The Girl with the Laser Sword

Crashsite Base Outskirts, Lanos

SPC Imperial Army Stormtrooper Ria Kalowyn had fully expected this day to be like every other day on the fortress world of Lanos: routine and tedious, and for most of the day, her expectation had been correct, but then...

Ria was doing a regular inspection of one of the recon droids that patrolled the perimeter of the base when she heard a growl a distance away. At first, she didn't think anything of it, but when she heard it again, she sighed and took her focus off her work at took a look. Indeed there was a big ol' bear stretched out against the tree on the outskirts of the forest.

"Damn bears are coming for our garbage again," she cursed. "Hey Mac!" she shouted to a nearby stormtrooper, "Can you call over an extermination squad? There is a bear out there."

"You have a fracking blaster, just shoot the thing." Mac retorted.

"I'm busy," Ria whined as she stuck a wire back into place on the droid. "Besides, protocol dictates we call a squad over when the local wildlife encroaches on the base!"

"Whatever," Mac grunted as he activated his radio. "This is ZB-3528 calling in a bear sighting at sector H... ah, sector H22, requesting an extermination squad, over."

Unsurprisingly, they didn't have to wait long, as there wasn't a lot to do at Crashsite base until the imminent rebel invasion came to wipe them out. "ZB-3528, this is Squad Leader SX-1986. My men and I are headed your way. Over."

While they waited, Ria reactivated the droid and ran a diagnostic. "Foreign lifeform, detected," the droid declared.

"Yeah, yeah, there is a bear nearby," Ria muttered.

"Sentient lifeform detected," the droid intoned, causing Ria to pause. Sentient...

Suddenly, the droid lurched and floated off, causing Ria to jerk her head in the direction it was going. That's when she saw it.

There was someone in the trees.

"There's a spy in the trees!" she shouted to Mac as the mysterious figure leaped to a nearby tree, then another one...

Mac groaned. "Hey, this is ZB-3528 again. Apparently, there is a rebel scout near the bear..."

The figure was already starting to disappear. Backup would take far too long to arrive. Without a moment's hesitation, Ria took off after her recon droid, which barely evaded the bear's paw as it swatted at it. The bear then got down from the tree and growled at Ria.

Screw protocol. Ria unstrapped her blaster rifle from where it had been secured across her back and fired at the large mammal... missed... again... and again. The bear charged.

Ria closed her eyes to suppress her panic and kept firing. Oh damn oh damn oh damn...

And then... nothing. She opened her eyes to see the bear lying dead a few yards away. "Hey, I hit it..."

"No, you didn't, not even close. You're welcome," Mac jogged over. "What were you thinkin..."

The spy was still getting away.

Ria continued to sprint into the forest after the retreating figure and her recon droid.

"Ria! What the heck!" Mac shouted, joining the pursuit.

"This is *huff* ZB-3528, we are giving chase to a scout *huff* or something, because, *huff* CT-9433 is an idiot.."

...

Idiocy or not, an hour so and a hefty amount of backup later, Ria, her recon droid, Mac, and a couple of backup squads of stormtroopers had the spy surrounded, and there was even a TIE Fighter squadron on its way to provide air support.

"Alright girl, get down from that tree and you won't get hurt," one of the squad leaders proclaimed. "We just need to ask you a few questions..."

That was when the girl, who didn't appear to be more than a year or two into puberty, pulled out some kind of laser sword. One of the troopers fired their rifle, and soon all of them were firing.

For the first time in her life, Ria fired her rifle at a living being and her aim was actually true as her blast went straight toward the young girl's heart, only for her to somehow deflect the shot with her laser sword into Mac's arm.

"Emperor's wrinkled face!" Ria exclaimed in despair. "How does that even work?!"

Then, as if deflecting blaster bolts with a glowing stick wasn't impossible enough, the girl suddenly leaped stupidly far to a somewhat distant tree. For a moment, the firing stopped as they all stared dumbfounded at what had just occurred, but soon the remaining soldiers of the backup teams continued pursuit as the TIE squadron arrived with their characteristic shriek.

Ria, however, did not rejoin the pursuit, instead kneeling next to Mac and removing his helmet. "Oh thank the Emperor you're alive," she whispered.

"Yeah, no thanks to you," he gasped through gritted teeth. Blaster injuries were a b****. Ria had seen a good number of them when she'd worked for the Coruscanti Hospital System. While she had mostly been there to make sure the medical droids were working correctly, Ria had received first aid training and had received even further medical training upon joining the Imperial Army.

Thankfully Mac's armor had done some work to disperse the heat of the blast, but the burns still penetrated halfway through his left bicep. After pulling off some of the surrounding armor and cutting off part of his shirt, Ria pulled out burn treatment and disinfectant salves from her medical kit and applied them to the wound.

Standing up, she saw that there were two more injured troopers lying on the ground. She sighed. Time to get to work, but first...

"Crashsite dispatch, this is CT-9433, requesting transports in the forest outside sector H22. We have wounded."