Star Wars: Battlefront: Twilight Company by Alex Freed

Author:Alex Freed
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub
Tags: Science Fiction, General, Space Opera, Fiction
ISBN: 9781473517592
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2015-11-05T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

PLANET SULLUST

Zero Days After Plan Kay One Zero

SP-475 was the third stormtrooper into the docking bay. She kept her head low and her blaster steady, as she’d been trained. She followed her partner to cover behind the charging station, swept for enemies while the rest of the team poured in. She trusted her helmet display to pick out motion, to alert her to any enemy she’d missed.

“Clear!” a static-distorted voice called. The speaker’s designation blinked in her display, but it wasn’t important. Trust the call, 475 told herself. Trust your colleagues—not just your equipment.

Twelve stormtroopers fanned out around a carbon-scored heap of a freighter registered as the Keepsake. If the Security Bureau’s information was correct, it belonged to the most wanted terrorists on Sullust.

475 hoped the information was correct. She was ready for life in Pinyumb to return to normal.

Since the attack on the processing facility, the Empire had instituted aggressive new anti-terrorism policies. There were daily raids on the workers’ dorms and the housing blocks, strict limitations on computer network access, new security checkpoints at the tram and shuttle stations leading from city to surface. And, of course, never-ending shifts for the Stormtrooper Corps; no matter what civilians said, there were never enough troops to meet the Empire’s needs.

SP-475 had received a commendation for reporting a mysterious influx of supplies into the hands of workers. Her uncle had been taken into custody a week ago. He hadn’t been charged. He’d be free once things settled down, she was sure, but she was tired of the bitter stares from his friends when she walked home to the troopers’ dormitory.

She was doing her duty. Life was hard for the people of Pinyumb, true—but the best way to make things easier was to stop the rebels and resistance fighters who were blowing up factories and bribing innocents.

Her helmet’s comlink crackled to life again: “Two teams: Check inside. Watch yourselves.”

475’s partner nodded and led the way.

Rumor was that the rebels liked to rig their equipment with improvised explosives. 475 had heard thirdhand accounts of stormtroopers who’d lost limbs to detonite blasts, whose armor had been pierced by shrapnel sharpened by diligent rebel hands. She’d never seen a bomb outside training.

What sort of monsters are these people? She’d read the file on Nien Nunb—rebel terror cell leader, native Sullustan, petty thief who’d embezzled from his employers before signing on with the Rebellion. But petty thieves didn’t leave soldiers drowning in blood inside their helmets. Petty thieves might murder when backed into a corner, but self-defense wasn’t the same as a coldly plotted massacre.

SP-475 was the second of eight stormtroopers onto the freighter. Her breath sounded too loud inside her helmet. The only light came from the docking bay.

“Night vision,” came the command from 113. 475 had never seen his face, but she’d been told he was one of the original clone commandos who’d founded the Stormtrooper Corps. His voice sounded old. “Don’t touch anything.”

She let her visor switch over. The night-vision enhancements left a green haze over the corridor, but it was better than nothing.

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