Chapter 10: The Replica

"Do you have another place we could be while you're handing over the information?" Rex asked, "This place gives me the creeps."

"You didn't open any of the drawers, did you?" the Kaminoan asked.

"That one."

"Good," she said, "some of them aren't nice to look at. We kept them preserved in case we would need samples later on."

Rex paled visibly. If she considered what he had been looking at as 'nice to look at' they surely weren't on the same page.

Taun We curved her long neck gracefully: "I do have a more pleasant place to be than here."

The trio followed in complete silence, and as soon as the doors closed behind them Mando could feel a relieved sigh coming from his foundling. Obviously it had been afraid of what could happen in there. The little face withdrew from his armour and the round eyes looked up at him. He could almost hear its thoughts.

Are we leaving now? We won't return - right?

"No," he promised, "we won't come back here again. Ever."

They ended up in something that looked like a control room further up in the complex and sat down in the relatively comfortable chairs. Mando noticed with some satisfaction that the kid had calmed down to such a degree that it was now taking in the surroundings with some of its normal curiosity.

"Now, tell."

Taun We let her eyes linger on the kid for a moment and then she looked up again and began her story:

"Many many years ago, we were contacted by an off-worlder who claimed to be a Jedi. His order was quite unusual, he wanted us to make a clone army 'for the protection of the Republic'. It was a huge task but the payment was….generous so our leader at that time, Lama Su, accepted the deal."

"Who was this Jedi?" Rex shot in.

"I don't know. As I said I was merely a junior researcher at that time so I wasn't involved at all. However, we weren't just to create an army, but the army should possess the powers of the Jedi as well."

"But none of us had that?" Rex asked.

"No, you didn't. But you and your brothers were created later on. Some time later the same Jedi returned, He brought with him a piece of wood which we later discovered was a piece of gimer. We were told that there likely would be DNA on it which could be used as a base for the extraction of what he called midichlorians. It proved to be a difficult task. After a long time we were able to extract some viable material from the surface of the stick, but it was far too little to be of any practical use. We needed more material.

So we took a step back in the process and discarded the work with the midichlorians for a while. Instead we focused on what we already knew, namely creating a replica of the one whom had left his genetic material on the stick."

This time Mando shuddered and cast a glance down on his protege who now slumbered peacefully in his lap: "Replica?"

Taun We continued with a nod:

"Yes, replica. At least that's what we thought it was. After all we had never seen the donor of the biological material, so we couldn't know for sure. This time we managed to create a perfect living being, which was a huge progress. We didn't know too much of Jedi powers and it was so small that we couldn't actually verify anything. It mainly slept and ate - for months. It seemingly didn't age at all and we realised we had a severe problem. If we were to create an army of its kind it would likely not be ready in centuries and the Jedi had given us a timeframe of about two decades. So we had to come up with something new."

"Accellerated ageing?" Rex shot in.

"No. We didn't think of that - then. I wish we had. Our next approach was to try to blend genetic material from the replica with material from other beings, assuming that if the replica had these Jedi powers in the form of midichlorians it would transfer to a species with a more rapid ageing. I guess I don't have to tell you the entire project was a disaster. The biological material from this little one was not complying well with any of the species we tried to blend it with. Our first attempts was to blend genetic material from the replica with other species to create a living being with ingrained midichlorians. The result was basically what you saw downstairs. Or, fortunately, not saw. None of the specimens were able to live for more than a few years. It seemed like the material from the replica somehow affected their natural ageing, and while the replica aged slowly they aged much more rapidly than what should be expected from their species' natural lifetime. None of them developed normally, neither according to their species appearance and abilities nor to life span. Most of them appeared to be right out evil and totally impossible to control. Some of them were so dangerous that if they hadn't died from the accelerated ageing we would have had to…terminate them. One of our least disastrous tests was actually mixing the genetics of the replica with that from a human. That was the drawer you opened."

Rex shuddered: "Thank you very much. One of those must have been one too many for the galaxy."

Taun We continued unperturbated: "The others were worse. I can tell you, combining the genetics from the replica with the one from a Wookiee did not fare well at all…

The next time the Jedi came back to check on our progress he was less than happy. He saw our specimens and he immediately discarded the project and demanded the replica delivered to him. Which was about time for the little one. All our experiments had demanded material to be extracted from him and it was taxing for his little body. At that time he was very weak so we had began to ponder whether we should make a replica, version 2."

"Did you do it?" Mando asked.

If there were more of the kid's kind in the galaxy, at least he wanted to know.

"No, we never did. Because the Jedi demanded the replica delivered to him. And he was…very adamant. So, after long discussions we agreed upon proceeding with pure human clones and discard the path of creating Jedi hybrid clones. It wasn't until after the Jedi had left with the replica we realised that we might use the remaining bio material from it to create technology for accelerated ageing of the human clones. So that was what we did. We did some research on the matter and decided that using a human who was well skilled in the art of combat was our best approach so we hired a bounty hunter named Jango Fett for the future production. It took some trial and errors until we were able to extract the component from the replica's blood that seemingly controlled the ageing process and when we diluted it it didn't seem to harm the human receiver. As soon as we had that under control we could continue the process, and you and your brothers were produced."

"Are there any more 'specimens' out there, from your earliest trials with humans and the artificial ageing?" Mando asked.

"No, the earliest trials malfunctioned to some extent as well and died from natural causes here on Kamino," Taun We assured him. "The replica is the only one alive after the initial experiments and it doesn't seem to have aged a lot. It's still a toddler from what I can see."

"Yes, he is. He seems to follow the natural ageing for his kind."

Rex had one more question: "Who was the Jedi?"

Taun We wrinkled her brow slightly: "I believe his name was said to be Sifo-Dyas. I'm not sure if it was he who placed the order, but he was the one taking the replica away."

"Does not sound famili…," Mando began, but was interrupted by an alarm from the control panel, "…what's that?"

Taun We rose and with controlled, yet fast steps she moved towards the pinging panel.

"Oh, this was most unexpected."

"What's going on?" Mando asked again, a vague feeling of dread chilling his spine.

"A light cruiser just came out of hyperspace," she answered, "it seems to be one of the Arquitens class."

Mando and Rex exchanged glances.

"I don't like this," they concluded in unison.

"Nor do I," Taun We agreed. "This has never happened before. Wait…it seems like something is dispatching. I don't like the looks of that."

They all saw it now. Multiple small dots appeared on the screen, fast approaching the planet's surface.

"I think we should leave now!" Rex concluded.

Mando was already on the move towards the entrance door.

"Agreed. Taun We, you're coming?"

The Kaminoan shook her head slowly.

"No, take the replica and leave. I suspect this whatever it is has something to do with it. I was set to guard this place and that's exactly what I will do. They may not mean any harm to me as long as the replica has disappeared. Go. Quick. We had contingency plans for this, so I know what is expected of me."

"You are certain…?"

"Go! Now!"

And with that the two men bolted for the entrance, the kid safely tucked under Mando's right arm.

They almost made it.

The first darktrooper landed when they were half-way to the ships and in a second both men had their blasters unholstered and were firing towards the three attacking figures. None of the blaster bolts did any harm though they hit their targets. Five other dark figures were aiming for the door.

"Kriffin' clankers," Rex swore, "they were easier to handle before."

A well placed shot in the neck of one of the troopers made sparks fly and for a moment it seemed like it was short circuiting but then the pouring rain killed the sparks, and he had more than enough to do with avoiding the fists of the dark…thing.

Two of the troopers focused on the Mandalorian. For a second he regretted that the jet pack was left inside Razor Crest. Blasters were obviously not the best tool to neutralise them so he punched the control panel on his sleeve and a fireball shot from the armour. The dark trooper was unaffected. He knew deep inside that hand combat with this monstrosity would likely be the last thing he did in this life so in desperation he released a thin wire from the armour on the left hand side. If he only could make it tangle around the thing's feet and make it stumble he might have a chance to get the kid to Razor Crest. Hopefully Rex was able to take care of the last one somehow. It failed. The wire was ripped off in an instant.

The hope was crushed in the moment an iron fist hit his midriff - again and again and he felt air escaping his lungs with each blow to his ribcage. He had to keep the kid away from the fists that hammered down onto him. The third darktroooper had come from his left and a new fist hit his cheek in the same moment as a well placed kick sent him flying across the platform and he felt the foundling being ripped from him. He heard a yelp from the foundling and then his entire world turned black.

He came to feeling someone dragging him into the ship.

"The….kid? Where's the….kid?" he gasped. It felt like his entire torso had transformed into minced meat and for a moment it was hard to breathe. If it weren't for the beskar'gam he probably would have had an even closer resemblance to it.

"They took him."

"No. Wait, let go of me I can walk by myself. We have to get him back."

"First we have to get into the ship before the rest of them returns. Besides they took off immediately after they snatched him from you," Rex stated dryly.

The Mandalorian staggered to his feet and with Rex' support he was able to enter Razor Crest in a semi-decent way.

"Where did they go?"

"The cruiser. Let's get this thing going."

Hatch locked, switches moved and Razor Crest lifted from the platform. They were just closing in on the huge ship when a blinding light came from the Cloning Facility and Razor Crest shuddered violently. And in that very same moment the cruiser slipped into hyperspace.

"He's gone," Mando whispered hoarsely. "They took him. And we have no way of tracking them."

The air around them was cluttered with debris from the explosion beneath them as Rex steered the ship up through the atmosphere.

The Cloning Facility was closed forever.