16 BBY
The Royal Imperial Academy was a nexus that I had been wanting to enter since my inception here Palpatine himself. I was looking forward to a military career that would eventually see my rise as a prominent figure and member of the Imperial armed forces and perhaps even in the Stratocracy of the government. Even in my previous life I thought that being in the military was "cool". Not to be cringey or anything, but tanks, ships, artillery and missiles had been something I really admired from every major military military nation. And even as a kid in high school me and my friends would often debate about this. Back then the German Leopard 2A8 was perhaps my favorite piece of military equipment along with the F-22 Raptor then there was the Russian long range missiles and the Bmpt Terminator.
Be it as they were the Russians always had some cool stuff.
But here in this world my reasons for joining the military wasn't just due the facts of optimism or admiration, this was a way I saw myself playing the role I needed to play , the person I needed to be. The path to earn power, wealth and means to fix this world to that as it should and that was to my liking.
Well fixing might be a long stretch… at the least I just wanted my own empire.
Even if not all of the galaxy then a good self sustaining resource rich chunk could satisfy me. Greed was a sin after all so I'd be satisfied for what I could acquire. And to reach this set goal I needed to start small. I needed to be not some force sensitive enforcer or some assassin, nor some inquisitor sent to kill Jedi remnants. No I needed to be apart of the regular system. I needed to be ordinary… at least for now even though I was everything but.
The world in the past and now had showed what powers public image held and it was something one in the pursuit of power needed to understand.
My goal of this all was to survive, but survival meant a many things, to survive the treacheries of the imperial political structure, the military and Palpatine himself required more than mere survival. One had to excel, one had to stand out…. One had to take control and lead… Take control of your future.
Take control of your life…..The philosophy of the Sith perhaps were somewhat right. Though to say this was perhaps …. bias and I had been corrupted by the ways of dark side somewhat, yet I had not ignored this fact. It had made me stronger, mentally, physically and emotionally but the darkside as it is was dangerous. It was a drug that if you lost control of it then it would control you eventually leading to your demise.
But alas I always held firm temptation would never wrought me to damnation I ensured of this, discipline had been seared in my bones long before I came to this world of Space fantasy. The days of my real mother and father had been a time of growth understanding.
One should learn to appreciate hardships as it was perhaps one of the greatest teachers and now it had aided me in my preparation for what was to come and whatever I would experience in the near future.
Everything was within an arms reach I just needed to have patience and I definitely would.
Palpatine, Vader , Tarkin, all of them would die and eventually if things went as they did. Then Palpatine's death would leave a string of people vying for the throne that he left behind causing the catastrophe of that civil war.
And not to be hypocritical or anything but one of those successors to his throne would eventually be him. Why fight when you can wait and watch them murder each other while hiding away. I always thought of myself as a logical practical thinker so why shouldn't I do whats best for me?
And you may call me over optimistic but the galaxy could be far better than what it is now with someone like myself at its head…correction, not the galaxy, but the empire could be far better than what it is now. Not just the faceless husk that it was turning into. A creature that harassed and exploited in the name of security and peace . Nooo, that was the opposite of what an empire should be.
But ideals and dreams are just mere words without action.
Twelve years ago back on Dromund Kaas. He prayed every day for the chance to escape , to leave that decrepit city to find some semblance of peace and stability a normal job perhaps while searching for ways to return to the real world.
But yet fate had proven itself to make a mockery time and time again. The man he had feared so much, a man that a many in the new world knew as a prime antagonist had been his savior.
Palpatine had freed him from Dromund Kaas, but with that freedom came new invisible shackles.
He couldn't hope to defeat Palpatine and he gave up trying so a long time ago, he'd leave that task to the chosen one. His purpose was different and he'd come to realize what it was and what he could achieve. And he saw beyond the Sith emperor he saw beyond the normal boundaries of life he saw a vision of greatness for himself and the empire.
And so he had made a deal with the devil. Which was Palpatine in this case and why fight the man when you can join him. This was more profitable for him in the long term, plus their was the fact that the emperor was almost invincible, even though he was on the pinnacle of cruelty and sadism, he was extremely smart and and border line Omni prescient. Yet he was strategic and diplomatic in his dealings all trait ms one would need in ruling a galaxy wide empire.
"Hey hurry up we haven't got all day!" Another cadet uttered in frustration from behind, he had been caught in his thoughts once more forgetting what he should've been doing.
He was to be checking his deployment schedule or status. They had all graduated and they Elam and Raith were placed on the same ship for their official first service deployment within the navy, well it wasn't by coincidence, I had some strings pulled for it to happen. Though I wasn't the one to make the choice of the venue….. that was beyond my control.
The Gozanti Class assault carrier/cruiser named the "Stark Harrow" was to be our future home.
Why I proceeded to check on the computer though? Well it was to keep up the farce that I hadn't anything to do with it. But even if I didn't to tell them which they'd eventually put two two's together and find out , they weren't incompetent after all, but it wouldn't change the fact that it wouldn't really bother them.
They had seen and witnessed themselves the benefits one could achieve if they stuck around me. Troublesome at times but there were things to appreciate.
They held promise, yet they were my investments as much as I could say they were friends.
A few taps on the screen to fill in my identity code popped up the answers that I already knew I would receive.
Captain Renfrey Milhorn, Captain of the Stark Harrow. I would be his First weapons officer and Lieutenant, in charge of other miscellaneous duties one of my rank would take care of on the bridge of any similar ship.
A Outerim deployment wasn't so bad. We all had to start from somewhere after-all. Climbing the ladder wasn't gonna be easy and if those two wanted to achieve what they wanted in this lifetime then they'd need a helping hand which was to be him.
Call it corruption but as a great man once said. "Corruption is not bad. Its only bad if i'm not involved."
"Have at it", I said to the the other person behind me.