3,
Hiding on a docked ship had usually worked... Usually. Imperial soldiers tended to ignore a poor, homeless, thin Twi'lek boy.
That wasn't the case once he got on the wrong ship. Where could Master Justiss be now, he wondered. Will he come after him? Like he did on that horrible night, the Purge? When he returned to the Temple to see if the signal could be altered, but instead of besieging the former home, he went for the safehouses on the lower levels, and helped ten survivors escape right from under Sidious's nose?
His lekkus trembled at the sight of an Inquisitor. As long as there were only stormtroopers, he guessed he would manage – but not with their leader around. How could he be so bold? Why did he have to sneak on a ship that he knew was heading for the capital? As long as they were in the Mid Rim, his master believed both of them to be safe.
Someone had already seen him, he was sure. Through the Force, he could hear the enemy sending the troopers to search the ships one by one, and to capture him alive.
That was not going to happen, he decided. Anything but that.
"Take this on and follow me"
What?!
He turned around. A lone stormtrooper in red armor was standing behind him, weapons still in their holsters. How could he sneak up behind him? He reached out with the Force, and to his shock, he couldn't feel the soldier. As if hadn't existed.
"You won't feel me" the trooper told him, as if reading his thoughts. "At least not until you take this medal from me."
"Who are you?" The Twi'lek carefully asked. "And what's with the medal?"
"Don't ask either. So far, there is only one of those traitors here. I suspect the rest are still conferring about the Rebel agent who infiltrated their ranks and helped Senator Mothma escape. They will be around if you don't disappear soon, however."
"How do you know they're conferring?"
"I was there when they started it." The red trooper replied with a faint shade of proudness in his voice. "I brought them the news of an infiltrated spy. They bought it. Now let's move!"
When he accepted the medal (it was some crystal on a thin leather lace) he hoped he would gain a better understanding of the Force. The exact opposite happened: as if he lost all connection to it the moment it touched his skin.
"Now disable your lightsabre and put this dataring on it. Refer to it as a data cylinder. If anybody asks, from now on you are Kai Taa, illegitimate child of Senator Orn Free Taa. Don't worry, not even he knows how many of those he has."
He allowed himself a careful joke.
"I guess your father was in a slightly similar situation."
To his surprise, the soldier took off his red helmet to show how correct his assumption was. A clonetrooper, indeed.
"Nice work, padawan. Now let us go, before we run into the reinforcement."
"They would kill us, right?"
The clone gave him a very honest-feeling look.
"Worse. They would keep you to become one of them." The helmet was back on his head in a second. "Then I would need to start rescuing Jedi from you as well. I'd rather not."
The young Twi'lek grabbed his hand.
"Is that why you refuse to trust me with your name? In case I would turn to the Dark Side?"
"Partly" the clone replied while guiding him down on a maintenance ladder. "And partly because I don't have a name anymore. Not even an identification number. I use those of the dead, and never one that could be in any way connected to my former alteregos."
"It can't be easy." The soldier felt the kid's sharp gaze on him.
A very quiet sigh was the answer. They were approaching an elevator that would take them to the nearest maglev station.
"We were raised to be loyal to ideals, never to people" he added finally. "Here, I hid some clothes in advance, see if they fit."
"Much like we were, I suppose" the blue Twi'lek boy nodded. "I remember Master Yoda telling us never to be attached to anyone, only to the Order, and to the Republic. Do you know if he's still alive?"
"The Emperor didn't give up searching for him. Do you always speak this much?"
The boy fell quiet for a second, if only to allow the clone to arrange the elegant valence on the neck of his robes.
"That's better. Now, young sir, quit asking me for a long time, about Jedi business or about anything else. Be disdainful with me, or else we'll never make it past the security controls."
"I will try."
"If you fail... just remember, the one I served under during the war is just as dead as every other Jedi who had clones under their command."
Panda: Thank you! I don't have huge plans for a main plot (not much, anyway) as this is the follow-up of the main story Clone identity. If you read that one too, you'll find this last line very spoilery :)
