Star Wars: Prey/ Chapter 5: Midnight

All the clones froze.

“Who said that?” Scrape exclaimed as he looked around with his DC-15A blaster in his hand. Suddenly, a cold hand grabbed Rick.

“R-R-Rick!” someone moaned. After only half a second he knew who it was. He turned around and let out a scared gasp.

“Stun...is that you?!?” Rick said carefully backing away. Without hesitation, Scrape yelled

“Shoot him!” as he pointed at Stun, the now sleep deprived looking undead clone trooper.

“Nooo!” Neyo yelled as he pushed Scrape, knocking him to the floor.

“You don’t care about anyone!” Neyo yelled, then kicked Scrape. Neyo turned to the rest of the troopers. “Don’t kill Stun yet! There's a chance we might be able to cure him” he ordered.

“Quickly, Thunderbolt and Lincoln, take him to one of the empty rooms and lock him in there” he added. “Yes sir!” they responded as they grabbed Stun and dragged him. They quickly exited the main room, leaving Scrape and his defeated ego on the ground.

      A few hours had gone by since the incident with  Stun. Rick was laying down in his bunk as he stared up at the dirty ceiling. It was already dark outside and the rest of the troopers were sleeping. The harsh wind could be heard through the thick metal walls. He let out a sigh and climbed down the ladder to the floor, trying not to wake up Drak who slept on the bunk under his. At first, he got the idea to wake up Drak and ask him to examine Stun but Rick quickly rejected the idea. He then carefully exited the room and looked down the long gray hallway that extended to the left and the right. There were four small and rectangular rooms in the hall each containing two troopers. Scrape was the only trooper who had a room to himself. In each room, one trooper slept on the top bunk and the other slept on the bottom bunk.

The coast is clear, he thought as he tiptoed over to the right end of the hallway. The only way he was able to see was because of a dim light bulb hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the hall. As he got to the end of the hall, he stopped at a small room which was locked and had a door with a tiny window near the top. He peered through the tiny, blurry window. It was Stun. He was sleeping on his side with his face towards the wall. After the incident, Rick expected that Drak would have examined him, but I suppose he was busy with something else.

He gently tapped on the old glass window twice. Stun must’ve heard him because he quickly got up. He turned around and walked towards the door and saw Rick. Rick noticed that he looked sad.

“Don’t worry we will try to cure you soon” Rick whispered hoping his statement could be heard from the other side of the window. Stun gave a nod and went back to the backside of the room to sleep. Rick was scared for Stun’s health. The thought of Stun dying was weighing on his mind and would not go away. In his state of worry and a blink of his eye, Rick went into another one of his trances.

After a minute, Rick finally snapped out of it. He looked up and realized he had walked to the other end of the hallway and was in the doorway leading to the main room. He opened the door slowly and jumped a little. “What’re you doing up so late?” Thunderbolt joked as he ate a late night snack at the table.

“Stun was the reason. The thought of him possibly dying kept me up all these hours” Rick said. Thunderbolt nodded.

“Do you think maybe Drak could help him sometime tomorrow?” Rick added.

“I'm not sure. Right before I went to sleep, Neyo had told me we have some type of important mission tomorrow”.

“What type of mission?”.

“Neyo didn’t tell me but I guess we’ll find out tomorrow”. Rick nodded and rubbed his eyes.

“I’m heading to bed,” he said and walked away.

“Alright,” Thunderbolt said throwing out the empty can of beans. The two of them walked down the hallway almost in sync.

“See you tomorrow Thunderbolt said as he walked into his room on the other side of the hall.

Rick yawned as he walked into his room and climbed up the ladder. After climbing it halfway a loud thud from the main room made him fall off the ladder. The new alarm system that had just been set up that day went off making a loud screeching noise. All the clones woke up and headed for the hall. Neyo was the first to run out of his room. As soon as he got into the hallway he looked through the doorway into the main room with all the troopers standing behind him.

“Oh no” Neyo said in a frightened tone. Not again Neyo thought...