Previously: Sergeant Hummel landed on Tatooine, alongside his new mysterious Lieutenant. Now, they must seek out the members of their new patrol.
Hummel stopped in the dimly lit hallway for a moment.
"Ultimately sergeant," Yamamoto concluded, "that is the nature of delegation."
Hummel took him aside, "I need more explanations before we do this."
Several alien silhouettes could be made out, wandering the hall, nowhere in the spaceport was totally private, but Hummel had to make do, the true mark of a strong Imperial NCO.
"Well what about?" Yamamoto, though pressed against the wall, stood tall, narrowing his eyes at the sergeant. "You have to understand I'm not at liberty to answer every question you might have." As he finished that last statement, he glanced at the silhouettes of aliens in the dark of the corridor. "We have work to do sergeant, in case you've forgotten."
"What are we doing here? What's my job?" Hummel asked in a hushed tone. "I can't lead soldiers to their deaths without a reason, and if I don't know what our plan is, then those deaths, as well as ours, are a guarantee." He pressed close enough now that, were it not for his helmet, he would have felt the lieutenant's breath.
The lieutenant sighed, and broke eye to visor contact. "I'm not at liberty to answer that, because I don't have an accurate answer. Once I talk to my contacts here I'll have some specifics, for the moment however, I can give you an outline. We're going to head to wherever recent intel suggests, probably out by the canyons, should be a bit of a drive and a hike. Then, I do my spy work while you wait. You're not going to get involved in the real work, you're just a means for me to get from point A, to point B, and back."
Hummel backed off, "well that seems awfully plain."
"Doesn't it?" He replied, chipper. "Then let's go, I'm not one to waste time."
They made it out of the spaceport and onto the streets of Mos Eisley. There was a wide dirt street between the spaceport, and the various houses and stores that made up the town. This street was busy with pedestrian traffic, though the space was so large that the sand-street was still fairly easy to navigate, though one had to watch for the occasional speeder. A veteran stormtrooper getting run over didn't quite send the message of Imperial superiority that they wished to send.
They quickly cleared off the street, the twin suns were already making their presence known, Hummel could already hear the fans straining in his suit and he could feel sweat beginning to form inside his helmet, quickly cooling as his armour attempted to direct air to the site.
Hummel lead Yamamoto to the local cantina, just by the spaceport. It was a stocky sandstone construct sticking out of the ground, topped with a dome. The entrance was down a set of stairs. Building partially underground kept the building cool, so in a hot desert planet, it was common practice.
The cantina was a dimly lit, smoky affair. Hummel's helmet filtered out the smoke, but didn't help much for visibility. Much like the dome up top, the interior of the cantina was a circular design.
In the center was the bar, lit with white lights, going around in an ellipse. Patrons crowded the bar, the rest scattered into the various side tables. The circular walls were lined with small, again, circular, booths. These booths were lit with single, white lights on the tables. One of these circular alcoves played host to a band rather than a booth, setting the cantina's chatter to a steady musical rhythm. Some of the lights flickered, or were outright broken, Hummel recalled how many were damaged, the cantina had supposedly been raided several days ago on the word that rebels were storing weapons there.
The dim lighting wasn't helped by the sheer density of clientele, their mixing alien and human silhouettes obscuring any potential view of the cantina. It was truly meant to appeal to all comers, there were probably more aliens there than humans. Still, people moved aside when they saw the uniform of a stormtrooper.
"Stay close." Hummel warned.
They circled the bar, slowly. Hummel eyed every patron as he passed them, it was no secret that Tatooine didn't take kindly to Imperial occupation. Hummel assumed that they, whoever they were, wouldn't bother attacking a regular trooper, but the presence of an officer could mean trouble.
Hummel nearly passed them by, two troopers sitting at the bar. Both quite young, drinks in hand. It seemed they had left their helmets at the barracks.
"Are either of you a Private Azarola?"
One of the troopers looked up, slowly, regarding Hummel with disdain until he noticed the lieutenant behind him.
"Over there, sirs." He said, pointing to a booth behind him.
"Thanks."
They approached the booth, two stormtroopers were there, a man and woman with a busted lip, they were unarmoured, but wearing the black suits that would lay under said armour. A vacuum sealed, fitted set of overalls. They were playing cards with some other alien clientele. The woman noticed them first and quickly turned back to the game.
"Alright boys, let's wrap this up. I'll take your losses," she reached over and slid the round's pot to her. A growl rose from the end of the table, "don't give me that look, your bet your loss," she snapped. The alien put up his hands as she secured her winnings. "Now get out of here," she said, nodding her head at her new commanders. Once the aliens noticed, they scurried away. Hummel and Yamamoto settled into the sides of the booth, sitting across from each other, the two others occupying the center. "Oh, Kolb?" She shouted to one of the leaving aliens, an aqualish. "Don't cheat next time." The other aliens, lead Kolb away from the troopers, and they dissipated into the bar's crowds.
The woman had sandy hair and large brown eyes, her skin was quite tanned as well. She wore her hair in a bun, a small one since Imperial regulation kept her hair fairly short. Other than that, she was quite plain, her only other defining feature being a small button nose, and the busted lip.
"I'm Corporal Helen R. Richards, you must be Sergeant Hummel and Lieutenant, Yamamoto, right? Sorry, you only showed up in the roster recently for some reason," she said, extending a hand.
"Pleasure to meet you." The lieutenant replied, and shook hands with his new command.
"Sorry about the game too," she continued, "since we've had no real work-"
"Well, that's just what we'll fix." Yamamoto cut in.
"Certainly sir."
"So you're private Azarola?" Hummel cut in.
He addressed the other unarmoured trooper, he also had brown hair, though his messy hair was a fair shade lighter, his smooth olive skin would have been naturally darker than Helen's, but she had been stationed on Tatooine for some time, and tanned significantly.
Azarola kept his head low, yet held Hummel in a steady gaze, revealing his pale green eyes. "So it would seem." He slowly picked up his glass and drank.
"Well then," Hummel's gaze drifted beyond the booth, "I suppose we'd best get going."
Yamamoto raised a hand, "No need for this posthaste, gung-ho attitude sergeant. Relax-"
"A drink, perhaps?" Helen smiled, holding a coin between her fingers.
"An excellent strategy!" Yamamoto exclaimed thumping the table.
Hummel stood, leaning over the lieutenant, "a moment sir?"
The lieutenant silently scrutinized the sergeant. "Certainly."
As soon as the lieutenant was on his feet, Hummel dragged him from the light of the table, and into the wall.
"What are you doing?" Hummel growled.
"Not sure I follow, sergeant."
"You're an commissioned officer, dropping in with the conscripts. Sir, perhaps things were different in the intelligence corps, but the only way you keep a trooper in line is your authority, which you diminish, every, moment this continues."
"Perhaps, sergeant, one should note that this operation is not blunt warfare, this is espionage. We spies must trust the one next to us, we place more emphasis on self-reliance. I only have to manage you three, a task I'm sure even you can admit I'm capable of." He said, unflinching. "Perhaps a man so obsessed with rank and file relations should let his commanding officer worry with such things."
"Perhaps."
"Well then, here's a compromise for you sergeant. I have someone I'm supposed to meet here, that's why I was in no rush to leave. I'll go look for him. You don't have the privilege of being an officer, so I'll leave you to go make friends."
With that he excused himself, entangling himself in the web of the cantina's crowd.
Hummel drifted himself, for a moment, before returning to the booth. "Here," he began, Helen met his gaze readily, Azarola, Hummel had just noticed, was tinkering with something, a mess of metal and wires. "I'll get us all another round, what'dya want?" He said.
"If you're gonna do that, here." Helen took a handful of coins, her winnings, and placed them on the edge of the table.
"I'm fine thanks, besides I don't really know what they're worth, I know I'd get conned out of 'em though."
"Here then," she motioned to step out of the booth. "I'll come with you, besides, I know what Azarola wants."
"That won't be necessary."
"Sergeant, they're my winnings, I'll spend them as I please." She stepped out and over to the bar, and they left Azarola to his work.
He finished the last of his drink, slowly and snipped a wire from the mess of wires and metal in his hands, he always kept a set of pliers on hand.
Hummel approached the bar, Helen followed, counting out her coin. "So you don't know wupiupi? Weird, I thought you'd been out on the outer rim quite a bit."
"Yeah, well it wasn't a goddamned pleasure cruise. You should consider yourself lucky, us bleeding so the rookies could sit on their ass playing cards."
"Noted, it ain't all so easy though." she said, stepping up to the bar, and rapping it with her knuckles.
The bartender, a stout man with a mustache asked, "what'll it be?" Running a cloth over the glass in his hands.
"What will it be, sergeant?" Helen asked with a sideways glance. "I'll take a Renan Irongut, a Corellian Red, and…"
"A, what do you have?" Hummel asked.
"Get him a Starshine Surprise."
"They any good?"
"I didn't think you were that out of touch sergeant. That'll knock you down in a matter of seconds. Just get him some Lum." Helen took some coins and placed them on the bar.
"Right." The bartender grumbled, pocketing the coin and heading to the taps. Hummel managed to catch a glance of Lieutenant Yamamoto, moving through the crowd.
"Sergeant, sergeant?" Helen offered him a glass.
"Thanks."
"Y'know, if there's something wrong with your helmet's audio receptors, Azarola could always help you with that. He can fix anything."
Hummel took the glass. "I was just, distracted."
"Well here, come distract yourself." She said, walking back to the table.
They settled in with their drinks, Helen passing Azarola his Irongut. "Thanks Fortune." He said. He took a sip from the glass, before dipping his fingers in it, rubbing the alcohol on the contraption he was working on.
Hummel reached under his helmet, sliding the two locks underneath to the 'off' position, this undid the helmet's seal. When the helmet's seal couldn't be verified, it also deactivated the helmet's suite of electronics. The helmet fan was lost, as were audio receptors and targeting systems in the visor. Since the helmet was no longer projecting external sounds, there was a moment of quiet for Hummel as he removed the helmet, met by the cacophony of the cantina.
His helmet before had dulled the noise, now everything was richer, not to mention louder, the chatter, glasses clattering, the music, everything. Not to mention he could breath in the unfiltered, heady air. Smoke and the thick scent of alcohol. Thus, he revealed himself to his new comrades. In truth, he bore the grim countenance shared by many grizzled NCO's in the Imperial Military and was well into middle age. He kept his hair short, yet had no notion of styling it, he also had a 5 'o clock shadow, a perpetual trait of his.
"Fortune?" Hummel finally asked.
"Hmm?" Helen stopped mid sip, "oh, she took a card from the deck lying on the table, "I have good luck, good fortune y'know." She downed about half of her drink.
"In my experience," Hummel said, "there's no such thing as luck."
"I'd think an old dog like you would have more experience."
"Funny. So, Azarola," Hummel turned, the young private was completely fixed on his work. "What are you working on?"
"Oh," Azarola took a glance up from his work, "it's nothing, a small data processor basically."
"Sooo, what does that do?"
Azarola pulled a small cloth from his pocket, vigorously wiping the small mess of metal and wires, "it's basically a bridge between external hardware and the processor's native system."
"That means Spanner here won't leave the thing alone." Fortune chimed in.
Azarola set it on the table with a sigh. "I don't technically have any clearance to work on the parts so I only get my hands on old, outdated hardware."
"So you're like an amateur mechanic?" Hummel took a sip of his Lum.
"You could say so." He replied icily, breaking eye contact and signaling that the conversation was, for all intents and purposes, over.
"So why are you rubbing alcohol on it?" Hummel asked.
"Irongut is a good primary rust treatment." Azarola stated.
"Wow," Fortune mused, "you got a lot out of him, good with children?"
"No." Hummel said.
"Figured as much." Fortune looked at Azarola, who was now thoroughly invested in his work.
Hummel continued the discussion, asking Fortune, "How long have you been in the force?"
"Oh, about a year now. And then I've been stationed here about three months."
"That's kind of premature for a corporal."
"Officially it was a merit promotion, but really I was just in the right place at the right time, that goes for the my actions that warranted the promotion and the promotion itself. If the new garrison didn't need NCO's…" She took a sip, almost absentmindedly.
Azarola suddenly spoke up, "I wouldn't say tha-"
"It really was nothing Spanner. What about you sergeant?"
"Oh, wow," he chuckled to himself as he took another drink. "Well it's been, must be around ten years now."
"Huh." A noncommittal response. "Don't you think it's odd that we've all been kind of switched around into this new recon patrol?" This she asked in a hushed tone, leaning over the table conspiratorially.
"Oh," Hummel paused, "y'know, these big occupation forces are a mess for the logistics boys, I'd let it slide, it's a pain, getting jerked around between postings, but one you'll get used to.
"So you say."
The conversation deteriorated into relatively pointless discussion. Hummel asked some half hearted questions about local podracing, a lethal sport that was one of Tatooine's few claims to fame.
"If we had the men, I'm pretty sure the hutts wouldn't get away with it much longer." Fortune said.
"Perhaps."
From there, Fortune kept the conversation on its last legs through her constant prying, and some jokes at Azarola's expense. This of course, in spite of the fact that Hummel wasn't too receptive to her questioning. In fact, she must have kept at this for about an hour before Yamamoto returned.
"Well gents, madame, best be off?" The lieutenant asked, as though he had not been missing for upwards of an hour.
They got up to leave, Hummel stumbling, it was either the smoke in the air or the drink.
"Steady yourself Sergeant." Yamamoto grinned, and caught him by the shoulder.
Hummel stiffened at the touch and retrieved his helmet, "I got it," he grumbled, and the four of them left, a new unit.
By now, the afternoon had grown late and become evening, accenting the sand and sandstone structures with the a faint orange. A lone starship arced across the darkening magenta sky, the streets had lost more and more traffic.
They moved to the barracks, under Fortune's direction. The barracks were a large ranch complex that had been bought out with Imperial money, a much faster solution than building something themselves. After all, accepting the Imperial's offer on credit was a much better solution than being forced out by strength of arms.
Again, it was sandstone. A walled complex, round towers lining said walls, the previous owners would have posted guards here to keep an eye on the slaves working the ranch. The Imperials used them now for their own guards.
Inside, the complex had three main buildings, all rectangular, and made of sandstone. As one entered through the main, sliding, metallic gate, discolored with rust, they were met with the old ranch house just to their right. This was the new command center, since it was the largest, it was taller than the other structures, three stories high and topped with a dome.
Past it was the officer's quarters. Supposedly the old storage shed, the smallest of the three main structures. Usually the officer's quarters would have been more glamorous, but they needed the larger slave's quarters for the common barracks, as naturally there were more unenlisted, than enlisted men. Still, they had set up an outside sitting area, covered with a canvas that was some sort of animal hide, this made up the officer's recreation area. Many officer's now sat here, chatting, drinking and gambling with their fellow officers.
Beyond that were the old fields, here animals were stored and fields maintained for the livestock to feast on. Now it was an expanse of dirt, converted into a firing range. On the far right of said field, against the wall, was a black block of a building, clearly an Imperial addition. This was the armoury. All to the left of it was the firing range. It would have been necessary to overhaul the electronics around the entire complex to install VR holo-target ranges, so they made do with cutout targets. Firing lanes differentiated with painted lines and painted marks numbering them. They had set up black metal barriers at the back of each lane, protecting the back walls from blaster fire. Some men were still gathered here, a stray few on the ranges, still firing, and a few more occupying themselves like the idle officers. The common men had set up a few tables by the range, though they were unshaded, making themselves useful only in the evenings.
Left of the officer's quarters were the common barracks, the old slave quarters. They must have been about fifty meters away from the officer's quarters, the complex was quite wide after all. As were the barracks, the old structure was single story, but was both very long and wide.
Lieutenant Yamamoto said his goodbyes and made his way to the officer's quarters, while Hummel and the others moved to the common barracks. Inside, there was quite a lot of chatter, troopers were winding down and talking to another while in their bunks. These lined the walls, carved into the sandstone, small compartments that could hold two troops in a bunk bed arrangement. The bottom bunk had a shelf installed between it and the top bunk, which held two metal storage crates, each containing the trooper's gear. This kept the narrow halls clear, but didn't give the trooper on the bottom bunk much headroom. On the other hand, the trooper on the top bunk didn't have much either, as the carved compartment wasn't very tall.
The barracks were narrow hallways holding about eight pairs of bed on either side. After each pair of bunks was an open portal leading into the next hall. Rather than another row of bunks though, there was a row of recently installed showers between each hall of bunks. A trooper spotted them entering the barracks and approached, he had no helmet, making the bags under his eyes apparent. He held a clipboard at the ready. "New?" He asked, "Oh no," he corrected himself as he noticed Azarola and Fortune. "You new." He sputtered, pointing at Hummel.
"Yes, I'm their new sergeant."
Without a word, the trooper scanned the clipboard. "Good." His head shot back up, he spat the words onto Hummel's face. "Empty bunk, come." They took a left, and Hummel followed him all the way to the wall, the last row of bunks on the left. They then took a right, and walked all the way to the back wall. The trooper pointed to an empty bunk on his right. "There." He said, turning to Hummel.
"Top or bottom?"
"Either, both empty." He replied, scratching something in on his clipboard.
"Thanks."
But the trooper was already gone, "need more rations," he muttered to himself.
Fortune watched him go, with a slightly amused cringe. "He's a good guy," Fortune said to Hummel, "once you get to know him."
Hummel began the process of removing his armour, he had done it so many times now that he didn't need to think thankfully, even that would have been too much effort. Undoing the clips, clasps, and straps. First on his chestplate, then pauldrons, guards on his upper and lower arms, and his armoured gloves, laying them out on his bunk.
"Which one you taking today?" Fortune asked, it seemed Hummel's new squadmates had the bunk across from him.
"Top." Azarola replied.
"You sure you won't fall off again?"
"I'll be fine." Azarola snapped, "trust me."
"Ok."
They chatted while they removed their overalls. As underwear, all stormtroopers wore grey shorts and a fitted white t-shirt. Hummel sat on the bottom bunk now, hunched over to remove his belt, blaster, sidearm, about three clips for his blaster, and all his armour from the waist down. Lastly, and most laboriously, he removed his boots. While the others had stripped to their underwear before settling in their bunks, Hummel could hardly gather the energy to set his gear in one of the storage crates, and collapse on the bottom bunk, still wearing his overalls.
They all lay silent, while the other troopers chatted amongst themselves. Fortune removed a small tablet from under her mattress, and began swiping at it. "Hey sergeant, you were at the spaceport, you hear anything about that rancor incident today?"
"Sergeant?"
It seemed that Hummel had already fallen into a deep sleep.
"What d'you think Spanner?"
Azarola grunted a reply.
Fortune laid down with a sigh...
One by one the chatter died down, and the troops fell asleep, in preparation for whatever the morning would bring.