Star Wars: Before the Awakening Read Online Free PDF Page A

was awe in his voice, as if he’d never expected them to make it that far.
    “Did the captain say where we’re going?” Slip asked. “Whatwe’re doing?”
    “No,” FN-2187 replied.
    “Of course not,” Zeroes said. “She’s not going to tell stormtroopers the Supreme Leader’s plans, or General Hux’s, or even her own. She’s not asking for our opinion. She’s got a job she wants done and she’s counting on us to do it.”
    They docked in the primary bay and disembarked in tight formation, marching as they had been taught. Ranks of TIE/fo fightershung on their moorings overhead, gleaming in the docking bay light, and FN-2187 had to work hard not to stare at them, the real things up close. He knew, intuitively, that there was no appreciable difference between the fighters hanging above him and the ones he’d seen fly overhead so many times in simulations, and yet this was strangely, sharply different. Their power was palpable, even ominous,as they waited above like a flock of sleeping, savage mynocks.
    The deck officer, an older man in a perfectly tailored, immaculate uniform, was waiting for them. He separated them by cadre and gave them directions to their billets, and FN-2187 found that he and the rest of the team had been assigned to barracks almost identical to those they’d left behind on the surface. The difference was thatthe ones aboard the ship were occupied by “real” stormtroopers, men who ignored them entirely as they located their bunks and stowed their gear. They’d hardly had a moment to remove their helmets and settle themselves when they heard the order coming over the ship’s PA system: all hands prepare for hyperspace. And it wasn’t a minute after that when FN-2187 felt the ship shudder slightly and theywere off and traveling faster than light.
    “Fresh meat,” one of the stormtroopers said. “Who’s who?”
    Slip grinned and indicated himself, then the others. “FN Corps. Slip, Zeroes, Nines, and FN-2187.”
    “Let me guess,” the trooper said. “FN-2187 is in charge, right?”
    “That’s right.”
    The stormtrooper fixed FN-2187 with a stare. “No nickname. You’re one of those.”
    “One of those what?” FN-2187asked.
    The stormtrooper laughed. He looked to be in his late twenties, perhaps, but there was something hard in his eyes, and the laugh wasn’t amused. “An outsider, cadet. You’re on the outside, and you’ll always be looking in and wondering why you don’t belong.”
    The rest of the stormtroopers laughed, Nines and Zeroes and even Slip along with them.
    The deployment was to a mining colony establishedin an artificial asteroid field collectively known as Pressy’s Tumble. Once there’d been an ore-rich moon, but the ore itself had been buried deep, and instead of setting up operations on the surface and sinking mines, some engineer with a facility for explosives had decided the best solution was just to blow the whole thing to smithereens. Those smithereens now floated in the Outer Rim systemof Pressylla, along with three inhospitable planets and a red dwarf sun that made the fragments of the lost moon glow with a hellish light.
    The largest of the fragments was the base of the mining operation, a sprawling refinery complex that covered most of the surface and had been sunk deep into the rock itself. FN-2187 wasn’t exactly sure what was being mined; opinions varied. Some of the stormtrooperssaid it was fuel, vital to First Order fleet operations. Others said it was some kind of ore needed for starship shield generators. One stormtrooper claimed it was Tibanna gas, but he was clearly mistaken.
    What FN-2187
did
know was that they were there to “restore order,” according to the briefing given by Captain Phasma herself. Republic agents, she told them, had infiltrated the mining operationsand were both sabotaging equipment and creating dissent among the miners. The First Order’s presence was required to put a stop to it, to get the miners back