'Blue, blue, electric blue…' Ana stretched out on the chaise lounge, singing quietly to herself as she forwarded her childhood friend Lil another David Bowie-related video. They hadn't seen each other in years, but since his passing they had, via social media, rekindled the friendship that had started so long ago over a shared affection for Ziggy Stardust.
Ana jerked her phone away from the splash as a septuagenarian gymgoer jumped into the pool. When he surfaced he gave Ana a wide grin. She pulled the brim of her hat lower over her eyes. Once a week she forced herself to have some social interaction by driving into town to swim at the YMCA pool, even though Joaquin had an infinity pool in the main house.
Her phone dinged with a message from Lil. Ana smiled as she gathered up her things. The sun was setting over the San Jacinto mountains and soon the temperature would drop.
On the way back to Joaquin's property she stopped at a Circle K and bought three bottles of Corralejo Reposado Tequila and then went next door to a tortilleria and bought fresh corn tortillas and a pound of limes. She shivered as she climbed back into her Nissan pickup and cranked up the heat as she drove out past Indian Canyons into the rocky desert.
Joaquin Reyes had offered her a job back when she was still hostessing in LA. He had caught her badmouthing a rude client in Spanish and had laughed at her choice of insult and told her 'me intrigas, reina,' in his irresistible Colombian accent. He didn't flirt with her but instead asked her where her family was from and where she thought the best graffiti art was and where he should be to watch the sunrise. He was a sculptor from Medellin who lived the kind of bohemian life she had always dreamed of. They talked all night and he asked her to drive back with him to Palm Springs to come work for him. After three years of being rejected at casting calls, stumbling day-drunk through her shifts in West Hollywood while her dreams of becoming someone faded further and further away, she decided to take him up on the offer.
Even after living on the property for months her heart still surged with joy as she passed through the corrugated metal entry gate. Tumbleweeds rolled along the parched ground and coyotes howled and rattlesnakes hid between red rocks and cactus, all making for a brutal, hostile landscape that was somehow so calming and so beautiful to her as her pickup rolled along under the dazzling tapestry of stars.
The job Joaquin had offered her was taking over from the previous property caretaker. She had her own home, a cabin located a short walk from the main house, a stunning modernist work of art that Joaquin spent only a few weeks a year in since he was out of the county so often.
Once back in her cabin she put on some music and pulled out some flap steak to cook for tacos. She poured a caballito of tequila and sipped it while she read the message from Lil.
'Elan's radio show tonight at midnight. Call in so we know you're listening!
Ana tossed her phone aside and swallowed her tequila with one fiery gulp.
Elan.
Ana had never thought that pretentious prat was good enough for Lil. But then, who was? She poured a refill and wandered out to the front porch with her blue glass in hand, her mood souring. She had thought when she left LA it would be easier to quit drinking but since it turned out everyone was a drunk in Palm Springs she had lost her resolve. She looked over at the main house lit up by the big, bright moon. Everything seemed in order. Ana took a long pull of tequila and stepped out into the desert, feeling the sand sink beneath her shoes. She took a deep breath of sage-scented air and felt the deep calm only the desert brought, until a blinding white light lit up the sky and wind kicked up the sand so violently that she crouched and covered her face with her hands. Ana glanced up at the cabin through the swirling sands and began stumbling towards it when a searing pain exploded in her chest and all went black.
…
Captain Phasma watched with no small pleasure as the contents of the smugglers' ship was unloaded. Smugglers, slavers. They were the scum of the galaxy, and well deserved their deportation to a penal colony while the First Order acquisitioned their ship and its contents. Phasma was about to leave the Stormtroopers to it when a chunk of carbonite came floating out of the ship, and she felt her stomach turn. Phasma stepped closer and looked down at the figure frozen inside; a young woman, her face contorted in agony.
'We should have executed them,' she muttered between clenched teeth. One of the Stormtroopers came bounding over to her, awaiting her orders. Phasma balled her hands into fists, trying to stop them from trembling.
'Get this woman to the medical bay and see she is brought out of stasis immediately. Contact me when you know her condition.'
- 'Yes, Captain.'
Phasma watched the Stormtrooper push the frozen figure into the lift and had to use every ounce of her will not to let her mind delve into those dark memories from her past. She was not that helpless little girl anymore, she was Phasma, Captain of legions of Stormtroopers and second in command to General Hux.
The doors closed and Phasma could no longer see the woman. Phasma turned on her heel and walked quickly through the hangar, veering around the flight deck to step into the massive soldier's training area. She turned her attention to overseeing new recruits struggling through the first vigorous days of training but everywhere she looked she saw the face of the woman, frozen as she screamed in pain and fear.
…
Three hours later she was standing guard on the bridge while Hux reviewed schematics for the weapon being constructed on a frozen planet. Her wrist comm pinged and Hux looked up in irritation.
'What is it?' Phasma spoke into her comm as quietly as she could.
- 'The woman we recovered from the smugglers ship, Captain. She has been brought out of stasis and has recovered completely.'
Phasma glanced at Hux. He was listening with marked interest.
'Very good.' She ended the communication and hoped Hux would go back to the schematics, but his pale blue eyes had fixed on her with unnerving intensity.
- 'You recovered a woman?'
'Yes, sir. Some smugglers had the misfortune of dropping out of hyperspace while in range of our tractor beam. They were incarcerated and their ship acquisitioned.' He kept staring at her expectantly. Phasma felt something twist in her belly at the thought of telling Hux about her, but she had no choice.
'They had a young woman encased in carbonite.'
- 'Interesting,' he murmured. He looked back at the computer screen before him and Phasma clicked her heels and bowed to him, excusing herself. Just when she had started to walk towards the lift Hux called out and stopped her midstride.
- 'Have her brought to me this evening,' he said casually, without bothering to look up from the screen. Phasma nodded once, very slowly, and walked to the lift, trying to ignore the black smudge creeping up the base of her skull. Whatever happened now, it would be better for the woman than being frozen in carbonite in the hands of slavers. Yes, it had to be better than that.
…
Ana woke with a gasp of air, shocked to find an oxygen mask over her face. She ripped it away and stared at what looked like a robot standing in front of her, chirping pleasantly. An IV was running from the inside of her elbow into the robot… she yanked it out of her vein with a pained grunt and got to her feet.
'What time is it?' She asked the robot in a daze. 'Is it past midnight? Is it too late? Did I miss the show?'
Ana whirled around. This hospital was incredibly modern. Not just the robot, but… there was no hospital she knew of in Palm Springs this advanced. She would have heard about it, surely…
The robot beeped and a holographic figure of a woman appeared.
- 'Hello there,' the hologram said warmly. 'I am virtual nurse I-115. May I ask your name?'
'Ana de la Garza,' Ana mumbled.
- 'How are you feeling, Miss: day-lah-Garza?'
Ana rubbed her eyes. 'Confused.'
- 'It is understandable you might feel that way. From what I can tell, this is your first time undergoing space travel.'
I need a drink, Ana thought, staring at the hologram's unceasingly cheerful smile.
'Where am I?'
It hardly seemed possible, but the hologram's smile seemed to brighten.
- 'You are aboard the First Order Starship, Star Destroyer class!'
'I really need a drink,' Ana muttered. She gave up trying to communicate with the hologram and started trying to find her way out of this room. She had to get out of here. Where was her purse? Fuck… she'd have to find a way home without it. Ana found a doorway and pounded on it until it opened. She walked into another large room, this one with floor to ceiling windows looking out at the stars.
Something about the view unsettled her. They must have been at an extremely high elevation, to have such an unobstructed view of the stars right outside the window. Ana stepped closer to the glass and felt her stomach drop. As she looked down she saw the curving hull of a ship, and below that, more stars… no water, no land. Only the endless expanse of space. Her forehead pressed against the window. She heard the cheerful voice of the hologram calling after her and she pulled back and then struck her head against the window with a hard thump, over and over again.
…
Captain Phasma pulled off her helmet and held it under her arm. Ana de la Garza stared at her with a glazed look in her green eyes. The medical droid had assured Phasma the woman was in perfect health with above average brain activity, but at the moment she seemed nearly catatonic.
'Did you hear what I said? You are to be escorted to General Hux, General of the First Order.'
Ana brushed a hand through her black hair absently.
- 'Yes, ma'am,' she said quietly.
Ma'am? Was she a ma'am? The thought was insulting to Phasma.
'My name is Captain Phasma, as I told you earlier.'
Her harsh tone caught Ana's attention and her eyes were sharp when she met her gaze.
- 'Yes, Captain,' she corrected herself, her tone bordering on insolence.
'General Hux will not be as forgiving as I for such faults of respect,' Phasma warned her icily. This was all going wrong, somehow. Already Ana hated her, when it was she who had saved the woman from slavers likely planning to sell her to a brothel on some backwater planet! Phasma pressed her lips together and gathered her patience.
'General Hux holds your life in his hands. Choose your words accordingly.'
Phasma waved Ana out of the medical bay and into the lift, watching out of the corner of her eye as Ana jumped in shock at the way the lift shot upwards with such speed that they reached the upper levels of the ship in seconds. Phasma had reviewed the data on the woman earlier, but it was jarring to actually be in the presence of a life form from beyond the Outer Reaches; with no understanding of the First Order or the Republic and with no experience with space travel and modern technology.
They came to the top level of the ship, habitated only by the General. There was a wing set aside for Snoke's apprentice Kylo Ren, but he had been off in search of the Skywalker map for the past few months. Phasma glanced over at Ana, growing visibly nervous as they walked towards the doorway blocked by two of Hux's personal security, whom he had uniformed to resemble Emperor Palpatine's Royal Guard; red from head to toe.
Phasma strode up to the guards while Ana hid behind her.
'The General is expecting us,' she told them, and they bowed and stepped aside. The door whooshed open and Phasma looked back at Ana, cowering with fear. Pity surged in Phasma, unwanted, and unhelpful. She pushed it down.
'Come along, Ana,' Phasma snapped at her, and to her credit the young woman straightened up and followed orders.
…
They walked into what looked like a high end hotel suite, modern and minimal. Phasma's boots clacked loudly on the tile floor as Ana followed her down a flight of stairs to a sunken living room. There was a red-headed man seated on a black sofa, reading from a data pad. He looked up at them with pale blue eyes and Phasma clicked her heels and bowed to him.
- 'Captain,' he murmured in the same clipped English accent Phasma spoke with.
- 'General, this is the woman we recovered from the smugglers. They abducted her from a system beyond the Outer Reaches. Her name is Ana de la Garza.'
Phasma's metal mask turned to Ana and she saw her own face reflected back to her. Please don't go, Ana was thinking, but Phasma merely turned and walked out of the room. Ana heard the door close and then she was alone with the Commander of the First Order.
He set the data pad down on the coffee table and got to his feet. He was tall and thin and with his pale skin and bright orange hair reminded Ana of David Bowie's alien character in The Man Who Fell to Earth.
- 'Hello, Ana,' he said with an unreadable expression.
'General Hux,' Ana said carefully, taking to heart Phasma's warnings about him holding her life in his hands. When he moved closer and took her chin in his hand she forced herself not to flinch.
- 'I knew you would be beautiful. Otherwise they would not have gone through the trouble of freezing you.'
Before she could stop herself her eyes narrowed in anger. Hux noticed and his grip on her jaw tightened. His thumb brushed over her lips and he smirked at the way she trembled. Ana closed her eyes and imagined she was back in her cabin, spinning a David Bowie record, fixing some steak tacos, looking out her kitchen window at the full moon over the desert. She thought of the two and three-quarters full bottles of tequila sitting on the counter and could have wept at the loss of them more than anything. She cleared her throat and found her backbone, staring into General Hux's pale blue eyes.
'Do you have anything to drink?'