Walker Imperial Ranger

This story is a work in progress.

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

A couple of thoughts from the Wookiepedia article. Gunners have to be able to see where the chin-mounted blasters point, so that's a pair of "eyes". The smaller blasters on the "temples" rotate, another pair of "eyes". I've read that the pilots can get an AT-AT to step on unfortunate targets; looking through the window or viewport is out, because the "neck" isn't all that flexible and can't be turned like that. Might be the "holographic targeting system" - which might be how the gunner sees, too. A "sensor array" gets a mention too, but it looks like that's just for spying. Communication... the article mentions a holoprojector in the cockpit. There's a thought for the climax.

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.

And I found this quote on one of the 501st homepages. It is so perfect. "Some fans are content to collect action figures...other fans want to be action figures. Nothing professes your fandom quite like building your own detailed costume replica of a classic Star Wars villain, and there's nothing quite like the feeling that comes from bringing the characters of Star Wars into the real world and sharing the magic with others. A truly engaging Star Wars experience only occurs through a convincing appearance. To this end, the 501st constantly strives to improve the quality and accuracy of its member's costumes. Our goal is to appear as if our characters have just stepped off the big screen and into this world." I hope I can find some way to use this ironically. Probably not this story, but I'm going to have to stow it away.

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 satisfied 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 acknowledgment 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 natural 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 they had a pair of aluminum canes inside, 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, mimicking 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.

Joysweeper's pre-TF setup

On the way they'd called it a "function" as if it'd been some kind of social event, but in reality it 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, given name “Angela Kincaid”, calling herself “Anj” while in costume - had once heard it said that furry cons generated more money than scifi cons, and Xanadu was a mixture of both.

What had made it the effort fun was the “act”. Angela lost count of just how many times she’d heard friends declaring with feigned authority that the 501st Legion 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, reacting in fear or challenging the Imperials to a duel.

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. Good donation from that one, too.

The "TR" prefix in front of the number she had picked as her identification - she'd chosen fourteen oh seven at random - indicated which costume was her favorite. "TK" meant stormtrooper, "TC" was clonetrooper, "SL" was Sith Lord... there were a number of them for the various types. "TR" meant that she favored the Emperor's guards in their red helmets and flowing robes. They were called Red Guards, Royal Guards, and various other combinations of "Red", "Royal", "Imperial", and "Emperor's". Frankly, Angela preferred "Red Guard". The arguments some of her friends got into about nomenclature gave her a headache.

She’d heard from one of them that someone had actually caught a pickpocket in the act and had proceeded to instill the fear of the Empire into him, winning a lot of amusement from everyone else in the process, 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. Most of the others were streaming away in a loose group. TR-1407 was glad to leave, frankly. The costume, with heavy cloth robes over already-stifling armor, 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 plating under the robes was trying to merge with her skin.

Not for the first time she wished that she hadn’t bothered with the tight bodysuit and the armor that went over it. It wasn’t like it would have visibly made a difference. Some Red Guards liked to keep their robes thrown behind their shoulders like a cloak, the better to show off the detailing on their armor. Angela, on the other hand, didn’t want anyone guessing that she was female, and so kept her robes arranged about her body, hiding everything but her hands, her feet, and her helmet. It still would have been far, far too hot – the helmet was the next thing to airtight, and only the respirator that threaded down to her waist kept her from suffocating – but at least she wouldn’t feel like sparks were smoldering under her robes.

But… no. More than once during the “fight” her robes had swept about, and both before and after they hadn’t exactly hung neatly. She would never have heard the end of it if she were to come to an event “half-dressed”.

“Remember, there’s a march at three,” she told her friend and former pupil SL-1984 as they left, troopers walking on either side and behind. “We meet before 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. I can remember a plan without being reminded every time I turn around,” he protested. “Steven Porter”, as he was usually known – although he preferred to answer strictly to his designation when in costume – was tall enough and attention-loving enough to pull off a White Vader costume. It was exactly what it sounded like – the Darth Vader rig, all in white, sometimes called “Vader Redeemed.” The images that the costume was based off of had appeared for literally two panels at the very end of a comic that wasn’t even canon, which firmly cemented him as a major geek in Angela’s eyes. Even by 501st standards it was unusual - and the 501st Legion was known for being a group of fans who weren't just content to collect action figures, they wanted to be them.

The conversation, and Angela’s musings, were 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 again. Fortunately the tiger was much more interested in SL-1984, and he was perfectly willing to mug and pose as much as desired, supported by three or four stormtroopers who got beckoned into the shots. 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 to accost someone else, and they picked up where they had left off.

“I’m not a little kid, Angela. Just because our Squad Leader didn’t bring it up doesn’t mean I forgot.” A trooper muttered "Here we go again." They both ignored him.

“Don’t call me Angela when I’m in uniform, kid. It’s Anj. 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 had 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 the rest of the costume. “This thing always gets screwy an hour or so in.”

There was always something just a little bit disturbing about seeing someone in costume but 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. Vortex is the best. I know that Hasbro thing is cheap and easy to get, but, well, the downside is quality. And you could reuse a Vortex, too.” She indicated the general location of her own voice amplification unit 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. It'll hold for a bit longer. Going to have to try and fake it when it does fail.” 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, Steven. Seriously, if I stay in this any longer I’ll get heatstroke. Every time I get into this thing I regret it, I swear.”

"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. Taking up a standard Vader mannerism with ease that betrayed days of casual study, he 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. See the sights. There are some really nice costumes this year. 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.”

People had collected in a chattering knot around someone or something, clogging the way. It was possible to squeeze past, but that just wouldn't do. 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.” The voice amplifier lent her voice a little more kick and made it audible. Despite that, she saw no sign that more than a few people had heard, let alone intended to obey.

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 that barely seemed disturbed at all by the crowd – 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.

What she was sure about was that the kid she’d once mentored – hardly a kid, she couldn't be more than five or six years older than him - was just better at some of this than she was. Particularly when it came to giving orders. Partly it was because, although she wasn’t shy by anyone’s standards, she didn’t like to stand out overmuch. Hence why her preferred costumes were the Red Guard and obscure ones like AT-AT drivers or Imperial Army Pilots, as they were called, while his was arguably the most conspicuous costume in the 501st.

A trooper that Angela vaguely knew finally answered the question. “The Lego Death Star? It breaks apart into sections and gets reassembled. We had to get a cart for the pieces, but it's simpler than it looks. Tampa Bay had it one year, but that was before your time. Sir.”

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. The longer she waited, the longer the costume stayed on. “Have fun, guys. I think I’ll get most of this off before I make more plans. Don’t hurt yourself showing off.”

“Don’t forget to put that back on by two thirty. I’ll see you by then if not before, An- Anj.” He and those troopers who had decided to stick together 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'd been to enough conventions 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, braced against her shoulder; it was easily the most fragile part of the costume, and making it had taken a long time.

Soon 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.

Not long after venturing in, she was out again. Those rooms were kept cold; her temperature had shot down dramatically after she'd taken her helmet off and drank some cola. Angela decided not to take off the costume just yet.

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. And somehow it drew more attention, not less. In a weird way, Red Guards could be ignored pretty easily. A perk of being a member of Star Wars's version of the Secret Service, she supposed.

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 down her spine, prickling against the bodysuit stuck to her skin. The Red Guard 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 had 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's mouth opening 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. Her bones started to ache, followed by the rest of her body.

Then the bottom dropped out of the world.

Lead up to Garrett and Steph's TFs

The density of Star Wars costumes steadily increased as they progressed. The population of the convention was extremely diverse but various factors - the impending themed contests, the large number of rooms providing partitioning, natural human cliqueiness - were conspiring to make it clumpy.

Or maybe word's just getting around about Garrett's costume, Steph reflected. The stormtroopers seemed eerily organized for just a bunch of fans who'd happened to show up wearing the same thing.

But to Steph's relief, he wasn't feeling quite so annoyed by the attention Garrett was getting any more. The bunny ears had actually helped. Not in that they were anything particularly interesting themselves, of course; they were nothing at all in comparison to even the simplest of the animal costumes he'd seen on display. No, ironically enough it was a synergistic effect.

A big clunky AT-AT clomping around? Worth a double-take, of course. A big clunky AT-AT clomping around being led by a man in bunny ears? That apparently was worth two double-takes.

A small impromptu honor guard had formed around Garrett, a constantly-renewing cluster of Star Wars fans trailing along to examine the AT-AT's details before being left behind or moving on to other things. But though fewer, the Star Wars fans who were puzzling over Steph were puzzling longer. One of them was even a Darth Vader, though in an all-white suit for some reason.

Steph wasn't about to ask. He was already being pelted with far more intricate details of the Star Wars universe than he could possibly take in. "So," the white-armored Vader was musing. "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."

"Uh, no, don't think so," Steph shook his head. Lepus Carnivorous? Is he making this up on the spot? The only carnivorous rabbit that came to mind was from Monty Python.

"Are you a Kushiban? Be at ease, my mission no longer entails the deaths of Force-Sensitives."

That one sounded less fake, and Steph was about to accept the title if only to have something meaningful to say. But then one of the Storm Troopers turned from peering at the detailing on Garrett's head and said in his best tinny trooper-voice, "My Lord, are you forgetting the Hoojib?"

"I was just getting to that." The chuckle seemed quite out of character for a Darth Vader, and to Steph's relief he seemed to be recognizing how far out of his depth Steph was. "Kushiban and Hoojibs are 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 -" he bent down to hold his gloved hand a foot and a half above the floor "-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."

It was Steph's turn to chuckle. "I'll leave cute to the furries."

"Aww." Garrett rose to his hind legs, surprising Steph by having been paying attention, and took a moment to set one of the forelegs down so he could adjust his headpiece. One of the side-mounted gun turrets had hooked on someone and been pulled askew. "You'd think with all those bunny-based aliens there'd be a more crossover, like with those Caitans we saw earlier."

"Ixnay on the Artrek Stay," Steph warned with a grin. He didn't seriously expect anyone to be offended, there was far too much good-natured mixing of genres and universes going on for that, but the rivalry between those two franchises almost seemed traditional.

"I'm dressed as an AT-AT, I think I'm strong enough in the Star Wars Force for my reputation to survive being revealed as a fancier of catgirls in miniskirt uniforms."

The white Vader nodded, still chuckling. "Certainly. And trust me, my fandom has a lot of weird little quirks in it too. Hoojib, for example. They're about this big-" too small to bend down for, he held out his hands as if cupping a normal-sized bunny in them "-they're mute but 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 that they use to drain energy with. A relic of the Marvel comics back in the seventies."

"Weird is good," Steph answered with a nod. Hoojib, eh? The wheels were spinning quickly in Steph's head; even though he'd never seen pictures of one of those things the description was pretty distinctive. He thought back over some of the stuff he'd glimpsed on the tables they'd passed... "I can pull that off. I'll be right back, you okay Garrett?"

Garrett nodded. "Just tromping around." He had finished his adjustment and was considering whether to go back down on all fours, but as Steph headed off into the bustle he found himself welcoming the excuse to stay upright a while longer. His back wasn't hurting yet, and thanks to the angle of the headpiece he didn't have to hold his neck at a bad angle, but he knew it was only a matter of time. He turned to the white Vader instead. "So, if it's not a faux pas to ask, did you not have time to paint your outfit before the con?"

SL-1984 chuckled again. "A more recent relic of comics, actually. Dark Horse, not Marvel. Star Wars Infinities...? No?"

"No," Garrett shook his head. "Believe it or not, I'm really lost with all this Extended Universe stuff. I just watched the movies and liked the toys." Despite Garrett's demurral it was actually something of an understatement; Star Wars toys were probably the main reason Garrett had become an engineer. The long hours spent playing with his older brother's stash of plastic space ships and robots had put a visceral love of fantastic machinery into Garrett's heart. But he'd never really got into the fictional side of it all, if that made any sense.

"Well, the toys are certainly a major part of the fandom too," SL-1984 agreed. "Collectors have their own subset of obscure encyclopedic knowledge. Wouldn't know what a Hoojib was, perhaps, but they could tell you exactly how rare any given run of a Luke action figure was. But I imagine you're more of a tech manual sort of guy."

Garrett grinned, hefting the heavy walker forelimb assemblies. "What gave you that idea?"

For his part, Steph wasn't any of those things - he just liked a challenge. And within a minute he was back, another ten dollars poorer and well on the way to meeting his next challenge. He'd found himself a rubber koala nose, best match to his mental image of the description the Vader had given him, and was busily tearing apart a pair of dealie-bobbers as he walked. His only tools were a paper clip, some rubber bands, and MacGuyver innovation. "One second longer..." He finished the work on the addition to the rabbit headband and slipped them back into place, the single spring-loaded antenna bobbing up in the middle between his ears. "Eh? Eh? Hoo da jib?" He spread his arms to display his work.

SL-1984 let out a slightly muffled laugh. "Certainly, nobody will mistake you for anything else now. No fan, at any rate."

"Well, that's silly," Garrett evaluated. Steph nodded back, making the antenna bounce but not jarring it loose; the anchor he'd rigged up was holding. Excellent.

"Speaking of silly," Steph grinned, "shall we carry on toward the judging room? Despite my progress I doubt my costume's going to win any awards on its own."

"Certainly." The judging was being staggered over the course of the day to account for the many individual contests that were running - the first winners were almost due for announcement, in fact - but Garrett figured it would be a good idea to get in on his as soon as possible. When dealing with a costume made mostly of cardboard, there was a certain inexorable degradation with use. And besides that, the costume was clunky and heavy. Garrett was looking forward to being out of it for a while.

"In that case I'll bid you adieu. Troops, clear the muster zone!" The Vader slipped back into character and the remaining Storm Troopers did likewise, stepping back in unison as if to let a much larger transport pass through. Garrett obliged them, dropping back down to all fours and resuming his tromp with Steph walking ahead. Steph felt even more ridiculous than before with his extra accessories, but it was a good kind of ridiculous.

It was a strange feeling. So strange that Steph overlooked the other strange feelings at first as they started tingling at the edges of his senses.

Garrett felt it first. He had just started to get back into the gait of an AT-AT when he found himself stumbling slightly, the heavy costume becoming noticeably heavier. Garret paused for a moment, his foreleg supports setting down on the floor below him with a pair of unexpectedly solid clomps.

The cardboard forelegs actually felt tight on his arms. That was wrong; if anything there should have been too much play inside them, they wobbled around if he wasn't careful. Garrett tried to let go of the cane handles and tried standing up to pull his hands out of them.

The forelegs stayed firmly and snugly in place, and they were heavy. "Wha..." Garrett choked, his voice coming out low and grating as if by speaking he was using his throat in a way it wasn't intended. The exclamation was accompanied by the faint but noticeable whine of small motors of some sort and Garrett could feel the tension build in his hips as he held the cardboard legs up in front of him.

Cardboard no longer, it seemed - the surface finish had a distinctly metallic lustre to it that the gray paint had failed to evoke previously. There was no explaining it; his costume had suddenly become a whole lot better. It was still improving before his eyes, new details resolving and the proportions subtly shifting toward more accurate dimensions.

It was getting heavier. Garrett could feel his hips beginning to fail, the boxy body and outstretched forelegs too much to bear. But Garrett resisted the weight with all his might; he had no idea what was going on and from the frantic hammering of his heart he could tell he was most likely panicking, but even so he somehow knew deep in his gut that he would be in deep trouble if he fell over. He had to stay up. He had to...

Garrett's groan came from somewhere inside his chest, the vibration thrumming through his body in new and unfamiliar ways, and after resisting for just seconds he toppled forward to land again on his forelegs for support. The two round footpads slammed solidly down onto the carpeted floor and Garrett felt the impact travel up the metal structure into his shoulders. An alien surge of relief washed through him; thank God, I'm stable. But it didn't last long against the growing panic. He tried to open his mouth to yell for help and found that he couldn't. Oh God, I can't breathe!

Garrett tried to look up toward Steph, servos in his neck whining in protest at the angle. He caught just a glimpse. Steph was having troubles of his own; his clothing seemed to be disintegrating, white fur bursting up underneath it. Everyone else Garrett caught in that glimpse seemed to be having some outlandish thing happening to them too, too many and too strange for him to process in that split second he had available.

Then Garret's vision cut off as his eyelids fused shut into the smooth, unbroken hull of the underside of the AT-AT's cockpit-head. A moment later vision returned in a kaleidoscopic burst of sensory input; Garrett would have screamed if he'd been able. My eyes! Where are my eyes!? He could see everywhere at once and couldn't process any of it. He could only stagger ponderously back a step, his limbs moving with unexpected strength and smoothness. Whirr, clomp! Whirr, clomp! It was the best possible replica AT-AT costume in existence now, and Garrett wanted out. But his attempts to shift even the tiniest bit inside the solid metal shell failed, every part stuck solidly and directly to his skin. Fused with it. Becoming it.

And then the hollowness came. Garrett felt a hole open up inside his gut, swelling inside his abdomen and squeezing his vitals aside. Garrett's vision was disrupted just as it had started to coalesce again, panic flaring more brightly in his mind. Oh God Oh God Oh God... He could only set his legs and try to hold as steady as possible as the bubble spread up into his chest, up his throat, into his head...

Ghoooood. The thought trailed off in a tumult of strange emotions and sensations. His guts were settling now, the final details pulling into their new configuration. He was empty inside, but he was solid. Strong. Steel. Or something like it, anyway... The hammering of his heart faded away, replaced with the unfamiliar, almost subliminal throb of some sort of power plant.

Vision returned again, more stable this time, but it didn't bring any clarity to the situation. Garrett stood stable on all four legs, round footpads planted firmly on the carpet right where he'd been when the change had first come upon him. But his body was an island of stability in a sea of chaos. All around him people were yelling and running around in terror, many of them no longer human. Garrett turned his head, the motion ponderous and not really necessary given his all-encompassing field of view but psychologically important for keeping his attention focused. Where's Steph? He didn't know what his friend could do about any of this, but it was a straw of hope to grasp for in the maelstrom.

Thunderous footsteps grabbed his attention. Something was coming, big and round and red-

Too fast. How could something so big move so fast? Garrett barely had time to move before the huge creature brushed past him, slamming against his side as it went. Garret's legs weren't jointed to deal very well with lateral movement and he staggered, struggling to keep his center of gravity balanced. Whirr, clomp, whirr, clomp, clomp...

FALLING! Garrett screamed in the form of bolts of light shooting from his chin to blast scorched pockmarks up the wall and ceiling, and slammed to the floor. A table crushed to splinters under him, cushioning what would otherwise have been a tremendously damaging impact, but still leaving him stunned.

Stunned, lying on his side, alone, empty. Garrett wasn't sure if AT-ATs could faint, but he found himself doing a very good imitation of it.

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 cola. She recognized it. Mountain Dew.

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; it was inevitable, after all. 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, pressing against her skin with only a few gaps 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. No one I need to protect but myself, that's good. 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, her legs 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 reflexively 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 with an impact that looked painful, 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. Fully extended, 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 effective in pitched battle or nonlethal 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 was that?” 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 tinnier and 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, and she hadn't even heard it at all. 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. Why meters and not feet? Feh, that isn't important. 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 knew, in a burst of insight, 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, entirely hollow and complete with flared spout and glass handle, low-set arms and legs stuck on like an afterthought. It was filled, limbs included, with a translucent red liquid. 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, it was an anthropomorphic pitcher of punch, 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 frustration 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. Obedience and protection. Your second duty is to ranking Imperial staff. Protection and obedience. Your third duty is to your comrades in arms and fellows in duty. Teamwork and unity. Your fourth duty is to Imperial citizens. Protect and guide them. Your fifth duty is to guide and protect everyone else. For these duties you will lay down your life. 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 leaped 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. What should I do?

Indecision lasted for only a split second. It makes no difference if I was or wasn't attacked, 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. When it landed it did so on three points, 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. The sound was high and sharp, both unpleasant and nearly musical.

There was the tingle again, strong and focused. Acting with it the Red Guard struck once more, to the left of center, then tried to get some distance between herself and the target, stepping back. Almost immediately she smacked into the wall, hard enough to thump her armor. Forgot where I was. Damn! As she recovered and tried again to pull away 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. Fortunately her stumble went unnoticed.

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 the white fractures that were spiderwebbed dramatically across the surface.

She kept her visor pointed squarely at its enraged lacquered eyes, holding her forcepike up in an unvoiced but rather 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 sound that reminded the Red Guard of thin ice on the surface of a pond.

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, talking slowly and evenly. “I can keep this up and hit you faster than you can fix yourself.” Her grammar had gotten a little mangled. The message was obvious nonetheless.

“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 that it wasn't going to come back.

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 immediate danger was past, but TR-1407 knew better than to assume that things were safe now. The tiger was still out and would likely remain that way for an hour or so. Anj wasn’t going to stay around guarding her. Duty to comrades outweighed duty to strangers who weren't even Imperial citizens. 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 gloved 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 hit the bruised patch with the armored knuckles of her free hand. Hard. The angle was too awkward for it to be a punch, but this was something close.

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…

Steph's post-TF segment

Steph was trembling and overwhelmed with confusion at what had happened to him, what had happened to everyone around him. But at the same time he felt strangely comforted cradled where he was in giant white-armored arms, so he managed to keep the fear suppressed below blind panic. He had no idea why being held like that should have been comforting but for the moment he was willing to just go with it while he tried to straighten out what else had happened.

The change had started right before his eyes, the gaps between the pieces of Garrett's costume abruptly sealing up as the gray cloth underneath swelled to fill them. As Garrett himself swelled to fill them. Steph still wasn't sure which had done the changing, Garrett or his costume - was Garrett somehow trapped inside that thing? That had been his first thought, that the costume had somehow been magically replaced with a giant animatronic of fearsome quality.

But then he'd realized what was happening to him, and now he had no idea what was going on. His clothing was disintegrating, falling away into nothingness, and the skin underneath was sprouting a thick white pelt of fur. His skin, not some costume layered over top. He'd tried pulling on it and it was firmly anchored right in him.

Steph wasn't entirely proud of what he'd done next; he'd let out a shriek that was equal parts surprise and alarm, turned away from his friend still struggling inside that developing machine's body, and had tried to run away.

'Tried' being the operative word. It wasn't just his skin that was changing, the size and shape of his entire body was warping. Steph had managed to stagger just a short distance before his shortening legs and enlarging feet tripped him up, sending him stumbling into broad white-caped back of one of the other conventiongoers. The man was huge - or rather, in hindsight, it was Steph who was shrinking - and absorbed the impact easily.

"What?" The man exclaimed, spinning to confront Steph and reflexively reaching for his lightsabre. It was the white-armored Darth Vader Steph had been speaking with just moments earlier. The Sith Lord's mechanically augmented voice was deeper and more realistic, the armor more fully fleshed out.

Steph's eyes widened in alarm as he found himself craning his neck to look so far up at the man's masked face. "Heee," he gasped breathlessly, his own voice coming out a high-pitched squeak. "Heep!"

SL-1984 watched in amazement as Steph continued rapidly shrinking, his human features fading away into the body of a Hoojib. Within seconds nothing identifiable was left. Normally such an event would have kept SL-1984's attention completely occupied, and between that and the strange cold sensation that had flooded through his own limbs it nearly did. But some new part of his mind had awakened and was alert in ways SL-1984 had never imagined before. He reacted moments before the huge bulk of the Kool-Aid Man came barelling through the room, bending to scoop up the helpless creature and pull him out of harm's way.

There was a tremendous smash. "OH YEAH!"

"Fall back!" SL-1984 barked.

"Lord Vader!" Someone else nearby exclaimed. Then there was a burst of blaster fire followed by another crash.

Steph couldn't handle it all; he'd simply gone limp and allowed himself to be carried as SL-1984 and the handful of Stormtroopers that had been close at hand retreated from the chaos erupting inside the room. They'd taken up a defensive position in a short hallway just outside, apparently leading to a utility closet of some sort and devoid of any other activity.

It gave them a few minutes' respite and as the shock wore off Steph began to tremble. In the midst of everything that was going on SL-1984 had apparently forgotten that he was holding Steph, but the movement drew his attention back to his immediate surroundings again and he looked down. "So you were a Hoojib after all."

Steph felt his rabbitlike ears lay down flat against his back and the long, flexible tendril that sprouted between them curled tightly in an unfamiliar reflex. I never heard of them until just minutes ago! Steph tried to object, but he wasn't even able to produce a squeak that time; his mouth no longer seemed to be connected to his trachea and all he could do was let out a small snort.

SL-1984 seemed to get the message well enough anyway, though. "Well, what else would you call yourself?" He knelt down and lowered Steph back down to deposit him on the floor.

Steph huddled there on all fours, digging the claws on his fingers and toes into the carpet as he looked up in nervous awe at how gigantic everything was. He had a momentary overpowering desire to be picked back up again, he just didn't feel safe being so small, but he forced it down and tried to focus inward. His body was indeed very like a bunny's, just as had been described, but with long, splayed, birdlike toes on his feet. Frustratingly, his hands were more like a normal bunny's - useless paws with stubby fingers he could barely wriggle independently. His face had a blunt, leathery Koala nose, and his tiny mouth was hidden in the fur underneath it. Probing with his surprisingly long tongue, he couldn't even feel any teeth.

He had to admit, he was exactly like he'd pictured a Hoojib looking like. His vision blurred as his enormous brown eyes started filling with tears.

"Hey, now. Hey." SL-1984 was a bit distracted. As the initial flurry of chaos was starting to pass reports were beginning to trickle in over his radio link, and he shouldn't even have a radio link. He had confusions of his own he needed to work out. But it was hard to ignore the adorable little bunny-creature's distress.

I didn't want to be here, Steph thought miserably to himself. I just want to be home.

"Don't we all," murmured the stormtrooper crouched by the door nearest him. It was a breach of squad discipline, of course, but everyone was too busy with their own troubles to notice. Steph himself wouldn't realize the more important fact that the stormtrooper had actually heard him until much later on.

[Bryan, I think this would be a good place for a Garrett segment. This is just shooting out ideas - we could have someone with a fantasy/Luddite bent mistake him for a 'clockwork donkey' or something similar, and try to 'capture' him as a pack animal, maybe. Or we could bring in Trekkies. I don't know anything about Star Trek fans, but I could find out.]

[Thirteen out of the forty-eight members of Tampa Bay Squad- the real one, not the variant I'm writing - are women. The two Red Guards on the page are women. Sheila Price is Squad Leader, and one of her costumes is a Red Guard. Huh. I should have looked this up before choosing. Anyway, I clicked through and this pretty much wrote itself. To be honest, though, this could be cut entirely and replaced with a couple lines of explanation.]

It was quiet. SL-1984 was the first to move. He pulled off one white glove, exposing a prosthetic hand that gleamed like bronze. It was all but skeletal, sparse of detail with only the transparent synthetic "muscles" keeping it from looking like metal bones. He turned it over before his mask and flexed the fingers gently, then covered it again. "I thought as much," he said in a low rumble, both resigned and keeping what might have been anger under tight control. "Fine."

"Sir?" The speaker was a trooper with the breather hood, oversuit, and specialized armor of a snowtrooper. He broke position to stand closer to SL-1984, keeping himself oriented towards the opening to the dead end. "Sir, who should be giving orders?"

"What? Oh. You, you're Sheila Price?"

"I - yes, sir," Price said, voice firming. In the far distance something roared and wailed, forcing the trooper to speak louder. "My husband Joe and I share duties as Squad Leader. He's not here now, sir. I'm the only member of the squad's command staff present."

"Use my designation, Price. You're a squad leader, I'm not, that means - damn." SL-1984 went quiet. The constant sound of his mechanically-assisted breath was quieter and not as harsh as it was for 'classic' Darth Vader, but it could still be heard, even over the background noise.

"Sir? Something wrong?" Something lithe and feline and clad in ruffles chose that moment to slink past the dead end where the little group held their position. It paused to stare at them with unblinking green eyes, then opened its mouth and hissed furiously. The other troopers locked their blaster rifles into position, but Price, raising an arm to check them, snapped, "Hold your fire! Establish intent, then act! We can't grease everything that moves."

The cat-thing flattened its ears back against its head, looking spooked, then continued on its way at a slightly faster pace.

"You're male." SL-1984 crossed his arms over his chest box. There was a smile in his artificial voice.

Price hesitated for several breaths. "Beg pardon?"

"Exactly what it sounds like." SL-1984 chuckled. He was definitely more amused than was appropriate for a man who'd just gone on life support and become a quarter of a century older. "You can't keep a wallet in your codpiece anymore. I suppose it makes sense... snowtroopers are specialized stormtroopers, and we don't generally let women become soldiers... still, that's just strange. Who - yes, everyone in here's a trooper. Ursala, Crystal, Sky - You're all men. No worries, Shad, Jeff, you're men too. Heh. Well, this should make things interesting."

"Oh." The snowtrooper had checked. The other three had reacted, but a muffled crash from out there had brought them back into position, watching with ready blasters. For a moment, Price sounded unnaturally calm. "You're right. I hoped you were wrong, sir, but you're right." Another moment passed; one by one every helmet in the alcove turned towards him. Even Steph, huddled pitifully on the floor, looked up.

"Fusst you. Fusst you, you chuffsucking Sithspawn. This isn't funny, Nineteen Eightyfour. This is a big problem, and it's only going to get bigger. And apparently I can't swear. So don't laugh." The outburst was quiet but very intense. Price kept his back straight as he added, rather sarcastically, "Sorry, sir. Momentary lapse in personal discipline."

"It won't happen again," SL-1984 agreed in a more serious tone. "Consider it corrected. You're the boss. We're going to need a plan..." He trailed off, head coming up as if he'd heard something. "No. Oh, no. Hell no. How is that even possible?" The white-clad Vader's voice was as low as it could get.

Down on the floor, forgotten until that moment, Steph was mute. Still, he tried. What? What is it? Price echoed this, clutching his blaster.

This time, SL-1984 didn't respond to either of them. He stepped forwards, turning his head as if searching. "...I can't let that happen," he said at last, more to himself than anyone else. "I don't even want to think about that. Gravitational pull alone could - and even if it didn't - I won't let that happen."

Let what happen? What's going on?

SL-1984 turned the corner at a dead run and was gone. Bitterly Price muttered, "We should have at least synched our comm frequencies. Okay. Let's do that now. First priority is finding the rest of Tampa Bay; once we've done that we can worry about what in the nine hells is going on." Almost as one, the troopers switched to the same comm channel.

The snowtrooper continued to speak aloud. "This is not going to be a blue milk run, boys. We can't afford to waste any time; everyone move fast and don't get distracted. I'm on point. Blasters to stun; Ursala, lower the setting on your forcepike. Let's move out!" Price headed out at a rapid march, followed by the other five.

In the dead end, Steph hunkered, forgotten.

[I'm really hesitant to write either of your characters... anyway, as I said, this could easily be cut for a segment.]

Anj'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?” Anj winced and saw the reflection do the same. I don’t sound anything like me. I don’t even sound like my father.

“Doesn’t feel like a dream, but how would I know? I guess my voice amplifier's not changing anything. I don't think I like this.” 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 enter Red Guard training. 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 the cola in the headless lounge was drugged or something. Or I've gone 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 his face with the hand that wasn’t holding his helmet, he found that it felt wrong and shifted his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “Crazy. That’s gotta be it. Me or the world; can’t be both or I'd be fine. 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 start shaking. Reflexively he reached for his forcepike with his free hand. Still there, hanging from a holster on 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 letting a corner hang over the edge of the counter. Immediately he felt the nagging urge to adjust the robes, make them line up precisely, but it wasn’t very strong. Like the desire to pick out malted chocolate balls from an open box, almost.

Looking down, Anj glanced over his armor. Red plating, the same crimson as his helmet and robes, with a textured bodysuit underneath. The bodysuit - the underarmor - 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. Well, except for my chest, but there was no helping that. No one would have seen it, and it would just have made it even hotter. It's not hot now. 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 later 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! Particularly not in a comic!

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 once 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. Anj thought he'd sketched this face, or one like it, in a notebook.

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 when both had accepted the fact that it wasn't love, just the combined appeal of friendship and physical attraction. 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. Tony - well, it would be funny, and they were still friends, but Anj wasn't really sure if -

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 underarmor and pulled it wide. There was another piece of padded armor, common sense really, a protection that was smaller and less obtrusive than the codpiece worn by stormtroopers. And under it -

He wasn't sure if it was supposed to be - the angle was new, but it looked normal - he hadn't expected -

“…Yeah. I definitely went in the wrong refresher. Wait. I mean bathroom.” Feeling a little embarrassed, Anj straightened his armor and exhaled firmly. "I don't think I'll do that again for a while." Not that he would have a choice; his bladder had to fill eventually. But it could wait.

"No more periods. Huh. I'm going to have to get new clothes. All new clothes. It's probably going to be a comprehensive shopping spree." A daunting thought. As Angela, ever since he was a little girl he'd hated shopping for new outfits, since it was never quick or simple. So much time wasted, so much money spent, being forced into all kinds of clothes by his mother and told that he was supposed to "enjoy" the "experience"... He'd hated it enough that it had become a family joke. Somehow he doubted that had changed - and, for whatever reason, this was an oddly comforting thought. There was a little pronoun confusion and what could only be called a double set of memories, but Angela and Anj were the same person at heart.

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? Anj felt a sharp, unsettling lurch in the pit of his stomach. Why wasn’t he with them? How could he have thought it was a good idea to leave them in this unfamiliar territory? He had no idea where they were, but why wasn’t he out looking for them?

“Why do I feel so guilty about this? I don’t know what in the Emperor’s name they’re doing, this isn’t exactly covered in training!” Anj blinked. “Not training. Well, maybe. I don’t know. Going to have to do something.” But what, that was the question.

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 that were easy to distinguish, 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. The shirt at the top of the pile had what looked like a long elastic bandage, ragged at the tip, trailing out of the neck opening. Very gingerly, touching only with the very tips of his gloved fingers, Anj separated and folded the clothes neatly, stacking them together on the linoleum. The other end of the bandage was wrapped around a bra left inside the shirt, for some reason that Anj couldn't fathom. Crumpled under those and sitting atop a dusty pair of sandals were short pants with panties inside - and in those was a winged Maxi pad with just a little blood on it.

Just seeing that made Anj feel incredibly uncomfortable and voyeuristic. If women had a set of bathroom rules, hiding all evidence of periods was one of the big ones. It seemed like that rule had carried over - he was embarrassed for whoever this was, and entirely unwilling to touch it. And yet Anj 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. Yet it was completely empty, and he hadn't seen any-

-Wait. I wouldn't try and approach someone who looked like me, if this happened. Whatever this is about, it's going to stay a mystery. One that I'm glad isn't happening to me.

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, remembering. “Weakly Force-Sensitive, untrained and not good for much more than intuition and a warning. I remember. Which means something is happening, and if it's mild like this-“

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. Female, clear, commanding, and with a bit of an accent that sounded vaguely British - No. Not British. Imperial.

“-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 of Tampa Bay Squadron.” 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.”

Anj Outside

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.

As he approached the empty frame of a double door - it had once, apparently, held glass, but that was nowhere to be seen - Anj felt the warning tingle and heard what first sounded like another shrieking alarm. In response he sidestepped out of the way, and none too soon. Some kind of very large heronlike bird with pale gold-orange feathers skidded unsteadily around a corner, then powered past him in a lurching run. The moment its wings cleared the doorframe, it launched itself upwards. As it stroked upwards and away the Red Guard realized that it was making a high, panicked call that sounded vaguely like screaming.

He glanced back at where the bird had come from and stilled himself. Nothing, not even the warning tingle that was his precognition. Maybe the bird had been fleeing something, maybe it hadn't, but any trouble was slow enough that it wasn't going to bother him.

TR-1407 stepped outside and 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. Almost no one was close to the complex; most people that Anj saw were on the grass.

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 kilograms 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. I need to find my squadron before I do anything else.

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 in black, some Animal Control officers, of all things - 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. This was not a job he envied.

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, big and small, were larger-than-life somehow. Maybe he was imagining things.

Flickers on his peripherals made TR-1407 tilt his chin up. The sky, a lovely cloudless blue, was hardly less crowded – far, far above something streaked up into the atmosphere, and hardly any closer small military-looking jet planes or fightercraft roared overhead in formation. 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 as fliers swerved around each other or hovered in place. Someone in red and blue tights streaked upwards abruptly at impossible speeds, within seconds catching up to the jets and paralleling their course, far enough away that the red cape was barely visible. Anj saw this and, incredulous, thought, 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. And reality doesn't care whether or not you believe 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 seeing that his options were to ignore everyone, give only the briefest of inspections, or slow down to a crawl to inspect everyone...

There! Anj's heart jumped in his chest. Inexplicably he felt relieved, incredibly relieved.

An outsider might be forgiven for thinking that the large knot of people standing together on the asphalt were just as confused and disorganized as anyone else. Quieter, perhaps, but still random. An outsider might believe that they had formed into a cluster at random, and that it was chance that explained why they almost all looked like Imperials, mostly troopers.

The outsider would be wrong. Anj's eyes flicked as an indicator sounded and saw that no fewer than ten Imperial frequencies were active. He didn't see anyone lined up in ranks, but training helped him to find the subtle signs that there was organization, purpose, order in the group, not just the amorphous mixing of the crowd. They were, indeed, bewildered and unsettled just like everyone in or out of the complex. An effort was being made to remedy that.

TR-1407's footsteps hastened. A stormtrooper with the battered armor and single orange pauldron that signified his rank as a sandtrooper squad leader stopped him with a gesture, then nodded. The Red Guard joined the growing mass.

It was startling to check IFF - Identify Friend/Foe - tags on a monitor and see so many designations. Some were familiar, others less so. There were several SL - Sith Lord - indicators scattered about, but Anj didn't see SL-1984, and this was worrying. Other Vaders, yes, and the Red Guard couldn't help boggling a little at the concept of more than one Lord Vader. But none in white. What would he have done, anyway?

Right. I should report in. To whom, though? The mass was trying to order itself, but it had a good ways to go yet. Almost no one with a helmet was speaking "out loud" with their voice amplification units. With the amount of noise that the rest of the crowd was putting out, that was just as well. Instead the comm frequencies were abuzz with orders and counterorders, the beginnings of arguments, complaints and others chewing out the complainers. One channel had been set aside for those who had been separated from squadmates. It didn't help that this part of the parking lot was nowhere near clear. Not every space was filled, but there were enough cars and the like to force the group to encircle them.

Where was his squad? Anj scanned again, and again, and didn't find any of them. No. They had to be here. Despite himself he opened the "searching" channel. "Tampa Bay? Tampa Bay Squad, come in! Tampa Bay?"

This particular frequency was filled with similar requests. "Is there anyone else from Georgia Garrison? Please, Georgia Garrison?" "Pacific Outpost, all units report in. Pacific Outpost..." "Michigan Squad, we have two missing from Michigan Squad, please report." "Anyone from Bast Alpha Squad, come in. Did everyone get out okay?" Most of them were representing a particular squad, or garrison, or outpost, and were looking for missing friends. But he heard one or two who had been separated completely, like him. Some got answers; Anj overheard the starts of several reunions, each cutting off as the speakers switched channels. Others didn't.

"Tampa Bay! Come in Tampa Bay Squad!" It didn't make sense. Where could they be? He hadn't exactly been quick in getting here, he couldn't be the first from his squad! Where had they all gone? TR-1407 scanned IFF again as the last of his relief evaporated. It made no sense! The three other squadrons of Florida Garrison - Everglades, Makaze, Parjai - were there. There were forty-nine people in Tampa Bay Squadron - not all of them had come to Xanadu, and some might be a little slow in getting here, but he should have heard from someone.

"Tampa Bay Squad? Please come in. Tampa Bay? Is anyone there? Anyone? Tampa Bay!" Anj forced himself to stop before he lost the little control of his voice that he had. He could hear someone else pleading, close to tears if not already crying - "Neon City Garrison, where are you? Please! Martin, Louis, Eric - where are you?"

To his horror, Anj found his throat constricting in panic. Where were they? Where was his squad? He tried, squeezing his hands into fists and desperately telling himself that they were late, that's all, he tried to keep calm, but it had been a trying day already and he had no orders to follow and his squad was missing. He'd lost them, and he had failed his oath as a Red Guard and a soldier of the Empire. Anj made sure to close his connection and all of his speakers so that none would hear when he lost it.

Something pulled on his robe. Surprised, Anj looked down at the round-topped droid as it retracted its manipulator arm and crooned something wordless at him.

It was a moment before he could respond, and he covered the delay by reactivating a speaker so that his voice could be heard. "Yeah. There is. I - I've lost my squad." The admission almost stuck in his throat. "I don't know where any of them are."

The droid, an R2-series astromech with highlights in pink, of all colors, whistled and cooed sympathetically.

"Well, no. Not a word. I have no idea where they are." It seemed like the tightness was easing off, becoming less immediate. "We got separated a while back, and I haven't seen or heard from any of them since. And it's not like we have our own personal frequency, either - it wasn't like we'd have had any use for it." As he realized what he'd just said, Anj smiled humorlessly into his helmet. Of course there wouldn't have been a use! It had been a game, or something close!

The R2 beeped, imperious. Its single black photoreceptor was steady.

"That's true. My squad is tough. I'm sure they're fine - it's just, they aren't here, and I don't know how my friends are. I haven't seen them since all this started, and I'm worried." This was true, and he knew that they had to have run into trouble, or he wouldn't be by himself like this. But they were tough. If they needed help they would call for it, and they would make it through.

And if they didn't, well... May the Force help their murderers, because nothing less will stop me, he swore, meaning every word.

A sharp whistle brought his attention back down to the droid, who chattered up at him.

"I'll be fine. I'm a Red Guard - I work best alone or with only a few people, and it's not like I'm really by myself - I'm surrounded by the 501st." And they were his Legion, the closest to the Empire that he was ever likely to find. How could he have despaired? "Thanks."

With a final, cheery whistle, the pink R2 swiveled and trundled away. It had some kind of a logo banner, pink on white, on its back, but it slipped out of sight between two troopers and a robed man before he could read it. A pity, really - he was sure that he knew who that was. Less than a minute later, the single member of Neon City Garrison got off the comm.

Anj felt better now. Still a little shaken, but he was functional, and that was what mattered. This still begged the question - now what? The Red Guard went after the first distraction that presented itself.

There was a flurry of activity at the edges of the gathering. TR-1407 wasn't exactly short, but he wasn't tall enough to see over the helmets of the people around him. Still, he got a flash of someone else in flowing scarlet and something large, yellow, and moving. The Red Guard looked to his nearest neighbor and boosted the output to his speakers, realizing how he did it only after it was done.

"Do you know what that's about?" The woman in the form-fitting jumpsuit and the hoodless brown cape turned towards him.

She was - well, she was stunning, and Anj found himself taking advantage of the way his helmet hid his gaze. Green-eyed, red-headed, with her lower-leg guards and nonstandard sidearms she obviously some kind of agent, not an officer, yet she nevertheless had a certain confident flair, almost an aura of I know what I'm doing and I'm doing it well. It didn't hurt that she really was pretty - her features were too sharp and strong for conventional beauty, but attractive. Under the jumpsuit she was fit and muscular with good shoulders, a far cry from the several sultry pin-up style women that Anj had glimpsed before. He hadn't found them particularly attractive, but -

Anj saw the lightsaber and the IFF-provided designation at roughly the same time. SL-3268, in a clear voice, answered, "There's a car, I'm guessing a Camaro, without a driver that's started moving erratically and making abortive charges at us. One of your fellow Guards is trying to dissuade it. I don't think there'll be a problem." Just as he was hoping she hadn't noticed, the Mara Jade added with a quirk of her lips, "And I'm flattered, but taken."

She's one of the Emperor's Hands. I'm lucky that she hasn't taken offense. That realization effectively took any desire, killed it, and and mangled it beyond any recognition. Anj was glad of the helmet hiding his face, and vaguely wished that he could find a hole in the ground in which to crawl into and die. Even with the cooling systems in his armor, he knew he was blushing furiously, hard enough that he felt sunburned. Next time, check IFF first. He didn't bother wondering how she'd known. Force Sensitivity and all that.

Probably just as well. Anj had no idea what he'd have done. He was on-duty anyway; even with nothing immediate going on it would be un-Imperial to get too distracted. Fortunately not every woman was striking in quite that way - prettier, yes, often curvier and not immediately off-limits, but markedly less impressive. Picturing someone like the Mara Jade alongside, say, Tony, was... interesting. But of course there was also the fact that less than an hour ago he had been female, and feeling attracted to people while male was a tangle he really didn't want to unravel just yet.

3268's auburn head came up. Anj felt the warning tingle in the instant before a commanding voice came on all frequencies. The IFF code marked the speaker as TK-0210. 'Our Beloved Founder', Albin Johnson, Anj realized. Well well. There wouldn't be a 501st without him. I'd forgotten that he'd even come here.

"Something new has come up. Would everyone please listen to the situation." It was phrased like a question, but there was no doubt that it was an order. All voice traffic stopped. The rest of the crowd carried on with the panicking, but here everyone listened as the founder explained an exchange that someone had heard taking place on a frequency that was decidedly not Imperial.

Specifically, it was one of the radio frequencies used by the United States military. The Founder didn't mention exactly what frequency it was, or when anyone had started listening in on it. What had been overheard was a report on something going off Xanadu grounds and following the highway. Something very large. One of the ones reporting said it was "like something out of Star Wars". The physical description exactly matched that of an Imperial Walker, specifically an All Terrain Armored Transport. Or, as the Rebellion and most civilians in the Galaxy called it, an AT-AT.

This is a very sudden development. If he'd expected anything, TR-1407 would have thought that the Founder would have just summarized what had just happened, tendered some kind of advice or orders. He hadn't expected a fresh problem, particularly one like this.

The gathering was silent barely long enough for the Founder's report to sink in before a member stated that there had not been a Walker exhibit, followed by other testimonies that confirmed that wherever this had come from, it wasn't 501st. Exactly what had been happening before all this was muddled, but people were quite adamant that they knew nothing.

Talking into a handheld comm unit so that everyone could hear her, 3268 had another opinion. "Why would it matter whether or not this thing is one of ours? Imperial is Imperial. The question is, what do we do about it? I think it's reasonable to assume that some rogue element has taken control of an assault walker for an unknown reason." Standing fairly close to Anj as she was, he heard the odd duality of the Mara Jade's voice coming simultaneously through his audio pickups and helmet comm.

It would be unacceptable for anyone - the automatic assumption seemed to be Rebels, smugglers, or saboteurs, although nobody really expected that to be true - to get away with stealing Imperial property, particularly something as gigantic and dangerous as an assault walker, the common consensus was. The damage one could do, particularly in an urban area, was tremendous, even on a civilized planet in the Empire, where units could quickly be dispatched to take it down. Here on Earth, on a day like today...

Anj heard someone unfamiliar speak out. "There was a young man earlier, some sort of student of engineering - I overheard his name, Gary or Garth or something - who wore a walker costume. He might be driving it." Several others remarked with surprise that they remembered something of the sort.

With confidence, Anj added, "It's difficult to pilot a walker completely alone, but possible, particularly if he's taking advantage of the automated systems."

"He had a friend with him. It's entirely reasonable to think that two pilots can manage without a commander." If it occurred to anyone that maybe this student hadn't become a pilot, they kept silent.

A plan didn't get proposed until after the Founder made another report, one possibly even more alarming than the last. Tanks and military choppers were being dispatched to intercept the rogue walker before it could reach the next city - and if the cryptic military lingo had been translated properly, somewhere near Washington a jet loaded with missiles had just taken off.

Suddenly the entire gathering was moving, setting up a course of action, proposing and vetoing various aspects to the plan. There would have to be a pursuit, it was decided almost instantly. They needed a small number of autonomous agents. Agents who could subdue anyone within the walker without damaging it, agents who could control the walker, and someone with enough diplomatic acumen to defuse the situation once it was under control. Preferably agents would have at least some proficiency in all three. Every member of the team would also need to be able to use grappling hooks and high-tension wires to get up there. It would also help to have the tools all stormtroopers carried, including shaped charges, binders, and a Proper Resonator.

The gathering was rapidly polled, and all those with the right skill set were chosen, then evaluated and kept or not. Unsurprisingly, there were no Imperial Army Pilots who could be identified as such by their armor - AT-AT pilot uniforms were far from popular. No one had worn his or hers to Xanadu. However, a number, Anj included, had made the costumes - and somehow that translated into experience in the cockpit.

Anj was questioned and admitted that he'd never earned the license, and was met with a thinly-disguised quiz in the form of a barrage of questions from two others. He passed. This, coupled with the fact that he was a Red Guard and both willing to work with others and well able to subdue someone with minimal damage, meant that he was on the team.

Some others at least as qualified as him weren't, largely because they had trouble cooperating. There had been many Emperor's Hands, some of them Mara Jades, others not, in the initial pickings, but the fact that most of them seemed to strongly resent each other meant that only three were kept. The final selection consisted of eight individuals. These were the Hands, SL-3268 among them, Anj and another two Red Guards, a clonetrooper sergeant, and a single sandtrooper who really seemed to believe that he was Davin Felth, the trooper who had the line "Look, sir, droids" in A New Hope.

At the same time the other half of the pursuit was being organized. Speederbikes were mentioned, but only two, both from a display, could actually be accounted for, and at any rate they might not have done much good. They were incredibly fast and agile, but with only two, they couldn't carry much. Average cars or trucks were considered and rejected in the same breath. It would be too hard to get an operative out of the vehicle and up into the walker, not to mention the fact that a car was a nice big target, if what's-his-name proved both unreasonable and able to use the walker's weaponry and crushing feet. This left motorcycles, a healthy selection of which were at hand. They would have to do.

More polling; TR-1407 was only peripherally aware of it, but at the end of it seven scout troopers and one Mandalorian soldier were chosen to do the driving. From the first report to the final team, only a few minutes of whirlwind activity had passed. The 501st, while not exactly up to optimal yet, was far more organized than it appeared.

The last problem was actually getting the bikes, taken from all across the lot, to work. Five or fewer of them belonged to people within the gathering - and none of them had the keys on them. Seized by a wild idea, Anj stepped up during the discussion.

"We don't need keys," he said, coming to the closest one and uncompressing his forcepike. He had no idea what kind of motorcycle this was. He'd never had anything to do with the things. Still, he could find the ignition easily. Lining it and the lethal tip of his weapon up, the Red Guard thumbed a setting and delicately maneuvered the weapon. The thin metal around the keyslot tore and twisted, and the engine coughed to life.

Just as Anj was enjoying a swell of triumph the fickle machine died miserably, exhaust pipe emitting a stream of thick, oily smoke that spread in a cloud around ankle-height. An inhuman blue-skinned officer in white covered his nose as if offended by the fumes, which weren't evident to anyone with a proper, air-filtering helmet.

No one said anything on the comm channels for a long moment. "Okay," he said lamely, again glad of the helmet that hid his face. "I guess we do need keys. Today of all days, you'd think this would work." It was a mercy that the attention of the gathering shifted off of him then. He hadn't sensed much in the way of condemnation or scorn, and even amusement had been quiet. It was still embarrassing.

The alien officer in white - a Grand Admiral, apparently - ended up getting several technically-proficient people to hotwire the motorcycles. These included one of the Vaders in the gathering, a man seething with so much barely-suppressed rage and malevolent Force energy that Anj caught his breath and adopted a rigid posture. He was terrifying, seemingly hanging on to rationality by the thinnest of margins. The Red Guard fervently hoped that his friend hadn't ended up like that. But whatever else could be said about SL-2128, he worked quickly and well, finishing in time to take over from an officer whose work was slower.

Something else came up; Anj picked up only a few of the details, but a squad that hadn't gotten out reported in to say that they were under attack by unfamiliar hostiles. Once again plans were formed and battered about. They had little to do with the walker interception team. It gave him a pang to think that he might be riding away from his squad, if they were in danger, but duty was duty. TR-1407 soon found himself mounted up behind a scout, roaring away on one of the motorcycles.

The locals barely noticed them pass. They had more than enough trouble as it was - nevertheless, Anj felt a slight pang of mixed contempt and sympathy. He let it pass. They could only do their best. The Five Hundred and First was here for when it wasn't enough.

The Founder sent his best wishes after them on an open frequency. His confidence audibly faltered a little. Anj thought he knew at least part of why. "Good Luck" wasn't right, and they were servants of the Empire, so "May the Force Be With You" might not be good either, but "Emperor's Blessings" was just wrong - and, somehow, so was "The Empire will always strike back", the belief that any setbacks would be met with a more powerful counterattack. In the end, he settled for, "We're counting on you. You won't let us down."