She hated that she had been here for several days, hated that she had fallen into a semi-routine, and hated that she had just made General Armitage Hux laugh. True to her word, she had kept calling him but surprisingly, after the third or fourth day, he stopped being annoyed at her and started being...well, rather pleasant. It was minorly off-putting, to be honest. For some reason she couldn't pinpoint, even after he had sent several books along with the trooper exchange between the base and the Finalizer, she continued to contact him. Nightly.
The general's laugh tapered off. It wasn't as rumbling as Kylo's—she stopped herself there. Thinking about the dark-haired man made her chest tight.
Hux's copper hair was ungelled, falling in a natural wave on his forehead, wearing a plain black shirt. "Are you still sour with me for sending you there, Ana?"
"Of course I am," she said, rubbing her arm, feeling the goosebumps rise. "I'm bored to death here."
"Have you finished all the books?"
She checked the pile on the floor beside her modest bed. "I've got two left."
"That should tide you over until I visit, hm?"
"Visit?"
"I must oversee development of our newest starfighter," he said. "Set to begin next week."
Her mind began to race. With Hux's appearance would come heightened security. Heightened security would ruin everything, she'd have to wait even longer—and a new starfighter meant more men—she hadn't been watching these blasted men for days just to have her plans ruined—
"Ana?"
"Hm? Sorry," she said.
"You disappear often into your own head," Hux said in a low voice, his eyes searching through the screen of the terminal. "I wonder where you go."
There was a quality to his voice she didn't like. An acceptance she heard there, a warmth. A fondness.
"Was just thinking that I didn't think you knew how to laugh." She tried to disperse her anxiousness. His resounding grin didn't help.
"I'm still a man, Anavexi," he scolded gently, and it was too familiar for her. She squirmed in her seat.
He sensed her discomfort and sighed. "You're still bothered by him, hm?"
"I'm not."
"Yes, yes," he dismissed. "He's been quite insufferable since he cast you off, if it's any consolation. Has demanded of Phasma to know where you've gone."
"He hasn't beaten down your door yet?"
"I imagine he would, if he weren't worried what the Supreme Leader would say."
There was an uncomfortable silence.
"When will I go to Coruscant?" One more time. I'll try one more time.
Hux's face fell slightly. She had asked him almost every conversation. It was part of the original deal, the original promise. Go to Corellia first, he said. Lay low. We'll take you to Coruscant to get her and bring her back. Once you've shown you won't run, you'll gain more freedoms.
Get Thena and bring her back.
"You promised, Hux," she said quietly. "If I didn't run, you promised. I haven't run."
"It's barely been a week, Anavexi," he said back. "You'll forgive my skepticism that the moment you have her you won't immediately make an attempt."
"Then lock us each in a tiny room," she countered. "At least I'll know where she is, at least I'll know she's safe—"
"We've been over this, Ana. I'll revisit this after the starfighter construction is under way."
Ana bit her lip. She should have known, and in a way she supposed she did. She'd had a backup plan for this. She was a fool for thinking anything else, and honestly she should have expected this the second Phasma showed her to her room.
"You understand," said Hux, and then the screen went black.
Yes, she understood perfectly.
When the EN unit opened her door that afternoon, she was pressed flat against the wall beside the doorway. She held her breath, and after a few seconds, the silent soldier stepped inside when he didn't see or hear her, and she struck. One hand slammed down on his weapon, making sure the barrel was pushed to the floor, and the other curved in a harsh uppercut that caught just under that blasted helmet. His head snapped back, and she swallowed her disgust as she let the door close and made quick work removing his armor.
The inside of the trooper's helmet smelled like sweat and blood. She gagged once but finished clipping it in place over her head, wondering if the speakers in the helmet would distort her voice enough to avoid suspicion. When the rest of the armor covered her, the pieces fitting heavy and awkward on her frame, she grabbed his blaster and left the room, stopping only to relock the door and break the code pad with the butt of the blaster.
Straight down two halls, her memory told her. Then a left, then a doorway, then straight and another left—
Or was it two doorways, left, and then straight again? Maybe there was a right in there she was forgetting.
She bit back her rising panic. She just needed to stay calm. She may be out of practice, but she had been a thief for many years. Reading people, lifting pockets, memorizing layouts and patterns to infiltrate a place without any of the occupants ever knowing she was there. This was her wheelhouse, wasn't it? A bold escape from a First Order base? Thena would love the stories she'd bring back, listening with her eyes wide, caught between worry that she had been too risky and pride that she had pulled it off—
Ana exhaled, squared her shoulders, walked with purpose. This would only work if she was confident and quick.
She got turned around a few times but waited until her portion of the hall had cleared before backtracking so as not to arouse suspicion. She was stopped a few times to salute to obviously higher soldiers, glad the helmet hid her scowl, and when she finally, finally, reached the outdoor landing pads she let her shoulders drop in relief. It was too easy, a small voice in her head whispered. Without a hitch, from her room to a ship? Were they really so lax on this base? Had that singular soldier really been her only true obstacle?
A growl slipped past her lips, sparking into the helmet's vocal speakers. Did they truly underestimate her that much now?
She was faced with a choice now: the TIE fighters that sat on the landing pads were locked down, one or two Stormtroopers at each of the control panels that controlled docking mechanisms. Kill them or try to trick her way out again?
She approached the terminal with only one soldier, sweat dampening her brow.
"Prepare to undock the fighter," she said, hoping her commanding tone would keep him from answering questions.
It didn't work. "Under what orders? You're not a TIE pilot."
"I have been summoned by Captain Phasma." Another hope, this time that the name drop would help her and not bite her in the ass when Hux learned she was gone. "It's about the prisoner."
Surely on a base this small, not meant for detaining people, her presence had made the rounds. She assumed correctly. He scoffed slightly. "Commander Ren's castoff. I wonder if we'll be instructed to guard and imprison all his forgotten whores."
"Gossip is unbecoming of a soldier." She hadn't meant to snap so harshly, worried at first it would cause some doubt in him, but her hurt had made the line genuine, and she saw him straighten up.
"Of course," he said. "Forget I said anything." He tapped a few things on the terminal and the TIE fighter cockpit opened for her. She settled herself in and he reached up to hand her the shiny black helmet of a pilot, so that she could breathe once the ship was in space. She hesitated, and he seemed to notice, and she cursed herself. "Authorization code, to unlock the docking mechanisms?"
It was a trap. She hadn't done the interaction correctly, she had set him off, she had forgotten that EN units aren't even trained in flying TIE fighters, she should have tried to take a transport instead—She panicked spectacularly, lifting the blaster she still held in one arm and shooting him square in the chest. He flew back from the force of it, his body slamming into the terminal in a shower of sparks, and the docking gear malfunctioned. She grasped the controls, hoping they were similar enough to Kylo's transport that she could make do with shaky success. She remembered the movements of his hands so clearly—at the time she had told herself she was watching him fly, and now she realized she had just been watching him—and clumsily lifted the fighter into the air.
I'm going to get myself killed.
The other Stormtroopers by now had noticed what was happening and were firing at her. Which button was the weapons on this ship? The TIE dipped dangerously while she was looking for the weapons, and when she grappled with the controls with white knuckles her thumb found a small, switch-like button on the main flight controls. Green light flashed and more terminals exploded, and a crazed grin split her face. Found the weapons.
She closed the cockpit door, ripping the Stormtrooper helmet off and trying, one-handed, to replace it with the pilot's helmet. The fighter jerked straight up in the air and she slammed the new helmet on, connecting her air supply, and quickly righted the ship with a nauseous gasp.
"I can do this, I can do this," she muttered into the pilot's mask. There was autopilot on these, she knew there was. She had read all of Hux's First Order literature he had sent her—she found herself immensely grateful he was such a workaholic, as half his books had been books on military tactics, First Order history, and one of the books even had a small section about the evolution of their TIE fighter technology since the time of the Empire. She could program the coordinates for Coruscant once she got off the ground and that would be it. She didn't need to know how to fly.
Ana would make them regret caging her with nothing but that holo-screen.
She got the ship out of the range of ground fire by merely flying straight up, the ship crooked and unbalanced from her inexperienced hands, and punched in her coordinates.
"I'm coming, Thena."
Ana was, ironically, immensely thankful for the First Order's obsession with improving its TIE fighters. Most small fighters weren't equipped with a hyperdrive, but they'd clearly learned something from their dogfights with X-wings. It was a benefit to have your ships able to jump in and away in a split second, across vast distances. She felt like she almost could have hugged Hux for his foolish, unintentional help in her goal. If he were here. Almost.
Her smile vanished from her face, however, as Coruscant began to grow in her cockpit window and she realized she didn't know how to land.
"Shit," she whispered. If she ejected, could she crash it somewhere? Who was she kidding, this was Coruscant, no matter where she took it there would be casualties from such a crash, someone would end up hurt or dead, maybe even her—
Don't lose your resolve now, Ana, she thought to herself. You've gotten this far. You're a survivor.
She would crash the ship, she decided. Eject her pilot's seat, crash the ship somewhere as least-populated as she could. She and Thena could lay low for a while and then steal away on a much larger vessel, a transport that wouldn't ask questions and wouldn't take passenger logs. It would all be worth it once she was back with Thena and away from the First Order for good.
She aimed the TIE fighter for a landing strip meant for commercial leisure ships, ejecting her seat as she crashed First Order ship grew a crowd. The landing bruised her, but her adrenaline kept her from focusing on it for very long. She stripped off the disgusting-smelling armor, and set off toward the lower levels. Recognizing the area as the places Thena used to beg for credits, she at first waited for a glance of the sweet Mirialan, but no such luck. No matter. She rolled up her sleeves. She knew someone who was great at finding people.
Her lips curled in disgust as she walked into Ghrrik's place. It was just as it had always looked, tacky neon signs, rusted metal doors that didn't actually lock because there was no such thing as privacy for the girls he employed. It even smelled the same, a pungent odor of sex, desperation, and alcohol. A girl, human and covered in elaborate tattoos, leaned against one of the walls and sized her up as she came in.
"Got a type, sweetie?" the girl asked, her voice lilting and sickening.
"Not here for that," Ana growled. The Stormtrooper's blaster lightly smacked her hip as she walked. "I need to talk to Ghrrik."
The girl was clearly used to diffusing hostile situations, experienced and unfazed by the idle threat in Ana's words. She wondered how long the girl had been there. He usually didn't keep them longer than a few years. When the fear was gone, he replaced them.
The girl stood close, and Ana was pushed forward as a giggling, drunk man with a Keshiri girl. She flinched, and the girl lifted onto her tiptoes to whisper in her ear.
"You don't need Ghrrik. I'll keep you company."
Ana felt the wandering hand brush across her arm, her shoulder, aiming for the blaster—
She pressed the barrel of the blaster into the girl's stomach. "I can see why he kept you, but don't think you can fool a veteran, sweetheart. Now take me to Ghrrik so I can tell him Vex has come home for a visit."
The girl froze, finally realizing the gravity of the situation.
"He talks about you," she said, voice still a whisper. "As a threat when one of us gets idle. His favorite story is how he broke you and recruited that little Mirialan that used to follow you around—"
Ana's blood ran cold and she barely heard the frightened girl's words. "What? He recruited Thena?"
"He told us he left you sore and bleeding and then sold your battered body to the First Order—half the level saw you taken—" The girl was near tears, but Ana had no time to dwell on her newfound notoriety, or how Ghrrik had spun her capture to suit him. Here, she was going to threaten him into using his connections to find Thena, and Thena was here? That disgusting, slimy bastard had Thena working as a fucking whore—
Her rage filled her, quick and bitter and scorching. "Where is she?" she asked through gritted teeth.
"Please, don't kill me—"
She barely recognized her own voice as she gripped the girl's hair, hard, and snarled again, "Where is she?"
A/N: I rewrote the scene where she escapes several times until I settled on this one, though part of me is still not truly happy with it. I wanted to give this whole chapter a sense of being rushed, to tie together with her growing desperation; she grows less observant and less careful when she's impatient, and I tried to reflect that in the writing.
However, I will hint that there's a reason why it was so easy for her to get off the planet, why that particular TIE fighter was available...let's just say her paranoia in that moment wasn't too misplaced.
Hope I haven't disappointed with this chapter. Thank you for sticking with this story, I hope to update soon!