For the past 17 years, I have been working on a story.

Its beginnings were in a fun exercise for myself and other 501st Sandtroopers. We all wrote up a 1-2 page bio for ourselves, creating a fictional backstory for our Sandtrooper persona. We formed a small local group called the 104th Moisture Farm Patrol. We had a group, we made patches, and now I was going to write our story.

I took the bios, and began writing what was to have been a 10 page or so story using our characters.

15 years, 38 chapters and roughly 179,000 words later, I am still working on this tale, which resides within the Original Trilogy timeline, coexisting with the events of our favorite films. It is told and seen as just outside the frame of the those camera lenses, or from a reverse angle, or B camera perspective.

While I have made it through the timeline of the original 1977 film, and am just catching up to the EMPIRE timeline, it is still VERY much a work in progress.

It was written in a stream-of-consciousness fashion on breaks and lunches at my job, after I put my then-young kids to bed, at the beach, or whenever I had a few moments of inspiration. It was begin before Rogue One was even thought of, much less canon, and originally utilized pre-Star Wars inspiration and tie-in from the "stolen death star plans" events of the NPR Radioplay. It has had little to no editing until now.

This year, I have begun at the beginning, working my way through the story, chapter by chapter, trying to update it with what is now canon data from Rogue One, Solo, Clone Wars, and REBELS.

I will be posting up chapters of 'The Sandtrooper's Story' using the hashtag #TSS and a hashtag for the chapter as well #001, etc. The hashtags will make these posts searchable within this page for easy location.

If you decide to read, I would love to hear feedback. I'm not a professional writer, so please remember that and try to be kind.

If you have ideas for cool things you would like to see happen, or questions, I'd love to hear them.

As in the past, work on this is done as I can get to it.

Please be patient, and please enjoy.

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These symbols ( ∞ ∞ ∞) indicate a jump to a new scene or location

THE SANDTROOPER'S STORY

Foreword

Amid the ranks of Imperial Stormtroopers there are numerous divisions of troops, adapted for varying environments and specialties.

Few of these assignments are as grueling as that of the Sandtrooper. Scattered across countless desert worlds, they live, work, and die in places most people would rather forget.

Most are Imperial law enforcement officers assigned to keep the peace, maintain order, and protect the citizens on their beat. Some, however, operate outside the official scope of the Empire.

This is the story of such a group.

Prologue

Although the two thermal detonators themselves did not vibrate in any way, I swear I could feel the restrained energy awaiting release within the two orbs in my outstretched hands. In the dim light between the cloaked figure and me, tiny embedded lights in the detonators pulsed on and off. I was fully prepared to discharge both devices, definitively concluding the paths of two warriors, and departing life in this moment, if it became necessary.

My lightsaber lay on a stone workbench on the second level of the cave. The blade I had used to hunt and execute countless numbers of his kind during 'The Purge' would not save me this time. As I had been taught years before, my mind was clear and guarded. There would be no tricks played by the Jedi who stood between the cave opening and me.

My preoccupation with the job at hand must have been thoroughly distracting, or he was exceptionally powerful, for by the time his approach was felt, it was too late.

In the seemingly endless space between the nanoseconds that now ticked away, my mind raced, crashing through a cascade of memories as I recalled the chain of events that had brought us both to this singular moment . . .

Chapter 1 - Origins

In the last years of the Old Republic, leaders of industry and the Mining Guild were assembled by Count Dooku to form a select sub-group of the Trade Federation. None were aware that Dooku was secretly Darth Tyranus, apprentice to the Sith Lord Darth Sidious.

His Master, Sidious, had been masquerading under the guise of Naboo's Senator Palpatine, and would eventually become Emperor. The veiled agenda motivating the group's formation lay in the need for pooled resources to bring a sickeningly monstrous undertaking to fruition.

It was in the early stages of battles that would later become known as the Clone Wars, that Dooku and a team of Geonosian design experts successfully completed phase one of the project. Once the plans were complete, he immediately launched the covert construction of a weapon that would carry the Trade Federation and his Sith master into a new era of galactic domination and unimaginable power.

The sheer scope of their plan was staggering, not only in physical size, but also in the scale of the deception. Donor planets represented by the guild were gutted for the ores required; stripped of their raw materials. As mining efforts were withdrawn, and the jobs they had brought with them disappeared, the planets were left behind as mere shells of what they had once been, all but dying out entirely; barren reminders of the Empire's blind ambition.

In extreme cases, the air itself had been all but destroyed in the process of extraction. Breathable gases had to be collected from what remained of the atmosphere and forced into contained cities. In the more fortunate locations, only moisture needed coaxing from the air using evaporative collection units.

The project was kept hidden from everyone except those directly involved. Once construction began, the structural design team was summoned to an emergency meeting. While en route to the meeting, their transport shuttle fell victim to what some refer to as a "horrible navigational mishap". The ship's nav' computer was somehow set for a lightspeed jump on a course directly through a star. The ship was vaporized, and tragically, the crew, the team, and their collective knowledge of the project was lost.

Orson Krennic, director of Advanced Weapons Research for the Imperial military, retained the weapons design lead, Moff Rebus and his team, as the construction and installation of the Superlaser and its systems were still in development, and would be among the last to go live. Rebus would factor into my life years later, during my missions on Anoat.

Harvesting of Kyber crystals was in full swing across the galaxy at all known sources and repositories, as they were to be the power source of the weapon. Galen Erso had been experimenting with both natural and synthetic Kyber crystals in his energy-focused research for Zerpen Industries on Vallt. This research did not escape Krennic, a longtime acquaintance of Galen, his wife Lyra, and their young daughter Jyn.

Krennic had orchestrated a staged rescue of the Ersos from imprisonment on Vallt during a local civil unrest. He leveraged the implied indebtedness, swiftly coercing his longtime acquaintance into service, all the while wooing him with every resource of the Empire at his disposal for the continuation of his scientific studies. Erso reluctantly accepted, after having found it difficult to secure employment and provide for his family upon their return to Coruscant.

In the years that unfolded during the course of the ravaging Clone Wars, General Grievous was sought and ultimately destroyed by General Obi Wan Kenobi. Darth Sidious was entrenched deeper than ever in his plan to unravel the fabric of the Republic, and as the beginning of the end, Sidious' Sith apprentice, Count Dooku, was slain by Anakin Skywalker; beheaded by his own blade in combat.

Since Skywalker's youth, subtle manipulation by Palpatine had gained the trust of the powerful young Jedi, and a crooked path was presented for him to follow. It lead him to a decision-making crossroad where ultimately he would not only replace Dooku as a Sith apprentice, he would do so of his own choosing. The newly-annointed Sith lord, Darth Vader, would be instrumental in the complete and utter eradication of the Jedi protectors of the Republic who stood directly in the way of his new master's power play.

By the time the Jedi temple fell under Lord Vader's hand, and Order 66 was being carried out by clone units across the galaxy, the skeletal framework of the project was nearing completion.

Raw materials from all corners of the mining guild were funneled to its remote location for continuation of the work. Dooku and troops from Vader's 501st Legion had succeeded in skillfully hiding the project from even the Jedi. Emperor Palpatine was so impressed, he commissioned a hand-picked Garrison from those troops that had overrun the Jedi temple. Once selected, they were placed in charge of security for the station's remaining stages of construction.

To honor his fallen apprentice, the newly formed group would be known as:

GARRISON TYRANUS.

I was raised on Tenaab, which had thankfully avoided the gutting so many other planets had endured, mainly because of the Imperial shipyards located there. It had very harsh cold seasons, so my family would spend that time with relatives on nearby Corellia. My father was an engineer, and my mother worked for an unnamed Imperial agency. She spoke little of it, and I never pushed to know more than she offered.

When I was old enough, I worked for my father at Industrial Automaton, building astromech droids. It was this work that revealed my love of engineering, design, and construction. Industrial Automaton, at that time, before their merger with Soro-Suub, was a wholly owned subsidiary of BlasTech Industries. I spent my last few seasons on Tenaab working for BlasTech designing field cannons and orbital platform armaments.

After my shift, I would sometimes hang around the docks to watch Imperial Cargo ships arrive, with Stormtrooper guards picking up container after container of E-11's. I knew someday I wanted to be one of them, but still being slightly underage, that was as close as I could get to the action of the Empire.

Over the next two seasons of my "life before the Empire" I learned how to install intelligent turbolifts, air handlers, trash compactors, and garbage chutes while interning in the Tenaab shipyards. I spent a great deal of time deep in the bellies of some massive starships. As one of my installation assignments came to a close I was selected, along with a group of several hundred other workers, for a new project that would last several seasons. At the new, clandestine location, we installed garbage chutes, trash compacters, water and air-recycling systems, and turbolifts on an enormous project that dwarfed any I had previously worked.

On one occasion I asked one of the Stormtrooper guards what the huge skeletal framework was supposed to be for. I was quickly told it was better to know less and live longer. I had worked on many different class of starships over the years, and it didn't look like any ship I had ever seen. It looked more like some kind of immense outpost or space station, but I kept my observations quietly to myself. My interest, however, was irretrievably piqued, and it was there that I signed up with the Empire. I was accepted into Stormtrooper training and shipped off to Carida for nearly a year of intense training.

The construction project continued to move ahead as I trained. Its scale had never before been equaled in all of recorded history; the final product would be roughly the size of a Class IV moon. By compartmentalizing the multitude of tasks, secrecy was maintained even from those working on it.

With the humble beginnings of what would become the Rebellion, supply lines became compromised in some sectors. The small, disconnected resistance cells had no idea what supplies they were diverting or destroying. They simply knew the cargo was stamped with an Imperial security code, and they attacked the defenseless federation convoys. The ambushes spooked many of the regular civilian suppliers. They were transport pilots with families, just working for a paycheck. After the first wave of attacks, many walked away from the job. Those that remained were smugglers for the most part; less than reputable and suspect in and of themselves.

Shortly after the end of the final clone battles on Kashyyyk, many of the Wookiee survivors were enslaved across the galaxy, taken to work on the construction. In the years that followed, there were several instances of small, unorganized uprisings among the Wookiees, which were dealt with swiftly and brutally.

On Mimban, one young Imperial deserter broke out of his holding cell with one of the imprisoned Wookiees, escaping with a band of smugglers in a stolen Imperial ship. This same deserter would later inadvertently free even more Wookiees during a Coaxium theft on Kessel. The rogue pilot was never identified.

After my graduation from the Academy, I was assigned to Garrison Tyranus and sent for more training in a small unit on Jakku. The arid landscape there served as a perfect proving ground for practicing and honing desert survival techniques and skills I had learned in the classroom. Although the assignment was far more intense and challenging than I had ever expected, I enjoyed it, and asked to remain deployed there as a TD designated Sandtrooper.

I settled in with a small squad of troops in charge of monitoring several mining facilities, each of which fed a constant stream of ore transports to the project build site. In the several years that followed, I kept in contact with others from my garrison who were assigned as security for "the project". They kept me up to date as I trained to become a sniper, mastering the DLT-19. Soon thereafter, shipments of ore ceased from Tatooine, but continued steadily from Jakku until many years after my departure.

Somewhere along the line I lost touch with the troops working security, and my interests were pulled in other directions as my assignments called me to many new places across the galaxy.

While my friends at the project build site had been able to maintain security, they didn't have the numbers needed to repel any serious external assaults or onboard insurrections should they have arisen. The project had also grown too large to keep concealed from long-range scanners.

Loyalists from Alderaan and many other inner systems were merging efforts to scan for possible remote building sites. They feared the very covert operations that were currently under way. They hoped to one day regain the peace they had known before the Empire, and acted to protect the remaining civilized pockets of their broken Republic.

Remote listening posts, comp scanners and orbital signal-jamming platforms were deployed to assist in keeping the draped veil securely in front of the project. Behind the shroud, armored ground assault vehicles, TIE squadrons, speeder bikes and a weapons stockpile including hand-to-hand weapons along with larger scale, sonic charges was amassed.

In all, the project progressed for nearly twenty standard years from its inception until all systems were finally brought online, and its existence was made known; its name revealed . . . Death Star.

With only the final installation of the completed Superlaser remaining, some members of the security team headed by Garrison Tyranus was reassigned to other duties close to the Sith Lord. Some were dispatched to temporary assignments on the new battle station, some to duty onboard Star Destroyers, with the remainder being assigned to various other posts, depending on their training and specialty.

Sometime later, some of the members of Garrison Tyranus were assembled into a small patrol unit, assigned to re-establish an Imperial presence in the closed outpost on Tatooine.

It was with the formation of this new unit that my standing transfer request was finally answered. Late in the day, as I was returning from a 3 day mission in the caves beneath Anoat City, my CO confirmed the transfer.

"Deckard, I just got the holonet confirmation of your transfer approval. I don't remember signing off on this, but I guess I must have if it's going through."

"Thank you, sir" I replied.

"So, what'd you find this time out?" he asked.

I shouldered my rifle and glanced back toward the entrance of the caves, "It went as well as could be expected. We found traces of old camp locations Rebus used, but no luck locating his . . ."

I turned my head back around to look at my CO, only to find that he had walked away from me as I was in the middle of my reply. This had become typical and was not completely without some level of anticipation, but it still pissed me off. He must have had a sudden, urgent need to check in with headquarters. I often wondered if he ever did any work at all. The rest of us in his unit were constantly pulling his weight and making the difficult, necessary decisions while he disappeared at critical moments.

I glanced skyward. Dark clouds were slowly gathering, and moisture hung heavy in the air as night came on, preparing to dump yet more water on us.

I entered my barracks, hurriedly gathered my gear together and slipped off my armor. I sat down, flipped open my field holonet pack and keyed a special request to the pilot of the shuttle that would be arriving in the morning. Confirmation of my sent message flashed 3 times on the small screen. I leaned back in the chair and switched it off. I was finally getting out of here.

That pleasant thought lingered in my mind as I stood up and crossed the small space to my bunk. I rolled in and lay my head back on the pillow. After the day I had had, I was just too tired to eat, even though my empty stomach growled its protesting disagreement. Images from the past several days flashed through my thoughts as my closed eyes burned. The sound of rain beginning to fall became an elemental, hypnotic rhythm, and my breathing slowed and steadied as I gave in to the seductive reprieve of sleep.

( ∞ ∞ ∞)

I awoke with a heart-pounding start to the blare of the claxon mounted on the wall of the barracks. Other troopers began slipping on their gear and heading out for chow. It was almost light, and I knew my shuttle would be there soon. I gathered the few personal belongings I had and shoved them into my gear bag. As I was drawing the closure tight, I heard the whine of engines overhead. Standing anxiously, I crossed the room to the door and pushed it open.

The rain had stopped and through the haze of humidity I could see the morning shuttle arriving on the landing platform. I slipped through the door and jogged the short distance to the base of the platform and took the stairs 2 at a time. As I reached the top and stepped onto the landing pad, I noticed the ground crew already at work unloading supplies from the hold. The pilot was going over the manifest with them when I came running up. He shot me a look, shook his head and smiling, threw me a small, light pouch.

"I guess you got my message?" I said, snapping a quick, relaxed two-fingered salute his way as I turned away, racing off down the steps.

"This is a short turnaround, hurry Up, Deckard!" he shouted after me.

I ripped open the pouch as I disappeared down the stairs. Out slid a new black thermal body glove. I held it to my face and breathed in deeply; it smelled new, nothing like the filthy sewers of Anoat, the way mine did. I had been on this rock for several years, and there had never been any point to getting a new one, knowing I would just be going back into the sludge and muck below in the caves and sewers. But now, well, now was a different story, I thought, as I entered the barracks. Now I was getting out of here. No more lizard-ants. No more sewers.

I threw open the door to the shower, as I stripped off the disgusting old body suit. A short time later, I emerged again, clean and adjusting the fit of the new suit. I tossed the old one in the waste chute and slipped on my armor. Grabbing my gear bag, rifle, environmental backpack and helmet, I took one last look around, then walked out toward the shuttle.

This morning, I chewed on a high-energy ration bar for my breakfast as I walked up the boarding ramp into the ship. The last of the supplies had been offloaded and the pilot was just bringing the engines online for our departure. I walked between the twin rows of jump seats. I moved all the way forward, just behind the gunner's seat and folded my metal seat down. Restraint harnesses hung from the bulkhead in a row behind the seats. I clipped my rifle into the mounted rack in the center of the aisle, and dropped my gear bag and pack to the deck, kicking them back under my seat.

I placed my bucket down in front of them and stepped one leg into the harness as I sat down. The thin metal was cold and hard, I thought, as I pulled the restraint up. In the grand scheme of things, it really didn't matter as long as I was leaving this place! I put one arm through a hanging strap, then the other and clipped the two halves of the harness together with the crotch strap into the center clasp at my chest. I settled in for what was likely to be only the first leg of a very long flight.

The boarding ramp retracted and rose into the stowed position, airlocks sealing with a hiss. The pilot called back to me, "You in?"

I yelled back to be heard over the engines, "Let's get out of here before somebody changes their mind!"

I felt the ship lift under the force of its' repulsor field, and heard the engines' whine rising to a loud, dull roar as the shuttle rose further away from the deck. It pivoted, climbing skyward as the landing gear retracted with a thump beneath me.

The row of stowed jump seats rattled and the swinging restraint harnesses jangled noisily as the upward reaching wings lowered into their familiar triangular shape.

I leaned forward, peering out the port in front of the gunner's seat, and watched Anoat slip into the archives of my past tours of duty as we accelerated away into the darkness toward my new post. I closed my eyes and rested my head back against the cold, vibrating bulkhead.

( ∞ ∞ ∞)