Chapter Text
RX-3081 scowled at the shove of the Conduct Officer. Ever since he was picked up by the Maletrix he’d been treated like some sort of delicate bomb. Nobody knew what he would do or what it all meant. They put him in the bacta tank under protest, mask and modesty preserved through his sedation, and had him transferred to the Finalizer while he slept.
He woke up in a cell. That in and of itself was not entirely unusual. There were procedures for dealing with the Expeditionary Squads and those procedures were not always pleasant. What had been unusual was the length of time he sat and waited. Without commlink or chronometer, he’d taken to singing to keep himself amused. At least it had annoyed the Conduct Officer who watched him as guard and jailer.
But now that imprisonment was over. He would be debriefed and then returned to the general population to rest and recover. His bacta bath meant his first stop would be Dr. Katsuo, to make sure there were no ill effects of his immersion.
All he had to do was get through the debrief. They were usually pretty normal. He gave his report, he referenced evidence he’d brought back, he was let go. BE-7 had seen most of what happened on Batuu, so long as the droid’s memory was intact he had evidence. He’d need it given the delicate nature of his report. He’d found Cardinal. Alive. And working with the Resistance. There was no way the First Order could let this go, not with everything Cardinal knew of the First Order itself. Even if his access codes were purged, if Cardinal tried to he could potentially disrupt the entire Stormtrooper Corps. If only one defection led to the loss of Starkiller, what would the loss of a platoon mean? What about the entire Absolution ? The idea was too terrifying to contemplate.
The door to Interrogation Room 2B opened and RX-3081 relaxed as he realized who was going to lead his debrief. That relief was short lived, though, as he realized what this meant. Nil was a Loyalty Officer. "What am I accused of this time?" he asked. "I haven't even been here for whatever it was."
The Conduct Officer left RX-3081 in the Interrogation Room. The door slid shut with an ominous whoosh.
As the door closed and locked, Nil looked over their datapad again briefly and took a deep breath. On top of being their first time flying solo, they'd been hounded by strange messages so encrypted even they couldn't crack them before the scheduled interrogation day. It didn't help that whoever was encrypting them was smart enough to change the pathways and make it near impossible to trace them. Worse, there were specific instructions that Nil had originally found confusing, until they did more digging and found some... unsavory facts.
"You aren't accused of anything, at least not yet,” Nil said. “However I've been assigned to ask you some questions about your... expedition." They kept their tone even and hard to read, closing the small distance to sit into the seat just across from RX. "First things first, I'll need you to confirm your identity by decoding this." They pulled a small piece of flimsii and a stylus from a pocket and slid it forward. It had a sample of 3081's personal code, one only he could translate. Nil knew this was a farce, a line of bullshit. But it was 'necessary'.
RX-3081 was familiar with this type of ‘identification’, just another standard procedure for the Expeditionary Squads. He submitted a single set of code to be used upon his return, a different code each time. He picked up the stylus and got to work.
First, the substitution cypher where the Sy Bisti lettering was replaced by the visually similar yet entirely different-meaning Cheunh lettering. Then the mirrored letters were undone. Then the entire thing unwound into its Basic equivalents and the rhyme added back in. He left the notes of how he solved it all scribbled on the flimsii, knowing they made less sense than the code itself. The resulting dirty rhyme was usually used to fluster the officer running his debrief. Now he wasn't sure if he should apologize or if they might get a little laugh about it.
In any normal situation, Nil probably would have burst into a snicker for the dirty joke. But it seemed they only skimmed over it just enough to confirm the validity before moving on without so much as a twitch in their mouth. "Good,” they said. “Now then, RX-3081, you found some sort of evidence that a certain person was allegedly alive when they were reported to be dead. Please tell me how exactly you found said evidence."
The fact that Nil didn't laugh unnerved RX-3081. That meant there was something wrong. His ears twitched as he listened around him. No droids, no movement outside the interrogation room, no sound of any heavy hidden weapons on Nil. At least, no more than usual anyway.
"The mission to find Cardinal," RX-3081 said, clarifying. He was a little fuzzy on half of the mission himself. But he'd had time and bacta treatment and his implant didn't itch anymore. He resisted the urge to rub it, he wasn't in any danger here and didn't want to look like he had a tell. "We were dumped out of the back of the Finalizer in the X-Wing with a full tank of gas and most of the supplies I'd requisitioned. My standard procedure for entering the main galaxy like that is to begin at some smuggler's dens to gather information and to set up a trail to follow. It needs to start random and look random. Our first stop was Randaan."
"Let me rephrase,” Nil said, cutting him off. “What had you going out on this expedition in the first place? It's listed here as unauthorized." He'd already brought up the forbidden name, and Nil was already developing a bad taste in their mouth that they'd have to start correcting him.
"Ah.” RX-3081 had to start at the beginning, then, with some of the unsavory realities of his position. “That's something you'll find with most of my missions. Expeditionary Squad missions are rarely 'authorized'. If they were authorized then there would need to be a standard plan for extraction. I haven't had an 'authorized' mission in years and I've had to make my own way back after each one."
RX-3081 wasn't bitter about it at all. The practiced ease he used was almost believable. It kept him from dwelling on the fact that none of them were granted even the basic decency of an extraction plan. "This mission was based on explicit permission from the Grand Marshal,” he continued. “I believe the comms are publicly accessible, unless of course they've already been deleted." He refused to say 'why' he wanted to find Cardinal, though. The record didn't need to know he decided to hunt Cardinal because he got spooked training a bunch of remedials and refused to follow Cardinal's own footsteps into being everyone's father-figure.
Nil pinched the bridge of their nose. They knew this wasn't the answer they were expected to glean, and despite knowing where all of the cameras in the room fed to, they couldn't help but feel watched by that intimidating mystery contact. One more try. "Let's back it up one step further then,” they said. “You found some unidentified 'evidence' that a specific person 'Archex' was alive even though reports all agreed he’s deceased. I need to know how you even found that evidence in the first place and what it was that made you come to the conclusion Archex was not deceased after all."
RX-3081 fixed Nil with a flat look and drawled his answer. "I came to the conclusion he was not dead when I observed him in a clandestine meeting with a known Resistance crew outside of Batuu Station. This conclusion was reinforced when I attempted to assassinate the same Resistance crew the day after. Cardinal stopped me and we got into a knife fight. It became a running gun fight. A fist fight. Nil, he was the first one who trained me how to fight. Everything Phasma didn't teach me I learned from him. And he can still kick my ass. Unless you're going to tell me to my face I got my ass handed to me by a random civilian."
"Right,” Nil said. “You came across 'Archex' allegedly meeting with Resistance crew.” They paused here for effect before leaning across the table and pressing the issue. “This was well after your lapse in memory caused by some unidentified mental incapacitation, correct? So am I right to assume you don't remember why you woke up in the X-Wing in the first place? Therefore you do not remember what led you to being away from the Finalizer , correct? Whatever possible expedition you'd been sent on was completely abandoned in the face of your memory lapse."
"You act as though this is the first mission I've been grievously injured on," RX-3081 said. "Have you read my file?"
“From what I can tell,” Nil scoffed. "This is the first mission where you have had a total memory loss that you yourself recorded. It doesn't help that your reports border on being completely unintelligible every now and then."
RX-3081 bristled at that. If his reports were unintelligible then that was the fault of the codebreakers, not him. The very nature of his code meant the raw report made no sense. That was what these debriefs were for. While he and Nil had a history, knew each other, were even friends, he no longer trusted the direction of this debrief. He wasn’t even sure he could trust Nil anymore.
"Continuing on,” Nil said. “Your first destination was Randaan. In your reports you described that you felt something was missing during your entire visit there. You came to some far fetched conclusions about yourself. Do you know why you headed for Randaan? Any other reason aside from 'going anywhere to gather your bearings'."
"Randaan was nearest," RX-3081 said. This was turning into a full interrogation and he usually had problems complying with those. "Randaan was familiar. It's a smuggler's den and information is easiest to gather from those who are trying to hide it. What I needed most was information. I found enough. Csilla lost a colony recently. A specific colony. They're importing their eggs now and paying well for them."
Nil hummed a bit, pretending that fact meant anything of note. "After Randaan, your next stop was Kalepa, yes? You seemed to have regained some memories in the way you wrote. You mentioned doing off jobs to get by." Nil flicked their datapad, scrolling through the report. "Tell me what happened with Maxwell."
"I was hired to kill him," RX-3081 said, his voice carefully neutral. The memory still burned hot and red and he did not like it. "I killed him. Two thousand credits is a lot of money in a place that charges Kalepa's docking fees. I didn't realize who he was or his connection to the First Order until after I'd killed him."
Maxwell wasn't the target here, Nil didn't need to try to twist this fact. Letting him keep his conviction about not remembering Maxwell until post-mortem was safer, a good segue. "And who was he? What was his connection?"
"He had a history of providing children for the Stormtrooper program," RX-3081 said. He fixed Nil with a heavy stare and willed them not to ask further.
Nil really didn't want to. As much as they steeled their face and steadied their voice, the way their look grew just the barest amount of pitying was enough of a tell. "You had a personal connection," Nil began, their voice a bit lower, "One that left you quite glad to be rid of him. Yes?"
They pitied him. RX-3081 could feel it radiating in waves despite the near perfect facade they held. He growled. "He was the man who sold me to the First Order," he growled, his voice a rumble within his own chest. How dare they pity him. "I was a child. I was a young child. I barely remembered the planet. I barely remembered HIM before I'd already killed him and saw his pfassking feathered coat!"
Nil didn't answer right away. They couldn't relate, and it twisted at their gut more than anything to know how some of the Order's forces were 'recruited' in comparison to the program that Nil had willingly joined through. They couldn't relate, but they knew his brand of rage. "Were you relieved? Once he was gone? Or did it leave you with a more noticeable itch?" The official tone they'd been using before gave way to something softer, more personal.
"Relieved?" RX-3081 pondered the idea. Had he been relieved? No, it wasn't relief. It had been deeper than that. There was no release of burden or anything so nice and pretty. It was visceral. "No. It wasn't something so simple as 'relief'. Imagine something deeper than relief. Stronger than vengeance. More potent than vindication. For one terrible moment I remembered everything that hook-nosed bastard had ever done to us. That perverted, sadistic, nightmarish monster of a man. And I killed him."
RX-3081 smirked with a grin that bared teeth and didn't reach his eyes. It was a smirk that dared them to tell him he was wrong. "After I was done with his corpse I had one final insult I could lay upon him. I freed his last shipment of merchandise."
Against their better judgement, Nil's brow furrowed. That hit painfully close to home for them as well, and the more he described the feeling the harder they had to grip the edges of their datapad, until finally they cleared their throat. The mysterious person sending them instructions couldn't have known RX's past and Nil's would have this many parallels, right? But they couldn't ask those questions, there wasn't time. They pressed on. "Describe your movements for me once Maxwell was dead. You got paid, obviously, and left the planet. Then what?"
That got to them. RX-3081 filed the information away for later before considering how to reveal what he did next. Of course, it all depended on if Nil even recognized the name of the next planet he'd gone to. "Kayaman," he said.
Nil didn't really need to recognize it, nor did they actually need him to describe all of his movements. His reports had said enough to cover exactly what he was telling them now, with the exception of some deeper feelings. "Dangerous place. Why there?"
RX-3081 reached up to rub his implant. The movement served two purposes. The rubbing against the gold disk sent an odd sensation of calmness directly into his brain, like scratching an itch within his head. It also made it impossible to ignore. Normal Stormtroopers weren't implanted like this. Their helms ran HUDs automatically. Only members of the Expeditionary Squads had information fed directly into their brains through implants like this.
"Tell me, Agent Nil, what does your clearance as a Loyalty Officer tell you about these?" He pointed the implant out directly. He needed to know what they knew about these implants before he revealed why Kayaman. Or even how he knew where Kayaman was.
As they watched RX move to scratch over the gold plate, Nil had to force their face to stay neutral. They'd read about Brendol Hux, they'd found those documents that mentioned the projects he'd been up to in his final years. While Nil didn't understand what was so special about Grysk tech, they knew what the gist of Brendol's use for them was. They'd had to use more than just their rank clearances to gain that intel, and they'd even somewhat broken the vow they'd made to the Grand Marshal about not using their skills on the Order systems. They'd hacked past the few firewalls set to put those files in a secure spot in the database, along with hundreds of other hidden projects, findings, conversations.
After a long moment of silence as they reviewed what they'd learned in their head and chose their words carefully, they finally replied, "They're a form of control module. And apparently, as you've just shown, a stim tool."
"And a tech interface," RX-3081 revealed. "Every member of the Expeditionary Squad has one. We've learned how to interface with our armor and weapons in ways no mere Stormtrooper can. I can get information downloaded directly from my helm or my gun with this. It's one reason why we're so effective."
Despite all the effort to be careful with their questioning, they knew they'd have to give a bit to get him to open up about Kayaman. They needed to know more about his time there, needed to hear in his own words what had happened. "You went to Kayaman to figure something out about that plate. Because of who made the tech."
RX-3081 fixed Nil with his black eyes, his hand falling from his neck. The gold of the implant gleamed under the harsh lights of the Interrogation Room. "Every single person on Kayaman, whether human or Chiss or something completely different, is implanted with one just like it."
Nil nodded, silently pleased that their give seemed to be working. "But that's what makes Kayaman so dangerous, is it not? For people who have those implants, it's a prison. So why risk going there?"
RX-3081 grinned. The grin actually grew into a giggle that faded out into something like a leer. "That's not what makes Kayaman dangerous," he said. "It's who owns Kayaman that makes it dangerous. Kayaman orbits no star. It's a rogue planet whose position changes wildly in space with each map. There's more than gravity at work here. If the Grysk don't want you to find it, you never will. I wanted to find out more about this than they wanted to keep me away."
"I admittedly don't have much info about the Grysk,” Nil allowed. “So you went to find out more about the implant itself? Did you find anything?"
RX-3081's leer grew more unnerving. Something about this entire situation made him want to laugh. Or maybe claw at the implant again. He reached for it, his fingertips gripping at the edges of it. Instead he rubbed it and the ridiculous urge to laugh faded into something weirdly calm. "I learned what the Grysk use them for," he admitted. "I learned they don't need a physical contact to work. I learned their control can be broken."
“Did you break it?” Nil asked. “Or were you let go?” It was a dangerous line to tread. RX hat too much to be proud of, too much to hold on to. Nil would have to work carefully if they were going to convince him the mission had been a failure. An idea formed, and while they weren't sure it would work, it couldn't hurt to try. "You said so yourself, the Grysk have the means to make Kayaman completely inaccessible to anyone. Why then would their tech falter enough for you to escape control and get off the planet? Seems like a bit of a stretch."
That idea had not occurred to RX-3081 before. It made no sense. Of course he broke out. The Grysk did not keep many members of their race on their Client worlds. Only a handful could keep one planet under control. And he'd killed one in front of the horde. The shock of the Grysk warrior's death had sent a ripple through the entire planet and he'd felt it. "That depends," he said. "If there are a dozen of you controlling a world, can you afford to lose one? I fought my way out. I shorted out the capacitors on my own railgun throwing down enough depleted uranium to kill an AT-ST and that barely took one warrior down. They tried to keep me. I made the mistake of staying too long and they almost succeeded. But they didn't. I escaped." He refused to believe that was doubt in his voice. He'd escaped. That was what happened. He'd escaped and the implant resetting enabled him to regain most of his memories. That's how and why he escaped. Right?
"And who's to say that wasn't part of some elaborate ruse?” Nil pressed. “Or that you imagined it? You did lose quite a bit of time while you were there. You even lost sight of your droid, and you didn't seem to care where it had gone or for how long." They leaned back in the chair, already feeling that slip of doubt in the way RX's voice sounded just a little too forceful in his explanation. "It just seems strange that you were able to so quickly regain yourself after an indeterminate amount of time spent lost to the planet's whims, only to suddenly make a grand escape from the single hardest planet to even find, while also being subjected to one of their control implants."
"Have you ever been mind controlled?" RX-3081 asked. "By an implant controlling your thoughts?" He chuckled, shaking his head. "Of course you haven't. What about from a Force-user. Or plain old-fashioned manipulation. Breaking out of it can seem quick. There's often signs before the break, though. A moment of oddness. A sensation of something wrong. A misplaced thought. But when it all breaks it's like the first breath of air when the airlock pressurizes. And you realize you have to get out before that airlock opens and sucks you right out again."
But then, it feels the same when that control is suddenly turned off. Or if freedom is mimicked. He pushed the thought away.
Nil hadn't exactly been through those things exactly, but they knew manipulation all too well. They knew what it felt like to blindly believe and have faith in the face of blatant evidence of something being terribly wrong, of giving someone the benefit of the doubt only to have it explode in their face. They didn't let any of that show on their face, not this time. Instead they pressed on, letting the doubt fester. "So whether or not you escaped or were released, what brought you to your next stop?"
"Batuu made sense," RX-3081 said. He pushed aside the cold feeling of 'what if I'm still under their control'. He wasn't. He most definitely wasn't. If he were they would have let him go, instead of letting him kill one of their own in front of the horde.
"Batuu made sense," he said again, his voice a little clearer. "Cardinal grew up on a desert planet. Even aboard ship he preferred to keep his quarters hot and dry. He didn't even like the feel of water against his skin. He'd pick a warm desert or warm temperate world to match his preferred climate. The only worlds he'd ever been to were night markets, smugglers worlds, unsavory and uncivilized places. Heck, he grew up on one. They make sense to him. But it couldn't be a place that deals in slaves. That left only a few active smugglers dens in the galaxy."
"And what made you suddenly think to go searching for Archex?" Nil's tone returned to that neutral evenness from before. "Did something on Kayaman remind you of him? Or did Maxwell's death put the idea into your head to seek him out for revenge?"
"it was my original mission," RX-3081 said. "If I was going to put myself through all of that, I should at least attempt to complete my original mission."
"So you did remember your original mission,” Nil accused. “You dodged my earlier questions about it. So you were going after Archex in the first place, why? He's dead, has been long dead." It was a bit of a relief that they were able to circle back to their original questioning. They just hoped he'd actually answer the way they wanted.
"How did he die?" RX-3081 asked. "Was there a body? A medical report? A security report? Even the most mysterious and suspicious of deaths in the high ranks of the First Order have some details." He smirked, the expression finally returning. "Besides, I get off these ships more than most. You hear things out there. Something didn't sound right. So I asked for permission to go on a hunt. To gather information. To bring him back alive."
"So you went on an aimless search based on hearsay and some questions you held. Then something happened to you that wiped your memory entirely, including memory of your identity, which in itself already makes you a bigger liability than usual. You miraculously recover said memory before going to Kalepa, and happen to kill the single worst person in your life... on a chance job from some nameless xeno femme." They didn't need to change their tone to make it clear that the conclusions that were drawing weren't in RX's favor. "Then you go to Kayaman to find out something about your control plate, miraculously escape or are let go, and only then do you think to go back onto your original mission to find proof of Archex's death. Am I following you correctly?"
"No," RX-3081 said. "You;re not. The events are themselves correct but you have an issue of timing to contend with. I did not miraculously recover my memories before going to Kalepa. Nor did I recover them before Kayaman. There was no 'miraculously' involved here. Like most head trauma I've had before, and like most head trauma that humans experience, memories came back gradually and in bits and pieces. I went back to the mission as soon as I remembered the mission." He hated this part and considered this here to be the difference between a debrief and a hostile interrogation. There was always some attempt to twist what he'd said. But even with half his memories missing and the Grysk flipping switches in his head he'd still found Cardinal. He needed to remember that.
"Hm. And yet you lost yourself again while on Kayaman. You do understand the picture you're painting here, don’t you? Not to mention head trauma can warp old memories, completely rewriting them to match something you want to believe or not believe. Even emotional trauma warps memories. They become unreliable, much like even healthy memories often do."
"Spell it for me, then," RX-3081 challenged. "What picture do you see? Then I can tell you what, if any, you have correct."
It was time to start the real thing, Nil supposed. Their expression hardened and they leaned forward in their seat to straighten up, looking entirely unlike anything they'd ever been before. "I see someone who suffered a traumatic event, and somewhere in regaining your thoughts you gave yourself a narrative. You named yourself, because you thought you were something other than a First Order Stormtrooper. You remembered just enough to know two characters in your life that had given you grief, one of whom is already dead, and the other you sought out and killed for personal reasons. Which led you to believe that the other person, Archex, was somehow alive. Archex clearly did some number to you in the past, and this was your way of dealing with the fact that you couldn't see to his death yourself. You went to 'find' him, and in the process led yourself to believe you did."
RX-3081's face hardened and he sat back in the chair. "You wiped the droid, then," he said. "That's why nobody would tell me what had happened to it. You had it wiped knowing it was the only physical proof I had."
That was it then. There was no longer any proof and Nil had made it perfectly clear what kind of narrative had been decided on. RX-3081 was disappointed in them. Were they being used? Or had they agreed to this farce? Surely they knew the danger the First Order was in so long as Cardinal walked free and alive. Or maybe they were choosing to ignore it.
"Your droid was corrupted. The data couldn't be salvaged, and what little was readable was either unrelated noise or things that pointed you to being even more compromised than you let on. It was wiped for your own good."
He scoffed. Any mirth he might have had before died utterly as instead he seemed to level a strange easy stare as he tried to shift the focus of the interrogation entirely. "So is that the narrative that's going to be used?” he asked. “Tell me. Was the narrative decided before I sat in this chair? Or during."
They looked down at their datapad, seeming to read over something before returning their attention to him. "I assure you there's no narrative here, RX. What is happening is I am trying to understand what actually happened to you, whether it fits the narrative you gave yourself or not. Archex is deceased. There's no question about it. You gave yourself this mission didn't you? That's why you dodged my questions about it. This wasn't your original mission, and only after finding and killing Maxwell did you get the itch to go one step further, to seek out the person you couldn't kill yourself."
The pressure of RX-3081's full attention did not ease. He wondered how Nil could stand it, most Resistance types would be squirming already. This time his smile didn't reach his black eyes and almost seemed pitying. "So your higher-ups didn't tell you the narrative, then," he purred. "They sent you in here with minimal information. I bet you had to spike the mainframe to get enough to know what you're doing. No matter. My notes are correct and contemporaneous. My original mission was to find Cardinal and bring him back alive. But that's not important anymore, is it."
"RX, you're making up a conspiracy. That's normal for someone with your amount of trauma. But the fact of the matter is all of your intel is unreliable." Nil squirmed internally, but hardly for the look they were getting. "I don't know who you saw on Batuu, but it wasn't Archex. You can't be sure you saw anyone at all."
"This isn't a conspiracy," RX-3081 countered. "This is a cover up and character assassination. And you know it." His tone was far too conversational for his words. "Tell me, Loyalty Officer, do you enjoy it? I've uncovered something inconvenient so all of the evidence has been destroyed and the last remaining witness needs to be silenced. It's standard operating procedure. I know, I've studied your procedures. I guess I'm valuable enough to the Order to be kept alive. Otherwise I'd have already stained that pretty white uniform of yours with all of my blood."
Nil sighed, setting their datapad down in their lap and pinning RX with a look not unlike a parent trying to drill a lesson into their child's mind: a mixture of exasperation, fatigue, and a genuine, pleading sort of caring. "You really think that's what this is?” Nil asked. “Look, the truth of the matter is these reports of yours just can't be right. You expect me to believe the amount of coincidences that happened all on this one expedition? RX, this reads as a revenge fantasy, not the report of an Expeditionary Squad member who found vital intel that needed to come back to the Order immediately. You were mentally incapacitated. You had near-complete memory loss for an extended amount of time, and if you did go to Kayaman then you have an even longer period of complete loss of self and control."
They pinched the bridge of their nose and sighed. When they looked up their expression had turned serious. "Do you truly believe Maxwell and Archex would just fall into your lap like that? That the universe, the Force, luck, whatever you want to blame, would give you not just the man who sold you to the Order, but also a man who has been long dead? If you want proof of it, I can show you myself. I pulled every single file I could find, and you don't want to know how many firewalls I had to break through for some of this."
Nil leaned forward, looking like they wanted to reach out for the man, but resisted for the sake of professionalism. Still, they dropped the volume of their voice again, and the tone became not quite pitying, but still wistful. "RX, I'm not trying to force you into a coverup. I'm trying to help you. If you had kept going on about this, you would be silenced simply to avoid chaos among the ranks. And this..." The gestured vaguely, indicating the whole situation. "This is a dangerous position you're putting yourself into, and on unreliable memory."
RX-3081 kept his conversational tone. Whatever happened next, it was clear any report he was here to give didn't matter. If he were a more fragile man he might begin to doubt his own report. But he knew better. "One of the most inconvenient things about reality is it doesn't seem to matter what we believe," he said. "It simply is. But if you want to believe some comforting, pretty narrative, go ahead. I don't have the power to stop you. As for coincidences, how does the Grand Marshall like the head I got him? I know the Resistance is stretched thin but my mission was to deal with a possible incursion across a lesser used hyperspace lane and yet here lies half of Dagger Squadron with Dameron's right hand man. There's a reason I bring back heads, they're harder to argue with and the Grand Marshal is more than willing to keep the evidence in his collection."
"If you have proof, real proof, of Cardinal's death I'm willing to see it,” RX-3081 dared. “Bring me his head. Unless you really want me to go over the files you found. We can comb through them together, I'm willing to bet next week's rations I'll find more edits than you will. I can probably even tell you who edited them based on the word patterns."
Nil made a mental note to never, ever try to manipulate anyone above a regular rank and file trooper again. "You really doubt me that much?” they asked. “I have to be cold with you because it's expected of me. I have to ask you these questions. What did you expect out of this? That you could go back out there and try to hunt down a ghost again? You're not the only one in this room with experience chasing shadows based on whims and gut feelings." When they leaned forward again, they did touch his arm, just above his wrist, the contact alone speaking volumes on top of their increasingly pleading expression. "I'm not trying to fit this into a pretty narrative. I'm trying to tell you that because of the evidence we have from your compromised situation, not only can your report not be trusted as viable and accurate, but there's concern over how you're recovering from this. Why do you think they assigned me and not the Director to your questioning?"
RX-3081 leaned forward. He brought one hand to cover Nil's, their hand cold in his. They were nervous, uncomfortable, or maybe something else? "I assumed they picked you because you're easier to manipulate," RX-3081 said, his own voice gone soft and caring. "The Director knows too much to be manipulated into pushing a narrative. Or maybe whomever scheduled you knew about us. We weren't exactly discrete. Maybe they figured it would cloud my judgement. Or yours."
"I don't expect to be sent out to hunt him again," he continued. "I did my part. I failed to take him down. I found he's working with the Resistance. My only hope is that someone has the wisdom to take that seriously. Cardinal trained every single Stormtrooper in the First Order. Phasma may have finished them but everything they are, everything they will be, began with Cardinal. And if he's gone to the Resistance..." RX-3081 sat back, pulling away from Nil's grasp. "If you can't see why that's dangerous, why even the possibility is terrifying, then Force help you. Force help us all if you just dismiss this."
Nil felt an icy wash down their back and had to force themself not to swallow hard. It was too late to hide now that RX's idea that they too were possibly being manipulated had hit something, and hit it hard. When RX leaned back, they did as well, crossing their arms over their chest to hold onto their elbows in discomforted defense. They couldn't look at him for a solid minute, nor could they respond, too many thoughts racing in their head that they were having trouble catching. They could feel the chill of panic threatening their lungs and had to try to discretely take a few long and steadying breaths to will it down. This has nothing to do with him. This has nothing to do with him. He's dead and you're safe and you're not being used because of him. Of course Nil wasn't internally chanting the mantra about Cardinal.
Before they could really think to choose an exact tone, they finally replied with the same freezing bite they felt internally. "Nothing you say can be trusted, because how in this galaxy did you find Kayaman in the first place if it's impossible without invitation, let alone escape from the Grysk against their mastery over their own tech? The holes in your report are telling. I've been trying to do this as gently as I could while still doing my job, because I value that casual friendship we formed. But now you've made it impossible for even me to trust you."
RX-3081 watched the internal struggle in Nil's expression, in their posture, in the closed-off way they hid behind their crossed arms. He mirrored the expression, though his movements were less tight, his own posture less stiff and less controlled. Instead it was one of allowance, as though he were the interrogator here. He was allowing his subject the luxury of a moment to gather their thoughts before answering an uncomfortable question.
But when Nil spoke his ears twitched and one hand went to the implant on his neck. The metal was warm against his hand, the same warmth as the skin of his neck. Aside from the texture there was no difference, no way to tell it was in fact something Other, something different, something added against his will.
"I have access to better maps than you," he said defensively. That at least was true. He had access to the best, most updated maps still produced by those Attendants who still labored for the First Order. But would they know where Kayaman was? Sometimes. Only sometimes. How had he gotten there? How had he known?
It only took a glance for Nil to know they had found their entry point. It wasn't the full extent that the mystery person wanted if their instructions were anything to go off of, but at this point they wanted to be done with this pfassking pretend interrogation and do anything they could to clear their head. If he doubted his going to Kayaman in the first place, that was enough to send the whole report into the proverbial trash. Of course they knew that wasn't going to actually happen. No, his findings as well as Nil's feigned followup would be archived in that exact same place they'd sliced into earlier.
"If you really were there, you were welcomed and wanted.,” Nil began, voice like ice. “Weren't you. You want to talk about being used and manipulated, why don't you look at your time spent there instead? Of course one would think right off that if you were wanted there, the Grysk wouldn't have let you go easily. And they didn't. Not really. You allegedly killed one of their own and had to fight your way through a mob of controlled slaves. But you somehow still escaped, which really should be impossible for someone with so deep a connection to your chip as you still have. You rely on it. It's a lifeline. Without it, you'd be borderline useless aside from your martial skills and cunning. But you know as well as I that those will only take you so far without support." Their tone fell colder and colder as they spoke, into mocking condescension. They didn't believe him and wanted him to know it. Wanted him to know how much he'd shaken their trust in him. Which, really, was the worst of all the lies Nil was spinning. He'd shaken them in an entirely different sense, and now they were feeling that itch they'd been suppressing for weeks.
And it worked.
They were right, weren't they. RX-3081 had felt welcomed on Kayaman. Wanted. Loved. For the first time in his life he had belonged.
The Grysk tried to keep him. Even knowing what he'd done to escape they'd still welcome him with open arms. Kayaman would still be there for him, waiting, watching, beckoning. All would be forgiven. He could go home.
His fingertips traced the smooth edges of the implant underneath the first layer of skin. Bacta had encouraged the skin to grow over the plate, he'd need Dr. Katsuo to remove the excess skin.
Or he could do it himself. Right now.
He dug his fingernails under the edges of the plate and pulled. He could hear someone scream but couldn't feel it. All he felt was the searing all-encompassing pain that shot through his entire being for one terrible second. Then his fingers slipped and nothing changed. The implant was still there, like it always would be.
Nil had watched RX reach for his neck before, but this was different. This felt wrong. They jumped forward as he screamed, grabbing his wrist and slamming it onto the table. Their fingers held him tight enough to cut off the blood from his hand, pinning him to the table in panic, horror, concern, they weren’t even sure. Their ears rang from the scream and their shifted human mask flickered for one terrible moment. It didn’t last, the mask snapping back into place with trained concentration. “What the kriff are you doing?!” they demanded. “You idiot! Hurting yourself trying to yank it out isn't going to help you!"
RX-3081 wasn't sure what he'd just seen. Yellow eyes, a bright pale patch spreading on the forehead, brown hair fading into purple. But then the image was gone and Nil looked just like Nil again. Nothing remained to imply anything had just happened. RX-3081 wasn't even sure he'd seen it. Not anymore. He rubbed at the implant, trying to soothe the burning sensation that still ached in his head, his neck, everywhere the wires reached. Or were those his nerves. The shaking eased as he rubbed, his hands steady again.
Nil didn't trust when that other hand reached for his implant and snatched it away too, holding both arms down forcefully in front of him. "Stop it,” they snapped. “Cut it out. Focus and listen to me. Ripping that out won't solve anything. Especially trying to do it with your bare kriffing hands." They didn't dare go into the idea of it being the only thing that gave him an edge over regular Stormtroopers.
This was all they needed. His attempt at self harm and his doubts about Kayaman were enough to nullify anything he’d said about his mission and his findings. Very carefully, they released his wrists and slowly slid their hands back to their sides before bending over to pick up the datapad that had fallen out of their lap. "I think we're done here,” they said. “You should go back to medical and have them make sure you didn't actually hurt yourself. Then I'm recommending you for medical leave, to be spent in your quarters with continual observation and check-ins."
Standing up, they knocked on the door where the Conduct Officer was sitting outside. "He's ready." Once the door was open they stood aside for RX-3081 to be collected. "Please escort him to medbay to check the implant on his neck. Then to his quarters. You'll receive official assignment orders within the hour."
Medical leave. Confinement to quarters. As though that cell he had on the Finalizer counted as quarters. He barely had one room and a fresher and now he was confined to it. Not even Dr. Katsuo would stoop so low. The orders wouldn't stand, not once she got her claws into him. "Enjoy your narrative then, Loyalty Officer," RX-3081 warned, eyes empty and voice cold. "Remember what I said when you become the evidence to be disposed of. Remember what I said when mine isn't the only voice warning of Order secrets in Resistance hands. Remember what I said when you dare come to me again."
The Conduct Officer grabbed RX-3081 by the arm and yanked, pulling him off balance and all but dragging him out of the interrogation room.
That was it, then. The moment the door closed behind the two men Nil shuddered hard and clung to their arms. "Fuck. I'm sorry, RX, I'm so sorry." They felt sick, and the floor shifted beneath them. As they all but collapsed into the chair they'd been using, mask flickering out of sight, they hoped, prayed even, that this would be enough to satisfy the cryptic instructions and threats. Sure enough, their datapad pinged, and they stared at it with wide eyes, terrified to look.
With shaking hands, Nil did pick it up and check the message, and they weren't sure if they were relieved or distraught by what they read.
>Decent work. Acceptable outcome. As per agreement, records relating to your program enlistment have been re-encrypted, and coordinates to listed target is as follows.
Sure enough, there was a set of coordinates, and Nil knew where they would lead. Their list was only half done, after all. RX-3081 wasn't the only one with things he wanted to erase from his past.
They swiped the message into their secure files and set about writing up their report, unable to find the strength to leave the room until they were done. Their hands trembled the more they typed, and by the time they finished the fake report, the sick feeling in their gut was back, and they did finally grab for a waste receptacle just in time for them to vomit into it. They had to deliver this to Hux. They had to tell him, warn him what had happened.
Nil forced themself back up to their feet and had to take a few minutes to regain enough control to shift back into their human-looking mask, then it was off to the only person Nil could trust with the truth of the matter.