by Katie Zajdel
thumper [a] coronasquadron dot com
The
Star Wars universe and all
its toys belong to Lucasfilm. There’s no profit being made here, trust
me.
I was tired. And that was the last thing I could afford to be.
After all, we were only in the beginning phases of Operation: Skyhook,
and there was still a lot more to do. It would have been a whole lot
less complicated if the transfer to Liberty
after Toprawa had gone well, though I had yet to see any mission for
the Alliance to Restore the Republic that had been smooth.
This, however, was less smooth than most.
Tantive IV rocked violently
under my feet as a blast from Devastator
hit, and the lights on the bridge went out briefly before struggling to
flicker back on. For a moment the only illumination came through the
bridge’s viewport: the reflected light from the brown wasteland of
Tatooine below us. The deep, omnipresent thrumming sound of the ship
ceased altogether.
The bridge crew around me was probably even more tired than I was; they
had been doing a lot more during these past fights and narrow escapes,
trying to stay one step ahead of the constant Imperial pursuit. Still,
they renewed their frantic scrambling attempts to control the ship and
provide status reports to Captain Raymus Antilles. There was a new
desperation in their voices and actions now, and even the captain
looked rattled as he tried to coordinate and command. A ship without a
main reactor is nothing, and we all knew it. Sure enough, it didn’t
take long for us to be caught in Devastator’s
tractor beam.
The Security Net over my helmet’s headset suddenly got a lot more
active. I listened as my fellow fleet troopers reported a first
response team moving to the hatch where the Imperials would be
boarding. More teams were on their way to support.
Even though I stayed put, I readied my own weapon and relayed the
information to the captain. I tried to calm my pounding heart.
Soon a hull breach alert sounded at one of the bridge consoles, and it
coincided with a huge burst of transmissions on the Security Net. I
heard report after report of fleet troopers gunned down by an
overwhelming number of stormtroopers. They were forced to fall back
almost immediately. The casualties today could be staggering. I
swallowed hard and broke into Captain Antilles’s perpetual stream of
orders just long enough to let him know what was coming.
My thoughts jumped briefly to my wife and two kids back in Aldera.
Something inside told me that this would be the day I forced them to
spend the rest of their lives without a husband and father.
A straggled, cut-off piece of information floated over the Security
Net: Vader. Vader was aboard. I felt myself break out in a cold sweat,
and now I knew beyond a doubt that I’d never see Alderaan again.
But that was the risk I had accepted. As the internal reports of the
stormtroopers’ movements warned me of their progress to the bridge, I
took my position and readied myself with my blaster rifle.
As bridge guard, I was the last line of defense for the bridge crew and
our captain, and I wasn’t about to let them down.
The Imperials would only get in over my dead body.
