A few revolutions ago on Kamino...
"Oh look, CC-2224 is reading again."
The cadet looked up and rolled his eyes. "It's Cody, and your just jealous that you didn't pass your target practice early and get time off to do something else."
"Cody, right. He was the gun slinger in one of those books you read," the cadet who they all called Splicer remembered.
"I can think of a lot better things to do with free time than read," the one the called Shag piped up. Because that was pretty much all he ever thought about even though the only females any of clones clone cadets had ever seen were their Kaminoan nurses and teachers. Splicer had hacked his way into the holonet and given his brothers a glance into the wider galaxy. The squad might only be a few standard revolutions, but they had all reached puberty. It just hit Shag a little harder than the rest of them.
"So what is it this time?" Rex, the unelected though obvious leader of the bunch swiped the holobook out of Cody's hands and looked at it. It didn't seem to be the regular battle histories or tactical manual that his brother was found perusing.
Splicer looked over Rex's shoulder. "Fairytales, looks like."
"They're not fairytales," Cody grumbled grabbing for the holobook.
Splicer got a hold of it first and held it out of his reach, "There's a wizard in it."
"He's kind of like a Jedi," Cody fought his way past his other brothers to get the book back. "He helps the knights to fight battles and monsters."
"And save the princess." Shag's eyebrows rose. "Bet the knight gets some of that after the battle."
"No!" Cody finally managed to grab the holobook and checked to see if his place was still marked. "It's called chivalry. The knight only admires the princess from afar. He pledges his life in her service but his love is unrequited."
The other cadets laughed and Cody blushed but Rex clapped him on the back. "It's probably like, what do you call it? A metaphor. Like we all pledge our service to the Republic but i doubt even Shag could..."
"The whole Republic?" Shag stared off into space. "I could sure try."
They all laughed again and Cody nodded his thanks to Rex.
"Where do you think they'll send us if the Jedi ever get around to calling us up?" Splicer asked. This was always what their conversations returned to. What were their squad and all of their thousands of brothers meant for?
This was a topic Cody could expound on. He had done the research. But the fact was there wasn't any war going on in the galaxy currently that would require the size and scope of the clone force that they were a part of here on Kamino. Cody put his holobook under his pillow retracted the bunk. "My credits are still on Mandalore."
Shag smirked and Splicer rolled his eyes.
"No, here me out," said Cody. But they had all heard his theories before. "The Jedi and the Mandalorians have been at war either on the same side or against each other hundreds of times." Cody particularly liked the stories of Revan and Canderous, the Jedi and Mando warrior who had been enemies and then became friends and together saved the Republic. At it made perfect sense to him as it was the Jedi who ordered the creation of the clone army and the man they were all modeled after came from Mandalore. Or at least that's what Cody thought. He had his brothers had seen their 'father' once when Jango Fett had made the rounds to see the progression of the troops. His armor was definitely Mandalorian. Cody had done research on armor and weapons also.
Shag grinned. "So this has nothing at all to do with the Mandalorian's current leader."
"What?" Cody asked dragging his mind away from long ago battles.
Splicer laughed, "Yeah, you weren't thinking of pledging your code of chivalry to the princess, er duchess of Mandalore."
"No! Of course not." Cody dismissed the idea but he still blushed faintly. The recent Mandalorian Civil War did play into his theory. There had been Jedi sent to protect the duchess and if truth be told, the cadet would gladly pledge to protect the honor of the woman they had seen in the holonet story, even if she was a pacifist and she would probably hate him for being created and trained specifically to be a soldier.
Shag whistled. "That would be a damn shame to go unrequited."
Cody, without another thought, punched him in the mouth. "The duchess is a real lady not some Twi-lek trollop!"
Rex smiled, "So you would fight to defend her honor?"
"Maybe I would." Cody rubbed his knuckles where they had scraped against Shag's teeth. His brothers need not know that Mandalore's duchess had been the subject of his dreams on more than one night and that upon waking from those dreams he had required a trip to the refressher and a change of shorts. He blushed a little deeper but Rex saved him again.
"Well I heard that the Jedi can see the future. I think they'll have seen something a lot bigger than one planet's Civil War to warrant the creation of all of us. When they do call us up, I don't think it's going to be like anything in any of the history books."