Being cautious became harder soon you needed eyes in the back of your head-which some of them actually possessed. Every one of them seemed to harbor its own obscure appetites and personal grudges, personal histories blighted with shameful secrets and obscure vendettas. There were assassins for hire and sociopaths the likes of which Trig had never seen, thin-lipped things that cackled and sneered in seditious languages that, to Trig's ears, were little more than clicks and hisses. Sometimes the incoming shuttles returned almost empty on other occasions they came packed with squabbling alien life-forms and alleged Rebel sympathizers of every stripe and species. He guessed maybe five hundred, human and otherwise, scraped from every corner of the galaxy, just as he and his family had been picked up eight standard weeks before. Trig didn't know exactly how many prisoners the Purge was currently carrying.

There was no shortage of nightmares aboard the Imperial Prison Barge Purge. Sometimes he would actually start to drift off, floating away in that comforting sensation of weightlessness, only to be rattled awake- heart pounding, throat tight, stomach muscles sprung and fluttering- by some shout or a cry, an inmate having a nightmare. Night after night he lay still on his bunk and stared up at the dripping durasteel ceiling of the cell in search of sleep or some acceptable substitute. Even before his father's death, Trig Longo had come to dread the long hours after lockdown, the shadows and sounds and the chronically unstable gulf of silence that drew out in between them. DEATH TROOPERS Joe Schreiber Dramatis Personae Aur Myss prisoner (Delphanian male) Jareth Sartoris captain of the guard, Imperial Prison Barge Purge (human male) Kale Longo teen prisoner (human male) Trig Longo teen prisoner (human male) Waste 2-1B surgical droid Zahara Cody chief medical officer, Imperial Prison Barge Purge (human female) 1/Purge THE NIGHTS WERE THE WORST.

Death troopers by joe schreiber