Chapter Text
Barracks 241B was empty save for a single stormtrooper. The only sounds echoing in the abandoned space were clinks of her donning her armor; checking all straps and pieces more times than necessary, and cinching belts a little too tightly. She breathed out a sigh as she sat on her bunk and reached for her simple blaster rifle. It felt positively alien in her hands, a burning symbol in its venomous reminder of her downfall. If it could laugh it would mock her memories of greater things, the feel of her heavy artillery jolting her to her core. The shockwaves rippling through like a drug. She craved it like a wild animal longs for bloody prey to feed. Yet here she was, stuck with basic duties like some newbie , she thought bitterly as she held a death grip on her standard issue rifle. Pathetic.
Brushing her gloved fingers over the brand new helmet, she huffed in irritation. Commanders had hinted she would get herself into trouble from the start, how she hated that they were proved right. Ever since she could remember, someone was warning her. She’d worked hard in training to be the best; to prove herself at any opportunity. Proud of the rewards from the ever-watchful officers, it was always accompanied by a hint of disdain, as if they knew her advantages held hidden tragedy in the end. Therefore it was a surprise to no one, not even herself.
Slipping on the helmet, and holstering the sad little pistol she’d been equipped with, DN-1931 strode in her trained rhythmic step to where their squadron was forming up. With a lump rising in her throat, she noted their squad leader was already performing a quick inspection of his troopers as they stood in line. He stopped before her and though he was wearing his helmet, she felt the harsh glare in his eyes. His seething silence was something she’d quickly come to be familiar with since the beginning of her reassignment.
“I expect perfect performance from you DN-1931.” He growled out. That was nothing new. “Late again and I’ll have your ass sent straight back to reconditioning.” She merely gave a reflexive affirmative before resuming her silent attention.
“You got one shot in the presence of the General.” Was his final warning as he continued on. A calming breath pushed her emotions down as they were instructed to march to the docking bay. Being a simple trooper meant she was only given a basic briefing on their mission not but a few hours beforehand. Escort was being a bit generous for this task. They were simple troopers for a show of force. These backwoods aliens would be intimidated enough without the special operations being dragged along for such a meaningless waste of time.
Escort or not, they were assigned to accompany a general to an unaffiliated planet for negotiations. Join the First Order or else didn’t really seem like much of a negotiation in DN-1931’s mind but she quickly shook her head. Those thoughts got her in this mess in the first place, not to mention it was politics. That was left to the higher-ups. Troopers were the hand that enacted the laws of those above, that was all. Besides, she had no care if they joined or not, but the beast within still licked its chops at the thought of a heavier show of force.
A groan nearly escaped her as they approached the shuttle. A boring escort mission was not going to let her test her abilities and show what she was capable of. How she longed to return to the front lines again. Shiny clean armor felt disgusting on her. The First Order was efficiency-motivated, and it would see putting her back where she was would make her the most effective weapon she could be. She would ensure that. Simply had to bide her time and claw her way back to her position again.
The squad snapped to attention as the airlocks opened at the arrival of the General. From the fiery red hair, she figured it must be General Hux. She’d only seen him on holo tapes or from afar as she stood in the massive crowds of soldiers during his propaganda filled speeches before but she instantly recognized his uniquely unmistakable appearance. He was everything the First Order craved and demanded of its officers. Professional, ruthless, efficient, dangerous. Hux filled the mold to a tee; like a dog bred for war, he stepped into the cadet academy ready to rise to power and command.
He barely even glanced at the group of black and white as it was an everyday sight that all blended together. Frankly, he felt there was little need for a whole platoon for legitimate security reasons, but a show of force would likely gain the desired results with the supposedly cowardly king he would be meeting. Getting the planet to join willingly would be preferable as it would require less waste of resources, but either way, they would be occupying whether it was through agreement or force. This king could simply choose the easy way or the hard way. But Hux truly preferred the easier way, it required less paperwork on his part and he had little patience for an increase of that.
He exchanged formalities with the commanding officer before boarding and the synchronized footsteps followed behind. Once all had boarded the engines roared to life and the vessel backed from the docking bay and into open space. DN-1931 looked with mild curiosity out the window. The star destroyer, Finalizer, sat orbiting the planet as they sped towards it. It was a giant planet covered in lush green and blue with angry white swirls of mega-storms.
All parties on board fastened their restraints and held on tightly as the shuttle bucked and heaved with the entry into the atmosphere. DN-1931 looked on with disdain as one of the younger newbies from her squad nearly leaped out of his skin at the first jolt. DB-8947 had been a wimpy little thing from the start, she had no idea how he’d even graduated from the academy when she had to help him the first few weeks. He always put a sour taste in her mouth to be around him, a repugnant mix of contempt and pity. Useless but he’d inevitably be the first to crack and likely die in battle. She’d been raised to not care but she’d learned early on that there was a vast difference between the First Order’s teaching and when you had to witness the one person you’d grown close to during months of academy training holding his guts as a blaster shot ripped through his armor like nothing. Sneering at herself, DN-1931 looked away from the younger man, and once through the burn, it was smooth sailing. DN-1931 felt her fingers grip her rifle a little bit tighter.
The shuttle cruised over dense forest, occasional lakes dotting the landscape. The storms had required they enter a fair distance from the main city, the pilot forced to steer them around the angry clouds that spanned many miles across. There weren’t any visible man-made structures for miles amongst the ancient forest, but the speed of the shuttle would make short work of the travel. The trees on this planet were abnormally large compared to many of the other planets DN-1931 had been shipped to previously. Reaching as tall as some buildings in cities, with branches so thick it was probably dark as night on the forest floor.
DN-1931 felt her gut fly to her throat at the first cry of ‘under fire!” but before she could even process the thought she was nearly launched out of her seat if not for her safety restraints when the shuttle lurched to the side with a deafening blast. Shouting and blaring alarms screeched as the wounded ship only tore itself apart more from its missing wing and high velocity. Thick smoke began filling the cabin through the open side and visibility dropped to zero. The pilot quickly lost control and the shuttle began its death spiral out of the sky. Fellow storm troopers not strapped in were flung to the ceiling as gravity took hold of them all and they were sent to careening the ground.
The sounds of blaster fire whizzing by blended together like an incessant hum. The ground rumbled as the AT-ATs lumbered past, leaving nothing but destruction in their path. A sea of white charged forth, guns blazing. Orders rang out through the comms, new points marked on the HUD of her helmet. Shouting orders herself, she and her squad advanced, pushing the enemy further back. Her grip on her megablaster tightened, providing cover fire for her lighter armed comrades to advance to a safer position.
The blaster fire mowed down any rebel scum foolish enough to be in her path. A fire burned in her breath as they pushed them back, forcing the enemy to retreat even further and abandon their base. It was like sending a starved man to eat his fill at a king's banquet. Her gluttony for death only rose with each kill. The glow of her overheated barrel was the only thing that gave pause to her personal assault. Receiving another command for a final push, she engaged and brought her squad closer, determined to wipe out as many as possible. A glint in the corner of her eye got her attention but it was a second too late. A rebel sniper had been posted to provide cover fire. A bolt sped past her and narrowly missed her head before she swung her blaster and only released the trigger once the corpse was unrecognizable.
The sadistic grin on her face faltered as she turned to her squad. DN-1976 knelt on the ground in a pool of his own blood. His blaster clattered to the ground as his hands desperately tried to contain his own entrails, beginning to slip from his abdomen through the smoking hole in his side. His screams burned into her ears through the comms. The death of a fellow soldier had never gained her attention beyond a passing glance before but this… it was more appalling than anything she’d seen in training or on the battlefield before. Bile rose in her throat and her own helmet was cast aside as it erupted violently from her mouth. The burning from her belly to her lips ripped an agonized scream from her as feelings she’d never felt before coursed through her like molten metal in her veins. The screams of her own voice and her comrade before her swirled together in her mind like a toxic echo.
DN-1931 could swear she still heard a woman screaming. The most ungodly kind of shriek. It would grow loud then fade away again, each time getting louder and louder. Shriller and shriller. Like someone having their soul rent from their body. She wished the woman would stop before it drove her mad as it went through her ears and straight to her head. Her mind seemed to still be in a fog but as she came to, slowly it became apparent the screaming woman was the alarm, still blaring long after the danger was over with its blinding red flashes. With a jolt like electricity running through her veins, she sat upright, her body arguing with rage at the sudden movement. Her lungs burned with each gasping breath. Had the air been knocked out of her that hard? Moving each body part slowly to ensure nothing was broken, she decided nothing was terribly damaged, her back seemed quite unhappy with the hard landing but she wasn’t paralyzed, and that was good enough for now. Her side screamed with each breath but she quickly recognized the smell of smoke her helmet was struggling to filter. Grimacing as she twisted to unlatch her harness, she looked about her and stilled at the sight. Lifeless bodies of her comrades littered the shuttle, pools of blood oozed from the helmets of some laid in unnatural positions on the floor. Brain matter leaked from a cracked helmet while limbs stuck out in ways far beyond the normal range of motion for a human.
Hearing more noise she noticed there were some still alive, one inspecting the dead at her feet noticed her and quickly rushed over.
“Anything broken?” He urged, looking her over.
“No…” DN-1931 ground out. Why was her throat so dry?
“On your feet then, we have to get out of this flaming bird.” He pressed urgently and offered his hand hoisting her up a bit faster than she would have liked. Grabbing her fallen rifle, the two gathered a couple more troopers and had to drag one with a broken leg from the wreckage. Spilling out of the shuttle wreckage and into the forest, their crash became even more apparent. A line of snapped trees lay in their wake and the nose of the shuttle was buried deep under the dirt before it crumbled at the base of a particularly sturdy tree. DN-1931 looked about at the carnage, troopers stumbling from the still burning vessel in a daze. Some limping or crawling on all fours as they removed their helmets to rid their lungs of the noxious carcinogens. Her mind fell back into her past training and time on the front, a default mode of taking control and being ready to kill or be killed switch on like an autopilot. She frowned deeply, noting it was only the troopers sprawled out amongst the undergrowth.
“What of the pilots and the general?” She shouted over the roaring fire from the still screaming wing engines. No one replied and with a growl, she forced herself back through the open wound of the shuttle and turned towards the cockpit. It was dark with the thick smoke, even the light on her helmet barely cut through it, forcing her to crouch as low to the floor as possible. Broken components hung from the ceiling and sparks flickered down upon her. The pilots sat slumped over in their seats, one with a tree branch the size of a man’s thigh impaled through his chest. The co-pilot’s head was hanging freely from his neck, swinging from the hose of his mask. She swallowed down the bile threatening to come up as she looked about the smokey cockpit. A groan turned her attention to a corner to see the general crumpled on the floor. He still seemed in a daze, seemingly in and out of consciousness.
"Sir, we need to get out of here!" She urged as she kneeled beside him, checking for any injury. He weakly grunted in pain as a reply. Blood trickled down from the cut on his forehead, and with a grimace, she noted the large gash on his thigh. The bleeding needed to stop now if he was to survive. With a huff she grabbed his arm and unceremoniously slung him over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry, trying to ignore his cries of pain as his injured leg bumped from the rough handling. Once outside and a safe distance away she set him down on the grass and set to applying pressure to the wound.
"I need a medic!" She shouted out to whoever was coherent to aid her. In the light she could see the wound was more than simply a cut, his femur had fractured and was protruding through the skin. Digging into her basic med kit she retrieved a tourniquet. It was a minimal bandaid for the emergency care he needed but this would at least ensure he wouldn't bleed out for the time being.
“Where’s that fucking medic?” She shouted again and looked about. About a dozen troopers survived the crash, not including herself. Seven were injured, one desperately in agony, and one still completely unresponsive to first aid.
"Where's Captain Aer?" She asked over the comms.
"Dead." Came the reply as a trooper stepped forward. He was an acquaintance from her own squad but not one DN-1931 had become close to,.
"TL-947, now acting captain of the squad." He said bluntly but seemed a bit hesitant on what to do as he remained silent after, simply staring at the chaos around him in dumbfounded pause. DN-1931 couldn't help but pity him, he'd never seen much heavy combat before and this must have shaken him pretty bad, but a commanding officer needed to make snap decisions to keep their squad alive and they were in about as bad a situation as it could get.
"Do we know what brought us down?" DN-1931 pressed hoping to figure out what the hell was going on.
"Not exactly. We were fired upon from somewhere in the forest. Approximately 40 klicks from where we crashed. The origin was unknown. That was all we got before we were hit and..." TL-947 trailed off
Was their arrival to this planet an ambush then? Perhaps the negotiation talks were simply a set up for an assassination attempt. It was hard to know for certain but once the First Order learned of it, justice would be swift and heavy. Unfortunately, that wasn't their concern right now. They had wounded and were stranded far from civilization.
"Can we make contact with the Finalizer?" DN-1931 felt strained, irritated at the bad hand they'd been dealt. Crashed on a potentially hostile planet with inexperienced troopers who likely hadn’t done any shooting since training made it all the more hazardous for everyone involved.
"We aren't sure if the shuttle sent out its distress call in time or not," TL-947 said gripping his rifle tighter. "Without the ships comms, we have no way of making contact with the Finalizer. Our basic comms can't reach out of the atmosphere. We're stranded."
A soft hush fell over the remaining squad. No one wanted to voice what danger they were in but even those that didn't know had a bad feeling about their chances of survival. Despair meant death, an old commander had once told DN-1931, emotions got in the way of finishing the mission. The time for that would come but not now. Not if they wanted any chance of getting out of this alive.
"Alright. We need to have those with medical knowledge care for the wounded and the rest of us should sweep the area for hostiles and try to set up a makeshift camp. If the Finalizer heard our distress signal they'll first look for us at the crash site." She instructed the newly appointed captain. She was sure any other scenario she’d be punished for attempting to override authority but clearly this trooper was either clueless or in shock to be of much use thinking right now. TL-947 only nodded and turned to relay the instructions to the squad and delegate out tasks.