Chapter Fourteen
HistoryMinor
Well-known member
Chapter Fourteen
Time passes. Hopes emerge and are dashed. Lives are wasted in the pursuit of pulling strings that have already been cut. Wars rage on, mere harbingers of the devastation that is to come. In many ways no one learns from the slaughter, much is ignored and justified when done by an ally. In other ways, industry and ingenuity breed new dangers grown atop healthy feat of the threats that came before.
Time passes. Hopes emerge and are dashed. Lives are wasted in the pursuit of pulling strings that have already been cut. Wars rage on, mere harbingers of the devastation that is to come. In many ways no one learns from the slaughter, much is ignored and justified when done by an ally. In other ways, industry and ingenuity breed new dangers grown atop healthy feat of the threats that came before.
***
“He’s just a kid, Scorch.”
“Technically he’s older than both of us.”
A vibroknife quietly went into the chest of a test subject that had strayed too far from his cell. Before the captured COMPNOR youth could gasp for his last breath of air he was being dragged mouth covered into a crawlspace to die. This latest test did not necessarily involve those who were having their genetic code studied and rearranged, but it would be safer to eliminate them in case the true targets were nearby. Delta Squad knew that one should never take unnecessary risks while hunting Jedi.
The endless storms of Kamino were more vicious than they remembered. Wreckage from the last battle about 3 years ago still made travel to and from the planet perilous, making tractor beams necessary to clear the path offworld. Climatologists had concluded that all the energy expended during the attack had changed something in the upper atmosphere, which was the source of the stronger wind gusts and occasional torrents of acid rain.
On a positive note the endless thunder and huge splashes caused by space debris crashing into the anarchic world ocean muffled the sound of their movement, making stealth much easier. This section of the cloning facility was still undergoing repairs, and there were many blackout areas, ruptures and hollowed out spaces a Commando could make his way through undetected. Delta Squad moved to their next target one crevasse at a time using service tunnels and ventilation shafts that reeked of claustrophobia, sometimes having to stop and use special lasers to chip away at overly narrow paths.
Much had changed since Fixer, Boss and Scorch lost their pod brother Sev on Kashykk. Scorch had been the funny man of the group before that fateful day. Now his few attempts at jokes were bitterly acerbic. The last time Scorch authentically laughed had been when he and his squadmates were laying down suppressing fire on an advancing Jedi. The squad had expected the knight to force push an incoming incendiary grenade out of the way, giving them a pinpoint opening to pepper him with blaster shots. They didn’t think he’d try to use his blue lightsaber to bat it aside, or that contact with the grenade would set the Jedi’s cloak on fire. “That’s going in my highlight reel” Scorch had said as Boss put down the target.
The force users in this place were even less impressive. Their reflexes were barely on par with that of padawans, and they lacked the muscle memory to fluidly enact the techniques flash printed into them. In his briefing Boss was planning to recommend that the next batch be given at least an extra year or two to gestate, rather than four year accelerated process that was bringing down the quality of clones across the GAR. He was starting to think this Starkiller program was a waste of resources, but at least it was a good training exercise for his squad.
They was only one cloned Jedi left. Boss held up his fist, motioning for his brothers to hold position. It looked like another aberration. The rain hitting the exposed platform where it meditated was slightly caustic, but the pale skinned being did not recoil from the pain or move in any way as Delta Squad took up firing positions. The downpour and the raging sea were one, a primordial interchanging chaos.
Boss was starting to wonder why its type tended to corner themselves in this place, or why this was the only area of the cloning facility near completely obliterated by capital ship fire. His objective was combat training though, not behavioral observation, so he and his squad set aside their curiosity and prepared to fire. As soon as they did, the commandos were in the air being sucked forward. They had the wherewithal to pepper it with shots, which were stoically ignored like the crushing pain caused by Delta Squad’s armor being pushed through tendons and ankles. Soon Delta squad would be repulsed into the waters below or worse, obliterated. Luckily they had trained for this, and at the last possible moment opened up with blast canons at point blank range. The corpse collapsed immediately, just one of many identical copies ready for dissection.
****
This and a half dozen other scenes play on Lama Su’s viewscreen. Research and development was progressing far faster than he and his advisors could have anticipated. Acquisition of new genetic samples had slowed down thanks to the rise of the New Jedi Order drawing in most stragglers, but not before the Kaminoans had learned to reliably clone organisms with high midichlorian counts. Lama Su was sure these Starkillers would soon be the most profitable creations a cloner had ever sold, he just needed to be patient and wait until the right sequence of flash training, slave conditioning and partial lobotomies was ironed out to keep them obedient and sane.
It would be awhile before Lama Su could set them loose on a planet like Coruscant. The planet is dirty and anarchic, far different from the ordered sterility he has grown accustomed to on his home planet. While it rebuilds he will be stuck in places like this, ensuring the stability of his clientele as they bite and claw for more power. Expanding production to other worlds is not ideal, but it is a cheap and necessary means of making sure they feel safe and pay on time. He and they understand the symbolism and irony in headquartering his technicians and apparatchik in the old temple, a place of structure and reclusion far above the shortages and low intensity insurgency outside. It would no longer be a place of peace, but to those who cannot distinguish between defense and war, the change is irrelevant.
The leader of the Kaminoan war economy turns his attention to the screen showing a clone being fitted for a new shoulder, the only survivor of a explosion outside a nearby popular nightclub. The GAR would always be centered around the average trooper, but the compromises inherent in shrinking development from 9 years to 3 is reducing their prestige and effectiveness. With that in mind there is no reason to retire veteran seasoned units just because they are wounded or leaving their biological prime; the fast tracking of the Dark Trooper program and its cybernetic augmentations can keep them combat fit long after the onset of senescence. There is no reason to “win”. His regime benefits from the cost of war, every new weapon in his arsenal and enemy at the gates only increases his profits. Another explosion can be heard in the distance, just more terrorism meant to call out those who aren't listening.