And then the shouting started.
It was as if a bomb had exploded amidst the nervous group of draftees. Chaos, yelling, confusion, and a hundred thousand demands were suddenly thrust upon Davin from all directions. Officers in olive-gray uniforms or white stormtrooper armor swarmed all over them; the recruits stood at attention, rigidly trying to emulate statues as the officers moved to within millimeters of their faces, screaming demands.
Davin’s only thought was to try and survive, to get out of this mess alive—he couldn’t think, and every time he tried to answer a question that was screamed at him, someone else would thrust their face next to his and demand something else.
Davin started yelling, not caring what he said, or whom he was speaking to, but only reacting, attempting to look as though he were busy answering someone else’s question. He raised his voice and shouted at the top of his lungs—and the ploy seemed to work. With all the confusion that surrounded him, with a stormtrooper major screaming in his face to try and disorient him, he succeeded in diverting attention from himself. But this was only the beginning of six months of hellish training that would mold Davin into one of the Emperor’s own elite troops.
After what seemed hours, Davin and the rest of the recruits were led running down a pathway to the barracks. A huge prehistoric-looking man waved them to stand at one side of the passageway. The recruits scampered in fear. They lined up against the wall and snapped to attention. The burly man threw them supplies: generic dark uniforms, helmets, socks, underwear, handkerchiefs, emergency equipment, medpac kit, survival gear, and personal-cleansing equipment.
Davin accepted the supplies, but was too afraid to ask what he should do with them. One small voice, attached to a man who towered over the rest of the recruits like a solarflower grown in rich Gamorrean dirt, said meekly, “I … I can’t take this anymore!”
Instantly, Imperial uniformed bodies swarmed over the man. A voice shouted, “You people—over here! Move it!”
Bending backward under his load of supplies, Davin staggered to join a line of recruits who looked like piles of crawling military storehouses. The group was led away, shown to their bunks. Davin deposited his blue duffel bag and armload of material on a cot. Two other recruits shared the room with him. Davin grinned tiredly and introduced himself. “Hi, I’m Davin Felth.”
The first man shook his hand firmly. “Geoff f’Tuhns.” He took a quick look around the corner and held out a bag of greasy-looking food. “Want a bite?”
Davin glanced in the bag and felt his stomach flip. “No, thanks.”
Tall, big-boned, and sporting a head of flaming red hair, Geoff did not look as if he could ever fit inside stormtrooper armor. Looking once more around the corner, he sighed and stuffed a handful of food in his mouth. “If you brought any food, you’d better eat it now. I managed to hide this from them,” he said, “but they threatened punishment if they caught me with any more food.”
“Mychael Ologat,” said the second man. “What do you think of all this?” As small as Geoff was tall, Mychael looked as though he could fit in Davin’s duffel bag; but his muscles rippled underneath his taut skin.
Davin was still shell-shocked from the reception getting off the Gamma-class shuttle. They hadn’t been on the military training planet for more than an hour, but with all the supplies he had been issued and the amount of ground they had covered, at Davin’s normal pace it would have taken over a week to get these same things done. He shook his head. “They told me the military would change my life, but this is crazy. I expected to get some time to look around.”
“Don’t count on it,” said Geoff, speaking around a mouthful of food. “We’ve been here since yesterday, and from what I’ve heard, this is only the welcoming committee. The really tough stuff comes later.”
Mychael’s eyes grew wide. He stood facing the door, and he managed to blurt out, “Uh-oh—here comes trouble.”
Geoff dropped the bag of munchies and tried to kick it underneath his bed, but he slipped and the bag slid to the center of the room.
Davin turned to see one of the largest men he had ever seen in his life standing just outside the door. Dressed in antigrav shoes, black shorts, a white skin-shirt, and wearing the ominous white helmet of an Imperial stormtrooper, the man looked like a massive pillar. He pointed at the bag of food. His voice had a tinny sound as it came over the speakers implanted in the side of the battle helmet.
“Your caloric intake is strictly regulated—whose contraband food is that?”
Davin heard Geoff gulp; from what he’d said, he couldn’t afford to get caught. But no one had told him it was contraband! He spoke up. “It’s mine.”
The stormtrooper turned to face Davin. “You are new here.”
“That’s right.”
“The correct response is ‘yes, sir.’ You will learn—or you will fail. Consider that your only warning.” He smashed the bag with his foot, then turned to include the other two. “You sand slime have two minutes to change into your physical training gear and get out here with the rest of your squad—or your butt is mine. Now move!”
The three Imperial recruits scrambled over each other as clothing flew across the room.
“Thanks, Davin,” Geoff gasped out as he struggled into a coverall.
Davin could only grunt as he hopped on one foot; he attempted to pull on thigh-high running boots. Despite the hectic pace, the next two minutes were Davin’s last chance to relax during the six months of training.
Fifteen pounds lighter but immeasurably stronger, Davin adjusted to the breakneck training routine. The recruits spent less than five hours a night in their room, falling exhausted to sleep after day upon day of relentless training: physical fitness runs, daily expeditions via suborbital transport to the southern ice fields for winter training, a week-long expedition to the barren Forgofshar Desert for survival training, a three-day battle against nature in the equatorial rain forest … Davin soon lost track of the days.
He and his roommates soon learned to get up before their “wake-up call” came in the morning, when their Imperial stormtrooper sergeant would kick open their door and blast his sonic whistle. Davin would wake up a good half hour before reveille. He and the others would scurry about the small dorm room, cleaning and dressing, only to hop beneath their sheets for the early-morning wake-up ritual—they had seen what happened to the other recruits when they were caught out of their bunks before reveille.
Running out into the hallway, Davin would snap to attention, waiting to hear what the expedition of the day would entail. He never knew where he might be sent.
It was the morning Davin was in place in the hallway nearly thirty seconds before the others that changed his life. It didn’t start out with a fanfare, simply: “Davin, drive your butt over to the AT-AT detachment at the end of the hall. The rest of you sandworms fall in for inspection!”
As the rest of his squad stood at attention, Geoff punched him in the side and whispered, “Good luck, hotshot—we’re going to miss you!”
Davin didn’t have time to answer, as the Imperial trooper in charge of the AT-AT detachment was already yelling for Davin to hurry up. “Twenty more seconds and we’ll drop you off in a reactor core!”
Davin joined the group of recruits at the end of the hall; he recognized several of his classmates as those who had consistently finished near the top of the class with him. They exchanged glances with one another, but they were much too sharp to speak and bring down the wrath of their drill instructor.
Lining up, they were marched out of the dorm area to the parade field. Glass and syngranite buildings soared above their heads; the parade field was surrounded by ultramodern buildings. Dozens of robot observer eyes hovered overhead, keeping watch over the military base. Situated in the middle of the circle of classroom buildings, a sleek executive transport ship squatted on the grass, its door open for boarding. The recruits were hurried in as the all-clear signal alerted the pilot for takeoff.
&nbs
p; As Davin settled into his seat, a holo appeared in the middle of the aisle. Tall and gaunt with sunken eyes, the holographic image of the man was dressed in the tight black uniform of a ground commander. The image spoke with forcefulness.
“I am Colonel Veers, commander of the Emperor’s AT-AT forces. You trooper candidates have been selected for your ability to learn quickly and put the requirements of the mission over your personal needs. No matter how superior our space forces may be, it is the brilliance of the ground troops, ferreting out the enemy from their dug-in encampments, that will win this conflict. The ground forces are the true backbone needed for a total victory—and you have been selected to man the flagship of the ground troops: the All Terrain Armored Transport, the AT-AT!”
Colonel Veers’s image was replaced by a four-legged metal behemoth, lumbering across rugged terrain. It moved in mere seconds distances that would have taken men on foot an hour to traverse. Twin blaster cannons fired laser pulses from the vehicle’s metallic head; two uniformed crewmen could be seen in the command module in the AT-AT’s head. The recruits in the executive transport drew in their breath in a collective gasp at the sight.
Colonel Veers’s voice continued. “You will undergo six weeks of intensive training in the virtual reality simulators before being allowed in the AT-AT even as an observer. If you pass the qualifying phase of the test, you will be allowed to accompany the AT-AT in one of my combat battalions. Good luck to you all, but take a good look around you—fewer than one person in ten will successfully complete this arduous training.” He scanned the room as though he could look into each recruit’s face. Davin sat rigid in his seat and tried to meet the holo’s eye, but the image dissolved from view.
A murmur ran through the ship. The recruits leaned over their seats and whispered excitedly to one another. The man next to Davin turned, his face flushed. “An AT-AT! Can you believe we’ve been picked for the chance to command one of them?”
The image of the monstrous vehicle stepping across the rocky terrain still burned in Davin’s mind. Through all of his training experiences, nothing had sparked the fire in him as had the sight of the AT-AT. It was almost as if his destiny had been unfolded right inside the sleek executive transport.
“Yeah,” whispered Davin, “and I’m going to make sure I’m not one of those nine recruits who washes out.”
• • •
The AT-AT control room seemed large to Davin Felth. Multicolored touch-sensitive controls covered the walls and ceiling; the rectangular viewport at the front of the control room was as tall as Davin. Two swivel chairs sat at the front of the viewport, allowing the pilot and copilot access to all the controls, yet giving them a spectacular view of below. They were a good five hundred meters above the ground in the AT-AT control “head,” docked at the training base.
Davin felt a shortness of breath, as if he had walked into some sacrosanct place; but it was more than that. He slowly stepped forward and ran a hand over the right-hand seat. He felt rich dewback leather—only the best for Colonel Veers’s recruits!
“Do you like it?”
The voice startled Davin, and the past months of training made him cringe at the blast he knew was to come. “Yes, sir.”
The instructor joined Davin and spoke quietly, as if not to disturb Davin’s sense of awe. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the feeling I get when I climb aboard.” He glanced at Davin. “And that’s one of the attributes we look for in our recruits, Davin Felth. If they do not respect the AT-AT, then they approach their assignment as just another duty. They might as well stay in their virtual reality chamber, playing like children. We only want the best to pilot the AT-AT, because when something goes wrong that you can’t fix by VR, then it’s the best who survive.”
He reached up and ran his fingers over an array of lights. A low sound thrummed through the floor as the instruments powered up. The instructor swung the chair around and flicked at the lights in front of him. “Do you want to take her out?”
“Yes, sir!” said Davin. He eagerly climbed into the copilot’s seat and waited for instructions. When none came, he remembered the lessons he had been taught in the VR simulator, and quickly helped the instructor with the checklist. Within minutes they were ready to ease the AT-AT out of the docking bay.
Davin watched the screens inlaid above the viewport; he saw images broadcast from the docking area of the AT-AT from all different angles. In the seat next to Davin, the instructor effortlessly ran through the sequence to back the AT-AT away from its berth. Although the AT-AT was completely controlled by artificial intelligence, Davin appreciated for the first time the enormity of the task of running a machine that held nearly as many moving parts as the human body. The human presence on board served as a foolproof backup.
“Let’s take her up into the hills,” said the instructor. “I want to run through some target practice. I’ll let Base know our call sign is Landkiller One.”
The view outside of the viewport raced across the molecular-thick window as the AT-AT lumbered away from the base. They quickly left behind the syngranite buildings and roads and turned into the rugged hillside.
The ride was smooth. The AT-AT stepped across chasms so deep Davin couldn’t see the bottom. They climbed the ridge and dropped down to the valley on the other side; boulders littered the hillside. They were in the middle of a barren wasteland. Sheer rock rose up on one side of them, and in the distance, Davin saw red and silver rock formations jutting into the air, looking like a forest of multicolored needles. Davin glanced at the clock—they had only left the base ten minutes before, but already they were out in the wilderness.
Little by little the instructor allowed Davin to take over the AT-AT controls. Piloting the AT-AT was just like using the virtual reality simulator, but Davin knew that any misjudgment would be disastrous. Davin devoted his entire attention to monitoring the myriad instruments.
“You’re pretty good at this,” said the instructor after a while. “Not many recruits are as comfortable as you.”
“Thanks,” said Davin, not breaking his concentration.
“Keep at this heading,” said the instructor, pushing up from his seat. “I want to check the weapons cache. We’re coming upon the target range and the terrain doesn’t change any from here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Just call out if anything goes wrong; I’ll be right back. But don’t leave the controls—no matter what happens.”
“Yes, sir.” Davin tried to keep his excitement in check. The AT-AT almost functioned on its own, but Davin still felt heady being in command, alone in the command center. Step by monstrous step, the AT-AT lumbered across the barren terrain. Looking out over the rugged land, Davin could imagine himself commanding a fleet of AT-AT’s, massing against the Rebels—
Davin caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye. A dark speck, then suddenly three more, swooped down out of the sky. They headed straight for the AT-AT.
Davin glanced at his radar screen—nothing showed up. He punched up his scanning instruments and got the same response: nothing at all in the EM, gravitational, and neutrino spectrums.
Davin frowned and called out to his instructor, “I’ve got a visual on some fighter craft heading this way, but they don’t show up on scanners. They’re closing fast.”
Davin didn’t get an answer from his instructor, still back in the weapons cache. The only sound Davin heard was the muted rumbling of the AT-AT’s power system, and the slight jarring that came over the electronically cushioned ride.
Davin turned in his seat. “Sir? Are you there?” The door to the weapons cache was sealed; Davin turned back to the front. The four fighter craft grew closer. He slapped at the intercom and broadcasted throughout the AT-AT. “Sergeant!” Still no answer.
The four ships split off in two pairs, each vessel turning sideways as they came directly for the AT-AT control chamber. Bright pops of blaster cannon erupted from the fighters as they fired upon Davin’s
AT-AT.
“Hey!” Davin felt anger and fear surge through him. “Sergeant, we’re being attacked!” The vessels thundered past the AT-AT, causing the giant war machine to sway slightly in the fighter’s turbulence. “What’s going on? Are we in the target area or something?”
Still not getting a reply, Davin nearly unbuckled to go look for the AT-AT instructor. What if something had happened to the man? The instructor would know what to do. This was crazy!
But when Davin saw the fighter craft swoop up again in front of him, he sat frozen in his seat. The four fighters were coming in for another strafing run. Davin forced himself to grab at the communicator. He flicked to the AT-AT Base frequency. “Distress, Distress—this is Landkiller One! Attention, Base, we’re under attack. There must be some kind of mistake. I say again, Distress!”
Only the sound of white noise came over the speaker; even the emergency holo did not function.
Bright pinpoints of light once again erupted from the head of the attacking fighter craft. Davin tensed himself as the AT-AT was rocked with the impact of a blaster cannon. A shrill alarm blasted above his head as the acrid smell of oily smoke rolled throughout the control room. “Sergeant—help me!” The warbling sound of another alarm pierced the air; synthetic voices announcing damage-control procedures came from the rear of the control room. Twenty things seemed to happen at once.
Throughout all the confusion, Davin spotted the four fighter craft rolling up from upon high and diving down to make another … and perhaps their last … strafing run.
Davin grew suddenly angry at all that had gone wrong. Throughout his short career as an Imperial military man, he had been drilled that the only way to survive was to follow procedures. But here was a situation that had not been covered in any textbook or testing sequence! He was out on his own, and as crazy as it seemed, somehow the Rebels must have found their way to the Imperial military training planet. How else could he explain the fighter vessels not showing up on radar?
Tales from Mos Eisley Cantina Page 25