Title: Pax Empirica - The Wookie Annihilation
Author: Steven L. Kent
Format: Short Story
Published: 2001
Synopsis:
Aboard an Imperial cruiser, Corporal Wayson Dower is one of two hundred Marines listening to a briefing from their commander, Captain Janzor. Moff Tarkin has ordered the stormtroopers to land on Kashyyk and march north, destroying any communications arrays they encounter, and then secure a site. Janzor and the stormtroopers laugh at the Wookiees, which Janzor claims are descended from Banthas, and are convinced that they’re only marginally intelligent.
After the briefing, Dower and his friend, Corporal Milo Strander, stop at the Trooper’s Canteen, where they see Janzor angrily talking with three new sergeants attached to the unit – three sergeants with the exact same face. The three men, First Sergeant Oswald Strepp, First Sergeant Tak Bazierre, and First Sergeant Dalia, are all clones.
But they’re not the only ones. Dower notices that he’s the only member of the platoon that isn’t a clone – a “GeNode.” They’re all clones, programmed from birth not to realise that they’re clones, and too polite to discuss cloning with other GeNodes from the same production line. The three sergeants are from anold, discontinued line, but most of them are from the same line as Strander. GeNodes don’t retire; they never leave the service, because the Empire is everything to them. And they all have different personalities; Strander, with the personality of a street urchin, offers to sell Dower an illegal Vollusk hand bolt for 300 credits, for some extra insurance against Wookiees.
On the way down, Dower and Strander are in the transport carrying Janzor’s platoon, where Dower is harassed by the three sergeants. Soon, the transport runs into a highly-flexible branch, and is rolled to its side, losing Bazierre, who spine gets snapped in half when he lands on a branch. Strepp orders Dower to take charge of unloading the transport, which leaves him alone and unprotected for several minutes. Once the stormtroopers are ready to march to their destination, Strepp orders him to take point, and then orders him to take guard duty that night. The stormtroopers then take control of a small Wookiee outpost, which they then set about fortifying against Wookiee attackers, while the exhausted Dower takes watch.
That night, the Wookiees attack the outpost, routing the stormtroopers. Strepp orders all survivors back to the drop site, and sets off a thermal detonator, trying to save Janzor and fifteen others, but while the blast kills a lot of Wookiees (and Strepp himself), Janzor and most of his men don’t make it, either. Only a half stormtroopers are left, out of 200.
Dower tries to regroup with the survivors, but is forced to watch while a horde of Wookiees savagely rip to shreds a pair of stormtroopers who tried to hide in a tree, and then discovers that a TIE fighter-sized spider, so cold its IR signal is blue, is watching him, hidden beneath the floor of metre-thick branches....
Strander and Private Sterns Yennich find Dower, and they head toward the drop zone. Dower notices that the spider is still beneath them, even though they’re far from where he first found it – and then he realises that it’s following them. Yennich zigs where he should have zagged, and the spider spears him through the leg, and impales him with its mandibles, and drags him back down to its lair beneath the floor.
Dower hyperventilates, and throws away his helmet; its audio equipment was broken, anyway. Shortly after, the lone pair of stormtroopers is discovered by a trio of scouttroopers, bearing excellent news.
The Wookiees have won the battle, but they’re losing the war. Kashyyyk is now under Imperial control.
The three sergeants had told Janzor a secret, one he didn’t want to hear. His platoon was never intended to succeed; it was a ruse. Central Command had ordered Janzor’s platoon to attack a minor outpost, to lure away Wookiees from the main invasion force – a force which landed with Arakyd XR-85 tank ’droids, TIE crawlers, and AT-STs. The Empire had already conquered most of a continent by the time Dower, Strander, and Yennich had made their last dash for freedom.
Strander and Dower are awarded medals, and promoted to first sergeant. They’re shipped back to the cruiser, and won’t see any more combat in the Kashyyk campaign. Dower thinks that perhaps he’s seen too much combat, period, and thinks about retiring to somewhere quiet, orderly... but then he realises that he’ll never retire, because order can only come from a strong, guiding hand. He can never leave. He loves the Empire.
Chronology:
This storyline occurs 3 years before the Battle of Yavin.
Availability:
This short story was published in Prima's Official Strategy Guide: Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds.
