Scene Six – Phasma's story
Hux lay bound and gagged on the floor of his cell, the interrogation table having been removed. Kylo Ren sat on a bench along the wall, his helmet on, seeming to look at nothing in particular. When the doors open they revealed Captain Phasma, sitting in a chair that floats slightly above the ground. Her body, clothed no longer in her shiny armor but rather a medical tunic, is broken and withered. A mask covers her mouth and nose, and several tubes connect it to the rear of the chair, where a mechanism audibly does her breathing for her. She looks at her Supreme Leader and former commanding officer with her one good eye, the other having been rendered when it was exposed to the cold of space after Finn's attack. As she glides into the cell, Kylo Ren turned to her and said, "Welcome Captain."
Around artificial breaths, Phasma replied, "My Lord."
"The former General Hux here was just telling me about the fact that Supreme Leader Snoke got his scars after he first found the First Order," Ren said. "What do you know about this?"
Phasma's eyes widened at this question, and she stole a glance at Hux. Kylo Ren, seeing that, says, "You were commanded not to talk about this, weren't you?"
"Yes, my lord," Phasma replied.
"By whom?" Ren asked.
"By one of Supreme Leader Snoke's," Phasma starts to answer before she is interrupted by the respirator forcing her to take an artificial breath, "Snoke's attendants."
"The guards?" Ren asked.
"No, the men who were with him… (artificial breath) …in the first few years after he arrived," she said.
"I never met them," he said.
"They disappeared long before… (artificial breath) …you joined the Order my lord. I don't… (artificial breath) …know what happened to them," Phasma explained.
"What kind of men were they?" Ren asked.
"Not military my lord. (artificial breath) I could tell that much. They didn't… (artificial breath) …speak much to anyone but the… (artificial breath) …Supreme Leader. They could use the Force… (artificial breath) …some of them anyway," Phasma answered.
"What?" Ren asks, suddenly alarmed. When Phasma seemed reluctant to answer he said, while holding up a hand, "You will tell me about this."
Phasma, seemingly against her own will, said, "I saw some of them use the Force."
"When? Where?" Kylo asks in quick succession. "Why don't you want to talk about this?"
"I was ordered," Phasma says, obviously terrified.
"Not by someone with higher rank them me," Kylo says darkly. "Tell me, now."
"It was the same mission where… (artificial breath) …the Supreme Leader was injured," she said.
"What was this mission?" he asked with evident interest.
"I never knew the purpose of the… (artificial breath) …mission. I was a young Stormtrooper at… (artificial breath) …the time. My unit was ordered to escort… (artificial breath) … the Supreme Leader and his entourage," she said.
"Escort him where?" Ren asked.
"To Endor, my lord," she answered.
"Tell me everything," Kylo Ren said ominously.
"I will try… (artificial breath)… my lord, but I am not sure I," she began to say before being interrupted.
"Then show me," Kylo says, placing his hand roughly on Phasma's head.
Kylo Ren looked into her mind, finding the memory in question quickly on account of the fact that she was actively thinking about it herself. He saw a young Phasma, wearing Imperial Stormtrooper Armor, and boarding a transport ship in an Imperial hangar bay of some Star Destroyer. As she and her unit loaded onto the transport ship she looked to her right and saw Snoke in the distance, surrounded by men in dark purple robes who Kylo did not recognize. He suddenly heard a voice, Phasma's voice, only much stronger than her voice in reality, and not broken up by the actions of the ventilator.
"I had been an ensign in the Imperial Fleet, but the Order was short on ground forces. Almost all the planetary garrisons had been or would soon be slaughtered after the Battle of Endor. So they pressed many of us into duty as Stormtroopers. Two regiments of us were sent, though Snoke had wanted more. But he was not the Supreme Leader then no one quite knew what he was, only that the senior officers were frightened of him," she said.
Kylo Ren watched as the two Imperial shuttles jumped to Endor, wondering why he was not seeing this memory from Phasma's own perspective. He saw their descent to the surface and the two regiments of troopers exiting the ships.
Phasma began speaking again, "He was taking us to back to the last place most of us wanted to go, back to Endor. A few of the more senior troopers had been on the Second Death Star and gotten off before it was destroyed. But even they weren't prepared for what we found. The surface was a hellscape. Debris from the battle, from the Death Star itself, had crashed into the planet in the intervening years. The vets had called it a forest moon. We found fire, metal and ash. And we found the Skywalkers."
Kylo saw the young Phasma marching at the back of the formation. At the head of the column of Stormtroopers, Snoke walked with his advisors and the divisional commander who had gone with the two regiments. Young Phasma turned, clearly having heard something, to look over her shoulder.
"Captain, movement, 8 o'clock," young Phasma said.
Approximately 30 stormtroopers stopped and turn towards where Phasma saw movement. They could see very little through the smoke and debris, but Kylo's mind was able, for reasons he was not quite sure of, to see what they could not. Beyond the veil of smoke he saw his mother. This was a younger Leia than he had any personal memory of. She was running, dressed in a green robe, her long hair flowing behind her, and a blue lightsaber in her hand. She ran in a semi-circle from directly behind the advancing stormtroopers around to their left. They began to fire at her, or the hazy glimpses they could get of her. The few blaster bolts that came near her she deflected with her lightsaber back towards them, taking several down.
The older Phasma said heavily, "It was a slaughter."
After getting on the column's left Leia turned slightly, and started running in a diagonal line towards Snoke and the main party, still taking fire and still deflecting shots. When she got to within around 10 yards of the line of stormtroopers that included Phasma, she jumped high into the air, twisting towards her right, and landed in the middle of them. When she hit the ground a shockwave pushed out from her, knocking back the approximately twenty troopers who were still standing. Kylo watched as his mother began to cut and thrust, while still blocking the occasional blaster bolt. As the troopers began to fall around her, Snoke, at he head of the party, turned to see her decimating the unit sent to deal with her. He barked at the officer to his left, "Commander, where are your patrols?"
The commander was already busy trying to raise those patrols, "Captain Rigel, do you copy? Captain Tarent, do you copy? All screening units report!"
The sickly looking men in purple robes surrounding Snoke raise their hands, raising debris between them and Leia from the ground. They made a throwing motion with their hands and the debris shot towards her. Kylo holds his breath, absurdly he realized since he knew she survived this battle, but at the last moment she saw the incoming objects and flipped backwards. The debris crushed the few remaining stormtroopers, including Phasma. More pieces of debris were flying towards Leia, who cut the first few pieces in half with her lightsaber as they get close. Kylo reached instinctively to his own lightsaber as he saw a particular large piece heading towards her while her back was turned, but before it reached her it stopped in midair.
Snoke and his attendants turned to see Luke on a hill above and ahead of them, revealing the Imperials to be trapped between the two Skywalkers. The stormtroopers closer to Snoke turned to fire on Luke. With a wave of his arm the blasters flew from the troopers' hands. With another wave of his arm the first two lines of troopers were pushed back, knocking over those behind them. Then Luke advanced towards Snoke at a speed that shocked Kylo. Leia, with all the troopers near her dead or incapacitated, did the same from the opposite side.
Young Phasma, her legs trapped beneath debris, propped herself up on her elbows and looked up to see Luke and Leia cutting down the few Stormtroopers remaining near Snoke. She saw Snoke himself fall beneath Luke's green saber, then an explosion from where Snoke was standing. After that the young Phasma collapsed, and the memory ended.
"The commander of the unit had detonated… (artificial breath) …a plasma grenade. We were under orders at that time… (artificial breath) …to not allow ourselves to be taken prisoner. Had to hide our existence from the… (artificial breath) …New Republic. Better for them to think we were just some ex-Imperials after… (artificial breath) …salvage. Only I and two other Stormtroopers… (artificial breath) …survived. They were the ones who pulled me out from under the… (artificial breath) …wreckage. They had been part of one of the patrols but had… (artificial breath) …not been with their unit when it had been taken out," she said.
"And Snoke?" Ren asked.
"He was unconscious, and… (artificial breath) …terribly injured. Skywalker's blade had cut deep into his… (artificial breath) …skull. All but one of his advisors was dead. The… (artificial breath) …one who wasn't was barely alive, but he… (artificial breath) …could still give orders. We had to carry both of them," she answered.
"Carry them where?" he asked.
"To the remains of the… (artificial breath) …Death Star. There was something there Snoke needed," Phasma said.
"What was it?" Kylo said, his tone growing ever hungrier and more desperate.
"I don't know. I was injured. I could… (artificial breath) …walk but not fast, and the other two troopers didn't think I could… (artificial breath) …make it to the objective. So I stayed behind and… (artificial breath) …guarded the Supreme Leader and his man," she said.
Kylo was clearly frustrated by this answer, and clenched his fists several times before asking, "What were they like?"
"Silent. The Supreme Leader didn't… (artificial breath) …wake up. The other one seemed injured, but I couldn't… (artificial breath) …tell where. After a few hours the two troopers returned. They… (artificial breath) …seemed to have gotten what they needed, because we… (artificial breath) …activated the homing beacon and the ship came to pick us up," she said.
"Was there anything else strange you can remember about the mission?" Kylo asked.
"One thing. After we took off, we didn't go straight… (artificial breath) …back to base. We stopped in orbit and waited there for… (artificial breath) …hours. I thought it was madness. The… (artificial breath) …Skywalkers could still have been around. Luke Skywalker was… (artificial breath) …known to be an ace pilot. If he came across us, we were dead," she said.
"You just waited?" Kylo asked, perplexed. "What did Snoke do?"
"I was recovering, resting. I wasn't… (artificial breath) …in the same cabin as the Supreme Leader. We… (artificial breath) … waited for a few hours and then left," she said.
"What was it like? What did it feel like, being in the ship while you waited in orbit?" Kylo asked, once again very interested in what she was saying.
"Now that you mention it,… (artificial breath) …it felt strange, my lord. I don't know how to…(artificial breath)…describe it. Cold I suppose, which is nonsense…(artificial breath)…I know. The cabins are all heated the same…(artificial breath)…temperature. But still, it felt cold. From the…(artificial breath)…inside of me," she said.
Kylo nodded and asked, "And after?"
"The Supreme Leader was awake when we… (artificial breath) …reached base, but still needed to be carried off… (artificial breath) …the ship," she said.
"What about his attendant? The one who survived," Kylo said.
"He spoke to the three of us on the shuttle… (artificial breath) …before we got back to base. Ordered us never to… (artificial breath) …speak of the mission. After that I never saw him… (artificial breath) …again," Phasma said.
"What about the other two troopers? What happened to them?" Kylo asked, almost as an afterthought.
"They died on another mission,… (artificial breath) …not long after," she said.
"Before today, did you ever speak to anyone about this mission?" Kylo asked.
"Once, with General Hux," she answered.
"What?" Kylo asks, shocked. He turned to Hux and made a slight movement with this hand causing Hux's gag came off his mouth.
"With my father of course!" Hux said.
"He was in command of the… (artificial breath) …infantry. He wanted a debrief. I… (artificial breath) …gave it to him. He warned me against ever… (artificial breath) …speaking about it again," Phasma said.
"Would the late General Hux have been the one who ordered the other two troopers on the mission where they died?" Kylo asked.
Phasma hesitated before saying, "Yes."
Kylo Ren removed his helmet, revealing a face full of intensity near to madness. "So why weren't you sent on one of those missions? They were killed intentionally, correct? Was it just that you didn't know what they found in the Death Star? Was there some other reason?" he asked.
"I don't know. I assume that… (artificial breath) …when it became clear that my loyalty to the Supreme Leader was beyond… (artificial breath) …question there was no longer any perceived threat of my… (artificial breath) …sharing secret information," Phasma answers, somewhat indignantly.
"You just did, with me," Kylo said dismissively.
"You are the Supreme Leader's… (artificial breath) …chosen successor!" she says, angry at her loyalty being questioned.
A dark smile spread across Kylo Ren's face as he looked at Phasma. It was with obvious relish that he then told her, "He never chose me. He never chose anyone. There was no plan for succession. He thought he couldn't fail. I am sure he was thinking that right up until the moment I killed him."
For a moment neither of them said anything. Phasma one eye went wide with shock, while Hux's face screwed up in anger. Finally he yelled, "TRAITOR! FILTHY MISBEGOTTEN…" A quick movement of Kylo's hand closes Hux's mouth.
"You are thinking Hux, that you will tell the rest of the Order. Phasma here knows better, don't you?" he said, looking at the trapped woman next to him. "The only person you are ever speaking to again is me. Pray you have more answers I need." Hux continued to struggle against his restraints, while Phasma only glared at Kylo while he put his helmet on and left the room.