Frey... The name whispered to her like distant waves below the cliffs. It stung her like pollution in the rain. It brought back things that were meant to be forgotten. It haunted Phasma with a power the name's bearer didn't deserve, an insignificant child snatched from Phasma's own clan. The girl should have disappeared into the masses. The platoon of recruits recently transfered to the Finalizer were identical in appearance and armour and thinking, stripped down to alphanumeric codes. Frey was amongst them, and should have been no different from the others, no more worthy of examination than any other stolen or orphaned child. Instead, she had to stand out, and announce herself with a voice and presence no one could fail to attend. Warcry.
The girl's screams could never pass unremarked. They couldn't be forgotten. They did more than bring attention to themselves. Those screams brought back the voices of the Scyre. They brought back the feel of Phasma's war mask upon her face. They brought back the sound of her own voice unfiltered through her helmet. They brought back the touch of her own dialect in her throat. They pulled on her to reveal secrets she thought buried. Frey tied to Phasma's past, and that past tied Phasma to a weak beginning she had fought to escape. It tied her to truths and betrayals she had long worked to hide. She'd thought she had eliminated those weaknesses, but they had come back to her in the form of a girl with a memory and a voice of her own, one who could reveal everything about Phasma.
The recruits lined up by number and marched along the rack, each taking a blaster as they passed by. Everything was in order. Phasma knew without looking exactly which blaster each recruit would hold, weapons she knew looked and felt identical to one another.
"Take positions." Phasma took care to maintain the accent she learned from the First Order. Even as she spoke she felt the imitation wrestle with her tongue, a battle she hadn't had to fight since she left Parnassos, a battle that had returned with Frey's presence.
Recruits faced the distant bay doors, weapons raised to shoulders. Frey's posture lined up exactly with the others, and yet she stood out like a beacon under Phasma's gaze. Phasma resisted the urge to stare at the blaster Frey held, but she couldn't keep her mind from cycling over the memory of holding that same weapon in her hands early this same morning, before the recruits were roused from their beds. No one had seen her touch that blaster. There was nothing to distinquish it from the rest. There was nothing linking it to her.
"Engage."
The bay doors opened, and droids swarmed out. Their weapons systems locked on to the recruits, ready to incapacitate anyone who hesitated. Frey opened on them even as the came through the doors, screaming as she fired. The blaster jerked in her hands, emitting an unnatural whine and sticky smoke. An explosion wrenched her arm and caved in her chestplate, and she crumbled backward. Her scream cut off in a gargle. Her shoulder rolled out of its torn socket, and her mangled arm flopped when it hit the floor. A hole gaped in the side of her torso, exposing broken ribs. The Scyre in Phasma wanted to run forward and snatch up the body, drag it away in case the heart still pumped fluid through the veins, drain the body of moisture before her enemy had the chance to heal.
"Cease fire!" Phasma shouted. "This exercise has ended. Return your weapons and form ranks."
The droids halted their advance at her words. Phasma stepped toward the body smartly, with no greater urgency than an accident demanded, and picked smoking bits of metal from Frey's body, all that was left of the weapon. "UV-9009."
The recruit approached her, his body tense beneath his armour.
"When were these blasters last inspected?" Phasma demanded.
"Yesterday, at 0600, Captain."
"You will inspect each of them again, and submit a report detailing what went wrong with this one. Then you will turn yourself in for disciplining for failing to find the defect the first time." Phasma thrust the twisted remains of the blaster against his chest.
"Yes, Captain."
Medical staff came to take Frey's body away, to go into the incinerator once they filed their report. Frey was nothing more than a memo contributing to the statistics on weapon malfunctions. Her name would never be spoken. Her memories would never be known. The remnant she carried of Phasma's past would be burned away along with the rest of her. There was no more Phasma of the Scyre. There was only Phasma of the First Order, undisputed in her right to power, and there was no one to remember otherwise.