Magnet for Trouble
By Rey
Chapter summary: Kote and Ruusaan have some time off. But it is not the reprieve they thought-hoped-wished it would be.
49. Reflection
The "Support Corps" turns out to have been yet another adjacent arm to the "Grand Army of the Republic" – oh, how the very thought burns! – just like the "Coruscant Guard." As far as Kote understands, it contained an eclectic variety of support functions and positions, including intelligence. Furthermore, it was also the "dumping ground" for undesirable clones, just like the "Coruscant Guard." It makes for a very large group of children who are very versed in so many different things.
And, given the on-going project, these particular children are yet the quickest and easiest to adapt to their present bodies and collective circumstance.
Also, undeniably, given their particular expertise, the project runs much quicker and much smoother. Now they even have enough non-droid hands and eyes to oversee the farm-droids when the latters harvest the various fields. And, most likely given the novelty, the children who volunteer for this task – all clones, unsurprisingly – are even enthusiastic about it.
This, also the continuing presence of the other adults – sans Jaster who had to come back to their people – that could help watch out for the little builders and organisers, gives Kote and Ruusaan the time and space to just breathe, to be, before they can even think to reflect, let alone to plan.
Not that they can go far or be totally removed from the children for various reasons. They just retreat to the garden, temporarily joining the babies who have been moved to tents erected inside of it at the beginning of the building project under the care of Armourer Arla. But still, it's something, at least.
And, fortunately, thankfully, unlike before, nothing and nobody disturbs them as they cuddle together just behind the farm-facing treeline.
Only, neither of them have never prepared for reality to crash down on them soon after. All at once.
There are hundreds of thousands of children in their farm, now. And it's just a tiny portion of the whole, as Ordo once said and so many others then confirmed. While the farm cannot support so many in the long run, let alone more. And politics in the greater part of Concord Dawn – not to mention the other parts of Mandalore Space! – is almost boiling over into a disaster.
Given that, a question crops up in one's mind, sparks another in the other's, fruits yet another…. It's all frustrated, desperate, helpless, with no answer within reach.
"How do we feed them?"
"How do we clothe them?"
"How do we raise them?"
"How do we make sure that everyone receives equal attention from us?"
"What do they expect from us?"
"What do they hope from us? Do they even hope for anything?"
"What about Ar'ika and Jan'ika? These sudden changes must feel so unfair to them."
"How do we keep these children secret until they can properly fend for themselves? Can we even do that? Will the children understand?"
"Could we ask for outside assistance again without jeopardising the secrecy?"
"When do we have time to do that?"
It's worse when both decide to take to the air on their jetpacks and hopefully look at everything more remotely from not only the physical standpoint but also the psychological one.
Because much of the farm is still there, still recognisable as the one from before with all the patches of land that look like a patchwork quilt from above, different from fish ponds to orchards to vegetable beds to grain fields to nuna coops to mushroom rooms to irrigation lines to their prized silk-beetle breeding block, all hemmed and traced contrastively with spice bushes and trees, and even with a few clusters of flowers. However, they can also clearly see so many clusters of a particular shade of red that have begun to be so prevalent lately, littering everything like diseased spots on a plant or a fruit. Which is a horribly, insultingly blasphemous thing to think about, given that those "spots" are children who have no doubt suffered much in their previous lives and had no say of materialising here in droves with no resources offered but for their minds and skills. Which is in turn should never be expected of children. But the fact remains that, without more resources, more assistance, more of everything good, nothing and nobody on this particular piece of land will survive for long.
They must sacrifice something, or even more, Kote realises as the spouses touch down back on the spot they left from.
And, the scary thing is, `Must we sacrifice our souls and morals, one day? How soon?`
