3: Respect

Kon knows that there are some sentients who don't like clones. There's a certain amount of luck in being assigned to the 222nd that he and his brothers haven't really had to face anyone like that with any regularity. Their General is odd, to be sure, but he is a good general – none better, in their opinion, save perhaps a few. Even Tim, who grumbles and groans about them siccing Match on him so he gets some rest, treats them like family.

It comes as a shock, then, when this blonde near-human girl shows up, declares that she is the General's cousin, and it couldn't be plainer that she does not like clones, not one bit.

"Kara," the General bites out, "What brings you here?"

Kon can tell that the General is trying his best to ignore her attitude: he may be speaking with his normal cordial tone, but there's an edge to it and to his posture that is obvious to anyone who really knows him.

The General does not suffer intolerance well, if at all: it is, as they understand it, not the Jedi way.

Kara gives Kon and his brothers a deeply mistrustful look and then replies in a language that is utterly strange.

The General closes his eyes, taking a deep breath. "I have a duty, Kara."

In a move that startles them, her whole body rises off the ground in a smooth gliding motion. She bares her teeth and, for all that she looks human, she is clearly something else, radiant and crackling in a way that makes Kon's head swim. "To your monks? To the Republic? Or, no, to these… things?"

"They are individuals, Kara," the General interrupts firmly and he might as well be a mountain. "Please refer to them as such."

"Nonetheless, if you had any sense, you'd know the danger you're in," Kara counters, looking down on him as she begins to rise higher into the air. "Stay if you like, but time is running out."

The General watches her rise higher and, then, with a loud boom, she is gone.

"I am sorry you had to see that," he tells them, after a moment. He wiggles his fingers. "She's… young and our homeworld doesn't exactly have a good history with cloning."

"Isn't she a Jedi, too, sir?" Kon asks.

He laughs, shaking his head. "No, but neither am I, technically."

"Sir?" one of the others asks, speaking for all of them in his bewilderment.

"Ask Knight Drake about it sometime," the General says and goes back to his plants.

AN:

the kryptonian clone wars remains a Thing that happened but we're not gonna talk about that or about the other ~Implications~