"Hux, I just-" Rose broke off when she realised that the lab was empty. Huh, that had never happened before. Hux had always seemed to be glued to his workplace.
The door behind slid open and Hux appeared. He was panting a little and looked pale.
"Hux - where have you been?"
He hobbled to his chair and sat down. Then he took a bottle out of his grey bag that was hanging from his bony shoulders and drank a gulp. "Apologies, Sergeant Tico. I was thirsty and went to the Cantina." He put the bottle back in his bag and pulled the pad out. "But now I should be able to work until dinner."
Rose licked her lips. She hadn't even thought about him getting thirsty. It would certainly explain the amount of water he had gulped down at lunch. Damn, her mother always told her to eat and drink enough while working - never had she thought that her work obsession would affect somebody else.
"Of course," she said, "I- uh, I talked to General Organa. She said that you could work on the cannons first."
Hux nodded. "Alright. Do you have the X-wing blueprints?"
"Yeah, I think I have them somewhere…" She went to her workplace, sat down and started to look through her data. "Got them, I'll send them to you right away. Ah, I see your pad in the local holonet - it's AH-26907, right?"
"Yes."
She sent him a file with blueprints and saved his holo frequency on her pad.
"Thank you," he said and bent over his pad.
She glanced at him, again noticing his not slicked back hair. Hux was different than she thought he would be. Instead of sneering at her with an oily grin, demanding that she was at his beck and call he was quiet and polite.
Was it an act? No, nobody was that good an actor, not when she could basically see his impassive mask slip from time to time. It usually happened when he was startled or when Poe patted his shoulder.
Well, she didn't have the time to muse about these things - she had work to do. Rose returned to her workbench and checked her messages. Apparently the secondary shield generator was having blackouts again. She sighed and pulled up its schematics.
She was in the middle of revising the updated shield generator fix when her pad pinged loudly. She closed her eyes for a moment and exhaled. There was only one person who sent messages with a ping.
If she ignored it now a second would follow within five minutes. She took the pad and read the message:
'Don't forget to eat your dinner.'
'I'm working,' she wrote back.
'I worry about you, Ro-Ro. Go eat your dinner before dessert is out - you love dessert.'
She pressed her lips together. 'Mom! I'm not five years old!' Why did she keep harassing her about food of all things? As if she would die if she missed one meal.
A quick look on the chronometer revealed that it was already 18:12. Damn, time really flies sometimes. She was in the mood to work a bit longer until she caught sight of Hux typing away on his pad.
She got the feeling that if left to his own devices he would continue to work until he fell off that chair. She kind of was his boss, so perhaps she should consider his health too. Should she ask him to join her for dinner? Would it be weird? On the other hand Poe had done so without batting an eye.
"It's time for dinner, Hux."
He stared at her with wide eyes. "Dinner?"
"Believe me, I know it's annoying to interrupt work but we need to eat at some point."
He lowered his pad. "Several studies confirm that work efficiency suffers if the nourishment is neglected." He put the pad in his bag. "Although I share the sentiment that eating is a waste of time. I used to eat ration bars for convenience."
Rose got up from her chair and walked over to the door. "Sounds sensible. No crumbs on the tech."
"The taste was fairly bland," added Hux and stood up too while grabbing his crutch. "But it was efficient."
"Uh, okay now I don't think it's a good idea to eat ration bars anymore. I mean I can go on without food for a day or so - especially when I'm working on something. But when I eat, I want to eat delicious dishes."
They started to walk towards the Cantina. Rose walked slowly so that Hux could keep up.
"I don't care much about the taste."
"Really? You seemed to like the meatloaf well enough."
He fell silent, then after a few moments he said, "It was adequate."
They arrived at the Cantina, it was rather full. Rose spotted free chairs at a table in the middle of the room. She walked over and asked Aish and Ebrima if the seats were taken.
Aish smiled at Rose but when he saw Hux behind her, his smile faded a little. But in the end he nodded. "They're free."
Ebrima shot Hux a withering glance as he laboriously sat down. Rose briefly wondered if it had been a good idea to drag Hux out of the lab and put him on the spot. Perhaps that was why Poe bothered to invite him? So that they could all get used to the thought that he was on the base with them? Yes, that must be it. Acting as if he didn't exist didn't solve anything.
"I'm going to get the food. You can wait here," she said.
"I can get my food myself," he said in a low voice, obviously trying to save face.
"Really? With the crutch?" she retorted before just leaving for the counter. As she stood in line she glanced at the table from time to time.
Aish and Ebrima were talking to each other ignoring Hux. At least they didn't fight with him. He looked uneasy, then he took the pad out of his bag and started to type something.
When she finally returned with the fried rice and the two small puddings Hux looked up, something like relief washed over his face.
She handed him his plate and sat down next to Ebrima.
"Hey, Ebri - how is your brother? Is he still in the med bay?"
"Yeah, Doc Kalonia said that a shipment with cybernetics will arrive tomorrow. Once he gets his hand, he'll be up and about." She smiled at Rose. "You know how stubborn he is, he would climb into the bomber even with one hand."
"You make it sound like you're not every bit as pig-headed as him," chuckled Aish.
They laughed and when it had died down, Ebrima turned to Hux. "So, you're the spy, huh?"
Hux gulped the food down and sat up a bit straighter. "I was."
"I don't know if I should thank you or knock your teeth out," admitted Ebrima while stirring in her pudding. "I guess it depends if you turn on us like you turned on the Order."
Hux's eyebrow rose. "I can't return to the Order, so why should I betray you?"
Ebrima shrugged. "What do I know? But at least you didn't say some banthashit about believing in our cause."
"I don't share your idealism, no," replied Hux. "But I know that Ren is a menace."
Rose listened intently. It was interesting that Hux didn't pretend to work with them because he thought that the Order was wrong - he only thought that Ren was wrong. It was odd - so he betrayed the organisation he had been with his whole life just because he didn't agree with the leader? He turned into a spy because of one single man? Something was off.
"I guess we can agree on that," said Aish.
"What's he like?" asked Rose. "Kylo Ren, I mean."
Hux's expression darkened. "He is confusing- contradictorily is perhaps the better word. He is calculating and impulsive, indecisive and strong-headed, soft and hard at the same time. He is volatile."
No wonder that he hated him, thought Rose. From what little she had seen of Hux he seemed to cherish order above all. But still - for an organized man like Hux to throw away everything he worked for… strange.
.
-o-
.
Hux turned to his food and continued to eat, hoping that they wouldn't ask about Ren any further. That moronic ass- no, no there was no point in getting worked up about him.
From the corner of his eye he saw somebody walking up to their table. It was the quartermaster. Was she making rounds in the Cantina on a regular basis? The last time she had also talked to Dameron and others.
She put her hand on her hip. "So, you're actually using the bag I gave you, Hux?"
"Yes, of course. It's easier to carry items around."
She pointed at his half-full plate. "Don't you like rice?"
Hux frowned. "I don't devour my food like Sergeant Tico - but I like it."
She beamed at Tico. "So you're devouring the rice, are you?"
Tico pouted. "I wasn't that fast - Hux is the slowest eater I've ever seen. Seriously, Hux - if you like the food, why do you keep picking around like a moody teenager?"
He shouldn't answer but not saying anything would only lead to more questions. "I'm just checking for… unwanted items."
"Unwanted items?" hissed the quartermaster. "You think there are spider-roaches in your food or what?"
He stared at her. "Of course not! I was referring to pebbles or sharp objects." Why was she even asking? Wasn't it self-explanatory?
"Wait a moment, why would there-" began the tall, blue-skinned Twi'lek Tico called 'Ebri'.
Hux scoffed. "To make me suffer for my crimes of course. Even one tiny sharp pebble could puncture my stomach's mucosal lining, leading to painful internal bleeding." Only after he had finished he noticed the wide-eyed looks from the people around him. What? Did they think he wouldn't check?
"You think I would put sharp objects in your food?" asked Tico with indignation in her voice.
"Why not?" He asked with honest surprise. "You could still use my expertise, it wouldn't be lethal. And you wouldn't need to endure my company in the tech lab."
Tico blinked a few times. "I- Hux, nobody is trying to cause you pain. We're not cruel."
He narrowed his eyes. She sounded honest but at the same time she hadn't denied that she didn't like his company. So perhaps she just despised instead of hating him? That was of course possible. He averted his gaze and continued to poke through the rice, slowly eating it.
The quartermaster crossed her arms. "No wonder you're so skinny!"
He felt anger boil up in his chest. 'Weak and thin as a slip of paper. Can't even eat properly.' "Is that all you've got?!" he snarled. "If you want to insult me you'll have to be more creative, quartermaster! I've heard all the insults there are: skinny, gaunt, pasty, feeble, weak-willed, stupid, disgusting-"
"That's enough," said the short, dark-skinned human male sitting next to him in a calm voice. "I just came back from a mission and all I want is to eat my dinner in peace, thank you very much."
Hux pressed his lips together and glared at the quartermaster, she huffed and turned on her heel, storming out of the Cantina.
"You shouldn't argue with her," said the Twi'lek. "As quartermaster she's kind of the boss of it all. If she sets her mind to something it's next to impossible to convince her otherwise."
Tico sighed. "Ebri is right, you know. There is no winning with her."
Hux didn't reply. What was there to say anyway? It was hardly his fault that the woman had insulted him!
After dinner he returned to his quarters. He sat on the bed and leaned against the wall. The first draft of the new cannon was satisfactory. The ion-pulse itself was slightly weaker than before, but without the proper chips it was difficult to aim for a higher output to punch through the navigational shields of the TIE-fighters… hmm, the Order's navigational shields were based on rotating phase-emitters because it was the most efficient way to repel tiny asteroid bits when jumping to hyperlanes. Without the shields even the smallest pebble would tear open the ship when it accelerated to light-speed.
If he could find a way to disable the navigational shield all it would take was a jump to lightspeed to take out about 58% of the TIE-fighters. Disabling the navigational shield without the TIE-pilots noticing was difficult. And there was of course the matter of getting a command or an EMP-pulse to a squadron of fighters simultaneously.
Or perhaps it would be enough to infect a single fighter? They automatically relayed their positions to each other and their home base to prevent collisions. If he could imbed the signal in the position-retrieval all navigational shields would be shut down. It wouldn't work on destroyers of course, their back-up systems were far too advanced for such a simple trick. But TIE-fighters were faster and slimmed down, per order of Allegiant General Pryde who wanted them to be faster, more flexible. Hux grimaced. That moron. Now they were more vulnerable to sabotage.
All he needed was a command that they had to receive, like a First Order high priority message. Hux was quite certain that his codes wouldn't work anymore but it didn't matter if he sent a second, coded signal piggy-backing on the priority channel. They would receive it and check its authenticity before turning it down.
Theoretically it should last long enough for the second signal to infiltrate a sub-system. Yes, that could work-
Three sharp knocks on his door interrupted his thoughts. Hux got up and opened the door gap width.
"Hugs!"
He should have known. "Commander Dameron, good evening."
"The huttball match is about to start and I just wanted to remind you - in case you forgot about it!"
How in the Galaxy was this man so cheerful? "I'm busy."
"Don't be like that - I saved you a seat." Dameron leaned against the doorway. "Dr. Kalonia said that you needed to relax, that it's good for your health."
"I highly doubt that."
"What? That she said that or that relaxing would be good for your health?"
Hux pinched the bridge of his nose. "Are you going to pester me until I come?"
"Yes," replied Dameron with decidedly too much enthusiasm.
"If this some kind of prank-"
"It isn't."
Hux stretched his back, perhaps it was easier to give in. He could finish the work later - a sports event couldn't possibly last longer than two hours. If they were mocking him he could just leave.
Hux opened the door, sat down on the bed and put his boots back on. Dameron lingered at the entrance until he was ready to go.