I couldn't do it. I looked down at me E-11 carbine, my hands shaking. I looked back at my targets, then looked down again. "HURRY UP!" my commanding officer barked. But I couldn't. They were my friends. My family. According to my superiors, they were Rebels. They were terrorists. They were the bad guys. But I knew the truth. I had grown up with them. They were just as much a threat to the Empire as any civilian. But I had my orders. "DO IT, ALREADY!" I breathed deeply, and then lifted my blaster...
I woke up. Another nightmare. I've been having them since I joined the Imperial military, and they've only been getting worse. More frequent, more vivid. I sat up in my bunk and tried to make out what the chrono said across the dark room. 5 AM. My shift began in an hour. Now was as good a time as any to get ready. I disabled my bedside alarm that was supposed to go off at 5:30, then quietly got up out of my bunk and made my way to the door, being as careful as I could as to not wake my bunk-mates. I palmed the door controls and winced as the door whooshed open a little louder than I wanted to, but when I looked back, none of them had stirred. We had been trained to sleep through white noise, in case we had to sleep in the middle of a combat situation.
I shut the door and made my way down the empty corridors of the Imperial base. Everything here was so bland. Metal floors, metal walls, metal ceilings, metal doors… All in one color: metallic black. The only thing offsetting the black was the fluorescent light panels on the ceilings and walls. It's almost like the Empire was TRYING to depress their staff. After a quick trip to the refreshers, I made my way silently to the locker rooms and navigated to my locker. All of my standard-issue equipment was folded, hung, and stacked neatly inside. I grabbed the pieces of my white armor and started suiting up. It was tight, restrictive, and very uncomfortable, but I had to live with it until I ranked up to an officer. Of course, I wasn't sure if I wanted to be an officer anymore. Once you become an officer, Lord Vader starts paying more attention to you and your responsibilities, and if there's one thing you don't want to do, it's draw Lord Vader's attention. I learned that on my first day when one of my commanding officers questioned his orders. I heard a faint rumble in my inner ear and all of a sudden, my CO was gasping for air and grabbing at his throat. It wasn't pretty.
After my armor was all strapped on and double-checked, I reached for my E-11 and my helmet. The helmet looked like a skull to me. I didn't like it. We are supposed to be protecting the people, but all I sense when I walk by a civilian is fear. It wasn't right. I joined the Imperial military out of pride. "Your family will be so proud," they told me. "It's the right thing to do for your Empire," they said. But every day I spend patrolling this base in my uniform makes me feel differently. A government should be led by the people in it, not run by fear. It's time for a change, but there's nothing I can do. I'm just a simple soldier with a simple guard-duty shift ahead of me for the next month, year, who knows how long. But something has to happen. I just don't know what. I took a deep breath, picked set my helmet on my head, then walked towards my assigned sector for my shift.
My name is Rayne Jal'daan and I am an Imperial Stormtrooper.
For now.