Ginger Gears

Too Much Voltage

A couple of hours later Rose stretched until her joints clicked. She rubbed her eyes and stared at the small screen in front of her. She had collected all the incidents with burnt out chips and written a programme to find a pattern. She looked around, all her colleagues had already left for supper. She was alone in her cubicle in the office.

She stretched a little more and groaned. It didn't matter. Some of her colleagues – especially Sarith and Tarc – were actually nice, but she made an effort to keep to herself. The less she talked about herself, the safer she was.

And the food in the First Order personnel mess wasn't exactly tasty. Rose always had to bring a few spices along to make it halfway decent. What she would give for a real bowl of Tarisian bogweed with pepper sauce ... she stretched once again and looked back on the screen.

The way the chips burnt out ... on the simulated map it looked like a spider's web. And the WDD was right in the middle of it. She smiled, she knew it! The next step was to ascertain what they were working on.

She looked on the chronometer on the screen. Theoretically she could leave now, get something to eat and start tomorrow ... or she could get going right now. After a short moment of hesitation she buttoned up her jacket, took her uniform hat and her maintenance kit and left.

About an hour later she cursed her decision. She had started at the first chip node on the deck where the WDD was situated in order to pin the exact source of the energy fluctuations down – only problem was that the deck was huge.

She wiped over her eyes and suppressed a yawn. She had been overzealous, but if she was already at it she could keep going for a bit longer.

She checked node after node, at the seventh she found a single burnt out chip. She replaced it and studied the node. There was a room right next to it. She closed the panel and got up. Perhaps she should take a look? She chewed on her lower lip. Was she too rash?

In this moment the nightly energy mode kicked in and the lights in the hallway she was standing in dimmed. Well, it seemed like a good moment.

Rose took the scanner in her right hand as if she wanted to scan the next node and stepped closer to the room. To her surprise the door slid open, the room itself was almost dark – there was only one large holoprojector in the middle of the room, its blue light painted the surroundings in a cool light.

The holo showed an enlarged blue print. She gripped her scanner tightly. This was it, it had to be. The new weapon the Order was building.

She stepped closer, eager to take a look- suddenly she heard something on her right. Instead of trying to hide she just froze and gripped her scanner so hard that her knuckles turned white.

A tall black figure stepped into the cold light of the holo. Rose felt all colour drain from her face when she recognized Hux. He stopped dead in his tracks and narrowed his eyes.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" he asked sharply.

Kriff! Why hadn't she just waited?!

"Specialist Phan, sir. I- uh I noticed that through the ship's isolinear chips burnt out before expiration date and I-" Crap, that sounded unprofessional. She cleared her throat. "I'm replacing chips in the nodes on this deck, sir."

He stepped closer, only now she registered that he looked positively tired and worn-out. His usually meticulously slicked back ginger hair looked as if he had carelessly ran his hand through it. From the corner of her eye she saw a black great coat lying on a table with pads. From the looks of it he was working here ... but why would Hux work in the middle of the night on weapon prototypes?