An imperial start

by Ding07

Ezra had lived on the streets for many years and he was proud to say he had survived, however he had found an out; the imperial military was recruiting on Lothal, with a free scholorship to attend the imperial military academy on Lothal with bed and food, who was he to say no. he just hoped he knew what he was getting himself into...

Ezra had applied to the imperial youth academy on a hunger driven madness, he was 12 yet the dirt made him look older and by giving the desk clerk a fake name and age he was granted entrance into the Lothal Imperial youth academy. The academy thought he was 14 and after 2 years training; where he learned to fire blasters, imperial regulations and more; did he graduate in the top 10 of his class, he might have been higher if his file was not rife with minor insubordination infractions as well as his initial refusal to dye his hair black. His one aim since joining the academy had been to get off Lothal, so he took the first off world option that interested him; 10 months of further training left him capable of calling himself a scout trooper.

He found himself on a shuttle being carted off to an imperial refuelling station in the Outer Rim called Horizon Station, once there he met his squad. The majority of the squad groans and complains once they see Ezra, they grumble about newbies and how much of a pain in the arse they are. However one member approaches from the cockpit, he flicks up his visor and sticks out his hand, "alright their kid, my name's Ben Onaku and as of right now I'm to show you the ropes."

Ezra found out that Ben was 18 and had been a scout trooper since he joined the Imperial Army, he introduced Ezra to his squad mates, the pilots and informed him about how things were done. The squad is currently running anti-piracy operations in the outer rim, intelligence comes in and blaster bolts come out before they move on, simple as that.

The base of operations was an updated Venator II class star destroyer, aboard the ship Ben showed Ezra to the armoury, medbay, barracks, hangars, canteens and technicians common room. By the end of it he knew the whole routine he should take once a mission is announced as well as the expectations he was being held on while on the ship, for training each scout trooper squad was to aid the technicians in repairing, upgrading and rebuilding systems on the ship and they were expected to keep their main equipment and facilities: clean, up-to-date, combat ready and prepared for an inspection or a quick deployment.

Several days later his squad had been assigned to take out a pirate base on an unarmed rock strewn moon, as the rookie he had to wait till last to grab his gear and was expected to hold call to make sure everyone was accounted for; the gear tradition was apparently so the more experienced members received their preferred weapons and the roll call tradition was so new members learned everyone's names quickly.

They were deployed in a lambda class shuttle; the ship came in low using the cover of darkness and clouds to deploy the squad 3 klicks from the targets. Ezra was to act as the right flank guard, armed with his DLT-19 repeating blaster rifle, an EC-17 hold out blaster in a holster at his boot and a vibro-dagger in a holster at his hip, he still felt unarmed. Ben ran him through mission procedure, even though it was the same as the academy, however according to Ben, "scout troopers tend to be recruited from stormtroopers or cadets with half decent aim, grades don't normally have anything to do with it."

One the squad was only several hundred metres away from the target camp they split, the left flank and forward guard bunkered down with 2 snipers and 3 with heavy repeating cannons; meanwhile the right flank and rear guard split off to the North of the camp, between them they had a sniper, DLT-19 repeating blaster rifle, an EE3-carbine and an A280C blaster rifle- they would be the ones who attacked the camp directly, pushing the surprised and unprepared pilots into the waiting death that was the other half of their squad.

The mission went off without a hitch, the plan worked accordingly and the only remains of the battle was a single pirate who had slept through the whole battle and tried to stab Ben in the back, however Ezra shot them without a thought while making sure there was no warping of his rifle after the battle, the rifle not being tested before hand, having been lying in the barracks for a while.

After they had returned back to the Chariot, the Venator that was the squad's current home base, Ben pulled him aside into a training room and tossed him an electrobaton, "well kid, let's see what you can do." Ezra didn't realise how much effort went into wielding an electrobaton, in training they were taught to aim to hit hard and fast and that was it.