Chapter 2

Clone trooper training facility

Tipoka City

Kamino

'Objective, achieved. End Ex,' a loud yet even voice announced. The sounds of battle seemed to stop immediately as if they had simply been switched off, and the uneven floor began to rumble as it slowly levelled itself out, hills and crevasses vanishing into a flat, featureless landscape. The dusty air began to dissipate as giant fans began to clean the environment, and the forested surroundings flickered and vanished to reveal a sterile, white walled training suite.

The large holo-screen that filled the entirety of the far wall flickered gently, casting its soft blue, electronic light over the darkened room and the four figures who were standing in a line in front of it. Taler and his squad brothers had remained standing in the centre of the room in their standard issue black body suits through the entire playback of their battle simulation, their armour discarded and sent for any needed repairs, and even through the din of battle that had roared from the speakers above their heads, he could still hear the slight laboured breathing of Darman who stood beside him. The medicine he had been given was working, stitching back together the torn ligaments and the damaged muscle, but it didn't stop the pain. The compressed bacta patch on his right shoulder gave him a slightly deformed body shape, his bodysuit swelling on the right side of his neck. It had been a good few hours since they had ended the exercise, and they were only just being debriefed on it, having been checked out by the medics and the Kaminoans, their actions on the battlefield having been watched and judged in the interim.

A counter in the top corner began to flicker as the recording reached its end, the footage freezing on the last captured image. A tall, slender figure who had been standing apart from them, waiting patiently beside the curved left hand wall, moved towards the holo-screen and raised a long, elegant hand, pointing a small clicker towards it and deactivating the display. As the holo-screen dulled, the dark grey walls seemed to grow brighter, as though they were emitting the light themselves. Kaminoan architecture, Taler thought sourly. It was always so practical.

As his eyes adjusted to the bright light, Taler watched the figure step gracefully from the side of the room, almost gliding across the floor before coming to rest in front of them. Olnil Ka looked down at them through her large black eyes, her bulb-like head swaying softly back and forth atop her long thin neck, regarding each of the clones with the same, uncaring look.

'Your mission was successful,' she said, her melodic voice sounding both condescending and sinister in the same breath. 'Even with the few mistakes, and the injuries that your unit sustained which reduced your efficiency by seventeen percent, you were able to achieve your primary goal.'

As she spoke, her scientific gaze seemed to linger on Darman for a moment longer than the others, almost as if she was trying to find what was different from the other members of Taler's team. She did not see them as sentient beings, but as products, flawed and needing to be perfected. Taler and his kin had come to fear their eyes, because if they looked at you for too long and decided that you needed to be "fixed", then they would send you back for retraining. No one knew what happened after that, because the clones that were sent to retraining were almost never seen again. Only a few like Ninety-nine seemed to be spared. Taler felt his stomach begin to tighten under her icy gaze, and a feeling he could only describe as dread flooded his veins. Years of training allowed him to hide his feelings behind an emotionless expression, but he knew that his brothers were feeling the same fear that was rushing through his body.

'All in all, I would say your performance was… adequate,' she finished. Taler wanted to sigh in relief, but he maintained control. Olnil Ka looked at them for a few moments longer before her eyes seemed to drift away to the farthest corner of the room behind them. 'Wouldn't you agree?' she said softly.

Taler suddenly realised the feeling he had felt at the back of his skull was not the usual fear and worry he felt when in the company of a Kaminoan. It was in fact the tight feeling that they were not alone, and that they were being watched. He almost turned around to look in the direction of the Kaminoan's stare, but he knew that any deviation from the norm would be enough for him to be considered defective, and so despite his natural urge, he remained staring forwards.

'I think I would,' a voice replied. The soft clanking of armour plates signalled that the figure was moving, and as they entered the periphery of Taler's vision, he watched as one of the training sergeants that his unit had worked with for the past eight years came into view. Brelen Tak walked in a wide arc around them and came to a stop directly in front of Taler himself, the Mandalorian standing nearly 6 inches shorter than him, the silver scratches in his dented red and orange armour glowing under the bright lights of the room.

Their training sergeant had always been Kal Skirata, the man who had pretty much raised them and taught them everything that they knew about soldiering. He had even taught them a few things about their heritage – having the genetic code of Jango Fett built into their cells seemed to make Kal quite protective of them. But recently Kal had seemed distracted, possibly to do with the Null clones he had adopted as his own sons, and Brelen had taken over much of their training. Taler had felt a bit uneasy at first, but because he knew that Brelen was the training sergeant for Kappa Squad, and Oul had been one of his closest friends since he was old enough to remember, he had pushed those doubts aside. After all, Kal had always said that there is always something new to learn from each soldier.

Like most of the other Cuy'val Dar, Brelen was a Mandalorian, chosen to train the most efficient and deadly army the galaxy had ever seen. But what most of the universe did not understand, was that Mandalorian was not a race. There was no genetic code that made someone a Mandalorian. Mandalorian was a culture, a way of thinking, and as such, there were Mandalorians from every race in the outer rim, as well as some from the inner worlds too. Taler knew how to identify species from a mere glance, the information flash dumped into his brain from before he could even walk. From the dark skin, thick black hair and tonal shifts in his speech patterns, he had guessed that Brelen was a Kiffar. Every Kiffar belonged to a clan on their home world, and this was usually denoted by a facial tattoo. Brelen had none, though there was the faint hint of burn scars across the left side of his cheek, with only the faintest hint of blue ink still remaining. Taler often wondered if the two were related, but he knew it was not his place to ask. It never bode well for those who asked too many questions, he learnt that from Oul, the sergeant of Kappa Squad.

He found himself suddenly worrying about Oul. He had not seen them since they had been taken to the medical wing after the exercise. He hoped that he was okay.

'Theta Squad,' Brelen said, snapping Taler away from his thoughts. As one, the whole unit straightened up to attention. Stood beside him, Taler heard the faintest hint of a hiss as Darman drew himself up to full height and pulled on his wounded shoulder. Brelen looked up and down the line for a moment and nodded approvingly before he turned his attention to a small device he held in his hand. Tapping it with his thumb, it flared into life, and a beam of light emerged from the centre, forming a list of numbers and figures that hovered a few inches from the palm of his hand. 'Time, seventeen minutes, fourteen seconds. Enemies destroyed, one hundred seventy five units. Rounds fired, one hundred and three. Collateral damage, nil. Injuries sustained, one - minor. Accuracy, ninety nine point four percent. Squad efficiency, twenty over twenty. Good job, gentlemen. Kal would be proud.' Brelen looked up from the data and smiled at each and every one of them in turn, though there was something off about the smile. It did not seem to be genuine, almost as if it was forced.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Taler could see the slight turning up of Jay's mouth into a grin at the mention of Kal, and Vin nodded lightly as they congratulated themselves. Even Darman seemed happy with the outcome, but Taler could not bring himself to smile. He wanted to feel pride in the result. He knew that they were still one of the top units in the commando batch, just ahead of Canon squad, and only slightly behind Delta, but that point six percent accuracy fail, and the wound picked up by Darman clawed at the back of his mind. As the unit leader, it fell to him. He had failed, but he did not know how he could have done anything differently. He had found himself dwelling on a lot recently, and he had begun to wonder if it was normal. Did any of the other unit commanders have these thoughts?

'Okay, boys,' Brelen said, his voice cutting through Taler's thoughts once more. Brelen deactivated the device in his hand and he tucked it away in the pouch of his belt. 'The mess is still open, go grab yourselves some food. Dismissed.'

There was a single, loud thunk as three sets of boots shifted in unison, Darman, Jay and Vin all standing easy as they were let go by Brelen, and it was only when they were halfway to the door that they stopped and Taler heard a voice calling out to him.

'You coming, sarge?' Vin asked. Taler realised he was still standing to attention in the centre of the room his eyes looking back at the wall where the exercise feed had been playing, and as he turned to look, he saw that everyone was now staring at him: Darman and Jay by the door, Vin halfway between them, Olnil Ka from the desk at the back of the room, and Brelen who still stood in front of the long wall that had been a screen moments before.

'I'll catch you up,' Taler said, forcing a smile onto his face. His brothers knew him as well as he knew them, so he knew that they could probably see through the façade, but they were also his unit, and he was their sergeant. Vin shrugged lightly, and then turned to join his brothers as they left the room. Turning back to look at the screen, Taler's eyes met Brelen's and for a moment, the two men just looked at each other. Brelen must have sensed that Taler wanted to talk, and he looked across at Olnil Ka.

'Would you be so kind as to make sure that the rest of the unit get their required amount of sustenance, Olnil?' he asked.

The Kaminoan looked up from her work, her slow, graceful movements making her head sway lightly. She looked at Brelen with slow blinks before she bowed her head and slipped silently out through the door. The portal sealed closed behind her, three sections rotating in from the edge like a closing iris.

'Something on your mind, Double Three?' Brelen asked when they were finally alone, moving across the room and stopping by the desk, leaning with his backside on the corner of the worktop, his arms folded across his armoured chest. Taler was used to being called by the last two digits of his designation code, it was how all of his kind were known to non-clones. His name was something that only his squad mates used, and they would only use it when they were alone. It was something very private and very personal. It was the one thing that they each had that had not been given to them by the Kaminoans.

'We should have failed,' Taler said, the words escaping his mouth before he could stop them.

'Pardon?' Brelen asked, cocking an eyebrow towards him. Taler had not even realised he had been thinking it, and that thought caught him off guard. Why would he think it, let alone say it? If they had failed in their mission objective, then they would have been considered below performance units, and they would all have been sent for retraining. It was a dangerous statement, and yet he could not stop himself from saying it again.

'We should not have passed. Everything about the exercise points to a failure, and yet they say we passed. Something doesn't add up.'

'You achieved your mission objective, and you all survived. What's the problem?' Brelen asked.

'Half of our teams were incapacitated, we were surrounded, the device was still a few seconds away from activation, and you had me dead to rights,' Taler said, still maintaining his stance facing the wall, speaking to Brelen out of the corner of his eye. 'I know you did, because I saw you lining up that scope on me. I should be dead now. We should have failed.'

'Do you want to die?' Brelen asked flatly.

'No,' Taler said quickly, though he was surprised by the suddenness of his response. His entire life, he had been told that he was bred to fight, and as such it was his destiny to die in battle. He had even thought that it would have been an honourable death to die in the service of the Republic, but now he was beginning to doubt his own thoughts. Trying to keep on track, he looked across at Brelen. 'No, I don't, but I think you let us pass,' Taler added, his voice dropping and suddenly filled with shame.

'Now why would I do that?' Brelen asked, his voice even and quiet. Taler's eyes flickered towards him for a moment with uncertainty.

'I… I don't know, but something just feels wrong,' Taler admitted. He wanted to stop himself from talking, but he could not seem to stop the words from escaping.

'You should be careful about saying things like that,' Brelen warned, his head barely moving but Taler sure that he saw him shake his head in a silent warning. 'Those kind of thoughts can get a man noticed by the wrong people.' Taler noticed the mild warning tone in Brelen's voice, but he also noticed something different in the words that he spoke.

Man. Brelen had used the word "man", not clone. It was one of the main differences that he had noticed about many of the Cuy'val Dar. Even though they knew that the army was made up of clones of the great bounty hunter Jango Fett, they did not see the commandos as lesser beings. Though most referred to them as clones, Brelen saw them as men in their own right, individual, unique. He had always treated Kappa Squad fairly, which made it all the more difficult for Taler to shake the feeling that something was not okay about the live-fire exercise.

'I want to see it again,' Taler demanded, making up his mind to find out what happened. 'The playback, I want to see it.'

'What, all of it?' Brelen asked, tilting his head a little to the side and looking up at Taler with a confused frown creasing his already aged face.

'Time stamp three two niner,' Taler replied, looking away from Brelen and directly at the wall in front of him, his eidetic memory having logged the exact moment he wanted to see. Brelen's face was a picture of neutrality as he used the device in his hand to scroll through the recorded footage of the battle and stopped moments before the timestamp Taler had asked for.

The lights that seemed to come from the walls themselves dimmed once again and a shaky, static-filled image appeared across the wall in front of him once more. It was made up of five different perspectives: one from each of the helmet cams – Taler's showing nothing but a grainy, broken image of the dirt and the soil where he had cast his helmet aside – one aerial shot of the battle field, and another looking directly back at the unit from the enemy's point of view. Looking at each quickly, Taler logged each to their respective name, the final one being from Brelen's helmet as he led the enemy forces.

'Playback,' Taler ordered the computer.

With a soft chime, the images began to play, the silence of the room suddenly filled the chaotic sounds of battle. Blaster bolts seared through the air in a strobe of colour, shooting in all directions across the different viewpoints. Shattering metal and crackling air mixed with the sounds of strained breath and pained grunts, and then as a blinding light filled the aerial shot, everything went silent as a nullifying shockwave erupted from the centre of the crater.

'Stop,' Taler said cleanly. 'Backtrack.'

The footage rewound slowly until Taler ordered it to stop, merely frames before the light appeared. He stared at the bottom right hand corner of the wall and resumed the playback. He watched as the scope of the rifle in Brelen's hand swept up from the ground and came to rest directly on Taler's own face. The device in the centre of the clearing erupted once more and blinded him for a fraction of a second, but before it had even faded, he instructed the computer to repeat the same section at half speed. He watched it three times over, getting closer to the wall each time until he finally saw it. The blaster scope levelled on his face. Brelen's finger moved to the trigger. And then… nothing.

'There,' Taler said venomously, the word spat from between his teeth. 'You hesitated.'

Turning away from the wall, he rounded on Brelen, ready to push further as the anger that surged through his veins. But he found the Kiffar looking back at him with a disheartened face, as though there was something else on the man's mind. The anger seemed to vanish in an instant, and though he did not question what he had seen, he began to wonder why Brelen would do such a thing.

'You hesitated?' he asked, quieter. Brelen continued to look back at Taler, but something in his eyes changed. The steel conviction wavered for barely a heartbeat, but Taler was sure he saw the slight flicker in his eye. He had been trained to notice the smallest of differences, the twitches and the tells that gave away an enemy's weakness. For a moment he thought Brelen might have felt guilt? Remorse? What was it that he saw? Taler realised for probably the thousandth time in his short life he knew very little about emotions, and that troubled him more than he had let himself realise.

Whatever the feelings were that Brelen felt, the signs vanished almost before they had appeared.

'That's quite the allegation,' Brelen replied softly, sucking air through his teeth as he pointed the controller at the screen once more and turned it off. This time though the lights in the room did not grow brighter again, and the two men stood in the dimmed, almost grey light of the briefing room. Brelen heaved himself off the desk and began to cross the room towards the door, and as he reached it, he picked up a long, metal staff that had been leaning against the doorframe, slipping the strap over his shoulder and draping the weapon across his back. He kept his back to Taler as he reached for the door controls, his hand pausing barely an inch away from the buttons. 'I think you should sleep on it. Grab some food from the mess and then I'm ordering your entire unit to get some rest.'

Brelen tapped the controls and the door opened again, the light from outside flooding in through the spiral-like iris. As Taler watched Brelen stepping out into the corridor, a thought occurred to him.

'I may go by the hospital first,' he said. 'Check on Oul.'

'He's not there,' Brelen said quietly. Taler snapped his eyes towards Brelen and took two quick steps towards him. What did he mean? Bad thoughts rushed through his mind and he could not stop the final question from tumbling from his mouth.

'What's happened to Kappa?' he called out. Brelen stopped instantly. 'What's happened to Oul?'

Brelen look back at him over his shoulder, and this time Taler was sure that he had seen something in his eyes. It was there for only a moment, like it had been before, before it was hidden again, but this time Taler was sure he had seen it. The aging Mandalorian had looked at him with fear and worry, with the expression of a man who was not sure he would see Taler again.

'I don't know,' Brelen admitted softly.

Something was really wrong here, and for the first time in his artificially short life, Taler thought he felt fear.