I remember back at the academy, I got lucky enough once to read some old foreign fairy tales, unedited versions.
Worth doing, honestly.
No happy endings in those.
The Wolf actually eats Red Riding Hood, no grandmother, no woodcutter saving the day.
The Pied Piper genuinely drowns the children, all but one, a kid with a bad leg who couldn’t keep up with the rest.
And Sleeping Beauty gets assaulted by the king, plainly and without ceremony.
And I remember sitting in the transport headed back to Kamino, wanting, more than almost anything, to get completely wasted.
Blackout drunk, gods, how badly I wanted that.
Orders don’t get discussed.
They don’t, do they.
“Wider stride, you bantha pudu!
KS-5632/2145, quit flailing those stumps around like you’re sweeping a floor!” I stand there, straining to impose some kind of order on this chaotic swarm of identical green figures.
Preparatory building three sits somewhere deep in Tipoca City.
Over the past year I’ve been through all of them.
Lectures, reviews, drills, drills, more drills.
That’s basically been my life.
And R&D work, obviously, can’t skip that.
I disappear into the workshop I share with Dench and Drill most days.
Both of them command their own formed units now too.
Scar’s an ARC trooper now, easily the fiercest company commander in the whole series.
Salty’s still training with the Alphas under Fett; we barely cross paths anymore, and whenever we do, he just says training’s gotten brutal, almost cruel.
I’m not invited to sit in on that.
Honestly, my very first impression of this place was dead on.
I look at my current recruits, searching for real differences.
Can’t find any.
Not outwardly, anyway.
These ones are quieter, more obedient, in some ways more disciplined even.
“Fett wants you,” Alpha-17 says.
Fine, if he’s calling, worth pausing the unloading and trophy processing.
Salty can handle it, and, suspiciously fast, the Nulls and Master Kal have already gravitated toward what’s left of our little feast.
I head over to their fire, set up near a tent off from the main camp.
Seven Mandalorians, mostly human, one Zabrak, sitting around the fire with helmets off, talking quietly amongst themselves.
A pot of meat cooking over the flame.
Two women, Master Wonte and Master Isa, seated next to Jango Fett, facing my direction, spot me and nudge the others.
As I approach, the conversation trails off, and every set of eyes lands on me.
Waiting.
Something’s off.
Everyone except Fett looks tense.
Right now I’m training the recruits solo, running myself and them ragged, and honestly, who’s to blame for that.
He apparently thought he was hot stuff.
Got overconfident.
Let his guard down, badly, and…
“Master Fett, Clone CT-134, reporting as ordered.” Fett looked deeply, seriously thoughtful.
Hearing my voice, he gave a small nod to something and looked up at me.
Heavy look.
Same kind of look my old company commander used to give us back when, drunk during an exercise, we thought it’d be hilarious to run an unscheduled drill on the new conscripts by lobbing grenades near their tents.
Turned out those were live rounds, dark, or maybe just too drunk to check.
Miraculously nobody died, mostly because that scenario had actually been pre-cleared, and the recruits themselves had already been pulled off to watch some training film elsewhere on base.
That was the day I quit drinking entirely.
And now here I am, standing there, feeling guilty about something I can’t even name yet.
“Let’s take a walk, one thirty four,” Fett sighed, tired, and stepped over the log he’d been sitting on, heading up toward the nearest ridge without looking back.
“What do you actually think the point of these exercises has been?” Fett asked.
“Have you given it any real thought?” Damn.
Why am I not connecting this faster?
“Sir?” What exactly had I missed here?
Thought I had this whole thing figured out, didn’t I.
Never even considered it could be THIS deliberate.
“Hold position.
Halt, one, two!
Nice work, you clumsy pack of lizards.
If your legs won’t cooperate, we’ll work the arms instead.
Prone position!” Meanwhile, Fett kept firing off questions without pause.
“Why were you handed so many ‘impossible’ tasks, back to back, right from the start?
Why were platoon commanders pulled from outside the Alpha line and assigned to lead Alphas?
Why overload you the way we did?
Limited resources, was that it?
Come on, you’re one of the sharp tacticians, think it through.
I’m genuinely asking.
Nothing?
Why do you think the whole structure got scrambled like that, and why didn’t a single instructor ever go out there with you?” I steel myself.
“To demonstrate independence, endurance, and adaptability under difficult, unfamiliar conditions, sir.” Fett let out a heavy sigh and just stared into my eyes.
This isn’t some fantasy drama with parlor tricks, this is real life, and you very nearly wrecked the whole thing yourselves.
“What do you mean, you ‘don’t know’?
Sounds like I got handed the most defective platoon in your entire batch.
And you’re supposed to be future commandos?
Let me spell it out, especially for you, KS-5632/2212, since you’ve clearly spent more time in the growth tank than anywhere useful, when you’re told to assume prone rest position, you…” He paused.
“Somehow I get the feeling we both already know that’s not the real answer.” He turned, took a couple steps toward the ridgeline, facing away from me, toward camp.
“Who do you see down there, CT-134?” “Soldiers of the Republic, sir.
The best of the best, sir,” I offer carefully, breaking into a cold sweat internally.
Jango just gave a slight grin and, unexpectedly, started talking.
“Had your rest, you lazy runts?
Now get moving, laps around the field!
What’s that mumbling, KS-5632/2003?
How long do you run?
Until I say stop!
Move it, double time, march!” He continued.
“You know, I go back a long way with that Zabrak you all managed to catch out there, Narun Daal.
That’s a real soldier.
Best of the best.
And he’s climbed out of far worse situations than a field seeded with baradium charges.
If he hadn’t been laughing so hard, he’d have taken apart Scar’s whole squad just out of spite, doesn’t appreciate being blown up, and plenty have tried before you.
He’s also technically one of your instructors, by the way.
Ha.
Our little group of instructors could probably wipe out half this camp right now if we felt like it.
And that’s because at some point every one of us had real motivation to grow, improve, push our skills.
Not to look the part, but to actually be better than whoever we were up against.
So when I look out there, I don’t see soldiers.
I see kids.
Kids who, today, yesterday, and every day before that, still haven’t been allowed to actually become soldiers.
All you’ve been shown is the how.” He turned sharply, meeting my eyes with total, unshakable confidence.
“But looking at you specifically, I don’t see a kid.
Because to teach someone the how, you first have to understand the why yourself.
Right?” I feel myself go rigid, cold sweat prickling everywhere.
My mind’s racing, running a thousand possible answers and landing on none of them.
“So.
Answer me.
Right now.
Who are you?” And he’s watching me.
That same mocking look.
And for a second, standing in front of me isn’t a training officer, it’s a legendary bounty hunter known across an entire galaxy full of countless worlds and species, and why is that only hitting me now?
I’d gotten used to nobody really caring about anything out here, gotten comfortable, careless.
Overconfident.
But I want to live.
Badly.
Right at that moment, my memory dredged up some throwaway moment back in the barracks, trying to actually talk to one of my own CT series brothers.
Point blank asking, why don’t any of us talk to each other.
And the guy, Hundy, I think, just said, “Why would we?
You’re me.
Just a little different.” Nonsense on the surface, but not entirely wrong either.
Worst case, we’re about to find out exactly how tough this Jango really is.
Bravado, sure, but sometimes that’s the only fuel available.
“I’m them, sir.
All of them.
Just slightly different, sir.” And I didn’t regret it.
Didn’t feel sorry for any of them.
Not the adults, not the women, not the children, not even the teenagers.
“On your feet, you Alderaanian maggots.
Your soft little bodies belong to the Republic now.
Either you’ll be useful to it, or you’ll die, and neither option’s particularly good for your health, or the Republic’s.” He looked at me, expression unchanged.
“Convincing,” he said flatly.
“Who exactly are you kidding, kid?” A moment later he looked away, turning back toward camp, voice quieter now, worn thin.
“Well, if that’s how it is.
I’m forty two, boy, and I’ve seen my fair share of strange things bouncing between stars.
If that’s really true about you, you’ll understand what I mean, eventually.” Then, louder again, “Good work out there today, all of you, gave it everything.
You should be proud.
Genuinely.
Almost all of you are going to make excellent commanders and soldiers.
Good work against those raiders too.
Last task on this planet’s coming up, so get ready.
Dismissed, clone.” Then, almost as an afterthought, “I think you’ve actually earned something today.” Completely dismissed.
Nobody even bothered to mock me on the way out.
“Scar.
We need to release the animals.” “Why?” “Order’s been carried out already.” I walk over quietly and open the pen holding the swamp rontos.
“They didn’t do anything wrong, honestly.” I spot two DW series clones, same batch as Dench, hauling over a vat of food.
This one, at least, tastes vaguely like squirrel.
“Clone CT-134, I know your weakness now,” Fett says, smiling.
“Though honestly, if I hadn’t found it, you’d have been flagged for reprocessing eventually.
Nobody’s perfect at everything.” “Sir, I don’t follow.” “You never fired on civilians, clone.” Then, quieter, “‘Leave no trace of your presence’ was still standing orders.
That idiot Chess dragged colonists straight into our camp.
Officially, I’d requisitioned their cargo transports, they really didn’t want to hand over their repulsor haulers to a bunch of strangers, especially right after that Trandoshan hit.
Practically speaking, that decision signed their death warrant.
Under the secrecy protocols in place, we were only authorized to reveal a small group, up to a dozen clones max.
I’d have had them dropped a couple kilometers out and hauled the gear in by hand from there, an hour’s difference.
Just one hour short of when we actually arrived in those battered, overloaded speeders.
Five hours after that, the Carnush-31 mining colony stopped existing.
And their farm right along with it.” He commanded Operation 02 personally.
Came back from the cleanup reporting cheerfully, mission accomplished, no injuries, no losses.
“And I pulled Chess aside and beat his helmet in with my bare hands until someone dragged me off him.
Something in him just snapped.” Fett didn’t handle it through official channels, he handled it personally, almost like a father would.
Broke camp, sent us back to Kamino, and the next day scattered everyone who’d been on that cleanup operation out across different garrisons to help train fresh batches.
I got buried under upgrade requests.
Wrote up tactical manuals on working with cover and shelter positions, more writing than I’ve ever done in my life, honestly.
Somewhere in all that, I lost track of things.
And Alpha-02 disappeared.
Not right away.
My scouts apparently ran him down eventually, they’re easy to spot now, the mouse insignia’s basically permanent at this point.
And Scar didn’t leave right away either, but something in him broke after that colony too.
I make a note on the datapad and head off the sealed parade ground.
Might as well swing by the workshop to check on Denny, he’s overseeing final reviews for the CS series clones about to graduate.
Runs a tight operation these days.
He’s dealt with what happened on Rishi in his own way, gone quiet since.
Doesn’t even seem excited about the new thermal grenade upgrades anymore.
Genuinely brilliant design, in its simplicity.
Basically nothing revolutionary, just reinvented a shrapnel liner concept, really.
Well, we’ve got a free day tomorrow supposedly, and I’ve still got a flask of decent moonshine tucked in my pack from that pirate transport search.
If he’s still down today, I’ll offer him a drink.
Introduce him to alcohol properly.
Wouldn’t hurt me either, come to think of it.
Adding up both lives, I haven’t had a drink in about a quarter century.
Might be time.
Oh.
Passing the dining hall, something catches my eye out of the corner, genuinely out of place here.
Down the opposite corridor, walking with a rare visitor, a Kaminoan, someone with chestnut hair in Jedi robes flashes past.
Everything inside me went ice cold instantly.
It’s starting.
I sit down hard, yank my helmet off, and, quietly to myself, hope this is some kind of glitch, something I’ll laugh about later.
No, if this is really happening, if the midichlorians are acting up on me, I swear I’ll hunt down whatever the local doctors use to cure this kind of nonsense.
Hoping desperately this isn’t real.
Dench lifts his head from the mat next to mine.
“Cap,” he whispers, “what’s wrong?” “Nothing.
Just a bad dream, Denny.” Maybe napping right after fresh kills isn’t the best idea for me personally, apparently.
Drill’s got stimulants in the first aid kit somewhere.
Let’s find out how the local chemistry holds up.
Heh.
My scouts have already finished sorting the trophies, they’re crashed out too.
Wait.
What’s this.
Oh.
Them too.
com/Hezzario