The best gunners in the Empire were assembled to defend the Death Star against a large-scale assault. Little did they realize that the Rebel attack would consist of small squadrons of starfighters, rather than a massive armada.

However, it is to the gunners’ credit that most of the Rebel fighters never even made it to the exhaust port canyon, where Imperial TIE fighters and more mounted guns awaited.

Most gunners trained exclusively for heavy weaponry duty, although many were potential pilots who failed to make the grade yet had a keen eye and were very good with the equipment. Even though very few people ever chose to become a gunner, the gunners were still an exceptionally loyal and proud bunch of recruits.

A number of these groups were shipped wholesale to the Death Star on the assumption that they would fight better together and would require less training. But somewhere that inspired and quite logical idea got lost and an overzealous officer under General Tagge distributed the gunners in alphabetical order about the vessel. This added yet another hole in the Death Star’s defensive net at the worst possible moment-when unified firing and probability-generated spread-patterns should have been employed to easily blanket and destroy the incoming Rebel fighters.

The Death Star fiasco, as it was called throughout the Empire, clearly illustrates how so many little things, when combined, can render the whole asunder. It also gave the Empire some much-needed lessons in humility and brought the Rebellion into full swing.

Still, the Death Star gunners, as individuals, could operate a shipboard weapon with more skill and accuracy than any automatic targeting computer being employed. They were a proud, select, and extremely talented few. The Empire shall miss their skills.

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