Il se déroule en l'an -1. Il s'agit du premier roman d'horreur de la licence SW (si on oublie quelques romans junior), et il met en scène des personnages principalement nouveaux, Han Solo et Chewbacca venant confirmer la règle.
Synopsis :
When the Imperial prison barge Purge — temporary home to five hundred of the galaxy's most ruthless killers, rebels, scoundrels and thieves — breaks down in a distant, uninhabited part of space, its only hope seems to lie with a Star Destroyer found drifting, derelict and seemingly abandoned. But when a boarding party is sent to scavenge for parts, only half of them come back — bringing with them a horrific disease so lethal that within hours, nearly all aboard the Purge will die in ways too hideous to imagine.
And death is only the beginning.
The Purge's half-dozen survivors — two teenage brothers, a sadistic captain of the guards, a couple of rogue smugglers and the chief medical officer, the lone woman on board — will do whatever it takes to stay alive. But nothing can prepare them for what lies waiting onboard the Star Destroyer amid its vast creaking emptiness that isn't really empty at all. The dead are rising, soulless, unstoppable, and unspeakably hungry.
And death is only the beginning.
The Purge's half-dozen survivors — two teenage brothers, a sadistic captain of the guards, a couple of rogue smugglers and the chief medical officer, the lone woman on board — will do whatever it takes to stay alive. But nothing can prepare them for what lies waiting onboard the Star Destroyer amid its vast creaking emptiness that isn't really empty at all. The dead are rising, soulless, unstoppable, and unspeakably hungry.
Interview de l'auteur :
How did the opportunity arise for you to add zombies to a galaxy far, far away?
My editor at Del Rey is involved in a lot of the Star Wars expanded universe stuff and apparently it came out of a conversation that he and somebody had at a convention about how great it would be to have a Star Wars zombie novel. Eventually, my agent found out about it and I asked to take a swing at it. It was just too good not to try out for.
Are you a hardcore Star Wars fan?
I distinctly remember being seven years old and going with my parents to go see Star Wars, and being completely freaked out and riveted by the experience. It's probably one of the first non-Disney movies I saw on the big screen as a kid. It made a huge impression, obviously. I think we showed up a little bit late, and the first scene I actually saw was Vader coming down the hallway during the blaster battle with the stormtroopers. I was desperate to find out what was going on right from the very first moment.
As a fan of both Star Wars and horror, what to you is the most horrifying part of the saga?
The trash compactor scene! Anything that's underwater and you can't quite see is horrifying. The movie did a great job with that. "Ah! Something just moved past my leg!" is a total horror trope. And it's used to great effect in that scene. Already there's tension; they're in a claustrophobic situation. Every kid knows what it's like to wade in the water and not see where your feet are, then something goes past your leg.
Just the presence of Darth Vader in general is horrifying. He's this guy who's essentially in a walking coffin and there's something really obviously wrong with him because his breathing just sounds unsettling.
What makes some horror fiction and films scarier than others?
In horror films there's a huge temptation to go for, not just the gross-out, but the startle-moment. You can make people jump in their seat with a loud blast of music on the soundtrack, or when a character jumps out at you. But those aren't the horror films that linger with the individual, or in pop culture. The stories that are popular are the ones that create an atmosphere that's familiar and uncanny at the same time; and that deal with characters you can readily identify with from your own experience.
What is it about outer space that makes it the perfect backdrop for horror?
It's a weird combination of how limitless it is and at the same time how claustrophobic and confining it can be. Certainly with the Star Destroyer, I really wanted to explore what it was like to be aboard something that was so big and empty, but at the same time you could feel the pressure of space itself working against the integrity of the ship.
What would it be like to be on-board something that was farther away than the furthest outpost? You feel like you're alone but at the same time know that you aren't. Space, especially Lucas' vision of space, is totally conducive to a horror environment.
With most zombie stories it seems that the real fear sets in when you're looking around a town, or in the case of Death Troopers -- a ship -- and no one is there, but you still feel like someone is watching you.
Steven King talks about that in Salem's Lot. The scariest parts of Salem's Lot isn't when the vampires are jumping out and biting people, it's when you go through the town and no one's there.
What is it about zombies that makes them so popular with horror fans?
They lend themselves to a lot of different situations. They represent the familiar turned into this completely uncanny and impossible to understand version of itself. They're coming for you and they want to eat you. They're not interested in a conversation. They're not Bram Stoker's Dracula. There's nothing romantic about them at all. They're an inarguable force. Clive Barker once described zombies as "the ultimate Liberal nightmare" -- these are the people, the great unwashed, yet all they're interested in doing is devouring you.
The most terrifying thing about zombies is that with bio-warfare being on the cusp of happening in reality, it's not too hard to imagine humans being infected with a synthetic virus that controls them long after they're dead, thus making them the perfect weapon.
Obviously, every scary thing can be pushed to the point that it becomes absurd. But if you're able to manage it in a way and execute it carefully, that idea can be very, very scary.
As you started with the idea of Death Troopers, did you initially want to put in two of the most beloved characters in the original trilogy?
I asked upfront and they said yes. The first outline of the book I wrote was very focused on Han and Chewie. Everyone was like, "No, this isn't scary, it's more action-y; and the biggest problem is if you're going to use these established characters, you know that they're going to survive." And they were right.
As soon as they said that I realized I needed to create new characters that were so sympathetic that they could compete with these beloved characters, and who could potentially be dead by the end.
Once I did that, I could hold off on bringing these established characters into the book, so by the time I do bring them in, it's like this little bomb goes off in the book. That was the challenge.
Did you add them into the story so your readers wouldn't be suffering from adrenaline overload, and could have a sigh of relief knowing that at least two characters they are invested in would live?
That's totally true. I'm not sure if I consciously thought about that but you can use humor or charm to heighten the tension in the story by relieving it a little bit. With a book like Death Troopers, it's a very compulsive, one or two sittings kind of read. That kind of moment can help the pacing of a story.
How did you approach writing Chewbacca's internal dialog for the book?
That was just a rich opportunity that you really can't do in any other format. If you're going to write a Star Wars novel, why not crawl inside the heads of all these characters from film and video games that don't normally allow you to articulate? Once you make that decision, you get to put on the fur and be this creature.
What kind of thought processes do you have when you're someone who can't communicate with 99 percent of who's around? You become very perceptive because you come to rely on all your other senses. You spend a lot of time inside your own head, rather than articulating your thoughts to other people. There's this wisdom to it that I imagine Chewbacca sort of walks around with.
He has a back-story that forms who he is. So why not bring that into play too as he's trying to cope with all the things going on around him? Why not use that as a frame of reference for how he tries to understand all this crazy horror unfolding around him?
Which species makes for a creepier zombie -- human or Wookiee?
We're talking about two different things. As far as the traditional sense, the people make creepier zombies. However, some of the conceptual art coming out for the Wookiee zombies in Star Wars Galaxies if just horrifying. You have this thing that's normally very friendly and engaging, except half of it's missing and you can see its ribs through its torso.
You also have a very strong-willed, independent woman as a main character in the book. Considering that Star Wars is known for its sassy and smart female characters like Princess Leia, Senator Amidala and Ahsoka Tano, was this something you kept in mind as you created the character of Dr. Cody?
I gravitate toward strong female characters. I wrote another book called Chasing the Dead and the main character in that was a single mom put in a situation that she really wasn't ready for in a lot of ways. The woman was a former ambulance driver at one point and then inherited a life of privilege. Out of nowhere she found herself faced with really daunting circumstances, and had to find that pluck and courage within herself to deal with them.
It's a character that might not have always made the right choices, but who's smart and resourceful when the circumstances stack up against her. She doesn't immediately deal with it in that sci-fi hero mode, but she's someone very human who experiences the fear of being in over her head.
In Death Troopers, Dr. Cody does have those moments when nothing in her previous experiences has prepared her for what's going on, but she pushes on through it anyway. Those kinds of characters are terrific for suspense stories because we can identify with them.
There's also a rather comedic medical droid in Death Troopers. What made you want to give a voice to the kind of droid that usually doesn't take center stage in a Star Wars story?
A huge part of the charm of Star Wars are the droids. There was a conscious effort to give the droids in Star Wars the same kind of characteristics of iconic comedy teams, and that's one of the reasons why C-3PO and R2-D2 are so beloved.
I also like the idea of using a droid as a foil to Dr. Cody. The droid is constantly taking everything at face value medically, and you have this doctor who's been around the block a few times and understands how the inmates on a prison barge would use every opportunity they can to come to her sickbay. The droid understands the symptoms, but the doctor knows the motives. So while it can be frustrating for the doctor to deal with the droid, it can also be funny.
Why did you consciously want to have some of the characters be immune to the zombie virus when it was initially airborne?
That was kind of a direct lift from The Stand. I always liked the idea in The Stand that there was this virus that moved through 99.9 percent of the community and there was that .1 percent that was genetically predisposed to be protected from it. Whether they were good or bad they just had that little extra genetic LEGO stuck onto them that allowed them to not be affected by the virus.
The most horrifying part of the book for me didn't center around the zombies, but featured the survivors of the Star Destroyer itself. That neatly stacked piles of uniforms from the fellow soldiers they ate to survive gave me goosebumps! Why did you decide to make some of the humans creepier than the actual zombies?
When you're writing a book like this you not only consider the supernatural elements, but also know there's still a lot of potential to be had in the way people react to that situation. Your choices are either rise up and resist, or fold and accommodate and make concessions. Eventually, you might sacrifice your own humanity just in a desperate attempt to survive. That can be really horrible.
There's also a fine line between resorting to cannibalism for survival and practicing cannibalism because you like it. The zombies in your book have a virus that compels them to eat flesh, they're not calling the shots. But those particular survivors seem like they have become zombies by choice.
That's really insightful. I didn't think about that while I was putting it together, but I think that's totally true. There's a sense of contagiousness not just with the virus but with the mindset of appetite that can jump from the zombies to the people; which means they're infected in a more terrifying way.
Unless you just want to think of those survivors as the ultimate recyclers and they were just being green.
That's another excellent way of describing it. (laughs)
Was there anything you wanted to add to the book, but couldn't because of the book length requirements, or because it didn't fit in with the storyline?
There was a point where I actually wanted to try and see if I could show the effects of a droid if it got infected with the virus. I wrote a scene where some bizarre contaminated droid had gotten the virus, but it just wasn't working out in the practical sense of the continuity.
I also wanted to follow the idea of one of the zombies actually getting away from the Destroyer without falling apart for some reason, like having a strain of the virus that allowed it to endure. But then I really just wanted to follow the survivors.
The way you wrote Death Troopers lends itself to having one heck of a horrifying prequel. Any chance fans will be getting the tale of what happened on the Star Destroyer before the prison barge showed up?
Actually, I just finished the next book and sent it to Shelly Shapiro. It's a prequel that deals with the virus and where it came from.
What do you think of the Death Troopers cosplay that's been happening because of your book? Were you able to see the members of the 501st Legion in all their bloody glory at Comic-Con?
I've been able to meet of them at my book signings. Ed Dennis from the Southern California Garrison was at my signing at the Barnes & Noble in Huntington Beach. He built a second suit of armor that was all zombified. When I shook his hand it was sticky with fake blood!
Why do you think Star Wars fans, who might not read horror fiction, should give the book a read?
When I sit down to write, regardless if it's a Star Wars novel or a horror novel or a suspense novel, the same elements come into play. Unless the writer can get inside the story and make it come alive and make it work, they really have no right to ask for the readers' time.
But if they can do that, then the reader is in for a really good experience regardless of whether they consider themselves a horror or a sci-fi reader. Those genres, when they're done right, have in common a well-executed story.
If you enjoy the Star Wars universe, then you'll enjoy this story even if you wouldn't normally pick up a zombie novel otherwise. If I've done my job, you'll enjoy it regardless.
My editor at Del Rey is involved in a lot of the Star Wars expanded universe stuff and apparently it came out of a conversation that he and somebody had at a convention about how great it would be to have a Star Wars zombie novel. Eventually, my agent found out about it and I asked to take a swing at it. It was just too good not to try out for.
Are you a hardcore Star Wars fan?
I distinctly remember being seven years old and going with my parents to go see Star Wars, and being completely freaked out and riveted by the experience. It's probably one of the first non-Disney movies I saw on the big screen as a kid. It made a huge impression, obviously. I think we showed up a little bit late, and the first scene I actually saw was Vader coming down the hallway during the blaster battle with the stormtroopers. I was desperate to find out what was going on right from the very first moment.
As a fan of both Star Wars and horror, what to you is the most horrifying part of the saga?
The trash compactor scene! Anything that's underwater and you can't quite see is horrifying. The movie did a great job with that. "Ah! Something just moved past my leg!" is a total horror trope. And it's used to great effect in that scene. Already there's tension; they're in a claustrophobic situation. Every kid knows what it's like to wade in the water and not see where your feet are, then something goes past your leg.
Just the presence of Darth Vader in general is horrifying. He's this guy who's essentially in a walking coffin and there's something really obviously wrong with him because his breathing just sounds unsettling.
What makes some horror fiction and films scarier than others?
In horror films there's a huge temptation to go for, not just the gross-out, but the startle-moment. You can make people jump in their seat with a loud blast of music on the soundtrack, or when a character jumps out at you. But those aren't the horror films that linger with the individual, or in pop culture. The stories that are popular are the ones that create an atmosphere that's familiar and uncanny at the same time; and that deal with characters you can readily identify with from your own experience.
What is it about outer space that makes it the perfect backdrop for horror?
It's a weird combination of how limitless it is and at the same time how claustrophobic and confining it can be. Certainly with the Star Destroyer, I really wanted to explore what it was like to be aboard something that was so big and empty, but at the same time you could feel the pressure of space itself working against the integrity of the ship.
What would it be like to be on-board something that was farther away than the furthest outpost? You feel like you're alone but at the same time know that you aren't. Space, especially Lucas' vision of space, is totally conducive to a horror environment.
With most zombie stories it seems that the real fear sets in when you're looking around a town, or in the case of Death Troopers -- a ship -- and no one is there, but you still feel like someone is watching you.
Steven King talks about that in Salem's Lot. The scariest parts of Salem's Lot isn't when the vampires are jumping out and biting people, it's when you go through the town and no one's there.
What is it about zombies that makes them so popular with horror fans?
They lend themselves to a lot of different situations. They represent the familiar turned into this completely uncanny and impossible to understand version of itself. They're coming for you and they want to eat you. They're not interested in a conversation. They're not Bram Stoker's Dracula. There's nothing romantic about them at all. They're an inarguable force. Clive Barker once described zombies as "the ultimate Liberal nightmare" -- these are the people, the great unwashed, yet all they're interested in doing is devouring you.
The most terrifying thing about zombies is that with bio-warfare being on the cusp of happening in reality, it's not too hard to imagine humans being infected with a synthetic virus that controls them long after they're dead, thus making them the perfect weapon.
Obviously, every scary thing can be pushed to the point that it becomes absurd. But if you're able to manage it in a way and execute it carefully, that idea can be very, very scary.
As you started with the idea of Death Troopers, did you initially want to put in two of the most beloved characters in the original trilogy?
I asked upfront and they said yes. The first outline of the book I wrote was very focused on Han and Chewie. Everyone was like, "No, this isn't scary, it's more action-y; and the biggest problem is if you're going to use these established characters, you know that they're going to survive." And they were right.
As soon as they said that I realized I needed to create new characters that were so sympathetic that they could compete with these beloved characters, and who could potentially be dead by the end.
Once I did that, I could hold off on bringing these established characters into the book, so by the time I do bring them in, it's like this little bomb goes off in the book. That was the challenge.
Did you add them into the story so your readers wouldn't be suffering from adrenaline overload, and could have a sigh of relief knowing that at least two characters they are invested in would live?
That's totally true. I'm not sure if I consciously thought about that but you can use humor or charm to heighten the tension in the story by relieving it a little bit. With a book like Death Troopers, it's a very compulsive, one or two sittings kind of read. That kind of moment can help the pacing of a story.
How did you approach writing Chewbacca's internal dialog for the book?
That was just a rich opportunity that you really can't do in any other format. If you're going to write a Star Wars novel, why not crawl inside the heads of all these characters from film and video games that don't normally allow you to articulate? Once you make that decision, you get to put on the fur and be this creature.
What kind of thought processes do you have when you're someone who can't communicate with 99 percent of who's around? You become very perceptive because you come to rely on all your other senses. You spend a lot of time inside your own head, rather than articulating your thoughts to other people. There's this wisdom to it that I imagine Chewbacca sort of walks around with.
He has a back-story that forms who he is. So why not bring that into play too as he's trying to cope with all the things going on around him? Why not use that as a frame of reference for how he tries to understand all this crazy horror unfolding around him?
Which species makes for a creepier zombie -- human or Wookiee?
We're talking about two different things. As far as the traditional sense, the people make creepier zombies. However, some of the conceptual art coming out for the Wookiee zombies in Star Wars Galaxies if just horrifying. You have this thing that's normally very friendly and engaging, except half of it's missing and you can see its ribs through its torso.
You also have a very strong-willed, independent woman as a main character in the book. Considering that Star Wars is known for its sassy and smart female characters like Princess Leia, Senator Amidala and Ahsoka Tano, was this something you kept in mind as you created the character of Dr. Cody?
I gravitate toward strong female characters. I wrote another book called Chasing the Dead and the main character in that was a single mom put in a situation that she really wasn't ready for in a lot of ways. The woman was a former ambulance driver at one point and then inherited a life of privilege. Out of nowhere she found herself faced with really daunting circumstances, and had to find that pluck and courage within herself to deal with them.
It's a character that might not have always made the right choices, but who's smart and resourceful when the circumstances stack up against her. She doesn't immediately deal with it in that sci-fi hero mode, but she's someone very human who experiences the fear of being in over her head.
In Death Troopers, Dr. Cody does have those moments when nothing in her previous experiences has prepared her for what's going on, but she pushes on through it anyway. Those kinds of characters are terrific for suspense stories because we can identify with them.
There's also a rather comedic medical droid in Death Troopers. What made you want to give a voice to the kind of droid that usually doesn't take center stage in a Star Wars story?
A huge part of the charm of Star Wars are the droids. There was a conscious effort to give the droids in Star Wars the same kind of characteristics of iconic comedy teams, and that's one of the reasons why C-3PO and R2-D2 are so beloved.
I also like the idea of using a droid as a foil to Dr. Cody. The droid is constantly taking everything at face value medically, and you have this doctor who's been around the block a few times and understands how the inmates on a prison barge would use every opportunity they can to come to her sickbay. The droid understands the symptoms, but the doctor knows the motives. So while it can be frustrating for the doctor to deal with the droid, it can also be funny.
Why did you consciously want to have some of the characters be immune to the zombie virus when it was initially airborne?
That was kind of a direct lift from The Stand. I always liked the idea in The Stand that there was this virus that moved through 99.9 percent of the community and there was that .1 percent that was genetically predisposed to be protected from it. Whether they were good or bad they just had that little extra genetic LEGO stuck onto them that allowed them to not be affected by the virus.
The most horrifying part of the book for me didn't center around the zombies, but featured the survivors of the Star Destroyer itself. That neatly stacked piles of uniforms from the fellow soldiers they ate to survive gave me goosebumps! Why did you decide to make some of the humans creepier than the actual zombies?
When you're writing a book like this you not only consider the supernatural elements, but also know there's still a lot of potential to be had in the way people react to that situation. Your choices are either rise up and resist, or fold and accommodate and make concessions. Eventually, you might sacrifice your own humanity just in a desperate attempt to survive. That can be really horrible.
There's also a fine line between resorting to cannibalism for survival and practicing cannibalism because you like it. The zombies in your book have a virus that compels them to eat flesh, they're not calling the shots. But those particular survivors seem like they have become zombies by choice.
That's really insightful. I didn't think about that while I was putting it together, but I think that's totally true. There's a sense of contagiousness not just with the virus but with the mindset of appetite that can jump from the zombies to the people; which means they're infected in a more terrifying way.
Unless you just want to think of those survivors as the ultimate recyclers and they were just being green.
That's another excellent way of describing it. (laughs)
Was there anything you wanted to add to the book, but couldn't because of the book length requirements, or because it didn't fit in with the storyline?
There was a point where I actually wanted to try and see if I could show the effects of a droid if it got infected with the virus. I wrote a scene where some bizarre contaminated droid had gotten the virus, but it just wasn't working out in the practical sense of the continuity.
I also wanted to follow the idea of one of the zombies actually getting away from the Destroyer without falling apart for some reason, like having a strain of the virus that allowed it to endure. But then I really just wanted to follow the survivors.
The way you wrote Death Troopers lends itself to having one heck of a horrifying prequel. Any chance fans will be getting the tale of what happened on the Star Destroyer before the prison barge showed up?
Actually, I just finished the next book and sent it to Shelly Shapiro. It's a prequel that deals with the virus and where it came from.
What do you think of the Death Troopers cosplay that's been happening because of your book? Were you able to see the members of the 501st Legion in all their bloody glory at Comic-Con?
I've been able to meet of them at my book signings. Ed Dennis from the Southern California Garrison was at my signing at the Barnes & Noble in Huntington Beach. He built a second suit of armor that was all zombified. When I shook his hand it was sticky with fake blood!
Why do you think Star Wars fans, who might not read horror fiction, should give the book a read?
When I sit down to write, regardless if it's a Star Wars novel or a horror novel or a suspense novel, the same elements come into play. Unless the writer can get inside the story and make it come alive and make it work, they really have no right to ask for the readers' time.
But if they can do that, then the reader is in for a really good experience regardless of whether they consider themselves a horror or a sci-fi reader. Those genres, when they're done right, have in common a well-executed story.
If you enjoy the Star Wars universe, then you'll enjoy this story even if you wouldn't normally pick up a zombie novel otherwise. If I've done my job, you'll enjoy it regardless.
Extrait :
THE NIGHTS WERE THE WORST.
Even before his father's death, Trig Longo had come to dread the long hours after lockdown, the shadows and sounds and the chronically unstable gulf of silence that drew out in between them. Night after night he lay still on his bunk and stared up at the dripping durasteel ceiling of the cell in search of sleep or some acceptable substitute. Sometimes he would actually start to drift off, floating away in that comforting sensation of weightlessness, only to be rattled awake -- heart pounding, throat tight, stomach muscles sprung and fluttering -- by some shout or a cry, an inmate having a nightmare.
There was no shortage of nightmares aboard the Imperial Prison Barge Purge.
Trig didn't know exactly how many prisoners the Purge was currently carrying. He guessed maybe five hundred, human and otherwise, scraped from every corner of the galaxy, just as he and his family had been
picked up eight standard weeks before. Sometimes the incoming shuttles returned almost empty; on other occasions they came packed with squabbling alien life-forms and alleged Rebel sympathizers of every stripe and species. There were assassins for hire and sociopaths the likes of which Trig had never seen, thin-lipped things that cackled and sneered in seditious languages that, to Trig's ears, were little more than clicks and hisses.
Every one of them seemed to harbor its own obscure appetites and personal grudges, personal histories blighted with shameful secrets and obscure vendettas. Being cautious became increasingly harder; soon you
needed eyes in the back of your head-which some of them actually possessed. Two weeks earlier in the mess hall, Trig had noticed a tall, silent inmate sitting with its back to him but watching him nonetheless with a single raw-red eye in the back of its skull. Every day the red-eyed thing seemed to be sitting a little nearer. Then one day, without explanation, it was gone.
Except from his dreams.
Sighing, Trig levered himself up on his elbows and looked through the bars onto the corridor. Gen Pop had
cycled down to minimum power for the night, edging the long gangway in permanent gray twilight. The Rodians in the cell across from his had gone to sleep or were feigning it. He forced himself to sit there, regulating his breathing, listening to the faint echoes of the convicts' uneasy groans and murmurs. Every so often a mouse droid or low-level maintenance unit, one of hundreds occupying the barge, would scramble by on some preprogrammed errand or another. And of course, below it all-low and not quite beneath the scope of hearing-was the omnipresent thrum of the barge's turbines gnashing endlessly through space.
For as long as they'd been aboard, Trig still hadn't gotten used to that last sound, the way it shook the
Purge to its framework, rising up through his legs and rattling his bones and nerves. There was no escaping it, the way it undermined every moment of life, as familiar as his own pulse.
Trig thought back to sitting in the infirmary just two weeks earlier, watching his father draw one last shaky
breath, and the silence afterward as the medical droids disconnected the biomonitors from the old man's ruined body and prepared to haul it away. As the last of the monitors fell silent, he'd heard that low steady
thunder of the engines, one more unnecessary reminder of where he was and where he was going. He remembered how that noise had made him feel lost and small and inescapably sad-some special form of artificial gravity that seemed to work directly against his heart.
He had known then, as he knew now, that it really only meant one thing, the ruthlessly grinding effort of
the Empire consolidating its power.
Forget politics, his father had always said. Just give 'em something they need, or they'll eat you alive.
And now they'd been eaten alive anyway, despite the fact that they'd never been sympathizers, no more than low-level grifters scooped up on a routine Imperial sweep. The engines of tyranny ground on, bearing them forward across the galaxy toward some remote penal moon. Trig sensed that noise would continue, would carry on indefinitely, echoing right up until-
"Trig?"
It was Kale's voice behind him, unexpected, and Trig flinched a little at the sound of it. He looked back and
saw his older brother gazing back at him, Kale's handsomely rumpled, sleep-slackened face just a ghostly
three-quarter profile suspended in the cell's gloom. Kale looked like he was still only partly awake and unsure
whether or not he was dreaming any of this.
"What's wrong?" Kale asked, a drowsy murmur that came out: Wussrong?
Trig cleared his throat. His voice had started changing recently, and he was acutely aware of how it broke
high and low when he wasn't paying strict attention.
"Nothing."
"You worried about tomorrow?"
"Me?" Trig snorted. "Come on."
"'S okay if you are." Kale seemed to consider this and then uttered a bemused grunt. "You'd be crazy not
to be."
"You're not scared," Trig said. "Dad would never have-"
"I'll go alone."
"No." The word snapped from his throat with almost painful angularity. "We need to stick together, that's what Dad said."
"You're only thirteen," Kale said. "Maybe you're not, you know..."
"Fourteen next month." Trig felt another flare of emotion at the mention of his age. "Old enough."
"You sure?"
"Positive."
"Well, sleep on it, see if you feel different in the morning... " Kale's enunciation was already beginning to go muddled as he slumped back down on his bunk, leaving Trig sitting up with his eyes still riveted to the long dark concourse outside the cell, Gen Pop, that had become their no-longer-new home.
Sleep on it, he thought, and in that exact moment, miraculously, as if by power of suggestion, sleep actually began to seem like a possibility. Trig lay back and let the heaviness of his own fatigue cover him like a blanket, superseding anxiety and fear. He tried to focus on the sound of Kale's breathing, deep and reassuring, in and out, in and out.
Then somewhere in the depths of the levels, an inhuman voice wailed. Trig sat up, caught his breath, and
felt a chill tighten the skin of his shoulders, arms, and back, crawling over his flesh millimeter by millimeter,
bris tling the small hairs on the back of his neck. Over in his bunk the already sleeping Kale rolled over and
grumbled something incoherent.
There was another scream, weaker this time. Trig told himself it was just one of the other convicts, just another nightmare rolling off the all-night assembly line of the nightmare factory.
But it hadn't sounded like a nightmare. It sounded like a convict, whatever life-form it was, was under attack.
Or going crazy.
He sat perfectly still, squeezed his eyes tight, and waited for the pounding of his heart to slow down, just
please slow down. But it didn't. He thought of the thing in the cafeteria, the disappeared inmate whose name he'd never known, watching him with its red staring eye. How many other eyes were on him that he never saw?
Sleep on it.
But he already knew there would be no more sleeping here tonight.
Even before his father's death, Trig Longo had come to dread the long hours after lockdown, the shadows and sounds and the chronically unstable gulf of silence that drew out in between them. Night after night he lay still on his bunk and stared up at the dripping durasteel ceiling of the cell in search of sleep or some acceptable substitute. Sometimes he would actually start to drift off, floating away in that comforting sensation of weightlessness, only to be rattled awake -- heart pounding, throat tight, stomach muscles sprung and fluttering -- by some shout or a cry, an inmate having a nightmare.
There was no shortage of nightmares aboard the Imperial Prison Barge Purge.
Trig didn't know exactly how many prisoners the Purge was currently carrying. He guessed maybe five hundred, human and otherwise, scraped from every corner of the galaxy, just as he and his family had been
picked up eight standard weeks before. Sometimes the incoming shuttles returned almost empty; on other occasions they came packed with squabbling alien life-forms and alleged Rebel sympathizers of every stripe and species. There were assassins for hire and sociopaths the likes of which Trig had never seen, thin-lipped things that cackled and sneered in seditious languages that, to Trig's ears, were little more than clicks and hisses.
Every one of them seemed to harbor its own obscure appetites and personal grudges, personal histories blighted with shameful secrets and obscure vendettas. Being cautious became increasingly harder; soon you
needed eyes in the back of your head-which some of them actually possessed. Two weeks earlier in the mess hall, Trig had noticed a tall, silent inmate sitting with its back to him but watching him nonetheless with a single raw-red eye in the back of its skull. Every day the red-eyed thing seemed to be sitting a little nearer. Then one day, without explanation, it was gone.
Except from his dreams.
Sighing, Trig levered himself up on his elbows and looked through the bars onto the corridor. Gen Pop had
cycled down to minimum power for the night, edging the long gangway in permanent gray twilight. The Rodians in the cell across from his had gone to sleep or were feigning it. He forced himself to sit there, regulating his breathing, listening to the faint echoes of the convicts' uneasy groans and murmurs. Every so often a mouse droid or low-level maintenance unit, one of hundreds occupying the barge, would scramble by on some preprogrammed errand or another. And of course, below it all-low and not quite beneath the scope of hearing-was the omnipresent thrum of the barge's turbines gnashing endlessly through space.
For as long as they'd been aboard, Trig still hadn't gotten used to that last sound, the way it shook the
Purge to its framework, rising up through his legs and rattling his bones and nerves. There was no escaping it, the way it undermined every moment of life, as familiar as his own pulse.
Trig thought back to sitting in the infirmary just two weeks earlier, watching his father draw one last shaky
breath, and the silence afterward as the medical droids disconnected the biomonitors from the old man's ruined body and prepared to haul it away. As the last of the monitors fell silent, he'd heard that low steady
thunder of the engines, one more unnecessary reminder of where he was and where he was going. He remembered how that noise had made him feel lost and small and inescapably sad-some special form of artificial gravity that seemed to work directly against his heart.
He had known then, as he knew now, that it really only meant one thing, the ruthlessly grinding effort of
the Empire consolidating its power.
Forget politics, his father had always said. Just give 'em something they need, or they'll eat you alive.
And now they'd been eaten alive anyway, despite the fact that they'd never been sympathizers, no more than low-level grifters scooped up on a routine Imperial sweep. The engines of tyranny ground on, bearing them forward across the galaxy toward some remote penal moon. Trig sensed that noise would continue, would carry on indefinitely, echoing right up until-
"Trig?"
It was Kale's voice behind him, unexpected, and Trig flinched a little at the sound of it. He looked back and
saw his older brother gazing back at him, Kale's handsomely rumpled, sleep-slackened face just a ghostly
three-quarter profile suspended in the cell's gloom. Kale looked like he was still only partly awake and unsure
whether or not he was dreaming any of this.
"What's wrong?" Kale asked, a drowsy murmur that came out: Wussrong?
Trig cleared his throat. His voice had started changing recently, and he was acutely aware of how it broke
high and low when he wasn't paying strict attention.
"Nothing."
"You worried about tomorrow?"
"Me?" Trig snorted. "Come on."
"'S okay if you are." Kale seemed to consider this and then uttered a bemused grunt. "You'd be crazy not
to be."
"You're not scared," Trig said. "Dad would never have-"
"I'll go alone."
"No." The word snapped from his throat with almost painful angularity. "We need to stick together, that's what Dad said."
"You're only thirteen," Kale said. "Maybe you're not, you know..."
"Fourteen next month." Trig felt another flare of emotion at the mention of his age. "Old enough."
"You sure?"
"Positive."
"Well, sleep on it, see if you feel different in the morning... " Kale's enunciation was already beginning to go muddled as he slumped back down on his bunk, leaving Trig sitting up with his eyes still riveted to the long dark concourse outside the cell, Gen Pop, that had become their no-longer-new home.
Sleep on it, he thought, and in that exact moment, miraculously, as if by power of suggestion, sleep actually began to seem like a possibility. Trig lay back and let the heaviness of his own fatigue cover him like a blanket, superseding anxiety and fear. He tried to focus on the sound of Kale's breathing, deep and reassuring, in and out, in and out.
Then somewhere in the depths of the levels, an inhuman voice wailed. Trig sat up, caught his breath, and
felt a chill tighten the skin of his shoulders, arms, and back, crawling over his flesh millimeter by millimeter,
bris tling the small hairs on the back of his neck. Over in his bunk the already sleeping Kale rolled over and
grumbled something incoherent.
There was another scream, weaker this time. Trig told himself it was just one of the other convicts, just another nightmare rolling off the all-night assembly line of the nightmare factory.
But it hadn't sounded like a nightmare. It sounded like a convict, whatever life-form it was, was under attack.
Or going crazy.
He sat perfectly still, squeezed his eyes tight, and waited for the pounding of his heart to slow down, just
please slow down. But it didn't. He thought of the thing in the cafeteria, the disappeared inmate whose name he'd never known, watching him with its red staring eye. How many other eyes were on him that he never saw?
Sleep on it.
But he already knew there would be no more sleeping here tonight.