Private The Price of Discovery (Solo)

[Caelan Valoren]

In the days since he'd reclaimed his home, Caelan had often found himself wandering through it. One of the first things he'd done since returning was have everything removed from his parents room and put into archival. He couldn't go in there with everything from them still there. He'd tried, at first, but he'd quickly realized it was too difficult. Replacing it all, he had the chance to make the main room in the home his, which allowed him to have control of his life again. He left Kita 's room the way it had been. If he should find her some day, or she should return, he wanted her to have her space.

On one such day, after returning from a trip to Naboo to visit his friend Ceri Fraissi , he found himself descending into the lower levels of the home. One of those levels housed the royal vault, which was packed full of gold and other things. The invaders hadn't managed to breach it, though they'd tried. It was pockmarked with a myriad of dents and blasts from where they had tried just about anything they could to get in. It was a very secure vault, requiring several methods of identification in order to gain entry.

As he walked, with Fate trailing behind him, he ran his hand over the wall nearby. In so doing, he was surprised to find his hand catching on a ledge that wasn't plainly visible. Frowning, he stopped and turned to look at the wall. Every other time he'd been in the lower levels the walls were smooth, so he shouldn't have caught on anything. Rubbing his hand over the wall again, and using the Force to guide him, he found a small section that had some give to it. It had, by mere fractions of a millimeter, set itself back into the wall, and that little bit of ledge is what his fingers had felt when they'd brushed across it.

"Fate, scan the wall, would you?"

The droid beeped in compliance and then began to scan the wall in the vicinity of the indentation.

"Bwoo-dweep bwee-dwoop beep-vrrt."

"That's strange. There shouldn't be anything here. To my knowledge, there's no secret passage that leads to this spot and I'm aware of all of them. Or, I should be."

He stared at the wall for a moment, and then reached his hand up to the small indented segment and pushed. It activated some mechanism and the wall slid open to reveal a short hallway that lead to another door. That door was made of metal, not duracrete. He glanced down at Fate and then motioned for the droid to follow him as he walked into the hall and to the metal door. It was sealed, but there was a scomp port nearby and he motioned Fate towards it. The droid beeped the affirmative and approached the jack, worked his magic and the door opened. What he saw on the inside made his eyes go wide.

"Fate, record. And transmit everything to Corazona von Ascania , Knight Dreidi Xeraic , and Grandmaster Valery Noble ."

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ATTIRE: Link | COMPANION: BD-F8 | OTHER: Sigil Bead (Necklace)
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[Caelan Valoren]

Before him were several chambers that held bodies in various states of development. Not just any bodies, though. They were all him. Every single one of them, was an exact replica of himself with the exception being the scar that he wore on his face. He honestly didn't know what to think of this other than having Fate record and transmit everything in order to protect himself.

"Oh, it's you."

Caelan snapped his attention away from the chambers and found himself looking at a hologram of a robed figure that he assumed was a man given the voice. There was nothing to identify him, so he could be anyone.

"What is this? Who are you?" Caelan asked.

"Who I am you don't need to know. As for what this is, it's exactly as it appears. You're inside of the cloning facility where you were created."

He frowned. "I'm not a clone."

"Yes, you are. You are not the real Caelan Valoren. You're a clone that we put in his place in order to take Caelan for training. Easily done since his father cared more for his sister anyway. We had to take things into our own hands to ensure that the Valoren family continued to rule so that we could continue to thrive here."

Caelan was perplexed by all this. He was no clone. He remembered everything back to when he was a small child, so how could he be one? No, the man had to be lying.

"No, I'm-"

"Oh, shut up. If that blasted Syndicate had done it's job I wouldn't have to deal with this. You are a clone that we put in place while we trained the real Caelan so that he could assume the role of King and we could continue to work under the nose of the Alliance and other governments that have controlled this territory in the past. Your father marrying that stupid Jedi screwed things up and so we had them killed by the Syndicate and let them take your precious empeth crystals as payment. You and your sister were supposed to die in that and then we could have the real Caelan come out, having survived, and assume rule. It's really not that hard to understand.

"But here you are, in a place you weren't even supposed to find. So now I guess we'll have to do things ourselves. Impossible to hire good help, anyway. Put him in the chamber, don't go beyond four years. I don't want it destroyed. That should be sufficient to keep people from figuring out who he is when they find his body."

The hologram disappeared before he could say anything, and before he could make any response, he was suddenly blasted away from where he stood by a powerful push in the Force. He slammed into the metal wall, his head cracking back against it and sending a myriad of bright lights fluttering through his vision as he fell to the ground once more. He groaned as he landed, feeling for certain that something in all of that had broken. If not, well, he was probably lucky.

He started to rise, eyes spotting boots approaching, and then something collided with the back of his head once more, and all he saw was darkness.

---

ATTIRE: Link | COMPANION: BD-F8 | OTHER: Sigil Bead (Necklace)
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[Caelan Valoren]

It was probably a lot like what people experienced when traveling through space before there were gates or the ability to utilize hyperspace: trapped inside of a device meant to keep you alive over a long period of time, unable to move, but your mind fully awake. At least, awake once he woke from having his bell rung. Not that his eyes opened. Whatever the chamber was that the man in the robe had mentioned, he was inside of it, and unable to move a muscle.

Hours went by. Those hours turned to days. The days turned to weeks. The weeks turned to months. The months to years. All sense of time went away for him eventually. He was just stuck inside of his own head, with nothing to do but meditate on everything that had happened to him, and the revelation that he was actually a clone, not the real Caelan Valoren.

But what was real? His hands were real. His eyes were real. Everything about him was real. He may not be the one that his mother birthed, but she had clearly not known that either and had loved him all the same. Her love was real. She'd come to him through the Force, even. Wouldn't she know then? She must have. So if she knew he was a clone and still came to him, it meant he was the one she viewed as her child, not the prime. The prime had been lost to her. He had taken his place.

It seemed like many years had passed when he became aware that his body was falling. Weekly, he reached out and caught himself before his face hit the ground. Everything felt different. His eyes opened and he realized he wasn't inside of the chamber anymore. He also noticed that his sleeves were too short. He stared at them, willing his mind to adjust to this new revelation.

"Well, that worked quite well," a voice said.

He looked up and found himself looking at... himself. Literally. The only difference was the lack of a scar on his face. This must be the Prime. He was dressed in gray robes, not black like the man he'd spoken to before. This must have been who'd attacked him a bit ago. But he was certain it had been years since that point, and this Caelan looked how he had before.

"Four years did a number on you. You look terrible."

He blinked and pushed himself to his feet, which was difficult as he felt quite wobbly all of a sudden. And he was taller! He stood at least a full head above the prime.

"What did you do to me?" he asked.

The prime snorted. "Knocked you out and stuffed you in a time chamber. It's his design, something to use to age the clones faster if he needed to, I guess. You spent four years in there but it was only about an hour for me."

Four years in an hour? How could that be? No, that was wrong! He would be older than his twin now. He would look different. Everyone he knew wouldn't recognize him. It would be strange to see his friends and have gone from a fourteen-year-old kid to an eighteen-year-old adult in a matter of days to most of them, hours to the few receiving Fate's broadcast.

Fate! His eyes darted past the prime and he spotted Fate still off in the corner recording. Good. They hadn't noticed him.

"You intend to kill me?"

"You were supposed to have been killed before. It would have been easier. But people know you survived. Aging you means if someone finds your body, they won't know it's you, and they won't question me. So yes, I'm going to kill you now."

The prime called a lightsaber into his hand from his belt and activated it. A red blade sprang forth.

"You're a sith?"

"No. I don't ascribe to their code and neither does my master. You might call us dark Jedi, if anything. Now, die!"

The prime lunged at him, blade pointed at Caelan's heart.

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ATTIRE: Link | COMPANION: BD-F8 | OTHER: Sigil Bead (Necklace)
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[Caelan Valoren]

The lunging red blade was met by a white cored, blue and purple outlined one, which batted it to the side with precision. Caelan may have felt awkward the way his body now was, but that didn't mean he was unable to defend himself.

"You don't need to do this, you know," Caelan said. "You could just leave and go live a different life."

The prime brought his blade back around for a downward slash at his right shoulder, but Caelan blocked it with his own blade and pushed it away.

"And give up my rightful rule of this world? Never."

The blade came in again, a fake swipe and then the blade flipped downward towards his leg. Caelan parried it and stepped forward to smash his off hand into the prime's shoulder and send him stumbling backwards.

"So be it."

This attitude was a distinct change in him. Before he wouldn't have even considered killing the boy before him. Before he would have shirked away from the fight, doing everything he could to get the prime to back down. But he knew that wasn't going to work and that this fight was about his survival. The prime had not been growing up being taught to govern by the king and queen. He didn't know when the kid was taken to be corrupted, but it didn't matter. He didn't have the people's interest in mind, only his own, and he couldn't be allowed to live since he was intent on taking the throne.

The prime snarled at him and attacked again with a lunging strike, but Caelan parried it to the side and grabbed the attacking arm to yank and pull the prime past him, which opened him up to a grazing attack at the boys back, leaving blistered skin in its way, and what would be an otherwise nasty scar if it remained. It was a last-ditch warning strike. The prime was clearly not as well versed in combat as Caelan was, had probably never seen it. He was outmatched in terms of saber combat.

A cry of pain was his reward, but it seemed to only make the boy angry. To his credit, he didn't immediately try and attack with his saber again. Instead, Caelan watched as several dark tendrils of energy formed from the floor around him and then lunged at him. His only recourse was to enact a protection bubble around himself to keep the tendrils at bay.

"The dark side of the Force has many ways for me to kill you," the prime said. "I don't have to rely on my saber as you do."

Clearly, he'd been read. Caelan was almost completely dependent on physical attacks when it came to combat. His other skills were far too limited in scope. Dealing with his opponent had become much more complicated, but he did still have an ace up his sleeve, something that could, at the least distract the prime long enough for the fight to be finished.

"Fate, shoot him!"

Blaster fire rang out from over near the door, with shots directed right at the prime. He was forced to stop his attack and focus on using his lightsaber to deflect the shots, which allowed Caelan to drop his barrier and move with enhanced speed across the distance between them. As the prime directed a blaster bolt away, Caelan slammed into him with enough Force that he went flying backwards into a wall. Even as he slid down it, dazed, and the firing stopped from Fate, Caelan stalked forward, brought his saber around, and cut the prime's head off.

"You brought that on yourself."

---

ATTIRE: Link | COMPANION: BD-F8 | OTHER: Sigil Bead (Necklace)​

 

[Caelan Valoren]

The dead body of the real Caelan lay on the floor and he couldn't help but stare at it. It wasn't the first time he'd been forced to kill, but it was the first time he'd been forced to kill himself. He felt the urge to vomit, and placed a hand over his mouth to keep himself from getting sick. This whole situation was just too much to handle, and now he had a dead body to deal with and a bunch of clones. What a mess. If he didn't have video evidence he doubted anyone would believe him.

"Unfortunate," a voice said from behind him.

He spun to see the projection of the same hooded figure from before. It appeared to be focused on the dead prime on the floor.

"Well, we'll just move to an alternate plan. You're lucky. For the moment you get to live. Enjoy it while it lasts."

And just like that, the figure was gone again, leaving him alone in a room with a dead body and tanks full of clones in various states of development. He didn't know what to do. This was all new to him. But then he noticed something. The tanks had a green liquid entering them from the top that hadn't been there before. It was slowly descending, and when it reached the oldest of the clones, that clone reacted violently to it. He could feel the distress and pain because of his proximity to him, and he knew what was happening. They were being terminated remotely.

He didn't have time to save them all. The poison was descending too rapidly. In a rush, he slammed his arm against the tank holding the infant clone, breaking it, and causing the child to slide free of the liquid before the poison could reach him. To be safe, he scooped him up. He might not be able to save the others, but at least he could save one of them. Every life deserved the right to live and it pained him that several other clones were no longer getting that chance, but it was the least he could do to save one.

The babe squawked in his arms, fussing immediately.

"I know, I know," he said, though he didn't know.

He had no idea how to take care of a baby. He didn't know what he was even going to do with a fellow Caelan clone. All he did know was that if he let it remain on Lazerian IV, it would cause an issue down the line, and that was something he couldn't afford to have happen. He had to get it somewhere safe, somewhere elsewhere.

"Fate end recording and transmission."

The droid beeped its compliance.

"We've gotta find someone to take this one off world and raise him. Quietly. What a mess we're in Fate. What a mess."

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ATTIRE: Link | WEAPON: Lightsaber | COMPANION: BD-F8 | OTHER: Sigil Bead (Necklace), Prosthetic Left Arm​