Buckets: A Star Wars Story [THE ANNIVERSARY EDITION]

3. Experiment

I found myself falling under the ever watchful and endlessly arrogant gaze of the Commodore Morrisey. Aabe may have been his rising star, but he apparently kept an eye out for any cadet that could be a special feather in his cap.

See, I had this nasty little habit of excelling. Being born a street urchin with nothing to lose gave you a certain level of tenacity that most other cadets tended to be lacking, and with an instructor that pushed me as hard as Kando did, me getting partly decent at soldiering was bound to happen. Morrissey retaliated to my academic excellence by setting a training droid to level nine protocols and having it beat the Kriff out of me. I mean, I broke the droid in reply because I was a stubborn little nerf who didn't realize that having someone like Morrissey breathing down your neck was a bad thing.

While I recuperated in the hospital with a broken rib and a broken nose, Morrissey was apparently pondering what exactly should be done with someone like me, and I soon found out what after days of stewing over it in the room with Twitch and Blondie, who were being just as conspiratorial about it as I was. Blondie was more hoping that I would literally get executed while Twitch was being slightly more optimistic with expulsion.

Actually... expulsion would have been worse, now that I think about it a little bit more.

Kando was firmly convinced that Morrissey was going to demote me to sanitation duty and leave it at that, and frankly, had he done that, I would have had nothing but unabashed contempt for that man, but I would respect it in a way. Instead, I found myself being herded down the sterile hallways of the officers' offices by some jumpy twig of an aide, who deposited me in the waiting room and buzzed me in almost nervously.

I found Morrissey sitting there quietly at his desk. The shab didn't even look up from his paperwork to greet me, instead making me wait there until he decided it was time for us to talk. I had a face that bespoke of being eternally unamused at that point, so it worked in my favor when he looked up hoping to see impatience and frowned when he saw disinterested boredom instead.

"Cadet 65780," he began and his drawl made me want to roll my eyes, "I brought you in here to discuss your rather particular set of martial skills."

I was convinced he was going to have me killed.

"You showed a remarkable amount of prowess for a student of your... your rather particular upbringing."

Of your rather particular upbringing...

That was code for the phrase: for a degenerate orphan. Everything with these guys was some form of double-speak, but once you learned how to read it, it was as plain and as rude as day. "Could you elaborate, sir?" I asked while keeping any ounce of disgusted emotion out of my voice.

Morrissey folded his hands on his desk and gave one of those practiced, forced smiles that grated on my nerves more than anything else, "You possess skills that should be used far beyond mere Stormtrooper training. Many of my colleagues would protest to this, but I am offering to sponsor you into specialized training. Despite your shortcomings, I believe you may be a great asset to the Empire."

Looking back on it, the logical part of my brain told me that I should have screamed "Yes", that I should have just swallowed my pride, bitten my tongue, and been a good little cadet and parroted "Yes, sir. Of course, sir." I didn't, though. I didn't because I'm Shiny and I'm a prideful, stubborn shab.

I just stood there at attention and bit the inside of my cheek to keep me from slinging back something into that old bastard's face that I would have regretted and he was watching my quizzically, "Well, Cadet? Say something. Do you accept or not?"

"No, sir, I don't."

Morrissey looked like he was ready to explode. "What do you mean, "no"?"

"I do not want the position, sir," I replied and tried to bite back the rage I felt at the way he seemed surprised that he could stand there, insult me, and then expect me to grovel and eat out of his hand.