Chapter 7: Broken goggles (The Tale of TS-265 aka “Shroud”)

Writer / Co-Creator:  Elly Hazel
Art / Co-Creator: Marietta Ivanova

The story of Shroud is part of the stormtrooper stories "The Shadow that hides us from Death" and a prequel to the illustrated story "Bishop’s Hand".

Shroud was an apparition against the snowy mountainside.

Sliding down the icy cliffs, balancing on jagged rock formations and leaping over bottomless chasms, the seasoned snowtrooper moved swiftly and silently. There was not much time left and he needed to make use of the sun’s meager light before the snow-blanketed mountain turned into an unforgiving death trap.

He knew he shouldn’t be doing this.

“I know what you want to do, TS-265,” Shroud’s sergeant had said to him earlier that day. “But there are a helluva lot more rebels on this mountain than we anticipated, and it’ll take all of us working together to exterminate them.”

Shroud had a lot of respect for his sergeant.

But I’m not looking to exterminate all the rebels tonight. I’m here for just one.

Shroud scanned the horizon through his macrobinoculars. A dozen campsites dotted the side of the mountain, marked by fires that lead down to a cavern the Empire hadn’t seen on any maps. Clicking the side of his macrobinocular, he took still-images to send back to his sergeant - a peace offering to make up for his insubordination tonight.

Ten minutes and a few narrowly avoided missteps later, Shroud found the campsite he was looking for.

Six rebels sat around a campfire on a wide ledge a hundred meters below where Shroud crouched. Five of the rebels were dressed in typical thick beige jumpsuits wearing floppy hats and goggles, but it was the sixth rebel that had Shroud’s attention.

For the sixth rebel, was still wearing his snowtrooper armor.

TS-266. Shroud thought, grinding his teeth. What the hell happened to you, Ace?

The former snowtrooper’s face was half-hidden beneath the brim of a thick, brown hat with ear flaps. Goggles hung around his neck and they swung slightly as he laughed with his new rebel friends.

It was definitely Ace. Shroud knew that laugh anywhere.

The rebels took turns flicking playing cards into some sort of bin beside their campfire. Shroud’s macrobinoculars zoomed in on the object, and it took a moment for the focus to adjust properly.

Even when the object was in full focus, Shroud didn’t want to believe what he saw.

A snowtrooper helmet.

The macrobinoculars’ plastoid cover creaked noisily as Shroud’s furious grip tightened around them.

Sickly green paint was smeared across the helmet, and sprayed across the torn mask was a scarlet rebel symbol. The dome itself was covered in dark stains and hash marks, and scorch marks remained where the helmet’s lenses used to be.

One of the rebels had crushed a beverage container in his hand and tossed it carelessly at the helmet. It hit the lip of the torn mask, tipping the whole helmet over and spilling trash and cards onto the snowy ground.

Even from this distance, wind howling all around him, Shroud could hear the roar of laughter coming from the camp.

He didn’t need to see any more.

He knew what he had to do.

And the time to do it was now.

As he lowered his macrobinoculars, however, Shroud realized he was not alone on the cliff’s ledge.

Darth Vader, the dark lord himself, was standing right next to him. The sure-footed snowtrooper nearly toppled off the side of the mountain as he shot to his feet to salute.

“M-my Lord!” His voice cracked. Clearing his throat, he amended his tone to something more befitting a career snowtrooper and not a first year cadet. “My lord.”

Vader made no indication he heard him and continued to look down on the Rebels below.

How did I not notice him? Shroud wondered, only now hearing the mechanical breath of Lord Vader. Is he going to reprimand me for leaving the squad? Is he going to make me go back now?

An angry knot formed in his stomach at the thought of having to turn back. Shroud needed to face Ace, trooper-to-trooper. This was personal . There was a time when he and Ace had each others’ backs. They ate and laughed and bled together.

Now he throws his helmet around like a trash bin and breaks bread with the enemy? No. No, kriff that. I won’t go back, not when he’s right there. I’d rather get Force-choked first!

A sharp snap broke the silence between Shroud and Vader. For a terrifying moment Shroud thought it was his neck, but there was no pain and it was an all too familiar sound.

He had broken his macrobinocular’s casing in anger yet again.

Another thing for sergeant to be pissed off about when I get back.

The sound seemed to draw Vader’s attention, and he turned his dark, bulbous lenses to Shroud.

If I get back, that is.

Despite being warmed by his armor’s power pack, Shroud felt his blood turn to ice.

“Your anger is your greatest weapon,” the dark lord said. Folding his arms across his armored chest, he turned towards the rebel camp once again. “Use it.”

As quickly as Shroud’s blood iced in fear, it suddenly boiled with a sense of purpose. This was more than just a personal vendetta now. With Vader’s approval, this turned into a mission entrusted only to him.

He would not let the dark lord down.

“Yes, sir.”

The words came out dripping with such venom that, even through his vocoder, Shroud didn’t recognize his own voice.

Lord Vader said nothing more, and Shroud was on the move once again.

The snowtrooper descended through the darkness, moving on instinct alone. Each blind leap he took, every unsure step he made, was rewarded with a solid landing and stable ground every time.

With only a few meters to go, Shroud jumped, landing right in the center of the rebel’s campfire.  Embers hissed and sparked all around him. Yellow flames licked uselessly at his boots, and shadows borne of firelight danced across his pale armor.

Rebels scrambled in all directions, lunging for weapons, diving for cover, cowering in the snow. On any other day, Shroud would have basked in the rebels’ fear of him, but they didn’t matter.

His unblinkly glare was focused only the traitor.

Ace had grown a thick beard since the last time Shroud saw him. Dirt streaked his face, and shaggy dark hair sprouted beneath his wool cap.

Unlike the rest of his fellow rebels, Ace didn’t seem fazed by Shroud’s sudden appearance. He remained seated on a narrow tree stump, chewing quietly with a half-eaten ration bar in his hand.

Family, friends and mentors alike always warned Shroud about his short fuse. “Anger blinds you”, “Anger makes you reckless”, “Anger will be your downfall.”

But standing here, in front of Ace, he realized everyone who had ever known him was wrong.

Darth Vader understood who Shroud was, he knew what power could be harnessed through fury.

“Your anger is your greatest weapon.”

Those six simple words gave him the permission to let that anger truly blaze within him as brightly as the campfire he stepped out of on to the sizzling snow.

The stifling veil of control was being burned away now, and Shroud could see...

Everything.

The details of snowflakes falling into the defiled stormtrooper helmet, the bitter cold wind fighting to get through Shroud’s thick suit, the sound of Ace’s even heart rate and…

...and the rapid heartbeats of the two rebels standing behind him, blasters aimed at his back.

Without taking his eyes from Ace, Shroud let his anger guide his blaster rifle.

He shot behind him to the left. A body dropped; a dull thud over an overturned crate.

He shot behind him to the right. Another body dropped; a loud crunch in the snow.

The other four rebels were shouting now, their initial shock now replaced with panic. More blasters were charging, the zap of a vibroblade sounded.

It all happened in seconds, and in that short time Shroud was never out of control.

He knelt to avoid a blaster bolt, which sizzled overhead to hit the rebel charging him with the vibroblade.  Two more shots rang out and Shroud simply stepped forward, allowing them to pass harmlessly behind him. He took another step, and another. Closing the distance between himself and the traitor as bolt after bolt narrowly missed him.

An unseen force guided Shroud’s blaster to his left, hitting a rebel between the eyes. In turn, the dead rebel’s blaster misfired and hit the last of the rebels square in the chest.

They both fell at Shroud’s feet, and the snowtrooper simply stepped over them to loom over the remaining imperial traitor, the lone rebel.

Ace looked down at his dead comrades, then back up at snowtrooper.

“Hey, Shroud.”

“Is this what you are now, Ace?” Shroud growled, kicking one of the bodies aside. “A rebel?!”

"Yeah...I guess I am." Ace tossed the ration bar he was eating towards the overturned helmet and rose from the stump.

Shroud craned his neck upwards at the bigger man. "Why? How could you turn your back on us?"

Ace laughed incredulously. "Shroud, look at me! I’m not some faceless snowtrooper anymore. I’m my own person in the Rebellion, now."

"You abandoned your squad, your brothers. That makes you a coward in my book."

With a cool indifference, Ace shrugged. "Maybe, but I'm a coward with a name now."

Shroud gritted his teeth. Then after a long moment, he holstered his blaster rifle.

"You had a name," Shroud said, quietly. "You were TS-266, our Ace-in-the-Hole. Now you're just rebel scum."
It was Ace that took the first swing.

On any other day, that punch would have broken Shroud’s jaw right through his cowl.

But not today...

Move!

Today, Shroud moved. Eyes wide and wild, he leaned back and watched the fist fly past him as if in slow motion.

Knee!

Shroud raised his leg just as Ace’s boot missed his kneecap.

Throat!

Both of Shroud’s arms shot up in time to block Ace’s hands aimed for his throat.

There was no time to wonder, no reason to question.

Every attack was defended, and every retaliating blow was calculated, deliberate, and connected where Shroud needed it to go even before he knew why.

Armor weakened...

Both his fists slammed into Ace’s chest and it cracked surprisingly easy, finding a stress fractured unseen by the naked eye.

Destroy...

With a second punch the chest shattered. Bits of plastoid cut into Ace and the rest clattered to the ground joining the snowfall.

Destroy...

Shroud’s helmeted head cracked against Ace’s nose, stunning him.

Destroy...

Then he grabbed what was left of Ace’s chest plate and drove a knee into the traitor’s exposed solar plexus. Ace grunted and suddenly a blaster appeared in the rebel’s hand, the muzzle pressed so hard against Shroud’s cowl he could feel it against his throat.

Shroud hadn’t sensed this. He hadn’t planned for it. And yet, he looked unblinking at Ace…

And smiled.

Kill.

Ace pulled the trigger. Something crackled within the chamber, and the smell of ozone rose in the air.

Kill.

Shroud grabbed the malfunctioning blaster from the wide-eyed traitor.

Kill!

In one fluid motion, Shroud spun Ace around, grabbing his goggles and yanking hard, the strap digging into the traitor’s exposed throat.

Ace clawed desperately at the strap, his legs kicking out, slipping against the ice and snow as Shroud tightened the noose of the rebel’s own making.

“We...” Ace wheezed. “were...br-brothers…”

“I don’t see a brother here,” Shroud replied. “Just another dead rebel.”

With a final yank, he heard a sickening crunch. The strap broke and Ace fell dead at Shroud’s feet.

Shroud felt the anger within him withdraw. Though not extinguished entirely, it was as if with Ace’s death had reduced it to a single smoldering coal, ready to erupt at Shroud’s command. It was more control than he had ever felt over his emotions, and at the same time it was the most free he had ever been to feel them.

Shroud knew Darth Vader was present in the camp before turning around, though for how long Vader had been present it was impossible to tell.

The dark lord walked towards the edge of the camp, stepping past bodies and debris to look down the side of the mountain.

Still gripping the goggles in his hand, Shroud grabbed his blaster rifle and joined Vader’s side.

The smaller camps below were alive with activity. A dozen more rebels armed with blasters and vibroblades scurried around, looking for a way up the mountain and towards Vader and Shroud.

Shroud lifted his blaster rifle intending to pick a few of them off, but Vader raised a gloved hand.

“Return to camp, trooper. Inform the sergeant to attack the main camp at dawn.”

“But sir, what about them?”

A blinding crimson light lit the dark space between the dark lord and the snowtrooper. Shroud felt the hairs on his neck stand on end as the lightsaber’s blade arced gracefully as Vader aimed it at the gawking rebels looking up at him.

“I will deal with them.”

Vader leapt into the darkness.

Shroud ran back to camp.

By the next evening, Shroud stood atop a burning ruin that was once a hidden rebel base.

There was a smoking blaster rifle in his hand.

And a pair of rebel goggles clipped to his belt.