Death Troopers

There is no more frightening fate than being confined within the vastness of deep space.

That is, unless something unknown shares that space with you.

When the Imperial prison transport, named Purge—a temporary holding facility for five hundred of the galaxy's most dangerous criminals, rebels, con artists, and thieves—suffers a breakdown in a remote and uninhabited sector of space, its only salvation appears to be a Star Destroyer found adrift, abandoned, and seemingly deserted. However, when a team is dispatched to salvage necessary components, only half return—bringing with them a horrifying contagion so virulent that, within mere hours, almost all aboard the Purge will perish in ways too gruesome to contemplate.

And death marks only the beginning of the ordeal.

The half-dozen survivors of the Purge—comprising two young brothers, a cruel captain overseeing the guards, a pair of outlaw smugglers, and the chief medical officer, the sole woman present—will resort to any measure to ensure their survival. However, nothing can adequately prepare them for the horrors awaiting them aboard the Star Destroyer, amidst its expansive, echoing emptiness that is far from unoccupied. For the deceased are awakening, devoid of souls, relentless, and consumed by an insatiable hunger.

Aboard the Imperial prison vessel Purge, Trig Longo and his elder sibling Kale Longo had recently witnessed their father's demise at the hands of Jareth Sartoris. Their father engaged in illicit weapon sales to inmates. Following their father's passing, the Longo brothers attempt a transaction with Delphanian Face Gang leader Aur Myss, who had murdered their prior contact and intended to eliminate the Longo brothers as well. Anticipating this, Kale endeavors to negotiate with the Delphanian by offering the weapons without charge. Myss rejects this proposal, as he had assured his henchmen that they would have the opportunity to kill the boys. Kale retaliates by forcibly removing Myss' facial piercings, and the Longo brothers retreat to their cell for protection from the prison gang.

Jareth Sartoris, the captain of the guard on the barge, is summoned to the warden's office. Warden Bissley Kloth informs Sartoris that the Purge's engines are malfunctioning, but a derelict Star Destroyer is located nearby. Sartoris questions the rationale behind the Empire abandoning a Star Destroyer in open space, but Kloth nonetheless directs Sartoris to recover spare parts from the Star Destroyer to repair the barge's engines. The warden criticizes Sartoris's interrogation methods, noting that his subjects frequently die, such as Von Longo. Sartoris suggests that he cancel his duty on the Purge and then departs to board the Star Destroyer.

Zahara Cody serves as the Chief Medical Officer aboard the prison barge, assisted by her 2-1B surgical droid, Waste. She is considered an outsider among the Imperial Personnel due to her frequent interactions with inmates. She feels sympathy for some inmates and would rather be around them than the Empire. After witnessing Sartoris kill Von Longo, Zahara submitted her resignation and planned to permanently leave the Empire at the barge's next port of call. She also had a connection to the Longo brothers, as she fulfilled their father's final wish to bring them to him.

Sartoris leads a group of ten men onto the Vector. They divide their forces, with Sartoris and his team searching for the necessary components, while the other group seeks out the medical bay. In the medical bay, the men discover lungs suspended in tubes, breathing in unison, and they realize they are not alone and are unable to escape. Sartoris's group returns to the lift to go back to the Purge. With one guard exhibiting a violent cough and an engineer vomiting, the group urgently heads to the barge's medical bay. All of the guards are now coughing and vomiting, and then inmates and other guards begin coughing and vomiting. Soon the entire medical bay is full. Sartoris, however, remains unaffected by the novel virus.

Within the medical bay, Zahara endeavors to manage the outbreak. Waste deduces that the virus only becomes active once a critical mass of infected cells is reached, overwhelming the body's defenses. Zahara concludes that their containment protocols are ineffective and removes her isolation suit. Accepting that everyone is doomed, she attempts to alleviate their suffering before they succumb to their fate. Waste observes that Zahara remains asymptomatic, suggesting she possesses immunity. Utilizing her blood, they attempt to synthesize an anti-virus to halt the disease's progression. But at this point, it is almost too late.

The Longo boys are confined to their cell, witnessing the deaths of those around them. As the sounds of suffering diminish, they begin shouting to be released. The cell doors unlock, and they emerge, forgetting Myss is in the next cell. Myss attacks Kale and is about to kill him when Trig jumps on his back and tries choking him. Myss throws Trig off of him and is about to kill Trig when a blade comes through Myss' mouth. Kale states that he was attacked with it and they both get up and run out of the cell block. When they reach the end, they realize that their friend, Wembley, let them out but died shortly after. They start running for the escape pods. In the next cell block, they see a young Wookiee in a cell with his dead family around him. Trig insists they help the young one and unlocks the doors. They try to get the youngster to go with them but the little one stays with his family and holds them. The boys leave and when they reach the end of this cell block, they hear the young Wookiee screaming and a noise that sounds like something is eating it.

Sartoris discovers his immunity and proceeds to the warden's office. He retrieves two E-11 blaster rifles and eliminates any individuals exhibiting signs of infection in his vicinity. Upon reaching the warden's office, Sartoris finds the warden infected. Sartoris demands the launch codes for the escape pods. The warden complies and inquires whether Sartoris wishes to know his score on the psychological evaluation. Sartoris retorts, "I believe we both know the answer to that question," and discharges both blasters, obliterating the warden's head.

Zahara resolves to distribute her newly developed anti-virus to any survivors on the barge. At the bridge, she initiates a bioscan, revealing six living individuals, with two confined in solitary. Reluctantly, she descends to solitary, navigating through a landscape of corpses. She finds and pockets a note that a guard was going to give to his wife. She reaches the first solitary door, blaster in hand, but finds no one there. As soon as she opens the next door, a huge Wookiee comes out screaming, ready to attack, but she calms him down. Zahara unlocks the next door and a man comes out and introduces himself as Han Solo and the Wookiee as Chewbacca. The two are initially defiant against taking the anti-virus, until they see the bodies around the corner. Han takes it first then Chewbacca. Chewbacca did not receive it in time and starts showing symptoms: screaming, delirium, and a swollen throat. He begins to pass out, but Zahara saves him by emptying the blisters starting around his neck with a syringe. The swelling subsides, and Chewbacca returns to normal. As they return to the medical bay, they discover the bodies Zahara had stumbled over before are missing. They find the medical bay now completely empty with Waste on the ground in critical condition. Zahara asks about the bodies, and Waste replies that they came back and ate. Waste deactivates, and Zahara turns around to discover that Han and Chewie are gone.

Kale and Trig arrive at the escape pod and are trying to figure out how to work it when Sartoris appears. He tells them both to get out, he gets in, activates the launch codes, and launches away. Kale quickly realizes that there is another escape pod opposite of the position they are in. They start running that way because they feel the thing that was eating the baby Wookiee is following them. At the other escape pod, they run into Han and Chewie. The boys hold their blasters at them, but Han and Chewie disarm them. Zahara then arrives and tells them that they are all getting out together. They realize the escape pod's hatch has been sealed by security measures. Han, Chewie, and Zahara go to the bridge to disable it, while Kale and Trig stay at the escape pod. The Longo brothers hear something outside and Kale leaves to investigate. Trig hears something moving inside the escape pod, scratching at the door. Despite his pleas, Zahara opens the pod.

Upon Kale's return, he discovers his brother's absence and the escape pod ajar. He frantically searches for him, ultimately finding him in a maintenance tunnel scratched up and scared. Kale hears things moving toward him through the tunnel. Kale picks up Trig and runs to the bridge.

Zahara opens the escape pod but doesn't hear anything back on the comlink. Soon after, the bridge's computer says that there are more life-forms since the last bioscan. They look at the map the computer brings up and realize all the life-forms are headed for the bridge. Soon after, Kale bursts through with Trig in his arms and yells at them to run. They run to the turbolift, which leads to the Star Destroyer, and activate it. Trig comes to and sees his father. Trig runs for his dad, and Kale pulls him back, but their dad gets Kale and bites him on the leg.

Kale regains consciousness within the Star Destroyer's hangar bay. Kale realizes he has been bit, and blood starts spurting from the wound when he stands up. Zahara says that she and Kale would stay there while Han, Chewie, and Trig go to the bridge to start the engines. Struggling with having just seen his dead father bite his brother, Trig reluctantly leaves with Han and Chewie.

As Han, Chewie, and Trig walk along a corridor, the ceiling explodes and zombies pour out. The group runs away from the horde and ends up running in circles. Back at the turbolift, Kale tells Zahara to cut his leg off. She notices that his leg is turning grey and soon after realizes it has moved into his abdomen. Zahara cuts into his stomach and pulls out a big infection cell, which is still moving and trying to find an opening. Zahara disposes of it and cleans up Kale's wounds.

Han, Chewie, and Trig arrive at the top of the main Turbine with a small catwalk to cross. Trig decides to stay behind while Han and Chewie press forward. Trig thinks he sees Kale run into a door and runs after him, while Han and Chewie find a baby Wookiee crying in the corner. Chewie insists that they open the door, where they find three Wookiees eating human remains. The Wookiees turn around and run toward Han and Chewie, and Han instinctively starts blasting them. The baby Wookiee jumps on Han's back and starts clawing at him when Chewie blasts the young one's head open. After a moment of silence, they go back and try to fix the engines.

Zahara and Kale realize that zombies are coming up the turbolift. She grabs Kale under the arms and drags him across the hangar. The zombies start coming out of the turbolift, equipped with blasters. They start shooting at them with wild and inaccurate shots. Adrenaline pumping, Zahara ignores Kale's screams to drop him and keeps dragging him. She notices that the zombie's shots are getting better, and a blaster bolt hits Kale in the side of the face. Zahara leaves him after that and goes into the medical bay, where she is attacked by a zombie. She sticks anti-virus syringes in its head, and it briefly starts to act human again and scratches out "Blackwing" in the ground. The cure doesn't last long, and it attacks Zahara again. She is saved by another 2-1B surgical droid that reminds her of Waste. The droid leads her to a console that will tell her whats happening. She continues to call the droid Waste and thanks him. Leaving the droid confused, she leaves to go to the console.

Sartoris awakes inside the escape pod. He realizes that the Star Destroyer's tractor beam had sucked in the escape pod. Hearing blaster fire, he jumps outside and finds zombies all around him. He enters an abandoned X-wing and fires. The ship skids across the hangar floor and crashes into an Imperial shuttle. He climbs into the shuttle and finds four men. One of the men, Commander Gorrister, explains that the outbreak resulted from a weapon that the Empire created and that the zombies can learn: what works, what doesn't, and how to make it work. All the men keep licking their lips. Gorrister explains that they have been stuck in the shuttle for ten weeks, starting out with 30 men and now down to 6. As two men grab Sartoris, Gorrister explains that they did what they did to survive, implying cannibalism. A blast hits the shuttle, and Sartoris breaks free. He realizes the zombies learned from what he did and were getting into scattered ships in the hangar. Sartoris starts throwing the men into a crowd of zombies, but grants the last man, White, mercy and learns from him that the tractor beam is keeping the shuttle from leaving. Sartoris runs through the zombies to disable the tractor beam. He reaches the other side of the hangar and finds a lifter but also discovers that he has been bitten.

Utilizing the password "Blackwing" to gain access to the records, Zahara also discovers that the zombie virus is a weapon and goes to disable the tractor beam, finding it is already disabled. She gets boxed in on the bridge by zombies on the other side of the door.

Trig followed who he thought was Kale into a room with a mountain of bodies. A zombie comes through the mountain and chases him up the pile of bodies into a ventilation duct that leads to where Han and Chewie had crossed. The zombie catches up to him and Trig realizes it is Kale. Kale starts to climb over a stunned Trig to bite him when Trig pushes Kale down the shaft and into the turbine room. He sees Han, who tells Trig to climb down to the catwalk. Meanwhile, the zombies at the bottom are shooting up at them more and more accurately. Trig tries to climb but falls into the lifter that Sartoris was piloting. Sartoris flies around to get Han and Chewie. The overloaded lifer slowly descends into the crowd of zombies. In a moment of redemption, Sartoris gives Trig the controls and says "Your father was a good man. Unlike me" then jumps over the edge into the zombies. The group flies to the bridge to get Zahara but find the bridge on fire and only a hand and assume her to have been killed.

They get to the shuttle, where they find White dead inside. Han and Chewie fly the shuttle out of the hangar. They hear a noise and find a zombie inside the shuttle with them. The zombie kills the two men that were originally in the shuttle and is staring at Han. Just before it attacks, a blaster bolt from the back of the shuttle kills the zombie. Zahara steps out and explains that since the zombies are away from the source of the infection, the zombies die more easily. She explains that the hand they saw on the bridge was White's. He came to save her and while he did he said "A stranger saved me too." referring to Sartoris.

The crew fly off and reach a cantina. Han and Chewie leave to get the Millennium Falcon back. Zahara and Trig meet the wife of the guard who died on the barge to deliver the note Zahara had found on his body. The wife begins to cry and asks them to come in for tea. Zahara and Trig ultimately settle on the planet.

• ISBN 9780345509628 ; October 13 , 2009 ; Del Rey ; US hardcover, Science Fiction Book Club edition (1279855) [4]
• ISBN 9780593497067 ; August 2 , 2022 ; Del Rey; US paperback, The Essential Legends Collection edition [5]