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Praise the Fallen: a collection of short stories based on the TRF universe.
Praise the Fallen - One: True Ghosts of Ossus
Nathan Daniels sat alone in his apartment nearby the Jedi Temple on Ossus. He had been living here for ten years. Memories assaulted his mind everytime he looked upon the room, and that was why he loved it so much. He loved it because it was roomy, cozy, but most of all he loved it because of the memories. He loved it because when the memories came, the other memories stopped. The memories of war.
Former military Captain Nathan Daniels had served with the Ossan military for fifteen years. He had fought in many battles, but the most famous campaign he had participated in was the defense of Ossus itself from the somehow magically resurrected Grand Admiral Thrawn and his army of Chiss. Most of the Ossan troops had been locked up shortly before Thrawn had made his presence known, only to be rescued by a Rogue Jedi Knight recorded in history only by what may have been his first name: Arix.
Nathan had only been a Corporal at the time, but he had been one of the soldiers to be rescued by this Jedi Arix. Shortly after the rescue, they had linked up with Rogue Jedi Master Gash Jiren, who had been defending Ossus from the Chiss invaders almost single-handedly. Nathan had been one of the soldiers present to see war, true war, for the first time in their entire lives.
Nathan took another swig from the half-empty bottle he held in his hands. He gazed intensely throughout his apartment, struggling to surface the memories of his time spent living here, but with no luck. The memories of Ossus were too strong to give up this time. They came to him almost like visions, as if he was actually there again, and often times he forgot that he wasn't. He forgot that they were just memories. They were real.
History books very accurately tell of countless battles that have taken place for as far back as thousands of years. They tell of ships lost, planets gained, and governments' rises and falls. But there is one thing that no history book in the galaxy accurately depicts. Death. Death is always missing from the history books, and as a result is missing from the minds of all people who have never experienced war. And to people who experience war for the first time, that can come as quite a shock.
History books tell of statistics. 1,000 dead. 10,000 dead. 100,000 dead. 1,000,000 dead. More. History books never tell the stories of the men who died. The real men. The human beings. History books do not tell of soldiers who have been shot, stabbed, blown up, vaporized before they realized what had just happened. Nathan had witnessed these very deaths with his own eyes, and the murder...the mass murder...refused to leave him alone.
Nathan took another swig of whiskey, and it was real.
"First squad, set up a base of fire on that building!" the commanding officer (CO) bellowed, pointing at the building intended, "Second squad, you will provide supressing fire to allow friendly troops to cross the street! Third squad, you will cover our sixes!"
Wordlessly the troops carried out the orders they were given. Nathan dove to the ground behind a piece of twisted metal that lay on the sidewalk in front of the building that his platoon had been ordered to hold. He was a part of first squad, and he had never heard the phrase 'base of fire' used before in a serious combat situation. Nathan lifted his E-11 blaster carbine, letting the barrel rest on the scrap metal that served as his cover. The gun wouldn't stop shaking, and a second later Nathan realized that it was he who wouldn't stop shaking. He was scared. They all were. No one wanted to die. Many of them will.
A blue blaster bolt struck the ground a few feet in front of Nathan's cover, and seemingly as one the entire squad opened up on the Chiss-occupied building across the street. Metal was chipped away, windows were shattered, and nobody had a clue what they were firing at. A hail of blue blaster bolts came flying out, and the man next to Nathan fell to the ground with two others, clutching his chest in a futile effort to keep the blood from spilling out.
Nathan, mindlessly, opened fire once more. Wherever he saw anything blue, he fired. Turning to glance at his commanding officer, he found that Arix was conversing with another man. Squinting, the Corporal realized just who he was. The man, the myth, the legend. Gash Jiren. Gash Jiren was here. Gash Jiren was standing about ten meters away.
Gash Jiren was going to charge the enemy.
"Alright, listen up!" Arix turned, shouting to the troopers, "I want five volunteers to accompany Admiral Jiren on an assault on the Chiss fixed position. You, you, you, and you!"
Arix didn't give anyone time to volunteer, as the state of moral was low enough that it was not likely anyone would. Nathan was among those chosen, with him another human, a Twi'Lek, a Wookiee, and N'iktal Jiren, Gash Jiren's cousin. Gripping his E-11 as though his life depended on it (and it quite possibly did), Nathan moved quickly down the line toward Admiral Jiren's position, dodging the occasional blue bolt that came flying out at them.
Unclipping his last thermal detonator from his bandolier, Nathan crouched inside the 'bunker' that had been formed by the rubble of the buildings the six were peparing to assault. Nathan blinked slowly a few times, each time hoping that he would open his eyes and find himself in his home and this would all just be a terrible dream. But it wasn't. Salvation wouldn't come. Nathan was doomed to fight.
"Two at the entrance of the building, and two to either side. Aim high." Nathan heard off in the distance, and it was a short time before he realized it was Admiral Jiren that was speaking, "Got it?"
Nathan wanted desperately to scream 'No!' at this moment and run as fast as his legs could carry him. He wanted to tell them all how futile this last-ditch effort was. He wanted to tell them that they should all just give up and surrender or run away. He wanted to tell them all that Ossus had been lost. He wanted most of all to live. All he could do was nod an affirmative.
Time seemed to slown down as Rogue Jedi Master Gash Jiren held up his robotic arm to give the three count. Nathan didn't register much of what happened during those few seconds it took. At that moment it was as if there was nothing else in the entire world besides Nathan and that prosthetic hand, lifting its fingers...one......two....three!
And then they were gone, running desperately toward the building filled with Chiss soldiers. Thermal detonators arched in the air, each soldier throwing their own. A mere few seconds after they had been released, the other human in the charge fell, struck by a Chiss blaster bolt. Nathan caught a quick glimpse at the man's face as he fell, stricken by a mixture of pain and horror. His expression twisted into something grotesque and morbid in nature, and then he was gone. Nathan did not look back, did not dare to look back.
The man did not make a noise, as if resigned to his fate.
After what seemed like an eternity, the rest of them made it into the building. Nathan had survived, but that could change in an instant. E-11 shaking in his hand, he did not see how he could possibly shoot with any level of effectiveness. There were no Chiss on the first floor, nor the second as the assault group soon found out. They must be on the third floor, and for a moment Nathan thought Gash intended to run up there and fight them.
But no, Admiral Jiren was smarter than that. With one swipe from his lightsaber, he cut through the ceiling, his other hand out in a claw-like fashion, and Nathan soon realized that it was only by the power of the strange Force that Gash commanded so well that the ceiling had not collapsed on top of them, He retreated with Jiren and the rest of the soldiers, and once they were all safe in the stairwell, Gash dropped the ceiling.
Duracrete came crashing down, smashing into different pieces as it hit the ground, creating sharp rock-like objects. The Chiss that followed were impaled upon the sharp rocks or crushed by more debris that came afterward. Nathan threw up inside his mouth, but he didn't have the will to open it. The bile went back down, leaving him sick to his stomach. His rifle was shaking more than ever.
All was silent, and for a short while Nathan thought the battle to be one, but in the next second there was chaos. Blue blaster bolts splashed all around him and the other troopers. It was a miracle none of them were hit. They all dived behind the wall seperating the staircases. Nathan and the rest began to run, but Gash Jiren had other ideas.
"No! Forward! Take them!"
The rest of the soldiers ran forward to fight, but Nathan couldn't. For a few long seconds he simply stood there as the others went on. Finally, he began to run. Not back to help Admiral Jiren, but downward and out of the building. A few blaster bolts struck the ground nearby, and he almost became a victim of friendly fire, but it was soon realized that he was no Chiss.
Nathan ran, he did not stop when he reached his platoon's fortified position. He just kept running, and nobody could stop him. He ran until he passed out from exhaustion, and was found in a ditch nearly ten hours later. Nathan later learned that Gash and N'iktal Jiren had been the only ones to survive the final firefight, and for a while he used this fact to justify his actions, but after a very long time he realized that the fact that he had lived when others had died was the greatest failure of all.
Nathan drained the bottle of whiskey, stood up, and grabbed his coat. It was two hours before he found the spot. The exact spot in Orilcia where the battle had taken place. Most of Ossus had been rebuilt since Thrawn's invasion, but this was a section of the town that was still undergoing repairs. Looking upon the street, Nathan did not see a beautiful sidewalk and a spotless road. He saw the battlefield. The wounded and dying men. The blaster bolts. The death.
Nathan started at where the bunker had been, the rubble gone, and he walked slowly across the street. He paused at where the other human had fallen, and the image of the man's dying face flashed into his mind. Nathan had begun to cry. He continued on, reaching the building, and snapping the 'Do Not Enter' sign in half. There were men working inside, and for a while nobody noticed him. It was not until he began to climb the stairs that someone called out for him to stop.
But he couldn't stop. He kept going, and soon reached the second floor. The rubble was still there, almost exactly as it had been. The bodies and the blood had been cleaned up, but Nathan could still see them. They were there, and they would never leave. A firm hand grasbed his shoulder, but he shrugged it off. He moved back down the staircase, reaching the wall that seperated the two. The place where he had run and the others had stayed. Stayed to die.
"I'm sorry, Admiral..." Nathan whispered.
He pulled a blaster from its holster and, before any of the workers could do anything, put a bolt into his brain.
Praise the Fallen: a collection of short stories based on the TRF universe.
Praise the Fallen - One: True Ghosts of Ossus
Nathan Daniels sat alone in his apartment nearby the Jedi Temple on Ossus. He had been living here for ten years. Memories assaulted his mind everytime he looked upon the room, and that was why he loved it so much. He loved it because it was roomy, cozy, but most of all he loved it because of the memories. He loved it because when the memories came, the other memories stopped. The memories of war.
Former military Captain Nathan Daniels had served with the Ossan military for fifteen years. He had fought in many battles, but the most famous campaign he had participated in was the defense of Ossus itself from the somehow magically resurrected Grand Admiral Thrawn and his army of Chiss. Most of the Ossan troops had been locked up shortly before Thrawn had made his presence known, only to be rescued by a Rogue Jedi Knight recorded in history only by what may have been his first name: Arix.
Nathan had only been a Corporal at the time, but he had been one of the soldiers to be rescued by this Jedi Arix. Shortly after the rescue, they had linked up with Rogue Jedi Master Gash Jiren, who had been defending Ossus from the Chiss invaders almost single-handedly. Nathan had been one of the soldiers present to see war, true war, for the first time in their entire lives.
Nathan took another swig from the half-empty bottle he held in his hands. He gazed intensely throughout his apartment, struggling to surface the memories of his time spent living here, but with no luck. The memories of Ossus were too strong to give up this time. They came to him almost like visions, as if he was actually there again, and often times he forgot that he wasn't. He forgot that they were just memories. They were real.
History books very accurately tell of countless battles that have taken place for as far back as thousands of years. They tell of ships lost, planets gained, and governments' rises and falls. But there is one thing that no history book in the galaxy accurately depicts. Death. Death is always missing from the history books, and as a result is missing from the minds of all people who have never experienced war. And to people who experience war for the first time, that can come as quite a shock.
History books tell of statistics. 1,000 dead. 10,000 dead. 100,000 dead. 1,000,000 dead. More. History books never tell the stories of the men who died. The real men. The human beings. History books do not tell of soldiers who have been shot, stabbed, blown up, vaporized before they realized what had just happened. Nathan had witnessed these very deaths with his own eyes, and the murder...the mass murder...refused to leave him alone.
Nathan took another swig of whiskey, and it was real.
"First squad, set up a base of fire on that building!" the commanding officer (CO) bellowed, pointing at the building intended, "Second squad, you will provide supressing fire to allow friendly troops to cross the street! Third squad, you will cover our sixes!"
Wordlessly the troops carried out the orders they were given. Nathan dove to the ground behind a piece of twisted metal that lay on the sidewalk in front of the building that his platoon had been ordered to hold. He was a part of first squad, and he had never heard the phrase 'base of fire' used before in a serious combat situation. Nathan lifted his E-11 blaster carbine, letting the barrel rest on the scrap metal that served as his cover. The gun wouldn't stop shaking, and a second later Nathan realized that it was he who wouldn't stop shaking. He was scared. They all were. No one wanted to die. Many of them will.
A blue blaster bolt struck the ground a few feet in front of Nathan's cover, and seemingly as one the entire squad opened up on the Chiss-occupied building across the street. Metal was chipped away, windows were shattered, and nobody had a clue what they were firing at. A hail of blue blaster bolts came flying out, and the man next to Nathan fell to the ground with two others, clutching his chest in a futile effort to keep the blood from spilling out.
Nathan, mindlessly, opened fire once more. Wherever he saw anything blue, he fired. Turning to glance at his commanding officer, he found that Arix was conversing with another man. Squinting, the Corporal realized just who he was. The man, the myth, the legend. Gash Jiren. Gash Jiren was here. Gash Jiren was standing about ten meters away.
Gash Jiren was going to charge the enemy.
"Alright, listen up!" Arix turned, shouting to the troopers, "I want five volunteers to accompany Admiral Jiren on an assault on the Chiss fixed position. You, you, you, and you!"
Arix didn't give anyone time to volunteer, as the state of moral was low enough that it was not likely anyone would. Nathan was among those chosen, with him another human, a Twi'Lek, a Wookiee, and N'iktal Jiren, Gash Jiren's cousin. Gripping his E-11 as though his life depended on it (and it quite possibly did), Nathan moved quickly down the line toward Admiral Jiren's position, dodging the occasional blue bolt that came flying out at them.
Unclipping his last thermal detonator from his bandolier, Nathan crouched inside the 'bunker' that had been formed by the rubble of the buildings the six were peparing to assault. Nathan blinked slowly a few times, each time hoping that he would open his eyes and find himself in his home and this would all just be a terrible dream. But it wasn't. Salvation wouldn't come. Nathan was doomed to fight.
"Two at the entrance of the building, and two to either side. Aim high." Nathan heard off in the distance, and it was a short time before he realized it was Admiral Jiren that was speaking, "Got it?"
Nathan wanted desperately to scream 'No!' at this moment and run as fast as his legs could carry him. He wanted to tell them all how futile this last-ditch effort was. He wanted to tell them that they should all just give up and surrender or run away. He wanted to tell them all that Ossus had been lost. He wanted most of all to live. All he could do was nod an affirmative.
Time seemed to slown down as Rogue Jedi Master Gash Jiren held up his robotic arm to give the three count. Nathan didn't register much of what happened during those few seconds it took. At that moment it was as if there was nothing else in the entire world besides Nathan and that prosthetic hand, lifting its fingers...one......two....three!
And then they were gone, running desperately toward the building filled with Chiss soldiers. Thermal detonators arched in the air, each soldier throwing their own. A mere few seconds after they had been released, the other human in the charge fell, struck by a Chiss blaster bolt. Nathan caught a quick glimpse at the man's face as he fell, stricken by a mixture of pain and horror. His expression twisted into something grotesque and morbid in nature, and then he was gone. Nathan did not look back, did not dare to look back.
The man did not make a noise, as if resigned to his fate.
After what seemed like an eternity, the rest of them made it into the building. Nathan had survived, but that could change in an instant. E-11 shaking in his hand, he did not see how he could possibly shoot with any level of effectiveness. There were no Chiss on the first floor, nor the second as the assault group soon found out. They must be on the third floor, and for a moment Nathan thought Gash intended to run up there and fight them.
But no, Admiral Jiren was smarter than that. With one swipe from his lightsaber, he cut through the ceiling, his other hand out in a claw-like fashion, and Nathan soon realized that it was only by the power of the strange Force that Gash commanded so well that the ceiling had not collapsed on top of them, He retreated with Jiren and the rest of the soldiers, and once they were all safe in the stairwell, Gash dropped the ceiling.
Duracrete came crashing down, smashing into different pieces as it hit the ground, creating sharp rock-like objects. The Chiss that followed were impaled upon the sharp rocks or crushed by more debris that came afterward. Nathan threw up inside his mouth, but he didn't have the will to open it. The bile went back down, leaving him sick to his stomach. His rifle was shaking more than ever.
All was silent, and for a short while Nathan thought the battle to be one, but in the next second there was chaos. Blue blaster bolts splashed all around him and the other troopers. It was a miracle none of them were hit. They all dived behind the wall seperating the staircases. Nathan and the rest began to run, but Gash Jiren had other ideas.
"No! Forward! Take them!"
The rest of the soldiers ran forward to fight, but Nathan couldn't. For a few long seconds he simply stood there as the others went on. Finally, he began to run. Not back to help Admiral Jiren, but downward and out of the building. A few blaster bolts struck the ground nearby, and he almost became a victim of friendly fire, but it was soon realized that he was no Chiss.
Nathan ran, he did not stop when he reached his platoon's fortified position. He just kept running, and nobody could stop him. He ran until he passed out from exhaustion, and was found in a ditch nearly ten hours later. Nathan later learned that Gash and N'iktal Jiren had been the only ones to survive the final firefight, and for a while he used this fact to justify his actions, but after a very long time he realized that the fact that he had lived when others had died was the greatest failure of all.
Nathan drained the bottle of whiskey, stood up, and grabbed his coat. It was two hours before he found the spot. The exact spot in Orilcia where the battle had taken place. Most of Ossus had been rebuilt since Thrawn's invasion, but this was a section of the town that was still undergoing repairs. Looking upon the street, Nathan did not see a beautiful sidewalk and a spotless road. He saw the battlefield. The wounded and dying men. The blaster bolts. The death.
Nathan started at where the bunker had been, the rubble gone, and he walked slowly across the street. He paused at where the other human had fallen, and the image of the man's dying face flashed into his mind. Nathan had begun to cry. He continued on, reaching the building, and snapping the 'Do Not Enter' sign in half. There were men working inside, and for a while nobody noticed him. It was not until he began to climb the stairs that someone called out for him to stop.
But he couldn't stop. He kept going, and soon reached the second floor. The rubble was still there, almost exactly as it had been. The bodies and the blood had been cleaned up, but Nathan could still see them. They were there, and they would never leave. A firm hand grasbed his shoulder, but he shrugged it off. He moved back down the staircase, reaching the wall that seperated the two. The place where he had run and the others had stayed. Stayed to die.
"I'm sorry, Admiral..." Nathan whispered.
He pulled a blaster from its holster and, before any of the workers could do anything, put a bolt into his brain.