When the alarms started screaming, the world snapped into two colors: the soft gold of festival lanterns and the sickly green of TIE engine glow cutting through the morning haze.

  I don’t remember climbing down the hostel stairs. I only remember hitting the ground running, Meral on my left, Toran on my right, the three of us dodging half-panicked townsfolk as they fled toward shelters dug into the base of the river ridge. The air stank of ozone and burning leaves.

  “Training sabers?” Meral asked as we sprinted.

  “Still all we’ve got,” I said.

  Toran skidded to a halt outside the warehouse. “No real weapons. No blasters. No armor. Brilliant. Perfect. Great job, us.”

  “Were you expecting an invasion?” I snapped.

  “No, but I enjoy complaining!”

  A scream tore through the air behind us — not human, mechanical. A shrill descending howl. We ducked on instinct as a pair of TIEs strafed the street, laser bolts carving hot lines across the dirt and stone. One bolt hit a vendor booth we’d walked past last night. Oil ignited in a violent blossom. The stand went up in a column of flame. The smell of charred food and wood punched into my lungs.

  Meral grabbed my wrist. “Command post! Go!”

  ? ? ?

  Rhi Vask was already there when we arrived — standing at the center of the colony’s main square, barking orders like she’d been born in a battlefield instead of a small farming settlement.

  “—three squads to the south lane! Someone get me a status on the west tower! If that comm relay dies, we go blind!”

  We pushed through the cluster of armed civilians — most in patched-up old Rebel gear, some in festival clothes still, some barefoot because they’d run out of their houses so fast they hadn’t stopped to put anything on.

  “Rhi!” Meral shouted.

  Rhi spun, her eyes scanning us for blood, broken bones, missing limbs. “Good, you’re alive. The northern approach is getting hammered. I need bodies who can move and think.”

  “Training sabers only,” Toran muttered again.

  Rhi’s gaze snapped to him. “You want a blaster? Take it off a dead stormtrooper.”

  That shut him up.

  A distant explosion shook the square. Someone cried out as debris rained down from the roof of a home hit too close by a laser blast. A group of civilians dragged a wounded Ithorian past us — his shoulder blackened where a bolt had grazed him.

  I felt the Force pulse — jittery, unsettled, vibrating like a plucked wire.

  “Where do you need us?” I asked.

  Rhi pointed east. “There’s a narrow street leading to the old fuel depot. Troopers landed a shuttle near there. I’ve got two units holding the line, but they’re outnumbered. Reinforce them. Keep the troopers from pushing into the center. We lose the depot, the fires will spread to the whole block.”

  “Got it,” Meral said.

  “Go,” Rhi ordered. “And don’t do anything stupid.”

  Toran saluted with unnecessary flourish. “Absolutely zero stupidity. Guaranteed—”

  Meral slapped the back of his head. “Stop jinxing us.”

  We ran.

  ? ? ?

  We reached the fuel depot street just in time to see white armor rounds the corner.

  Stormtroopers — actual, pristine-clean, straight-from-a-Star-Destroyer stormtroopers — advancing in tight formation, rifles raised, firing in short, disciplined bursts.

  Two of the colony defenders crouched behind overturned crates, returning fire with old Rebel blasters that hissed and spat bolts nowhere near strong enough to punch through armor.

  One of the civilians saw us. “Jedi?” he shouted hopefully.

  “No!” Toran yelled back. “Just the discount version!”

  But there was no time for disclaimers — the troopers saw us and turned their rifles our way.

  “Kae!” Meral shouted.

  I ignited my training saber. The pale blade flared to life — nowhere near as solid or deadly as a real saber, but enough to deflect blaster bolts if my timing was perfect and my luck was adequate.

  The first bolt came for my chest.

  I stepped into Zha’ka without thinking — weight shifting, blade angling.

  The bolt ricocheted into the stone wall with a sizzle.

  Two more bolts. Eth. Spiral parry. Deflection sideways.

  “Move!” I yelled.

  We sprinted toward the defenders. Meral dove behind a cart, pulling one of the fallen troopers’ rifles with her as she landed. Toran slid in beside her, cursing like an astromech with a dented vocabulator.

  I leaped forward, closing distance before they could get clean shots.

  Tari-Ashla wasn’t designed for lightsabers — I knew that. But the footwork worked. The spirals worked. The timing worked.

  One trooper fired at my head — I ducked, blade spinning. Vath caught the bolt and sent it back up toward a second trooper’s shoulder. He stumbled.

  Meral popped up from cover and fired twice. A trooper dropped. Toran fired a burst wildly, shouting, “THIS IS WAY HARDER THAN IT LOOKS!”

  “You’re aiming like a drunk Kowakian monkey lizard!” Meral shouted.

  “It’s stressful!”

  The troopers tried to regroup. I lunged into their formation, striking low — not with the saber that couldn’t possibly cut armor, but with my boot. The blow made one lose footing.

  Then I grabbed his rifle before he hit the ground.

  It was heavier than expected. Hot metal. Familiar shape. I pointed it at another trooper’s chest plate and fired on instinct.

  Three shots. One hit.

  The white armor smoked.

  He fell.

  My heart hammered against my ribs.

  I had never killed anyone before.

  But there was no time to think about that. Not now.

  The remaining troopers fell back toward the shuttle landing zone.

  One of the colony defenders shouted after them, “Stay down, you bastards!”

  Meral looked at me with wide eyes, then at the rifle. “You okay?”

  I swallowed hard. “I… yes. Later. Move.”

  ? ? ?

  We stripped the fallen troopers quickly — not out of disrespect, but necessity.

  Meral yanked chest plates off one body. “These will fit you.”

  “Stormtrooper armor doesn’t fit anyone,” Toran muttered. “It’s a universal law.”

  “Quit talking and take the vambraces,” she said.

  He pulled them on. They were loose around his forearms, but workable. I pulled a breastplate over my tunic, cinching it tight. It felt wrong — restrictive — but the blaster scorching across the front reminded me why it mattered.

  Then Toran found the paint.

  A small construction tent nearby had open crates of spray-sealant pigment. Toran picked up a canister, shook it, and grinned like a criminal.

  “Oh no,” I said.

  “Oh yes,” he said.

  “You’re not—”

  But he was.

  He sprayed the white chest plate in fast, sloppy arcs of matte black. The fumes made my eyes water.

  “There,” he said proudly. “No one’s confusing me for Empire scum.”

  Meral crossed her arms. “You look like a half-melted trash bin.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “But I’m our half-melted trash bin.”

  I sighed and handed him another piece. “Fine. Do the shoulders too. Just keep it fast.”

  He got to work.

  ? ? ?

  By the time we reached the main square again, Rhi’s defenders had set up barricades — overturned market stalls, metal sheets from the maintenance yard, even chunks of festival platforms.

  An old Rodian veteran waved us over. “Positions! North and east lanes!”

  We took cover behind a makeshift barricade as another wave of stormtroopers advanced through the smoke.

  The first volley lit up the square — streaks of green carving through the haze. I deflected two bolts, then ducked down as three more slammed into the crate beside my head.

  “Suppressing fire!” Meral shouted, firing in controlled bursts.

  Toran peeked around the edge of the barricade and yelled, “These guys don’t run out of ammo! That’s cheating!”

  “They do if you make them drop the gun!” I said.

  I reached out with the Force — not for finesse, but for momentum. One trooper jerked backward as his rifle flew from his hands. Meral shot him before he could react.

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  Another flanked us. Toran dove forward, slamming into him with more enthusiasm than accuracy. They rolled across the dirt, grunting, until Toran finally managed to elbow the man hard enough to make him drop his weapon.

  “You okay?” I shouted.

  He staggered up, panting. “Define ‘okay.’”

  “You’re alive.”

  “Then yes!”

  The defenders held their ground. Inch by inch, the stormtroopers began to falter. One shouted for retreat; another cursed in a voice too young for war.

  Soon the street was ours again.

  For the moment.

  ? ? ?

  A new sound rolled across the sky — deeper than the TIE Fighters. Heavy. Ominous.

  TIE Bombers.

  “Take cover!” someone screamed.

  The next second, a line of explosions ripped through the far side of town — warehouses bursting open like overripe fruit, fireballs climbing into the air.

  The shockwave hit us a moment later, slamming my chest like a giant’s hand. I stumbled, ears ringing.

  Smoke. Heat. Screams.

  The colony’s medical volunteers rushed toward the burning buildings. A man staggered past us carrying a small girl whose hair was singed and face streaked with soot.

  I tasted metal and fear in the back of my throat.

  “We need anti-air!” Toran shouted over the chaos.

  “We don’t have any!” Meral yelled back.

  “Then we find some!”

  But first—

  “We help them!” I said.

  We sprinted toward the burning structures. A section of roof had collapsed onto a group of trapped townsfolk. I heaved a fallen beam upward with the Force, muscles shaking with the strain.

  Meral dragged two people free; Toran pulled another out by the arms, coughing from the smoke.

  The heat was brutal — even the air tasted like fire.

  Behind us, another explosion shook the spaceport.

  “We can’t stay here,” Meral gasped. “We’ll get boxed in.”

  “She’s right,” Toran said. “We need bigger guns.”

  “And I know where they keep them,” I replied.

  ? ? ?

  The Imperial mobile platform rolled into view like an ugly, floating beast — repulsors humming, heavy dual blaster cannons mounted on a reinforced turret. A crew of three stormtroopers manned it, one operating the turret, two providing close support.

  For a second, the battle noise dimmed under the pounding of my heart.

  “I want that,” Toran said reverently.

  “You’re not stealing it,” Meral said.

  “I’m very much stealing it.”

  “Kae’rin,” Meral said urgently, “tell him no.”

  But the platform opened fire first — its heavy cannons vaporizing a section of the barricade near the medic tents.

  We didn’t choose the fight.

  It chose us.

  “Meral,” I said, “flank left. Toran, go low. I’ll distract.”

  “That’s a terrible plan,” Toran said.

  “It’s the only plan,” I said.

  I sprinted forward, training saber drawn. The turret swiveled toward me — I dove, rolled, came up under the platform’s shadow. Blaster fire burst where I’d been a second earlier.

  Meral darted along the crates, firing precision shots at the support troopers. One went down; the other ducked behind the platform’s engine housing. Toran slid under the repulsor field — actually under the machine — and began yanking at access panels with manic determination.

  The turret operator noticed and swung the cannon downward. I leaped, landing on the barrel housing, saber slicing into the targeting sensor. Sparks burst. The cockpit hatch cracked open. A stormtrooper lunged at me from inside.

  We collided, rolling across the platform deck. He got a hand on my throat; I slammed my saber hilt into the side of his helmet. He dropped.

  Below us, Toran shouted, “Three seconds!”

  “For what?” I yelled.

  “For this!”

  Something clicked. The platform lurched violently to one side as Toran disabled its stabilizer array. It tilted, half dropped, and then slammed into the ground with a crunch of metal.

  I grabbed the edge of the turret and steadied myself.

  Meral popped up, shot the second support trooper, then fired a second bolt into his collapsing figure for good measure.

  Toran crawled out from beneath the platform, singed but triumphant. “Okay,” he said, panting. “Now we steal it.”

  “You almost got crushed,” I said.

  “Worth it.”

  ? ? ?

  We got the turret operational faster than I expected — Toran hotwired the targeting board, Meral jury-rigged the firing sequence, and I kept watch.

  The next group of TIEs screamed overhead.

  “Targets incoming!” Meral yelled.

  “Toran,” I said, “don’t miss.”

  “When do I ever—?”

  “DON’T miss!”

  He fired.

  The heavy cannon roared. A TIE lit up like a dying star and spiraled into the trees. Meral adjusted the arc and fired again, catching another in its wing panel.

  Three more dove toward the square. I used the Force to nudge the turret’s angle a hair upward — the cannon blast caught one fighter dead-on. It exploded in a shower of flaming debris.

  The townsfolk cheered.

  For the first time that morning, hope crackled through the smoke.

  ? ? ?

  Then the jungle trembled.

  A deep thudding. Mechanical. Heavy.

  We all froze.

  “Oh no,” Toran whispered.

  Through the clearing smoke stepped a machine I had only ever seen in holos — a towering bipedal walker, its armored cockpit glinting in the broken sunlight.

  An AT-ST.

  It fired immediately — twin light cannons blasting apart a warehouse wall. People scrambled away as flaming debris crashed into the street.

  “Take it out!” I shouted.

  Meral aimed the platform turret. “Hold it—hold it—almost—”

  She fired.

  The blast hit the AT-ST’s leg armor. It staggered, but didn’t fall.

  “Again!” Toran said.

  The cannon recharged. Another blast. This one dented the hull but didn’t stop its advance.

  The walker returned fire.

  The impact threw our platform sideways. Sparks flew; smoke belched from the engine housing.

  “We can’t stay here!” Meral said.

  “Kae’rin!” Toran shouted. “What do we do?”

  I swallowed.

  “We retreat,” I said. “Fall back to the militia line. Regroup.”

  Behind us, the AT-ST kept coming, stomping through the smoke, relentless.

  The air tasted like ash and terror.

  And somewhere in the Force, like a storm gathering on the horizon, something larger — something worse — had begun to move.

  ? ? ?

  Retreating while an AT-ST tried to vaporize you was exactly as fun as it sounded.

  “MOVE!” I shouted, shoving Toran off the platform as the walker’s next blast slammed into the street five meters behind us, sending a spray of molten stone into the air.

  The repulsor fields sputtered; the platform groaned like an animal bleeding out. Toran yanked a side panel open and hotwired something, sparks flying.

  “Come on, come on—don’t die yet,” he muttered.

  Meral grabbed my arm and pulled me behind a toppled fruit stand as the AT-ST stomped forward, firing again. The impact rattled my teeth.

  “Where’s Rhi’s line?” I shouted over the screams and cannon fire.

  Meral pointed. “Southwest! By the communal pump!”

  “Then that’s where we go!” I said. “Toran—leave it!”

  He slapped the panel closed and leapt down just as another blast vaporized the turret housing.

  Together we sprinted across the square.

  Smoke hung thick, stinging my eyes. People ran with the frantic, unthinking urgency of prey animals. The beautiful lanterns were shredded, banners burning, the smell of sweet fritters replaced by scorched stone and melted durasteel.

  A woman carrying a small child stumbled, almost fell into the path of the walker. Meral veered toward her instantly, grabbing her arm and hauling her upright.

  “This way! Run!”

  The mother didn’t waste a second — she ran.

  The AT-ST’s chin guns rotated toward us.

  “Kae’rin!” Toran yelled.

  I threw myself flat as a blast scorched the air where my torso had been a heartbeat earlier. Heat licked my back. My ears rang. The Force pulsed in sharp, staccato beats — fear, adrenaline, cold calculation. I pushed myself upright, lungs burning, and kept running.

  We dove behind the remains of a water trough. The militia line ahead was a chaotic mess — half-trained fighters in mismatched armor, firing old Rebel-issue rifles and trying to hold formation.

  Rhi stood at the center, barking orders, her voice hoarse and furious. “KEEP THE LINE! AIM FOR THE OPTICS! DON’T LET THEM FLANK!”

  The AT-ST rounded the corner behind us.

  Rhi saw us and yelled, “Solen! Get down!”

  Too late — the walker fired.

  A shockwave slammed into the trough, flipping it sideways. Toran was thrown into me; Meral rolled over the edge, coughing.

  “Are you two—” I started.

  Toran gave me a thumbs-up, though he was trembling. “Still pretty.”

  Meral gave him a look that suggested she would murder him later.

  The AT-ST stalked forward, raising one metallic foot, preparing to stomp the barricade where Rhi and her soldiers held the line.

  “No—no no no—” I breathed.

  Rhi saw it too.

  “FALL BACK!” she screamed.

  But not everyone could. Several injured townsfolk were still behind the barricade, crawling, dragging themselves, too slow—

  I didn’t think. I moved.

  I sprinted at the walker, saber in hand, and threw myself into a sliding dive beneath its chassis just as the foot came down. The shockwave rattled my bones.

  “ARE YOU INSANE?!” Toran shrieked behind me.

  Possibly.

  The underside of an AT-ST was a nightmare of armor plating, hydraulic pistons, and heat vents. I lashed out with my saber — the blade fizzled uselessly against Imperial-grade durasteel.

  Figures.

  But there were gaps — always gaps. Servomotor junctions. Ventilation seams. Wiring bundles protected only by thin mesh. I stabbed upward into the exposed wiring. The walker jerked like it had been shocked.

  Then it kicked.

  A metal limb swung toward me with terrifying speed. I rolled, narrowly avoiding being smashed like fruit.

  “KAE’RIN!” Meral screamed.

  I scrambled backward, heart pounding, as the walker’s foot slammed into the spot where my head had just been.

  “This isn’t working!” I yelled.

  “No kidding!” Toran shouted.

  I sprinted back toward the line.

  “Any OTHER brilliant ideas?” Meral panted.

  “Not that won’t get us killed,” I said.

  “Great,” she said. “So we’re improvising.”

  ? ? ?

  The militia line buckled as the walker advanced again. Its heavy cannons rained fire down on their positions, shredding barricades, knocking defenders off their feet.

  A Zabrak man beside Rhi took a hit to the leg and went down screaming. Someone dragged him back, leaving a smoking trail. Blaster fire crisscrossed the square, lighting the air with streaks of green.

  Rhi snapped off three shots at the walker’s viewport — they bounced off harmlessly.

  “We need that thing DOWN!” she shouted.

  “Working on it!” Toran yelled back.

  “Work faster!”

  The AT-ST lifted its foot again. This time, I felt its intention before it moved — cold, mechanical, implacable. The weight of inevitability.

  “Kae,” Meral said, voice tight. “We can’t hold the line. Not against that.”

  “We need cover,” Toran gasped. “Lots of cover. Preferably made of armor.”

  “Not helpful!” Meral snapped.

  Then the walker fired — and the world detonated.

  The blast slammed into the pump station — the explosion blooming in a huge, concussive fireball. The shockwave hit us like a giant’s fist. My ears rang violently. I hit the ground hard, rolled, stone scraping my palms.

  For a moment, the world was nothing but smoke and roaring sound.

  I blinked through the haze. Toran was coughing violently. Meral dragged herself upright, face streaked with soot.

  “Everyone alive?” I called, voice muffled by the ringing.

  “Define ‘alive!’” Toran wheezed.

  “On your feet!” Rhi shouted. “On your feet, NOW!”

  We staggered up.

  The AT-ST advanced through the smoke like a monster stepping out of a nightmare — its cannons glowing hot, one leg dragging slightly where I’d hit the wiring.

  But not enough to stop it.

  “We need heavier firepower!” I shouted.

  “We DON’T HAVE ANY!” Toran yelled.

  “We have the platform,” Meral said.

  I looked back at the broken machine. Then I looked forward at the walker.

  “Then we use what we DO have,” I said.

  ? ? ?

  The platform was on its last legs, but Toran managed to coax enough power from the sparking engine to get the turret firing again. We dragged it into a half-covered position behind a collapsed stall.

  “Give me everything it’s got,” I said.

  “Everything it’s got might kill us,” Toran muttered.

  “Not firing will definitely kill us,” Meral snapped.

  He nodded grimly.

  The AT-ST stepped into view.

  “Fire!” I shouted.

  Toran hit the trigger. The cannon roared. The whole platform shook.

  The blast slammed into the AT-ST’s side — and this time, the armor cracked. The walker staggered, nearly fell.

  The militia cheered.

  “Again!” I yelled.

  Toran fired.

  Another blast — direct hit to the cockpit. Smoke burst from the viewport.

  The walker reeled—

  Then righted itself.

  “Oh come ON!” Toran shouted.

  The AT-ST aimed at us.

  “MOVE!” Meral shrieked.

  We dove from the platform just as the walker fired, vaporizing the turret in a colossal explosion. The shockwave flung us through the air — I hit the ground, rolled, lost my saber. The world spun.

  When I pushed myself upright, coughing, vision blurred, the walker stood tall again — smoking, damaged, but terrifyingly functional.

  Behind it, the militia line had nearly collapsed. People were scattered, many down, too many.

  “Kae—” Meral choked. “We’re losing.”

  “I know.”

  “We need a miracle,” Toran said.

  And that was when, through the dust, through the fire and smoke and panic, I saw something worse than the AT-ST.

  The treeline behind the walker shook.

  Something massive moved.

  Taller.

  Heavier.

  A silhouette like a walking mountain.

  “Oh no,” Meral whispered.

  “Not possible,” Toran breathed.

  But it was.

  Through the haze stepped a war machine I had prayed I’d never see in person: A full-sized, heavily armored, four-legged Imperial AT-AT.

  It didn’t roar. It didn’t need to. Its presence alone was a catastrophe.

  Rhi’s voice broke in terror: “FALL BACK! FALL BACK TO SECOND LINE!”

  People ran.

  The ground trembled under four colossal metal feet.

  The AT-AT leveled its heavy cannons at the town.

  The Force screamed in my skull.

  And just like that, our hope evaporated.

  Happy Christmas Day to all!