Theodosia

Chapter 22

After a rather amusing morning that consisted of her trying to detach the very reluctant Kylo Ren from her and then proceeding to comfort the sulking man that she would see him soon, Theo found herself all dressed up for the day, many rolls of blueprints in her arms while she walked on towards Hux's office. She knocked on the door once she reached.

"Who is it?" came the buzz from the comm device by the door.

"Commander Hale," she replied. A few seconds passed then the door slid open, closing straight after her once she stepped in. She saw Hux standing a distance away from his desk which was usually neat but had a clutter of things on it. Captain Phasma was sitting down, her helmet off and her arms crossed.

"Oh, sorry. Am I interrupting?" Theo said.

"No, no," Hux waved off, and he looked distracted, something he never was. 

"I, uh, I have the revised blueprints," she said, holding up her arms. Wordlessly he took the blueprints from her and inspected them, his eyebrows furrowed. Shifting awkwardly, Theo's gaze roamed around the room while waiting. His once tidy office was filled with different sketchings of weapons. There were metal scraps lying around; blasters had been taken apart and their parts scattered.

Her eyes landed on Captain Phasma whom for her part, was able to keep a straight face despite the very awkward pause in the room.

"Should I go now-"

"We could narrow the vents and have a smaller but more concentrated range," Hux told Phasma; he was clearly thinking very hard because Theo couldn't recall a time he ever tapped his fingers against a surface repeatedly as if he was anxious.

"And what of the oscillator?" Phasma asked.

"We have to guard it better this time. Strenghten our shields and enchance the weapon," he walked up to his holo device, swiping through the thing until it beamed up a bright blue projection of Starkiller Base.

"The Resistance was able to get at the thermal oscillator," he said, interacting with the blue print and pulling apart the projections to reveal a very detailed layout of the once First Order run planet that became a star after the Resistance had succeeded in exploding it. "If we had had an additional set of cannons to protect the main blast, we could have avoided that."

"We wouldn't have enough resources for it. The main canon itself could implode the planet," Phasma said patiently though her tone gave Theo the impression that this was not the first time she had said it. She looked almost exasperated with the general but otherwise did not voice out her feelings.

"Hale, your weapon," Hux said suddenly.

Taken by surprise but not dumb enough to question it, she unbuckled the hilt on her belt and handed it to him. He turned the blade away from them and activated it, the smooth red sword harsh against the blue of the projections around them.

"You see this," he began, using his other hand to hover just a few centimetres away from the blade. "It's stable, yes? You built it with the First Order's supply of crystals, but you never really bonded with it, have you?"

"Well, I..." she trailed off, not quite sure what he was getting at. She glanced back at Phasma who gave her a tired look that told her to play along with the general. "It never spoke to me. I heard tales that one hears a calling once they bond with their crystal, but I guess...never with this one."

"And so, you had to make it bleed to conform to your needs," he said knowingly. "Now imagine that but heightened in its strength. An altered bleeding crystal that's unstable, full of raw energy."

"Like Kylo's," she offered.

"Exactly. The flaws in his weapon are due to the fact that he can't build a proper lightsaber to save his life, but if we used that method, in a controlled environment, we could harness that raw energy into the base."