Trooper

A Day in the Desert

Have I mentioned that I hate deserts? Why anybody would live on these hot wasteland worlds is beyond me. Of course, that's exactly why my name was 'randomly' selected to lead the investigation of an escape pod that jettisoned during our capture of Princess Leia.

The sensor scan showed no life forms aboard when it ejected, but Lord Vader is really pushing hard for some reason and insisted that it be checked out regardless. His instincts seem to have been correct yet again as we've uncovered evidence that there may have been at least one droid aboard the pod. If there was anything aboard they got incredibly lucky with the weather, the winds seem to be just strong enough to have erased their footprints from the sand before we arrived. Brilliant! now I get to spend the rest of my day combing this god-forsaken desert searching for some hunk of metal, how quaint...

****

Finally, something to report other than a bunch of sand being all up on the inside of my armour. It's true what they say, it really does get everywhere. Anyway, we found what appears to be the tracks of two droids a few hours walk from the escape pod. I'm not sure where they're heading because based on their current vector it'll be weeks before they reach any sort of settlement. We'll have them tomorrow.

****

Stupid droids!

We were following their tracks this morning up until the damned trails split in opposite directions. Why would they do that? I've never seen such weird behaviour from droids before. There weren't any signs of a struggle or anything, the paths just split suddenly. Do they somehow know that we've been following them? We'll have to be more cautious, a droid with sensors that sophisticated can't be a good sign for its purpose out here.

I didn't want to wait for another squad to arrive from the ship so I ordered my squad to split and pursue the droids along both paths, it's not standard procedure, but I'd don't want to spend any more time than is absolutely necessary out in this desert and waiting for another squad would be a few hours of wasted time.

****

I just heard from my other squad, they've identified some tracks for a large land-based vehicle that crossed the droid path they were following. Since they can't find any trace of the droid past that intersection they are confident that our droid has caught a ride with the vehicle so they're going to continue their pursuit along this new path.

****

This is the weirdest thing, not more than 20 minutes after hearing that my other squad's trail ended at some foreign tracks, do we stumble upon a set of crossing tracks of our own? I mean, what are the odds? It seems obvious that whoever these droids are working with knew they would be here, at these specific times and locations. It still doesn't explain why they would have split up in the first place. I feel like there's a part of this story that I'm missing, I just wish that I knew what it was.

****

It took longer than I would have liked, but I think we've figured out what's happened here. Based on track freshness, it would seem that the tracks my half-squad came across are older than those that the other half of our squad discovered. After retracing the tracks, we were able to confirm my hypothesis that the tracks were in fact created by a single vehicle. Why the droids would have split in the first place is still beyond me, but to hell with the logic of droids, it looks like we've got them. We called in an orbital image scan from our Star Destroyer and there's one large vehicle that seems to fit with the tracks we're seeing on the ground. It's pretty far from here but well within range. I only wish we could have had this information a day or two ago when we got here, but that's "Imperial Intelligence" for you. Did I mention that I really, REALLY hate sand? I mean, it's EVERYWHERE...

****

There's a large track-based vehicle on the horizon in front of us. We're still not sure who's controlling it but we'll know soon enough. Based on our current approach we're preparing for a strike at sunset.

****

Why can't things ever go the easy way? even just this once? We tried to be nice and give them a chance for a peaceful resolution however they continue to ignore our attempts to communicate with them. A warning shot across their path has just yielded no results so it looks like we're going to have to do this the messy way.

****
****

"Ok, squad one, light 'em up!" I ordered into my comm, and in an instant the treads on our target exploded in a flurry of blaster fire. It only took a second for the vehicle to lurch to a halt. This would get their attention.

My squad is deployed in an attack formation around the land crawler (or whatever this monstrosity is called), we have them completely surrounded. It's been quiet for almost 5 minutes now, surely they don't plan to just sit around inside and hope we'll get bored?

Practically on cue blasters started shooting from all sides of the vehicle, I saw one trooper crumple over, obviously caught off-guard while the rest of my squad immediately returned fire. On a hunch I quickly switched my visor to thermal mode and was easily able to discern the small portholes they were using to fire at us. I raised my weapon and fired a single explosive round into one of the small holes. After a second there was an audible 'thud' from within the vehicle as the round detonated, immediately the exterior lights started flickering and the blaster shots from the vehicle stopped.

"Cease fire, move in, and prepare to board" I called over the comm as I moved out from my rocky cover towards the vehicle. As I move closer I am able to see the black smoke billowing from the portholes, even in this near darkness. I can't see it but I hear a heavy door fall open followed by rapid blaster fire.

"Cease fire dammit!" I call into my comm.

By the time I get around the massive track of the vehicle, it is already too late... All the creatures that had been trying to escape through the bottom hatch were now smouldering lumps on the ground.

"What the hell!?" I ask/yell towards my squad. "How do you plan on interrogating a bunch of burned up corpses? Get your asses up through that hatch and find those droids, you better hope they're here."

It wasn't more than five minutes when one of my squad members hopped down from the hatch to give me the news I was dreading,

"Sir, there are no droids aboard that match the tracks that led us to this location."

Awesome, back to square one, fantastic!