Loading Bay C
1 year after the Rebel's decisive victory against the Imperials on Endor, the Imperials make their final stand on the desert planet of Jakku. With both the Sith Lord Emperor Palpatine and his apprentice Darth Vader killed aboard the Second Death Star, a power vacuum has led to infighting and a lack of leadership. What would have been a decisive victory in the Empire's prime has become a battle of attrition, a battle the Empire is slowly losing, while on the fringe of battle Imperials rush to destroy any important information in downed Star Destroyers. Stormtroopers are given orders to destroy any computers deemed too important in order to ensure Imperial secrets don't fall into Rebel hands. While some soldiers carry out their orders, some are beginning to question where their own loyalties lie…
Aimee
Aimee pushed another explosive onto the wall and twisted to prime it. Any Imperial could see that Jakku was a lost cause, and it surprised Aimee that it took them so long to make the call. She silently thanked the Force, what little she knew of it, that she wasn't one of the Stormtroopers on the ground being mindlessly thrown into the desert. She kicked her helmet along with her as she set the charges, not able to bring herself to put it back on. There was too much screaming, too much of having to listen to her friends being mowed down by Rebels, or whatever they called themselves now, desperately screaming for backup that may never come. She was on edge, and the hard step she heard behind her set her off. She whipped around quickly, leveling her E-11 blaster rifle at the chest of her would-be assailant.
"What the hell Aimee?"
Aimee let out a nervous chuckle and ran her body-gloved hand through her sweat-soaked hair. Her Scout Trooper friend Serina pulled off her helmet and placed it on the floor next to Ally's.
"With reflexes like that, you should have been the Scout Trooper, Quick Shot. Maybe even a sniper."
"We both know you were always faster."
"No shame in being second best."
"Are you saying that because you mean it, or because you're still the better person in that equation?"
Serina punched Aimee playfully in the arm, but enough that it still made her jump. Aimee tried to laugh it off awkwardly, but she was jumpy from the last few months, they all were.
"You could easily be a Bounty Hunter though."
"Who knows what with everything that's happening out there?"
Serina closed her eyes and breathed out sharply, blowing a few loose strands of hair out of her face.
"You're telling me, they still want all Scout Troopers to be on call to support the AT-ATs when they make their next move on the Rebel encampment," She noticed the helmet discarded by her friend's feet and motioned towards it, "what gives with that?"
Aimee looked at her helmet and dropped her shoulders, "I can't do it anymore, Serina, and I can't listen to all those people out there dying."
Serina quickly moved to console her defeated friend, wrapping her arms around her.
"How can you stand this Serina?"
Aimee watched her friend who she'd known since the Academy's face darken. Her sharp features looked more drawn out and she stared directly at Aimee before triple checking they were alone and no one would sneak up on them.
"I'm not." Serina was incredibly close. "Meet me in Loading Bay C in 45 minutes, we have a way out of this."
"I don't understand Serina, what are you talking about?"
"I have a way off this planet and a way to get away from the Empire."
"You're talking about desertion, you can't possibly think-"
"That I'll get away with this? What do you think is going to happen? Do you think Vader is going to come back from the dead to execute us for treason? The Empire is being dragged into their grave kicking and screaming, don't let them drag you down with them."
With that Serina released Aimee and put her helmet back on.
"45 minutes Aimee, please be there."
Her words echoed in Aimee's head even as the echo from her footsteps died off.
Hadar
Hadar slammed into the metal sheet shoulder first to avoid the hail of blaster fire concentrated on where he was a minute ago. He gripped his A280C and prepared to fire back. If this were any other war his commanding officer would ask him where his Imperial issue E-11 Blaster Rifle was, and make him down 50 push-ups during the battle to make an example to everyone. "Your E-11 will save you even if every Jedi came back and attacked you at once" he would always say. His E-11 couldn't save him from a Deflector Shield malfunction in the middle of an orbital bombardment.
Hadar stood up from cover and fired into a few Rebels who had dared to get close to him and braved another look at the carnage before him. The desert, empty a few days ago, was now littered with corpses, both sentient and mechanical. The Empire was losing, and it was apparent now more than ever.
A modified Astromech droid came careening around Hadar's cover and leveled a crude blaster attachment at his head. He kicked the Astromech over out of disgust and it made a pathetic thump when it hit the ground. It screeched at Hadar, who responded in kind with a blaster shot to the droid's underside, and after a small explosion the Droid went silent.
While he silently celebrated to himself he felt a forceful tug at the back of his armor and before he knew it he had been hoisted up above a group of sneering Rebels, all with blasters pointed at him. He was dropped into the middle of the ring and saw his massive kidnapper, a Wookie, crying out in victory.
"You're our prisoner now," said a particularly ugly Ishi Tib. It looked like one of his eye stalks had been chewed off by a rather large and rather ferocious animal.
"What do you have to say to that, you Imperial swine?"
"I'd say I guess you didn't plan on a falling AT-AT ruining your plan."
The group of Rebels looked to the sky as Hadar launched himself at the Wookie's legs, trying to take it down. Instead, he slammed into the shin bone of the Wookie with his skull, and was then kicked back into the circle, with the Wookie bringing his fists down on his chest.
He wheezed and grasped his dented breast plate.
"That…seemed better…in my head…"
The Ishi Tib laughed cruelly and went to bring his rifle butt down on the trooper's head when a green bolt whizzed by and struck the alien in the chest, flipping him backwards. A squad of Shadow Troopers uncloaked and quickly dispatched the crowd with their heavy blasters. The Wookie tried to charge Hadar's new allies but he mustered enough strength to grab a Rebel's DH-17 and fire off a shot at his leg. The Wookie fell over and the Shadow Troopers surrounded him, making damn well sure he was dead.
One of the Troopers extended his hand towards the downed Stormtrooper and pulled him to his feet as another rushed to support him.
"Awfully convenient, don't you think?"
"We're coming around to save as many people from this Rebel scum that we can. Orders are to take any injured personnel back to base."
"Why would they order us back to base if they're going to blow it, do they plan on blowing the weapons factory with a bunch of wounded in it?"
The Shadow Troopers looked amongst themselves and the tallest one, the leader Hadar supposed, removed his helmet.
"We're rounding up anyone we can that's injured and we're getting them away from this battle and away from the Empire."
"Are you insane?! You're telling me you're rounding up injured people and then dragging them off to desert with you? What are you looking to gain and what makes you think I won't report this?"
The unmasked Shadow Trooper looked like he was growing impatient, "The Empire is leaving the injured out here to die, and we have reports that no one on the ground is getting off this ground in Imperial hands that hasn't already."
"You're basing your desertion off of rumors? What if they're not true? What if-"
As if on cue the comms in Hadar's helmet exploded with activity. Everyone was talking about an unbelievable event across the ridge. He threw off his helmet to clear his mind for a second and looked where everyone else on the battlefield was looking, and all the color drained from his skin.
He looked into the sky as the Super Star Destroyer, the last Super Star Destroyer, the Ravager, entered the atmosphere. Even as the fire of the atmospheric entry faded the bottom of the behemoth still burned. He watched it slowly turn and finally crash onto the desert world below. He watched the wreckage burn as long as he could before the dust cloud enveloped the wreckage. Everyone around him seemed as dumbfounded as he was. He only needed to turn to the 3 men, all silent, bowing their heads, and they knew.
The Empire was dead, and it was time to leave.
Serina
Reports coming in from all over were frantic, but at the heart of each one was a singular message: The Executor Class Dreadnought Ravager had been crashed into the surface of Jakku. There was no count yet on casualties, but whatever Star Destroyers were still in the sky weren't transmitting anything and dropping into the atmosphere, using their tractor beams to claw any ships that went near them into the sand below. Serina had no idea if the soldiers in the growing ship graveyard that was the front line were being considered a lost cause by the Imperials, but she didn't have time to rescue any others. With any luck Gasus and his Shadow Troopers had managed to pull someone towards Loading Bay C, but no matter what they were leaving in 30 minutes.
She rushed down the hallway, gripping the small pistol in her hand hard enough to turn her knuckles as white as her armor. There was a path she had set up for herself, with enough twists and turns to throw off anyone who might be suspicious of her while also getting her where she needed to be in a timely manner. It was a ragtag plan thrown together in a few hours by a group of tired traitors, but it was the only plan they had. If the rumblings of a cease-fire on Coruscant had any truth, that just made their need to escape more urgent.
She turned a final corner and saw exactly what she had hoped not to: an orange-pauldroned Stormtrooper Commander arguing with the woman she had left to guard the door. She collected her breath and walked up to the angry officer.
"Hello, Commander, is there anything I can help with here?"
He turned to her and began walking towards her, "You can begin by telling me why you aren't with the rest of group."
"I was sent to this loading bay to see if there were any spare bikes that we could use. Ours are in pretty bad shape what with the war and all."
"Why didn't he just check the manifest? We pay these people good credits to make sure that thing is correct."
"Right, but he wanted to check and see if any had been hidden away, what by traitors or the like."
"Traitors? Do you know something I don't? What's your number soldier, and you! Open this door-"
With his back to Serina she drew quick and aimed her gun at the Commander's head, but the bolt that hit him in the back and left him splayed out on the floor wasn't hers. She turned and saw Aimee, helmeted and holding a smoking E-11.
"He was going to blow your cover."
"You don't have to explain yourself to me."
Aimee sighed and looked down at the body of the Commander.
"Well I guess there's no going back from this, is there."
"Not at all."
"He was a bit of a wastoid anyway."
Aimee
Serina, Aimee, and the girl guarding the entrance all entered the Loading Bay to see four Imperial Troop Transports, the side compartments filled with various pieces of equipment pilfered from the battlefield or stolen from the armory. Amongst the gathered group was four Troopers in the back, three Shadow Troopers and one Stormtrooper with a damaged breastplate and an A280C leaning against the crate he was next to. He made eye contact with Aimee and nudged to one of the Shadow Troopers and pointed towards her. The Shadow Trooper simply shrugged and the man went back to looking the crowd over.
Everyone snapped to attention when Serina took her place in front of the assembled soldiers. The girl who had been guarding the door was now standing next to her, unhelmeted and stern. She looked to Serina, Serina looked back and nodded, and the girl took her place amongst the crowd.
"Hello everyone. We all know why we're here so I'm not going to sit here and explain that. Nor, will I sit here and introduce every single one of you, because, and I'll be honest, I'm not sure if all of us will make it. The only people you need to know right now are the ones in charge. My name is Serina Grainer, and I will be you're the person in charge of this operation until we get to freedom. My partners in crime are the tall Shadow Trooper named Gasus and the woman you saw guarding the door on the way in, named Sturas. Our plan is to make it to a Lambda shuttle we have stowed away on the far side of the planet, hopefully far enough away from the battle for us to escape unseen. We have four Troop Transports, three for transporting us and one for transporting supplies."
"Won't the Imperials come after us if they realize what we're doing?" The question came from a tall man in dirty armor, someone no doubt picked off the battlefield.
"Most likely. Which is where our plan comes in. This base has been deemed unimportant and because of that we're all getting moved out. In 20 minutes from loading docks A and B all the rest of the troops will be moved out in transports much like these. We're going to follow them about halfway through the ride to the front line and then break off, and before you ask no they will not be able to track us. We've spent the last few hours painstakingly taking out any tracers this equipment, these Transports, or the shuttle may have."
"How did we get a Lambda shuttle exactly?"
"There was one stolen by a band of Rebels. Our Shadow Trooper friends went out to meet them before they came to get you, took care of them, and reported the shuttle as destroyed. Imperial brass is up to their chins in a war they don't know if they can win to investigate if one shuttle went down when they have cruisers going down at an even faster rate. Any other questions?"
The room was silent. These people assembled had their doubts about being on the Imperial side before going into this, even before early planning stages. The last few hours had served only to show them they were on a losing side, and they wanted to get out before it got worse.
"Excellent! We'll be doing this in a diamond formation once we break off with the equipment truck in the middle alongside a soldier transport." Serina clapped her hands together and pointed to the tallest Shadow Trooper. "Gasus. You're driving the equipment transport, alongside Sturas." Aimee traced her finger to the girl who had been standing next to Serina.
"The rest of Gasus's squad will be in the lead transport alongside Aimee over there and the new guy they picked up."
"Hadar," said the man with the dented breast plate, "the name is Hadar."
"Excellent Hadar, you've got your assignment. The last two groups are divided up by platoon already who have already been briefed. I will be leading this charge from my personal bike and scouting ahead to make sure nothing goes wrong. We've all got our positions, it's time to defect from a dying galactic power." She mounted her Speeder Bike and looked towards Aimee, her voice crackling through the comms in Aimee's ear:
"No pressure right?"