Phasma (Star Wars)

by Delilah S. Dawson

  Vi puts her hands on the table and tries to stand, but her legs aren’t ready to hold her weight yet. She sits back down with a whump and drinks some more caf, hoping to invigorate her body before mobility truly becomes an issue. She’s out of stories, and they both know it.

  “Then they’re fools. People don’t change. Phasma will always be that little girl with the knife, the usurping Arratu with the sword, the stone-faced assassin casually flicking a beetle at the man who saved her.”

  “Again: According to this story, Phasma did nothing to betray the First Order. So why did you save it for last?”

  “It’s important,” she says carefully, “because out of all the stories I heard on Parnassos—and I didn’t tell you all of them, only the ones I thought would be personally resonant—this one chills me the most. Because it makes it clear that you can’t win against Phasma. Not you. Not anyone. No one will go as far as she will to survive.”

  —

  Although it won’t convince his superiors, Cardinal knows Vi is right. Even as an orphan, he never took such bold, cruel means to survive. To think: As a teen girl, she purposefully disabled her brother with a knife and watched her parents die, then…painted her body with what was left of them to cement her next loyalty. When she accepted that salve, she became Scyre. And he already knows what happened to the Scyre. Armitage thinks he’s got a Kath hound on a leash, but what he’s got is a rancor just waiting for the gate to open. No one will see the real Phasma until the moment when what the First Order wants is no longer what she wants. One day—and it’s coming—Phasma will betray them all. Just like she did her family, and just like she did the Scyre.

  Her loyalty? Means nothing.

  Nothing, except that Armitage himself hasn’t yet received a knife in the back.

  Cardinal is the only one who knows.

  And he’s only one who can stop her.

  —

  The tiny interrogation chamber, or whatever closet it was built to be, suddenly feels very small and very close, and Cardinal can smell the spy’s worsening body odors and the lingering stench of whatever part of her got fried by the shock.

  He won’t let her know, but he no longer doubts her. At all. He knows that Vi is right, that everything she’s told him is true. It all fits together too well to be some story she’s spun just to save her skin.

  Iris beeps, and he checks his comm. It’s almost time.

  “Last chance. Is there any real proof?” he asks. “Your time is up, and the assembly won’t wait.”

  Vi drums her fingers on the table briefly and nods. “There is something else, actually. But I need you to stay calm. I’m going to reach into a hidden pocket of my jacket and pull out what looks like a pretty scary knife.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a pretty scary knife. But I’m not going to use it. I’m going to put it on the table, real gentle, and then put my hands behind my head. If I can. And what you’re going to do is you’re not going to lose your cool, and you’re definitely not going to touch the blade in any way that might get either of us cut. Because remember: It’s poisoned.”

  Cardinal exhales in a disappointed sort of way, partially because he and his men searched her and missed a knife and partially because he held her to a higher standard and somehow expected her to be honest about hidden weapons while he was torturing her on an enemy ship. She just shrugs.

  “I’m part of the Resistance. Of course I was going to resist. Do you want it or not?”

  He pulls his blaster and holds it low, aimed for her belly. She rolls her eyes as if to say, Aren’t we past this?

  In response, he also rolls his eyes and says, “Just because we’re on the same side of this argument doesn’t mean we’re on the same side of this fight. Now give me the knife. And hurry. My time is short.”

  She grins at him and slowly, slowly reaches into an interior pocket of her jacket.

  “I’m going to use two hands, now,” she warns.

  And if he’s honest with himself, he’s not worried. She can’t stand, she can barely lift her arms. Whatever she’s got in there—well, she could’ve used it against him anytime since he’d untied her, and she hasn’t. Hasn’t so much as caressed that pocket. So he nods and waits, his blaster ready.

  It takes some tugging, but Vi pulls a piece of shaped armor out of her jacket, puts it on the table, and pries it open. As soon as the sides fall apart, she scoots back from the table with her hands on her head, just as she promised. And there, lying on the table, is exactly what she described: a pretty scary knife.

  It’s about the length of his hand and made of hewn stone. The blade is coated in a flaking, rusty powder peppered with grayish-green, and the hilt is wrapped in leather stained a deep, rich chestnut with sweat and blood. It’s a vicious, rough, inelegant thing meant for making holes that can’t properly close.

  “This is one of Phasma’s knives. The one she put in her brother’s leg and Balder’s chest, so the story goes. Siv saved it during the Claw battle; she was quick like that.”

  “May I?” Cardinal asks, and Vi tips her head.

  “You’re the one running the show. Take it. Please. But promise me you’ll tell me what Phasma’s face looks like after she sees it. Like she’s seen a particularly vengeful ghost, I’d guess.”

  Cardinal replaces his blaster and lifts the knife carefully by the hilt. He remembers the part of the story about Phasma using poisons based on the lichens of Parnassos. He’s pretty sure that the med droids could identify and negate the poison, but he’s not about to bet on it.

  “No one ever sees her face,” he says softly. “I never have. No one I know has. She has her own quarters, as I do, and never eats with her troops.”

  “Doesn’t anyone ever wonder what she’s hiding?”

  Cardinal looks up, meets her eyes. “I always have. I suppose I know now.”

  Vi looks to the door longingly. “So how about it. You going to make good on our deal?”

  He shakes his head. “It’s still not enough. You know that.”

  “So you’re going to kill me?”

  His face wrinkles up in distaste. “I don’t want to.”

  And he honestly doesn’t. But…

  Vi is grinning.

  “You seem pretty happy about dying,” he observes.

  “I have one more thing. Promise me again you’ll let me go if I give it to you.”

  Feeling just as exasperated as he gets with his newest and youngest recruits, Cardinal sighs. “The terms have not changed. You give me evidence, I let you go. Absolutely last chance.”

  “I’m reaching into my jacket again.”

  As she works another piece of armor out of the thick leather, Cardinal notes that he needs to train his men to search for non-metallic objects and to remove all outer garments from prisoners. When Vi snaps open the piece of armor, Cardinal can’t stop himself from grinning.

  It’s a clear plastoid specimen case, and inside is a glittering gold beetle, still alive.

  “You don’t want to crack this open,” Vi warns. “I’ve seen these guys get to business, and it’s not pretty. Tossed a little water on the sand, and suddenly there were a thousand of them.”

  Cardinal holds up the beetle and feels his heart lift. Finally, finally, he has concrete evidence. If he can get this beetle to the meeting, all they need to do is give it to the med droids, who will confirm that the beetle contains the same chemical signature that killed Brendol.

  “So what are you going to do?” Vi sips the caf and watches him. She’s looking a little better, not quite as dehydrated. Perhaps her time unconscious actually gave her some rest. Cardinal feels a little bad about that; he shocked her harder than he meant to. But her eyes, golden and hard, don’t blink as much as they should. How strange is it that he feels judged, and that he doesn’t want to disappoint this piece of space trash spying for his enemy?

  Doesn’t matter. It’s time now. She’s given him what he needs. He can’t leave General Hux, Cap
tain Phasma, and the other high-ranking officers waiting. Cardinal stands and puts on his helmet. It’s easier when Vi can’t see his face.

  Vi sits up with a grunt and frowns at him.

  “I’m going to confront Phasma,” he finally says. “Show her the knife and the beetle. In front of General Hux and the other officers.”

  At that, Vi’s lips quirk up in a smile.

  “Good luck. On a personal level, I hope you just absolutely destroy her.”

  That earns a chuckle. “Thanks.” Carefully, he picks up the knife and slides it into his holster, behind the blaster. The beetle’s specimen case goes into one of the ammo boxes on his belt.

  At the door, he turns back and makes the first of many decisions that could unravel everything he’s worked so hard to build. All those years, scraping by on Jakku. And then the years as he struggled to conform to the First Order’s ideals, undergoing constant tests and programming under Brendol’s training. Years rising through the ranks, fighting in the sims, besting his mates and challenging himself to succeed. Everything he’s worked for and toward…well, it all changes here, doesn’t it?

  “I’ll leave the door unlocked. I’m taking Iris with me. Count to a thousand and then…do what you will.”

  Vi raises one eyebrow. “Do as I will?”

  “Escape if you can, sleep if you have no other choice, die in here if that seems easier. If anyone catches you, I’ll tell them I met you on my rounds and you overpowered me and escaped. Hell, maybe I’ll tell them you had Force powers. They’ll hunt you down with extreme prejudice, but it won’t be my fault. Or my problem.”

  “There’s another option,” she says.

  That gets his attention. He was just about to punch in the code to open the door, but instead he turns to consider her.

  “Defect. Escape with me. Come join the Resistance, or at least take their cash for some intel and run. They’ll give you a full pardon. If you can’t do that, I can still help you get off ship and onto any Outer Rim planet you like. Start a new life. You don’t have to be on the losing side here.”

  For just a moment, he considers it, but then the last words hit him like a slap.

  “I’m not on the losing side. You are. Good luck getting off the ship.”

  Without another word, Cardinal punches in the code and steps into the hall with Iris floating in his wake. He doesn’t watch Vi as the door slides shut. She’s no longer his concern. He has everything he needed from her. The truth, the understanding, the beetle. And this knife.

  She might be on the wrong side, but he agrees with Resistance spy Vi Moradi on one thing.

  Cardinal is on his way to show Phasma the knife, and he only wishes he could see her face.

  THE ABSOLUTION IS A VERY LARGE ship, and it’s a long walk from Vi to the assembly room. With every step, Cardinal feels more desolate. Phasma is an empty fiction, a legend built of lies. And the First Order—and even Brendol Hux himself—chose Phasma over Cardinal. Brendol, knowing Phasma was out for herself, knowing she would sell out her own family to get what she wanted. Brendol had looked at Phasma and seen a great leader, someone to put on propaganda posters and raise up on a pedestal.

  And Brendol paid for that mistake.

  It’s hard for Cardinal to think of what it must’ve been like for Brendol, dying of a mysterious disease, a deadly riddle that even the most state-of-the-art med droids couldn’t solve. Did Brendol recognize the symptoms, try to tell the droids what was happening to him? Did Brendol know that Phasma was behind it? Did he look through his closet for some remnant of Parnassos that might hide a glittering gold carapace? Did he call in Armitage as he floated in the bacta, becoming more and more liquid himself, and speak to the boy about the future of the First Order, the only thing the two Hux men could wholeheartedly agree on? Did Brendol suggest then that Phasma be lifted toward greatness, hailed as the perfect trooper?

  Or did he whisper to Armitage that Phasma had killed him and urge the boy to give her whatever she wanted, so long as it benefited the First Order and kept at least one Hux alive? Did he perhaps tell Armitage to drop Phasma out the airlock, and did he then watch his son slowly smile and shake his head no?

  This is what it must be like, Cardinal thinks, to lose one’s faith.

  He knows everything, and now he knows that Armitage knows everything—or, at the very least, Armitage knows the most dangerous, damning parts. The First Order would rather have Phasma as she is, a bloodthirsty, disloyal murderer, than an honorable, faithful, true-believing, by-the-books soldier like Cardinal. Cardinal, who has done everything they’ve ever asked. Cardinal, who teaches and comforts and encourages the children. Cardinal, who has given everything he has for the First Order.

  Thoughts and doubts and rage run on repeat in his head as the lift goes up and up and up. His fingers clench and unclench, and sweat drips down the back of his neck. But he’s a captain in the First Order, and he will show no outward signs of weakness. Before, such meetings were always exciting. Cardinal’s troops were praised, and he was congratulated for his ongoing excellent service to the First Order. But since Phasma became a captain, Cardinal has lost more and more of his program to her, his recruits taken to the Finalizer earlier and earlier. Now is his chance to stop losing face and start regaining control. Today, whatever they think their meeting will be about, it will become about revealing and stopping Phasma before she betrays the First Order.

  As Cardinal stalks the long corridors to the assembly room, he prepares his speech in his head. What he’ll say, how he’ll say it. How to condense hours and hours of Vi’s storytelling details into the simple facts that will condemn Phasma completely. Even if Armitage already dismissed his concerns, the younger Hux is not the only authority in the First Order. The others, perhaps even Kylo Ren, will want to know about the monster hiding in plain sight, her disloyalty merely a matter of time and opportunity. Perhaps they, too, will wish to see the face she wears behind her mask. Considering what Cardinal now knows about Armitage, he understands that this meeting is his only chance to make his case; a man willing to let Phasma kill his own father would have no problem ending Cardinal himself. Cardinal is willing to take that risk.

  He’s given himself plenty of time to get there, as he always likes to be early for such events. As he turns the corner where he last passed Captain Phasma, the air seems somehow colder. A few officers are chatting in front of the assembly room, their black uniforms spotless and their pointy caps perfectly straight. Armitage Hux appears behind them with Phasma in his wake, and the officers go silent and duck into the room. Armitage sees Cardinal, stops, nods, and goes in. Phasma pauses. She makes no move whatsoever, no nod or shrug or anything to suggest there’s a human being under her shiny chrome armor. Without a word or even her usual nod to Cardinal, she follows Armitage into the room, and Cardinal picks up his pace, his cape snapping as he hurries, but not enough to make him appear worried.

  The door is closed, and he taps in the code, but it doesn’t budge. A sense of panic settles around his shoulders as he looks up and down the hall. He checks the time, but he’s still thirty minutes early. No one else appears to be coming. He tries the code again, and still it fails. When he looks to Iris, her beeping suggests that she, too, is baffled. And Iris is never baffled.

  “General Hux, has the code been changed?” he says into his comm.

  He hears a sigh, and Armitage says, “It has. Your presence is no longer necessary. Please continue in your regular duties.”

  “But sir.”

  “A good trooper does not challenge his superior officer, CD-0922.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Dismissed.”

  The comm goes silent. The hall is empty. It’s over.

  CARDINAL HAS NO CHOICE BUT TO do what he’s been told. For all his recent rebelliousness, he was programmed by the best to be the best, and he has a job to do. It’s kind of terrifying, how easily his training takes over, sending him on autopilot. He puts Vi Moradi out of his mind and re
turns to his duties in the barracks. The children are at dinner now; he’s missed their training sessions, something that’s never happened before when he wasn’t directly under orders. As he moves among them in the cafeteria, he asks how they did and checks the scores posted on the wall. He was right about FB-0007; the boy did well, once FE-1211 was out of the picture. He makes a note to shuffle their groups around again soon, to find better fits for the burgeoning leaders in ways that will maximize their performance. He can’t let conniving FE-1211 have all the glory.

  The irony is not lost on him.

  Taking his tray to go, he makes a new request of the cafeteria droid: liquor. The droid isn’t programmed to look surprised or care about such things, and it merely hands over a bottle as if this is an everyday occurrence; Cardinal is a captain, after all, and Brendol afforded him many privileges that he’s never yet taken advantage of. The bottle is nothing special, nothing that would deserve the old General Hux’s fine crystal decanter, but Cardinal wouldn’t know a good vintage if he tasted it, anyway. He simply needs, for a while, to forget.

  Back in his quarters, he takes off his helmet and throws it across the room before ripping off his armor and tossing it on the floor without polishing it. Iris beeps in alarm, and he orders her into a closet so she can’t witness his aberrant behavior. He can’t stand the stink of his own body, the stench of fear and sadness, so he strips off his bodysuit and takes the hottest shower he can. If only the heat could burn off the parts of him that are wrong, boil off his skin and leave him as new and innocent as he was before he ever met Vi Moradi. Sure, he’d detested Phasma, back then. But at least he’d been able to stand her. At least he’d believed that she wanted the same things he wanted, held the same ideals and fought for the same allegiance.

  But he can’t go back. Can’t forget what he knows.

  Still, he can drink, and he has heard that liquor makes a man forget like nothing else. Or, better yet, stop caring.