Imperial Sergeant Dupens sprinted down the hallway, desperately looking for a place to hide. He looked over his shoulder, his heart pounding faster when he heard the snarling and hissing coming from the hall behind him. He heard heavy, lumbering footsteps right on his tail. He kept thinking, damn, damn, damn.

He turned and fired four shots from his Imperial-issue rifle. The bright red bolts flashed into the darkness, ricocheting off the walls before blinking out of existence. His stormtrooper helmet's HUD showed that none of his pursuers fell from the barrage and instead just kept lumbering after him with unnatural speed.

This can't be happening, Dupens thought as he raced around a corner, his boots sliding across the slight condensation on the floor. He almost lost his balance and thought, damn these subterranean tunnels. Where the hell am I?

He didn't let his guard down as he heard the hissing of his pursuers fade away into silence. He'd seen too many troopers fall prey to that particular trick. It was what these lizards did; they fell back and faded into the shadows before springing on you when you least expected it. He'd seen an entire platoon taken out by the lethal mixture of stealth and aggression these monsters possessed.

His HUD map showed that he was just passing by the barracks when another contact showed up on his motion tracker. It was a friendly this time.

He slowed to a stop outside the barrack's door, shouldering his rifle. He pounded a fist against the durasteel door and shouted, "Trooper! Open up!"

A few moments passed before there was a loud clank from the other side of the door and the durasteel-plated entryway slid open a hair. The contoured faceplate of a helmet peeked through the gap and a vocoder-enhanced voice whispered, "Sarge? Is that you?"

He sighed in relief and said, "Taylor. Am I glad to see you."

"Are there any of those… things behind you?"

He glanced over his shoulder, scanning the hall for any life signs. There were none that his HUD systems could pick up. Eventually he shook his head and said, "I don't think so."

Private Taylor nodded and the door slid open the rest of the way. Dupens saw that the trooper was a mess. His armor was pocked with burn scars and splattered with pale green blood. His left eye visor was cracked in a thin spiderweb pattern and his right shoulder guard was a burnt and twisted mess of plastoid.

"What happened?" Dupens muttered as he stepped into the barracks. He quickly assessed the situation: two other stormtroopers, not in much better shape than Private Taylor, both armed with only their short-range sidearms, and four DC longrifles left in the rack along one wall.

Taylor hit the closing stud on the door and it slid shut with a reassuringly loud boom. He double-checked that it was secure, then turned to the Sergeant and said, "We were attacked shortly after the power went out. Six of 'em. Big karking lizards using… I don't know, projectile weapons."

Dupens nodded, having experienced something similar himself. "What happened to the rest of your unit?"

"Scattered," Taylor replied. "Dead, for all I know. Those lizards aren't much for mercy."

Dupens nodded, still surveying the room. "Okay. What about reinforcements?"

Taylor shook his head. "I don't know. From what we've been able to piece together, the outside isn't doing much better than we are in here. We've had no contact from any other Imperial forces or from the Importunate in orbit. We think these lizards are jamming our comms to the outside world."

"What about ammunition? What kinds of weapons do we still have at our disposal?"

"Basically what you see," Taylor said, gesturing to the rest of the barracks. "Two pistols, four Deecees, about twelve frag grenades and three plasmas. Apart from that we have a single rocket launcher and a half-loaded rotary blaster cannon."

"In other words, we're borked," one of the troopers muttered. "We barely have enough artillery to take out a group of pipe rats, let alone these monsters."

"Stow the complaining, soldier," Dupens muttered. "We need to figure out a way to get a message to the space station. We can't organize anything until we contact Command."

"What the hell kind of message are we going to send?" Taylor said. "If we send out a regulation distress signal they're going to send an investigative team in here first. And they're going to be about as helpful against these things as a flyswatter is against a rancor."

"We can't send a regulation signal," Dupens agreed. "There's too many of these lizards. We need Command to send in specialists. People who know how to deal with threats like this."

"Are you seriously suggesting what I think you are?"

Dupens shrugged. "I'm just a dumb grunt. But I'm smart enough to know when stormtroopers are outmatched."

"Come on, Sarge," Taylor said. "They're barely better than pirates. What makes you think they'll even agree to help us? They have no love for the Empire."

"Then we're screwed whether or not we send the transmission," Dupens growled, pulling out his rifle's magazine and inspecting the tibanna charge. He shook his head with a sigh and slapped it back into the rifle's housing. "It's the best chance we've got."

"Wait," one of the troopers said nervously. "We're not going back out there, are we?"

"Does it look like we have any other choice?" Dupens growled. He grabbed two grenades from a nearby crate. "Better to go down swinging than to stay locked away in here."

"Sarge is right," Taylor said. "These lizards are going to get in here eventually. I say we bring the fight to them."

As if on cue, a loud boom came from the other side of the door. Everyone in the room looked to the door. There was silence for a moment, then another crash sounded through the room and the heavy durasteel door shook in its housing.

"Someone wants in," Taylor observed dryly. "I say we head out shooting."

"Oh yeah?" the other trooper said, clambering to his feet. "And who put you in charge? I don't want to go out there."

"I'm just saying-"

"What you're just saying is that you want us to go out and get ourselves killed. And for what? The hope that an emergency broadcast will even get to the Importunate? What if these monsters have set up comm jammers?"

"It's a risk worth taking," Taylor snapped. "Pull yourself together, trooper. Cowardice isn't looked upon with sympathy in this unit."

"Kark you, Taylor," the trooper grumbled, folding his arms across his armored chest. "I'm not going anywhere."

Taylor looked to Dupens for a resolution. The sergeant stared at the trooper for a long time before growling, "We're going to head for the signal transmission booth, so suck it up, grab your weapons, and get ready to move out. That's an order soldier."

The trooper stared at him. Dupens could feel his dismay even though both their faces were shielded by their helmet faceplates. Then the man sighed and grudgingly grabbed a rifle from its rack on the wall.

"After you, Sarge," he snapped, gesturing to the door.

Dupens narrowed his eyes, but quickly gestured for the three troopers to get set for a door breach. They set up quickly, two of them flanking one side of the door while Taylor stood in the center, ready to place an explosive charge on the center of the door. Dupens stood to the right of the door, pulling a grenade from his belt.

"Ready?" he asked. Taylor nodded and pulled a charge from his utility belt.

"Set…" he murmured, typing in settings for explosion strength. "In three… two… one… clear!"

He quickly stepped out of the way of the door, shouldering his rifle. It was only a heartbeat before the door blasted outward with a deafening blam and a wash of flame.

Instinct kicked in. Dupens primed his grenade and tossed it through the door, shouting, "Fire in the hole!"

Three seconds passed before the grenade detonated with enough force to shake the duracrete under the Sergeant's boots. He raised his rifle and shouted, "Go! Go! Go!"

Together, the four stormed out into the hall, firing at everything that moved. Reptilian screams echoed through the hall and light green blood spattered across Dupens' visor, partially obscuring his vision.

He dropped to his knees, firing six bolts into a squat figure charging at him with a roar. The lizard shook off the bolts until Dupens caught him with a fist to the forehead. The monster fell to the ground and didn't move again.

His motion tracker blared a warning and he swiveled, snapping off two more shots. Another shadowy figure fell with a gasp of pain.

"Sarge!" Taylor's voice shouted. "Transmission booth is this way!"

"Affirmative!" Dupens called back. "On my way."

He fired twice into the shadows and two scaly monstrosities fell at his feet. He jumped over the corpses and sprinted toward Taylor and the others. The three were fighting in the middle of what looked like a sea of snarling, drooling lizard-like aliens. As he drew nearer he heard a loud boom and one of the troopers fell.

"Trooper down!" shouted the soldier who had defied Dupens' authority back in the barracks. He fired three rounds into a charging alien's face and began to drag his buddy down the hall.

"Leave him!" Taylor shouted, hefting a rifle in one hand and his sidearm in the other. Bright red blaster bolts flashed from the muzzles of both his weapons as enemy bodies fell all around him. "He's gone! There's nothing more you can do for him!"

"No!" the trooper shouted. "We don't leave people behind! We can't just-"

He was blasted off his feet as he took a spray of projectile shotgun pellets to the faceplate. He crashed back into a nearby wall and slid to a halt, leaving a bloody smear across the floor.

"Sarge!" Taylor shouted as more and more lizards swarmed through the hall toward him. "Some help here would be much appreciated!"

Dupens somersaulted as another shotgun blast rang out over his head. He rolled to his feet, whipping his fist across the back of a lizard's head. The alien crumpled to the ground as he fired two shots into another monster's back. He broke through the mass of swarming, armed lizards to Taylor's side. Heart pounding from adrenaline, he pressed his back against' Taylor's and they slowly swiveled to keep the circle of lizards in sight.

With a chorus of hisses and snarls, the aliens fell back, slouching or pacing back and forth on all fours.

"So what's the plan, Sarge?" Taylor asked. "We're still a ways from the transmission booth."

Dupens pulled his last grenade and pressed the primer button. "On three," he said, hefting it in his hand.

As one, the mass of lizards charged forward. Taylor cursed and shouted, "Three! Three!"

Dupens cursed as well and threw the grenade before turning and sprinting down the hall. There was a blast of blinding white light and a burst of sound that temporarily drowned out his HUD systems.

"Keep going!" he shouted. "Head for the transmission booth!"

"They're right on us!"

"Don't look back! Just keep running!"

The two troopers sprinted through the winding halls of the building, past scenes of bloody carnage, abandoned defense positions, and hordes of snarling, drooling lizards.

"Ten meters!" Taylor shouted. "We're close!"

"Step it up!" Dupens called in reply. He could hear the pounding footsteps of their pursuers right behind him. His motion tracker showed almost twenty enemy contacts right on their tail. If they even made it to the transmission booth, it would be a hell of a close call.

"There it is!" Taylor shouted, pointing up the hall. There was a large durasteel door set into the wall in the center of a hallway T-junction.

"Keep running!" Dupens shouted, firing blinding over his shoulder. "Get in there!"

Taylor had just stepped into the T-junction when he went down; a muscular arm slammed across his faceplate visor, knocking him to the floor. He grunted and rose onto his hands and knees, shaking his head. Then the same muscular arm grabbed his shin guard and dragged him kicking and shouting into the darkness. Dupens didn't hesitate, as his training didn't allow for that in llife-or-death situations. But no matter how fast he ran, he couldn't help but hear the snarling growl of something big as it tore into Taylor. The young private screamed, but only for a short time. Then he fell swiftly silent, leaving only the growling of whatever had killed him.

Dupens sprinted forward into the transmission booth, punching the door controls so hard the panel shattered in a shower of sparks. The door slid closed just as Dupens saw a mass of scaly, green-skinned aliens rush into the T-junction from all sides.

He stood alone in the small room, gasping for breath as he listened to the lizards throwing themselves against the door outside with rage-filled roars and hisses. They even tried discharging their shotguns at the door to no avail. The door was a half-meter of solid durasteel and no projectiles were getting through that.

Dupens took a deep breath and shook his head, thinking, Rest in peace, Private Taylor. You were a good soldier.

Then he turned to the transmission equipment mounted on the back wall.

Okay, he thought. Now how do we work this mess?

He pressed a button marked POWER and the entire contraption lit up and began to hum with power."

"Here we go," he muttered, pressing the blue transmission button. He set the machine to transmit on all Imperial frequencies so that anyone passing by would hear his broadcast.

"This is Stormtrooper Sergeant Dupens," he said into the vocoder, "Fifth Tachador Battalion, Bravo Company, Identification Code TT-3487Z, transmitting on all open Imperial channels."

He took a deep breath and began his report, ignoring the increasingly insistent pounding against the door behind him.

Imperial Space Station Importunate, in orbit over Tachador

The governor's aide ran through the door to his employer's office, flashing his clearance code at the troopers standing guard outside. He clutched an audio receiver in his hand, so tight his fingers were white.

"Sir!" he said as soon as he saw the governor, "I have something extremely-"

The Governor held up a single thin finger and said, "Not now, Yarin. As you can see, I'm in the middle of a meeting with the Prime Minister."

"Sir," Yarin said, bowing his head respectfully to Prime Minister Adulal. "I mean no disrespect, but this is far more important-"

"Yarin!"

"-and it affects both of you," he pressed. "I swear to you, sirs, you're going to want to hear this."

Governor Quor sighed and rubbed his eyes. Finally, he said, "Very well, Yarin. What is it that you wished to show us?"

Yarin swallowed nervously and stepped up to the Governor's desk. "This morning, we picked up an emergency broadcast transmitted over all major Imperial channels. At first we thought it was just a prankster trying to spam our fighters, but... well, listen for yourself."

He set the audio receiver on the desk top and pressed the play button. A crackly, hoarse voice began emanating from the speaker.

"This is Stormtrooper Sergeant Dupens," the voice said, "Fifth Tachador Battalion, Bravo Company, Identification Code TT-3487Z, transmitting on all open Imperial channels."

There was a pause, then the voice continued, "The Imperial military base is overrun. We came under attack by what I think are Trandoshan slavers. The entire base has been put out of commission. For all I know, I'm the last soldier left alive in the entire city."

Governor Quor and Prime Minister Adulal glanced at each other worriedly, then began staring at the audio receiver intently, hanging on the recorded trooper's every word.

"The base is overrun," the trooper said, a note of desperation entering his voice. "We need immediate reinforcements or we'll lose the base. We don't even know how many more of these lizards are running amok in the city.

"Please help," he finished. "We need experts. Send Mandalorians."

Then the recording was drowned out in static for a few moments before looping back and starting over. Yarin switched the audio receiver off and tucked it into his jacket pocket.

"This trooper's identification code checks out," he said, hooking his arms behind his back. "This is not a joke."

The Governor and the Prime Minister glanced between each other worriedly. The Governor sat down, running a hand through his graying hair, while the Prime Minister's face paled to a light purple and he looked out the large transparisteel viewport without a word.

"What... what are your orders, sir?"

Quor sighed and hesitated before saying, "Get a squad together. We'll send an investigative team down in the morning to ascertain the truth of this transmission."

"We can't do that," the Prime Minister snapped. "What if this trooper is telling the truth? We would just be throwing away lives."

"And if it is just a joke? How would I explain to the Senate that we hired an entire army of Mandalorians for nothing? Do you have any idea how much it would cost?"

"And how much would it cost to rebuild after a metropolitan disaster of this magnitude? The transmission came from Tandori. That's the biggest city on the entire planet!"

"I have regulations to follow."

The Prime Minister spat in derision. "Space your regulations. Those are my people down there, and I won't have some paper-pushing bureaucratic Imperial telling me we're not even going to try to save them!"

"Don't raise your voice at me, Prime Minister," the Governor snapped. "At the end of the day, I am the voice of the Empire here. And that means it is my responsibility to take command of this situation."

"So you will allow my people to die simply to follow your Imperial protocols? You are colder than I previously thought, Governor."

He turned to Governor Quor and narrowed his yellow eyes. "I believe this threat to be real. And if you will not contact the Mandalorians to assist us, I will."

"Prime Minister," Quor snapped, "you will not force my hand in this. You are a fool if you think otherwise."

"I am not going to force your hand," Adulal said. "But I will take action if you will not. And if it gets back to your precious Empire that you merely sat by while Tandori burned right beneath your nose… how will that play out in the Senate Rotunda?"

Adulal strode regally out of the room without another word. Governor Quor stared after him before rubbing his eyes again and shaking his head. Yarin stood still, waiting for the Governor to speak. When Quor didn't speak, he cleared his throat and asked, "What… what are your orders, sir?"

Quor stared at his desktop for a long time before he shook his head and said, "Send a message to Mandalore Fenn Shysa. We will hire him and his mercenaries to investigate this matter."