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Maybe he wasn’t cut out for this. He certainly hadn’t signed up for this. He had given the order. He had received the order from his superiors, and he had given it to his troops, but he hadn’t realized exactly what the order meant until it was already too late.
Everywhere he looked, he saw death. If not in the form of a screaming mother and child, then in the form of the thin ashy film that seemed to cover everything. The T-7 Ion Disruptors had not been approved for use yet. They hadn’t even really been tested. But here he was, standing amongst his troopers as they fired relentlessly. And not even on just the insurgents.
Where Kallus and his team had been deployed, there were no insurgents. He had known that when he had given the order. The only people in this small, seaside town were civilians. However, they were still fiercely protective of their families. That determination to protect their own, protect their way of life, was their undoing that day. Any pushback was seen as rebellion in the eyes of his superiors. And rebellion had to be dealt with swiftly and effectively.
And that is exactly what had happened.
As the beams from the disruptors tore through the flesh and bone and very essence of the beings around him, Kallus was forced to watch. He did not wield such a weapon himself, as he had seen it as overpowered. Having had a choice in the matter, Kallus had opted for his usual electrostaff. He had done research on the culture and the people of Lasan before the siege. Charging in with an overpowered weapon such as a disruptor had felt wrong. After expressing his concerns to his superiors, only to have them dismiss him without even much of a conversation, Kallus had decided that even if his troopers were to be heavily armed, he was going to fight fairly.
As fairly as one could in such a situation, anyway.
The fantasy that he could keep the fight fair had disappeared like the wind the second his troopers set foot on the ground. The second the people of the city began to fight back, shouting in the streets that they were nothing but civilians, and they should not be harmed, the fight was as good as over.
The only member of the community that Kallus had been able to engage in a fight with somewhat fairly had been the honor guard member stationed in the small town. He was strong, tall, and stood intimidatingly over Kallus while they had dueled. It was the only time during the fight that Kallus had actually felt in control of what was happening.
Strike for strike, Kallus’s staff met the yellow glowing ends of the guardman’s Bo-rifle. It was not a quick or easy battle, as the power the last weilded was almost overpowering. But Kallus did everything he could to fight fair. Even if the rest of the battle went on around him, spiraling out of control into a thinly-veiled genocide, he could keep the intimacy between him and this guardsman. Even if he could prove it to no one else on the surface of the planet, Kallus would prove to this man that the Empire was not full of cold-blooded killers who would shoot from behind. Some of them fought with honor, even when their orders demanded they cause needless bloodshed.
He supposed the fight was mostly for him. It was selfish, he knew. But the second he witnessed a disruptor tear a mother and child to shreds before burning them to ash, he knew he would never be able to forgive himself. Nobody witnessed something like that and maintained any sense of righteousness. It was just so wrong. But he had hoped that fighting this guardsman correctly would put his mind to rest, and allow him to sleep at night.
The second Kallus was holding his electrostaff to the guardsman’s throat, teeth bared and sweat dripping through his facial hair, he knew it would do no good. At that moment, the guardsman had surrendered his weapon, kneeling at Kallus’s feet, awaiting the final blow.
From his research on the culture, Kallus knew that this was the ultimate sign of respect among the warriors of this planet. This meant the lasat deemed him an honorable fighter. Kallus thanked him before delivering the final blow, giving the man the warrior’s death that he had so rightly earned in his duel with Kallus.
The second the guardsman’s body had hit the dust below his feet, Kallus felt a weight in his chest. He threw down the electrostaff as if it had burned him, taking a few steps back from the corpse lying on the ground.
It was one of the only corpses seen that day on Lasan. So few had the chance that this guardsman had to defend himself, simply being turned to ash by the imperial troops. He looked around, watching as his troopers broke down doors, hunting down every remaining being in the village, all screaming about rebellion.
And, while they were right, and rebellion had to be snuffed out in order for the empire to bring peace and security to the galaxy, was this really the best way? It was never supposed to be a massacre. He had never signed up for this. The panicked screams reached his ears from seemingly every direction, causing his heart to seize in his chest. Those were not screams of rebellion. They were simply screams of terror. Screams for mercy against the inevitability of death.
Kallus stepped forward, retrieving the Bo-rifle from the guardsman’s outstretched hands. The weapon was heavy in his hands. He could barely wrap his full hand around it. The weapon was clearly not made for his species. But he held it for a moment with reverence.
He knelt, placing his hand on the shoulder of the fallen soldier, saying a quick customary prayer to their people’s deity, before standing and re-joining his troops. Despite his reservations about the nature of this mission, it was still his responsibility to follow his orders. He was a good soldier, after all.
With the weight of the bo-rifle against his back, he made his way back into the village, overseeing the murder of thousands of innocents. By the time the day was done, he was certain there was nothing left of his morality to stand on. The deaths weighed on his shoulders, knowing that because he gave the orders to the troopers, Lasan was destroyed.
Kallus prayed night after night for the Ashla to deliver him from his nightmares. After four sleepless nights of grief, Kallus’s body gave out, collapsing on his bed after his shift into a nightmare-riddled night of sleep.
For the longest time, he didn’t close his eyes without seeing the innocents of Lasan, begging for his mercy, and him being unable to give it.