Buckets: A Star Wars Story [THE ANNIVERSARY EDITION]

0. On the Beaches of Scarif

My designation is TK-65780.

I repeated the phrase again in my head - an old familiar line. We didn't have names. Not real ones, anyway. Not anymore.

My designation is TK-65780.

My chest didn't hurt as badly when I focused in on my number as I stared up at the sky through the lenses of my helmet. That rebel had come out of nowhere it seemed like, and I turned right into that blaster bolt like some newbie. Served me right, I figured as I hit the ground. At first, I figured my armor took the brunt of it until I went to sit up and felt like someone had taken a hot vibroblade to my chest. X-Wings passed through my field of vision as distant as shyracks, and I heard the familiar whine of TIEs somewhere up in the sky. Maybe Sevens was up there flying. Or, better yet, maybe he wasn't.

My designation is TK-65780.

There were distant explosions and the sound of bombs. Scarif was supposed to be safe, an easy assignment defending the data vault. That ray shield was supposed to be impregnable. That's what Aurek said, anyway. Where was he? He should have been right next to me. Speaking of missing, where were Besh and Osk? We had all left the bunker together, but then everything went to a Corellian hell in a handbasket...

My designation is TK-65780.

I never had any other names. Not one that I remembered. Not one any family would know me by. I barely even recognize myself without my bucket on anymore, not since this war started. The Rebels think they know better, think that everything will be fine once the Empire is gone. Maybe they grew up in a place where white armor and Star Destroyers were a thing of terror. All I can remember was seeing those lines of marching soldiers and remembering how safe I felt.

My designation...

The sharp pain shot up through my torso again and breathing got difficult. I pass a hand along my chest and come back with bits of melted armor and bloody fingertips.

...is TK-65780.

I had done right by the Empire. I know that. I had always known that. Maelstrom Squadron we called ourselves. Special Forces but not quite – good enough for clearance but not good enough to be called that in public. A bunch of misfits with no home anywhere else in this bureaucratic nightmare. If there was somewhere that needed backup, they sent us. We did what we had to and we did it right. Yet for some reason, that doesn't feel like it's enough. I'm lying here in the sand with shallow breaths, a crack in my lenses, and a hole in my armor, and for the first time in my... - thirty? Thirty-five years of? - life, I'm terrified. My armor is dented, there's a hole in my chest plate and I can smell my own blood.

My...

My mind stutters a moment as a transport, belching black smoke, passes eerily close overhead and slams into the ground, sending sand and dirt every which way. I take another shallow breath to collect myself. It's all I can manage.

My name is TK-65780.

That's not what everyone calls me, though. Not the people who matter. When's the last time Aurek used my designation? I can't even remember now.

Shiny.

CT-7209 called me that when I first stepped off the shuttle at the academy. He was a young man trapped in a middle-aged man's body with even older eyes, but I remember him. He called himself Kando. Said it was a reminder about himself, but never told me what it meant.

Vod.

Kando called me that during the whole thing in the Western Reaches campaign. Said it meant 'brother' in Mando'a. Said he hadn't called anyone that in a long time. It was the last thing he said, with his hand on my shoulder and that look in his eye that told me we wouldn't speak again.

My name is... Dorn.

Dorn. That's my name. Aurek gave it to me when I was thrown into his squad on Mimban. None of us remembered what we were called, either that or we just hated our old selves. Even the people who had actual names had ones we used just among us. Familiar names. Names families didn't know and likely wouldn't ever know. Names that had a quiet 'I understand ' tacked on at the end, in the very core of their purpose.

Sevens, the hot-shot flyboy who got tossed into the 181st. Commander Thesh, our once snotty commissioned overlord, last of our little group to join. Aurek, Besh, Osk, Dorn, Kando - names we gave ourselves or each other. Names that mattered.

When we sat on those transports at the end of our first major campaign, Thesh never quipped about us not calling him 'sir' or 'Commander Ahuff'. He called me Dorn for the first time that day when we talked on the way back, his hands clasped so tightly together that his knuckles were bone white. Sevens was the only one who was ever allowed to call me 'Bucket' in the mess hall, with his heel tapping nervously on the ground trying his best to forget whatever happened on a patrol. He'd laugh and joke, but the way he would say my name when it was just the two of us told me everything he didn't, so I let him call me Bucket, let him make me the friend he needed. As I'm lying there thinking about them, I suddenly realize how lonely they were.

I know what it feels like now.

My name is Dorn.

Dorn isn't said in my voice in my head. I hear Aurek again for what feels like the very first time.

My head feels light and my eyelids feel like they're made of durasteel, but I can't make myself move more than an inch before my chest feels like it's on fire. I turn my head to look beside me. There are other troopers lying there unmoving in the sand, but Aurek is nowhere in sight. Neither is Besh or Osk. There's a panic rising in my chest along with the urge to laugh. It's not them, but that quickly gives way to another realization.

Being alone is a frightening thing.

My name is Dorn, and I don't want to die.