#cipher 54

Cipher 54, suicide in the face of the enemy. Family is never told formally.

Cipher 14, went insane then awol, crashed landed on Taris, died on impact.

Brocmil Herx,  died during interrogation session regarding Cipher 14.

Charon Vals, fell in his battle against the Sith lords. Choose not to join the force.

He didn't dare show them his tags nor tell them how he got a hold of them. He didn't want to risk something else being tooken from him. He didn't know what to tell his family back in Kass City. Did they even know?

He could still remember the faces of Kennith's family when he dropped the beads back at their home.  They were confused when they found the small box and yet when they opened it he could see that they understood what had happened.

He could remember how he wished that he didn't find out. How he wanted to pretend that Kennith was just out on a long mission in deep cover and that the moment that he was done they would get back together and drink.

That didn't happen. Once flawless missions were starting to waver, important intel was forgotten or simply not collected. He returned to the apartment looking worse than before. More than once did he barely return to his ship before passing out from blood loss.

Of course the other's noticed. And a threat was made. Shape up or have the memories removed. Not wanting to risk anything he did as he was told.

It lasted for a while, enough for them to pull another three years from him, and for a moment everyone thought that he was back to his old self.

'We need you stationed at Coruscant, ... our slicers will take care.... this is important.'

The mission and objective was missed but Goa nodded his head and acknowledged his orders. He left HQ and soon after left the planet. But as his ship drifted through space a call on the holoterminal echoed through the ship leaving the astrodroid to answer it.

From the moment that Kennith touched down on Taris he found himself with two troopers at his command and a speeder to take him into the jungle for the post.

The post was small, about 10 men in total, they were off away from the main battle as their job was to serve as mapping station. With the land ever shifting under their feet thanks to a rotting city being pounded with shells and explosions their task was indeed important.

Kennith's welcome to the camp was found to be nerve wreaking as the commander  seemed to have his thoughts on other things. Telling his men, to search the area he tried to press the commander to speak of what was causing his nervousness. Yet the man stammered and turned the question to the blaster that sat on Kennith's thigh. 

"Commander are you feeling alright? You do understand that we are at war on this planet. Commander?" he asked as the man panicked and took off running to a back room.

"Commander get back here this instant or shall I report this?" Kennith had a feeling as to where this was going and pulled his blaster up and at the ready.  Pressing himself up against the wall he waited only to hear the commander pleading to someone moments before he pushed the door open.

The commander froze in place as the glow from the holoterminal showed a Jedi looking at him.

"I have to say commander, I expected alot of things from this camp.  But this, I didn't expect. " Kennith said as he raised his blaster to the commander's head. "Just so you know I would of preferred to do this over a drink or two and not before our little guest."

The commander unsure what to do raised his hands stammering out. "Look we don't want to fight, we don't want to be apart of this. I'm sure you know the feeling too.Me and my men just want to go home. They offered to leave us alone if we didn't serve the Empire any more."

Kennith bit down on his tongue, he wanted to say that he agreed too but he knew better.  Instead he raised his hand and pressed the ear piece hearing the mic click on. "Order 57."  Outside of the room blaster fire and shouts were heard as Kennith kept his blaster trained on the commander.

"You just like me are Imperial we live to serve the Emperor. We don't stop until we die."  Kennith's eyes flashed over to the Jedi, she was talking and yet he couldn't hear her. Instead he pulled the trigger as the man went to fire at him.

The shot hit his arm but not before his own shot put the commander down. Watching the man fall, Kennith could feel himself wondering if he had done the right thing. He knew that if things had been different he would of told the man to do something instead of selling out to the enemy.  Instead this was going on.

"Sir!" Kennith jolted as one of the troopers stood before him while the other searched the room. "We need to get out now, that Jedi is sending troops after us."

"What?"

"Move sir," The trooper pushed Kennith to start moving though the Cipher stumbled a bit before stopping.

"I'll follow behind, I need to do something real quick." There was still the issue of destroying the camp. The troopers took one look at the bombs and took off to the speeders.

"We'll keep the path clear, sir!" It wouldn't be a big loss but it needed to be done.

Moments later Kennith was running to his speeder as the place was already rigged to blow. Hopping on and speeding off he didn't spot the troops laying in the tree line as he looked back setting off the explosion. As the camp went up in flames he felt himself go weightless for a moment before slamming into something solid after that the world went black.

**********************************

His head felt like it was wanting to explode, everything was too bright and his body felt like he had gone through a compactor. Even shifting his head slightly it felt like it was going to kill him. When his sight finally came back to him, he found himself before the same Jedi from before. But with his hands bound behind him while he was on his knees.  A few troopers were behind her but many more were roaming around as their machines were being worked on on shuttle pads.

"You are lucky that a Jedi doesn't strike down a prisoner. Those men were innocent,"

"No, they were traitors." Kennith struggled to say as he looked up at the Jedi with a tired expression.

"Are they traitors for not wanting to hurt anyone any more and for wanting to go home?" she asked coming up close as Kennith dropped his head down not wanting to look up at her.

"They are." he answered in a small voice "We live to serve." He could taste the difference between a real tooth and the false one filled with heart stopping liquid. "There is no other form of life aside from serving." he muttered as he pushed his tongue against the tooth needing it to fall out of place so he could swallow it.

"What are you doing?" she asked. Kennith didn't look up at her, there was no chance of escape from this Republic base without being shot. "Answer- Captain?!"

A hand grasped his jaw quickly and forced him to open, but it was already too late. The false tooth snapped free and Kennith managed to swallow before a pair of fingers tried to fish the fake tooth out.

Hot tears streamed down Kennith's face as he was forced to gag over and over again while a pair of large fingers tried to dig deeper. But nothing came up, at least the fingers left his mouth leaving Kennith to cough and spit as he started to feel weak.

"'I'm sorry." he muttered as he could feel himself sway. He wasn't sure what he was looking for as he felt himself fall for a moment before stopping. He didn't feel anything as the world started to darken around him and eventually go black.

*********************************************

The Republic forces looked down at the sight before them. The Imperial had swallowed something and killed himself leaving them with one phrase. The Jedi was the first to move as she knelt down and closed his eyes  shaking her head. He had been truly sorry about this, moments before he fell his emotions were tearful and regretful making her wonder what he had left behind.  Other Imperialist didn't allow their emotions to be so readable when they did such things, and yet he did. Reaching under collar to search and remove his tags she pulled them up and over his head gently.

Like other Imperial tags the Imperial seal was stamped into the metal but instead of a name and date  the number 54 sat there while a few colorful beads remained on the strand. The red, purple and gray beads were fairly old while a bright blue bead stood out on the line clean.

"Captain, make sure that he gets a proper burial." She said standing and looking at the trooper. "We can at least allow his love ones the peace of mind that he's been properly buried."

"Sir, no one will attend an Imperial burial."