One of the difficult parts with being in the Army was having downtime.  When you were out on the battlefield your senses were alive.  One wrong decision could mean the death of you or the failure of the mission.  Adrenaline would course through your body and whilst some might not admit it, a sense of fear coursed through your body also.  A fear that not only kept your wits and senses fine tuned but it also brought with it a sense of survival, to overcome the odds and be victorious and more importantly, leave the battlefield alive.  Yet when there was downtime there was none of that, no thrill, no adrenaline, no fear, just boredom.

All of the squads had recently returned from a Platoon wide campaign and right now everyone was waiting for their new assignments.  Alan wondered why when on the battlefield all he could think of was succeeding in the mission and getting home and yet when he was home all he could think of was getting onto the battlefield.  It seemed strange that all of the squads from Storm Platoon were back on Tadath.  He felt that surely the squads would be celebrating together, yet here he was, waiting patiently for the next assignment to come through.  He glanced around the room and spotted his datapad.  His thoughts turned to his good friend Abalar.  She was from the same platoon as himself and he knew that her squad was also on downtime, waiting for their new assignment.  He reached over to grasp it but his hand stopped as he thought about whether she already had plans.  His indecision lasted only briefly as he grabbed his pad.  She’ll just decline graciously if she already has plans thought Alan.

He keyed in the message on his pad.  He looked at it, reading and re-reading it.  The same sense of indecision had come over him again as he didn’t want to interrupt her but he also wondered if she was going as stir crazy as he was, sitting, waiting.  He hit the send button and waited.  He looked at the pad, the message had only left mere seconds ago yet he expected an instant reply.  He shook his head at the absurdity of the notion and set the pad down.  Glancing around the room it sounded so quiet.  He didn’t really know what to do.  His attention returned back to the pad and wondered why it hadn’t buzzed.  A tapping noise brought his focus away from the pad.  He realised that his hands had started their own little drumming on his seat.  He forced himself to stop.  Then another noise distracted him, it was his pad, and it was buzzing.

He snatched it from where it lay and read the message.  He was almost certain that it would be from Abalar but he still was happy when he read who it was from.  He scanned the reply message, part of him expecting to see that she had already made plans.  He smiled when he read that she would love to join him in a fight simulation.  He needed to keep his fighting skills sharp and a simulation with Abalar sounded like a perfect idea.

Finishing the message he tossed the pad onto the desk.  The throw had not been very accurate as the pad reached the desk, wavered and collapsed.  Alan could hear the clattering noise it made as it landed on the floor.  He hoped that it wasn’t broken as he didn’t want to fill out the paperwork involved in requisitioning a new one but right now that didn’t matter to him.

He grabbed his twin DL-44 blasters and gun belt and strapped them around his waist.  He knew that in a simulation they would probably not be needed and certainly he did not need to be armed being on Tadath but it felt good to be armed, made him remember that he was a soldier within the Empire.  He slung his jacket on, effectively concealing them nicely.  He could feel the hard steel of the blasters pressing against his sides and it was a reassuring feeling.

The door to his condo slid open.  Alan took one last look around at the place that seemed to be the centre of his boredom.  He smiled as he left the condo behind him, hearing the door slide shut behind him as he went to his rendezvous with Abalar.