Scout Sniper 11384EB

by HenryCWarmoth18

A scout sniper stationed on the forest moon of Endor witnesses the destruction of the second Death Star and finds himself in an interesting situation. Star Wars is the property of Lucasfilm and Disney. I am writing only as a fan and not attempting to profit from this story.

1. Chapter 1

Scout Sniper 11384EB

I was stationed on the forest moon of Endor as a member of the detail assigned to defend the Death Star shield generator. We had been planet side for months which gave us and the indigenous species of fuzz balls a chance to observe each other. At first we thought they were harmless so we shooed them away. They didn't understand us at first, so with a few shots from a blaster rifle into the air, the message cleared up and the fuzz balls started to clear out.

We needed room on the forest floor to build our landing pad, base and of course the shield generator itself and the bunkers where its power sources and controls were housed. When our AT-ST walkers positioned themselves around a block of the forest and started burning and cutting down trees, the annoying creatures returned, in a protesting mood to our action. It was clear they didn't want us to cut down any more trees and were very determined to stop us. The stupid fur balls were slowing down progress so we vaporized one or two of them to send them scurrying away back among the trees. From then on, they stayed out of our way, but whatever we did, we could feel their eyes watching us from the bushes and leaves.

I am trained as a sniper and work best from high altitudes. I prepared my climbing gear and made my way up into one of the tall trees which litter the forest floor. Once I found a suitable height, I began the task of making myself a little platform from which I could lie down and shoot. I have to admit, I'm a little proud of myself for the platform I made. It was on par with the walkways made by the indigenous creatures as I would later learn. I made a little ring around the tree with a small panel I could remove to allow myself to climb up to it from the side of the tree. My spot was pretty remote in the forest. I preferred it this way. I work best with few distractions and other people, especially the common Stormtrooper or the pretentious officer fresh from the academy provide distractions by the freighter full.

I knew that if I was to be of any use to the Emperor, who I heard was coming to the Death Star orbiting above me in a month or two, then I would have to be able to spot and hit targets through all the trees. The trees themselves were less of a problem to me. My rifle could rip right through most of them. Only the thicker trees would present a problem in shooting through. Finding targets would be a challenge though. I had to use a heat sensitive scope so that I could identify targets through the vegetation of the forest, but the trees were so thick that the scope helped only with locating targets between the woods. Off to the East, was the back entrance bunker. South of me, lay what must have been a fuzz ball village because any of them that I saw from my post, I saw coming from that direction. When I discovered this, I decided that my location was a perfect one for sniping. I had a clear view of the forest between our units and the local fuzz ball village and could cover it for miles.

So I made myself comfortable and set to the task of programing my scope to only show me the heat signals of species I wanted to see. I started by finding some of the fuzz balls roaming around and marking them in the system archive. From then on, they would always register and show in my reticle as "fuzz ball". Then I found some fellow Imperials and verified that they registered as "human" and showed heat signals when viewed in the scope. I went ahead and tagged them as "ally" by the shapes of their armor. My next task was to mark all the non-intelligent creatures to not show heat signals. This task took me a few days. Marking these targets included all birds that flew below the tree tops, all tree climbing creatures that were non-threatening, and all ground animals in the same category. Naturally, I marked the life threatening species to show up when viewed so that I could defend myself if needed.

Finally, the job was finished. I had made my archive as complete as I could and managed to observe some unusual activity among the fuzz ball population. When we had first arrived, they had simply avoided us when we made our intentions clear, then they watched us suspiciously. Now I noted them taking logs from some of the woods we had cleared and relocating them deeper into the forest. They took some of the smaller ones and stacked them neatly atop some hills among the trees. I thought this was curious, but assumed they had to build homes from something and maybe planned to use this lumber as construction materials. I also noticed them taking two larger logs and working in a large number to hoist these fallen trees up among the leaves. Then with a little more effort, the logs were pulled away from each other and suspended in place. With some little effort, the logs could be swung back down above the forest floor, and they practiced this a few times for whatever reason.

I also noted to myself that the creatures were producing more weapons and carrying more stones than I had seen them do before. When we first arrived, a few of the little monsters used simple spears, clubs and hatchets for hunting, but now it seemed as though they were preparing to arm an army. They also formed these rudimentary devices with small branches that could hurl stones through the air. All this activity fascinated me as I sat quietly on my small post among the trees.