Star Wars: Tales from Mos Eisley Cantina

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Davin pushed all concern aside and armed the AT-AT fire controls. If he was going to be shot at, he wasn’t going to go down without a fight. The automated fire-control system was of no use since the enemy craft did not show up on any of his scanning instruments.

  Slaving the blaster cannon controls to follow his line of sight, he let loose a salvo of high-energy laser blasts. The bundles of energy shot past the attacking ships. Although his shots missed the fighter craft, the attacking ships split up. Had they not expected him to fight back?

  The fighters flew past him, again coming so close that the AT-AT shuddered because of the passing crafts’ shock wave. Davin slapped at the emergency beacon, sending out a continuous squawk over the airwaves. At the same time, he halted the AT-AT’s forward motion, slaving the AT-AT’s entire computer resources to fight the incoming attackers.

  Since he had to rely on his eyesight and none of the instruments during the battle, Davin decided to put himself at the greatest advantage. He ordered the AT-AT to kneel, dropping as low to the ground as possible. Slowly, with jerky motions, the huge behemoth staggered to the ground.

  Davin brought the war machine’s head down flat with the body until there remained no part of the AT-AT that the fighters could fly under. By the time the four fighter craft came back around for another attack, Davin’s AT-AT lay hunkered on the ground.

  The fighters grouped together for a high-angle dive-bombing run. As they approached, Davin knew they could not fly under the AT-AT.

  Davin forced them to make a suicide attempt on the control chamber.

  Davin jammed his finger down on the firing control. The AT-AT rocked with the recoil from the laser cannon. An explosion burst across the screen as he hit two of the fighters; a third fighter tried to steer away from the flying debris, but his wing clipped the ground and cartwheeled into a rocky cliff.

  The remaining fighter bore down on him. He flew in low, wobbling in the hot layer of turbulent desert air. Davin waited until the fighter was nearly upon him before firing. The craft kept close to the ground, as if expecting Davin’s AT-AT to rise and start shooting.

  Seconds later, the last fighter plowed into a rock formation, erupting with a violent burst. Red-orange flames shot out, then quickly disappeared from view.

  Davin sat in the sudden quiet. Moments ago the control room had been filled with a cacophony of alarms and the sight of four fighter craft attacking the AT-AT. But now, there was only the distant throb of the onboard power plant.

  Davin felt drained, too tired even to call Base and report what had happened. But he knew that he must, for if these four Rebel craft had somehow managed to evade the Imperial defenses, then no telling how many of the dangerous vessels would be lurking in orbit.

  He picked up the communicator when he heard a sound behind him. Davin turned. “Sergeant?” In the shock of battle, he had completely forgotten about his instructor being lost in the sealed weapons cache.

  His instructor stood with his hands on his hips, grinning wolfishly. “Good job, Recruit Felth. You’ve got a command party landing on the AT-AT command module, so open up the top hatch.”

  “Yes, sir.” Dazed and confused, Davin did as instructed. Once outside, he searched for the wreckage of the fighters that should have covered the landscape … but he was stunned to see nothing.

  “You’re the first recruit to bring down all four fighters, Davin Felth. This AT-AT was specially designed to simulate that battle—it was all projected via virtual reality into the control head.” It was almost too much for Davin to comprehend.

  Recovering from the fact that he had not been in an actual battle, Davin stood with his instructor on top of the AT-AT’s sprawling metallic head. Davin squinted in the sunlight; the dry desert air smelled enthralling to him after the stuffiness of the damaged control room.

  A dot appeared above them, dilating in size until Davin could make out the bottom of an Imperial command scout. Davin and his instructor stepped back. After the command scout landed, a door hissed open and a ramp extended to the surface.

  Two white-armored Imperial stormtroopers marched out and stood at rigid attention on either side of the opening. Davin gasped as he recognized the man emerging from the ship. “Colonel Veers!” Davin snapped to attention and saluted.

  Veers strode up and returned the salute. He looked Davin up and down. “Recruit Felth, is it?”

  “Yes, sir,” stammered Davin.

  “This kneeling maneuver with the AT-AT—how did you come up with that idea, recruit?”

  Davin opened his mouth but he was at a loss for words.

  “Well,” growled Veers. “Out with it, recruit!”

  “I—I don’t know, sir. It just seemed the logical thing to do. It was the only way to keep the fighters from finishing us off, by not allowing them underneath the AT-AT.”

  Veers sounded strangely cold. “And what would that do, recruit?”

  Davin shrugged, thrown by Veers’s line of questioning. Why, he had fought off the fighters, hadn’t he? And won! “Well—”

  “Address the colonel as sir!” corrected his instructor, embarrassed to be speaking in front of Veers.

  “Thank you, Sergeant,” said Veers. The colonel drew close to Davin and steered him away from the others. When they were some distance from the instructor and Imperial stormtroopers, the colonel spoke softly. “Now continue, recruit. What is so special about not allowing the fighters access to the AT-AT underbelly?”

  Davin stiffened. “I lost track of them when they flew underneath. Once the fighters were under the AT-AT, they could have done just about anything they wanted.”

  Veers seemed about to lose his patience. “Such as—?”

  Davin felt his face grow warm as he scrambled to think of something, anything to appease the colonel. “Such as … tying up the AT-AT legs, sir,” Davin blurted out. “All they needed was some cable and they could have easily tripped the AT-AT.”

  A strange look came over Colonel Veers. The thin man smiled tightly and looked Davin over. “Very well. Thank you, recruit. That’s very enlightening.” He raised a finger to his lips. “Keep this classified until my battle staff can analyze the implications, understand?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Veers turned to go. Raising his voice, he nodded at Davin’s instructor as he spoke. “Have Recruit Felth report to Assignments when he returns. A man of his caliber deserves immediate recognition. My staff will have an assignment worthy of his talents ready when he returns.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the instructor.

  As an afterthought, Veers raised a finger. “And impound all the datacubes on this simulation. Have them sent to my command headquarters. Understood?”

  “Yes, Colonel.”

  “And quickly. I have been dispatched for temporary duty as an advisor to the Emperor’s new Death Star. I want this accomplished before I leave.”

  When the scout ship disappeared from view, Davin’s instructor clapped him on the shoulder. “I don’t know how you did it, recruit, but I have a feeling you’ve been marked for a one-in-a-million career!”

  • • •

  The familiar background hum of the starship didn’t comfort Davin Felth. The sharp oil-on-metal smell, harsh lighting, and polished decks of the huge troop transport should have made Davin feel right at home—but ever since receiving the hush-hush orders from Colonel Veers’s command section, he had been totally confused.

  No one questioned the sealed orders when he reported to the Imperial troop transport, and no one explained exactly what he was supposed to do. All he knew was that now, two hundred light-years from Carida, he was assigned to a detachment of stormtroopers, setting off for some forsaken planet.

  Stormtroopers!

  He drew in a breath and tried to explain for the third time to the man staring at papers on the desk, ignoring him. “Captain Terrik, you just don’t understand. I’ve spent the last day trying to find out what is going on, but no one has the authority to help me. I w
as told personally by Colonel Veers that I would receive an assignment worthy of my talents. I’m an AT-AT operator, not a … a foot soldier!”

  The officer’s smoothly shaven head snapped up so that Davin could see the man’s eyes. Deep, penetrating, and utterly without fear, Captain Terrik bored his gaze into Davin like a lightsaber. “Stormtroopers are not foot soldiers!” He placed his hands on his desk and stood, barely holding back his trembling. “If it was up to me, you Jawa slime, I’d have spaced you when we first hit vacuum. I’m well aware of Colonel Veers’s orders, and we’re going to follow his directions to the micron!”

  “Very well,” said Davin, somewhat relieved. He straightened and looked smartly around the cabin. Headquarters for the small detachment of twenty stormtroopers on board the ship, Captain Terrik’s cabin was decorated with battle streamers, plaques, paintings of battles against the Rebels, and a holo of Lord Vader. “You will show me to my correct assignment, then.” He smiled at the captain. Terrik trembled more visibly and turned redder by the second.

  “Stand at attention!” growled Captain Terrik. “Listen up, you mynock bait! It took me all day to confirm those orders, and Emperor only knows why Colonel Veers wants this. But you belong to me now, Felth! We’ve got another month of maneuvers before we get to Tatooine, and I intend to use that time whipping you into shape.”

  “Tatooine?” said Davin, his face growing white. “What’s that? There must be some kind of mistake.”

  “Oh, no.” Captain Terrik grinned wolfishly. He picked up Davin’s orders lying on his desk and shook them under Davin’s nose. “My detachment of stormtroopers is relieving the Thirty-seventh Detachment that has been stationed at Mos Eisley on Tatooine. We’ll be assigned to the governor, but we’re not in his chain of command—my superior is in the next sector, half a light-year away. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not going directly to Tatooine, so I’ll have a month to break in a young Jawa slime like you, turn you into a real stormtrooper. You’ll learn pretty quick what it’s like to be a foot soldier.” Captain Terrik spat the words out of his mouth and grinned at Davin. “Any more questions, golden boy?”

  Davin felt what hope he had left seep out of him. Standing at rigid attention just microns in front of Captain Terrik’s face, Davin knew what it was like to jump from a crashing ship into a pit of burning fuel.

  Davin Felth was in the best shape of his life when he prepared to land on Tatooine. But getting there on board the troop transport the past month had been pure hell.

  The twenty stormtroopers in the detachment had all pitched in in some way or another, “helping” Davin get up to speed in the rigorous training. Their normal three-month period of disciplining, schooling, and physical fitness was compressed into a never-ending nightmare for Davin. The stormtroopers were not about to allow a mere AT-AT operator, although a graduate of Carida Basic Military Training, into their esteemed ranks without passing through a minimum of ritual.

  Davin did not have the time to be homesick or lonely, although his thoughts sometimes drifted to his two roommates back at Carida. He wondered where they had been assigned.

  Ten hours before landfall, Davin marched up to the quartermaster and collected his desert gear: heat-reflective armor, comlink, filtermask, blaster rifle, blaster pistol, temperature-control body glove, utility belt, energy source, and concussion grenade launcher. He staggered to his cabin under the load of equipment.

  Davin donned his helmet with automatic polarized lenses. Fully outfitted in the desert-terrain gear, he clunked to the mirror in his small cabin and looked himself over. Like it or not, he was finally a stormtrooper.

  He used his chin to click on his chinmike, activating the comlink. He tapped into stormtrooper radio traffic for the entire troop ship: “Access to AT-AT bay now open.” “Cold assault and aquatic assault detachments reporting still in stasis.” “Tatooine landing for refurbishment ready when ready.”

  A series of voices checked in. Davin thought he recognized some of the stormtroopers’ voices.

  There was a long pause of silence. Sounding irritated, Captain Terrik’s voice came over the comlink. “Ten twenty-three? Are you up and ready?”

  It took Davin a full two heartbeats to realize that Captain Terrik was speaking to him.

  “Ten twenty-three ready, sir.”

  “Report to the landing craft, ten twenty-three. Prepare to disembark. Move it!”

  “Yes, sir.” His name stripped away, Davin had been assigned the emotionless number 1023 as part of his stormtrooper indoctrination. Their zealous devotion to duty demanded denial of the individual, pledging their allegiance only to the Emperor. Unwilling to make that commitment, Davin turned his thoughts to his family, his friends, as the training attempted to squeeze away his memories. His fellow stormtroopers reveled in the mystery that surrounded their existence, their lack of identity. With no one to turn to or confide in, Davin felt miserable.

  It only took a moment to gather up his meager belongings. The clothes he had taken with him from home seemed useless now, but he kept them as a reminder of the life he used to have. He stuffed them in a sand-colored duffel bag and carried them with his weapons down to the landing craft. He kept to the side of the corridor as he walked, trying to keep out of people’s way. A group of naval troopers double-timed around the corner.

  The corridor widened to the immense landing bay. Stepping inside, he felt as if he were outdoors. Worker droids ran along scaffolding that reached higher than an AT-AT; the bay was so wide that he had trouble seeing to the opposite side. He set off for the landing craft, halfway across the immense bay, to join the contingent of stormtroopers.

  “Ten twenty-three?”

  Davin swung his gear down and faced Captain Terrik. “Present, sir.”

  “You’re assigned to scout unit Zeta. Something came up. We’re delaying reporting to the garrison, so pile your gear in the storage compartment with the rest of the detachment.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Davin lined up and waited for Captain Terrik to finish his paperwork. Accepting a salute from the officer on deck, Captain Terrik faced the waiting stormtroopers. A warbling sound came over Davin’s comlink, informing him that Captain Terrik was going to a secure communications mode, using frequency-jumping techniques known only to the stormtroopers’ sensors. “Quickly now—change of orders. We’re deploying to the surface, bypassing Mos Eisley to participate in a search-and-destroy mission.”

  Someone asked, “What are we searching for, sir?”

  “An escape pod. It jettisoned from a Corellian Corvette evading Lord Vader’s Star Destroyer and landed somewhere on Tatooine.”

  Breaking military silence, a gasp went up over the secure link. “Lord Vader—here?”

  “That’s right,” said Captain Terrik grimly. “Now double-time on board the landing craft!”

  Although Davin was the last to board the spacecraft, he was set into his station before all the other stormtroopers in his detachment. Lord Vader! The very thought of the Dark Lord being so close to the backwater planet sent a chill through Davin. He hadn’t felt this strange since he had learned through the grapevine that Colonel Veers had never even mentioned Davin’s “kneeling” defense for the AT-AT to his superiors. It was almost as if Colonel Veers didn’t want anyone to know of the fatal flaw in the giant walker’s design.

  The stormtroopers sat mute as they left the troop transport, their home for the past month. Visual images of Tatooine flashed inside their helmets, transmitted from the intelligence network orbiting Tatooine. Computer-generated graphics pinpointed the most likely landing place of the small escape pod.

  As part of scout unit Zeta, Davin was tasked with reconnoitering the rocky highlands. He gripped his blaster rifle and stole a glance at the rest of the stormtroopers waiting patiently in two rows beside him. Everyone studied the data dump from the mother ship. He wondered how the others could remain so calm when they were about to embark on a mission. And for Lord Vader at that! He just won
dered why the pod was so important.

  The scouting craft landed with a bump. The side yawned open, spilling in hot air and brilliant sunshine. Davin pushed out and joined the other stormtroopers, who quickly lined up in front of Captain Terrik. No one spoke over the comlink until Davin heard Captain Terrik’s voice.

  “Lord Vader’s Star Destroyer is mapping the planet with a sensor scan, trying to locate the escape pod. It must have buried itself on landing, or was hidden by some Rebel sympathizers. We have a preliminary position on the pod from just before it impacted, so we’ll spread out and sift through all the sand on this planet if necessary to find it.”

  “Why is the pod so important, sir?” Davin surprised himself by blurting out the question; he only hoped that Captain Terrik would be so busy that he wouldn’t yell at him.

  “It’s carrying classified material, and that’s all you need to know. The point is that we need to find it … or we’ll have to explain to Lord Vader why a detachment of the Emperor’s Own failed in their duty. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Then listen up. Alvien and Drax squads, cover the next quadrant. Zeta squad, come with me. Headquarters at Mos Eisley has grav-lifted in three dewbacks to aid in the search—they can cover more territory than we can and will lead us to the pod if they get a scent. Start a circular search pattern, move.”

  The desert terrain was featureless, ever-shifting. Davin crunched his way through the sand, not sure what he was looking for, but knowing that some kind of evidence from the escape pod’s landing had to be present. He climbed a small hill. The desert spread out in every direction. They might as well have been the only ones on the planet.

  Seeing a rise in the sand below him, he scooted down the ridge and poked his blaster into the ground. He struck something hard! He clicked on the comlink. “Captain Terrik, ten twenty-three reporting. I think I found the pod.”