Ginger Gears

Overclocked

The next evening she headed down to the WDD lab after dinner. As expected, Hux was bent over the holo again and raised his head in surprise as she entered. "Specialist Phan." He quickly straightened himself.

Rose noticed that his great coat had been thrown over a chair in the back, Hux' gloves lay next to him on the holo table. It seemed that he hadn't expected her.

"General," she said with a nod. She casually walked over to the workbench in the far corner of the room and put a couple of chips on it and began opening them up. In her experience fine-tuning a system was easier if she had the materials to look at.

She glanced at Hux, he was again working on the holo, turning his back to her. So far so good. She just had to play along until she something that was critical to the war effort.

The next couple of hours she focussed on checking each and every chip until she realised that none of them were built to project a shield weak enough to simply repel rain. She took the oldest and weakest and overclocked it a little.

She uploaded the specifics of the modified chip into the holo projection and stepped to the large holo table.

Hux was sipping at his tea and followed her with his eyes.

"I've got an idea," she said and activated the holo. The simulation began and she watched with suspension was the first raindrops started to fall. It had to work! Moments later the simulated rain started to pour down on the umbrella – it was still holding, the rain didn't evaporate either. She grinned smugly. She knew it – it was all a question of finding the right frequency!

"What- what did you do?" asked Hux and stepped next to her. "How did you fix it?"

"You used state of the art chips, but they were built for weapon-grade shields. I just used an old chip and tweaked it a little."

He stared at her, at first it almost seemed that the corner of his lips twitched. "You 'tweaked' old chips?"

Suddenly she remembered who she was talking to – a man who was reportedly paranoid and mad. A man that screamed and raged during his speeches against freedom itself. Damn. She shouldn't have come up with a solution of her own. She should've led him to the solution so that he wouldn't feel threatened by her.

She cleared her throat. "Pardon my colloquial words, General. Of course it was your design in the first place that-"

"There was a reason why I requested your assistance, Specialist," he said quietly. "And it wasn't because I wanted to hear empty flattery."

She had expected him to get angry, or at least hold a speech how brilliant he was, but she hadn't expected him to look ... disappointed.

"I-" he broke off. Several emotions passed over his usually impassive face, too fast for Rose to identify them. "I misspoke the other night. This is not an official assignment."

Rose was once more baffled by the unexpected development. "I don't understand."

"The correct phrase should've been in a more ... voluntary manner." He blushed a little. "I ... apologize for misuse my authority."

Rose just stood there, unable to comprehend what was transpiring. Had- had the infamous General Hux just apologized to her? What the- She had to pull herself together and navigate this awkward situation.

"Uh," she said. "I did know that this wasn't a strictly official matter. I mean, why would you care about umbrellas?"

He frowned. "It's not an umbrella, it's a highly sophisticated work tool."