Men Are From Mars, Women From Venus and Stormtroopers Are From A Galaxy Far Far Away

So today is the last day of the He Said/She Said roller derby. Once today's hacks, Ryan from Pacing the Panic Room and Ron from Clark Kent's Lunchbox are done with their drivel I think the voting starts. Head on over to The Wise (*Young*) Mommy's and check them out. Joking aside, today should be pretty good.

I wasn't planning on posting today but since I've linked to Petra's all week Ryan and Ron would probably cry if I didn't mention them too. Since I didn't have anything prepared I just stole something from another blog. It's mine though so it's all good. Anyway, (I use 'anyway' far too much, don't I?) I watch a lot of Star Wars with the boys and after watching Return of the Jedi a few thousand time I got to wondering, what happened afterwards?



Kel Al’leth rested his head back against the drop ship’s bulkhead vainly attempting to think about anything besides the screaming descent rockets and shuttering frame of the ship. He hated orbital drops with a passion. If his platoon had been dropping onto a normal planet they could just fly in, but they kept getting these damn worlds with giant gaseous atmospheres you couldn’t safely fly through. “Fuckin’ Rebels, ” he muttered. That was probably the reason they chose these planets though.

Al’Leth didn’t even know the name of the planet they were landing on. He briefly admonished himself thinking he should probably know the name of the planet he could well die on, but then a sudden plunge in altitude followed by an even louder response from the stabilizers shook him out of it. We’ll be lucky to even see the surface, he thought. He sat forward again. The ship’s vibrations were being amplified by his helmet resting against the wall. Just then one of the new recruits sitting across from him lost his lunch. Kel shook his head watching the trooper’s bile slide down the front of his white chest piece. Bet he wishes he took his helmet off.

This mission, less than half of Al’leth’s platoon were actual clones. The rest, like him, were recruits. Before he’d left his small planet on the Outer Rim he had grown up on stories of the Stormtroopers and their glorious victories. The truth was somewhat disappointing. These weren’t the Troopers of the late Republic or the early Empire, these were cheap knock-offs, products of the lowest bidder. The Rebels could have saved a lot of effort by just waiting. Bureaucracy would be the Empire’s downfall.

Al’Leth tried thinking of his home world again. Two more cycles and he could go home. Growing up he’d wanted nothing except to leave, now all he wanted to do was go back. The galaxy was a shit hole. He’d seen enough. Could he survive two more cycles? With the amount of action they were seeing he was beginning to wonder. Seemed like every morning he woke up his Star Destroyer was in another part of the galaxy trying to put down another uprising or trying to forcefully convince another world not to go over to the rebellion. At least they weren’t fighting their own. It had been awhile since the last coup attempt.

It had been four years since Skywalker had killed Lord Vader and the Emperor and there had been nothing but fighting since. Al’leth was glad he’d missed the bulk of the power struggle to fill their void. Eight different admirals and generals had claimed their right as successor so far. The Empire had even split into three factions at one point. Luckily he’d only been through the last two attempts. They seemed to be slowing down, order was slowly reestablishing itself. The Empire was losing ground every where, but it was still an empire.

*PS. Until a week ago, I've never read any Star Wars fiction so there may well be scores of books written about what happened after they blew up the last Death Star. Whatever, this was for fun.