Chapter 2 - Mina Arrantis I
“Stand up straight!”
The bark of Sergeant Cobarl’s voice hit like a sonic charge, cracking through the sleeping haze that still clung to the barracks. The man didn’t walk so much as storm through the room, his boots pounding against the durasteel flooring with deliberate aggression. He was a stormtrooper of the old breed—scarred, severe, and bred for war in an age that had grown cold and institutional.
Cobarl stopped beside a cadet, scowled, then seized the young man’s wrist. “These are disgraceful,” he growled, examining fingernails like they were evidence of treason. “You clean these. You clean yourself. Or I’ll have Corporal Stendt do it with a vibroblade.”
The cadet bolted toward the refresher like he was fleeing a firestorm. He probably was—Cobarl rarely bluffed.
Mina Arrantis stood three cadets down, her stomach clenched, her posture textbook straight. The others might have been half-awake, but she’d been ready since zero-five-hundred. There was no such thing as overprepared under Cobarl’s watch. A single slip—like her failure to fully disassemble her blaster during week one—and he’d hound you into the grave.
She didn’t fear him. She’d seen worse things than shouting and humiliation. What she feared was what would happen if she cracked. If she let herself believe that this place was anything other than a crucible.
Cobarl stepped into her space.
His face hovered inches from hers, breath hot with caf and spite. “Cadet Arrantis.” His voice dropped to a dangerous register, low and sharp. “You think you’re better than everyone else in this room, don’t you?”
I am, Mina thought, eyes locked forward.
“No, sir. We work better as a unit,” she replied evenly.
“Cut the shit, Arrantis.” Cobarl’s tone turned venomous. “You think I want to hear my own words spat back at me like recycled rations? Do I look like a moron to you?”
No, she thought, just unstable.
“No, sir!”
He stared at her for a moment longer, trying to bore his way through her with sheer will. She didn’t flinch. That had taken time—weeks of beatings, verbal or otherwise, endured in silence. She was no longer the raw recruit from Commenor who had arrived with polished boots and naive hope.
“Hmm.” Cobarl straightened. “Maybe you’ll survive here after all.” He moved on.
That was it. The game. Outlast the bastard. Hold the line. Don’t give him what he wanted.
That was how you won.
Corulag was supposed to be an opportunity.
That’s how they sold it on the holonet—parade images of clean armor, glossy visors, and medals gleaming on proud chests. The Empire's latest initiative: a reformed, human-centric Stormtrooper Corps, built to secure order in a galaxy still bruised from war.
Mina had joined without hesitation.
Her service in the Commenor Planetary Defense Forces had been largely symbolic. She’d enlisted during the tail-end of the Clone Wars, when whispers of a Neimoidian-aligned uprising rattled the Outer Rim. But no invasion ever came. Her unit had drilled, stood watch, and polished old clone-era rifles. Nothing more.
The PDF was a rite of passage, not a military. A year away from home, a taste of adulthood, and a chance to wear a uniform that meant something—if only in ceremony.
But the Empire offered purpose. Structure. An end to the chaos.
She hadn’t expected mud. Blood. Night sweats and bruises. She hadn’t expected to wake up every morning aching, hungry, and only half-healed from the previous day’s abuse. But she hadn’t backed out, either.
Because somewhere beneath the screaming sergeants and slogging marches, there was purpose here. And she wanted it.
The mess hall smelled of starch, sweat, and nutrient paste. It was the closest thing to sanctuary within the academy. Physical fights were prohibited under penalty of expulsion—or worse. The Empire didn’t tolerate disorder, and neither did its stormtroopers.
Mina moved through the line, grabbing her tray and selecting today’s special: beige.
“Still trying to bulk up?” Klrissa asked as she slid into the bench opposite her, holding a tray of fluorescent red. “You know that stuff tastes like bantha hide, right?”
Mina offered a half-shrug, chewing her mouthful with the determination of a soldier crossing enemy lines. “Corporal Stendt says if I don’t build upper body mass, I’ll fail the cliff ascent. So. Beige it is.”
Klrissa rolled her eyes. “Red’s got more stimulants. Might make you fast enough to run up the cliff instead.”
Danyo arrived, freshly showered—he always found time for it somehow. “Or you could climb the cliff on a stack of excuses,” he said with a smirk, dropping his tray beside Mina’s.
He had the clipped accent of Shawken nobility, polished but too rehearsed to be accidental. Danyo tried to pass himself off as just another recruit, but his posture, his diction—it all screamed privileged academy dropout.
Still, he was sharper than he let on. And loyal. That counted more than class.
“I think,” he added, “if it were up to Sergeant Cobarl, we’d all be made to climb that cliff naked with a pack full of bricks.”
Klrissa snorted. “You’d still pose halfway up, Danyo.”
“Only if the lighting was good.”
They laughed, low and tired. It wasn’t joy—it was survival.
Klrissa leaned back. “At least Commandant Bryer’s still breathing. If Cobarl ever gets promoted…”
“Bryer’s a soft-skull,” Danyo said, more fondly than harshly. “Thinks war’s still fought with chessboards and speeches.”
“He’s not wrong,” Mina added, quietly. “Strategy wins wars. Not shouting.”
She didn’t say it out loud, but she respected Bryer. He’d served in the Judicial Forces and the Grand Army of the Republic during the Clone Wars. His lectures were dry as desert bone, but laced with insight. He spoke of battle with a historian’s reverence, not a sadist’s thrill. Which made him the exact opposite of the men who trained them.
Before another word could be said, the mess hall doors slammed open.
“On your feet!” roared Cobarl.
The room responded like a triggered alarm. Trays down. Backs straight. Silence.
“You’ve had your slop. Time to run it off.” Cobarl’s eyes swept the room like a targeting scanner. “Fifteen miles. Terrain route. Mud, rock, swamp. You’ve got five minutes. Move.”
Mina felt her gut churn.
Fifteen? After yesterday’s drills?
A low moan rippled through the room, but no one dared voice it louder. They filed out, disciplined, exhausted.
Outside, the Corulag wind cut through her fatigues like razors. The terrain ahead loomed, the thick rainforest brimming with the screeches and howls of wild beasts.
Here we go again.
