Chapter 62
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This was a suprise, to say the least. These heroes were surrounded by imperial clone troopers, Trade Federation battle droid, led by Kaliback. All of their knowledge suggested these were the bad guys, yet Kaliback claimed they wanted to defect to the good guys.
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Supergirl: I've heard about you, from the Superman of your universe. He says you were evil.
Kaliback: I was, in some ways I still am. I was born on Apokolype, to Darkseid. He trained us t be soldiers, tortured us, and I wanted his approval more than anything.
Supergirl: Ever get it?
Kaliback: No. I was what he trained me to be, but not his son. After his death, I joined my "brothers" Mister Terrific and Orion, as well as Lobo. We were bounty hunters for awhile, frankly Lobo was far more evil than I ever was.
Supergirl: That part I believe.
Kaliback: I never had much of a choice about being evil, neither did most of my friends here.
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Kaliback motioned to one of the battle droids, who spoke of some of their stories.
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Droid: We were created to be slaves to the Confederacy of Independant Systems. Meant to be nothing more than cannon fodder. I was left behind in a sandstorm, even though I begged my fellow droids not to abandon me. That guy there, killed by general Grievous for pointing out the flaw of his plan, that guy, just resigned himself to being killed by the jedi.
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At this point, one of the clone troopers came forward to tell of their stories.
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Clone Trooper: The seperatists used these droids as slaves and cannon fodder, the same way that the Republic used us. We were created for battle, nothing else. 99 there, something went wrong with his creating, he wound up deformed, ended up as a janitor. Despite this he desperately wanted to be one of us, he died trying to save us. There was this one jedi, he manipulated his clones to fight each other, just to get them killed and prove himself to count Dooku. The jedi weren't accustomed to war, they won battles not because they were brilliant strategists, but because they sent wave after wave of clones into battle to overwhelm the seperatists. A few of us rebelled, deserted to start families, killed those who used us like that. And pretty much everyone who did this was killed later for their efforts. So when the order came down to execute order 66, maybe some of us enjoyed turning on the jedi.
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This sounded familiar to Lucifer. In his long life he had seen many leaders use their people like this. World War 1 for example. England and the Ottoman empire were on opposite sides. At this point the Ottoman empire had been occupying and oppressing the serbian people for over 500 years, England had been oppressing the irish for over 700 years. Both looked down on these "inferior" peoples, who they felt were to be subjugated and mastered. So neither the king nor the sultan had a problem using these "inferior" peoples for war, forcing irish and serbian peoples to fight and kill each other when the serbs and irish weren't enemies before this war. It did seem that Palpatine and Dooku used the clone troopers and battle droids in the same way.
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Kaliback: And ofcourse, this entire war was started by Dooku and Palpatine to gain more power for themselves. Anyway, we're all tired of fighting other people's wars, we want to fight for ourselves. Can you take us back with you?
Supergirl: We can take you back to Antarctica, but it's very cold.
Clone trooper: Most of us have seen worse.
Supergirl: I can't promise it won't be hard work, and you might be expected to fight for you new home.
Battle droid: But we'd have some degree of a real life. Sounds better than anything we can remember.
Supergirl: Okay, we'll take you back with us. One thing, you don't happen to remember a little girl, Annie. Might be a clay-based shapeshifter.
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Neither Kaliback nor any of the battle droids or clone troopers could remember that desciption. Robin feared he might never find his childhood sweetheart, but found some hope in the idea that she might already be in Heaven.
