Blaster Range 3, Imperial I-class SD Insertion, Assault Line Tarkin's Fist
SF-4738 held his Blastech E-11 high above his head. He stood in front of the of the massed ranks of his armored stormtrooper platoon and had them recite after him, the chant they had all memorized since their first days of basic training on Carida. A few clones and ge-nodes still in the corps had told him they even learned the chant on Centax-2 after they had been decanted.
"This is my blaster. There are many more like it." Their voices echoed off the walls of the blaster range as the men screamed the chant with all they could muster. The rising crescendo made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. "My blaster is my best friend. It is my life. Without me my blaster is useless. Without my blaster I am useless. I must shoot straighter than my enemy, who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will. Before the Emperor I swear this creed: my blaster and myself are defenders of my Empire, we are the masters of our enemy." 4738 was pleased.
Lieutenant Mahan stood at his side as he lowered his blaster again. "Wow that was kind of awe inspiring." The young officer remarked. The Insertion had been one of the first star destroyers to receive a bit of tibanna blaster gas from that mining facility the Fleet Admiral had set up in the atmosphere of the nearby gas giant. Rumor had it the old man hadn't wanted to test out the new alien gas on the turbolasers of his flagship the Quill, so the Insertion had been chosen to receive the first small shipment, after her successful priliminary reconnaiscance of the fourth planet in the local system. Captain Halser had always been a friend of the corps and had been able to cipher off a small portion of blaster gas for the stormtroopers to do some refresher range firing.
"You didn't have to learn that at the academy, Loot?" 4738 asked politely.
"No, we didn't get a lot of blaster training, just a bunch of COMPNOR political ideology and your basic course load of spoon fed poodoo."
"I can imagine Sir, if you'll excuse me." 4738 motioned the first squad forward. "Ok you grain maggots, remember you only get five shots today to reacquaint yourselves with the E-11s again. If I see any of you take an extra blast they're getting one of my size twelve boots to the back of the bucket. Get it?"
"We get you Sergeant!" The StormTroopers screamed in unison. They were an ugly mess. Every single trooper carried an individual melee weapon at their side, which gave them the appearance of pirates rather than the best infantry troopers the galaxy had ever seen. They had earned the right to carry the weapons during the Battle of the Abandoned Hope, when they had fought up close and personal, with some of the meanest prisoners and Black Sun scum in the entire Empire. It had taken almost a week to get all of the blood and guts out of the platoon's armor and body gloves.
At his command, the first ten troopers jumped down into the firing pits and patiently waited for their targets to appear. What they didn't know was that 4738 had arranged with the range control NCO to have the toughest cycle of targets pop up, which was available in the ship's computer core. Red lights above the range changed to blue and large aurebesh lettering proclaimed that the range was a weapon hot environment. 4738 watched as the men in the pits below him tensed up, as they scanned the range over open sights.
Suddenly a target sprinted across the firing range so fast that it was only visible for a second or two. Three blaster rounds flashed down the range, only to miss the rapidly moving target completely. After that surprise, target after target popped up, only to flop back down again less than a second later. 4738 counted rounds and signaled for the troopers to cease fire as soon as they had used up their small amount of tibanna. Those soldiers climbed out of the pits as another group of troopers took their places in the line.
Five minutes of furious mock combat later, and it was all over. "What the hell was that, Sarge?" HF-3105 complained through his bucket's external speakers.
His buddy 6166 also piped in, "Yeah Sarge, that was like being attacked by the entire Geonosian Bug Army, the way those targets were flitting about out there." 4738 tried to hide his laughter by shutting off his own helmet's speaker.
"That was to get you familiarized with your blasters again. What were the results, Lieutenant?" 4738 explained when he got a hold of himself.
"Thirty seven targets out of four hundred that were presented were registered hit by the range analyzing computer." Lieutenant Mahan eagerly reported.
"Right everyone against the wall in back of you. Move!" he bellowed and the entire platoon squeezed against the back wall. "That's three hundred sixty three laps down to the end of the range and back. One lap for every missed round. That should teach all of you to concentrate on your marksmanship. The range computer will count of how many each of you have done, so there won't be any cheating. Understood?"
"Yes Sergeant!" the troopers screamed, this time a lot less enthusiastically.
"Move!" The wall of troopers surged forward as they started their punishment run. 4738 slung his own blaster over his back and joined in. He was glad to see Lieutenant Mahan had accompanied himas well. The officer was lucky he didn't have to run in full stormtrooper armor, because after the first couple of miles the shin armor would really be digging into the tops of the trooper's feet, but he figured the officer boots Mahan was sporting couldn't have been all that comfortable either.
At one point they ran alongside of each other to keep pace. Around them several of the troopers were still sprinting and showing no sign of slowing down, while others were already showing indications of fatigue. It was time to get these men back into the gym and into shape he thought, and started going through a morning routine of physical training he would startup soon.
"When do you think we'll get more tibanna, Sarge?" The officer asked him after they hit the far wall and started their journey back to the starting wall three hundred meters away.
"I don't think it'll be anytime soon Sir. This stuff we got today was meant to go up to the turbolasers in the main batteries. The Captain was just doing us a favor by giving us five shots for the 9,700 StormTroopers onboard." 4738 figured.
"That's not including the Navy Troopers." Mahan added.
"Right them too. After Halser does some successful tests with the big guns the other starships in the fleet will start screaming for their own supply of the new tibanna from that gas giant."
"I heard it could be a few more months before they get production going hard enough to provide enough tibanna stock for all the infantry blasters in the fleet." Mahan had channels into scuttlebutt that 4738 didn't as an NCO. "We should be moving the entire fleet into the inner system here shortly, because I've been thinking that the Admirals are more concerned with fueling the fleet at the moment than they are getting enough tibanna for everyone.
"You could have a point Sir, but we might get some sooner than later if what I heard about the Insertion uncovering some kind of hidden enemy base on another planet in the inner system is true." 4738 sounded hopeful. From what he had heard, the atmosphere of that same planet couldn't support Stormtroopers for very long, so it would probably be a mission for zero-g assault troopers or EvoTroopers this time.
"I've seen the reports those TIE/rc fighters sent back. It's not that big a base. More like a squad sized listening post or OP. One blast from a star destroyer's main turret should end them quickly enough." The lieutenant stated as they hit the wall and turned back around to repeat their journey. "I think it's odd that there haven't been any attempts to contact this new civilization. Everyone is already referring them as the enemy, and all I hear about is what type of covert recon we're planning on doing against them."
"There's a reason for that Sir." 4738 had been in the service for much longer than Mahan, and had figured out how the fleet thinks many years ago. "First of all we're at an extreme disadvantage out here. We've barely got any fuel or blaster gas to speak of, a bunch of starships took damage during the big jump including this one, and we've got slave uprisings taking place all over the fleet. I know those have mostly been put down, but I'm sure they scared the crap out of command for a bit. Second the Fleet Admiral had bitten off more than he can chew. He's got refueling operations, gas mining operations, Moff Culter screaming about terraforming something or another, Moff Kuat yelling about getting all his research going again, and I've heard he wants to start up that mobile shipyard he's got in his squadron."
"So why should that bother the Fleet Admiral?" Mahan asked.
"He doesn't have enough slaves to deal with all the projects that are starting up, and he needs to keep the Moffs happy or there's going to be a mutiny and he knows it. So it can be seen as lucky that we just entered an unknown system where there may or may not be a planet with several billion beings on it."
"He's also lucky Grand Moff Tarkin stuffed this fleet to its gills with so many legions of troops. You see things in a very clear light Sarge, for a Stormtrooper." Mahan commended him.
"We're all not the 'do or die' types, as officer training may have led you to believe. Sir." 4738 explained.
"You really think there would be a mutiny?" Mahan asked sheepishly, as if he somehow doubted stormtroopers could shoot an imperial officer in the back.
'Oh, there's already been some grumblings Sir, there always is with the troopers. It could get worse if the Fleet Admiral keeps us couped up like some Hutt's Rancor, but give us some tibana and something to blast and we're as happy as a Kowakian monkey-lizard." He watched as two troopers collided in the narrow confines of the range.
"I'll deal with this Sir." He split off from Mahan and colorfully scolded the two troopers to get moving again or else he'd add more laps to their total. Both men hurried off with more enthusiasm than he was sure either of them actually felt.
4738 ran for a while on his own. The lieutenant ran alongside groups of troopers encouraging them forward like a good leader should, while his own men avoided him out of fear and respect for the grizzled old platoon sergeant. He wondered to himself what the presence of an enemy planet within this system meant for the corps. He had no doubts that if a war was coming down the hyperspace lane the Stormtroopers would be in the thick of it. They'd win too, of that he was absolutely positive of, especially if this new enemy was as primitive as everyone thought.
He had mainly fought against enemy forces that were somewhere along the same technological level as the Empire, but he had never had any doubts that they could ever be defeated, especially if the technological advantage remained on their side. He had a sudden image of Stormtroopers being defeated by spear throwing midget aborigines and had to laugh.
No, he convinced himself as he continued to run, the Stormtrooper Corps can beat anything you threw at it. With that 4738's day looked a little brighter.
This chapter was a shout out to another great movie Full Metal Jacket
