Servants of the Empire

by Jason Fry

  © & TM 2015 Lucasfilm Ltd.

  All rights reserved. Published by Disney • Lucasfilm Press, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Lucasfilm Press, 1101 Flower Street, Glendale, California 91201.

  Cover illustration by Jim Moore

  ISBN 978-1-4847-1701-1

  Visit the official Star Wars website: www.starwars.com

  Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue: The Intake

  Part 1: Orientation

  Part 2: Impersonation

  Part 3: Infiltration

  Epilogue: The Inquisitor

  About the Author

  To my own fellow cadets, who taught me how to (usually) catch a baseball and to eat ice cream first so you have room for it. You know who you are.

  —J.F.

  Zare Leonis could tell the moment the Imperial officer read that Zare’s sister had gone missing.

  Sergeant Currahee was a squat, powerful-looking woman with a ruddy slab of a face and pale scars that snaked up from her collar and disappeared into her hair, which was the same industrial gray as her uniform. She was his intake officer at the Imperial Academy on Lothal, sitting across a bare metal table from him, a datapad in one meaty hand.

  “The intake tests show superior reaction time and field of vision for a fifteen-year-old,” Currahee said in her gravelly voice. “But you’re consistently slow in selecting between targets, Leonis—you’ll need to work on your initiative.”

  Currahee pursed her thin lips, her small black eyes scanning her datapad and then jumping to Zare’s face. She put down the datapad.

  “When you imagine yourself in Imperial service, what do you think about?” she asked, steepling her fingers and resting them against her chin.

  For a moment Zare let himself imagine what would happen if he told the truth: That he knew the Empire had lied about his older sister Dhara’s disappearance from this very academy. That Zare planned to pose as a model Imperial cadet while searching for Dhara and awaiting a chance to bring down the Empire. That he was in fact already an enemy of the Emperor’s regime—he’d even thrown detonators at an Imperial troop transport.

  He smiled to think of the shocked look that would transform Currahee’s face, then realized her eyes were fixed on him.

  “I just want to serve the Empire, ma’am,” he said, forcing himself to sit up straight and adopt a bright, determined expression.

  “And the issue of target selection, Leonis? How would you address that?”

  “Uh, I guess I need to learn how to assess tactical alternatives better, ma’am,” Zare said, running a hand through his wiry, close-cut black hair.

  “So maybe the Imperial Army is right for you?”

  “Whatever my superior officers think best, ma’am.”

  Currahee nodded without much interest, then picked up her datapad again.

  “You were center striker on your school’s grav-ball squad,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Zare said. “We were league champs.”

  “You must have some leadership qualities, then.”

  Zare dropped his eyes modestly, then nodded. That was what a model cadet would do, he hoped.

  “There are plenty of boys here with strong leadership abilities, though,” Currahee said. “Suppose your superior officers determine you can best serve the Empire as a stormtrooper, Leonis. Would that be…beneath you?”

  Zare thought back briefly to his neighbor Ames Bunkle, who’d entered the Academy with Dhara last year, then emerged as an expressionless Imperial drone, barely able to do more than recite parts of the stormtrooper manual.

  “I just want to do my part, ma’am,” he said stonily.

  Currahee’s eyes studied her datapad again, then jumped to Zare’s face. Up and down they went between him and whatever was on her screen.

  Zare knew at once that she had reached the part of his file that mentioned Dhara. He wondered if she was reading the same story Commandant Aresko had told Zare and his parents last spring—that Dhara had run away during a training exercise. Or perhaps the truth Zare was seeking so desperately was on that datapad, less than a meter away.

  He could rip the device out of her hands and read what it said—but it would be his last act before the Empire interrogated him and discovered everything.

  “Your sister abandoned her Academy training,” Currahee said simply, her eyes boring into Zare’s face.

  Zare managed not to scream that she was lying—that Dhara had been the loyal Imperial he was only pretending to be, and that she would never have run away without telling her family.

  He ducked his head, forcing himself to master his emotions, then looked up to meet Currahee’s penetrating gaze.

  “Is there any news about her?” he asked. “My parents and I have been so worried.”

  He knew there wasn’t any news—his girlfriend, Merei Spanjaf, had hacked into the insecure upper levels of the Academy’s data network and would alert him immediately if his sister’s status changed. But he still couldn’t help feeling a flutter of hope. Merei couldn’t see sensitive information. Perhaps Currahee knew something she didn’t.

  “The Empire is doing all it can to discover Cadet Leonis’s whereabouts and reunite your family,” Currahee said blandly, and Zare reminded himself that he couldn’t give the officer any hint that he didn’t believe her.

  Currahee looked down at her datapad, then up at Zare again.

  “Do you ever dream about your sister?”

  “What?” asked Zare, startled.

  “Ever dream you can see her somewhere, in a place you’ve never been? Or that she’s calling out to you?”

  Zare stared at Currahee, anger churning inside him. Then he shook his head slowly.

  “Of course I dream about Dhara—she’s my sister. But…they’re just dreams. Why are you asking me this?”

  “Just curious,” Currahee said, tapping at her datapad.

  Zare didn’t know Sergeant Currahee, but he was pretty confident she’d never been curious.

  “I’m recommending the standard orientation,” she said, then extended her hand and offered Zare a thin smile, one that didn’t reach her eyes. “Welcome to the Empire, Cadet Leonis.”

  Merei Spanjaf woke up when her datapad began warbling the familiar glissando that opened Plexo-33’s oldie “With You Among the Stars.” She hated that song so thoroughly that its first notes were enough to launch her out of bed and across the room to shut off the datapad.

  Treacly ballad silenced, Merei pawed fitfully at her short, sleep-mussed black hair and settled into the chair at her desk, fumbling the datapad into its power cradle. She replaced Plexo-33 with the bass rumble of a heavy isotope remix and idly scanned the news from her hand-picked list of feeds. The Empire had obliterated a slavers’ nest on Carrandar Secundus, Lothal grain production had exceeded ministry targets, and the Galactic League commissioner was reviewing a big proposed trade between the Shad Furies and the Eriadu Patriots.

  How thrilling, Merei thought, yawning as she loaded her messages. The administrator at Lothal’s Vocational School for Institutional Security—V-SIS—had invited her and the school’s other new students to an assembly about ethical practices in information security. She smiled as she added that to her calendar. If the administrator could see what she was going to do next, he’d be calling the authorities instead of summoning her to an ethics seminar.

  Fully awake now, Merei tapped out a brief series of commands on her datapad, humming along with the thump o
f the music. The program she executed masked her device’s ID, encrypted its transmissions, and rerouted them through several servers located elsewhere on Lothal. Satisfied that no one could trace her datapad’s inquiries back to her family’s apartment in Capital City, Merei began searching her usual list of Imperial databases for any mention of Dhara Leonis.

  Merei didn’t have access to any truly vital information, but the top levels of the Empire’s various databases on Lothal were insecure, a product of the haste with which they’d been set up. Merei checked the Imperial Academy’s records for Dhara and got the same answer she always did: Dhara Leonis’s status was INACTIVE.

  Curious, she typed in the name Zare Leonis, then smiled when the record came up ENROLLED.

  Merei let her fingertip rest for a moment on her boyfriend’s name, wondering what he was doing. They’d parted two days before—Zare for the Academy and Merei for V-SIS—and Merei knew they wouldn’t be able to talk for two weeks, until Zare had completed cadet orientation.

  The song ended and Merei shook her head. Daydreaming would make her late for school. She searched the Empire’s law-enforcement alerts for any mention of Dhara, then the customs and identification-processing databases, then six or seven more she’d managed to gain access to over the summer.

  There was nothing.

  Merei sat back in disappointment, the heels of her palms pressed against her eyes.

  “Merei, are you awake?” her mother, Jessa, yelled. “It’s time to get moving.”

  “I know, Mom,” Merei said, quickly exiting her concealment program and blanking her datapad’s screen. She looked at the datapad in consternation for a long moment, seeing herself dimly reflected there.

  This isn’t working, she thought. I can’t reach the information I need. I have to go deeper.

  The thought frightened her. Her parents, Jessa and Gandr, were both data-security specialists who worked as contractors for a number of Imperial ministries. Merei had heard their tales of intrusions tracked back to would-be saboteurs and thieves. Most of them never knew they’d been caught until the stormtroopers arrived at their doors.

  The prying she’d done into the Empire’s networks was already risky. If she tried to penetrate the more-secure records, she was risking interrogation, detention, and worse.

  Merei shook her head. It was dangerous, but Zare was in danger, too—he had willingly joined the Academy despite his sister having vanished during her service as a cadet. And their friend Beck Ollet was in Imperial custody for his ill-fated attempt at rebellion, his fate unknown.

  She would have to try. She owed that to Zare…and to Beck and Dhara.

  But not right now. Right now she needed to shower, and get a cup of caf, and go to school.

  Before she pulled her shirt over her head Merei scowled at the inactive datapad, its screen a mocking blank.

  Where are you, Dhara? People vanish into thin air, but information doesn’t. There must be a trace somewhere. I’ll find it—and then I’ll find you.

  It was autumn on Lothal, but the summer heat still lay heavily over the Easthills, leaving the tall green grass shimmering ahead of the sweating, gasping cadets struggling up the slope.

  “CADETS! MOVE IT!” barked Currahee, running back and forth along the line of cadets. The sergeant’s gray shirt was dark with sweat and her face was red, but her short legs kept hammering along the paved roadway.

  “Doesn’t that witch ever get tired?” gasped Jai Kell.

  “Apparently not,” Zare muttered beside Jai. He turned to Nazhros Oleg and Pandak Symes. “Come on, guys, let’s step it up before she hands out more demerits.”

  “Never mind Curry—what about Chiron?” gasped Jai, swiping at the sweat running into his eyes.

  Zare followed Jai’s eyes to Currahee’s slim and handsome superior officer, Lieutenant Chiron. He was gliding gently along the roadway ahead of the cadets, not a hair out of place.

  “He’s not even breathing hard,” Zare said in disbelief.

  “That’s because he doesn’t breathe—he’s inhuman,” Jai replied.

  There were four squads of cadets toiling up the hills. Each squad had eight cadets, divided into two units. Zare’s squad was NRC-077, and he, Kell, Oleg, and Symes were Unit Aurek.

  Chiron saw the cadets looking at him and gave them a cheerful wave.

  “Beautiful morning, isn’t it, gentlemen?” he said. “But then every morning in the Emperor’s service is beautiful! Every ration square’s the finest nerf steak! Every bunk’s a featherbed! Oh, to be an Imperial cadet out for a stroll on the beautiful planet Lothal!”

  “That man’s crazy—this is the worst morning on the worst planet in the whole galaxy,” muttered Jai.

  The cadets who could spare the breath muttered and groaned as Chiron ran effortlessly up the hill. Zare could hear Symes gasping behind him. He dropped back beside the slim boy, who looked glassy-eyed.

  “Come on, Pandak—it can’t be too much farther,” Zare said. “Just focus on the next few steps.”

  “I don’t think I can make it,” Pandak managed through gritted teeth.

  “You’re right—you can’t,” hissed Oleg from the other side of the struggling boy. “You’re a failure, Symes. Quit and go home.”

  The other cadet’s predatory grin made Zare angry.

  “Leave him alone, Nazhros,” he warned him.

  “I told you not to call me that,” Oleg warned. “Pretty soon you’ll call me ‘sir.’ For now, it’s just Oleg.”

  Before Zare could reply, Currahee pushed between Zare and Pandak, glaring at the squad.

  “Are you having a MORNING CHAT, Unit Aurek?” she bellowed. “Is the pace TOO SLOW for you, Unit Aurek?”

  “No, ma’am!” Zare yelled, hastily joined by Jai.

  “Apparently it is, or you’d be RUNNING instead of TALKING,” she roared. “CADETS! UNIT AUREK WANTS US TO GO FASTER! PICK IT UP, CADETS! DOUBLE TIME! UP THE HILL!”

  Zare groaned as the knot of boys began to run faster.

  “Nice job, Aurek,” gasped a pale cadet from Unit Cresh.

  “Yeah, way to go, losers,” another managed.

  One cadet staggered off the roadway and clutched at his heaving stomach.

  “Pandak!” Zare urged. “Stay with us! We’re almost at the top of the hill! You can do this!”

  Currahee had dropped back to scream at the sick cadet. He managed a shaky jog.

  “WHO WANTS TO QUIT? WHO WANTS TO QUIT RIGHT NOW?” Currahee roared, staring at each cadet in red-faced fury as she passed him. “IT CAN ALL BE OVER IN A SECOND, GENTLEMEN! JUST SAY ‘I QUIT’ AND THE DROID TRUCK WILL TAKE YOU BACK DOWN THE HILL! BACK TO YOUR MOMMIES AND YOUR NANNY DROIDS! COME ON! WHICH OF YOU WORTHLESS CADETS WILL BE THE FIRST TO QUIT?”

  Zare ignored the bellowing sergeant, but couldn’t help thinking of his own mother, Tepha. He had told her what he’d learned—that the Empire was lying about Dhara having run away, and that they’d killed peaceful protestors and claimed they were rebels. She’d been aghast at his plan to follow Dhara into the Academy, only agreeing after he promised to desert at the first hint that he might suffer whatever fate had befallen his sister.

  Then there was the Leonis family nanny droid, the ancient model known for generations as Auntie Nags. Zare wondered what she would think of Currahee.

  That woman has no manners, he could imagine Auntie Nags sniffing, her photoreceptors switching from yellow to red. Imagine, treating children that way!

  He allowed himself a grin—which immediately brought a furious Currahee to his side.

  “WHAT ARE YOU SMILING AT, LEONIS?” Currahee roared.

  “Nothing, ma’am!” Zare barked, eyes straight ahead.

  Currahee settled in beside Zare as the cadets struggled up the long rise, her little black eyes fixed on his face.

  “This is where your sister abandoned her comrades, isn’t it, Leonis?” she barked.

  Zare’s head wheeled around to stare at the sergeant, teeth bared in fury.
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  “Leonis! I asked you a question!”

  “Don’t know, ma’am!”

  “Aren’t you going to do the same thing, Leonis?” Currahee demanded.

  “No, ma’am!” Zare said.

  “I don’t believe you, Leonis! You’re lying! Isn’t that right, Leonis?”

  Chiron had dropped back to parallel Currahee and Zare. He looked intrigued, but also concerned.

  “No, ma’am!” Zare yelled.

  “Yes, you are! You’re just wasting the Empire’s time! Aren’t you, cadet?”

  “NO, MA’AM!” Zare screamed.

  On the way from the mess hall to the barracks that night, Zare dropped back from the crowd of tired cadets to walk next to Symes, who was trudging along by himself, eyes hollow with exhaustion.

  “You okay, Pandak?” Zare asked in a low voice.

  The other boy managed to nod. “It’ll get better, right? It has to.”

  “It will,” Zare said.

  “You promise?” Pandak asked with a grim smile.

  Zare clapped him on the shoulder.

  “Yes, I do. Look, Pandak: my sister was a cadet last year. Orientation’s when they try to weed you out. She said it felt like forever, but it’s only two weeks. After that things get easier. We’ll be in shape for the drills, and they’ll lift the communications blackout.”

  “Are your parents worried about you?” Pandak asked.

  Zare hesitated.

  “My mother is,” he said, thinking that for once he was telling the truth. Zare’s father, Leo, still believed in the Empire as a force for good in the galaxy and had no idea what Zare had discovered about Dhara, or what he intended to do.

  “What about your folks, Pandak?” he asked, hoping to draw out the anxious boy.

  “They’re not worried,” Pandak said, shaking his head sadly. “My parents don’t believe in failure. They’re both career Imperial Army—Colonel and Major Symes. They told me this was my first stop—achieve honors here, then qualify for Arkanis Academy, or maybe Marleyvane. And then Raithal when I’m eighteen. Or Corulag at the very least.”

  Zare nodded. Lothal was a one-year junior academy, and its graduates would move on to a longer stint at one of the senior academies elsewhere in the Outer Rim. After seniors, the very best cadets would enter a specialized service academy for officer training with the Army, Navy, or Stormtrooper Corps, while the others would go straight into the Imperial military. Some would return to their homeworld to enforce the Emperor’s will; others would serve him on any of the Empire’s millions of other planets.