Disclaimer: I don't own. I don't profit.
I was born in 1973. By highschool I knew all the lines from Episodes IV, V and VI by heart. So much of my childhood - jokes, games, family outings, revolved around Star Wars. But then Episode I, II and III came out, and the books...and I felt betrayed. I just didn't like the stories that were brewed around the original movies. Perhaps I would like the Clone Wars better, someday I'll have to watch them. This is my little AU. A little darker, but hopefully more "real", and in a way more liberating.
I've given the former storm troopers letter/number designations instead of names. It seems like something the Empire would do.
Epidemic: Chapter 1
The shuttle rocked in Ulneo's atmosphere. Metal screamed and laser fire blasted in Luke's ears. This wasn't supposed to have been a dangerous mission - well ostensibly not. Luke knew otherwise; they'd been set up of course. He and his companions were unwanted in the new galaxy, he was a jedi, too dangerous, and the former stormtroopers fighting alongside him too reviled. Grasping an overhead railing in the shuttle's main cargo bay he closed his eyes and concentrated. The shields held, a victory to the Force and the power of the shuttle's main generators.
"We've lost the hyperdrive," screamed A95, the former trooper at the controls at the front of the craft.
"Head to the interior!" Luke shouted.
"Aye, sir!" said A95 without argument. Luke could see A95's co-pilot, another former trooper, head down on the controls. He didn't need to check a pulse point to know the trooper was dead. He could feel the ghost awkwardly clinging to the shuttle - afraid to leave his former team mates behind.
Luke's hand went to the upper breast pocket in his standard issue fatigues. The data chip was still there. If they could only survive to put it in the proper hands...
Clinching his teeth Luke blinked in the shuttle's low light. It wasn't a fancy craft, just a cockpit and the long rectangular hold he was in. In the center were ladders going above and below to the gun turrets. The sides were lined with seventeen troopers, quiet and ready. There eyes watching the quaking metal of the box holding them aloft in oncoming fire. He caught the eye of A84 and the other man nodded at him and spit. A med bot, wheels attached to a track in the floor made it's way up and down the center aisle.
Closing his eyes Luke reached out - saw the mountains coming up below them, the three ships following them, and the laser fire headed in their direction that if not confronted would do them in. Concentrating he did his best to direct the Force to deflect the lasers - and was only partially successful. The shuttle held but...
"Fuck, we've lost our guns!" said A97 from the superior gun turret. "Same here!" screamed B36 from below.
"Drop to ground, A95!" Luke shouted. Turning to A84 he said, "Open the side doors! Everyone who's able grab an anti-aircraft gun."
x x x x
The engines were silent. But the anti-aircraft guns screamed in the shuttle, now wedged on it's side in a gully.
The med bot still coursed down the aisle. A84 lay motionless near Luke's feet. "Status?" Luke asked.
"He has lost too much blood," said the bot. "And we are out of synth-plasma."
Luke stared at the unconscious storm trooper. A84 now wore the green and gray camouflage armor of the New Republic, his helmet had fallen to the side. He looked like all the rest of them. But he wasn't like all the rest, Luke had discovered there wasn't an "all the rest", not really. A84 was "too smart" to be a storm trooper. Of course that was by design. A little tweaking here and there when he was cloned had given him a mind for numbers and machines. The Empire needed storm troopers who could problem solve and fix hyperdrives in a pinch too. Of course in A84 the tweaking might have gotten out of hand. Luke had discovered A84 had a mind as fine as any physics student at the Republic Academy, and he loved talking with Luke about politics, philosophy, and literature.
The shuttle shook as bombs hit the earth around them. Guns sounded in Luke's ears as his guys fought off another round of attacks from above. Looking up Luke's eyes fell on B36, in command as usual. B36 was stouter, older and wiser. He was too old to be doing this really; but he was still in the field fighting alongside the other troopers, the only family he had ever known.
Since the Battle of Endor three years ago, some storm troopers had tried to integrate into civilian life. They faced widespread prejudice, some of it earned. They'd been programmed for combat in their genes and training. Without the discipline of service many found it hard to hold steady jobs, many became addicts of various substances and fell into crime. Other troopers enlisted in the New Republic forces. They fared slightly better, but they were still the victims of prejudice. They had recently been integrated with other forces, but they were rarely promoted. Discrimination against them was fiercest among officers - Luke believed that no one who served beside former storm troopers could remain hostile to them for long. They were the most loyal, disciplined fighters Luke had ever known. They didn't hold grudges, he didn't think they were wired to do so. Luke had killed so many of their kind before, all of the Death Star...and so many others. If he let himself dwell on the guilt he might go mad. So he didn't let himself. Not usually. But one time he'd slipped and confessed to A84 his remorse - if that was the word for it, soul aching sorrow might have been closer. The trooper had just shrugged. "It was war. We were on opposite sides. Now we aren't."
A84 groaned beside Luke. Closing his eyes Luke let his mind fly to the skies and tumble over the infinite possibilities that could befall his crew in the next few hours. Although the future was always in motion, at a certain point, like a snowball gathering momentum as it rolled down a hill, the path of events became immovable. Sighing in relief he let his eyes open. His boys would win this round without him.
By coincidence or by design Luke had the same blood type as all the former troopers. Rolling up his sleeve he said to the bot, "Use mine."
X X X X
It was a few months later that Luke became aware he was dealing with a contagion.
They'd taken refuge in a village in Ulneo's interior. But they were found out. Luke was alone in a skiff, running some diagnostics, the ship was hit from above by a fighter from Ulneo's Central Forces. The whole transport flipped over, and Luke was pinned under tons of metal, miraculously sheltered from the full impact by railings that crumpled but still held the craft a foot above the ground.
Too disoriented to use the force to lift it off him, through eyes clouded by blood Luke saw the fighter that hit him turn to finish him off. He saw his troopers frantically firing at it with phaser rifles, their anti-aircraft ammunition depleted long ago. A84 came running towards him. "Save yourself," Luke tried to say, but couldn't find the words. Even in his daze Luke could feel the other's man desperation, panic and fear; a part of Luke couldn't believe he deserved it.
And then in an act of what had to be sheer lunacy A84 began heaving at the steel around Luke, impossibly trying to lift it with his bare hands. It was madness, and in his dazed state Luke might have almost laughed. But then the tons of steel lifted from Luke's body and A84 shrugged it to the side as easily as if all those meters of steel had been made of paper.
A/N:
Well, acceptable AU or fury inducing heresy - please let me know!