Walker Imperial Ranger

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By Bryan and Joysweeper

Don't read this story yet :)

This story isn't just unfinished or unpolished at this point, it's still full of ragged edges and incoherent joins. It's a collaboration between Bryan and Joysweeper and Shifti's being used to coordinate putting it together. If you read it now, be prepared to have your future enjoyment spoiled by spoilers and cut scenes and all manner of other literary detritus.

Links to some pictures of AT-ATs, for reference:

[1] Close up of chin-mounted heavy laser cannons [2] Low-angle concept art [3] More concept art(Talk about uneven odds. Luke is so overkill) [4] ESB screenshot [5] Another screenshot [6] High-angle(sort of) image [7] Schematics

Links to some pictures of Red Guards, also for reference:

[8] Red robes and a forcepike. [9] Kir Kanos, helmet off, showing the armor. He never uses a forcepike. [10] The Emperor's guards aren't just for show. [11] Kir Kanos showing the armor again. Different look at the belt.

Joysweeper's intro

The hallway was packed with people, the majority of them at least slightly costumed, moving from place to place, mostly heading away from the hotel and towards the various attractions Xanadu had to offer. Congesting naturally into small groups, some consisting of friends walking together, some of people gawking at a particularly unusual costume, their voices and occasional sound effects combined into an incredible din. Still, separate people could make themselves heard to the people they were talking to.

“Hey, cool. Infinities, right? RotJ, right? I have that ish at home.”

SL-1984 gave a thumbs-up before hooking both hands back into his belt. Having been his mentor when he first joined, TR-1407, who was with him, knew just how easily he’d taken to using these standard Vader poses. “Good on you. Um. I stopped paying a lot of attention to Marvel comics when I joined this gig… Ben Reilly during his time as Spider-Man, right?”

“Almost. Spider-Girl, man! Same design, different character.”

“Right, right… That’s the one where Baby May lives, right?” A half-blind spotted furry with fogged-up eyepieces almost plowed into SL-1984, who managed to step back out of the way in time, white cape flagging. It was crowded enough that he brushed against a redneck sporting exaggeratedly huge inflatable breasts in doing so, but nothing came of it.

“Yeah. Man, you need to start reading those. They don’t suck! DeFalco knows what he’s doing. Later!” The kid in the wrinkled tights waved jauntily and was soon lost to view, squeezing past a knot of Trekkies.

“Every time I think I’ve figured out exactly how nerdy you are, you manage to surprise me,” TR-1407 said, trying to distract herself from the heat. It was like summer on Tatooine under her red robes and armor. She was regretting, with a fervor that bordered on religious, the decision she’d made to hook a respirator to her belt instead of using fans.

“C’mon, Angela.” Just another part of the crowd, they resumed forward progress. If it had been clear enough, they would have walked side by side, but in these conditions one sometimes went ahead of the other. “We’re part of the Five-Oh-First. I made a costume based on a version of Vader that appeared for literally two panels on the last page of a comic book that isn’t even canon. It’s impossible to get nerdier than that.”

“Don't call me Angela when I'm in uniform, okay? It's Anj. And impossible? You just keep pretending, kiddo.” Not for the first time, she wished that she hadn’t bothered with all the armor. The robes hid everything beneath her neck but her arms and feet; they were made of a cloth that was heavy enough to stay more or less in place. Of course, this was a semi-official function, and she’d never hear the end of it if she showed up half-dressed. “Making a costume as part of an active cosplayer club does score major points on the scorecard, but at least you’re meeting other people and getting things done. When you can name costume variations from a series that can’t keep its continuity straight, that’s an entirely new level.”

“Hah. Spider-Man is one of the most popular titles in comics, and I’m not the only one in the 501st to try Vader Redeemed. I’m a huge nerd, granted, but you’re at least as bad as me.” He crossed his arms over the control panel on his chest and leaned back slightly.

“I’d like to see you prove it, Steven.” Angela shifted her forcepike so that it crossed over her other shoulder. It was lightweight, but a minor nuisance to carry around. And there was always the danger of it getting broken... Just part of being a Red Guard, an Imperial Guard, a Royal Guard, or whatever the hell else she or anyone cared to call the Emperor’s red-robed entourage. “And use facts, okay? You’ve seen where I live. You know I don’t have a complete collection of thirty-year-old action figures or a giant stack of brand merch in the closet. I don’t even have any life-size cardboard cutouts or vintage posters.”

"If you want me to call you Anj, don't call me Steven." SL-1984 raised his voice to be heard over the shouting match going on between two balding men in spandex. “Fine. But we both know that the only reason you don’t have any cutouts is because you gave them to me when I joined -”

“Hearsay! Facts, kid, give me facts.” People had collected in a chattering knot around someone or something, clogging the way. Angela raised her voice. “Move along, come on now citizens, you can collect in a spare room much more easily than out here. Move along, move along.” There was a speaker in her helmet that lent her voice a little more kick and made it audible despite the fact that the helmet was all but airtight. Despite that, she saw no sign that more than a few people had heard.

Her former pupil repeated the order with the same intonation, his voice-changer making it sound much more commanding. This time, people listened and obeyed, breaking up and dispersing. They’d been clustered around a yellow lab – not a furry, an actual, panting dog – wearing one of those novelty pet costumes. It went very nicely with his owner, though Angela wasn’t sure about the meaning of the dog being Batman when the man was Robin.

Another thing that the Redguard wasn’t sure about was the way her pupil had been obeyed when she hadn’t been. Of course, she wasn’t as comfortable being the center of attention as Steve was. He loved the spotlight, she preferred the fringe. That was probably why his preferred costume was a Sith Lord while hers was one of the Emperor’s elite guards.

The conversation resumed. “You want facts? They’re yours. You’ve made an Imperial Army Pilot costume. The people who drive AT-ATs for a living. Only forty people in the entire 501st have bothered with that. Probably the ugliest approved costume there is, never really shows up in the movies, featured in none of the comics or the novels. Army pilots are nobodies that you have to pick out of visual dictionaries and cross-sections.” SL-1984 leaned down to poke at her, emphasizing what he was saying. “And even though I’ve never seen you wear it, you have made one.”

“It’s not the most labor-intensive of costumes,” TR-1407 pointed out, enjoying the thought of how this might look to anyone who cared to watch. The other costumes around were bizarre enough that she doubted they’d get any extra attention, of course, but it was still bound to get a few second glances. “Besides, army pilots aren’t that obscure. You see one from behind for about half a second in ESB. They’re also in Battlefront, and the Lego series, and there’s a short story that was written about them. Maybe two, I forget. Geeky? Hell yes. But not on par with Vader Redeemed – as you said, two panels on the last page - and knowing as much as you do about a comic.”

“Not the point I’m making.” He backed off a little. “There are people who will do their best to imitate the smallest, most obscure role imaginable. But at least when they do, they pick someone cool. AT-AT drivers are never cool. If you’re an Imperial pilot and that’s all you do, well, it takes a serious nerd to cosplay you.”

“Hey, hey, hey. There is wrong, and there wrong.” TR-1407 slapped her forcepike into her open palm for emphasis. “Some of the best characters in the EU are pilots.”

“Everyone loves Antilles, the Rogues, the Wraiths. Don’t get me wrong there. But they’re just not Imperials.” They were alongside another knot of chattering people. This one wasn’t nearly as large as the last, but it was equally stationary. Tall enough to see over most of them, SL-1984 craned a little, then shook his head – if they were gathered around anything, it wasn’t interesting enough to warrant burrowing into the knot. “Imperial pilots are just cannon fodder; they’re there as an extension of the Empire, to shoot things down and then be shot down themselves. Not worth the time.”

“Wrong again. You call yourself a fan and you don’t even think about Baron Soontir Fel? Shame, kid. We’ll have to drum you out of the 501st.”

The conversation was put on hold briefly as a fairly well-done white tiger furry with an articulated jaw interrupted, waving her pawhands and generally being as relentlessly upbeat as possible. She didn’t seem to want to talk, but gestured and showed off a disposable camera on a strap around her neck enthusiastically enough that it was pretty clear that she wanted pictures.

TR-1407 had never been all that comfortable with being hugged by complete strangers for photographs, but she didn’t have any serious objections to it, and she wasn’t carrying her wallet this time, so there was no chance of getting robbed. Fortunately the tiger was much more interested in SL-1984, and he was perfectly willing to mug and pose as much as desired. Maybe it was just that white fur went better with white robes and armor than with red, but it was probably more that the kid was far more willing to let go of his dignity than Angela was.

After the Red Guard had obligingly snapped enough pictures and handed the camera back to the furry, the white tiger left, and they picked up where they had left off.

“I’ll concede with Fel. He’s badass. But seriously, he’s an important character in his own right, with a long list of other achievements. Are there any Imperial pilots who are just pilots, known only for that, even in those ridiculous complete collections?” Someone in tight leather fighting to go “upstream” through the crowd slipped between them.

Aware that the helmet hid any change in her expression, TR-1407 injected a slightly mocking grin into her voice and started ticking them off on her gloved fingers. “Turr Phenir. Maarek Stele. Civé Rashon, and she was a woman, to boot. The Imperial Ace. ‘Mauler’ Mithel. Kasan M-“

“Argh. You can stop now, Angie. And I’m almost certain that at least one of those wasn’t ‘just a pilot’.” For a moment, the young man paused to phrase his idea. “I guess it’s just that those are all TIE pilots, flyers. They get a certain amount of recognition. But why make a costume for the pilot of an AT-AT? They’re nobodies. They don’t even look that good.”

Angela shrugged, then, remembering that it might have gone unseen, said, “I don’t really know. But it’s not all that bad, being out of the center of attention. I don’t wear the Army Pilot uniform because yeah, it looks stupid. You’re right about that. There’s nothing wrong with being obscure and easy to overlook.”

“Huh.” He was quiet for a bit, either thinking it over or waiting for the two of them to outpace yet another noisy argument. “I never pegged you for shy.”

“I’m not shy. Not in the least,” Angela protested. “Hey, I’m wearing flowing scarlet here, and I’m at a con with at least ten thousand people. The Red Guard uniform is one of the most intimidating, eyecatching ones in the whole 501st. But really, it gets skimmed over pretty often. I just… I guess I just don’t like having my own personal spotlight. I like making the costumes, I like showing them off, I just prefer making the ones that are kind of obscure. It’s weird, I know,” she finished, realizing that she’d gotten personal and trying to brush it off.

“Okay. A little weird, but no big deal.” SL-1984’s hands went back to gripping the white leather of his belt. “Heh. More eyes for me, then. I guess we’re even when it comes to geekdom.”

“Says you.”

Bryan's intro

"The door, the door!" Steph called out and lunged to intercept the handle swinging in to catch Garrett's back, stopping it just in time to prevent another ding in the cardboard that might be difficult to repair now that they were at the convention itself.

Garrett let out a sigh of relief. "Thanks." He had turned sideways but thanks to the huge boxy hump over his back it didn't make him any narrower and only really served to make it harder to keep track of everything. And with the two giant cardboard constructs mounted over his arms there wasn't really much he could do anyway; his hands were busy just holding the internal braces in place.

Steph grinned and slipped lithely around to join him in the lobby once Garrett had managed to make it inside. "You'd think armor capable of repelling turbolasers could handle a door handle."

Garrett shook his head. His costume was particularly fragile, being both bulky and made primarily out of cardboard, but it had been surprisingly quick and easy to make as a result. "It'll last until judging. Spray a jot of black on any tears and call 'em battle damage, the Rebels must've got a few lucky hits in." The lobby was sparsely populated right now, with just a few folks still lined up at the front desk buying passes to glance in surprise at Garrett's outfit, but Garrett decided it was showtime. He leaned forward and fell into his quadrupedal stance, the big round footpads of his forelimbs clomping to the ground to support him and the headpiece tilting down into the correct orientation.

There were a few appreciative murmurs as the onlookers finally recognized the iconic Imperial walker he was dressed as. Steph gave a little flourish and a bow, as if taking credit for the outfit, and then stepped forward to give Garrett something to follow. They'd considered trying to rig up a periscope of some sort so that Garrett could see forward more easily but they'd run out of time for details like that; it was enough that the AT-AT's legs were able to support him as things were, they'd had to compromise on the costume's proportions a bit just to make it work.

The majority of the work had taken only a single week. Since it only really had to survive for a single day of use ease of construction had been a fair tradeoff. Garrett was like that with all of his projects; a flash of inspiration, a whirlwind of construction, and then once it was finished the itch was satisifed and he would lose interest and let it go. Steph counted it as sheer luck that this time around the inspiration had come when they might make some money off of it. He'd been a friend of Garrett's for a couple of years now, both of them in the same engineering degree at the nearby University of Midtral, and was the less-imaginative and more-practical of the two.

"Two please," Steph signed in. "Stephen Midder and Garrett Thompson. Just for today." He pointed to identify themselves.

"Registered for any of the contests?" The man behind the desk asked. Garrett nodded silently, the walker-head bobbing almost comically. "Right..." The man shuffled through a list, presumably checking for Garrett's name, and then looked back up once he'd checked it off. "Ten for him, thirty for you."

"Eh? Aww." Steph got out his wallet to pay for the passes. "Should've worn a costume myself." Not that I could have got a discount for any costume that cost under twenty dollars, of course. But he supposed that wasn't really the point.

The two of them had done some pretty wacky and nerdy things together. The AT-AT costume had blown away everyone at the Halloween party they'd been to on campus just a few nights previous, in fact that had been the primary impetus for building the thing in the first place. But as they proceeded down the hall toward the convention rooms where the main population of conventiongoers were congregating, Steph began wondering if they'd finally reached their level. The variety and creativity of hand-crafted costumes on display was enormous. Still, there wasn't anything quite like the AT-AT costume Garrett wore and it still drew a good share of attention.

Upon entering the first convention room - a dealer's room, from the look of the tables set up along the side walls, but nonetheless full of costume-wearers - they almost immediately encountered someone in a Stormtrooper outfit. It was a perfect replica in every detail, clearly a labor of love, and the person wearing it was dedicated enough to playing the role that he resisted the temptation to drop out of character.

"You're out of uniform, pilot," the trooper commented as he gave Steph a nod of acknowledgement in passing.

Steph was at a loss for a response but Garrett gave a most un-AT-AT-like chuckle. Garrett had been shuffling along behind Stephen on all fours, barely able to see more than the backs of Stephen's heels, and he took the opportunity after the trooper had passed to stand back up again and look around. "Lots of competition."

"Yeah." Steph sighed; the prospect of winning any of the prize money seemed more distant now that he'd seen some of what they were up against. This was just the first room and there was an amazing gargoyle with what looked like pneumatically-operated wings, a really hot fox-girl who had made a masterful blend of both plush fabric and her own natrual attributes, and a lizard-man... no, Steph corrected himself, a Gorn. The Gorn's costume was nearly as good as the one from the original Star Trek episode had been. "Still, nothing like an AT-AT, eh?"

"Excuse us, please," A small woman in a jockey costume asked from behind Garrett's cardboard bulk. He shuffled to the side to let her through, leading a man in an amazing horse costume. The thing made him seven feet tall, with a long neck and perfect horse's head, and the hoof-gloves made Steph wonder if he could get down on all fours too.

"Heh. Damn." Garrett shook his head. "Well, thank goodness for categories, eh?"

Steph gave a wry grin. "Yeah. Though I'm feeling a bit under-dressed myself now."

It didn't really matter much since Garrett was the center of attention, as intended; Steph was along just to open doors and do the other things Garrett couldn't manage in that hulking outfit. But as they proceeded through the room Steph found his gaze lingering on some of the costuming wares being sold.

People would stop to stare, take photos, or ask Steph questions about the AT-AT costume. Since he was the one leading the way, with Garrett's face down and concealed under the cardboard headpiece, it was natural that they'd assume he was in charge. But when Garrett reared up to proudly answer the questions they'd immediately switch to ignoring Steph instead. It was quickly beginning to annoy him; though the idea and the design for the AT-AT costume had been Garrett's they'd worked on it together.

"Hang on, Garrett," Steph finally called. They were on their way to the exhibition hall but they were still quite early, they'd left plenty of flex in their schedule to account for difficulties with the costume. "I want to look at some of the stuff they're selling here."

"Stuff?" Garrett got up and looked around.

There weren't any Star Wars branded costume supplies at hand, and if there were they'd probably be too expensive. Twenty dollars, eh? I can spend twenty dollars. That left mainly just the cheesier costume gear.

After a few minutes of browsing Garrett got back down on all fours and spent a little while tromping back and forth. The arms of the AT-AT costume were quite heavy; in addition to the cardboard shell he had a pair of aluminium canes, trimmed short and affixed to the broad metal bucket lids that formed the soles of his "forefeet". Despite the crick he was sure he'd eventually develop in his back it was actually easier moving around like this.

There wasn't as much of an audience in here, though. The people who already had costumes were gravitating off somewhere else and those were the ones he was most interested in impressing with his ingenuity and attention to detail. He wasn't a big Star Wars fan himself but he'd dug up some schematics from a scan of some old Star Wars book. He'd even hung a Luke Skywalker pilot action figure on a string from his underside, mimicing the famous scene from Empire Strikes Back where the proto-Jedi had grappled up on board one after being shot down on Hoth, but he'd lost that particular accessory somewhere during the Halloween party and hadn't bothered looking for a replacement. There didn't seem to be anything like that in this area of the dealer's room...

He tromped over to Steph. "We going to move on?" He prompted.

Steph sighed. The twin goals of 'attention-grabbing' and 'cheap' weren't meshing very well. "Okay, just let me grab something." Something totally incongruous would probably be best. So... "Ah, I'll take that." A pair of fuzzy bunny ears on a headband for just ten bucks. Garrett didn't even look up and Steph grinned; he'd be startled when he did.

They continued onward.

Fragments related to the two sets of characters meeting for the first time

[Chapter break, possibly a character switch. This is dialogue between the two, the whole thing might or might not be overheard. Tweak it as needed.] Meeting Part A: “Oh, nice. Angie, look. I don’t believe it.”

“What? Where? I told you, it's 'Anj'. Damn it, I’m not seven feet tall, you narglatch.”

“Watch your language, Red Guard. Passing through, citizens. Make way. Ahh. I see that the ingenuity of Kuat Drive Yards remains peerless. By which I mean whoever made this. Impressive. Very impressive.”

“Not bad. This is… cardboard? Not bad, not bad at all. Your Imperial Walker is a pretty good effort. Can you move at all? Hmm. Better you than me. That looks uncomfortable.”

“Citizen. Who built this? Was it you?”

“Huh? No, no, I’m just here to help him. Put it on, get water, keep him from running into walls. He’s the one who made it.”

“Red Guard, back off a bit. You’re going to make him blush.”

“Shut up, my Lord. I see a lot of room for improvement, but this is still a very impressive work. I’ve seen something a little like this once before. This is much better. I like what you did with the paint detailing here. It’s the small things that can make or break a costume.”

[Part B could go here]

“It’s almost eleven, Red Guard. You can admire this effort later. We have a function? You know? Tampa Bay Squad?”

“Sithspit. You’re right. Farewell, vehicle of Imperial might.”

“Citizens, clear a path out. The show is over. ‘Vehicle of Imperial might’, Angie?”

“Hush. I couldn’t think of anything.”

“You sure were into those legs. How long can you spend on a feat of engineering?”

“About as long as you can spend on those cat-fairy girls back in the entryway. We’re going to be late, Steve.”

Meeting Part B: "I must apologize for my escort. He trained as an Imperial Army pilot before washing out into the stormtrooper corps, where he was effective enough to be selected by my former Master. Old habits die hard." (Anj is a woman, and her helmet speaker doesn't change her voice much, but they're playing the role. Red Guards are selected from the most elite stormtroopers, and during the classic Empire women weren't officially accepted as troopers)

"So. I doubt that the Empire has begun accepting nonhumans into service since my conversion, so you cannot be a pilot. I don't think you have the height for a Gerb or Lepus Carnivorous, but I might be mistaken. Are you a Kushiban? Be at ease, my mission no longer entails the deaths of Force-Sensitives."

(Anj interrupts. "My Lord, are you forgetting the Hoojib?") "I was just getting to that."

(SL-1984 drops part of the in-character act) "They're both rabbitlike creatures, not very large. Kushiban are more like cat-monkey creatures with soft rabbit ears and big squirrely tails; they're about, oh, this tall standing up(foot and a half) but usually walk on all fours. They do a lot of handweaving and tend to be Force-Sensitive; generally they're portrayed with a calm demeanor. By most standards they are considered very cute."

(Anj starts to laugh, knowing about the custom plushie that he tried to bid for last year.) "Don't you dare, Red Guard. Don't you dare."

"Anyway, Hoojib are about this big(small rabbit), they're telepathic, they eat energy. They look more like rabbits with huge eyes and splayed bird feet. They also have large noses, no visible mouth, and one antenna or feeler on the forehead. A relic of the Marvel comics. Trust me, this is not the weirdest that my fandom gets."

Joysweeper's pre-TF setup

The “function” hadn’t been much more than the squad’s effort to get people to donate to charities, specifically the Leukemia Society in Tampa Bay Squad’s case. The Kublai Con attendees were pretty generous – TR-1407 had once heard it said that furry cons generated more money than scifi cons, and Xanadu was both.

What had made it amusing was the “act”. Angela lost count of just how many times she’d heard friends declaring that the 501st was here to keep the peace and maintain order. Essentially they’d just threatened anyone who looked impressive enough, and almost everyone had played along. She’d personally “fought” an armored anthro dragon with a very realistic whipping tail, matching her forcepike with his curved fiberglass sword, and although she’d “lost” she had also had the pleasure of seeing him back down when faced with the blasters of eighteen stormtroopers.

She’d heard that someone had actually caught a pickpocket in the act and had proceeded to instill the fear of the Empire into him, but she hadn’t seen it herself, nor had anyone who told the story. It was probably hyperbole. That didn’t stop the thought from being entertaining.

Now it was pretty much over; everyone who’d turned up at eleven was leaving, a few of the latecomers sticking around to try and wring out every cent they could. TR-1407 was glad to leave, frankly. The Red Guard outfit had slowly become hot enough to fry fleek eels with, and no amount of water or robe-flapping could make it entirely tolerable. She felt like the sweat-drenched bodysuit under the armor plating under the robes was trying to merge with her skin.

“Remember, there’s a march at three,” she told SL-1984 as they left together. “We meet at two thirty in the southwest parking lot.” Little single-squadron things like the function were fun, but the real thrill was always when the entire 501st, or as much of it as was attending any particular convention, marched together. There was just something about being in a solid group and dwarfing other organizations that felt exhilarating.

“I knew that. Just because our Squad Leader didn’t bring it up doesn’t mean I forgot. Hey, don’t look at me like that. I’m not a little kid. I can remember a plan,” he protested.

“Price has a lot of things on his mind, you know. He’s got to set up a bunch of tables before we march, and not everything is here yet.” She flapped her robes in another vain attempt to get some cool air circulating. Under her helmet, a little curl of hair plastered itself over one eye, sticking to the lid as she blinked. “Your voice-changer is starting to fail.”

“Gah. You’re right.” SL-1984 thumped the speaker hidden in his chest box, then removed his helmet, careful of the trailing wires that ran from it down into his armor. “This thing always gets screwy an hour or so in.”

There was always something just a little bit disturbing about seeing someone without their helmet on. It didn’t take long to get used to seeing troopers, but with a Vader it always looked strange. TR-1407 did her best not to look too closely. “You really ought to try a pair of Vortex Twos. I’ve never made a Vader-“

Steve left off scowling into the helmet for a moment. “You’re not nearly tall enough to pull it off.”

“Shut up.” Angela sighed. “I’ve never made a Vader, but you already know about how everyone with a helmet uses a speaker to be heard. I’ve heard nothing but good about the Vortex series. I know that Hasbro thing is cheap and easy to get, but it really shows. And you could reuse a Vortex for other costumes, too.” She indicated the general location of her own speaker with a quick gesture. It made her voice audible despite the almost airtight helmet, flattening it out in the process.

“I know, but that’s a bit of an investment. I’m not exactly rolling in money right now. Had to stop working on that Tusken Raider one… I could barely afford to come here.” Replacing the helmet and straightening it with both hands, he faced her directly. “Any plans?”

“I’m getting out of this costume before I cook.” SL-1984’s speaker system relayed the sound of his mouth opening, so she cut him off. “And before you ask, no, I don’t need any help. Seriously, if I stay in this any longer I’ll get heatstroke. Every time I get into this thing I regret it, I swear.”

Yet again SL-1984 locked his hands around his belt. “This is why white’s a good color. I’m not sweating half as much as I did in the black suit, so I think I’m good for a while yet. Maybe I’ll swing by those set pieces people keep talking about. I heard that they got John and his crew to do the Hutt set again this year, plus Carmen said that Makaze Squad brought in that Death Star made of like a million Legos. I have no idea how they could have got it in the doors.”

“How do you think? It comes apart into sections and gets reassembled. I’ve seen it before.” TR-1407 really didn’t know where the closest ‘changing room’ was, but she’d been told that they were everywhere, so it probably wouldn’t take too long to find one. “Have fun. I think I’ll get most of this off before I make more plans. Don’t hurt yourself showing off in pictures.”

“Don’t forget to put that back on by two thirty. I’ll see you by then if not before, Angie.” He kept on in the same direction, she arbitrarily took a left.

It was pretty close to noon; compared to just an hour ago, the hallway was half empty. The people who had been rushing around trying to get to various things had reached them, apparently. This wasn’t anywhere near the dealer’s room or any of its offshoots, the SIGs were already in progress, and as far as she could remember from the schedule the only event going on would be that big awards ceremony.

Angela toyed with the idea of going, but the oppressive heat of her costume decided her. Anything worth seeing would surely keep; she knew enough about these things to know that the truly impressive costumes would probably stick around for a bit, both soaking up the praise and trying not to break anything. Getting there in time to see the whole thing wouldn’t be worth the broiling and the probability of being jostled by a crowd. She’d hate to break her forcepike; it was the most fragile part of the costume.

It wasn’t long before she found the door to one of the “headless lounges” where fursuiters went to cool down. The sign on the door declared it to be fursuiters only, but the Red Guard knew how these things worked, and that few people would protest.

Just opening the door was a relief. Walking in was like entering a freezer. TR-1407 pulled off her helmet and robe and sighed out loud, oddly pleased to see a little steam wafting into the air, shredding as she stood in the current of a standing fan.

The room was crowded with stacked tubs of ice water and fans working at full blast. Angela saw what looked like air conditioners on a shelf and a handmade paperboard sign declaring that the lounge had been sponsored by Mountain Dew. How a brand of soft drink had come to sponsor a room set aside for overheating furries she couldn’t even begin to guess. The tagline for this year’s Kublai Con had said “Xanadu. It’s going to be weird”, though, so she supposed this was par for the course.

Someone had apparently arranged to have an air mattress to be placed in the center of the room. If the room had been either empty or crowded she would have had no qualms about going there and sitting or lounging on it, but it was currently occupied by someone in a multicolored creature that might or might not have been a fanciful dinosaur, splayed on the surface with his eyes closed. His head, set upright, seemed to grin dopily at the Red Guard.

With care for the trailing wires and the respirator’s tube, Angela tucked her helmet under the arm that held the forcepike, allowing the robes to drag on the ground. Compared to the near-blackness of the helmet with its darkened visor, the lounge was almost painfully bright. There was only one other person in the lounge just now, a woman in a tight-cut coyote suit. She was in a lawnchair holding an unlit cigarette in her mouth, apparently obeying the convention’s ban on smoking inside.

Angela caught her eye and motioned towards a row of hefty coolers with her free hand. The coyote woman shrugged and looked away. There was no cashbox in view; evidently the sponsoring went as far as free drinks. If it didn’t, well, someone had left a number of cold two-liter bottles and plastic cups out, and they were deluded to believe that no one would take advantage of them, the Red Guard reasoned.

The only preopened bottles Angela found after a cursory search of the cooler contents contained red and purple sodas. Frankly, she detested both kinds, but they were appealingly frosty and she wasn’t willing to open one of the fresh ones lurking at the bottoms. The coolers were all filled with a bone-chilling mix of ice and saltwater – her glove would survive a ducking, but it was poor insulation, and water would get trapped between the glove and the armor on the back of her hand.

Angela downed two cups of foul-tasting “Red Alert” in record time. She could feel it stinging her throat and running down into her stomach. Nasty as the stuff was, it worked well as a coolant. The temperature of the lounge suddenly seemed to drop ten degrees. TR-1407 stuffed the respirator tube and wires back down into the neckpiece of her armor and replaced both the helmet and the robes.

I guess I don’t need to take all this off yet, then, she decided, lobbing the cup into a mostly-full bin. She still felt sticky, but there was nothing to do about that; she wasn’t going to have access to a shower until evening. Nodding to the coyote woman, she left the headless lounge behind.

Mere minutes later TR-1407 was once again warm enough that the heat was like a physical thing trapped against her body. Not for the first time, she wished that she’d worn her officer uniform instead. Fewer layers, and the face, neck, and hands were exposed to the air. But officer getup was just so plain, so ordinary compared to the Red Guard robes and armor.

Up ahead it was crowded again; mostly more fursuiters from the look of things. Enough of them were breaking the unwritten rule about staying silent in costume that the group was quite, quite loud, even with the helmet cutting off some of the sound. From the laughter, the movement, and the general tone of conversation, they were having a good time. Having nothing better to do Angela approached them, deciding that if nothing else she might as well find out what if anything was going on.

As she passed within thirty feet of the closest of them she felt something like a chill traveling up her spine, prickling against the bodysuit stuck to her skin. Anj would have brushed it aside as nothing, but for one reason or another she noticed that some of the furries who had been talking or laughing or demonstrating dance moves stopped, abruptly in some cases. A number of them carried on, oblivious, but several stopped what they were doing.

TR-1407 thought she saw a gray feline yawning far wider than a baklava could allow for. She told herself that it was a trick of the light or a flaw in her visor. That was when the chill became strong, pulsing in time with her heartbeat and branching to prickle her arms, the base of her skull, her breasts and crotch, strong enough that she shuddered involuntarily.

Then the bottom dropped out of the world.

Possible chapter break

Everything was darkness and confusion and helpless nausea. When the world fell out from under her it took her stomach with it. Gravity meant nothing; she felt both as if she was falling and as if she was spinning on the worst amusement park ride ever imagined. A timeless period later she tasted blood and carbonated fizz.

And then the world was back, or one very much like it. Struck by the very physical sensation of falling, even though she could feel her boots firmly planted on the floor, Anj instinctively adopted a defensive crouch, opening eyes that she hadn’t remembered closing.

She could see! She could hear! Long ago Anj had gotten used to the way the Red Guard helmet cut her visibility and muffled all sound. She’d all but stopped noticing. Now, though – now the flattened ovoid of the visor was still there, but a little smaller, and the space around it was no longer dark.

She could see as well and as much as she could when bareheaded, and all sounds were crisp and clear, not muffled in the least. It wasn’t that the helmet was gone; even though the temperature had dropped into a comfortable range she could feel it, tight against the contours of her face with just enough of a gap to let air circulate. But the inside, so close that her eyelashes brushed a smooth surface every time she blinked, was full of light and color and motion. For a moment it was completely disorienting.

Training kicked in as her eyes flicked frantically from one thing to the next. These are the screens in my helmet. They negate the disadvantage of having an enclosed faceplate. This lowest monitor, the short wide one, is my peripheral display. It shows me what I normally have to turn my head to see. My aural pickups catch sound and relay it into my ears in such a way that I can determine the source and how distant it is. They also blunt the effects of sonic weaponry. The analysis calmed her enough that she began to register exactly what she was seeing and hearing mere meters away.

TR-1407 took a moment to realize that these were the same furries she had just seen. They barely bore any resemblance to any fursuits she had seen, ever – even the best of the best had always looked artificial. Wet, flickering eyes with fully mobile eyelids, subtle facial expressions, a mouth that did more than open and close, pawhands that did not look like gloves, skin that shivered, fur that sprouted from the skin, muscles and tendons moving beneath it, toes that splayed against the ground, tails and ears that moved silently and with purpose – admittedly she wasn't exactly involved with the furry scene, but in all the conventions and events she had ever attended she had never seen a fursuit that still looked real up close. Not when she compared a costume to a real animal. Some things just couldn’t be faked.

Yet the people she saw before her, gasping and touching themselves and looking wildly about… Some were more or less humanlike than others, but one or two looked like nothing less than bipedal wild animals with slightly altered forelimbs and faces. The inarticulate confused things that they said were not in the voices of men or beasts, but a combination of both. They breathed, they ran wet tongues over bestial teeth and ductile lips, they staggered on well-formed legs, their faces and body language reflected shock and disbelief and joy and horror and sudden fear. More than one turned a hybrid face towards the Red Guard.

Training once more came to the fore. I’d better be careful. They’re disorganized and might not mean any harm, but whoever they are most of them are on the verge of blind panic. And I know what panic makes people do. Anj took half a step backwards and stumbled – her feet seemed bigger than they should have been, and her balance had changed completely. She compensated even as the realization hit her that something was fundamentally different. The costume was tight, but beneath it-

Set off, either by her motion or by the low, coughing feline roar uttered by one of them, the furries split. Hooves and paws pounded the carpet as they ran, most of them headed away from TR-1407, but a gazelle and a zebra sprang past her, giving her a wide berth. She had half turned to stare after them in bewilderment when her spine chilled and she saw something huge and white and blue in one of her helmet screens.

Reacting almost instantly, TR-1407 jerked out of the way, her arms following through on the motion and bringing the tip of her forcepike into contact with her assailant. It connected solidly, making a tiny crackling noise that was all out of proportion to the effect.

Momentum kept it going, but the enormous white tiger’s leap ended gracelessly in a nerveless heap, limp and probably unconscious, red tongue sticking out of its fanged, slack mouth. Anj looked from it to the forcepike clasped in her gloved hands.

The stun module mounted on the vibro-edge head at the very tip gleamed dully. The weapon was about two meters from the thin tip to the thicker black grip, and it was considerably heavier than it had been before, maybe seven or eight kilograms - Seven. It’s regulation-issue, so it definitely weighs seven kilos. - but it felt right in her hands, sleek and balanced. Perhaps it wasn’t as elegant and deadly as a lightsaber, but here was a weapon that could kill or incapacitate, equally functional for battle and crowd control. Set to maximum it could tear through the hull of a starship; set to the lower setting and it could knock out a grown Wookiee. Or, apparently, a leaping tiger. That thought brought her back out of contemplation.

“…Yeah. What just happened?” Anj’s eyelashes brushed her visor as she blinked. It sounded like something odd had happened to the speaker. Normally it just relayed her voice; it distorted it just a little bit, making it slightly more mechanical, but that was all. It didn’t change her voice, not really. It made it a bit less feminine, but it was still recognizable as hers.

But something had happened to that speaker. This wasn’t her voice; this was nothing like it, in fact. The timbre was entirely different, as was the pitch. The speaker was making her sound like an entirely different person. Why in the Emperor's name-

Focus! Are all local threats neutralized? What about my assailant? Anj moved closer and crouched to examine the white tiger. It was huge, easily three meters from the tip of its tail to its whiskered muzzle. At first glance it looked almost exactly like the tranquilized big cats that were always featured in documentaries on television, down to the rapid, heavy way its sides heaved as it breathed. The only immediate oddity was the fact that it seemed to be wearing clothes – something like a tube top and close-fitting boxers, both pale blue.

But another moment showed her that it – no, she, for there was a suggestion of breasts in that tube top – had forepaws that would do poorly for bearing weight. They were long, the fingers well formed with prominent thumbs. Her head also bore hair, short and pattered in the same way as the striped fur, but distinct. No tiger looked like that.

Around her thick neck, too, there was a strap holding a disposable camera…

TR-1407 tensed up as another cold tingle swept up her spine, glancing automatically towards a particular section of wall. Almost immediately that section bowed inwards, breaking with a wild shower of plaster and bricks as something almost spherical burst through, pudgy fists clenched, cubes ricocheting against each other and the interior as red liquid sloshed.

“OH YEAHHH!”

The world has gone mad, or I have. Even as the thought flashed through her mind, Anj was acting, one-handedly drawing her blaster rifle - what? I didn’t bring a blaster with me today!- from where it was holstered beneath her robes and firing.

The blaster bolt -It’s not supposed to work!- hit a curved, transparent surface that absorbed the energy, heating and deforming slightly. On the inside, bubbles formed at the site and frothed up to the top; barely a second later they had stopped and the melted region had returned to its former unblemished state.

The – whatever it was – adjusted its footing as the three frosted translucent cubes floating inside of it rattled and clinked. Below them the lacquered black indents that served as sketchy facial features - eyebrows, eyes, a nose, a wide smiling mouth, all highly stylized – moved to assume an expression that looked like furious, homicidal joy. Its short arms, placed in relation to its eyes where ears would have been on a humanoid, reached towards the Red Guard, fingers twitching as if to fix around her neck.

Anj fired twice more, with the same minimal result – small parts of the clear surface melted and re-formed, a little of the liquid boiled up without lowering the level within, and the thing displayed anger. Its short legs, with their rounded toeless feet, were moving, but its rotund bulk kept the pace slow. Anj felt another chill on her spine and somehow knew that if it gathered itself it could leap hard and fast enough to cover nearly four meters in an eyeblink, breaking through anything in its way. She was almost in range of such a leap.

Still, it can’t jump several times in succession. If I move now, I can easily leave it behind. It looked like – it looked completely impossible. Like a round-bellied pitcher, complete with flared spout and glass handle, with low-set arms and legs. It was filled with a translucent red liquid that colored its limbs. Somehow Anj thought she’d seen it or something like it before, but just by existing it was an affront to reality. It couldn’t possibly stand upright on those small featureless feet, and as for moving! It had no skeletal structure, no visible muscles or joints, how could it move?!

TR-1407 shoved her blaster back into its holster, hidden by her robes. Whatever it is, it’s dangerous and I’m not getting killed by it. Time to go. Yet something stopped her.

The tiger furry was still out cold. She was only slightly further from the pitcher than Anj was, and the Red Guard had no reason to doubt that the thing was willing to take out its frustraion on whatever couldn’t get out of the way.

TR-1407 flashed back to her training in the Imperial Royal Guard Academy, on Yinchorr. Above all, protect and serve the Empire. Your first duty is to your Emperor. Obey and protect him. Your second duty is to ranking Imperial staff. You are to protect and obey them. Your third duty is to your comrades in arms and fellows in duty. You are to protect and work with them. Your fourth duty is to Imperial citizens. You are to protect and guide them. Your fifth duty is to guide and protect everyone else. The mantra had become so ingrained that it was a part of her, so essential that she barely registered that it shouldn’t be there.

Yes, the tiger had leapt at her and she had reacted as if under attack, stunning it. However, she had no way to know if that leap really had been an act of aggression. And even if it was, did that really make a difference? What should I do?

Indecision lasted for only a split second. She’s in danger because I put her there. So I’ll get her out. Doesn’t matter how ridiculous the situation is, I still have my duty. TR-1407 changed her stance, gripped her forcepike in both hands and held it before her in ready position.

If the pitcher thing had been any faster she would have been caught while thinking, but it was forced to shuffle forwards to get within range. Anj readied herself and thumbed the setting as it tensed to spring.

“OH YEAHHH!”

Although she’d known this was going to happen, TR-1407 was still surprised at its speed. Barely in time, she dived and rolled under it the instant before it hit landed again, causing a small shockwave and splintering the floor.

Spinning to face it again, Anj swung one-handed and caught her opponent with the forcepike’s tip. This time a sharp crack! rang through the air; not waiting to see what she’d accomplished she adjusted her grip and swung it in a high vertical stroke, then again, horizontal, hitting the curved glassy surface hard.

There was the tingle again, strong and focused. Acting with it the Red Guard struck again, to the left of center, then stepped back quickly. Almost immediately she smacked into the wall and winced. Forgot where I was. Damn! As she sidestepped to get more distance she almost fell over her own feet, once more becoming aware that something was different. There'd been a bit of a bounce where no bounce should be, not on a woman.

The pitcher thing looked at first glance to be unaffected; if it had been made out of durasteel every impact would have left great rents. It was still moving and its shape was intact, but on second glance TR-1407 saw white fractures spiderwebbed dramatically across the surface.

She kept her visor pointed squarely at its enraged lacquered eyes, holding her forcepike up in an unvoiced but extremely explicit threat.

The indents that appeared to be eyebrows lowered and drew together as it frowned slowly. Across its sketchy features a white fracture, which had started to gradually fill in, lengthened and widened again with a high, nearly musical sound.

The pitcher thing’s right arm began to leak, red liquid pattering down into the carpet. The glass there, thinner than on its curved body, had all but shattered, and repaired itself only slowly. Slowly, the thing’s eyes slid from its arm to Anj’s visor.

“Press me and you’ll be dead,” she warned, not knowing if it could understand her or not. “I can keep this up and hurt you faster than you can fix yourself.” Her grammar had gotten a little mangled, but she felt that the message was obvious.

“I can throw a grenade into you and vaporize your contents. I can sweep your legs out from under you and shatter them so you can’t stand. Once I’ve done that, I can smash you into a thousand shards, which I can then scatter.” Even as she said the words, noticing again that this was palpably lower and grittier than her voice had ever been, she knew with confidence that this was not an empty threat. Mess with an Imperial Red Guard in the performance of his duty and you’re coming off second-best.

TR-1407 advanced half a step and brought her forcepike into ready position. The pitcher thing’s eye indents became larger, then smaller again. A sense of rage so strong that it was palpable radiated off of it, but it had sense enough to know a hopeless fight. Still dripping, it shuffled backwards and began to turn ponderously. A moment later and it bounded away through another wall with a shower of plaster. The Red Guard watched through the hole it left until she was satisfied.

Hah. Straightening, Anj looked over the comatose tiger once more. Her white-furred flanks had been decorated with a coat of dust and plaster fragments, but the furry had escaped harm.

Alright, now what? The tiger was still out and would likely remain that way for an hour or so. But Anj wasn’t going to stay around guarding her. The immediate danger was past, but TR-1407 knew better than to assume that things were safe now. Some of her responsibility had been discharged just now, but there was still one thing. A way to hasten the waking process.

It took a bit of searching - and a moment of staring at her own hands, which appeared to have elongated a bit - to find the site where the stun module in her forcepike had hit; the tiger’s fur was thick enough that the little bruised patch of skin was hidden. It was on the furry’s muscular upper arm, close to the shoulder.

Anj closed the tiger’s jaws with an effort, then took a handful of her crimson robes and pressed it against the furry’s nose, plugging the nostrils with the tips of her fingers. She counted slowly to ten and prodded the bruised patch with the armored knuckles of her free hand. Hard.

Almost immediately the white tiger started to make throaty sounds of complaint, fingers and ears twitching. Anj peeled back a furred eyelid and saw the pupil of the blue eye contract.

My work here is done. Not willing to be there when the tiger woke up, TR-1407 walked away, almost stumbling on legs that were longer than they should have been. Despite the exertion, Anj's breath had been only slightly quickened. Without that pressure to act, she felt strange. Now to find someplace private and try to make sense of all this…

Joysweeper's post-TF segment

Anj stared at the reflection in the mirror, shying away from the eyes. The reflection stared back.

His wasn’t a face that would turn heads. There was a certain hardness to it, yes – something in the forehead, the set of the jaw, the chin – but the mouth and the surprised expression saved him from looking too unforgiving. What made it disorienting was the way it was at once strange and familiar.

“This is the part of the dream where I find out I can fly, right?” I don’t sound anything like me. I don’t even sound like my father. Anj winced and saw the reflection do the same.

“Doesn’t feel like a dream, but how would I know? I guess my helmet speaker’s working fine.” It was a very expressive face – the wince hadn’t just been a twitch of the eyelid; there’d also been more than a little reaction in the lips and eyebrows.

Was it really a surprise? “Only men are officially accepted into the Stormtrooper Corps. Only the best stormtroopers are selected to become Red Guards. The Emperor is biased against women and nonhumans. Ergo, a Red Guard that served beneath the Emperor has to be a man. Even though I’m pretty sure that’s not possible.” It made a certain amount of sense, though. After that exchange with the bizarre pitcher-thing he had barely been breathing hard – and although he hadn’t given it much thought, certain things that should have bounced had not, and vice versa.

On the way here, when he’d decided not to join the crush of people trying to get out, he’d noticed that when he wasn’t thinking about it, he walked as easily as ever. But inevitably something jostled that shouldn’t jostle, and then he’d always noticed that his whole body felt off and his feet and hands were a few centimeters too long and the ceiling was visibly closer…

He sighed hugely, holding off a feeling of total unreality. “Maybe I’m on drugs or something. Or crazy, that works too. Because I’m pretty sure that I am not a Red Guard. Only… well, fine, I’m not that sure.”

Anj closed his eyes. “All right. Birthplace – Flagstaff, Arizona. Coronet City, Corellia. Damn it. My mother’s maiden name… what was it, Smith? Antilles.” Rapidly he flicked back – oldest friends, schooling, training, work, quickly becoming more and more dismayed.

Reaching up to rub the bridge of his nose with the hand that wasn’t holding his helmet, he found that it felt wrong and shifted his fingers. “Crazy. That’s gotta be it. Me or the world; can’t be both. I’m very strongly reminded of that prank back at the Academy… but this has to be bigger than that. Wait. Am I talking to myself?”

“I am, aren’t I? Damn. I don’t do that.” Opening his eyes, Anj met his reflection’s gaze squarely. His eyes were wide with surprise, large and dark-irised. Not hazel and thick-lashed. He wasn’t sure whether or not they had always been that way, and that was worrying. Frankly, he wasn’t sure whether or not he was about to either throw up or panic. Reflexively he reached for his forcepike with his free hand. Still there, hanging where he’d clipped it to his belt.

Training was strong on this point. If there was an internal crisis of some kind, it needed to be resolved. Before it impacted the performance of his duty. Anj used some paper towels to dry the counter where the sink was, then set his helmet there and removed his robes, folding them quickly and with mechanical precision.

“Huh.” Despite their irregular shape, he’d folded them into a perfect square, flat and unwrinkled. And why had he bothered wiping down the counter first? “I really hope this isn’t permanent.” Anj dropped his folded robes besides his helmet, deliberately not allowing the edges to line up with the edge of the counter. Immediately he felt the niggling urge to adjust the robes, make them line up precisely, but it wasn’t very strong.

Looking down, Anj glanced over his armor. Red plating, the same crimson as his helmet and robes, with a textured bodysuit underneath. The bodysuit was black, naturally. The armor seemed to be arranged in such a way that it imitated the contours of a very well-defined muscular body. Better defined then he actually was, he knew, but he hadn’t designed the armor.

“I didn’t pad it out like this,” he said quietly, uncertain. “It was flat. No one would have seen it, and it would just have made it even hotter. The plating is the same.” Anj ran a gloved finger along the raised detailing on his pectorals, stopping as he realized what he was doing.

He then started to pace, restless. A few moments passed before he concluded that although he had no idea whether or not he was a “real” Red Guard, the ‘woman living on Earth’ part was more real. He knew things that he really shouldn’t, like how the Emperor was killed and what became of the Empire. Besides, he clearly recalled holding a trade paperback and reading about the Squall on Yinchorr. There was just no way that that could have gotten out and made it into publication; the Empire would never allow those secrets to go public!

Anj stretched out on the linoleum, resting weight only on his forearms and toes, and kept his abdomen taut, silently counting the seconds as his muscles burned. There was the fact that he knew full well that he was in Florida, and he-as-a-woman was a fan of Star Wars who had lost sleep handmaking a fake Red Guard costume, and Emperor’s black bones this was confusing!

Holding position was easy; even with the weight of the armor, he could stay like that for an hour, no trouble. Anj shifted position, put his palms against the floor, and started to push up and lower himself down in a steady rhythm, breathing easily.

Assuming that the woman-living-on-Earth theory was, as it seemed, more valid than the Red Guard-showing-up-here-wherever-this-was and thinking he was a woman-living-on-Earth theory… what in the Emperor’s name had happened?

A shredded bit of toilet paper scudded off across the linoleum tiles, blown by his breath, and Anj stopped. “Why am I doing pushups?” He scrambled back to his feet as quickly as if he’d been ordered and stared for the third time at his reflection.

Every time he looked at himself, it was a little easier. This time, he honestly could tell himself that that face was familiar. That the nose had been broken rather spectacularly and had for the most part healed straight. That the hair-fine scar cutting through one dark eyebrow was not from a training incident, but a remainder of something incredibly stupid he’d done as a teenager. He could remember idly imagining a face like this, going with the fairly vague biography he’d made.

He looked, to his surprise, just a little like his ex. Like Angela’s ex. It wasn’t a major resemblance, but it was there, something about the shape of his face and the texture of his close-cropped hair. It wasn’t a bad thing. Things hadn’t really worked out between them, but they’d left on friendly enough terms. Anj couldn’t help wondering what Tony would think of this.

“Oh, he’d have no idea what to do or how to feel. I should call him, just to hear how lost he’d be. Heh.” Seeing it in the mirror, Anj decided that he liked this smile, full and open as it was.

There would be time later to strip off every piece of armor and examine everything. For now – well, he knew, but it wouldn’t hurt just to check. Anj found the seam in his bodysuit and pulled it wide.

“…Yeah. I definitely went in the wrong bathroom.” Feeling a little embarrassed, Anj straightened his armor and exhaled firmly.

He still felt weird, but it was a relief to be sure that whatever else was going on, this was a convention in Florida, and he had walked in as a woman in costume. In Red Guard costume. The furries he’d seen – the same thing had happened to them. It was safe to assume it had also happened to the people he’d passed on the way here, the ones who’d been rushing for the exits or milling in confusion. Had it happened to everyone? In the world, or locally, or just here?

He’d become a real Red Guard; his forcepike had become a real forcepike. The furries had become actual, living animal people. The image, the dream, had become reality. Although, really, he’d never longed to have more than the image, he’d never felt that he was supposed to be a Red Guard, the way he’d heard that some people were. And – well, it followed logically that the pitcher man hadn’t been more than the image before, because who could possibly want to be a pitcher? There were a lot of unanswered questions here.

… What had happened to the rest of the squad? To his friends, to SL-1984, that poor kid? Had this happened to them, too? Why wasn’t he with them? He had no idea where they were, but why wasn’t he looking for them?

“Why do I feel so guilty about this? I had no idea… I don’t know what in the Emperor’s name they’re doing, this isn’t exactly covered in training!” Anj blinked. “Not training. I don’t know. Going to have to do something.”

Restless again, Anj made a quick circuit of the bathroom. He’d chosen well; when he’d passed this place early in the day there had been an impressive line, but everyone’s priorities had shifted well before he got here.

All stalls were open, and the bathroom was empty – he wouldn’t have removed his helmet and started talking to himself if it hadn’t been – but it didn’t hurt to check.

He found it rather disheartening when he had trouble reading a piece of graffiti. It was scratched deeply into the side of a stall, in large, relatively neat letters, but it still took longer than he’d have liked before the squiggles resolved into “ALEX WAS HERE”. Apparently he now had trouble reading English.

Otherwise, the only thing of note was a pile of clothing just inside the handicapped stall – short pants with the panties still inside, a shirt, a bra inside of it, sitting on shoes with socks still inside. Just seeing that made Anj feel uncomfortable and voyeuristic, but he couldn’t help thinking that if the clothing had simply been removed, it would just be heaped together, underthings on top. This looked like more like the occupant had dematerialized – or shrunk dramatically.

Very gingerly, touching only with the very tips of his gloved fingers, Anj separated and folded the clothes, stacking them together on the linoleum. Empty. He supposed that was a good thing. Still, now he had to wonder what had happened here. It was a mystery.

A light sort of twitch traveling up his spine brought Anj out of his thoughts. “Right,” he mused under his breath as he returned to the sink. “Weakly Force-Sensitive, not good for much more than intuition and a warning. Which means-“

He could hear it, tinny and faint, coming from his helmet on the counter. It must have tuned in on some frequency. Without hesitation Anj took it up and settled it over his head, the insides tight against his face. The voice over the com became clear.

“-ling all Imperial units in or out of the 501st, calling all Imperial units in or out of the 501st, report for instruction, report for instruction, set to Imperial frequency Ithor Naboo Gammorr, set to Imperial frequency Ithor Naboo Gammorr. Repeat; this is ID-4102 of Makaze Squadron, this is ID-4102 of Makaze Squadron, calling all Imperial units in or out of the 501st-“

Words could not have expressed how Anj’s heart leapt on hearing the officer’s voice. He wasn’t alone! Almost as fast as he could think it, he had gone to the specified frequency.

“This is TR-1407.” Relief loosened his tongue in spite of training. “And I am very glad to hear from you! Orders, sir?”

The voice that responded over the comlink wasn’t the same one; this was a harried-sounding male. “You may change your mind when you see this, Red Guard. Get to the rendezvous outside of the structure. We’re on the blacktop rectangle to the southwest.”

Outside, it was chaos, pure and simple. Anj hadn’t been in the crowd when it happened. He’d seen people and creatures of all descriptions fighting to get outside while he’d been looking for a private place. By the time he’d picked up on the broadcast and left the bathroom, most of them had already gone – the halls had hardly been deserted, but the majority had already fled. He could hear them outside, a dull roar formed by thousands of throats. Not a happy crowd, he decided. Better than a mob, though. I don't know what I'd do with one of those.

Stepping through the empty frame of a double door – it had once, apparently, held glass, but that was nowhere to be seen – TR-1407 was struck by what he saw. People, creatures, and stranger things that defied categorization littered the landscape, rushing about, standing and sitting and reclining in a few cases. Some were alone, others in groups. There were some fighting or arguing with each other, others trying to subdue the wild ones, some hightailing it as if the Emperor’s finest were at their heels, some examining themselves frantically, some just sitting back with mouths open as if howling or screaming, though the Red Guard couldn’t pick out individual voices in the collective noise.

As he automatically went through a threat assessment, picking out specifics from all the bewildered bystanders, he marveled at the sheer number. He hadn’t thought the Orlando Convention Center could hold so many – yes, it had been crowded, and he hadn’t canvassed the entire place and seen for himself how big it was, but still. It was like a “Where’s Waldo” poster, writ large.

Maybe it wasn't just inside, he thought suddenly. Maybe it was everywhere, and just more obvious here. If the image had become real - well, it had to be more than just the image, or he wouldn't have gotten taller. If little unarticulated thoughts, like a forcepike weighs seven kilos and Imperials use the metric system for measurements had also carried over, what about others? What about the cheater's assumption that I will not be caught, or the youth's that I am immortal?

Still on the instruction frequency, the officer who had told TK-1407 where to go was tersely repeating those instructions to someone else who had reported. I need to stay focused. I can speculate later.

Some of the figures in the crowd looked like security forces – no, police, they're called police. Police, firefighters, paramedics, what looked like a SWAT team of all things - Wait. One’s a fox- there were more than a few people that had probably been called in from all across the state, if not country. They clearly were supposed to try and control or at least contain this madness. Just as clearly, they were as confused and uncertain as anyone else, but trying their best to impose order in some form. Anj sympathized.

It was weird – the outsiders looked and felt somehow a little different from all these others, and not just because they were all human. Like all of the changed were larger-than life, even the small ones.

Flickers on his peripherals made TR-1407 tilt his chin up. The sky was hardly less crowded – far, far above something streaked into the atmosphere, and hardly any closer small tight-looking jet planes or fightercraft roared overhead. Even closer there were news helicopters already, sharing airspace with winged things of all description and wingless humanoids who had no visible way of staying aloft. The Red Guard saw bright costuming and at least one cape fluttering in the wind behind someone in red and blue who somehow caught up with the aircraft overhead and thought, incredulous, Superheroes? Seriously?

There was no denying what they looked like, no matter how improbable the thought was. Anj realized what he was thinking and grinned involuntarily. As if I’m perfectly reasonable in comparison. This is insane. So what? The 501st needs me. I’ll handle it.

With that reminder, he turned. Southwest blacktop? Must be that parking lot where we planned to meet. Ah… it’s midday or thereabouts, so by the sun’s position that way is west, which means south is there. Not far. Doing his best not to call over attention, the Red Guard started moving at a lope.

I don’t know where the closest military outpost is, Anj realized. Still, with something like this we can probably expect troopships any minute now; orbital reinforcements – No, no, no! This is Earth! Earth! Not part of the Empire! There are no orbital reinforcements. No fleets. We might get some part of the Army here, but they don’t have the technology I’m expecting. Rockets, not turbolasers. Helicopters and jets, not troopships, not snubfighters. Why did that thought make him uncomfortable?

I wouldn’t worry about him, even with a sword like that… Watch out for her, she’s dangerous… He’s fine for now, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to push him… she looks like she could do some serious damage, but somehow I don’t think she’ll be a problem… Better not go near that one. Looks like everyone else’s picked up on it too… Emperor’s bones, that thing is huge, but I don’t think it’s up to anything… There were a lot of people to assess, particularly on the run. It niggled at the Red Guard that he was only doing a cursory check of each, but he wasn't guarding anyone or anything.