THE PLANET
CONCORD DAWN
UNITED CLANS OF MANDALORE
When the young clone had set out to walk in the footsteps of the First One, he'd tried to imagine what the prime clone would have been like.
Clone Troopers were rugged, so the prime clone would have been shaped by his environment. A challenging place to live, worlds like Tatooine or Sriluur. A place where every day was an adventure, and the struggle to survive a ceaseless battle from dusk til dawn.
There was a strange squishing sound.
Pausing in mid-step, the small Mandalorian boy looked down to see his boot mired in a nerf patty. The loose, sticky clump of dung coming apart as he tried to retract his leg. Flies gathered on the fresh heap, as the child made a face. "Watch where you're rollin', Bee-Four," the youth said, scrapping the sole and side of his boot against the dirt road as a blue-accented BB unit gave a warbling chirp in reply.
The coppery toned boy looked about nine or ten years of age. He wore a blue tunic which had darker, navy sleeves. A military-style patch on the left arm bore the markings of the Grand Army of the Galactic Republic, emblazoned with the lettering in Aurebesh for the 432nd Legion. A drop leg holster held the butt of an old DC-17 hand blaster up against his side, the pistol inordinately large against the child's slight frame.
A student of Clone Wars history might have caught a footnote somewhere about the 432nd, or the Corellian Defense Force as it had come to be known. History may have recorded that it had been under the command of Jedi General Sor-Jan Xantha after the Battle of Parcellus Minor. What it likely had not contained was the fact that the 432nd had been carrying a corps of young clone cadets conducting observation and drills with the Clone Troopers at the time of Order 66. 3X744 was the last survivor of those clone youths, rescuing General Xantha and traveling with him down the rabbits hole.
But, this century as in that distant past, General Xantha had responsibilities beyond the care and supervision of a young Clone Trooper. First, it had been a battle at Kal'Shebbol where the Jedi hadn't wanted Three with him because of the potential danger. Now, the Jedi was doing reconstruction on Coruscant with the Galactic Alliance and it seemed the threat of the Sith was one that the Jedi had chosen to face without his faithful Clone Trooper at his side.
So he'd sent the small clone to Rhen Var, for a training program operated by [member="Théodred Heavenshield"]. BB-4 operated as a pilot droid for a Tacyon-class light freighter, the Divergent, and the two parted ways. Sor-Jan to the Core Worlds and Three out towards the Silver Sanctum.
Now, normally Three didn't like to do reading. But in excavating the ruins of the Old Republic ship Intervention on Boz Pity, a few holo-documentaries on the Clone Army of the Republic had been unearthed. And, from those, Three had gotten inspired by a curiosity he'd never even known he had.
Who was he?
Where had he come from?
It had taken a lot of persuasion, and Three would probably be giving BB-4 oil baths for the next year, but he'd convinced the droid to change course from Rhen Var and take them into Mandalorian space.
Which, they had a little trouble at the border between the Silver Sanctum and the Mandalorian Clans. But that may have been because Three had a Republic identicard. And it was sorta nine hundred years old at this point.
And so now he was here, the ancestral home of the great Mandalorian warrior who had been the Prime Clone to the Grand Army of the Galactic Republic.
Tumbleweed blew down the dusty road, bouncing beside where farmers were setting up a fruit market and cowboys were herding nerfs for sale.
The seven hundred forty-fourth clone of the 3X-series Aerospace Assault Clone Trooper had imagined his prime clones ancestral home many times over the last several days travel.
And this?
This wasn't even remote close to what he'd envisioned.
CONCORD DAWN
UNITED CLANS OF MANDALORE
When the young clone had set out to walk in the footsteps of the First One, he'd tried to imagine what the prime clone would have been like.
Clone Troopers were rugged, so the prime clone would have been shaped by his environment. A challenging place to live, worlds like Tatooine or Sriluur. A place where every day was an adventure, and the struggle to survive a ceaseless battle from dusk til dawn.
There was a strange squishing sound.
Pausing in mid-step, the small Mandalorian boy looked down to see his boot mired in a nerf patty. The loose, sticky clump of dung coming apart as he tried to retract his leg. Flies gathered on the fresh heap, as the child made a face. "Watch where you're rollin', Bee-Four," the youth said, scrapping the sole and side of his boot against the dirt road as a blue-accented BB unit gave a warbling chirp in reply.
The coppery toned boy looked about nine or ten years of age. He wore a blue tunic which had darker, navy sleeves. A military-style patch on the left arm bore the markings of the Grand Army of the Galactic Republic, emblazoned with the lettering in Aurebesh for the 432nd Legion. A drop leg holster held the butt of an old DC-17 hand blaster up against his side, the pistol inordinately large against the child's slight frame.
A student of Clone Wars history might have caught a footnote somewhere about the 432nd, or the Corellian Defense Force as it had come to be known. History may have recorded that it had been under the command of Jedi General Sor-Jan Xantha after the Battle of Parcellus Minor. What it likely had not contained was the fact that the 432nd had been carrying a corps of young clone cadets conducting observation and drills with the Clone Troopers at the time of Order 66. 3X744 was the last survivor of those clone youths, rescuing General Xantha and traveling with him down the rabbits hole.
But, this century as in that distant past, General Xantha had responsibilities beyond the care and supervision of a young Clone Trooper. First, it had been a battle at Kal'Shebbol where the Jedi hadn't wanted Three with him because of the potential danger. Now, the Jedi was doing reconstruction on Coruscant with the Galactic Alliance and it seemed the threat of the Sith was one that the Jedi had chosen to face without his faithful Clone Trooper at his side.
So he'd sent the small clone to Rhen Var, for a training program operated by [member="Théodred Heavenshield"]. BB-4 operated as a pilot droid for a Tacyon-class light freighter, the Divergent, and the two parted ways. Sor-Jan to the Core Worlds and Three out towards the Silver Sanctum.
Now, normally Three didn't like to do reading. But in excavating the ruins of the Old Republic ship Intervention on Boz Pity, a few holo-documentaries on the Clone Army of the Republic had been unearthed. And, from those, Three had gotten inspired by a curiosity he'd never even known he had.
Who was he?
Where had he come from?
It had taken a lot of persuasion, and Three would probably be giving BB-4 oil baths for the next year, but he'd convinced the droid to change course from Rhen Var and take them into Mandalorian space.
Which, they had a little trouble at the border between the Silver Sanctum and the Mandalorian Clans. But that may have been because Three had a Republic identicard. And it was sorta nine hundred years old at this point.
And so now he was here, the ancestral home of the great Mandalorian warrior who had been the Prime Clone to the Grand Army of the Galactic Republic.
Tumbleweed blew down the dusty road, bouncing beside where farmers were setting up a fruit market and cowboys were herding nerfs for sale.
The seven hundred forty-fourth clone of the 3X-series Aerospace Assault Clone Trooper had imagined his prime clones ancestral home many times over the last several days travel.
And this?
This wasn't even remote close to what he'd envisioned.
[member="Vilaz Munin"]