The nightmares started shortly after Ren's visit. To say that Tamara was unnerved was an understatement. Everything around her put her on edge if it was out of place. As she stood in front of the mirror, the soft sound of music echoing around her, her mind kept travelling back to Ren's warning. She didn't believe him, or at least, she didn't want to believe him. It would be foolish of Hux to want something from her with the power that she had being her in her father. If he had the mind to, Everett could cripple the First Order financially, or at the very least, set them back years. Surely, the General was wise enough to realize that. Tamara didn't want to be the girl who couldn't fight her own battles and who relied on the power of her parents in order to achieve what she wanted, but if he were to try anything, she knew that she had them as a backup.
There was also the possibility that Ren was trying to get in her head. It was something that he had been highly successful at so far. What confused her was why he was so intent on intimidating her. Perhaps it was just part of his persona that he no doubt had adopted. Many new officers must go through the same thing. That was what she was going to tell herself until he backed off, if he ever did.
Tamara's thoughts were interrupted by her comm buzzing one top of her datapad. She picked the small device up and turned the volume down on her music.
"Yes?" she asked.
"Bridge. ASAP," were the only words that were spoken from the other end of the line. She could recognize the voice.
"I'll be there shortly, General," she responded, and the line went silent.
She turned her head to the side, examining the bun she had attempted to create once again. It was an ongoing battle, and she lost it every morning. Her hair refused to cooperate on the best days, but she wasn't too concerned with it. She was never incredibly meticulous with her appearance, not like the General was or like her father was. She glanced down at her datapad. She still had twenty minutes until her shift began. Outside, her breakfast was starting to grow cold, and she knew that she was going to have to abandon it. Letting out a disappointed sigh, she picked up her comm and her datapad, figuring that leaving the General waiting for too much longer would result in terrible consequences.
The shift change was still fifteen minutes away, and the halls were not bustling at the level of activity that they would be. The bridge was busy, but Tamara had expected that. She spied Hux on the opposite side of the room, looking at a console with another officer at his side. She walked with purpose over to him, and as she neared he dismissed the other officer with a wave of his hand.
"Good morning, General," she greeted, though her voice carried a light edge to it. She'd had to skip out on breakfast because of his call, and it had but her in a less than pleasant mood.
"Good morning, Miss Vess," Hux said in a much lighter tone than hers. "I must as you about last night."
Tamara blinked and cursed in her mind. "It was a fairly quiet night," she responded, not wanting to give away any information. Ren had a habit of appearing at the worst times, and she didn't want to be caught in his wrath.
"That's not what I was referring to," Hux said, motioning for her to walk with him. She kept in stride with him as they walked down the centre of the bridge.
"With all due respect, General, if you know what you're talking about, why don't you just say it?" she challenged.
"Because I am asking out of the goodness of my heart, not because I am required to, Miss Vess," the General said in a pointed tone. "If I am to help you, I need to know your side of what happened and not just what the security footage tells me. To clarify, pulling a knife on one of the ship's commanders does not place you in a particularly good light."
The General glanced up and visibly stiffened. Tamara followed his gaze and her own came to rest on the figure in silver and black stalking toward them. Hux halted as Ren approached. She stepped back.
"Supreme Leader Snoke demands an audience," Ren said, staring the General down, completely ignoring Tamara. She wasn't complaining.
Hux glanced back down to her. "We'll finish this conversation later," he said, and she gave him a small nod. He brushed past Ren, not waiting for the other man to catch up. But the Force user seemed to linger for just a few more seconds, and Tamara felt as though she was frozen. She didn't want to make any sudden movements should it set him off.
"Ren," Hux's voice commanded. The dark enforced turned slowly and deliberately before he walked away from her.
Tamara found herself glancing up every few seconds, impatient for Hux to return. However, she was also fearful of Kylo Ren making a second appearance. Her work was proving to be tedious and unable to hold her interest for a prolonged amount of time. She was gathering information on the Core Worlds, trying to identity which ones to target, but her focus was faltering. Her console remained stagnant and she often found her thoughts drifting off as she read the same sentence over and over again.
The majority of her thoughts came to an end on the warning Kylo Ren had given her. She was still trying to figure out what exactly he had meant from it, and if Hux had overheard their conversation. Questioning the General about it was out of line and she wasn't about to sacrifice herself in order to get information that may or may not be true. Ren was manipulative and dangerous. His track record spoke for itself. Why did she feel so inclined to believe him? Hux had not shown any sort of malicious intent thus far, and she doubted that there was any. Maybe Ren had firmly rooted himself in her head.
The two highly-regarded officials walked out onto the bridge again, and Tamara straightened up as Hux walked over to her office. She tried to make herself look busy, though she was only anticipating when he would yank the door open. She hoped that Ren wasn't following him.
"Let's conclude our conversation from this morning, shall we?"
Tamara looked up as the General allowed himself into her office. It had been hours since she had seen him last. Whatever the Supreme Leader had wanted must've been substantial in order to keep him away for over half of the General's shift.
"Yes," she said. Turning so that she was facing him. "Ren visited me last night."
"That much I know," Hux responded, placing himself in front of her desk. "What I don't know is what was said between the two of you. I only receive a visual feed, but no audio."
Why you have a security camera in my suite is beyond me, she thought, but nonetheless continued. "I suppose you could say it was his way of welcoming me to the First Order," she said.
Hux narrowed his eyes at her. He seemed to know that she was withholding information from him, but he did not press her.
"It is your own loss if you choose not to tell me, Miss Vess," he warned. "But I may tell you this – I cannot do anything on the record about his visits because of his rank. Unfortunately, we're considered equals when it comes to the First Order and its ranks. While this is mostly annoying to me, it also means that I do not have to go out into the field. He is going out on missions in order to track some piece of a map in order to find his – the last Jedi. He'll be gone for most of the month, allowing you some piece."
Tamara reclined in her chair. "That's great news, General," she said. "Hopefully it spares you from having to replace consoles and entire rooms from his tantrums."
The General let a small smile crack his hardened exterior. "That would be very much appreciated," he said. "I'll leave you to your work."
Swiftly, he exited her office and she sat still for a moment, contemplating what it would be like to have no Ren around for an entire month. She had moved most of her life without ever having to grace his presence, but now it felt as though he had been around forever. He is getting to me, she thought. She had elected to not tell Hux that Ren had warned her, and it repulsed her. How was it possible that she trusted Ren over the General? Maybe it was because of the collateral damage that would occur should Ren ever find out she had passed along the information he had given to her during their chat. However, there was a small part of her that felt as though Ren was telling the truth, and that Hux's intentions were less than true. Whatever the case was, she could see the dark enforcer standing at a console just off to the side of the viewscreens opposite of her workspace. He couldn't get off the ship fast enough for her liking. No matter how large the Finalizer was, there was never enough distance between the two of them. Her worst fear had been realized the previous night, and now that she knew he could willingly barge into her suite whenever he had the mind to had her incredibly paranoid. The only thing that she had to herself on the ship was her quarters, and now she knew that it was not truly her own. There was a camera in it, somewhere, spying on her. She assumed it was for security, but she couldn't be sure. She wondered if every room had one in it.
Deciding that her efforts would be better focused elsewhere, she turned back to her own console where a translucent holograph of Coruscant rotated, information spread out all across the active area. While it was tedious work, it was better than worrying about what the man across the bridge had intended for her, if he had anything at all.
The shifts had changed at eighteen-hundred, tamara had elected to stay back for another hour. Ren had been on the bridge for much longer than she had anticipated, even though the beginning hours of the third shift of the day. When he had finally vacated the bridge, presumably to retire to his own quarters, she had bolted. She was exhausted from working for so long that day, and all she wanted to do was lay on her couch and relax with a glass of wine.
However, her thoughts were interrupted as she saw the doors to her suite open. She paused and cursed in her mind. Was Ren back? Had he waited for her? She swallowed as the walked through them. Thankfully, there were no others in the corridor.
The scene in front of her was not one she could've ever expected. A droid was laying out food on the kitchen counter, not interested that she had just walked through. Sitting on her couch was none other than the Captain herself.
"Captain!" Tamara exclaimed.
"Apologies, Miss Vess, I wanted to stop by your work station today but I was caught up in training the newest wave of stormtrooper corps," the older woman said, standing up. She wasn't wearing any of her armour, and while she still looked intimidating, she seemed much more approachable. She was dressed fairly causal, which helped her appearance. She noticed Tamara's unease. "I'm sorry for startling you."
"No, that's not the issue, Captain," Tamara began, then elected to not speak of her encounter with Ren the night before. "It this some sort of special occasion?"
"If welcoming the newest senior officer is a special occasion to you, then sure," Phasma said, walking over to the kitchen area. The corked bottle of dark liquid caught her eye. "Corellian wine. Good taste."
Tamara smiled. "Thank you, Captain" she said. "If you'd excuse me for a moment…"
"Of course," Phasma said. "The food shall be ready when you come back out."
As Tamara walked through the suite to get to her bedroom, her thoughts were hung up on why the captain had decided to come to her room as opposed to elsewhere. It was strange, but then again, Phasma did not know of the events previous. Tamara let as though she had a right to be on edge, but from what she had seen from the stormtrooper captain, she had been impressed. Phasma carried herself with a cold exterior, but she seemed as though she was human from the way she acted when the armour was off and the shifts were over.
Tamra quickly changed into more comfortable clothes and walked back out into the suite. The droid she had seen before had vacated and the door to her quarters was closed. Phasma sat on the couch, a plate of food in front of her and a bottle of wine in her hand.
"I've been looking forward to a glass all day," Tamara said, siting in one of the armchairs. "Captain." She was quick to catch her slip-up, not wanting to come across as too casual or not caring about rank.
"You and me both," Phasma remarked, pouring the red liquid into the teardrop-shaped glasses. "You may drop the professional attitude if you wish. It's my downtime – I like to treat it as such." She held out one of the glasses, the wine coating the transparent container as it moved in rhythm with her movements.
"Thank you," Tamara said, taking the glass and swirling it around. She glanced over her shoulder at the door, taking extra caution to make sure it was closed – not that it would stop him anyway.
"I know I've startled you," Phasma said. "That's why I left the door open. But trust me, it is locked now."
Tamara turned, not aware that the captain was watching her. "Oh, sorry," she said. "I'm just a bit paranoid is all. General Hux told me today that there are cameras in this suite."
"Ah yes," Phasma responded, leaning back against the couch, her fingers cupping the glass. "Those are in every suite for security purposes. As you know, one of our commanders is very – touchy. He's destructive and temperamental, to put it lightly. The cameras will catch him if he tries to destroy anything."
Tamara brought the glass to her face, the scent of fermented grapes overpowering everything else. Carefully, she took a sip. "So I've heard," she said. "What I'm more interested in is why you're looking forward to your downtime today."
Phasma set her glass down on the coffee table. "Training new troops is exhausting work," she responded. "The corps I'm training now are very promising, maybe even the best stormtroopers that the First Order has ever seen."
"That's exciting news," Tamara said.
Phasma reached down for her glass again. "I appreciate the work you're doing, Tamara," she said. "My troops are spread so thin as it is, and I do think that what you're doing will benefit the Order in the long run."
"I'm just doing my job," Tamara responded, then raised her wine glass. "To the First Order."
Phasma gave a small smile. "To the First Order."
Hopefully that chapter was worth the wait! The next one will be written from Ren's POV.