The Renegade: Episode I: The Compliant

Chapter Three: The Academy

"Cadets! Welcome to the Academy for Young Imperials. You have arrived at this facility as children, but if you survive your training you will leave here as soldiers." Sergeant Krek addressed the group of fresh new recruits. "Excellence is expected, disobedience forbidden, and above all failure is unacceptable. For the next two weeks, it is my job to see if you are up to the Imperial standard in order to serve your Emperor. We will test your basic abilities and weed out the unworthy. Are you ready to become stormtroopers?"

"Yes sir!" the young cadets exclaimed in unison. Lenore never felt so out of place. It was overwhelming the amount of devotion and competitiveness in the room. She was beginning to think she had made a mistake. Hopefully she wouldn't embarrass herself too badly during orientation.

"THREE TWO ONE! GO!" Krek yelled. All the cadets took off to the indoor running track in front of them.

How do they know where to go, she wondered. She felt like an ignorant farm girl. She quickly ran after her group and managed to catch up.

" Didn't you hear?" a female cadet ran up beside her.

"What?" Lenore asked. It was nice to see she wasn't the only girl in the orientation group. Hopefully she could make some friends.

"There's a height requirement. You're too short to be a stormtrooper." She shoved Lenore causing her to bump into two other cadets and the three of them fell to the ground. The girl smirked and took the lead.

"Watch it!" one of the fallen cadets pushed Lenore off him.

"Sorry." Lenore apologized. She pulled herself up and joined her group. She was last.

"What is your operating number cadet?"Sergeant Krek glared down at her.

"TK-932," Lenore said out of breath. He got closer to her face and she remembered she needed to address him as sir. "Uh, I mean TK-932 Sir!"

"Do you think your finish time is acceptable to the Imperial Armed Forces?"

"She shoved me!" Lenore shouted and pointed at the girl who was smirking.

"And you don't think you'll get shoved by a rebel scumbag or knocked off your feet by a bounty hunter out in the field?" He asked. He did have a point. There was no room for games or excuses here. She wasn't in Tarkintown anymore.

"But-" Lenore began to protest.

"'But' is not part of a stormtrooper's vocabulary." He blew a whistle and all the cadets moaned. "Run it again! Courtesy of TK-932!"

All the cadets made their way back to the beginning and ran the drill again. Lenore knew she had made a terrible first impression.

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The end of the first day was brutal. Luckily Lenore wasn't the only cadet to cause the Sergeant to rerun drills. But she was definitely the outcast of the group. None of the other cadets wanted anything to do with her. She later discovered the tall girl's operating number was TK- 560 and her counterparts were TK-421 and TK-710.

"That's the problem with the Academy on Lothal," TK-560 was front and center in the canteen speaking to their cadet group. "They'll accept anyone, even Loth-rats." She looked over at Lenore. They began to laugh at Lenore as she walked by. Lenore didn't care. She was use to being an outsider.

"Whoa there hotshot!" a dark-complected boy with piercing dark eyes stepped in front of Lenore. "Don't pay her any mind. She's just trying to get under your skin."