They've always been there, but FN-2187 ignores them. He has to. FN-3764 claimed to see invisible people, too, but she made the mistake of telling an officer.

She's gone now, and everyone knows she's not coming back.

FN-2187 doesn't ever remember not being able to see them. They're everywhere, and they speak, too—usually not when FN-2187 is around, but on occasion he rounds a corner to find several standing together, whispering to one another. They always fall silent until he marches past.

He doesn't know much about them except that they're all dead. They move as if solid, but they can drift through durasteel without any effort at all, as nonmaterial as mist. In the beginning he thinks they're stormtroopers. They wear armor that at first glance appears to be standard issue, but it isn't the design FN-2187 is used to seeing—it's outdated, with sharp edges and blocky shapes instead of rounded edges and sleek shapes. They aren't stormtroopers. They're… something else.

He makes the mistake of walking through one only once. The moment he does he's overwhelmed by such a cacophony of emotion that he'd stopped dead in his tracks, and it was only sheer luck that allowed him to recover before anyone noticed.

The ghost, when he'd risked a glance back, hadn't seemed perturbed, even though FN-2187 was all but shaking in his armor. The man had stared back at him, the expression on his face perfectly neutral.

… And that's another thing.

The ghosts all have the same face.

They're all fairly young, with the same bronze skin and the same nose and the same eyebrows and the same chin. Sometimes the hair is different, and some have little tattoos, but there's so many of them that FN-2187 quickly loses track despite the minor differences. He can't risk getting a closer look, either.

He wonders who they are, and why they hang around, but he knows he's not going to get answers. In the First Order, the curious are first to disappear. FN-2187 is a good soldier, one of the best in his class, and his superior officers have high hopes for him.

He learns to ignore the ghostly figures, eventually. There is no place for them in FN-2187's mind. Time passes. They fade to the background, easily ignored and only visible if he looks for them.

He doesn't. He has other things to worry about.

Slip gets hit by one of the training turrets on the last open stretch to the enemy base. FN-2187 doesn't see him go down, but the entire squad hears the muffled curse he lets out as he drops.

"Did Slip just get hit again?" Zeroes asks incredulously over comms. He and Nines are surging ahead across the simulated battlefield. FN-2187 drops down into cover as a barrage of lasers streak past. Careful to keep his head beneath the safety of the barrier, he glances back down the training room in an effort to glimpse their fallen squadmate.

"I can't see him," he reports quickly. "He could have fallen behind a barrier, or even moved there himself."

"You kidding me?" Nines mutters. "We might not be able to complete the course if we're a man down." FN-2187 risks a glance around the edge of his barrier to try and locate him and Zeroes. It's a bit difficult—their newly issued stormtrooper armor blends in with the white tiles of the giant training arena. They're several yards in front of him, similarly crouched behind a barrier. The turrets have pinned everyone down. FN-2187 clenches his fist around his blaster and looks back again.

"Slip could still be in this" he tells his squad. "Hang on."

"Eight-seven, don't do anything stu—"

FN-2187 is already moving. He doesn't allow himself time to think about it. The turrets are more focused on his closer teammates, and don't pick him out until he's vaulting over a barrier several yards back. Blaster bolts singe the top of his helmet as he slides down into cover once more. His heart pounds as the plasma impacts audibly with the other side.

"Sithspit, Eight-seven, you still alive?"

"Yeah," FN-2187 says breathlessly. He glances over to the side and sighs when he notices the still white body lying next to him. "I found Slip, too. He's—"

"Not done," Slip groans suddenly, raising his head. FN-2187 jumps and nearly hits him with the butt of his blaster in surprise. He'd thought his squadmate was unconscious.

"Thought you were done for, Slip," Nines says blithely. His words are interspersed with the sounds of his blaster firing. "They get you, or no?"

"Yeah, yeah, they got me," Slip grumbles. "But I'm not out this yet."

"Eight-seven?" Zeroes asks—telling him to make the call. FN-2187 frowns as he shifts forwards to inspect his comrade. The training turrets don't spit out anything lethal, but the plasma bolts are designed to paralyze from a direct hit. Slip isn't completely paralyzed, but he hasn't attempted to get up yet, which isn't a good sign.

"Where, Slip?" FN-2187 asks. He can't see his squadmate's face beneath the helmet, but he can imagine the scowl across the man's face. Slip hesitates for a long moment.

"Leg," he finally answers through gritted teeth. "My lower half is useless."

FN-2187 rolls him over to get a better look at the scorch mark on his thigh. It had only been a graze, but Slip is paralyzed from the waist down all the same.

He won't be of any use to them.

"He's done," FN-2187 reports tonelessly, turning to leave. "We'll have to do it with three."

"No, you—wait, Eight-seven, I can—" Slip grabs onto FN-2187's wrist. "I can still fight. I can still use my arms."

FN-2187 shakes him off.

"We're out of range, and if I try to drag you any closer the turrets will pick us both off," FN-2187 explains hurriedly, unsure of why he's justifying himself. Slip is useless now. He'll only slow the squad down. If a trooper can't manage themselves, they aren't fit to return to the First Order. That's the way things are, the way they've always been. Slip should know this.

"What's the holdup, Eight-seven? We need you up here," Nines calls. "If we can't take down these turrets somehow, we'll never even get close to the base."

"On my way," FN-2187 answers. "Give me just a second."

He rises as much as he dares with the turrets still active. Slip struggles to raise himself to a sitting position.

"Eight-seven, come on! If I don't finish this, I fail!"

FN-2187 takes a deep breath and turns away from him.

"Eight-seven—Eight-seven! Don't—!"

He's dead, FN-2187 thinks. He goes down, he's dead. Leave him. He can't help you.

He takes a step away.

"Aw, no, kid." The new voice is quiet, edged with sorrow. "You really gonna leave a brother behind like that? No, no, no. That's rule kriffing one, or'dinii."

FN-2187 jerks at the voice, spinning and raising his blaster. He freezes in shock when he sees who'd spoken.

It's… one of the ghosts. FN-2187 has been ignoring them for so long that it takes a moment to register the sight of the man standing a few feet away.

None of them have ever actually talked to him before.

"It's not going to do anything, brother. He can't hear you, remember?"

The man tears his gaze away from FN-2187 and turns towards a second ghost who appears beside him. He sighs. The two have the same voice, too.

"Yeah, I know. It's just… none of this sits right with me. They've destroyed everything we fought for, thousands of times over. These poor troopers are too brainwashed to know any better."

"It's not like we weren't brainwashed, either, you know."

"What the—?" FN-2187 blurts out, unable to stop himself. The ghosts are carrying on with their conversation, oblivious to the blaster bolts still streaking above their heads. Oblivious to Slip's continued pleads on the ground. Oblivious to the fact that FN-2187 can hear every word that leaves their mouths.

The two men turn to look at him slowly, raising eyebrows in near-perfect sync.

"What's wrong with him?" the second ghost asks. "He get paralyzed standing up or something?"

FN-2187 opens his mouth to say something and then thinks better of it.

He can't afford to interact with them now. That'll be admitting to himself that he's crazy, seeing things, unfit to serve the First Order. He's worked too hard to be brought down by this now.

He is a stormtrooper of the First Order, and he does not see dead people.

FN-2187 snaps his mouth shut, turns on his heel, and dives back into battle.

He leaves Slip behind the barrier.

Slip doesn't fail the simulation, but it's close. He'd apparently done enough damage to the training turrets before he'd gotten hit to pass.

FN-2187 is… glad, that he hadn't failed. If he had, he would have been replaced. Then their squad would have had to deal with a newcomer, and that's not something any squad wants.

FN-2187 realizes that the ghosts are following him pretty quickly, mainly because they won't. Stop. Talking. He's assuming it's the same two from the training facility (even though he really can't confirm it). They chat, loudly, about trivial things, like the lights illuminating the hall or the little mouse droid that goes careening past.

They won't kriffing shut up.

They follow him back to the barracks, where he deposits his weapon and strips off his helmet. They follow him to the mess, where he shovels down today's gray grub for dinner and tries to hold a conversation with Nines and Zeroes (it doesn't go very well). He gets a moment's reprieve when he steps into the 'fresher, but the moment he steps out again, they're back, talking through the dismantling of an F-11D blaster rifle and comparing it to something called a DC-15 for fun.

When FN-2187 returns to the barracks again just before the sleep cycle, tired and a little on edge, they sit at the foot of his bed and continue to talk.

It's almost impossible to fall asleep, and when he wakes from what little rest he'd managed to get, they're still there.

Talking.

It's still the middle of the sleep cycle—he'd been woken by their voices instead of his own Imperial-inner-clock. No one else is awake, and FN-2187 is losing his patience.

He manages to hold out for a few more minutes, grinding his teeth and mashing his face into the pillow (slab). Eventually, he makes a decision. It's probably a bad one, but at this point he'd do just about anything to get it to stop.

"Kriffing shut up," he hisses into the darkness. He refuses to look at them, stubbornly keeping his gaze locked on the ceiling.

That's all he says, but the ghosts fall blessedly silent for a moment.

Then:

"Heh. He can hear us. You owe me 10 credits, Echo." The voice is awfully smug. "Told you that would work."

"Shut up, Fives. We're dead, I don't have any credits to give you. Now let the kid sleep, we've tormented him enough as it is."

They don't say another word, and FN-2187 finally falls asleep.

When he wakes up the next morning, groggy and annoyed, his two tagalongs are gone. It's not just them, either—all of the ghosts are have disappeared. He goes around his business for the day and doesn't see a single one.

FN-2187 silently hopes that he's seen the last of them… but somehow, he knows they'll be back.

A/N: This is just for fun. My other star wars fic will take priority, but this will get updated every so often. Hope you enjoyed!

Mando'a:

Or'dinii- fool