TK 421: My Story

by Dathomir

Totally random evidence of my insanity. I always wondered what became of Stormtrooper TK421, the one Han stole his armor from in episode 4. He might have died, I don't know. This fic assumes he didn't. Please R&R. Flames Welcome

This is the story of Imperial Stormtrooper TK 421.

I tried my best to serve the Empire. I carried out my orders and I did my duty. For the first ten years of my service, I really believed in the cause of Imperial Justice. I don't know when I first began to have doubts. Maybe it was after Imperial Stormtroopers, from a battalion stationed on my ship, were cruelly murdered for having deliberately missed while massacring innocent aliens on Corellia, who had failed to report a profit to the Imperial Auditing Authority. I knew that somehow, somewhere, I was going to have to come to terms with my doubts. I continued to serve my Empire, and I did my job well. Partly for my valiant efforts, our battalion was stationed on the Death Star. I am the only Stormtrooper from my battalion left know. I have been for the past forty years. They all perished on the Death Star, when the ragtag group known as the Rebel Alliance was able to destroy the most feared emblem of Imperial tyranny, while extinguishing more than a billion lives in the process. Am I against the Rebels, or, as they are now called, the New Republic? I don't know. I was one of the Stormtroopers who stood guard on the Millennium Falcon when it was pulled into the Death Star, and I was humiliated by two of the most famous Rebels of all. Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. They removed my armor, gagged me and threw me into a small cargo hold beneath the deck plates, presumably for the concealment of illegal goods from the likes of me. I managed to escape by kicking against the walls of the compartment until one of my companions heard the noise and found me. It was LS 667 who untied me and secreted me out of the ship so that my commanding officer would have no chance to berate me. My "offense" would have been immediate grounds for dismissal under any normal officer, but Lt. Maj. Kross-Hulrt was renowned as one of the most bloodthirsty and sadistic officers in the whole Imperial military. I remember when a Stormtrooper, TR 553 if I recall correctly, reported for duty drunk, Kross-Hulrt asked him to report to his office. LS 667 and I, who were stationed outside the door of Kross-Hurlt's office, heard screams of pain and then a thump, which abruptly stopped the screaming. This was followed by a laugh from inside the office. It did not sound remotely human. It was a cruel twisted cackle. That officer was not only cruel; I had no doubts that he was insane as well. LS 667 looked at me, and we ran. If Kross-Hurlt ever remembered exactly which two Stormtroopers had deserted their posts, we would have suffered the same fate as poor TR553. I later heard that Kross-Hurlt had also escaped from the Death Star before its destruction. After I found that out, I did a little research. Turns out he was running a petty but ruthless dictatorship on a backwater world. I hijacked an Imperial TIE bomber from the Ubiqtorate Base at Yaga Minor and killed him by dropping a bomb on his speeder as he drove to his palace. No one knows this, there were no witnesses. The New Republic Law Enforcement branch report on him says that he is "Missing, Presumed dead" and goes on to say that there are no suspects and no evidence. I am sorry for that tangent, but I am the only one who knows the fate of Lt. Maj. Kross-Hurlt of Kine. As I was saying, LS 667 secreted me into Vehicle Deep Storage on Level GH4, Sub-level TT67 on the Death Star, and we stole a ship. Pretending to be Imperial secret agents, we coaxed takeoff clearance from Fleet Command, and we were off. I did not know until later that we had taken a ship belonging to Grand Moff Tarkin himself, and I always wondered what he might have thought happened if he found out about it before his own fiery death. The ship was heavily armed, and the two of us considered going privateer, but in the end we sold the ship for 1.5 million credits and went to ground with the bounty we had found on the ship itself. A cool 3 million credits in cash, plus several artifacts worth a great deal more, like a Corellian flame sculpture that sits in my study to this day. With this cash, two former Imperial Stormtroopers became legit civilians, buying a plot of land on an out-of-the way world and settling down. We assumed our civilian names once more. Eliaziir Fenmarr from Llord, and Cecill Baine Montesqqe of Thrace. Now LS 667, or C.B. Montesqqe has passed on, and I am slowly dying myself. The doctor always looks very grave when he comes, and I have trouble remembering things sometimes now. The doctor says that it will get worse before the end, and that is why I now write this. Soon I will be gone from this life, and the galaxy will have lost one small thread of remembrance for the tapestry of the universe.

"The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work that they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this earth."

-A. L., 1863