Harsh, rhythmic footfalls echoed through the halls of the destroyer Domination; an ever-present march that would continue as long as shifts came and went, as troopers moved from one station to another, as captains prowled their dominions.

MK-4414 surrendered himself to the march. His heart beat to the stomp of their armored feet, his breath was a secondary rhythm to the superior track of the First Order. All those around him acted to that same rhythm, their thoughts organized by it, their lives measured by it.

It was the sound that had once run the galaxy. By the actions of the First Order, it would rule the galaxy once more. And all life would fit within the march.

"Halt!"

MK-4414's thoughts ground to a stop, his glazed eyes refocusing on the world around him. That voice was familiar. He, along with the rest of the line of troopers, stiffened and snapped to attention.

The captain stood in front of them, grim-faced and straight-backed in his grey uniform. His eyes flickered back and forth as he cast his critical gaze over the group.

"General Hux has come aboard, in preparation for the arrival of the Knights of Ren. We expect Resistance captives within the hour. Squad-leaders, report for briefing. All other troopers, prepare for inspection. The Knights deserve a flawless welcome."

He turned on his heel and strode away, his orders given and nothing more to be said. MK-4414 glanced at their squad-leader, ready for the inevitable dismissal to obey their captain's commands.

"You have your orders," came the predicted statement. "Go."

"Sir!" snapped the troopers. MK-4414 felt a little twinge of regret, the end of his shift and a long-awaited bed now postponed indefinitely, but he murdered the pointless self-pity before it could take root. As he settled back into the comfortable order of one foot in front of the other, new thoughts rose to replace the old.

General Hux... the Knights of Ren...

The flagship was in orbit, as well, so why were the leaders of the Order coming here? Even if the crew of the Domination had taken prisoners, they could as easily be flown to the Resurrection as brought back here, and that would not require all the effort of a formal welcome and transfer of command to the higher-ups.

There is a point to be made in all this.

MK-4414 put his foot down just a little harder then normal, grinding out that nagging analytical voice. It wasn't the place of stormtroopers to analyze. He still had the scars from the first time that lesson had been taught to him. If troopers analyzed, they would misstep. They would break the rhythm. The march would fall apart.

One step... another step... in-breath. One step... another step... out-breath.

He would go to his barracks, but not to sleep. He would take off his armor, but not to set it aside. Every piece, polished. Every weapon, cleaned. And then he would stand, for minutes, or for hours, in a line, in a row, in an army of lines and rows.

It made sense. It was just the visualization of the march.

Order. Lines and rows.

Life. Step by step.

A sob of relief almost escaped his lips.

It made sense.

It made sense.

.

.

Raey awoke shivering.

Cold metal encircled his wrists, pressed against his back, and the air was no better. It bit through his thin robes as if they did not exist, prickling his skin and seeping into his blood.

He opened his eyes, and immediately closed them again.

Raey knew these walls.

His body ached. For a moment, he could not remember why. He was on board the destroyer, right? Scavenging parts. Had another scavenger ambushed him?

That pleasant delusion crumbled at his full return to consciousness. This was no setback, not merely work lost... this was it. The end. No going back to his perfect little AT-AT, no more working on the Desert Rat-

His eyes snapped open once more as he bit back a cry. The Desert Rat! He could still feel that last snap as they tried to land it, a snap that reverberated through the whole ship and into him. There had been no time to consider it at the time, but now he could not help but think about it. He knew, instinctively, what that snap meant. His ship had finally taken too much stress. Her spine had broken.

Her...

He swallowed and forced his thoughts, and focus, back on his present predicament. He was in a vaguely familiar room - definitely Imperial in design, but the layout was different from any of the rooms in the old destroyers he had crawled around in. Not that the purpose was difficult to discern; Raey knew a cell when he saw one.

He twisted his wrists in the bands that held them, took stock of the specifics of his restraints. The bands were thick, solid, and clamped around both forearms and ankles as well. The metal plates his back was pressed against felt uncomfortably ridged in places, digging into his spine just enough to be very distracting.

The cell had all manner of buttons, lights, and other odd apparatus that Raey would ordinarily have loved to get a closer look at, but now he felt like the less he became familiar with them, the better. Other then that, the room was empty, and the door was closed.

"Now what?" he asked himself, and then winced. His voice broke the silence awkwardly, and the room did not approve. There was an oppressive atmosphere in every line of the walls that seemed to dislike him, so he clamped his mouth shut again, determined not to speak.

Now what?

Thinking it gave him no more of an answer then speaking aloud had.

There was nothing to do. He had no idea what came next.

.

.

FL-2218 did not look at the Knights. He did not think about the Knights. He did not listen to the Knights, or the General, or the Admiral, or the captains. He trained his eyes on the ground without lowering his head, and repeated in his mind the mantra they would expect of him. For the First Order.

Rumors did not usually survive for long in the ranks of the stormtroopers. They were not encouraged, and one careless word in the presence of the wrong sort of trooper meant a report, and a report meant either a reprimand or reconditioning. Even so, a few stories had made the circuit multiple times, and most of these were about the Knights of Ren.

To FL-2218, the most terrifying of these rumors was 'they can read your mind'.

His mind was not parade-ready. He could not scrub the rust off his thoughts or straighten the backbone of his fears. If they looked, they would see, and he would be sent to reconditioning.

For the First Order.

They swept out of the room, taking a cloud of fear no one could acknowledge with them. FL-2218 and his squad still had a few hours before their next shift... a few hours to finally, finally sleep. Squad-leader - all stern and dark among their blank white - motioned and the group turned as one, marched out of the hanger.

FL-2218 could almost hear the man beside him humming as they walked. When MK-4414 got very tired, he let his guard down. It was faint and tuneless, a mindless repeat of their footsteps in voice, but it wasn't silence. FL-2218 would never report on his squadmates, but with every personnel transfer they ran the risk of getting one who would. He let his elbow stray out of line to bump into MK-4414's, and the ghost of humming stopped.

Bed. Rest.

They fell upon their bunks, exhausted, without exchanging more then a glance. Their armor sat neatly in their identical footlockers, squad-leader's dress uniform hung on his hook. The glaring white light overhead vanished, leaving dazzles that floated around in the darkness behind FL-2218's closed eyelids...

And the stormtrooper fell asleep.

And the light came back on, and the stormtrooper woke back up.

They rose, nodding to one another in what passed on the Domination as a 'good morning'. They donned their armor, they stood in rows at the foot of their bunks. Squad-leader did morning inspection, and though the two hours of sleep had done barely anything for the tired troopers, they refused to let it show. Perhaps their squad-leader was tired enough to be sympathetic, or perhaps they really were just that well-trained, but one way or another they all passed without comment.

To stations.

They split off into small groups. Some went to relieve the guards at designated checkpoints, some to take over patrols. Other squads would undertake various duties throughout the sector, a rotation of jobs which had, by now, become the only way FL-2218 could keep track of the difference between days.

Today, he and LN-2737 had patrol duty in Halls 413-415b.

They stopped in front of an elevator, forced to wait as it slowly descended to their level. Then, when the doors slid open, both troopers stiffened and saluted.

It was the stormtrooper captain who had come with General Hux, the silver-armored Captain Phasma. Her reflective armor gleamed perfectly in the lights, so much so that FL-2218 could see his own reflection, clear as a mirror. He and LN-2737 hastily stepped aside to let the captain pass, but she didn't. She turned her head to follow them, then spoke, her helmet-filtered voice cold.

"Designations, troopers."

"FL-2218, sir!"

"LN-2737, sir!"

"I want you two to move the prisoner from Cell B-14 to the interrogation room on Level 3. One of the Knights wants to practice his techniques."

"Yes, sir," chorused both troopers, and the captain turned to go. Then, as if remembering something, she glanced back over her becloaked shoulder at them.

"Stun batons only, troopers. This prisoner is wanted alive, for now."

The tone sent a shiver down FL-2218's spine. Rumors... there were ones about the Knights' varied and unnatural methods of torture, too. It made him glad to be stationed far, far away from the Knights of Ren.

.

.

Dameron gasped for breath, slumping in his bonds. Electricity crackled for a long moment afterwards, sparking and burning bizarre lines into his flesh.

He hung in the metal restraints, forced to let them support him. His muscles were stiff and tense, but he couldn't control them enough to pull himself up.

"Have you reconsidered your position?" The voice, distorted by the mouthpiece of his tormentor's helmet, was impossible to nail down. It almost sounded artificial, a translation of some other language spat through the filters. Dameron raised his eyes, his gaze traveling up the Knight from gleaming black boots to fully-helmeted face.

This one, unlike the Knight Dameron had spotted briefly through the window on Jakku, wasn't a behemoth. Apparently broad-shouldered but very slim, this one wore no cloak or hood to hide the spikes of his black helmet or jagged spaulders.

"I don't know," he rasped in reply, tasting blood in his mouth. "I'm still pretty sure that you're a girl, but it's just impossible to say for sure."

The Knight slammed a spiked gauntlet into Dameron's stomach, the short pyramids of metal stabbing right through his leather jacket and burying themselves just deep enough to be excruciatingly painful. Dameron couldn't bite back his scream, and the Knight drew himself (or herself, thought Dameron spitefully) up with a long, slow breath, as though satisfied by the prisoner's agony.

"You are a Resistance fighter," the Knight said, changing topic without warning. "You serve the weakling Republic, a government so spineless they will not even acknowledge you in public for fear of drawing our ire." He flicked his wrist sharply, sending droplets of Dameron's blood flying to the ground. "Resist the First Order, then, if that satisfies your passions, but I am not hunting the Resistance, nor the Republic. I hunt Jedi."

"Bad luck – I think they're all dead," Dameron wheezed. "Try rancors, you wannabe-Sith schutta."

The spiked knuckles of the Knight's gauntlet slashed across Dameron's face in a vicious backhand, then the unique hum of a lightsaber filled to room. The Knight grabbed Dameron's chin and forced his wincing eyes up to meet those of the black mask.

"What are the coordinates?" snarled that modified voice. This time, even the many filters failed to hide the rage in the Knight's words. "Tell me, or we will see how well you quip without a tongue." The red lightsaber rose, the burning edge hovering so close to Dameron's face that he could smell his hair beginning to shrivel. "Or perhaps I will simply take it now. Your next interrogator won't need your voice to find out all you know."

.

.

Cellblock B was off FL-2218's usual circuit of duties, but he had the layout of the Domination memorized. They all did. In an emergency, they were expected to be able to report to any sector at any time, for any reason. While not an emergency, FL-2218 did find himself walking with a little more urgency, his eyes moving sharply in search of unusual movement.

Perhaps it was the presence of the higher-ups from the flagship making him nervous, the tension between the Resurrection's General Hux and the Domination's commanding officers. The Admiral did not like outsiders, and when the Admiral was unhappy, the crew felt it. Even far from the bridge, they felt it.

"Everyone is tired."

FL-2218 glanced at LN-2737. She did not look at him and her voice was low, but the statement was clearly directed at him.

"We're distracted. The rebels, the Knights... there are important people to be concerned with right now."

"It has nothing to do with us," he replied automatically. "Keep our heads down, and do what the Knights' crew says as soon as they say it."

She fell silent, fingering the stun baton at her belt. FL-2218 was not surprised by her unease, but it did worry him that she was so open about it. Despite their best intentions, they had gotten pulled into potentially close-quarters with... them. The Knights. Any mistake in front of a Knight, any twitch out of place, could mean the end for them both.

They reached Cell B-14. Another trooper stood outside, but from his stance he had been there for a while without any action. He straightened when they drew close, but not as stiffly as an officer would have expected.

"Orders?"

"Prisoner b14a, transfer to Interrogation. Orders from Captain Phasma."

"Acknowledged."

The trooper on duty turned and unlocked the cell door. FL-2218 led the way, LN-2737 right on his heels.

The prisoner seemed young for a rebel, but the Resistance didn't have the same strict recruiting standards as the First Order. Young prisoners could be rash, prone to foolish attempts to escape. FL-2218 drew the stun baton from his own combat belt, flicking the setting to ready.

"Prepare for transfer, prisoner."

"Prepare for... how?" protested the prisoner. "Look, I think there has been a misunderstanding. I'm not actually a rebel."

LN-2737 stepped up next to the restraint chair, giving FL-2218 a nod to indicate she was ready to unlock the prisoner. She had a pair of cuffs in one hand – she would restrain the prisoner while he stood guard.

"Do not attempt to escape," FL-2218 warned, "or we will use force." He nodded back to LN-2737, and she typed in a code on the control panel.

The metal bands clicked and released, and the prisoner slid down to his knees with a grimace, flexing his fingers and rotating his wrists. LN-2737 came back around to the front.

"Hold out your hands," she ordered. The prisoner hesitated, his eyes darting around as if he expected a handy weapon to be lying around for him, then reluctantly offered her his stiff wrists. She locked the cuffs, then hauled him back to his feet.

"Prisoner secured."

"Acknowledged. Move out."

FL-2218 barely registered any of these exchanges. It was all just protocol; the warnings, the back and forth. As soon as the prisoner was delivered safely to his new cell, the whole sequence of events could be forgotten, and life could go back to normal.

He almost sighed, but not in front of LN-2737, or the guard next to the door. He saved his sighs for end-of-shift, in the privacy of darkness.

The halls between Cellblock B and the nearest elevator to Level 3 were very empty. They passed a patrol... and then saw no one else. LN-2737 twitched. He kept glancing over at her, his concern growing. The prisoner kept quiet, at least. He kept looking around, but somehow it didn't quite look like he was searching for an escape. FL-2218 caught him eyeing an intercom console with a strange greed as they passed it.

"Eyes ahead, prisoner."

The intercom lit up, the emergency channel. A detached, stern voice filled the corridor.

"Immediate lockdown of the bridge and Levels 1 and 2. All designations below Level 2, report to your stations and check in via comms. Detain and arrest any members of former-General Hux's crew found onboard. Use of lethal force is permitted."

LN-2737 looked sharply at him. He didn't dare meet her hidden gaze.

"FL..." she began, then cut herself short. He tried to keep walking, tried to ignore it all – just finish the transfer, and this would be over – but she didn't move.

He looked back at her over his shoulder. Her head was slightly bowed, her hands gripping both her prisoner and her stun baton tightly.

"Keep moving," he ordered, and turned back. He felt stiff, and oh-so-tired. "Keep moving, LN-2737."

It hit him in the back, right between the armor plates. His nerves screamed for a half a heartbeat, and then he collapsed. Pain and unconsciousness claimed him.