A/N: Armitage would be maybe fifteen years old here, fairly independent and rather full of himself. General Hux at this point in time would be Brendol. Readers with an excellent memory might recall a slightly older Dean Mulhale's appearance from Grey Order. She was in charge of one of the largest trooper schools then instead of what she is here, but that's nearly 20 years in the future. 'Sir' is the standard honorific regardless of gender. Hux's lack of language studies comes back to bite him in the ass much later, but that is, so far, not in any of the stories in this series.

"Sir," Hux said respectfully. "I have been told you are the one I should speak to about my application for admittance into the engineering program." Or, rather, the rejection of his application.

The dean looked at him blankly, her gaze rising to the orange-red hair atop Hux's head. She stared at that for a long moment, before looking Hux in the eyes again. "You're the general's son."

Hux said nothing. It wasn't a question and from the woman's tone, it was clear she didn't approve. Of course, he'd known that well before coming in. There were precious few of the older members of the First Order who approved of General Hux, his revolutionary ideas, or the untimely ends the most outspoken of his political rivals invariably met. Few remained who were outspoken at all when it came to General Hux, but Dean Mulhale had never bothered to cloak her opinion of him. She didn't need to, since her role in academics would seem to minimize how much of a threat she could pose to the general's agenda.

"It's not part of your career track." She went back to the display she'd been reading. "You'll be an officer, not a technician."

Armitage was prepared for this. "I would argue that a well-educated, scientific mind is a necessity in the officer corps and, I dare say, a perspective that is lacking as currently constituted."

"It's lacking because those of liberal and scientific outlook have not survived in positions of power within the First Order."

"You will find that Huxes are excellent at survival." Proudly, he added, "And power."

She looked up at him without turning or raising her head. She spared him a wry smile, being more than five times his age. "I see," she said with a minimum of condescension. "Well, you have my attention. You'd best not squander it. But if I put you in those courses, you'll be lacking in other areas. No one graduates under my authority without filling all requirements. No matter what their last name is."

"I have reviewed the engineering curriculum. I would suggest I accommodate it by dropping History, Alien Language, and Military Science. I will also devote all electives to the sciences."

Her brows rose. "You would drop Military Science? A Hux?"

"As a Hux, I have been well-trained in that for the last ten years. Frequent lectures. I can assure you, I can repeat most of them verbatim."

She gave him a tight, amused smile. "I know enough of your father to find that very believable. But you haven't addressed how you'd fill the requirements."

"I can test out of Military Science, as well as History. Alien Language is unnecessary. I will have a staff and droids."

The dean gave him an extraordinarily sour look. "You will rely on others to understand anything outside of Basic? How will you even communicate with the droids if you don't have Binary?"

With a strident voice that was as unsound as that of any mid-teen boy, he answered back with his rehearsed lines, "You would have me rely on others for anything outside the simplest scientific processes? How would I know the capability of my ships, my men, or the value of our research? If you think due to my ancestry that I will be an officer someday, then would it not be to your benefit to have someone such as myself sympathetic to scientific inquiry?"

She looked intrigued. "Where did you learn to speak like that?"

"I speak like a proper imperial citizen!"

She seemed to consider that, then dismissed it. "Well, your ancestry is the only reason why you're even here at the academy. As for engineering, your father would never allow it anyway." She turned back to the display she'd been reading.

His accent slipped as he balled his fists and clenched his jaw. "My father has no oversight of my education and never has. He cares about results. I deliver them. Aside from that, the less he sees of his bastard, the better. He doesn't have to allow what he never knows about!"

"Why do you want to be an engineer?" she asked, turning away from the display. "Your father will make sure your promotions are fast and simple. You'll be commanding in no time. Engineers will take your orders. You won't need to be doing the work."

"I want to work!" He practically yelled it. "I don't want to cheat. I want to get things done. Real things. Honest things. Things that matter!"

She gave him a lingering look, then turned and pulled up his application. She studied it. "You don't have the prerequisites for the engineering program. I see nothing here of your general education. You shouldn't even have been admitted."

He shifted his weight anxiously. "It was self-directed. All of it."

"Do you have records from the educational modules?"

"No, I don't have records! That's not how it was! We changed ships all the time and I didn't keep them." It wouldn't help to admit he'd done many of them under assumed names, so even if he did produce records, they would be disallowed.

She looked unconvinced.

"You know my father's disdain for formal education, advanced scholarship especially." He put his hands on her desk and leaned forward, lowering his voice. "I know you don't like him. He doesn't like you, either. Or anyone like you. Can you imagine how upset he will be to find that his only son graduated with an engineering certification? A techie. A nerd. A databrain. Did you know he thinks of technicians as a cross between skilled slaves and over-specialized droids?"

She was listening. He kept talking. "This will never come back on you. The application came in to your office with all the boxes marked correctly. It was approved automatically. You might not have even seen it. I don't want to be ignorant the way he wants me to be. Do you really want another Brendol Hux following in his footsteps? Or would you rather someone different? This is your chance to hit him where it hurts."

Dean Mulhale leaned back in her seat, regarding him coolly. "Everyone says you're your father's instrument."

"I will be more than that," he said with all the fury of his soul.

She made up her mind. "You'll have to demonstrate the prerequisites, then. There's no point in wasting anyone's time on this if you don't understand the fundamentals."

"When?"

A hint of a smile played at her lips. "How long do you need?"

"One month."

"Then we shall see, if in one month, you can catch up to what the others have had ten years to learn."