Chapter 79

Kamino. One year earlier.

"Look I'm just saying there's no way Coruscant are ever going to qualify for the galactic cup."

"Yeah, and even if they did, they'd get destroyed by one of the proper teams so they should stay away, for their own safety."

"I still can't believe Alderaan managed to beat Ord Mantell, they've got like no good players."

"Yeah, but Ord Mantell's defence is terrible so its not that big of a surprise."

In a small supply closet within the Tipoca City Military Complex, five boys were sat around a small holo-projector showing sporting updates and discussing the upcoming galactic bolo-ball cup.

Four of the boys looked identical, both in appearance and in the red fatigues they were wearing, while the fifth looked a few years older than them.

-

Renn smiled as he looked at the four trainee ARC troopers he was sat with, three from Jango's Alpha class and one from Kal Skirata's Null class.

They were all sat around a holo-projector and Renn had hacked into Tipoca cities long rang comms array so that the projector could show holo-entertainment channels.

Kamino was isolationist and so wasn't interested in being part of the galactic holo-net, and the kaminoans certainly didn't want the clone army viewing anything that might make them individualistic in any way.

But that didn't stop Renn, and he wondered about the moral implications of teaching a group of trainee special forces operatives to hack into secure military comms arrays so that they could watch sports events.

He didn't think about it for long though. The republic had conscripted these kids and was training them to fight and die to protect a government they didn't even know about, so that republic citizens didn't have to.

Compared to that he didn't think there was much wrong with what he was doing, not that he would have cared if there was.

"Hey, how hard do you reckon it'd be to set up our own bolo-ball league?" Alpha-42, Spoon, asked.

Spoon and Renn had been friends since Renn had first started visiting Kamino and the two had almost a close a bond as Spoon shared with the rest of his brother ARCs.

Spoon was a slightly goofy but kind-hearted guy, when he it came to his friends and his brothers, often joking and laughing with them.

But he was demonic towards his enemies and would fight them with a cold calculating fury that would terrify anyone unlucky enough to cross him.

"Ha, that's a great idea!" Alpha-54, Badger said slapping his knee in excitement at the idea.

"It is… but the fishys will never allow it. You now how pissed they get whenever our less 'gifted' brothers start exhibiting independence." Alpha-46, Egg, sighed.

And although he had said it jokily, everyone knew he was annoyed about the unfair way his clone brothers were being treated.

Badger and Egg were Alpha ARCs like Spoon, and Renn had met them through him, but it didn't take long for them all to become firm friends.

Badger was generally light-hearted and carefree, and wanted nothing more in life then to mess about with his mates and to blow things up with heavy weapons.

Egg was slightly more serious than his two brothers, but not by much, and despite being a bit cynical there was nothing he cared about more than his brothers.

"True, we'd still be picking teams when the fishys would send in the security bots to break things up," Null-5, Prudii spat bitterly, also using the derogatory nickname for Kaminoans that the group had come up with.

Prudii was a bit of an oddity in the group as due to their collective trauma most of the Null class ARCs tended to keep to themselves, and especially avoided the Alphas, viewing them as stubborn and not as smart as themselves.

While a lot of the Alphas viewed the Nulls as undisciplined and full of themselves. Prudii didn't share the opinion of the rest of his brother Nulls and viewed all the clones as his brothers, including the Alpha ARCs.

Spoon, Badger, and Egg had felt similarly and so the four of them had become friends, and when Prudii wasn't training or hanging out with the other Nulls he would hang out with them.

He had been a bit suspicious of Renn when he had first met him, as he still bore the mental scars of his treatment at the hands of the kaminoans when he was young, which had caused him to be mistrustful of anyone who wasn't either one of his brothers or Kal Skirata.

But after a while he had warmed up to Renn and now all five of them would meet up whenever Renn was visiting Kamino.

"It sucks that most of you guys wouldn't be able to do it, but I'm pretty sure you could form a league for the ARC troopers.

The Kaminoans have given up on trying to make the Nulls be mindless drones and they're too scared of Jango to do anything to the rest of you." Renn said, which caused the clones to look thoughtful.

"Hey yeah, that's right!" Badger shouted excitedly, "Remember when little Boba got caught nicking those lemon cakes from that fishy politician's quarters?"

"Haha, yeah! A load of the fishys surrounded the little guy and were about to start yelling at him, until Jango turned up behind them and they looked like they were going to wet themselves." Spoon said laughing to himself and soon all five boys were laughing at the story.

-

Shae Vizsla took a deep breath before sending a powerful kick into the door in front of her.

The flimsy wood splintered as the door was sent flying off its hinges from the impact and hurtling across the room.

Shae didn't waste any time and followed the door into the room, her blaster pistols held at the ready in front of her.

An ugly looking rodian pirate popped up from behind an upturned sofa, his blaster pointed straight towards her, but she didn't even flinch and sent a blaster bolt straight thorough one of his bulbous eyes.

Three more pirates spilled into the room from a concealed staircase near its back corner and Shae rapid fired her blasters towards the newcomers.

In less than three seconds all three pirates lay sprawled dead on the floor and Shae was advancing towards the stairs.

She paused at the base of the stone steps for a moment and listened. She could hear raised voices and footsteps up above and so knew there must be more pirates on the upper floor.

Speed was important right now and so she activated a burst from her jetpack and launched herself up the narrow staircase and crashed through the wooden door at its top.

Shae rolled through the wreckage of the door and came to a stop, crouched in the centre of twelve pirates. All brandishing dangerous looking weapons and surprised looks on their faces.

She didn't let the pirates get their bearings and instantly activated the flamethrower built into her armours vambrace and spun in a tight circle.

Screams filled the room as the pirates were burnt alive, broken only by the occasional boom of a blaster pistol as Shae shot anyone 'lucky' enough to escape the flames.

The scent of burning bodies hung heavily in the as Shae made her way towards the final door in the building, the final obstacle separating her from her objective.

She smashed through the door with another kick and charged into the room behind it.

The room was empty except for a terrified looking woman tied to a chair in its far corner.

The woman had been wearing an expensive dress at one point, but now like her it looked dirty and dishevelled, and she looked every bit the rich heiress being held for ransom by pirates.

Shae strode towards the girl, intending to cut her free, when her senses suddenly went into overdrive warning her of a potential threat.

She dodged out of the way just in time to avoid a flurry of blaster bolts and looked up to see a figure hidden in the rafters above her.

The figure dived down towards her, and Shae was stunned for a moment when she saw them.

They shouldn't be there. This was supposed to be a pirate stronghold why were they here?

All theses panicked thoughts ran through Shae's head as a Mandalorian in Death Watch armour launched themselves towards her.

They collided in a massive impact and Shae was sent sprawling across the floor.

She brought her elbow up and into the side of Death Watch member's helmet, hard, and a loud clank sounded as beskar met beskar.

The other Mandalorian's helmet absorbed the blow and so Shae slammed her elbow repeatedly into his helmet until she was able to flip him of her and struggle to her feet.

She knew that the Death Watch members armour would be able to resist and deflect a good deal of damage from her blasters and so drew her beskad from its sheath in the small of her back.

Her beskad was a traditional Mandalorian sabre made entirely out of beskar alloy and so would be more than enough to carve through the armour of the Death watch slimeball before her.

Shae flipped her short sword into a reverse grip and charged the prone Death Watch member.

She gripped the sword with both hands and brought it down straight towards the man's neck, dropping down with the strike to put her entire body weight behind the swords wickedly sharp point.

The fallen Death watch member moved at the last moment, his arms shooting up like vipers to block the blow that would have claimed his life.

He managed to stop Shae's beskad less than an inch from his throat and began straining every muscle in his body trying to keep the blade outside his body.

Shae and the Death Watch member began a battle of wills, both trying to move the blade either up or down, but the sword point remained stubbornly immobile.

Hissing in annoyance Shae braced her body over the blade, using her weight to push downwards, before removing one hand from the beskad's handle.

She balled her hand into a tight fist and began hammering it into the side of the man bellow her, trying to weaken him.

The man let out a shout of pain as Shae landed a bow on his unarmoured arm pit, the shout turned into a screech of panic as one of his arms gave out, and he was forced to watch as the beskad shot down towards him.

Shae's beskad pierced straight through the Death Watch members throat before embedding itself in the wooden floorboards bellow him.

The man let out a faint gurgle before going silent, and Shae raised to herself to her feet before turning to the terrified hostage in the corner of the room.

She crossed the room to the bound girl and produced a vibro-knife to cut her free.

After freeing the girl from her bindings, she gently removed the crude gag that had been placed in her mouth.

The girl looked up at Shae, gratitude filling her big, scared eyes, and she opened her mouth to speak.

No sound came from the girl, instead a loud authoritative male voice sounded from above Shae's head.

"Alright that's enough, let's end the exercise there." The voice shouted, and the world started to collapse.

The hostage in front of Shae dropped her head lifelessly, even as she pixelated out of existence leaving nothing but a featureless droid behind in her place.

Shae turned to see the Death Watch member had also disappeared and in his place was another featureless droid, although this one was missing a head.

The walls if the old decrepit pirate shack also began disappearing leaving sleek, high-tech replacements, studded with holographic projectors.

She looked up to see the roof had disappeared as well, and a small gantry was hovering directly overhead.

A group of Mandalorians stood on the gantry observing her, and in the centre of the group stood the man who was feared across half the galaxy, Jango Fett.