Chapter IV:
"Let's move." A pair of stormtroopers grabbed Percy roughly by the arms and led him off the ramp and onto the hard pavement. The shuttle door closed behind them with a loud hiss, and the twin rectangular engines roared to life as it prepared to take off.
Based on the light blue color of the sky above and lush green vegetation around him, Carida was the polar opposite of Mustafar, which was a nice change of pace. Granted, everything else that came with the planet was yet to be determined. Looks could be deceiving.
In front of him stood multiple concrete and glass structures that were entrenched into the earthen ground, making up the borderline of the city. Through the spaced out windows, Percy saw officers donning the Imperial insignia moving back and forth with haste. Mindless and emotionless, like the droids they worked with.
"Don't think about running." One of the stormtroopers said when he caught Percy blankly staring at the main entrance gate.
Percy retaliated by purposefully slowing down and dragging his feet, making the stormtroopers carry most of his body weight. He wasn't going to make them feel more empowered than they had to be. And besides, at this moment, trying to escape was on the bottom of his to-do list. There was no point. Now if he could just shower, change his sweat-ridden clothes, and get some semblance of sleep, he'd be in a much more cooperative mood. Right now he felt like a half-baked zombie that wasn't sure if it was dead or alive.
The uniformed attendant running the customs and checkpoint station inspected Percy like he was about as interesting as the floor they were standing on. Which wasn't very interesting at all. And honestly, he couldn't blame her.
"Proceed." The lady said blankly, her mind already on the group coming in behind them.
Percy was hit with a brick wall of confusion once they entered the main part of the city. From the outside looking in it seemed like it was going to be a burgeoning, militarized metropolis when in fact most of it was just a mosh pit of run-down wooden and brick houses. Squeezed in between these were makeshift tents and shelters.
People dressed in simple woolen and cotton attire criss crossed through the streets in front of him, carrying various items and never making eye contact with him or the stormtroopers that were his escort. Some seemed nervous or even frightened at their presence. An elderly man down the lane gave them an anxious glance before quickly shooing a group of playing children down an alleyway.
As luck would have it, they came to a stop at a checkpoint right in line with the same alleway. Percy casually looked towards the small back street and caught a glimpse of their dirtied faces in the dim light. But it was their eyes that told him the whole story, especially those of the man's. Tired and weary. They were trapped here.
There was an innate drive inside himself that made him desperately want to help them. But what could he even do? If he tried to get loose, there were just too many stormtroopers for him to take on at once. And if he did manage to break away, where would he go?
His wayward glancing led him to a nearby stable, where one horse stood alone, with a little girl grooming the coarse fur around its legs.
Percy could've sworn that the horse's eyes were tracking him as he moved past the checkpoint, like he had a piece of horse food stuck to his back.
After slugging their way through the humid air for the better part of an hour, they eventually reached another imposing batch of modern Imperial-style buildings and walls. It seemed like they had reached the end of the small city.
Percy's eyes were drawn to the multiple sets of high-speed rails leading in and out of the open terminal in which they stood in. Workers that were dressed in grey attire, and covered in soot and grime, manually moved raw minerals into large containers, which were then stacked on top of one another in an empty train car. An Imperial officer watched over them with his arms crossed sternly over his chest, barking out orders to the workers who did their best to follow them.
A small dot appeared in the distance, and Percy focused his attention on it as it drew closer at a torrid pace. He didn't have to wait too long for the sleek black vessel to glide in to the tune of an electrical sounding hum.
The stormtroopers lead him inside an unmarked car and let him sit down on one of the seats by the windows. By now they had figured out that he wasn't going to be anymore than a required nuisance to them. Percy was just thankful for the presence of air conditioning.
"Train departing in five minutes." A neutral robotic voice said through the intercom. "Destination, Carida Imperial Naval Academy."
Carida Imperial Naval Academy. Percy wondered if the place was going to be filled with people like him, somebody that was utterly confused and forced to be there.
As the train began to move and the world past the window blurred, his mind idly drifted back to his biggest remaining question. How did all of this happen to him in the first place?
He knew that it was literally impossible for him to just show up out of nowhere, on a military starship of all places. He had a history, a past that he was somehow unaware of. A past that apparently contained a grey-eyed girl, that continuously appeared in his dreams. Percy was convinced that she was a piece of the missing puzzle. Maybe the piece. If only he could remember her name.
The scenery outside had shifted to something entirely different than what he had just seen inside the city. The train had slowed down enough for Percy to register outlines of men, women, and children that were bent over in the swathing fields of crops that extended out in all directions. Some of them paused what they were doing to watch the train zoom past.
Similar scenes continued for miles upon miles, giving off the impression that the burgeoning farmland never ended.
Percy's consciousness filtered in and out of sleep until the robotic voice returned. "Arriving in five minutes."
It was difficult at first to see the academy from the window, due to the direction at which the train was coming from, but the massive base made itself known by encompassing his entire view once the tracks turned in a sideways manner.
The size of it all easily rivaled that of the star destroyer that he had woke up in, possibly even more. It was difficult to discern what he was even looking at because of the sheer complexity of the buildings.
The train soon slowed to a stop, and the stormtroopers funneled Percy through what looked like some sort of backdoor. It was obvious that they wanted nobody else to see him arrive. He was greeted by a blast of cooled air and another officer, who took lead of their group.
Percy made an effort to try to remember the specific path that they were taking, but the task got increasingly difficult with each blank, identical corridor they turned into.
Finally they reached a heavier looking door that was clearly designed to withstand significant ordinance. The officer interacted with the control panel next to it and the door slid open.
A shiny plated droid was waiting for them inside the room. It was at least seven feet tall, and had skinny legs but a massive torso. The Imperial insignia that Percy had seen literally everywhere was imprinted on it's left shoulder.
"K-2SO, please take the new arrival to his quarters." The officer said.
The droid nodded it's head and the stormtroopers released their hands from Percy's arms. All of them exited from the same way they came in, leaving him alone with the imposing droid.
"Follow me, please."
K-2SO took him up an unknown amount of floors with an elevator, and through a level that curved in a circular motion. They came to a stop in front of a random room, which it nudged Percy into.
"Hey, wh—" Percy wanted to ask the droid a question, but it left without saying another word. There was a telltale click of a lock system activating when it closed the door on him.
It was reminiscent of his cell back on Mustafar, with a couple minor upgrades. There was a tiny bed tucked in the corner with thin linen sheets, a metal dresser and another door that led to a bathroom complete with a sink, toilet and shower. If he ignored the armored walls, it was almost like he was in an actual dormitory. There was even a small window that showed part of the sky, which was beginning to darken.
His clothes were in an even worse state than he thought when he finally took them off. Percy had no idea where all the torn holes and dark stains had come from.
The shower handle didn't adjust the temperature of the water, only the strength of the flow. The instant the water touched his skin, the aches and sores left his body, leaving him feeling energetic and rejuvenated.
There was a fresh set of cadet clothes waiting for him in the top drawer of the dresser, which would have fit him almost perfectly if it wasn't for the waistband of the pants, which were a little too loose for his liking.
His mind was too tired at this point to keep thinking about the answers he would never receive. He laid down on top of the mattress and tried to get comfortable. And before he knew it, he was fast asleep.
-Ω-
This time he didn't dream of the grey-eyed girl. He dreamt of a different girl—a woman, with brown hair and blue eyes. She too seemed vaguely familiar.
Her lips were moving, but Percy couldn't hear her voice. She was motioning for him to come towards her. Percy tried to move, but his feet were stuck in place.
The woman made an annoyed face, and approached him with her hands on her hips. She smelled like sweets.
"Percy."
-Ω-
He woke up to three solid bangs against the door. Before he could manage to open his eyes fully, K-2SO barged in along with a bright stream of light from the hallway.
"Wake up." The droid said as it began to approach his bedside.
Percy, not wanting to find out what might happen if he didn't get out of bed, hastily threw the blanket off and got up. Thankfully he was already fully dressed and ready to go. His stomach felt as if it hadn't seen food in days, which wasn't that far off from the truth.
He followed the droid back out of the room and down the same elevator from before. There was a sort of metallic nodule on one of it's arms that allowed it to connect with any computer they came across by inserting it into the port.
They got off on an unfamiliar floor and eventually ended up in a white-washed room with rows of neatly tucked beds on either side. There was another droid of the same make, although this one was a light grey with a red cross symbol on it's chest, which made Percy think it had a medicinal purpose.
"I'll come back for you after your initial medical examination is over." K-2SO said, affirming Percy's initial suspicions, and left the room.
"Hello, my name is K-7CD. I am the base's primary medical droid." This droid had a much more feminine and soothing sounding voice. "Please lay down on the nearest cot so that we may start."
Percy found it kind of odd that there was nobody else in the infirmary, but maybe they had multiple. The droid had him take off his clothes again and proceeded to run various tests. He was fine up until the droid started to draw blood from his forearm veins.
"What do you guys want with my blood?"
The droid stopped what it was doing and tilted it's head. "Come again?"
"My blood," Percy repeated. "What are you doing with it?"
"I am checking to make sure your blood and glucose levels are normal." The droid replied.
Percy didn't want to push it any further than that, maybe the droid wasn't lying. But the lab technicians on Mustafar had pumped whole liters in and out of him. Something was going on.
"You have passed your health examination." The medical droid charmed a moment later, shaking Percy from his thoughts. "If you would please follow K-2SO to complete the rest of your onboarding process."
K-2SO had apparently re-entered without him noticing, and gestured for Percy to accompany it to the adjoining room. There was a highlighted oval track that traced along the edges of the room, with an assortment of weight-lifting equipment in the middle.
"You must now complete the two-hour basic physical assessment." K-7CD spoke from behind him, who had evidently decided to tag along as well. "Let's begin."
-Ω-
Despite his stomach being on the brink of cramping, and his throat absolutely parched, Percy still found himself being able to complete whatever the droid asked him to do with relative ease. His stamina and strength were a lot better than he expected out of his younger body.
Afterwards, K-2SO finally brought him some dry food and a bottle filled with a green-colored liquid, and he demolished both in record time. Neither tasted like anything but that didn't matter.
Then, K-2SO led him through some more hallways until they reached a room with a massive screen displaying the Imperial insignia mounted on the longest wall. "This is your orientation."
As soon as Percy sat down in one of the open seats, a rendering of a balding man with a stern face appeared.
"Greetings cadet, I am Captain Nettic Whain, the commanding officer here at Carida." An image of the academy appeared next to the captain. "You are here because you have shown the desired traits and skills that give you the ability to achieve success in the highest levels of our military, where you will help our Empire continue bringing peace to the galaxy."
Percy hadn't considered up until now the motives of the Empire and Vader, and if they represented a noble cause. Bringing peace to the galaxy sounded good in his head, but the word 'empire' gave him a different vibe.
"You may have been born in the upper levels of Coruscant, or in the farthest regions of the Outer Rim. None of that matters anymore. The only thing that stands between you, and your untapped potential, is yourself."
The screen went dark, and the lights of the room turned back on. A stormtrooper appeared with a blaster in hand. "Here to transport the cadet to the first stage."
K-2SO's optical sensors flickered before it responded. "Order confirmed," it then turned to Percy, and it almost looked like it had a somber look on it's robotic face. "Good luck."
Percy followed the stormtrooper in relative silence until they reached a doorway that led to another grayscale building. The stormtrooper then opened it and allowed Percy to enter through first, before closing it behind them.
They were immediately greeted by the presence of an officer, who was an older man sitting in front of a computer. The stormtrooper gave Percy a nod, then turned and left.
"Name?" The officer asked with a plaintive expression on his face.
Percy was caught a bit off guard, this was the first time anybody from the Empire had asked for his name. "Percy."
The officer looked up from his screen with one eyebrow raised. "Percy… what?"
Percy had never considered his last name. He didn't remember it. He was just Percy.
"Don't have a last name?" The officer asked with some intrigue, noticing his obvious pause.
Percy didn't know what else to do besides shake his head.
The officer gave him a somewhat kind smile. "The last cadet that came through Carida who didn't have a last name turned out to be the greatest pilot we've ever trained. Maybe that's good luck. I'll randomly generate one for you."
"Jackson." The officer said out loud as he typed it into the system. "You are now Percy Jackson. Please proceed past these doors to my left, where you will meet the rest of your class."
Percy Jackson. It sounded right in his head.