Chapter Text
Another bloody morning.
Cold morning.
Long morning.
Trooper TK-1803 didn’t mind the cold; he was perfectly isolated in his white stormtrooper armor.
What he did care about, and what he was annoyed by, was the lingering of the morning. This mudhole of a planet had an axial rotation that lasted several standard months. Its ugly white star of a sun was slowly rising since Imperial forces had landed here last week and it looked just like morning. As if the sun was just rising above the horizon.
Endless bloody morning.
The fighting in the first few days had been fierce but it had been over quickly. Rebel forces had since retreated into the hills to the east. The Imperial Army contingent of the Seventh Fleet would pursue them in the next few days.
While the same bloody morning would be here no doubt.
But that would be the future and TK-1803, like most soldiers, didn’t think too much about the future, he thought about here and now. And now he was leading a patrol on the edge of the old battlefield.
“Rebel scum!” said another trooper, TK-2081, called Nomad, as he kicked a charred corpse of a rebel soldier. Human or maybe Twi’lek, it was hard to tell. The locals on this planet were tall, four-armed buggers that kept making faces at the Imperial troopers during the battle. Intelligence suggested these aliens had support from one of the rebel cells operating in this sector.
It seemed that the fat overpaid morons from Imperial Intelligence had been right. For once. These dead bodies definitely weren’t local.
“One less rebel to worry about,” said TK-1744, the third man in their patrol, who was referred to by his friends as Poacher. “One less to worry about when we pursue the bastards into the hills.”
“If they are smart they’ll surrender,” Nomad added. “But no one should ever accuse them of being smart.”
TK-1803 sighed. His two comrades were spoon-fed the Imperial propaganda. Nomad enlisted because he believed in the Emperor’s New Order and wanted to help build it.
TK-1744 enlisted because his dad was in the Stormtrooper Corps, having enlisted a day after the old clone trooper program was discontinued. His son followed in his dad’s footsteps when he was still 17.
TK-1803 didn’t have any ideals or any family tradition. He didn’t have a family, period. His mother was some sort of criminal in Coruscant underbelly, he never met his father. He joined the Empire to get food on the table.
Actually no, that was not the only reason. He wanted to prove himself. Constantly. On the streets, the bigger kids were sneering at him. Then all potential employers. Only the best were accepted into the stormtrooper program, so that was where he went.
And then he realized many of the army officers, not to mention navy officers, still looked down at him. For them, stormtroopers weren’t really people. Just something barely better than a clone or a droid. Their commanders were mostly fat overpaid bastards who moved icons on a holographic screen and if their orders killed a thousand stormtroopers, they didn’t lose any sleep over it.
That was why they didn’t like troopers leaving their barracks without their helmets. Didn’t want the reminder that their expendable grunts were people too.
So TK-1803 didn’t really feel any sort of disdain for the dead rebel soldiers. They were just some poor buggers who happened to be wearing a different uniform. Some senator wanted to be brave and threw in with the rebels, some Imperial moff wanted to look strong and decisive. And it was poor buggers like TK-1803 and the charred corpse in front of him who went to fight.
“What do you think, Skinny?” Nomad asked. Skinny was TK-1803’s nickname, one he carried from the slums of one of the Coruscant lower levels. He hated it and couldn’t wait to get rid of it. But the callsigns in the Imperial Stormtrooper Corps weren’t particularly imaginative and once you got one, it tended to stick. He used to be slim and tiny, so he was called that. No one cared that he was now a big muscular man, much bigger than his other two troopers.
“I think, you should check that big rock over there, Nomad!” he ordered. “And Poacher, you climb that small hill and scan the western approach.”
They weren’t particularly bright but they recognized both an order and that he was in no mood for stupid chitchat.
“Roger,” his two men said in unison and moved to the right.
A new voice came through his helmet com.
“TK-1803, friendly vehicle approaching your position,” the Besh company comm specialist’s voice said.
“TK-1803, copy,” he said and turned. He saw it now. A command speeder, with just three people in it. A driver, an officer in battle armor and another soldier manning the gun in the rear to give their officer a sense of protection.
Then his mind froze as he noticed the battle armor of the officer. It was not the olive gray as was typical, this one was white.
There had been only one white officer armor like this. And even if there were more, Skinny noticed the pale blue face. There was only one officer who was blue.
That was the Seventh Fleet’s commanding officer.
That was Grand Admiral Thrawn.
Coming to look over the battlefield his ground forces had won no doubt. Then he’d be back aboard his star destroyer in an hour, moving icons on a holographic table again.
TK-1803 wondered why had Thrawn even bothered to dress in the armor.
“Eyes down,” he advised his troopers. If stormtroopers didn’t see the high-ranking overpaid bastard, they weren’t required to salute, bow, scrape, none of that, and they could just be left alone to do their bloody job and…
A sudden explosion interrupted his thought.
World shattered.
The command vehicle suddenly exploded. Or more precisely it was hit by something. Before Skinny could finish his turning, the speeder went into a dive and crashed into the ground. The hit must have come directly at the front of the vehicle and…
His training kicked in.
“Contact, contact! Shots fired at the command vehicle, I repeat: shots fired at the command vehicle. Vehicle down, vehicle down.”
He raced towards it and then he noticed movement. Three rebel speeder bikes coming from the tree line.
Must have been a patrol. Like his. But when they’d seen the commander of the entire bloody fleet – in his white armor – they couldn’t resist.
“Movement at the tree line, fire!” he ordered. But he knew they were too far away to hit something effectively and neither of his two men were any good marksman.
And then he noticed something else. Another movement. Someone was crawling out of that command vehicle.
Thrawn.
He was alive.
And the three rebel speeder bikes were turning, coming for another pass.
Directly towards him.
TK-1803 didn’t think, didn’t ponder. He didn’t do anything that could resemble a conscious decision.
He just ran.
Run towards the grand admiral.
His two soldiers were further away, they couldn’t get there in time, but he didn’t worry about that either.
He just ran.
And as he was approaching the burning vehicle, he raised his E-11 rifle and fired at the approaching speeders.
Blood was boiling in him. He actually was angry. At the rebels for attacking, at Thrawn for getting his stupid ass blown under him, at the war, at this damned planet with this bloody endless morning, at all the bullies and officers and all the “better people” who looked down at him.
He let out an almost animal howl and one of the rebels fell down from the speeder. Dead before the body even hit the ground. The speeded crashed into a nearby rock, but Skinny didn’t even notice. He kept firing and moving.
The remaining bikes twisted, their riders turning to face this new threat but they therefore missed both Thrawn and Skinny. Now they overflew them and were turning for another pass.
Skinny was by Thrawn. The grand admiral was shaken, his helmet lost, blood on his temples, he was reaching for a blaster by his side.
Skinny grabbed him by the arm and dragged him towards the mangled blaster turret at the rear of the crashed speeder which could provide some protection if not firepower. The twisted and burned metal created an almost alcove and he pushed Thrawn there and then positioned himself between him and the two rebel speeders.
He didn’t say anything, he couldn’t.
So he would die here. So what. When he enlisted in the bloody Imperial Army he knew he’d die somewhere.
He started firing and as the speeder bikes were turning, he shot another one.
This one went into a spin along with its rider and both crashed to the ground.
Then another explosion erupted just in front of them and TK-1803 felt his body lifting from the ground.
He hit the ground nearby just a split second later but it may have as well been a small eternity. He didn’t think about time.
Just another thing he didn’t care about.
He screamed, more in fury than pain, but he noticed his left arm was burned through the armor and his blaster rifle was mangled.
He threw it away and the speeder bike was again turning.
Thrawn was on the ground too, he must have been knocked out, but he was less hurt, being further from the explosion. His numb fingers were holding the blaster pistol, but the grand admiral didn’t get out a shot.
Skinny came quickly towards Thrawn, took the blaster from his hand, turned and shot.
One shot.
One raging stormtrooper.
The third speeder bike crashed into the ground.
Nomad and Poacher reached them.
He heard his own breath inside the helmet. Numbly looking at the burning vehicles around him.
He couldn’t believe he was still alive.
Nomad was saying something. Skinny’s training kicked in.
“Nomad, check the wreckage, see if any of the rebels are still alive. Poacher, you watch the perimeter, there may be more of the bastards!”
The troopers obeyed.
Skinny was still breathing. More vehicles were arriving, securing the perimeter.
The whole ordeal, he realized, must have taken about two minutes. Certainly not three.
He noticed movement behind him. He turned. Grand Admiral Thrawn was standing up. Blood on his cheeks and in his hair, his chest armor was scorched. He too was breathing heavily.
However, Skinny noticed something in his red eyes. This man wasn’t panicked. His body was of course also running on adrenaline, if these blue aliens had adrenaline glands, but this wasn’t grand admiral’s first experience with physical violence. Or with almost dying.
“Are you all right, Sir?” TK-1803 asked.
“I believe I am, trooper. And it seems I owe my life to you,” Thrawn said.
Skinny didn’t know how to reply to that. He remembered he was still holding grand admiral’s blaster, so he grabbed it by the barrel, clumsily with only one functioning hand, and handed it to Thrawn. “I believe this is yours, Sir.”
“Thank you,” Thrawn said and the red eyes were studying Skinny intensely.
He should go see a medic. Both of them should, but he was mesmerized under the grand admiral’s gaze.
His breath calmed down.
“Identify yourself,”
“Trooper TK-1803, Besh Company, 622nd Battalion, Sir!”
“Take off your helmet.”
He obeyed. His dark blonde hair was sticky with sweat.
The red eyes were even more intense now.
“That was a very brave thing you did, trooper,” Thrawn said.
“Only my duty, Sir!”
“I dare to disagree. Your actions, I believe, are called ‘above and beyond’ the call of duty.”
Again, he didn’t know how to reply to that, so he remained silent.
Something like a flicker of a smile crossed Thrawn’s face. “I’m giving you a field commission, trooper. From now on, you are a lieutenant in the Imperial Army. Congratulations.”
Skinny was gaping at the grand admiral, his brain not comprehending the information.
More troopers and officers now arrived. Among them one in an olive grey combat officer’s armor.
“Sir, are you alright?” he asked, breathless.
“Yes, General Bittenfeld, I am. I am alive that is. Thanks to this young trooper. Trooper to whom I’ve just given a field commission. So General Bittenfeld, meet Lieutenant…” Thrawn stopped and looked again at Skinny.
“What is your name?”
“TK-1803, Sir!” he said automatically.
“I mean your name, Lieutenant.”
He hesitated. “Sharpe, Sir. Richard Sharpe. With an ‘e’.”
Thrawn smiled. “Well, General Bittenfeld, meet Lieutenant Sharpe. I’ll entrust him into your care. I’m sure you’ll find a proper use of him once his wounds are healed.”
Bittenfeld was looking Sharpe up and down and then, slowly, but steadily, a huge smile blossomed on his face. “I believe I will, Sir. I believe I will.”