Episode 10 (finally!)
Hours after the initial landing, Widow and Brains were still stationed on the guardhouse roof. The conversation had long run dry. Widow was lying on her stomach, slowly scanning rooftops through her scope again and again. Brains was sitting. His only entertainment was occasionally optimizing sensor frequencies in his uplink with Doomhammer. Near the back of the rooftop, Private Flutters was sitting down and leaning against a small wall. Dried blood was all over his wrists and hands from mending up some troopers in a shuttle crash earlier. His helmet was off and he was slowly leafing through a book. Blood from his hands had stained the pages in various places.
Brains gave a long sigh and tapped his wrist keypad to pull up a radio channel.
“Captain Fandorn, this is Torch 7,” Brains said, “How long are we going to be down here? Over.”
A simple crisp response came back over the radio. “Received, Torch 7. Roughly three hours in. Approximately 5 hours to go. Bridge says we’re ahead of schedule on moving bacta. Apparently all the hanger operators are exhausted from constant traffic. Keep in mind, your ass is planted on that rooftop. Cycle your watches however you want but if you leave that roof the big bitch upstairs will have you shot. Over..”
“Understood, Captain. Ass planted. Any chance the Major will send down any chow? Over.”
“Negative, Specialist. All shuttle capacity is dedicated to moving cargo. If the ration stick in your kit isn’t good enough then you’ll have to suck it up and remember to bring more next time. Captain Fandorn out.”
Flutters tossed over his ration stick.
“Enjoy it, Brains. You’ll get used to going hungry eventually but no need to rush your misery.”
The moment was interrupted by a loud crack and a blaster bolt hammered into the wall beside Flutters head. He ducked and immediately reached for his helmet.
Widow shifted over and started searching rooftops for the shooter. More fire opened up and blaster bolts started pounding onto the edge of the roof and over their heads.
“Boss, Widow. Under fire. Multiple shooters. Brains, give me something.”
“Thanks Widow,” Boss replied. “They just started giving it to us down here at the gate. Brains, what do your magic eyes have for us?”
“Working on it, Boss. Sensors building a picture. Damn, we have probably 100 hostiles converging on us. It looks like they’ve cleared out non-combatants. There’s a big power cell charging up. At least an E-Web. Get yourselves covered!”
A storm of blaster fire came down the street towards them and started shredding the gate. Debris flew in every direction and the growing cloud of dust obscured everything. The cracking sound from Widows rifle was almost rhythmic as Brains was working frantically on sensors and comms.
“TIE command, this is forward air control. We need immediate fighter support. Over.”
“Negative, Ground Air Control. Too many cargo ships for fighter runs that close to the refinery. Over.”
“Damn it!” Brains said. The heavy blaster bolts moved over towards the rooftop. The corner of the building evaporated under the hail of fire. Brains went back to his comm system.
“Gunnery Command, this is Ground Air Control. Requesting bombardment support. Over.”
Despite the wall of noise around them, the gunnery staff came through the radio cool and calm.
“Received, Ground Air Control. Processing request. Friendly vessels in line of fire. Sending course adjustment request to air control at the bridge. Transferring you to secondary battery control.”
Two bursts from grenades shook the entire building. A thermal detonator landed on the roof with red lights blinking. Flutters dove over. He grabbed the detonator and tossed it off the roof, back down onto the street below. The whole building shook went the detonator went off. Flutters took out one of his own thermal detonators and lobbed it down towards the street.
“Ground Air Control, this is Secondary Battery Control. Fire linking lateral quad laser to your target marker. Line of fire will be clear shortly. Over.”
“Understood Battery Control, Over.”
Brains looked out again over the street where the battle was unfolding. A large orange column came down from the sky and overlaid the area, showing the line of fire from Doomhammer. The E-Web did another sweep towards the rooftop and reduced it’s size by another meter.
Battery control came onto the radio again. “Ground Air Control. Fire link complete. Lateral turret is totally yours. Go make some orphans. Out.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
The orange column switched to green to show that the shuttles had moved and the line of fire was clear. Brains switched a setting on his pistol and a red light on the side came on. He looked down towards the street and saw the large power cell from the E-Web. At the edge of his eye he saw the outlines of locals advancing towards the gate. They were only a few meters away and it was nearly overrun.
“Boss!” Brains shouted into the radio. “Word from on high. Thunder close Thunder close.”
Brains crawled to the open chasm where the corner of the roof used to be and pointed his pistol at the street a little ways out from the rubble of the gate. He squeezed the trigger. The red light blinked a three times.
“Transmitting.” He said to himself.
The light turned orange. “Turret lining up.”
The light turned green. “Incoming. Get your heads down!”
Brains pulled himself back to the roof as Widow and Flutters covered their heads.
A massive flash of green came down and engulfed the street. The sound of the blast drown out everything. Remnants of pavement, building, and bodies slammed the walls in every direction. Brains let out a long exhale. The second after a bombardment, when everything was completely overpowered by noise and flash of the blast and the whole world seems to stop for a moment, was always amazing to him. It was his favourite feeling in the world and he’d never done it in combat before. It was even better than in training.
The next thing was Bootstraps coming over the radio.
“Emperor’s shriveled dick! What cross-eyed bastard on high dropped a shot that close to us?!”
Brains smile grew even larger. “Welcome to the Datatrooper Initiative, Bootstraps. Thunder all day long, everywhere you need it. Keep your heads down, I’m just getting started.”
Brains tapped a control on his wrist and his display switched to locating power cells. The E-Web stood out bright and shining compared to everything else. He nudged out from cover and drew his pistol towards it.
Red.
Orange.
Green.
Boom.
Brains had kept his head up to watch the impact this time. A wall of dust and small debris moved across. A small chunk of what may have been a building or a body bounced off his helmet. He was maybe enjoying this too much. He flipped his display to infrared to look for concentrations of bodies. The fire which used to be the heavy blaster was too big to make it effective. Another few buttons and his head was displaying sound and then filtered down to the frequency of heartbeats. Brains had targets again. The building off to the right.
Red. Orange. Green. Boom.
On to the next building. And the next. The lull after the blasts seemed to last longer each time. Everybody knew what was happening and was buttoning down under as much cover as they could. But cover meant almost nothing to a quad laser from a Star Destroyer.
Brains could see the rest of them leaving. The locals were done. The point had been made. Dust and smoke started to clear a bit and Torch Squad could take stock of things.
Boss came over the radios. “How’s everybody doing?”
“We’re good down below” Starfell replied. “The gate is a pile of crap now but it’ll still block any vehicles from getting in.”
Flutters came on next. “The size of the roof is significantly diminished but it is still technically a roof. We’re all fine up here but my book is a small casualty.”
Widow laughed into the radio. “What was it this time, anyway?”
“An ancient religious text from Corellia. Or a reproduction that is. Not hard to find another copy. Just a nuisance.”
Bootstraps cut in. “You don’t believe that crap, do you?”
“Not this in particular,” Flutters replied. “But the idea that there’s some transcendent energy binding us all together with some meaning or intentionality is both fascinating and comforting.”
Bootstraps laughed. “My only god is Doomhammer and Brains is its priest.”
The whole squad laughed through their comm links.
“I like him.” Widow said. “Boss, can we keep him.”
“Absolutely, Widow. Brains, you’re a torcher now.”
The squad took the next few minutes to catch their breath and reset. Bootstraps ended up on the roof with Brains and Flutters. Samson and Starfell left to check with a nearby unit about getting a refill on chow and grenades.
Bootstraps sat down beside Flutters on the rooftop. She pulled her helmet off and took a deep breath of the unfiltered atmosphere.
“Flutters, do you think it’s true?” She said.
Flutters and Brains pulled off their helmets.
“Is what true?” Brains said.
Bootstraps replied, “I was in the refinery scrounging for supplies before. Units are talking. Alert status one. Riots. Deployments. Big fleet lost. The real rumour is that Lord Vader is dead.”
Flutters gave a long sigh. “I heard it was the Emperor. And I heard that the Mon Cal are invading with a secret army. Or that the Hutts are invading. Or that the Hutts are joining. It’s all a mess and I stay out of it.”
Brains’ eyes went wide. “Lord Vader is dead?’
“Droids aren’t alive in the first place.” Flutters corrected him. “I’ve got nothing against droids but we’ll just build a new Lord Vader. Upload his memory and then back we go. That’s the thing with Vader, he’s never defeated because they repair him or build a new one. He is everywhere and knows everything because he’s a droid. There’s probably ten Vaders.”
“Vader’s no droid” Bootstraps said. “A friend of mine served on Devastator years ago and said that Vader is a veteran of the Clone Wars. Wounded or something and wears his robot suit. He has a whole battalion of doctors with him. That’s why he breathes like that. It’s like life support.”
“Now you’re the one believing fantasies and myths.” Flutters replied. “You might as well tell me Widow is right and Vader’s actually a woman underneath all that.”
Bootstraps doubled over laughing. “Widow’s just hoping Vader’s a woman so she can sleep her way to the very top.”
All three had a long laugh.
“I don’t know.” Bootstraps said, “Lots of people are worked up. Lot’s of people are talking. Somethings up.”
“What if it’s true?” Brains said. “What if the Emperor is dead? Or Vader? Who’s in charge? I never really thought about what would happen if Emperor Palpatine died.”
Flutters looked him directly in the eyes. “Brains, don’t get worked up. The Old Republic lasted for ten thousand years and the Empire will too. There’s a million planets and trillions of people. So much bureaucracy that we have entire worlds of paper pushers. Some fool you never met on a world you’ve never heard of is the backbone of the empire, moving files around and keeping it all flowing and orderly. A clerk somewhere on Coruscant knows exactly what’s going on. There are always plans and backup plans and backups to those plans. Whatever happened, it’ll be cleared up in a week. The Empire is huge. Things like this don’t just fall apart in a year.”