Theodosia

Chapter 16

The sound of a door sliding open from the other side stirred Theo from her deep sleep. Probably Ren starting his day, she thought, her memories of last night slowly catching up to her. She chose to ignore it. She groaned when she sat up, cracking the muscles in her stiff neck, having fallen asleep at her desk. She looked down at the finished report, smiling proudly as she rubbed at her eyes. At least she was done.

While proudly examining her handiwork, her gaze lazily flicked to the digital clock she kept by her desk. It was just before 7 in the morning. One moment was all it took for her to reach the horrible realisation that she was supposed to hand in the report by said time, and it took another moment before her body jolted into action. Cursing under her breath, she jumped out of her seat and gathered the various papers of the report, smoothening it down because even a single crease in the papers could lower its value in Hux's precise eyes.

More unceremoniously than she had hoped, she threw on her First Order uniform which really was starting to get more annoying as she fumbled with the buttons down her shirt. She rammed her feet into her boots and ignoring the untied laces, she ran out the door.

Leaving the living quarters part of the ship, everything was a blur as she raced towards Hux's office. Stormtroopers and First Order members alike jumped out of her way as she ran, with her apologising profusely especially when she had broken up a whole troop of soldiers who were in formation for the start of their daily training.

Her mad dash came to an abrupt halt when she finally reached the general's office. She skidded to a halt and stopped to catch her breath just before knocking on the door. She heard his "Enter" and walked in casually, trying to hide the fact that she had just sprinted like an idiot throughout the whole ship in order to hand the darn report in.

"All done, general," she said, placing the report on his desk. He hadn't looked up from the blueprints of the Starkiller Base that he was examining. Neat words etched out on a tracing paper covering the prints suggested he was planning on adding on to the dangerous weapon. Such was his ambition.

"Where's the data pad?"

"Ah," she realised. "I shall retrieve it and return it as soon as I can."

He stopped his work to flip through the report. "Any insight gained from it?"

"Insight," she repeated under her breath. Heck, she had spent the whole night working on the report while holding back tears because of her feelings for Ren, and now he expected to hear her insights?

"We've searched many planets already and yet no Skywalker. Did you find a pattern of the searches based on the speculations?"

Hell, she hadn't. But thinking up on the spot based on whatever her sleep-addled mind could remember, she replied with some confidence. "No, sir. Just that whatever is on that final piece of the map is undoubtedly where he is. He wouldn't risk hiding in places the First Order can reach. His presence could cause chaos to the civilians. Until we find the whole map, my best guess is somewhere abandoned...but where that is, is yet to be known. We could try searching abandoned planets, but they're too many of them that I fear it impossible."

He gave her a nod at her response and placed the report down. "That will be all then. I want that data pad before the day ends."

She mumbled a thanks and walked out of the room, inwardly cheering at herself for making it through. Of course, now that her first task of the day was done, the next one would be training with Kylo Ren, although she didn't think he'd want to see her after she ran out the night before. She didn't feel like seeing him either.

In efforts to look busy, she participated in the Stormtroopers morning exercise. Well, attended more likely. She didn't want to actually do any exercise. Her stalling carried on even after she was done with 'overseeing' the training. She went to the cafeteria and allowed everyone in queue to go before her.