Chapter 56

28BBY, Hutt space.

Renn sat on the bridge of the Speedy Vagabond as it travelled through the desolate void of a uninhabited star system in Hutt space.

He was now twelve years old but his training and intense exercise had made him much bigger than most children his age.

Over the past four years Renn had become much stronger more skilled. He had been training intensely in the ways of house Dredd with Alpha and Sapphire as well as joining Shae in her training with Jango and his Mandalorian comrades on Kamino.

Renn and the others had travelled to Kamino quite often and during their visits they had gotten to know the trainers Jango had brought in to help him train the clone army, as well as some of the clones that made up the army. The training sergeants were a strange group of people. The ones that Renn and the others meet were mostly Mandalorians who had been hand picked by Jango to help him train the clone army's special forces, as they were the ones that Jango had offered the help of in training Renn and Shae.

They were all experts in their fields and had a wealth of knowledge, skills, and experience that made them some of the most dangerous beings in the galaxy. However most had various eccentricities that made them all quite 'unique'.

One of the training sergeants, who besides Jango became the main member of the Mandalorians on Kamino to offer Renn and the others training, was a seemingly permanently grumpy man named Kal Skirata.

Though despite the crotchety personality Kal portrayed most of the time it was quite clear he cared quite a lot for the clones he was training, especially the six young clones referred to by the Kaminoans as the Null class clones.

Kal had also warmed up to Renn and Shae after he began teaching them, although it would be hard for most people to realise that.

Renn had also spent time with some of the clones but due to the Kaminoans labelling him as a dangerous influence on the young and impressionable clones he was kept away from most of them by the tall grey aliens.

The kaminoans wanted they clones to be obedient and to have as little individuality as possible. And to their great annoyance clone troopers exposed to Renn and his friends had a significantly higher probability of becoming more free thinking.

Because of this Renn was mostly limited to meeting the Null class clones when he and Shae were training with Kal and the Alpha class clones that Jango was training personally, with some help from his sister Arla.

The Nulls and the Alphas were being trained to become what Jango called advanced reconnaissance commandos, Or ARCs for short. And were being trained to be more individual so the Kaminoans didn't see it as that important that Renn was 'corrupting' them.

During the time they had spent on Kamino Renn had become good friends with one of the ARCs who was named Alpha-42, but had quickly chosen a to be identified by the nickname Spoon.

Renn and Spoon had quickly become friends and spent most of their time together joking, training, or watching bolo-ball, a sport that Renn and a lot of the clones had started following intently after being exposed to it by some of the Mandalorian training sergeants who had a deep love for the game.

Shae had also improved her abilities during both their visits to Kamino and when she trained with Renn. She was also learning a lot more about both different Mandalorian fighting stiles from Jango, Kal and the other Mandalorians, as well different aspects of Mandalorian culture.

Shae had always been fascinated by her people's culture and so there wasn't as much of this for her to learn as she would often read historical texts and stories of both her house, house Vizsla, and her people.

Jango, Arla, and Kal along with a member of the Mandalorian training sergeants who was a skilled armourer had also helped Shae in reforging her armour. She had also been aided by Renn and Sapphire and between them all Shae had managed to forge a near unequalled set of Beskar Armour, with lots of hidden surprises and weapons.

Renn and Shae weren't the only ones to learn things on Kamino as although learning the Mandalorian way of fighting held little interest to Opal and Seela the ocean planet still held plenty of knowledge.

Opal was interested in becoming a great healer and so had been learning force healing abilities from both Sapphire and Yaddle, as well as plenty of more violent force abilities because why not.

She had also been learning a lot about first aid as well as how to be a battlefield medic form the Mandalorian training sergeants. Opal had also visited the library in Tipoca city to learn from the different texts and records stored there as the Kaminoans were known for being expert scientists and cloners, which gave them extensive medical knowledge.

Seela hadn't been very interested in fighting like a Mandalorian either and only really participated in some of the training sessions offered to her mainly to get better at hand to hand combat and improving her blaster skills.

While Seela also had little interest in learning how to be a jedi, instead preferring the way House Dredd viewed the force after Renn and Sapphire had explained it to her. She couldn't deny that learning how to wield a lightsabre like a pro was a big dream of hers.

She had yet to make her own, but that wouldn't be an issue as she already had a core for it as she still had the krayt dragon pearl that Renn had given her. Instead, she was training with practice sabres so that she wouldn't hurt herself while practicing.

Yaddle had been training Seela in the arts of lightsabre combat and Seela was showing to have a high talent in it and was improving all the time. She seemed to prefer using a double-bladed lightsabre but was also skilled at dual wielding two lightsabres at once.

Apart from helping with the training of Renn and the others Yaddle had mainly been relaxing and generally slobbing about and enjoying her retirement from the jedi order.

The businesses that Renn had set up had also become very successful over the past four years. The businesses had formed a conglomerate called Dredd industries, which Renn was the leader of, two years ago to provide them with a bit of protection from the major galactic players such as the commerce guild and the corporate alliance.

The businesses were making quite a bit of profit and Renn had been investing in expanding them to try and improve the income from them even more.

One of the most successful of the businesses was a shipping company named Krayt shipping, which had been named by one of the freed slaves after the mighty beast that had once terrified them. Krayt shipping was building a reputation throughout the galaxy for its reliability, and a reputation of fear among galactic pirates.

When it was still a new company there had been incidents of pirate crews preying on the freighters belonging to Krayt shipping, but the stories told by the terrified survivors of those pirate crews had left most too afraid to try messing with the shipping company.

The surviving pirates had told tales of freighters with stronger hulls and laser cannons than they should have, and those that made it aboard the Krayt shipping ships described ridiculously deadly b-1 series battle droids painted matte grey ripping the boarders apart.

Renn and the others had visited Neo and the fleet she was building several times over the years as well. The young A.I. was always happy to see them and seemed to like her job of overseeing the shipbuilding process.

The Ships were still far from being completed as Renn, Sapphire and Neo had decided that instead of rushing the ships construction to finish them sooner they would take their time and create the most overpowered battleships possible. And with all of Neo's ideas for extra weapons Renn had decided that Sapphire had never given Neo a proper definition for 'overpowered'.

Renn yawned as he reclined in the Speedy Vagabond's pilot seat with his hands crossed behind his head and a data-pad balanced on top of his face.

Loud music was blasting out of the speakers on the bridge and Opal was singing along loudly, and slightly tunelessly, from the co-pilot seat beside Renn. The music was from a genre called glimmik and its loud thumping beat was echoing through the ships bridge.

Shae, sat in what would be the ship's navigator's seat if the ship wasn't piloted by a super intelligent A.I., sang along a with Opal while drumming her fingers on the console in front of her in time to the songs beat.

Seela was slowly spinning in place while sat in the remaining chair on the bridge. She wasn't as fond of glimmik music as Opal, Shae and Renn but was still enjoying listening to it and watching her friends happily singing the lyrics to the songs blasting out over the speakers. She was just bored of waiting around.

The reason they were waiting was that both Shae and Renn had wanted some actual battle experience and so they had decided to hunt down some pirates.

They were currently lying in wait along a hyperspace route that was well known for being a hotspot for pirate activity. Waiting to jump to the rescue of any ship unlucky enough to be ambushed by the local pirate crews.

Opal was also eager to kill some pirates as she held a grudge over what had happened to her parents. And though the ones responsible had been killed by Alpha and the rest of the assassin droids long ago, that didn't stop her from despising pirates and others who preyed on those weaker than themselves.

Despite being a supposed pirate hotspot, they had yet to encounter any pirate ships which was causing quite a bit of boredom amongst Renn and the others.

A new song started playing and a grin appeared on Renn's face as he watched Opal start headbanging along to its opening, while he was still lying back with a data-pad still resting on top of his head.

A blue hand tapped Renn on his shoulder and he leaned his head back to see a smiling Seela looking at him.

"She's making me feel dizzy," Seela said with a giggle gesturing to Opal with a tilt of her head. The girl in question was currently whipping her head back and forth so violently that her hair was spinning in a great arc around her head.

"Yeah, it can't be good for her brain," Renn told Seela with a grin.

"Hehe, she's probably going to give herself a concussion," Seela said trying, and failing, to sound serious as she and Renn subtly mocked their friend.

Opal simply lifted her left arm to show her friends her raised middle finger while still focusing on singing along to the song blasting over the speakers, and ignored the way Renn and Seela exploded into a fit of uncontrollable laughter.

The glimmik music was suddenly cut of mid song and everyone froze, their attention now focused on the blue holographic woman that appeared above the pilot's console.

"I'm detecting a distress signal from the neighbouring star system. It seems a civilian freighter is under attack by pirates." Sapphire reported calmly.

"Okay then, lets go help them." Renn stated and couldn't help but grin in anticipation as sapphire initiated the hyperdrive and the distant stars stretched from tiny pinpricks to long bright beams of light.