Star Wars: Heir to the Sith (Part 1) (#Wattys2018 shortlist)

Chapter 11: For the first time, he knew what it was to fight to survive.

"What are your orders, sir? We can't hold this position for long."

"Call a lander in," he shouted over the sound of rapid blaster fire. Pina stared at the oncoming mass. They stood no more than a hundred metres from the blackened post. The firing squad was gone, with only ten fallen troopers lying where they had once stood. Pina needed space. Out here there was little cover. The refugees had the advantage on that front.

"Form a second line as far back as we can so we can fall back to it." He pointed to the Sentient Fence that was blocking their retreat. "Get a squad to knock that out. We need room to back off and bring a lander in."

"Our weapons aren't powerful enough to penetrate its shielding, sir."

Another trooper fell as a bolt took him directly in the stomach. He wriggled in anguish, his blaster forgotten, his screams reaching Pina from behind his helm.

His hatred for the enemy grew. He had never known hatred like it before. For the first time, he knew what it was to fight to survive.

It was that simple. The refugees would not spare them.

Any thought of mercy died in him then. He had a duty to his men.

He looked to Jish and her party. They had boarded the speeders and fled back toward the camp, to where the Sentient Fences ended their restrictions. They were now at a half kilometre away on the other side of the shield wall, where they remained. He could see King Garrand speaking into a communicator and pointing skyward.

Was he calling in Farsalt's small fighter craft to attack them? If he was, they were doomed.

"Where are the TIEs?" Pina yelled. "Why aren't they helping us? Can't they see we're in trouble?"

In mockery, a TIE flew overhead, low. Pina waved frantically, but the pilot made no response.

"Imperial doctrine, sir," the stormtrooper commander told him. "They have orders to ignore visual signals on the ground. If they were veterans they might ignore that, but these are only recent arrivals from the academy. They won't dare disobey."

Pina cursed the stupidity of whichever commander had written that order.

From the camp beyond, a silver glimmer rose, followed by two others.

Ships, he realised. King Garrand must have had them there all the time, armed and ready. They were only seconds away.

"We can't get through to the Reaver, sir," the trooper who had taken over the technician's role informed him. "We're still being blocked."

"Air defence!" he snapped. "Where are the cannon–"

"Sir! A lander!" The trooper pointed behind Pina to where an Imperial lander descended. Its ramp opened up, less than three hundred metres behind.

But those three hundred metres may as well have been a light year.

For it was on the other side of the Sentient Fence.

Three troopers loaded a proton cannon that Admiral Karion had insisted be brought with them. But their activity drew the attention from the attackers. A torrent of blaster fire poured into their position, felling two of them instantly and knocking the weapon on its side with a hit on its barrel. A cry of triumph went up from the camp. They knew that the incoming fighters would pulverise Pina's forces.

Victory would be theirs.

The heavy cannons on the Farsalt fighters opened up. Thick blue bolts of energy roared from the muzzles as the three teardrop shaped craft came in.

Only for the shots to pass directly overhead, and straight into the Sentient Fence that barred their way behind.

Shields reacted with the pounding. Sheath lightning cascaded from the blows. Pina's hopes grew .

"They weren't aiming at us?" a trooper said in surprise, following Pina's gaze to the vertical shield curtain. It flickered, once, twice, and then returned.

The three Farsalt fighters passed overhead and banked, their engines whining. They were pursued by two TIE fighters.

"No!" Pina yelled into the air. "No don't–"

The TIE pilot fired. Green bolts lashed the wing of the last Farsalt fighter. It burst into flame and broke into pieces, spinning into the forest below.

The other two broke formation, each seeking to evade the TIEs in pursuit. But even Pina, without combat experience, could see how futile it was. There were few fighters as agile as a well-handled TIE, and a Farsalt police vessel wasn't one of them.

Pina watched in horrid captivation as the same TIE lambasted its target with an accurate burst of green fire. The first bolt clipped the wing and sent it into a spin. Smoke billowed out. Then flame. It did not even complete one revolution in its twisting fall before three more blasts blew it into millions of super-heated pieces.

He felt his hopes die. Indecision choked him.

The stormtrooper captain approached him.

"Sir, may I have permission to lead a charge?"

"What? It's suicide. There's no cover."

"The rebel side is growing complacent. Their fire is less concentrated than before. A charge might give you time to lead the rest of the men out of here."

"Do it!"

The trooper captain was gone before he could add anything else. He watched as a hundred of their number charged after their commander in a wide line, shooting, aiming, taking one step after another, always, always advancing into the face of enemy fire. Those that fell were ignored as their comrades pushed on over the hundred metre space, and before them the rebel will broke. The disparate group that had sensed weakness had grown too hopeful for it, too confident of its inevitability.

But the men in white armour, falling and shooting and advancing, made Pina proud. Half their number fell in the first minute, yet the rebels turned and pushed in on those behind them, whilst those who tried to fight were mercilessly shot down.

The stormtroopers' will reinvigorated his own.

His eye fell on the toppled proton cannon that had drawn the rebel fire.

"Get that cannon operational immediately," he instructed the nearest squad. He pointed to the Sentient Fence behind him with the flickering shield around its hovering generator. "Knock that damn thing out."

Three troopers moved to obey. Pina stared at the charge. The survivors had taken the walls before the gates, which gave them more cover than they had enjoyed than before, but the rebels had rallied. Now they fired down at his soldiers from windows and walkways.

It had worked though. The charge had brought them time.

The trooper in charge of the cannon signalled Pina.

"Fire!"

The trigger was pressed. The cannon thumped back into the ground in recoil.

But there was no discharge.

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This chapter shows how the need for control in dictatorships limits the ability of those in the lower ranks to do their jobs. The TIE pilots won't dare to disobey their orders to interfere on the ground, despite the obvious truth that the situation is racing out of control. People who live and work in areas where sanctions for disobedience or failure are strict unto the point of death are unlikely to be risk takers or willing to challenge old ways of thinking. This is also true in real life: such as Stalin's Purges in the late 1930s that eliminated many of the top officers of the USSR and endangered the Soviet Union when the Nazis invaded. It is a key purpose of this novel to show how the same truth would work in the Star Wars universe too. Dictatorships, paranoia, and fear are not the best ways of getting the best from people!