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The Pengalan Tradeoff

Author: Aaron Allston
Artist: Tommy Lee Edwards
Publisher: Star Wars Insider (#65)
Publication Date: February 2003

Reviewd by Andrew Liptak

Summary: On Pengalan, a Republic attack to destroy a Separatist manufacturing facility goes bad and a Republic Intelligence officer, Joram Kithe is stranded with a small platoon of clone soldiers. He has to use his own skills to lead the soldiers and get off planet, while overcoming his own cowardice.

What Worked: This is the first Clone Wars story, one of many to come. To put it quite frankly, this story rocked. All of it. Aaron Allston is one of my favorite writers, and this short story doesn't disappoint. In the story, Joram Kithe is a Republic Intelligence officer, and is shot down with a platoon of clone troopers. There, they find that the mission that they set off to do has failed, and that they can finish it.

I love the clone troopers, ever since I saw them in action in Attack of the Clones. I also really like military Science Fiction, so it was good to see something like it in Star Wars. These soldiers are awesome, and it was great to see them in action again, in the first Clone Wars story.. Allston does a great job sorting them out. Joram is first confused at which it which, giving them nicknames later on. I liked how Joram eventually found that he could tell who was who. That is a big plus.

Overall, the characterization was excellent. Aaron does a great job with Joram Kithe, showing us who he is, and how he leads the group of clones on Pengalan. The Clones were more difficult, being identical, but he pulls it off. One of the things that we see is that they're very close-minded, always sticking to procedure. This story is also the first to really look at the clones in combat, and it's pretty cool.

Plot-wise, the story was flawless. Everything goes in a logical manner, from start to finish. They're shot down, capture a transport, shoot some things, do some scouting, blow some things up and escape. It was an exciting story.

For those readers who have read Allston's portion of the X-Wing series, you'll know that he's got a nice strain of humor that he puts into his works. This story is no exception. There are some great lines in this story. "Sir, what do we do if a villager comes across our site?" "You catch him, kill him, cook him and eat him." "Sir! Cannibalism is against procedures!" This story certainly sets a high bar.

What Didn't Work: Only one thing. While Allston's great with characters, he didn't really show us how frightened Joram was. I believe that he was very scared of fighting and responsibility in general, but this wasn't shown as well as it could have been. There are several times when he says that he's scared, nervous, or terrified, but when reading it, I didn't pick up on that until later. Other than that, there wasn't much wrong with it.

Who should read it?: Allston fans and anyone who's interested in the Clone Wars or clone troopers. In other words, everyone.

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