Prologue
Daerfesh heaved a fallen piece of duracrete off of him. A groan escaped his lips as he slowly lifted his head off of the ground. His vision spun violently, the fires of a burning city appearing as fuzzy blobs on the landscape.
A thick haze covered his eyes as he absently wiped his hands across his face. His hands came away sticky and he stared at the blood dribbling down his arms. The red river flowed from his… missing fingers. He couldn't understand what was going on. He felt so numb.
Then, screams began to replace the sound of the ringing in his ears. Like thunder in both sound and distance, it rapidly closed in. Daerfesh looked away from his outstretched hands to see his vision had cleared, details coming into focus. Details of the hellscape he was trapped in.
Fires raged wherever he turned, rubble strewn everywhere like sand on a storm-torn beach. The buildings still standing were pockmarked and filled with the refuse of their own interiors, little more than shells. Beings fled back and forth, screaming in panic, thrashing with unrestrained animalistic fear. The blood, the blood, was everywhere; different colored splotches dotting his vision like the mad paintings of a cruel child.
A high pitch whistle, a flash of light and he was thrown backward, hitting a wall with a resounding crack. He landed in a jumbled heap, ears ringing, head buzzing. He couldn't feel a thing. He needed to move. Limb by limb he tested himself until he could lay flat on his back, eyes listlessly staring upward.
The once bright blue sky was marred by endless stream of smoke. They curled upward like the ghosts of the dead seeking escape. Comets of fire hung suspended in the atmosphere against the backdrop of devastation. His world was dying. The souls aboard the flaming orbital emplacements above him were the lucky ones. As he watched, an alien ship pierced the smoke far above. He could reach out and cup it in his hand.
Pain invaded his head and reality came back. He had to move, had to get out of danger. He struggled to his feet and walked over to the new whole in the building wall, scrambling into the new crater and up over the edge. His foot caught on the edge of the pit and sent him stumbling forward. He tried to throw out his hands and stop his face from colliding with solid duracrete but his bloodied hands buckled when bloodied stumps of fingers met the ground. He awkwardly rolled headlong into a wrecked speeder.
Stars filled his vision before he swallowed the taste of copper and rose to his feet. People were running past him, away from something. What that was became clear when the boxy head of an AT-ST appeared over the tops of building to his right. The walker turned to-and-fro as its laser cannons fired a steady tempo of death. It continued forward and the sound of blaster rifles could be heard from where he was. Around him, a few citizens had stopped and cheered on the metal symbol of Imperial might.
His reassurances died as a bright green figure appeared out of nowhere and attached itself to the back of the head chassis. It raised some sort of weapon and cut its way through the metal, pulled the drivers out single-handedly and launched them out of his sight. The walker wobbled back and forth, crew less, before an impact smacked it off its feet. Daerfesh turned and began to run while the sound of the walker impact rumbled through his feet. People began to scream and panic yet again. He may have been one of them.
His breathing became far too ragged, his head becoming dizzy with exertion. He stumbled time after time trying to keep up with the retreating crowds but his slow progress left him far behind. Up ahead the crowds parted and he could see a barricade of ruined vehicles with the gleaming white armor of storm troopers behind it. His heart soared at the sight of safety so close to him.
He struggled closer and closer. One of the soldiers leaned over the barricade and yelled something, pointing at him. Immediately, two others leaped the barrier and ran towards him.
Armored boots scrambled across uneven terrain and came to a stop near him. He could feel two arms loop underneath his own as trained muscles moved him swiftly back behind cover.
"Come on citizen, pick up the pace. They're less than a klick away," said a breathy voice in his left ear.
"Just carry him you idiot. Can't you see he's in shock? He's getting blood everywhere," came a raspy voice from the right. "Get him to a medic, stat. He might be salvageable."
A grunt of agreement was the last thing said as they pulled him over the barrier and into a throng of civilians and soldiers milling between around in the street. One of the arms left his body and the first storm trooper carried him towards the closest bombed-out building that sat along the boulevard.
"Grebble, I got some missing fingers here. Where do you want me to put him?" The medic in question, wearing padded plastoid plates and a medics armband, looked up from the woman he was working on. From where he stood she looked normal.
The medic's eyes glanced at Daerfesh's bloodied hand, before setting aside the medkit in his hand. He whispered something to the woman who began to lie on her side, revealing a hideous burn that had seared the exposed skin to the unburned clothing, covered in clear bacta patches that stretched from her cheek down to her thigh. He felt suddenly ill.
"Put him anywhere. Smear some bacta on it; I'll get to him later." If the medic had not been military, Daerfesh would have taken him for a bored clerk. He spoke with calm and without urgency.
The storm trooper that brought him in led him to a nearby wall and unceremoniously dumped him there. The soldier reached over to a nearby rubble pile and picked up a small table, cracked it open and smeared the light blue liquid over the still-bleeding fingers.
"Here," the storm trooper said, "Try not to let you hand get dir-." The filtered voice stopped, while the armored head cocked slightly to the side. Daerfesh's heart sank with the sudden increase of sound outside. They were coming.
"We have an armored column inbound Grebble. Grab your blaster." The storm trooper stood upon and hesitated. He unhooked a small blaster pistol from his belt and tossed it to Daerfesh. Blood-slicked hands fumbled with the pistol, barely managing to catch it. The storm trooper hesitated again before following the medic out.
Orders were barked in the smoky air. Repulsorlift vehicles hummed in an ever-growing crescendo. The clank of walkers shook the building. Then, all was quiet. His hands shook slightly as he checked the power pack. It was half full, enough for a few shots before being depleted.
The silence was broken by a whistling shriek.
Across the room, the burned woman cowered in fear and whimpered, shying away from bits of molten metal that rained down through broken windows. Shouts for fire support, medics and reinforcements echoed from street to street. Everything from blaster rifles to heavy cannons roared and lit up the shadows with red strobe light. Above it all he could hear the steady beat of war drums and feet, heavy feet, from back the way he had come. Ever closer the marching drew, causing more death and mayhem by the minute, slaughtering Imperial troopers with ease.
The pistol was all but forgotten in his hands. He was afraid and locked in a battle between fight or flight while the real fighters were routed and fled. The heavy footfalls of Imperial machines were replaced by the rumble of treads and hundreds of feet passing by his hiding place. He could hear strange voices speaking an unknown language.
A strange blue, armored figure stepped through the open door. He closed his eyes desperately hoping to be invisible
The ground shook underneath him, pounding away as if the heart of his world was made audible. Louder and louder it grew until a shadow passed over him.
He slowly opened his eyes and looked up until a skull-like helmet came into focus. Whatever it may have been, human or alien; it was enormous, towering above any normal being. It was armored head-to-toe, a harbinger of war and destruction. In its massive hands it wielded a blaster that would have looked at home on a speeder; at its side a vicious-looking melee weapon hung from a strap, but rather than a blade it had jagged teeth from the tip to the cross guard. Even as fuzzy as his mind was, he could hear the weapon rumble from where he lay. He dully remembered he had his own weapon. Too bad he was too scared to do anything about it.
For a long second the skull frowned down at him. At last the figure aimed the blaster at him, the barrel mere inches from his face. He dimly realized he could see a projectile, nearly the size of a glow rod, in the barrel. So it wasn't a blaster after all. He focused back on the skull at the sound of a harsh, grating voice.
"Die content knowing the stain of your heresy will no longer blight the galaxy. May the Holy Emperor forgive you."
The monster pulled the trigger.