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Even when she awoke fully, Phasma couldn’t recollect the moment when her fall was broken. She seemed to plummet unendingly, through fire and smoke.
At some undefined point, however, the heat bled out. Everything become cold, the air taking on a sterile, recycled quality. The sensations were far off, however, and it wasn’t just because of anaesthetic. There were… whole parts of her body, she realised, which she couldn’t feel at all. Absent.
The thought was numbing. She was powerless, in a way she had never been before.
She could hear breathing. Her breathing? No. It had a mechanical character, and the sounds had the same rhythm as her distant-feeling lungs.
At some indeterminate time, voices intruded. Hux, naturally, was the first one which became discernible. “I need her functional. If possible, I need her enhanced. I trust that will be within your abilities.”
Even subsumed as she was, Phasma recognised his meaning. It was the thinking of her old home world, the Scyre on Parnassos using detraxtors to claw back resources even from the bodies of the dead. By extension, that meant that Armitage Hux was looking at her now, and seeing something which looked very much like a corpse.
“The sheer amount of replacements we will have to put in place should see to that,” came a voice she didn’t recognise. “Assuming we succeed. The captain’s injuries are extensive in ways I have rarely dealt with before, even by the standards of our subjects.”
“Whatever resources you require, Deputy Director Hyram, will be made available to you,” Hux replied. “If you want the Dark Trooper program back in favour, then this-” he spoke with the emphasis which said there was a finger pointing at someone or something “-is how you get it.”
“Her utility will be… altered, sir.” That was Peavey’s voice.
“That, Captain, is already accounted for by the Supreme Leader.” Hux’s voice was terse, laden with ill-concealed frustration. “The training program has been reorganised with its new expansion.”
“Freeing us up to take the war to the rump of the New Republic.” That voice wasn’t Hux, nor was it Peavey or one of the other officers Phasma had been used to. It was deep, welling up from a barrel-like chest, and there was an unmistakable relish at the prospect of violence. “Are we really so concerned at being unfettered?”
“One might also look at it as the Supreme Leader distributing my authority elsewhere, Colonel Stolan,” Hux said drily. “But in any case, the scope of Captain Phasma’s duties will necessarily be narrowed. She will require a unit befitting her new capabilities. I will discuss this with Hyram.”
The deep-voiced man, Stolan, grunted. “At least what happened to the Supremacy gave us plenty of candidates for that.”
Tentatively, the one named Hyram spoke up again. "This is assuming, sirs, that the captain comes through with her mind intact."
"Oh, of that outcome I have no doubt," Hux drawled.
With those cold words ringing in her ears, Phasma sank back down into the icy blackness.
She remained there for an indeterminate amount of time. The only changes she registered were the merest suggestions of sensation. For a time she mistook them for phantom limbs, but gradually the truth dawned on her. They were replacing the lost parts of her. Just as Hux had instructed, she was being remade – rebuilt.
It was a violation. Her masters had begun altering her before they had even attempted a revival. Maybe they had been forced to - in this numbed, dormant state she couldn’t attest to how much of her body even remained - but nonetheless, Phasma seethed icily. Everything she had ever done in life was to stay on top, to keep control. And now it had been wrenched from her with a single blow.
There were people who had to pay for this. That gave her something to cling onto, channelled her anger so that it didn’t simply consume her mind. If she could endure, she would have the opportunity to take her vengeance. And Phasma, born of the Scyre’s rock wastes, clung to that prospect just as fiercely as she had the craggy spires of her old home.
It wasn’t the first time. In her ears, the phantom cry of Scanderous roared. She saw the arena in Arratu again, saw the giant who held her down and struck her again and again until her blood wetted the sands. But she also recalled the second time they fought, and the revenge she had taken, not just on Scanderous but his masters. She could survive even in the face of this suffering, and Hux had all but promised her that she would be improved, enhanced.
What awaited her on the other side of that process, she couldn’t yet fully grasp. So she waited.
Once or twice, a face swam up out of the bloodstained darkness. Some were just as she would have expected, but there were one or two surprises.
KM-8713, for example. Phasma had all but forgotten that foolish women, her indignant idealism. That was to be expected – she’d killed plenty of such moralistic fools in her time, though they did tend to be on the other side.
For a long time, she had been able to regard almost any Stormtrooper thusly. But then there was the one whose visage taunted her again and again. FN-2187.
A bug in the system. She’d meant the words. His actions had been incomprehensible to her on almost every level. A weak creature, fleeing an environment in which it could not survive, was at least something she could understand – even if she deemed such an attempt doomed to failure. But to come back, twice, for the sake of others…
She was struck by how the turncoat’s delusion seemed to have grown a hundredfold both times. The first time, he had sought to free his friend. The second time, he’d been acting for the Resistance itself. Rebel scum, he’d declared himself. She had been wrong about FN-2187. He was strong. He ought to have been an asset to her training program and the regime, but instead he had taken that strength and struck her down.
Her failure with him was its own distinct shame, a flame that gnawed away at her. And as for what that failure had cost her…
When she saw her new face, as they began to run tests on her new senses, she howled internally for the best part of a day. After that, a cold amusement suffused her. She remembered her old warrior’s raiment on Parnassos, the mesh she had used to veil her eyes and make herself seem inhuman to others.
The mask had become the truth of her.
By her estimate, it was another day before they revived her fully. That process itself was a slow awakening, like she was gradually ascending from the bottom of the ocean. Light slowly made itself known to her vision, sounds became clearer.
Some sort of framework held her upright, a horizontal gurney. It gave Phasma a chance to inspect herself, as her vison returned.
She was entirely encased in metal, dark and segmented. This was an exoskeleton, to be encased with armour. It replaced most of her body, and encompassed what little of her flesh remained. For several long minutes, she took that in. Then she raised her head, and looked forwards.
Figures were stood in front of her. Hux looking expectant, Peavey and others looking worried. A science officer who must be Hyram, judging by his insignia.
“Captain Phasma,” Hux said. “Can you hear me?”
Phasma took a moment to answer, but not for waiting. She tried to speak, but her vocal chords would not obey her. Which was understandable, because they were absent. There was just cold metal where it met her nerves, and it took a moment to readjust, to let the vocoder speak for her.
“I can.” Her voice was a wholly metallic sound now; it wouldn’t have carried any warmth had she even attempted it. “You have altered me, sir,” she said, keeping it just short of an accusation.
“It was the only way to preserve you,” Hux told her. “Our scientists have kept you alive, and made you stronger. All the better,” he added, taking a step closer, “to take your revenge on the Resistance. If that is what you want?”
“It is all I desire.”
At a gesture from Hux, the restraints that held her in place opened. For a second, Phasma thought she would stagger and fall, but then the adamantine will that had sustained her for so long took hold. She stepped off the frame, drawing herself up to her full height, parade stance.
Phasma looked at Hux, seeing the red lights of her eyes reflected in his. “I am a Dark Trooper.”
“A unique Dark Trooper,” he replied, letting satisfaction show on his face. “A combatant without peer among the First Order’s legions. So you will serve, Phasma, as you have before?”
She let the silence drag on just long enough for the officers around Hux to grow tense. “I will.”
Now Hux smiled coldly. “Then let us begin. Armour her.”
It was when Phasma’s new warplate was set in place that she came to appreciate the sophistication of her new form. Where the former generations of Dark Trooper had been cumbersome, bulky things. It was simply a product of their design.
But to Phasma’s surprise, she was scarcely any larger for her enhancements. Her armour was recognisable, lacking the brutalist aesthetic which had always defined the Dark Troopers. It had the same chromium finish as her old suit. Even the helmet was outwardly the same – though the internal systems had been stripped out and, she realised, integrated directly into her new metal corpus.
“Hyram’s scientists drew on a number of assassin and commando droid designs,” Hux explained.
The deputy director nodded. “With a few exceptions, droid technology rather stagnated in the Imperial era. Understandable, but lamentable.” He examined one of her gauntlets, seeming satisfied. “But for our most valiant soldiers, we would be remiss if we failed to provide the very finest components.”
Phasma turned her hand over, scrutinising it herself as her fingers curled into a fist. “Quite. And I look forward to seeing what they can do.”
There were tests for her, many of them. Both the efficacy of Phasma’s bionics and her finesse with them were being measured and evaluated. She was more cumbersome than before, but her new limbs gave her strength unlike anything she’d possessed before, and a startling quickness.
They had produced new armour for her as well, with the same chromium finish as her old suit. With her new mechanical strength, she didn’t even feel the weight of it.
A person could easily be overwhelmed by this process. Reports drifted through to her of would-be Dark Troopers, exemplary soldiers who had suffered horrific injuries in the wreck of the Supremacy or subsequent battles, breaking down entirely. Roughly half, hardened as they had been in battle, had had to be ‘retired’.
But this wasn't Phasma’s first metamorphosis. She had traded leathers and crude metal for chromium, the rough tongue of Parnassos for the cut-glass tones which made it impossible to guess at her origins. A child of Parnassos learned to take what was offered, use whatever they found, and while Phasma had left the world behind, she carried those lessons with her. She could endure this, and so she would.
She still spent most of her time in slumber, as parts were recalibrated or replaced. Now the dreams felt different, as she reflected on her new form.
Somewhere, in the morass of muted sensations, other details began to slot into place about the Galaxy in which she had reawakened. They came courtesy of Hux, who had come down to her cryo chamber. Phasma couldn’t determine whether he was truly seeking to inform her, or if this was simply him venting to a soldier he believed unshakably loyal to him.
Eventually, though, he delivered the news directly to her. The First Order’s high command, it turned out, had been upended during the events above Crait. “Snoke has been murdered.” He hissed. “Kylo Ren claims that it was the scavenger girl, the Jedi.”
Phasma studied him through her new eyes. “And is there any truth in that, sir?”
He gave a mirthless snort. “Lies, all of it. The girl could never have acted alone. Now he has taken the mantle of Supreme Leader for himself. He throttled me, there in the throne room.” His restlessness showed, as he began pacing around the chamber. “Now his lightsaber hangs over my head. He’s well aware that I know the truth. So now I, Supreme Leader Snoke’s most faithful servant, am regarded as a potential usurper.”
Phasma silently digested this new information, and pondered the ramifications. Her favour with Hux had just become its own danger. As Hux himself said, still talking idly to her or himself, their only real safety lay in the war.
“So long as we are campaigning, be that against the Resistance and what’s left of the Republic, independent systems or the Hutts, we are indispensable. But when we get closer to true dominance… then the knives will come out for us again.”
Logically, then, the thing to do would be for Phasma to peel herself away from Hux. As his enforcer, she would be an obstacle in the mind of Kylo Ren. Even a threat – Ren undoubtedly suspected the truth about who had killed Brendol Hux, after all.
The sensible thing would be to do as Phasma did with the tribe. Slipping away, leaving her old refuge to its fate.
And yet… what capacity did she have for betrayal any more? The new body she inhabited was heavy and cumbersome, a far cry from the tribal warrior who had been able to pass over rock and metal without sound.
She was so much stronger, yet Hux had given her a new and sickening weakness. She was dependent. Her metal limbs were immensely powerful, but they were not invulnerable and would not simply heal if damage occurred. She would be reliant on engineers and repair droids.
The metal which now made up so much of her body came with a cost beyond that. Hard but inflexible were the words that came to mind. Its weight limited her mobility, preventing an easy retreat of the sort which KM-8713 had fatally objected to. Of course, had she lived the woman would probably be rather amused about that.
Even eating was now a mechanical procedure. With no mouth to chew and no throat to swallow, mechanisms were built into her armour to handle the intake of food and water, and the removal of any waste materials. She could add and remove the containers herself, but she could only consume what nutrition the First Order made for her and the other Dark Troopers.
Worse – vastly worse – was the loss of her agency. Hux had ordered her rebuilt to serve his purposes. Her status as another part of his arsenal - and now her mind went back to the elder Hux, with his talk of swords - had gone from a metaphor to an incontrovertible fact. There had been others like this in history, and now Phasma joined the grim lineage of Grievous and Vader. A weapon with a name, but still just a weapon.
So what did she have left now? Rage. A cold, mordant fury, and colossal strength with which to vent it. Naturally, she was soon given the chance to do so.
Cooling glass crunched under Phasma’s boots. Around her, the sands of Geonosis were still aglow in places after the ferocity of the First Order bombardment.
How like the Resistance to establish a base on this world. Covering themselves symbolically in the ashes and dust of an insubordinate, eradicated race. That perfectly fit the sanctimonious, grandstanding ways of the enemy.
There had probably been practical reasons too; the history of the Clone Wars attested to the strength of Geonosian fortresses, and the Empire had made use of the world for that very reason.
And yet, as they always did, the Resistance neglected the most salient fact: Geonosis always fell. Once an invader brought sufficient strength against the rocky fortresses, they crumbled. Hux liked to say it was a mere equation, solved with superior firepower, intelligence and resolve. That was certainly how he liked to conduct his battles, moving icons around the holo display, ending lives with a gesture or word.
Phasma, however, wasn’t at the cold, unfeeling end of the engagement. Her blaster rifle blazed unceasingly, each shot finding a target. Resistance soldiers fired back, but all they did was draw a swift, deadly response.
Her company of Dark Troopers followed, heavy guns unnaturally steady in their metal hands. Not once did they pause, except for when the fighting reached the hive chamber, and the insurgents brought out their heaviest guns. Two of the Dark Troopers went down, but then Phasma called up some heavy weapons squads and the enemy positions were doused with rocket fire.
Then she was striding out across one of the interconnecting bridges that crossed the chasm, her armour scorning the hail of blaster fire. Drawing close, she realised that these were the last of the Resistance fighters, attempting a valiant last stand.
Well, she would grant them a memorable end. She holstered her blaster and drew her imposing vibro-spear, before charging into their midst, the Dark Troopers thundering at her back.
The Resistance had no answer to an onslaught like that. Their little knot of fighters fragmented instantly, gunned down or simply crushed under metallic feet.
Phasma went for the leader, a Quarren with a captain’s uniform. She cut down his guards without breaking stride, smashed his blaster out of his hands and seized his neck in her fist.
“You... died,” gasped the alien, clawing at her wrist.
Phasma cocked her head. “Your point?” She moved to the ledge and held him out, nothing between him and the cavern floor, hundreds of metres below. “Talk. Give us your commanders’ location, and I’ll spare your worthless life.”
But then the Quarren seemed to discover some resolve, and he laughed in that repulsively squishy way that the aquatic creatures had. “My life is worthless? What about you? You call us subhuman,” he hissed. “But I don’t think there’s much humanity left in you, is there?”
There seemed no point in prolonging this. Phasma let him drop. They would have one or two other prisoners, those could be interrogated. She’d wanted the kill.
She loosed a Scyre war cry, the first she had uttered in decades. Through her mechanical voicebox, it was a demonic sound, something wrenched from nightmares of fiendish war droids.
Later, slumbering again in her cold cradle, she reflected on what she had become. Where before she had gone from tribal warrior to soldier, exemplar of how the First Order might exalt humanity above the rest of the Galaxy, now she was something other than entirely human. Less than human, she knew the whispers would say. Just like the Quarren rebel.
But she cared not for those whispers. She would endure. Her wits remained; she could make use of those. In due time, she would either help Hux effect his coup against Kylo Ren, or she would take the other option and bring the head of a traitor to the Supreme Leader. Whichever option was best for her.
She was Phasma, once of the Scyre and then the First Order. She survived. That was simply what she did.
And FN-2187, the one who had reduced her to this, would pay.