Makings of a Royal Guard/Story

MAKING OF A ROYAL GUARD

The parade grounds of the Imperial Royal Guard Academy on Yinchorr were bustling with a quiet festivity: the graduating class of this year's cadets of the Emperor's Royal Guard were preparing for a final review and a speech from Emperor Palpatine. The assembly was in front of a platform with a throne on it, in which the Emperor would soon be sitting. The reason it was quiet was because only three people were in attendance: himself, Selwyn Marhanen, and two other cadets that made it through the brutal training regimen—he only knew them as Lemmet and Giling. Originally, their class had forty recruits, which had started training, about a year ago. Now they were the only ones alive, the ones worthy of serving their Emperor as his personal guard.

Marhanen thought back to how he got there.

The Slums, Coruscant Thirteen years before the Battle of Yavin

The eighteen year old tried not to make eye contact with any of the shady figures that were out on the streets at this hour. It was just a small precaution that kept you alive. Everyone around here knew it, and abided by it, as the slums of Coruscant were no place for the average citizen.

The slums of the underlevels, that is. Given that the underlevels were amongst the most ghetto areas of the city-planet—no, the most ghetto area of the planet—this meant you were easily in the most ghetto slum in the sector. Possibly even the galaxy. Well, no. Nar Shaddaa was still worse, a little. But only a little.

The eighteen year old turned a corner and continued walking, picking up the pace. A shadow was now trailing him, followed by a second. And a third. He turned another corner, and was now nearing his apartment. The three shadows followed him as he turned off into an alley several meters away from his home—and found themselves looking into an empty street.

The lead thug looked confused. Before any of them could say anything, a blaster sounded from behind them. The leader fell first, to the surprise of his two comrades. However, their surprise was not a long one—two more blaster shots fired, and two more bodies hit the pavement. The three thugs—a Rodian, a Human, and a Twi'lek—were no more.

The eighteen year old—a fair-skinned Human with light brown hair—smirked and walked over to the thugs' dead bodies. No one snuck up on him like that, well not these amateurs, at least. He realized he was being tailed two blocks ago. Looking down at them, he searched their pockets, and found, in total, 179 credits. Not bad, for gangsters like them. He then picked up their weapons—a vibroblade, a heavy blaster pistol, and a lighter pistol that was notable for use by assassins.

Now, he needed to get the hell out of there. Before the Guard showed up.

The rest of the planet had a varying opinion of the Coruscant Guard. Before the New Order, the Guard was made up of clones, and acted differently. Currently, it took part in working as more of a political police than a law enforcement agency. Those who lived in these slums did not hate them for that reason, though. Politics meant nothing in these parts. But the fact that many guardsmen posted down here were corrupt.

Running out of the alley, the young man quickly made his way back to his apartment. Opening the door to the small structure, he glanced back towards the end of the street. A patrol of guards was already on it's way here.

As the young man entered his home and prepared to make something to eat, he realized something—to get out of the poverty, and the slums, he could become one of them. He could join the Empire.

Several days later at a recruitment office

"Marhanen? Selwyn Marhanen?"

The recruiter looked up at the young man sitting in front of him. He nodded back to the recruiter.

"Yes?"

The recruiter looked back at his documents. "Your testing results came in. You qualify for the Stormtrooper Corps. Good work, cadet!"

Selwyn beamed at him. Growing up in a dangerous ghetto did have and advantage—he knew more about fighting than the average Coruscanti citizen did. If his parents were alive—they could be, maybe they weren't; really didn't know—they would be proud of him.

Probably.

The recruiter returned the smile. "Always good to see another talented individual joining the Empire, to put his skills to good use. Anyway, I should also tell you that you scored higher than the requirements to be considered a candidate to become a cadet of the Imperial Royal Guard."

He could not believe it.

"Really?" The Emperor's Royal Guard, his elite cadre?

"Indeed. I will let the recruiters know. You are scheduled to depart for your stormtrooper training four days from now. However, if the Royal Guard decides to accept you, they will contact you earlier."

Selwyn thanked the man, and after a few more words between them, he got up and left.

Two days later

Selwyn picked up a holo disk left by the door of his apartment by an unknown messenger, as he returned from work. Reading the information, he grew with excitement.

Cadet Marhanen was to depart to Yinchorr for Royal Guard training in two days.