Pax Empirica — The Wookiee Annihilation Pax Empirica — The Wookiee Annihilation is a short story written by Steven L . Kent published in " " . Plot summary . Stormtrooper Wayson Dower is part of an Imperial 200 - man troop ( with three speeder bike scouts ) tasked with a reconnaissance mission ( ordered by Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin ) to Kashyyyk in order to prepare the Wookiees ' homeworld for Imperial invasion . Captain Janzor , the leader of the unit , briefs the soldiers on the mission . He reveals that the area they will attack ( a treetop city ) is so overgrown with foliage that transports cannot land there , so the unit will have to march , and adds that there will be little to no support for the mission : TIE / LN starfighter s will be unable to assist because due to the vegetation it will take them some time to locate their target , and thus will be easily shot down when searching for the target , and the treetop cities ' platforms cannot support an AT - AT ' s weight . After Janzor remarks about a tale going around that Wookiees are actually evolved banthas , the troops are given time to prepare for the mission and rest . Dower and his friend Corporal Milo Strander stop at the Trooper ' s Canteen on the way to their quarters . They converse about the mission and other GeNode troopers . The conversation reveals quite a bit about clones , namely that they are psychologically programmed to ignore the fact that most of their comrades look and sound exactly like them , that they are psychologically programmed to think that they are not clones , and that they all develop unique personalities . They also observe the three sergeants selected for the mission , all of whom are from an earlier generation of clones than Strander and so more experienced than the rest of the clones . They also all have the same cold and strict by - the - rules personality . They are named Oswald Strepp , Tak Bazierre , and Dalia . After double - checking their equipment , the troopers enter a transport bound for Kashyyyk . The transport enters the atmosphere of Kashyyyk and , after eliminating a few Wookiees hiding in the trees , hits a large branch , knocking Sergeant Bazierre out of the cabin and into the forest . The pilot says that the trees are too thick to break through , and the troops must disembark in the skylift ( a device lowered from the transport to bring supplies and soldiers down from a height ) . Sergeant Strepp selects Dower to go down with the skylift and unload the supplies it lowers . As Dower goes down with the lift he spots the dead body of Sergeant Bazierre . All goes well until the skylift finishes lowering supplies , and a single Wookiee assaults Dower and nearly kills him until Strepp kills it with a single shot . After the skylift brings the soldiers down , Dower remarks to Strander that he thinks Strepp has a grudge against him . After Strepp orders Dower on point and then on guard duty that night , Dower confronts him , and Janzor tells Strepp to ease off on Dower ( although he still has guard duty ) . Janzor then tells the men they must attack a small outpost nearby in order to stop it from sending transmissions informing other Wookiees of the invasion . After arriving at the outpost , a Wookiee spots one of the speeder - bike scouts , and the element of surprise is lost . Janzor chooses five soldiers to storm the building ( two of them being Strepp and Dalia ) , and orders Strander and Dower to circle around and shoot any retreating Wookiees , and also tells the soldiers not to use thermal detonators as the building must remain in one piece . Strepp acts as a target for the Wookiees , drawing them out and letting Dalia and several other marksmen kill them . After most of the Wookiees are killed , three of them retreat from the building , and Dower guns them down , earning Strepp ' s respect . Janzor discusses the next steps of attack with Dalia and Strepp while Strander and the other troopers set up a barracks . After observing the equipment in the outpost and realizing that the Wookiees are more intelligent than they had been told , Dower goes on guard duty . Some time later , a massive attack force of Wookiees silently kill another stormtrooper guard and ambush the outpost . Dower runs back towards the post and as he nears it , sees several retreating stormtroopers , Strander among them . He advises Dower not to return to the outpost and Strepp orders Dower and the escaping troopers not to return . Janzor and a dozen other troopers are forced into the building by the sea of Wookiees ( Dalia is presumably dead by this point ) . However , the Wookiees retreat when Strepp climbs to the roof of the outpost and fires on the Wookiees . He draws their attention and continues to fire , ordering Dower and the other survivors to return to the drop site . Strepp tells Janzor he is dropping a thermal detonator to allow them to escape and tells them to drop to the ground when he says to and then run for open ground . He drops it and it goes off . The resulting explosion nearly destroys the outpost , kills Strepp and Janzor as well as other troopers , but kills many Wookiees and allows the surviving troops to escape . Strander and Dower briefly speak together and learn that there are five survivors of the battle : Dower , Strander , a soldier with Strander , and two troopers who escaped after Strepp used his detonator . Dower , Strander and the man with him , and the other two are an unknown distance apart . Strander wishes to use beacons that will show their locations through their helmet ' s vision in order to reunite the group , but Dower says they should not use their helmets anymore because the Wookiees may be monitoring them and says they should follow Strepp ' s order to return to the drop zone . After running for some time , Dower sees a large group of primal Wookiees and hides . He sees them torture two soldiers ( the two who survived thanks to Strepp ) who are holding onto tree branches . The Wookiees poke them with branches until they fall and then maul them . While still hiding , Dower sees a TIE fighter sized spider with an extremely low temperature reading a meter of branches below him . He stays absolutely still until Strander finds him . Dower expresses guilt over not helping the two troopers but Strander consoles him and says he could have done nothing to a large group of Wookiees . Strander introduces the other survivor , Private Sterns Yennich . Both are unarmed . Strander explains that the two of them were part of a five man group retreating from the base . Strander and Yennich were unarmed and Wookiees eventually picked off the three men in their group who had weapons . They then decide to wait for nightfall so they can use nightvision and have slightly better vision than the Wookiees . While they wait , Yennich discovers the tortured troopers ' weapons , and he and Strander scavenge them . After night falls , the three of them move forward as quickly as possible . Dower spots the spider again but ignores it and continues to run for the drop zone . Dower theorizes that the spider , living in the darkness under the treebranches , is blind or ultra - sensitive to light . Fortunately , the sun is coming up and will soon force the spider back into the darkness . Strander and Dower push forward through thick overgrowth , but Yennich runs towards a clearing with no branches that the spider is near . Dower tries to warn Yennich but realizes the audio on his helmet does not work . He watches the spider attack Yennich mercilessly with its icy claws . At one point it seems that Yennich will be able to shoot his way out but the spider bites through his armor , killing him . The spider then retreats down through the trees with Yennich ' s body just as the sun rises . Dower realizes that since his helmet ' s audio is not functioning he has been rendered deaf and throws away his helmet . Strander takes off his helmet while he and Dower discuss what they should do next , but suddenly they hear a voice radiate from Strander ' s helmet . It is one of the three speeder - bike scouts who accompanied their platoon , and they soon appear near the troops . The speeder - bike scouts explain that they had been looking for the survivors of the platoon all night and mentions that a much larger attack force landed a few hours after theirs . Dower realizes that his platoon only landed to distract the Wookiees from the main invasion force , and when he , Strander , and Yennich were running during the night , the Empire had captured a continent . Strander and Dower are returned to the cruiser , promoted to first sergeant , given medals , and will see no more action in the Kashyyyk campaign . Posthumuous medals are rewarded to the dead soldiers of their platoon . Dower briefly considers retiring and moving to a quiet corner of the galaxy , but then decides ( probably due to his obedient clone programming , if he was a clone ) that such a peaceful place only exists with the help of the Empire and he must serve the Empire and never retire . Behind the scenes . Clones . Published in November 2001 , " Pax Empirica " provided information on clone stormtroopers , several months before the release of " " . The story states that at the time of invasion , nearly 40 % of stormtroopers originated with the same template . It goes into detail on a part of the clones ' genetic programming that made them ignore their matching appearance of their comrades . It also details the development of personality among the clones , a theme expanded upon in " " Wookiees . The story suggests that Wookiees may have evolved from banthas . Supposedly , Neimoidian traders crashed on Kashyyyk with a cargo of banthas hundreds of years ago , which quickly adapted . This may correlate with " " , which reveals that approximately 30 , 000 years ago , the Rakata made Kashyyyk an agricultural planet , with a machine that encourages growth and ecosystem management . The machine malfunctioned , causing the massive tree growth on the planet . The machinery itself , as well as the nearby Star Map , were influenced by the Dark Side , which supposedly caused the extremely hostile environment of the Kashyyyk Shadowlands . The game also mentions the Wookiees ' legend that they were not native to the world , and speculates that they were put there as garden tenders for the agricultural planet . Timeframe . Although the story is said to take place a few years before , the invasion of Kashyyyk led by Tarkin takes place in 19 BBY in " " .