***8 April 2005 –An evening off

 

Sweat drops rolled over Jane’s face, her mouth felt dry as she panted to get enough air so that she could.. keep running..

Stormtroopers on dewbacks chased them, she looked at the others. The backpack felt like a weight on her shoulders.

“HALT!”, one of the troopers shouted.

In front of Jane there was the back of the starport. They had arrived at the outskirts of Mos Entha. Sien, Jarome and Andy looked very active. Jarome even kept running circles around on of the mounted troopers. Teglo and this other guy from which she didn’t know the name looked more tired as they didn’t get that adrenaline injection too, like herself.

“If you can disgrace the Empire, you can run three laps around Mos Entha city. Without stopping, counterclockwise.”, the trooper said to them.

Three laps..

Her eyes grew wide.

“Move it!”

She wiped the sweat from her forehead and followed the others.

Several times she fell on the ground, exhausted, but she had to keep moving.. she didn’t want to know what would happen if she didn’t continue. So with all her effort she got herself up and just.. continued running.

“One two one two.”, one of the troopers on dewbacks kept the pace.

When they finally arrived back at the base she fell on the ground and passed out for a short time. When she had regained her consciousness she only saw Jarome, Sien and Andy standing in a line. Teglo that bastard, and that other moron.. she clenched her teeth. They would get their revenge.

“Get moving Doe!”, one of the troopers barked at her.

She struggled onto her feet and added herself to the line of the unfortunate, after having put off the heavy weight backpack. She hoped that they would be allowed to go to bed soon. But no.. now they had to disassemble and reassemble E11 blasters.

She and someone else of them fell on their knees to puke. They had the side effects of the adrenaline shot, maybe in addition to the hangover. She had the hangover that already fell bad enough. She didn’t want to imagine how nauseous they must be feeling now.

At least a bottle of brandy and almost half a bottle of other high alcoholic drinks she had consumed only a couple of hours ago. And now they were being punished for their misbehavior that was the result of this.

“We don’t have all day.”, she heard a voice and she got up to get her blaster.

She watched how the suns raised, her eyelids almost closed spontaneously. She got on her knees and breathed slowly, trying to concentrate as best as she could as she turned the blaster into a bunch of blaster parts, putting as many as possible in the pockets of her cadet uniform so that no sand particles could get into them. Patiently she reassembled the blaster, trying not to hurry too much because then it would probably go wrong. She sighed in relief when she finished hers right on time, together with the others and their superiors accepted this.

In the medbay they got a short medical examination and a glass of water. She stared at the transparent glass, after having drank the water, and thought back at this night with a faint grin.

“Don’t you dare to puke in here!”, Hamna warned them.

Jane managed not to puke and after the checkup they were put in one of the cells for the night, a big cell that looked like a dormitory.

Cadet carpet and bald guy you are lucky.. for now, Jane thought bitterly.

“Best get some sleep, breakfast is in 5 hours. Next shift in 5,5 hours.”, one of the armored people outside the cell bars said to them, then they left.

Jane stumbled to one of the beds and let herself fall onto it, almost immediately passing out. The last thing she remembered was Andy giving her a kiss on the forehead..

 

___________________________________________________

 

After another casual patrol they finally got some time off and after having had a meal and a quick shower they immediately returned to Entha..

to the Fallen Star. They realized that any moment they could be receiving a comm call to go back to duty but before this would happen.. this time they would have fun!

They sat down around a table in a back room of the Fallen Star, Jarome got a big bottle of brandy and glasses. Beech, one of the troopers that left early that night, had brought a woman with him. She wondered if she was family of him or his girlfriend. They started to drink while chit-chatting.

They weren’t disturbed by other people. The Imperials didn’t seem to be very popular with the normal people but what did it matter.. they had each other.

Andy was sitting left of Jane, she saw him staring at her all the time. She blushed and acted like she didn’t notice. She enjoyed it and she didn’t want to end it by reacting to it.

After a while they started getting drunk.

“Have you ever been to Naboo?”, Andy asked Jane.

She didn’t remember.. she thought and thought and hmm maybe.. she started to remember bits from it and nodded at him.

“The Lake Retreat, do you know that?”, he continued.

She shook her head, no she didn’t remember.

One by one they made a toast, Jane felt happy. She toasted on the first friends that she got in her life then slammed the glass back on the table with a loud RRRRAAAAAHH. Jarome threw his glass against the wall and she did the same with hers.

Everything started spinning around her a bit, she had to giggle all the time.

“Here drink more.”, Jarome handed her over another glass of whiskey.

“Hmm maybe not, I’m too drunk I euh guess.”, she stammered.

“Humans cannot get drunk.”, they laughed.

With a grin she brought the glass to her mouth, consuming the contents.

“I.. well maybe I have been drunk before in my life..”, she slurred, “I don’t remember.. I was probably too drunk to remember hahahahaha!”

Sien got up and made a toast.

“Hereby I toast on the Emperor!”, he yelled.

“TO THE EMPEROR!!”, they all shouted.

Andy got himself up.

“And I toast.. to the nicest and most friendly of us.. Jane!”

She blushed and stared at the table, or were there two tables in front of her?

Then suddenly she and Andy were standing in front of each other, smiling at each other.

She didn’t remember how but they had a discussion about ‘evilness’. Who was more evil, Andy or she?

“You don’t wanna know how evil I am Andy, really.”, she grinned.

“Maybe I want to know..?”, he said, “But I think I’m more evil than you!” Then he started tickling her and she chased him. Some chairs fell down.. then she was jumping on him and then they were standing again.. and kissed each other.

She didn’t remember every detail anymore because she was very drunk.. but she remembered that she felt very happy. But also a lot of anger, she smashed another glass against the wall, the others laughing. Then when they returned to the other room, the more public room, there was this guy staring at them with a pistol.

“Hey are you a rebel?!?”, she shouted at him, “Why do you have a pistol?”

“Jane, come-on he isn’t a rebel, he is security.”

But she felt angry and paranoia.

“Yeah right, I bet he is a rebel!”

They almost had a fight but then Andy grabbed her hand and they moved outside.

“Look it is almost dawn.”, he said to her, then stared in her eyes with a dreamy glance.

When she kissed him again it was like she got a flashback, it was like she kissed somebody else.. who was this guy? She felt dizzy and confused. Who was she? Why did she feel this odd? She comforted herself and they tried to jump on their speeders and the next time she remembered was that they crawled back into the barracks and she lost her shoes and gloves. Inside the barracks she and Andy were sitting on the ground, against each other rubbing noses. Jarome was crawling over the floor calling for corporal Haki for some reason and Teglo and some other cadet were staring at them shaking their heads.

She remembered how they had called Teglo ‘cadet carpet’ in the Fallen Star because he had a beard, and ‘wookie’ and ‘ewok’ and more of those things. She remembered that he suddenly had disappeared but later he had returned. She hadn’t paid much attention to it because she was paying more attention to Andy.

 

Now Teglo and some other, bald, person were dragging Sien down to the cellar. Jarome had disappeared. Jane’s comm bleeped and she threw the device at the wall.

“Fok off comm! No interruptions now!”, she yelled.

“The four of you are in deep poodoo!”, the bald man said to Andy and Jane when he returned to the living room, while pointing at her. Teglo stood next to this guy nodding.

“The superiors are coming.. oh my.. you are in such deep poodoo!”

“What? Euhm.. the superiors are coming?”, Jane asked after half a minute, her reaction time wasn’t that fast.

“Affirmative. So you just keep sitting there and wait.”, he shook his head looking irritated, while doing push-ups.

She bit her lip, suddenly feeling a bit tense. She was still very drunk, it was like she dreamed all of this, it didn’t feel real. Yes, now she remembered.. she had been drunk before, several times. Vaguely she saw people, yes they were sitting around a table also in the Star. There had been this cop.. pulling some bottle out of Aa-.. Jane’s hands, then they had run, run through the city, run like hell, laughing, feeling happy. Maybe this had been a dream, but the recall felt so real. No, this couldn’t have happened real.. could it? Who had been these people? She didn’t remember faces, only some old man and.. her head hurt, somebody had put an arm around her.

“Jane..”, she stared into the man’s eyes, he looked unfamiliar.. no she knew him, it was Andy. She felt confused.

In front of them there was this man in the duster.. with the beard. The carpet, she grinned. Cadet carpet. He stared at them with his arms crossed, she felt a bit uncomfortable.

“What is going on here?!?”, a filtered voice suddenly exclaimed.

Aaricia turned her head and felt shocked: some stormtroopers were standing behind her and Andy. One of them grabbed her by the arm and dragged her onto her feet, for some reason this made her feel panicked. She wanted to release herself from the grip and run like hell, but she managed to suppress this urge that felt like a reflex. She breathed slowly, trying not to panic.

“Put them under the showers!”, he ordered while dragging her down into some cellar.. the sleeping rooms and showers.

 

The four of them, Sien, Jarome, Andy and herself were put under the showers roughly, after they got turned on and water cold as ice came out of the shower heads.

“Aaaaargh, cold!”, they yelled, cringing and shivering. Aaricia jumped away from the showers.

“Best get back in there girl.. you want to be fully awake for what is coming.”, the trooper said to her. Feeling scared she got back under the shower, cringing, clenching her teeth.

“Oh no we are going to die!”, one of the other people under the showers said, crawling on the floor.

Were they going to do that? Oh no, they had to escape! They were going to execute them!

But within a few minutes she started feeling more sober, more awake. The scared, weird and confused feeling lessened, she started feeling more like herself, calm and neutral.

“Oh and Jane, you are pretty hot too, but not like corporal Haki.”, Jarome said to her.

Haki? Oh yeah Haki I remember..

Jane smiled, she was safe. Why had she felt this scared? They were only getting punished because they had gotten drunk and misbehaved, of course they wouldn’t be executed..

“Cadets get them in uniform!”, the trooper ordered Teglo and the bald person, that apparently was a cadet too, “It is your responsibility!”

Roughly they dragged them to the dormitory and there they changed into uniform.

In the corridor there was this female doctor, Jane had been with her once before..

“Doe, you have an examination at 9.00.”, she said to her.

“You will get probed.”, Jarome smirked at her with a soft voice.

“And you..”, she pointed at Jarome, “Too.”

Jane smirked at him.

“You get probed too.”, she mumbled to him.

“MOVE OUTSIDE CADETS!”

Yawning she stumbled towards the exit of the building..

 

“You are a disgrace to the garrison and to human high culture.”, the trooper said to them when they were standing outside.

Now Jane started to feel pretty bad about herself. Yes, they had misbehaved a bit, not really like Imperial soldiers. She sighed. They would be getting some adrenaline injection that would work for about ten minutes, after this it would have bad withdrawal effects, like some hangover. She gulped.

“Sir, patient Doe may have a negative reaction to this.”, she heard some female voice, the doctor’s voice. “And she is due to routine psyche analysis.”

Psyche analysis? She thought back at a few days ago.

“I think you need a psychiatrist for your problems.”, the doctor had told her after Jane had told her about her sleeping problems, headaches and nightmares and stuff. She sighed. A shrink.. she really felt ok, only those nightmares, and all those faces..

You will never forget those faces.

She gulped.. she saw that the troopers didn’t react to the doctor. She administered them the injections. Teglo and the bald cadet had to be with them too, but they didn’t get them and they didn’t have to carry the heavy backpacks. Their duty was to keep the four running, by any means.

“Sir.. I don’t think it is a good idea to inject patient Doe.”, the doctor said when she was standing behind her.

Then the trooper nodded at her. She saw Jarome, Sien and Andy getting pretty hyper, their eyes totally widened. She felt tired..

She bent because of the weight of the backpack and saw the troopers mounting dewbacks.

Then they started running..