❛ I don't know. You think a stormtrooper and a guy like me - ? ❜
Callisto is worth a lot of credits - being an imperial deserter will do that to a person. But an annoying farmboy ( with pretty eyes ) that she meets on a backwater planet may just be...
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CHAPTER I
THE BLASTER WAS cool against her bare palms, unexpectedly soothing the stifling heat creeping up the young stormtrooper's arms and neck. An elbow jostled against her ribcage as the massive transporter hit turbulence, and was softened only by the bone-white breastplate strapped to her front. Her gloves hung discarded from her belt.
Flickering lights illuminated the sterile hangar for a moment: stormtroopers with armour shining as pale as a moon stood shoulder-to-shoulder and hip-to-hip, their polished blasters like slicked oil in their hands. A ripple of discomfort ran through the squadron every time the transporter shook.
Another large, final shock jostled the transporter as it hit the soft sand of Tatooine. The stormtrooper, TK-426, hurriedly slipped her gloves back on. No one could see her face beneath her helmet, and it was a convenient shield for the obvious guilt on her face.
Softly, slowly, ever so casually, she rested a hand on the disc tucked into her holster. Today was the day she became a real soldier and did her damn job, or the day she became a nobody.
A nobody, silly girl? But how can you be a nobody when —
TK-426 put the voice in a mental box and slammed a lid on it. She refused to listen. Instead, she rehearsed the words from the data disc with her lids half-shut. She had played the recording every night since the battle and could recite it like a religious text.
Nye Valum, it had said, the cocky face of a pilot grinning in her direction, welcome aboard the Millennium Falcon. If I don't see you at the scheduled time, I'll assume the honour of joining a crew with such an attractive captain was too great and you took the coward's way out. An annoyed roar could be heard from behind the captain. Oh, quit it, will ya? What do you mean, professional? I am being professional, you —
The holographic transmission had cut out there, accompanied only by an encrypted data file. The meeting time and place. 426 had toyed with reporting the transmission to her authorities, but the information that had radioed through afterwards had given her pause.
General, I can confirm with my own eyes — this transmission had differed from the ones she usually intercepted. The mystery woman's voice swam with static — which meant someone out there was trying to jam it. The planet killer is real. Imperials . . . they just destroyed Scarif. An entire planet — I can't —
TK-426 had harboured her suspicions for a while, but this just confirmed it. Instead of reporting both, as would be standard protocol, she had rerouted them and downloading them to a disc for safekeeping. It was risky; if they found her with them, they'd kill her on the spot or send her to reconditioning for rebellious behaviour
(Somewhere, deep in her heart, TK-426 knew she could never defect. She was too dependent, too cowardly, knew nothing of the outside world and the electrifying fire of rebellion that ran through veins and ignited revolutions.)
