Chapter Text
14 mins. | Download: Chapter 1 | Music: Where is My Mind? - Safari Riot (Pixies cover)
I.
Report to my office post shift.
Six words in eight-bit aurebesh, harmless as they are harrowing, flash over Lieutenant Mitaka’s workstation and for a brief moment, he is ensnared in their garish glow.
The directive is simple—deceptively so—and yet quietly dangerous like a thermal grenade yet to detonate. Each word flings to the far corners of his consciousness only to rip through every checklist and bullet point and protocol and do-not-forget memo fighting for even a millimeter of space in an over-crowded and under-caffeinated mind. And yet that is all it takes. One vague missive from General Armitage Hux and all of those carefully compartmentalized data are reduced to little more than mental detritus.
Mitaka reads the note once and then again and then in every imaginable tone his superior has ever employed (of which only two exist: biting sarcasm or unsettling ennui) and in that instant he cannot decide which sounds less threatening but then concludes that it definitely doesn’t matter because he already knows.
Mitaka knows what this is about.
Because Mitaka is the greatest chronicle of his own personal shortcomings.
Or so he thought.
“Do you know why I’ve summoned you?”
General Hux looks as Mitaka always sees him in his dreams: marble skin, stubbornly smooth despite the lack of sleep and glut of deathsticks only lit out from under prying eyes.
The General’s hands are bare, he notices, no gloves, which means he recently indulged in his pet vice and Mitaka can’t help but wonder if any other soul on board is so privileged to share this secret?
“No, sir.”
“Really?”
Those sea foam eyes fire like heat seeking missiles, their target Mitaka’s rattling chest. Hux is searching for the truth. Even as he already knows it.
“I don’t think so, sir.”
“Nothing you can recall?” His lips meet in a plush line, the muscles tightening to reveal sharpened cheekbones. “Nothing that has happened?”
“Well, there is…one thing.” The General’s slender fingers steeple, his brow rising in a subtle entreatment: continue. “I was unable to review radiometrics this shift.”
“And?”
The reply is too prompt. He knows. Like a mallakin, he merely watches from his perch in the sky, merely waits for his prey to reveal itself.
“And there was an error. In their calculations.” Mitaka can feel his cheeks getting hot, his knuckles twisting at the small of his back. “Normally I have time to catch these things—normally I do catch them but—” The left corner of his eye twitches, an anxious, microscopic spasm developed so many cycles back he has lost count. “But, my time has been…monopolized, sir.”
“By what?”
That terrible purr of a voice echoes in the room, in Mitaka’s head. He can hear the phantom of it trembling in his chest. The mechanized growl. The horrors of a human soul ground up in the gears of a droid possessed and when Mitaka closes his eyes at night, he sees that giant creature towering over him, stalking him even when he sleeps.
“It’s more of a ‘whom’ than a ‘what’, sir.”
The General’s eyes narrow, serpentine and seraphim all at once.
“How's your neck?”
“My—? It’s fine, sir! It’s perfectly fine!”
“Let me see it.”
“Why?!” he blurted, the anxious screech only a tick less embarrassing than the informality of it.
“I want to see it for myself.” His superior’s stare holds firm, like two chips of ice. “Now.”
Hastening to obey, Mitaka fumbles with the collar of his uniform, pulse pounding so hard he can feel it through his gloves.
“Sir, if this is about my work, I can catch up—I can do a second shift on top of my—”
“—That is not what I’m asking,” Hux countered, head cocking to the side as he openly appraises his Lieutenant who endured all the past indignities of cadet locker rooms and shared sleeping quarters and yet has never felt more exposed in his entire life, never more vulnerable than he did standing beneath those blaring office lights, collar splayed to reveal a purple stripe of skin to the superior who studied him with nothing more than an unflinching gaze.
“I apologize sir, I should have diffused the situation, employed other tactics, perhaps, but Commander Ren—”
“—Is a petulant child who only knows violence and only respects the very same. There is nothing you could have done.” To Mitaka’s surprise, the General leans back into his chair and turns towards the giant viewport stretching the entirety of his office wall. “But as it stands, you seem distracted.”
‘Distracted’ sounds mordantly polite for the sleepless nights and anesthetic-induced calm Mitaka has endured in the weeks following ‘the incident’, as those on the bridge had come to call it.
“My apologies, sir. I’ve tried but…I fear I’ve failed my position—and even worse, that I’ve failed you in the course of it.”
“Don’t be silly, Lieutenant, you’ve done nothing of the sort.” The General waved him off, not even bothering to turn away from that velvet void. “But I must admit, the way this encounter has affected your work has been sub-optimal.”
Sub-optimal. Those words have never been attached to Mitaka’s name before and to hear General Hux say them is all the more devastating.
“Please, sir, tell me what to do—tell me how I can make this right!”
And without missing a beat, Hux replied: “You can take leave.”
“But sir—” Leave? His uniform seemed to shrink until he could hardly breathe. “I can’t—but I didn’t put in for leave.”
“I know,” the General sighed, still studying his own reflection. “I’m ordering it.”
“Sir, please! Please don’t do this!”
“It’s already done.”
“But what of my command?”
Hux pauses, only his neck turning until Mitaka lands in his crosshairs.
“...Is that disagreement I’m sensing?”
“No, no of course not! It’s only my subordinates, sir, how will they—”
“—They have been informed their CO is taking time off.”
Time off. The words feel like an accusation. Like a blight to his name. And what would they think? He was a Lieutenant to General Hux, for godsake! There was no time off under General Hux.
And then Mitaka realizes that this can’t actually be happening. Perhaps it’s a joke? Yes, any moment now, the General will crack a smile, Mitaka is sure of it (even as he’s sure the General has never smiled in his life) and he’ll say ‘Of course there’s no time off in the Order! What do you think this is? A pleasure cruise?’ But the seconds stretch on to a full excruciating minute of utter silence and there is no telling just how long this alternate reality plays out in the Lieutenant’s mind and all the while the General definitely does not smile.
“Sir…have I done something wrong? Something to displease you?”
“Not at all, Lieutenant.” A touch of exasperation laces the reply as Hux turns to his monitor, keying something into the control board. “But after your recent slip up, I reviewed your code cylinders. You haven’t taken your scheduled breaks—”
“Not recently—”
“As recently as the last twenty cycles.”
Click.
“Furthermore, you haven’t scanned into the officer’s mess hall either.”
Click.
“Your resting pulse rate is abysmal and your blood pressure—well above standards.” Hux keys through a few more screens and Mitaka is certain that fainting would be a mercy over the never-ending nightmare playing out now. “And you haven’t used your PCO allotments in—” He pauses, brow furrowing. “That can’t be right…” He clicks a few more times, fruitlessly refreshing the system but his superior could have clicked for all eternity and that gaping zero would stubbornly remain.
And then Mitaka sees it. The exact moment General Hux discovers the truth. His expression changes, a range of looks pass over him: surprise, curiosity and then, worst of all, personal affrontment.
“Ever…?”
Hux is looking at him now like he’s some sort of specimen and Mitaka deeply wishes he would spontaneously combust and as a result, duly wipe the memory of him from the General’s mind forever.
“I’m—” He begins to grasp at the words but they’re tangled up in that feverish desert of a throat. “I’ve been a little…stressed lately, it’s true. But I don’t want to take leave—not now—not when they need—”
“It is not a punishment, Lieutenant.”
Then why did it feel like one?
“You’re not being relieved of your post. This is not a demerit or an indictment of your character.”
“But sir—”
“I need you, Mitaka.”
Mitaka doesn’t immediately recognize the words coming from his superior’s mouth and it’s not until he replays them back, once to be sure and a second time for good measure (not to mention all the times when he is alone, reflecting back in the days and weeks ahead) that he realizes General Hux actually used his name. Not his rank. His name and only his name, and that’s when he realized that Hux did need him.
I need you. They were the most important words his superior could ever say and there are suddenly no words with which to reply.
“More specifically, I need you to relax. You are far and away the most capable Lieutenant in my command and I do not make these decisions lightly. It is for your own good. Take the days. Spend them all drinking in the officer’s lounge or reading Tarkin’s anthology, I truly don't care. But I do not—I repeat—will not see you on that bridge. Tomorrow. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.” Mitaka replied, finally admitting defeat. “But how long will it last?”
“Provisionally, three cycles. I will monitor your vital signs during this time. If they return to an acceptable range after three cycles, you may return. Or if bridge conditions deteriorate to the point of unmitigated disaster in your absence. Whichever comes first. Dismissed.”