To Serve The Empire (Star war Si)

[Wing404]

Chapter 1​

"Have you ever heard of the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?"
-Emperor Sheev Palpatine of the first galactic empire. ex Supreme Chancellor of the now defunct Galactic Republic To Darth Vader.

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You ever look at your life and think, wow, every single turn I could have taken, and somehow I still ended up here?

Because that was me.

Flat on my side, cheek pressed to warm duracrete, tasting blood and old engine soot while an Imperial Navy officer searched my pockets with the sort of offended dignity only a man in polished black boots could manage. Somewhere above us, three lanes of airspeeders screamed past in bright ribbons. Somewhere below us, steam coughed out of a cracked vent and rolled through the alley like the planet itself was trying to smoke me out.

And if you pulled back from that little scene, really pulled back, past the alley, past the transit bridge, past the hanging signs in five languages and the holos trying to sell debt plans to people who could not afford bread, you got the full picture.

Coruscant.

Imperial Center, if you were the kind of person who liked changing a name and calling it history.

Planet of towers, smog, traffic, wealth, filth, and enough bodies packed into one world to make old Earth look like a rural village with ideas above its station. A city from pole to pole. Levels stacked on levels. People living over people living over bones and rust and the wreckage of centuries. Up top, clean skylanes and mirrored windows. Down where I lived, the air had texture. You breathed grit, grease, hot metal, and fryer smoke. Your lungs had to learn manners or die rude.

And me?

I was Lortise Fevaln. Thirteen standard years old, technically human, officially unimportant, and carrying the deeply useless bonus of remembering a past life on twenty first century Earth.

There are men who get reborn in fantasy worlds and become kings. Chosen heroes. Sword saints. Dragon riders. Whatever.

I got Coruscant and a ration debt. My parents had died in the Clone Wars, which on Coruscant narrowed things down about as much as saying someone died in weather. Officially, they were listed as civilian casualties from infrastructure collapse during one of the last panics of the war. Unofficially, they were in the wrong district when the right people decided the wrong district was acceptable collateral. Same result either way. Dead was dead. Paperwork just decided what flavor.

That left me and my sister.

Seris Fevaln, age nine, sharp chin, sharper eyes, and a habit of believing me when I lied to her with enough confidence. She still had that dangerous child trait of expecting the universe to show basic fairness if you held on long enough. I had died once already. I knew better.

We lived where we could. Some nights that meant a maintenance crawl under a freight platform with a stolen blanket and a half-dead glowstrip. Some nights it meant a condemned unit with no door and one working wall socket that sparked blue if you looked at it funny. Once we slept behind a noodle stall because the owner's son thought Seris was funny and slipped us broth after closing.

You learned routes. You learned timings. You learned which cleaner droids would report loiterers and which ones just bumped your ankle and kept going. You learned which alleys belonged to local crews and which belonged to people worse than crews. You learned that stormtroopers in the lower levels moved in packs and saw everything as either a target or paperwork. You learned that white armor looked clean because somebody else had to scrub it.

Mostly, I stole. Not because I enjoyed it. Not because I thought I was some charming little scoundrel with a grin and a future. I stole because ration cubes cost money, medicine cost more, and old moral lessons sound different when your sister is coughing in her sleep.

That morning started bad and only got ambitious from there.

Seris woke me by kicking my shin.

"Lort," she whispered.

I opened one eye. "If this is another dream about pastries, save it. Dream food never turns into real food."

She crouched beside me in the cramped vent chamber we had borrowed for the night. Her hair was flattened on one side and sticking up on the other. "I'm hungry."

I stared at her for a second. "That is a cruel thing to tell a man first thing after waking."

She folded her arms. "You say that every time."

"Because every time it remains true."

She tried not to smile, then failed. Good. If I could get one smile before the day started chewing on us, I counted it as profit. I checked the pocket in my jacket anyway, because hope is a disease and I was infected. Nothing in the left pocket. A bent washer in the right. Half a ration tab in the inner seam, which felt like discovering buried treasure if the treasure bought one bite each.

Seris saw my face. "That bad?"

"We are rich in industrial scrap."

"That bad, then." I stood, stretched until my back cracked, and peered out through the vent grate. Morning on our level looked like late evening everywhere else. The lights never changed much down there. Time came from transit flow and shift bells. The corridor outside was already moving. Workers in stained coveralls. Two Bith carrying tool cases. A Rodian kid running messages for somebody with more knives than patience. Overhead screens flashed Imperial announcements in bright blue text about security, unity, prosperity, and other jokes.

A giant holo of Palpatine shimmered to life above the corridor arch. Pale face. Calm eyes. Grave old grandfather voice telling the galaxy that order had been restored and sacrifice built the future.

I had lived long enough on Earth to see politicians. I had lived long enough on Coruscant to appreciate professional work. He was good. That was the real horror.

Seris followed my gaze. "Do you think he means it?"

"Who?"

"The Emperor."

I looked at her. "Seris, if a man ten thousand levels above us says sacrifice builds the future, he means our sacrifice and his future."

She made a face. "That sounded smart."

"It was. I'm wasting my talents."

We split the half ration tab. She got the bigger piece because I said so, and because she was getting too thin around the wrists. Then I sent her to the market corridor with strict orders to stay visible, stay moving, and wait near the parts kiosk run by old Mero the Duros. Mero pretended not to notice street kids so long as they did not bleed on his inventory.

"Don't go anywhere with uniforms," I told her.

She rolled her eyes. "I know."

"Not Army, not local police, not black uniforms, not white armor, not anyone smiling too much."

"Lort."

"I'm serious."

"I know."

That was the problem. She did know. Kids on Coruscant learned categories before arithmetic.

I headed uplane.

Not high uplane. I was not suicidal. Just high enough that the crowd changed from desperate to hurried, which was better hunting. Lower levels gave you empty pockets and twitchy hands. Mid levels gave you clerks, off shift personnel, travelers, and junior officers who still believed their rank pin made them untouchable.

I passed a sabacc den tucked behind a droid repair stall. Passed a woman frying meiloorun peel in old oil. Passed a preacher on a crate shouting that the Jedi had betrayed the Republic and only the New Order could save honest citizens. Half his crowd were listening. The other half were just standing close because his speaker gave off heat.

By the time I reached the transit interchange, the traffic had thickened. You could feel the planet there. Boots, wheels, voices, droids, vendors, announcements, curses, somebody laughing too hard, somebody crying quietly, somebody making a deal that would hurt three people before nightfall. The bridge rails vibrated with the constant pulse of passing speeders outside the transparisteel.

That was when I saw him.

Imperial Navy. Junior officer by the insignia. Human, male, maybe mid twenties. Uniform pressed sharp enough to cut. Dark cap tucked under one arm. He had the clean look of a man who spent his shifts where air filters worked. He came off a priority lift with two others, but they split at the junction. He slowed near a street vendor to answer a comm chirp, one hand going to his belt pouch without thinking.

There.

Not the pouch itself. Too obvious. The inside pocket under the code cylinder case. Slim outline. Credit fold or ident wallet.

My heart picked up, fast and ugly.

One good lift could carry us three days. Maybe four if I found medicine cheap. Seris had been trying not to cough around me. That scared me more than the coughing.

I drifted into the moving crowd and matched his pace. Eyes down. Shoulders rounded. Become background. Become one more scrawny kid no one remembers seeing. Old Earth had taught me nothing useful about survival in a galactic fascist capital, but the basics of theft crossed cultures pretty well. Angle. Timing. Distraction. Exit route.

The officer frowned at his comm. Turned slightly. Better.

I bumped into a passing labor droid on purpose, spun off it, and clipped the officer just enough to apologize with my face while my fingers slipped for the fold under his coat seam.

I had it.

For one bright, stupid second, I actually had it.

Then his hand clamped around my wrist so hard I felt something grind.

I looked up.

He had not even finished turning from the comm call. His eyes were already on me.

"Really?" he said.

That was worse than shouting. If he had shouted, there was a chance he was angry. Calm meant he had done this before.

I twisted. He tightened. Pain shot up to my elbow. The fold slipped from my fingers and hit the deck.

"I wasn't stealing," I said, which was the sort of line only a starving idiot would try while caught stealing.

"No?" He bent, grabbed the wallet with his free hand, and tucked it away. "Then why is your hand in my coat?"

"Terrible sense of direction."

The slap came so fast I barely saw it. One moment I was trying to grin. The next I hit the rail and tasted blood.

People slowed.

Nobody stepped in.

That was Coruscant too. The officer advanced, grabbed the front of my jacket, and shoved me hard enough to bounce me off the bridge support. "You gutter rats always think you're clever."

"I am clever," I muttered.

He punched me in the stomach.

That took a lot out of the conversation. Mostly air. Also some pride. By then a pair of local security men had wandered over, more interested now that there might be paperwork attached. One of them had the bored face of a man who enjoyed authority precisely because it broke up the monotony.

"Problem, Lieutenant?" he asked.

"Attempted theft." The officer gave me another look, clinical now, like I had transformed from annoyance into category. "Street minor. Probably unregistered."

Probably.

That was bad. Unregistered kids vanished into systems. Processing centers. Labor routes. Charity blocks with locks on the outside. The Empire loved a child it could file. I bent, meaning to bolt, and the security man kicked my knee out from under me. I hit the deck hard enough to see sparks. Then I heard Seris scream my name. My stomach dropped colder than the floor. She came at them from the crowd like a tiny homicidal miracle, hair flying, face white with rage. She had a length of broken conduit in both hands and swung it at the nearest security man with everything she had.

It cracked off his shoulder.

Not enough to hurt him. Plenty enough to insult him.

"Leave him alone!" she shouted.

For one insane heartbeat I was more proud than scared.

Then the security man backhanded her and the whole universe went red.

I lunged. The Navy officer slammed me down by the back of my neck. I clawed at his sleeve, kicked, spat, tried to get at anybody. Useless. I was all bones and fury. He was trained, fed, and wearing boots worth more than everything I had touched in the last month. Seris had fallen to one knee. Blood at the corner of her mouth. She still tried to get up. Still gripping the conduit. The officer looked at her, then at me. Something changed in his face. Not mercy. Recognition. "Brother and sister?"

Neither of us answered.

One of the security men snorted. "Brave little things."

"Stupid little things," said the other.

The officer keyed his comm. "Lieutenant Harl to Civic Intake. I've got two juvenile vagrants. Human. No guardian present. One attempted theft of Imperial personnel. The other assaulted security."

He listened.

My throat tightened.

No. No, no, no.

He glanced down at us. "Yes. Understood. Transfer to Sub-Adult intake is acceptable."

Seris looked at me through wet eyes. "Lort?"

I could not lie fast enough.

The crowd had already lost interest. That was the part I hated most. On a planet with trillions, your tragedy had to be spectacular to hold attention for longer than ten seconds.

They hauled us to the curb platform overlooking a lower traffic lane. I could barely keep my feet under me. Seris held my sleeve with one hand and refused to cry, which somehow made it worse. Above us the city rose in black towers and white lights, endless and smug. Somewhere far overhead, elegant people ate warm meals and called this place the heart of civilization. A siren chirped once. The airspeeder that dropped onto the platform was sleek, white, and too clean for our level. COMPNOR sigil on the side. Narrow blue stripe along the hull. Tinted canopy. The kind of vehicle meant to look helpful from a distance and final up close.

One of the doors hissed open.

I saw the inside bench restraints.

I laughed. I could not help it. It just came out. Short, cracked, wrong.

The Navy lieutenant frowned. "Something funny?"

"Yeah," I said, wiping blood off my chin. "Bravery."

He did not get it. Men like him rarely did. They shoved Seris in first. I twisted hard enough to make one of them swear, took an elbow in the ribs for my trouble, and got thrown in after her. The door slammed shut. Through the canopy, Coruscant kept moving. Lanes of traffic. Towers. Holos. Steam rising from vents. People going somewhere. Nowhere stopping.

Seris pressed against my side. Her voice shook only a little. "Where are they taking us?"

I looked at the COMPNOR seal on the opposite bulkhead and thought about all the ways an empire could use children while smiling for the camera. "Someplace safe," I said. That was the first lie I told her that day which felt like treason.

….Bravery had its own reward, I supposed.

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AN: Hope y'all enjoy this chapter. I would love to hear what yoy think of this. This is just a way to rekindle my muses for other stuff no y other fic are not abandoned i love them to death but the lack of motivation and writting muses have been a semi problem of this. So here we are having another fanfic get written. Yes i will finish Rare and terrible mistake and quietly into the night or update them soon anyways their just on hold until i can gather my muses to write them.

Hope you guys enjoy this again. Wish y'all a good day or a good night where ever you are. Would love what you guys think of this.
(Crossposting from SB)
(Yes I am the same person… who else would name themself Wingman/Wing…)
(And no you don't get propaganda poster Ike SB I'm way to lazy to find them again)