Warrior ◊ Star Wars

chapter thirty-one; changing shadows

The Hux siblings, at first glance, looked nothing alike. Armitage was tall and lithe with sharp and pronounced facial features. He had straight, flat red hair, cropped short to his head. His mouth was always in a tight line and the man's stance was rigid and unbending. He talked much like one in power would; with assertion and structured words that seemed all too condescending.

Mara was much shorter and regularly accommodated for her height by accentuating her posture with a raised chin and set shoulders. Her face was rounder with wider eyes. The wavy, light-colored hair was a sure marker of the Estoni genealogy present in her bloodline. Her voice held hints of an accent most traders acquired, marring away whatever could be traced back to her family from her speech, and a smirk came naturally to her face.

Yet, if observed for a time, it was easy to tell they were siblings. Both shared a bit of the same smile, the same working of the jaw when frustrated. The noses were undoubtedly the same. They possessed their mother's sea-colored eyes, followed by their father's sharp look of disapproval. The most prominent fact? Both were wildfires, hot-blooded with a raging passion for whatever they set their minds to.

Armitage once set his mind to shoot Mara out of the sky.

She'd imagined seeing him again. She imagined hearing his voice once more, sounding too much like her father's. She thought of every word she'd say, condemning him for all he'd done to mar the galaxy with the blood innocents'. For trying to kill her. Now, for slaughtering billions.

She thought of killing him. In the depths of the night, when Rey slept only a foot away and the storms of R'iia snuck sand through the cracks in the AT-AT's damaged metal, she dreamt of some type of revenge. Her mind's eye relived the explosion, the brief sight of her pilot's TIE bursting into pieces among star before she herself fell. She'd find herself sweating, sometimes crying, unable to sleep as bitter rage carved deep into  her chest. He'd pay.

Mara now stood motionless, frozen as the sequence on the screen told her that four canons were disabled. That all too crisp accent the Hux men shared echoed down the hall, footsteps loud and accompanied by two more, "Did the lieutenant send all of this brigade to investigate the lost prisoner?"

"Order came from Ren." Was the stiff reply. She was still reeling from the very idea her brother was that close.

A scoff, sounding so similar to her father's that it made her skin crawl, "Of course he did."

And it came back, the fury. The rage. He manipulated her, killed her pilots, tried to kill her, sent Kylo Ren to plow through her mind, and murdered a lot more people. Mara backed away from the console, fists clenching at her side with her nails pressing into her palms. Her breathing grew fast, erratic even. She shut her eyes, lips pressing together while her irritability took over her mind.

All she could see was the seconds before her craft fell to Ratakka's surface, spiraling down as the stars became streaks of light. She saw a red lightsaber just before her own mind became open to a thing that she saw as the pinnacle of evil.

Trust my anger, she had told the General. Oh, it was there.

Mara's eyes opened, her chest cavity filling with what felt like an inferno. Her throat grew tight as she gripped the handle of her blaster, the other hand around one baton. Fear became a blazing wrath she'd carried with her for years, the flame being stirred ever so often with every jarring betrayal.

"Stop." The steps abruptly did so at the command, realizing the fallen troopers at the door to the station. Mara still hadn't been discovered, her chance to strike nearer now, "Be alert. Ren said there may be more rebels on sight."