AN: The movies are hard cannon for this fic, but all the books and comics are a soft cannon that I'm using for inspiration. If you're looking for what exactly Phasma was up to between Episode 7 & 8 than read the Star Wars: Captain Phasma comics. It's only 4 issues long.
.***.***.***.***.
A few blissful days had slipped by where Lori and Armitage had managed to slide into a comfortable daily rhythm. Trading off turns in the middle of the night to attend to Ardis had quickly become second nature, and even with the regular interruptions their nights were far more restful together than they had been apart.
As the morning hours came to the Supremacy, Lori drifted away from sleep, alert and ready for another calm day. She didn't have to glance at the chrono to know that Ardis would soon awake with a small cry that translated to a demand for her morning meal.
Crawling out of bed, Lori immediately wondered how she had ever missed the chronically over-chilled interior of the First Order's ships. Trying her best to ignore the chill in the air, she took a short moment to change into her uniform. After the last button was fastened and her hair had been pulled back into a tight bun, Lori heard a tell tale stirring from Ardis' crib. Before she let out a hungry cry, Lori moved to scoop the infant up.
Although there hadn't been a sound to wake him from his slumber, Armitage cracked his eyes open to find Lori with Ardis in hand and ready to step out of the room.
She just barely noticed his half opened eyes and paused to make a soft comment, "Morning, sleepy head."
"Good morning," he sat up, hardly even noticing the chill to the room. Though he looked to the chrono on the side table, he still wondered out loud, "what time is it?"
"Early enough that you don't need to rush out the door," Lori commented as Ardis grew restless in her arms, "Take your time, I'll go scrape breakfast together."
She made to move just as Armitage began to yawn, and was gone by the time he had finished.
Notably free of the tired soreness he had been carrying with him, Armitage left the bed and began getting ready for the day. The movements were quick and practiced, with everything being perfectly in its place.
The last few days had been perfect as well, dreamlike almost. Waking up at the same hour to fall into a calm morning routine. The days drifted by in a blissful blur while he and Lori had spent precious nights together. Even inviting the lieutenant in to care for Ardis during the day time hours had become comfortably mundane.
Armitage fastened his belt before carefully brushing his hair to the side and setting it in place. He looked the same today as he did yesterday, and just as he hoped he would tomorrow.
Leaving the bedroom, he was comfortable in the knowledge that he could live the rest of his life just as he had the last three days and be perfectly content.
Stepping into the dining room, Armitage wasn't surprised to hear the beeping of a reheater and a rushed curse coming from the kitchen. A few long steps took him there. As he entered he found Lori setting Ardis into the hovercrib, doubled over slightly to prevent a stain from spreading past the top of her tunic.
Ardis had spat up half of her morning meal, and Lori could feel it seeping through the layers of her uniform.
Sparing a second to pop the reheater open and stop the persistent beeping, Lori was quick to leave the room, "Ok, breakfast is your problem now."
Before he had the chance to comment on the situation, she had slipped past him on her way back to the bedroom. Never minding the hot oats that sat in the reheater, Armitage took a careful look at Ardis.
Lori had cleaned any residue from the infant's mouth, and the little girl was happily snoring away the commotion from just a moment ago.
More than a little thankful that Ardis had decided to follow up her antics with a nap, Armitage picked up where Lori left off. In a short moment, there were two warm bowls of oats waiting along with two steaming mugs of caf. He had just finished setting the meal out when Lori returned in a clean tunic.
"How's the little troublemaker?" she asked as she slid into a seat.
The hovercrib followed at Armitage's shoulder, settling in place between them as he took a seat beside Lori.
"Sound asleep."
She glanced into the floating crib, a slightly miffed smile playing at the corner of her mouth. "I can't say I'm surprised," she said just before turning back to the table, "Any mid-night reports about the fleet?"
The Resistance fleet had been limping along for the past few days, growing closer and closer to the Supremacy's reach. There hadn't been a night gone by that Hux didn't have some sharp comment about the state of their ships, or their projected fuel supply.
"No," he replied between long sips of caf, "but their days have probably turned into hours now. And I've heard nothing from Snoke about relieving me of command, we might be staying here for quite a while."
Lori heard a hint of wishful thinking at the edge of Armitage's words. She wasn't about to discourage him, but she was still weary of Snoke's decision to hand him command of the Supremacy. It seemed too perfect for the supreme leader to suddenly hand him the First Order's capital, especially just days after he had lost Starkiller. She knew that Armitage was more than capable, but she didn't trust the deranged supreme leader. She couldn't put her finger on how, but this reeked of some sort of trap.
"Maybe," she put her worries away from her reply, "I guess that means we should find a better suite. This is nice and all, but I'd kill for a soft chair."
"And a spare bedroom," he added, eyes cast at the hovercrib, "speaking of, Ardis should have a spot in the nursery very soon."
"Oh no, Mitaka will be so sad."
"Perhaps," Armitage heard the sarcasm on Lori's words and matched it with his own dry attempt at humor, "but he'll live. Until he sees the backlog of work waiting for him."
"He doesn't get a-"
A chime from Armitage's comm cut Lori off.
Already irritated by work's interruption, Armitage checked the small device. Lori watched his features drop and then twist into something resembling interest.
"The Resistance fleet is beginning to power down." He told her, "I'm needed on the bridge."
As much as she would have liked to let their quiet morning last, Lori understood what this moment meant.
"I might be home late tonight," he said as his chair scraped across the floor, pushed back by his hasty motions.
Lori slowed him with her hand on his, "I'll be waiting up."
She wasn't going to tell him to be careful. She knew that the bridge was the safest part of the ship, and that there was nothing the limping enemy fleet could do.
But.
But the possibility that something might go horribly wrong still clung to her. She wouldn't say anything directly about her fears, but Armitage had heard them all the same.
Careful with his response, he didn't tell her what she ought to be doing, "Then I'll take whatever is left of Ardis' interruptions for the night."
Grateful for the understanding, Lori nodded slightly before raising from the chair, the hovercrib following her shoulder as she did. She leaned forward to leave a small kiss on Armitage's cheek, "And you're making breakfast tomorrow morning too."
"Deal," he softly agreed before turning towards Ardis.
The soft chatter of her parents had woken her from her post meal nap. Blinking at the interruption, she was left to gaze up at her father.
He leaned down to plant a soft kiss on the infant's forehead, glad at least that he got to say goodbye while she was awake.
"I'll be home later, behave yourself while I'm away." He told the infant with no expectation of having her listen.
"I'm sure she'll give Mitaka no trouble at all." Lori chimed in before adding, "I'll wait for him to show up, you should get out of here before they blow up the Resistance without you."
Lori didn't want to see him leave, but knew that she could handle a drawn out goodbye even less. Armitage heard the competing desires, and mindfully said nothing for them.
Hoping that Lori's words were a promise of what was to come rather than a dream of what might be, he nodded before stepping out of the room.
.***.***.***.***.
Leaving his suite and family behind, General Hux rushed from the bridge. To his chagrin, his journey to the bridge had been delayed by a chance encounter with Captain Phasma. Apparently, she had been off ship pursuing a traitor, but Hux had been so fixated on the Resistance fleet and his own precious moments at home that he hadn't noticed her absence.
He spared just enough time on the encounter to command Phasma to brief the FOSB on her actions before quickly finishing his journey across the ship.
Stepping onto the bridge, the general was greeted with a healthy buzz of action and the far off flickering lights of a failing engine. Taking long strides to the viewport, Hux felt a cruel rush of energy and a tantalizing hint of victory. Stopping at the edge of the officers walk, Hux leered at a control panel.
The acting captain on the bridge provided him with an update that he was already aware of, "The main cruiser's still keeping beyond range. But their medical frigate is out of fuel and it's shields are down."
A smile and a glimmer of hope, a realization that victory danged within his reach, played at the edge of the general's thoughts. The rest of the crew shirked away from the man, grateful for nothing beyond the fact that they were not the object of his merciless desires.
"The beginning of their end." He savored the words before uttering a pitiless order, "Destroy it."
.***.***.***.***.
"Be on your toes, major. Phasma's no joke." Colonel Larus told Lori as they walked down a narrow hall.
Lori kept even with the older man. She had finally been assigned to the correct office, but the powers that were in the bureau resented that fact that she had been appointed a position. The apparent snub was made even more personal by the appointment coming from General Hux, who had a notoriously low opinion of the FOSB.
And then there was Lori's unique circumstances. She had absolutely no doubts that everyone in the office knew, but none of them dared mention it to her. Probably out of fear of retribution rather than anything else, and certainly not out of respect for her privacy.
Colonel Larus was her direct superior. Not quite old enough to have worked for the Imperial Security Bureau, he had been in training when the empire fell. Since then, he had spent a long thirty years as an investigator for the FOSB, and it was only recently that he had taken up a job in the training center.
Old habits seemed to die hard, and Larus was still everyone's first choice when it came to high profile debriefings. As such, it was him who had been called in to speak with Phasma, and by extension Lori was dragged along.
"Understood, sir." She replied to his warning without any hint that she was perfectly comfortable talking to the infamous captain.
Satisfied that his subordinate wouldn't cause any trouble, Larus remained silent as they approached the meeting room.
Upon entering, they found Phasma already waiting on them, her polished helmet sitting on an otherwise empty table. Phasma watched the two newcomers as if this was her room and they were her visitors.
She sat with a practiced stillness, and even Lori struggled to see a slight flash of recognition trace over the captain's flat blue eyes.
She's sharp. Lori thought to herself as she took a seat at the table.
They had met once before. A brief moment in passing, back when she had pretended to be Hux's aid for their mission to discredit Captain Cardinal. While Lori knew more about the day than Phasma ever would, the captain had taken most of the credit for arresting the Resistance agent, a perk of leading the group of stormtroopers that had kicked the door in on the staged scene that Lori had prepared.
Lori knew better than to assume that the flash of recognition was anything more than that; a slight surprise at seeing an aid with a different job on a different ship.
Colonel Larus didn't notice any of it as he began speaking to Phasma, "Captain. Thank you for sitting down with us, in the interest of not wasting anyone's time, I'll try to keep this short."
Phasma nodded disinterestedly, her attention squarely shifted to the colonel.
"Now, you've reported that a Lieutenant Sol Rivas was responsible for lowering the shields on Starkiller base just before the Resistance's attack. Could you tell us your method for discovering his treachery?"
The news piqued Lori's interest. She had been none the wiser of this supposed Resistance agent stationed on the base. Despite her nearly yearlong absence, she doubted that the rebels had managed to embed a man on Starkiller. It took years, not months, to turn someone to their side and without an active cell already operating on Starkiller, there would have been no way for them to sneak a man inside.
"He had failed to hide his tracks. A cursory glance at the shielding control panel was all it took for me to find that he was the last one to log into it." She spoke with a casually arrogant air that put Lori even more highly on guard.
Larus hummed as if she had said something brilliant, pausing to type away at a data pad.
In the little opening, Lori took her own opportunity to ask, "How did you know which terminal to check?"
The colonel cringed slightly at her speaking out of line, but he could appreciate her apparent willingness to learn from the captain's quick thinking.
In reality, Lori saw a glaring problem with Phasma's story. She must have heard Armitage describing the base's layout and supposedly impenetrable defense systems countless times.
Starkiller base had hundreds -if not thousands- of control panels. In order to know which terminal had been used to shut down the shields, Phasma would have either had to have seen it happen in real time, or would have gotten very lucky on a guess that would take several minutes of digging through the terminal's programming to confirm.
"Simple," Phasma hadn't expected anyone to question her, but she had a plan just in case, "Because the shielding went down over a specific section of the base, I was able to narrow down which terminals might have been tampered with. Only one of those had been left unattended, so it was the obvious choice."
Lori smelled a rat.
That wasn't how Starkiller base worked at all. The terminals and their corresponding shield generators were randomized, with the rational being that a traitorous insider wouldn't be able to tell their accomplices where they would be able to approach the planet. In a better world, the delay caused by the confusion would have been long enough to destroy the disorientated attackers. Unfortunately, it seemed like two systems had failed that day.
"Quick thinking, captain." Colonel Larus chimed in once more, unashamedly brown nosing as he did.
"That still seems very lucky," Lori looked the other woman in the eye, "were there any other clues to indicate that terminal?"
For a variety of reasons, Lori didn't want to think that Phasma had turned traitor. Losing the captain to the Resistance wouldn't just be a loss of a gifted warrior, but it would also give them a terrifyingly long list of secrets to exploit, chief among them being Brendol Hux's fate.
Even worse was the possibility of more hidden Resistance cells being embedded on the ship. If they had managed to get to Phasma, there was absolutely no telling who else might be compromised.
Phasma took the look in Lori's eye for the challenge that it was, "Do you have a problem with me, major?"
Lori didn't trust the aggressive turn to Phasma's words. Too many people thought that the fastest way to hide a lie was to push back against the one who noticed it, "I'm only doing my job, captain."
The major's refusal to wither under her gaze only irritated Phasma more.
Feeling a tension rise in the room, Colonel Larus tried desperately to intervene, "That's enough out of you, major! My apologies, captain. Now, where were we?"
Phasma answered back. Lori listened for more inconsistencies to her story, though she stayed silent for the rest of the talk.
She wasn't sure what game the captain was playing, but she would find out by the end of their conversation.
