by gisambards » Sat May 07, 2016 6:23 pm
Fandom: Star Wars
Captain Merste tapped his fingers distractedly against his thigh, trying to meditate but finding it hard against the vibrations running through the walker and the loud whir and thump of its legs.
His meditation was complicated further by Corporal Sulfcol, the pilot, starting to talk again: ‘I hate snow. It always makes me need to piss.’
‘Mm,’ said Private Balbrun, the gunner, who wasn’t listening. He was focused instead on a picture of the late Corporal Jubcre’s girlfriend, which he’d stolen from his locker when they’d been cleaning it out. Merste, with his usual naively poetic view of the world, had initially thought Balbrun had taken it to remember their fallen comrade by, perhaps one day to find poor Jubcre’s girl – Mayelsa, he believed she was called – and comfort her in her grief. Instead, as Balbrun had explained to him without being asked while they’d waited for their AT-AT to be deployed from the dropship, he’d taken it because he thought she was stunningly beautiful and needed something to keep him company during the long lonely nights on the Executor.
‘She has a fantastic ass, sir,’ he’d summarised, pointing to it in case Merste hadn’t noticed. He had of course, but felt it disrespectful to stare given that Jubcre was dead and had hardly given his permission. He also detested the word ‘ass’ – it was so… so Corellian. He really wished there were more Coruscanti among the rank-and-file, so he had someone to talk to outside of the officers’ lounge, but then he supposed if there were any they’d be from the lower reaches of the city and thus quite undesirable – scuzzy types who grew up stealing and would much rather a dirty Twi’lek than a nice, proper, human girl.
Merste now found it quite impossible to meditate – now only being able to see Jubcre’s girlfriend’s rear when he closed his eyes – so he sat down and focused on the view from the windscreen instead.
Snow, mostly.
‘How far is it now?’ he asked.
Sulfcol turned to look at him, completely removing his hands from the console. ‘Telemetry says…’
‘Hold on,’ said Merste.
‘What?’
‘Neither of you have your hands on, you know, any of the things you use to steer this thing.’
‘What? Oh, yeah, sure. No sir, this old thing practically drives itself.’ He patted the console, but then a strange whirring filled the cockpit so he took his hand away. Eventually the whirring stopped, so they presumed it was nothing and carried on. ‘Anyway,’ Sulfcol continued, ‘telemetry says it’s still a couple klicks, sir’
‘Right. After how many bloody hours? Couldn’t they have dropped us any nearer?’
‘I don’t know, sir; I just drive the thing.’
‘Right. You know, if this thing drives itself, why do we need three of us up here?’
‘… well… in case something happens, I suppose, sir.’
‘Right. However, if I temporarily leave the cockpit and see how the men are doing, nothing’s going to explode, is it?’
Sulfcol thought about it. ‘Given that you’re the commanding officer here, I feel like you should know whether or not you’re allowed to leave the cockpit, sir. With all due respect, sir.’
‘Right. Yes. You’re right. I’m going to check on the troops.’
‘Whatever you want, sir. As I say, sir, you are in charge.’
‘Right. Good.’
Merste opened the cockpit door.
‘Oh no sir,’ Balbrun suddenly said.
‘What?’
‘Everything’s exploded, sir.’
Merste tried to work out what he was talking about.
‘He’s joking, sir,’ said Sulfcol.
‘… Right. Very good, carry on.’
He walked down the inside of the AT-AT’s “neck” and then climbed down a short ladder to where the troops were waiting, standing in formation.
‘How is everything?’ he asked.
There was a moment of silence, before one trooper cleared his throat and said: ‘How do you mean, sir?’
‘Is everything alright?’
There was another silence. ‘Well…’ the same trooper said. ‘… you know…’
‘… What?’
‘It’d be nice to be able to sit down, sir. I don’t see why we have to stand up for the whole journey, sir.’
‘Right. Well… are there not any seats back here?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Right. Well.’
‘Do you think you could have a word with General Veers next time you see him, sir?’
‘Right. Yes. Alright. Absolutely.’
Captain Merste had given his men the impression he knew General Veers very well – on a first name basis. It wasn’t true, although his older brother had been in Veers’ year at school (Thoris Darus Memorial College, one of the best on Coruscant, which Merste and all of his other brothers – and both of his sisters’ husbands – had gone to as well) and they had met once in the changing room in the Executor’s swimming facilities, when Merste had ambushed him in an attempt to ingratiate himself to the general by telling him who his brother was. Their meeting had gone as follows:
‘Excuse me, General Veers, sir?’
‘Yes, Captain?’
‘I just wanted to introduce myself, sir. Captain Tyriss Merste, sir. You were at Thoris Darus with my brother, sir. Emildas Merste, sir.’
‘Emildas Merste?’
‘Yessir.’
‘What, old ‘Fairycakes’ Merste?’
‘Er… possibly, sir…’
‘Ha. I’d forgotten all about that little prig. How is he?’
‘He’s dead, sir. He was on the Death Star, sir. He was old Tarkin’s personal assistant’s secretary, sir. Or maybe that was the other way around, sir.’
‘Really? He did well for himself, then. Couldn’t tell his elbow from his arsehole last I met him. Then again, he was old Tarkin’s type, if you catch my drift. Eh? Eh?’
‘Er…’
‘Eh?’
‘Yessir.’
‘Prissy and blonde, just how Wilhuff liked them, force rest his soul. Eh?’
‘Yessir.’
‘I mean, gosh, force rest both their souls, of course. Terribly sorry about your brother of course, he was a decent cove, all told. Er, who do you work for?’
‘I work for you, sir. That’s why I’m introducing myself, sir.’
‘Oh. Right. Good. Carry on then.’
‘Yessir.’
And then they’d gone back to towelling themselves off.
Merste wasn’t sure, but he suspected this didn’t constitute knowing his superior well enough to call him by his first name. Particularly given that he didn’t actually know what Veers’ first name was (he had heard from Captain Dwingjam, one of the other officers, that it was Maximilian, but that was a bit too daft a name to believe).
Merste waited for a moment to see if the troopers had anything else they wanted to say, and then said ‘Right. Good. Okay.’ and went back into the cockpit, where Sulfcol and Balbrun were having quite a heated discussion about which member of the Max Rebo Band had the best solo work – Sulfcol going for Doda Bodonawieedo, Balbrun for Droopy McCool.
Merste – who was more of a Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes sort of man – wandered around the cockpit for a bit, scanning the horizon. Their AT-AT wasn’t at the front of the formation, and up ahead was Captain Harthe’s. Harthe was an utter cock, and it gave Merste a small bit of pleasure to see that his back right leg was a bit wonky, giving his AT-AT a slight limp. Of course, it then occurred to Merste that, firstly, that was incredibly petty, and secondly that if Harthe’s AT-AT went down that would leave Merste’s own walker as the Rebels’ main target. Merste was suddenly really quite nervous, and it occurred to him just how utterly shit it was that General Veers – who according to the propaganda back home was supposed to be leading the charge – was somewhere at the back of the column.
At least Lord Vader would be leading the first strike teams into the Rebel base personally. Merste had always respected Lord Vader, who he saw as pretty much the only one of the higher-ups actually willing to put himself in just as much danger as everyone else.
Of course, it probably helped that Lord Vader had his Force powers, something Merste had been quite sceptical of – he’d heard about the Jedi from his father, who’d served under Admiral Yularen (force rest his soul, another casualty of the Death Star) during the Clone Wars, but had always thought the old man (who had retired and was now a diplomatic attaché kicking his heels on Naboo) had been exaggerating. He’d lost this scepticism after seeing Lord Vader strangle Major Parcose to death from the other end of the room. It would probably be rather hard not to respect someone after seeing them do that, though.
Merste was distracted by the sight of the Rebel base on the horizon.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Shit.’
‘What?’ asked Sulfcol.
‘It’s the base.’
‘Where?’
Balbrun pointed to it.
‘Oh yeah.’
The radio crackled. ‘This is Harthe. We see the target.’
Hah, though Merste. I saw it first.
‘Confirmed, Captain,’ came Veers’ voice. ‘All walkers, hear this: commence firing immediately.’
‘Right. Alright chaps,’ said Merste, ‘spin up the guns. Just like we practiced.’
Firing commenced. The guns on the walkers were very impressive, and the Rebels must have been being cut to ribbons. They were returning fire, but not with anything that could penetrate the AT-ATs’ armour.
‘Oh shit!’ laughed Sulfcol. ‘How much damage are we doing, sir?’
‘I don’t know. A lot I presume. I left my binoculars back on the ship.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Sulfcol, kindly stop pointing out my failures as a leader and put your mind to the task at hand. Look,’ he said, pointing, ‘snowspeeders.’
As if on cue, Harthe’s voice came over the radio: ‘We have snowspeeders inbound, I repeat, snowspeeders inbound.’
‘Now hear this,’ announced Veers. ‘Fire upon the inbound snowspeeders.’
‘No shit, General,’ muttered Balbrun, shifting the guns’ aim.
One of the snowspeeders exploded in a flash of red light. ‘Wow,’ said Merste, ‘was that us?’
‘No,’ replied Balbrun, ‘that was Harthe.’
‘Oh.’
Merste then noticed what the snowspeeders were doing to Harthe’s walker: circling it, with a rope attached to the back of the speeder in such a way that…
‘Oh shit,’ said Merste, just as the rope detached from the snowspeeder and Harthe’s walker began to trip.
They could hear the creaking from their cockpit, as the AT-AT’s leg joints grinded, desperately trying to move forward, and then the whole thing fell slowly forward, hitting the ground with a violent crash.
‘That’s not good,’ muttered Balbrun, as the snowspeeders came in for another strike. This time Harthe’s armour couldn’t take it, and the whole walker went up in an almighty blast.
‘Right,’ said Merste, ‘is there any way to make sure that doesn’t happen to us?’
‘Um,’ said Sulfcol. ‘No sir.’
‘Right. Great. Whose fucking idea was it to give these things such long legs?’
‘Sir, I’ve been piloting one of these things for nearly a year now. I have moved well beyond being angry at how stupidly fucking designed they are.’
‘Right. Great.’ Merste felt that rather summed up the Imperial war effort. A vast number of Imperial assets had gone AWOL after the Death Star went up – some out of fear the Rebels would win, but far more after realising just what the Emperor had been up to, most not finding out about the Death Star until after the Rebels released the plans and footage of the battle to the general public. They’d lost most of their best engineers, and a lot of idiots had had to be promoted by default, and that was why instead of the reliable AT-TEs of old they now had these stupid things, purportedly designed by General Veers himself.
‘Oh fuck!’ Balbrun shouted, as another snowspeeder burst into flames. Merste remembered they were in the middle of a battle, and brought himself back, slightly horrified he had actually zoned out during a live combat scenario.
‘Was that us?’ he asked.
‘Yes sir.’
‘Good shooting, corporal. Although there are still quite a few of them.’
‘Yeah, I noticed. Uh, sir.’
‘Very good. Right. I’m going in back to check on the chaps, alright? Are you two okay for now?’
‘All things considered, sir?’ said Sulfcol. ‘Things could be better.’
‘Right, well yes, but that does rather go without saying, doesn’t it?’
‘I guess it does, sir.’
‘Quite. I’ll be right back. I expect this cockpit to still be here when I return.’
‘Yessir.’
‘That’s a joke.’
‘We’re a little busy, sir.’
‘Right, I suppose you are.’
He went back through the walker’s neck and back down the ladder, this time nearly falling off as some explosion outside shook the whole vehicle.
Despite their helmets, which did not lend themselves easily to conveying emotion (or, Merste had often noticed, allowing for peripheral vision, another bizarre design choice on the part of HQ), he got the distinct impression the men were not particularly happy. The walker shook again, and they all tried once more to not knock each other over.
‘Sir,’ said one trooper (possibly the one from before), ‘I really wish they’d given us somewhere to sit down.’
‘I’m sure. You know, I don’t actually get a chair either, up in the cockpit. The pilot and the gunner do, of course, but I suppose if anyone does they should.’
‘I bet General Veers has a chair, sir.’
‘I’m sure he does. And one day, private, when…’
‘Corporal, sir.’
‘Right, yes, none of you have any insignia on, but anyway: but one day, corporal, when you’ve made it to general, you can have a chair of your very own.’
‘Thank you sir. Your patronising me really makes me feel better.’
‘Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, Corporal.’
Merste was then distracted, however, because a hole appeared in the floor between him and the troopers, and someone started shooting up through it, hitting the corporal.
‘Return fire!’ he shouted, and they did, but not before a small sphere was thrown up into the walker, landing at Merste’s feet.
He had time to realise it was a thermal detonator, and then realised whatever he said next would go down in history as his last words.
‘Right. Oh. Shit.’
General Maximilian Veers and Lord “Darth” Vader each received several commendations for their bravery in the Assault on Echo Base. As usual, the latter didn’t turn up to the ceremony, which everyone was secretly glad about. General Veers did turn up but woke up the next morning demoted to Captain, having made several drunken assertions about the Emperor’s sexual habits. Captain Veers would go on to be killed by a Wookie at the Battle of Endor (or possibly the Battle of Endor’s Forest Moon, an ambiguity that has since resulted in two decades of edit warring on Holopedia, the free holonet encyclopedia), and Lord Vader would also die under unknown circumstances in the space theatre of that same battle.
The entire crew of AT-AT 006, including commanding officer Captain Tyriss Merste and the entire troop detachment assigned to it, were killed when the AT-AT exploded, an action for which Commander Luke Skywalker of the Rebel Alliance would receive his second Medal of Bravery. Captain Merste was going to be nominated for a commendation, but thanks to ex-General Veers’ replacement General Durple Dwingjam’s lack of organisational skills (a character flaw that would ultimately result in his being executed by Lord Vader) the paperwork for this was lost somewhere in the Executor’s administration offices until, ironically enough, also being destroyed with the rest of the ship at the Battle of Endor/’s Forest Moon.