by Doug Beason
It took Davin Felth all of thirty seconds on the military training planet Carida to decide that serving in the Emperor’s armed forces was not as romantic as he had thought.
Davin hoisted his deep blue duffel bag containing his worldly possessions onto his back and queued up with the rest of the hundred and twenty other recruits. They filled the Gamma-class shuttle’s narrow steel corridor. Davin was nearly overwhelmed by the diverse cut of clothes, colors, and unusual smells that wafted from the youths. Nervous chatter ran up and down the line of eighteen-year-olds, most of whom were away from home for the very first time. A blast of noise reverberated through the shuttle and the door to the outside sighed open.
Fresh air tumbled in, untouched by atmospheric scrubbers present on the ship; unfiltered light splashed against the gleaming deck, reflecting down the hallway, and for a glorious thirty seconds it seemed that all the hype and rumors about Carida, the planet used by the Emperor’s own guard as a training base for his military, were suddenly magnified. This must be the most exciting place for a ship of eager eighteen-year-olds to begin their new lives.
And then the shouting started.
It was as if a bomb had exploded amidst the nervous group of draftees. Chaos, yelling, confusion, and a hundred thousand demands were suddenly thrust upon Davin from all directions. Officers in olive-gray uniforms or white stormtrooper armor swarmed all over them; the recruits stood at attention, rigidly trying to emulate statues as the officers moved to within millimeters of their faces, screaming demands.
Davin’s only thought was to try and survive, to get out of this mess alive—he couldn’t think, and every time he tried to answer a question that was screamed at him, someone else would thrust their face next to his and demand something else.
Davin started yelling, not caring what he said, or whom he was speaking to, but only reacting, attempting to look as though he were busy answering someone else’s question. He raised his voice and shouted at the top of his lungs—and the ploy seemed to work. With all the confusion that surrounded him, with a stormtrooper major screaming in his face to try and disorient him, he succeeded in diverting attention from himself. But this was only the beginning of six months of hellish training that would mold Davin into one of the Emperor’s own elite troops.
After what seemed hours, Davin and the rest of the recruits were led running down a pathway to the barracks. A huge prehistoric-looking man waved them to stand at one side of the passageway. The recruits scampered in fear. They lined up against the wall and snapped to attention. The burly man threw them supplies: generic dark uniforms, helmets, socks, underwear, handkerchiefs, emergency equipment, medpac kit, survival gear, and personal-cleansing equipment.
Davin accepted the supplies, but was too afraid to ask what he should do with them. One small voice, attached to a man who towered over the rest of the recruits like a solarflower grown in rich Gamorrean dirt, said meekly, “I … I can’t take this anymore!”
Instantly, Imperial uniformed bodies swarmed over the man. A voice shouted, “You people—over here! Move it!”
Bending backward under his load of supplies, Davin staggered to join a line of recruits who looked like piles of crawling military storehouses. The group was led away, shown to their bunks. Davin deposited his blue duffel bag and armload of material on a cot. Two other recruits shared the room with him. Davin grinned tiredly and introduced himself. “Hi, I’m Davin Felth.”
The first man shook his hand firmly. “Geoff f’Tuhns.” He took a quick look around the corner and held out a bag of greasy-looking food. “Want a bite?”
Davin glanced in the bag and felt his stomach flip. “No, thanks.”
Tall, big-boned, and sporting a head of flaming red hair, Geoff did not look as if he could ever fit inside stormtrooper armor. Looking once more around the corner, he sighed and stuffed a handful of food in his mouth. “If you brought any food, you’d better eat it now. I managed to hide this from them,” he said, “but they threatened punishment if they caught me with any more food.”
“Mychael Ologat,” said the second man. “What do you think of all this?” As small as Geoff was tall, Mychael looked as though he could fit in Davin’s duffel bag; but his muscles rippled underneath his taut skin.
Davin was still shell-shocked from the reception getting off the Gamma-class shuttle. They hadn’t been on the military training planet for more than an hour, but with all the supplies he had been issued and the amount of ground they had covered, at Davin’s normal pace it would have taken over a week to get these same things done. He shook his head. “They told me the military would change my life, but this is crazy. I expected to get some time to look around.”
“Don’t count on it,” said Geoff, speaking around a mouthful of food. “We’ve been here since yesterday, and from what I’ve heard, this is only the welcoming committee. The really tough stuff comes later.”
Mychael’s eyes grew wide. He stood facing the door, and he managed to blurt out, “Uh-oh—here comes trouble.”
Geoff dropped the bag of munchies and tried to kick it underneath his bed, but he slipped and the bag slid to the center of the room.
Davin turned to see one of the largest men he had ever seen in his life standing just outside the door. Dressed in antigrav shoes, black shorts, a white skin-shirt, and wearing the ominous white helmet of an Imperial stormtrooper, the man looked like a massive pillar. He pointed at the bag of food. His voice had a tinny sound as it came over the speakers implanted in the side of the battle helmet.
“Your caloric intake is strictly regulated—whose contraband food is that?”
Davin heard Geoff gulp; from what he’d said, he couldn’t afford to get caught. But no one had told him it was contraband! He spoke up. “It’s mine.”
The stormtrooper turned to face Davin. “You are new here.”
“That’s right.”
“The correct response is ‘yes, sir.’ You will learn—or you will fail. Consider that your only warning.” He smashed the bag with his foot, then turned to include the other two. “You sand slime have two minutes to change into your physical training gear and get out here with the rest of your squad—or your butt is mine. Now move!”
The three Imperial recruits scrambled over each other as clothing flew across the room.
“Thanks, Davin,” Geoff gasped out as he struggled into a coverall.
Davin could only grunt as he hopped on one foot; he attempted to pull on thigh-high running boots. Despite the hectic pace, the next two minutes were Davin’s last chance to relax during the six months of training.
Fifteen pounds lighter but immeasurably stronger, Davin adjusted to the breakneck training routine. The recruits spent less than five hours a night in their room, falling exhausted to sleep after day upon day of relentless training: physical fitness runs, daily expeditions via suborbital transport to the southern ice fields for winter training, a week-long expedition to the barren Forgofshar Desert for survival training, a three-day battle against nature in the equatorial rain forest … Davin soon lost track of the days.
He and his roommates soon learned to get up before their “wake-up call” came in the morning, when their Imperial stormtrooper sergeant would kick open their door and blast his sonic whistle. Davin would wake up a good half hour before reveille. He and the others would scurry about the small dorm room, cleaning and dressing, only to hop beneath their sheets for the early-morning wake-up ritual—they had seen what happened to the other recruits when they were caught out of their bunks before reveille.
Running out into the hallway, Davin would snap to attention, waiting to hear what the expedition of the day would entail. He never knew where he might be sent.
It was the morning Davin was in place in the hallway nearly thirty seconds before the others that changed his life. It didn’t start out with a fanfare, simply: “Davin, drive your butt over to the AT-AT detachment at the end of the hall. The rest of you sandworms fall in for inspection!”
As the rest of his squad stood at attention, Geoff punched him in the side and whispered, “Good luck, hotshot—we’re going to miss you!”
Davin didn’t have time to answer, as the Imperial trooper in charge of the AT-AT detachment was already yelling for Davin to hurry up. “Twenty more seconds and we’ll drop you off in a reactor core!”
Davin joined the group of recruits at the end of the hall; he recognized several of his classmates as those who had consistently finished near the top of the class with him. They exchanged glances with one another, but they were much too sharp to speak and bring down the wrath of their drill instructor.
Lining up, they were marched out of the dorm area to the parade field. Glass and syngranite buildings soared above their heads; the parade field was surrounded by ultramodern buildings. Dozens of robot observer eyes hovered overhead, keeping watch over the military base. Situated in the middle of the circle of classroom buildings, a sleek executive transport ship squatted on the grass, its door open for boarding. The recruits were hurried in as the all-clear signal alerted the pilot for takeoff.
As Davin settled into his seat, a holo appeared in the middle of the aisle. Tall and gaunt with sunken eyes, the holographic image of the man was dressed in the tight black uniform of a ground commander. The image spoke with forcefulness.
“I am Colonel Veers, commander of the Emperor’s AT-AT forces. You trooper candidates have been selected for your ability to learn quickly and put the requirements of the mission over your personal needs. No matter how superior our space forces may be, it is the brilliance of the ground troops, ferreting out the enemy from their dug-in encampments, that will win this conflict. The ground forces are the true backbone needed for a total victory—and you have been selected to man the flagship of the ground troops: the All Terrain Armored Transport, the AT-AT!”
Colonel Veers’s image was replaced by a four-legged metal behemoth, lumbering across rugged terrain. It moved in mere seconds distances that would have taken men on foot an hour to traverse. Twin blaster cannons fired laser pulses from the vehicle’s metallic head; two uniformed crewmen could be seen in the command module in the AT-AT’s head. The recruits in the executive transport drew in their breath in a collective gasp at the sight.
Colonel Veers’s voice continued. “You will undergo six weeks of intensive training in the virtual reality simulators before being allowed in the AT-AT even as an observer. If you pass the qualifying phase of the test, you will be allowed to accompany the AT-AT in one of my combat battalions. Good luck to you all, but take a good look around you—fewer than one person in ten will successfully complete this arduous training.” He scanned the room as though he could look into each recruit’s face. Davin sat rigid in his seat and tried to meet the holo’s eye, but the image dissolved from view.
A murmur ran through the ship. The recruits leaned over their seats and whispered excitedly to one another. The man next to Davin turned, his face flushed. “An AT-AT! Can you believe we’ve been picked for the chance to command one of them?”
The image of the monstrous vehicle stepping across the rocky terrain still burned in Davin’s mind. Through all of his training experiences, nothing had sparked the fire in him as had the sight of the AT-AT. It was almost as if his destiny had been unfolded right inside the sleek executive transport.
“Yeah,” whispered Davin, “and I’m going to make sure I’m not one of those nine recruits who washes out.”
• • •
The AT-AT control room seemed large to Davin Felth. Multicolored touch-sensitive controls covered the walls and ceiling; the rectangular viewport at the front of the control room was as tall as Davin. Two swivel chairs sat at the front of the viewport, allowing the pilot and copilot access to all the controls, yet giving them a spectacular view of below. They were a good five hundred meters above the ground in the AT-AT control “head,” docked at the training base.
Davin felt a shortness of breath, as if he had walked into some sacrosanct place; but it was more than that. He slowly stepped forward and ran a hand over the right-hand seat. He felt rich dewback leather—only the best for Colonel Veers’s recruits!
“Do you like it?”
The voice startled Davin, and the past months of training made him cringe at the blast he knew was to come. “Yes, sir.”
The instructor joined Davin and spoke quietly, as if not to disturb Davin’s sense of awe. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the feeling I get when I climb aboard.” He glanced at Davin. “And that’s one of the attributes we look for in our recruits, Davin Felth. If they do not respect the AT-AT, then they approach their assignment as just another duty. They might as well stay in their virtual reality chamber, playing like children. We only want the best to pilot the AT-AT, because when something goes wrong that you can’t fix by VR, then it’s the best who survive.”
He reached up and ran his fingers over an array of lights. A low sound thrummed through the floor as the instruments powered up. The instructor swung the chair around and flicked at the lights in front of him. “Do you want to take her out?”
“Yes, sir!” said Davin. He eagerly climbed into the copilot’s seat and waited for instructions. When none came, he remembered the lessons he had been taught in the VR simulator, and quickly helped the instructor with the checklist. Within minutes they were ready to ease the AT-AT out of the docking bay.
Davin watched the screens inlaid above the viewport; he saw images broadcast from the docking area of the AT-AT from all different angles. In the seat next to Davin, the instructor effortlessly ran through the sequence to back the AT-AT away from its berth. Although the AT-AT was completely controlled by artificial intelligence, Davin appreciated for the first time the enormity of the task of running a machine that held nearly as many moving parts as the human body. The human presence on board served as a foolproof backup.
“Let’s take her up into the hills,” said the instructor. “I want to run through some target practice. I’ll let Base know our call sign is Landkiller One.”
The view outside of the viewport raced across the molecular-thick window as the AT-AT lumbered away from the base. They quickly left behind the syngranite buildings and roads and turned into the rugged hillside.
The ride was smooth. The AT-AT stepped across chasms so deep Davin couldn’t see the bottom. They climbed the ridge and dropped down to the valley on the other side; boulders littered the hillside. They were in the middle of a barren wasteland. Sheer rock rose up on one side of them, and in the distance, Davin saw red and silver rock formations jutting into the air, looking like a forest of multicolored needles. Davin glanced at the clock—they had only left the base ten minutes before, but already they were out in the wilderness.
Little by little the instructor allowed Davin to take over the AT-AT controls. Piloting the AT-AT was just like using the virtual reality simulator, but Davin knew that any misjudgment would be disastrous. Davin devoted his entire attention to monitoring the myriad instruments.
“You’re pretty good at this,” said the instructor after a while. “Not many recruits are as comfortable as you.”
“Thanks,” said Davin, not breaking his concentration.
“Keep at this heading,” said the instructor, pushing up from his seat. “I want to check the weapons cache. We’re coming upon the target range and the terrain doesn’t change any from here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Just call out if anything goes wrong; I’ll be right back. But don’t leave the controls—no matter what happens.”
“Yes, sir.” Davin tried to keep his excitement in check. The AT-AT almost functioned on its own, but Davin still felt heady being in command, alone in the command center. Step by monstrous step, the AT-AT lumbered across the barren terrain. Looking out over the rugged land, Davin could imagine himself commanding a fleet of AT-AT’s, massing against the Rebels—
Davin caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye. A dark speck, then suddenly three more, swooped down out of the sky. They headed straight for the AT-AT.
Davin glanced at his radar screen—nothing showed up. He punched up his scanning instruments and got the same response: nothing at all in the EM, gravitational, and neutrino spectrums.
Davin frowned and called out to his instructor, “I’ve got a visual on some fighter craft heading this way, but they don’t show up on scanners. They’re closing fast.”
Davin didn’t get an answer from his instructor, still back in the weapons cache. The only sound Davin heard was the muted rumbling of the AT-AT’s power system, and the slight jarring that came over the electronically cushioned ride.
Davin turned in his seat. “Sir? Are you there?” The door to the weapons cache was sealed; Davin turned back to the front. The four fighter craft grew closer. He slapped at the intercom and broadcasted throughout the AT-AT. “Sergeant!” Still no answer.
The four ships split off in two pairs, each vessel turning sideways as they came directly for the AT-AT control chamber. Bright pops of blaster cannon erupted from the fighters as they fired upon Davin’s AT-AT.
“Hey!” Davin felt anger and fear surge through him. “Sergeant, we’re being attacked!” The vessels thundered past the AT-AT, causing the giant war machine to sway slightly in the fighter’s turbulence. “What’s going on? Are we in the target area or something?”
Still not getting a reply, Davin nearly unbuckled to go look for the AT-AT instructor. What if something had happened to the man? The instructor would know what to do. This was crazy!
But when Davin saw the fighter craft swoop up again in front of him, he sat frozen in his seat. The four fighters were coming in for another strafing run. Davin forced himself to grab at the communicator. He flicked to the AT-AT Base frequency. “Distress, Distress—this is Landkiller One! Attention, Base, we’re under attack. There must be some kind of mistake. I say again, Distress!”
Only the sound of white noise came over the speaker; even the emergency holo did not function.
Bright pinpoints of light once again erupted from the head of the attacking fighter craft. Davin tensed himself as the AT-AT was rocked with the impact of a blaster cannon. A shrill alarm blasted above his head as the acrid smell of oily smoke rolled throughout the control room. “Sergeant—help me!” The warbling sound of another alarm pierced the air; synthetic voices announcing damage-control procedures came from the rear of the control room. Twenty things seemed to happen at once.
Throughout all the confusion, Davin spotted the four fighter craft rolling up from upon high and diving down to make another … and perhaps their last … strafing run.
Davin grew suddenly angry at all that had gone wrong. Throughout his short career as an Imperial military man, he had been drilled that the only way to survive was to follow procedures. But here was a situation that had not been covered in any textbook or testing sequence! He was out on his own, and as crazy as it seemed, somehow the Rebels must have found their way to the Imperial military training planet. How else could he explain the fighter vessels not showing up on radar?
Davin pushed all concern aside and armed the AT-AT fire controls. If he was going to be shot at, he wasn’t going to go down without a fight. The automated fire-control system was of no use since the enemy craft did not show up on any of his scanning instruments.
Slaving the blaster cannon controls to follow his line of sight, he let loose a salvo of high-energy laser blasts. The bundles of energy shot past the attacking ships. Although his shots missed the fighter craft, the attacking ships split up. Had they not expected him to fight back?
The fighters flew past him, again coming so close that the AT-AT shuddered because of the passing crafts’ shock wave. Davin slapped at the emergency beacon, sending out a continuous squawk over the airwaves. At the same time, he halted the AT-AT’s forward motion, slaving the AT-AT’s entire computer resources to fight the incoming attackers.
Since he had to rely on his eyesight and none of the instruments during the battle, Davin decided to put himself at the greatest advantage. He ordered the AT-AT to kneel, dropping as low to the ground as possible. Slowly, with jerky motions, the huge behemoth staggered to the ground.
Davin brought the war machine’s head down flat with the body until there remained no part of the AT-AT that the fighters could fly under. By the time the four fighter craft came back around for another attack, Davin’s AT-AT lay hunkered on the ground.
The fighters grouped together for a high-angle dive-bombing run. As they approached, Davin knew they could not fly under the AT-AT.
Davin forced them to make a suicide attempt on the control chamber.
Davin jammed his finger down on the firing control. The AT-AT rocked with the recoil from the laser cannon. An explosion burst across the screen as he hit two of the fighters; a third fighter tried to steer away from the flying debris, but his wing clipped the ground and cartwheeled into a rocky cliff.
The remaining fighter bore down on him. He flew in low, wobbling in the hot layer of turbulent desert air. Davin waited until the fighter was nearly upon him before firing. The craft kept close to the ground, as if expecting Davin’s AT-AT to rise and start shooting.
Seconds later, the last fighter plowed into a rock formation, erupting with a violent burst. Red-orange flames shot out, then quickly disappeared from view.
Davin sat in the sudden quiet. Moments ago the control room had been filled with a cacophony of alarms and the sight of four fighter craft attacking the AT-AT. But now, there was only the distant throb of the onboard power plant.
Davin felt drained, too tired even to call Base and report what had happened. But he knew that he must, for if these four Rebel craft had somehow managed to evade the Imperial defenses, then no telling how many of the dangerous vessels would be lurking in orbit.
He picked up the communicator when he heard a sound behind him. Davin turned. “Sergeant?” In the shock of battle, he had completely forgotten about his instructor being lost in the sealed weapons cache.
His instructor stood with his hands on his hips, grinning wolfishly. “Good job, Recruit Felth. You’ve got a command party landing on the AT-AT command module, so open up the top hatch.”
“Yes, sir.” Dazed and confused, Davin did as instructed. Once outside, he searched for the wreckage of the fighters that should have covered the landscape … but he was stunned to see nothing.
“You’re the first recruit to bring down all four fighters, Davin Felth. This AT-AT was specially designed to simulate that battle—it was all projected via virtual reality into the control head.” It was almost too much for Davin to comprehend.
Recovering from the fact that he had not been in an actual battle, Davin stood with his instructor on top of the AT-AT’s sprawling metallic head. Davin squinted in the sunlight; the dry desert air smelled enthralling to him after the stuffiness of the damaged control room.
A dot appeared above them, dilating in size until Davin could make out the bottom of an Imperial command scout. Davin and his instructor stepped back. After the command scout landed, a door hissed open and a ramp extended to the surface.
Two white-armored Imperial stormtroopers marched out and stood at rigid attention on either side of the opening. Davin gasped as he recognized the man emerging from the ship. “Colonel Veers!” Davin snapped to attention and saluted.
Veers strode up and returned the salute. He looked Davin up and down. “Recruit Felth, is it?”
“Yes, sir,” stammered Davin.
“This kneeling maneuver with the AT-AT—how did you come up with that idea, recruit?”
Davin opened his mouth but he was at a loss for words.
“Well,” growled Veers. “Out with it, recruit!”
“I—I don’t know, sir. It just seemed the logical thing to do. It was the only way to keep the fighters from finishing us off, by not allowing them underneath the AT-AT.”
Veers sounded strangely cold. “And what would that do, recruit?”
Davin shrugged, thrown by Veers’s line of questioning. Why, he had fought off the fighters, hadn’t he? And won! “Well—”
“Address the colonel as sir!” corrected his instructor, embarrassed to be speaking in front of Veers.
“Thank you, Sergeant,” said Veers. The colonel drew close to Davin and steered him away from the others. When they were some distance from the instructor and Imperial stormtroopers, the colonel spoke softly. “Now continue, recruit. What is so special about not allowing the fighters access to the AT-AT underbelly?”
Davin stiffened. “I lost track of them when they flew underneath. Once the fighters were under the AT-AT, they could have done just about anything they wanted.”
Veers seemed about to lose his patience. “Such as—?”
Davin felt his face grow warm as he scrambled to think of something, anything to appease the colonel. “Such as … tying up the AT-AT legs, sir,” Davin blurted out. “All they needed was some cable and they could have easily tripped the AT-AT.”
A strange look came over Colonel Veers. The thin man smiled tightly and looked Davin over. “Very well. Thank you, recruit. That’s very enlightening.” He raised a finger to his lips. “Keep this classified until my battle staff can analyze the implications, understand?”
“Yes, sir!”
Veers turned to go. Raising his voice, he nodded at Davin’s instructor as he spoke. “Have Recruit Felth report to Assignments when he returns. A man of his caliber deserves immediate recognition. My staff will have an assignment worthy of his talents ready when he returns.”
“Yes, sir,” said the instructor.
As an afterthought, Veers raised a finger. “And impound all the datacubes on this simulation. Have them sent to my command headquarters. Understood?”
“Yes, Colonel.”
“And quickly. I have been dispatched for temporary duty as an advisor to the Emperor’s new Death Star. I want this accomplished before I leave.”
When the scout ship disappeared from view, Davin’s instructor clapped him on the shoulder. “I don’t know how you did it, recruit, but I have a feeling you’ve been marked for a one-in-a-million career!”
• • •
The familiar background hum of the starship didn’t comfort Davin Felth. The sharp oil-on-metal smell, harsh lighting, and polished decks of the huge troop transport should have made Davin feel right at home—but ever since receiving the hush-hush orders from Colonel Veers’s command section, he had been totally confused.
No one questioned the sealed orders when he reported to the Imperial troop transport, and no one explained exactly what he was supposed to do. All he knew was that now, two hundred light-years from Carida, he was assigned to a detachment of stormtroopers, setting off for some forsaken planet.
Stormtroopers!
He drew in a breath and tried to explain for the third time to the man staring at papers on the desk, ignoring him. “Captain Terrik, you just don’t understand. I’ve spent the last day trying to find out what is going on, but no one has the authority to help me. I was told personally by Colonel Veers that I would receive an assignment worthy of my talents. I’m an AT-AT operator, not a … a foot soldier!”
The officer’s smoothly shaven head snapped up so that Davin could see the man’s eyes. Deep, penetrating, and utterly without fear, Captain Terrik bored his gaze into Davin like a lightsaber. “Stormtroopers are not foot soldiers!” He placed his hands on his desk and stood, barely holding back his trembling. “If it was up to me, you Jawa slime, I’d have spaced you when we first hit vacuum. I’m well aware of Colonel Veers’s orders, and we’re going to follow his directions to the micron!”
“Very well,” said Davin, somewhat relieved. He straightened and looked smartly around the cabin. Headquarters for the small detachment of twenty stormtroopers on board the ship, Captain Terrik’s cabin was decorated with battle streamers, plaques, paintings of battles against the Rebels, and a holo of Lord Vader. “You will show me to my correct assignment, then.” He smiled at the captain. Terrik trembled more visibly and turned redder by the second.
“Stand at attention!” growled Captain Terrik. “Listen up, you mynock bait! It took me all day to confirm those orders, and Emperor only knows why Colonel Veers wants this. But you belong to me now, Felth! We’ve got another month of maneuvers before we get to Tatooine, and I intend to use that time whipping you into shape.”
“Tatooine?” said Davin, his face growing white. “What’s that? There must be some kind of mistake.”
“Oh, no.” Captain Terrik grinned wolfishly. He picked up Davin’s orders lying on his desk and shook them under Davin’s nose. “My detachment of stormtroopers is relieving the Thirty-seventh Detachment that has been stationed at Mos Eisley on Tatooine. We’ll be assigned to the governor, but we’re not in his chain of command—my superior is in the next sector, half a light-year away. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not going directly to Tatooine, so I’ll have a month to break in a young Jawa slime like you, turn you into a real stormtrooper. You’ll learn pretty quick what it’s like to be a foot soldier.” Captain Terrik spat the words out of his mouth and grinned at Davin. “Any more questions, golden boy?”
Davin felt what hope he had left seep out of him. Standing at rigid attention just microns in front of Captain Terrik’s face, Davin knew what it was like to jump from a crashing ship into a pit of burning fuel.
Davin Felth was in the best shape of his life when he prepared to land on Tatooine. But getting there on board the troop transport the past month had been pure hell.
The twenty stormtroopers in the detachment had all pitched in in some way or another, “helping” Davin get up to speed in the rigorous training. Their normal three-month period of disciplining, schooling, and physical fitness was compressed into a never-ending nightmare for Davin. The stormtroopers were not about to allow a mere AT-AT operator, although a graduate of Carida Basic Military Training, into their esteemed ranks without passing through a minimum of ritual.
Davin did not have the time to be homesick or lonely, although his thoughts sometimes drifted to his two roommates back at Carida. He wondered where they had been assigned.
Ten hours before landfall, Davin marched up to the quartermaster and collected his desert gear: heat-reflective armor, comlink, filtermask, blaster rifle, blaster pistol, temperature-control body glove, utility belt, energy source, and concussion grenade launcher. He staggered to his cabin under the load of equipment.
Davin donned his helmet with automatic polarized lenses. Fully outfitted in the desert-terrain gear, he clunked to the mirror in his small cabin and looked himself over. Like it or not, he was finally a stormtrooper.
He used his chin to click on his chinmike, activating the comlink. He tapped into stormtrooper radio traffic for the entire troop ship: “Access to AT-AT bay now open.” “Cold assault and aquatic assault detachments reporting still in stasis.” “Tatooine landing for refurbishment ready when ready.”
A series of voices checked in. Davin thought he recognized some of the stormtroopers’ voices.
There was a long pause of silence. Sounding irritated, Captain Terrik’s voice came over the comlink. “Ten twenty-three? Are you up and ready?”
It took Davin a full two heartbeats to realize that Captain Terrik was speaking to him.
“Ten twenty-three ready, sir.”
“Report to the landing craft, ten twenty-three. Prepare to disembark. Move it!”
“Yes, sir.” His name stripped away, Davin had been assigned the emotionless number 1023 as part of his stormtrooper indoctrination. Their zealous devotion to duty demanded denial of the individual, pledging their allegiance only to the Emperor. Unwilling to make that commitment, Davin turned his thoughts to his family, his friends, as the training attempted to squeeze away his memories. His fellow stormtroopers reveled in the mystery that surrounded their existence, their lack of identity. With no one to turn to or confide in, Davin felt miserable.
It only took a moment to gather up his meager belongings. The clothes he had taken with him from home seemed useless now, but he kept them as a reminder of the life he used to have. He stuffed them in a sand-colored duffel bag and carried them with his weapons down to the landing craft. He kept to the side of the corridor as he walked, trying to keep out of people’s way. A group of naval troopers double-timed around the corner.
The corridor widened to the immense landing bay. Stepping inside, he felt as if he were outdoors. Worker droids ran along scaffolding that reached higher than an AT-AT; the bay was so wide that he had trouble seeing to the opposite side. He set off for the landing craft, halfway across the immense bay, to join the contingent of stormtroopers.
“Ten twenty-three?”
Davin swung his gear down and faced Captain Terrik. “Present, sir.”
“You’re assigned to scout unit Zeta. Something came up. We’re delaying reporting to the garrison, so pile your gear in the storage compartment with the rest of the detachment.”
“Yes, sir.”
Davin lined up and waited for Captain Terrik to finish his paperwork. Accepting a salute from the officer on deck, Captain Terrik faced the waiting stormtroopers. A warbling sound came over Davin’s comlink, informing him that Captain Terrik was going to a secure communications mode, using frequency-jumping techniques known only to the stormtroopers’ sensors. “Quickly now—change of orders. We’re deploying to the surface, bypassing Mos Eisley to participate in a search-and-destroy mission.”
Someone asked, “What are we searching for, sir?”
“An escape pod. It jettisoned from a Corellian Corvette evading Lord Vader’s Star Destroyer and landed somewhere on Tatooine.”
Breaking military silence, a gasp went up over the secure link. “Lord Vader—here?”
“That’s right,” said Captain Terrik grimly. “Now double-time on board the landing craft!”
Although Davin was the last to board the spacecraft, he was set into his station before all the other stormtroopers in his detachment. Lord Vader! The very thought of the Dark Lord being so close to the backwater planet sent a chill through Davin. He hadn’t felt this strange since he had learned through the grapevine that Colonel Veers had never even mentioned Davin’s “kneeling” defense for the AT-AT to his superiors. It was almost as if Colonel Veers didn’t want anyone to know of the fatal flaw in the giant walker’s design.
The stormtroopers sat mute as they left the troop transport, their home for the past month. Visual images of Tatooine flashed inside their helmets, transmitted from the intelligence network orbiting Tatooine. Computer-generated graphics pinpointed the most likely landing place of the small escape pod.
As part of scout unit Zeta, Davin was tasked with reconnoitering the rocky highlands. He gripped his blaster rifle and stole a glance at the rest of the stormtroopers waiting patiently in two rows beside him. Everyone studied the data dump from the mother ship. He wondered how the others could remain so calm when they were about to embark on a mission. And for Lord Vader at that! He just wondered why the pod was so important.
The scouting craft landed with a bump. The side yawned open, spilling in hot air and brilliant sunshine. Davin pushed out and joined the other stormtroopers, who quickly lined up in front of Captain Terrik. No one spoke over the comlink until Davin heard Captain Terrik’s voice.
“Lord Vader’s Star Destroyer is mapping the planet with a sensor scan, trying to locate the escape pod. It must have buried itself on landing, or was hidden by some Rebel sympathizers. We have a preliminary position on the pod from just before it impacted, so we’ll spread out and sift through all the sand on this planet if necessary to find it.”
“Why is the pod so important, sir?” Davin surprised himself by blurting out the question; he only hoped that Captain Terrik would be so busy that he wouldn’t yell at him.
“It’s carrying classified material, and that’s all you need to know. The point is that we need to find it … or we’ll have to explain to Lord Vader why a detachment of the Emperor’s Own failed in their duty. Got it?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Then listen up. Alvien and Drax squads, cover the next quadrant. Zeta squad, come with me. Headquarters at Mos Eisley has grav-lifted in three dewbacks to aid in the search—they can cover more territory than we can and will lead us to the pod if they get a scent. Start a circular search pattern, move.”
The desert terrain was featureless, ever-shifting. Davin crunched his way through the sand, not sure what he was looking for, but knowing that some kind of evidence from the escape pod’s landing had to be present. He climbed a small hill. The desert spread out in every direction. They might as well have been the only ones on the planet.
Seeing a rise in the sand below him, he scooted down the ridge and poked his blaster into the ground. He struck something hard! He clicked on the comlink. “Captain Terrik, ten twenty-three reporting. I think I found the pod.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir.” Davin excitedly dug into the ground with his blaster butt … only to unearth a large rock.
Captain Terrik appeared over the ridge just as Davin made his discovery. “Ten twenty-three, what are you doing!”
“Sorry, sir.” Discouraged, he trudged back up the small hill and joined the rest of his squad continuing the search.
After arriving from Mos Eisley, a giant lizardlike dewback was assigned to each squad. Davin was not given the opportunity to ride the monstrous reptilian beast, but that suited him fine. Every step the scaly animal took reverberated in the sand.
The search seemed to last forever. Davin lost count of the breaks he took, and per Imperial orders, they were forced to stay in their suits and drink the distilled water flown in from Mos Eisley with the dewback.
Setting out to cover another part of the quadrant, Davin spotted a glint out of the corner of his eye. There … whatever it was just caught the light from Tatooine’s second sun.
He almost cried out, but clamped his mouth shut. Clutching his blaster, he bounded for the glint of light. Slowly, the object took shape. Half-buried in the sand, the object looked scorched. As he drew near, he made out the faint red and blue markings of an escape pod.
There was no doubt in his mind now. “Captain Terrik, ten twenty-three reporting. I’ve found the escape pod!”
“If this is another one of your daydreams, ten twenty-three—!”
“I’m positive, sir. It may not be what we’re looking for, but it has Imperial markings.”
Minutes later Captain Terrik joined Davin by the object. A stormtrooper riding a dewback appeared over the crest of a rise, waiting for a signal that it was the right pod.
Captain Terrik surveyed the site. “Someone was in the pod. The tracks go off in this direction.”
Davin fished a mechanism from inside the escape pod. There was only one thing that used such a device —an R2 unit. He held it up so all could see. “Look, sir, droids!”
“All right. Form up. I’ll inform Lord Vader the pod wasn’t destroyed. Now we’ve really got to move.”
“Ten twenty-three reporting. They’re not in the repair bay, sir,” said Davin Felth. He stood in the middle of a bay full of droids, deep in the bowels of a Jawa sandcrawler. Cables drooped across the ceiling; tables with disassembled equipment were strewn across the floor.
“You’ve all searched the entire sandcrawler?”
“Affirmative,” answered each stormtrooper, calling off their trooper numbers one by one.
“Form up outside.”
Davin stepped across a Roche J9 worker droid lying on the metal floor. Two Jawas stood just outside of the repair bay and muttered between themselves, obviously displeased that the stormtroopers would search their ship. Davin scanned the room one last time before he left and counted off an Arakyd BT-16 perimeter droid, a demolition droid, an R4 agromech droid, a WED15 treadwell droid, and an EG-6 power droid—but there was no R2, or even a protocol unit that was often paired with an R2 droid.
A gaggle of Jawas followed him outside the cruiser. All Davin could see of the little aliens were their bright eyes, looking out of their flowing hooded brown robes. The rest of Zeta squad stood waiting for him, their blaster rifles held loosely by their sides. The stormtroopers kept their backs to one another, watching all sides for any possible attack.
As he joined the squad, Davin overheard Captain Terrik conversing with the head Jawa on the officer’s suit speaker. “You are certain that the droids were sold to a moisture farmer at your last stop?” After a series of high-pitched chatters came from the Jawa, Captain Terrik turned and waved his arm back to Zeta squad; he switched to the secure stormtrooper frequency. “Form up with the rest of the detachment.”
Zeta squad double-timed in the sand away from the Jawa sandcrawler to join the remainder of the stormtroopers. They kept guard over the sandcrawler on a rise just to the south. Three enormous hairy banthas airlifted in from somewhere, two converted GoCorp Arunskin 32 cargo skiffs, and a Ubrikkian HAVr A9 floating fortress with two heavy blaster cannons waited on the other side of the rise.
The Jawas yelled and shook their fists at the stormtroopers as they left. The little brown-robed aliens then scurried around the sandcrawler, preparing to continue their journey.
Captain Terrik’s voice came over Davin’s helmet. “Floating fortress—fire when ready upon the Jawa sandcrawler. When it is destroyed, ride those banthas up to the wreckage and leave that material we confiscated from the Sand People. We want people to think the Sand People attacked the sandcrawler. The rest of you, load up the cargo skiffs—we will find those droids at that moisture farmer’s.”
The floating fortress immediately wheeled off the ground, rising above the ridge in a banking turn. Climbing on board the bulky cargo skiff, Davin saw two bolts of blaster energy burst out of the floating fortress.
Over the whoops of joy from the other stormtroopers, Davin remained quiet. His thoughts were on the little Jawas, and how they were no more.
Davin lingered behind the rest, staying just far enough behind the other stormtroopers so that he didn’t draw attention to himself. Zeta squad raced through the lower levels of the moisture farmer’s house, overturning tables, ripping doors off cabinets, smashing metal lockers with their blaster rifles until the containers popped open. One by one the stormtroopers checked in with Captain Terrik: “No sign of the droids, sir.”
Davin watched the stormtrooper in front of him kick over a vat of oil before heading to the upper level. The moisture farmer’s house was a shambles.
“Zeta squad check in and form up,” said Captain Terrik, his words clipped and precise in Davin’s helmet.
“Ten twenty-three,” said Davin. He tried to control his breathing, but the thought of what was going to happen next nearly overwhelmed his senses. He trotted into the bright Tatooine double-sunshine and stood at attention with the rest of his squad. Captain Terrik stood in front of the moisture farmer and his wife, just outside of the house. The moisture farmer’s face was bright red with anger; the woman cried, her head down. Davin flicked his outside audio sensor on with his chin and listened to the exchange.
“… you men are nothing but criminals! I told you I haven’t seen those droids since last night. And look what you’ve done to my house! The governor will pay for this.”
“This nephew of yours,” said Captain Terrik, his voice modulated by the speaker in his battlesuit, “one more time: Where did he take the Artoo unit?”
“Haven’t you been listening?” The moisture farmer shook a fist in the air. “I don’t know—and now I would not tell you even if I did know! You Imperial thugs are worse than I imagined.” He stepped up to Captain Terrik’s helmeted face and spat; spittle ran down the officer’s helmet.
Captain Terrik made no attempt to remove the spittle. “Where is the boy?”
“I never did care much for the Rebel movement; but now I hope they find every one of you bantha slime and grill your carcasses!”
The moisture farmer turned and put an arm around his wife, drawing her near. The two turned away, back toward their home.
Without emotion, Captain Terrik nodded toward the stormtroopers. His voice came over the secure link. “There’s only one place the boy could have taken the droids—into Mos Eisley, to escape offplanet. Zeta squad, load up. Floating fortress, this house needs to be left as a reminder of what happens when quarter is given to Rebels. Fire when ready.”
Turning quickly for the cargo skiff, Davin Felth pushed aboard and kept his eyes averted from the blast on the house. A sour taste clawed up his throat. First they executed the Jawas, and now these humans. And over what—a couple of lousy droids? What could be so important that it deserved executing these people?
On his home planet, joining the military had seemed all fun and games, his chest swelling with pride as he had boarded the ship to transport him to Carida. But now, this was reality. People were dying, being indiscriminately killed.
The cargo skiff lifted off the ground, giving Davin a view of the carnage below. Smoke drifted up from the house. He could see the charred remains of two bodies lying in the scorched sand. As the skiff wheeled toward the desert city of Mos Eisley, Davin didn’t know what he would do if he was ordered to kill.
Landing on the outskirts of Mos Eisley, the stormtroopers marched off the cargo skiff. They spent hours digging through the databases at the port authority, interrogating charter-ship owners, and searching repair shops before Captain Terrik gave up in disgust and ordered a methodical search of the streets.
The smells of the rich food, dirty bodies, and fuel permeated even their battle suits as they gathered around Captain Terrik. “All right, listen up,” he said. “Alvien squad, set up checkpoints on every road coming into the city. You’ll supplement the detachment already there. Drax and Zeta squads, run a patrol through the city, check door-to-door for those droids. There’s only one way for those droids and that kid to get offplanet, and it’s got to be through this hellhole of a city. Move out.”
Davin joined the rest of the squad as they double-timed away from the detachment. Mos Eisley yawned open in front of them, a collection of dusty, low-slung brown buildings that looked as if they had been scattered by a juri-juice addict. Creatures in long flowing robes moved quietly through the dirt streets; Davin hadn’t seen this many aliens in one place since the galactic Olympics on the holovid.
Every door was sealed tight, supposedly closed against the sand, but Davin suspected it was to ensure the privacy of the unsavory characters he saw stepping back into the shadows.
They marched into the heart of the city, passing Lup’s general store, the marketplace, Gap’s grill, and the spaceport express. A potpourri of jabbering sounds and sharp smells invaded Davin’s senses, mixed together with the ever-present sand. After his initial exposure to Tatooine by being dumped in the middle of the desert with his detachment, Davin realized that he really hadn’t had a chance to sit back and savor this strange new world to which he had been assigned. But then again, he bitterly realized it might be a long time before he ever got offplanet.
His thoughts were shattered by a scream, then several shouts coming from an old blockhouse. Davin remembered the briefings on the landing craft—several buildings had been originally designed as a shelter against Tusken Raiders. This certainly looked like one of them.
No one else in Zeta squad seemed to hear the commotion.
Looking for a chance to get away from the craziness for a while, Davin clicked on his comlink. “Ten twenty-three, checking out a disturbance at a blockhouse.”
“Permission granted,” said Captain Terrik. “Ten forty-seven, back him up.”
Davin gripped his rifle and peeled off from the squad. Creatures in every form of dress moved aside for Davin and his backup. A nondescript sign with faint lettering read: Mos Eisley Cantina.
A 2.8-meter-high green insectoid crawled from the cantina as they arrived. It sported bulbous eyes atop a slender stalk, with four legs supporting a slender thorax and abdomen. It chattered at Davin.
“I am taking my spice trade elsewhere if I cannot be assured of my own safety!”
Davin turned to his backup, 1047. “Sounds like trouble.”
“These places don’t serve droids,” said 1047. “We’re needed elsewhere.”
Wanting to keep away from the droid hunt, Davin ignored him and pushed on inside the dark cantina. Davin’s solid-state visor immediately compensated for the low light level. He stood on an elevated entranceway, just inside the door. It looked like a place where smugglers, bounty hunters, and other low-class types would hang out.
Davin spotted two people in the back, a boy and an old man, get up from a booth and walk quickly toward a back hallway. He ignored them and stepped up to the bartender.
Davin clicked on his outside speaker. “I understand there’s been some trouble here.”
“Nothing out of the ordinary,” said the bartender, nodding to the rear of his establishment. “Just having a little fun. You can look around if you like.”
“All right—we’ll check it out.”
Davin kept a grip on his rifle and walked slowly through the cantina. He passed two slender human women and a sharp-smelling Rodian standing by the bar; a horned Devaronian nodded curtly and stepped back, out of the way. Reaching the booth where Davin had spotted the boy and old man heading for the back hallway, he found an athletic-looking human who stared sullenly at the table, ignoring him.
Davin turned to 1047, his backup. “You’re right—there’s nothing here.”
“Let’s join the others.”
Davin merely grunted. He was in no hurry to witness another senseless killing. But what else could he do?
They stepped into the brilliant Tatooine sunlight, leaving the shady cantina behind. Davin started to suggest they continue the search for the missing droids on their own instead of joining the rest of the detachment, when the rest of Zeta squad marched around the corner in lockstep, completing their circuit of the perimeter.
Before Davin could say anything into his helmet microphone, he heard a shrill yell. It sounded like an outraged Jawa! How could he forget the high-pitched chatter from the little creatures that they had brutally executed?
Davin instantly crouched into a combat position, pulling up his rifle. A long-robed Jawa leaped from a hiding place in the middle of some space wreckage crashed in the middle of the square. The Jawa struggled with an oversized blaster, the weapon dwarfing the ridiculous-looking creature.
Finally aiming the blaster rifle at Zeta squad, the Jawa cut loose with one last shrill yell and squeezed the firing button—
Nothing happened. The Jawa howled with anger and surprise. He kept pushing the button. Everything happened so fast that Davin didn’t react.
Or maybe his instincts kept him from reacting, with all of the senseless killings he had witnessed …
“Crazy Jawa,” muttered 1047. The stormtrooper pulled out his blaster and flipped off a shot at the Jawa, still struggling with the weapon. The shot’s momentum sent the Jawa flying back against the wreckage. It slid to the dirt. “One less Jawa slime to bother us,” said 1047 as he holstered his blaster.
Davin stepped back in shock. What have we become? He had almost excused the Imperial stormtroopers for the way they indiscriminately killed the Jawas in their sandcrawler because of this so-called threat to the Emperor. But the moisture farmer, and now this latest act of violence … Davin couldn’t reconcile it. The only answer to these actions kept coming up the same, time after time: The Empire was basically evil. And he didn’t fit in.
But I can’t resign, he thought. So what can I do?
He seemed to walk forever in a daze with Zeta squad, when he heard a voice in his helmet speaker. “Trouble at Docking Bay Ninety-four—we’ve located the droids! All personnel, converge and assist!”
“Come on, Ten twenty-three!” said 1047. “Follow me!”
Davin clutched his blaster rifle and trotted after the white-armored man. His time on Tatooine had seemed like a dream—he didn’t know how long he had been onplanet, but he had been surviving off his suit rations and supplements for longer than he imagined it would be possible.
Captain Terrik’s voice came inside his helmet. “Capture the droids! The Rebels have them—don’t let them get away!”
Sounds of laser blasts ricocheted down the narrow streets. A crowd had gathered outside the docking bay; several peered over the crowd and tried to get a glimpse of what was going on.
1047 switched to his outside speaker: “Move aside—now!”
Davin blindly followed his backup, more confused than ever. Rebels? Why would the Rebel force be so blatant and try to escape now?
Running down the alley, they rounded a corner and came upon the firefight. A modified light freighter cruiser sat in the middle of the docking bay, its back hatch open. Davin caught a glimpse of a boy running up the ramp into the ship. A volley of laser blasts peppered the area.
A score of stormtroopers were scattered around, firing upon the light freighter. The air was filled with the searing sounds of laser blasts.
Davin was stunned to see that an athletic-looking man held the stormtroopers at bay—he fought at twenty-to-one odds! Was this man one of the mysterious Rebels that dared to rise against the Emperor? It was the same man Davin had seen at the cantina! So this was the one who had kept two detachments of stormtroopers on the run!
Mesmerized by the very thought that so few could accomplish so much, Davin felt a rush of solidarity—he felt an empathy with the Rebels, fighting against such overwhelming odds … and surviving. He hadn’t felt this much emotion since the day he left for Carida …
The noise and confusion were overwhelming. Smoke sprang from stray laser blasts that ignited building material. Stormtroopers shouted conflicting orders.
Directly in front of Davin, Captain Terrik knelt on one knee and took careful aim at the athletic-looking man who was still holding off the Emperor’s finest. Captain Terrik waited for the precise moment before slowly squeezing his blaster rifle to take out the Rebel—
Davin glanced quickly around. No one was behind him … and more importantly, no one was watching him.
Without hesitation, Davin pulled up his blaster and shot Captain Terrik in the back.
The officer slumped to the ground, unnoticed by the others.
The athletic-looking Rebel scrambled safely up the access ramp as it closed, sealing off the starship. An earsplitting wail came inside his helmet over the stormtrooper’s frequency: “Clear the area, the Rebel’s lifting off! Clear the area!”
Defeated, the stormtroopers scrambled back. Anyone left in the docking bay would be irradiated by the starship’s exhaust. Someone’s voice came over the secure frequency: “Where’s Captain Terrik?”
“Leave him,” came another voice. “He’s dead. Killed in the crossfire.”
Cursing filled the stormtroopers’ airways. Several threw their blasters against the wall in disgust.
But as Davin pulled back with the rest, a new sense of purpose swept over him, like a cool wind cutting through the endless heat. He felt a kinship with the Rebels and almost wanted to join their cause.
But how?
Maybe he could warn them of the AT-AT’s vulnerability. Or maybe he could work as a “deep plant,” passing along vital information …
A spy? Maybe that was it. He’d have something to live for, something to believe in. He felt heady, as things suddenly fell in place.
As the stormtroopers formed up, Davin knew that he could help the Rebels best by staying in the belly of the beast.