“Is… are we any closer to—”

“No, sir.” The replying voice was clearly strained – a mixture of barely-held compliance to the chain of command and an overwhelming heaping of helpless despair.

“Then HURRY – we’re only one idle movement away from being—"

SNOOOOOOOOOOOREEEEE…

A chorus of panicked cries sounded all across the shuttle, stormtroopers tumbling to the floor or clinging to beams and consoles for support as if it mattered in the slightest. The violent quake shook their ship, every single inhabitant knowing all too well just how quickly their doom could be approaching…

But fate proved kind, as their napping captor – the very man responsible for overseeing their arrival – simply wiggled his heel, settling right back into a loud, deep snore.

Silence settled back over the vessel again, and the poor pilot could only stare at the thick wad of gum filling his windshield, preventing any kind of take-off from happening.

“I’ll… keep rerouting power to the engines, sir.”

“…good. I’ll… tell the lads up top to keep working away at the… obstruction.” The commander couldn’t bring himself to name it what it actually was. Desperate not to acknowledge the fact that the thing that had singlehandedly kept them all trapped here on the brink of death was nothing more than some cheap, shitty gum that was probably snuck onto the latest requisitions order without anyone even noticing.

And all the while this intense, life-or-death rescue operation took place, the titan endangering them all continued to snore away, his dirty, grotty boot propped up right along the buttons on the keyboard that would automatically silence and dismiss any little ‘broadcasts’ the irritating specks might bother him with. Didn’t those specks know that the only reason anyone volunteered for comms duty was to catch up on sleep? The bug-men needed to learn how to handle themselves, as far as this Scout Trooper was concerned.

And as his boot gave another lazy grind back and forth, the panicked, rushing bits of sentient dust would be put to the test – to see once and for all if they could overcome the idle power of a single lowly Empire henchman…

Or meet the same fate as most things existing at their size – unrecognisable debris squashed into the filthy treads of standard mass-produced stormtrooper gear.

===

A commission me and  JordilianVector got from  LickwidZekrom a looong time ago featuring a snoozing Scout Trooper taking advantage of comms duty to get his sleep on… unfortunately it’s to the detriment of a visiting ship from their tiny sister planet.

This is set in the Abelard I/II location which you can read more about here respectively!