Chapter Text
Connix dreams the same thing over and over again: a moon cracks like an egg; its collapse not unlike that of a star. Blood pools in her lungs; ash fills her mouth; and then there is nothing but the rocky surface beneath her shaking and trembling apart, until she is left alone to die in a cold sea of darkness. An unending send of horror sprouts from the pit of her stomach, and grows and grows and grows until there is nothing else.
The dream follows her from early adolescence into adulthood. From the backwater planet she escaped before the First Order overtook the capital and sabotaged its defenses, to the Resistance and its many bases scattered across countless systems; from the day she first held a blaster in her hand, to the moment she was instated as a junior communications officer—after all this time, it has persisted. It remains.
That growing sense of horror comes to her in her waking hours when she bears witness to the complete annihilation of the Hosnian System. Though Starkiller Base is ultimately destroyed, its ghost haunts the Resistance even after it begins to rebuild. Millions of lifeforms, lost—pools of resources, gone in what feels like, afterward, the blink of a human eye. It takes them months to approach nearly half of what they’d lost. It hangs heavy over each of them, like a curtain. She expects it to fade by the time a year has passed, but she still feels the same.
Then she hears it. From Tabala Zo, who heard it from Jessika Pava, who heard it from Poe Dameron himself: the Resistance has begun to organize a plan that they hope will ensure the death of Armitage Hux. She goes to General Organa as soon as she can; before she can fully comprehend what intends, the words are already out of her mouth: “I want to volunteer.”
The last time the Resistance tried to assassinate Hux, it was dealt a serious blow by the First Order; in retribution, several of their best ships had been destroyed, and many of their fighters had been captured and executed. Since then, he has always positioned himself behind his armies, backed by steel, blood, and the banners of those he’s crushed and stolen from. He has never left himself vulnerable to a Resistance attack—until now.
There is no time for second guessing; as soon as General Organa and the other leaders have discussed it amongst themselves, it is decided, and so it is begun: the lieutenant is outfitted with fraudulent credentials and the uniform of a First Order communications officer. She is sent in the place of a former cadet to fill a maintenance position in an academy that was built to raise children of the Empire and its ideologies. The boots are stiff, and the collar scratches at her throat, threatening to chafe it raw, but she knows her missions. She knows that, if she is successful, death will have lost one man to follow.
Blending in is easier than anticipated; there are thousands of young faces like hers, each of them eager to learn to find, earn, and keep their place in the war between the First Order and the Resistance. Often times, she is mistaken for a cadet, but it doesn’t matter; positions in academies rotate every quarter, so it isn’t long before she and several other communications officers are loaded onto a transport headed for the Vao Pli System.
When she arrives at a large, central First Order base teeming with activity, she finds herself in the same docking station as a hulking, ominous freighter that she immediately remembers from holographic images Poe and Jessika had her memorize before she departed for her mission. There are guards everywhere, each of them armed. It’s a wonder no one has noticed—or worse, sensed—how she’s been clamping down on her horror and nerves every time someone looks at her with any amount of interest. She scans the activity surrounding the freighter, searching for her way in—and sees it.
There. Her point of entry: a maintenance hatch near the very back of the ship, almost of side, its door hanging wide open.
Connix hopes no one can sense her growing sense of urgency or the way her heart is pounding in her chest as she, in a sea of stormtroopers and crisp, dark uniforms, begins to make her way towards the hatch.
Chapter 2
Notes:
lieutenant kaydel ko connix is a lesbian :) thanks for coming to my ted talk
Chapter Text
Jessika warned her that the waiting would be the worst part. Connix is inclined to agree.
Stuck in the hold of the ship, tucked between various containers and vehicles, with nothing but the cold dark of space for company, she wonders how long it will take for the freighter to depart.
She manages to fall asleep; she’s not sure how much time has passed when her eyes snap open at the sound and feeling of the freighter’s engine rumbling to life. When she can feel the motion of the ship, she gets to her feet.
It is time. It is begun. And it will end.
Hux’s quarters are difficult to find, especially since she has to find cover every time she hears a wayward echo or approaching footsteps somewhere down the hall.
Connix wonders what will happen afterward. If alarms will blare, or if nothing but silence will follow his death. She wonders if she’ll finally be sick, or if relief will finally wash over her and relieve her of this anxiety. She wonders, dimly, if she’ll make it out alive—but she has a plan for that one. It isn’t guaranteed to work, but it’s the best chance she’s got. Causing several escape pods and making it look like a malfunction to eject won’t fool them for long by any means, but it’s what will prevent her from getting shot down before she gets a chance to make it home.
When she finds his quarters, she has to find another way in because of the troopers standing guard she glimpses around the corner. It takes her a while to find the grate of a vent that she can pry open and fit into. It’s a tight squeeze—so much that she can hardly move when the vents turn—but she manages to wriggle through anyway. She’s not sure how long it takes, but, by the time she peers through a grate and sees him in his quarters below her, she knows it’s been long enough.
On the way up here, Connix wondered what she would say to him. What his last words would be. What the last thing he would ever hear would be.
In the end, it goes like this:
Connix drops down to the floor. Without a word, she takes her blaster out of its holster, aims, and fires.
sapphfics on Chapter 1 Wed 20 Dec 2017 03:49AM UTC
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AutisticCassCain on Chapter 1 Fri 13 Jul 2018 09:32AM UTC
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sapphfics on Chapter 2 Wed 20 Dec 2017 06:18PM UTC
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Account Deleted on Chapter 2 Wed 20 Dec 2017 06:31PM UTC
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AutisticCassCain on Chapter 2 Fri 13 Jul 2018 09:34AM UTC
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