The Patron Saint of Lost Causes
Chapter 9
Hux watched the back of Rose's head as they walked, her hair buns bouncing, keeping a pace behind her in the small corridor. "Much of my helping the Resistance seems to involve following you down hallways, rather than any actual work on my part."
He was keen to get his hands on something actually worth his time.
"So impatient," he heard her say in a teasing voice. "If only you were this eager in the beginning."
He huffed out his nose. "I hardly put up much of a fight."
Rose scoffed. "Hardly?"
They walked together into the command center, a room with one wall open to the outside, much like the rest of the base's interior. Seeing it all laid out before him, it was a little more than a tad surreal. How long had he wanted to wipe the Resistance from the galaxy? And now, having been defeated, he was being led into the heart of their operations like an ally.
The heart of their operations…
Hux surveyed the dimly lit room with bland surprise. He wasn't expecting anything high-tech, not at all, but seeing all the cobbled together machinery and ancient displays… it would have been so easy to infiltrate their systems if only he'd been given the opportunity.
'Prove me a fool. Here's your chance.'
But now.. any fleeting thoughts of sabotage or clandestine reconnaissance fell immediately sour. It might have had something to do with him picturing the horror and disappointment on Rose's face.
Hux watched as Resistance members flitted from one station to another, squawking into their headsets.
"Remember we saw all those ion signatures near Brysis?"
Hux nodded absently, eyes fixed on one of the holotables. A blue rendering of the Order's ship-building facilities hung in the aftermath of a dogfight. "The two Star Destroyers and a Dreadnought."
"Right. Once we're done with the First Order near Fondor, we want to get control of that Dreadnaught. With that ship's firepower, we can take out the two Destroyers, then we can make the Dreadnaught self-destruct."
"Sounds like the perfect job for your two flyboy Generals," he said with a hint of distain, turning his attention back to her.
"Yeah, but even if the Dreadnaught isn't fully staffed, that's still a lot for two people to pull off, don't you think?"
"You'd be surprised…"
A shorter girl with a tight braid spanning the crown of her head gave him a dirty look as they walked up.
Rose brightened. "Hey Connix."
The woman, Connix, pursed her lips. "Hi Rose…" She eyed Hux suspiciously, like he might pull a blaster on them at any second. The ice in her gaze was palpable.
"How's the mission going?" There was a forced-normalcy to Rose's voice. Hux's hands curled into fists, uncomfortable. This was so risky for her. His brows knit, throwing a look towards Rose she could not see.
The woman spoke in a hushed tone, maybe thinking it best to be discrete with Hux around, "Pretty smooth, thanks to your briefings." Her gaze darted back toward him. "And you," she added, like she loathed even acknowledging his presence.
Hux looked down his nose at her, rising to meet that challenging spark in her eye.
Rose glanced over her shoulder, catching the slow curl of his lip into a sneer. She rolled her eyes.
"Knock it off." She said, and looked to Connix too. "Both of you, geez. We're all working together now."
"He still has to answer for what he's done," Connix hissed, finger jabbing in his direction.
"Oh, I assure you, I will," Hux muttered sharply.
Rose flinched. His eyes, when he'd said that, glittered with a deep, dark emotion she could not identify.
"For now," he continued in an even voice, "you'd be wise to understand that I'm helping you."
The blonde gave him a horrible glare, but then glanced at Rose. She huffed, relenting. Her shoulders dropped. "Fine. As much as I hate the idea, fine. And it wasn't much of a fight anyway, to be honest." Connix motioned to the blue-cast images floating before them. "They've already overpowered all the light fighters. They had no idea we were coming. We took them completely by surprise."
Hux squinted at the maps display, trying to discern their strategy, seeing the result of what was on screen and working back from there. Hux was surprised to feel, in doing so, a strange glimmer of familiarity. There was something about standing in the middle of the central nervous system of a large-scale operation that felt oddly comfortable.
He'd found it hard to know himself as of late, certainly after Rose had stripped him very near to the bone with her words and intensity, but there, in the war room, Hux felt some kind of echo of what made him. It was a strange sensation, since battle and death were things he had to learn to relish; adopt for survival. Misplaced or not, the feelings it gave him came with a strange kind of strength.
He never thought he'd get the opportunity to feel that way again; somewhat like himself.
He stared at Rose, his hands moving to clasp behind his back almost unconsciously. Did she understand that?
Rose caught his look, but couldn't seem to identify it. She smiled; a bit encouraging, a bit questioning.
"Great work everyone!"
Hux's broke eye contact, head snapped to the side as Dameron's voice came crackling through on one of the comms, along with a cry of victory.
"Poe!" Connix pressed her hand to her headset. "We've been given the all clear. Everyone willing to surrender has been evacuated onto the planet's surface. You're a-go for cleanup."
So, they were giving those who laid down their arms safe passage? How predictable.
As for the First Order ships, if Dameron were smart, he would concentrate their firepower on—
"Alright, everyone, you heard her! Aim for the fuel storage bays!"
—where they stored fuel rods for newly assembled hyperdrives…
Hux frowned, scowling at the holo.
"Blow these things up and we can all go home!"
A jubilant whoop echoed from the comms, and from some of the Resistance members in the room around them.
"Charming," Hux spat.
"Hey, Connix," Rose said then, "do you still have that datapad? The one about the TIE fighters?"
TIE fighters, hum? Hux tried not to look too interested as the blonde turned to grab the pad from the desk behind her, handing it over. She looked less than pleased when Rose handed it off to him.
"By the way, Yolsa came in here earlier. He wanted to know when you'll be finished with that cargo freighter."
Rose pressed her palm to her forehead. "Crap. I totally forgot I said I'd be done with the engine today. I can probably take a look at it… this afternoon?" She shot a look between Hux and Connix, jaw working.
"If you require my aid, you'll have it," Hux said, with straight-backed formality. Rose gave him an appraising look. "I'm your assistant, remember?"
Connix's mouth opened slightly as she stared between them, mystified at the inside joke, trying to figure out what his real motives were.
Nevertheless, a conspiratorial glimmer flitted across Rose's features. She grinned. "That's right."
Hux shifted his weight from one foot to the other, trying not to look at her eager expression. He didn't realize how much more awkward it would be when she was like this and there were other people around to witness it. The blonde Lieutenant was still standing right there.
Hux distracted himself by scrolling through the datapad. It was mostly schematics of TIE fighters and other large First Order ships, along with the maps they'd compiled using the escape pod's data.
"As I was saying," Rose said, seeing him perusing the files, "we need a decoy to get aboard the Dreadnaught. We thought maybe if we can get everyone outside the ship, it would be easier to commandeer it. That's where our fleet comes in."
He frowned. "Your fleet will have all three ship's compliment of TIE fighters to contend with. All at once."
"Right. And how many TIE fighters would that be?"
He didn't even need to think of the answer, he knew it automatically. "Two hundred and sixteen. Each ship is required to keep six squadrons combat-ready; twelve ships each."
"That's the problem. Our fleet can't take out a Drednaught and three Destroyers if they've got so many light fighters to contend with. We had help during the battle of Exogol, but a lot of our reinforcements have returned back to their home systems to deal with their own problems."
Hux was all business. "What would you have me do?"
"You have experience with large-scale weapons. I thought maybe you'd have an idea on how to take on a whole bunch of TIE fighters all at once."
Large-scale weapons, hm?
He made sure his expression was very carefully controlled. He'd feared this once before, when he first toyed with the idea of aiding the Resistance; that they'd force him to create another Starkiller. It was a mark upon his soul that he had yet to grapple with, and the idea of pouring what felt like another near-lifetime's amount of work into something that could just be blown to pieces in the end left him feeling terribly hollow.
"I suppose…"
She must have saw him hedging. "Whatever you can come up with is fine. It doesn't need to be devastating, we just need something. A distraction. I thought maybe we could identify a flaw in the TIE's design; an overlooked defect we could use to our advantage."
Hux stared down at the datapad, trying to wrack his brain. A flaw in the TIE's design? Well, there was no such thing. They were the pinnacle of light fighter technology, even if the Resistance could hold their own against them at times…
Poe's voice came through on the relay. "Yahoo! Great job, everyone!"
Hux glowered, pointing a finger in the direction of the comms station. "It's impossible to think with him yelling like that."
Connix rolled her eyes. "You don't have to stand here if you don't want to," she snapped. "Looming over us like some giant, ginger loth-bat."
Rose bit her lip to stifle a laugh.
Hux cleared his throat, glaring daggers. "I'll take a turn around the grounds, then," he said stiffly. Walking always did help him think. He'd stalked the halls of more than one Star Destroyer in his time, ruminating over one particular problem or another.
Rose nodded. "Sure thing."
Connix gave her a look, one which would not usually given between soldiers of differing rank, but one most definitely shared between friends.
So, even close comrades disapproved of Rose letting him wander about. Hux was hesitant to even ask if Dameron knew, but it was evident that Connix wasn't about to contradict Rose's decision.
Good, he thought. At least some people around here respected Rose's authority and good sense.
He coaxed his expression back into something more professional, nodding at Connix, "Lieutenant." Then he turned, inclining his head slightly in Rose's direction. "Lieutenant General." Something in her gaze sparked hot, and Hux smirked in satisfaction. He knew she'd like that.
Hux could feel the blonde's piercing gaze against his back as he turned to walk out, but the woman next to her was radiating pure satisfaction, so he let any affronted feelings slide.
Just outside the base's wide, mossy overhang, someone had cobbled together a little bench of stone blocks. Mind abuzz, he meandered toward it, chin between his thumb and forefinger, scrolling the datapad with the thumb of his other hand.
Now that there was silence, or at least, there wasn't some idiot yelling into his cockpit microphone, he could think straight. So, what could take out an entire squadron or more of TIE fighters? If he thought of it more like a training exercise, he could moderately overlook that fact that he was plotting against the very thing he helped build. He pushed down a roil of nausea at the thought, focusing on the task at hand.
A distraction would work, for a brief period, but infiltration took time, and they would be strolling headlong into a Dreadnaught, not some sleepy moon base. No, they had to figure out something that could renter the TIEs incapacitated for a long period of time.
Something that could work on multiple fighters all at once, all in a big group.
Well, it's not like they could round them up in a big net or anything…
He paused.
Wait.
A net.
A muscle under his eye twitched.
Net.
Network.
What if they could disable the TIEs through the First Order network?
All the squadrons were still using the old computer system, for maps and communications. If they could upload a virus onto the shared network, they could knock out an untold number of ships all in one go.
He sunk down to sit on the small stone bench, floored by the brilliant simplicity of it.
It was with fleeting internal shame that he was reminded of how far he'd fallen; from a once-feared General to now actively devising plans to take out First Order ships. But he imagined Rose's face, lighting up as he told her his solution to their problem, and the pain was drowned out by a rush of excitement.
He should go and tell her—
"Well, well, what do we have here? A rat that's been let out of its cage?"
Hux glanced up from the datapad, leaning back slightly to look at the figure before him.
It was a female Pantoran in a sleeveless shirt, muscular arms crossed over her chest. By the looks of her fatigues she was a pilot, and she was looking at Hux like she'd relish nothing more than to wring his neck.
At her shoulder was another hulking alien figure; wide and fleshy.
"Do excuse me," he said stiffly, lip twitching up in distaste as he stood. His jaw clenched as a bulbous hand came down and ripped the datapad from his grasp. When he turned to face them, he tried to throw his shoulders into that once-familiar posture of power. "I require that back, if you don't mind."
"Oh, we mind," the Pantoran said, with no small amount of venom. "And we know exactly who you are, General."
"Perceptive," he deadpanned, "seeing as I wasn't trying to conceal my ide—"
"Can it, you bastard."
Now that got his blood up. His hands clenched into fists, but he kept them at his sides. There was a crowd growing now, a few other Resistance members pausing their tasks once they realized what was going on.
Damn it, he thought, eyes darting around the quickly tightening semi-circle of onlookers.
Hux couldn't let them get a rise. He couldn't fight them. He couldn't win. There were too many of them now.
He heard the crowd whispering amongst themselves. Echoes of "what's going on?" and "who's that?" mingled alongside gasps of, "that's General Hux!" and "no way", "I'd heard a rumor—", "Captive?!", "He's the one, I told you.", "The Hosnian system, that's right"; "Murderer".
His gaze fell again onto the Pantoran. "I'm sure your General pilot would be most displeased if his highly-valued informant was killed by his subordinates."
"Poe's not here," the large fleshy alien, clutching the datapad, grunted haltingly. "Off planet."
His adrenaline spiked, and he made to move, to step away, but a hand caught him by the front of his shirt, wrenching him forward and then tossing him back again. Hux sprawled back against the stone bench, losing his footing. Pain spiderwebbed across his back, the lip of the stone bench hitting him just under the shoulder blades. He groaned, tumbling fully to the ground, arm braced as he landed on his side.
"Get up," the Pantoran growled, taking a step toward him.
Hux drew in a lungful of air, voice jumping an octave. "So you can strike me down again? What sort of tactician do you take me for?"
"Pathetic," he heard someone mutter.
"It's called strategy."
"Shut up!" The Pantoran cracked her knuckles. "I don't care if he starts standing up or flat on the floor. This is still going to hurt." She bent towards him, cocking her arm back, "This is for my family, you piece of—"
"Stop!"
A familiar voice.
But by then the clenched fist of the female pilot was already swinging down toward his face.
And then someone was there, by his side, in front of him, and the Pantoran's look of rage broke into shock and horror. The pilot pulled most of her strength at the last possible moment, but the blow nevertheless caught Rose on the side of her upper arm, glancing off her shoulder. Hux heard her noise of surprise as the force of it dropped her onto her side next to him.
A rush, terrible and furious, moved through him so swiftly he almost couldn't breathe.
Hux snarled, jumping to his feet, his own pain forgotten. All he saw was red.
"How dare you strike a Commanding Officer!" The Pantoran was startled by the tone of his voice, eyes darting down to where Rose was pushing herself off the ground, but Hux didn't care. He could feel the rage flushing his face; teeth barred. "You should be court-martialed immediately! Pulled from active duty! Stripped entirely of rank!" He screamed in the pilot's face.
The Pantoran actually took a step back, and Hux could feel the familiar way in which her sudden fear coalesced into a dangerous, flickering fire deep inside of him. It felt good.
"Are you afraid of me?" He asked, no longer shouting; voice low and calm and much more threatening. The pilot's mouth opened but nothing came out. He took another step towards her. "You should be. You should be immensely grateful that you're not under my command. I would have you shot for your insolence. On site. Rebel scum." Except with that, he must have pushed just a bit too far. The Pantoran seemed to snap out of her trance, and this time, when she moved to strike him, Rose wasn't there to take the blow.
She was fast; strong. Hux barely saw her fist before it caught him on the left side of his jaw. After so many bruises and broken bones from Ren throwing him across the room, he'd almost forgotten how much a fist to the face could hurt.
His head whipped to the side, punctuated with a yelp. Hux tasted blood, stumbling, and fell to his hands and knees in the dirt.
"Are you okay? I'm so sorry!"
Bodies stepped over and around him, trying to get to Rose, who was slowly climbing to her feet. By the sounds of it, the Pantoran was besides herself.
"I didn't see you, Rose! Are you alright? I can't believe I hit you! Gods, I'm so sorry Rose! I didn't mean to—"
Hux was dazed, but he still heard her voice. It hovered somewhere between disbelief and ire when she said, "I know you didn't, Rajal, but you can't just go around hitting people!"
"But he's—"
"I don't care what he is, or was, or anything! He's with us now and you're not going to bring anyone back from the dead by beating him to death!" She let out a frustrated noise. "If anything, Hux is right. You should be in trouble. I'm going to recommend Poe ground you when he gets back, it's what you deserve."
The Pantoran woman was silent at that.
"Everyone get back to work," Rose ordered. "Now," she said, in a commanding tone that Hux could admire even as he tried to find his bearings through the pain.
Suddenly, there was a hand slipping under his arm.
"Come on," Rose's voice was close. He blinked, wiping at the wetness at the corner of his mouth and wincing. "Oh shit, you're bleeding."
He swallowed a bit of the blood, and tried to tug his arm away from her, but she was strong and he was dazed.
"You can fight me later, Hux. Right now, I need you to get up."
He willed his legs to move, even as the throbbing in his jaw threatened to consume him. He stumbled a step when he righted himself, but Rose held him firm.
"This way." She steered him left of the hanger, back toward the barracks. The lingering vestiges of the crowd parted for them as they went, stepping wide to let them pass. He wasn't sure if he was smirking in satisfaction or not; he couldn't really feel his face at the moment.
They walked down a different hallway than before, and as Rose opened the door to one of the bunks, Hux finally realized why it all looked so different.
"This isn't my room," he tried to say through the split in his lip.
"No. It's mine."
She led him over to the little desk and chair against the wall. He sat, still feeling a bit dizzy, screwing his eyes shut to try and reclaim some semblance of equilibrium. But closing his eyes just made him nauseous, so he forced opened them again.
"Today was supposed to be about building trust," Rose lamented, puttering around the room for whatever she was looking for. "So you'd feel comfortable out of that stupid dungeon. They weren't supposed to go and gang up on you."
He could have told her, before she'd even unlocked his cell door that morning, that what had just happened was always bound to happen. Because it was him, and he'd done so very much to so very many. Didn't she know that? She was likely the only reason he hadn't been dragged into the common and gutted back when he'd first arrived.
"Surely you haven't forgotten who I am."
She paused, and turned to look at him, head cocked to one side and eyes narrowed slightly. "Sometimes. Sometimes I think I do. Just for a moment."
"Unwise."
"Yeah, well, I don't need another lecture, okay?" She returned to him with an opened canteen and a strip of cloth, squatting in front of his chair to get a good look at him. She grimaced. "Your lip's split. Damn, she really hit you hard."
"I did provoke her."
"What were you trying to do, anyway?" She smiled a little, incredulous. "Defend my honor?"
He didn't answer, just frowned, which stung terribly. "What were you trying to do?" He threw the question back at her, irritable. "Jump in front of me?"
"I didn't try. I was successful. Big difference." She took the folded bandana and pressed it to the rim of the canteen, tipping it to the side, watcher sloshing. "Now shut up so I can do this," she muttered, reach forward with her free hand to turn his jaw.
Hux twitched away from the contact instinctually, Rose's hand stilling in the space between them. He looked from her hand to her face and back again, trying to weigh the decision of allowing her to touch him in such an intimate way.
"Hey. It's okay. It's just me," she whispered, voice low and even. He didn't move a muscle, so she took that as careful consent. He watched as she closed the little distance left, resting her fingertips against the side of his chin and jaw, turning his head away by a degree or two.
Hux shivered, very slightly, but let her do it. He knew he didn't need to feel this way with her. Rose wasn't his father, fists clenched and falling like stones; she wasn't Snoke, casual with his backhanded humiliation; she wasn't Ren, whom he feared most of all. She was different. Kind. He stared at the wall across the room, trying to concentrate on the warmth of her fingers instead of dark memories, and noted that the pounding in his head seemed to ease as she touched him.
Rose dabbed at the split in his lip and the dried rivulet of blood, careful not to pull too much at the wound. Once or twice she thought she must have accidentally pressed rather hard, but it didn't look like he was reacting to the pain. If anything, he was in agony just allowing her to touch him. Watching his uneasy, gun-shy expression, something in her heart broke to pieces.
Without allowing time for second guessing, she let her fingers relax, sliding the side of his face into the full warmth of her palm, cupping his cheek and jaw. She heard his oh-so-faint exhale of surprise, eyes darting over to hold her gaze; wide, and green, and alight with fear.
Rose tried to give him a reassuring smile, fingering the cloth in her other hand so she could use a fresh corner. As she concentrated on her work, she felt him gradually rest a bit more of his weight against her hand, letting her cradle the side of his face. When she stole a glance, she saw his eyes were closed, expression more relaxed.
Like this, his face not scowling or smirking, she could really appreciate how delicate his features were. How handsome.
He was warm, too. And trusting. Of her.
Rose swallowed hard.
When she was done, she pulled the cloth away, but kept her other hand where it rested against his cheek. Absently, she caressed his skin of his cheekbone with her thumb. Soft. He didn't open his eyes, but his brows did pull together, and she could feel his very slight, hesitating, press into her palm; the barest nuzzle. Cautious and tentative.
"I want to hurt them," she whispered, something dark and venomous seeping into her words. Slowly, his eyes opened, gaze questioning as he regarded her. "The people who did this to you, Armitage." She didn't mean the split lip. "I want—" She knew it was wrong, this desire to punish out of anger, but she couldn't imagine the pain he'd endured, that had made him like this, without also fantasizing about socking his brutish father, and anyone else involved, right in the mouth.
She wanted to say something, ease his fear, but her words got stuck in her throat. Instead, Rose shifted her hand up to brush back the ginger locks that had fallen out of place, fingernails raking into his hair. Gods, it was soft.
She saw his Adam's apple bob, his eyelids fluttering with a sigh.
Something electric skittered down her spine.
What the hell was she doing?
Rose didn't care.
She didn't.
She'd wanted to touch him.
To keep touching him.
She wanted to—
Rose worked to restrain herself, and she did so, but barely. After a beat, she shifted away, but before she could pull back completely, his hand darted out to grip her forearm, stilling her retreat. It was a strong, near-crushing hold, like he was afraid she might suddenly disappear.
Before Rose could open her mouth, he turned his head and pressed a soft kiss to the inside of her wrist, and then let her go. It happened so fast.
Rose stepped back, clutching the rag in her hand, skin burning from the touch of his lips.
Her mind raced, heart fluttering.
Was… was that supposed to be some kind of 'thank you'?
Hux was flushed, blush high on his cheeks, face still turned to the side. She could only see him in profile, but even so, he was red to the tips of his ears.
She had to break the silence, say something to his moment of boldness, no doubt sparked by her touch, and how she'd liked it, but he was quicker.
"Are you—" Hux tried to speak, but his words faltered. "Your shoulder… is… is it—"
His concern made her smile. "I'm fine, really, but thank you." Her heart was beating so fast it made breathing more than a little difficult. She turned around, trying to hide the color in her cheeks. "Ah… I'll… uh… probably use a heating patch tonight…? Let me get some bacta gel for your cut though, otherwise you're going to swell up."
"Thank you," he said quietly when her back was turned, and then, "For stopping them before they tore me apart. And for… tending to me. Again."
"I am pretty nice, huh?" She rifled through the small medkit against the wall, glad he couldn't see how she blushed and grinned. The spot on her wrist still tingled. She wondered, if she let him, would everywhere he kiss tingle like that? The thought was reckless; thrilling.
"I'm glad you were able to escape. Off the Finalizer."
Her hands stilled on the box of bacta packets as he spoke. She didn't turn around, her breathing gone slightly shallow.
"You were my enemy, but… it seems the galaxy might be a better place with you still in it." He thought of the fire in her eyes, the ferocity in her heart when she'd bit him; the kindness in her touch and the honesty in her words. She was a turbulent swirl of emotions, but warm and radiant, like the churning cores of stars. "Not— not so cold."
Rose took a long breath. He was going to make her cry. Again.
"I'm not so special, you know," she said in a small, careful voice. "I'm not the only nice person in the entire galaxy."
To him she was.
When she turned around with the packet of bacta, he was facing her again, but his head was tilted down, like he was afraid to meet her gaze directly.
It made Rose want to surge forward, to run her hand through his soft hair again, but she reasoned this would be more human contact then he'd probably had in who knows how long, so she needed to take this—whatever this was— very slow. She moved calmly to the table next to him, leaning against it and tearing open the corner of the gel pack. She held it out for him to take, which he did.
"Do you still intend to make me live in the barracks?" He asked, dabbing a small amount of gel onto his finger and then coating the wound. It was cool and numbing, and made the throbbing ebb.
She folded her arms. "You make it sound as if your jail cell would be more comfortable."
"There's less of a chance of my throat being slit in the middle of the night when I'm locked in a cage."
"Your door has a lock on it."
He grunted, touching the tender part of his jaw. Obviously, he wasn't going to win this conversation either.
Rose moved to clean up the canteen and the bandana, and as she did so, Hux took the opportunity to cast his gaze about the room. There was a small bunk along either wall, but one of them clearly wasn't being used.
He wished, fleetingly, that he could just stay there with her instead.
Overstuffed boxes of what looked suspiciously like electronic components and ships' parts was taking up the space on the cot to the right. Various Resistance propaganda posters were plastered up on the walls and ceiling. Near the wardrobe, more boxes, containing untold secrets, were stacked on the ground and into where one might store one's shoes. Overtop some of the boxes, a few coats had been haphazardly thrown in a pile.
It was… he hadn't noticed it before, but he could certainly see it now.
Her room was a mess.
Good lord. How did she live like this?
The desk to his immediate left was piled with all sort of knickknacks. Bottlecaps, at least three single earrings with no pair in sight, a hairbrush, a cheap holoprojector.
That last one caught his attention.
He reached for it almost automatically, his curiosity getting the better of him. He turned it on where it rested on the table.
Immediately a warbly blue light unfurled above the base. It was an old model, not quite sophisticated enough to rid the images of its azure tinting.
Two figures sprang to life there. It wasn't a moving picture, but a static image, and one figure was definitely Rose, perhaps in her later teens, and the other… a slightly older woman with a narrower face and soulful eyes, clearly related.
They were smiling, arms wrapped around each other, leaning forward.
"That's Paige."
Hux glanced up to see Rose had come back to stand next to the desk, looking at the image with a faint smile.
"She was the tough one. Talented, pretty…"
He stared at the projected image, swallowing thickly. Rose was all of those things.
After a moment, he turned off the projector. Her sister, Paige, he didn't like the feeling of seeing her face. It made him uncomfortable.
"Family traits, no doubt," he said, turning to catch and hold her gaze, hoping she would understand his meaning. Rose looked delighted, if bashful, to hear him say so. It was a pleasing expression on her; pretty. "I lost your holopad," he added, because he suddenly had to distract himself from wanting her hands on him again. It was a strange, almost counterintuitive desire; one he would have never thought to feel. And yet.
Her touch had been feathery at first, but she'd pushed beyond such hesitancies, hadn't she? And not out of necessity either; she'd initiated. She'd caressed him, and the feel of her nails in his hair had skittered an unforeseen pleasure down into the bottom of his stomach. It was almost too much to bear; it's what made him impulsively kiss her hand, even as his heart pounded with anxiety. And she was still there. She hadn't run screaming from the room. That meant something, surely.
"I'll get the holopad back, don't worry," Rose replied in a gentle voice, continuing to lean against the table, watching him. Her thigh was resting quite close to his knee.
With his arm still on the desk, he could have reached out and touched her if he wanted to. He did want to. Hux shifted in his chair, sitting up straighter
"Before I was… accosted, I was going to tell you. I think I've found a solution to our problem."
Her face lit up. "Really?"
Hux nodded, tapping a finger on the desk. "We can't corral the TIEs physically, but what if we could disable them en mass? All the ships connect to the First Order holonet, for navigation and comms. What if we used that network to our advantage? Corrupt them."
Rose gasped in understanding, leaning forward even more. "A virus!"
"Yes." His eyes glinted with shrewd enthusiasm, pleased at her reaction. "We let a virus loose into the system, hidden, so when they access the battle network, all the TIEs become infected. We can either have it set to a timer or we can active it manually. All the fighters would be disabled all at once, reduced to floating space debris."
The air between them sizzled with combined excitement.
"Hux!" Rose gasped. "That's brilliant!" She didn't have to move her hand very far for her fingers to cover his. In her elation, she took hold and squeezed. It made his heart tremble.
A/n- I want to give a shout-out to all the readers and reviewers over on ficbook! I've been translating your reviews and all your wonderful comments mean so very much to me! Thank you! Also a huge thanks to Ashtoret for translating!
