Chapter 4

Clone trooper training facility

Tipoka City

Kamino

Night had engulfed the city in darkness, and the city was quiet here, well, quieter than normal. The lights from the stilted city reflected off the cresting waves as they slammed into the legs that plunged into the murky depths. Outside, the storm still raged across the unending ocean planet.

All was silent, but Brelen still felt on edge. Even with the lights deactivated, and the storm hiding the stars, he felt a little exposed standing in the empty corridor, the transparisteel walls curving down to the white floor - that seemed to glow even in the gloom - and up to the arched ceiling. He was not sure he had ever seen a part of the city look this dark, nearly every corridor he had ever seen seemed to be permanently and painfully bright. But the lights seemed more dimmed than usual here, as though the Kaminoans were trying to draw as little attention as possible to this particular area. That fact alone was enough to make Brelen suspicious.

Every other part of the city was lit with enough light to make the place feel like a hospital: clean, sterile, uniform. The architecture of the place reflected the mind-set of the creatures that inhabited the place, so to have a shadowy corner, tucked away in the lower reaches on the eastern side of the city was almost too obvious. Still, Brelen felt as though they were being watched, and he subconsciously let his hand drop down to the blaster that was holstered on his thigh, sweeping his eyes across the far end of the corridor. Behind him, he could hear the gentle muttering of Rav as she removed the door control panel with the tip of her blade.

'Come on, you shabla…' she hissed, her head moving as she spoke but her voice coming from the speaker in Brelen's ear. The benefit of wearing their helmets was that they didn't have to worry about being silent, because their voices could not be heard once they were sealed.

'How did you know about this place?' Brelen asked, glancing at her from the corner of his eyes.

'We've been here for ten years, Brel,' Rav replied, though he could hear her gritted teeth as she focused on the job in hand. 'I went exploring, seeing what i could find and where.'

Of all the Cuy'val Dar, Rav was the only one who had ever left Kamino in the past decade, other than Jango himself. She was known as someone who could procure anything that anyone might want or need, as long as they didn't ask where it may have come from. Clearly she had a gift for smuggling, and as such, she had probably scoured the city for anything that may turn a profit, and in doing so had mapped most of the lesser known areas as possible escape routes.

'There isn't a part of this facility that I haven't found a way into. Accidentally, of course,' she added, though Brelen could hear the faux innocence in her voice.

'Of course,' Brelen replied, clearly not believing a word of it but unable to stop himself nodding in approval. 'And slicing the locks?' he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

'Natural skill,' she replied, and he could hear her grin through her voice. 'Course some of them can be a little stubborn, like this shabla…' Her cussing was cut short, however, by a soft chime and the delicate hiss of an environmental seal being broken. 'Got it.'

Brelen snapped his head around to look at the doors, and watched as they slowly spiralled open, the soft, curved triangular pieces sliding away into the doorframe. He caught a blast of the air as it coughed out from behind the now open doors, and even though the helmet's filters cleared out most toxins in the air, they still could not stop the smell, and there was something horribly familiar about the stench. Beyond the door was an almost identical corridor to the one they were standing in, but where outside the door was painted in a gleaming white, the other side was a slightly dulled grey, and the further along Brelen looked, the darker it seemed to get.

'We're in,' she said with a hint of triumph in her voice.

'Okay,' Brelen replied. With a glance back over his shoulder at the far end of the corridor, making sure no one was going to catch them, he stepped towards the door, but was stopped by Rav who placed the palm of her hand firmly against his chest plate.

'Are you sure you want to do this?' she asked. Even with the helmet on, he could feel her eyes staring back at him, burning through the visor.

'It's not something i want to do, it's something i need to do,' Brelen replied.

'You won't find peace down there, vod,' Rav said quietly. 'Sometimes not knowing is the better option.'

'I need to know what happened to my boys,' Brelen said plainly. Pushing past her hand, he stepped through the doors and began to walk down the corridor. It took him a moment to realise that he could only hear one set of footfalls, and as he stopped, he turned back towards the door. Rav was still standing on the other side of the doorway. 'Come on,' he called to her.

She didn't move.

'Rav, what are you doing?' he called again.

'I can't,' he heard her whisper. She glanced away from him, ashamed. The confident, arrogant Mandalorian who he had been speaking to a moment before had changed in the blink of an eye, and now she stood silently on the far side of the threshold, scared to step through.

'What do you mean, you can't?' he pressed, nodding down the corridor. 'Come on, before someone catches us.'

'I just… I can't, okay?' she repeated. Brelen turned and began walking towards her, but she took a sudden step backwards away from him. 'Head down this corridor and take the third door on the left,' Rav said, pointing over his shoulder down along the corridor. 'You'll find a staircase there that leads down to the wards. Here,' she added, reaching into the pouch on her belt and pulling out a small cylindrical device. She tossed it to Brelen, and he deftly caught it. It was a small comlink. 'There's a signal jamming field around most of the lower levels. Use that if you get stuck.'

'Wards? Jammers?' Brelen asked, suddenly confused. 'Rav, what's down there? What aren't you telling me?'

'I'm sorry, vod,' Rav said quietly, and before Brelen could take another step, Rav pulled the blade out of the sliced controls, and the door sealed itself once again. What was going on with her? He had never seen her act like this. She was one of the most fearless people that he knew. He had seen her stand feet away from a breach charge exploding and she barely even flinched, but something about this place had her spooked. Brelen was now alone in the darkened corridor, and almost as if it was an ill omen, a flash of lightning tore across the sky outside as the storm grew more violent, the thunderclap rumbling the floor beneath his feet.

Turning away from the door, he walked silently along the corridor until he found the door Rav had described to him. He leaned against the wall and gingerly pushed it open a fraction, peering inside to make sure that it was clear to proceed. On the other side, he could see a set of stairs that led down to the lower levels, and two long thin shadows swept across the floor as two Kaminoan scientists appeared from a door just out of sight. He let the door close again until there was only a sliver of a gap, hoping that they did not look up and see him.

'How did the procedure go?' the first asked. Brelen thought he recognised the voice, but he could have been mistaken. After all, they all sounded the same anyway.

'Unfortunately, none of them proved compatible,' a second voice replied.

'That is a shame,' the first said, though there was no sincerity in their voice. There never was from these beings, Brelen thought. 'Place them with the others and reset the lab.'

'As you wish,' the second replied, and both figures began to move away further down the corridor. Waiting a few more seconds to make sure that the way was clear, Brelen eased the door open once more and glanced down the stairs with a furrowed brow. What were they talking about? What were they doing in this darkened corner of the city?

Glancing back up and down the corridor once more, he slipped through the door and began to descend.

Taler couldn't sleep. It had been hours since he had returned to his barrack room, and he had spent all that time just lying in his bed, staring up at the underside of the bunk above him, his mind consumed by feelings he could not understand. He knew every tactic that had ever been used in combat. He knew every escape procedure that could be used in any situation. He knew how to dismantle and reassemble a DC-17m in less than seven seconds. He had been trained every single day for the entirety of his life how to survive the worst battlefields imaginable, but he had not been trained for this.

His squad mate Jay, RC-1135, was snoring loudly from the bunk above him, lying on his front, his arm dangling over the edge of the bed and hanging down only inches from Taler's head. Across the room were two other bunks, one above the other. In the dim light of the illuminators, he could just about see the other two members of his squad as they slept in their own bunks; Vin, RC-1134, on the top bunk, lying on his side, facing away from them, the harsh glow of a data pad bursting out from behind him as he read through the latest tech manuals, and Darman, RC-1136, on the bottom bunk, his head at the opposite end of the bunk to the other three, a detonator twirling between his fingers, though his eyes seemed to be closed. As he lay there, Taler could still see the odd shape of his shoulder where the bacta patch was underneath his black bodysuit, and the memories of the battle came flooding back in front of his eyes. He suppressed a shudder and glanced back at the others, hoping they had not noticed. If they had, they didn't react.

Taler envied them. They did not seem to have the same problems with their feelings as he did, or they were just better at hiding them than he was. Was he even hiding it?

He and the rest of the clone army were born to be soldiers - though born seemed like the wrong word. They were artificially created by the Kaminoans on the orders of the Senate, designed to be the best. Officially there were three castes – Soldier, Commando, and ARC. The soldiers were generic copies, bred to overwhelm with numbers. Commandos were faster and stronger, trained to be a four man army, tasked with sabotage, black ops and assassinations. And ARC troopers were a step above them, a one man army that were only one step removed from their genetic template, the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy, Jango Fett. The Mandalorian had taken it upon himself to train the ARC's, determined to make them the best in the galaxy.

Being a clone was a blessing and a curse, because they all wore the same face. To everyone who had seen them, they were identical. But to each other, they knew the differences. They spent every minute of the day together, and he knew every nuance of their behaviour, every tiny flicker of their expression, every limit of their endurance, and every character flaw. It meant he was able to anticipate every reaction they might have, almost to the point of foresight. Some might have put it down to an unseen power, telepathy, or clairvoyance, but it was really as simple as knowing your brother. And that is exactly what they were, brothers.

Taler looked across at Darman, still unsure if the man was awake or not. He knew that he would trust these men with his life. They were his squad mates, they were his family. They were commandos, and as he was the leader of their unit, it fell to him to keep them safe. He knew that Oul had felt exactly the same way, both men having spoken about it many nights while they sat together in the mess hall.

He remembered the last conversation they had had. It was barely two nights ago, and yet it seemed like a lifetime. They had spoken about the final assessments, how Kappa squad was ready and eager to prove their worth. But even as they had spoken about what it might entail, Taler had seen the determination in Oul's eyes that his unit would pass, and that he would do anything to make sure they did. The video playback had only shown Theta squads part of the assessment, and Taler wished he could have seen it all. He wanted to know what had happened to Kappa. How had they been pinned down and injured so badly? He knew that Oul would have fought to the last blaster bolt to keep his men safe, and that he would have moved earth and stars to make sure that his unit came home alive, but something had gone wrong, and Taler needed to know what it was.

Home. For a moment, the idea was almost laughable. Was this their home? Did they even know what the word meant? This was where they lived, but was it a home? A facility where they were grown in the sterile, cold world of the Kaminoans, treated like lab projects and disposed of if they didn't measure up? A coldness flooded across Taler's spine as he suddenly felt very very small in an infinitely huge universe.

'How can you stand that sound, Sarge?' Darman asked. Taler looked across and saw that Darman's eyes were still closed, but he had stopped twiddling the detonator between his fingers. Instead, his hand had closed tight around the small cylindrical device, and his knuckles were almost white. Taking a second to try and catch up on what he had missed, he realised that Jay's snoring had grown louder and was now resembling that of a Rampaging rancor.

'If it gets too loud, I just give him a sharp kick in the stomach,' Taler replied, putting on his best sly grin and forcing his voice into a neutral tone.

'Do we all sound like that?' Darman asked. Vin took his eyes off the data pad he was reading and looked back over his shoulder, craning his neck as far as he could to try and look down at Darman.

'I hope not,' he said quietly. 'Otherwise those nice officer girls will never get any sleep.' He laughed. Taler's smile broadened as he shared in the joke, a hint of normality in their otherwise extraordinary life. But Darman did not smile. His brow was creased, but not with anger. Taler looked away from Vin and watched Darman's face in the dim light of the illuminators, and he saw confusion in his brother's eyes.

Of all of them, Darman was the one who struggled most with the idea of normality. After all, what even was normality? Normality for soldiers was supposed to be talking about childhood stories, sharing memories of school and academies, and laughing over stories of failed and successful conquests. At least that was what he had overheard from the training sergeants of the Cuy'val Dar. But they had never experienced any of those things. Their entire lives had been spent within the sterile walls of the Kaminoan's laboratories, or inside the dark, domed, cavern-like training facilities that littered Tipoca City. All they ever knew was training, training, and more training. Some of the clones – mostly the Commandos and ARCs – had picked up a few phrases from their civilian training sergeants, even managing to replicate the banter and tone of their speech. But it did not hide the fact that they knew nothing about the universe outside the walls that kept them confined. They knew facts, flash taught through specially designed headsets that burned it directly into their brains. But they did not know how it felt.

Darman was always one to dwell on what normality might be, whether it be something to fear or long for, but Taler knew better. There would never be a normal life for them. None of them would ever find a girl and settle down. None of them would ever start a family and have something more to fight for than just the orders of their superiors, but if ever he could wish it for one of his brothers, he wished it for Darman.

Taler always did his best to keep his brother's spirits up. He knew that the greatest foe any of them would ever have to face was themselves.

'It is getting a bit noisy in here,' he said as casually as he could manage, taking a swipe at Jay's arm as it still dangled just above his head. Jay grunted loudly, rolling over onto his side, but did not wake. Taler swung his legs out from his bunk and placed his bare feet on the cold deck. His black bodysuit creaked silently as he sat up on the edge of his bunk. Grunting loudly, he stood up and headed towards the door. 'Anyone fancy coming to the mess for some caff?'

His fingers reached out for the controls, but something at the back of his mind stopped them before they touched the glowing panel. He did not know why, but something seemed off. He stood in front of the door for a few moments, trying to figure out what was wrong.

The door was not locked. The controls seemed normal, and the lights in the room were darkened as they always were at this time of night. But something had triggered his soldiers' reactions, and he half closed his eyes as he listened to everything around him.

'What is it, Sarge?' Vin asked. Taler heard the sound of him powering off the data pad, the soft, almost inaudible whine of the screen vanishing as he turned off the power. Taler heard the gentle sound of Darman's feet swinging off the bed and touching down on the floor of the bunkroom. And he heard the deep breaths of Jay as he continued to sleep in his bunk.

But that was it.

There was no sound coming from outside the door. They were fairly soundproof, but these were barracks built for disposable soldiers, so they were not the highest spec. Even in the quietest parts of the night when there was almost no activity, it was possible to hear the trundling gait of the service droids moving up and down the corridors outside. It was possible to hear the soft chatter of other clones as they spoke in their own bunk rooms. But now he heard nothing except…

Taler opened his eyes again, and looked down and saw a brief flicker of a shadow break the line of light that seeped in from beneath the door.

'Sarge?' Vin asked again. Taler felt his eyes widen, and suddenly the door slid open. A white armoured fist shot towards his face. He did not have enough warning, but he was able to lean just enough that it slipped past his nose and instead, collided with his right eye. He stumbled against the wall beside him, and his reactions took over. Pushing off against the wall, he leaned over and threw himself out through the door, wrapping his arms around the figure who had been standing there moments before. He felt his shoulder crunch as he collided with an armoured chest, and as they tumbled to the ground, Taler climbed on top of them and pinned them down. His brain finally caught up to his reflexes and found himself staring down at a figure dressed in white armour and an unusual finned helmet with a similar T-visor to the helmets the Mandalorian training sergeants wore.

What was going on? Behind him, Taler heard the rest of his squad rushing to their feet, and more armoured figures seemed to appear around the corners at the ends of the corridor. What was going on? Was the city under attack?

The figure beneath him struggled, and Taler caught their arm in his hand as they brought their first towards him for a second blow. Through his now tear-streaked vision, his eye already feeling swollen, he saw a small round device in the figure's hand, a red blinking light flashing faster and faster. Even with just the quick flash seen by blurry eyes, he knew what it was, and he lifted his hands to his ears, clamping his eyes shut.

'Flash-bang!' he yelled. There was a moment of silence, followed by a blinding ball of light that filled the entire room. The deafening sound that followed it clawed at his hands as they protected his ears, and the piercing light burned through his scrunched up eyelids. A violent blow to his stomach drove all the air from his lungs, and as he fell to his knees gasping for air, another sharp crack to the back of his head plunged him into unconsciousness.