Troopers - Book 2

A new bug hunt

Luk looked at the small team that was coming with him. A very nervous teen and a four stormtroopers. He didn't like the odds.

Apparently the request to capture an energy spider had gone through almost automatically, they'd created a containment area in a few hours by modifying one of the storage areas on the research base, knowing that the spiders were contained within a rock environment made it simple to simulate with the collection of asteroids in the maw cluster.

Now heading towards the Kessel and it's prisoner filled spice mines, the plan seemed to have lost some of the shine. He'd managed to bring his own rifle, Luk still wasn't comfortable with the weapons here, they seemed too much like toys.

He watched the stormtroopers, they looked completely placid in their immaculate white armour, but he could see the movements that told him they were talking between themselves on an enclosed system. He smiled, he'd done that often enough himself when on guard duty with people across the compound. He looked over at Sam, his fellow researcher. The boy was a genius, but with that came a certain amount of eccentricity, the first and primary one Luk watched now as he stared into the mid distance hardly breathing.

"You should have stayed with the glitterstem experiments" he rumbled towards Sam.

"Huh, yeah...I guess, but I wanted to see it in its natural environment. The tests are automated and can look after themselves." he was twitching when he spoke, but placid when in his own mind.

"Why do you think this was authorised so quickly?" Luk asked him, seeing what his mind would make if the situation.

"Simple, someone high up has a spice habit." the response was succinct and what Luk suspected.

It could be a problem to the project but also a positive. Firstly at least they would always be authorised for the spice to be brought in, but it would also mean that it could go missing. As for the spider, did they think they could sneak in to get fresh? Now a guard duty would have to be requested, he thought research would be easier than planning a mission and trying to stay alive, how wrong he'd been, planning a mission and staying alive was a lot easier.

*

They trip through the maw cluster was interesting. Their flight path was exact and precisely calculated if they went of course too far in either direction then they would have crossed an event horizon and that would be the end if them. No method of escape. Luk relaxed and looked out of the view port of the absolute blackness of being between two black holes. Within the fall between there was still some cosmic light shining through, but here the it was absolute, the idea was awe inspiring as you knew there was nothing within that black space not just the inability to see it.

Suddenly, they where in space as they knew it once more. It was a neat clean line between the divide. Luk heard an audible sigh of relief from Sam, even one of the stormtroopers posture changed significantly.

"Sam, I want you to stay with the ship" Luk stated

"I need to see where they live otherwise I can't understand." he pleaded

"No. I can't lead this mission and watch you at the same time you have no combat experience." Luke spoke calmly, reassuring.

"Have one of the stormtroopers watch me. I must see them. They only exist with success on Kessel, they had moderate success on Ryloth. Something here is different, I've been to Ryloth but not Kessel." Sam implored him.

Luk Sat quietly, calculating, he looked at Sam and then over at the stormtroopers. He was thinking, he closed his eyes and leant back against the hull. Suddenly he snapped his fingers, and pointed at one of the stormtroopers.