A couple of hours later Rose stretched until her joints clicked. She rubbed her eyes and stared at the small screen in front of her. She had collected all the incidents with burnt out chips and written a programme to find a pattern. She looked around, all her colleagues had already left for supper. She was alone in her cubicle in the office.

She stretched a little more and groaned. It didn't matter. Some of her colleagues – especially Sarith and Tarc – were actually nice, but she made an effort to keep to herself. The less she talked about herself, the safer she was.

And the food in the First Order personnel mess wasn't exactly tasty. Rose always had to bring a few spices along to make it halfway decent. What she would give for a real bowl of Tarisian bogweed with pepper sauce … she stretched once again and looked back on the screen.

The way the chips burnt out … on the simulated map it looked like a spider's web. And the WDD was right in the middle of it. She smiled, she knew it! The next step was to ascertain what they were working on.

She looked on the chronometer on the screen. Theoretically she could leave now, get something to eat and start tomorrow … or she could get going right now. After a short moment of hesitation she buttoned up her jacket, took her uniform hat and her maintenance kit and left.

-o-

About an hour later she cursed her decision. She had started at the first chip node on the deck where the WDD was situated in order to pin the exact source of the energy fluctuations down – only problem was that the deck was huge.

She wiped over her eyes and suppressed a yawn. She had been overzealous, but if she was already at it she could keep going for a bit longer.

She checked node after node, at the seventh she found a single burnt out chip. She replaced it and studied the node. There was a room right next to it. She closed the panel and got up. Perhaps she should take a look? She chewed on her lower lip. Was she too rash?

In this moment the nightly energy mode kicked in and the lights in the hallway she was standing in dimmed. Well, it seemed like a good moment.

Rose took the scanner in her right hand as if she wanted to scan the next node and stepped closer to the room. To her surprise the door slid open, the room itself was almost dark – there was only one large holoprojector in the middle of the room, its blue light painted the surroundings in a cool light.

The holo showed an enlarged blue print. She gripped her scanner tightly. This was it, it had to be. The new weapon the Order was building.

She stepped closer, eager to take a look- suddenly she heard something on her right. Instead of trying to hide she just froze and gripped her scanner so hard that her knuckles turned white.

A tall black figure stepped into the cold light of the holo. Rose felt all colour drain from her face when she recognized Hux. He stopped dead in his tracks and narrowed his eyes.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" he asked sharply.

Kriff! Why hadn't she just waited?!

"Specialist Phan, sir. I- uh I noticed that through the ship's isolinear chips burnt out before expiration date and I-" Crap, that sounded unprofessional. She cleared her throat. "I'm replacing chips in the nodes on this deck, sir."

He stepped closer, only now she registered that he looked positively tired and worn-out. His usually meticulously slicked back ginger hair looked as if he had carelessly ran his hand through it. From the corner of her eye she saw a black great coat lying on a table with pads. From the looks of it he was working here … but why would Hux work in the middle of the night on weapon prototypes?

"You're replacing chips? And this couldn't wait until the morning I take it?" There was a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

He was right of course – there was no way she could explain why she was so eager to work this late. Suddenly she remembered what Poe had told her: 'Try to be as honest as possible, lie only in the details.'

Yes, the only way out of this was to grasp the rancor by the teeth. "May I speak freely, sir?"

He clasped his hands behind his back and stepped even closer, apparently using his height to intimidate her. She was almost two heads smaller than he. To her dismay it worked, she felt uneasy.

"Go on."

She lifted her chin. "I'm a civilian worker, sir. Since I arrived here I did mostly boring maintenance work … its fine of course. That's what I'm here for. But when I discovered a pattern to the burnt out chips today I- uh, I got excited. I wanted to get to the bottom of it. There was a burnt out chip in the node in front of this room – so curiosity got the better of me and I came to look."

Hux scanned her face with his ice-blue eyes, apparently trying to decide if she was lying to him. "What kind of pattern?"

It was working! She pulled her pad from one of her pockets and activated it. "As you can see, the energy surges seem to originate from this deck, the WDD to be exact."

He took her tablet and looked closer; she noticed that he wasn't wearing his black gloves. That and the fact that way his hair wasn't immaculate … seemed almost casual. What the kriff was he doing here?

He suddenly seemed to lose interest in her, he turned on his heel and stepped to the holo. He zoomed out of the blue print, and checked it with Rose's diagram. Strange, but since he didn't seem to be interested in her presence anymore she slowly approached the holo.

She realised that she wasn't looking at a weapons design but at the energy and power systems of the Finalizer. There were readings on the lower corner of the holo – someone had increased the energy output by 0.3%. It was marginal, but the increase of power in the whole ship had caused a local spike in some nodes ... and fried the chips.

Should she just stay silent and wait for Hux to kick her out? Or should she try to gather some intel? Well, she was here …

"The additional energy would improve the performance on some systems, but the GXP-chips used in the nodes can't compensate for the additional power," she said while continuing looking at the holo.

He snapped his head around. "GXP-chips have latitude for 0.4%."

She shouldn't contradict him, the Force knows how a guy like Hux would react to that. She bit her lower lip. But on the other hand he was simply wrong. "Theoretically yes, but in real life they can't handle more than 0.28. Especially in a large network like the one on this ship. There is simply too much voltage."

He scoffed. "Nonsense! The overall performance was increased."

"It will fry even more chips over time!"

"A few burnt-out chips are easily replaced."

By the stars! Why didn't he get it? "Every burnt-out chip has to be replaced with new ones! A crate with 200 chips takes about two weeks to deliver. At this rate we'll be out of chips by end of the month."

He stared at her with his icy eyes, she crossed her arms and glared back.

Suddenly she had an idea, she stepped to the holo and pointed to the aft section of the Finalizer. "The problem is the size of the network, but if we add buffers to every section the voltage wouldn't be as high. It would even be possible to bump up the energy output to 0.33%."

His eyes went wide and he quickly added the suggested buffers to the holo. He rubbed his chin as he stared at the simulation. "You're not wrong."

She almost rolled her eyes. Of course she wasn't wrong – she was right!

He eyed her. "What exactly is your profession?"

The smug feeling from before disappeared. Damn her stupid pride. She was supposed to keep a low profile. "I don't have a profession, sir. Back home I was a jack of all trades and simply fixed what needed fixing."

He wiped over his face and suddenly looked exhausted. "Dismissed."

She was taken aback by the sudden end of their conversation, but she was also relieved at the same time. She saluted and left.

On her way to her quarters she felt slightly nervous, she blamed it partly on the dim lights in the corridors that turned the usually brightly lit way into a shadowy path. It didn't help that she went over her conversation with Hux in her mind and thought about a possible visit from Internal Security.

If Hux decided to report her to IS … she looked again at some of the darker corners of the hallway. She exhaled. Relax, she told herself. If he had they wouldn't bother to hide in the shadows – there was a reason why IS wore white uniforms instead of darks one like the rest of the Order. They wanted to be seen.

It was futile to think about them – if they were after her she was done for. She just had to keep going. She had reached her quarters, punched in the code and entered.

To say that her room was small was an understatement, the narrow bed and the tiny locker in one room, the bathroom with a sonic shower in another. But at least she had her own room. She kicked her boots off her feet and let herself fall on the bed, burying her face in the pillow.

Kriff, what a night! It was a good thing that she wasn't writing reports to the resistance. Paige would fly over just to rip her head off. She could almost hear her: 'How is arguing with General Hux keeping a low profile? Can't you keep you trap shut for once?'

She turned around and groaned. It hadn't been her best idea to go into the WDD in the middle of the night, and her pig-headedness hadn't helped either. She stared at the ceiling. But it was interesting … Hux was tinkering with the ships systems. And he clearly knew what he was doing. She couldn't remember if there was something in his file about him being an engineer or something like that.

She sat up and started to undress. Was Hux working on other projects too? It was possible; it would explain why the WDD was on the Finalizer. That was a problem of course – he had seen her and while it was difficult to say if he would even remember her face after a couple of days it would be difficult to turn up at the WDD with some bogus reason. The risk was too great.

She put on her pyjamas. She had to lay low for a couple of weeks and try again. There would be another opportunity – she just had to keep reminding herself not to do something rash. That and she should keep her smart-arsedness in check.

Rose crawled in her bed and sighed. Stick to the plan, keep a low profile.

.

-o-

.

Hux watched Specialist Phan leave. He ran his hand through his hair and exhaled. Bested by some civilian 'jack of all trades'. He stared at the holo.

Why hadn't he seen that his alterations would affect the ship this way? He started to pace back and forth. He was an engineer … a brilliant one even. Snoke had said so himself. He felt slightly ill, he just had to focus more, pay more attention! A stupid mistake! He stopped and grabbed his left hand with his right and pressed the fingernail of his thumb into the soft skin between the thumb and the index finger.

The pain put him at ease.

His thoughts returned to Phan. Perhaps it wasn't his fault for not seeing the difference between theory and real life. The way she had grasped his project within moments and had come up with a workable solution … she was more than a mere maintenance worker.

And the way she had spoken to him … defiantly, proud. And he had let her instead of admonishing her for her lack of compliance.

He let go of his hand and grabbed his great coat lying on the other table. He had just been tired, and she had shown up rather unexpected. It didn't matter. The next time he would make sure that she knew where her place was.

He turned the power off and strode out of the lab towards the nearest turbo-lift.

-o-

The next morning he got up at exactly 06:00. He was still a little drowsy when he headed into his bathroom and started to brush his teeth. During lunch he could head back into the lab and make sure that repair crews could install puffers as Specialist Phan had suggested. He spit out and activated the small screen next to the sink. Moments later he had found her personnel file.

Hm, judging by the file she had told the truth about herself. He scrolled down to her evaluation report – the section was empty. He frowned and scrolled back up. Ah, she had only been on board for a few weeks.

He splatted water in his face and started to shave with his sonic razor. That certainly explained her attitude. Only a matter of time before this … civilian would comply.

On the other hand it had probably been her non-conformance that had led her to volunteer the solution to his project the evening before. Others might have bowed down and just agreed with him.

He returned to his bedroom and pulled a fresh uniform from his cupboard. He turned his back to the large mirror next to his bed and unbuttoned his pyjama shirt. Then he slid into a white undershirt before he undressed himself further. Moment later he fastened his belt with his sidearm and straightened his uniform jacket.

He heard the door of his quarters slid open; out of habit he checked his chronometer. 06:15. The factotum droid was on time – it always was. He heard it leave. He went back into the bathroom and put product on his hair.

Perhaps he could take advantage of the civilian workers? They certainly had a different mind-set than First Order Engineers … but it was impossible to trust them with the Starkiller project. Silly idea. He had to pull himself together – he could do it, all he needed was an idea … like when he came up with the plan in the first place.

Snoke had been enthusiastic about it of course. Hux had been satisfied that Snoke liked it, but there was something about this project … he couldn't put his finger on it. He had been oddly reluctant to work on it after phase one. Well, it didn't matter. He would complete it as Snoke had demanded.

He combed his hair until no hair was out of place.

Then he ventured into the living room where his desk stood. The droid had put a tray with a slice of dark bread, a cup of tea and an injector on the table.

Hux sat down and injected the stim into his wrist. In mere moments he was awake and alert. He grabbed the bread and started to eat it as he activated the screen to check his day's schedule.