“You are the guardian of peace.”

  The lights on the atmospheric assault lander flickered as the hunk of durasteel careened towards the surface. The wrestle between thrusters and thick planet air shook the craft and filled the metal box with the thundering of weight and speed.

  “You are the defender of justice.”

  FN-2187 listened to the dictum as it echoed within his helmet. It felt intimate, just inside his ears. Making the terrifying shuddering of the lander seem distant in comparison. He glanced across the rest of the shuttle, moving only his eyes, helmet still. The darkness flickered, revealing the stark white betaplast armour of the stormtroopers surrounding him. Each protective plate gleamed such that he could see his own white armour reflected in the chestplate of the trooper ahead of him.

  “We will be safer because of your bravery.”

  Another burst of air shook the lander, and FN-2187 had to tighten his gauntleted hand against the overhead rail to avoid shifting in the tight formation. He glanced at FN-2003, Oh-Three, easily able to pick his place from the formation. He wondered what Oh-Three’s dictum sounded like. Oh-Three never told FN-2187. He said it was personal.

  The weight in the shuttle shifted as the engines made a mean whine. FN-2187 centred himself to focus on his mission. The dictum in his helmet stilled, and the faint static of the open unit channel took over.

  He would have all the time in the galaxy to ask Oh-Three after today.

  Without even needing to look, FN-2187 marked the placement of FN-2199, Nines. He could feel each unit in the formation until it felt almost physical.

  Oh-Three felt like a warm body pressed against his skin. FN-2000, Zeros, felt like her breath gasping across his neck. Nines felt like a rigid tightness, her armoured hand lifting FN-2187 from the ground.

  In a single jolt, the shuddering stopped, the lander stilled by the permanence of ground. FN-2187 moved easily with the unit as the eight stormtroopers formed up. The pent-up motion of a charge waiting to happen clashed against the stillness of the shuttle interior.

  FN-2187 held a breath, his blaster readied. Nines stood directly to his left as befitting her rank as sergeant, Zeros and Oh-Three behind.

  The doorlight blared on, and the shuttle door slammed open a beat later. Instantly, FN-2187’s world was a hail of noise, light and movement. He pushed forward, knowing his role was to clear the path for the unit.

  His blaster tracked across the night, barely registering the blurry forms before firing again and again. Bolts of plasma gas were cast towards them from the enemy as FN-2187 charged down the ramp following Nines. Trusting her in her role to cover for them.

  A blue bolt whipped to the left of his helmet, and like a flame being extinguished, FN-2187 felt it strike and topple a trooper behind him. Oh-Three moved in to fill the space in the formation.

  “Push left. Low wall. Then forward. Second rank cover. We will secure the landing zone”

  Nines’s voice was clear and clipped. The unit didn’t need anything else. Just the decision Nines had come to. The execution was already determined. FN-2187 moved with Nines, not taking the first piece of cover but dashing the extra distance to let the rest of the unit into the available space.

  Judgements of distance and available space were made automatically from years of training. Ever since he was four years old.

  FN-2187 steadied against the cover, presenting a low profile as he steadied his blaster. Ahead, he could see packed sand forming paths in the backwater village. Malicious shadows stood in doorways or lay down on the daub roofs of smooth huts. They had no light in the village but the small fires started by stray blaster fire, making each figure murky until they were illuminated by packets of plasma.

  FN-2187 traced a dark figure as they moved low and crouched between buildings. He squeezed the blaster trigger and felt the brief rush of heat from the emitting plasma bolt as it left him and met the figure on the side. The enemy tumbled and grasped at their side, already feeling the deep ache as the burn went past their nerves and heat ate into their organs.

  The cold washed over FN-2187 as he saw the figure, a Rodian, fall to the ground. It was a familiar cold, and FN-2187 let it fill him. Not long now, then never again.

  “Forward in three.”

  FN-2187 moved back from the wall, staying low but allowing Zeros to take his place. He felt the beats. One, two, three. He burst upward, dashing forward as the ranks behind him filled the desert air with angry plasma. His armoured boot crunched against pockets of sand that had been partially fused into glass by violent blaster fire. He felt another trooper fall behind him. Plastoid armour melted in ablative drops to protect the fragile body beneath.

  This place would be marred by their coming here.

  His eyes were up searching for the cover which Nines had identified in her outline. It was a hut that had collapsed inward, leaving a shell from which they could take angles on enemy positions. FN-2187 saw the position that was his. He was ahead of the unit. His body jostled with motion. Nines so close behind him that he felt like he could taste the sand shifting under her boots.

  This was the moment. The cold welled up within him.

  He stopped at the cover. Not in his spot. He stopped in Nines’ position and braced.

  Nines’s white armoured form collided with his, completely taken off guard by him being out of place in the formation. She bounced off his steadied form directly into the open lane. Plasma struck her pristine figure like solid slugs. She spun from the barrage. Bolts imparting ballistic energy instead of superheated tibanna gas. Her body fell like dropped luggage. In his sense of the unit, FN-2187 felt her extinguish.

  FN-2187 didn’t look, keeping his eyes on the inner wall of the hut. Sweat dripping inside his helmet, and the world spinning like he had been thrown through the air. He had felt the unit. The beautiful formation. Many moving as one. Everyone knowing their perfect place. And he had broken it. Like an ugly stone thrown into a delicate tower. He stilled for the moment, completely losing all sense of the formation.

  He could see the inside of the hut from the stark light given off by the shuttles. Two cots, one of them buried under a collapsed wall. A blanket on the floor and traces of paint covered in dust.

  Remember the plan. Take command, the shuttle, delay, then escape. Together.

  FN-2187’s voice broke wetly as he opened the comms to speak.

  “Sergeant down, taking command-”

  He didn’t feel the unit anymore.

  The sense of formation he had earned through years of practice had fled him. The familiar space in his mind felt empty, as if shattered by betrayal. FN-2187 looked behind him, back against the wall of someone else's home. He stared at the oncoming troopers, needing to find his unit visually, as if he were a child again.

  They all looked the same. Faceless in their white armour, indistinguishable. Not the smiling eyes of Oh-Three or the teasing grin of Zeros. Just white helmets, rushing forward to fill the empty slots in the unit.

  Running to help him.

  FN-2187 furrowed his brow in concentration. He needed them to sound off, give hand signals as they did. He could find them by voice.

  Another trooper spun as a plasma bolt took them in the shoulder. The trooper to their left broke formation to move towards the fallen figure. They had barely moved a step before a volley of light tore across the space, heavier than the small arms from the villagers. It tore through the moving trooper and another two beside them.

  The space that had seemed so full of movement just a second ago was now still. Dead. The fusilade of plasma halted as FN-2187 heard the rumble of an explosion in the distance. The entire unit was still. Like a cascade in a battery pack. His small disruption in the unity of the squad led to the collapse of everything. Training, drawing them to his aid and into the waiting fire.

  The trooper on the ground shifted, writhing. FN-2187 bolted from cover even as he saw another unit of white armoured troopers come in from the left, spreading out to cover the area. FN-2187 reached the trooper on the ground and rolled them towards him. He cradled their helmeted head against his lap. He could only see the blank plastoid helmet, but it seemed to have an expression, accusing and empty.

  The trooper reached their hand up. Their gauntlet and glove were torn away by something, leaving just a thin, freckled hand. Oh-Three.

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  His palm was covered in blood as it touched against FN-2187’s helmet. Caressing against his cheek. The hand dropped suddenly limp. The fingers left three streaks of blood on the white of his helmet. The body felt heavier across his knees.

  FN-2187 felt himself blinking underneath his helmet, like it was happening to someone else. He must be making some kind of mistake. Maybe he had been separated from his squad. Maybe this was some stranger lying dead on his lap.

  Oh-Three was part of his birth unit. They had been inducted into the same squad, endured the same creaking of their bones under the growth stimulants. They had survived pacification missions in the corridors of forge worlds together. They were supposed to be together.

  The world felt silent and grave. The new squad moved forward with practised precision around him.

  A trooper knocked on the side of his helmet. The sound was strangely loud and close in the same way the dictum had been earlier.

  FN-2187 felt his legs moving in response to something.

  The trooper had a hand on his shoulder, guiding him forward. Had he said something to the soldier?

  Ahead, FN-2187 could see the glinting silver armour of Captain Phasma. She stood like a tower, stark and strong. Around her were kneeling figures huddled in hastily thrown-on clothes or sleepwear. She was directing troopers around her. Her hand gestures cutting through the air.

  FN-2187’s radio burred, searching for signals in the empty channel. Failing.

  A dark figure emerged from behind the mass of white armoured statues.

  Tall with a heavy black cloak. Silence seemed to travel in his wake, the movement of boots and roaring of fire dulling to nothing. FN-2187 felt a sense of vertigo as his ears filled with the sound of his own heartbeat and the crunch of sand under the dark figures' soft shoes. Reality smeared as the man moved, wind and smoke fleeing his form.

  Lord Ren strode towards the huddled and defeated villages. In the firelight, a dark mask glinted on his face, scarred and inset with cold metal.

  One of the villagers stood in front of the group, older. He had arms spread low by his side as if he could hold back the approaching wraith. He seemed small in front of the looming figure but lifted his chin stubbornly. The tall man stopped in front of the old villager.

  “Look how old you’ve become.”

  His voice was low and intimate. It crackled and rumbled like electricity breaking apart thick earth. Distorted by the mask and heavy across the dry air.

  “Something far worse has happened to you.” The villager’s response was fragile but brave.

  His leathery face held glinting eyes which looked towards the wraith with dismay.

  Phasma barked an order which came through as meaningless chirps on the radio. The senior trooper guided FN-2187 with a solid hand until he was part of the arc facing the beaten townspeople.

  FN-2187, in his daze, examined the group in front of him without recognition. He emptily noticed the sturdy stitching on one of the figure's pants. A sign of care, of life.

  “You know what I've come for.”

  The deep rumbling voice felt like it came from inside FN-2187’s chest. Eating him from the inside.

  “I know where you come from. Before you called yourself Kylo Ren.”

  “The Starkiller plans.” The voice continued, ignoring the villager.

  “We know you've found them, and now you're going to give them to the First Order…”

  The voice trailed off. There was a stillness. The menace of the air seemed stripped away before FN-2187 could even recognise that it had been there. There was something else, like the other side of a conversation hidden within the wind of the night.

  “No.”

  The dark voice glowered, and the world blurred. Tears welled up in FN-2187’s eyes, and each word seemed to compress his mind.

  “Not the plans. You think you have something different.”

  Lord Ren’s voice was all-encompassing now. FN-2187 felt like it should leave bruises across his skin, cracks across his armour. The sorrow in his heart became a physical stabbing, which flew through his mind. The barren village was thrown into sharp relief under the sudden clarity.

  “Skywalker”

  The name set the world roiling. FN-2187 felt his heart leap into his chest and then drop to below his stomach. A dance of emotions was forced upon him, his mind shedding all thought. Recognition, longing, fear, anger, frustration. They all felt alien to him. Lord Ren was the source.

  “The First Order rose from the dark side... You did not.” The leathery man was weak and distant, but his words cut through the fugue. He might have been speaking for hours now, FN-2187 felt like he wouldn't know either way.

  “We are not where we rise, we are where we fall.”

  Lord Ren’s voice was hollow. Full of belief yet emptier than the deepest part of space.

  “You may try to deny it, but you cannot deny the truth that is your family.”

  The air was pregnant with tension. Suddenly, a red glow lit the faces of the masses before FN-2187. The taste of copper filled his mouth. A crackling buzz cauterised all other sounds, spitting sparks and smoke marred the brief expanse. A crimson laser blade was ignited in Lord Ren’s fist. A long blade reaching forward towards the sand, while two symmetrical vents near the hilt formed a stuttering, glowing crossguard.

  “You’re so right.”

  The imposing figure sounded barren and horrifyingly resigned.

  The red blade ripped across the old man’s body, its energies holding the figure aloft in a halting mimicry of movement before the man slumped to the sand. Now nothing more than unpuppeted flesh.

  A wordless yell came from behind the encirclement, accompanied by the all too familiar sudden sounds of blaster fire. FN-2187 spun with the rest of the troopers. His blaster was raised on nothing but reflex and fear.

  Lord Ren was faster. An outstretched hand made in a movement that seemed like the skipping frames on a holo table. In the Lord’s grasp yet still meters distant, a man in a leather pilot's jacket was vibrating and still. He was straining against an invisible force. A living statue with a raised oversized blaster. Between them, impossibly frozen, a plasma bolt, dancing in wrenching impotence.

  FN-2187 went slack. Enthralled by the blaster bolt trapped in nothing more than the night. It was beautiful. Clambering energy arcing against itself.

  “Bring him to me.”

  Two troopers from the senior guard moved into the scene. FN-2187’s breath hitched as they entered the still space. His mind skipped as they walked between the frozen man and the blaster bolt. It seemed like it should be impossible.

  They began a brutal pat-down of the frozen pilot, all professionalism and efficiency. FN-2187 could see the man's dark eyes following their actions, fear and rage darting through his limited movements.

  Lord Ren’s hand twitched. The trooper knocked the pilot's leg down into the sand before dragging him forward. The plasma bolt, seemingly forgotten by Ren, was still held frozen in the air.

  Lord Ren knelt on one knee before the pilot, now unstilled and gasping for breath. The pilot let out a hacking cough before straightening. His arms were held behind his back. There was a pause. The pilot raised his chin, a feral glint in his eye.

  “So who talks first? You talk first?”

  “The old man gave it to you.”

  “It's just very hard to understand you with all the…” He made an indicating motion with his eyes towards the scarred, encompassing mask Ren wore. "Apparatus."

  “Search him.”

  The troopers tore through his belongings, ripping off his jacket, pawing at his shirt and pants. Examining and collecting anything discarded.

  “Nothing, sir.”

  “Put him on board.”

  The pilot opened his mouth to speak before a stun jolt went through, leaving him slumped between the two troopers. His body made two furrows in the sand as the troopers dragged him back towards the landing site.

  “Sir,” Captain Pasma was at Lord Ren’s elbow, “he didn’t know about the plans. They don’t know what they have. We are poised ahead. A simple orbital bombardment will suffice.”

  “No.”

  The voice was frustrated and desolate.

  “We don’t know what they have. Skywalker. We have been dragged into a working of the Force. And the Force is too cruel to allow me the advantage.”

  Ren was still, head tilted up and looking towards the stars. His first two fingers on the hilt of his sword tapped in an agitated rhythm.

  Phasma waited, an ocean of dispassionate calm. Her chrome-skinned armour was a dancing illusion of flames and destruction.

  Ren spun on his heels back towards the shuttles. Soft boots treading beside the marks from the dragged prisoner.

  “Sir,” Phasma called after him, “the villagers.”

  Ren didn’t break stride.

  “Kill them all.”

  The ammassed townspeople tittered at the casual proclamation. Confusion blurred into fear as Phasma stepped forward just behind the line of troopers.

  “On my command.”

  FN-2187 raised his blaster. His body naturally responded to the tone of command ingrained since he could walk. He still felt numb and dizzy.

  Before him, the villagers held each other. They fell inward, towards eachother. FN-2187 saw a weequay man running his fingers along a carved crystal necklace as he muttered in the rhythmic pattern of prayer.

  FN-2187 felt more out of place than ever. In a line of identical white figures, he was alone and strange. His plans shattered, his family gone. What did he even have left?

  “Fire.”

  The village erupted in a brilliant lightshow of plasma. The colours arced across trampled sand in pulsing flashes. FN-2187 stood still, blaster raised without action. The small action of squeezing the trigger seemed beyond his grasp.

  Then all too soon it was over. The village returned to shadows and silence as the troopers spread out in search patterns. FN-2187 let out a shuddering breath behind his helmet. The sudden silence and normality were draining. He lowered the blaster. He didn't know what to do now.

  He turned woodenly back towards the shuttles.

  He saw the black and silver mask.

  The heavy dark cloak spilling across the night. Where Lord Ren had been returning towards the landing zone, something had made him stop. Made him turn back towards the village. Even through the blankness of the violence-scarred mask, FN-2187 felt the attention. It was focused and glacial. Like the inevitable approach of a mass shadow.

  Attention that was focused on him.