𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝘿𝙀𝙑𝙄𝙇'𝙎 𝘼𝘿𝙑𝙊𝘾𝘼𝙏𝙀 • 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙝 𝙫𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙧

FIVE

_________
  

CHAPTER FIVE:

The Injured Stormtrooper

_________
    

  
IT WAS COLD.

That was the first thing I noticed when I stepped off the ship and onto the space station. The colossal Death Star was cold, and unwelcoming. 

The first few days were lonely. Noa and I were questioned separately, and weren't allowed to see each other until the staff were confident that we could be trusted. 

"How have you been?" Noa asked while pulling me in for a hug. We were among the last few to eat dinner in one of the canteens. I preferred eating later in the evening, because sitting in a room of hundreds of Stormtroopers, under the scrutinizing eyes of my superiors, was enough to kill my appetite. "They weren't too hard on you, were they?"

"Nothing I couldn't handle," I assured him, patting his back before pulling away. "This feels surreal."

"Tell me about it," He said with a chuckle, leading me over to an empty table and sitting down. "I walked past a couple of Stormtroopers on my way here and almost soiled my trousers."

I sat opposite him, looking down at the tray of food in front of me and grimacing. If there was one thing I hadn't prepared myself for when moving onto the Death Star, it was the lack of good food. Since we arrived, I lived off bread and nutrition bars, as everything else would leave a bitter taste in my mouth. I longed for something sweet; desperately I yearned for a single piece of chocolate or a square of brownie, but I predicted it would be a long time before I tasted those things again.

Noa, meanwhile, was scoffing down the green block of veg-meat on his tray, as I watched him with curiosity. The troopers seemed to love the stuff; it was likely what they had been fed since they were brought into the army, but Noa somehow looked past its chemically enhanced taste and texture and thoroughly enjoyed it. 

"I'm worried about Sev," I commented after swallowing down a dry bit of bread. "They haven't let me see him yet. Apparently, because of his malfunctions, it's taking longer for them to analyze him."

"He'll be fine," Noa assured me. "He always pulls through."

I went to take another bite of bread, but a loud noise sounded out. It was similar to a crash, but it came from all around the canteen, as though the source was within the walls themselves.

"What was that?" I asked, looking around. There were only six Stormtroopers and a couple of guards in the canteen, seeing as most of the others ate hours ago. Before I could ask one of them if they knew was going on, silver shutters slammed down over two of the doors and another shutter closed off the kitchen. Noa and I jumped to our feet, panic filling me.

A Stormtrooper made a quick dash for the third door, but just as he got there a shutter began to fall down. He jumped for it, sliding under the gap but his arm got trapped. I gasped when I saw the shutter slamming through the armor of his suit and cutting off his forearm, making him cry out. The others rushed over to him, picking him up and pulling him over to our table which was closest to the door.

"You alright, Sparky?" One of them asked the injured trooper, but he just made a pained noise while waving around his uninjured arm.

"He's gonna bleed out, Aim," Another one said, gesturing to the pool of blood that was growing on the table around his wound. The blood slowly ran over to my tray, making me sit back.