Star Wars: Episode VII: Shadows of the Past
29 years have passed since the fall of the Galactic Empire. The New Republic holds sway over a tenuous peace in the galaxy, political factions vie for control, some arguing for control and others for freedom. Meanwhile, strange transmissions are heard from the UNKNOWN REGIONS. They speak of rumours of a new threat, rumours of the FIRST ORDER.
General LEIA ORGANA listens in, wary but prepared to resist with her forces, the PHOENIX fleet. A ragtag group of soldiers and ships that are unofficially sanctioned by the New Republic. They are the thin line that exists between the Galaxy and the fires of another war….
The TIE/sf came screaming out of a bright hyperlane and into the darkness of space. The pilot was screaming too, though she could hardly hear herself over the shrill beeping of the pressure warning. A blaster hit has punctured the TIE's spherical cabin and if it weren't for her pressurised flight suit, she would have died before making the jump.
She fumbled at the controls, the gloves were too large, but the stolen suit had had to do. She managed to flick off the warning light and looked around for the pressure leak. It was just above her, a small hole no larger than her fist.
It only took her a moment to find the emergency patch for the hull, she had grown up around and inside these ships, repairing them as part of her family's duty to their masters. But even old memories had a way of vanishing after a hard-enough blow to the head; the hit she'd talen had rattled her head around her helmet like a gravball.
Once the hole was patched, she looked down at her sensors to try and work out where she was. She should be in New Republic space now, or the very edges of it anyway. She had heard some of the Human Imperials talk about it before, The Outer Rim, they called it.
That seemed fitting, it was outside all of the space her people and The First Order lived in.
She frowned at what she saw in her sensors. For now they were… quiet, normal. No raging waves of gravity, no chaotic asteroid fields, no churning nebulas filled with hungry Grallocs. Just cold, stale nothingness. That and a small desert planet not far away.
"Wooo!" She cheered, suddenly elated despite the fact that she was in a ship that could barely move and had limited air. She'd done it, she'd escaped! She did what every slave wished they could do. Freedom, glorious freedom was hers. No more taking orders, no more beatings, no more serving First Order officers that made her skin crawl.
Her happiness was overshadowed a moment later by something else. She was free but what of her family? Of the people she had left behind?
Her thoughts were cut off by her sensors trilling again. Three craft had just dropped out of Hyperspace behind her. They were listed as friendly by the TIE, which meant they were anything but.
"Unregistered TIE. Power down and prepare to submit." A stern male voice came through her headset, right into her ear like a nightmare whisper. She froze, that was Captain Windrider, she still had bruises on her arms from the last time she had disobeyed. "This is your last warning Rey. You won't be so lucky next time."
Rey swallowed down the acrid taste of her fear and pushed forward on the throttle. If she was fast, she could make it behind the shadow of the planet and jump again before they shot her down.
If.
The TIE's engines flared to life, rattling the cockpit and Rey along with it. She felt her joints popping, the force of acceleration pushing her into her seat. Immediately streaks of green blasters flew past her canopy, lighting up the inside of her cockpit and revealing how badly her hands were shaking on the controls.
She leaned forward on the controls, angling the TIE down toward the planet's surface, trying to ignore the blaster bolts that were inching past her. Her sensors trilled again and another, larger craft appeared on them. It introduced itself by firing a single long streak of green turbolaser fire.
"You've made your choice Rey! I'm going to enjoy this and when I'm done with you maybe we'll make an example of your family. The Nitah will curse your name and disown you for this! If there's anyone left."
Rey screamed. The captain wouldn't do that too her family. The First Order was strict, violently so but the Nitah family were one of the few slave families trusted to work on their ships. They wouldn't just throw away a resource like that, Would they? Had she doomed her own family in trying to save others?
She didn't have time to think. The planet filled up her canopy and the TIE shook even harder as it hit atmosphere. She was coming in too fast, far too fast. She had wanted to skim the top of the atmosphere but the TIE wasn't responding properly. The times she had snuck into the simulators hadn't prepared her for anything like this.
She plunged into the atmosphere, still pursued by the three TIE's and their barrage of laser fire. She frantically leaned on the controls, duking left and right, the blaster bolts mere inches from her ship.
The craft thudded once, twice as she was hit and the deflectors were finally overpowered, failing with a barely audible pop in the thin upper atmosphere. She spotted a bank of clouds below and to her starboard. She dived for them, pushing the throttle all the way.
Twin tails of ice trailed off the edges of the TIE's wings as she dropped into the cloud and her canopy was obscured by white. She was flying blind now, all she could see was the occasional streak of muted green light. She levelled out and pulled back on the throttle, slowing down more than her pursuers.
It worked. She faintly heard the droning scream of a TIE engine as it flew over her. Her sensors, disrupted by the atmosphere and clouds, vaguely registered objects flying past her. Hopefully the pilots wouldn't notice.
Rey let herself smile, just a little. Her pale blue lips twitching. All she had to do was turn away and run back into space. To freedom.
Her TIE rose vertically out of the clouds, vapour rolling off the black solar wings. The harsh sunlight blinded her at first, a stark change from the all-encompassing white clouds. She squinted through it and only then noticed the TIE fighter waiting in front of her, right in her own ships shadow.
"I gave you a choice Rey !" Windrider's voice was seething with fury. "You chose wrong. You Chiss can do anything right." He smiled and thumbed the triggers.
Time slowed. She swore she could see Windrider's snarling face through his cockpit. Rey yanked the stick right, it felt like her hands were moving through molasses though, the ship had barely begun to turn when he fired.
The first shot ripped through the top of her left wing, shearing metal with a bright shower of sparks.
The second and third punched through the strut that connect the fuselage to the wing. Rey screamed and punched the thrusters as acrid smoke filled the cockpit. Her TIE went into a spiral, belching smoke and flames with a scream of its ion engines. Windrider tracked her across the sky and fired a final time, blowing out her engines. Leaving only gravity to pull her down to her death.
"So long Rey, I'll make sure your family knows you died for nothing."
Rey barely heard the words; the force of the spinning TIE slammed her head against the inside of the helmet and she passed out just before she slammed into the desert sand.
"Windrider to Rax, the escapee is down. We'll leave it to the ground team to clean up. Make sure they don't leave anything behind. It's almost time for the First Order to take it's revenge on this galaxy."
—————
General Leia Organa sighed as she settled back into the hard frame of a folding chair. It was the same type they had had at the base on Yavin. Sparse, efficient; uncomfortable. She didn't remember it being that bad back then, but she hadn't been nearly as old then either. She had been royalty once, with access to any plush chair she wanted. What had happened to those days?
The roar of an X-Wing engine passed overhead, rattling the chairs and data terminals that filled her command tent. Right, the war, the Empire.
That had changed everything. She had gone from Princess and senator to rebel, to a general and, eventually, a hero of a new galaxy.
She had been so young then, younger even than…
Leia stopped herself, that was too raw, too painful. Luke had cautioned her against swallowing down her feelings but that was all she could do with that particular memory. She was no Jedi, let Luke control his feelings, she had a job to do. The New Republic wouldn't protect itself.
"General Organa, sensors on the Outer Rim detected something. This might be important" From behind a databank the round, bearded face of Commander Wexley appeared. He waved a datapad at Leia, closely watched by the dozen or so analysts around them.
"What is it Snap? This better not be another Mynock hunt."
Wexley smiled. The last few reports had really been nothing but Mynocks feeding on sensor stations. It had been a waste of the Phoenix fleet's time. But they had to be sure, just in case. Something was out there, something had attacked the senate building five years ago and started all of this. Leia wanted to be ready when whatever it was came back. She didn't need to be a Jedi to feel the change coming.
"Hopefully not ma'am, this looks like the readings of Fighter craft. Almost like the old TIE fighters but with Hyperspace signatures and…" He looked away, uncertain.
"Come on out with it? And enough with the 'Ma'am'. We've known each other for thirty years." Leia hoped she sounded confident; she didn't feel it. Something wasn't right.
"Yes Ma- Leia, It looks like there was blaster fire and the location… It was above Jakku."
"Jakku? Are you serious? That dustball? It's a graveyard now, nothing but bones and empty Star Destroyers."
"I know, I fought there too. My whole family did." Wexley looked away. Images of bloodied sand and chaos ran through his head. That and the face of his father, a man he had hardy known and lost so early.
"I'm sorry Snap. Tell me more, where did these old TIE's come from?"
Snap looked back up at her and Leia was reminded again of hold old they all were. His face was lined and weathered with age. He looked very different to the teenager she had first met on Chandrilla. All those years had passed and they were still fighting.
Had anything really changed?
"It's alright. Jakku was… hard, for all of us back then. Anyway, I'm sure it's nothing. We're not sure where they came from; they're vectors put them as having originated from Wild Space. There's all sorts of stuff out there. Who knows maybe there's some old Imperials out there and this was just a dispute?"
"There's no such thing as coincidence in this galaxy. I don't need to be my brother to tell you that. Send Black squadron out to take a look. Dameron is chafing in his flight suit. This will at least give him something to do."
Snap smiled; the young pilot had been asking for some action. This might not be what he had in mind but it would keep him from complaining to Snap anymore.
"Will do ma-, Leia." He nodded and left to scramble the squadron. Leia felt something like fear in the pit of her stomach. Was this just another waste of time? Or had something really begun. She hoped, for all their sakes, that it was nothing.
—————
The wreck of the TIE was half buried in the deep sands of Jakku, still spewing burning fuel into the hazy afternoon sky.
The remaining wing was gone and all that remained was the central ball of the cockpit. The canopy was shattered, the engines exploded. There was nothing left but scrap and the acrid smell of melting metal.
The cockpit was empty though. The ejection seat had been fired and the pilot laid nearby in the sand. The Human scavenger called to his compatriots when he found the pilot.
At first, he thought they were dead. The front of their helmet was cracked open. It looked like the old helmets he sometimes found in the hulking wrecks of old Imperial ships but slightly different; sharper, meaner. When the scavenger pulled off the pilot's helmet he fell back in shock.
The pilot was alive, her lips parted and her chest moving slowly beneath the flight suit. He was shocked; he had never seen a creature with her blue skin and dark purple hair. She could be a Pantoran but had no ritual tattoos. Her eyes were half closed but the scavenger saw that they had a faint, red glow.
Who, what, was she? And what was the insignia on her chest?
The scavengers surrounded the unconscious pilot, looking over her injuries and talking among themselves. Survivors of a crash were rare; Jakku was a harsh planet, the graveyard of a dead empire and many others.
This one was alive though and in a strange TIE fighter. That could mean any number of things, the oldest scavenger; an Ithorian covered in scars and with a permanent scowl remembered watching the sky burn as the Republic and Empire had clashed in their last battle. If war came back to Jakku it would mean nothing but sadness.
They could leave the pilot there in the sand, hope that the Empire or whoever they were found her and left Jakku alone. No one would say anything; Jakku was not a kind planet, the desert claimed what it wanted. The pilot would just be another victim. Yet…
Something didn't feel right. The old Ithorian felt it in their bones, a deep ache that told them this was something special.
The Ithorian sighed and motioned for the others in their group to form a stretcher. The pilot would come with them. They looked at the burning cockpit, hoping that they would never see another one like it.
—————
Fn-21887 barely felt the jolt of the dropship entering orbit. The craft's inertial dampeners turned the roaring force of re-entry into a barely perceptible nudge. He took a deep breath anyway; despite how many times they had trained for this, he was nervous. His hands were sweaty inside his armoured gloves, his quick breathing echoed inside his helmet.
Not for the first time he wondered if he was the only one.
Around him his brother and sisters all stood stock still in their stark white Stormtrooper armour. They didn't even look human, yet alone nervous. 2187 felt a surge of pride at that. This was the army he was part of, the family he had grown up alongside. Together they had fought against the other units until they became the sharp edge of the First Order's spear.
He didn't need to be nervous; he had his family with him.
"30 seconds to drop! Weapons ready!"
2187 looked down and flicked the safety off his F-21 blaster, loosened the latch of the folded vibro-bayonet. Watching his brothers and sisters he noticed the first signs of nerves from them. FN-2195 fumbled her safety, 2201 gripped his weapon tighter than was recommended. Fn-2187 frowned, was the spear of the Order not ready?
He was about to find out.
"Steady!"
2187 swallowed. His whole life had led up to this moment 20 years of training, of bonding with his squamates, of fighting the other units and struggling every day for the First Order. He was their loyal servant, their enforcer. Their tool to take revenge on the evil New Republic and return honour and justice to the galaxy. He was ready, he was-
"Go! Go! Go!"
The dropship touched down with a roar of its engine and the deep thud of the troop bay door opening a second later. 2187's unit surged out; any thoughts lost as the glare of the desert sun enveloped them. 2187 followed along, rifle raised as they fanned out around them dropship with rigid precision.
Beside him two more units did the same, 2187 imagined the JD unit to his left shooting glares at them. They had been badly mauled by FN squad in the last training exercise. Four of JD had been sent to the infirmary; that was more than normal.
A small detachment of troopers was analysing the wreckage of the TIE fighter nearby. The fuel still burned, a plume of black smoke leaving an ugly scar against the otherwise pristine blue sky.
The order came for the units to spread out and establish a perimeter around the TIE. 2187 obeyed, taking care to stay away from the JD troopers. Such rivalries were normal among the Stormtroopers, the conflict kept them sharp, kept them vicious. Without it they would be no match for the bloodthirsty brigands and pirates that made up the New Republic terrorists. They would never erupt into anything on the field though, doing so would shame their valiant commanders. Still, a little caution never hurt.
There was an excited murmur that rippled through the troops as a shadow passed overhead. 2187 looked up to see the black bat-like shape of Master Ren's ship come sweeping down and land nearby. The murmur was quashed a moment later as the ship's wings folded up and a figure in black robes emerged from the craft.
2187 shivered. The First Order was a force for justice in the galaxy a violent one perhaps, but it stood for Justice and revenge. Kylo Ren was the epitome of that.
His prowess was legendary, tales of his effectiveness against rebels in Order occupied space ran rife through the troopers. That he had personally come to oversee the hunt for the escaped slave was a surprise, but not an unwelcome one. If Ren was here then the Order was doing good, punishing a criminal that dared to defy it.
"Where is the girl?" Ren's deep voice was obscured by his helmet's speakers. The effect made him seem more like a machine than a man.
"We- We're not sure Master. The TIE is empty, but there are tracks leading to the north. Reconnaissance shows there is a small village that way. Perhaps she…" The grey uniformed lieutenant trailed off. Ren had ignited his lightsaber. The three blades of crackling red energy cast a shifting light on the Officers uniform.
"Perhaps? Perhaps what lieutenant? You were in charge of this ground team. Why did you not have TIEs on station above the wreck?"
The Lieutenant took a step back, fear clear in his eyes. Ren's combat record was legendary, but so was his rage.
"Sir I… The reports said the TIE had crashed, no one could survive that…"
"Well clearly someone did. Find her!" Ren barked, turning away, his saber still crackling.
The Lieutenant saluted, his hand clearly shaking against his forehead. "Yes sir! I won't make this mistake again!"
"No. You won't." In a single smooth motion Ren span around and beheaded the officer, his corpse and head falling to the hot sand. Beside him, his adjutant stepped back, barely able to contain a shriek.
"You're in charge now. Find the girl. Quickly, kill any who stand in your way. The New Republic can't know about us yet." With that Ren deactivated his saber and returned to his ship, leaving the shaking Lieutenant standing by her companions' corpse.