PART III

Chapter 27

There are two mess halls onboard the Profundity– the central mess for the bulk of the crew and indentures, and the senior officer's dining hall, for captains and above, serving maybe 30 people total.

Indenture resources are split evenly between both.

Slake doesn't work at the senior lounge. Not because she's been told it's off limits—that designation is solely for the hangar—but rather because she can't bear to see Exel's face. She doesn't want him to see her in an indenture apron and know just how thoroughly he has defeated her. So Slake sticks to Central Mess.

Central mess follows Imperial regulations for a basic garrison diet. It's a protein, a vegetable, and a starch for every meal. The Empire does not spend capital on spices, so there is no complexity. Steam the rice, fry the meat, nuke a veg, and slop it on 650 trays, three times a day.

The indentures have it down pat, so Slake stays out of the way. She finds a stool in a supply closet and spends her days sitting in the corner, ruminating about all the things she could have done differently to save Pyre. She should have pulled her weapon on Exel, then shot Pyre to save her any more torture. Then Virta. Then herself. It would have taken two seconds at most. Two seconds that would have stopped weeks, months, years of torment for the indentures aboard Profundity.

Not to mention whatever horrors she will face once she is court martialed.

As a pilot, she'd been outgunned by Rebels, but in those sorties, she always had a briefing, a protocol, and a goal. Slake knows that she's performed with incredible courage, but only when she'd been given permission to be brave. To suddenly reverse course and shoot her superiors – well, she thinks she has a better chance of space-walking home from Nixus.

The hole itself has been blissfully silent these past few days. It has either found a new target or is still licking its wounds from their last encounter. The thought that she has the power to humble some infinite, cosmic force seems laughable now as she fetches onions from the storage room per some indentured Twi'lek's request.

Every morning upon waking in her indenture's bunk, she showers and dresses and walks past the medbay. If the door is open, she can see inside. Today was the first day she caught a glimpse, and she saw that Roderick was not there. He must have been released. Virta confiscated her datapad, and the pilot's bullpen is off-limits to her, so she's had no contact with Kell since Exel took her away from his bacta tank at gunpoint.

He hasn't been taking his meals in the mess hall.

When Slake isn't replaying all the ways she destroyed her life, sometimes she's tempted to reach out to Nixus. Ask how precisely she can serve it, allow it into her. All she would ask for in return is the opportunity to watch that swirling black maw swallow the Empire whole.

But no. There are too many innocent people in the galaxy who would die along with the Empire. As tempting as it would be to consign her revenge to an indestructible force, she knows she can't do it. She'll take her court martial. She'll be worked to death. She'll die. Her short, unhappy life will finally be over.

Strangely, Slake finds herself looking forward to the end.

"Captain Slake," a familiar voice says from behind her. She turns to see Gormaanda, dressed in the classy chef's whites that the indentures wear in Senior Officer Dining.

"I'm not a Captain anymore," Slake informs her.

Gormaanda offers a disapproving frown. "Did you not earn the rank?"

"Yes, I did. But it was stripped from me. I have no claim to it anymore."

Gormaanda looks her up and down. Slake feels uncomfortable under Gormaanda's gaze. She's seeing herself through the four-armed alien's eyes: a beaten woman, slouched on some stool, doing nothing at all besides fetching onions when asked. Slake straightens her back self-consciously.

"I will address you as Captain because that is what you are. If any colonizer takes issue with that, they can come to my kitchen and beat me themselves."

The alien's speech is firm, clipped, and leaves no room for debate. "Very well. What is it that you need, Gormaanda?"

The woman folds both sets of arms. "I humbly request the Captain's presence in the Senior Officer's Dining Hall. My sous-chef has contracted a case of broken legs and I need someone to chop vegetables."

"My god, what happened?"

"The poor girl objected to being raped. So a number of stormtroopers taught her a lesson. Now dinner will be late if I don't get help. You don't look busy, so I'm volunteering you, Captain."

The matter-of-factness in Gormaanda's delivery stuns Slake. The horror of what was done to that indenture is patently converse to Imperial labor guidelines, and this alien is treating it like it was a mere nuisance, on par with a late delivery.

Slake studies the woman's yellow eyes. She sees rage and sorrow there. So, this isn't merely a disruption to her. Gormaanda copes with atrocity by getting to work.

"Anyway, I'm sure the staff in Central here can spare you," a small smirk. "Rohrchun," Gormaanda calls to the Wookiee, who's bringing out several racks of pre-packaged bantha steaks from the freezer.

"Rawr?"

"I'm taking the Captain to Senior. Try not to incite any revolutions without Captain Slake watching over you."

The Wookiee titters a small laugh, nods, then gets back to work.

"Follow me," says Gormaanda. Slake does what the woman says.

"We'll be chopping drickle fruit and pallie for kabobs tonight."

"I'm not much of a cook," Slake confesses. "The Empire's prepared food for me for most of my adult life."

"Oh, good heavens. And I thought the beatings and killings were terrible."

Slake is unsure if she should laugh. This woman is intense.

"Relax, darling. A joke. I'll teach you what you need to know, and lucky for you, I'm the best chef in this system."

Another joke – she's the only chef in the system. But she's also a chef under a particularly racist Vice Admiral. She has talent.

Together, Slake and Gormaanda take the turbolift to the senior officer's cafeteria in a peaceful silence. Slake finds Gormaanda's presence comforting. There's no need to converse, but despite her gruffness and strange sense of humor, an underlying sense of compassion shines through.

"Why did you pick me to help?" Slake asks.

Gormaanda sighs. "Do you often ask stupid questions, Captain?"

"I…" she's ashamed, suddenly reminded of Exel's acidic breath, whispering that she was a stupid whore.

"Look. I'm sorry. You're not just a good pilot, you're an excellent one. And in my four hundred years of living, I've learned that excellence is a transferable quality. Excellence relies on the skills of listening, critical thought, and decisiveness, and that's what I need in a sous-chef today. Will I need that tomorrow? Unclear. But today presents you with a challenge and an opportunity to learn something new. So let's see if you can handle it."

"Understood," Slake says. She's eager for anything to do with her hands.

The senior officers' kitchen is far cleaner and better stocked than Central. Colorful veg and an array of fish and meat are arranged in perfect rows in the walk-in refrigerator, looking scrumptious, even raw. Gormaanda points at two vegetables on the left-hand side of the cooler.

"Drickle. Pallie." She grabs two trays of each with her four hands and takes them to the long prep table, where other chefs of all different species scramble about, preparing the evening meal. Gormaanda explains how to hold a chef's knife and how to unhouse the drickle from its rind.

"You're going to want to press too hard with the knife. Everyone does it. I did it. And I'll still catch myself doing it when I'm not keeping my mind on the task at hand. Don't do that. Rock the knife back and forth. Let it do the work." Gormaanda goes on to explain that the most important hand when chopping is not the knife hand. You want that to be automatic. The hand that guides the fruit into the swift motions of the blade is the crucial one. The results of that hand's work will have a direct influence on the mouthfeel of the final product. "Will your veg or meat be tender and appealing, or a great chore of endless mastication?"

While still cutting, she uses a third hand to pull a single slice of drickle, two centimeters wide. "This cut. Every time. If you miss, you are forbidden to fret over it. Just push that piece away, and I'll find another use for it later."

Slake watches the motion of the knife. Gormaanda's grace is subtle but staggering under the speed with which it is deployed. "Copy," says Slake.

In ten minutes, Slake is flying through the chore, chopping quickly through the trays that the other chefs bring to her. One of Gormaanda's assistants, a female Chiss, looks at one of her finished pallie.

"Is it okay?" Slake asks.

"Well. You don't suck at this. But you're not very good, either."

Slake gets good. In three days, she's learning seasoning techniques, the basic principles of rich flavor, brilliant texture. She begins to grasp the chemistry of salt and fat, how they respond to heat. By the end of the week, she knows the precise mistake she makes when she botches a dish.

"Error is our finest instructor," says Gormaanda, wincing at a very sour broth that Slake ruined.

"I went nuts with the citrus."

"Exactly. It's unspeakably awful. Now throw this in the trash and try again."

Slake still can't sleep, retracing her horrible missteps. She can still find herself overrun by sorrow and guilt, dreading what is to become of her once she returns home. But cooking gives her something to focus on that isn't death or punishment or some infinite monster lurking just a few dozen klicks outside of the main observation port. Every day, she's learning something new about food. She's taking those lessons and putting them into practice.

She can be a better chef than what she was yesterday. Considering her circumstances, it's not quite fulfilling. But it's close.

After a few more days, she stops hiding in the back of the kitchen. She serves food to the Imperial officers who sneer at her. She serves Virta his steak just the way he likes it. She breads and deep fries tip-yip nuggets and fritzles for Exel specifically.

"Enjoying your new station, Amara?" he says, a nasty grin stretched across his face.

"Yes, sir. Thank you," she says.

Eat it up, you pig, she thinks.

She's never had thoughts like this before, but the voice in her head doesn't belong to the hole. It's not her parents' voices, not the Academy's, not Tav's either.

It's Amara Slake's voice. Homegrown and original, one hundred percent. And she knows this about herself, deep in her heart: she hates the Galactic Empire.

During the lunch rush, Credenzo struts into the dining hall, trailed by her trio of young vipers from the TIE group. These sycophants don't have the rank to enter, but it's not like there's a bouncer at the door.

Then Slake notices the new stripe on Credenzo's shoulder. She's been promoted to Captain.

"Slaaaake!" Credenzo screeches, drawing out Amara's name. "Look at you, serving your betters. It must remind you of Corellia… only you're not sucking any dicks. But who knows what goes on back there with all those savages, right?" Her little friends laugh behind her.

"Hello, Aliston."

Credenzo's mood darkens. "I don't recall you asking permission to address me by my first name, bitch."

"That's because I didn't ask."

"I'd watch it if I were you, Slake. I outrank you now." She shows off her new shoulder patch.

Slake grins. "You're very practiced at that gesture. You must have to remind others that you're a captain often."

Credenzo's little shitbirds eye each other nervously.

"You know that the Rebels built sophisticated temperature controls in their brig. I could put you in there. Set it to Hoth's climate. See how clever you are through chattering teeth."

"Captain Credenzo!" shouts Gormaanda effusively. "I'm happy to see you."

Credenzo doesn't take her eyes off of Slake. "What?"

"I wanted to congratulate you on your promotion!" It's a shame that Major Tav is feeling ill, but I suppose that gives you the opportunity to showcase your skills as an interim commander." The full-scale flattery assault from Gormaanda begins to crack Credenzo's rage directed at Slake.

"Why, yes. I suppose it does."

Gormaanda leans over the counter and whispers to Credenzo conspiratorially. "I've made something very special to celebrate your accomplishment. A Cantonica delicacy."

"I'm from Canto Bight, you know," Credenzo says, loud enough for several of the closest tables to hear.

"Well, I did ask around a little bit." From the small cooler underneath the counter, Gormaanda removes a gelatinous, quivering cake that shifts in color as the cafeteria lights fall on it.

Credenzo issues a delighted little gasp. "Is that what I think it is?"

Gormaanda smiles wide. "A stroudcake."

"Our servants used to take days to make this back home!"

"The folding of the dough does take some time, yes. But the labor is well worth it to celebrate your achievement."

Credenzo orders one of her vipers to take the cake back to the table. She hands serving utensils to another pilot from the TIE group. "Will you be having the main lunch today? Or will it just be the cake?" Gormaanda asks.

Credenzo glares back at Slake. "I'll eat nothing prepared by this slut. Just the cake."

"Very well. Congratulations, Captain."

Credenzo grunts back at Gormaanda ungratefully. She walks back to her pilots' table and watches her squadron squabble about who will cut the first piece for their new CO. She stands like some imperious queen, lording over her domain. Which is a cake.

Slake whispers to Gormaanda. "I take it you knew there was going to be a problem with her."

"You're not used to being subjugated. So, a small piece of advice: wait for your moment. You didn't have the cards then."

"I don't think I'm getting new cards."

"I would not be so certain of that. If I were you."

Gormaanda and Slake watch as Credenzo takes a bite, closes her eyes, and is transported back home to Canto Bight, the servants, the money, the power of that horrible rock. There is a look of serene rapture on the new Captain's face.

"I pissed in the gelatin," says Gormaanda.