When I originally started this story, Dogma didn't have a number. Since I first posted this, I have found that he does have a number now. At first I didn't want to change it. But I finally decided that I probably needed to.


Dogma woke up again slowly, this time with no voices around to help bring him awake faster. It was as if whatever had been used to make him sleep still had its nasty claws in him. Dogma pushed away the grogginess as he struggled back into the world of the living.

This time, there was no cuffs wrapped around his wrists or a table at his back.

He was laying on something soft, and there was a blanket covering him.

Dogma opened his eyes slowly, squinting up at the ceiling as he tried to figure out where exactly he was.

The ceiling wasn't white, or maybe it was but it wasn't the bright white of Kamino's ceilings. Dogma blinked dimly up at it in confusion, as he started to struggle to push himself into a sitting position.

It was at that moment that a voice caused him to jump and slam back against the wall as his eyes darted around, trying to figure out what was going on.

The voice was young and. . . female?

"Oh! You're awake!" it said excitedly. "Nala Se said you wouldn't wake up for another hour."

At that moment Dogma's gaze fell on the speaker, a child with blonde hair in white and red Kaminoan doctor's fatigues. He stared at her as she darted closer to him, an excited grin on her face as she leaned against the berth he was on, staring up at him with delight clear on her face.

"I'm Omega!" the girl said. "What's your name?"

Dogma blinked at her in stunned silence for a moment.

Then he slowly said, "Dogma. Where. . . What is this place?"

"Nala Se's secret lab," Omega said. "I live here. Nala Se said that she brought you here to study your defect."

That caused Dogma to flinch and press himself further against the wall.

"It's okay," Omega added quickly. "It doesn't hurt a lot of the time. Nala Se is gentle when she works down here. She says that it's because our defects are valuable."

Dogma stared at the girl nervously for a very long moment. Then he asked, quietly, "How am I defective?"

Omega tilted her head. "Don't you know?"

Dogma slowly shook his head.

"You have a higher than standard midi-chlorian count." An icy familiar voice said.

Dogma pressed himself further against the wall as Nala Se strode into the room, a datapad and hypospray held in her long-fingered hands. He stared blankly up at her as he tried to decipher what she meant by that.

"Oh, I know what midi-chlorians are!" Omega said excitedly. "They're miniature organisms that live inside everyone's cells. They allow the Jedi to feel the Force, right?"

That caused Dogma to freeze in sudden terror and horror.

What?

That wasn't possible!

Clones couldn't be Force-sensitive!

"That. . . That's not possible." Dogma croaked out.

"Apparently it is," Nala Se said coolly as she moved closer to him, setting the datapad down on the berth near him, as she firmly pushed up the sleeve of his reds. "Now, hold still while I retrieve a blood sample."

Dogma froze as the hypospray entered the crook of his elbow, a small vile of Dogma's blood growing in the hypospray's body. An image entered his head of his own body laying on a table.

Nala Se removed the hypospray and turned away, the image disappearing as soon as she had released him, saying to Omega. "Get CT-9922 settled. I will come retrieve you to do some more work later."

Then she was gone, leaving Dogma with the little girl.

Dogma blinked silently for a long moment before he whispered, "Why. . . Why did they change my number?"

He had been CT-6922 for his entire life. Why had they needed to change it? Were they hiding him so that the Jedi wouldn't know about the fact that he was apparently Force-sensitive?

"You're a part of the experimental grouping," explained Omega gently. "All experimental units use a variation of the CT-99 numbering. I'm CT-9900. It's based after Ninety-Nine. You know who he is, right?"

Dogma nodded, a lump in his throat.

"Come on," Omega said cheerily. "You have got to be hungry. Let's get you some food."

Dogma silently slid off the berth, unfolding himself and allowing Omega to take his hand and pull him towards the door, trying to hide the flinch as an image of a droid pricking him with a needle appeared in his head as soon as he touched Omega's hand.

Dogma just followed passively, face blank and solemn as he tried to ignore the image.

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Nala Se's curiosity was far from being assuaged as she studied the blood sample she had gotten from the newly numbered CT-9953. So far, besides the fact that CT-9953 had a high midi-chlorian count, there was no anomalies.

It was frustrating for there to be no indication of why exactly CT-9922's blood had such a high midi-chlorian count.

She frowned in annoyance as she studied the count again almost angrily. It was 16000. Higher than what she knew Shaak Ti's was. It was slightly frustrating that there was no rhyme or reason why it was so high though.

With a short shake of her head, she lowered her datapad.

She might have to open up CT-9922 to figure out this mystery.

And she was rather loath to do that.

CT-9922 could be a valuable asset.

And cutting him open would mean that he would have to be disposed of afterwards.

The damage done from cutting CT-9922 open would require it.

Although doing so would upset Omega severely.

Nala Se let out a soft annoyed sigh and pressed her long fingers against her forehead.

She suddenly paused and turned towards where CT-9922's birth data had been transferred. Perhaps there was something inside it that had been overlooked by the doctors overseeing the inseminations of the clones.

As soon as she flicked it open, her large eyes blinked in surprise. There was a blood sample that had been drawn from CT-9953 when he had been removed from his shared tank, unlike most clones. Most clones blood wasn't drawn after they were pulled from their tanks.

Her eyes narrowed.

That told her that something about CT-9922 caused that sample to be pulled.

A quick glance at the file told her exactly why.

CT-9922 had been extremely sick when he had been pulled from his tank. The blood sample had been taken to determine what exactly the illness had been.

They hadn't even bothered checking the blood for a midi-chlorian count.

Nala Se quickly plugged the sample into her scanning equipment and immediately the data appeared. It made everything clearer to her.

CT-9922 had emerged from his tank with a high midi-chlorian count.

How. . . intriguing.

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Dogma kept staring blankly at his lap as Omega chattered nearly unceasingly. The little girl, clearly, had been kept separate from other clones for her entire life. So she was practically ecstatic to talk with someone who wasn't Nala Se. Dogma didn't hold it against her.

He just wished that she'd stop talking so much. It wasn't that he minded being talked to, it was just that he was tired.

It had been a long day.

And the strange images were getting worse, exactly like they had been back when he had been in training with his squad.

Before Omega had helped him get something to eat, she had shown him around Nala Se's underground lab, excitedly pointing out things she deemed important. From the way Omega talked it sounded like Dogma would be staying down here for some time. Possibly the rest of his life.

That had been enough to make Dogma want to run. But he hadn't. He had managed to hold himself together and follow after Omega obediently, just in case she reported everything to Nala Se.

Dogma took a deep tired breath as he patiently sat at the table Omega had led him to, listening to her talk on and on and on.

It was at that moment that he saw Omega's eyes widen suddenly.

"Oh! You're tired! Why didn't you say anything?"

Dogma silently shrugged as Omega grabbed his hand and tugged at it insistingly, flinching a little at the image that popped into his head of Nala Se standing over a group of pods with a datapad.

"Come on!" she said. "We can go to bed now. It is pretty late."

Dogma stood up and allowed Omega to drag him back towards the room he had woken up in, trying to ignore the images racing through his head.

He was mentally and physically exhausted, had been for about the last three hours. Having to come to terms with the fact that he was defective, and not just a normal kind of defective but an extreme type, was tiring.

Dogma lowered his head silently as he and Omega passed the room, his room's, threshold. There were probably camera's everywhere, but Omega had told him that this room was his space, and he couldn't help but relax in it.

Dogma sank onto the bed with no prodding from Omega and stared up at her sleepily as she crawled onto the berth next to him and curled up on his chest.

A small itch seemed to come from where she laid her head.

Dogma stared down at her, nearly alarmed.

Omega whispered before he could say anything. "I've never actually been able to meet one of my brothers before. Can I stay with you? Please?"

That caused any reluctance to fade. Dogma nodded quietly and whispered as he wrapped his arms around Omega's back, pulling her tight to his chest, ignoring the echo that seemed to come from when he touched her. "It's okay."

Omega sank gratefully into Dogma's embrace and Dogma felt himself relaxing too, feeling better than he had felt since the entire mess that was Umbara.

The last time he had felt this relaxed, was the night before they arrived at Umbara when Dogma had had a horrible nightmare and crawled into bed with Tup.

Now that Dogma thought about it, that nightmare had been nearly identical to what had happened on Umbara.

He had heard of some Jedi being able to see the future. What he hadn't expected and thus had been completely unprepared for was that the same thing had happened to him before. He just hadn't believed they were visions.

A cold lump grew in Dogma's throat.

Before Echo and Fives had left for the Citadel mission, he remembered having a horrible nightmare about Echo dying. And then Echo had died.

Why hadn't he believed in his visions? He could have saved Echo. He could have saved all of his brothers that died on Umbara. Kriff, he remembered having a vision of Skeptic and Zap being taken away by the Kaminoan's before they had been decommissioned.

Dogma lowered his head trying to hold back his tears.

He had failed his vode over and over and over again.

Dogma already knew that he didn't belong with the rest of the vode but this cemented how much he didn't belong.

Tears flooded his eyes and he began to take some quick, calming breathes to calm himself down slightly.

A sudden hand touched his face. "Don't cry, Dogma. Everything is going to be alright."

Dogma stared silently down at Omega's compassionate eyes. He lowered his gaze and mumbled, "I'm not worried about me."

Omega leaned her head against his chest. "Still. Everything will be okay."

And Dogma couldn't help but believe her.

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Nala Se moved silently through her private lab, heading for CT-9922's quarters. She needed to take more samples and likely would need to do a full physical on CT-9922 to better understand exactly how his midi-chlorian count affected him.

Her eyes were fixed on her datapad as she entered the room, looking up when she was fully in the room. Then she froze.

CT-9922 was asleep on his berth, arms curled around Omega who was also asleep on his chest, her head nuzzling against him.

Nala Se stared at the image for a long moment, taking in Omega's happy smile.

She glanced down at the datapad carefully sliding the files away and lifting it up, camera filter activated. Nala Se snapped a quick photo before swiftly lowering it, not entirely sure why she had done that.

If the Prime Minister or anyone else ever discovered that she was beginning to care for Omega or any of the other clones, there was a high probability that she would never be allowed to work with the clones again. Personal attachment was not allowed, especially not with their products.

She snuck another peek at the image in front of her before quickly spinning around.

Nala Se could continue with CT-9922 tomorrow.

After all, she did have other projects to see to.

It had nothing to do with the fact that Omega seemed to be sleeping so sweetly on CT-9922.

Of course not.