STAR WARS EPISODE VII: Forces of Retrograde

CHAPTER II

Deep space, in parts unknown.

After so many weeks away from the safety of the fleet, the long, uneventful hours of guard duty were... a change, to say the least. SC-2187 found himself tensing at every unexpected noise – and even most of the expected ones, too – positive an assailant was about to leap out of the shadows and make a break for the door at his back.

A valve attached to some kind of machine vented a puff of steam into the cooling ducts above him. For the umpteenth time that shift, his index finger leapt to the trigger of his blaster. With a quiet sigh, he folded it away again.

You're a good soldier, 87, he told himself before irritation could really take root. You're not jumpy. These are honed reflexes you're feeling right now – reflexes that kept you, Lord Synhaid, and your entire team alive out in the field. Nobody can sniff at that.

The display on his HUD that communicated with a patch on his arm warned him his adrenal levels were still high. 87 dismissed it with a blink of his eye, and cycled through the breathing exercise that was the first thing every stormtrooper learned in their years-long training regimen. Adrenaline was good, but a surplus of it would put his fight-or-flight instincts at odds with his logical faculties, removing his ability to think creatively in a crisis about anything but his own survival.

87 inhaled, counting the seconds in his head: one, two, three, four, exhale. Four more seconds passed, and he inhaled again. He called up the display monitoring his life signs, and watched the value on the heartbeat counter slowly dip back down to a normal level. Soon he felt the change in his body, too, the slight tension in his muscles easing back into alertness without strain.

That was good. Too much tension would fatigue his body and slow his reaction time if he let it get a hold on him. Or, even worse, could snap him into reacting too soon.

SL-1719, who was standing guard tonight along with him, angled her head a fraction out of perfect attention to glance at him out of the far corner of her visor. 87 had known she would; she had the sharpest senses of Synhaid Squad, and a change in his breathing as it whistled out through his helmet's filter was exactly the type of thing she'd notice.

He nodded subtly to her, and 19 looked away again, a concerned comrade no longer. Footsteps sounded down the hall – three humanoids, according to the audio parser in his HUD – and 87 felt a surge of pride when she whipped into full combat readiness as quickly as he did.

Flanked by two troopers in white plasticoid armor, Lieutenant Armitage Hux, aide to Admiral Enric Pryde, turned the corner and made his way toward 87 and 19 at a fast clip, his polished boots squeaking occasionally on the dark mirrored deck plate. He was a thin man with red hair and a pasty complexion only worsened by the dark weave of his uniform, and just about the least imposing person 87 could picture. But he also had one of those faces that when he scowled at someone, he looked downright terrifying – and that was a valuable thing for an ambitious little creeper vine trying to inch his way up the ranks.

Unexpected company, 19 signed against her gun in the system of covert hand signals unique to their squad. Lord Synhaid had a great deal of secret business his personal forces needed to discuss to ensure his protection, but couldn't advertise within earshot of other First Order personnel – or even over their helmet comms.

An extra flick of 19's pinky finger conveyed she was annoyed by the development, and 87 understood, but he couldn't let it slide. Remember protocol, he signed back, knowing with the long practice of a team leader that 19 would take it in context as a reminder of the dynamics at play on the Executor II. Lieutenant Hux didn't have much power of his own, but he did have the ear of the admiral, who was Lord Synhaid's host. Sure enough, any sign of discontent had vanished from 19's body language a second later.