Chapter Text
Imperial Light Cruiser HIMS Vengeance, 5 ABY.
Thia Aslow couldn’t sleep. Her arm hurt like hell, and the occasional muffled sounds of blaster fire from the decks above didn’t help either. Sounded like mainly stormtrooper’s E-11s but there were some of the navy troopers DH-17 pistols and officer holdout blasters mixed in as well. The fighting had been going on for a while now and she wasn’t entirely sure what was going on.
Thia curled deeper into a corner of her bunk, clutching her own E-11 blaster close to her chest. She preferred her RT-97C, the heavier weapon was very effective at chewing through enemies, but she couldn’t have it in her bunk, so her E-11 would have to do. Some of the other wounded in the barracks were groaning in pain. Thia had gotten off pretty easy compared to many of them.
The HIMS Vengeance, the ship she was serving on, had been out in deep space, hiding from rebel patrols. She’d heard somewhere that they were now calling themselves the “New Republic.” Sounded more like a military dictatorship than a republic from what she’d heard. Her squad of jumptroopers had been engaging an enemy attack force that outnumbered them ten to one. They’d made the rebels pay for every inch of ground they gained, but more kept coming. Her squad had dropped one by one, and she was forced to retreat after her arm got shot. She was the only one who had made it out. The blaster that hit her was high-power enough to make it through her armor and sear her arm. She was still recovering from it.
Now there was some sort of battle going on. The fire-fight had started about an hour ago, she hadn’t heard anyone board the ship so it must be infiltrators, or imperials fighting each other.
The door to the med-bay hissed open, and two figures walked in, blasters raised. Both were stormtroopers, their white armor glinting in the low light. Her blaster was trained on them before the door was even fully open.
“Identify yourselves,” she called to the troopers.
“SP-5639,” called out the first trooper.
“SR-2351,” announced the second.
“Who are you?” asked the first trooper.
“Sergeant First Class TK-625,” the jumptrooper responded. “Now what the kriff is going on?”
“News just came in that the fleet assembling at Jakku lost. Cap’ wanted to surrender the ship to the ‘New Republic,’” the second trooper answered. “The trooper commander tried to stop him and got shot. We’ve been in a fire fight with defectors, most of them are dead now, including the navy troopers, and crew. We’ve taken pretty heavy casualties though.”
“Our new CO is Captain Raen,” added the second trooper. “He’s a shore trooper we picked up from some frontier world. He’s clever as a fox though. We’re patrolling the ship for any more defectors.”
“There are none here.” the sergeant said. “All of the wounded in this barracks wear buckets. Good luck you two, make 'em pay.”
“Thanks sarge, that’ll save us some trouble” the first trooper said as they turned and left the barracks-turned-medbay.
Thia had known the stormtrooper commander, it was unfortunate to hear that he had gotten dusted. Too many good people were dying. Some of the stormtrooper legions had been almost entirely wiped out, while more and more units and ships were surrendering. She had recently heard that her home world, Mandalore, had been bombed out to stop rebels from taking the planet. Her wife had lived on Mandalore, but the trooper had no idea if she made it out, or was incinerated. The rebels had taken almost everything from her but she could still fight, and she would keep fighting until the New Republic was gone just like the old one, or until she got dusted.