"243rd Legion! Company One, assemble and board immediately! Company One, assemble and board immediately!"
The announcement aboard the warship repeated the message over and over. Following its instructions, a group of soldiers in gray combat uniforms, white gear-shaped Galactic Republic emblems printed on their chests, rose in unison. At the officers' shouts, they formed two columns and jogged forward.
Peter-Anderson had just stepped into the corridor. He quickly pressed himself against the wall, making way for the Company One soldiers.
Once they had passed, Peter-Anderson hurried back along the corridor's guiding lights to the compartment assigned to Company Three of the 243rd Legion. It was a long, narrow room crammed with double-decker iron bunk beds. All the Company One soldiers were already fully equipped, holding DC-15 blaster rifles in their arms. Their faces were grave. No one spoke; they simply stared blankly ahead.
Peter-Anderson quickly reached his bunk. The comrade in the upper berth shifted aside to make room for him. He held his blaster rifle in his arms and turned to look through the porthole. Outside, a green planet slowly rotated, with faint flickers of fire visible in the distance.
That was right, his berth was next to the window. But Peter-Anderson did not consider it a prime spot. On the contrary, it was terrible.
Most of the time, all he could see through the porthole was the blackness of space and the vast white bands of hyperspace. There was no scenery worth mentioning. But once battle began, that porthole—which looked incomparably thick yet was no more than paper before a Turbolaser—would become his death warrant.
The Hunter Class Battlecruiser's interior was extremely compact. This was not only evident in the cramped Marine quarters, but also in how the complex internal structure had squeezed their compartment directly against the