Trooper

Yavin IV

The rebels are gone...

It doesn't make any sense. It's been mere hours since the Death Star was destroyed, just long enough for Lord Vader to assemble a squad to send to the surface. I should have recognized that something wasn't right when there were only minimal surface defences to contend with on our approach to the base. Now, scouting through the abandoned hangar, I see nothing, just tools and machinery.

The rebels obviously left in a hurry, either that or there were so few of them here after the Death Star exploded that they were able to get away quickly on a small ship or two. Whenever I think of the Death Star a chill runs over my skin, we're still no closer to understanding how the rebels could have destroyed it, that thought has me imagining many terrible possibilities. I'm left questioning many of the things I thought I knew as a Stormtrooper and aiming my blaster more vigilantly as I scout through this hangar.

"Primary hangar clear" I hear over my comm unit.

"Secondary hangar clear" I call into my own unit.  "I don't understand, where could they have gone so quickly?"

"That's our mission now, dig through this mess and find out where they went. They must have left some data behind having left as quickly as they did, nobody's that good."

Hours went by as we scavenged through the base, tearing every monitor and locker off the walls. If I paused for a moment, I could hear other squads throughout the base doing the same thing and making a hell of a racket of it. By the time we're done, this place is hardly going to be recognizable as a rebel base. All this destruction is an excellent frustration relief too, so I take some comfort in that, even if at the moment it doesn't seem to be getting us any closer to achieving our mission.

The more I tear through all the equipment, the more I wonder if maybe the rebels never actually unloaded their computers from their ships when they moved into this place? It's what I would do if I were anticipating a Star Destroyer appearing in orbit at any time without warning.

On a hunch, I jump up into one of the small transports still in the hangar, these ships aren't lightspeed-capable, so it makes some sense that they'd leave them behind in an emergency. No chance of running an Imperial blockade in one of these buckets.

Inside the ship, I flick on the main power, a few lights come on across various consoles, otherwise the ship is silent. I stand there on the deck for a moment, looking for anything out of place, and that's when I hear it. A low, clicking sound, then a pause, then more clicking and what sounds like a small motor spinning up. My eyes immediately start looking for the access latch for the floorboards and finding one, quickly grab it and rip a panel of the floor from its mounts. I lower my head through the new opening and there it is, a row of buzzing data tape machines, just finishing running through their boot sequence.

I quickly activate my comm again, "Sir, I think I have something!"

******
Welcome back readers!
Thanks for sticking out the past few months with me, I had so many comments and messages asking for me to continue and I definitely didn't want to let you down.  Your encouragement and feedback is so greatly appreciated and makes working on this story, even though it can be challenging at times, all the more worth it.  I've got another couple of parts in the can, hoping to keep a more consistent schedule of new posts so that I don't leave you hanging for so long as I have in the past. So stay tuned, make sure this story is in your library, and you'll be sure to be notified when I post next!

Wally