2nd Lieutenant Kaz-lath Rhykis

Bravo Squad

Classified Subdivision (Psst… that means "ugly alien pit")

Commandos' Corps

Imperial Elite

Imperial Army

22 R.G.C.

I didn't put on my watch this morning, but I'm pretty sure it's nighttime

The ladies love a man in uniform, especially a military man. You sign up for the IA (that's badass military lingo for "Imperial Army") and the women will just throw themselves at you. That was my thinking when I signed on; that and my options were pretty closed because of my lousy education. Actually, Dad paid for a pretty damned good education, I just didn't care enough to exploit it.

And you know what, I still really don't care.

Dad's a politician. He worked his ass off in the Republic before I was born, and was an Imperial Senator representing Chandrila, for as long as there was an Imperial Senate. Today, he's somewhere in the Imperial government; a governor of something, maybe Chandrila. Probably not. The New Order stuffed me into the "top secret aliens" corps for being a Zabrak, so it's likely that they don't take kindly to the idea of a Zabrak being an Imperial Governor. I should've worn a hat and told them I was human.

I mean honestly, I can understand putting the giant fish here. The lizard monster? Definitely. Even the fuzzy dog man should be segregated. But really, I'm a frelling human with spikes on my head! They seriously wouldn't know the difference if I was wearing a hat, I don't even have that many tattoos.

This whole "hiding-me-away" shit isn't going to work out. I signed on for a government paycheck and to get me some ass. How are the ladies going to flock to me if I'm hidden away in some top-secret facility/concentration camp thing? I'm too damned good at what I do.

I didn't know I was an elite marksman. I shot some game with Dad back on Chandrila every once in a while, but I never thought I could be the all-powerful sniper that they make me out to be. That's why I'm here, that's why I'm too damned good; they hide me because an alien shouldn't be able to put a bolt through an Ugnaught from ninety meters. Hell, I'm so good that this Surface Marshall Morril commissioned me from Sarge to LT (awesome military lingo for "lieutenant") and 86ed (that's badass military lingo for "forgot about" or "gave up on" or "screwed") officer's training school. Now I get a full commissioned officer's paycheck ever week and I get to lazy-salute instead of the full deal.

But, of course, there's some alleged responsibility with the title. I haven't seen it yet since I'm second in command to this squad; I guess if the fish monster kicks the bucket, I'll have to deal with the chumps. My thinking, though, is that if these guys are all as good as me, we haven't got a thing in the Galaxy to worry about. We're supposed to be the finest in the Galaxy, like right below the big E's Royal Guards. The Morril guy told me all about them before we all officially met.

Supposedly, that Sergeant Hiska Dey'Vega is the only documented black Bothan ever seen by the Empire. Morril said that nobody can sneak as well as the little doggy, that I could be standing in the middle of Imperial Center in broad daylight and he could make off with my kidneys without being seen. I'm skeptical, but that's from a Surface Marshall, so I guess he must be right; I'll keep an eye on my organs when the kid's around. Oh, that's the other thing; he's even younger than me; Hiska's only like 17 years old or something. Crazy, huh? He's that good at what he does, already an NCO, and only seventeen years old.

Now, it's that big guy who really worries me. The Trandoshan, Sergeant Larosz. He's like me in that he doesn't tell people his first name; we can curse our parents together for having lame and incomprehensible names. Of course, that's the only way he's like me. This guy is frelling gigantic. I mean, I know the T'doshok come big, but I know they don't come this big. In the Galactic Basic Dictionary, they should have a picture of Larosz next to the word "Juggernaut." If I had to guess, which I do, I'd say he's about 8 or 9 feet tall and probably a good 350 pounds of steel-crushing bulk. If I had to guess, which I don't, I'd say his purpose in our squad was to throw meteors at our enemies; but Morril says he's demolitions and heavy weapons. Looking at that guy, he could probably carry three tanks of fuel to hold a flame projector in each hand while they were mounted on top of rocket launchers. And no, I'm absolutely not exaggerating. The way he talks too, it's creepy, always practically a whisper, stretching out the "s" sounds like all Trandossssssshanssssssss do. Oh, and don't get me started on his smell; the big guy always smells like a walking butcher shop. I swear, if I have to share a bunk with that guy, I will lay the hammer down: "no skinning animals on your mattress!" Well, I'd probably ask a lot nicer than that. Actually, I think I'd rather put up with the smell than have to give him an order.

The last is the fish boss-man himself, Captain Durlock Acibor. I'm told that if you cover your eyes, Acibor is the most charismatic squad leader in the universe; I wouldn't know that, I haven't covered my eyes. The guy's a five foot tall blue Mon Calamari with the craziest accent I've ever heard. But hell, I only started this journal because he told me to, and I don't think I'd have done it otherwise. Taking orders is for chumps, I've always said, but the way that fish tells you to do things… it's odd, it's like he's politely asking you to do them, but with the underlying tone that he knows you'll do it. Of course, that's given you can understand him.

After my meeting with Surface Marshall Morril, I was sent across the hall to a waiting room where I met Dey'Vega and Larosz; though "met" was more like "sat in awkward silence with." But it wasn't too long before we were called into the SM's (there's some lingo again, it means "Surface Marshall's") office to meet our squad leader, and there he was. We all filed into the small room and stood at attention until the guy with the shinier uniform told said,

"At ease. Captain Acibor, meet your squad: 2nd Lieutenant Rhykis here is your expert marksman and your next of rank, Sergeant Larosz is demolitions and heavy weapons, and the little Bothan here is Sergeant Dey'Vega, stealth ops specialist." I was pleased with the introduction, you know, I like being referred to as "expert" anything. But what made me raise an eyebrow was the Captain's response,

"Aroight, 'ey'lldo; oygess theserr me newlads. Oyll makem th'fines groupahtroopahs in th'Galaxy boymorning." I just assumed he was speaking Mon Calamarian or something, but after hearing him speak a few more times, I eventually ran it over in my head to decipher: "All right, they'll do; I guess these are my new lads. I'll make them the finest group of troopers in the Galaxy by morning." It didn't take me too long to get used to his speech, but damn was it a shocker at first. I looked to see how the other guys were reacting, Larosz just stood there like a monolith in his specially-crafted Storm Commando armor while Dey'Vega was clearly rolling over the dialogue in his head; of course, I'd come to learn that Hiska did that with everything he heard. Apparently part of his stealth ops genius is to analyze speech for implied subtext and other codes.

So there I stood, labeled a freak alien expert marksman. We had all gotten uneasily acquainted and waited for Surface Marshall Morril to tell us exactly what we were going to have to do in our new top secret disgusting alien squad. To be honest, I certainly was curious, what extraordinary adventures would we be going on? Were we off to assassinate the Rebel leader, Mon Mothma? Were we going to serve personal guard duty for Emperor Palpatine? Or were we going to go put a stop to some horrible crime lord's reign of terror in the Outer Rim? Turns out, it was none of the above:

"You are to be attached to the Harbinger Battle Group, specifically aboard the Imperial Star Destroyer Herald. A Lambda is waiting outside to take you up. Get aboard and await further orders. Clear?"

I reflexively snapped to an enlisted salute, still not quite used to the whole officer thing yet, "Crystal, sir!" The four of us called out in unison,

"Very good. Praise Palpatine! Carry on!" He gave a quick officer's salute back, cuing our exit. We let the fish Captain go first and fell into formation behind him as we walked down the hall toward the landing pad.

Captain Acibor started talking to us just as soon as the SM's door closed, "Aroight, gents. I don't really know you, an' you don't really know me; but I guarantee you tha'll change pretty damn fast. You follow my orders, I respect the lot o' you, an' we'll get along all peachy-keen loike. You get me, soldiers?"

Dey'Vega and Larosz quickly spouted out, "Sir, I get you, sir!" But I wasn't really paying attention, so I sort of mumbled a half-assed "I get you." Now he didn't like that one bit, the Captain suddenly halted and moved his arm to the "stop" hand signal,

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant Rhoikis, I think I heard the wind…" there was definite sarcasm in his voice as he turned around to face me, "I'll go a bit easy on ya since you're a commissioned officer an' it must've been a whoile, but I'm pre'y sure they taught in something on Carida, no? Don't you know that when speakin' to a superior officer, the last and first words out o' your mouth will always be 'sir?' Are they not teachin' that ta you young folks?"

Of course the drill sarges taught us that, it's a cornerstone of Imperial military respect, and the fish boss-man knew it. He was frelling with me, reminding me who's boss; and let me tell you, I never forgot it, "Sir, no, sir! Sorry, sir!" I quickly spouted out. He smiled, nodded, and continued walking.

The shuttle ride was a bit less awkward. Standing in the center of a High Command facility can be pretty unnerving; now that we were out of that situation, we had all calmed down and slightly opened up. I sat next to Dey'Vega, with Larosz and Captain Acibor seated across. Me and the little Bothan got to talking, getting to know each other a little better; a conversation with Dey'Vega can be kind of difficult, if you watch his eyes, you see that he's analyzing every single sentence you say, running it back and forth in his mind to see exactly what you mean with each word. He told me he was the last of his kind. Apparently, his clan had moved off of Bothawui about a century ago to some backwater Outer Rim world; sure enough, it wasn't a good idea. He said the rest of his kin were gobbled up by some horrible gigantic lizard monster. Is it a bad thing that I looked at Larosz while he was talking about it? Probably. The big guy was chatting with the blue boss-man, but the way he whisper-speaks with all the hissing, I couldn't really hear it; Dey'Vega probably could, he must hear everything with those huge ears of his.

I told the Bothan about myself, too. A lot, actually, he seemed much more interested in learning about me than telling me about him; a funny thing, really, since people have a tendency to talk about themselves rather than listen to others. I guess that's what makes him an expert intelligence gatherer, he actually tries listening rather than just waiting to talk. I told him about my upbringing, how privileged I was (and am, I guess), I explained how I'm not really a "true" Zabrak, being clanless and all. Now that piqued his interest, so I explained how true it is that I'm just a spiky human. The whole clan business doesn't interest me or my family; hell, the only tattoos I have are the birth one and the coming-of-age one. The really orthodox clan-Zabrak have more tattoos than skin by my age, I always wonder if it's healthy to have that much ink in you.

I really like that Dey'Vega, he's a good guy. I'm not sure he can stand my sense of humor though; the kid is really heavy into the whole clan respect and stiffness thing, so much so that I don't think he gets any of my jokes. It's all right; he'll get it all in time. I'm pretty damned sure we'll be locked into this whole deal for a while. If I had known I was going to end up here, I wouldn't have even signed on; hell, I'd get out now if I thought I could. There's something about the confidentiality of this situation that tells me I wouldn't live to sign the resignation papers.

But then again, the power that I now hold is really awesome. That's the second reason I signed on with the Empire, and I was reminded of it as the Lambda-Class Shuttle approached the Imperial Battle Group. The Empire is incredibly powerful; the Imperial Military is the greatest fighting force that has ever existed in the history of the Galaxy, and now I'm a major part of it.

When I was first going to sign on with the IA back on Chandrila, some of my more liberal friends were against it. You know, the old Rebel shit: "But the Empire is evil, man!" "How can you help those cruel oppressors?" "Do you know what they did on Ghorman?" Frell, man, the bottom line is that I really, really don't care one way or the other. It all goes back to the chief precept of Rhykis' military career: Good or bad, we're the guys with the Star Destroyers. You can take your whole revolution crap and shove it just right back up your ass when your planet is turned into a smoldering wasteland by a battery of sixty Taim & Bak XX-9 turbolasers. Yeah, have fun supporting the Rebellion, dumbasses. I'll just sit here and stroke my modified BlasTech E-11 sniper rifle, wearing my comfortable, climate-controlled standard-issue Storm Commando battle armor. You can bathe yourself in dirt and throw rocks at the AT-ATs.

I remembered all of these wonderfully awesome thoughts as the shuttle was enveloped by the shiny whiteness of the Herald's landing bay. The little "hiss" of the boarding ramp's pneumatic lifts made me feel important as me and the guys strode out of the shuttle. Sadly, there weren't rows and rows of Stormtroopers to greet us, just one ensign in his green Navy uniform,

"You must be the 'special guests' that Command referred to, I'm Ensign Ivan Montfore," he said with an enlisted salute, "I'm to take you directly to your quarters, no questions asked." I really like the whole cloak-and-daggerness, even if it does keep the ladies at bay; even though it's supposed to create just the opposite, the aura makes me feel like the center of attention.

Captain Acibor fed the ensign an officer's salute and nodded silently, cuing the greenie to lead us through the blocky corridors of the Star Destroyer to an unmarked door. He punched some button on the wall, causing the door to slide open, revealing a spartanly-furnished room: two bunks, one water closet, some compartments, and a communications console. It certainly wasn't the Palace Hotel at Imperial Centre, but at least it was semi-private. I only had one critical thought in my head: I will not, under any circumstances, take the bunk under Larosz.

The ensign left us silently.

"What do we do now, Captain?" I asked, pressing some buttons on the compartments,

The boss-man answered standing perfectly upright, just like he always does, as if someone had put too much starch in his uniform, "We do what we always do, Lieutenant; we follow orders. Unfortuantely, our orders roight now are to await further orders. So that's what we do. If you don't understand the whole 'doin' our job' part of bein' a soldier, I moight need ta foind meself a new number-two man."

I pulled myself up into my most military-looking stance and replied, "Affirmative, sir, awaiting further instructions!" I got the feeling it wouldn't be the first time that military effectiveness would conflict with my tragic apathy.