Amidst the sensor blocking Transitory Mists, an astral predator stalked the void with violent intent. The Erdgeist disgorged a small surgical strike force, sixty stormtroopers aboard TIE Reapers, with six AT-PTs and a squadron of TIE strikers for support. Hapes would no doubt bristle at the intrusion into their airspace. Or maybe not... Intel said reports were coming in of Crusader raiding parties hitting isolated population centers, and the locals were starting to deep scan other anomalies on their sensors. Command thought it might be a distraction, or maybe the Crusaders were finding out that zeal was no substitute for disciplined execution of a plan. The holovids always portrayed over enthusiasm and independent thought on the battlefield as valuable traits, but more often than not they just got people killed and wrecked ops. Real soldiers knew that they were on the field to do a job, and that it was better to trust in the plan than try to out think common sense.
Admittedly, it was something of a new mindset for Naitan, having only recently been reassigned to the Imperial Stormtrooper corps. He used to be a mudbelly for the Imperial army, a gearhead that maintained siege drones. Imperial Army philosophy was that victory was won by being the last ones standing on the hill, and the mudbellies believed that standing out was a sure ticket to hell. So they did their jobs, kept their heads down, tried not to be a hero, tried to be unworthy of Death's notice. It was all luck really, but the only way for the human mind to comprehend the utter indifference of a reaper riding down a trooper on an artillery shell was a litany of superstitions. Even the gods don't survive the trenches, but in their absence a hodge podge religion of circumstantial evidence and irrational tales that deluded people into thinking there was some way to shape your fate on the battlefield if you were clever enough. He left that world behind in what would probably become another gospel in the Holy Writ of ways to not die in the muck. When HVT-1 had begun his master plan, Naitan was in yet another mud hole with more time than work to occupy him, so he tried his hand at the code. Somehow, he cracked it before anyone else. The absurdity of it had his platoon in fits, all of the great minds of every power in the galaxy stumped, and it was a mudbelly that finally cracked it.
The Empire saw an opportunity for a PR boost, put him on the next shuttle out for transfer to the stormtrooper corps. He was going to be a hero whose face they could plaster on recruiting posters. The people he spoke to, he didn't know if they were Sith, they wore masks of white faces with completely neutral expressions. but somehow felt more like spooks than whatever it was that Sith felt like. Despite that, they spoke plainly to Naitan about what they had wanted from him, and seemed possessed of a form of razor sharp honesty that cut quickly and efficiently to the point. It was refreshing, too often people that weren't soldiers got caught up on stupid crap, entangled themselves in stupidity. Word was starting to get around that the higher ups wanted to reorganize the stormtrooper corps, bring about a new vision for it, and the blank faced spooks seemingly confirmed that, saying that even without his breaking HVT-1s code he would have been a candidate for transfer and of considerable value for the organization's new direction.
So here he was, clad in black armor surrounded by what might as well have been his in-laws after an unexpected wedding. He at least had a history of combat training and had seen actual fighting, but there was an unspoken distance in the air suggesting that command had told his squad to put his survival as a priority. Nobody liked babysitting on the battlefield. There was too much important stuff going on to keep one life breathing. Perspective needed to be spread out to keep an eye on everyone, focusing it on one person made everyone else vulnerable. Regardless of the facts, if anyone in Naitan's squad died today, it would be his fault.
The light went red and the ramp dropped. His squad fanned out with well oiled precision while he did his best to keep his head down. There had been a lot of jokes told over his time in the trenches about the uselessness of stormtrooper armor, but Naitan couldn't deny that compared to his metal carapace armor and trench coat he felt liberatingly unburdened by the plastic like material. Looking at his scanner, he called out to his squad what he was reading.
"Lots of bio readings inside, could be hostiles or hostages, energy readings largely suggest hostages, but there are some outliers that are unaccounted for."
The sergeant responded after a moment of conferring with command, "Command says to secure hostages with stun blasts if they get in the way, but we can't let some moron in panic mode compromise our mission. We do the job, we go home, everything else is a secondary concern."
The AT-PTs positioned themselves to suppress exits from the warehouse while the TIE strikers began flying CAP. The stormtroopers began the leapfrog process of penetrating the structure, silently hoping that there were no IEDs or other traps.
Naitan Draska changed their profile photo