Chapter Two: Guilty
Dear Diary,
Six weeks and a buzz cut later, I am now an official member of Emperor Palpatine's Elite Forces. Well, whoopee. I will admit, though, that I look pretty sexy in the uniform even if it is only flimsy plastic.
I have been assigned to Lord Vader's Star Destroyer. We're supposed to be carrying these secret plans for a new Death Star (secret my white arse, everyone knows about them. Captain Redly slipped the info to some pilots in a drunken midnight poker game, resulting in his untimely death at the hands of the Dark Lord himself). SOMEHOW the plans got into the hands of the Rebel Alliance. Personally, I think it was Palpatine's new Imperial intern. I never liked her. She hugs the Emperor WAY too much. Yuck. Just the thought of that makes me want to take a shower.
Anyway, we blasted our way onto Princess Leia's consular ship and start searching the joint for the plans. As much as I hated to do it, I had to stun the poor Princess and take her prisoner, but she'll be all right. She's such a pretty girl, too, even if she is a spy. I don't know about that hairdo, though. For some reason it makes me think of danishes and then I just get hungry.
Dear Diary,
One of the damn escape pods on the consular ship jettisoned itself to the surface and Lord Vader got the most inane idea that the Princess hid the secret plans inside since we couldn't find them anywhere on the ship. Personally, I think she's innocent. So, after an 8 hour shift he sends my team down to the surface to locate the escape pod. Hello?! Can you say overtime? Not to mention it's DAMN HOT down there, especially in armor!
For hours we marched until we found the escape pod and, of course, it was empty. There were some tracks, though, but I figured that whoever it was didn't have any food or water (since those rations were still present in the pod) so they'd probably died in the desert from the heat. We were very far from any of the settlements. I felt like I was about to die myself in that heat. I was tired, hot, and really sweaty. Not mention thirsty and Storm Trooper armor does not do a thing for body odor, let me tell you. We were all kind of standing around staring at each other, not really sure what to do. No one wanted to call back to base to report that we hadn't found anything for fear of what Lord Vader would do to us. Finally, I was so sick of the heat that I reached into my satchel and pulled out a standard washer that I'd used to repair the broken air conditioning unit my quarters. Air conditioning....ah....it was then that I knew I had to do something to get us out of that heat and back into the blessed coolness of the ship.
"Must act stupid," I thought and summoned my dumbest voice yet. I marched over to my commander and held up the washer. "Look, sir!" I said. "Droids!" Hell, for all I know droids could have been in the escape pod. I didn't really care.
The commander bought it and ordered us to follow the tracks, which eventually led us to the tracks of a Jawa sandcrawler. Jawas make their living finding (sometimes stealing) droids and reselling them. I can't say I much care for their livelihood but they're awfully cute! Apparently my counterparts don't agree with me, though, because when we finally caught up to the Jawa ship they started to shoot the cuddly little things until they were all dead. I was horrified but knew that if I didn't fire my blaster there would be questions. I managed to aim my blaster at the ship and blow some random holes into the hull.
While half of my team searched the ship's records, the other half arranged the bodies and threw around some Gaffi sticks and made fake Bantha tracks to make it look like the Tusken Raiders did it. What a bunch of losers! And they did it wrong, too! They made the Bantha tracks go side-by-side instead of in single file. Anyone who knows anything about Sandpeople knows that they ride in single file to hide their numbers. I wasn't about to suggest that they change it around, though, because I was already in a bad mood. I was also feeling more than a little guilty, because if I hadn't so selfishly suggested droids then perhaps those adorable little Jawas would still be alive.
This has been the worst day of my life.
Dear Diary,
Believe it or not, it's gotten worse. We found out that two droids had been sold to an Owen Lars only the day before, so we went over to his place to check it out. He was a moisture farmer. I say "was" because the droids weren't there and so the team killed him and his wife and leveled their farmstead.
I shall never forget what I saw today. I can't help feeling responsible for the death of that innocent farmer and his wife. It's entirely my fault that they and the Jawas are dead. I vow here and now that, as soon as the first opportunity arises, I will leave the Empire and join the Rebellion.
I always liked them better, anyway. Their uniforms aren't as cool but I'm a Good Guy and I should be fighting on the Good Guy team. I would have joined them much earlier but didn't have any chance of doing it while I was in college and lusting after Dr. Sinclair.
Mmmm....Dr. Sinclair. I miss her, though the last thing I heard about her was that she's dating an Imperial lieutenant. My opinion of her has definitely dropped a couple of points. Why go for a lieutenant when she could have had me? I should have been less subtle and more obvious in my papers. Perhaps a bit more tactful, too.