#now the question is 'will this become Enough to warrant making a FOURTH ren tag' lol | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

calcinators-blog · 7 years

Text

Two Irons (Part 10.)

Conversation had not been tempted after you left. The General swiftly recognized you knew more than you should which kept him from engaging you, though sheer, bitter resolve.

You noticed his appraisal of the situation inside distinct creases of worry, banding across his forehead. You witnessed when you briefly fell inside of his determined pace, only to fall out as he pushed ahead. There was worry in how he managed to remain at minimum, a half-step ahead as you marched after him through the maze of passageways, riddling the multiplex of the base that sprawled out in all directions.

You saw the same worry manifest in fidgeting, readjusting the length of his tailored sleeves. Dignified and subtle, but still there. Autopilot. The muscles do what the brain says, and his said “worry.”

From what you could gather by the young General’s speeches, transmit like clockwork to bolster morale, was that he had no shortage of confidence in himself. There might not have been a creator, a God perched over all matter, but there was modus operandi of equal divinity. There was logic, science, reason. The methods that the General strictly operated inside had no room for accommodation of vocabulary like “close enough” or “almost.”

Considering programing was his authority, he must have been not only deeply surprised, but also monumentally devastated by one of his own defecting. The entire military of the Order was ultimately built and sustained by his M.O. The traitor had become a blight of failure. Humiliation from FN-2187 had created a dent in his otherwise gleaming legacy. The training regime, distilled from ideas that had long ago hatched within the Imperial Academy, was supposed to be flawless...

So, how did FN-2187 resist? How did he free himself?

You watched the back of the General’s head. He was more than a few steps ahead but impossible to lose in a crowd. You shared a collective conscious of similar thought.

Maybe that’s the way the universe works. Maybe we all return to where we come from.

And then it was strange, foreign to recall the fields of red dwarf poppies. As a child, running free and barefoot through the sun-warmed earth to now, in adulthood, contained by a sheath of sterility and coldness about the sharp, unforgiving architecture you lived in. The smell of sanitizer and steel left much to be desired after the indulgence of the crisp, fresh fragrance of soil after rainfall.

Playing tag and chasing your friends one day– being hunted the next.

Each time the General’s boot lifted from off the polished tile beneath, you imagined bursting and blooming of the poppies, as if he was leading you over lush earthen floor of your childhood— of your home planet. Each flower wilted before you could catch up, as if to remind you of how reality had fused with the surreal.

You imagined further, the General as he padded numbly through files on his holopad, wondering how the results and data had lied to him. How he must have searched, eyes blood-shot, smoking cigarette after cigarette, reduced to nothing but forced to carry on. You imaged how when you cropped up, the tension had a new direction to move towards instead of uselessly and cyclically inside. You imaged how quickly you were caught in between two people, desperate for answers they believed you had or could fetch, when you clutched onto nothing but what? Recycled air?

In spite of them, you had to survive. Ahead of you, the back of the General filled your gaze still, likely bound to parallel thoughts. Who would outsmart the other?

For immunity, you had to fulfill your promise to the Commander. The General, however, needed simply to expose your role and if that happened, then what? You had no illusions it would leave FN-2199 and the Lieutenant Colonel to become your replacement— or worse.

And Kylo Ren—

A shiver for the name you avoided.

—has the nerve to say that nothing’s changed. Of course it’s changed. It’s a new game entirely. The only thing that’s stayed the same are the stakes.

Maybe it was the visual of poppies, maybe it was the whiff and desperation and denial in his sleeve-adjustments for the umpteenth time— they were impeccably tailored, where’s your pokerface— but you had happened across an interesting idea.

What if, somehow, you could both be satisfied?

Through flashes of neon and blinking lights, though the call and response of instructions, coming and going, back and fourth. The weight of your boots echoed as they hit the deck plates; the walk was drowned in droids chirping, control panels humming, and orders over comm. systems. The heavy gaberwool greatcoat, slung over his shoulders, intermittently brushed against you, in stride. Moving far beyond the possibility of having the Commander eavesdrop, finding something related to comfort, he led through hallways choked with engineers and stormroopers, mechs and uniforms. The sea bent around him, like a jagged rock, guiding wave after wave.

All the while, you held onto your idea, letting it develop into something irresistible.

He eventually stopped on an abandoned catwalk, slighted by an imposing viewport in the heart of what appeared to be, from the sudden lack of bodies, an unused observation platform. The single transparent wall was leaning just so that it appeared to invite all of space inside the deck. Cropped were the snow-capped peaks of foothills and undisturbed foliage growing in desperately straight lines. Instead you were surrounded by the profound blackness of the universe. Remarkably similar to the Finalizer, you felt so much less grounded by the view. Littered with countless specks of light. You stood in silent awe of the stillness and divinity. The cosmic blanket painted a black web across your face.

If you ever had another moment all to yourself again, you’d come back here. It beckoned you in with promises to cleanse you of all of your worries, to make you feel normal again, as it did for some holy few seconds.

You breathed it in, trying to hold it inside your lungs, but on your dreaded exhale, you were brought back into the moment. With an exaggerated scoff, finding nothing inspirational about the heavens overhead, the General held little patience for additional pleasantries, “When I was informed that petulant chi— the Commander— had ripped apart another of my soldiers, I was concerned. Imagine my surprise, upon seeking him out, to find you once again.”

Oh, switch off already.

You pressed for a smile, but it became twisted and crooked and guilty through execution. You were already prepared to stow away the awkwardness of your last encounter with the Commander, keeping the foray beneath you. It lapped tenderly around your ankles, stirring and moving unpredictably in the General’s dry commentary.

He continued, demanding of you, “Now that you’ve made it obnoxiously apparent that my concern is warranted, what are you up to?”

A credit for your thoughts, General... This “you” that you speak of... You can’t possibly mean Disaster Ren and myself. But, if you do, thanks for lumping me with that.

The thread, connecting you to your deal with the General, had rapidly been fraying. You hadn’t yet figured out how to spin the conversation successfully so that both you and the General could profit, to help each other get what you wanted. If you could somehow make your allegiance to the Commander redundant, you would.

But, if I just tell the General what Kylo Ren is up to, he’ll have to deal with Matt. Won’t he?

Decidedly, it was tempting.

I can’t take much more of this as it is. But, the cons? Kylo Ren could kill me. He’ll have no obligation to keep me alive. Forfeiting my silence is forfeiting my life.

The way that the General looked to you made you consider how long you had been quiet, how much time between his question and your reply. “I don’t know anything,” you assured him, lying through your teeth and hoping it was enough— Commander, who?

The General rubbed his temples, as if to ward off a fast approaching headache.

He sighed with terrible impatience before refocusing. “Listen here,” bordering a snarl, each following word sounding clipped. The tip of his pointer finger prodded before your chest, though, didn’t quite touch, “What Ren has done, as per usual, has me in an uncomfortable position. If you have any loyalty for the First Order, you will not mollycoddle him.”

You saw through his veil of assertion. Not that he didn’t mean what he had said, only that because you were standing versus being strapped to an interrogation table, did you understand you were still within a comfortable position to negotiate.

After coming face-to-face with evil incarnate, the General was a proverbial walk in the park. It was easier to underestimate him, bearing new cynical edges as you had, than to regard him in the same context as the Commander’s voracious presence.

And what if my loyalty is tired?

The hallucination of the corridor was brought fourth again, highlighting Matt’s emphatic stillness and his backwards calmness that found him after the storm. Reliving the moment, how he turned the passageway into a slaughterhouse, made your stomach churn. You thought of him touching you and being filled with rage in return.

Evil was heavy. The First Order was heavy.

Whatever goodness FN-2187 had left behind needed to stay. Your home planet needed goodness too. It was starved; that’s why it was dying a prolonged death.

“Do you think the Commander would hesitate to protect you in this way, as you are to him now? Do you think if he had to use you, he wouldn’t take that chance?” The General’s voice had changed.

I... never thought about that.

He had changed your acuity in the way conversation had turned. Kylo Ren was not driven by compassion; he would leave you stranded if he had the chance. If you could abandon him before he could abandon you, it was a blessing in disguise to be standing where you were.

That was the tipping point.

You spoke softly. You would have looked stern if you were not so terrified of what words that escaped you, “I want what he promised me. You have to give me that, at least, before I say anything.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“I need your word.”

You would test to see if your charisma could successfully parley with the General. You had conditions that needed to be satisfied.

“Help me and I’ll help you,” the phrase met your lips. It was just a string of words, warm in your throat as the sounds of speech were produced, but it felt a lot like hatching an escape plan. “It’s very simple, General.”

“Absolutely not,” he snapped. “You will tell me without making demands of me...”

You looked down as he refused, then back to meet his stare, “So, then what? Poke me to death.”

His gloved fingertip still hovered weakly before your chest, at the top of your sternum. He pulled his hand back, straightening the length of his sleeve as he set his arm back as his side.

Re-calculating, he managed, “What is it that you need so badly that you’ll freely abandon all reason to extort?”

Well, General, not to sound greedy but there’s a lot of things that I want.

Maybe it would be sensible to request something else, but at your core, you desired greater than seeing yourself, and Nines especially with his prophesied death, out of harm’s way. It was no more complicated than that.

“I want to know you can keep someone safe– and by safe, I mean away from Kylo Ren. Really far away.”

You felt it unnecessary to give reason why Nines was important, allowing the General to speculate as he desired. If he had remembered how he had been the trooper that held the lightsaber was irrelevant, but you wondered still.

A puckish grin commandeered the face of the man before you, impossible to hide, “So, you’ll tell me what he’s been doing, in great secrecy, if I can secure a life?”

The smile, chilling, but promising. As if he was saying— oh, that’s easy.

And just to be safe, you followed up for the sake of the comment he had made at the table, “Lieutenant Colonel Zack, too.”

He looked questioningly at you, “The Lieutenant Colonel’s safety is already secured. It is superfluous to ask me for further consideration... Unless...”

You would leave out the details concerning Zack as well. It was impossible for you to know the General’s existing paranoia concerning the Lieutenant Colonel.

“We make a deal first. I’m not saying anything else unless I know Kylo Ren won’t be a problem.” His name off your tongue tasted rough, metallic, sharing likeness of a mouth full of blood. The fever was still there.

The General's hands pressed together, with the ends at his lips, making steeple of his fingers. His mouth set in a hard line. As if he were engaged in a game, his careful deliberation was apparent on sight as the totalizator in his mind ran through scenarios. He understood that he had to make some kind of a deal with you. The Commander would give him nothing, and the pressure to adhere and surpass a “certain mysterious individual’s expectation” was tremendous.

“So, tell me,” there was no containing his dire interest as he extended a gloved hand, “What is he doing?”

Your allegiance shifted in a touch that didn’t burn you– that couldn't. And the moment was so brief that it might have not taken place at all.

Although you had done it for yourself, and your those you cared for, there was no mistaking the look all over his face; an eclipse of his satisfaction had blotted out all previous symptoms of worry. With matched alacrity, his hand firmly closed around yours, leaving you to steal a quick, albeit brave look towards his vaporous gaze. Suggested being freshly dosed with a strong euphoriant, the eyes you found caged discs, sliding about the apex, growing in conquest. Now he had won. He would savor it.

Everything that you knew came out, “He’s surveying your troopers, making sure that none have the intention of going rouge.”

You could hardly believe the sound of your voice, the words out loud at last.

Here we go.

The General had soured but boasted, turning his chin up, “My soldiers are exceptionally trained, programmed from birth. We know there isn’t anyone else deluded with non-conformity-“

“-But that’s exactly why he doesn’t believe it.” To his displeasure, you cut him short. “That’s why he doubts you. Your process, your methods. FN-2187 had surprised you, had he not? If can happen again, it will happen again.”

As if it were derogatory, the idea that his troopers could be so massively flawed, the General was quick to interject. “Impossible. If the psytech assigned to the FN squadron had found any signs of nonconformity we would have severed them from our operations. They were too valuable.”

A single psytech. They took the Captain’s elite squadron and assigned the entire group to one professional, who couldn’t tell that FN-2187 was having some kind of episode, that lead him to free the Resistance fighter and steal a TIE fighter?

You held your face as still as you could.

“How many psytechs are enlisted?”

“I hardly see why that matters. We have enough.”

“Well, it’s just that...” You awkwardly navigated though his suspicion, knowing it was fortified by trip mines, “If we have so many...”

“It’s the most effective method, one overseer to monitor an entire group. The evaluations can be easily duplicated and everyone receives the same treatment.”

Yes, and that’s worked out so marvelously for you so far.

For your own delayed curiosity, understanding how you could wedge yourself inside restricted information, you prodded, “Do you remember their name?”

The General wasn’t about to budge. “No, Detective. I suddenly can’t recall.”

“Maybe if you remember, I have more to tell you.”

After eyeing you for some time, he released it, “You tell me first, and then I’ll tell you.”

Hardball always. Why is this so tough? General, I practically surrendered my life to you just now and you want to act as if I’m not walking target practice.

“Kylo Ren has been closely monitoring the FN squadron and everyone they interact with.“

Hux mumbled, to himself, “This is nothing new to me...” You looked to him; he waved his hand in the air towards you, motioning you to keep talking, “And?”

“And—” you stopped prematurely. Outside, the frigid environment had crested the exterior pane with a layer of frost; briefly amazing that such a small detail had become grossly magnified by your sliding attention.

You forced yourself to continue, “And he’s been spying, in my sector. No one knows that he’s there, but me.”

Speaking on top of you, somehow his pallor intensifying, “I beg your pardon? Spying? You don’t think we would know if he...”

Mimicking his interruption, you spoke on top of him, “General. He dresses in civilian clothes.” Feeding the moment with a long pause, greatly testing the man before you, you finally heaved it out, “He’s Matt.”

And it was stumbled in the air, moving about like a TIE-fighter freshly blasted into the sky.

“... Matt?” The General was nothing short of dumbfounded. Awareness jumped to his face with all the urgency of a droid on low battery, all comically delayed and choppy– movements you had already anticipated as he worked through them.

“Matt the radar technician, sir. Matt is Kylo Ren.”

Hux was shell-shocked, painted by the unfathomable. It was juvenile and ridiculous. As man who could have boasted about the depth in his inner thesaurus, he was entirely lost for appropriate words. He bent in the middle, folding over himself to curse and roar with profanity that almost made you flush with embarrassment, had it not been such a gratifying moment.

You allowed the scene he was making to play out before interjecting, “You mean, you had no idea?”

Eyes like daggers, “What do you think? We have casual kriffing Fridays?”

You waited until after he became composed, or semi-composed. It had taken a disastrous chunk of time for the red to drain out of his face. After discussing more details, the terms and conditions, had he began to loose the facetious tone.

He was taking you seriously. He even gave up a piece of information you had considered he had forgotten that you asked for, “His name is Dr. Thos. He’s the head of his department in his ward. Why you care matters little to me, but that’s name you wanted, isn’t it?”

The General ensured you that he would secure FN-2199, the Lieutenant Colonel, and yourself. With very short, snipped phrases, he told you he would now look after the rest of the matter. He also included at the end, like an afterthought, that he would utilize the information you gave him with caution. He then advised you return to your duties, giving you some idea of the time; you were still inside your work cycle.

Going your separate ways, you hurried off with a stunted sense of direction, trying to commit the course to the area to memory. As you vacated, unimposing signage informed you to remember the name, as you longed to stay and look out, to enjoy artificial sanctuary for just a moment longer. Just long enough, at least, to drain a bit of the celestial peace from the abundance of the vista and sequester it within for when you would need it again. There was no pretending to be calm, not if you still felt the need to look over your shoulders as you moved.

Although you had returned to your office with the intention of being productive, you struggled to parse what was required; entering this in that, shifting this to there. Menial and impossible. Work required a level of focus that wasn’t in you, not after being leeched by previous difficulties. So you left, but not without a small stack of files in hand, to prove to yourself and whoever was watching that the effort was indeed there.

While flimsiplast was an uncommon media to work with, every so often it would come by your desk and so you had initially thought nothing of it. Not until you began your walk back to your personal quarters. It was then when you looked over what you were holding, finding one section in particular that had been bound together. The unusual use of scarlet ink demanded it was different. Urgent.

You leafed through the hair-thin acrylic sheets— this doesn’t look like it was meant for my office— finding an impersonal account of the Commander’s slaughter from Captian Phasma, where the word “witness” had been circled with a stylus. Attached as well: a copy of the stormtrooper’s profile, a medcenter coronary report describing an itemized list of injury... An estimation by the financial department to replace the lights and smooth over the rest of the damage.

You were glazed. Queasy. Everything that had just happened to you, the reminder of it all in your hands. A cruel joke? No, although it felt like that at first. It was someone telling you they knew, understood what you had seen.

Witness.

Halfheartedly, you sent the file to the bottom of the stack. You couldn’t read the profile, risking the bias of familiarity. You didn’t want to feel like you knew them. It was easier if it was impersonal. And it wasn’t easy at all. For every insignificant thought you forced yourself to queue, there were countless others behind it to chase you back. Just look. I don’t want to. You have to. But why? Again.

He did it because he could. I could never do that.

You thought of the burning in your palms and how it made you want to hurt him. In revenge. Is that all? What if you had manged to hurt him, would you have stopped? it made you sick to think about your intention evolving into something you would be helpless to have power over.

I’m not like him.

Perhaps you understood what he had done better than you once thought. Perhaps he had resisted, as you were now. Incremental submission to the pull of dark, the suffocating hate. Changing over time, adapting, for what? For survival? Was that what it was?

You shut down the thought again, your throat taut as you swallowed. Fortunately, the walk was over and you could redirect your attention to other matters, like the immediate disposal of the flimsi.

Starkiller borrowing the likeness of snow-globe, you gravitated towards the narrow viewport once inside your room. A gentle flurry of glittering white desperately tried to repair the tensile apparatus of peace among the base. In the distance, a furious comet sliced through the starlight, rushing and running beyond the tree line. You appreciated the sight, an unspoken apology from the planet to you, before feeling along the wall for the control panel.

The room flickered into life before you, flushed by spotlights in the bulkhead above. An alabaster trooper helmet, discarded on the foot of your bed, stared at you.

How did you get here?

It was eerily and perfectly facing you, watching, as if waiting for you. And that’s when you felt it: paranoia on sight, on recognition. Adrenaline fused with you again once, looping through your blood.

The stormtrooper from the hallway, the one who had been murdered— what if was theirs? If the Commander had somehow gotten word of your new deal with the General, this would be the exact kind of psychological and theatrical display you would expect. Death is a production. Death is a choice. The symbolic mask was dizzying enough without the sickening afterthought that he was near.

Looking from the bed, around the rest of the room, you saw it.

A body.

They, in full stormtrooper armor, were confined to a chair. Head tilted back, limply. Awkwardly positioned. Entirely too motionless.

Not only that, but without the helmet, the identity of the body was instantly recognizable. You would never forget that face, even from the obscured profile over the back of the chair. The hair color alone was enough.

Stars. No.

You dropped the files. They flew out in every direction under you, the sound of rustling filling the air. Birds, charging into flight, the sound of hundreds of wings fanning a fire around you. Falling, they curled at your feet, bowing, strewn around you like freshly fallen snow.

You drew back, as if standing on the ledge of a cold-aired chasm.

Nines.

#kylo ren #general hux #matt the radar technician #kylo ren fanfic #kylo ren x reader

5 notes · View notes