“I think I found him,” Gosta murmured.
She stood in front of one of the screens. On it, the remains of a man sat at a large desk, a blaster on the table before him. Brendol glanced quickly and nodded. “That’s what his nameplate says. So now we know what happened. The only thing worse than unsupervised people without a leader and a purpose is a bunch of droids in the same situation. I don’t think there’s anyone else here to challenge us.”
“But what are they doing?” Siv asked, pointing to the screen that showed the droids lined up perfectly in rows.
Brendol walked over to look more closely. “It’s almost as if they’re worshipping something. See how their heads are bowed and their hands folded. Strange behavior.”
“Their creators,” Siv said softly, pointed to the wall behind TB-3, where a huge Con Star Mining Corporation logo was painted. “They just want their creators to come back.”
Brendol shook his head. “This is why droids need routine maintenance. Their programming goes strange, and they start to act…”
“Human?”
He gave her a sharp look. “Mad.”
“But they were kind to us. They healed you. They were only doing their jobs. And they were so happy to see us. Can’t you turn them back on after we’ve left?”
“No,” Phasma said, moving to stand beside Siv. “We can’t risk anything that could imperil the mission.”
“They might disable the vehicles, lock the doors, or have access to weapons,” Brendol agreed. “It’s better this way. Droids were never meant to be people. They’re only meant to serve the purpose of their masters.”
Siv couldn’t help glancing at the troopers to see their reaction to their superior’s words, but their expressions were concealed by their armor. When she looked to Gosta, the younger girl merely shook her head, clearly out of her depth. With Torben still outside, Siv was the only person who felt for the droids. With the stroke of a few keys, Brendol had effectively destroyed their civilization and wiped out their personalities and purposes. Even if they weren’t people with feelings, it still seemed cruel.
“When I am among your people, will I learn to operate these machines?” Phasma asked, pointing at the keyboard Brendol had used.
“If you wish.”
“I look forward to it, General Hux,” Phasma said. Although Siv couldn’t see Phasma’s face under her mask, she knew her leader was smiling.
—
With the droids disabled, it didn’t take them long to find the hangar. Brendol walked inside, moving from object to object, considering. The hulking shapes made little sense to Siv, but Brendol knew what he was looking for. Finally, he stood in front of a row of pointy metal machines.
“These are speeder bikes,” he said. “And those big, blocky ones with the turrets are ground assault vehicles, or GAVs. The speeders are made to fly over ground, and the GAVs were designed to move through sand or other rugged conditions. I would suggest my troopers take speeders, as they’re already trained, and they can scout ahead and behind us. The rest of us can ride in a GAV, which will also have room to carry our packs.”
“What powers them?” Phasma asked.
Brendol gave her a patronizing sort of smile. “That’s very complicated, but the GAV is the only one we need to worry about. If the tank is full, it should get us as far as we need to go. We’ll take another barrel of fuel with us, just in case. See here? It has a slot made for it. We only need to get to my ship, after all. Once we’re there, the First Order will take care of everything else.”
Always curious, Siv couldn’t help exploring the enormous room while Brendol and his troopers prepared the vehicles. She found another set of lockers like the ones from the showers. They were unlocked, and some held folded clothes or polished boots, while others held weapons.
“We can take anything we want, can’t we?” Siv asked, amazed.
“These old clothes are useless,” Phasma said, dumping a pile of fabric on the floor and picking up a short, smooth boot that wouldn’t last a day on the Scyre’s rocks. “Whatever these people did to survive clearly didn’t work. We know we can count on our boots. We made them ourselves of leather, stitched them by hand with sinew. Who knows how long this thing will last, or if it will rip at the first jab of knife or claw?”
“But if we’re going to join Brendol’s people, won’t everything be like this?” Siv held up a shirt so soft and fine that it felt like a light breeze would blow it away.
Phasma shook her head. “I was born for that armor. We’ve seen how strong it is. Balder’s people didn’t even make a dent during the fight. Things like this”—she took the shirt from Siv and ripped it in half—“were never for me.”
“So strange.” Siv walked down the row of lockers, running callused fingers over the metal. “Our ancestors used these things. Lived here. Worked here. Who knows if they came to Parnassos on purpose or were brought here unwillingly. They tried to make a life here. And then everything just…fell apart.”
Phasma pulled a blaster out of a bag and grinned. “They weren’t strong enough. We are. This planet is dying. But we will make a new life in the stars.” She handed another, smaller blaster to Siv.
Siv took the gun, noting the strange smoothness of the grip, how light and simple it seemed. This weapon could do more damage than both of Siv’s blades, and from farther away. If not for the troopers’ blasters, the skinwolves might’ve bested their entire group.
Siv smiled. “We just need a way to tie the blasters on. And we can find extra ones for Gosta and Torben.”
Phasma opened all the lockers, tossing out their contents as if searching for something in particular. Siv sorted through them, collecting blasters and other items that seemed useful. Finally, Phasma held up her prize: a helmet. It wasn’t much like the smooth, rounded stormtrooper helmets. Beat-up and painted in bright colors, it had a black line across the eyes, another black line from the nose to the chin, and a tiny antenna poking up from the top. Phasma took off her mask and put it on, then reached for the matching heavy-duty gloves and a chest plate. Siv told me it was like watching a droid being assembled, piece by piece. Phasma began to look less and less like an animal and more like a trooper. Under that helmet, she could be anyone or no one. She didn’t even seem human.
“There will be no stopping us now,” Phasma said.
NO MATTER HOW BRENDOL EXPLAINED THAT they would ride inside the vehicle, Siv didn’t understand how it could work…until she was inside it, and it was moving. Brendol sat in the front, working complicated levers and buttons with his hands and feet, while Phasma sat in the turret beside him, her blaster on her hip and her hand on the huge gun that swiveled around under a clear dome. Siv, Gosta, and Torben sat squashed together on a bench in back. The vehicle buzzed and thrummed up through her, making her teeth grind. She wrapped her fingers around the bench and hoped it would be over soon, or that they would at least be out under the sky instead of wedged between the smooth, unnatural walls of the building.
Siv had complicated feelings about Terpsichore Station and the droids who had effectively died there, rendered silent and still by a few swipes of Brendol’s thick fingers. They’d wiped out a civilization about the size of the Scyre, and neither Brendol nor Phasma had given it a moment’s thought. Siv glanced at the troopers hovering on the speeder bikes. Thus far, they hadn’t shared their real names or shown any sort of personality. Did Brendol’s First Order care so little about basic humanity that they wanted their people, or at least their soldiers, as pliant and uniform as droids? How could Phasma so quickly adhere to this frame of mind?
Recently, Siv had seen Phasma kill an ally, defy her brother, abandon the Scyre, and now this. Her leader wore a helmet and kept her plans to herself. Perhaps Phasma was changing, or perhaps she was merely showing her true nature for the first time.
The hangar led to a smaller hallway, much like the ones they’d traversed on foot but wide enough to accommodate their vehicle—or even three vehicles—abreast
. Brendol’s troopers zoomed alongside the GAV on their speeders, skimming over the ground without touching it. The hallway was very long and sloped up slightly, lit by the same cold, whitish-blue light that had plagued Siv ever since she’d entered the station. Up ahead, yet another smooth, white wall stood in their way. Brendol stopped the vehicle, got out, and tapped on the pad until a door slid open.
Siv didn’t know what she was expecting. Day or night or yet more endless white. What she saw was a solid wall of gray sand that collapsed inward to reveal a bright point beyond.
The sun.
She shielded her eyes as Brendol climbed back into the vehicle and set it in motion. The wheels caught and dug in, spinning uphill until they caught purchase. Rumbling up out of the hole, they emerged in the middle of the gray desert, the GAV’s wheels churning and spitting out a plume of sand. The troopers on their speeders burst out of the hole and flew over the sand as swiftly as diving seabirds. Once the GAV was free, it found some speed, but Phasma called out for Brendol to stop.
“We don’t know which direction we’re going,” she said.
He obligingly halted the vehicle, and she climbed down from the turret and walked a few steps away, looking at the sun and the area around them. There was no telling where they’d been when TB-3 had found them, nor where Terpsichore Station was by comparison. Most of the compound was buried under sand, round humps of white shining through and disappearing again as the wind swirled around it. Siv shivered, knowing they’d been underground all along.
“We were headed north before,” Brendol said.
Phasma slowly turned, the wind whipping the feathers and fur around her collar. It felt strange, Siv thought, to see her leader in a smooth helmet instead of her fierce, rust-red mask. Siv wondered if the others knew her own lichen-green mask better than her face, as she sometimes felt about them. Torben was Torben, but when he wore his white mask with its black slashes and stylized horns, he became a brutal monster. Gosta was Gosta, but her dark-gray mask disappeared in the night, making her seem almost a nimble shadow with huge, white eyes. It was funny how wearing their masks hid their faces and yet somehow made them more themselves.
The helmet only made Phasma seem more like a machine. As she wandered around outside, Gosta’s fingers sought Siv’s where they wrapped around the edge of the seat.
“We’re so far from home,” the girl said, her voice going high and reminding Siv of how very young she still was.
Siv smiled, although Gosta couldn’t see it under her mask. “But we’re closer to our new home in the sky.”
“I feel like I liked it in there. Is that wrong?”
Torben leaned over, his terrifying mask at odds with his gentle voice. “It is normal for the bird to love captivity,” he said. “At least, until it longs to fly again.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I don’t know. But my mother used to say it quite a bit when I told her I wanted to stay in the Nautilus forever. It was open for a whole week at a time, still, when I was little.”
Gosta looked down, pouting. “The Con Star food was nice.”
“The food was easy. Doesn’t mean it was good for you.” Torben handed her a bit of jerky. “This stuff’s better for your teeth and your gut. Soft food makes for soft people.”
As Gosta took the food with thanks, Phasma got back in the vehicle and pointed.
“We need to go that way.”
“Which direction is that?” Brendol asked.
“The right one.”
“And how did you calculate that?”
“She just knows,” Siv said.
“You don’t know where we are, and you haven’t seen the smoke in days. Are you sure?”
Phasma leaned down from the turret, her leathers creaking. She pulled off her helmet and pinned Brendol with her glare. “I would stake my life on it. I am staking my life on it. If you want to find your ship and your people, we go this way. If you want to die on Parnassos, choose your own direction.”
Brendol considered it, chewing his lip for just a moment, unsure. He now wore a thick jacket with a furred hood Phasma had brought from the storage room, as well as Gosta’s old pair of goggles. If another skinwolf went for him, at least he’d have some protection. For the first time, he wore a thick line of oracle salve over each cheek. Siv considered warning him to cover the rest of his skin before he got burned, but she didn’t want Brendol Hux to give her that stare of his, the one that suggested he had just added someone’s name to an enemies list.
“Well, then,” he said. “We’ll go your way.”
But the way he said it suggested that he considered it a losing bet, and if things went wrong Phasma would suffer. In truth, if she was wrong they would all suffer—and die. Both hands on the wheel, Brendol turned the vehicle in the direction the Scyre warrior had indicated. Phasma put her helmet back on and climbed back into the turret, and the next leg of their journey began.
“WHY DID YOU STOP?” CARDINAL ASKS. He’s been staring at her so intently that Vi knows she’s doing a good job. However he feels about Phasma, he’s just as fascinated by her story as Vi is.
“Because my throat is as dry as the gray sands of Parnassos.” She licks her parched lips and, for just a moment, lets the pounding headache subsume her, lets Cardinal see what very bad shape she’s in. The stims help, but they also make her muscles more tense, and she can’t stop the trembling.
Frustration written in every line of his face, Cardinal holds out the drink, and she lips the straw and drinks deeply. She wonders, briefly, if the water might contain sedatives or some other First Order special addition—not that it would stop her from drinking. But considering the needs of an entire ship this big—hundreds of thousands of people—surely the water contains vitamins and nutrients, probably medicines. A little boost to morale, a little softening of the chemicals to keep alert brains from coming fully awake and rioting. Or worse—questioning. Vi knows more than a little about how the new breed of stormtroopers are trained, and not the part where Cardinal teaches them how to wield weapons, as friendly to the children as a favorite uncle.
No, the young recruits are plugged into their beds like datapads downloading new information. Gentle, droning voices at night fill their heads with sayings, propaganda, warnings, reminders that the First Order is the only answer, the only way to save the galaxy from itself, from destruction. Armitage Hux grew up at the Imperial Academy on Arkanis, watching his father deliver, manipulate, and program children to become killing machines. But Armitage has gone even further with his sharp theoretical knowledge of battle, crafting complex simulations that realistically replicate every aspect of combat. The children lose all sense of individuality, of self. They’re never allowed to play, discouraged from laughter or frivolity or creativity, outside of how those emotions or urges can be used to win war games.
But Cardinal is fine with all that. He’s a product of that system. She’s not going to flip him by attacking the heart of who he is and what he stands for. No, she’s got to keep drawing the story out, showing him who Phasma really is while buying herself enough time to escape in case he doesn’t eventually see her point of view.
The droid beeps, reminding them both of the task at hand.
“Go on,” he says. “We’re running out of time.”
“Don’t you know a story can’t be rushed?” she teases, but tiredly.
“I know the truth doesn’t take nearly as long as a lie.”
Vi laughs, or tries to. It ends up as a cough. He allows her another sip of water.
“Sometimes, the truth takes a while. Much like Parnassos, it doesn’t care about you.”
Cardinal picks up the remote, and Vi can’t stop herself from flinching.
“Then care about this remote,” he says. “Because Phasma will be on this ship soon, and I will have what I need before she gets here. Or else you and your brother, Baako, will have bigger problems than a little shock.”
THE VEHICLES EMERGED FROM THE COMPOU
ND in the afternoon, which gave them several hours of light to navigate by. Not that there was much to navigate. The sand was as gray and endless as ever, although there were some smaller dunes, almost like a giant body covered in a sheet, curving up here and there. As the sun set, a dark shape rose along the horizon, too far off for anyone to guess what it might be. Another compound, another dead beast, one of those destroyed cities Brendol had mentioned seeing as his ship went down—there was no telling.
Brendol stopped the vehicle on top of one of the small dunes. When Phasma’s helmet turned to glare at him, he shrugged. “Riding the speeders at night isn’t safe for my troops. We’ll stop here and rest until dawn. Whatever that is, up ahead…I’ve a feeling we’d rather face it in the light of day.”
“And if it decides to come for us first?”
Brendol gave her a level, weighing stare. “You’re a warrior. You’ll do what you need to do.”
Phasma didn’t reply, but her silence always spoke volumes. Siv knew well enough that Phasma would’ve kept going until the vehicle died, then walked the rest of the way. It was odd, seeing her proud leader bend to the will of another, especially one who would obviously lose should the two enter any sort of combat. It had to be like the arrangement Phasma had with her brother, Keldo, Siv reasoned: So long as it served her, Phasma recognized and yielded to a cannier mind, or at least one that fulfilled a purpose hers couldn’t.
They’d brought supplies from the Terpsichore Station lockers, neatly packed tents and metallic blankets that held heat and protected the sleeper from sand—and, hopefully, beetles. As they arranged their pallets in a circle formed of the speeders and the hulking vehicle, Siv settled her blanket close to Torben. It always made her feel safer, being near his big, comfortable bulk.
“What if there are more droids?” Gosta asked. “Or what if the old ones wake back up?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Brendol said, although she hadn’t directly asked him in particular. “Droids can’t reactivate themselves any more than a dead person can get up and start walking around. Terpsichore Station is, for all conclusive purposes, lost.”
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