Chapter 1: The Landing

Yellow lights danced around him. An eerie silence hung in the air, punctured only by the roar of the Multi Altitude Assault Transport's twin engines as it descended through the atmosphere of Xeria. He took a deep breath, the crisp, artificial air of the generators filling his nostrils. Though he never enjoyed the man-made air, years of being on the transports had made him grown accustomed to smelling it.

He chuckled to himself as he surveyed his surroundings. Most of the other soldiers in the transport were new recruits, fresh from the academy. This would be their first landing - their first battle. He could see it in their eyes that they were excited. He had been like that too once, in his youth, when he was first conscripted. But it was different now. Now, Sergeant Rex Landsrum just wanted to go home.

"Something funny, Sarge?" a voice next to him asked.

"Nothing at all, Private Jennings" he replied as he looked at the youth seated next to him. Riyec Jennings was not yet twenty-five years old and he was already an elite Stormtrooper, ready to be deployed for combat. But what attracted him to the young private was not his skills nor his youthful exuberance. Rather, it was the fact that both of them hailed from the same planet - Alaspin, a backwater frontier world in the Outer Rim.

"Come on, Sarge," Riyec smiled as he elbowed the older stormtrooper. "I've known you long enough to know that something is bother you. Come on, spit it out, old man."

Rex forced himself to chuckle. The truth was that they had not known each other for a very long time, but the younger male always seemed to know what was on his mind. "I was thinking about home."

Riyec frowned. "Alaspin? That hellhole? What about it?"

"I left home when was I was younger than you," Rex replied. "And I've been on rotation for two decades now. It might be a hellhole to you, but to me it's a home that I have not seen for twenty years."

"I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you," Riyec said quickly.

"No, don't apologize," Rex said. He paused for a moment. "A lot must have changed since I was away. This will be my last deployment before I get to go home."

"It must have," the younger soldier nodded and then laughed. "Oh sarge, what am I going to do if I don't have you around me?"

Rex smiled. "You'll manage. You remind me of myself when I was your age."

"I'll take that as a compliment," Riyec chuckled.

Rex was only seventeen when he was conscripted into the Imperial Army. Two years later, he became a stormtrooper. Since then, he had been to many exotic worlds and had seen many things. From highly industrialized centers like Coruscant to fringe worlds like Dantooine, Rex had seen them all. At first he was awed - a poor kid growing up in a backwater planet, he was excited by all the adventures he would go on.

But awe soon turned into terror. Rex came to dread deployments. There would be nights when they could not sleep, forced onto the defensive by rebel raids. He had seen many of his friends - his brothers - die in the most horrific way possible. Even now, he still dreamed of them, holding their hands in their last desperate moments, telling them everything was going to be alright when it really wasn't. That was the life of a stormtrooper. The life that these new recruits did not know about.

He was going to open his mouth to say something when he heard a sudden, loud boom followed by the shaking of the transport.

"Wh-what's that?" Riyec asked, a slight hint of panic emanating from his voice.

There was another boom, followed by another, and another. The transport made a sudden lurch to the right, causing half the cabin to yell in surprise. "Flak batteries. We're in the warzone now," he said gravely as he pulled out his helmet from under his seat. Having grown accustomed to battles, he was not as shaken as Riyec and some of the other new recruits. If they were under fire, then they must be nearing the landing zone. It was best to prepare early.

Although the transport had no windows, Rex could already imagine the scene unfolding outside: flak batteries were hurling high explosive projectile rounds into the air and rail guns were firing a stream of lasers. The transports would be flying left and right trying to avoid enemy fire while bombers pounded away at the enemy positions. Imperial Army troopers, with the support of tanks and artillery, would be assaulting on the enemy from the ground. The enemy would be fighting back, and there would be heavy casualty on both sides.

"Helmets on! Helmets on! Come on, stormtroopers, move it!" the lieutenant ordered as he emerged from the cockpit. While other soldiers were hastily grabbing at their helmets, Rex had already sealed and locked his in place. The display fired up instantly, and he worked to calibrate the system.

A loud explosion outside had everyone jump in fright. Judging by the sound, a transport next to them must have exploded after being hit by a flak round. Rex turned to the bewildered private next to him and said through the comlink, "Hey, hey, listen to me. We're going to make it to the ground, you hear me?"

Riyec nodded, but did not say anything. Rex smiled inside the helmet. He remembered his first landing twenty years ago, it was just like this one. They were coming under enemy fire and he almost wet himself in fear. Some of the commanders say that in the old days, the army used clones who were trained since birth to fight and impervious to fear. But now, most of the stormtroopers were recruits from Imperial worlds, and no amount of training could prepare them for the horrors of war.

He patted the younger soldier on the back before turning his attention to checking his E-11 blaster rifle.

The flashing yellow lights suddenly turned into a solid red, basking the entire cabin in its warm glow. Almost immediately, everyone unbuckled their seatbelts and stood up.

"Listen up, we are landing on Xeria very soon. Check your communications, weapons, ammunition, and visuals. I don't want any malfunctioning when we hit the surface, understand?" the lieutenant said.

"Sir, yes sir!" the soldiers shouted in unison.

"What's the local time on Xeria?" Riyec asked in a low voice.

Rex checked the time counter on the lower right corner of his display. One displayed Galactic Standard Time and the other the local time. "Zero-two hundred."

Riyec mumbled a 'thank you' before getting to work calibrating his display.

The solid red lights started flashing, and everyone gathered in front of the rear hatch for disembarkation. There was a slight thud as the transport touched the ground and instantly the hatch started opening.

"Prepare yourselves!" the lieutenant said.

"You ready?" Rex asked his younger companion.

"Ready as I'll ever be," Riyec nodded.

It took several seconds for the hatch to completely open, but when it finally did, the flashing red lights became green.

"Go! Go! Go!" the lieutenant screamed.

Raising their blaster rifles into firing position, the two men charged out of the transport into the heat of battle. They had made it safely to the ground, now they must survive the carnage of war.

Author's Note: I don't normally write fanfiction, and I haven't for a long time since I started writing original fiction, but I was inspired to write this SW series. I'm kind of sick and tired of reading SW fictions that are about the Jedi/Sith, good versus evil, epic space battles, and bounty hunters. I feel like they don't tell us about the human aspects of SW. So for this series, I'm not including any Jedi or Sith. There will be no lightsabers. Instead, the story will be told through the eyes of four normal people, each with their own background, goals, and ideology, as they try to find the meaning of life and discover the truth about good and evil. The story will detail their transformation, their disillusionment, their sense of duty and honor, etc. In other words, everything that makes us human. Whether or not the Galactic Empire is evil, or if the Rebel Alliance is good, I'll leave it up to you to decide. I haven't decided how often to publish the chapters, but if you guys enjoy it and let me know through the reviews that you want more, it will motivate me to write faster!^^

This story takes place in an AU Star Wars Universe, where the Empire has been in power for about fifty years.