Exodus - Part Four
By Robert Cox (smeghead_76@hotmail.com)
Disclaimer: I've already typed in four of 'em... that's enough. See the other parts if you really want to read them.
The war's continuing. What do you mean, you want more details? There's not really much more to tell. You'll find out as the story continues...
*ducks hurled bottle* All right, all right! Sheesh...
Rick struggles to come to terms with the fact that his grandfather is from another galaxy, and that he seems to be able to control something called 'the Force'. Another question he has to come to grips with is 'is aggression by itself enough to tip someone towards the Dark Side?' Because if the answer is 'yes', Rick is in real trouble...
Oh, and the war's really starting to get messy, too.
NOTE: This is unfinished! But I thought it would be nice to post the 'in-progress' bit...
****
Exodus - Part FourTHE IMPERIAL INVASION OF TERRA HAS
BEGUN WELL FOR
THE IMPERIALS. AFTER THE NASTY SURPRISE RECEIVED WHEN
THE TERRANS FIRED THE FIRST SHOTS BY LAUNCHING
THERMONUCLEAR WEAPONS AT THE FLEET BEFORE THE LANDINGS, THE
ASSAULT TROOPS MADE PLANETFALL WITH MINIMAL LOSSES. SUBSEQUENT
COUNTERATTACKS BY TERRAN FORCES WERE BEATEN BACK,
INFLICTING HEAVY LOSSES ON THE TERRANS.
BUT THE TERRANS HAVE NOT GIVEN UP.
THROWING EVERYONE
WHO CAN CARRY A WEAPON INTO THE FRONT LINE, IT
IS HOPED THAT A STIFF DEFENSIVE STAND CAN
SLOW THE IMPERIAL OFFENSIVE LONG ENOUGH FOR NEW
COUNTERATTACK FORCES TO BE MUSTERED.
BUT WILL ENOUGH TIME BE BOUGHT?
My grandfather was from another galaxy!
This was running through Rick's mind – repeatedly, in fact – as he stared dumbfounded at Corran. The last week had seen many surprises piled one on top of another. The first had been that there was, in fact, extraterrestrial intelligent life. The second was that there was extraterrestrial human life. The third was that there had been a reconnaissance mission carried out by these humans from another galaxy. The fourth, and possibly final, surprise was that one of the recon team had stayed behind when the others left – Rick's grandfather.
Rick's mouth opened and closed several times, without any sound coming out. He wondered if there were any more surprises in store for him. There were. Apparently, there was this energy field called 'the Force', generated by all living things, and that a group of people called 'Jedi' could control it. No one really knew how it was generated, but the Jedi could control it. And Rick's grandfather had been a Jedi. Which, apparently, meant that Rick had the potential to be one as well.
Does it get any better than this? Rick wondered, somewhat dazedly.
It did.
"There's more to using the Force than just… well, using it. It's a fairly awesome power, and you've got to be careful about how you use it. It's entirely possible, and in some cases, all to easy, to start using the Force for selfish purposes. From there, it's but a short step to using it for evil purposes – the Dark Side. We've had a lot of lessons about what happens when Jedi turn to the Dark Side. As one of my Masters put it: Anger, fear, aggression… of the Dark Side, are they."
"Hang on a second," Rick interrupted. "Aggression leads to this 'Dark Side', you say?" He thought for a second, his mind so awhirl that he was amazed he was still thinking coherently. He turned to Corran and said formally, "I greet you, Dark Jedi Horn."
Corran caught on to what Rick was saying at once and half-bowed, saying, "I greet you, Dark Jedi Noah."
Luke was still looking a little puzzled, so Rick explained. "Corran and myself are both in the military. I don't know what the New Republic teaches its fighter pilots, but in the Australian infantry, controlled aggression is seen as a good thing. If you seize the initiative, you control the pace of the battle. And if you control the pace of the battle, you've got a better chance of winning it and coming out alive."
Corran nodded, adding, "It's pretty similar in the Starfighter Corps. You hit hard, you hit fast, but most importantly, you hit first. C'mon, Luke – you used to be a fighter pilot yourself."
Luke considered this. "That's something I've never really considered before. When Yoda said that to me, I still didn't really understand the Force the way I do now. And for quite a few years after that, I was too busy to really be able to consider the way the Force worked. But I do know that I've been trying to cut down on my active use of the Force for the last few years in the hope of trying to understand it better. No results as yet, but I know better than to rush it."
Rick glanced over his shoulder to see the Lieutenant Colonel who commanded the battalion making his way over. "I'm sure that this will be an enlightening discussion, but I think I'd better start passing word of your arrival up the food chain."
****
It was an impressive sight. Virtually every mainline railroad track in Europe had been commandeered by the military, and long troop trains were heading west, passenger cars filled with soldiers, while cargo flatcars carried their tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, self-propelled artillery and other vehicles considered necessary. Circling overhead in fuel-conserving racetrack patterns were massive numbers of fighters, more fighters than had been seen in Europe's skies since the end of the Second World War.
NATO was going to war.
From west to east, vast military machines were on the move in numbers also unseen since the end of the Second World War. The British army was using the Channel Tunnel to reach France, where it linked up with the French army and continued westward into Germany, where other European militaries would join up for the trip further east. But it had been decided that if they waited until everything was ready before continuing, it might be too late. So the German army, the Bundeswehr, and the Polish army were sent on ahead. This was amazing enough, given the two countries' long history of warfare against each other. What was even more amazing was their destination.
For the third time in a century, the German army was entering Russian territory. But, unlike the previous two occasions, not to invade. For central Russia had been one of the Imperials' landing sites.
The Bundeswehr was being committed to battle to help the Russians drive the Imperial invaders away. The rest of the European military would assemble in the vicinity of Warsaw before being committed to battle.
Naturally, they were observed.
****
"Admiral, Dominator reports massive troop movements."
"Show me," Pellaeon ordered. The main display flickered as a map of Europe was shown, with the troop movements marked in red. Massive was a good choice of word, maybe an understatement. Even though visual sensors did a poor job of penetrating an atmosphere, they clearly showed kilometres-long troop convoys. Pellaeon mentally ran through his options. He could let them through, relying on his troops on the ground to destroy them.
Or he could employ orbital bombardment to destroy them before they reached the battle area. That was the preferred option. There were only a limited amount of Imperial troops available, with no reinforcements from out-system available. There were a few technical difficulties, though.
"How fast are the troop convoys moving?"
"Approximately one hundred kilometres per hour, Admiral."
Too fast to be tracked by the Dominator's weapons, then. The heavy-cargo repulsorlift vehicles carrying the Terrans' vehicles would just…
Pellaeon cursed. He was falling into the trap of thinking of his opponents as having the same level of technology as the New Republic. Next would be assuming the use of the same tactics. Not unreasonable, given the fact that for his whole career, he'd been fighting against first the Rebel Alliance, then the New Republic.
The Terrans didn't have repulsorlift vehicles. But what did they use instead? A quick search through the relatively small amount of information available, both from the Outbound Flight mission, and information captured since the start of the campaign, revealed that the Terrans used 'railroads', employing fixed travel routes, to transport heavy military equipment. The solution was simple.
"Order the Dominator to fire just ahead of the lead vehicles of the convoy," Pellaeon ordered.
The communications officer didn't waste breath – or time – with questions, but passed the order along. Pellaeon watched as green lines of turbolaser fire streaked across the holographic display, blasting massive craters just in front on the convoys, which had no chance of stopping in time. The display did not convey the massive sounds of destruction as the vehicles crashed, the lead vehicles into the crater, the ones following into the lead vehicles and each other. After that, it was a simple matter for the Dominator and its group to walk turbolaser fire down the stalled columns, leaving annihilation in their wake. Even so, the convoys were so long that it took nearly an hour to reach the tail end.
Even with the impressive amount of destructive firepower that the Dominator group were raining down, there were survivors. But according to the ship's computer – which was far more accurate than human eyes at recording and collating such data – the number was less than one percent.
Which, in a way, was not necessarily a bad thing. You wanted survivors from something like that, to spread the word about what would happen to those who resisted. Pellaeon listened to the damage-assessment reports with mixed relief and horror. Relief that he had managed to stop the massive reinforcement convoys, horror at the imagined carnage on the ground. He hoped that his troops would never be on the receiving end of such punishment.
****
The British Colonel fielded the call, acting in his position of NATO liaison to the Russian military. Identifying himself turned out to be the high point of the call. After five very depressing minutes, he hung up and turned to his Russian counterpart. "The NATO troop convoys were spotted crossing Europe and fired upon from orbit," he said without preamble.
"And?"
"And virtually annihilated," he replied, visibly trying to hold back tears. His unit, the First Battalion of the Royal Tank Regiment, had been completely destroyed. "With luck, we may be able to salvage a combined-arms brigade from the wreckage."
The Russian General was staggered. There had been several field armies on those convoys. Having them cut down to a single regiment was devastating. "Then we shall have to resort to our contingency plan," was all he said.
The British Colonel nodded reluctantly. He had concerns about the contingency plan – not so much the actual plan itself, but the inevitable reprisals that the Imperials would take.
****
From airfields around Murmansk, half-a-dozen swept-wing Backfire bombers lifted from the ground. They didn't lift very far, though, as that would be a guaranteed way of getting shot down. In fact, no one was even really sure that low altitude was sufficient protection – especially from orbital sensors. It was decided to trust to a pinch of warrior's luck.
As it turned out, low altitude was protection from orbital sensors, with ground clutter proving to be just as problematic as for ground-based sensors.
The bombers streaked eastwards at full military power – just under eight hundred kilometres per hour. Even so, they still had over an hour's travel time to reach the launch point for the missiles hanging under their wings. Each bomber carried three AS-6 cruise missiles, codenamed 'Kitchen' by NATO. Although primarily anti-ship missiles, they could be used against ground targets.
And they could carry six hundred kiloton nuclear warheads, which was how they were configured for this mission.
After an uneventful flight – apart from the stress inflicted on the crews by wondering if they would be shot down at any moment – the Backfires reached their launch point. One after the other, all eighteen missiles were launched. The target was the headquarters and supply areas of the Imperial force that had landed in Russia. Eighteen missiles were tasked to cover the possibility of missile navigation failure or the Imperials shooting any of the missiles down before they reached their target.
As it turned out, the mission planners needn't have worried.
****
If the Imperials were unable to detect the bombers as they were inbound to their targets, they certainly weren't about to detect the missiles while they were in flight. However, the double-pulse fireballs of eighteen thermonuclear explosions stood out like a Hutt in a Jawa convention – and that was the first notice the Imperials received that they were under attack.
"Admiral! Massive thermal signatures recorded! Consistent with nuclear warheads – eighteen detonations recorded groundside!"
Admiral Pellaeon somehow managed to resist the temptation to put his head in his hands. He also managed to resist the temptation to wonder what else could go wrong, for fear of making it so. "Damage assessment?" he asked, in a tone of voice far calmer than he felt.
"Severe, Admiral." The sensor officer entered a few commands into his system, and a holographic representation of the area appeared in front of Pellaeon, with the estimated areas of damage appearing in varying shades of red. Alongside the image ran a preliminary list of the units lost – or that had at least failed to check in. The list scrolled off the bottom on the display, causing Pellaeon to hope feverently that the problem was limited to knocked-out communication links for at least some of them.
Scrolling through the list, Pellaeon began to notice a pattern to the names. He crosschecked with the Table of Organization and Equipment of his forces and found that a high proportion of the units were headquarters and supply units. Which meant that, although his forces in the field had suffered only light casualties – in relative terms, of course, considering that they had been exposed to what was normally only found in the heart of a star – but they had no headquarters elements and support facilities. Of the two, the latter was far more urgent. Commanders were easy to replace - up to a point, anyway – but lost combat support and combat service support elements were rarer, with all of the specialists that made them run. Mechanics, engineers, medics, communications specialists, intelligence personnel… hell, even cooks and clerks had their part to play. Replacing them would put a strain on already stretched-thin resources, since reserves of those units were rare in his task force.
Although it seemed callous to refer to unit commanders as easy to replace, it was true. Kill or otherwise incapacitate a unit commander, and the deputy commander would assume command. If the deputy unit commander fell, there was someone to replace him. Wipe out a unit's headquarters to a man, and the senior sub-unit's commander would step into the role. That was what the chain of command was for.
Pellaeon was jolted from his musings by a pained groan from behind him. He glanced over his shoulder to see what was happening – and quickly spun around. His new bodyguard, Lieutenant Nilat, was standing – barely – with one hand held protectively across his stomach and the other on the back of Pellaeon's command chair. Obviously, that was the only thing preventing him from complete collapse. His face had also gone a pasty shade of white that Pellaeon had only seen before on the faces of horrendously space-sick troopers and crewers undergoing their first experience of zero-g.
"What is…" he started to ask, and then stopped as realisation dawned. Nilat was a Jedi. And Jedi, through their link with the Force feel ill effects from nearby deaths. Nilat had just experienced the backwash of tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, of deaths all at once. No wonder he looked somewhat queasy. In fact, Pellaeon was admiring Nilat's self-control in not having thrown up on the deck in front of him. His expression still indicated that throwing up was an option, and a hasty gulp indicated that that option was becoming more likely with every passing second.
Pellaeon gestured to one of the stormtroopers on bridge guard – one of the rare few that hadn't been sent down to the surface – and said, "Get him to the medical bay as soon as possible."
The stormtrooper nodded and helped Nilat from the bridge. Pellaeon watched them go, wondering what it was like to be able to touch the Force. Not for the first time, either – when he'd served under Grand Admiral Thrawn, he'd seen both Mara Jade and Luke Skywalker do things that defied belief. He'd also seen, when he was much younger, other Jedi – such as Mace Windu and Ki-Adi-Mundi – do great deeds with the Force as their servant in the dying days of the Old Republic. But there was clearly a downside to being tied so closely to life – such as when life ended. Pellaeon was no great expert on the Jedi – in the Empire of Palpatine and Vader, such knowledge was dangerous – but this was the sort of thing that could be worked out with a small amount of dedicated thinking. Maybe he'd ask Nilat about that before too long.
The bridge door hissed open again. Pellaeon turned again, half-wondering why the stormtrooper was back so quickly… but it wasn't the stormtrooper. It was the Chimaera's executive officer, returning from the medical area himself. He'd been unfortunate enough to suffer a minor fall, slipping on a small puddle of cleaning solvent spilled by an over-zealous cleaning droid in the officer's mess. Normally, such a tumble would only be a source of embarrassment for the victim – and mild amusement for the witnesses – but he'd managed to inflict a moderately nasty gash on himself on a sharp edge of a table on the way down. Not nasty enough for bacta, but too nasty to be simply sealed shut with synthflesh. So he'd needed to get a rather unsightly dressing put on the wound. He'd just been to see the medical officer to see whether it was time to take the thing off or not. Obviously, he'd encountered Nilat.
"I thought bodyguards were supposed to have stronger stomachs than that," he commented with a small grin.
"So he threw up, then?"
The exec nodded. "Made it as far as the sickbay doors, then proceeded to empty his stomach… just as the medical officer reached him."
A nasty thought occurred to Pellaeon. "He didn't…"
"Yep, he did. Fortunately, the medical officer took it quite well – he'd seen the nice shade that Nilat had turned. I didn't know that humans could turn that shade of green. If he put on a couple of hundred kilos in weight, and managed to get a snout and some tusks, he'd do a creditable impression of a Gamorrean."
Pellaeon whistled under his breath. Nilat must have turned a richer shade of green on his way to the sick bay. The exec took up his position next to Pellaeon, where he could assist in supervising bridge operations. He remained standing, to make it easier to get to where he was needed. "I heard we took a nasty hit dirtside," he remarked as he watched the Chimaera's bridge crew perform their duties.
Pellaeon nodded. "Eighteen thermonuclear warheads, targeted on our command and support elements in the Russian theatre of operations. Nasty isn't quite the word for it."
"Do you think the Terrans knew where to aim?"
"No that's not…" Pellaeon caught himself halfway through a rote denial. Maybe it was possible; after all, there were Jedi on the surface who'd managed to slip past the Fleet. Nilat had only been able to identify one – Luke Skywalker, and even then, the identification was somewhat tenuous – but he'd caught mind-tones from a few others who had exhibited traits normally associated with fighter pilots… and some more non-Jedi who'd exhibited the same traits. Maybe a squadron's worth, and one of the Jedi seemed to be in charge, or at least seemed to hold a command role within that unit.
There were only two New Republic starfighter squadrons who had Jedi in them. One was Rogue Squadron, currently commanded by Corran Horn. Rumours about Horn being a Jedi were so persistent that Intelligence were forced to attach some credibility to them. The other was Wraith squadron, and that unit didn't have much in the way of a conventional command structure as such, since each member had considerable input in mission planning, particularly if the mission involved their particular area of expertise – apart from driving X-wings, of course. The Jedi in question there was Tyria Sarkin who, like Corran Horn, hadn't been absolutely confirmed as Jedi but, also like Corran Horn, was the subject of enough rumour and speculation to assign 'probable' status as to her being a Jedi.
Both units were elite units. Wraith Squadron was actually part of the NRI's Operations Directorate. If either one was on Terra, it could mean something even nastier than a thermonuclear strike was in the offing – such as New Republic intervention. To call that disaster would be understatement.
But the military tends to do things in roughly the same way each time. Not out of sloppiness or laziness, but the fact that there are way too many things to do, and not nearly enough time to do them in. So, a checklist for each task that got carried out on even a semi-regular basis; to ensure not only that the task was carried out quickly and efficiently, but also that nothing was left out. In this case, the fact that headquarters and support elements tend to set up in roughly the middle of an Area of Operations.
But the Terrans had shown a reluctance to use nuclear weapons on the surface. Admittedly, ten days was not really enough time to form a firm opinion on the subject, but it was long enough to speculate. After all, win or lose, the Terrans would still have to live on the planet – barring any Imperial depopulation; something that Pellaeon would never order - and digging craters that would remain radioactive enough to kill just about any life form for periods of time best measured in geological eras was not a good way to ensure a habitable biosphere. And not only were the craters themselves insanely radioactive but, according to the information on the subject that had been captured, molecule-sized particles of the fissile material that made a nuclear weapon a nuclear weapon would stick to molecule-sized particles of dirt, metal, whatever, and be carried on wind currents generated by the explosion and cover a massive area, ensuring that people who'd missed out on getting vaporised in the initial explosion enjoyed the benefit of dying from runaway cancers caused by lingering radiation. Within that area, the only difference was in how long it took a victim to die. Pellaeon made a mental note to enquire about possible clean-up methods. After all, his troops still had to use that ground. He had few enough troops as it was, without killing them off with radiation poisoning.
Plus, the Terrans had amply demonstrated that they had weapons capable of hitting their target with frightening accuracy without resorting to nuclear weapons. He'd seen holocam footage of a platoon of four AT-AT's, each neatly decapitated by a single bomb. The only Terran aircraft that hadn't been caught up in the massive dogfight had been fifteen kilometres away. And it had lofted four bombs that far, through a swirling dogfight without hitting any of the fighters involved – although Pellaeon suspected that that was just luck – and each had hit an AT-AT squarely on the head with enough explosive force to destroy it completely. He'd have to find out how those bombs were aimed, and soon.
Also, nuclear weapons destroy everything in a large area. And that was the fact that decided it for Pellaeon. If the Terrans had have known where his headquarters units were, they would have used those incredibly accurate bombs of theirs to take out just those units, instead of vaporising a large area just to get one unit.
All of this took about ten seconds to work out. "No, the Terrans didn't receive any targeting information." And he explained his line of reasoning, noting that it sounded just as impressive when spoken out loud as when he was thinking about it.
The exec seemed to think so, too. "Sounds plausible enough." He paused before continuing. "Is it just me or is it starting too look like we've bitten off more than we can chew?" He waved at the strategic map as if to prove his point.
Pellaeon looked at the map – and wasn't too comforted by what he saw. Sure, the Imperial forces had gobbled up South America and were driving hard through Central America, headed for Mexico and America. The Terran forces there were fighting hard, but were so woefully under-equipped that the terrain was causing more trouble. Tropical rainforest and snow-capped mountains in such close proximity to each other were causing some difficulty. Also, there were worrying reports of guerrilla resistance starting to filter up through the chain of command. In practical terms, it meant that too many of his troops had to be left behind as garrison forces. Something to take note of, but noting to worry about – yet.
In Africa, the situation was much better, since most of that continent was flat and open. Sure, there was rain forest there, too, but not as much as in South America. And the Terran forces there were even worse equipped than in South America, if that were possible. Only South Africa and Egypt were causing problems, but nothing serious. There wasn't even much in the way of guerrilla activity, as if the locals were usedto armies marching through every so often. So long as the troops didn't steal too much on their way through, they'd just get on with their lives. Imperial forces were gaining ground at something close to the rate originally planned, which was a lot more than could be said for the rest of the planet.
In Australia, things were… Pellaeon couldn't really decide wether the lack of bad news from Australia was good news or just the silence that comes from plotting something really nasty. The Australians had yet to be drawn into a pitched battle – not even the initial contact had been overly large, unlike in America and Russia, where the Terrans had launched multi-divisional attacks, and had managed to do some damage before being driven off. It was almost as if the Australians had realised that they couldn't win straight away, and had backed off a bit to prepare something that would work. They gave up huge areas of ground rather than have their troops surrounded and destroyed in detail. With barely a shot fired… except from ambush, probe and rearguard. It didn't do much damage, or cause many casualties, but what it diddo was cost time. And time was the one thing that could not be replaced. Currently, Imperial troops were making good progress, but Pellaeon had a suspicion that that wouldn't last too much longer.
In America, things were both good and bad. The American troops were lavishly equipped, by Terran standards and were trained and led well enough. They were quite possibly the most stubborn troops on the planet, too. They also took every opportunity to counterattack, and seemed to make effective use of armoured vehicles and aircraft working together. But… it wasn't any one thing, just something that nearly half a century of uniformed service had taught Pellaeon. The fact that the Americans preferred attack to defence was one thing. There was a mountain range – the 'Rocky Mountains' according to the map – that looked like prime defensive terrain. If the Americans dug in there, they could possibly hold off his forces long enough to gather enough armour to launch a moderately effective counterattack. They seemed too impatient to do that, though.
The though of mountains triggered something in Pellaeon's mind and he called up reconnaissance reports from Australia. Yes, they had a mountain range, too, called 'the Great Dividing Range'. It seemed well named, too. It quite clearly divided the coastal areas from the inland areas, and any mountain range nearly thirty-five hundred kilometres long deserved to be called 'great' in Pellaeon's opinion. There was the report – there were indications that the Australians were preparing defensive positions. Nothing firmer – the Australians seemed to be quite skilled at hiding things they didn't want spotted. Certainly not enough to make it worth directing orbital fire at at the moment.
As for Russia… the news went from bad to worse. Not only had the Theatre Headquarters been virtually annihilated, but also the forces in the field were reporting that the Russians were launching a serious counter-attack. Given the lack of command direction, it might very well succeed in driving his forces from Russia entirely. Plus there were reports of troop movements on a more massive scale than those in Europe moving north from China. Fortuitously, the vagaries of orbital mechanics meant that there were two fire-support groups in range. He issued orders for one to fire on the Russian army, starting with the attacking forces and then the Russian support elements, and the other to fire upon the Chinese forces moving to support the Russians.
He remembered that his exec was still waiting for an answer to his question. Briefly, Pellaeon toyed with the idea of mouthing some reassuring but meaningless drivel, but decided against it. Honesty was the best policy in this case. He turned to the exec.
"Honestly? I don't know."
****
Rick regained consciousness for the third time in as many hours and announced, "As of this moment, I officially hate my life, and everything to do with it."
This comment drew a small chuckle from the small group of onlookers who had gathered around, but even in his presently unhappy condition, Rick could tell that it was somewhat forced. "What the hell happened to you, Rick? You just screamed something incoherent and the dropped to the ground like a sack of shit. Came as something of a shock, too, let me tell you."
Rick managed to prop himself up against a convenient tree, and he saw Craig elbowing his way through the group, with Luke and Kyp close behind. He tried to ignore the spark of glee in Craig's mind when he 'accidentally' shoved an especially annoying and obnoxious officer in the back, and got away with it by offering up a, "Sorry, sir. Didn't see you there."
Rick sighed deeply. That was something that he had yet to fully become used to, being able to pick up on other people's emotions, with how well he was able to pick up the emotion depending on how strongly the person felt the emotion. The closest explanation he'd been able to come up with – both to himself and anyone else who asked about it – was to liken it to a radio broadcast, with each person standing in for a radio transmitter.
Unfortunately, all he got when he used that explanation was a series of blank looks. His rapidly improving skills at picking up other people's emotions revealed that he wasn't really explaining it all that well, probably because he didn't understand it well at all. So he gave up, and let Luke try to explain it, with not much more success. It seemed that Luke was too used to the Force, and was having difficulty explaining the concept to people who'd never heard of it, much less seen it in action.
Rick was saved from further unproductive though by the arrival of Craig, Luke and Kyp. "How do you feel?" Craig asked, the glee slipping from his emotions to be replaced with concern.
"Imagine the worst hangover you've ever had," Rick replied. "Now, multiply it by ten thousand, and then, maybe, you might have some idea of what it feels like. What the hell happened, Luke?"
Luke was about to reply when he was interrupted by the arrival of the Lieutenant Colonel who commanded the battalion. He'd shamelessly used his rank and the privileges it conferred to bulldoze his way through the onlookers. "All right, Sergeant," he growled. "What the hell just happened? All of a sudden, you just clutched your head, burbled something incoherent about 'it hurts', and collapsed."
Rick tried to come up with something that sounded semi-coherent, but it was his turn to be interrupted, this time by Luke. "He felt the effects of a large number of deaths through the Force, Colonel. That always has a detrimental effect on Jedi."
"The Force? Jedi?" the colonel asked, clearly as likely to buy that story as he was to buy beachfront property that had the misfortune to be underwater twenty-four hours a day.
"The Force is an energy field created by all living things," Luke explained. On seeing the renewed scepticism on the colonel's face, he chuckled and continued, "Even if you don't happen to believe in it. Jedi are people who can tap into this energy and make use of it for whatever purpose they desire. Of course, this means that a Jedi has to be careful about how he uses it."
"Power corrupts, sir," Rick put in.
"Uh-huh," the colonel said, still obviously dubious. "Care for a practical demo?"
Luke just grinned and made a gesture. The colonel's expression of doubt changed to confusion and then nervousness as he was gently lifted a metre in the air, slowly turned around a couple of times, and then just as gently returned to the ground.
"Okay, I'm convinced," he managed as everyone else took a synchronised step backwards. "Anything else you'd like to show off? Hopefully not something which involves me, I hope."
"Well, there is this," Luke said as he unclipped a cylinder from his belt, and Kyp did the same. Both pressed a stud on the side of the cylinder, and a metre-long beam of light erupted from each cylinder with a sound best described as snap-hiss. Luke's was an eye-hurting shade of green, while Kyp's was a similar shade of yellow.
"Neat toys," Craig said. "But what are they?"
"Lightsabres," Luke replied. "The symbol and traditional weapon of the Jedi for a thousand generations, if the legends are accurate."
Rick did some quick maths and whistled softly. Twenty-five thousand years was a hell of a long time. Twenty-five thousand years ago, humans – on this planet, anyway – had been making do with sticks with a sharp bit of rock tied to one end.
"Care to provide a demo of those?" Craig asked, nodding to the lightsabers.
"I don't see why not," Luke replied, nodding to Kam and Callista, who were lurking in the background. They drew and activated their own lightsabers and began what was obviously some sort of practise drill. Rick, who had a few years of martial arts training – including weapons – under his belt, could see that while Kam was moving smoothly, Callista was moving with a slight hesitant awkwardness that hinted at being slightly out of practise.
The sight of the lightsabers, however, had triggered something in Rick's mind, and he lurched to his feet. "I gotta get something," he said, and headed towards where his kit was stored.
"What's that all about?" Luke asked, and Craig simply shrugged distractedly, his attention on the practise duel between Kam and Callista.
"No idea."
****
Lieutenant Helir felt kind of underdressed without his AT-ST, probably because it meant that his protection against small-arms fire had been taken away from him. Of course, the Scout Walker was kind of conspicuous, and of not much use on this kind of mission.
The patrol he led had managed to infiltrate the Terrans' positions, and was now observing what seemed to be a headquarters of some kind. There seemed to be something going on, judging from the fact that there was a small group gathered at one point.
Two of the people were, in fact, somewhat familiar…
With a start, Helir zoomed his optical sensors in until he had a good view of their faces.
Luke Skywalker and Kyp Durron!
Helir knew that it was suspected that there were Jedi on the planet – there had been information passed down the chain of command on that subject – but it was still a shock to have that information confirmed right in front of hiss eyes in a way that he could not possibly ignore. They ignited their lightsabers, obviously displaying them to the awestruck Terrans. Two more Jedi ignited their lightsabers and began what appeared to be a training drill of some kind.
Oh, this just gets better and better…
Then the Terran soldier who had leapt to his feet returned, brandishing what appeared to be a metallic cylinder of some sort. Helir moved to shift his focus to the new point of interest, while thinking, It couldn't possibly be…
His unspoken question was answered – and not in a way that he liked – when the Terran soldier pressed something on the side of the cylinder and a silvery-white shaft of light sprung into existence.
The Terran had a lightsaber, too…