STAR WARS
IMPERIALS
It is a time of building tension in the Galactic Empire. Though the Empire is nearing completion of its Death Star project, an invincible, moon-sized armored battlestation, a new enemy begins to appear. From hidden strongholds, insurgents have begun operations against Imperial outposts and garrisons. Supply and munitions ships have been waylaid and captured by these rebel cells to arm their fledgling revolution...
Faced with fighting an enemy that strikes fast and disappears into the vast emptiness of the outer rim, the Empire hastily creates special units, specialized in hunting down these guerrilla bands. Operating in the shadows, and sent to track and eliminate this small but growing threat to the Empire, the existence of these special Imperial units are not yet widely known by the bands of rebels scattered throughout the galaxy...
On the outer rim world of Bakura, a small group of rebels have taken possession of a cache of stolen weapons that can aid their cause in the fight against the powerful Empire. Little do they know, Imperial Special Reconnaissance Team Delta-7, has trailed them to the isolated planet to retrieve the stolen weapons…
The dark and shadow-filled streets of the dingy town at night were perfect for the team to move to their objective. Every pile of scrap metal, and every unkempt alleyway made for good cover and concealment as the eight soldiers worked their way slowly through the village. If any of the residents, smugglers or transients had been paying close attention, they may have picked up on occasional movement from the shadows; a flash of muted green and tan from the armor of the three scout troopers, a momentary glint off of the glossy black armor of the death trooper, or a short appearance of an imperial officer in his standard grey-green uniform rushing from position to position. In fact, if any of the sentients (or droids) in the vicinity had the wherewithal to notice such things, they probably would have quietly but quickly found another place to be. Preferably as far away as possible from what was obviously about to occur, as a unit of imperial soldiers was in the den of smuggling and piracy.
The contingent reached a low masonry building, splitting into two groups, and taking up careful positions in the alleys on either side of the structure. The death trooper checked the reading on the tracking fob in its gloved hand. A steady beeping sounded inside its helmet, transmitted wirelessly from the device. The black helmet moved slightly to the side and nodded. One of the scout troopers drew a boxy device with handles on either side from his rucksack, and planted it against the wall. Immediately, an image flashed up on the HUDS within each soldier's helmet, revealing green blobs in the shape of ten individuals inside the building. The scout trooper spoke lowly into the mic of his helmet's integrated comms system.
"Delta-Seven-One to Delta-Seven-Actual, scan complete. We have pos visual on one-zero organics, two droids in target building, over." In the opposite alley, the imperial officer spoke into the mic attached to his black blast helmet.
"Copy, Delta-Seven-One. Targets confirmed. In place. Delta-Seven-Two, prepare for phase two."
"Understood." The voice of the death trooper replied. The officer, a man in his late thirties, nodded to the two scout troopers and the Imperial Army marksman to his right. The three soldiers nodded back. The marksman, dressed in the olive armor and helmet of his branch, and carrying a large DLT-19x heavy blaster, disappeared into the darkness of the alley to assume a position to cover the group's assault. One of the scout troopers attached a satchel charge to the wall. In the next alley, a stormtrooper affixed an identical explosive to the wall near the other unit. Both squads moved several meters further down the alley, and lay flat against the walls. A long, terse silence, broken finally by the voice of the officer.
"Execute." Both charges blew in a simultaneous explosion that sent masonry and rubble blasting into the house. Immediately, stun charges were tossed in by the death trooper and the scout closest the officer, popping loudly with a blinding light. Within four seconds, both teams had entered the holes formed by the blast. The first occupant to fight back was a bearded man in a green jacket and soft cap with an armored band. He threw a few panicked shots with an old DC-15a blaster before being cut down by three shots from the death trooper's TL-50 blaster rifle. A woman leaped from the floor with a small hideaway blaster pistol in hand, and fired only one shot before being killed by the officer entering from behind her. Three more men stood, still woozy from the stun charges, and tried to fight as the rest tried to affect a quick exit. The amount of fire coming from the imperial soldiers, combined with their aggressive movement into the room overpowered the defenders quickly, the three scout troopers and two stormtroopers in the unit effectively mowing them down before they had a chance to organize. As the rodian in the lead of the attempted exodus, armed with an E-10r, threw open the back door, a single blaster bolt caught him above the right eye, and he fell back into the three humans and one Twi'lek behind him. Another blast, originating from a rooftop across the street, twelve meters away, hit one of the humans, a man in a tan flight suit, high center in the chest. The three remaining individuals, now caught between a black hole and a hard place, threw down their weapons and shot their arms into the air. The officer checked his timer, as he did on every assault operation.
"Clear." He stated. "Fourteen seconds. Not awful." He motioned to the two stormtroopers. "Secure the droids."
"Yes sir." They said in unison, and moved toward two old astromech droids in the corner of the room. The officer pointed at one of the prisoners, who were being cuffed and dragged back into the room by the scout troopers. "You." He began. He motioned toward a small stack of elongated cases by the back wall. "I would like you to make my job easier." He slowly walked toward the prisoner, a blonde-haired man in his early twenties, who wore a tan flight suit like the man who had been shot by the unit marksman. The officer could see a look of pure hatred and anger on the young man's face, and could easy understand what the lad was feeling. Some people are poor losers, and when the game is literally life or death, it makes it much easier to resent being on the losing side.
"What are in the crates?" The officer asked. The young man sized him up for a moment. He took in the rank plaque on the imperial's left chest. Three red squares over three blue.
"Send a kriffing captain after a couple of computer smugglers?" The boy replied sardonically. "The empire must be bored." The officer sighed.
"I respect the defiance son." He stated. "But I already know what are in those crates. We tracked those stolen blasters here, and know that the ship which carried them is sitting beside the cantina down the way." He waited, for dramatic effect, watching the green eyes of the young man dart back and forth. He finally continued. "I would like to know rather, who intercepted the Imperial ship carrying those blasters and made off with them." The young pilot started to open his mouth. "Wait." The officer chastised, pointed a finger of his gloved hand at the young man. "Think…very carefully about what you say. If you can help us track down some potentially dangerous insurgents, I can nearly guarantee you will not be treated as badly when we take you in."
"With your permission sir…" The death trooper spoke, coming up alongside the officer, "If he doesn't talk, I can neutralize him and his companions here. It is more efficient for quick exfil if we don't have the baggage, sir." The black-armored trooper raised his blaster at the blonde pilot's head, and the click of the weapon's safety seemed as loud as a thermal detonator in the room. The officer stifled a smile. Perfect.
"No wait…I don't…" The youth began. "I just smuggle parts…spice…whatever. I don't know what's in those crates. Honest. We were given a job, Jad and me. Deliver those crates to some people in…in the Felucia S…system."
"Shut up, Valas!" The Twi'lek shouted, and lunged forward, only to be caught by one of the scout troopers. The officer looked between them a moment.
"Oh." He simply mused. He then walked to the male Twi'lek. "Alright. I think I get it now. The boy and other pilot were actually smugglers, right? And you people…you were the ones moving stolen imperial weapons. I am going to guess…to a group of…probably highly mobile insurgents in the Felucia system. Am I warm?"
"No." The Twi'lek replied in a cocky tone. "We were just going to go hunting drochs with them. That's all." The officer sighed again.
"I can understand you not wanting to cooperate." He said matter-of-factly. "But truth is, you people are aiding and abetting terrorists against the Galactic Empire. Do you realize what is going to happen to all of you when you are taken to the ISB? They will ask the same questions I am, only they are going to use every method available to extract the answers." He pursed his lips sourly a moment. "And I will tell you, they have lots of methods at their disposal. At least save yourselves from the interrogators." It was the human woman next to the Twi'lek who spoke next.
"We wouldn't tell the emperor to eat dwang if his lips were stuck to a bantha's ass." She stated. The officer's eyebrows shot up in surprise at the euphemism.
"Well…that was colorful." The Imperial said with a shocked and good-humored scoff. He glanced between the three captives and gave an exasperated expression. "Well? Nothing?" They all stared heatedly at him. "All right then. Take them to the ship, and scouts…secure them there. All stormtroopers back here to help retrieve the weapons." The three prisoners were herded out the door by the scout troopers, followed by the droids, led by the two stormtroopers, at blaster-point. As they exited, the marksman entered the house, pausing briefly to stare down at the human and rodian he had killed. He gave the corpses a disappointed look for a moment, and then looked up at his commanding officer.
"What is it, Gallen?"
"Nothing Commander…" Gallen answered. "Just uh…hm…I was a half-inch inch high. Thought I dialed her in good before we left. Ah kriff…chalk it up to poor lighting, I suppose." The commander folded his arms across his chest like an impatient mother, and let a small smirk appear on his face.
"Is that all, Gallen?" The sharpshooter quickly looked back at the bodies on the floor again, and snapped his attention back to the officer.
"Oh, yes sir. You know me, always striving for improvement."
"Well, you can strive to help me and sergeant Daraay search the premise for anything useful." The marksman slung his long blaster across his back as the commander began systematically going through papers on a nearby table. The death trooper, now needing proper vision more than the psychological fear generated by the imposing armor, slid a gloved hand under the suit's electronics-laced helmet and lifted it off, revealing a woman of about thirty with short-cropped dark brown hair and a pale complexion.
"Watch for explosive devices, commander." She commented, setting her helmet on the table. She turned to a small kitchen area, and carefully opened one of the drawers. "They're becoming more frequent lately." Gallen looked back from the pile of boxes he'd been rummaging through, and met eyes with the commander, who shrugged.
"You wouldn't think they'd booby trap a room they were using to hire cheap blockade runners." He stated. Gallen nodded and went back to rifling through the boxes. The officer flipped through some papers, and looked up mischievously. "You wouldn't…then BOOM!" He shouted the last part, and the sniper nearly jumped, then turned to his commander, who grinned evilly. "Sorry, corporal. Couldn't help myself." He pointed at Sergeant Daraay with the now folded stack of papers. The death trooper hadn't so much as flinched at the officer's outburst. "She's right. Be careful."
"Why I like to keep my enemies at 10X distance, sir." Gallen muttered dryly.
"Anything useful?"
"Nothing here, commander." Daraay answered, finishing on the last drawer. "Looks like they weren't planning on staying long at all. Probably an abandoned house they were using to cache the weapons until they could transport them off-world."
"Exactly what I was thinking." The commander agreed. "These guerilla cells are maintaining high mobility. Good thing they don't have the backing and financing we do. They're quick, but they can't afford our speed." He caught movement and snapped his head up to see a small group of locals staring curiously into the open door of the building. Daraay, with lightning speed, snatched up her blaster and pointed it at the group, and Gallen, quickly noticing this, did the same. The crown backed up fearfully, but the commander motioned for his subordinates to lower their weapons. He gave the onlookers a mock-friendly smile.
"I'm sorry. Imperial business." He called. "Had to serve an eviction notice". Several of the humans and aliens looked at the bodies. "You should always pay your rent on time, yeah?" A couple of the people in front nodded nervously. "Now get the kriff outta here!" With that, the crowd quickly dispersed. "We should move as soon as possible." The commander muttered, looking at the now-empty doorway. "Before we gather a bigger audience." As if on cue, three stormtroopers entered the building, their attention fixed on watching the crowd running down the road.
"Sir?" One of them spoke.
"Let's get these crates to the shuttle, on the doubletime." The commander ordered.
"How do you suggest we move six weapon crates with six people, commander?" Daraay asked, locking her helmet back into place. The commander walked to the door and glanced around the now deserted street.
"You see that landspeeder over there?" He replied, pointing across the road, where an old RGC-18 landspeeder sat in an alley outside of what was either a restaurant or a bordello. "Commandeer it!" One of the stormtroopers saluted, and sprinted across the road to the small craft. The trooper, specialist EK-868, or "Ekks", hopped inside the speeder, and bypassed the user keycode starter by pulling loose the wires to the small pad, and twisting together the power main and battery wires. He touched the starter wire to the live ends of the two hot wires, turning on the speeder. Jamming the throttle forward, Ekks slid the vehicle to a stop near the door of the building his teammates were in. The commander was the first out the door, blaster pistol in one hand, dragging a heavy weapons crate with the other.
"Load them up!" The officer called, and the imperial soldiers began quickly moving the cases from the building, tossing them onto the speeder. Once the last case was resting haphazardly on the levitating vehicle, the commander turned to Sergeant Daraay. "Sergeant, execute sanitization."
"Roger." She stated, the voice amplifier in her helmet making her voice sound almost mechanical. She pulled two cylindrical detonators from the back of her utility belt, and walked to the door. Activating both with a turn of the top and a push of a button on each device, Daraay tossed them into the building. One further into the house, and one closer to the door, amid the pile of bodies. She then jogged to the speeder, where the five imperials were already piled uncomfortably into/onto the small craft. She grabbed the lip of the passenger bay and hefted herself up onto the flat body of the speeder.
"Go." The commander ordered, and Ekks punched the throttle, the team holding onto whatever part of the speeder they could, as well as the metal cases as the speeder quickly accelerated, racing down the dark street. After ten seconds, there was a low, throaty 'crump', followed quickly by a second as the thermal charges in the building detonated, filling the house with an intense ball of fire. The incendiary bombs expanded, sucking air from the surrounding area to create a massive superheated cloud of burning material and superheated oxygen, leveling the building and burning the slain insurgents to cinders.
Loading the cases into the team's Lambda-Class shuttle was an easy feat, and soon, the two pilots of the ship raised the ramp, and the shuttle was airborne before the loading ramp was even fully locked shut. The side wings of the Lambda Shuttle "Huntsman" folded down into flight configuration, and the shuttle hovered in place a few moments more as the crew engaged cloaking and frequency jamming equipment. The commander entered the cockpit and placed a hand on the back of the co-pilot's chair to steady himself.
"A final performance, gentlemen." He stated. "Target that small cargo ship there." He pointed toward a small freighter on a pad near a cantina. "No trace is to remain of the enemy or their operations." The pilot, temporarily reassigned to the team from the 204th Fighter Wing, the infamous "Shadow Wing" for the mission, nodded.
"No trace? Yes sir." He dialed in the Huntsman's forward cannons on the freighter, flipped the arming switch to the weapons and squeezed the button on the right control stick. A volley of green streaks obliterated the vessel where it sat, smaller explosions from each hit melding together into one as the ship exploded on the ground.
"Now gentlemen, RTB. Let's get back to the Accuser and deliver the packages. Good work. I'll make sure your commanding officer gets a glowing report after this."
"Thank you, sir." The pilot commented, putting the shuttle on a correct bearing and accelerating into the stratosphere of the outer rim world.
"Preparing to engage hyperdrive, sir." The copilot spoke. "You may want to take a seat."
"Of course." The commander answered. He spoke once more to the pilot before joining his team in the rear cargo/passenger hold. "You have the ship, lieutenant. Take us home."
So begins the epic story of the troopers of Delta-7. I've been putting off writing a Star Wars fanfiction for years now, and I finally decided to make it happen. Hopefully you the reader will enjoy this gargantuan work. I sometimes have a habit of writing stories before I post them, and this had been a labor of love, my Magnum Opus in a way. So keep it tuned in right here for the next installment, and reviews are always welcome. -Drake
