet Valeen.”

Kit turned to find empty seats made of molded plastoid lining the back wall. Boy Hux sat among them, his profile bathed in the blue glow of his datapad, clearly absorbed by whatever it contained. Kit walked over, cautiously taking a seat two down from him. At first, she merely sat there, wondering how best to begin and in the silence that followed, Kit thought of all of her options.

So uh…Brendol Junior, I presume?

Even as a joke it made her cringe. So without thinking, she turned to face him across the empty chairs and settled for something more direct.

“Uhm—hey.”

To her surprise, his gaze stayed trained on the datapad that he balanced on one knee, either ignoring her or hard of hearing. Surely, the latter.

“I said hey!” she echoed, a little louder this time, but he didn’t stir. “I know you can hear me.”

“What do you—” he turned and then his eyes caught sight of her and his face fell. “Oh…it’s you.”

“You? What do you mean you?” Who was he even—really? Just a snobby bureaucrat’s son! “You don’t know me.”

“No,” he spat, cutting his eyes at her, so cold and pitiless. “But I know you’re the one who cheated on the fitness test.”

“You can’t cheat when there aren’t any rules!”

“Impeachable logic, truly,” boy Hux sneered, his retort all too befitting of the Hux she had just escaped.

“Just like your father…”

“What did you say?” he snapped, spinning to look at her full on and she nearly jumped at the sight.

“Stars! What happened to your eye?”

He winced in reply, then scowled as if suddenly remembering the mottled purple-blue skin circling his left socket, no doubt the very reason he sat next to her now.

“None of your business.”

“Okay, fine.” Probably deserved it anyway. “But I have a question.” She could see him already rolling his eyes. “You’re the Commandant’s son, right?”

His lips pressed into a thin line, clearly annoyed by this line of questioning. “If it’s about my father, then the answer is—”

“No, it’s about the academy. About…” Her voice lowered. “The trials…?”

Hux stilled then, his golden brow raising in haughty presumption and something like amusement. “What about them?”

“What are they?” she asked, hand gripping the plastic edge of her chair, leaning subconsciously toward him and in the silence that followed, she felt her face burn.

“Seriously?” he spat and even with a black eye somehow managed extraordinary condescension. A true talent. “Where did they find you?”

“No one’s explained it!” She countered, desperately wishing to ignore the petty jab. “What are we on trial for?”

Hux let out a laugh, the ring of it hollow and shockingly bitter. A sound she could live happily without ever hearing again. “Didn’t they tell you on whatever backwater planet you came from?”

“Cadet Hux!” squawked the nurse droid.

“Anyway,” he shrugged, a casual flick of his eyes as he rose to a stand. “...You’ll find out.”

What?

You’ll find out?

Kit could only sneer at his back, silently watching him enter the medbay as she fantasized about all the ways she’d love to blacken his other eye when the nurse droid suddenly reappeared, this time, calling her own name.

Abandoning the reception area, she followed the nurse through that same door Hux entered only moments ago. To her surprise, the ‘medbay’ appeared to be no more than an open room subdivided into tiny cubicles by pale curtains hanging from railed tracks.

“The doctor will be with you shortly,” said the droid, directing her toward one such open bay. It lay completely empty except for an examination table and before Kit could turn back around, the curtain hooks clinked together where the droid closed them, leaving her alone once more. Except not entirely alone because even though the panels hid the other patients from view, it did nothing to muffle their conversations. She could hear all of that rather clearly, even as the paper crinkled where she awkwardly scrambled onto the table, unable to use the injured hand that brought her here.

She tried flexing it, just to see if she could—fuck! That hurt. That really fucking hurt. Was it broken?

“No, I think you’ll be fine,” came a voice from somewhere behind her. “Besides, you know I can’t prescribe you anymore stims.”

Kit twisted around to find a small gap in the curtains, no wider than two fingers-lengths. Through it, she could see a stripe of white, and only a second later did she recognize that stripe as another cadet—another cadet’s undershirt and when her eyes traveled upward, the copper hair revealed it to be her company from the waiting room. And the doctor was not speaking to her, but him.

“Now roll up your shirt so I can record vitals.”

Two pale hands reached for the undershirt’s hem and slowly pushed it up, Kit’s body growing suddenly warm at the skin revealed. It looked nearly porcelain if not for the litany of purple stripes littered up and down the length of his spine. Then something blocked her view and she realized a moment too late that it was the doctor, snapping the curtains closed.

Spinning back around, she grew painfully aware of the paper crackling beneath her and the flush swallowing her whole as she tried to assume a natural position, or at least as natural as one could look while sitting atop an examination table and trying not to think of those ghastly scars decorating another cadet’s back.

What was that? And more importantly, who did it?

She thought of that kid from the hangar. Veers. Was that what the bullies did at this school? Or was it some hazing ritual? Somehow she couldn’t imagine an Imp academy allowing their future officers to become so…mauled. But then again, she knew little about its members outside of the ones she had encountered in a post-Empire galaxy and perhaps they had not attended any academies. Or just not this one anyway.

“I’m going to recommend you take metrophol for at least a week,” came the doctor’s voice, flitting through the now closed curtain. “To keep the inflammation down. If it doesn’t improve by then, report back here.”

“Yes, sir,” Hux replied in a tone wholly different from the imperious lilt he seemed to reserve for her.

“The nurse will bring your medications and then you’re free to go.”

The other side went silent until Kit heard the doctor’s clicking heels as he walked somewhere down the hall followed by a low groan just behind her, the sound of shifting synthleather and crinkling paper where Hux presumedly slid off his own examination table. Then the shink of the adjoining curtain snapped back but she hadn’t heard the nurse return so…

Where was he going?

Kit sat quietly for a moment, simply listening to the muffled rustling just outside her own curtained wall. Leaning down, she spied Hux’s cadet-issued boots facing the opposite direction, only his heels and ankles visible beneath the curtained partition.

Slowly and oh so very carefully, she slithered back off her own table, gingerly placing one foot and then the other onto the tiled floor. Her own boots felt terribly loud squeaking as they creased beneath her weight, but if Hux heard her, he paid it no mind, the labored whines of rifled cabinetry masking any other movements.

Carefully, she parted the curtains, just enough to see out into the hallway and plenty enough to see Cadet Hux clearly raiding the medbay’s supply cache.

“What are you doing?!” Kit gasped. He spun around, a stim-shot in one hand. He seemed startled and then those cold, pale eyes fell into a glower.

“I told you, cheater,” he grumbled, slamming the drawer shut. “It’s none of your business.”

“You’re stealing!”

“It’s not what it looks like.”

“How could it not be?!”

“And so what if it is?” he whispered angrily. “Just keep your mouth shut and we won’t have a problem.”

“Tell me about the trials and I will.”

His expression hardened at that. Wrong move.

“I’m not negotiating with you,” he said, jamming one of the stims in his inner jacket before wrenching open another drawer and dove inside.

“Fine,” she sighed. More than one way to skin a loth cat. “I guess I’ll just take it up with your father.”

He froze then, hand mid-reach.

Bingo.

And then turned, slowly, and Kit saw that face, so full of smug delight only a moment ago, flashing furiously now, eyes hollow, narrowed into a dead stare. “Don’t you dare.”

“Or what?” she spat back, mustering a confidence she felt fading fast. “You’ll let me make your eyes match?”

The syringe rolled between his fingers, the light catching on the needled tip.

“I have my own methods,” he murmured back, and for all her bravado, somehow she didn’t doubt it.

“I’m not scared of you.” A lie on her lips, of course. She had encountered the full grown Huxes of the galaxy. Men who thought the rules existed to be bent. Never outwardly violent, their vicious, inner anger a different kind of danger. And that was the look she saw in his eyes as he leveled his last threat.

“If I find out you’ve said anything to my father, you will regret it.” And then turned on his heel and stormed out, leaving Kit to stand in the medbay alone.

. . .

As Hux said, Kit would indeed find out—the very next evening, in fact—what every Arkanis cadet seemed to already know. That the last year of Imp academy was not a regular year. That was what Commandant Hux had gathered them in the banquet hall to formally announce: the end of all their textbook training, years of study Kit never got, would now funnel into the next phase, a part of instruction known only as the trials.

It was not as Kit imagined, not a court proceeding with judge and jury but a year-long examination that moved them out of the flimsi and into the field; a series of tests designed to measure a cadet’s military acumen alongside qualities unstudiable: leadership, physical fitness, mental fortitude. All the tenets of an impeccable Imp and a far cry from the bloated, aging and aimless former Major-Generals or down-on-their-luck Lieutenants who haunted hostess clubs all across Coruscant, downing their sixth double all while railing against the “damn rebs ruining the galaxy.”

Looking around, Kit could just imagine them all in twenty years doing the same, still airing old grievances. The ills of their father and their father’s father before them. And somehow, she gathered that Hux wasn’t the only apple to fall from an Imperial tree. All of her fellow classmates seemed well versed in what awaited them as they sat there, clearly bored by this seemingly perfunctory announcement.

And no one looked more bored than Brendol Jr. himself, perched at the end of a long banquet table placed at the front of the hall, looking like he’d rather be swallowed by a sarlacc pit with the galaxy’s slowest digestive tract than surrounded by his fellow cadets. Her gaze lingered on the bruising around his eye, noting how improved it looked from the day before.

Then he turned suddenly, catching her, his glacial stare snapping as it landed, sharp like an arrow’s tip. Kit’s brow furrowed before casting her eyes off in case he got the wrong idea, turning instead, back to the lectern where Hux the elder continued his speech.

“Tomorrow,” said the Commandant, “You will complete a series of assessments and then receive your assigned squad for the remainder of the year.”

The man’s broad, creased face gave him the appearance of perpetual disdain, leading Kit to wonder what Hux’s mother looked like. Beyond their copper locks, father and son barely resembled one another. The younger one possessed a slender face, high cheekbones and almost serpentine eyes, not at all like the round, watery stare presently peering out over the student body.

“Once assigned, you will spend nearly every waking moment together. You will eat with them, sleep by them, learn from them and work together to complete tasks which will determine your ranking and eventually your placement into the new Order.” Another silence, as uneasy as the last and Kit peered around at the stony faces of her classmates. “Is that clear?”

“Yes sir,” a chorus answered back.

“Dismissed.”

The student body raised to stand and Kit suddenly spotted Veers. She watched him file out from the front row, the same table as boy Hux, and a string of others, his cronies, probably, followed close behind. Hux seemed to linger though, falling back as if to create distance between him and the larger group.

Kit waited for them to pass, falling in behind them in a fairly obvious attempt at eavesdropping. She heard very little as they clustered together, clearly trying to hide whatever they discussed amongst themselves. And then she heard it.

Initiation.

She heard other words. Things she didn’t understand as one of the cronies peered around as if scoping out the room. Looking for something or someone before ducking down once more.

When they exited the hall, the boys merged left, forcing Kit to peel off as they headed out onto the grounds, disappearing in the dark fog beyond like a spectral host in the night.

Kit didn’t dare follow. Instead she returned to her room in the western block, unable to tear her thoughts away from them even as she tossed out a half-hearted “hey” to her dorm mate Lina, a sullen blonde from Akiva who seemed to stew in endless resentment at her family for sending her to this ‘maker-forsaken school’, and by extension, Kit for simply existing.

Lina wanted to marry an officer, not become one. ‘Why not both?’ Kit asked that first night. The girl wrinkled her nose in response and Kit hadn’t willingly struck up another conversation since.

“Do you know of any…clubs here?”

Lina finally looked up from her datapad, brow furrowing in annoyance.

“Clubs?” she echoed. “That’s unsanctioned fraternization. Not allowed here.”

“Not that kind of club,” Kit said, rolling her eyes. “Like a social club. Or a grav-ball team or…something.”

“How should I know?”

Lina did have a point. There were a great many things she didn’t seem to know and had any social clubs existed, her illustrious personality would have made her relentlessly pursued, no doubt.

Kit had almost resigned to this mystery until she saw something in the corner of the room. Out the window. A flash of light, not lightning, but little sparks dotting the academy’s grounds like glow bugs in the night. She then moved closer to the window seal, watching the way those lights danced across the distant fields, trailing down toward the coastline.

“I think something’s happening,” Kit said. “Something strange.”

She turned to find Lina still sprawled across her bunk, face engulfed in the blue glow of an illuminated screen.

“Right,” Lina drolled, lazily flicking at her datapad. “Brilliant.”

Chapter Text

IV.

Truthfully, Cadet Mitaka didn’t know why he was chosen.

His physical fitness scores proved less than stellar. And he was neither particularly fast nor strong, finishing on the low end of yesterday’s obstacle course. So he could only conclude this invitation to the Commandant’s personal reception came by way of his sterling academic record. And while never one to brag, by all accounts, his past instructors were always rather impressed by his ability to recall from memory even the most minute details of any military case study presented to him.

Battle of Murhkana, Battle of Mimban, Defense of Maridum, Battle of Mon Cala. Pick any year in the BBY era and Mitaka could rattle off each battle, skirmish and blockade in chronological order including key figures involved, ships engaged and the final outcomes of every event. He never thought those abilities particularly remarkable until he joined the academy where he soon realized others could not so easily absorb such details.

And so, he decided, that had to be the reason for such an honor as this—to be considered for one of the few, highly coveted spots in the Commandant’s Cadets—or at least, that was what the invitation said. And what that meant exactly, Mitaka couldn’t guess but the announcement had been so official. So selective. It must have meant something.

So with barely concealed glee, he buttoned his jacket and reported to the banquet hall alongside his fellow cadets. Moving toward the back, he sat away from his dorm mate, Hux, who barely spared him a glance. And despite his excitement, he still tried to pay attention to the Commandant’s announcements even though he didn’t need to. Mitaka knew what the trials were. He had come here to complete them after all but now he had something else to look forward to, something that might help him replace the ones left behind on OM. In the days since meeting Hux he had made little progress but if he could find more cadets like himself, maybe he wouldn’t need to.

Before long, the announcements ended and the assembly dispersed. He heard several cadets complaining already, wondering why more physical assessments were needed. ‘We’re not assault troops!’ But Mitaka didn’t mind. He’d gladly run through a thousand obstacle courses if it secured his position with the Cadets. And in any case, tomorrow’s assessments seemed near inconsequential next to what surely awaited him. With this thought, he pulled out his tiny datapad once more, checking the instructions for the upteenth time that evening.

They were to meet at the old outpost on the grounds’ eastern edge. The instructions seemed odd because he hadn’t noticed any outposts, but then again, he had never really looked for any and luckily a small troupe of boys setting off into the night served as an easy clue to follow. He could see their hand torches bobbing in the dark. If only he had grabbed Hux’s spare…

Too late to go back now, he thought as he debated catching up to them. He wanted to flag them down and introduce himself. Soon he’d be one of them—well…he hoped so. But there was no guarantee and appearing too presumptuous could come off poorly. So instead, he hung back, attempting to look casual as he followed them out into the night.

Nothing else stirred under the planet’s double moons and thankfully no rain fell for the first time since he set foot on Arkanis. He heard little else beyond cricket song and the moist grass squishing beneath his boots as he trailed a sloping path down to the shoreline. It was there Mitaka saw what must have been the old outpost. Its weathered walls sat just beneath the treeline, several meters from the beach directly across a short channel from that odd tower. What had Hux called it? Something Null?

Mitaka couldn’t help but stare at it, this giant tower rising from the depths. From his window, it looked so desolate out in the water, a lone turret jutting from the horizon, the iron waves crashing against it. From the shoreline, he could see the double moons illuminated the water surrounding it and to his surprise, a shallow causeway lined in rocks stretched out toward the entrance like a formal path.

When he saw it that first stormy night the tower’s base was completely submerged. There was no path. He would have remembered that. Perhaps the tides had covered it, but tonight they must have receded because now it appeared even more imposing, more mysterious and very much the opposite of his planned destination.

By contrast, the outpost looked more like a derelict shack, its stones waxed smooth from wind and sea spray battering the outer walls and the slate roof appeared to have caved in some years ago. Needless to say, it was a little underwhelming, even to Mitaka. He hadn’t known what to expect and yet hadn’t expected something quite so…rustic.

The other boys, only a dozen or so in total, huddled together in front of it and from within their tight ring, Mitaka couldn’t make them all out. He dared not push his way inside, but instead looked to the few stragglers still making their way down the hillside. One came to a stop beside him, awkwardly hovering outside the ring just as he did and Mitaka had to assume he too was a new recruit. He could make out little more than a silhouette beneath the blanket of darkness, but he could see the boy’s light yellow hair, the color of straw, shining in the moonlight.

“Are you one of the Commandant’s?” the boy asked.

“No—not yet, anyway.”

“Me neither,” he whispered. “Just got here—from Lothal.”

“Yeah, same,” Mitaka replied. “From OM.”

“OM?” The boy scoffed, as if Lothal were the center of all civilization. “Didn’t know they had an academy.”

Mitaka shrugged. “That’s what everyone says. What’s your name?”

“Nico.” He stretched out an open hand and Mitaka shook it. “What’s yours?”

“Mitaka,” he replied, watching the other boys whisper together—about the two of them, most likely. “Did they say why they chose you?”

The boy shrugged his shoulders. “Beats me. Probably my uncle though. He was a Captain in the Empire. Pretty famous, actually.”

“Really? What did he do?”

“He died,” Nico said. “And what about you? Why’re you here?”

For a second, Mitaka panicked. ‘My amazing memory’ didn’t sound quite so impressive now and the thought of his own family history gaining him notoriety felt laughable.

Oh yes, Mitaka thought, the very same indeed. Everyone knows the Mitakas, famous dock hands of OM that they were…

“Yeah,” Mitaka finally replied. “Same.”

Thankfully, their conversation ended abruptly at the sound of someone loudly clearing their throat. Only after Nico tapped his shoulder and pointed to the shoreline did he recognize it as an alert. The figure appeared suddenly, like a cosmic shaman, his right hand carrying a giant lantern that pierced the midnight fog like a beacon on the coast, a beaming signal for every boy to stand a little straighter, a little taller, because Commandant Hux had finally arrived.

He said nothing as the crowd parted, allowing him and his lantern a wide berth as he headed toward the shack. Once at the door, he anchored the lantern to a giant hook jutting from the ground and then reached for his breast pocket where he produced a multi-pronged key molded from durite.

Mitaka had glimpsed these relics in junk shops on OM but never saw one actually used—wasn’t even sure how they were used until he saw the Commandant push it through the padlock, twisting until it clicked into place. The door creaked open and he quickly disappeared inside, the other boys silently following in his wake.

Nico glanced over, brows rising toward his hairline where they nearly disappeared and stretched his arm in invitation. “After you.”

Taking a deep breath, Mitaka stepped inside. He had expected the shack to look as neglected on the inside as on the outside. And on that account, he was proved correct. But he soon found that the interior hardly mattered because they were not moving further inside per se, but further down.

Directly through the doorway, the other cadets formed a single file line where they descended into a stairwell that seemed to lead underground. Their heads bobbed up and down, temporarily blocking the faded light that filtered out into the ramshackle hallway where Mitaka soon followed it too.

The stairs felt weak beneath him as if they might give in to gravity once and for all. They groaned and whined with every step, but in the end, he made it down unharmed and once at the bottom, he could barely believe his eyes. A giant room stretched up and out before him like a decadent catacomb. The floor lay plastered in Wrodian carpets, the likes of which he had only ever heard covered the homes of senators or drug lords, and all around the room, the other cadets sat sprawled amongst low-slung couches.

And it was then that the warm, molten glow of an old chandelier’s cobweb-laden candles revealed the other boys’ faces and Mitaka recognized them for who they were. The one named Veers with the snubbed face and a gang of cronies often seen cloistered around him, sat at the very front, inhabiting the only singular chair in the room, an ancient wingback that seemed to hold some position of importance. He lounged across it, his legs spread, hands capping each arm rest, eyes lazily gliding around the room. He looked like a King whose jesters proved tragically unfunny.

On either side of him sat his court, the four other boys Mitaka was sure he had seen in the hangar. He thought he remembered their names from roll call. Garus and Rykoff, Pratt and Lorant.

And Hux.

Of course he expected the Commandant’s son, or at least he should have expected him in a group named for his own father, and yet, somehow he still seemed out of place. Even here.

For a second, Mitaka lingered on the red-headed boy who seemed to look past him entirely. As if he wasn’t there. And to Hux, maybe he wasn’t. Mitaka dared not bid for his acknowledgement. He could only imagine the scowl, the look of disdain shooting Hux’s features should he attempt it. So he did not.

“Gather round, boys,” said the Commandant, those first words shuttering the room like a cannon blast as he came to stand before a crumbling hearth. “A matter of great import has arisen and I must make you aware of it.”

The other cadets traded furtive glances and even Mitaka’s gaze flicked up to gauge their reactions.

“There are certain…elements infiltrating our fine academy. An insurgency, if you will.”

An insurgency? As in…spies?

“One that our dear leaders have become blind to.”

“And why is that, sir?” asked Veers, still looking wholly unconvinced of this announcement’s claim to his attention.

“Why?” the Commandant echoed in a tone of mocking delight. “Because it comes wrapped in the most alluring of disguises…” His harsh, hooded gaze swept the room and in that moment, Mitaka saw Armitage, not Brendol.

“...Equality…” he growled. “Some would have you think such foolish notions make us strong. It doesn’t. It makes us weak. It challenges hierarchy—the established order of things—and we cannot let the dregs of society think they are owed any of it.”

The room turned eerily silent and in that moment, Mitaka could hear himself inhale.

“These are the lies of the traitorous Republic, lies that those inhabiting even the highest ranks have fallen prey to. They would say there is no ruling class. They are wrong. Look around you. The ruling class is you. And it is up to you, to me, to us to ensure the natural order is maintained at all costs. We are ordained to put down those who dare claim what doesn’t belong to them. So what say you?”

“Aye,” the Cadets answered in unison.

“What say you?” He bellowed back.

“Aye!”

“WHAT SAY YOU?”

“AYE!”

“Good,” he whispered. “This is the way the world is. The way it must be, or else everything your forefathers achieved will be for naught.” His gaze slipped across the room, falling finally on Mitaka who felt it like a spotlight. “You must never forget that.”

“Yes, sir,” the Cadets replied, Mitaka with them.

“And now,” he said. “Recite the tenets.”

“I am a Cadet of the Commandant. I place my trust in thee alone.”

Mitaka looked around, deeply aware of his ignorance to these tenets that everyone else seemed to know quite intimately. Well, everyone except him and Nico.

“As such, I must conduct myself in a manner that befits my title. I must never betray that honor. I am bound and beholden to the principles paramount to my station: discipline, obedience and the will to excel in all things.”

“Excellent. And stay vigilant—always.” He gave a wheezy breath, coughing and quickly recovering. “And now boys, I leave you to your business.”

What business exactly, Mitaka had yet to learn. He expected some sort of initiation. Even a hazing perhaps, but not at all what he saw once the aging Commandant noisily ascended the stairs, his exit announced by the slamming cottage door.

It was as if that sound signaled something that only Mitaka had not anticipated, for the other boys seemed to come alive, Veers especially, who sat up straight in his chair, assuming a new air of maturity, like a miniature Commandant incarnate.

“Now cadets Nico and Mitaka,” he said. “I trust you know why you’re here?”

Yes, of course. Well, Mitaka thought he knew why he was here, but it was entirely too late to express any reticence now, so he shook his head as Nico did.

“Good. So you know what is expected of you to gain entry into our ranks? If you are not ready to prove yourself, you may leave.” Of course, neither he nor Nico made to move an inch. He would sooner die than face the embarrassment of failing at the start.

“Then Cadet Nico, you’re up.” Mitaka snapped toward his new acquaintance. He seemed equally confused as the boys around him hooted and hollered, Veers whipping them into a frenzy. “Cadet Rykoff will be your opponent.”

The boy, Rykoff, rose to stand, arms and legs exiting his chair like a giant puzzle that seemed to forever unfold. Once risen to his full height, he towered over Nico by an entire head and looked to weigh another half-Nico by the pound.

But to the boy’s credit, he didn’t flinch as the swarthy cadet stepped forward, stripping off his jacket as he did. Instead, Nico stood his ground, both hands balled into fists, ready for whatever came next.

And what came next was a broken nose. The crunch of his tiny bones ricocheted in the room, straw hair whiplashing as he stumbled.

Despite himself, Mitaka’s gaze darted to Hux, who merely sat there, completely placid as if unimpressed or at least uninterested in this barbaric display.

Blood splattered everywhere, down on the rug, up in the air, over his shirt. Enraged, Nico leapt at Rykoff, tackling him to the ground, both knees bracketing the larger boy’s hips. He pummeled Rykoff, a left hook, then right, over and over again, fists jack-hammering the other boy’s face and it took every ounce of control Mitaka had not to turn away. But he couldn’t. He could feel eyes on him too. Checking his reaction, searching for any hint of fear on which to crucify him.

A grisly scream pierced the scuffle, the shrill gasp snapping Mitaka back to the fight where Rykoff rolled over, Nico now pinned beneath him. And Mitaka couldn’t help but wonder, was this the manner befitting a Commandant’s Cadet? Listening to your fellow comrade scream in agony as you pulverized him to an unrecognizable pulp?

“I think we’ve seen enough,” Veers sneered, hooded eyes cast mercilessly on Nico’s cowering figure, his brittle wrists buffeting the blows until blood poured from his nose and ribboned down his cheeks. With that final command, Rykoff rose from the floor and sauntered back to his chair, wiping more blood with his undershirt. Two other boys jumped up and dragged Nico back against the wall where he sat, slumped over and crumpled up, silently sulking alone.

“Now,” said Veers, his cold, watery eyes glimmering in the pale light. “Cadet Mitaka…”

His name on Veers’s lips made him shiver and he couldn’t soften the dip of his brow, stare hardening under the terrible boy’s leer.

“Your opponent…” He looked around dramatically; the king of his imaginary court. “...is Hux.”

Without warning, Mitaka gaped openly at his dorm mate, looking for some acknowledgement that this wasn’t going to happen. That he wouldn’t let it happen, but Hux’s expression remained unchanged. Calm, collected, his face betrayed nothing. Nothing at all.

With one deep breath, Hux stood, fingers flying to the hooks of his jacket, revealing the lean, marble white of his arms. He stepped toward the center of the room, now within reach. His pale fingers looked translucent in the light. Then they curled into a fist.

Hux swung. Mitaka leapt away, recovering from the shock of it only fast enough to react, to hook Hux’s slender arm as it slid past, the blow suspended in midair.

“What are you doing?” Hux growled, the question so quiet only the two of them could hear, and in his eyes, Mitaka saw a spark of confusion—of fear. He was afraid. Of what, Mitaka didn’t know. But then it didn’t matter. Because whatever this was, he wouldn’t be a part of it. Not now.

Not ever.

Mitaka whipped around, facing his true tormentor dead on.

“I’m not doing this,” he spat.

“What did he say?” Veers laughed, but it came edged in disbelief.

“I said no!” he roared, his voice cracking. The other boys erupted in laughter and from the corner of his eye, he could see Hux coming at him again, but Mitaka was quick. He whirled around, pushing Hux with such force his dormmate stumbled back in surprise.

Veers leaned in, the harsh light shadowing his features. The court quieted, sensing their king’s displeasure. “What do you mean ‘no’?”

“I mean,” Mitaka replied, his voice sure and calm, a betrayal of the catch in his throat. “That I’m not your entertainment.”

The room fell silent, not a stray laugh or cough lingered as if a black hole sucked all sound away. Veers’s eyes blazed red.

“You’ll be my footstool if you don’t hit him right now!”

“No!” he snapped back, suddenly feeling taller than five and eight, buoyed by his own defiance. To them, he was nothing more than a poor, insignificant son of a dockhand, and yes, maybe that was true, but he’d be damned if he let someone like that push him around.

“Hit him, Hux.”

But Hux didn’t move and Mitaka turned his back on all of them. Even Hux.

“I’m done,” he muttered, making his way toward the steps. Except he never reached them. Just as he touched the railing, it flew out of reach. The stairs fell back where someone swiped his leg—both legs—and pinned him down. Hux was nowhere to be found as Rykoff and Lorant and so many other boys he didn’t even know closed in around him, blocking the light shining overhead. And then there was none at all.

It wasn’t the first punch that laid him flat.

It was the tenth.

It was after their sneering, sniveling faces danced before his eyes, after the world burned red, white and black. And somehow, amidst the blackouts, amidst the veins skittering his vision, he couldn’t help but think at how foolish he had been. How he imagined this going differently. How he imagined them welcoming him.

Sure, he was a little different. He wasn’t like them. He wasn’t as cultured or refined perhaps, but he could learn. He was a fast learner. That was what his instructors said. Then he was gasping for breath. Someone’s knee ground into his sternum. And then he realized how wrong he was. How suddenly their faces—screaming, spitting mad—faded into a bleached screen. Then the sound faded too. Then black. Then dark. Then nothing.

Blissfully, nothing.

He awoke maybe minutes or maybe hours later, violently lurching, every cell shrieking in pain. Only a moment later did he register the scratchy surface beneath his palms. Blades of grass licked his skin. The two Arkinsian moons hung high above him, spying his shriveled body like a deflated space worm strewn across the academy lawn. Their twin faces gloated in the velvet night, their craters gaping like the laughing mouths of the Commandants Cadets.

Stars, you’ve really done it now…

His vision swam, the real stars reduced to glittering shards, swaying in his self-made sea. If he could move his hand, he would have wiped the wet tracks spilling down his burning cheeks. But he couldn’t. And even if he could, the rustling of approaching boots stopped him cold.

“C’mon,” said a voice, the tenor of it low, muttering. A voice he knew.

His lips moved to make an answer—Hux. But it came mangled, his mouth too swollen, jaw too tight for any words.

Two arms wrangled his torso, hauling him up and he found his legs still possessed enough strength to stand, and as he did, Hux wavered under his weight, knees buckling even as Mitaka tried to steady himself.

Why are you helping me? He wanted to ask, but the question lay locked away, his lips resisting the pain shooting through every tooth in his aching maw as they made for the dormitory entrance.

Hux fell against the door, their combined weight pushing it open as he half dragged, half walked Mitaka through the empty atrium. He suddenly faltered. Mitaka stifled a cry, crashing into the wall as Hux’s arms quaked to keep him aloft.

“Just leave me.” The first words to finally escape felt brittle with defeat as Mitaka leaned back against the cold stone.

“Don’t be stupid,” Hux snapped, irritably jerking Mitaka up with all the grace and gentility of a rancor. “We’re almost there anyway,” he said, pushing them both further down the hall.

They passed a near endless row of doors and Mitaka expected heads to peek out, to revel in his misery and laugh at his pain but nothing stirred. It was just him and Hux in the hallway and once at their door, Hux plucked the code cylinder from Mitaka’s jacket before pushing it to the reader. The door’s sigh mirrored their own as Hux dropped him onto his bunk where he flopped down.

“Why did you do that?” Hux muttered, crossing the room where he opened his desk drawer, clearly searching for something inside.

Mitaka really didn’t want to talk about this. Why couldn’t he be allowed to wallow in his misery alone? Wasn’t all of it embarrassing enough already?

“I was never going to fight you,” Mitaka answered.

“I would have pulled my punches.”

“Pulled your—? Do you even hear yourself? How insane that sounds?”

“It’s not insane,” Hux murmured, withdrawing his hand and pushing the drawer closed. “It’s the way things are.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” he countered. “Not if someone stood up to him.”

Hux whipped around, raising a reproachful brow as if to say ‘You mean you?’

“You’ve only made this harder than it has to be,” Hux said, tossing a syringe onto his duvet. “It’s a stim,” he clarified. “It can speed things up.”

What things? Mitaka wondered as he picked up the needle, popping the safety cap only to reveal its sharp, razor thin tip and his stomach lurched at the prospect of it piercing his skin.

“A bacta shot would be better…” Hux opened another drawer. “But I don’t have any more of those.”

Mitaka wanted to ask what happened to them. What happened to all his stims and sticks, cylinders and patches. And why did he have them in the first place? Those were all questions Mitaka wanted to ask, but what he really wanted to ask was how to use this thing because he had never taken a stim shot before. Or any shots for that matter. He had heard other cadets sometimes used them before exams when they needed to stay focused for long periods of time.

“I thought stims were for mental performance?”

“They’re just neuron blockers,” Hux replied. “They can be used for a lot of things. Focus. Performance…Pain.”

Mitaka looked back to Hux who seemed to be waiting, watching to see what he would do with it, but he didn’t know the first thing about using it, like where to stick it, but he assumed the thigh was as good a place as any.

“Stars, not there!” Hux snatched the stim from his shaky grip and he couldn’t help but feel an ounce of relief at the intervention. Even as it came with his dormmate’s signature condescension. “Give me your arm.”

Mitaka stripped his jacket away, thankful he still possessed it, along with enough dexterity to unlatch the hook and eyes lining the seam.

“Turn your wrist over,” Hux barked, tapping the syringe plunger to the vein on the crook of his elbow. “That’s the one you want. Now we just need something to tie it off.” He looked around, as if searching for something. “Do you have any laces? What about the strap on your duffle?”

“It doesn’t come off.”

Then he paused, as if weighing something in his mind before finally saying, “I think I have something,” then darted across the room, opening that same desk drawer that seemed to dispense almost anything on command, as if by magic.

He pulled out a long chord, at least that was what Mitaka thought it was until he turned back around and suddenly realized it was something more delicate. Something shiny. Like a ribbon?

Hux neatly looped the scrap of green satin around Mitaka’s bicep, pulling it tight until his tendon squeezed with circulation cut and the vein in his arm reliably swelled.

When Mitaka glanced up, he saw Hux’s sea-glass eyes catching the slither of teeth clamping down on his bottom lip.

“You don’t have to look,” he said.

“No,” Mitaka choked, quickly straightening the line of his mouth. “I want to.”

“Suit yourself.” Hux raised the syringe up to the light, flicking it with his finger. “Just hold still.”

Mitaka inhaled sharply at the needle’s prick but it hurt less than he expected, just a small pinch and it was under the skin. He watched the liquid slowly sink from the tube into his bloodstream, wondering why Hux bothered helping him at all.

“It’s not going to stop, you know,” Hux said.

“I know.”

“No,” he countered, his tone suddenly harsh. “You don’t know. They’ll make your life a living hell.”

Yes. They would try to anyway. But unlike Veers and his cronies, Mitaka knew what a real living hell was.

“Are they your friends?”

“No,” Hux scoffed.

“Do you have friends?”

“What sort of question is that?”

“I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to—”

“I don’t need friends,” Hux hissed, untying the ribbon and stashing it in his pocket. “Especially ones who’ll be my subordinates some day.”

It was quite the statement, and one Mitaka wasn’t entirely sure about, but far be it from him to argue with anyone dislodging a needle from his arm.

“You need to bandage it,” Hux said, tossing the empty syringe in the rubbish bin. At least Mitaka had some of those in his field kit, and unlike the syringe, he knew how to apply it.

“Thank you,” Mitaka said, his voice raspy as he unrolled a bandage strip and wrapped it around his arm. He expected a response, but perhaps Hux was still thinking of a put down as he silently scaled the wooden slats up to his top bunk. Or maybe he had already put it all from his mind—this night and his annoying little roommate. Then Mitaka heard a quiet rustling where he slipped under the blanket and he wondered if Hux even heard him at all.

“Don’t mention it,” he said, the words flittering from above him. And then he flipped off the lights.

Chapter Text

V.

On the 367th day, Hux awoke with a headache. Which—on its own—would be enough of a problem to contend with except he was already not so lucky. Because his head wasn’t the only part of him that ached. No, the other ache, though not as unpleasant as a headache, was not entirely pleasant either. Not the piercing, stabbing pain he felt between his ears, but a tight, uncomfortable tug just below the belt. And unlike his headache, Hux knew it would go away if he just laid there a little bit longer. Usually no more than ten minutes or so until the blood would stop pulsing and the stiffness would fade enough for him to slip out of bed without it bouncing between his legs like some degenerate animal…

So with that mental timer in mind, his eyes fell closed and he tried to savor these last golden moments before the insanity of the day began. Because today was the most important day of all his years at the academy. Well, more like the second most important day, the first being placement day—still a full 365 more days away—but by all accounts this day would prove to be a very important stepping stone to that day, because this was the day he was to receive his squad assignment. And that would determine the difficulty of all the days remaining between then and now.

They always told cadets assignments were random. The dumb ones believed it. But Hux knew better. He supposed every academy fell prey to politics, but Arkanis especially so. And anything as important as squad assignments would never be left to chance anyway. You could be sure of that.

Cadets with Imperial pedigree had parents who undoubtedly wrote to the school administrators demanding special treatment for little so-and-so Jr. because they knew what was at stake. A strong squad meant more points in the trials and more points meant a higher, more prestigious placement. And placement was everything. It could make or break an officer’s career before it even began.

In fact, very few would ever climb the ranks once cast off to a ship with no strategic importance. In the Empire’s height, an admiral helmed every SD but the Remnant was not so lush. After Endor, much of the leadership died in body—or worse—in name, the combined result cast a wide net of high-ranking holes at the top, leaving most Cadets lucky to serve a mere Colonel.

Except Hux, for whom a Colonel would never suffice. Or even an Admiral, really. In fact, there was only one ship and one person he could happily serve. And that person happened to be the only person his father ever feared. And by no coincidence at all was it the same person who taught him everything he ever needed to know about strength and leadership and how to get whatever the hell you wanted. That person was the great Grand Admiral Rae Sloane, de facto leader of the Galactic Imperial Remnant and former mentor to Hux in a time he would only wish to forget had it not been for her.

One day they would be reunited. Once the trivialities of his academy stint were cleared away. Once he had earned his place at her side on the Ravager. Once he wasn’t hard as a fucking rock!

Was this normal? No, it couldn’t be.

Hux checked his chrono. Still another hour before he needed to get up. And if he wanted to ensure this little problem went away in short order, well, there was only one way to do that…

With a heavy sigh, he reached beneath the blanket, lithe fingers skimming the flesh thrumming against his thigh. He could feel it, the blood, pulsing up and out into every appendage it seemed. Stars, this must have been the hardest he had ever been. Definitely since he could remember. Maybe his whole life.

Stretching the band of his underwear, Hux nudged his erection free until it flopped against him, tenting the bedsheet in its embarrassing fervor and yet a shiver raced through him at the silky fibers slipping along his wetted tip. His thumb swirled the pressure-pin head and he sucked in a gasp at how surprisingly tender it felt from even the slightest tug.

At first, it all seemed like the usual morning routine. But now he knew it wasn’t. He wasn’t just hard, he was…more.

The bottom bunk creaked, Mitaka presumedly stirring from sleep. Undoubtedly dealing with his own little problem, if he wasn’t too battered to have one. Was morning wood even possible after a night like that? No, probably not, Hux thought, and then endeavored never to find out.

Besides, that was Mitaka’s problem. His own problems were much less tangible. Like that nosy girl from the med bay. Hux could still picture her. The moment she caught him looking through the cabinets. Her bright eyes, sparking with that awful shade of smug delight, thinking she had him cornered.

Completely wrong, of course. He would never be cornered by the likes of her. Her and that stupid mouth. He hated it—the way it moved. The way it sounded. The way her top lip, curled and candy pink, stretched across her teeth in a sickening smile. He should have pushed her back behind whatever curtain she popped out of. Just to see her eyes widen with fear. To see her excited and terrified and wondering what he would do next as he stepped closer and closer until the backs of her thighs bumped the examination table, a breathy little oh slipping thickly from her throat.

Because she can’t help it. She can’t help the way her heart beats a little faster as they stand a hair's breadth away from one another, waiting for the doctor to return any second now, ears straining to hear his heels clicking on the tiles. She can’t help how her lips dry as she stares up at him, a strange awe in her eyes as her tongue parts the seam of her mouth and whispers, “And what are you going to do about it?”

That’s the moment he pounces. The moment he would show her exactly what he would do about it. When she could feel him hard against her open legs, the heat burning through their clothes. When he would press her back against the table, paper crackling beneath her, barely disguising the moan escaping her lips as it unfurled in the slivered space of shared breath. When she would cry out, wanton and worried because in that moment, she had revealed too much—that he certainly was not under her thumb, but she under his, under him, unsnapping the button on his trousers and wrestling him free, his hardened flesh searing hot in her grip as he peeled her pants back. She can’t stop herself now, can’t stop from marveling at how hard he is, how his girth rolls beneath her knuckles smoothly as she grants him a series of greedy strokes.

And then—and then—

And then he would come into the sock he had hidden under his pillow, the one in which he pumped the last of his pent up rage until that dirty, abused garment came away soaked in his spend, sucking the venom from his gut. And then he would inhale, deeply. And then he could feel calm again. In control again.

Always have a sock handy. He learned that one from his last roommate. The one who masturbated at least twice a day, sometimes three. Hux hated him too, but he had at least one good idea. Apparently his only good one because if he’d spent half as much time masturbating as he did studying he might still be here. Hux was glad he wasn’t.

He balled up the sock. He would drop the disgusting evidence in the laundry chute later, once Mitaka was gone. But until then, he stashed it back under his pillow, pulled on an undershirt and climbed down the wooden slats of their bunk.

To Hux’s surprise Mitaka wasn’t there. He must have scampered off at some point, tail tucked between his legs while Hux was lost in his…thoughts. He thought then of the jigsaw bruising along those boyish features. He’d look terrible, like some wide-eyed baby doll who’d been dropped on his face. Hux would have felt sorry for him had he not brought it upon himself. But he would learn.

Casting those musings away, Hux slipped on his boots, grabbed his datapad and cadet’s jacket from the hook on the door and headed for the hangar.

When he arrived, Mitaka was not there either. He spotted Veers and Lorant and Rykoff and all the usual suspects surrounding them, their chalky complexions and distant stares suggesting a collectively violent hangover. How predictable. Discipline had always been a virtue they distinctly lacked, especially when it came to initiation night.

After dumping Mitaka on the lawn, the party continued late into the night and by the time they had broken out the death sticks and another bottle of whiskey pilfered from some instructor’s office, Hux had already slipped away. And by the looks of it, it had been a sound decision. Perhaps Veers could stumble over this last physical assessment, his brute strength enough to barrel him through, but Hux held no such illusions about his own physical abilities. He’d be lucky to come out of it looking better than Mitaka. Because this assessment was not a simple race or obstacle course.

“This is a stun rod,” Instructor Quinn said, holding up a long bat to the student body gathered around him. He flipped a switch. It sizzled to life, rays of glowing, electromagnetic waves emanating from the tip. “The voltage is set to low but you can still hurt someone.”

Quinn tossed it to Veers whose eroded motor skills nearly failed him, the rod bobbling in his grasp. “You’ll be paired off in alphabetical order.” He added, pulling out more rods from a giant foot locker and passing them around. “To win points, you must subdue your partner and stay within your ring.” Quinn then pointed to the rings painted across the floor. “Myself and the other instructors will monitor your progress and declare winners of each pair when the timer ends. Winners will be awarded one point each, which will be conferred upon your future squads once assigned.”

The instructor grabbed another rod. “Veers, you’ll be up against Cadet Valeen.”

Cadet who?

The shove at Hux’s shoulder answered him soon enough. The girl—the one from Hux’s thoughts—pushed past him, parting the crowd en route to her proffered rod. Now that was surprising, pitting a manchild like Veers against a girl. Surely it would have been more…appropriate to pair her with another girl? Though few and far between, there were enough to group them together. Perhaps it was some sick joke or an orchestrated attempt at putting those ‘insurgents’ in their place.

“Hux, you’re with Garus.”

So a beating it is, Hux thought, grabbing his own stun rod and following the bigger boy to their assigned ring. At least it would be over soon. Better to forfeit early and lose than to be beaten within an inch of his life and then lose.

“Last night was a real disappointment,” said Garus, maneuvering into a ready stance. “Almost got to see your face bashed in.”

Hux scoffed. First, Mitaka would never. Second…see first.

“Shut up,” Hux growled, a voice roaring inside of him to forget strategy and at least try to land a hit.

“Is that the famous wit I’ve heard so much about?” Garus laughed, lunging forward, stun rod catching on Hux’s tip and Hux marshaled the entirety of his strength to hold himself up, even as the brute bared down. “They say your little friend looks pretty fucked up.”

“He’s not my friend.”

“Alright, your boyfriend, then.” The brute’s eyes lit up in sick delight. “He suck your dick yet or have you gotten that far?”

Hux couldn’t help but laugh.

“Such a vivid imagination,” he finally replied, a dramatic eye roll to accompany it. “Have you always been obsessed with me? Or is this more of a recent development?”

“Oh, I’m gonna kick your ass now.”

“As if you weren’t before.”

Just take the beating! It was a reminder Hux needed right then because everything inside of him howled against it, but in the end, losing proved an easy feat. Hux was slow and two more swings left him flat on his back, his spine smacking the floor, a ringing in his ears. The best he could do now was shield his vital organs.

“That’s what you get, you little fuck!” A knee crashed into Hux’s stomach, robbing him of the breath in his lungs. “You think you’re better than me?”

“You said it, not me,” Hux grunted beneath him, unable to help himself, even as it surely punched the ticket for another black eye.

“No wonder the Commandant beats you,” he hissed back, bracing the staff on Hux’s neck, pressing into his windpipe. “Don’t know how to keep your mouth shut, do you?” He grinned, his gaze tightening into darkened slits. “Well, I can think of a way.”

“Clearly…obsessed!” A strangled gasp replaced a further reply; he could scarcely say more under the pounding in his head and the holes in his vision.

“You like this, don’t you?” Garus pressed harder. His grisly features sizzled and popped, the dwindling air turning him into many Garuses. And for a second, Hux wondered if he really was trying to kill him. If he was, it wouldn’t take much. And maybe this was the perfect cover. An accident. It would certainly thin the field. Maybe his father would be pleased. Hux couldn’t let that happen.

So he uttered the words neither of them expected.

“Alpha Echo.”

A last resort.

Hux’s last resort.

“What did you say?”

It was to be saved for another time, a time when all the doors were shut and the gates locked and the tightest of corners could not be slithered out of. But Hux was tired. And the time was suddenly, irrevocably now.

“Alpha Echo.”

The sound of Hux’s voice, strained under the weight of that burly cadet, drew a sharp breath from those meaty lips.

“How did you know about—”

“Him?”

Yes, how did Hux know about that boy? The one Rolf Garus nearly beat to death after witnessing something he most certainly shouldn’t have? And how did he know that same boy suddenly, and rather mysteriously, ‘transferred to another academy’ not long after said incident, only to be never heard from again—even though his parents still inquired about him a full year later? And then, of course, the only question left was how did he know they called it Alpha Echo?

“Now,” Hux breathed, feasting on the fumes of horror with a relish unmasked. “You’re going to lay down, then I’m going to get on top of you. And you’re going to let me win. But not too easy. Make it look convincing.”

With frightening obedience, Cadet Garus fell slack, rolling aside onto the floor. And to see him like this, belly exposed and brought to his knees—or more accurately, his back—by mere words alone stoked a purl of delight in Hux as he too calmly rolled over, his own stun rod recovered. His grip tightened before thrusting it ruthlessly down into his opponent's chest.

“T-minus two minutes,” Quinn shouted, striding over to them, clearly baffled by what he found.

As instructed, Garus played the part, faux strain on display, fighting back with only half strength. Hux suppressed the grin tugging his lips. Yes, how very terribly embarrassing for poor Garus. Bested by the Commandant’s gangly brat. How ever will his fragile masculinity recover?

To Hux’s satisfaction, there were no more taunts now—not about his father or any further designs on his mouth because Quinn, never the angel of mercy, had curiously sought to intervene.

“Enough,” the instructor barked, a firm hand gripping Hux’s shoulder, pulling him away. “I’m declaring the match officially over,” he said in a tone bordering on resignation. “The point goes to Hux.”

Hux reveled at how painful it sounded on Quinn’s tongue, his eyes trailing the instructor as he walked away.

Behind him, Garus staggered to his feet, inhaling a glut of air, his exhale a sputtering cough. If he had planned to say something, a rebuttal, a threat to return the favor at a later time, Hux would never hear it because an ear-splitting wail drew them away.

In the ring adjacent, Veers had that girl, Valeen, pinned beneath him, pressing her rib cage with his stun rod while swiping for the one still sandwiched between them. As Hux stepped closer he could see the vein popping from Veers’s neck as he strained and spit in her face. Her arms, quivering like two twigs, collapsed under him when she tried and failed to push him off.

The match had ended, clearly…

So why wasn’t it stopped?

Hux scanned the room for Quinn, spotting him at the back of the hangar, observing the match like any other student. A deep roar erupted in the room and Hux whipped around to find Veers now balled up, rolling onto his side. In the confusion, Valeen sprang up, scooping the rod in her hand. She bashed him over the head, the resounding cry a symphony to Hux’s ears.

“Hey! Hey! Hey—stop that!” Quinn shouted, now charging through the students as if he had just noticed.

“Not fair!” Veers groaned, writhing pathetically on the ground, legs clenched, hands shielding his crotch.

Hux stifled a grin.

“Alright,” Valeen spat back, her tiny form towering over Veers, “tell that to the next person trying to kill you.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, cadet,” Quinn shrugged, snatching up Veers’s discarded rod.

“Dramatic? I couldn’t breathe—”

She was telling the truth, Hux knew, because Garus had tried that same dirty trick on him only a moment ago.

“So you resorted to an illegal combat maneuver—”

Damn. Why didn’t you think of that?

Quinn jerked the baton from her grip. “Which means you forfeit the point.”

Her eyes sparked bright with fire, mouth pulled taut like a rubber band, as if a million rebuttals knocked on the door of her lips and somehow she managed to swallow them back. Yes, Hux knew that look well.

Instead, she spun around, hands balled into fists and marched away from the ring, a muttered ‘asshole’ under her breath as she pushed past him en route to the locker rooms.

Veers still laid on the floor, lazily rising up, the pained creases of his face suddenly smoothing, gaze sharp and serpentine as it followed her retreating figure. Quinn turned back around and all the other cadets loitering about, whispering to one another about the spectacle they had witnessed now snapped at attention. Whatever happened between Veers and that girl was of no consequence now, because it was time for what every cadet had waited for since setting foot in their final year.

“Alright, cadets, line up!” Quinn’s harsh clip snapped them all into submission. “Time to receive your assignments.”

Here it comes, thought Hux, gaze drawn up to the giant leaderboards where every cadet's name would eventually appear in a squad of three, one for each letter of the alphabet, starting with—

“Squad Aurek. Cadets Lorant, Afrus, Nico.”

The three boys all stepped forward. A weak group, Hux thought. Lorant was as dull as a Tattooine sun, Afrus twice as dumb and Nico, well, who even knew anything about Nico other than that outer speck he called his homeworld?

“Squad Besh. Cadets Needa, Piett, Isard.”

Now Piett was legacy—and a Commandant’s Cadet of course. His father served as a fleet admiral on Vader’s flagship, and though long dead, the Imperial pedigree ensured some inherent advantages. He likely knew quite a bit about navigating the trials. The other two, Needa and Isard, both legacies of a lower station were hit or miss at best.

“Squad Cresh. Cadets Rom, Sunber, Enzo.”

The three cadets stepped forward and Hux looked around this time as more squads were assigned, a rolling list of names he no longer kept track of.

“Squad Dorn. Cadets Rykoff, Garus, Veers.”

No way that was random. The Commandant must have heavily influenced it, as he undoubtedly did in whatever squad he’d end up in. There were still a few choice cadets left. Jir would be a good compliment to his own skill sets. He wouldn’t be the intellectual of any triad, but scored well enough in his physical assessments and not entirely brain dead.

“Squad Esk. Cadets Mitaka, Valeen—” Wow. That had to be the worst—“—And Hux.”

Fuck.

Fuck.

FUCK!

That couldn’t be right. No. The Commandant wouldn’t put him with them. It was a mistake. Or some sort of error. It had to be. The trials with those two was practically a death sentence. He’d never make it to the Ravager. He’d be lucky to make it to the Harbinger!

No, instead they’d banish him to some unchristened battle cruiser helmed by a lowly Captain, or worse—a second lieutenant who’d just barely earned his stripes! Surely the Commandant didn’t want that? This stain on his own name?

Hux peered up at that darkened window, the viewing deck where his father often observed the exercises below. He was up there, Hux knew it. Probably laughing as he looked down on him. Was this some kind of punishment? Some kind of sick joke?

“Cadet Hux?”

It was Quinn. It was every other cadet left in line, waiting for their own assignments, staring at him, waiting for him to accept his. And Hux couldn’t hide the open shock blanketing his face when he finally returned to the hangar, back from the panicked recesseses of his mind. And then numbly stepped forward. Neither of his stupid squadmates even appeared. No, in squad Esk, he would stand alone.

Chapter Text

VI.

Stones.

That was all Hux could think of as he pushed through the cadet mob, trying and failing to block out their delighted murmurs about what happened, about him. About how terribly unfortunate it was that the Commandant’s brat found himself paired with the worst squad possible: a wide-eyed transfer and some headcase from who-knows-where. They’d be lucky to make it out alive, much less in one piece. Perhaps surviving was worse. They’d place dead last and in that case, death would be preferable to sixty-odd years on some derelict fossil hanging out in the furthest edge of the Outer Rim, far from glory, far from the Ravager and much too far from the only person who could make the Commandant a fading speck in his memory.

He walked faster, wanted to run but couldn’t. Not now. Not with every eye glued to his back, still salivating over the whole spectacle. That would be the cherry on top, wouldn’t it? Seeing that pathetic bastard running away, tail tucked. They’d laugh about it together, in their dorms, en route to the mess hall, all the while whispering, wondering, why didn’t his father intervene? Did he really not care?

For a time, Hux wondered the same, and for a brief moment, lived in ignorance. Then he grew up, started the academy, met other boys and silently learned his father was not like other fathers. Other fathers took pride in their sons; furnished trips abroad to brush up on second and third languages or spent time teaching them how to shoot and fly and fix things. Other boys never had to dodge tumblers of cheap bourbon hurled at their heads and then gather the glass with bare hands. Other fathers never starved them on the days they forgot to feed them, or forgot their sons even needed them—or maybe they didn’t—maybe his father just wanted to teach him a lesson. Other fathers didn’t call their sons names or scold them for being a nasty little cretin who drove their mother away all while driving a heeled boot to their spine.

Hux pounded the lift call button. He used to rage over this, when he was a stupid little boy who thought if only he could avoid all of those annoying little things that made his father turn, if he could just figure out what they were and never do them, it would all stop. The main problem was, of course, that it was never one thing but every thing and it would not stop, ever. No matter how hard he tried, how obedient he was, he soon found there was no good enough. There was no end. Some nights it consumed him until the ancient academy walls began to collapse around him and he longed to escape, to find a match for the rage inside of him and it came in the Aran cliffs, that jagged border keeping the hungry sea at bay. Sometimes he would stand half a meter from the edge, watch the spray shoot up and fall back until the mighty waves washed it all away.

Other times, he would gather little stones chipped from the craggy ground and hurl them into the black surf.

Hux hated them, those stones, so comfortably surrounded by their kin. So secure in their place. Untouched by the wind and the waves and the surging resentment inside of him. He wanted to separate them. To make them suffer. To have them swallowed by the sea.

On blustery days, when one gust could sweep him over the edge, he would crawl on his stomach until his arms stretched out, holding each stone over the abyss, taunting them with their cruel fate. He’d release his fingers, slowly. He could hear them begging for mercy, their pleas more desperate with each finger less but there would be no mercy because the galaxy was ugly and life hard. The sooner they learned, the better, he thought as he watched them fall; watched them shrink and plop into the swirling foam. He would do this for hours, until eventually, the storms inside of him dispersed and a quiet serenity settled over the divots of scarred tissue in the places no one would ever see.

Except that was not an option now and he felt like all those stones, free falling even as the lift launched him through the academy’s admin levels. Nowhere to run this time. No cliffs to calm him down. Just his wits and one last chance.

The lift doors opened and he tore out into the hallway, nearly tripping over an errant mouse droid. It gave a frightened whirr, wheels teetering left and right, spinning in panicked circles. Stupid thing. Hux wanted to punt it away but ignored it instead, gaze locked and legs marching on to his final destination: a door at the very end of that hallway.

The Commandant’s placard laughed viciously from its exalted perch, those deeply engraved letters daring him to press the release. You don’t have the guts. That gravelly snarl in his head dared him to enter, to impose himself on the man who pulled all the strings.

Hux slapped the call button. It buzzed, then a durasteel plate slid open. The mechanical orb hidden inside scanned his face, projecting it to a pair of matching eyes on the other side, the skin folded and sagging as they no doubt rolled at the sight of his unexpected visitor.

The Commandant could have refused him. It wouldn’t have been the first time, but then the door slid open.

For a second, he froze. A part of him—and not an insignificant part at that—hadn’t expected to get this far, perhaps, hadn’t fully prepared for it, but here he was and the Commandant was there. He was not as Hux imagined. He did not stare out of his office window, surveying his cadets, reveling in his son’s misfortune with maniacal glee. Instead, he sat quietly behind his giant, onyx desk, clearly absorbed in something on his monitor. He did not look up despite his tacit acknowledgement of Hux’s arrival but employed that unparalleled talent for making him feel like air even while standing only strides away.

The urge to say something, to shout what the hell are you doing?! clattered around Hux’s head and yet…

He simply waited, hands clasped, awkwardly hovering in the threshold as those brittle keystrokes clicked beneath his stubby fingers.

“You weren’t summoned,” he grumbled, eyes glued to his monitor in a refusal to grant him his gaze, as if Hux’s presence proved a grave affront.

“I know.”

“Then why are you here?”

It was not an answer but silence that caught the Commandant’s attention. His gaze finally flicked, precise like tiny invisible pins fixing Hux to the wall until his throat began to dry out, his body begging him to run, to abort this foolish mission now while he still could.

“My squad assignment.” Hux’s fingers curled into a hidden fist, nails slicing into his palms. But he couldn’t run. There was no other choice now.

“What of it?”

That coy tone hit Hux like a freighter. Even he had the decency to deny it.

“I need a new one.”

“And why is that?”

“It’s a death sentence.”

A dismissive hiss shot the Commandant's lips. “Stop being so dramatic,” he growled before returning to his monitor. “I suppose it difficult for you to understand but sometimes, Armitage, we must learn to play the hand we’re dealt.”

“But—”

“—I learned that lesson eighteen years ago.”

Hux sucked in a deep breath. This was his game: draw first blood then wait for a retaliation, for any reason to lash out. But he wouldn’t find one. Not this time.

“But I also learned to live with it,” his father spat, clearly realizing no retort was forthcoming. “As will you and there will be no more discussion—”

“—Just tell me why,” Hux blurted, hating the sound of his own voice, almost trembling, seething but somehow still hollow, still whiny. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. “Why did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Why did you put me with them?”

Hux moved a little closer, stepping fully into the room as if he dared to present himself, dared to infringe on his father’s domain, all the while scanning him for any hint of a prelude to violence. Hux had learned to look for them, the tells, but his hands lay hidden beneath the desk and he couldn’t see if they were flexing.

“I don’t make the assignments.”

“But you could change them.”

That reply, the subtle demand swimming in the undercurrent, surprised them both and Hux could feel his toes crossing the cliff’s edge.

“Perhaps.” The Commandant’s eyes narrowed, pale and cold like a snake. “But then they wouldn’t be random, now would they?”

“Rykoff and Veers and the rest of them—that was all random?”

This line of questioning courted open danger but Hux could suddenly feel the wind at his back, the seductive pull of it downward and the promise of victory if only he didn’t back away now.

“What are you trying to say, boy?” The Commandant regarded him curiously, his meaty hands spread wide on the desktop. “Why don’t you be blunt—hmm? You came here to say something to me, so say it. Say what you really want.”

He was pulling out all the stops now. He would never charge unbaited, no, only a brute would do that and Commandant Brendol Hux was no brute. A bitter, worthless, sloppy drunk looking for a fight perhaps, but even he possessed some measure of self-delusion that kept him from rounding on his son for no discernible reason. But even so, Hux could feel it, that impending strike charging the air, every particle crackling between them while his last shred of self-preservation pressed for retreat in these last fleeting seconds of safe haven. Until he uttered the words, the ones Hux Sr. was most keen to hear.

“I want you to change it.”

“Why?” His withered lips twisted into a derisive grin as if he had finally cornered his prey. “Not good enough for you? Not what you expected?”

“I didn’t expect anything.”

“Then you’ll never be disappointed.”

The Commandant returned to his monitor and for a moment Hux thought he was wrong, that his father had felt some ounce of reasoning and saw this for what it was: a sad attempt to wriggle out of the worst fate imaginable for a boy like him. The future he dreamed about suddenly wiped away. Perhaps he should be grateful to escape with all his ribs intact. It was a stupid idea anyway.

“Am I dismissed, sir?”

“Dismissed?” The Commandant froze, his eyes sparking with something dangerous as he suddenly rounded the corner of his desk. “Oh, no no no no,” he wheezed. “You think you can march into my office, waste my time with these preposterous demands and then have the gall to ask me to dismiss you?” He crossed the room in two long strides, hovering centimeters from Hux’s nose, so close he could smell the acrid traces of cigarra smoke. “Don’t think for one second I haven’t noticed this impertinent little attitude you’ve developed.” Hux ducked his father’s gaze to hide the loathing in his eyes. He was in striking distance. Best not to provoke him. “Who's been teaching you this nonsense—hmm? Who is it?” A pointed finger stabbed at Hux’s sternum. “Sloane? Is it Sloane? Did she put you up to this?”

Sloane? Why the hell would Sloane care about his squad assignment? Before Hux could work out the answer, the Commandant’s grip clawed his shoulders, his head thumping the office wall. “Tell me!” he snarled, eyes wild with an unhinged terror Hux had never witnessed before. “Did Sloane tell you to come here and demand a new squad?”

“—Why would she—”

“—So you can win—so you can cozy up to her!”

“What?!”

“Tell me—”

“—The Admiral—she has nothing to do with this—”

“You lying rat!” He punched the wall beside Hux’s ear. “She has everything to do with this! She’s the reason! She’s why you want to win—so you can have her throw me to the dogs!”

“What are you talking about?” A dull ache pulsed at the edges of his temple. “That’s not true!”

“It is true!”

“If it was, she would’ve done it already!”

Something lit the Commandant’s face, an expression Hux couldn’t read and somehow it was much worse than blinding rage.

Then he muttered, low, threatening.

“Watch your tone, boy…”

The retort shot like cannon fire.

“I’m not your boy.”

“What did you say?” His fingers flew to Hux’s jaw, squeezing until his teeth cut the wet flesh. “What did you say?!” That booming voice brought years of conditioning to the fore and his head pounded now, but a smaller voice filtered out, a kinder register, melodic, telling him to stay calm, not to give him a reason. “Answer me!”

He wants this—you knew this would happen!

“Say it again, boy!” he screamed, both voices, on the inside and out suddenly too similar as they mingled together. “Say it loud enough for your old man!”

Just do it. He won’t stop anyway.

“I said,” Hux replied, his headache near blinding, his voice oddly even. “I’m not your boy.”

That iron grip tightened like a vise, Hux’s teeth stabbing into the fleshy wall of his cheek, the metallic tang, so familiar to him now, spilling on his tongue.

“Not my boy,” he spat. “Then what are you—hmm?—A man? You think you’re a man?” Hux nearly towered over his own father and though he did not look like a man yet, he bore all the markings of one emergent: long arms, wide palms, sprawling fingers spouting from each base; the beginning of a man’s jaw jutting from the softness of boyhood, a complement to his high cheekbones, all of those features nothing but a threat to the man who needed to keep him bound and obedient. “You want to be treated like a man?”

It was best, Hux knew, to say little. To avoid saying anything, if possible.

“I asked you a question!” But he knew silence was not an option when the Commandant’s hand whipped his head to the side and at least this time suppressed the urge to shield himself. That would only make it worse.

“No, sir.”

“I didn’t hear you!”

“No sir!” His eyes squeezed shut, bracing for a second blow, those taunting words echoing for all eternity. No sir, no sir, no sir, no sir…

“You’re fucking useless—the nerve—to come in here and demand anything of me…” Hux’s fists balled up, knuckles cutting the blood from his fingers until his whole hand went numb. That lack of feeling was good. Clarifying. Like a distraction from the Commandant’s gravelly voice. “You’re lucky I didn’t toss you into the woods the moment that loathsome whore pushed you out…”

It was meant to bait him. Hux knew that. The surefire pin to pull. If he couldn’t conjure the reaction he craved all he had to do was mention those three letters. Her. Hearing her name was even worse. Hux closed his eyes and pictured the cliffs, the sea, the stones.

“That’s what I thought,” he muttered, pushing Hux against the wall but he kept his eyes to the floor, studying the Commandant’s boots, worn and creased, because if he raised them, Hux Sr. would see the loathing in his eyes and it would stoke the desire for more. “And if you ever want to see that bitch again, you’ll learn to—”

A beep.

A sharp intake of breath. He would ignore it. Nothing should get in the way of his good time, after all.

Then it beeped again, then several more in rapid succession and to Hux’s surprise, the Commandant peeled his hand away from Hux’s cheek and reached into his pocket where the tinny voice of his adjutant warbled out.

“Sir?”

“What is it?” The irritated question punctured the air between them.

“It’s Gallus Rax on the line.”

“What does he want?”

“He needs to speak with you. He’s requesting an update on your project.”

“My project.” The Commandant rolled his eyes and retreated to his desk, leaving Hux plastered to the wall, too afraid to move. “He should be more specific,” he grumbled, returning to his monitor as if he hadn’t left his son’s mouth bleeding. “There are many projects under my current purview.”

“It’s Glasscap, sir.”

“That one,” he shrugged, his mood dampened. “Fine. Patch him through.” His withered jowls whipped back up to Hux as if suddenly remembering his presence. He mouthed the words ‘get out,’ before returning to his monitor.

Hux pushed his hair back into place and pulled himself together. At least that encounter fell toward the bottom of his worst ‘episodes.’ Nothing broken this time. Or at least he didn’t think so. It could have been much worse and maybe it was going to be but as he made his way back to his dorm that night it wasn’t the strike that left him sleepless or the cuts in his mouth. It was the knowledge that this was how it ended.

As he climbed up into his bunk, he noticed once again that Mitaka wasn’t there and wondered fleetingly where he could be before brushing it off. He can take care of himself, he thought, flipping off the lights and then closed his eyes. In the dark, he listened to a steady drizzle ping his window panes, his thoughts turning once more to the coast and all he could think of were the cliffs, the sea, the stones and wished, if only, for once, that he had the courage to follow them.

.  .  .

That evening, Kit returned to her dorm to find Lina sitting on the floor, a packed bag by the door and the news of her assigned squad the talk of Arkanis Academy.

“You should have seen Hux’s face,” Lina jeered, her pinched little nose buried in her datapad as she typed. Probably gossiping with her squad. “He was livid.”

“I bet,” Kit sighed, noting the distinct delight in Lina’s voice as she climbed up into her bunk, trying not to think of that creep holding a syringe as she pulled the covers over her on this last (semi) comfortable night in the dorm.

According to the Commandant’s latest datapad announcement, the first task kicked off tomorrow and while it included no details on where that would be, he simply stated they should expect to “ship out” before sunrise and to pack enough supplies for a fortnight at least. As for what those supplies should be, Kit hadn’t a single idea. Life on Coruscant prepared her for many things and yet living in the wilderness was not chief among them, so she waited for Lina to fall asleep before rifling through her things in hopes of figuring it out.

“Where do you think we’re going?” Kit asked aloud, barely able to see Lina’s face shrouded in the blue of her datapad despite the lights out rule.

“No clue.”

Sure, Kit thought, turning over to face the wall. She would have bet every credit in the galaxy on the very opposite. Lina knew where they were going, no doubt. She merely refused to give a real answer out of some strategy she had likely devised. The longer everyone else remained the dark, the better. At least this was the last she’d see of Lina for a while anyway, so it couldn’t be all bad.

“They’ll probably just drop us somewhere in the middle of the planet.”

As luck, or an inside track more likely, would have it, Lina was right. The next morning, before the sun rose behind fleeced Arkinsian skies, a siren blared, followed by a sound that grated Kit’s ears, the Commandant, ordering them to report to the academy’s hangar.

Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Kit grabbed her pack and followed Lina out of the dorms where an instructor met them at the hangar’s entrance, directing them to follow the line of senior cadets filing into neat rows.

Once assembled, the Commandant strolled in from a side door, several assistants trailing in behind, each one wheeling out a repulsor-lifted container. The older Hux came to a stop before the assembly, the loud clacking of durasteel locks drawing each cadet further in, stretching up to see what laid beneath the opened lids.

“This is an SE-14,” said the Commandant, reaching in and withdrawing a pistol. “The same one carried by officers of the Imperial fleet,” he added, turning it over, displaying a small latch on the gun’s inner panel. “They’re equipped with three settings. Yellow for stun, white for sting, red for lethal.”

Several cadets nervously looked around and if Kit had a friend or even a casual acquaintance she would have locked eyes as well.

“Stun and sting are acceptable for self defense. Lethal should only be used for extreme circumstances wherein a cadet’s life is at stake.” A rustling of whispers threaded the ranks. “It’s true. The Arkinisan forest is home to many beasts that can and will attack should you encounter them. It is my duty to prepare you, but be aware that once the lethal switch is flipped—” he pressed the button and a red light blinked on the pistol’s rear panel “—your exact coordinates and the data from your biometric device will be automatically transmitted to the academy.” Then his eyes narrowed, sweeping the crowd before him, voice dropping into a snarl. “Should there be any ‘incidents,’ rest assured they will be thoroughly investigated.”

The boy on Kit’s left gave a sardonic smile, eyebrows raised as he nudged another cadet.

“We are also entrusting you with a vibroblade,” he said, picking up a bladeless handle and with one press, it buzzed to life. “It can cut bone with enough pressure, so practice care if you wish to retain all your appendages.” Killing the blade, he casually tossed it back into a cargo container. “Once you have been issued one of each, you may join your squad aboard transport. That is all. Fall out.”

The instructor dispensing said weapons seemed loath to depart with them. Or maybe it was just Kit he hesitated with, his crows feet and creased jowls suggesting an archaic belief that little girls shouldn’t be handling such dangerous implements. When his fingers finally peeled from the pistol’s grip, she could hardly believe how light it felt. She then clipped it into her holster, letting it hang there, harmless and hollow like a toy while all around her other cadets’ rested their palms on the grips, the cold barrels grazing their outer thighs, an unmistakable pride shining in their faces. Something about it slithered in her gut.

The instructors, clearly displeased by the pace of activity, began herding them into their awaiting transport which proved nothing more than a cargo hold. In the cramped hull, everyone jockeyed for personal space, Kit included, who wedged through the crowd, taking note of the squads forming up in her wake. Her own squadron was nowhere to be found, probably hiding somewhere, plotting ways to be rid of her.

As the ship took off, all the cadets began to jostle around her and through a set of tightly-packed shoulders, she spied the Commandant’s son huddled toward the back, his coppery head floating like a buoy on a sea of darker shades, his expression one of thorough boredom. Beside him stood their other squadmate, the fresh-faced boy who helped her over the platform and despite Kit’s earlier assumptions, neither of them spoke or seemed to acknowledge one another even in close proximity.

“Hey!” she shouted but it was lost to the chatter echoing around them. She began to push her way through when the ship lurched. Bodies swayed all around her and she grabbed a random shoulder, the cadet in question taking this opportunity to cop a feel until she elbowed him out of the way. “Hey!” she screamed again, finally free of the crowd. “Hey, boy Hux!”

The sullen mini-Commandant looked up from where he clung to a handle strap, his pale fingers gripped so tightly as if he wished to strangle it, eyes flashing as they met hers briefly before bolting away, his gaze now laser-focused on the crowd ahead.

Sensing his displeasure, Kit sidled up to the other boy who at least acknowledged her with a half-hearted wave.

“What’s wrong with him?” she asked, gesturing to the silent Hux who seemed hell bent on ignoring her. The boy simply shrugged his shoulders and it was then she noticed his face and the barrage of yellow splotches blooming across it. “Wait—what happened to you?”

“Oh, I—” A flush crept up his neck. “Uhm—nothing, I just tripped—”

“On what? Someone’s fist?”

“No!” he snapped, his blush so deep it nearly disguised the bruising and finally, Hux’s green eyes flickered over at her in a disapproving swipe.

“Was it you?”

“What?” Hux whirled around so fast she nearly flinched. “Why would I hit him?”

“I don’t know! Why were you looking all suspicious?”

“How was that suspicious?”

“All sideways—”

“He didn’t hit me,” the boy muttered, staring at the hull’s tiled floor, his quiet voice silencing them both.

Kit moved in closer, whispering gently, “Then who did?”

“It was…” his eyes flicked up, out somewhere in the crowd, but Kit couldn’t follow quickly enough. “...someone else…”

“Clearly, he doesn’t want to talk about it,” Hux said, peering down his nose at her with his typical self-important glower. “So why don’t you simply mind your own business?”

“I’m sorry,” she reeled back to snap at him, “is your name—actually, sorry, what is your name?”

“Mitaka.”

“Right!” she sneered, flippantly ignoring Hux. “I’m—”

“Cadet Valeen,” Mitaka glumly replied. “I know.”

“Oh. Yeah, but Kit’s fine,” she countered, trying to catch his eye when the ship jerked, sending them both stumbling and grabbing for the same handle strap, their fingers clasping over it.

“Sorry!” He cried, all flustered, hand springing away as if burned. “I didn’t mean—”

“No—c’mon, there’s room enough for both of us.” Kit grabbed one side of the loop, pushing the open end toward him until he reluctantly grabbed it. “Besides.” She leaned in, whispering, “Can’t have you tripping again.” When he looked over, a confused look in his eyes, Kit playfully bumped his shoulder, her small smile inspiring the ghost of one in return.

Behind them, an irritable scoff rang out and when she glanced back, Hux merely rolled his eyes. Then a voice cut in over the ship’s intercom.

“All squads prepare for aerial insertion.”

“Aerial what?” Kit blurted, the question lost to a great roar ripping through the hull. At the stern, a giant loading ramp lowered with a rumbling groan and the outer winds rushed inside to whip at their hair and clothes. She turned to Hux, for explanation or reassurance or something, but all she found was his lips curling into a barely-suppressed grin.

“Parachute?” he offered, the question dripping in amusement as he turned and unclipped a rig from the bulkhead.

“To-to jump? Like out of the ship?”

“No,” Hux drawled, reaching over her head, “as a fashion statement,” and clipped the bundled chute to her pack.

“But I’ve never trained for any of this!”

“Not much training to it,” he said, grabbing a second container and snapping it to his own pack.

“How do I know when to open it?”

Hux simply shook his head as if the answer beneath him.

“The altimeter,” Mitaka pointed to a digital disc attached to his own rig. It displayed the number twenty-nine in giant, block letters, not that it meant anything to Kit. “When you hit the right altitude, it’ll deploy automatically.”

The voice cut back over the intercom. “Squads Aurek, Besh and Cresh, report to the cargo ramp for jump.”

After three buzzes, Kit watched each squad march to the ramp’s lip and without ceremony step straight off, her stomach dropping as they disappeared.

“Squads Cherek, Dorn, Esk.”

“We’re up,” Hux said, purposefully striding through the crowd, Mitaka scrambling in his wake and pulling Kit along. Once they reached the ramp, another squad, presumably Dorn, lined up in front of them, double-checking their packs as they waited.

“Why so green, Valeen?” It was a voice Kit instantly recognized though decidedly less strangled than she remembered. She looked up to find the middle cadet flipped to face her, his back to the open ramp.

“Oh, it’s you,” she cooed, her gritted smile a rictus of repulsion. “Wasn’t sure what you looked like when your balls weren’t being crushed.”

The comment must have caught his squadmate’s attention because they both glanced back and Veers’ smirk suddenly melted, a dead stare its replacement. “You think you’re so clever,” he sneered, stepping backward toward the lip. “Hopefully they’ll put you in P.C. where you belong.” The signal tolled a second time but he didn’t turn around. “But if not, you’ll get what’s coming to you.” His booted heels hung off the edge. “Just ask Mitaka.”

Those three words and it all clicked into place: Mitaka, the bruises, someone else and in one second time slowed as she snapped to her squadmate, his wide brown eyes begging her not to and in the next second she lunged, charging at Veers, two sets of arms snapping her up, her fists closing on clean air and that grin—all teeth, all gloat, all rot—was the last sight to flood her with rage as they locked eyes and Veers fell back, forever out of reach as the wind carried him away.

“You idiot!” Hux hissed, his grip clamping her bicep. “That’s exactly what he wants!”

“Good! Then I’ll give it to him!” she screamed, staring at the exact spot where he disappeared, imagining all the ways she would permanently wipe that disgusting smile away.

“We have to go!” Mitaka screamed, his voice snapping her from that sick reverie. “We’ll miss our drop zone!” But before Kit could ask what that was or why it mattered, the third buzz rang out and Mitaka was already gone, casually stepping off the edge as if it wasn’t hanging thousands of meters from the ground.

For a moment, Kit merely stood there, agape, staring at the ramp yawning wide to the forests blanketing Arkanis below, the world rushing beneath her in an angry blur.

“Aim for an open spot,” Hux shouted. Bile shot up her throat but she swallowed it down, unable to move, to step off, to feel the air below her, the wind whipping her down. Hux walked forward but then stopped, suddenly spinning on his heel as if he sensed her reticence. “What are you doing?”

Kit shook her head.

“C’mon!”

“I can’t!”

“WHAT?” he cried out over the roaring engines.

“I can’t! I don’t—”

“YOU HAVE TO!” he growled, eyes blazing, swiping her wrist, jerking it toward him, toward the edge where her limbs followed, feet tripping the lip and she was flying, she was falling; the ship suddenly shrank back into the sky as she plummeted to the forests below, screaming out into the open air and cursing the day Armitage Hux was born.

Chapter Text

VII.

This is how I die, Kit thought.

On this godforsaken planet. Falling from a starship. Alone.

All thanks to Armitage-Fucking-Hux.

Wind viciously whipped her face and clothes, the Arkinsian forest, a dark blot on the ground, seemed static beneath her, growing no closer, falling no further even as she plummeted toward it. Within this free fall her arms and legs spread wide and an odd calm washed over her, the kind of hopeless acceptance that only comes when one knows their fate lives inside some other cosmic hands. Kit opened her eyes then and looked, really looked at it all. From here, the world below seemed fake, a miniature model covered in bottle brush trees, the dense blanket splintered by snaking rivers whose mirrored surfaces flashed like resin beneath the sun.

Perhaps this wasn’t a bad way to die. Provided she did in fact die rather than break every last bone in her body. Well, no, that was silly. Of course she’d die—liquified, most likely, but then at least she’d escape Armitage-Fucking—

A sharp flap cut that train of thought and her weightless free fall with it. The straps at her chest cinched, her limbs jolting a second after in a violent whiplash. Above her, the white canopy puckered in the wind, its two toggles flapping in her periphery. She almost caught them when a searing heat shot up her throat. It was breakfast, that horribly bland porridge, the taste somehow stronger coming up than going down as it sprayed across the trees beneath her.

Great. Kit wiped the bile from her lips, the forest still rushing under her dangling feet and another wave of nausea threatened its escape. She pursed her lips but the revolt proved short lived when something unexpected sailed beneath her shadow. A parachute. And a boy beneath it, steering it smoothly half a klick ahead, sure and steady as he sped toward an open field. Aiming for an open spot.

Kit watched the boy pull at those same toggles she tried to wrangle earlier. She could see his arms, pulling at the left side then right. They must have directed it somehow and after a few more tries, she finally wrestled them both from the windstream’s blustery grip.

The other parachute fell further and further until the boy directing it tumbled into the tall grass, its ghostly canopy billowing like fog over calm waters.

He stood up and ripped the helmet away, a shock of copper hair revealed. Of course, Kit snarled and as her shadow glided over him, he looked up, confirming her suspicions. She waved down at her squadmate and he motioned back, both hands in the air pulling at invisible lines.

I’m trying! Kit wanted to scream back but instead tried to mirror him, arms raised, the gauge at her wrist now catching her eye. The altimeter. Twenty meters. A gust of warm wind filled her chute with air, pushing her across the field until the landing zone, the field, shrunk smaller and smaller as she barreled toward the tree line.

“Shit-Shit-SHIT!”

Limbs slapped at her arms and legs and she balled up to shield herself. Dipping beneath the tree line, trunks whizzed by, the synth cloth zipping through the pines, then a pop and a sudden jerk, her body flung forward like a pendulum, branches bending and swaying as she fell back, a hard crack split her ears and her spine slammed into something harder.

Pain rattled through every frazzled cell in her body and for a moment, the forest trembled in a crippled mass of green and brown. Two black blobs sharpened in relief. It was her feet hanging limply beneath her. She reached up and tugged at the lines. The altimeter flashed a giant, mocking six. Six meters. Kit groaned, hoping whatever bow kept her aloft held just a little bit longer.

A pop split the silence and she braced for the ground but her feet merely lowered, now barely clearing it. If only she could reach that vibroblade and cut herself free…

Her fingers stretched for that side pocket where she had stashed it away. She nearly brushed the handle when the ground suddenly rushed to meet her.

“Fuck me,” Kit growled, curling into a ball, dead leaves crackling beneath her, the mossy, wet ground seeping into her clothes.

Then a sound. Rustling. Something in the brush. Or someone. On instinct, she ripped the blaster from her thigh, checking the notch for stun.

“...Hux?” she whispered. “...Is that you?”

“What was that?”

Nope. Not Hux.

Kit charged to her feet, clumsily stripping the parachute away. They would find it but it didn’t matter now. They already heard her. And they were searching for her.

“Spread out!” a second voice shouted, this one suspiciously familiar. “Someone’s in our drop zone.”

Kit bolted and she heard a second pair of boots, hot on her heels.They saw her, two, maybe three other boys, she couldn’t be sure how many but could be sure someone else’s footfalls stomped the sea of shivering ferns in her wake.

Ahead, the terrain plunged into a small gully. Kit threw herself down and swung around the backside of a broad tree. She waited, pulse thumping against her lips, listening as they searched her out, colorful swears echoing through the trees that seemed to fade further and further away.

After a few minutes, Kit peaked out from her hiding spot. Across from her, a giant trunk laid over, its roots exposed. She made a beeline for it, slinking beneath the broken log and pressing her back against the bark and scampered to the far end to peer over it. Still, no one. Just the distant sound of a bird flapping its wings.

Did they turn back? Or run past? Her breath steadied now and she slowly stood up. No one was there, only the empty forest and the open field to the west. That’s where she needed to go—to find Hux.

Sticking the pistol in her waistband, the muzzle pressed her stomach as she slunk toward the waist-high grass.

At the field's edge, she dropped down, crawling on hands and knees, the dense growth folding and creasing beneath her as she tunneled through it. The stalks fluttered above her, their chafe tremoring like whispers on the wind. Then something else. Not the soft whistling—a thrumming. Something electric.

“Don’t move.” Kit stared down at her hands pressing the folded grass, the blaster’s grip stabbing her lower ribs. “Stand up,” he barked. It was a voice she didn’t know. Not Veers. Lower. In her periphery she caught sight of him: tall with a swarthy complexion crowned by black waves. “No sudden moves,” he added over the mechanical hum that she now realized was a vibroblade quivering behind her ear.

His meaty hand swiped the haul strap on her bag and with a violent jerk, snapped her body against him with terrifying ease. He then pushed the straps from her shoulders where it fell and he kicked it away, Kit’s chest clenching at the sight of her own vibroblade taunting her from the bag’s side pocket.

“Wait,” he breathed. “I know you. You’re that girl—from Esk. The one mouthing off to Veers.”

She reached for the pistol in her waistband but his bicep clamped over her, pinning her arms down and her fingers tingled, nerves kindled by an ancient rage. “Not so mouthy now, huh?”

“Let me go,” she murmured, trying to steady the quiver in her voice. She could figure this out if only she remained calm. “...Please, let me go.”

“Let you go?” he cooed, his breath hot on her neck. “Why should I?”

“I’ll report you to the Commandant.”

“Go ahead,” he urged, blade steady, his other hand flicking at the snaps of her jacket, wrenching the flap open enough to dip in the folds. “I’m one of his cadets, you know,” he growled, breath ragged and clearly annoyed by her compression top’s denial of his desperate search for access.

“Stop it!” She squirmed, the blade bobbled, the tip catching on her jacket’s collar. She gasped and he gave nothing but a husky laugh, her backside grazing something hot and rigid.

“I’ll stop when you—”

A twig snapped and they both stopped, the blade’s hum filling the silence as they merely stood there, both equally mesmerized by the dense brush shivering by an unseen hand. The limbs parted and a figure emerged into the fading daylight, his name quietly parting Kit’s lips.

“Ah, Rykoff,” said Hux, looking suspiciously serene, his clear, sharp eyes bouncing up to the blade then down at the boy’s other hand caught in the flap of her jacket. “I see you’ve retrieved my squadmate.”

If this predicament alarmed Cadet Hux, neither Kit nor her captor would have known for the way he sauntered into the tall grass, dauntless and undeterred.

“Yeah, I found her—in our drop zone.”

“A simple mistake,” Hux drawled, edging closer, the grass parting in his path like a serpent on the prowl. “You know how silly girls are—” eyes rolling with contempt “—terrible with directions…”

“Mistake or not, you know the rules,” Rykoff growled back, drawing the blade closer. “She’s on our turf. That makes her an enemy combatant.”

Hux snorted.

“Combatant’s a bit harsh, but surely we can reach an agreement of sorts.” His chin dipped in a knowing look. Something about it turned Kit’s blood cold. “Perhaps out of our shared respect for one another?”

Surely they weren’t friends?

“Stay out of this!”

Hux didn’t cower, only raised both hands in a show of mock surrender. “I only meant to offer a suggestion…”

“I don’t need any ‘suggestions’ from you.”

Hux’s brow wrinkled, the tick of a gesture schooled into something like smooth detachment, an expression that until now, Kit had never seen. It made her hackles raise, but for a reason she couldn’t name.

“Then what, may I ask, are you planning to do with her?”

“I’m taking her to Veers.” He then leaned in over her shoulder, raising his wristcomm to speak into it.

“—Ah, I wouldn’t do that. If I were you.”

To Kit’s surprise, Rykoff paused, his sweaty cheek pressing her forehead. “And why not?”

In lieu of an answer, Hux let the question dangle for one tantalizing moment, as if allowing this oaf time to discover it for himself and then suddenly realizing an eternity may pass before that happened.

“Think of it,” Hux lulled, voice dropping an octave and yet perfectly even, something unreadable glittering in those pale eyes. “We’re alone. Away from your squad…” His right hand stretched out to caress the feathered fronds surrounding him, their willowed heads swaying beneath his palm as his elegant fingers waved over them in one hypnotic stroke. “How long do you think it would take them to find you? Thirty minutes? An hour—if you’re quiet.” His glowing eyes snapped up, his hair shining like a halo in the setting sun, gaze centered on Rykoff. “Would that be enough?”

“Enough for what?”

An itch of a smirk echoed back, Hux nodding in smug disbelief. “For whatever you want,” he said, plucking up a single blade of grass. “There’s no one here to stop you.”

Kit’s heart pumped triple time. He couldn’t mean that…? That’s not what he meant—surely, he couldn’t—

“And are you gonna stop me?”

“Why would I?” Hux countered, holding the wisp at each end, one hand anchoring the base, the other slipping along the shaft. “She’s nothing to me.”

“Hux!—”

“—Nothing but a great pair of tits.” Rykoff laughed, but it sounded far away and Hux wasn’t laughing with him. Hux wasn’t reacting at all and Kit knew because she couldn’t stop staring at the way he stood there, watching his own fingers thread that blade of grass, calm and collected and even in the recesses of her panicked mind she sensed a hint of unease emanating from the boy at her back.

“Right,” Hux drolled, an edge of impatience flitting beneath the surface. “And you really think if you take her to Veers, he’d let you have them?”

“Let me go!” Kit screamed, kicking her heel into Rykoff’s shin. If Hux wasn’t going to help, she’d fight her way free. “LET ME FUCKING GO!” This time the oaf caught her leg and trapped it beneath his sturdy calf.

“Oh, she’s fun,” Rykoff chuckled, the vibration of it trilling Kit’s spine. “She always like this?”

“Yes,” Hux hissed, the word coated in slick desire as he took another step. “And you know Veers wouldn’t hesitate to break her—” his brows raised “—spirit. He’d never let you have her.”

“Yeah…” Rykoff sighed. Kit could feel his appraising look. “He’d want her all to himself.”

“But you found her,” Hux countered, pointing the blade at them both. “So why shouldn’t you have first rights?”

The word rights, the way it rolled off Hux’s tongue, so carelessly, made Kit’s stomach turn. She'd rip him limb from limb given the chance.

“So what’s your plan?” The question came laced in intrigue but she could feel Rykoff’s excitement building, the tremble in his body, practically bursting at the seams.

“We take turns—”

“—WHAT?” Kit roared, instinctively reaching for the pistol but Rykoff clamped down, hard muscle constricting around her like a steel trap.

“—I hold her for you—”

“HUX!”

“You hold her for me—”

“HUX, YOU FUCKING COWARD!”

“And then Veers,” Hux sighed. “He can have what’s left—if he ever shows up.”

“I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU BOTH!” Rykoff’s palm clamped her mouth, turning her threat into muffled screams.

“She plays coy,” Hux murmured, head tilted in thought, eyes flashing with a vicious gleam. “But I think she wants it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Hux echoed, one golden brow arching, his marble face shrouded in a possessive veil. “You can see it in her eyes.” He extended the blade of grass toward her, close enough to dust its feathery head along her cheekbone. “Why don’t you see for yourself?” Rykoff’s mouth rippled in a smile, the crinkled skin pressing her temple and Hux’s smoldering stare flicked to her waist and then back up at the boy’s face. “Turn her around,” Hux said. “See what she has for you.”

Rykoff released her, the knife dropped in carnal haste, too hungry for caution. “What do you have for me?”

Wild eyes drank her in, glazed with lust before suddenly dimming at the dawn of his mistake.

“This,” she spat, the muzzle poking his naval, her finger rolling the trigger. His eyes popped wide, horror-struck and he dropped stock-still, his giant frame imprinting the grass, not even his eyes free to blink.

“Stars, I feared you’d never catch on,” Hux muttered, scooping her pack from the ground.

“Shut up!” she barked, snatching her pack from Hux before turning to Rykoff, still frozen on the ground. “And you, I hope you rot here for all eternity. I hope the sun—if it ever fucking shines here for more than five minutes—burns you to a crisp for whatever beasts roam this forest—”

“Stun wears off in an hour, we should leave.”

“OVER THERE!”

Out of the tree line, Veers tore into the field, his other crony in tow. Kit gave her captor one last parting gift, a swift kick to the side before sprinting after Hux who was already running back toward the forest.

“Where are we going?” she shouted, trailing after him, ducking the limbs snagging her clothes.

“Back to our drop zone,” Hux panted, hopping over a fallen tree trunk. Kit followed blindly, swinging both legs up and over but the forest floor ramped sharply on the other side and they both screamed, tumbling in a tangle of arms and legs.

“Fuck-fuck-fuck!” she cried, laying flat on the ravine’s floor, sure she had hit every rock on the way down.

“Shut up!” Hux growled, a trail of blood oozing from his brow. “Shut up, now!”

“Don’t tell me to—”

But Hux was on her now, hands clapping her mouth, chest pinning her to the ground. A sudden sharp tang seared her throat, the burn of alcohol, a threatened shush echoing in her ear, in her head. No-no-no! She cried—screamed, legs kicking, hands scratching all she could grasp. A smoke-veiled room closed in, paneled walls shrinking, squeezing her lungs stifled by cigarra fumes.

She tried to shout. It was only in her mind, her lips crushed, dead weight caging her in, holding her flat, a primal scream—Get-off-Get-off-Get-off! bleating in her ears. The trees swayed above, dappled light shifting behind her eyes. She kicked and cried, light and sound exploding beneath her lids until the hands on her mouth fell away and she could finally breathe.

Her eyes opened.

Hux hovered over her, head whipping around, gaze trained on the ravine’s crests but she couldn’t hear anything over the hammer of her pulse.

“C’mon,” he said, jumping up and pulling her with him. “I think they’re—”

She sprung up and slapped the words from his mouth. He merely froze, jaw craned in shock.

“What was that for?”

The question came much too late, like a hologram scrambled. Her wrist flung back again but this time he snatched it, his grip a stark reminder: I can hurt you if I want to. And by the harsh draw of his lips, she thought he might. But then his jaw clenched, the muscle feathering, fingers squeezing her delicate wrist even harder. He blinked as if to clear a vicious instinct and instead pushed her back. She nearly fell from the force of it.

“Don’t ever do that again!” she screamed, the pitch tearing at her throat. “EVER!”

“What?” Hux back spun around, tramping through the tiny creek toward the ravine’s opposite wall. “Save your pathetic life?”

He raised his leg, his foot finding a hold in the rocky incline.

“You were holding me down!”

“So you’d shut up!” he snarled, testing the terrain’s stability before grabbing an exposed root to pull himself up. “They were right on top of us and if it weren’t for me, we’d still be running!”

“Really? How would you know?” Kit followed in behind him, dodging the rocks knocked free by Hux’s feet, some of them suspiciously loose as he scrambled up onto a ledge. “And how do I know you’re any better than your friend back there?”

“First of all,” he panted, glowering down on her from his rocky perch. “He’s not my ‘friend’—”

“—Seemed pretty friendly to me—“

“—Second, you think I would do all of that just to rape you in the woods?”

“I don’t know,” Kit scoffed, tossing her pack up on the ledge. Even as she climbed, her stomach dropped to her soles, the words dredging up an uncomfortable truth: she didn’t know Cadet Hux at all. She had encountered versions of Hux, caught glimpses of his many faces, watched him shape-shift before her eyes, each version slightly different and of the same frightening shade, all of them hiding something just beneath the surface, hinting at a void swirling under his skin. “I don’t know what you would do.”

“Stop flattering yourself,” he muttered, stalking up onto the forest floor, wiping the blood from his brow. “I wouldn’t touch you unless I absolutely had to, trust me.”

“Why should I?” she asked, retrieving her pack and racing up next to him. Maybe there wasn’t anything there. Maybe he was just an asshole. “Why should I trust you?”

“You know what?” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, wiping his fingers. “You’re right. You don’t need to trust me,” he clipped. “Next time, save yourself.”

“Next time, I’ll—”

Whatever plans Kit had for next time were never determined, they were instead drowned by a terrible shriek that ricocheted through the leafy canopy.

“What did you do?” Hux spun around to find Kit clutching her ankle.

“I didn’t do anything! I was—fuck!—” she attempted to stand, “I tripped.”

“Over what?”

“A rock! A root? I think it was a rock.” Her ankle pulsed angrily, the skin hot and swelling with each passing second. “It feels—ah!—it feels broken!”

“You would know if it was broken,” he said, that condescending lilt boiling her blood. “It’s most likely a sprain.”

Hux spared her nothing but an irritated shrug as she gingerly braced the ground to avoid putting weight on her ‘sprain.’

“Well, are you gonna help me?”

“Am I?” Hux sneered. “I might molest you. I can barely control myself, according to you.”

For a moment, Kit sat there, gathering up the last remnants of her pride and swallowing it down in one bitter gulp. “Can you please help me?”

“Are you going to assault me again?”

“...No…”

Her squadmate paused, as if contemplating his options. Surely leaving her was a bad move, even if he doubted her abilities in combat, navigation, parachuting and whatever random skill sets this circus of a situation required. She half expected him to turn and leave but then he simply rolled his eyes and reluctantly offered his hand.

They limped along like this, Kit tucked beneath Hux’s shoulder, arms clinging to his waist as the two of them inched toward some end point she trusted he knew. When the forest finally gave way to a naked hillside, the sun had dipped beneath the trees and a chorus of insects chirruped in the twilight. Both had given up on conversation long ago, leaving nothing but the crunch of loose dirt and rocks beneath their staggered footfalls as Hux carefully navigated their descent.

“We’re almost there,” he breathed, pressing a button on his wristcomm. An electric blue map sprung up from the device, its foreign markings projected to the darkening sky. Kit feigned confirmation, trying not to look so clueless as Hux pointed to a triangle on the map. “Our rally point is here, at the far end of this valley, maybe another two hundred meters or so—”

“Two hundred meters?”

“That’s not very far.”

“Oh—”

“At this rate, I could doubtless carry you faster.”

“Please,” Kit blurted. “You can’t carry me.”

“Yes I can.” A defensive edge seeped into his reply. “I’m serious. Get on my back.”

“You want me to jump on your back? What about your pack?”

“I can carry it on the front,” he said, sliding it off and slipping it up to his chest.

“You really think—”

“Yes, now hurry up, we haven’t got all night.”

Kit spared him one last skeptical glance, but he didn’t balk.

“Fine,” she shrugged, locking her arms around his neck. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

If Kit was indeed too heavy for Hux to carry, he didn’t dare admit it, even if the sweat beading behind his ear argued otherwise. For a while, they carried on in silence, a quiet breeze rustling the dense forest now rising back up around them as they descended into that lush valley and Kit closed her eyes, finally relaxing enough to perch her chin on Hux’s shoulder. His back felt warm against her stomach, the rigid bones and lean muscle working beneath her and she suddenly thought of all those purple scars hidden beneath his shirt.

“Listen,” she said quietly, directly in his ear. “I’m sorry about…what happened.”

“Yes, and what did happen?” he countered.

Kit had no answer for that. At least not one that didn’t scare her too much to dissect. Here, in the forests of Arkanis, she couldn’t be further away from Coruscant and all that was left behind. It scared her to think that no time or distance might lessen that wound, that she would always carry the echoes of it inside of her.

“I don’t know,” she lied, looking for Hux’s reaction, but the darkness rendered him a shadowy outline, the unease lingering in her lack of response. “...I’ve never done that before.”

“Really,” he answered flatly. “I couldn’t tell.”

“No, it’s tru—”

“Stop shouting! You’re right by my ear!”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to,” she swallowed dryly— “to do either of those things.” Her thumb rubbed at a spot on his shoulder and in an oddly soft, shy voice she added: “I hope you can forgive me.”

He let out a shrug, begging her to drop the matter. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine!”

“Again, stop shouting,” he grumbled. “Your shrill voice is hurting me more than that did.” And just as she readied a reply, he muttered something curious under his breath.

“What did you just say?”

“...Nothing.”

Kit craned forward, trying to look at him, trying to see his face but his eyes, shining like two stars in the moonlight, lay trained on the path ahead. “No, I heard you say something. What was it?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

But he did. Kit heard it. Or at least she thought she did.

“Did you…did you say you’ve had worse?”

“No!” he shot back, his arms tensing around her thighs and Kit felt it again. That unnameable thing swimming in the current between them.

“So…” she leaned in, taking care to whisper this time. “Are you gonna accept my apology or…?”

“I don’t know,” Hux took in a breath, the reply an exhale. “I’ll have to think about it.”

“When do you think—”

“When you’re not breaking my back.”

“That’s fair,” Kit replied, resolving to leave him alone, the sound of his labored breathing all she could hear as they entered the canopy once more and the stars above became little pinpricks in the darkened sky. In that quiet moment, her thoughts turned back to Rykoff and Veers. She wondered what they were doing. If the stun had worn off yet and they were settled into a makeshift camp, already plotting their revenge. Cursing her name, if they even knew it. Scheming about how to get her kicked out of the academy and have her sent to whatever Peasea was. Hux would probably know.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Haven’t you already?”

Kit fought the urge to punch his shoulder. “Ok, another question then.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ve met your daily quota.”

Insufferable prick.

“Ok, forget it then.”

“No, go on.” He gave a relenting shrug and Kit could hear his eyes rolling in the reply. “What is it?”

“I heard this word that I’ve never heard before.”

“—An uncommon occurrence, I’m sure—”

“—I just wondered what it meant—Peasea?”

Hux stopped walking then, frozen in the middle of the path.

“What did you say?”

“I said Peasea. What does that mean?”

Hux didn’t answer, not immediately, but in the silence she felt his shoulders tense beneath her.

“Where did you hear that?”

“Veers said it. Out on the ramp. He’d said they’d send me to Peasea—is that a place? Does it stand for something? P.C.? A penal colony—”

“No.”

“Then what is it?”

Hux resumed walking, his heavy footfalls stomping down the path with renewed speed as if he hoped to outrun this conversation. “It’s nothing.”

“It didn’t sound like—”

“He’s trying to mess with your head.”

“But if I don’t know—”

“You don’t need to know!” he snapped, his voice battering her ears. “And stop asking so many stupid questions for once!” Without a word, Kit unlocked her arms suddenly and slid from his back. Hux whipped around to face her. “What are you doing?”

“Fuck you,” she growled, wincing and limping away from him. Kit would rather hobble the rest of their journey than accept anymore ‘help’ from that pompous piece of shit.

“Where are you going?”

Hux caught up to her in two strides.

“To our camp!” she cried, fingers digging into the straps of her pack.

“You don’t even know where it is.”

“I can follow the smoke well enough,” she said, pointing to ashy plumes wafting from within the next patch of forest.

Drawing closer, Kit heard the crackle of fire and felt its heat even through the brush. She reached out to part the dense shrubbery but Hux grabbed her wrist, snatching it back as if to reprimand her for being so careless. She jerked it away but at the last second, his silent warning made its point. Nothing guaranteed the camp was theirs. And then two hands shot through the bush. Hux’s whole body disappeared through the hedge and without a second thought, Kit barreled after him.

Landing on her ankle, she cried out, turning to find Hux face down on the ground, one arm twisted behind him, one knee lodged into his back.

“Stars, I’m so sorry!” cried Mitaka, jumping back and helping Hux to his feet. “I didn’t know where you were and I’d been waiting for hours!”

“We were delayed,” Hux growled, wiping the dirt from his uniform as Mitaka rounded on Kit, helping her up as well.

“Are you alright?” Mitaka asked, propping her against his side and easing her down onto a log bench that faced an already roaring fire. In a groggy awe, Kit absorbed the meticulously-constructed camp, noting the shelter limbs and discarded brush, carefully bound in tri-ply twine. A shrill whistle broke her observation, only to find it coming from a collapsible kettle held aloft by a tiny crane that hoisted it over the fire.

“Oh!” Mitaka rushed over to the pot, grabbing the handle from the lever. “And I’ve got tea on, if you like.”

Chapter Text

VIII.

That night, Hux decided no sound in the entire galaxy grated his ears more than Mitaka fussing over someone—especially one so undeserving of it.

It began the moment he and Kit set foot (or face, more accurately) in the camp. Mitaka’s wide hollow eyes seem to skip over him entirely to settle into her cuts and bruises from whence he could not untether himself. As if she was some delicate flower. An insidious weed, more like. Her thick roots entrenched in the fertile soil of male naivete, growing more bold, more brazen, more entangled in that poor, clueless little idiot until she’d choke the life from him. How could he not see that?

Even now, as Hux observed them from a safe distance, their faces lit by campfire glow as they excitedly chatted in blissful reunion, he knew the answer. Mitaka was blind to her wiles because he simply chose not to see them. No, all he wanted to see was all he ever saw in anyone who pierced his insulated orbit: need. That’s what he wanted to believe. Someone needed him.

But Kit didn’t need him. Doubtful she needed anyone and yet happily played the part of ailing patient while Nurse Mitaka retrieved his medkit. If Hux hadn’t been there to stop this little charade of medical malpractice (from someone who barely knew where to stick a stim shot), her wounds would have surely festered by morning.

“Both of you—you’re—” Useless. The word lingered on his lips but something in his voice, a gravelly undertone, had him swallowing when he snatched the medkit away. “Let me do it.”

They both froze, as if to remember that yes, a third squadmate they had and one that knew more about what to do with cuts and bruises than either of them would ever feel comfortable acknowledging. Hux pushed that shame aside, hoping they spent as much time contemplating it as anyone else did when he kneeled down and pulled Kit’s boot free.

She stifled a gasp, air sucked through a clenched jaw. How dramatic. He grabbed the hem of her pants and rolled it up to her knee. Hux had seen it all and yet somehow, seeing it on someone else, the swirls of purple and red, broken capillaries squiggling out from scarred tissue captivated him.

Peeling away his gloves, he spread sanitizer up to his wrists and selected an antiseptic pad from the medkit, holding it up for Kit to see in little more than a taunt.

“This is going to hurt,” Hux murmured, ripping the package and pressing it to her leg.

“Goddammit!” she screamed, recoiling. “No countdown or anything?!”

“Countdown for what?” Hux sneered, squirting bacta gel onto a swab with practiced precision. “Now or three seconds from now will hurt the same.” He slathered the wound in blue goop, head bowed in concentration as Mitaka merely looked on in fascination. “And may I bother you for some assistance, Nurse Mitaka, or are you presently indisposed?”

“Indipose—me?” He looked up with those wide, hapless eyes. “No, of course not!” he replied, scrambling onto the log next to Kit. “How can I help?”

“Cut these bandages into strips.” He tossed a roll of medical weave to Mitaka, who caught it one-handed while the other fished out his vibroblade. Hux surveyed him in his periphery, noting the boy’s blind obedience and bias for action. Rather impressive, really. He’d make a good soldier. Or an adjutant. In any case, he was a marked improvement over the other one who wouldn’t even cut it as a janitor on any garden-variety SD.

“We are lucky to have you,” Mitaka blurted and for a second, Hux merely froze, the words registering a second later.

Lucky.

To have you.

…Stars, he really said that, didn’t he?

“What do you mean?” Those were the only words Hux could think of. Not you’re right, because he was, not thank you, because he should have. An interrogation. An offer to explain himself or else defend this ridiculous declaration.

“We’re lucky,” Mitaka echoed back, so simply, so earnestly, the conclusion of this little mystery dangling over Hux like the bandages he made short work of. “You know so much about field med.”

And there it was: the anomaly. The one no one else had ever noticed. Until now. Until Mitaka, because of course Mitaka noticed with all his careful observation and innocent remarks on seemingly innocent facts that made Hux panic, made him look up in a blaze of horror only to find a reaction he had not expected. It was not as Hux most feared. Not contempt. Not even pity, but a bewildering softness passed over those boyish features, his gaze suddenly ducked in some odd abashment.

How could he have been so transparent?

“Yeah, real lucky,” Kit drawled, her voice a welcome puncture to the silence. “If not for you, who else would point out all our mistakes only to fix them and then lord it over us with glee?”

“Kit—!”

“No, she’s right,” Hux spat, the rebuttal little more than reflex now. “You two need lording over and luckily I excel at it.” Kit granted him a bemused smile but Mitaka sat in rueful silence, still avoiding his gaze. “Now pass me the butterfly stitches.”

Hux saw the moment that command registered, saw how it extinguished the inkling of an answer, the one wriggling in the back of Mitaka’s mind as it mercifully fell away, free thought overwritten by the need to obey as he rummaged through the medkit.

“Would that be—”

“The ones that look like butterflies, yes.”

“Right! Got it, got it,” Mitaka chirped, withdrawing a plastoid box, the adhesive stitches rattling inside. Hux glanced up only to catch the grin spreading Kit’s face, his heart skipping a beat as he traced the line of her gaze to his squadmate.

“Good work, Nurse Mitaka.” She laughed, the sound of it oddly melodic, nimble fingers plucking the box from his grasp and handing it to Hux. When he reached for it, their fingers brushed before he could snatch it away and he ducked her line of sight to focus on shedding the adhesive strips from their backings.

“I’m going to pull the skin here so I can apply these,” Hux murmured, one hand holding up the stitch, the other bracketing her open cut between his thumb and forefingers. “Ready?”

She bit down on her bottom lip and seized Mitaka’s hand, squeezing it hard. “Yeah,” she nodded. “Ready.”

With one firm press, blood spilled over Hux’s fingers as he pinched the wound closed. She let out a squeal, her calf tensing while he applied each stitch quickly and carefully.

“Nearly there,” he said, taping down the fifth and final stitch. She gave a strangled whimper as he wrapped it in bandages, his gaze secretly climbing the slope of her shin, up and over her bare knee where he settled on her fingers, swollen with blood as they clawed at Mitaka’s.

“Done,” Hux added, forcing himself to stare at anything else and finding a reprieve in his own handiwork—how clean and tidy he made her ghastly wounds, covering them in his expert care. He really could have been a doctor had he the mere inclination. And a father who would allow it, of course.

“Thank you,” Kit murmured, the touch at his shoulder drawing him out of those wretched thoughts and up into her face, suddenly ensnared by it.

For once, she was not scowling or sneering. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, the campfire’s flicker casting fake embers, her eyes half-lidded and hazy, her lips soft, plush, slightly curved into a smile and he wondered, if for only for a moment, what it would be like to touch them. As if he would want that.

“It’s nothing.” He shrugged off her touch, and in her eyes, something died as he zipped up the medkit and tossed it back to Mitaka. “You should change out the bandages tomorrow, unless you’re keen on an infection.”

Without another word, Hux rose up, leaving them at the campfire ring. He grabbed his pack, unclipped his bedroll and retrieved the field blanket tucked inside. Beneath the makeshift shelter, he laid them flat. Surely they would take the hint, Hux thought as he pulled the blanket over himself. But even as he laid there, eyes closed and failing to block out their whispers, he realized that possibility grew more remote by the second.

Hux turned on his side, hugging himself for warmth. In his self-made dark, he imagined their faces, the worried glances exchanged over crackling flames, ember ash and fireflies mingling in the dark. In the distance, a convor called out, its lonely hoot rising above the tepid shush that finally carried Hux to sleep.

The next morning, Hux awoke with a start. He was late. He leaned down, peering beneath his bunk, expecting Mitaka but only a pile of rumpled bed linens remained.

Hux called out his name as he clamored to the floor, but his voice seemed to echo forever, like a pebble dropped in a bottomless well.

He dashed out into the hallway. No one stirred even as he rushed toward the communal stalls, even as he passed a window someone left wide open. Rain splattered the seal, out into the hall, onto the stone floor. He thought to close it. No transparisteel. It was not a window at all but a gaping hole for the rain to pour inside, to pool on the floor, to fill the hallway until his feet disappeared in dark waters and when he peered through the opening no ground emerged, only waves, only the ocean spray crashing on battered walls, the Aran cliffs floating in the distance. Somehow, the sea had come ashore or else he was in the ocean, and the ocean covered his ankles, rushing from somewhere further down this darkened hall.

“Mitaka!” he cried out.

“MITAKA!”

Louder this time.

Again and again and panicked now, water splashing on his clothes, soaking him to the bone as he sprinted toward the end.

A door appeared and Hux opened it. The refreshers. He must be here. But Hux looked around to find himself alone. A row of sinks and mirrors. A ghastly bulb, hanging naked, flickering in protest.

He searched the stalls, water swirling at his calves, at the posts, on his thighs as he bent down to peek beneath them but no feet peeked back and when he turned, his reflection caught in a flash of polished silver. His face. He touched it. His fingers felt skin but the image deceived them. No, not his face. Not the eyes and lips and nose he knew but an old, withered mask, heavily-creased lids swallowing pale irises, jowls creasing the corners of his mouth.

The Commandant’s lips craned open, the sound ricocheted out, an awful screech coded in bits and bites.

Hux jolted, sweat-slick and springing up. The screeching was not in his dreams, not a scream but an alarm. He had set an alarm, he suddenly remembered, but it wasn’t that. This was different. An alert he had never heard before and by the time he untangled his own blanket Mitaka was already up, back turned and rifling through his pack.

Kit stirred as well, emerging from her bedroll, hair mussed as both arms reached toward the sky in a languide stretch and then locked behind her, the innocent arc pulling her shirt taut and pushing her chest out until both mounds of softened flesh heaved obscenely.

“I’ve got it!” Mitaka cried, holding up his commlink and Hux swallowed, hands springing to his lap, gaze snapping toward the device tossed onto his bedroll. Kit crawled forward to perch at the end of her bed and it was at that moment the beeping mercifully ceased and a hologram of the Commandant diverted everyone’s attention.

“This is Commandant Hux speaking,” came a voice they all knew too well, oddly echoed in triplicate as it filtered out from each of their commlinks. “I come bearing news of your first assignment. The objective is simple: locate an important asset and return it to Academy grounds. Points will only be awarded for squads returning the asset marked as their own. Returning another squad’s asset will disqualify you, so don’t try it. At the conclusion of this transmission, I will send coordinates and a defined radius in which you should begin your search. The first team to successfully retrieve theirs and meet me at the Academy beach wins. That is all.”

The Commandant disappeared and Hux let out a breath.

“What do you think it is?” Kit asked, rising to her bare feet, her slender, equally bare legs filling Hux’s view. He tried not to look, didn’t want to, and yet couldn’t help but glance at the stripe of syncloth smoothly clinging to her hip bones, perfectly contoured to the very part of her Hux forced himself to avoid studying as she casually redressed with no hint of the discomfort he felt at watching her. “And if whatever it is, is so important,” she added, buttoning her waistband. “Why trust a bunch of cadets to retrieve it?”

“Maybe it’s durite,” Mitaka automatically replied, as if he had been saving that theory for such an invitation to speak it into existence.

“Why would it be that?” Hux scoffed, waiting just a moment more before folding up the blanket strategically pooled in his lap.

“Aren’t those ruins—the ones at the academy—made of durite?”

“Ruins?” Kit looked down on him in wounded disbelief, as if Hux had been harboring some great secret from her. “What ruins?”

“You never noticed the stone ruins? Out on the grounds?” Hux had to admit her expression of sheer stupidity greatly pleased him. “Or that giant tower in the water? It’s about…fifty meters high—?”

“—Hux—”

“—That never struck you?”

“Well—no, I was a little preoccupied with, I dunno, figuring out what the hell is going on here, so, didn’t spend much time on the scenery, I’m afraid—”

“Can you both please—”

“Yes,” Hux hissed. “Spatial awareness isn’t your strong suit, is it?”

“We all know what yours—”

“BOTH OF YOU, PLEASE SHUT UP!”

Kit froze, her taunt hanging from a half-open mouth and Hux recovered a second later, whipping around so fast Mitaka flinched, his whole body rigid, cheeks aflame. “...Please…”

“Mitaka, I’m—” but that mechanical bleating, the one that awoke them only an hour before, cut her off and before anyone could give it a name, Hux dug out his commlink.

With the device in hand, he projected the map onto a tree trunk, the glow of it gathering them closer, their squabbling surrendered to silent study.

“Is that it?” Kit asked, pointing to a pulsing circle in the map’s top right corner.

“Yes, and we’re here,” Hux said, pointing to a yellow triangle marked adjacent. “The search zone looks about three klicks wide and…” He reached up, fingers spaced over the cartographic scale, tracing the path two lengths wide, five klicks at a time. Ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five…fuck. “Twenty-eight klicks.”

“Sorry, what did you say?” blurted Mitaka from somewhere behind him.

The words came in a rush of air. A defeated sigh. “Twenty-eight.”

Twenty-eight.

Miserable.

Klicks.

“That’s a day’s hike from here at least,” Mitaka added unhelpfully.

“Then there’s no time to waste, is there?” Hux snapped, closing the map and spinning on his heel. He left them in lengthy strides they both scrambled to match.

For a blissful forty minutes, Mitaka and Kit fell silent behind him, the only sounds, their collective feet stomping the path he blazed ahead. A few klicks further brought them to a shallow gorge where a creek rushed through the worn cleft. Judging by the looks of it, getting down wouldn’t be the issue. The other side was solid rock. Climbing back up would be a different story.

Hux kneeled down, then laid on his stomach, sliding his body off the cliff’s edge, feet dangling beneath him.

“What are you doing?” Kit cried. “It’s too deep! We won’t be able to climb up the other side.”

“One of us won’t,” Hux replied. “But if we hoist you up—” He let go, dropping to the canyon floor and looking up at his squadmates meters above. “You can tie one of our parachutes to a tree and we can use that to scale the other side.”

Clearly Mitaka needed no further convincing. He jumped down immediately and Kit followed soon after, slowly maneuvering her body to the edge, easing over it, legs dropping first and then her torso and at the last second, Hux reached up, hands bracketing her hips and swiftly ferried her to the ground.

She whirled around, startled, “Why did you—?”

“You have to be careful,” he sputtered, the words sounding sharper than he meant them to. “With your leg,” he clarified, feebly pointing to her bandages turned light brown with dried blood.

“Oh, right,” she muttered, looking up at him sheepishly, silken wisps of hair clinging to her cheekbones. “Thanks.” Then her gaze dropped, hidden beneath two rows of dark lashes as she slipped past in pursuit of their other squadmate.

“Hey look!” Mitaka cried, whipping around and waving them over. “There’s steps here.”

“Really?” Kit hurried forward, trudging through the creek despite her wounds, all too eager to create space.

“Someone cut them into the wall.”

“Who would have done that?”

“The ancients,” Hux answered, causally sauntering in behind them. “They were called the Rakatans.”

Kit’s fingers mapped the ornate symbols carved into the steps, the same arcane etchings Hux had seen tattooed to the leathery arms of old fishermen hanging around Scaparus Port. They were obsessed with these ancient, magical beings, always telling stories to any young boy who would listen. They said the Rakatan traces left behind made up some galactic treasure map or cosmic curse or the secret to eternal life, of course they could never agree on which, but all Hux knew was that it held no real value to one miserable boy stranded on this maker-foresaken planet. “Those people—”

“—Aliens,” Hux corrected.

“They made the ruins?”

“Yes.” Hux’s boots stamped the carved steps as he charged up them. They didn’t mean anything. At least nothing that would help them now. “They conquered this planet a long time ago. Before any humans came.”

Mitaka filed in behind him.

“What happened to them?” Kit asked from the bottom step, still entranced by those primitive designs.

“I don’t know,” Hux growled. “Stop gawking and let’s—”

Something sharp thumped his bicep. Like a rock. But he never saw it. Then stinging sizzled through his arm, straight to his shoulder, all of it burning like a blowtorch to the skin. He looked down but saw nothing, even as he fell, even as Mitaka crumpled beneath him with a dull thud when they hit the ground. Mitaka groaned, his whole body pinned beneath Hux who tried to move until an arm yanked him back.

“Stay down!” Mitaka barked and Hux rolled off of him, lying next to Kit who mouthed the words ‘Are you okay?’

“No!” he growled back. “I can’t feel my arm!”

Fuck!

“Had to be a stun bolt,” Mitaka replied, pulling up against the canyon wall, head swiveling to find the source.

“Another squad?” Kit whispered.

“Dorn, presumably,” Hux muttered, clutching his arm and struggling to move the entire right side of his body. “I didn’t see anyone though.”

Another bolt whizzed by and they scrambled on hands and knees, Mitaka half dragging Hux behind a giant boulder.

“How do we get out of here?”

“We don’t!” Hux snapped. “As soon as we try they’ll aim for all three of us.”

“But they must be at a vantage point that they can’t see us if we stick to the wall. We could follow this gorge until we’re out of range,” Mitaka offered. “Then we can double back.”

“But which way?” Kit whispered, her spine flattened to the craggy wall. “Where are they shooting from?”

“My arm would suggest north or east.”

“There’s one way to find out,” Mitaka said, crawling toward the creek bed and reaching for a broken limb purling in the water. He fished it out and hauled it back toward the wall where he unclipped the helmet hanging from his pack.

“What are you doing?”

“Finding out,” he replied, perching the helmet on the stick and then raising it slowly, mere centimeters at a time until the alloy dome crested the canyon lip.

Ding! A bolt smacked the right side, flinging it left like a bell.

“East it is.” Mitaka dropped the stick and clipped his helmet in. “Now c’mon.”