Chapter 51 – Deal

"What do you want? Why do you want me to cut ties with Dooku?"

"Simple to answer. You know the influence you may have over the people's of Mandalore, you were the previous leader, a hero who destroyed the Death Watch. You also know about Dooku ploy, with you by his side, he may use you as a way to take over Mandalore and I'd like to avoid that."

This possibility didn't happen in his past life as Jango Fett was killed by Mace Windu during the Battle of Geonosis, the starting point of the Clone Wars. In case of his survival, the possibility that it happens was high, after all Dooku did try to work with Pre Vizsla and the Death Watch.

"You know that Dooku isn't someone to trifle with. If I follow you and accept your so-called friendship, I'll need guarantees."

"Don't worry about it, I told you that you won't regret accepting my friendship. For example, you won't die on Geonosis three years later, and I can hide you without problems."

Layan let out a bomb in the middle of the conversation. To everyone else, it would appear as a joke, but the bounty hunter was knowledgeable about the mysteries of the galaxy.

"Wait! What?!"

"You will die on Geonosis in a near future if you stay faithful to Dooku, at the hand of Jedi Master Mace Windu. If you ask me, you were not paid enough to lose your life and let behind you an orphan child."

The bounty hunter and his son were looking at the Mirialan with astonishment, and even Lyn was surprised to hear that her master predicted someone's death. He told her during his training that he was really skilled at it, but he also told her that these visions were erratic.

"One of these Jedis so called visions of the future?"

"You can say it like that. Even if you don't believe me, I think that a revenge and a reunion with your last family member is good enough to convince you."

Layan was sure of himself and his proposition, he was sure he could successfully convince the strongest bounty hunter of the current times.

"I only have to give you my knowledge, train your clone, and cut my ties to the Separatists. No hidden strings?"

"No, I may have a need for a bounty hunter from time to time, but I'll hire you. I know you're a loner, even Dooku isn't your boss, only credit is. Knowing your reputation, code of honor and the Supercommando Codex, I'm sure I can count on you."

Jango took some time to think at the conditions proposed by the man in front of him and finally made his choice to reunite his family.

"I agree at all conditions. I swear to keep my words on the True mandalorians honor, I shall never betray my promise."

A smile appeared on Layan's face, himself don't remember the last time he smiled this way. The survival of Jango Fett may be a major change to establish a new fate for the galaxy. Time to keep his part of the deal.

"Good, Pre Vizsla will be yours in some days and I'll give you everything I have about the Death Watch. As for your sister, she is currently residing inside the Valorum Center located on Coruscant."

"The mental institution?"

The institution was famous as it was one of the major actions of the previous chancellor Valorum. Every galactic news channel talked about it during the inauguration.

"Yes, apparently the mental conditioning of the Death Watch affected her mental health. Don't worry, I can loan you an artifact able to stabilize her damaged mind and provide medical treatment against the drugs injected to her by the doctors. A non-force-sensitive individual like her, she will heal in no time."

When he heard that her mental health was affected, the bloodlust coming from Jango reached a peak. The Death Watch will have a bad time in a near future. The man was calm and stoic most of the time, but his family seems to be a touchy topic.

"You fulfilled your part of the deal, I'll fulfill mine."

"We have time. I'll execute the procedure in the future after perfecting my use of it and when the cloning project will enter his last step, the production. Even with the knowledge in her head, she will need training, I hope you're a good teacher."

"Don't worry about it. If she has my skills and my training, she will be strong. But still, she will lack combat experience."

After that, the mandalorian accompanied by his son while Layan and Lyn headed back to their training room for a few hours before going to see Taun We at the cloning lab where was conducted the cloning experiment.

Stepping in, they saw the half grown up clones, the targeted age being the middle twenties. Among the batch of 30 trial clones, half of them were totally deformed and looked totally atrocious and inhumane. Among the others who successfully grown into human shape, some were totally skinny or already dead as their electro-encephalogram were flat. In the end, only five looked like normal girls around ten years old with beautiful red hairs, but the subject's growth still wasn't complete and may become failures in a few hours.

"Lyn wait outside."

While Layan wasn't shaken by what came into view, Lyn was a bit flabbergasted while looking at the monstrosities floating inside glass tubes filled with a blue liquid. They looked like just a mass of flesh, and the other half was dead. She did so and exited the room with the last glance at the clones.

"Is it normal to have so few apparently positive results?"

"Yes. During our first attempts to clone Jango, we had to terminate a lot of batches before creating the first clones, the Null class clones. We wanted to terminate them too, as they were far below our standards, but an instructor hired by Jango wanted to keep them alive and trained them."

"I was waiting for more positive results."

Layan still wasn't convinced as Vader cloning experiment was perfected and was able to create perfect clones of Galen Marek, a kriffing force-sensitive. Thinking to it, it made him shudder to think that he may have unleashed them upon the galaxy if Boba Fett didn't destroy them. He was pretty pissed off that Vader dared to try to clone him unwittingly.

"You don't have to. We are testing a new experimental protocol, if not for your data's, we would have no viable clones. These fives are truly a miracle. I think that these five should grow perfectly fine. Tomorrow, we will vivisect them to find what defects they may have and further improve our production process for the next batch which will be grown in weeks."

The voice of Taun We was really enthusiastic, apparently incensed by the results of the cloning experiment. With the arrival of the Mirialan, their cloning technology really made a jump of decades in the future.

While Taun We was enthusiastic and had apparently no remorse and saw them just as failed products, Layan couldn't help but tighten his fist when he knew of the horrible treatments they would suffer.

They were just shells without any personality and lived only one day, but it was still strange for him to see them like the Kaminoans did.

"Please, contact me when the second step is over as I will leave Kamino in a few days. I'll came over as I would like to check the results of the serum's injections."

"It will be done."

After this, he used Force Cloak in a security blind spot and intruded upon the room where were stored and programmed the inhibitor chips provided by Dooku and implanted into the clones of the Grand Army of the Republic.

The inhibitor chips were organic to blend in the brain of the clones it will be implanted into. Maybe sought as a safeguard against any Jedi going rogue or fell to the dark side by Sifo-Diyas, Order 66 was used as a key element of Darth Sidious plan to destroy the Jedi Order.

"Time to fuck up Palpy's plan and use it to my advantage."

After a bit of bit of fiddling with the code and adding a few new orders, he exited the room with a dark, joyful grin on his face.

Even with joy in his mind, Layan couldn't help but think to what were Sidious's contingency plans in case if order 66 failed.

He assured himself to use the clone army as his own back-up plan to take out the Sith Emperor, but he was still worried of the craftiness of the bastard who played the galaxy without moving out of Coruscant. With his insider knowledge of the Republic, he could screw it up big in divulging its secrets.

He stopped an attempt to destroy the Jedi Order and the Republic, but what was to come?