For the Rebellion
They're in the base now. I don't think we have long. I shiver, cold with terror despite the warmth of my thermal suit. The base keeps shaking with the force of the walker cannons. I saw them. I was in the trenches before they fell. I lost my unit in the retreat. Now I'm with another squad I don't know, but it's better than being alone.
I think we're in the south corridor, moving towards the command center. The squad's captain says we need to make sure the command gets out okay. Snow and ice keep falling on our heads as we run, our boots clanking on the metal plates in the floor.
I hear an explosion ahead of us. More stormtroopers must be coming in. I raise my blaster rifle in anticipation, and the others do the same. We round the corner to the gleam of white armor, and open fire. They fall back, most go down, some get to cover and fire back. I cry, "For the Rebellion!" and adrenaline flows and for the moment I'm too hopped-up to be afraid, even as the man on my right goes down, his rifle firing into the ceiling.
The base shakes again. We're prepared for it, they aren't and we're able to finish them off before they get back to their feet. We rush on ahead and the fear returns as the adrenaline fades. Oh god, that man beside me died, right there beside me. I want to throw up, but I'm too scared to.
The man ahead of me goes around a corner and a split second later his body flies back against the wall in a shower of thick laser bolts. The captain swears and throws a detonator around the corner. It explodes and we burst into the corridor, weapons at the ready to encounter a pile of rubble from a collapsed ceiling and the bodies of several stormtroopers clustered around what might have been an e-web before the detonator got to it.
The captain swears again, and heads back the way we came. We follow.
He says we can't get to command fast enough now. We're going for the transports. We encounter more stormtroopers on the way. We kill them, they kill us, our survivors hurry on, without even enough time to close the eyes of the dead. There are few of us left now as we enter the east corridor complex, and there is another blast that shakes the base and collapses some part of it somewhere. I hope it's the part where they're coming in.
More troopers block our progress, there's another e-web, and it fires on us. We hurry back, trying to take cover. Someone screams as they go down, someone else yells as the captain goes down in a hail of red hot fire. He falls facing me, his empty eyes staring, his mouth silently moving, perhaps giving us final orders. I feel my eyes watering. I stand up from behind the cargo crates I was cowering behind, the adrenaline returning. For the Rebellion!
The others take up the cry, and we fight until the stormtroopers are dead. The others look to me now. I led the cry, so now I'm leading the unit, I guess. We take the e-web and rush on, only to find another collapsed passageway. We turn back, try another way. Blocked. Collapsed. It's the same everywhere. We're trapped, and we can hear the sounds of stormtroopers' footfalls on the metal plating, coming closer. There's only one thing to do.
We find a blocked off corridor. It's not hard. We set up the e-web, pile up crates and rubble, form a barrier. We check our weapons, reload, ready ourselves. There aren't many of us left. I wish we had even just one more thermal detonator. The footsteps are louder now. The man on the e-web flexes his grip on the handles; the others check their blasters one last time, needlessly.
They're here now. There are many of them and few of us.
The adrenaline pumps. We cry out.
For the Rebellion.
