Armored Tide

From TFC Galactopedia

The foam kicked up by their thrusters seemed to blast high in the air, splitting the light of the twin suns into a myriad of shifting colors gracefully dancing across the hulls of the swarm of black ships speeding across the ocean’s surface.

The irony wasn’t lost on Ado. He stood in the back of the trooper compartment on the new Palpatine-Class troop transport. Ahead and on either side of him stood two rows of white armor-clad Stormtroopers. But they weren’t just regular Stormtroopers, they were Ado’s Stormtroopers.

He heard a crackle in his right ear, then a voice, “Colonel, shore’s in sight. Get your unit ready.”

Ado shouldered his blaster rifle and strode forward.

“Troopers,” he began in that gravely, distinctive clone voice, “I hope your senses haven’t dulled since Endor.” His men remained in a half crouch, their weapons primed, loaded, and triple checked. All of their attention was on Colonel Ado.

“I think we’re all tired of hunting down some low-life rebel remnants on the Outer Rim. I was beginning to miss the Clone Wars.” The other clones understood exactly what he meant. The rest of his command only knew the old wars from holovids and stories told by the sergeants at boot camp.

“But now, things are different. We finally have an enemy before us worth scraping off our boots. This Federation, these Fleeters, are about to learn just what a real military machine can do. They are about to witness defeat on a scale that they have never conceived of in their darkest nightmares,” Ado turned around as he reached the front of the compartment.

“The Federation is about to see its end. Its sun has set. And today, on the shores of Risa, rises a new dawn! The age of weakness is crashing down around the Federation, and the day of the Empire has risen to take its rightful place.”

The sides of the ship slid away, the foam of the ocean splashing into the compartment. To either side of the ship, thousands more sped forward towards their goal. The Stormtroopers could literally see other Stormtroopers on board the other ships. There was no time to wave as phaser fire began whipping about them as quickly as the ocean foam.

“Troopers!” Ado called his men’s attention to him again, “Remember this! Remember this day, and remember this beach! Forty, fifty, or even sixty years down the line, you can say that this is where the Federation fell! This is where the Empire rose to span two galaxies! This is where the white, armored wave began its crusade as it burned across this galaxy! And this was your Finest Hour!”

The men raised their weapons and gave a great cheer. They all saw it before them now. Their hearts swelled as they envisioned the destiny before them.

And then they jumped into the surf, amid a torrent of phaser fire.

It was as if he was back on Hoth; he and his men charging a line of defenders, amid a hail of fire. But this was different. Sand, not snow, whipped about Ado as he pushed towards a line of defenders armed with phaser rifles and clad in black uniforms.

The Star Fleet officers attempting to hold the beach lay against a long set of earth-works, their phaser rifles pointed directly forward. Every few meters, Ado could make out the shape of heavy turrets, laying down waves of photon torpedoes into the advancing Stormtroopers.

A phaser winged Ado’s shoulder, but it barely left a singe. He knew they were dealing with raw recruits. Anyone who had seen action during the first few skirmishes of the war knew you never injured a Stormtrooper with anything less than the maximum kill setting.

But Fleeters didn’t like to forgo the stun setting. And that was why they were weak, why they had lost every battle.

The squad to Ado’s right disappeared in a blast of turret fire, bringing him back to the charge. He saw his goal ahead of him, a dozen or so fleeter officers trying to hold down the line.

Then he heard a sound, one that deafened all others. The AT-ATs breached the ocean surface with the crash and rush of a furious wind. The fleeters stood still, their eyes stuck on the behemoths that suddenly appeared.

Ado sprinted the last stretch and stood with his men at the edge of the earth-works. Red explosions of light filled the trenches as the Stormtroopers riddled them with blaster fire. Scorched ozone suddenly threatened to overwhelm the survivors. A few fleeters got out of the trench before Ado’s men lighted them up like Coruscant at nightfall.

For a moment, the Stormtroopers stopped. Had it really been that easy? The beach was theirs in less than five minutes!

Colonel Ado looked around at the carnage about him. Craters littered the beach as a light rain began to fall. The sky, which once shown so brightly on a pristine Risan beach now gazed upon a hundred dead fleeters and Stormtroopers, surrounded by scorched sand and molten glass. Below him in the trench, next to the burnt skeletal remains of his comrades sat one lone fox ensign, tears streaking down his face as he ran a paw through his matted hair and gazed upon his friends’ remains.

Ado turned and counted his own men. They were one short.

His gaze swept about, until he looked down at the foot of the trench by his feet. Boomer lay flat on the sand clutching at his stomach, a large burn covering most of his front. As Ado leaned down, he could already tell Boomer was dying. He slowly took the fallen man’s helmet off. Underneath the helmet was the face of a jaguar, framed by dark hair turning gray at the edges.

Boomer gazed up at his commander, “Sir, I guess this is how it ends, eh? Shot by some sniveling Mir’osik.” A cough racked his body. Ado watched his pod brother slowly die before him, a man who had stood by his side since Geonosis.

“Ner vod,” Ado spoke soothingly in Mando’a, the old language the clones were taught in Basic training, “Nu jurkad Mando'ade, burc'ya.”

“It’s good…to hear that again,” Boomer spoke before another cough. His eyes slowly drifted shut as his breath left him.

Ado stayed still on his knees.

“Fierfek,” he cussed below his breath, “he’s gone.” Ado stood up, his men taking a step back. One whispered to himself, Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la, not dead, merely marching far away.

The turret a few meters off disintegrated, fire bursting from its frame as the AT-ATs opened fire. The flames radiated a red-orange glow that reflected brightly off the Stormtroopers’ armor, more so due to the rain, now falling in sheets. One Stormtrooper gazed up at the sabotaged remnant of a weather control tower high up on the jungle-covered mountain.

“Bring me him,” Ado commanded, his voice dripping with a vengeful malice as he pointed into the trench. Two troopers leapt into the trench and emerged a moment later with the whimpering fleeter. They dragged him, kicking up to the Colonel.

“Please,” he begged, “I…I have a family back in Maine…please don’t…please…”

Ado drew his SE-14r pistol, and held it level at the ensign’s head. The red blast of light flashed across the Stormtroopers’ armor, and illuminated the space around them. One of the troopers who had held the ensign in place raised up his gloved hand and began wiping the layer of reddish liquid off of his helmet as the ensign’s body hit the sand besides Boomer’s.

As Ado placed his pistol in its holster, he glanced over to his left, towards the shore, and saw the camera droids whizzing about, recording everything on the beach. A few troopers shook their heads at the sight.

Ado leapt over the trench, “Come on! We need to hit their inland positions before the weather gets worse!” The other Stormtroopers followed through the torrential rain into the jungle before them, cursing the fleeters for sabotaging the weather stations.

Soon, they left the carnage behind, and pushed forward.

Flames engulfed the trees. The Risan Star Hotel looked near to collapse. Shattered glass and stone littered the jungle floor. Stormtroopers raced about, some desperately trying to slap some semblance of a defensive line together. The blaster and phaser burns from the fight only a half hour ago still smoldered and burned across the hotel’s exterior and the entire clearing.

The inside of the hotel, however, was a raging inferno. The captured Star Fleet officers sat in a huddled mass, bathing in the light from the hotel that had once served as their barricade. Many stared at their captors, and more than a few grinned at the fact that it had still taken them an hour to take the hotel.

Two Stormtroopers were examining a statue they had found.

“What do you think it means?” one asked.

“No idea,” the other said as he inspected the horga’hn. Several fleeters snickered.

“What’s that about I wonder?” the first trooper said.

“Dunno. Hey, you think your wife will like it?” the snickering rose to near laughter.

Sergeant Zan strode up past the fleeters and went to his commander, Colonel Ado, who sat upright against a tree trunk.

“Sir, our tanks and AT-STs have arrived and are preparing to clear the jungle ahead of us,” Zan saluted. He leaned down and took out another bacta patch. He quickly took in how bad off his commander was. Ado had taken four phasers to the chest, and it showed.

“Get that stuff away from me,” Ado meekly raised a paw to wave the bacta away, “There’s no point.”

“Sure there is Colonel,” Zan lied. They both knew just how fatal Ado’s injury was.

“Kid, I’m gonna die before I get off this planet, hell, before I get twenty meters out of this jungle probably.”

Zan stood up, “Sir…” he began.

“No,” Ado said, “I’m dying. I’m gonna die like Boomer here…and that’s alright.”

Zan lifted up the bacta patch, “Sir, if you take the bacta, there’s a chance you’ll make it.”

Ado shook his head, “Zan, listen to me. Even if I live, I’ll die long before you do. I’m a clone. You know what that means.”

Zan thought back to the academy. He had heard about the rapid aging clones went through. He knew perfectly well that Ado only had another twenty to thirty years at best before his body backfired.

The rain splattered against Zan’s helmet as he thought.

“I have nothing to live for anyway, Zan. There’s no retirement for me.”

“Sir, don’t…”

“Let me finish!” Ado interrupted. “You have something I can never have. You have a legacy yet to leave, Zan. I’m a clone. Collectively, we have the Empire. But not one…not one of us has had a family, or made some great invention. You have that chance…don’t throw it away…”

Zan gazed down at his commander. He had only been under his command a few hours…yet it felt like he had served for years. Ado could forge a bond with his soldiers like some engineers could weld metal.

“…Live life…have a family…I don’t care what you do…” his paw lifted up and pointed at Zan’s blaster, “But don’t make me suffer like this…”

“Sir! I…” Zan stopped. He couldn’t think of a reason. Didn’t he owe Ado that much?

He aimed his blaster at Ado’s heart. He didn’t move a muscle.

“Trooper, don’t…don’t make me pull rank,” Ado managed.

Stormtroopers around the camp looked up as the blast echoed across the clearing.

“Sorry Ado,” Zan spoke, “But no one here has a legacy.” He looked up, as a wave of TIE bombers soared overhead. Behind them, the suns finally broke through the cloud cover, and light returned to Risa.

Zan shouldered his gun and turned to the other Stormtroopers, “I need volunteers for another push through the jungle!”

The whole of the camp stood.

“Alright,” he said in a cold voice, “Get rid of the prisoners and move out!”

The troopers behind him turned their blasters on the Fleeters, and a moment later were off again into Risa’s jungle.