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Indeed, in fifteen minutes a bell was rung. It was time for the big meal of the day. The commissariats made rounds, followed kitchen staff, then hovering barrows loaded with cubical metal containers with food.
The routine, almost a ritual, proceeded methodically. The vacuum-sealed packets of polystarch bread were first distributed. Then came another hover-barrow with the packets of protein. Unnamed bread and meat, you think, from some plant or animal not even Adam would recognize, but you do not complain. Your companions are excited. This time, the commissariats hand out packets still iced over. Frozen food, but fresh food.
Cooking followed. First the meat was added to the pan, then the crumbly polystarch, which thickened the soup. Everyone searches their packs for salt and pepper, anything left-over. It’s done steadily, with a martial professionalism that rivals a chef’s. Your stomach grumbled. Naturally, a stew was in order: in no time your squad’s pan was steaming, with more pieces of meat than you’d seen in weeks.
When you’ve finished ladling soup for your charges, you fill your own pannikin and finally sit on the ground. After this nourishing meal, there was still a crumpled pack of cigarettes to be had in your rucksack. It’s a quarter to two in the afternoon, and this was respite.
You look over and watch your companions. Reviewing them, as you did the first time you received them months ago, you go over each one.
SS-1980. Henry. A quiet boy aged twenty-three. Conscript. He comes from Ilium, the world which the Sith Commander of the Seventh Fleet governs herself, and capital of Ilium Sector. Henry was an ostler, his family (who lived in the countryside) dealt in horses and carriages. He learnt a passion for driving rides of all sorts - machine or beast. He spoke little, ate what two men could in a day, and on the occasion he did speak, it was mischief or of his dreams of becoming a TIE pilot and leaving the infantry.
SS-2187. Villanelle. A half-Chiss. She is around SS-1980’s age, only six months older. Also a conscript. But of the three, SS-2187, or Villanelle, as SS-1980 and SS-6971 called her, was the most mysterious. You haven’t quite figured her out yet, despite this being the seventh month you have spent with her as your second. All you knew was that the half-Chiss was an educated and well-off lady, from one of the Core worlds, who had no reason at all to be here fighting in the ice and mud with troopers.
SS-6971 was the youngest. Her number reflected that undeniable fact. Consequently, she couldn’t have been a ‘pure’ stormtrooper, not in any way. Her real name was Carla. She was a volunteer. This second fact in itself, was also a curious issue. She was nineteen-years old, and hailed from Eredyne, one of the agricultural worlds in the Rhodes star system, about 700 stellar-leagues away from here. To volunteer is not a poor decision in itself, but there were a few considerations.
