"General... Captain Garren... he activated the signal. And inter-armor life systems indicate that he is no longer conscious." A voice rang out across the operations room, as Kael sharply turned toward the source. His eyes narrowed.
You better be alive, he thought.
"Details. Now," Kael demanded, striding toward the operations lieutenant.
"Captain Garren transmitted a coded message. 'Potential. Base. Entering.' And about a minute later, he activated the 'under attack' code before falling unconscious. They're in Sector A-03, the small hut closest to their ship's crash site," the lieutenant explained.
Kael's lips tugged into a faint smile, impressed by his old friend's resilience and clarity, even while wounded or ambushed. Garren had always been level-headed under pressure.
"Dispatch Wesk-8 and 9. And a full Stormtrooper company. We might have found their hidden base," Kael said, pivoting to another officer as he returned to his command station in the center of the room.
We fought together for years, Garren. I will not permit you to die on some forgotten rock, designated 'classified' and stripped of all memory. Kael's mind burned with silent resolve.
"Sir," called a young communications officer, "Garren's initial detachment reports heavy firefights at the landing zone. Orders?"
Kael didn't hesitate. "Let the reinforcements handle them."
______________________-
Lancer stood among his four brothers, clad in black plastoid armor and wielding his T-50 Blaster Rifle. The Sentinel-Class Transport Craft rumbled around them, carrying 71 Stormtroopers and eight Wraith Troopers through the upper atmosphere.
They stood out, and they knew it. The Stormtroopers didn't speak to them, didn't glance at them. No one dared. And Lancer didn't blame them.
Wraith Troopers were different.
Boil, their lieutenant, stood quietly beside Lancer. A veteran of the 212th Attack Battalion, and the commanding officer after the loss of his closest friend, Waxer. That kind of trauma either broke you or hardened you into steel. Boil was the latter.
The Wraith Troopers were an enigma. Clones handpicked by Commodore Rysell himself. No one knew the selection criteria. No one dared ask. But all who were chosen were elite — hardened, brutal, and absolutely loyal.
Boil turned, his voice calm and practiced. "Our assignment is absolute. Clear the insurgent base. Prioritize intel recovery. Depending on what we find, this might be the first real strike we land on the Vireenians. Lock and load. We deploy over the trench in thirteen seconds."
Lancer's heart beat steadily. He slid his finger across the activation pad of his blaster rifle, checking for charge and shield strength. Everything was green.
"Three."
"Two."
"One."
"Deploy."
The assault ramps flared open.
The Wraith Troopers jumped.
Four from starboard, four from port. The ground vanished beneath Lancer as he plummeted toward the 80-meter-long trench below. His HUD flared to life, scanning for targets.
Thermal imaging identified 72 heat signatures clustered in the trench. No ray shields. Light to medium armor. Movements irregular.
The trench wasn't just a hole — it was a kill zone.
The mini-map in his visor displayed his squad's spread. They separated mid-fall, ten meters between each. Coordinated. Efficient.
At ten meters altitude, the jump-packs activated. One-time use, designed to reduce terminal velocity. A hard hiss of deceleration, and then—
Thud.
Lancer landed.
The impact echoed through his armor. No time to orient. He rolled instinctively, coming up in a crouch, and fired.
A pair of insurgents, dead ahead — or to his left during the fall. They barely had time to turn before Lancer's blaster barked, sending nine bolts into their torsos and heads.
No ceremony. No mercy.
Three more bolts hissed in from the left — E-5 rifles, low-grade, weak penetration. Lancer activated the ray shield emitter on his rifle. A glowing disc shimmered into place just in time to absorb the blasts.
He turned, calculated, fired.
Two more insurgents collapsed, their limbs twitching as they hit the trench floor.
He checked the squad vitals. All green. Minimal shield degradation. No casualties.
The trench was crudely built, with shallow nooks every ten meters. There were no fallback positions, no dug-in bunkers, no emergency exit tunnels.
Do or die. A last stand. A hopeless one.
Lancer respected their determination. But he pitied them. Their leaders clearly didn't care about survival — only martyrdom.
And Lancer had learned long ago, through Clone Wars, through purges, and the Emperor's bloody campaigns: loyalty without preservation was just another form of death.
The Wraith Troopers converged at the trench's center. The battle had lasted only minutes. Seventy-two insurgents dead. Zero Wraith casualties.
Boil's voice crackled through the coms. "H-1 through 3 on point. A1 and A2 center. Remainder rear. Form up. Move."
Encrypted coms meant no one outside the Wraith Troopers could hear them. Their helmets automatically compressed sound to prevent echo or environmental interference.
Lancer, designated H-2, took position behind H-1. TL-50 heavy blaster primed, grenade launcher loaded, shield calibrated.
Wraith Troopers were split into two groups: Assault and Heavy. Assault wielded E-22 rifles, focused on ranged precision. Heavies used TL-50s — brutal, loud, short-range devastation.
They sprinted.
Heavy armor. Full sprint. Thirty seconds to cover two hundred meters. No breaks. No breathing hard.
They reached Entrance Point E-1 — a blast door half-buried under debris. H-1 breached. H-2 followed. H-3 behind him. Then A1 and A2. The rest covered rear.
Boil signaled silently — a sweep-and-clear motion. They dropped low, entering through a narrow tunnel drilled into the base rock.
A kill-box. Predictable. Still, they entered. No hesitation.
__________________________
Larios sat at the control chair of the eastern control room. Two other rebels lounged nearby, joking quietly. This bunker — airlocked, climate-controlled, with full power — was luxury by Vireen standards.
He liked it here. It was safe. Comfortable. Clean.
Even today, with Imperials swarming the surface, Larios felt nothing but calm. He'd already vaporized one Stormtrooper squad with remote charges.
Now, the motion sensors showed eight more intruders in the tunnel. That was fine. He had prepared.
He leaned forward as the figures entered the trap — one by one, dressed in pitch-black armor, with unfamiliar helmets and weapon attachments. Shields? That was new.
But no matter.
The last trooper passed through. The trapdoor behind them slammed shut.
Gas hissed from the ceiling vents — a compound developed from Vireen's local flora, weaponized by rebel chemists. Nonlethal, but enough to knock out even the toughest clone.
Larios grinned, pressing the activation.
"Another haul, eh boys? Think we can pry some of that fancy gear off?"
His comrades chuckled. One raised a flask.
"K-3 to command," Larios said into the comm. "We've got eight unconscious Imperial commandos for you. Confirmed high value. Likely carrying critical intel."
The response was quick. "Understood. Extraction en route."
Larios leaned back, smiling to himself.
Another win. Another notch in the fight against tyranny. Another tool for vengeance.
He let his thoughts wander.
The Imperials took everything. His family, his village, his peace. He'd lost his wife to an orbital bombardment, his brothers to labor camps. And now — now he had a second chance.
He had a new wife. A chance at life again.
And vengeance. Always vengeance.
To think I could avenge them from behind a console. To bleed the Empire, not with a rifle, but with knowledge.
The Vireenians were starving. Eighty percent of the population lived in extreme poverty. Children parentless. Entire regions flattened. The Empire called it "pacification." He called it what it was: genocide.
But hope remained.
The rebels — the Shadows of Vireen — were no longer scattered. They had structure. Purpose. Strategy. And each child raised by another family, each rebel armed with stolen tech, was proof that they would endure.
They will never stop fighting. Not until Vireen breathes freely again.
And Larios would make sure of it.
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