Femtroopers
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Xanadu story universe |
Femtroopers
While not exactly a sequel to 501st, this does contain some of the same characters. What can I say? I like stormtroopers. Maybe too much. For what a Femtrooper looks like, try the links on the discussion page. Apologies to any real members of the 501st, in case any ever come across this. Particularly if I accidentally use your designation.
“They are coming, I feel it! Call in a report to Base. And get the shield generators up!” SL-0075 barked at the rest of the group. Along with those others who’d elected to carry the things, James Brosseau, also known as TK-0480, hurried to obey. He knew that SL-0075, despite being a Vader, was not going to execute him or anyone else, but what would happen if they didn’t get the generators up was arguably far worse.
Portable shield generators like these were not evident in Star Wars, at all. They were a relic of the far more recent first person shooter Halo. But the 501st was not so inflexible as to reject such a critical resource because of some trivial anachronism. Many far more unusual tactics, allies, and items had been used since they had become more than cosplayers.
It took only a moment to place and activate one. From the inside, the shields were transparent and could be fired through, but they made excellent cover because, from the outside, they were opaque, and took a number of hits before going down. In the relatively narrow confines of Xanadu’s halls, it could make all the difference.
Seconds after the Vader’s warning, the quartet of shield generators were in place, set to cover the little group from both sides of the hall. Each tall ovoid shield could and did cover two people; there was space enough to pass between two shields or between shield and wall. All eight individuals, including SL-0075, braced behind them, ignoring the bewildered reactions of bystanders.
The patrol knew SL-0075; if the man had sensed any other threat one of the first priorities would have been to shoo away any bystanders who hadn’t fled the scene at the sight of a team of armored troopers headed by a Darth Vader. But a warning like that, followed by a command to erect the shields, really meant only one thing. And that thing focused exclusively on men and women who wore some form of all-concealing nonmedieval armor – they would shoot others, but only to suppress after being fired upon.
TK-0480 checked to make sure that it was on “stun”, then poked the muzzle of his E-11 through his shield, aware of others doing the same. His hands didn’t shake. They were perfectly steady, a happy side effect of being a stormtrooper. But, after he chinned a command to switch communications from ‘broadcast’ to ‘squad channel’, his mouth set into a thin line beneath his helmet. He knew what was coming.
In the days since he had been re-inducted into the Five-Oh-First, James had seen a lot of things that occasionally made him wish that he’d stayed out. Creepy women with bloody mouths and gaping eyesockets emerging from mirrors, the living and malevolent 7-Up machine, the whole incident with SHODAN, the encounter with a very pushy reporter who’d somehow acquired superpowers, the trio of rampaging Xenomorphs, that mess with the psycho serum, the “never-ending orgy” that had somehow actually made the news… There was one thing, though, that really got fear-sweat soaking into the lining of his armor.
Femtroopers.
James knew the story. Pre-Xanadu, it had been a sort of a joke, like the Elvis Trooper or Hello Kitty Vader but sexier. “Femtroopers” were attractive ladies who crafted and wore highly feminized versions of stormtrooper armor, usually exposing midriffs, always with womanly breastplates and “hot pants”, and over those, codpieces that looked more like thongs. Their boots usually had high heels, and the women themselves had a marked tendency to keep their helmets off, exposing their long, flowing hair – that, or the helmets were open in back so as to let hair flow freely.
Femtrooper armor did not meet the 501st’s standard for costuming, but a woman who had or could get such an outfit could usually show up with a more acceptable costume as well, so a number of them had been part of the 501st or otherwise connected to a different fangroup. Fems had usually been regarded by men and women alike with a mix of appreciation, exasperation, and dismay, depending.
Now, well… they weren’t. They were perhaps Xanadu’s gravest threat, at least to anyone who wore armor, and members of the 501st in particular. Even the narrowly-averted “gray goo” nanobot situation, which had almost been a total disaster, paled in comparison. After all, James knew he couldn’t have been the only one to consider approving the use of small nukes on the nannites if all else failed – but that wouldn’t work with this threat.
It would make it so much easier if we could just kill them outright, TK-0480 reflected unhappily. Blasters set to “kill” were just faster and more effective, and a lightsaber handicapped by the need to inflict no lasting damage just wasn’t as good. But no. While that would make things easier in the short term, there was no guarantee for later on. They might hit bystanders, the Fems might turn out to be salvageable, it would draw attention… at any rate, a lethal shot would cause trouble in the near future.
The 501st had previously been the world's largest organization of Star Wars cosplayers – primarily the “bad guys”. Now, they still looked like the “bad guys” to most people, and never mind that they acted nothing like most of Xanadu’s other overt villains. Now they were regarded with suspicion by almost everyone, due to the high visibility factor. A number of people stuck them with anything that could conceivably be blamed on them. Anything.
Five days after Eric Winters got up on stage, fifteen unrelated people had been discovered by a bystander walking alone at night. Four of them were dead on the scene, another had died before she could be treated, and all but one of them had been hacked up by what was unmistakably a lightsaber. The last one had clearly been shot in the neck by a blaster of some sort. The dazed accounts of the survivors varied, some seemed to indicate some kind of mass possession while others claimed a simple attack. It was said that a few of them remembered the attack, in a disjointed way – the commonalities between their stories summed up to be, “Suit. Sunglasses. Then - Red lasersword. White armor.” When raised, none of the dead were able to elaborate on this.
It could have been anyone, or any set of people. But the reasoning went that although “suit and sunglasses” could be literally anyone, a Jedi would not have had a red lightsaber and would not have needed to maim and kill those people, and a Jedi would not be in the company of anyone wearing white armor. Never mind all the flaws in that reasoning – the 501st was composed of “bad guys” who walked proudly in broad daylight, embracing their roles instead of loudly and repeatedly insisting that they weren’t what they looked like, and so they were suspect.
TK-0480 realized that he was gritting his teeth and made a conscious effort to stop. It wasn’t like the police had any other leads, after all. The bystander had had healing abilities. In using them, she had completely blanked the scene, making it literally impossible to find the culprit or culprits by magical or high-technological means. Even scent tracking was out. And with all the people and rampant chaos at Xanadu, conventional detective work wasn’t much help either. It was only natural that they were frustrated; it really was a good thing that they knew better than to overtly accuse the 501st. It helped that someone called "Doctor Sands" had reviewed the facts, conducted some interviews, and declared to investigators that the 501st had not been involved in the incident.
And all of this has absolutely no bearing on Femtroopers, James told himself as the first one came into view ahead of him, shouldering some furries aside in his side of the hall. As with all combat situations he’d encountered, the stormtrooper felt better once it was actually in progress and he could assess the situation. Nothing was quite as bad as the anticipation.
“This side! Counting off!” Sharing a shield with him – and a room, but that had no bearing on the current situation either – was ID–4102, also known as Lieutenant Julia. As an officer, she did not wear full armor – a clip in her ear let her listen in on the helmet frequency enjoyed by the rest of the patrol, but of course she needed a handheld com to speak into it. Not that it really mattered at this range. “I see seven, eight, nine of them.”
“Confirm nine,” James said, letting his eyes flick over each one in turn. The first shots, snapped off at long range, streaked past or struck and dissipated on his energy shield, sprays of bright pink. Behind him, the four members of the patrol whose shields were oriented towards the wrong side quickly rotated their cover. Bystanders, hearing and seeing the start of the firefight, finally began to flee the scene, which meant that he and his patrol could return fire. “TK, one TR, one TC, one Samus. No SL.”
He could almost feel the other seven members of the patrol sighing in relief. There had been a time when there were only a handful of Femtroopers, all of them TKs – stormtrooper-based, in other words. That time was over. Fortunately, Royal Guards and Sandtroopers weren’t too dissimilar to the basic model when it came to a firefight, and while the Samus would probably be a pain, they could handle her. Patrols had before.
Then SL-0075 interjected with, “Careful. I feel others, lying in wait.” His ominous, deep voice lightened marginally as he added, “More evidence of tactics. They might be getting smarter. I hate these things.”
“Who doesn’t?” Lieutenant Julia adjusted the settings of her DL-44, ramping up the power of her shots. No one had anything else to add. By and large, banter was relegated to the otherwise 'boring' parts of a patrol.
Firing at range, TK-0480 sighted carefully and squeezed the trigger, clicking his tongue in frustration as the blue stun rings sizzled but failed to pierce his target’s armor. He’d aimed for the bare midsection, but somehow had hit the armored breastplate, as if the shot had changed direction. This was not the first time that had happened, but he was always slightly surprised.
This particular Fem was apparently not bright enough to stay in the cover she had. A few shots more, not all of them his, got through, and the Femtrooper dropped, stunned. One of her fellows stopped to drag her off, letting James pick another target. Individually, the Fems weren’t much of a threat. And in the first few days of Xanadu, there had only been a few of them. Unfortunately, Femtroopers, much like zombies, were Plaguer-class threats. In a word, they were infectious.
Fem blasters – or arm cannons, or any of the other weapons they used - sometimes looked normal, other times came with frivolous details like sequins or ribbons or bright girly colors that gave Julia a headache. Apparently it depended on the Fem. What really made them different was the fact that the bolts they emitted were hot pink – and marginally faster and more powerful than the blue ring-shaped bolts produced by the standard blaster. When they penetrated armor, Femtrooper bolts caused pain, pins-and-needles numbness, and temporary paralysis, if a victim was particularly unlucky and was shot multiple times or in an unarmored region.
Paralysis lasted only an hour or so, during which the Fems swarmed. If you had friends or allies to guard you or drag you to safety, you recovered. If you had none, or they couldn’t keep you, the Femtroopers carried you away. They would then run, scattering and managing to lose pursuit, and if the victim wasn’t retrieved before then…
It was a contentious issue throughout the 501st, but all indications seemed to say that victims, not all of them from the 501st or even connected to Star Wars, were assimilated and, themselves, became Femtroopers. In recent encounters Fems in revealing armor styled like Samus Aran, the Master Chief, some Mandalorians, and various Power Rangers had appeared – and before the disappearances of men and women who had come to Xanadu in such armor, the Fems had been purely Trooper-derived.
They might have been killed or hidden away somewhere, but it seemed far more likely that they had been brainwashed and converted. At Xanadu, stranger theories had proven true. Shouting the right name or designation distracted the Fem, if only for a moment, but no other signs of sapience had been reported, even from the more telepathic of the 501st's Force-Sensitives.
Proof, as far as James was concerned, came in the form of the fate that had recently befallen SL-2128, one of the Vaders. He had been walking alone to clear his head, something that Vaders did often, what with all their issues. Lone wanderers were the Fem’s favorite targets, but nobody had thought that a Vader would have too much trouble. They were - well, they were Vader. Eyewitnesses, instinctively retreating at the sight of him, hadn't actually seen it happen, but they did report a large number of Femtroopers in the area at about the right time in the right place. The end result, seen only a few days later, was not pretty.
Well… As he and his patrol fired into the enemy and were fired upon, James had to be honest with himself. He’d seen the result in person, and it was pretty. But it was also terrifying and intensely disturbing. And the most dangerous Fem alive, what with the Force and the instantly-paralyzing pink-bladed lightsaber. She’d struck and carried off Kenneth Matthews or “Sir Ken”, Makaze’s Squad Leader. That had never happened before – Sith and Squad Leaders had been inviolate – they had been threatened and they had been injured, but never killed or taken. Now, not so much.
It was now standard policy to have one Force Sensitive member in every patrol, just in case. Mara Jades, who wore no armor and thus were not directly targeted, were favored, as were Vaders despite the intimidation factor and prickly temperaments. With very few exceptions, Mauls were fickle and hard to get along with, the single Dooku remaining in the 501st was as arrogant as hell, and as for the others… well, they varied. After Sir Ken’s abduction, TK-0480 usually stayed in whichever group SL-0075 was in. It was that, or refuse to patrol. And that would be a coward's choice, almost equivalent to abandoning the squad.
Splashed repeatedly by bursts of enemy fire, the shield started to ripple visibly, a sure sign that it was about to collapse. James did not swear – he’d found that since rejoining the 501st cursing was no longer quite as automatic – but he and ID-4102 backed away hastily.
There were fewer Fems in sight now. The Samus, who’d taken a few hits but wasn’t quite down, charged her arm cannon and let loose a cometlike burst of quick pink energy. The burst streaked in an arc overhead, avoiding the failing shield.
From reports made by other patrols, James knew that these energy blasts didn’t act like blaster bolts. When they hit they “splashed” the impact vicinity – and contact with a lightsaber counted as being hit. Fortunately, there was a Force user on the patrol.
SL-0075, whose job it was to parry whatever he could, volleyed it easily with the Force, and the lump streaked back over.
When it hit and splattered, the burst of bright light caused Julia to snarl an oath and James’s eyepieces to polarize, darkening to protect his eyes. He saw then that it had taken one of the Fems down and shook up the others, but it had also collapsed the shield. If TK-0480’s patrol could drive the Femtroopers off, they could retrieve the shield generator and allow it to recharge, but for now it was out of commission.
A bolt hit him in the gut, with an impact that felt like a kick. His armor deflected most of it, but beneath it James felt the now-familiar pins-and-needles sensation. Julia shot a look at him, but seeing that he was fine turned back to the enemy. A couple of other troopers weren’t so lucky. A hit directly in the eyepiece or exposed body stocking could cripple – and his peripheral vision and the muffled gasps and pain-filled hisses over the com showed and told him that that had just happened. Fems weren't particularly good shots - it seemed that becoming a Fem involved losing all but the most basic blaster skills - but anyone could get lucky.
Had the Fems been more tactical, this might have been the start of a long and grueling firefight, as both sides were worn down by attrition. And indeed, in some previous encounters that had happened; in each case eventually someone or something showed up to break the stalemate. This time it didn’t. Instead, the enemy saw one or another of the downed troopers and rushed forward en masse over the collapsed shield, abandoning cover and leaving themselves completely open. Had James been a tactician, he would have laughed. As it was, he merely smiled.
Mentally switching over from “sharpshooter” to “mass fire”, trading accuracy for volume, TK-0480 and the other troopers opened up. For several seconds, bursts of blue light completely obscured his view of the enemy, and the sound of stun bolts overwhelmed everything else.
Unfortunately, an only slightly altered E-11 blaster rifle like those issued to stormtroopers wasn’t suitable for sustained continuous fire. Neither was Lieutenant Julia’s model, or anything carried by the other members of the patrol. Rather than exhaust their Tibanna gas canisters, the patrol ceased firing almost simultaneously.
Vapor rose from the singed carpet and the Femtroopers crumpled upon it. There was no motion or return fire. James blinked, surprised when none of them did more than twitch. Not one had so much as been left in reserve. Too easy, was his first thought. Way too easy. Did the shields really make such a difference?
Unthinkingly he looked to Julia for orders; as a lieutenant to his ensign she outranked him. But she said nothing, and he could tell from her face that she didn’t have any more certainty than he did. Although he knew, intellectually, that she was a “real” Imperial lieutenant only as far as he was a “real” stormtrooper, it was still a blow to his confidence.
Just as automatically, TK-0480 looked next to SL-0075. The tall, masked Sith was as impossible to read as ever, barely moving except to let his gloved fingers shift and tighten over the hilt of his lightsaber. No orders from there, either. The only sound coming through James’s audio pickups was that heavy, regular breathing.
This had never happened before, not quite like this. Usually the Fems ran, carrying away any casualties they could get at, or else the 501st ran, though that was rare. Now and again the exchange was interrupted by various and sundry third parties. And more than once an understrength patrol had disappeared after contacting base with news of an attack. But this was new.
About twenty seconds after ceasing fire – it felt like far longer – Lieutenant Julia shook her head and spoke up in her ‘command’ voice. “The unexpected happens. C’mon, lads, go on and see how many we’ve netted. I’ll comm back to base, tell them wh- grhk-“
SL-0075’s arm had shot forwards, hand clamped and tightening over empty space. Meters away, ID-4102 had been lifted off of her feet. Her eyes were wide and terrified as she clawed and clutched at her throat, her face turning scarlet.
James froze completely, locked in place. Like any good servant of the Empire, it wasn’t his to question why, although inwardly he was railing against the conditioning that held him motionless.
In the next instant, Julia was released to fall to her knees, coughing and gasping for breath.
“Do not think to instruct me, Lieutenant,” the Vader rumbled, somehow bigger and more intimidating than James had ever seen him before. All protests and accusations died before they could quite form, and he knew from the rigid postures and the shocked silence around him that the rest of the patrol felt similarly. Obey. There’s a reason why he outranks you, the voice of Imperial experience whispered. And it’s not just because he could kill you without any exertion.
“My… humblest apologies… for the infraction, Lord Vader,” ID-4102 managed raspily between gasps, her eyes watering. “I … would never dream … of presuming…”
Something changed in the Vader’s demeanor. He took a step back, somehow expressing horror even with the helmet hiding his face.
Several inarticulate sounds emerged from his artificial voicebox before he managed to speak again, a little higher and immeasurably less assured.
“Julia… I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean – I couldn’t stop myself, it was automatic… I need… I need to adjust my stimulant balance. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. I won’t let it happen again.”
For a few moments more James heard nothing but breathing – his own in the confines of his helmet, Julia’s strained gulps of air, and the stentorian breaths of SL-0075. This is why the Empire is maligned. This is why the 501st is so mistrusted, he realized, hating the fact, feeling traitorous just for thinking it. This is why.
It wasn’t this Vader’s first outburst, nor was it the worst to crop up in the ranks. Every Vader in or out of the 501st had a different degree of mental alteration, and there was a lot of fiction featuring the man they’d costumed as, with different characteristics in the movies versus comics or novels. Some were inclined to fly into a rage, others were comparatively steady. Until now, TK-0480 had usually put the man in the second category.
“No… no need, my lord,” Lieutenant Julia said at last, breaking the silence. Her officer’s cap had fallen off; in a quick motion the woman retrieved it and settled it over her short, dark hair before rising unsteadily, not looking at anyone.
“Don’t,” SL-0075 said, as quietly as his voice could manage. “Please. I am so sorry.”
“It happens.” The Lieutenant was sill pale, but had already recovered some of her aplomb. That, too, was part of being in the 501st. She blinked as if a thought had occurred to her. “In future, all of my orders are directed only at those under my command, even if I phrase them in such a way that they seem to be directed at others. I am your subordinate, and mean no disrespect, no matter what I say.”
“Yes… I understand, Lieutenant.” The Vader paused. “Someday I would like to meet Lucas and Travis and Stover and all those others and… I don’t know.” That was a common half-serious complaint among the 501st, that one member or another would hunt down the people who were crucial to the Star Wars franchise, as if Xanadu was their fault. But James had never heard SL-0075 express that sentiment before.
ID-4102 managed something like a smile and then, sharply, “Lads, what did I tell you? Gather up the enemy so we can head back before Murphy’s Law hits us again. Today's foray is cut short.”
Although he took half a step before he could stop himself, James didn’t immediately head off like the rest of the patrol. SL-0075 had once been a close personal friend, and ID-4102 had been his girlfriend. They had been friends with each other. That hadn’t disappeared; it was still there. It had just changed. He really didn't want it to change further.
Lieutenant Julia glanced over at him. Somehow, despite his helmet, she was able to read him instantly. At one point this would have bothered him, but an officer had to know her command. “James, go. We need to finish up here.”
“This is a personal issue,” SL-0075 added. “I will not harm the Lieutenant. You are under her command, but now she is under mine. She is competent and was not at fault. It will not happen again.”
Not entirely happy, but aware that he wasn’t going to get a better answer, TK-0480 nodded curtly. “Sir.” He obeyed. There was a reason why they outranked him, and never mind intellectually knowing that it had been nothing more than a preference in costumes. When it came down to it, they were on the same side. But his rank was low enough that he could simply be dismissed when it was convenient.
It actually didn’t have much to do with the fact that he was merely a stormtrooper ensign, James reflected as he rejoined the rest of the patrol. Rank was less a matter of following the Imperial Table of Organization, and more like holding to the elected positions previously held. Back when it had just been an organization of Imperial cosplayers, he’d never done a lot of organizing or planning, hadn't made any effort to get voted into authority. He’d just made costumes and followed suggestions. It was interesting how that had carried over – rank in Xanadu’s 501st was a complicated thing, not always following appearances, because there were people who had never before shown an interest in leading and were now leaders. Troopers and minor officers who weren’t in charge followed orders, but everyone else who wasn’t helping to lead or administrate tended to stand aloof and didn’t always take orders well. Which had just been demonstrated to the patrol.
They were all troopers, of one strain or another. But that didn’t stop them from talking, even in potentially hostile territory. The 501st considered any part of Xanadu except Base – rudimentary though that was – to be dangerous. Going through it alone, unarmored, or without weapons was unthinkable, at least for most troopers. And talking during a firefight was reserved for Force-Sensitives and a few others. When no other people were in sight? That was somewhat more acceptable, as long as work and wariness were maintained.
The other five troopers in the patrol had switched their coms back, speaking “out loud” - that was, broadcasting their voices at normal speaking levels through the external helmet speakers instead of over the private channel. They were, of course, discussing what had just happened.
James listened with half an ear as he gripped the Samus by her ankles and, with the help of another man, towed her to a point against the wall. What they were going to do with these unconscious Fems, he had no idea. A few had been captured or detained before, but they had subsequently been rescued before anyone could quite decide whether to turn them over or keep them at Base. Some people, based on what had been observed by the 501st's more telepathic members, held that Femtroopers shared a hive mind, and knew where every member was at all times. James hoped that they didn't.
“It had better be just a slip up,” he said absently in response to a query about what he thought. “Worse has happened and been shrugged off. It might be smartest to try and ignore it. I don’t want him mad at me.”
The temporarily semicrippled trooper - one of the relatively few nonofficer women who'd stayed women - stood watch as James and the others collected fallen Femtroopers. The patrol was too professional to kick at the Fems or otherwise take much frustration out on these fallen foes, but more than one was dragged by her hair, and each was dumped quite unceremoniously into the pile.
It looked almost disturbingly like a collection of limp Barbies that happened to be dressed in skimpy trooper-inspired outfits. James had seen weirder things.
“Looks like people are already starting to trickle back through here;” the watching trooper observed, her voice tight with discomfort but otherwise cool and collected. “Usually it takes them at least a few more minutes after the firing stops – oh, fusst.”
Looking up, TK-0480 saw them. This time he did swear, just prior to switching back to the helmet frequency. “They brought backup. My Lord” – he’d meant to rattle off SL-0075’s designation, but the title had slipped past instead – “we are going to need you now.” Blasters drawn and aimed, the troopers edged together back into the protection of the remaining shields. The Vader shouldered past to stand between the patrol and the Fems.
There were a lot of them. James hadn’t known that there were so many in all of Xanadu – evidently, they had been quite busy. Troopers of all strains, various Samus Arans and Master Chiefs, Power Rangers, Womandalorians, and a number of odd ones that James was not familiar with, milling and shifting about in a disorganized way that made it difficult to estimate their numbers, but he suspected triple digits. There were enough that, had they so desired, they could have just started shooting as a horde and taken the entire patrol down in seconds. Even SL-0075 couldn’t block that many bolts.
But there was something yet more worrying in view. Heading the horde, not the tallest but by far the most prominent, was the Fem’s Vader. The one who had, last time, removed the leader of Makaze Squad, the one who had been SL-2128. Well, James hoped it was that one. He really didn’t like the thought that they might have others. She stood out and alone, her posture indicating eagerness.
SL-0075 took a ready stance, lightsaber active, and waited.
Enough time passed, tense and still, for James to fret. Reinforcements, even if Julia was comming for them now, couldn’t possibly get there in time. He'd seen the maps and the patrol routes; he knew how far they were from Base. The closest patrol couldn’t be less than twenty minutes away, and another eight wouldn’t make much difference here. Just because the Femtroopers hadn’t started shooting yet didn’t mean that they wouldn’t. The stormtrooper did not take one hand off of his blaster rifle to touch the small thermal detonator at his belt - but he thought about it. I don’t really want to have to use this. But if I must, I will.
“You are all pathetic.” What? The voice was strange – it was indisputably female and melodic, but also deep, with the same slow intonation James had heard from every Vader in the 501st. It was also coming from the Fem Vader.
Fems never spoke. Ever. They’d cried out now and again, but the stormtrooper hadn’t even heard rumors that they still retained language at all. To hear one talk, in that strange warped version of James Earl Jones’s voice… it was creepy. It made TK-0480’s skin crawl.
“Truly, a pathetic show of resistance,” the Fem continued. By this point James was used to the way that the voices of Vaders were out of synch with their loud, assisted breathing, but that voice made it disturbing all over again. “You must see that you are finished. Give in. It will be much easier on you. Lets you maintain some part of yourself.”
Far more quickly than James, SL-0075 recovered his voice. “The right path is seldom the easiest one. I will not surrender, and neither will my men.”
Yeah, you tell her. James licked his lips behind his faceplate. The unexpected happens. Ours is not to question why, but to act anyway, he reminded himself, flicking the setting selector of his rifle over from “stun” to seldom-used “kill”. From the flicker of motion on his peripheral monitors and the near-simultaneous clicking around him, he knew that the rest of the patrol had done the same. Femtrooper armor was really no more effective than that of normal stormtroopers – a shot at the correct angle would burn through it and wound or kill the armor’s occupant. We may regret this later. That's too bad.
The Fem laughed. “Of course you’d say that. I was Ess El Twentyone Twentyeight. I remember. But isn’t it a pain, to have to adjust stimulant balances and nutrient feeds every day to keep from starving? To be forever confined to a terrifying suit with a control panel on the front, reliant on life support, inspiring fear and loathing from the masses? To be forced to talk like this all the time?”
“What difference does that make?”
“I had the same problem. It isn’t much fun to be Darth Vader for more than a few hours. Once you’ve touched the Force, though, becoming someone or something that isn’t Force Sensitive is utterly unthinkable. But there is a way around that.”
Twentyone Twentyeight, still holding her lightsaber in one black-gloved had, reached up and removed her helmet. The sound of her amplified breathing faded away as she pulled the entire thing off; it was a single, solid item, not in pieces like the real thing.
Her face, although pale and tinged with a sort of sickly grayish color, was… surprisingly normal, as attractive as the body hinted at beneath the feminized version of Vader’s suit. With a scar over one eye and long, wavy brownish-blonde hair, she somewhat resembled pre-Mustafar Anakin. And yet, without the helmet, she looked almost normal.
“Not even any burn scars.” The Fem’s voice was higher now, and slightly husky. Compelling. It made James want to lean forwards and listen. “I can slip out of this, wear a jumpsuit with gloves or something that covers my prosthetics, and enjoy a cup of coffee without getting so much as a second glance. Wouldn’t you like that?”
Her response was only local silence, broken only by lightsaber drone, SL-0075’s harsh breathing, and the click of armor against armor as the patrol and the Fems shifted subtly. Out of sight, the noisy insanity of the rest of Xanadu continued unabated, but here it was quiet.
"There's more." Twentyone Twentyeight smiled broadly, actually dimpling, although her posture did not change. "I can sneak out, walk around outside of Xanadu. And you know what? Nobody runs. Nobody calls the police. Everyone stares, it's true. Out there, I get a lot of attention. Not many women are almost seven feet tall and look like this. But all in all, it's the good kind." Her smile shrank, became more sympathetic, as did her voice.
"Have you even called your parents? Do they even know what's happened to you, other than that you're alive? They love you and care for you, sure, but you know how hard it would be for them to accept this, don't you? Give in. It feels unpleasant, sure, but no more than living. You lose something, sure." The Fem shrugged jerkily. Her face and voice were extremely nonchalant - her body language, on the other hand, was tense and intent, leaning forwards and braced as if to spring.
"You can't stay with the old costuming group. They're too caught up in the delusion of being part of the Empire to care. You also have to give up a thing or two up here, sure." Twentyone Twentyeight prodded her forehead with one gloved finger, in a gesture that was probably supposed to look casual. "And two or three other things - if you're anything like I was, they're not in great shape anyway. But really, does it matter? Individuality is overrated anyway - you're already going by a number instead of a name. It's not much of a trade. You get people back, regular people. You keep power. The Force doesn't care."
And then the Fem was silent again, waiting.
It was a fairly long wait. Twentyone Twentyeight looked confident that SL-0075 would take this chance. James wished he was that sure that his friend would refuse. But the Sith was silent and motionless.
TK-0480 later admitted to himself that he wasn't sure what his choice would have been, had he been in the Sith's place. All the points Twentyone Twentyeight had made were perfectly valid. Out of everyone in the 501st, Vaders by far bore the most mistrust and hostility from outsiders. The thought of being able to slip out from under that must have been unbearably tempting. But...
Fortunately, Lieutenant Julia finally asked the questions that TK-0480 hadn't been able to phrase.
"And what happens in return?" she asked boldly. "Nothing comes without a price. What do they gain by this? What happened to Sir Ken? What happened to TK-7095, to TX-1332, and BH-3842, and TI-9711, and all those others? Why have they been ambushing us, if they only wanted to help? Why is this the first time we've ever heard from anyone who they took away, part of the 501st or not? They've been abducting us, and abducting supersoldiers and bounty hunters and the like, and there has to be a reason for that beyond spreading. And it isn't that they've been offering this all along. There's really nothing any of the others could have gained from this."
The distance was surely too far for James to see the color of Twentyone Twentyeight's eyes. But for a moment while Julia spoke, as the Fem's face briefly twisted with rage, he thought he saw. They were bright, smoldering yellow.
"Don't listen to her!" The Fem's voice no longer sounded as compelling as it had before. She didn't seem to be aware of that; apparently, she hadn't expected anyone to interrupt. And yet - surprised and pissed as she sounded, something seemed off about it. Contrived. James shook off that thought as a distraction. "She hasn't been there, she doesn't know what it's like! The schutta doesn't even wear armor-"
"I would hear the Lieutenant speak," SL-0075 rumbled. The vocoder made it hard to be sure, but James thought he heard a touch of irritation.
"I don't know, and that is truth." Julia's face bore little expression - James knew her well enough to see that she was nowhere near as certain as she sounded, but he doubted many others could see that. Her voice was still a bit strained but otherwise clear and reasonable, and although there was authority in it, it was far from a command. "Impulsive behavior rarely works out well. We simply don't have the whole story. And I hate to dismiss your problems, but what would happen to us if y- urk- ah... hugh-" This time, as ID-4102 lifted off the floor and started to choke, her neck began to bruise, bands of angry red blooming across her throat like stains.
"Shut up..." Twentyone Twentyeight was hissing, gloved hand clenched in that familiar gesture.
SL-0075, rather than debate this, gathered himself and in an instant had crossed the distance, lightsaber swinging in a two-handed grasp. The Fem was too distracted to react in time and dodge or mitigate the attack. She could have been cut in half then and there - but instead, SL-0075 struck her with his fists, still locked together around the hilt of his weapon. Twentyone Twentyeight recovered almost instantly, activating her own lightsaber. The scene took about two and a half seconds.
If TK-0480 hadn't been living and working in proximity to Vaders and other Force-Sensitives, he would have thought that kind of speed was impossible - and had he been a bystander instead of a stormtrooper, he might have gaped in surprise. As it was, while it happened he was changing the angle of his E-11 blaster rifle, aware that the rest of the patrol was thinking along the same lines and doing the same. The moment he was certain, he opened fire.
Not on either side's Vader. That was practically tantamount to suicide. Instead, while the Lieutenant dropped to the ground, he fired at about knee-height, strafing the massed Femtroopers with rapid red bolts before they could react. One E-11 couldn't have taken down many before they wised up. Six, even coming from one point, was a different story. They fell like seed-heavy grain before an advanced harvester droid, front ranks first.
Click. The selector levels on all six rifles switched from "Kill" back to "Stun" almost as one, as if the squad had rehearsed this strategy beforehand. Just because a good chunk of the enemy was down and thoroughly disorganized didn't mean they were harmless. You didn't need use of your legs to shoot.
It was really something of an anticlimax. Maybe Femtroopers really did have some kind of a hive mind, maybe it was due to the Law of Conservation of Ninjitsu, which James had seen in action on several occasions - one ninja, monster, or cyborg was tough, but mass a bunch together and they were target practice - or maybe it was because they were too distracted by their Vader, but in short order there were only a few patrol's worth of moving Femtroopers in sight. There'd been some scattered and poorly-aimed return fire, and James had been winged by a glancing hit to the upper arm that stiffened his fingers, but the majority of them had been shot down with almost comedic ease.
The remainder, finally showing signs of awareness, were now taking cover and firing more carefully, but this was at a far enough range that TK-0480 felt he could check on ID-4102.
The Lieutenant was alive, and conscious - not that he'd really expected otherwise, but it was still a relief. She looked terrible, but was mobile enough that she'd opened up her medkit and wrapped a white salve-bearing band around her abused throat. Julia looked into his eyepieces and jerked her chin, a clear if nonverbal order. James complied. To linger where he was not needed and neglect to be where he was of use would take a far less professional trooper than him.
Unfortunately, at the moment there wasn't much he could do in terms of combat, either. The remaining Fems were a good distance away, far enough that the stun bolts - sometimes accurately, if derisively, called "blue rings" - weren't all that effective. The stun bolts produced by an E-11 moved relatively slowly; at this distance by the time one reached a target she had had ample time to duck out of the way. Fem's bolts were faster, but the patrol too was able to dodge at this range.
At some point another of the portable shield generators had gone down. James helped another trooper bring the remaining pair up in front of the patrol while the others kept them from being shot. But the remaining Femtroopers weren't aiming particularly well - they seemed to be shooting more to provide cover while they went after their fallen brethren, carrying them away one by one like foraging ants.
The fallen Fems - and although there weren't as many as he'd first thought there were more than a few of them, James estimated around three dozen or so - didn't look like they would be getting up any time soon. Even if they hadn't been stunned immediately after, the brief spate of full-power strafing had clearly burned through the thigh-high armored boots of many of them. He could see that from those who were closest, and although his helmet filtered out most of it, he could still smell it, a little like roast pig with the acrid overtones of burned armor. Someone sitting on the moral high ground would probably chew the squad out for that, but healers here at Xanadu, even ones with miraculous abilities, were a credit a truckload.
Carefully, the stormtrooper kept himself from directly looking at the fight between either side's Sith. TK-0480 hadn't been there at the very beginning when the 501st had first discovered that odd Phlebotinium that a lightsaber duel had, but he'd heard the story and had seen it for himself. Essentially, anyone watching who wasn't guarding themselves became entranced, fascinated. The fascination was strongest when a Dark Jedi or a Sith was involved, but even a raw Acolyte facing one of the Special Operations Detachment's Force-Sensitive stormtroopers could draw a slack-jawed crowd of bystanders. Duel entrancement didn't work on everyone, but the 501st had staged bouts on several occasions to distract the opposition.
Even so, lining up on the moving Femtroopers and firing when he could, James watched with his peripheral vision. Bystanders often surmised that, with relatively small eyepieces, a stormtrooper had no peripheral vision. To be fair, in the old 501st this had been true, and anyone just carelessly plunking a helmet onto their heads became confused and disoriented by what they saw. Still, bystanders failed to take the technology of those white helmets into account. On the monitors in his helmet TK-0480 and the majority of other troopers had three hundred and sixty degrees' worth of peripheral vision, and he was putting it to good use.
The two Vaders looked to be evenly matched, judging more by the fact that neither had triumphed yet than by any ability James had to judge skill. They were both of roughly equal height, but although SL-0075 looked somewhat broader-shouldered and seemed to be stronger his counterpart was visibly more agile. The duel moved, advancing and retreating as one opponent gained and lost ground to the other.
Their fighting styles were markedly different - SL-0075 appeared to be using a variant of Form Five, the perseverant Djem So, emphasizing his strength and power, with elements of resilient Soresu and aggressive Ataru, in an attempt to overcome his physical limitations. Now that he wasn't the one charging, he fought with one arm at his side, favoring vertical strokes and calculated bursts of energy.
Twentyone Twentyeight, conversely, was also working with Djem So, but her variant was tempered by a combination of Juyo and Ataru that displayed flexibility and ability to leap. As well as being female, she seemed to be both younger and somewhat less experienced. She was taller and more solidly built than most practitioners of the latter two forms, and it was possible that she had added those elements to this duel in order to show off-
A bolt skimmed TK-0480's helmet, momentarily shorting out his peripheral displays. They winked on again as James ducked and scowled into the inside of his helmet. Apparently he couldn't resist duel entrancement by watching via display. That was a little annoying - he would like to know if one or the other had the upper hand, even if knowing wouldn't help the patrol if Twentyone Twentyeight won - but not as much so as the rush of knowledge about lightsaber combat that had flitted through his thoughts. Knowing blaster skills and how to manage his helmet displays was one thing, and he had picked that up upon rejoining the 501st, but dueling styles? How in the worlds could that have anything to do with, well, anything, and why did watching impart that?
Femtroopers, James. Worry about Phlebotinium-provided knowledge when they're no longer shooting at you.
The stormtrooper turned up his external audio pickups, and rather more quickly turned them back down. The faint possibility that the enemy was discussing plans "out loud" amongst themselves - very faint, considering that no Femtroopers had ever been observed speaking before today - was outweighed quite quickly by the fact that he had no desire to hear Twentyone Twentyeight taunting her counterpart about nasty little personal details that no trooper could possibly want to know. And SL-0075's responses were just as bad, if less heated. James supposed that they both might be using the Dun Möch technique, essentially attempting to distract and make the other doubt. Vaders tended to do that a lot.
At any rate, he was better off not knowing - and if they were using a verbal combat form, by listening he was in danger of falling into duel entrancement. Again. Which, now that he was forewarned, was the same as deliberately failing his squad. And that, he would not do.
Peripheral displays showed some motion far behind him - Xanadu was packed enough that few sections remained untrafficked in daylight for long. A relatively stationary duel like this wasn't quite as panic-inducing as an all-or-nothing firefight, but James had no fears that bystanders would get much closer. At this range, only the sharpest-sighted of people were remotely likely to fall prey to duel entrancement, but most would see the troopers and the dark figures and stay far back.
ID-4102 was back up, the lines of her face set with pain. Her weapon was not an E-11 blaster rifle, but the smaller, slower-firing, and more accurate DL-44 heavy blaster pistol, the same model Han Solo used. Back before Xanadu, Julia had always preferred more conventional sidearms. Things changed.
A burst of blue rings sizzled and caught one of the distant Femtroopers in the throat as she was dragging an unconscious comrade; her body's reaction was to contract every muscle, throwing herself backwards violently before going limp. James grimaced in in the privacy of his helmet. It was a good shot, but the patrol wasn't making enough of them.
"Blue rings" were just too slow. But to switch to more accurate and powerful bolts was to risk killing the opponents - yes, everyone on the patrol rated at least "Sharpshooter" if not "Master" with his or her chosen weapon, but really, there were only a few places a blaster bolt could hit without killing its target. Maiming was bad enough; killing, even in the most extreme cases, was going to cause a lot more trouble.
"They'll be here soon," ID-4102 croaked. Her voice was all but unintelligible, a painful rasp, but the fact that she could speak at all was encouraging.
James snapped off a series of blue stun bolts, adjusting his aim up and down, and watched as his target, a Femtrooper in red and gold armor, performed a series of wild contortions, somehow only being hit on the most armored regions of her body. After a few seconds of that, just as he thought the blue rings were starting to get at her nervous system, he had to duck a burst of return fire. Naturally, by the time he could aim his E-ll the Femtrooper in question was behind a doorway. This was frustrating.
"Who will be here soon, Lieutenant?" he asked, belatedly remembering that she'd said something. It would normally have been rude of him, but even low-intensity combat was combat, after all.
"Reinforcements."
This quickly? TK-0480 had seen the maps of today's routes. He knew, roughly, where the closest patrol should be. But Julia was his ranking officer. She had to have resources that he didn't.
Unless that last Force Choke... To cover the unease that thought gave him, James reapplied himself to the enemy.
It was frustrating. The patrol's Force-Sensitive was effectively out of the firefight, fully occupied in what James took to be a fairly equal duel. Ever since Twentyone Twentyeight's ... defection ... and the capture of Makaze's Squad Leader, SL-0075 had accompanied the patrol, and firefights had shortened because the big Sith's presence tipped the scales and made stalemates like these much less common. He'd forgotten what it was like.
I've gotten spoiled. This isn't much of a fight - yes, we're being worn down by attrition just like the other side, but in this case it's not lethal; they're far enough away, too, that I don't think anyone will get carried off. All we have to do is hold out for reinforcements - even if Julia's people don't come, another patrol will get here sooner or later. Then their Force-Sensitive can drive off or ... incapacitate ... Twentyone Twentyeight, and we can likewise deal with the other Femtroopers. Or, eventually, superheroes or something will butt in and interrupt us. We have definitely been in worse situations.
The stormtrooper's eyes flicked to the helmet display that showed him what was directly behind him. The display was small and fairly low-resolution, but he did see people, humanoids, closer than the others, and continuing to come forward-
-and then the monitor showing what lay directly behind him wavered, the color leaching out of it, and it went grainy before vanishing entirely, as if its power supply had run out or been cut off.
Quickly it was followed by every other monitor and indicator in TK-0480’s helmet, leaving it dark. He used chin and lips to try and manipulate the controls built into it, but they had gone stiff and unresponsive.
With difficulty, James managed to get the emergency starter up. Purely mechanical, it unfolded into his mouth, allowing the stormtrooper to bite down on the prongs repeatedly. This was the same sort of contraption that pilots in depowered snubfighters used out in deep space – manipulating the mechanism generated a small charge that hopefully reset the main power.
"Hopefully" was the right word. It didn’t work. The prongs, now wet, withdrew and folded back into their compartment. His audio pickups seemed to have failed as well; TK-0480 could hear faint, muffled curses and indignant squawks that presumably came from his patrolmates, who were apparently involved in a similar malfunction. James added his voice to theirs, momentarily raised in frustration. Apparently the com wasn’t working either. Neither was climate control. It was starting to get very warm.
That should not have happened. True, the power supply to his armor was finite, but the power paks could be swapped out and recharged. Which he had done, in accordance to protocol and training, well before heading out on patrol. They should have been good for several days straight. At any rate, he should have seen some sort of warning indicator before the cascading failure.
There was really only one explanation for this. It had to be some form of Phlebotinium – the catchall word used by everyone in the 501st to describe the highly variable and often illogical effects of things like impossible technology, “pixie dust”, “magic rocks”, the presence or absence of certain items or individuals, and “The Power of Friendship”.
The 501st used it, yes – stormtrooper synchronity, duel entrancement, and the “trouble magnet” effect, among others, were all common tactical tools – but everyone in the 501st hated encountering it in any other situation. Phlebotinium threw off everything. This type of effect had so far always been temporary, wearing off with distance or when the Phlebotinium’s user was … convinced … to stop. That was probably the only good thing about it.
Like a savage kick, something – doubtless a Fem’s bolt, although he couldn’t see it – hit TK-0480 just above the knee and dissolved into unpleasant prickling and numbness. Quite as if his armor afforded no protection at all. He must have edged out of cover; half-blind, he worked mostly from his situational awareness and fitted himself more securely behind the shield.
That cinched it – these effects exactly matched what had happened the last time he had been in combat when Ewoks were nearby. The Phlebotinium pertaining to the proximity of a stormtrooper to child-favored small fuzzy creatures and certain heroic characters was intensely inconvenient.
Although he knew what was going to happen, James peered through his display-less eyepieces, noting the lack of his rifle’s targeting reticule, and fired through the shield at a piece of debris. His shot went so far wide that, without a working peripheral display, he didn’t quite see where or what it hit.
The unexpected happens, and we deal with it. The stormtrooper gritted his teeth in the near-total darkness of his helmet. It could have been worse, certainly. He could have been a Boba Fett – put one of those next to certain heroic individuals and he would be almost completely helpless. Mandalorians relied on their helmet systems far more heavily than stormtroopers did. But even so, James and every other trooper in the patrol was now turbolaser fodder, and that was more than bad enough.
A voice – he thought it might be Lieutenant Julia’s – spoke, harsh and muffled. She said something about “turning it down”, in a sharp tone.
She was answered by a second voice, only one word with two syllables. It might have been “sorry”.
Almost immediately TK-0480 heard a thin, barely-audible electronic whine, and without any other warning every system in his helmet reactivated at once, completely uncalibrated.
Taken by surprise, James hastily turned down his audio pickups, just barely managing not to catch the end of one of SL-0075’s viciously sardonic jibes. Something about tampons, of all things. The stormtrooper refused to try and follow that particular exchange, instead choosing to fiddle rapidly with his other systems, restoring them to defaults.
Light settings and color on the ninety degrees covered by his forward monitors, the size of his E-11’s targeting reticule on them, the visual and audio indicators that let him know if things were happening on other displays that he wasn’t already looking at. Similar settings on the secondary displays which, along with the forward monitors, covered a full one hundred and eighty degrees, as wide a field of vision as he enjoyed without a helmet. Finally, James set his peripheral displays, far less detailed but essential.
He saw that several new people had come up while his helmet had been offline, and he was not especially surprised to see that none of them were troopers, or bore real resemblance to anyone in the 501st. Somehow he'd managed to forget about the allies, blindly assuming that Julia's people were part of a patrol.
As the strangers moved up past the shield generators and positioned themselves between the patrol and the rest of the scene, they began discussing amongst themselves; shamelessly, James listened in and found that they were arguing about what to do about the two Vaders.
Now, as one almost casually spun a blue lightsaber and picked off a scattering of Femtrooper shots, he could see that there were eight of them. The size of the patrol was familiar, but the composition was not.
Two pilots, by their badges, in fatigues. One was a human male, the other a fish-faced Mon Calamari. A Wookiee, tall and hairy, glowering besides a woman with a body nearly as shapely as a Femtrooper’s who looked like a smuggler of some kind, although the stormtrooper didn't know how he knew. And no less than four Jedi of assorted sexes and species in robes.
They were Rebel Legion, of course. The 501st’s counterpart. Little better than terrorists, in TK-0480’s eyes. Seeking to overthrow the legitimate, stable Empire in favor of a copy of the corrupted, lethargic bureaucracy of the old Republic, which was all too ready to dissolve into anarchy, and willing to do whatever it took to do so, overlooking all manner of atrocities. Arbitrary rankings, often based on an aristocracy, and a bewilderingly random chain of command. No individual designations - they used character names.
And, of course, a heavy reliance on Jedi. Jedi, who outnumbered them to the point where they were in command, despite the fact that warrior monks and experience in day-to-day leadership did not go blaster-in-holster. It was completely unrealistic. And among them was a Luke Skywalker, the Emperor’s murderer, carefree and untouched by all the deaths he had sowed –
Oh, wow. Hold on. James shook his head, feeling as if he was pulling a wet, clinging rag from his faceplate. Now that he was out of it, he could hear his squad’s terse conversation over the com, mirroring his thoughts in a display of stormtrooper synchronity that would have been stunning if he hadn't been seeing it almost every day. They’re Rebel Legion. So what? “Them” and “us” – if there is a ‘side’, we share it, and we have more in common with each other than any of the others on this ‘side’.
A few weeks ago, there had been plenty of Star Wars fangroups with cosplayers. Club Jade, Docking Bay 516, Germany’s Official Star Wars Fanclub, the Jedi Assembly, and others. The Fighting 501st Legion and the Rebel Legion, sister organizations, were the largest and the only two to be officially sanctioned by Lucasarts.
Plenty of people had membership in both; the biggest real differences were that the 501st, older and larger, gave ID numbers to its members and accepted only costumes of characters portrayed as the “bad guys”, from the movies and the EU both, while the Rebel Legion used character names and accepted any “hero” costume but only from the movies. Quite a few characters overlapped.
James had no idea what outsiders were doing, other than the handful who, like himself, who had been re-inducted and changed after the Event. But anyone from any of those smaller groups or anyone who’d worn a Star Wars costume was either on their own, collected into tiny individual alliances, or had associated themselves with either the 501st or the Rebel Legion.
And at the moment, there was no hard and fast rule about which group any individual was attached to. There were troopers and “redeemed” Sith in the Rebel Legion, and there were two Luke Skywalkers in the 501st – one from the EU, dark and prideful, and one much younger with no memory of who he’d been before, a wide-eyed farmboy who had never so much as seen R2 D2 or picked up his father’s lightsaber. It looked like if there was a rule, it was “first come, first serve.”
The Luke in this band of Rebels looked like he was in his late forties and was repeatedly addressed as “Grand Master”. Along with the human pilot, he seemed to be in charge. They were debating courses of action. Such a debate was not often held by the 501st while out on patrol, let alone while being fired upon, but James supposed that having so many Force-Sensitives meant that they were unlikely to be caught completely unawares. The Jedi with the blue lightsaber picking off Fem shots stood as proof of this.
It looked like the situation was now no longer in the hands of the troopers. James quieted the part of himself which rankled at this by reminding himself that he’d been Rebel Legion too, once, before joining up with the 501st. Had things been different, he could easily have been one of these Jedi. Odd thought, that.
He caught the smuggler woman eying him with suspicion and allowed himself to smile tightly under his helmet. It was nice to know that he wasn’t the only one with a gut reaction.
“Rebels,” one of his patrolmates sighed over the com, signaling the end of this particular conversation. “And they’re saving our shebs. And we are officially allies. I’m surprised I lived to see the day.” It was the female trooper who’d been on lookout duty earlier. She sounded a bit better now, and more resigned than indignant.
“Yeah. It’s weird. That’s the way these things go,” TK-0480 responded, remembering just how far her trooper mentality went. “The unexpected happens…”
“And we deal with it. I’m fine, James. It’s not like I’ve forgotten. They may be crazy undisciplined Jedi-lovers, but they're not our enemies. I just prefer when it’s us saving them.”
“Who doesn’t?” The stormtrooper suppressed a startle; he hadn’t been paying attention and had been caught by surprise when Lieutenant Julia approached, her hands at the small of her back. She had, naturally, been listening to the com channel, and although her voice still sounded unpleasant, nothing had happened to her ears. “We’ll let the Jedi sort out the Sith. I want their troopers out of the holo.”
“Yes sir. Orders?”
The Lieutenant began laying it out. "This part of the centre was built in a grid pattern, as you ought to know; no specialized rooms are in the floor plan. However, various recent events have made floorplans unreliable at best, and looping around is not-"
Much later, when reviewing the scene with the Rebel Legion squad, it was determined that when Twentyone Twentyeight had noticed the new arrivals she had decided, not without cause, to retreat. One of the Rebel's Jedi, apparently immune to duel entrancement, saw the Vader cut off an attack to pull something off her waist and hurl it to the ground.
At the time, all James knew was that suddenly everything was veiled in thick smoke, so opaque that anything farther away than arm's length might as well have been invisible. Normally this would have been a major inconvenience, nothing more; he could have switched his forwards monitors to infrared and managed. But despite the filters in his helmet and the backup air supply, James found himself taking a deep, involuntary breath and coughing uncontrollably, gagging and unable to do anything but wait it out.
The taste of the smoke, thick and all-pervading, was familiar. James realized what it was between gasps as the smoke cleared again, as quickly as it had appeared, not leaving so much as a residue in the air.
Logically, the Fems should have been just as incapacitated by the smoke as the 501st and the Rebels were, but these smoke bombs almost never worked like that. Enough time had passed that Twentyone Twentyeight could have worked up a decent head start. If Femtroopers really did share a hive mind, they might have managed a coordinated retreat and been pursued. Xanadu, as had been proven time and time again, didn't always follow the rules of logic.
Not only was the Fem Vader gone, so were nearly all of the Femtroopers. Including the ones who had been shot. Including the ones who had been in a heap less than five meters away. Two - no, three - were still lying out on the filthy carpet where they had been burned down, but all the rest were gone without any indication of where. SL-0075 was left standing out alone - despite the distance, James saw one of his gloved hands curl into a fist.
"What in the nine Corellian hells just happened?" asked one of the Rebels. TK-0480's vision was obstructed by one of the Jedi standing in the way, but he thought that the speaker was probably the human pilot - that had not been a Skywalker voice, but there'd been a ring of authority in it all the same. James clicked his com to "broadcast", deciding that he might as well be the one to explain.
"From the effects, uh, sir, I'd say a Phlebotinium smoke bomb." Everyone looked at him. James coughed. "Ninjas are fond of them. So are Batmans and Batman-wannabes. We've run into these things before. Except in a few sporadic cases, they don't function as cover, they function as portable teleportation devices." The speaker in his helmet really sterilized his voice, he noticed distantly.
The Wookiee harned something in its - no, his, nonhumans are people too - own language. One of the Jedi, frowning, responded with "You're right. That's... not something we're familiar with. If these, these Femtroopers really were once from the same 'verse as us, why would they have these smoke bombs?"
"Obviously they're opportunists," ID-4102 cut in, her voice far more clipped and professional-sounding despite that note of pain. "You've already been briefed on this, remember? They prey on pretty much anyone with armor that includes a mask. It's not too much of a stretch to imagine that they picked up a cyber-ninja or something. That's assuming they didn't just trade. There are people around here who'll trade with anyone, no questions asked."
Damn. If there was one thing worse than field-effect Phlebotinium, it was an opportunistic enemy. Twentyone Twentyeight and at least half of the other Femtroopers had been part of the 501st; they must have known how much of an advantage picking up new tools gave a group. Just because they had never been seen to do so didn't mean they didn't, after all, and before today nobody had known that they could even still speak. James was fully aware of the fact that it was childish to be so surprised by this, and he was a little annoyed at himself for being surprised at all.
'The unexpected happens, and we deal with it?' Isn't that our new motto? If Kool-Aid Man crashed through a wall right in front of me, right now, would I do something about it, or would I just start shooting or gape like an idiot bystander?
Just then, the stormtrooper noticed SL-0075 storming up in full confrontation mode, walking as if to shove past anything in his way. Even the knowledge that they were on the same side couldn't keep James and the other troopers from getting out of the way - part of it was conditioning, but mostly it was common sense.
The Vader stopped a good several meters away. Just how he was able to tell that SL-0075 was looking at the Luke Skywalker, James did not know. But he was. Worse, the Luke was looking back with all kinds of things warring in his expression. James was not Force-Sensitive in the slightest, but he could feel the tension stretched as tightly as the strings of a tuned quetarra.
One of the unspoken but not unfelt rules in the 501st was to minimize contact between Vaders and people that Vaders did not get along at all well with. In some cases, particularly when both individuals knew each other, this was not a problem, in others nothing worse than stilted, uncomfortable conversation resulted, but now and again... James had seen the aftermath of one encounter, and it had left Xanadu's healers with a lot of work. This had not been a good day for SL-0075. The Vader was tense and unhappy, the Jedi were picking that up, and now everyone was just waiting for the explosion.
Fortunately, ID-4102 was there, and entirely willing to butt in before anything happened. She was there at SL-0075's side before James noticed her move, actually daring to reach and touch his arm while she spoke, quietly and in an intense tone.
For one awful moment, as the Vader slowly turned his head to look down at her, James thought that the situation was about to go straight to the Hells. But as Lieutenant Julia continued to talk, the moment passed. And then another. And another. Just like that, the tension faded away, gone completely when SL-0075 gave a single, decisive-looking nod.
The Lieutenant had orders for the rest of the squad. "I want you checking the scene, lads. Find out if the three in view are still alive, check to see if they left anyone else. We'll be fine."
This time, TK-0480 obeyed without a qualm. Whatever was about to go on between those two and the Rebels, it wasn't a fight. He could get filled in on the details later.
As it turned out, there really were only three remaining Femtroopers. They had been left because they were dead, or close to death, as one of the Jedi proclaimed. Sometimes blasters just worked that way. It was rather fortunate that the Rebel Legion squad knew a man who knew a girl, conveniently living in an area thick with healers, who could revive the dead. The 501st would have captive Femtroopers after all. That might make a difference - clearly, the Fems were an even greater threat than had been previously imagined.
The two squads formed up, collected the Fems, and started off for the healers. Despite himself, James was surprised and impressed when the Rebel Wookiee shouldered two Femtroopers with casual ease. The Rebel's quartet of Jedi quickly moved to the front of the group.
Noticing that both the Lieutenant and SL-0075 had dropped to the rear, James fell back and joined them. He felt it safe to let his guard down, at least partially. Not many people would dare anything in the presence of a group such as this. Even the remaining Femtroopers, assuming that they had teleported to the same place this group was headed, would turn tail. If the stormtrooper had been inclined to tempt fate, he would then have started thinking of what would dare anything now, but he didn't.
"You spin a good turn of logic, Lieu- Julia," the tall Sith was saying. Although he was at the back of the "formation", his legs were long enough that James and the lieutenant both had to trot a little to stay abreast.
For a moment, Julia was silent. “You remember what my username was on Star Wars Galaxies?”
Huh? Wha? Well, that's random. “Wasn’t it 'Miss Machiavelli'? Or... um, 'Maiden Masterplan'?” James asked, entering the conversation in the most inelegant way.
She smiled crookedly at him, showing a few teeth. “Wrong game. Definitely 'Miss Machiavelli', but you’re thinking City of Villains.” She frowned a little and touched the wrap around her throat. James reflected to himself that he would be happier after a healer saw to that. Being choked twice in succession, the second time hard enough to visibly bruise, couldn't be good for anyone.
“Sith’s Advocate,” SL-0075 remarked after a moment, unexpectedly amused.
“That’s right. Irony is a wonderful thing.” The Lieutenant wet her lips with her tongue. "I should probably have a few words with Antilles and Skywalker. They really ought to know more about this." Perhaps wary, she didn't yet move up.
"No one is stopping you, Julia." The moment SL-0075 finished speaking, Julia smiled again and was higher up in the group, quickly entering into an animated conversation with the human pilot. There might not be any bad blood between her and SL-0075, but it would clearly be a while before they were comfortable together in a 'safe' setting.
Alone with the Vader rather more unexpectedly than he'd thought, James cleared his throat awkwardly. "Will you be okay?" There were several ways that little question could be taken.
SL-0075 took a moment before answering. "Yes. Yes, I will, thanks. I... actually feel better now. Perhaps I need to physically fight more often. I'll need to ask around about sparring partners, maybe." His voice, although unchanged, had more in it of James's friend Cory than he had heard in days.
"Just know, if I can do anything to help, ask. I don't know what I can do, but you're part of my Legion. And... you're still my friend. I don't like seeing you like you were. Anything I can do, I will." It was a rash promise. But he meant it, every word.
"I... thank you, James." Unspoken, the phrase but I doubt you can really help hung in the air. SL-0075's stride shortened marginally, making it a little easier to stay level with him. "We'll get through this. We all will. The unexpected happens..." The unexpectedly optimistic sentiment, together with the thought that, at some level, this was still Cory, felt... good.
"And we deal with it. I hope you're right." For once, the silence that unfolded was something almost comfortable.
