Adrift; A Star Wars Fan Fiction Story
By Ray Daley
2/1/14
A team of Imperial troops has been sent to investigate a Star Destroyer that has mysteriously stopped responding to hails two weeks ago, and is drifting powerless in space.
“Bring the Captain in please,” ordered Grand Moff Yetin.
“I’m sorry sir but I can’t do that,” replied Lieutenant Dreff across the comm channel.
“Why not Lieutenant?” demanded Yetin.
“Because he’s dead sir. I can send for the Sergeant, he compiled the report for you sir,” explained the Lieutenant. He was glad he wasn’t there on the Super Star Destroyer to brief Grand Moff Yetin in person. The man scared him witless, even more so than Lord Vader himself.
“Very well, bring the Sergeant over to see me now,” said Yetin. He read the report for the seventh time, hoping that the Sergeant would have more to add than what had already been described in the official briefing. It simply wasn’t acceptable, sending one hundred and twenty-eight men on a seemingly simple mission to have only one return alive. Especially such highly trained troopers.
The view screen flashed up a status report, the shuttle was on its way.
*
“Why am I here sir? I already filed my report,” said Sergeant Jessyk.
“Grand Moff Yetin would like to hear it from you himself, Sergeant,” explained Lieutenant Dreff as they walked towards the briefing room.
“I was promised a furlough sir, you know that,” said Jessyk.
“And you will get it, once Grand Moff Yetin is fully satisfied with your briefing. Just tell him what you saw. Go through, Sergeant Jessyk. You don’t want to keep him waiting,” said Lieutenant Dreff, motioning to the briefing room door.
“You aren’t coming with me sir?” asked Jessyk.
“No Sergeant. It was you he wanted to see. No-one else,” replied Dreff, with some relief at not having to face the old man in person. It was bad enough to have been called aboard his ship.
*
Grand Moff Yetin looked up as he heard the sound of boot heels clicking to attention.
“Sergeant Jessyk, reporting as ordered sir!”
Yetin looked the man up and down, apart from the shoulder flash denoting his rank, the Sergeant was indistinguishable from any other Stormtrooper. Apart from one minor factor. Jessyk stood at attention with his helmet in his left hand.
“I’m not happy with this report Sergeant,” said Grand Moff Yetin, matter of factly.
“It’s everything I remember sir, it may not be as an officer would report, as it’s a task I’m not completely familiar with sir. I tried my best, with the assistance of Lieutenant Dreff,” Jessyk said.
“It’s not the layout Sergeant, it’s the content. I still don’t truly believe it. Perhaps you can explain to me in your own words how one hundred and twenty-eight fully armed, well trained men can board an empty ship and all but one is killed?” asked Yetin.
“I’m not a coward sir. I stood and fought with the company. It was hopeless sir, an impossible task. I realised someone had to get back here and report the facts, try to prevent any further losses to the Empire sir,” said Jessyk.
“I’m not questioning your bravery Sergeant. I’m more than aware of your record,” said Yetin.
“I’m not a clone sir, I’m human, I chose to join the Empire. Like you,” Jessyk said.
“I know Sergeant. There was no need for you to remove your helmet but the gesture was appreciated,” replied Yetin.
“I didn’t do it to show you I was human sir. I wanted you to be able to look me directly in the eye and know I was telling you the truth sir,” said Jessyk.
“Thank you Sergeant, it’s good to know some men still understand the need for personal integrity. Now can you explain to me, exactly what happened?” asked Yetin.
“It’s as the report says sir. Our ship found the Interceptor drifting in open space, it was showing no lights, any signs of life or even internal power. On landing we sent out an astromech droid to secure a forcefield and establish power with the portable generator. Prior to that, the whole ship had been open to space. No air, all vacuum.
Section by section, deck by deck we secured each area until we reached the engineering bay and managed to restart main power and started to gradually restore full life support to all sections. The security console showed one life sign on the bridge, which we knew to be impossible. On account of the fact that we hadn’t restored life support to that part of the ship yet. So the Captain took three platoons to go up and investigate what he assumed at the time was an erroneous signal.”
Jessyk paused.
“Please continue Sergeant,” asked Yetin.
“Of course sir, I was just taking a moment to gather my thoughts. My squad remained behind in engineering to supervise the powering up of the remaining sections of the ship, the rest of our platoon checked the lower decks for any signs as to why the ship had been set adrift. I heard the Captain call for reinforcements from our platoon over the comm so we ran up to join them on the bridge.
By the time we got there only one Corporal was still alive, firing at something inside the bridge. He told us they had all gone onto the bridge and found what they said looked like a man standing by the helm controls, trying to fly the ship. The bridge was still a vacuum sir! When they tried to approach, he opened fire on them. He killed all the others sir!”
Jessyk started to breath heavily, clearly still frightened by the recollection.
“This was just one man, was he some kind of bounty hunter?” asked Yetin.
“No sir. Some of us managed to score a few direct hits on him. But he took all the others out sir, no matter where we shot him, he just kept coming. He wasn’t a man at all sir, where we’d hit him we could see that he was some kind of droid with metal robotic limbs. His eyes were red, like a mech. But his skin and hair looked so real sir, if you’d seen him you would have sworn he was as human as you or I,” Jessyk looked into the eyes of Grand Moff Yetin.
“Carry on Sergeant Jessyk,” said Yetin.
“It was clear we couldn’t hope to overcome it, or kill it. Whatever it was, probably some new kind of Alliance weapon we thought sir. So I did the only thing we could do, you understand sir. I couldn’t let the Rebels take the Interceptor intact so I set the engines on overload and took off,” Jessyk explained.
“And blew up an Imperial Star Destroyer,” said Yetin.
“Rather than let it fall into potential enemy hands sir,” said Jessyk.
“And was this thing destroyed Sergeant?” asked Yetin.
“I believe so sir. My scans of the area found no wreckage any bigger than a few particles in size. Whatever it was, it was completely vaporised,” said Jessyk.
“Very well Sergeant. That will be all,” said Yetin.
“Sorry to ask sir, but I was promised a furlough?” Jessyk knew he was pushing his luck.
“Yes, that request will be honoured Sergeant. Please go with Lieutenant Dreff, he’ll make sure everything is seen to,” replied Yetin.
Jessyk replaced his helmet and snapped to attention once more and said, “Thank you sir!”
Yetin hurried the man out of the briefing room and rushed over to the holo-panel the instant the door was sealed. “Lord Vader, I have the report you requested.”
“Was the test a success?” asked Vader.
“All but one man killed by the Terminator, my Lord. The machine was destroyed when they blew up the vessel,” said Yetin.
“There must be no witnesses. You understand?” said Vader.
“Yes Lord Vader. The order will be given,” replied Yetin as the image of Darth Vader faded away to nothing.
Yetin opened the comm channel. “Send the following to Lieutenant Dreff, permission to Sergeant Jessyk for permanent furlough received from Lord Vader.”
THE END.
Authors Notes:- The opening section in italics was a writing prompt from reddit.
All technical data taken from:- http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Stormtrooper
I thought it’d be quite interesting to try and do a Star Wars/Terminator cross-over. It wasn’t easy to do without revealing the Terminator until the end but I hope people enjoy reading this.
Legal Stuff.
Star Wars, Stormtroopers, Darth Vader and Imperial Star Destroyers are all the copyright of The Walt Disney Company.
The Terminator is copyright of Pacificor.
All other characters and scenarios are my own creation, this is a work of fan fiction written under Fair Use terms of Creative Commons. No copyright infringement is intended.
Tags: flash fiction, Star Wars, writing
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