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I wore my long red hair in tight braids that I pinned up in a different pattern each day. Though my gray cap covered up most of my hair, I still stubbornly rose early each morning, chose a design, and carefully pulled my hair into many braids that I strung and curled into stars or flowers. As I wasn't permitted anything other than my assigned gray shoes, cap, and long smock, my hidden braids let me feel like there was a little bit more to me than all that dull gray. During my brief breaks or moments of downtime, I'd run my fingers along them, and they made me smile. Sometimes they were the only thing in a day that made me smile.

Back then I'd almost never seen the stars – even when I had the chance to step outside, it was nearly always cloudy on Arkanis. And I'd only ever seen real flowers a handful of times in my life. But I still dreamed of them, imagined slipping jade roses in my hair, like a heroine from my favorite holodramas. I had stacks and stacks of them stored in the drawer beneath my bunk, and they were the first thing I'd spent my wages on since I was a girl. The others always came to me first when looking for something to watch, even if they didn't like the romances as much as I did. I even had the illegal ones, the ones that broke the Regency Order – maids running off with princes and things like that. I kept those tucked into my pillowcase. You'd think the ones about the kitchen maids or farm hands being swept away by dukes and the like would be my favorites, but it was just the opposite. I loved looking at the beautiful ladies and princesses, with their elaborate, rainbow-colored hairstyles, dripping with jewels that I'd imagine came from many far-off planets.

I had only ever lived on Arkanis, and I hadn't planned to leave. My life had always been set out for me, and on Arkanis, with the Regency Order, there was no changing it. Plenty of people did that, left to try to be something else, something they couldn't be there. But I was content with my hologram dreams. Anything could happen out there in the stars – there were holos about that, too. On Arkanis I had work, wages, and I was safe. I thought I was safe.

I woke to rain, as I did most days. I slipped from my bunk and walked barefoot, silently toward the refresher at the end of the hall, where the lights would be on. Kitchen staff rose earliest, and I rose before the rest of them. We were all organics, no one from any respectable Arkanis house would eat what a droid had prepared. The Academy was so large that a few aliens behind closed doors had to be accepted, but for the prominent houses that sent their children to become Imperial officers, meals from a droid were a step too far.

I was tying my smock into place and slipping on my shoes as others began to enter the refresher. I felt lucky then that I'd always been up early, because it meant no one paid any mind that I always dressed first, away from everyone else. It wouldn't look like I was hiding anything, I thought. I'd never had anything to hide before, but now it was going easier than I would have thought. I'd even liked it sometimes, getting to have a secret. Yes, I was always exhausted, and always hungry these days. I scarfed down my portions and my stomach still groaned, I grasped at walls to catch my breath.

But a servant is supposed to be tired, I'd told myself. It was normal. It just meant I was good at my work.

There were narrow, sloped passages that led from the staff quarters to the Academy's large kitchens. They were housed in a cavernous vault belowground, and were at least four times as large as any kitchens I'd worked in before. It was said that before this place had been a residence for the Royal classes, and then the Imperial Academy it was then, it had been the ruins of some kind of palace or temple built by whatever extinct race had been on this planet before it was Arkanis. This made little difference to me, though it helped explain the estate's curious mapping – the servants' quarters housed separately down the hills and connected by passages, the large stone vault of the kitchens, the enormous fortress of the Academy above that had more floors, rooms, and of course, occupants than any house I had been in before, as well.

I'd had a decent line of manors belonging to minor families, even some time in a Landed House family, and I had hoped a few years at the Imperial Academy might help me land a job in somewhere finer. But I knew then that wouldn't happen, that I'd never walk the halls of an Arkanis Noble House. I'd used to dream of it, but by then, it hadn't bothered me so much anymore. I was building different plans, and I was proud of myself for that. Maybe a life a staring longingly at soft beds, rich meals, and the colorful gemstones along my masters' throats wasn't something to be envied, after all.

Droids were permitted cleaning duties, so a few were still in the kitchens when I entered. I was the first organic, and the droids ignored me, continuing to scrub the floors and clean out the ovens. After all, I had no access to give them orders. I set about the first tasks of the morning, powering on caf and tea brewers, taking morning stock of the food supplies, and heating up the available ovens and food processors. My efforts meant that by the time the other staff joined me, their first chores would already be done, and our Overseer, should he deign to come down, would have nothing to scold us for. It cheered me to think the others were grateful for this. That they might be kind to me in turn, if I needed it.

Breakfast went smoothly enough at first. The Overseer had all of us practiced and drilled and timed, so that caf and tea were hot when officers and instructors would begin to call from their rooms, and meals were plated and laid out on trays as the servers arrived to carry them upstairs. There were four main dining areas used on a regular basis – the mess hall for cadets, for which breakfast was usually a mild affair of porridge and tea, and a smaller one for patrolling guards and Stormtroopers whose meals were similar, but whom were permitted stronger caf. Then the officers and instructors in the main dining hall, who could request more specialized courses as they liked, then the rarely used banquet hall for visiting Moffs or other dignitaries. And then the mysterious Tower, for which strict meal requests were submitted each day, and Stormtroopers rather than servers arrived to take and return the meals. Training as an Undercook, I was mostly occupied with preparing the instructors' breakfasts, slicing fruits and grilling Iktotch toast, but I also had to run to check the various appliances, and that the stream of trays was steadily reaching the servers.

As the meal finished, the trays were returned, piled with mostly empty plates, glasses and cups, carafes still half- or quarter-full of hot water and caf. The serving staff left them on tables set along the hallway just beyond the kitchen, where they had previously retrieved them to bring them up to the dining hall. I should have left them to the others, or the droids, but the Overseer had called for them to be brought in, and I had been closest to the doors. Still, I should have stayed put.

Instead I went out into the hall, and picked up the first, heavily loaded tray. I should have walk slowly, but instead, I hurried. The plates rattled on the tray. I took three, four, five steps, my head down, so focused on heaving the tray forward and holding it steady that I didn't see Isobel moving by me. I swayed, and stepped sideways, my legs knocking into hers. I tipped forward, and the tray was out of my hands.

The entire kitchen went silent to the crash of shattered porcelain and the splash of cold caf across the stone floor.

Before I knew what had happened, I heard Isobel next to me. "Hurry up," she hissed, "Zori, come on, get up –"

My knees and hands were vibrating with pain. I tried to get a grip on the floor, but as I moved, I felt like I was going to be sick. And I couldn't do that, not in the kitchens, so I leaned forward, pressing my forehead to the cold stone floor. It was rushing to me now, I felt like my skull would burst – the broken plates, cups, would they take it out of my wages? Out of my days off? I knew I needed every last bit of it. It was still quiet, except for Isobel hissing at me, and there were footsteps, the Overseer coming to scold me any second. I'd hit the floor, how hard had I hit?

The footsteps, and another voice near me. Not the Overseer – it was low, and I didn't recognize it.

"I've let this go on long enough."

I felt something strong grip my right arm, and then on my left. I cried out when I was yanked up from the floor, but at least I wasn't sick. I was tilted sideways, my arm pulled forward, until I was leaning hard against someone. It was Isobel, I could just see her white blonde hair tied tight above her neck. The unfamiliar voiced called, "Come on." And we were moving forward.

I moved as Isobel shoved me. I didn't know where we were going, I didn't want to look at the others who must have been watching. But I saw their shoes scuttle over the floor to move out of the way as we walked out, out of the kitchen. We weren't supposed to be out of the kitchen, not for anything, for at least another two hours. Yet the strange voice had made Isobel carry me, had made her leave, down the passageway, back to the staff quarters. And even then we kept walking. I was beginning to get my feet back, I managed to count the bunks we passed, I heard a quick, swish noise –

"Where are we going?" I heard Isobel ask. I still didn't know the other voice. It was deep, and I thought a woman's voice, with an accent. She was an Offworlder. "The closest thing to sterile we're going to get in this place," she said.

The light changed, slightly, and I knew I was back in the servants' refresher. There were the windows that lined one wall, a little light coming in despite the gray sky and the patter of raindrops. Isobel finally stopped dragging me, and I could catch my breath, and look up.

I gasped suddenly, and felt Isobel shove at me again. The other speaking was an alien – Nautolan, right then all I could see were her green-skinned headtails. She was down at the end of the room, with the sonic showers, and a loud buzzing noise a moment later let me know she was running it, despite being outside the shower and despite that no one was supposed to be in this refresher at this time of day.

"That'll be enough," the Nautolan said, shutting off the shower and opening it again. "Come on, lie down."

By now, I was standing on my own feet again, even if I was still draped over Isobel. I could also plainly see what the Nautolan meant, with the gray blanket, ripped from a bunk, lying over the floor of the sonic shower.

"No," I muttered, trying to pull back from Isobel, to step away. My steps were wobblier than I'd expected, and Isobel grabbed my elbow to keep me from falling backward. Still, I persisted, "I don't, I'm not –"

"You're not well," the Nautolan said, before muttering something in a language I didn't know. "You need someone to take a look at you, and I've what you've got now –"

"She can go to Nurse Yorcot," Isobel cut in. "We should be doing that right now, why did we come down here?"

"She could have," the Nautolan snapped back, before looking away from Isobel. I met her large black eyes, and for the first time noticed the way her headtails lifted and twitched as she spoke. "But you didn't, did you?"

And then I understood. Somehow, this Nautolan knew the truth. But how could she? No one knew, I'd never said anything to anyone. No one could see yet. Could those large black eyes see through my smock? I pulled away from Isobel, holding my arms close to my chest, and shook my head.

"I don't want –"

"It'll just be a look." The Nautolan's voice was softer. I could tell she was trying to hide her impatience with me, yet it relaxed me all the same. "And to check your pulse. You need that, Aesori."

"You know my name?"

"I've heard about you, that you're always up before everyone else." The Nautolan reached out, but short of touching me. Instead she gestured toward the shower again. "Please, at least sit down."

I didn't know what else to do. I didn't want to look at Isobel, maybe I thought it was something like taking orders from the Offworlder. But what real choice did I have? This one knew my secret. She could tell anyone. Maybe she would, if I couldn't prove I was all right, that I could carry on. So I took a couple, still-wobbling steps forward into the shower. I felt Isobel's hands on me again, and let myself be lowered down onto the gray blanket, still warm from being run through the sonic mechanism. It was a nice thought, that it must be clean.

The Nautolan took my wrist. Her green fingers were cold, but the touch was still gentle. "My name's Yat, if you were going to ask."

I looked away, at my blurred reflection in the shower's steel walls. Isobel's blonde hair suddenly lit up the wall next to me. "You're not allowed to be doing this –"

"Your hands are cold," Yat interrupted, ignoring her. "Rapid pulse. And you were probably already fairly pale. Do you know how far along you are?"

I didn't look away from the wall. I continued to watch the reflections as I wordlessly shook my head. That flash of blond hair disappeared again, as Isobel's footsteps clapped against the refresher floor.

"You're pregnant?"

Isobel's startled tone forced me back to reality. A moment ago, I was numb, to the Nautolan's questions, to my secret so quickly unravelling out into this little shower stall, to the fact that I shouldn't be letting someone like this examine me at all. She'd be Unclassed, but she was almost certainly worse – Indentured. No one fit to be asking me these questions, telling me any of this.

I had been numb to all of it, until then, when abruptly there was a knife threatening in my throat.

"I'd guess about fourteen weeks, from when I noticed."

I didn't want to look at Isobel, so I turned away from the shower wall and toward Yat, who was still holding my wrist, and was now examining my hand. "How did you know?"

A few headtails twitched again. "You humans give out plenty of pheromones, it's easy to recognize." Yat put my hand down, then looked up, directly into my eyes. "I wasn't sure it was you until six weeks ago. Then you were getting paler, dizzy, breathing faster –"

"Then why didn't you –"

"It's illegal here, isn't it?" Yat glanced back at Isobel, who was silent, frozen in place. "I can't treat you. And after long enough I figured you knew, and had your own reasons for keeping it a secret. But you can't go on like this."

I leaned forward. I pulled up my knees, and rested my hands on them. Even with this much – too much being said at once – resting was clearing my head. I dug my fingers into the gray fabric of my smock.

"I'm fine," I insisted.

"You're anemic," Yat shot back.

"How do you know?"

It was Isobel who spoke, suddenly. I finally looked up, looked back at her. She was shuffling on her feet, back and forth, her arms held tightly at her side. Like she wanted to run, to get away from all this illicit talk as fast as she could, but couldn't break her curiosity, either. "How would you know something like that?"

Yat sighed. She leaned away from me, wiping her hands on her own gray smock. "I was a doctor before I was sent here."

"You were a doctor?"

I was glad Isobel said it, as I was thinking it, but I didn't have to be on the receiving end of the look the Nautolan gave her. Even those headtails tensed up like angry snakes. We didn't think much on it, that these aliens must have their own doctors, or something like it on their own planets. But if I hadn't been in the situation I was in, if I hadn't had my secret, I wouldn't have wanted her so close to me, either. It was illegal, anyway – whatever she might have been before, she wasn't that on Arkanis.

Isobel's eyes got wide. "Even for –"

But she seemed to think better of the end of that sentence, and a tense silence fell. After a few seconds, I tried to break it.

"Why were you sent here?"

It did get Yat to look away from Isobel, though she was no less tense, as I was about to learn.

"The Empire," she answered, and left it at that.

I didn't want those eyes turned on me, so I didn't ask her anything more about it. But the Empire only sent people like her for some kind of trouble –

"You're lucky, then."

Oh, I wished Isobel would shut up. "That they sent you to a place like Arkanis."

I suppose she meant it. Maybe she thought a Nautolan would like the wet weather, or that at least she didn't end up on some primitive world. Or as a slave. They said the Empire did that, on some worlds, or at least they didn't stop it. But there wasn't any of that on Arkanis. She might not get a wage if she was Indentured, but she had food and a bed and she couldn't be sold. Not exactly.

Yat didn't say what she thought of this. She shook her head, but she didn't glare again. She probably didn't like it much, but – well, I suppose she was a doctor, after all. She knew what was important. She looked back at me.

"So what is your plan here, Aesori?"

I sat up a little more. I tried to look more confident than I felt, now. "I've been saving up my wages –"

My voice faded a little as I thought of all those shattered cups. Who knew how much of that I'd have left. But I made myself continue. "- and my time. I'll wait until a week before the end, and then I'll go to my parents' place. They'll look after it –"

"Zori –" Isobel cut in over me, "You're going to get big, it's going to be obvious."

"I'll let out my smock." I was starting to feel a little defensive. Maybe I'd made a mistake letting myself get so weak, but I had been careful, and it was a good plan. It could work.

"You can't know for sure when the baby will come," Yat said. She sounded more patient then, maybe because she really wanted me to listen. "They're not giving you enough to eat as it is, and you might not be able to work these long hours right until the end."

"I'm fine." I started to push myself to my feet. "Thank you for your help, really, I'll be more careful next time –"

"Why don't you just go to Nurse Yorcot?" Isobel asked, stepping toward me. "They'll probably still let you work, even after the tray –"

I stood there silent, not looking at Isobel. In the corner of my eye, I thought I saw Yat's headtails twitch again. Maybe fear was something she could sense too, because a moment later she asked –

"Is there a father, Aesori?"

I didn't say anything. I didn't know what else to do. I was on my feet, and I felt steady again, and I began to walk, to walk away, past them. And I'd barely taken three steps before I heard the door to the refresher slam closed.

I was in a very fine room. Finer than any room I'd ever slept in. In another time, I would have longed to be in a room like this. Gleaming wood paneled walls, a large window that looked out onto the mountains west of the Academy, and the paddock that held the herd of dipolopods, the pack-insects the wealthier classes still liked to train and ride and sometimes have pull a carriage. They were bunched together in the rain, a dark mass hidden by the drizzle against the window glass. My bed was pushed right up to it. There was a small, two-tiered hovering chandelier at the ceiling, and a large, dark holoscreen on one wall. On a table near my bed there was even a porcelain vase holding four roses – they were synthetic, but I would have loved them all the same.

Like the first time I entered a room like this in the Academy. It wasn't normally proper for kitchen staff like me to go upstairs and serve, but when an order came in during the off-hours and the serving staff hadn't started their shifts yet, it was occasionally acceptable. And of course, any of us could be asked for, personally.

For me it meant changing from the gray smock to a black dress that tied at my waist, and a black cap. I prepared caf and a bowl of fruit as had been ordered, taking care in how I arranged a few plums around an Ithorian jewel-fruit. I looked forward to being in a fine room, and while the passages through the Academy are rather plain compared to what would be in a great house, the office itself didn't disappoint. It was large, and warm, and had enormous windows through which I could see the sea to the east, and the wide, empty beaches, and the lines of sea predators he was so fond of. There was a very large hovering chandelier, with lights that flickered gold and light blue. There was artwork, sculptures and paintings, and I asked him about them once or twice, but he never had any answers. Still, he saw how I liked to look at them, and how I liked to look out the windows, and so I think he let me do so, as often as possible.

The door to my room was locked. I didn't need to get up to test it, and even if I wasn't sure, I was afraid to move. There were wires and tubes now stuck to my chest, my hands, and my stomach, connected to machines beside my bed. There was a darkened med droid in the far corner, its steel head slumped forward. I didn't know what these machines did besides beep, or what might wake the droid. But I was afraid to do anything that might set off an alarm, or cause more trouble. And I was tired. If I'd tried to walk, I didn't know that I'd get very far.

The door opened, and he stepped inside. He was alone, he closed the door behind him. I didn't hear it, but I wondered if it locked again.

I think – he wasn't exactly the prince or duke out of one of my holodramas, was he? Of course, those were all actors, and knowing they were all just pretending to be of high class was part of the fun I had with it, like when I wove my hair. But the real thing, I saw very few of them, and none glistened like my holograms.

Brendol Hux hadn't come from Arkanis, or any of the Regency Worlds. Before the Empire he would have been Unclassed like any other Offworlder. The Empire did change that – our Empress had ceded to the Emperor, after all, and so their high-ranking officials had to be given due respect. Some of the elders still resented it, us serving the Unclassed. I didn't remember much from before the Empire, so it had made little difference. The truth was, before Brendol Hux, I thought very little about the Empire. I didn't even know his rank back then, only that he was important. In those days, I made meals for those cadets and instructors and officers, and occasionally brought them a tray, and one day I'd have the experience to seek placement somewhere else, where I could settle in for my life.

He didn't approach me after shutting the door. Instead he stood there, in that stance all the Imperials had, hands behind his back. The truth is it's not easy for me to recall his face – instead I remember little details. I know his eyes were blue, that his hair was red like mine, but darker. His shoulders always slouched slightly, his back never entirely straight – I used to be smacked across the back for slouching like that, when I was in training. His pressed gray uniform stretched slightly at the paunch of his stomach. I had offered, once, to let it out a little, so it would fit him better. I think maybe I'd wanted a reason to leave.

And I felt very small then, in a cot set up in that little room, tied to those machines through wires and needles. I felt afraid he would come closer. I had nowhere to go.

"Is there some reason you've behaved this way?"

I was surprised at his tone, like he was lecturing a child. It didn't help that I was trapped, that thing were so out of my control. I might as well have been a child. He was making me one.

I didn't look at him. I turned my head to the window instead. "I don't know what you mean."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him shake his head. "You're fortunate, you know that? I'll be taking care of this."

He turned – I heard his footsteps on the rug. He was pacing along the far wall, and he came no closer to me. "Maratelle won't be happy, of course, but you needn't worry about her."

Maratelle was his wife. I only knew she existed because he had mentioned her, once, while I was putting my hair back up. He'd said that her hair was blonde and stringy, and that mine was still thick and shining. I didn't think any of it had anything to do with her, really. She was in another world, one I meant nothing to.

"I'm going to protect you, Aesori."

I looked back up at him. I wasn't feeling particularly brave, but maybe what he'd said made me think he might actually listen to me.

"I'd like to leave, sir."

He sighed, and shook his head. "Do you really think I'm going to permit you to do that?"

Again, like I was a spoiled child. I raised my voice a little more, insistent. I knew what I was, I wasn't Indentured, I wasn't a slave. I was in this job by choice, in this academy by choice. Maybe they could ruin me, but they couldn't force me to stay.

"I don't need your permission, sir," I said quietly.

Then he moved toward me. He stepped over the large rug, and I lowered my head. I didn't look at him, I grabbed the bedding as he came to a stop right next to me. His shadow fell over my sheets. I could count his breaths.

"If you think you can leave," he said, "then walk out of this room."

I didn't say anything. I didn't move. I knew I would never try to leave, I didn't think about it, really. I knew this room. I didn't know what I would find outside the Academy, alone, not even the credits for a hoverbus to a proper townlet alone home. I knew this room, and it was warm, and there were fabric flowers on the table next to me. In a few hours, I would have tea and hot meal, while the rain hit the glass beside me.

I won't pretend that I've ever been brave. I always took my world as I found it.

He put his hand over mine, where I clutched my sheets.

"That's all right," he said. "Now, if you're ready, we can talk. We'll have to have you seen by a proper doctor, and obviously you can't be down in the kitchens now, we'll have to come up with something less tasking for you to do up here."

I thought, with a strange fondness, of my bunk downstairs, and the dozens of bodies that surrounded me each night.

"They won't like it," I said quietly. "They don't – it's not supposed to happen, this kind of thing, me and –"

"Don't worry about that." He released my hand, and patted it a few times. "There won't be any trouble."

Those rules didn't apply to the Empire, it turned out. I wished he would step away, before I spoke again –

"What about – after?"

"After." He withdrew his hand. I was grateful for that. "If you behave, I'll return you to the kitchen staff."

I looked up sharply. I still wasn't used to be talked about like that, like a girl, or like a trinket to be returned to its drawer once it was no longer needed. But more than that –

"But – the child –"

"Aesori." It was fast, sudden. He harshly took my arm, holding me as he leaned forward, bringing his face so close, all I could see were his eyes.

"Did you really think you could take what's mine?"

I saw him once. It was about four years later. I heard plenty about him in the years between. That he was a very pale, small boy. That he had red hair, like his father, and blue eyes, like both his parents. Of course everyone knew it was a lie, and everyone knew my part in it. Brendol Hux's protection kept me safe from formal punishment, but when I returned to the kitchens, few would speak to me, or look at me more than they had to. It was a strange place to be in – I had both reached beyond my class, and debased myself with an Unclassed. I learned others' kindness wasn't something I could tuck away in a pillowcase, to save for later.

Yat was gone by the time I returned to the kitchens. Isobel did speak to me, I think because she was curious. She wanted stories about what went on up there – and I had them, and no reason to hide them. When I was up there, the Imperials treated me much like another piece of furniture. They must have thought Brendol Hux had me under his thumb, which I suppose he did. Or that I had no one important to tell what I'd seen, which was also true. But these weren't the kinds of stories Isobel was looking for. She wanted another forbidden romance, but with a better-looking prince. There truly weren't many. I heard talk of sweethearts on other worlds, or of alien brothels. Occasionally, I saw pairs of cadets, or officers. And yes, once a cadet and an officer. It wasn't anything romantic.

But as for another from service, brought up here – really, what I learned is they thought very little of us. Even the cadets and officers I spotted from Arkanis seemed to have left their world behind. There was only the Empire. I had always been told that we concealed our way of life from Offworlders so as to preserve it. Too much sunlight always spoils. But I hadn't thought about how they wouldn’t even care. I think it was a convenience for them, to have servants easily supplied. But after those months above, with my simple work of pouring out cups of tea and caf and taking the long rests Brendol Hux insisted on, what I learned was that the Regency Worlds, even Arkanis, were just more pebbles on the beach of the Empire. None of us mattered, not us servers, not the nobles, not even our Empress.

That kind of talk about our Empress would get you dismissed from any work, and then locked up for vagrancy. Or it did, before the Empire. So I told Isobel the love stories.

And the violent ones.

I didn't see my child when he was born. I heard him, just for a few seconds. I had to be awake then. But just after it was over, they had a droid subdue me. I don't remember putting up much of a fight, but maybe I had. Or maybe they thought I would. They must have been waiting for me to do something – they kept me in my room above for another month. They told me to rest, not to work. They brought me holos, asked me which ones I liked. They sent me down on walks in the gardens, along the cliffs above the beach, at a safe distance and with a guard beside me. They sent someone, a psychiatrist, to ask questions about how I felt, what I was thinking.

They did all of this from a distance. After the child, Brendol Hux never spoke to me again. When I asked, once, to see my child, I was told that I didn't have a child.

At the end of the month, the Overseer came above and told me that I could return to the kitchens, or leave that night. Full recommendation in hand. It meant they wanted me to leave. But I stayed. I reached my old bunk that night feeling safe and content as I hadn't many months. I couldn't explain that, I wasn't trying to be brave. But I knew if I left then, I would be lost. In the Academy, I could pretend at least that my child was near me. Maybe I liked pretending, rather than knowing.

And when I did see him again, it came from the kindness of another, but one I hadn't expected. I heard only whispers for years before that kindness came – she was the Minder that had been provided to Brendol Hux and his wife. I didn't know about her until she sent a note asking for tarine tea to be delivered to her room.

About a month later, she was guiding Isobel and me along an empty ground floor hall. It was the middle of the day, and so the cadets were in lectures or training, the officers busy leading trainings or shut away in their offices. The rain was falling especially hard that day, no one had reason to be wandering in that long stone hall that led to the gardens.

Isobel nearly ran into me as we scurried along the wall. She hissed, "Zori, we should go back –"

I ignored her, as I had since we left. I hadn't asked her to come, but she'd followed, muttering warnings the whole time. We'd be thrown out, the Empire would arrest us, and then who knew what they would do. Maybe I'd told her too many of the violent stories I'd heard among the officers, but then, by that time, she'd hardly needed me for that. Even if the war hadn't come to Arkanis yet, there was a steady trade of holos of Jedha and Alderaan, Coyerti and Sullust. I heard their names, even though I never watched any of them. I didn't think about the war, before it showed up.

The Minder hushed us, then held a hand out, waving us forward. The only light in the stone hall came through the windows, we hadn't risked switching anything on. Even if they didn't notice outside, a droid might come to switch off an errant lamp. I rushed ahead, up next to her – she was standing at a large window, through which the garden spread out, neatly cut bushes and jogan trees swaying hard in the wind. Raindrops cut along the window pane, but the sky was still light enough to see the mountains in the distance, and the gardens much closer to us, and then –

The three of them were walking together, hand-in-hand. Two droids wheeled alongside them, holding black umbrellas to block the rain. Brendol Hux was wearing a deep gray uniform, his wife a long green coat, her stringy blonde hair tied back in a knot. And each held a hand of the slight boy between them. He also wore a black coat. He stepped slowly into the gravel path, one knee lifted and then stomped back down. But he was so small, his feet didn't look like they really touched the ground, like the other two were lifting him.

"He doesn't look anything like her," Isobel murmured beside me. As thought that wouldn't be obvious. "You've both got that red hair, don't you?"

"His is lighter, like yours. And his eyes are green." The Minder spoke quietly, from my other side. "I know they say they're blue, like his father. But they're yours."

But he was mine. That was why the Minder had risked herself to help me. Only one person had claim to a child, and to the path of their life, even when the laws were broken. But by then I understood that none of this had really mattered, not with the Empire, maybe not even without them.

I watched the boy for several more minutes. I watched Brendol Hux and his wife's stiff arms and backs. I watched the little boy's legs struggle to find footing in the flooding path. "Why do they take him out there?" I asked, softly, to the window.

The Minder heard me, and answered, "They're impatient. They've done strange things like this for as long as I've been here. Later they'll be trying to make him memorize starship classes he can barely pronounce."

They were already leading him down their path, and far from mine. I felt such a harsh longing that I pressed myself hard against the glass. I had been much the same when I was a girl – I had always been taught what I would be. And now I wanted to give my child what I had. That small slip of a boy – he didn't belong with them, in the stars in those enormous, brutal ships that were being blown to pieces across the galaxy. I wanted him in his home, with me. After all, what could he be, besides what he was born to.

The Minder sighed. I kept my face to the glass, watching the three dark figures as they moved farther away. The rain was lashing harder against the windows, the clouds getting darker, but they showed no sign of turning back. I imagined the rain soaking through the boy's clothes, his shivering and shaking in the cold, as he already looked as though he could barely stand. I had never heard Maratelle Hux's voice, but I imagined a woman's voice, sharp, calling out an unfamiliar name, as though she were his mother.

There was a flash of lightning though the stone hall. All of cringed, and crouched down the ground, thinking the lights had come on. In the darkness after, I finally let Isobel pull me back downstairs.

I didn't see him again.

It ended not long after. Rumors blew in with the deliveries, that the Emperor had been killed. Before then, any rumors or even smuggled holos came with those who talked loudly about their doubts, but these rumors I think explained too much. The servers who could choose to leave did, after one nearly took a blaster bolt from a stressed officer. The cadets began to disappear as well, and only a handful of new ones arrived. It was when I began to hear the kind of thing out loud, late at night in our dormitories, that were only grumbled by the elders before. If the Emperor was dead, who was the Empress serving? Why should she, and we, respect an Empire without an Emperor?

Those months were the only time when I thought about taking back my child. Brendol Hux would be distracted, like the other officers were. Maybe he was important enough that the rebels would come for him. And I could take my son back. I imagined holding him in my arms – I only ever imagined him as an infant I could tuck close to me, even after I'd seen what he looked like. I pictured running through halls without guards, and climbing up on a dipolopod I'd never learned to ride. Making it to the port, and boarding a hoverbus, arriving in the capital, quietly finding some work that could keep us in order until this storm passed. Or maybe smuggle off to another world, another Regency World where things couldn't be so different. I held these dreams close for a little while. But I never did anything. Maybe I've never really done anything.

I didn't learn what happened until after the rebels – the New Republic – took Arkanis. The Imperials locked us in beneath the Academy. I remember it was completely dark, the sky through the windows we had was black, the lights were shut off. We thought they might bomb us all into pieces, either of them. There was only shouting, and blasterfire, and then flashlights bursting in through the locked doors and passageways from above. Their blasters were out, we could only see the shapes of the rifles in the flickering light, and some tried to run, blue stun bolts chasing after them. Later, they said they thought we'd try to fight them, too, to defend the Empire. But no one tried to fight. I didn't even try to run – I stayed quiet in my bunk, until a light shined in my face.

I learned he was gone when one of the rebels questioned me after. A Duros woman, her voice was gentle, she spoke slowly. I thought at first she thought I didn't speak Basic, like this was some Outer Rim backwater. But since then I've considered that she just thought I'd be frightened. She showed me images of the Imperials they were still searching for. When I saw Brendol Hux's face, I shook my head, like I did with the rest of them. But I knew somehow, if he'd gone, he would have taken my child with him. That it would have been important to him. I never told any of them the truth, and maybe no one else did, either. I don't know what the rebels, the New Republic, what any of them would have done if they'd known. Maybe they would have done nothing – I saw Maratelle not long after that, alone in the mess hall of the refugee ship that I boarded to leave Arkanis behind. She looked unhappy, of course, but healthy – she downed bitter caf and noodles even if she might have been disgusted by them. They weren't up to my standard, either, but I wasn't there to cook. Yet it seemed all the New Republic took from her was her station.

And that's the end of it, really. I left. I didn't send a message to my family until I was off-planet – I think I might've weakened if I had. If I were in one of my holos, maybe I could say I left to find my son, that I wouldn't rest until I'd found him. But let me say to you, that wasn't true at all. I've never expected to see him again. I left because when I thought about staying, about somehow finding another house to serve, I felt no safety. I felt empty. I suppose if there's a time to do something, it's when doing nothing brings you no comfort.

I ended up on Riosa, for no other reason than that I liked its name. And it was in the Inner Rim. I'd always imagined the Inner Rim as made up of glittering dreamworlds – and Riosa was anything but that. But there was hunger, and an influx of food from the New Republic, and gratitude to anyone who could prepare a decent meal. There was more sunlight than Arkanis. There was no Empress, no Order, I don't stuff my pillow with datatapes or bunk with anyone else. A cap only covers my braids when I’m in the kitchen. When I've talked of it with Offworlders – no laws are here to stop me – many of them marvel at it, and expect that I'm grateful for my adopted freedom. Mostly, they’re workers from a nearby durasteel plant, who come into the diner between their shifts. Most of them were working there since before the war, and unlike me, even now that they can, they don't plan to leave.

I don't know. I cook meals, I serve. I left Arkanis, but I have no more plans to escape. Even if I wanted to, I can't break what I am.

I do wonder, sometimes, whether my son will.