Chapter 3
An eventful mission
The small group makes its way through the forest, keeping their guard up. The air is pleasant and a far cry from some of the extreme climates the White Storm has had to endure.
"If it stays this quiet throughout the mission, I'll take it." Corny says, looking around.
"After our bad time on Felucia, I wouldn't say no to an easy mission for a change." replies Butcher
Their progress continued unhindered, like a short hike between friends. No enemy presence, no attacks by local creatures or climatic problems. For a commando squad like them, this mission is like a vacation.
Suddenly, Dorvaas pauses and raises his arm.
"Hear that?"
The members of his squad did their best to hear the slightest noise, but to no avail.
"We can't hear anything, sergeant. You must be paranoid." Corny says laughing.
"That's the problem. We're in the middle of a forest, so we should be able to hear plenty of sounds from the surrounding fauna, but it's dead calm here."
That's when everyone realized the situation. Dorvaas signals to his men to keep moving forward, while remaining cautious.
The rest of the walk to Hanna City was made without anyone saying a word. It's as if everyone was afraid of attracting the attention of something in this forest. But as they left the latter, they came across the capital almost directly.
The town stands in the middle of a vast valley, making a clean break with the flat, green landscape. The tall white towers soar into an orange sky, the result of the impending night. The sight leaves the troopers speechless, but they remain focused on the objective.
Entering the city just after nightfall, the White Storm heads for a target building likely to be harboring data.
"It's a former New Republic data center. They may have left behind some interesting things, so let's have a look." the sergeant says to his squad.
"Wait a second, where's the apprentice?" Doc suddenly says.
Indeed, it had been a while since the White Storm had made eye contact with young Arya. She'd probably been outrunning them for some time.
"I don't know, but this little girl seems resourceful, she knows what she has to do and will find us again." Dorvaas replies.
The eight soldiers head for the building and take up position at a small, isolated entrance door.
"Brains, door." the sergeant says with a shake of his head.
"On it, boss."
Brains connects to the front console and, in a matter of seconds, decrypts the entry key and opens the door.
"As efficient as ever." Dorvaas says, giving Brains a pat on the shoulder.
The corridor into which the squad enters is rather clean and bright for an abandoned place. Each trooper advances carefully, blaster in hand and ready for any eventuality. And suddenly, at an intersection, they discover something they could never have imagined.
"Did you hear that? Apparently, Senator Organa wants to set up her resistance on D'Qar." says a man in a blue suit.
"It's stupid. The Empire has been dissolved for almost thirty years, and no enemy of this magnitude will ever surface again. The New Republic is all we need, no need for resistance or anything."
The two men continue on their way, unaware of the members of the White Storm.
"Wait, don't tell me- "
"Yes Butcher. They are soldiers of the New Republic." Doc says.
"Wasn't the place supposed to be abandoned, Sergeant?" Reaper asks.
"It was."
Dorvaas slips through a half-open door and beckons his men to follow. Once everyone is inside the small, empty room, he speaks.
"Looks like the information was wrong, the data center is still operational."
"And what about that so-called resistance they mentioned?" Corny asks
"We'll see about that later, for the moment the objective remains unchanged."
Sergeant Dorvaas takes the lead again, leaving the small room and getting his soldiers to follow him into the base corridors. Everyone redoubles their efforts to observe, knowing that they're not alone and that an enemy group could be around every corner.
The White Storm continues on its way until it sees a silhouette at a desk. Dorvaas pauses, but the figure doesn't move. He beckons his men forward and suddenly lights up the chair on which the man is sitting. None of the troopers expected this.
"By the- "
The man had been decapitated, neatly and precisely. As he approached, Dorvaas saw that the wound had been cauterized, which could only mean one thing.
"It's the girl, she used her lightsaber to kill him."
"The plan was to kill only if necessary, wasn't it?" Butcher asks.
"I don't think she cares about the plan." Bullseye replies.
Dorvaas leaves the body of the New Republic guard.
"We're off again, and we need to find her before she causes any bloodshed."
For her part, Arya didn't really care whether she was discreet or not. If any unfortunate person had the misfortune of encountering her, he was already dead before the alarm was sounded. She continues to explore the base in search of the data room.
"Stupid base, whose idea was it to build it like that?" she murmurs to herself.
Suddenly, a door opens in front of her and two guards step out.
"Such information are confidential and must be brought to the Senate on Hosnian Prime as soon as possible." one of the men says, handing the other a datacard.
"It will be done according to your wishes, General."
The soldier gradually moves away as the general enters back in the room. Arya gives a slight, almost unhealthy smile and starts to follow the man.
As he continues to walk, the New Republic soldier heads for the exit. He walks down an empty corridor and as soon as he steps inside, he feels an intense burn on his hand. Glancing down, he sees his hand holding the datacard fall away from his arm. It had just been sliced through by Arya's orange lightsaber. The soldier tried to scream, but the young apprentice held his mouth shut with the force.
"All you had to do was not have something I want." she says as she picks up the datacard with the force to avoid having to bend over.
Once she has the data in her hand, she looks around. She notices a door that she easily opens with the force. She throws the soldier inside. The latter hit the corner of a holotable and breaks his spine, dying instantly. Arya closes the door again.
"That's done. Now I've got to find the incompetent squad."
The White Storm continues its advance into the base. They hadn't seen another body since.
"Stop right there!" Brains says as the squad is in the middle of a corridor.
"What's wrong?" Dorvaas asks.
"What we're looking for is behind that door."
Everyone surrounds the door pointed at by Brains, ready to force their way in. The tension is palpable, and everyone is careful to grip their weapons tightly in case of a shot. Brains unlocks the door and Butcher enters first.
"Take them down!" the New Republic general says, and a group of a few soldiers open fire.
Dorvaas manages to pull Butcher back to avoid the shots.
"They knew we were coming!" he says.
"Damn, I wanted my easy mission!" Corny replies.
The deluge of blaster fire is incessant, and it's impossible to get in through the door without receiving dozens of shots. The White Storm is blocked.
"We have no way to get in! What do we do, chief?" Cyclops asks.
"I've got a plan! Butcher, throw a detonator into the pile!" Dorvaas says.
Butcher nods and grabs a thermal detonator, which he quickly throws into the data room.
"Bullseye, shoot it!" orders the sergeant.
The sharpshooter doesn't wait a second and fires right into the detonator, causing a big explosion and stopping the fire.
"They're neutralized, we're going in!"
The White Storm burst into the room, several corpses littering the floor at their feet. As they step forward, they see the general, wounded but still alive.
"Storm…Stormtroopers? It's just not possible." he says with difficulty due to his injuries.
Dorvaas lowers himself to his level.
"I see you haven't heard of the First Order yet."
"So… you're a real threat to this… galaxy. The Senate was wrong."
Shortly afterwards, the New Republic general succumbed to his wounds. Dorvaas gets to his feet and is joined by Brains.
"I'll go and see what we can learn from this database."
The sergeant simply nods.
Brains makes his way through the various storage computers before coming face to face with a New Republic soldier holding explosive charges. He succeeds in shooting him down, but the soldier still manages to activate the charges, at which point Brains realizes that all around him, a dozen or so charges are flashing. He hurries back to his comrades.
"Explosive charges! Get out of here!"
Even though all the members were bewildered by this revelation, they all ran down the corridor to leave the room. It was instinctive, the kind of reaction that has enabled them to survive together for over six years.
Once they are all outside, the room they were in goes up in smoke with a loud sound and an explosion that shakes the whole building.
"Great, now everyone will know we're here!" Corny exclaims.
"Could be worse, thanks for saving us Brains." Cyclops says, putting a hand on the trooper's shoulder.
"We'll be saved when we get to the ship, so get ready to meet a lot of people, guys."
With these words, Dorvaas takes the lead of the convoy, which moves rapidly through the base towards the exit. Moving away from the site of the explosion is the best way to distract attention and concentrate troops away from their new position. But that won't be enough.
After opening a door, the White Storm comes under enemy fire.
"Get those blasters fired up!" Dorvaas exclaims to his men.
Taking cover, the eight stormtroopers fire on their enemies. The soldiers in front don't manage to hit them, but some shots land close enough to the White Storm members for them to smell burnt metal on impact. One by one, they take down the New Republic soldiers without too much difficulty.
"Sector clear, let's move!"
The troopers move forward, passing by the soldiers they've just eliminated. Their bodies are still smoking from blaster fire.
"Movement at the next junction!" Dorvaas warns his men.
"Get that guy!" Reaper says, pointing at a soldier trying to escape.
The latter quickly collapses, shot in the head by Bullseye.
"Good, let's get out of here before the whole base gets here."
The White Storm takes a different route, but remains very vigilant. Dorvaas makes a check at each intersection to give his squad the green light to keep moving. And after what seems like an eternity, they arrive at an exit door.
"Brains." the sergeant just says.
The door was manually blocked from the control center to prevent any escape. Brains infiltrates the system and manages to bypass the blockage in a matter of seconds, which is almost impossible especially in such a short space of time.
"We're good to go!" he says as the door slides to the right.
Everyone exits without a hitch and Butcher punches the console with his fist to lock the door and prevent it from opening in case they're followed. But it's only after they've come down from the heat of the action that they realize they haven't been able to get back what they came for.
"How are we going to make it without the data, Sergeant?" Reaper asks.
"We'll find a way."
It's true that this mission seems to be a fiasco at the moment, but that was before the members of the White Storm heard a voice.
"It's a good thing I'm here."
They look up and see Arya, sitting on a branch just a few meters above their heads, holding a datacard in her hand. The young girl leaps from her perch to land at the troopers' level.
"How long have you been here?" Dorvaas asks her.
"Ten minutes or so, enough time to hear you make a real mess of things in there."
"For the explosion, it wasn't us." points out Butcher.
"That doesn't change the fact that I would tell my master that without me, the mission would have been a failure."
Arya hands the datacard to Dorvaas and turns, moving away from the group to sit on a ledge. The sergeant then gives the data to Brains.
"Tell us what she found."
Brains grabs the datacard and analyzes it using the mini-computer on his back. In the meantime, everyone relaxes a bit.
"Shouldn't you be moving from here? I mean, standing next to their base like that is really stupid. I can get by and hide, if need be, but you..." Arya says pointing at the armors.
"Thanks, but we know what we're doing." replies Dorvaas.
"If you say so..."
The atmosphere remains silent and rather heavy after that, until Brains cuts the silence.
"Oh my stars!"
"Have you finished analyzing the data?" asks Dorvaas.
"Not really, I've just scratched the surface and it's a real goldmine!" Brains says enthusiastically.
Arya put on a proud expression in her corner.
"With this, we've got a lot more than we bargained for. Thank you, young apprentice, your work has been remarkable." Brains says, considering Arya's success.
This surprised the young girl, who turned from a proud expression to a surprised look, opening her mouth slightly. Nevertheless, she quickly regained her posture, smiling proudly.
"Obviously, I knew what I was doing." she says before standing up.
"So, we can go, right?" Corny asks.
Dorvaas nods.
"White Storm, we're packing up. We'll debrief back at base and finish analyzing this data."
Once again, Dorvaas takes the lead and his team follows. Arya was already well in front.
"You know that if we've been spotted, it's probably her fault. They must have seen one of the bodies she cut in half or something." Butcher whispers to Dorvaas.
"But it's also thanks to her that we have something to bring back to base." replies the sergeant.
Butcher doesn't say anything in return.
"I don't know about you, but I'm beginning to find this little girl interesting." Cyclops says, probably smiling under his helmet.
The return trip stayed silent after that until they reached the troop carrier, where Arya had been waiting for some time, playing with a pebble using the force.
