Heated

16

Starfighter invades the planet Hoth in a few days. Over this last week I've had the pleasure of not seeing Lord Vader a single time since showering at his quarters. I am extremely grateful for that.

Being used for Vader's personal toy left me feeling dirtier than I did when I entered.

That has been one thing I haven't been able to scrub my skin clean of. His touch.

I haven't been back. He never asked me to come back anyways. 

So what? His mouth has been somewhere a superior's mouth shouldn't be. And so what? My mouth has no place and inferior's mouth should be. I've learned all too quickly that that means nothing to him.

So it means nothing to me. I can't let him have this emotional dictatorship over me.

Without Vader's annoying presence I've slowly been able to forget about him and focus on my work and my friendships.

I joined Sky for dinner once and after telling him what happened, leaving out the explicit details, I was able to overcome some of my anxiety about the whole situation and attempt a shower again. It was a very quick and uneasy shower, nevertheless, but things were getting better.

Not that I was keeping count but I worked on 137 E-11 Blaster Rifles. We've almost reached our quota.

Since we were close to completion, I was assigned by Tarkin to go to the hangar next door to work on some spacecraft that will be making a touchdown to Hoth.

It is a small dark black ship that was extremely old and overused, not suited long flights into cold atmospheres like Hoth. I explained that to Tarkin but he insisted that if I was quote, "Good at my job" I could fix it enough to make it sustain the flight into Hoth's cold climate.

It is the fastest ship onboard so I see why he is so insistent on having it in good operations, but this task feels nearly impossible.

There are still so many building components that were built ages ago that were either worn down or broken from decades of use. I can't promise to locate and fix all of them. 

Tarkin just needs to build or obtain a whole new ship but he claims it would draw attention to us if we obtained one or it wouldn't be done in time to build a new one.

Why are we in such a rush? 

---

With lungs full of exhaust and oil my commlink shows I've been at this task for a few hours. The only reason I was pulled out of my work trance was when Alec clears his throat behind me. I was in front of the door to the spacecraft so I assume he just needed to get by.

"Oh sorry I'll get out of your way." I have never interacted with Alec one on one before, so I suddenly feel awkward.

"No uh– I actually wanted to talk to you er–" he stumbles over his words.

What is going on with him?

"Everything okay Alec?"

"Yeah! Nothing dangerous or urgent if that's what you were thinking er-" he walks inside the craft, and pulls me in with him.

"Wha-"

His arm shoots behind me and he clicks the button to lock the door shut.

Terror washes over me.

Not again.

"Alec, please whatever you are gonna do, just think about it." I rationalize.

"What? " His eyes widened, and he almost looked more scared than I was. "Oh! Oh my god no!"