Penn Zarang

"It's not fair! I want to be an Imperial officer! I want to serve the Emperor!"

- Zarang, aghast at the apparent end of his Imperial career

Penn Zarang was a red-haired human male individual who was accepted as a cadet for the Galactic Empire.

Early life
Penn Zarang lived with his mother and father, who ran a depot on Syngia Station in the Sertar sector. Zarang's parents were uninterested in politics and simply wished to make a living. A group of Zygerrian slavers docked at the station to make repairs to their hyperdrive and decided they couldn't leave witnesses. Zarang hid in a maintenance conduit, but his parents were both taken. His mother died during the trip to Zygerria, his father slaughtered simply for being too old. Zarang decided that not being involved in politics had offered his parents no protection. He decided to join the Empire in order to bring stability even to remote sectors such as the one he had grown up in.

Imperial service
Accepted as a cadet at the Arkanis Academy of the planet Arkanis, Zarang was a candidate to become an officer in the Imperial military. Zarang, however, did not do well in his studies and was quickly identified as one of the academy's worst-performing students, though not right at the bottom. During his time at the academy, he developed a friendship with Zare Leonis. Leonis liked the young cadet, as he had been one of the few cadets at the academy who had been nice to him, notwithstanding the fact that he had already heard that Zarang was generally regarded as a "loser." The two sat together during meals and Zarang introduced Leonis to Scaparus Port, a small port-town that offered Leonis he chance to use a comm booth to contact his family and girlfriend on Lothal.

Unfortunately, Zarang's poor academic performance made a target for the Commandant's Cadets, a secretive group of some of the top-performing students at the academy, culled by its overseer, Commandant Brendol Hux. Leonis, meanwhile, had been identified as a candidate to join the ranks of the group. When the time came for Leonis to perform a task in order to be initiated into the group, he was told that his task was to kill Zarang. Leonis was horrified at the idea, but played as if he would complete the task in order to not arouse suspicion. He reported what he had been asked to do to Lieutenant Chiron, an Imperial officer that had been reassigned from the academy on Lothal. Chiron devised a plan to save Zarang's life. With Zarang's help a side of nerf was buried on the academy's grounds as a stand-in for Zarang's body. Though this deception meant the end of Zarang's time at the Arkanis Academy, Chiron promised to raise his case personally with Governor Tarkin if necessary.

Appearances

 * Servants of the Empire: The Secret Academy