Blind Sided

“Fierfek!” Came Hugo’s curse over our comlinks.

I’m sure we were all thinking the same thing. Not destroying the last Starfighter meant that another hoard of them would probably return in an attempt to finish us off for good. The Black Sun were not known for letting the occasional mishap go so easily. However, I welcomed the relief I felt when I realized that our lone patrol craft actually beat a swarm of some of the most dangerous pirates in the galaxy, even though we weren’t entirely safe yet.

“Well that was entertaining. Is everyone still able to function properly after that surprise? Over.” Kile asked us all in his usual calm and collecting voice.

Crawling out of the seat of my turbo laser, I made the journey back to the main hull as the others in my squad gave confirmation that they were all still in one piece. Charlie was the first person I saw when I entered the hull, or more so the first person I heard. His helmet was sitting on his seat, exposing his reddened face as he started to work up quite the coughing fit.

“You gonna live?”

Holding up a hand to me, he started to dig in his utility belt while his coughing started to get louder and more violent with each hack that he tried to hold back. Concerned, I quickly walked over to assist him as he pulled out an ‘L’ shaped inhaler. I steadied him as he took a few good gasps of his medicine in before almost falling into his seat, all of the commotion that we had experienced earlier, plus this little episode, seemed to suck the energy out of him.

“Yeah… I’m good now. Thanks.”

“I didn’t know you could get through training if you had asthma.”

“As far as I know of, you can’t in the scout training,” he gasped as his breath slowly came back to him, “but I don’t have asthma, I have Kanju’s disease.”

“How is that any different from asthma?”

“My airways don’t swell up and constrict from dust or other shitty air particles. I just start coughing after periods of moderate to severe stress, which then leads to being unable to breathe. It was brought on by one of the environmental training simulations on Moorja when the breathing mask I was using was faulty. I was given the chance to leave with compensation equal to the amount of time I’ve been registered under the Empire.”

“And that is…?”

“Um…about two years.”

I snorted and rolled my eyes. That sounded like the Empires way of trying to make up for messing up on something. Quite honestly I was surprised that they were giving the kid any compensation at all. The loyalty I felt towards my brethren in arms was stronger than any loyalty I had ever known in the past, but felt no connection directly towards the Empire’s government or ideals.

“The Empire’s logic…they damage their goods beyond repair and so they try to make a nonchalant gesture to replace it.”

Charlie smirked, brushing off how crappy his situation actually was. “Yeah…something like that. The soldiers from the corps are just cannon fodder; we can easily be replaced. I wasted two years of my life in this commitment already, might as well keep going, at least then I’ll be paid more than the two years worth.”

If you last that long. I thought to myself as I strapped myself into my seat, planning on catching up on the sleep that I was interrupted from earlier. For what he had to deal with and a few of the situations he had already been in, this young man had a lot of optimism. He was, I assumed, only a few years younger than me and at his age in his situation, I’m not sure I would have had his attitude. The carefree, youthful light just seemed to flow out of him. I hoped he made it through this war.

“Um, could you do me a favor,” Charlie asked after a few moments of silence between us, “can we keep this between you and I? At least for now. The others don’t know and…being the most inexperienced-”

Hearing footsteps from a far I held up my hand to cut him off a few seconds before Kile and Hugo walked through the passage and into the hull. Charlie glanced over and gave me a curt nod of appreciation before he greeted the others, pretending as if we never had the previous conversation. I understood what it meant to keep a secret. I had plenty of secrets of my own, some more intense than others. Over the years I learned that some secrets were best kept locked away in order for the safety of others. I felt a hint of envy towards Charlie as I listened to him and Hugo start to retell each other about their own scenes from our latest skirmish, at least the kid had someone he could tell his secret to and didn’t have to deal with the weight of keeping it locked away.

Eventually I became used to the sound of my squad-mates constant chatter and my eyelids started to feel fairly heavy. I can’t say for sure if I had fallen asleep since I remember random parts of my comrades’ conversations. I do remember lifting my head up from my head rest when I heard Hugo’s boisterous voice call out my name. Hugo had a way of projecting his voice towards whoever he was talking to, which was surprisingly useful when you were in the middle of a firefight, but that was about all it was good for.

“Hanibal, what the heck were you doing when the fighters attacked??” Questioned Hugo curiously.

I looked up at him and couldn’t help but smirk, “I was sleeping actually. It was quite comfortable until I started being thrown around like a pinball and had Kile screaming in my ear.”

Hugo burst out laughing while Kile simply smiled and shook his head. “I’m not sure if I should be surprised or not…”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m saying you’re an unpredictable son-of-a-gun,” Kile chuckled, “and, from what I’ve seen, quite calm in battle.”

“Someone here has to make sure this group of misfits stays on their toes.” I responded smartly.

Suddenly, we were snapped out of our conversation as it felt as if the ship was shoved to the side. Charlie and I hit the wall behind us while Kile and Hugo were thrown against their seat harness.

“The hell?!” Hugo started, but he stopped when Kile held up one hand for us all to quiet down while he pulled his comlink out.

“This is from the hull, what was the jolt about? Over.”

We all glanced between each other in silence as we waited for a response from the pilot and the co-pilot.

“….can’t…. no tran-….control lo-…. -itor….-lep…” Came a static, broken reply from what sounded like the co-pilot.

Kile gave us an uneasy look as he undid his harness and headed towards the cockpit at a brisk walk. A few moments later he came running back, his eyes wide and wild. “I think we’re going to crash land! There’s a planet coming up awfully fast!”

“What!?” I retorted. “We were just fine. I thought the pilots made the decision to keep going.”

Another harsh jolt, more violent than the last, sent Kile flying into my lap. After catching him, I gave him a helpful push to his seat so he could get buckled, but he stayed standing. He looked at me before sliding his helmet on. “That’s what I thought too, but we have an even bigger problem. The co-pilot is dead.”

I froze. Hugo, Charlie, and myself all stared at Kile as shock was sent through our bodies like an electrical current.

“What!?” I proclaimed, still slightly stunned by the news. Death was a figure that I was all too familiar with. At one point in my previous military status, it was a rare event if I had only witnessed a handful of deaths per week. But I was not expecting a situation like this to occur on the trip.

“The co-pilot is dead,” confirmed Kile, “his head was blown off of his shoulders. We need to get into those escape pods and get the hell out of here!”

Unfortunately, I had witnessed this type of activity before. During my time in the war, I have noticed there are the stable and the unstable. Depending on the degree of instability, the unstable need to be kept under close supervision and pushed towards the correct path if they are to find control. When the unstable do not gain control of their mind they become one of two things: traitors or maniac’s. Traitors were not common with the Empire. Unless carefully trained, they were often too easily spotted and disposed of without a second thought. However, when soldiers are slowly transformed into maniac’s, it’s an entirely different story. The further down into insanity one goes the less likely they are able to control themselves. Eventually, they will lose all control and operate by what has been engrained into their brain from day one; dispose of anything that stands in the Empire’s way. I’m not sure if what happened in the cockpit was from a homicidal soldier or a traitor, but we weren’t going to waste time to find out, especially if we were on a one-way flight towards annihilation.

There were only two escape pods added onto the modified patrol craft and whoever had designed them did not have fully armored adult humanoids in mind. It was possible to fit about four people into one escape pod, however, that was if armor, weapons, ammo, and supplies weren’t involved.

Normally, when a plan may include the possibility of escape pods, we’d prepare the pods and load them up with the appropriate supplies we assume may be needed in case the original plan goes south. That was not the case in this scenario. After a very quick discussion about who was going in which escape pod, all four of us grabbed nearby equipment that seemed to appear before our eyes as we ran down the hallway. It didn’t matter who grabbed what, as long as it was useful to us somehow.

Charlie and Kile flung themselves into the first escape pod, the door instantly closing behind them. As I ran by, I banged on their door to let them know they were clear to shoot out. I didn’t look back as I heard the hydraulic doors holding the pod to the ship fly open and the quick whistling noise as their pod was shot out. Diving into the second pod I pulled myself into the small seat and strapped myself in and violently hit the launch button. Hugo hardly made it into the door before it snapped shut and the count down for the pod launch began.

My heart hammered in my chest as I watched the flashing numbers through my visor.

Three.

I took a deep breath in.

Two.

My body tensed as I anticipated the possible jolt from the sendoff.

One.

And then, nothing.

Absolutely nothing happened.

I glanced at the screen and then at Hugo. He was staring right back at me. A feeling of panic started to rise from my stomach but I pushed it away and out of mind. There were more intense situations that I had experienced in my military career, situations that would make the hardiest and most loyal of soldiers abandon their sworn in duties. I wasn’t about to let a little malfunction work my nerves into overdrive, not yet anyway.

“What the kriffing hell!?” Hugo yelled at the screen and slammed his fists down on the counsel.

“I don’t know,” I said as I tried to think up a quick plan, “I’ll try rebooting it but…” I trailed off as a sudden realization hit me. This style of patrol craft had all of the dominating controls in the cockpit. The pilot must have seen Kile and Charlie’s pod take off, which alarmed him to disable all of the controls for our pod.

“Stupid question, but is your blaster loaded?” I asked as I looked over at Hugo. “It looks like we might be initiating a mutiny against our pilot.”

~~~