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

troops out into the facility, and Zeroes, Nines, and Slip had begun complaining about how boring the detail was, how it wasn’t fair that they’d been stuck there to guard the transporters.
    “FN-2187, respond.” It was Phasma’s voice.
    “FN-2187. Go ahead,Captain.”
    “I am sending a unit to relieve you. Once they arrive proceed with your team to level alpha-seven-seven, room ought-three. Confirm.”
    “Confirmed.”
    The others were looking at him.
    “We’re being relieved,” FN-2187 told them. “Captain Phasma wants us to move to a different location.”
    “Anything’s got to be better than this,” Nines said.
    “You could be a miner here,” FN-2187 said.
    “Don’tmake me laugh. We’re not supposed to laugh when in uniform, remember?”
    “I’m not joking.”
    “They could leave if they wanted to,” Slip said.
    FN-2187 thought of the empty bay behind them, containing only the two transporters that had taken them and the other stormtroopers there. He didn’t say anything.
    Their relief arrived, another cadet fire-team, and FN-2187 brought up the map he had downloadedto his in-armor computer so it was projected across his vision. They made their way through the complex, along the more stable perimeter walkway and then to an enormous lift that took them down more than five kilometers before finally shuddering to a stop on level alpha-seven-seven. The doors opened onto a view similar to what they’d left above, only even darker, puddles spreading across the floordeep enough that their boots splashed with each step.
    Captain Phasma was waiting for them outside a door marked O-3, a half dozen stormtroopers with her.
    “Reporting as ordered,” FN-2187 said.
    Phasma indicated the closed door, her cloak sliding off her arm as she did so. Green and red reflected off her armor.
    “The negotiators are inside,” she said. “You and your team will accompany me.”
    “We’renegotiating with the Republic?” The question came without thought, and as soon as he had said it, FN-2187 regretted it, expecting Phasma to rebuke him.
    “No, for the striking miners.” Phasma turned, hitting the activation plate on the wall and opening the door. She led them inside.
    Four humanoids sat at the far side of a rectangular slab of a table, opposite the door. Only one was human, hiseyes sunken, half his cheek puffed and shiny from a burn scar. The others were a Rodian missing two of the fingers on his right hand, an Abednedo, and a Narquois. All of them straightened in their seats as Phasma entered and watched as she shut the door behind the stormtroopers.
    “Have you considered our requests?” the human asked.
    “I have given your request the thought it deserves.” Phasma lookedat FN-2187 and the rest of the fire-team. “Kill them.”
    Nothing happened for a moment, no movement, not a word, as if everyone—the negotiators and cadets alike—was unsure of what he’d heard.
    Then Slip opened fire.
    Then Zeroes, then Nines. FN-2187 raised his rifle to his shoulder, his finger on the trigger, and saw the Abednedo in his sights. He saw his wide eyes and all his fear, and in thatinstant he saw a life full of suffering that was about to end, and he told himself that perhaps what he was about to do was a mercy. Still he couldn’t pull the trigger.
    In the end he didn’t need to.
    Slip did it for him.

    There was a simple simulation room aboard the Star Destroyer, and FN-2187 booked time in it almost as soon as they were back aboard. He punched up a basic escalation program,a low-level combat scenario in an urban environment that would gradually increase in difficulty. He checked his weapon and entered the simulation.
    At first, it was as easy as it had ever been. The enemy appeared—Republic soldiers in that scenario—the rifle kicked softly in his hands, and then the enemy was no more. Another emerged from around a corner, and FN-2187 fired again. There was a rhythmto it, and his shots were going where he wanted