Chapter 1 Welcome to the Academy
There was a massive unemployment problem on Arkanis. The rain-washed planet once famous for its textile industry and high-quality wood had been sucked dry by the Empire plunging the planet into a recession. Now all the planet's resources were gone, ironically, the only place on this backwards hunk of rock anywhere near her employing people was the bloody Empire. Arkanis Academy stood on top of the hill over her hometown. The large sprawling mass of buildings in white stone stood proudly against the green hills that surrounded the town of Cnoc-Gorm. It had been her university, once upon a time, and now stood as another wonderful reminder of Imperial privilege.
"This is a stop gap." Roisin insisted as she plodded along the long winding driveway up to the academy. The rucksack was heavy on her shoulders and her long hair was loose, a cloud of red curls. She knew there was some ugly uniform waiting for her up in the kitchens so had put on her favourite dress as a last hurrah to her old life. The emerald green dress with a gathered bodice showed off her body well, particularly her large breasts. She smiled at the memory of an old lover whispering between her thighs to wear the dress to a party as she trampled along the driveway. The sun overhead was rare and welcome, warming up her pale, freckled skin. To her right and left young men and women were drilling in cadet grey uniforms, while instructors shouted instructions from the side-lines. The shrill call of whistles and the buzz of surveillance drones drowned out the bird song on this surprisingly clear day. She stopped for a moment, momentarily dazzled by the rare beam of sunlight appearing from behind an errant raincloud. She shielded her eyes to see a man a few years older than her step by her, moving from one field to another of drilling students with purpose. He was dressed in non-descript military clothing and his stocky build and red hair signalled him as Arkanis born. He had a neat short beard and an oddly sensitive mouth. He turned to look at her, a strange woman on the road. Without thinking, she smiled at him, happy to see someone at least from the planet, even if he was part of the Empire. He stood still, his sharp expression melting into something else, his mouth slightly open. Roisin immediately thought maybe he recognised her from somewhere, but she was sure she didn't know him. He was still looking her up and down as she walked towards him. A staff member called on him and the moment was gone. She resumed her plodding towards her new job, already imagining the new freckles the rare sunshine would give her.
The kitchen, like Arkanis itself, was an odd mix of old and new. Shining silver freezer units and a chrome oven set were placed beside a worn butcher block table and huge porcelain sink. The kitchen itself was set with a yellowing sandstone tile which felt warm and welcoming. From the sink she could see the kitchen gardens where water lashed against the window after a sudden rainstorm. There was an open fireplace, a remnant of the old Arkanis academy in days gone by, which she learnt later the head cook kept fuelled for sentimental rather than practical reasons. The clinical smell of disinfectant and freshly baked bread warred against each other. If she had her way, there would be far more dozing cats and drying lavender, thinking fondly of her family's kitchen down in the town centre. The staff had gathered to welcome her, and the head cook, a small red-faced woman was walking her through her duties.
"Now. Your work will be cleaning the kitchen and preparing food with the other girls. You will not be expected to cook or plate. We don't prepare the student's food obviously. That is all done by droids at the main building. However, the upper order expects a certain level of quality for their food." The cook stared up at her and sniffed. "And we do not serve any Arkanisan food. Their palates are far too sophisticated for that."
Roisin nodded slowly, already despising the cook for her sneers at her own planet's food. Rich lamb stews, crumbly tangy bread, earthy blood sausages and alcohol laden desserts were the kind of food everyone should eat. Some of the women behind the cook gave her small commiserating smiles, there were a few shrugs at the cook's obvious Imperial sympathising. Roisin hated this passivity but kept her mouth shut. She would not make the same mistake again, mouthing off Imperials to her employers.
"It'll be trial by fire tonight girl. The female staff who help prepare food are being asked to serve upstairs. We should have a spare dress for you." The cook looked at her body. "Hopefully it will fit."
As she left the rest of the cooking team relaxed and crowded around Roisin, switching back to Arkanisan.
"Were you working in another kitchen before this?"
"No, I was teaching in the neighbouring village." She said, trying to keep the sadness out of her voice. Some of the older kitchen staff understood and looked away.
"You're a teacher, what are you doing here-" said a younger girl with dark brown hair, looking confused. An older woman interrupted her.
"They closed the schools down, remember? The Arkanisan speaking ones anyway." All the women looked down, ashamed. They had closed the school, months later, but that was not why Roisin had left. She had been amazed anyone would hire her. The reason she was standing in this kitchen was that the job entailed fluid Basic and most of the inhabitants of the planet could barely pass on a few sentences. The staff, now introduced, returned to their work and Roisin joined in with the kitchen bustle before evening service. An unflattering black dress was procured for her and just about fit over her large thighs and hips. As she left the comfort of the kitchens some of the staff stopped her, looking oddly worried.
"Be careful of the Commandant's wife. She will punish for any mistakes." And older woman with pale red hair going grey cautioned her.
"Punish…?" Roisin asked and trailed off in horror as one of the girls held up the palms of her hand, red welts crisscrossing the skin. She felt like she had been thrown back in time. She followed the women up from the kitchen into a somewhat rickety lift which carried them to the upper levels of the building. A tall, slender woman in crisp white with perfectly coiffed blonde hair stood in the hallway outside the lift, eyes staring at every single server who passed. Expensive stones glittered at her ears and throat. A Pikhalian fox was gruesomely wrapped around her shoulders as a scarf, the beautiful brush tail trailing on her right side. It made Roisin's heart hurt to see it like that. The woman, clearly the Commandant's wife, whoever that was, glared at the plate Roisin held in her hands to serve and snapped her neck in approval for it to be taken inside.
She entered the dining room, full of vague trepidation. The high ceilings of the upper rooms gave the space a hushed dignity. This must have been where the university staff met after lectures to relax, she thought wistfully. There was a gleaming dark table upon which was set several place settings, below a large chandelier gleaming in the soft light. Huge paintings were hung on the walls and Roisin recognised some as images from old Arkanisan legends, images of gleaming silver fish and majestic men in colourful brocade and long beards. She was so mesmerized by the room she failed to notice the figures in black arranged around the table. A dark-skinned attractive man in a sharp black uniform fluffed out his napkin, fastidiously laying it down on his lap. The red headed man was there as well, coincidentally, looking at the painting behind her. An older man with white hair and skin sat at the other side of the table, fingers drumming on the polished wood. They had lapsed into silence as the women entered to serve the food. The red-headed one snapped to attention as she walked towards him, holding an entrée of something small and vaguely vegetable like. He glared at her like he had on the training grounds, his mouth slightly quirked to the side. She focussed on holding the plate steady and delicately placing it in front of him. He regarded her through pale eyelashes as she stepped back. They resumed speaking as the servers began to walk out of the room.
"We have heard excellent things about your training methods Commandant Hux, it is a pleasure to see them in action." A smooth voice said. A rather cold grunt of acknowledgment followed.
"Moff Gideon has joined us today to discuss future plans for rolling out academy training. The Empire needs new blood Commandant." said another clear Coruscant accented voice.
She had no idea who was speaking and didn't want to either, the further she stayed away from Imperial business the better.
"Their name is Moth?" she whispered to another serving girl in the hallway. The girl glanced behind her, making sure no one had heard.
"No, its 'Moff' – a title."
"What does it mean?" Roisin whispered, arranging the wines for the next course of the meal. The girl shrugged turning in time to see the tall blonde woman come around the corner.
"No talking." She snapped as if they were children. Roisin turned away to roll her eyes and then made her way back into the room, wine in hand to refill glasses. Silence descended again as she entered and lifted only as she left the room. Her hand was on the door to leave when they next spoke.
"What about the locals, would they make good candidates?"
"No. Lazy peasants." Was the curt answer from a member of the room. The answer hit her like a punch to the gut. Was her brother a lazy peasant when he fought and died for the Empire? She dug her nails into her palms to stop the tears. Rotten Imperial assholes, she thought viciously. She couldn't wait to be dismissed by the cold woman in the fox stole and slowly made her way up flights of stairs to her bedroom. Her tiny room with a single soft bed and nightstand. She lay down, finally a moment alone and tried desperately not to think of him. She needed to rip him out of her, his soft brown eyes and kind smile. The disastrous decision that led her to be in this awful place. She pulled the pillow over her head and screamed, eventually falling asleep with exhaustion.
Unlike her time after being fired which had been full of black days of broken-hearted musings in bed, Roisin felt she actually had something to do at the Academy. A welcome change. The blackness rarely rose up, but after several weeks, she had a terrible confession to make. Roisin loved to gob in the food. She wasn't proud of it, but she did in fact spit in any meals she could reasonably work on for the Imperials above. She had contemplated leaving the high-quality meat they dined on out of the freezer but extending her sabotage to food poisoning would be too far. Too obvious, she corrected. She massively enjoyed not washing her hands during food prep. She knew it was gross, knew she would be severely punished if she was caught but continued on regardless. It helped her sleep at night, getting the piddly wages from the Academy that she did. One year left before she was off this planet, en route to a teaching post in another part of the galaxy. She scratched off every day on a small tracker near her bedside table, looking forward every night to making that mark and laying her head down on the thin pillow.
This morning she had been preparing vegetables for the later dinner, peeling and chopping until she couldn't see anymore. The kitchen was quiet, the staff otherwise occupied at the local markets. Looking up eventually she realised it was time for lunch. She went out into the kitchen gardens to enjoy another rare chance at sunshine and avoid the continuously repeating question "Is this it?" which threatened her every day in the quiet of the kitchens. The gardens were lush with summer flowers, large bushes of lavender, tall pink foxgloves and sprays of delicate hydrangea. Insects buzzed in the sweet fragrant afternoon, near her favourite place to sit, an old wooden bench tucked into the back of the garden area. She had pulled off her outer uniform in the kitchen foyer and returned to her simple white linen dress underneath. As the sun shone, she unbuttoned the top of her dress, pulling it loose to expose her chest and the top of her pale white breasts to the sun. She sighed with pleasure and closed her eyes, food temporarily forgotten.
The crunch of gravel made her eyes snap open. At the top of the path was a tall dark shape, a man in plain black uniform and cap. He was watching her again. That red-headed one. Of course, the women working at the academy got ogled, part of the job of serving imperials, but Roisin was just confused by the attention of this one. His cold eyes tracked her constantly past the younger prettier girls when she was asked to serve upstairs. Well, if he wanted to creepily stare at her while she enjoyed the sun, he was more than welcome to it, she thought and closed her eyes again.
She heard footsteps and hoped he had walked away. A shadow passed over her and stayed, blocking the weak sun. She squinted up at the solid figure above her. He was glaring down at her and specifically staring down into her dress.
"What is your name girl?" a rolling Coruscant accent, completely out of sorts with the lilting sing song of Arkanis natives. So, he wasn't Arkanis born.
She closed her eyes and continued to bask in the sun. Hopefully he'll feck off soon, she thought.
"Answer me, girl." The heat in the voice made her look up again.
"No." she said, clipped and turned away from him, removing the offending cleavage from his eyeline. "I don't answer to 'girl'".
She heard the crunch of gravel as he moved even closer. Her heart was racing in her chest, but he didn't know that. She refused to show fear. He walked back around to face her again, crotch now adjacent to her face.
"Come to my room tonight." He ordered, bending slightly at the waist to lean into her while staring into her eyes with his bizarrely intense ones.
"I'm very busy washing my hair tonight."
He frowned. "Wash it another night."
Oh, he thought she was serious. How embarrassing for him, she thought, squashing a smirk from her face. She stood up from the bench, making him step backwards slightly.
"And what would we be doing in your room?"
"Are you simple?" he said, frowning at her. Charming, she thought, a true gentleman.
"Playing dejarik. Dismantling a hover droid. Going over student lesson plans? The possibilities are endless." She said as she buttoned up dress again, his eyes following every slow movement.
"Your Basic is… excellent." He said, and confidently reach out to a loose curl of hair lying against her shoulder, pulling the curl taut in his hand and letting it spring back. It was an oddly intimate gesture. Roisin didn't like it and grew even more embarrassed as she visibly flushed. She tossed her head, making sure her loose curls were out of his immediate grasp. He stepped in closer, and she saw herself reflected back in the pupil of his blue eyes. She wanted them desperately to be someone else's, a soft warm brown that crinkled at the corners. They stood like that for a frozen moment, both refusing to look away. Roisin didn't know what would have happened, but an opening window by the kitchens signalled the staff was back and the man immediately stepped back and strode away, arms behind his back without a second glance.
Some weird academy instructor, she thought to herself stomach still fluttering, and shrugged off the strange experience after briefly considering the need to wedge a chair behind her bedroom door.
The Commandant's wife had been on the warpath that evening, shouting at the head cook about the menu choices for the evening. They could hear the head cook's simpering appeasement get quieter and quieter as the Commandant's wife left the lower levels. The head cook reappeared. Now the Imperials were out of earshot the women returned to their own native language, finally free of the restrictions of Basic.
"That red headed one –"Roisin began with some of the other kitchen staff. The head cook nodded her head, a simpering smile plastered on her face.
"Commandant Hux, he runs the Academy."
"Commandant – ok." Roisin said stupidly, brain short-circuiting at the high rank. She tried again. "Have any of you been… have you had some unwanted attention from him?"
"That one? The cold fish?" The kitchen broke out in a cloud of titters and giggles. The head cook shook her head in disgust.
"The higher ups never bother us." The head cook said, reassuringly. "Too busy rebuilding the galaxy to have time for women." She said, less reassuringly.
"So, none of you…"
"Of course not! That one doesn't touch his own wife, let alone anyone else." Said the tall red-headed lady who had warned her earlier.
The worst, the worst part about Imperials is that they got into your head. It was why her brother had signed up to fight for the Empire, its why her town had agreed to open Arkanis Academy and it was, most regrettably, why Roisin was currently on her bed furiously touching herself, soaking wet for some stupid commandant. She had been with men before, sure, and even had a few boyfriends. She liked have sex, when she could. She had never seen a man look at her like that before. She thought he was going to rip off her clothes in the garden. It didn't help that he was attractive. She closed her eyes again and replayed the fantasy. His rough hands trailing across the top of her exposed breasts. Her slowly rolling up her linen dress to show him the red curls between her legs. Pulling off her dress so he could look at her soft body and gently touch between her thighs, fingers rubbing gentle circles around her nub. Maybe his face would change into something approachable, and she tried to imagine him relaxed and smiling but then the fantasy would collapse. He could only frown and she'd sit him down amongst the flowers to lecture him about asking people if they were simple or touching hair without permission. With a huff she moved her hand away from her wetness and punched her thin pillow a few times before dropping off to a fitful sleep.
