Phasma (Star Wars): Journey to Star Wars Page 5

  But she’s also got to avoid making him so angry that he kills her.

  The remote is never far from Vi’s mind. She can’t take many more of those uncontrolled jolts of electricity. It’s imperative that Cardinal doesn’t lose his temper again. A fine balance to walk, and she’s definitely not at her best just now.

  She swallows audibly, chapped lips parting. “Hey, how about a little water, maybe? I get parched, laying the groundwork for the really juicy stories.”

  Cardinal wags a finger. “We don’t have much time. Just tell me.”

  “That’s not how it works. If I die of dehydration or electrocution, Phasma’s story dies with me.”

  “Do I look like I brought you a picnic lunch? This is an interrogation, not a party.”

  “It’s going to be less of a party when I pass out.”

  The floating droid—Iris, he called it?—zips around Vi and beeps imperatively at Cardinal. Vi wants to tease him for taking orders from a droid, but she knows well enough that when Gigi has new information to add, she always listens. She’s going to miss that cheerful little astromech. She makes sure she’s panting when Iris hovers right in front of her face.

  Cardinal mutters, “I know, I know,” at his droid and stands right in front of Vi, close enough for her to spit in his eye, if she had enough moisture, which she doesn’t. He’s from Jakku—he knows what dehydration looks like, and he’ll have no choice but to agree with his droid that she’s not looking so good. Something about the shocks this machine doles out did a number on her body. The droid’s readouts must confirm that she’s not playing him. Cardinal sighs and stands, putting on his helmet.

  “I don’t need to say it, but don’t move. Don’t try to escape. I’m taking the remote, I’m leaving Iris behind, and I’m locking the door. Can I trust you?”

  She’s not going to tell him that if he let her out of the chair right now, she’d just fall on the ground and twitch. Her muscles are burned out, her bones aching.

  She also won’t tell him that building trust is exactly what she’s trying to do, and this is a great way to accomplish it.

  “You can trust me because we made a deal. But when you come back and find me completely unmoved, I want you to remember it.”

  “Why?”

  She gives him a small smile that cracks her lips. “Because I think we’re going to make some more deals, down the road. A little food wouldn’t go amiss. This machine is like one big, metallic hangover. It’s terrible.”

  His voice through the helmet is impersonal and cold. “Of course it’s terrible. It’s supposed to be. It’s a torture device.”

  With that, he taps on the control panel, and the door slides open. Vi closes her eyes to enjoy the small breeze and somewhat fresher air before the door shuts. Even though she’s pretty sure she could get out if she gave it her all, she doesn’t like her odds just yet. Plus, Iris is watching her, a red eye blinking like a warning. Vi is willing to bet this little communications droid has been rigged with some kind of defense mechanism, a laser or a shock arm. She’s not going to find out.

  She checks in on her body from toes to eyes, flexing every joint she can, tightening and then releasing the muscles. She’s sore and drained, and her goal will be to somehow get stronger before he releases her from the machine or she finds a way to break free, either one. As is, she couldn’t fight even one of his kid stormtroopers, and she knows it.

  Without meaning to, Vi falls asleep. It’s dark and warm inside her head, a pleasant cave where she can rest. She startles awake when the door slides open, filled with shiny red. Blinking to refocus her eyes, she does her best to perk back up so Cardinal won’t know how very weak she is just now.

  “Is that nerf steak I smell?” she mumbles.

  “It’s water and protein. Standard trooper diet.”

  “I was kidding. It smells like death.”

  Cardinal takes off his helmet and puts it back on the table. He’s smiling, and Vi notes that he has a nice smile. Not that it matters. He’s still the enemy.

  “The protein is still sealed in its packet and therefore has no smell. The only thing in this room with an obvious odor is you. Guess you were in that cockpit for a while, eh?”

  Vi can’t even tip her head to sniff her underarms, but he’s probably right. What with the mission and the shocking and the being trapped in this murderbox of a room, she’s likely not a treat for any of the senses.

  “I was in there awhile, yes,” she agrees, and they can both hear the rasp in her throat. “And on Parnassos, which isn’t known for the personal fragrance market.”

  The look Cardinal gives her—well, she already knew his job involved training the younger recruits, but she can see now why he’s good at it. There’s a kindness in his eyes, a genuine concern that she wouldn’t expect to see in an enemy. He frowns and brings a water bottle to her, extending a straw to help her drink like her mother had when she was a little girl and feverish on Chaaktil. The water tastes fake and like it’s been blitzed with vitamins and medicine, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. She swallows deeply and sputters, and he pulls the straw away.

  “Not too much. You’ll make yourself sick.”

  She smiles up at him, water still on her lips. “You just don’t want to have to clean it up if I vomit.”

  “It’s the only possible way you could smell worse.”

  That gets a real laugh, and she’s glad to play along. Good cop is always better than bad cop, and her endgame has a better chance of fruition if they can build some camaraderie. It’s a surprise, actually, to find that anyone working for the First Order can be pleasant; Vi expected an angry, indoctrinated, brainwashed bully. A jerk. But he came from Jakku, didn’t he? Lived there into his teens, probably, and had a personality before the propaganda machine pulled him in. And his personality is, thus far, very different from what she knows of Phasma. He gives her a few spoonfuls of dreary gray paste, and she’s so thankful to have something in her stomach that she doesn’t complain about the taste.

  Well, maybe she’ll complain a little.

  “You know, you get to eat real food in the Resistance,” she says. “Made of actual animals and plants. With these crazy things called spices and salt. It’ll blow your mind.”

  He sits down and waves that away tiredly. “I grew up on Jakku. A few sand rats, a stringy bird every now and then. Sometimes I found a nest of crickets, if I was lucky. I’m not concerned about my palate. But tell me: Why’d you join the Resistance?”

  Vi shakes her head and takes a moment to think about the right answer. “I didn’t join it. That would suggest I work for free, or that I went looking for them, or for a cause to throw myself at. I’m for hire, and they offered to pay me to do what I do best, and I had the time, so I accepted.”

  His look suggests he knows she’s mostly lying. “Oh, so if the First Order offered you more credits, you’d flip sides right now?”

  She can only shrug. “No. Never. You caught me. I won’t work for the bad guys. I have the luxury of only working for organizations with both credits and morals.”

  Cardinal’s smile disappears. “Morals? The Resistance? Are you joking? They advocate anarchy and destruction. Selfishness. Not morals.”

  “And the First Order is about morals? And not just the need to hold dominion over the galaxy?”

  He shakes his head sadly, like she’s a student who’s disappointed him and needs a good lecture. “It’s right there in the name. First Order. First, order. Fixing the mess left behind by the Republic and now the New Republic. Getting rid of bloated diplomats and lobbyists who don’t represent real people with real problems. Bringing equality to all. The old system of government is ludicrous and doomed to fail. Sentient beings are incapable of making the choices that are in their best interests in the long run. The whole point of the First Order is stability.”

  “Easy to get the unstable to join up, then, isn’t it?” Vi shoots back. “What about the individual? What about freedom? With s
o many people on so many worlds, don’t our differences and our unique choices make us beautiful?”

  Cardinal scoffs, leaning his back against the table, one hand on his blaster as if he can’t stand the notion. “Our differences make us vulnerable. Vulnerable to misrule, to corruption, to getting mired in bureaucracy instead of effecting real change. Stability ensures progress for everyone. That’s the whole point of government.”

  “Why, Cardinal. You sound like someone who doesn’t even know he’s just a tool for a tyrant.”

  “And you sound like someone who just wants to watch the galaxy burn.”

  Vi grins, her gold eyes sparkling. “Yes, well, some of us do see better by firelight.”

  Cardinal huffs in annoyance and feeds her some more protein. Vi swallows it down, hating everything about it. But he doesn’t even know how horrible the grub is, does he? He doesn’t know what he’s missing. That’s the problem with indoctrination—the whole point of the First Order’s kind of education is to stop someone from thinking and instead kick their emotions into gear. Make them hate everything else so they’ll cling to what you give them. It’s hard to think for yourself when fear and anger are driving the shuttle.

  But he can’t see that, because he’s inside of it. And he clearly thinks he’s in the right.

  “Look, I didn’t know what it felt like to have a full stomach until Brendol Hux found me. I’d never slept off the sand, never gone a night without waking to rats or sand fleas or something worse nibbling at me. The other kids were cruel, the adults were worse. That’s what your New Republic does. Ignores poor backwater planets and funnels money to the rich planets that can afford to have a voice in the Senate. Who spoke for Jakku? No one. Who spoke for the boy I was? No one.”

  “And what did the First Order do for Jakku, eh? Is it better, now that you’ve left it behind? Are the children well fed and getting proper medical care?”

  Cardinal tosses down the paste and stands, his hands in fists. “They will be. It’s not yet time. But that time is coming.”

  “Haven’t you realized yet?” Vi asks. “It’s never going to be fair. Even if you win, children will be forgotten. You were lucky. Your life got better. But that doesn’t mean Brendol Hux was good.”

  “And what about Brendol Hux?” Cardinal is in her face now, and she wants to turn away but can’t. He smells of sweat and metal and that low and simmering rage that Vi has smelled on men all across the galaxy. As if his anger seeps out of his pores because he’s unable to focus it on its true target. This anger can destroy a man. Or it can be harnessed. Used. A tool for the greater good.

  She just has to figure out how to get him in the harness and point him in the right direction.

  He’s still in her face. It makes it hard to focus. She clears her throat.

  “Patience,” Vi says. “Patience, and a little more water. I was just getting to the part about Phasma and Brendol.”

  Cardinal pushes away from the interrogation chair, rattling her bones within the metal cage. She knows he would love to hit her, but he can’t. The electricity isn’t personal enough. His anger at Phasma is a mad thing that hasn’t yet found its target. Whether he refuses to hit her because he pities her or because he’s been programmed, she doesn’t know. Perhaps he could hit her if his superiors gave an order, but his superiors don’t know he’s down here. They don’t know she’s down here, either. And she needs to keep it that way. She says nothing, doesn’t begin her story. Just licks her lips.

  She needs that water. The droid beeps urgently as if reading her mind.

  Cardinal fiddles with the screen on the wall, probably checking in to make sure he’s not being missed. Vi is silent. He wouldn’t turn on a comm, not with her down here, but she’s still not going to take the risk of threatening their fragile peace. Finally, satisfied with whatever he finds, he brings her the water and waits for her to close her lips around the tube and drink.

  “Not too much,” he warns again, as only someone who’s nearly died in a desert can.

  “Wait,” she says, suddenly realizing that the entire flavor of their discussion has changed. He’s broken character with her, given away personal information. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

  Cardinal sits back on his chair and smiles. “Because while I was in my quarters, I did a little more digging. You didn’t tell me you had a brother.”

  Vi is immediately awake and alert, straining against her bonds. “I have no one. You know nothing.”

  “Something tells me that Baako doesn’t know about your secret life. After all, spies aren’t very good for the careers of diplomats, are they? Even diplomats shipped off to marshy moons?”

  She’s panting now, furious and terrified. She never even told the Resistance about Baako. She changed her name to keep him safe, paid very high-priced slicers to bury her path.

  And yet Cardinal knows.

  “Tell me what you want,” she says, voice low and deadly.

  Cardinal tosses the remote in the air and catches it. “Same thing I’ve wanted all along. Tell me about Phasma. And Brendol Hux.”

  Vi swallows, clears her throat, and starts talking.

  ONCE AN ONGOING PEACE HAD BEEN established with Balder’s tribe, things should’ve been good for Phasma and the Scyre. Or at least as good as they could be on a primitive world where every day was a fight just to eat while also not falling between rocks and getting eaten by giant sharks. But then came the day when Brendol Hux fell from the sky. Siv said he never told them what he was doing in the area. Conducting scans, looking for children to steal, who knows? The only thing that can be said for sure is that the old orbital defense system of Parnassos targeted him, hit his ship, and sent him plummeting toward the unforgiving topography of the now primitive planet.

  Phasma and her warriors began making preparations the moment they saw the explosion high overhead. As the ship’s remains streaked across the sky, Phasma tracked it with her quadnocs, taking careful note of the direction in which it fell. At the very least, ships like this could be pillaged; at most, there was always a hope that they could be salvaged and used to get offplanet. No one alive had seen such ships do anything but fall and crash, but they were evidence of the larger galaxy beyond Parnassos, of a future that had been denied them. It was painful, living on such a treacherous planet with so many reminders of the ease and technology that had once been taken for granted. At the very least, there would be metal, tech, clothes, medicines, food, and possibly working blasters scattered around what was left of the ship. These were the greatest riches in Phasma’s world.

  But they had to hurry. Other groups in other territories would also be watching and preparing for the journey. Falling stars, as they called them, were rare, and this ship was the shiniest thing the Scyre had ever seen—so bright that they had to shield their eyes as it arrowed down toward the planet. Part of the ship popped off and floated down separately, headed for the area where the Scyre territory bordered Balder’s territory, which made it all the more important to hurry.

  As Phasma and her warriors hefted their packs to depart, Keldo called out to stop his sister.

  “It looks like it will belong to the Claws,” he said, sitting on the stone spire Torben had hewn into a chair for him. “Our peace is more important than any goods on that ship. I forbid you from attacking Balder’s people and breaking our hard-won truce.”

  Phasma did not cease her preparations. “But this ship is bigger than most and appears to be undamaged. It could still be functioning. It could carry the riches and technology we need to save our entire clan. I will not pass up the chance at a better life for us just because you don’t want to get into a shouting match with that tyrant.”

  “Sister, don’t you see? If we all worked together instead of fighting, we’d have a better chance at survival. Our bands are in the process of joining. We will soon share the bounty of the ship.”

  “Brother, I think you’re the one who’s blind. Balder would never share a ship with us.
He may agree to your peace now, when he’s weak and wounded. But if he regains his strength, nothing will stop him from destroying us. He will demand revenge, for all that we were only defending our own. You dream of peace, but he dreams of power. We must strike now, while he can’t fight back. Part of the ship is near Balder’s territory, but the bigger part has fallen in the wastelands, and if we hurry it will be ours for the taking. No one owns the wastelands.”

  “But you must go through Balder’s territory to get there. And we don’t know what dangers wait beyond our borders.”

  “But we do know what dangers await us here. It’s time to take a risk. We need that ship.”

  Keldo finally conceded to his sister. “I can’t deny that the falling star might be our best hope of survival. Take your warriors and see where the ship has landed. If it’s in Scyre territory, take what you can. If it’s in Balder’s territory, leave it be. And if it’s in the wastelands, I will trust you to parley with our ally and find a compromise. The peace must be kept at all costs.”

  Phasma nodded at this, her face grim. “I will do my best to keep the peace,” she said.

  Siv noted at the time that Phasma’s eyes simmered with rage, and that her voice was hard and unforgiving. But what could Keldo do? The most powerful warriors stood at Phasma’s side, and thanks to his leg, Keldo himself couldn’t even chase after her to rebuke her. He had no choice but to take her at her word. Although the Scyre had voted with Keldo for peace, they were of one mind when it came to the possibility of a better future. That ship was their greatest hope. Phasma took her closest four warriors and handpicked eight more, leaving the rest of the Scyre to defend Keldo, Ylva, Frey, and their beloved Nautilus.

  The journey was not easy, for no journeys on Parnassos are. Well, unless you happen to be in a small, agile starhopper and are fast and clever enough to avoid those orbital cannons and pretty much everything else on the planet that wants to eat you.