Afterward, Phasma scoured out the few marks left on her armor and took inventory of her troops.
Almost two-thirds of the battalions of the First Order had been present at Starkiller Base, most of them ready to muster out. Take the Hosnian system, Hux had said, and then the real war starts - but he had failed, and Phasma had felt that sting too, and who would Snoke punish? His general? His soldier? His sorcerer?
She waited outside the audience chamber to find out.
At any rate, the war would continue; her troops were still at strength enough to rival a Resistance that had destabilized the First Order with the help of a well-trained traitor. FN-2187 had not been supposed to happen.
So she would watch her troopers more closely, would keep them watching each other. She would find him, too - but would not let her revenge get in the way of creating the ordered, efficient system she wanted to create. The New Republic would be reorganized first.
Then, FN-2187 would burn.
The door hissed open. Kylo Ren walked out alone, a dark column with his mask fixed back over his burned face. Phasma stepped into his path. He hadn't been punished either, Phasma thought - no one had flayed Snoke's poster child for the Force after Ren had left his post.
Maybe someone had, though. Phasma had seen Ren's wounds.
"Go inside," Ren said. The filter steadied his voice, but Phasma listened for the pain that was bound to be in his voice. Blasted maniac had refused bacta.
She walked beside him into the audience chamber.
It was not as familiar to her as she knew it was to the others, even though stormtrooper squad leaders had been originally assigned to be able to coordinate their work at the tables. Leader Snoke used it as his private comm chamber more often than the troopers used it, now that the Finalizer had become his flagship.
Someone had set a stage here. The tables had been leaned against the wall in piles, and a blaster rifle not unlike the one she had in her own quarters hung over one black edge. A white riot control baton lay on the floor in front of Hux, a bright spot in the dim room.
"We're to settle it ourselves," Hux said, and Phasma heard the door shut behind her.
"Do you plan to take a vote?" Phasma said.
She would put him on the back foot with questions. He often interpreted Snoke for her, saying that the Supreme Leader trusted her to manage her own troops; a smooth covering up of whatever conspiracy Hux was part of or suspected.
"No. The Supreme Leader has decided that we should make an example of this among ourselves."
A lightsaber hummed behind her.
Hux said, "I wasn't as personally responsible for not killing our enemies as either of you, but might still manage to get some satisfaction out of revenge."
For a moment, Phasma's disbelief warred with her belief in meritocracy. The old Empire had had its graceful public beatings; would she have rather Snoke ordered her to her knees in a dress uniform after a formal meal?
It would have been a waste of troops if their failures hadn't been so self-evident. They weren't programmed for reconditioning.
Besides, that was a good blaster.
Hux said, "Leader Snoke will contact the survivors."
While the lightsaber droned out of sight and Hux talked, Phasma opened her comm.
"Now, we can be civilized people," Hux said, and dove for the baton.
Phasma turned for the blaster. Hux would have a few steps before the baton was in range, so that she might not have to wrest it away from him.
Instead, the lightsaber came down. Goosebumps rose on her back. She'd used Ren as a weapon before, but never had him leveled at her —
She turned to face him just to see him barreling past her and toward Hux, an attack of opportunity or choice, and Phasma ran the last few steps to the blaster. Hisses and the fall of sparks sounded behind her. The blaster was jammed in between benches and chairs, but she worked it out, turned and leveled it at the same time as she checked the charge.
Ren and Hux were fencing, badly. Hux fought in short jabs, keeping the baton almost vertical to catch the thundering blade of the lightsaber as it hit. It would be straining his wrists\ to hold the heavy end by the tonfa hilt.
Phasma moved the crosshairs back and forth between them. It would have to be quick, she knew. Ren could sense her attacks. Hux was a better administrator.
Ren would be harder to kill.
She took an opportunity to aim at Hux's wrist. She saw his fingers jolt off the weapon, then Ren swept his feet.
He missed. Hux dropped and rolled instead, flapping his wounded hand while his face contorted. Ren launched himself across the room at Phasma, the red light bouncing around the room.
She angled. He was faster, and could bounce blaster bolts back at her, but if she could get a proper shot in she'd hit his wounded side. He was already stumbling, so she shot under his arm and backed up further when the bolt missed. On the other side of the room, a pile of benches exploded.
"You need me, Ren," she shouted, listening for Hux's footfalls. "The troopers aren't loyal to you."
"Then they'll be loyal to Hux." Now he kept his voice on a leash, chaining each cold word.
"And he'll keep bickering with you."
Ren hesitated.
"Come off it, captain," Hux said, far enough away that his voice echoed. "We're both fighters. He just thinks he's a wizard."
Ren pulled the baton out of Hux's hand from four meters away. It clattered at Phasma's feet, glinting white and sparking.
She didn't have time to wonder whether it was an invitation or an attack, whether Ren could suss out of some strange ether whether she was going to side with or against him. Hux had already killed his chance for Ren to side with him, anyway. If she bent to pick up the baton she would have to take her eyes off Ren, so she didn't do it.
The lightsaber was bobbing low, pointing at the ground - so she strode to the side, wondering if her armor that could protect a ship from the vacuum of space would stand even one hit, wishing Ren would tangle himself in his own cloak.
She hit him in the back of the head once, heard the plastic crack under the force and weight of her suit. The next hit jarred her knuckles but broke the seal.
Ren threw her.
A swirling mass like a windstorm suddenly picked up under her stomach. She hit the wall, but knew how to take it on her plating and landed on her knees, bruised but poised to stand. A moment later something was tugging at her hand; Hux had come around in her blind spot (he knew his own people's weaknesses, of course he did) and wrestled her for the blaster.
She was taller, had more weight; he knew pressure points, wormed his fingers underneath her glove. The blaster dropped.
Hearing the lightsaber buzz getting louder behind her, Phasma threw herself out of the way.
Blaster bolts pinged around her as she ran for the baton. Ren was batting the blasts away, but he hadn't gone right for Hux yet - playing with him, maybe, or giving Phasma time if their alliance held. She scooped up the baton, keyed the buttons a few times to open the contact vane, wishing it would rev like a speeder. At least it sparked.
"There's no arguing with power, is there?" Hux said, sweat shining on his face. "I don't agree with your methods, but we want the same thing. The same thing Snoke wants."
Phasma angled around him, aiming to put Hux between her and Ren. The general caught on, started back-pedaling with little, uncertain steps. He couldn't take his words back now, but he could try to prove to Ren that he was stronger than Phasma. But Hux was untested, and Ren knew it too.
Phasma took one hand off the baton to gesture at Hux. Come get me.
Far enough out that he wasn't between the two any more, Hux glanced between Ren and Phasma. At the top end of the rough triangle between them, he had walked to the center of the room, almost into the great black space where Snoke projected himself.
Hux turned toward Phasma.
The thick tines of the baton hit the blaster perfectly, smashing it out of his hands. It hit the floor twice, clattered as Phasma tracked Ren as he stalked behind Hux.
Brave Hux curled his fists.
Phasma had longer reach.
Her first punch tucked into his ribs a moment before the second bounced off his sternum. His wounded blaster hand reeled, and she curled one arm around his neck and tugged him off balance. She flailed after his blaster hand with her left, no particular plan in mind except to keep him from steadying the blaster and keeping the riot baton out of her own face.
Ren jumped in front of Hux so quickly that it almost looked like he had appeared from nowhere. The lightsaber blade was suddenly eclipsed. Phasma's body caught on before her brain realized that the blade was now sticking out of Hux's side centimeters from her right hip, and that Ren had driven it in just under her arm. A cold stillness settled over her, as if her boots were adhered to the floor.
Hux's dead weight fell on Phasma's elbows, so that the most comfortable thing to do was pull the body up straight instead of letting it fall against her legs. Ren pulled the lightsaber the rest of the way out of Hux's shoulder and breathed hard. The red light reflected off of Phasma's armor and into his face, strengthening the scarlet glow.
Phasma took a few steps back and dropped Hux there, so that the body wouldn't catch against the blade.
Ren retracted the lightsaber. For a moment Phasma thought he was going to approach her, but he knew that the game was over, now that someone had lost. The room was very bright, her lungs very full and strong and was the air cleaner today than yesterday? Had the room been cleaned just before the death?
Good on the troopers who dusted the vents, Phasma thought, and stepped over Hux's legs to invade Ren's space herself.
He had controlled himself a little with the disappearance of the blade, was no longer heaving. Maybe his eyes were tracking his own reflection in her helmet. They locked eyes, that afterimage-flash of the Force blinding Phasma for a moment. She bit her bleeding lip to bring herself back. For a moment their perspectives warped, so that she was him looking at her, surrounded by her own regimented thoughts, bleeding her blood.
Ren said, swaying, "Congratulations. You have been promoted."
Phasma tried to blink the spots out of her eyes. "You know you're finished, Ren. Snoke knows you failed to bring either the droid or the girl."
"Snoke has trained me in abilities you cannot imagine."
Red spots eclipsed her vision.
"You still lost your one lead," she said. The Force attack rose and broke like a wave, leaving Ren resigned or impotent or both. Clear-eyed, Phasma swung the baton at her side as she walked toward the door. She wasn't going to give Ren a chance to argue about whether they were going to use Hux's death as an example.
The lightsaber swept up, the sound almost as aggressive as the red glow. "We don't both have to survive."
"We don't have to do anything except Snoke's work. I thought that was part of what we learned here." Phasma clicked her comm.
The door opened, letting in a long square of watery light that hurt her eyes a little even behind her lenses. Snoke's chamber had been too dim. There were sixteen troopers in the column now filing in, she knew, even though only the first two had poked inside, blasters first.
"You want to fight them?" Phasma said, turning her eyes from Ren to the approaching troopers with difficulty. If he attacked, she would still be the first target. "Want to waste more resources?"
Ren smashed the lightsaber into the floor. She tightened her grip on the riot baton as the noise of ripping metal assaulted her right ear, but she didn't flinch. She wouldn't give her troops the example of being afraid of this goon, and they had been willing to come to her aid. Phasma believed in a cycle of militant vigilance, and anything that destroyed that in her troops would be weeded out. The meritocracy had made its choice, after all.
Ren doused his lightsaber and made for the doors, and the troopers parted for him.
They waited for Phasma's command while she looked at the empty place where Snoke's hologram would be. Was he watching? She had some reorganizing to do.