Chapter 6
"Are you going in there or not?" chided the smaller boy with a wolfish grin on his face.
The larger boy swayed uncertainly to his left, and a bit to his rear. His eye was fixed on the path the smaller boy had pointed out to him. Alarm was clearly evident on his sweaty face. The heat of the summer day was matched only by the oppressive humidity. The thick foliage about the two boys was dotted with palmettos, vines, and various trees, all tangled with overgrown vegetation. Behind him, the larger boy could hear the occasional car pass by, reminding him that he didn't have to do this. He could just walk away.
"Or don't that skill award mean nothin' to ya?" teased the smaller boy.
His face was a mask of cruel amusement, and his green eyes bored into those of the larger boy. The smaller boy held the handle grips of a small red bicycle. The larger boy could see the skill award in his mind – a gold-colored piece of tin that he could affix to his belt, and on it was a depiction of a compass rose – the skill award for Hiking. He glanced quickly down and away from the gaze of that smaller boy; the boy had the power to sign the paperwork awarding that skill award to him. He outranked him as a Second-Class Boy Scout, and he already had the skill award. But, why did he have to do that?
The larger boy swiveled his eyes upward, just above the mottled path the smaller boy had indicated to him. The latticework in the web would have normally been beautiful to behold, and the boy was certain that morning dew would have served to increase its splendor. There, just in the middle of it was a very large spider, appearing to have only four legs arrayed out from its center. In reality, the boy knew that the spider had all eight legs, but it kept them together in pairs.
That particular spider was so big, that even here at several feet away from the critter, the boy imagined that it could see it looking at him with one of its multiple eyes. While the boy knew it to be impossible, he still couldn't shake the feeling, and he shuddered involuntarily.
"Can't I just walk around it?" pled the larger boy while glancing purposefully at the giant spider hanging in its sizable web.
"No! You gotta go through it!" sneered the smaller boy, wiping sweat from his brow and returning the larger boy's gaze, "Or, we'll just forget about it and go home. You ain't got what it takes to get that skill award anyway, do ya?"
"I'll do it!" said the larger boy with determination in his voice.
He stepped toward the path blocked by the massive spider web.
"Stop!" shouted the boy. He pushed his bicycle toward the larger boy, "You gotta carry this, on your back with ya."
The larger boy halted and studied the bicycle the smaller boy had indicated.
"Why do I got to do that?" queried the larger boy with irritation.
"We ain't got no backpack for hiking with us, do we?" said the smaller boy with a grin on his face, "This bike is for that."
He frowned now and then added, "Oh forget it then. You don't need this hassle. We'll just leave and go home."
"What about the skill award?"
"You won't get it," replied the smaller boy.
"But why?" said the larger boy with desperation.
"Cause, you gotta earn it."
The larger boy glared at his smaller nemesis and then to the path he had indicated. He took the smaller boy's bike and hoisted it onto his shoulders. He walked toward the massive spider web. As he contacted the web, he shrieked as his felt the huge spider scrambling onto his head and racing down his back.
The evil smaller boy whooped with glee, laughing maniacally.
Greg opened his eyes as the alarm clock continued its electronic insistence. He jabbed at the rectangular button on top of the device to silence it. With sadness, he remembered portions of his dream.
The larger boy had nearly panicked and ran in front of a fast-moving car, all because the smaller boy had wanted to have some cruel fun and abuse his power. In reality, Greg had been the smaller boy. After he left the Boy Scouts, he lost track of the larger boy. Steven was the larger boy's name, and he had been a friendly and giving person. All that was so long ago, memories of it relegated only to occasional dreams. The clock now announced that it was 6:01.
Today, Greg was going to do something he had never thought he would do. It went against every fiber of his being. Bits and pieces of the day he was commissioned an officer in the US Army floated through his mind. He could yet envision his dad's proud visage, stained but by a single tear. He could see his mom pinning a gold bar on his epaulet, his younger sister pinning on the other.
Greg closed his eyes tightly, wishing away memory, but unwilling it came anyway, a vision of himself in uniform, his right hand in the air, mouthing words – they were just words, right?
"…having been appointed a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army under the conditions indicated in this document…"
Words, that is all they were, and words could become meaningless enough, if you didn't dwell too long on their significance – relegate that significance to a mere uttering of syllables, breaking them down into their component parts.
"… do accept such appointment and do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States …"
What meaning could words really have, after all, if that for which they stood no longer existed as an entity? Was the United States really anything other than a memory now? Could the forefathers of this once-great nation have foreseen invaders from unimagined realms, raining fire from the heavens and sending forth invincible engines of war?
"… against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion …"
If you thought about it long enough, were not oaths of any kind mere collections of words that would be by themselves unimportant and trivial, so why should any grouping of them have to hold some overly important meaning? Why could not any conglomeration of words simply be discarded at will if necessity dictated?
"… and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter, so help me God."
Greg opened his eyes, and he glanced toward the digital clock on his left. He had his orders, and while the United States might no longer exist as an entity, he had an oath to fulfill.
Eustis was not a large town, and it in fact was almost a suburb of the much larger and more important city of Orlando. Millions had flocked to the metropolis from all over the world for years to celebrate with each other at places like Disney World. The arrival of the Empire had not changed that, and Disney World still drew enormous crowds. That dollars were slowly giving way to Imperial credits mattered little to those who counted the piles of either generated by such places.
In the shadow of mighty Orlando, Eustis and its sister towns were of little consequence. But even here, the Empire made its presence known. Stormtroopers (Greg chuckled inwardly that the white-clad troopers would bear the name of the Nazi goons from over half a century before) made their way throughout the town, in small groups. Greg noted there were never less than three together – a wise enough force protection measure on their part. He also noted there weren't very many of them. It wasn't unusual for a resident of Eustis to go a whole day without seeing one. Greg saw no checkpoints. The storm troopers seemed content to simply run occasional patrols – Eustis being somewhat of a low-threat area. Local police were far more numerous from what Greg could tell.
Greg rode his bicycle down the right side of the street. The bike had been given to him by one of the soldiers prior to his departure from the safe house. It was nondescript, and it was broken down. Were it stolen, it would not be missed. Greg no longer tried to shift the bike's gears, as the first attempt had skipped the chain right off the front sprocket, costing him a good ten minutes of manipulating the rusty chain back on and finding a gear setting that was less offensive to the contraption. Even now, chain constantly sounded as though it were ready to leap off the sprocket again, especially when Greg applied any level of strain to the pedal. For that reason, Greg remained alert for surrounding traffic should he be forced to maneuver quickly out of the way of a larger, and fast-moving vehicle.
The morning was still somewhat cool, though morning traffic did what it could to add to the heat with engines belching heated exhaust. Greg pedaled past the Burger King and continued on toward his target. He was wearing shorts today, and since he was light in skin tone he had slathered his legs, arms, face and neck with gobs of sunscreen.
Even now, the sun beat mercilessly down onto his arms, probing for weaknesses in his carefully-applied armor. Beads of sweat trickled annoyingly down his temple, forming tiny streams down his back. He wore a Florida Gators cap on his head, the bill rising high over his forehead, providing shade barely sufficient to keep the blazing sunlight out of his eyes. His orange t-shirt announced proudly that he was a member of the Coconut Creek High School Electronics Club. Greg had never gone to the school, but his dad had taught there many years before, and Greg got the shirt as a hand-me-down. Besides, he liked the drawing on the shirt, depicting a young man being electrocuted by an "electronic goodywhopper" he held in his arms. More than once, Greg had to maneuver deftly out of the way of an angry car driver. They did not like sharing the road with him.
There was the building. Where it had once sported a sign that announced, "US Armed Forces Recruiting", it now had the "US" removed, and an Imperial flag was pinned underneath the sign. Greg maneuvered his bike into the overhang of the building, noting that there was no place for bicycles. He spun in up on to its rear wheel and placed the bike upside-down, next to the wall.
Greg looked at the entrance to the recruiting center. The old posters that had announced, "Be all you can be!" were gone. In their place were new posters. One showed the imposing bulk of a star destroyer, flanked by swarms of bowtie craft, and beneath it was language in Basic. Quickly converting it in his head, Greg saw that it invited the unwashed masses to make something of themselves in the Imperial Navy. Another poster depicted a squad of stormtroopers in the attack, all looking very imposing and frightful indeed. Taking a deep breath, Greg opened the door and entered the building.
"What can I do for you?" asked a man wearing a grey uniform when he spotted Greg. Greg noted that it was a small station, one that had been formerly manned by two US Army recruiters. The man addressing him appeared to be the only one present, and he also appeared to be a bit bored. Greg glanced at him and around the room, where posters reminiscent of the ones he had seen in the windows outside invited him to consider service in the Imperial military. Almost as an afterthought, Greg realized that the Imperial had addressed him in English, and pretty good English at that.
"I'm looking at some options for employment, and this looked like a good place to drop in on," said Greg to the man.
Greg looked for rank identifiers on the man and noted that the man had none, so he assumed he was a noncommissioned officer, though in what particular branch of service Greg could not tell. The man also wore no nametag, but a plate on the desk announced that he was Sergeant Belkor. As if reading his mind, the man extended his hand and said, "I am Sergeant Belkor of the Imperial Army, and you are …"
"Greg Yost is my name. It's a pleasure to meet you, Sergeant."
"Prior service, are you?"
"Yes, actually. I was an officer in the US Army when you, er, visited our world."
"Were?" fished the Imperial NCO.
"Yes. So far as I can tell, there is no longer a United States, no longer an Army, and thus I find myself unemployed. It was only natural for me to look here, since I am a soldier by trade," added Greg helpfully.
"What became of your unit?"
"We were in Kuwait when your attack commenced."
"But you found yourself back here, how?"
"My unit disbanded once we realized there was no longer a functional US Army. I bartered for passage here to the US. I am a Floridian after all, and I wanted to see home. Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike Kuwait or their people, but the sands of the desert just aren't home to me."
"I'll need to get some information from you, Greg," said the NCO.
Greg had discussed all this with Lieutenant Colonel Bertha repeatedly. Almost everything he told the recruiter was accurate, only he left out a few key details. Sergeant Belkor manipulated a console that Greg assumed was a computer of some kind. It looked nothing like the QWERTY keyboard interface with mouse that Greg was accustomed to seeing, but it seemed to do the trick for the Imperial NCO. He watched the monitor embedded into the console intently, scanning through the data that came back.
"Looks like your story checks out, Lieutenant Gregory Yost. Shows here that you were assigned as an assistant intelligence officer with a tank battalion, and the last of the US Army tracking does indeed place you in Kuwait. We can continue on and look at your options."
"What sort of enlistment bonuses do you offer?" asked Greg.
The Imperial NCO looked puzzled and scratched his dark hair.
"Bonuses? What do you mean?"
"In the US Army, recruiters would offer civilians enlistment bonuses for specific military occupational specialties or specific enlistment terms."
"Eh?" grunted the bemused Imperial NCO, and then he seemed to recall something.
He laughed and added, "No Mr. Yost, we don't offer bonuses for enlisting. If you enlist, the Empire will see to your needs, and you will be paid. But sorry, no bonuses for volunteering for service with the Empire, unless of course you refer to the bonuses included in adventure and travel."
"Okay, fair enough," said Greg.
He then asked for which jobs in the Imperial military he was qualified. The NCO asked him if he knew Basic. Greg surprised him by answering in that language, and then he further surprised the NCO by writing down some answers in Basic when prompted to do so. A small cloud of suspicion came over the Imperial NCO's face.
"Sergeant, the Empire is here to stay, and I was an intelligence officer. It didn't take long for me to put two and two together and come up with the conclusion that it might be a really good idea to learn the Empire's language as quickly as possible, if I hoped to be successful in this new order," said Greg.
Sergeant Belkor seemed to digest that and relaxed. He showed Greg a series of options available to him. Greg asked the NCO what the credentials were for becoming an officer in the Empire.
"Normally, you would apply to one of the academies, and the Empire selects from applications transmitted every year," answered the NCO, "But as you are from a newly-conquered territory and were furthermore an officer in the military of a conquered world, well that presents … challenges. If you were to enlist and prove yourself a loyal Imperial subject, then the authorities might look on an application for commission from … someone … like you, with, um, more … what's the word – interest. Does that make sense?"
Greg was still trying to swallow the word, "conquered," when he smiled weakly and answered yes. He learned that the shortest enlistment was the equivalent of ten years, and he agreed to settle on an intelligence analysis job in the Empire's navy. He was mildly surprised to learn that there was no paperwork, but he should have figured. Everything, including his enlistment contract would be through that terminal.
"Oh, one more thing," Staff Sergeant Belkor added hastily, "You will have to denounce any and all allegiance to the United States prior to agreeing to serve in the Imperial Navy."
Greg was careful not to swallow, as images of his past threatened to flood back into his mind.
He willed the images away and said, "As I told you, Sergeant, the USA is no more, so any oath I took in service to it is now moot."
Sergeant Belkor nodded and had Greg repeat words that all but damned his commitment to the oath he had sworn years earlier. Greg could almost see the rows of ghosts of soldiers from the American Revolution to the present glaring at him from behind the Imperial NCO.
He wished those away too.
Three days later, Greg returned to the recruiting station with nothing more than a small duffel bag in his hand. He remembered his first enlistment when he had reported to a Military Entrance Processing Station (or MEPS as everyone had called it) in order to endure mounds of paperwork, a physical examination, and a thorough review of his enlistment contract prior to boarding a bus for the airport. This was not like that.
Sergeant Belkor was there that day, along with another grey-clad individual. Sergeant Belkor identified the new individual as Sergeant Nagalev, also of the Imperial Army.
Greg sported a pair of jeans and a polo shirt, and he looked around the small recruiting station, spotting two other individuals. One looked to be about 18 years of age and very nervous. The young man used his thin fingers to move blond locks of hair from his forehead and looked around the room.
On the opposite side of the room sat a much older man, older than Greg by a number of years. The man had specks of grey in his dark-brown hair and a handlebar moustache. He was looking at the kid on the other side of the room and switched his gaze to Greg.
"You're prior service," the man said to him. It wasn't a question.
"That's right. Army. I just got back from Kuwait a little while ago."
"Sandbox, eh?" said the older man, nodding. He added, "Was in Desert Storm myself with the Twenty-Fourth Infantry before I hung it up to become a civilian."
"How many years did you serve?" asked Greg.
"A little over six. Made sergeant before I got out and figured it was time to go. I was real pissed when I found out Baghdad was wide-open for the taking and we just up and left. We were still dealing with that bastard when these fellows came," said the man while motioning his head toward one of the Imperial NCOs.
Greg followed the man's gaze to the grey-clad individuals.
Another five eventually joined the men. They were shuttled to Orlando on a bus and found themselves at the Orlando International Airport. Greg noted that one of the concourses had been cordoned off from the general public, and it had an unusually high concentration of Imperial personnel.
"What a sorry looking group of individuals," one grey-clad individual said to Sergeant Nagalev in Basic as he lead the group of men down the concourse, to which he grunted in return.
Greg filed down to a gate where two storm troopers stood to either side while yet another grey-clad man sat in front of a terminal. Unlike the others Greg had seen before, this one had what looked like a blue and red set of squares on his breast with metal cylinders on either side. Greg recalled from his earlier briefs that those indicated him to be an officer.
The officer had each man rattle off his name and social security number prior to going through the gate guarded by the storm troopers. Greg noted that the Imperials seemed to find it convenient to use social security numbers for those who had them instead of using their own system. Greg rattled off his information to the Imperial officer who then waved him to the gate. The stormtroopers appeared not to care one way or another, though Greg guessed that any unexpected move on his part might somehow animate them.
As Greg walked down the gangway he saw that it was familiar enough, complete with the boot that would normally lead into an airplane, only this was no airplane. Instead of a door at the end of the airline boot, he stepped on to what appeared to be a lowered ramp. The interior of this vehicle was completely alien to him, but there were seats within clearly designed with human beings in mind, but nothing like any airliner or military aircraft seating he had ever seen.
Another gray-clad man gestured to an empty seat and said in broken English, "You sit there."
Greg nodded dutifully and did so. He could not find a seatbelt. Soon the cabin was completely full except for one chair. A stormtrooper came through the door and took the empty chair, a weapon at port arms. The doors hissed closed, and Greg waited for the push that normally came with liftoff – he assumed the vehicle would not first roll.
To Greg's surprise, the stormtrooper stood up mere minutes later as he heard something clang on the door. He turned to face an opening ramp and saw through it completely different scenery. How had they arrived here so quickly without his detecting any motion within the craft?
As the ramp lowered further, Greg could see a cavernous bay with various space vehicles within. As he and his cohorts stepped out, they were separated into two groups. His was the group that had some familiarity with Basic. Greg looked to his left and nearly fell down. What looked like a huge window with a blue glow around it was all that stood between him and space. He could see nothing out there but stars.
"Welcome to the Victory-Class Star Destroyer Ash," said a man in a grey uniform, "And welcome to your first day of service to the Empire."