Blind Sided
Two
“Hanibal, have you seen the other three?” My pilot asked as he stood at the end of the ramp to his IPV-I Patrol craft with his arms crossed, “We need to leave ASAP.”
I glanced around as if I actually expected to see the rest of my squad standing around in plain sight. Even though we were on one of the busiest planets in the galaxy, the small hanger we were in was far from crazy. Dimly lit, the hanger was big enough to hold a few cargo ships and that was it. As of this moment, the IPV-1 Patrol Craft we were hitching a ride on was the only ship in sight. Glancing back at the pilot I waved a hand, motioning at the barren hanger.
“Well, contact them and tell them to get their asses over here. I leave here whether all of you are on or not.” He snapped as he sulked up the ramp without another word.
I waited until he was out of sight before I rolled my eyes, turning to go find the rest of my squad. Even though I hate to admit it, the pilot was right, the sooner we get off of Coruscant the better. The planet was nothing but a giant city full of thieves, misfits, liars, backstabbers, and corporate higher ups that cheated out their allies. I don’t doubt that there were some honest beings who were successful on this forsaken planet, but I doubt they lasted long or made it very far with their dreams. This planet, the Imperial City, was too rough a place for those whose souls were too pure.
Just as I started making my way across the dirty floor of the hanger, sliding my helmet over my head, a small passage door opened in the back corner and out filed the rest of my squad. Hugo Graven, the Coruscant native and action packed weapons enthusiast, Kile Nalley, from the calm agricultural planet of Ukio, he was always the one that would rather stand back and assess the situation in order to create a plan, and lastly Charlie Perlon, the youngest and most inexperienced but also the most willing and energy filled of all of us.
“Anything interesting happen while we were gone?” Echoed Kile’s monotonous, calm voice as the group of three dressed in white armor strode over to where I was.
“No, unless you call making our pilot irritated something interesting.”
“Irritated? Wonder what crawled up his ass...are we late for take-off? Departure time isn’t for another half an hour.”
“No,” I said as a tired sigh escaped my mouth. Before I could answer our rather large and hot headed cohort chimed in, “Tsk…You know the Navy Pilots, they like to be early for everything. If they’re early then they’re on time, if they’re on time then they’re late, if they’re late then they might as well be dead.”
Seeing an agreed nod from Charlie out of the corner of my eye I knew we were all thinking the same thing and didn’t need to elaborate any further. Hugo was right about the Navy transport pilots having a rather large ego, but our regiment didn’t exactly have an award winning reputation either. Scout Troopers were generally the one type of Stormtrooper people tried to avoid working with, especially the scouts from the legion we were trained in. The 439th Legion.
Filing in we took our seats, Hugo making a valiant effort to bang on the door to the cockpit to alert the pilot and copilot that we were ready to leave. In retaliation the ship roared to life, giving Hugo little time to strap his harness in before he was thrown to the floor by the sudden acceleration of the take off. Expecting some sort of bantering about to go on I couldn’t help but smirk from underneath my helmet as I waited for Hugo’s fuse to start quickly burning.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t see that coming.” Piped in Charlie from his seat next to me as he tried to hide a laugh.
“Well maybe next time I’ll just smash your head against the door to get their attention. You sure as hell weren't doing anything useful.”
As Charlie and Hugo started to banter back and forth, the rattling of the ship walls eventually calmed as we broke the atmosphere and set course for our destination. The Patrol Craft model we were in was agile enough to turn on a dime and continue on at high speeds in a different direction and was equipped with four turbo-lasers and one warhead launcher. The cargo hold was just big enough to hold all four of our speeder bikes, equipment and transport crates with some room to spare. With a modified hyper drive added onto the ship, I wasn’t too worried about our trek to the outer rim. Leaning my head back against the headrest, I would occasionally doze off, but no matter how close to sleep I was my thoughts kept circling back to our next location we would be arriving at.
Dathomir.
A beautiful planet with full, luscious forests and deep valleys surrounding snow-capped mountain peaks. Along with the varied terrain, the powerful rivers and crystal clear lakes made it possible for a multitude of different kinds of life forms, animal and plant, to survive and inhabit just about anywhere on this planet. However, along with the captivating scenery, there was also the desolate desserts, dense swamps with fog that could get thick enough to almost strangle a frail individual, viscous wildlife that could destroy a man with a single blow, and of course the Nightsisters, a clan of men enslaving witches that made even the most hardened of Imperial Generals quiver in their boots.
Stamped amongst the vegetation, along with the deadly animals and the terrorizing, man hating Nightsisters, was the Dathomir Imperial Prison, an image straight from a nightmare. For sure one of the most feared and infamous prisons the Empire has created, I could only imagine what actually happened to the poor souls within those walls. My mind still conjures up horrific images -based on the horror stories I’ve heard in training- that I can’t seem to forget. Never have I laid eyes on or have heard from a reliable source if any of the tales are true, but I’m honestly not sure I ever want to find out first hand the torturing that goes on in that place.
“You’re kind of quiet over there, Hanibal,” Came Kile’s smooth voice, “you feelin’ alright?”
Over the short period of time I’ve come to known my squad members, I came to the resolution that Kile was the most responsible one of the group. The way he acted around us was similar in a way an older brother or a fatherly figure would act.
“Fine. Just relaying the mission statement over and over.”
“Ah, well it’s not too difficult to remember: Patrol the outside of the prison grounds, scout out for Nightsisters, don’t get caught by Nightsisters, don’t get caught by anything that might want to kill us in general, and make it back with somewhat useful information.” Kile remarked. I could just imagine he would be giving us all a forced smile as if to say the situation we were going to be in wouldn’t be as bad as it sounded.
“You make it sound so simple-” Was the short reply I gave before I was cut off by the sudden flashing red from the rotating light above the entry into the cockpit.
“Hang on to your helmets. We’ve got bogeys coming up fast,” Came the voice of the pilot from our comlink's, “We need three guys on turbo lasers and one on the warhead!”
I glanced around as if I actually expected to see the rest of my squad standing around in plain sight. Even though we were on one of the busiest planets in the galaxy, the small hanger we were in was far from crazy. Dimly lit, the hanger was big enough to hold a few cargo ships and that was it. As of this moment, the IPV-1 Patrol Craft we were hitching a ride on was the only ship in sight. Glancing back at the pilot I waved a hand, motioning at the barren hanger.
“Well, contact them and tell them to get their asses over here. I leave here whether all of you are on or not.” He snapped as he sulked up the ramp without another word.
I waited until he was out of sight before I rolled my eyes, turning to go find the rest of my squad. Even though I hate to admit it, the pilot was right, the sooner we get off of Coruscant the better. The planet was nothing but a giant city full of thieves, misfits, liars, backstabbers, and corporate higher ups that cheated out their allies. I don’t doubt that there were some honest beings who were successful on this forsaken planet, but I doubt they lasted long or made it very far with their dreams. This planet, the Imperial City, was too rough a place for those whose souls were too pure.
Just as I started making my way across the dirty floor of the hanger, sliding my helmet over my head, a small passage door opened in the back corner and out filed the rest of my squad. Hugo Graven, the Coruscant native and action packed weapons enthusiast, Kile Nalley, from the calm agricultural planet of Ukio, he was always the one that would rather stand back and assess the situation in order to create a plan, and lastly Charlie Perlon, the youngest and most inexperienced but also the most willing and energy filled of all of us.
“Anything interesting happen while we were gone?” Echoed Kile’s monotonous, calm voice as the group of three dressed in white armor strode over to where I was.
“No, unless you call making our pilot irritated something interesting.”
“Irritated? Wonder what crawled up his ass...are we late for take-off? Departure time isn’t for another half an hour.”
“No,” I said as a tired sigh escaped my mouth. Before I could answer our rather large and hot headed cohort chimed in, “Tsk…You know the Navy Pilots, they like to be early for everything. If they’re early then they’re on time, if they’re on time then they’re late, if they’re late then they might as well be dead.”
Seeing an agreed nod from Charlie out of the corner of my eye I knew we were all thinking the same thing and didn’t need to elaborate any further. Hugo was right about the Navy transport pilots having a rather large ego, but our regiment didn’t exactly have an award winning reputation either. Scout Troopers were generally the one type of Stormtrooper people tried to avoid working with, especially the scouts from the legion we were trained in. The 439th Legion.
Filing in we took our seats, Hugo making a valiant effort to bang on the door to the cockpit to alert the pilot and copilot that we were ready to leave. In retaliation the ship roared to life, giving Hugo little time to strap his harness in before he was thrown to the floor by the sudden acceleration of the take off. Expecting some sort of bantering about to go on I couldn’t help but smirk from underneath my helmet as I waited for Hugo’s fuse to start quickly burning.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t see that coming.” Piped in Charlie from his seat next to me as he tried to hide a laugh.
“Well maybe next time I’ll just smash your head against the door to get their attention. You sure as hell weren't doing anything useful.”
As Charlie and Hugo started to banter back and forth, the rattling of the ship walls eventually calmed as we broke the atmosphere and set course for our destination. The Patrol Craft model we were in was agile enough to turn on a dime and continue on at high speeds in a different direction and was equipped with four turbo-lasers and one warhead launcher. The cargo hold was just big enough to hold all four of our speeder bikes, equipment and transport crates with some room to spare. With a modified hyper drive added onto the ship, I wasn’t too worried about our trek to the outer rim. Leaning my head back against the headrest, I would occasionally doze off, but no matter how close to sleep I was my thoughts kept circling back to our next location we would be arriving at.
Dathomir.
A beautiful planet with full, luscious forests and deep valleys surrounding snow-capped mountain peaks. Along with the varied terrain, the powerful rivers and crystal clear lakes made it possible for a multitude of different kinds of life forms, animal and plant, to survive and inhabit just about anywhere on this planet. However, along with the captivating scenery, there was also the desolate desserts, dense swamps with fog that could get thick enough to almost strangle a frail individual, viscous wildlife that could destroy a man with a single blow, and of course the Nightsisters, a clan of men enslaving witches that made even the most hardened of Imperial Generals quiver in their boots.
Stamped amongst the vegetation, along with the deadly animals and the terrorizing, man hating Nightsisters, was the Dathomir Imperial Prison, an image straight from a nightmare. For sure one of the most feared and infamous prisons the Empire has created, I could only imagine what actually happened to the poor souls within those walls. My mind still conjures up horrific images -based on the horror stories I’ve heard in training- that I can’t seem to forget. Never have I laid eyes on or have heard from a reliable source if any of the tales are true, but I’m honestly not sure I ever want to find out first hand the torturing that goes on in that place.
“You’re kind of quiet over there, Hanibal,” Came Kile’s smooth voice, “you feelin’ alright?”
Over the short period of time I’ve come to known my squad members, I came to the resolution that Kile was the most responsible one of the group. The way he acted around us was similar in a way an older brother or a fatherly figure would act.
“Fine. Just relaying the mission statement over and over.”
“Ah, well it’s not too difficult to remember: Patrol the outside of the prison grounds, scout out for Nightsisters, don’t get caught by Nightsisters, don’t get caught by anything that might want to kill us in general, and make it back with somewhat useful information.” Kile remarked. I could just imagine he would be giving us all a forced smile as if to say the situation we were going to be in wouldn’t be as bad as it sounded.
“You make it sound so simple-” Was the short reply I gave before I was cut off by the sudden flashing red from the rotating light above the entry into the cockpit.
“Hang on to your helmets. We’ve got bogeys coming up fast,” Came the voice of the pilot from our comlink's, “We need three guys on turbo lasers and one on the warhead!”