Ten years, one month, and twenty-six days after the Battle of Yavin...
Or the forty-fifth year, first month, and twenty-sixth day after the Great Resynchronization.
(Eight months and eleven days since the Arrival.)
The Dravian Cosmodrome, also known as Dravian Station, was a man-made astronomical object located on the backwaters of the Tamarin Sector, far in the galaxy's southeast.
Stretching across three quadrants—N-18, O-19, and N-19—this region of the galaxy and the neighboring Rseik Sector had long since sunk into complete anarchy.
Stories that Imperial troops still remained here were nothing more than a rumor, reaching the Core Worlds from the fringes at the speed a sentient's word could travel to its listener's ear.
The Tamarin Sector and the neighboring Rseik Sector.
The authority that existed under the Empire was gone here.
There were no more warships, no more strict security of the Sevarcos system where spice was mined, no more patrols, no tracking systems.
Only force ruled here—and nothing more.
It took Sergius some time to figure this out.
The region had become a haven for pirates, smugglers, thieves, slavers, spice dealers, and all sorts of adventurers ready to sell their own sister into slavery or hand their mother over to a brothel for a few extra credits.
A nasty place where you shouldn't turn your back even on an astromech droid—otherwise, it would try to rob you, cutting your tendons with a circular saw so you couldn't run away while it rifled through your pockets with its manipulators.
Traveling through the planets of Tamarin, Sergius had seen enough to last a hundred lifetimes.
And now he was sitting in a cafeteria next to the hangar where his ship was docked, sipping a lousy caf and mulling over the details of his assignment.
His mission, like that of all 'Bravo'-class agents, was entirely autonomous and came with exceptional authority.
No communication with command, no transmitters, beacons, or anything of the sort.
Nothing that could, in any way, lead anyone back to the superiors behind Bravo-Eleven.
Sergius sipped his caf and pondered the situation.
The original mission — to find the local Moff and infiltrate his circle — could be considered a failure.
He was about a year late for this mission.
Immediately after the Battle of Endor, the Tamarin sector was shaken by a wave of anti-Imperial uprisings.
The rabble crawled out of every crack, trying to seize power.
Moff Lobax Resuun, who commanded here, faced challenges everywhere — not only from criminals who sensed Coruscant's weakness, but also from fledgling planetary governments.
Resuun was also forced to deal with the demoralization of the remaining Imperial forces and desertion.
According to data from Imperial archives, the sector fleet in Tamarin was far from the notorious two and a half thousand ships.
Tamarin is the Outer Rim, a cancer that the Imperial Center tolerated solely for the spice mining on Sevarcos II, a colony for extracting that very raw material.
The Empire considered spending time and resources to deal with local gangsters a profoundly stupid decision.
Therefore Resuun's forces remained tiny, tasked solely with protecting the spice mines.
Unsurprisingly, after Endor he had only one Imperial-class Star Destroyer left — the Retribution — onto which he moved his government.
Organized crime had transformed from small-time arms dealers and spice smugglers into a powerful military force that drove the economy across the entire sector.
Moff Resuun managed to retain enough power and influence to avoid any open rebellion against the Empire until Endor.
In the years from the Battle of Yavin to the Battle of Endor, the Empire had diverted all available forces to fight the Rebels, leaving local problems for the sector government to solve.
Resuun had been trying to solve them for nearly five years from the day the first Death Star was destroyed.
He held several facilities, but the combined pirate forces defeated him last year.
When everyone forgot about the Moff, and nothing remained of him except the Retribution.
The combined pirate forces struck an Imperial research station in the sector, looted it, and destroyed it.
Soon after, Resuun himself was killed, and his ship was captured after a heavy battle.
Now it was somewhere in the sector, under pirate control.
Who, naturally, having gotten rid of the sector government's leadership, began dividing power among themselves.
Blood flowed like a river all year, and few outside the sector cared at all.
Companies operating here prefer to pay off racketeers or use their own mercenaries to minimize business problems.
And so the Dravian Spaceport had become a haven for smugglers and other scum, because it was far from any inhabited systems.
Because of the types of people who frequented Dravian Spaceport, the space station eventually filled with various businesses, including casinos, hotels, and restaurants.
Robberies and murders were rare here — the security service at least pretended to be interested in doing its job.
Otherwise, the station was like a hangover morning after a party cut short by a sudden storm.
Dirty, grimy, disgusting.
But this was exactly where Nar Shaddaa Shipping operated, which through front men had ordered a substantial number of Lucrehulk-class starships at the Hoersch-Kessel shipyards.
Why?
Not known for certain yet.
This was exactly what Sergius was supposed to find out.
The chain his colleagues had uncovered on Nar Shaddaa needed to be carefully pulled further until it became clear who, for what purposes, and by what deadline was obtaining an entire fleet of warships.
Sergius had already familiarized himself with the affairs of Nar Shaddaa Shipping.
Once, business was good.
But now it was nothing more than another shell corporation that had nothing besides the office that Bravo Eleven had been watching while sipping his caf.
Not even in management, let alone property.
An interesting question, isn't it — how does a company whose most valuable asset on its books is a neon sign have hundreds of billions to acquire ships capable of transporting an occupation army, and retrofitted to fend off an Imperial Star Destroyer and bite back hard?
It was assumed that Resuun might have known the answers.
But even if he did, the dead cannot share their secrets.
There was another, simpler, more dangerous, and more textbook way to obtain the necessary information.
Yes, undercover work.
But not inside Nar Shaddaa Shipping itself — there's only a recruiter there who keeps no records.
No archives, no logs, or anything like that.
Pure anarchy, its purpose is to hire pilots and thugs who then depart for unknown destinations.
Too familiar a pattern to ignore and attribute to the local pirates' own invention.
This is exactly how the Zann Consortium recruited pilots soon after the Battle of Yavin, when the threat of this criminal organization became an eye-opener for the Galactic Empire.
And therefore, Nar Shaddaa Shipping is an enterprise affiliated with the Zann Consortium, recruiting thugs on the backwaters of the galaxy while other sectors are busy with their own internal and external problems.
Simple, cheap, and aggressive.
No one feels sorry for such people; they are always, everywhere, used as expendable material.
Soldiers of fortune, but at a big discount.
And it was a chance that he might succeed in infiltrating.
That was why an hour ago he had climbed into his Headhunter and started hunting space debris, blasting it with all the guns of his starfighter.
Then he broke away, outsmarting several old Mandalorian-made patrol fighters.
After that he just circled over the spaceport landing docks, picked one that looked better than the last, landed there, and settled into this cafeteria.
His actions were meant to alarm and interest someone, and that was exactly what Sergius was after with his maneuvers, so he was pleased with the result.
Several times he had caught interested looks from a few mercenaries; the security service — two sentients — was loitering near the entrance, pretending to mind their own business.
But his trained eye noticed that their blasters were not in holster position but in a pre-combat state.
Just draw from the unholstered holster and pull the trigger after aiming.
Sergius poured himself another mug of caf, leaned back, and continued watching the local holographic entertainment channels.
An hour and a half after his stunts near the station, the locals' reaction wasn't long in coming.
Several sentients burst into the cafeteria, dressed in some semblance of uniforms with blasters in hand.
They looked like security guards, but weren't.
Just thugs.
Who approached the table Sergius was sitting at with unambiguous intent.
He greeted them with a smile, raised his mug of caf in salute, then drained it.
They didn't find it as amusing as the agent did, so they grabbed Bravo Eleven by the arms, dragged him out of the cafeteria, and led him down the station corridor toward the security section.
Sergius was hauled up the stairs, shoved into a huge office, where they quite unceremoniously sat him down on a chair and tossed his documents onto a giant table.
Leaving just a couple of thugs out of the six, the "honor guard" retreated out the door, leaving the agent in the office with one sentient.
An Ithorian.
Short, stocky, with squinting eyes and hands diplomatically folded on the table, he was so dapper and charming that he seemed like the ideal pirate as shown in entertainment holograms.
And despite the fact that up close Sergius could see dirt under his nails and numerous scars on his face and neck — traces of past battles — one could not deny the intangible magnetism of this sentient.
In his long career, Bravo Eleven had encountered this type of sentient before.
Recruiters.
Something between a coach, a psychologist, a common salesman, and a thug all in one.
Especially this one.
His name was Marg Sonat, and he had once been the right hand of the pirate leader who operated against the local Moff.
It ended fatally for the Moff, as is known.
And for Commander Sonat, too.
The Ithorian killed the woman with his own hands.
After which the local civil war among the pirates began.
Marg Sonat.
The Ithorian looked good-naturedly at the datapad lying in front of him, then declared:
"You're either a fool or a suicide case, human, for flying here in that fighter. And even more so for pulling those stunts near the station, rattling our pilots and gunners."
"No, it's just that your pilots and gunners wet themselves when they saw what I can do." Sergius put on a casual smile and crossed his legs, as if it were the pirates who had come to his office, not the other way around. "I just showed you all what a skilled pilot can do."
The Ithorian laughed.
"You think we'll thank you for that show?"
"I don't care what you say." Sergius shrugged. "I'm looking for work, not lectures and cheap intimidation."
"And you thought you'd be welcome here?"
"First of all, I'm always welcome everywhere." Sergius slowly turned and looked at his guards. "Secondly, I've seen how you recruit anyone who can hold a weapon and at least put an X in the 'Signature' box by themselves. I, a professional pilot, am far more valuable than half the scum you've recruited in the past few weeks."
The Ithorian's gaze sharpened.
"And what makes you think we're recruiting pilots?"
"I don't care who you are at all." Sergius stated. "I was waiting for that clerk from Nar Shaddaa Shipping to notice me. I doubt your crew is from there. So either spill what you want from me, or get lost and don't interfere while I wait for someone to come and hand me a crate of money for being such a good guy."
The Ithorian no longer hid his genuine interest.
If Sergius had tried some logical persuasion about being a great specialist, he'd have been put against a wall or thrown into a trash chute ending in a space lock.
Logic is not liked in criminal circles.
But boasting, courage, and the ability to back up simple, clear words with action — yes.
"Suppose whether you get hired at Nar Shaddaa Shipping depends on me. What do you say now?"
And now the usual bargaining began.
The winner would be the one with more audacity and peculiar arguments that fit pirate logic.
The loser would simply be quietly eliminated.
If Sergius lost, he'd be killed to remove a troublemaker from the recruitment point.
If Marg lost, his respect among the gang he belonged to would drop below the bottom of a black hole.
And judging by the Ithorian's insolent face, he had no intention of ending his life's path as a "non-pawn."
So he would clearly twist things to come out ahead.
And this situation could only be resolved one way.
Sergius leaned forward on his chair.
"So hire me then. You know what I'm capable of. An organization that plans such large operations clearly can't help but arouse my genuine desire to join and participate in the coming chaos. I'm sure I'll be useful to you too."
Marg Sonat couldn't help himself.
"Useful? Ha! We are a force unto ourselves. What the hutt made you think we need your help?"
The agent smiled with all thirty-three teeth, but his smile was not friendly at all.
"But I did surpass your pilots, didn't I? And the station gunners couldn't even target me. So I'm better than anything you have on this station. And you'll get a proper dressing down from your bosses if you let a reckless guy like me slip away."
This statement brought a smile to the Ithorian's face.
"So you decided you could offer us your services. As what?"
"A pilot." Sergius said firmly. "I think the whole station observed my flying skills. And the fact that I managed to steal a modified Z-95 from Baroness D'Asta's soldiers proves that I'm one damn lucky son of a bitch."
The ship had indeed once belonged to the Baroness's forces.
Sergius had honestly stolen it from Nez Peron as part of his infiltration mission.
Infiltrate the Imperials or pirates — it didn't matter.
The main thing was he had a story that could be easily verified if you knew who to ask.
If the Imperials were in power, they would have readily hired him as a pilot with his own ship — that's welcomed in the Outer Rim, because small Remnants sometimes can't even repair damaged small craft.
For pirates, such a candidate fit on all fronts.
And since Nar Shaddaa Shipping was part of the Zann Consortium, verifying his "legend" wasn't difficult.
Obviously that's what they had been doing during the time from when he landed on the station until they dragged him here.
And the fact that he not only stole the ship but also fought off the Baroness's patrols only added realism to the story.
The Ithorian shook his large head.
"We have no pilot vacancies. We need fighters. I assume you know how to handle a blaster too."
And that was part of the test too.
"So you're feeding me bullshit." Sergius pointed at the wall where he believed the company office should be. "Everyone knows Nar Shaddaa Shipping recruits pilots. Their ads are all over the Outer Rim. If I wanted to be a soldier, I wouldn't have risked my ass stealing a fighter."
Imperial Intelligence used every chance to infiltrate organizations they needed.
If Sergius agreed right now to change his recruitment profile, he'd at least end up "under surveillance."
As a rule, such "restless" ones who easily change preferences are simply killed.
There are pirates who take anyone.
And there are those who are filled with audacity and self-belief to openly recruit fighters.
And don't forget that the latter are precisely those who, one way or another, destroyed Imperial authority in the sector.
So they have brains.
And since they're still alive, they can smell a fake from a parsec away.
"No one asked you to steal it." the Ithorian stated. "Am I supposed to register everyone with a flying jalopy as a pilot?"
"If they fly the way I do, you definitely won't lose out."
Marg Sonat laughed good-naturedly, easing the tension between them.
"You amuse me, little human. But that's not enough to become a pilot in one of our squadrons."
"Then kick out at least one of the losers you've stuffed in there." Sergius advised. "Or give me a one-on-one fight with him. The survivor becomes a pilot. And the loser... who will remember him anyway."
"Fat chance!" Sonat's voice turned ice cold. "You'd better get one thing straight about me, boy. Setting conditions for me means digging your own grave. It will be exactly as I told you — if you want to join our gang, go into infantry. And your little ship we'll give to someone more capable."
"I understand." Sergius cast a lazy glance at the two thugs behind him and realized it was too early to relax. "In that case, you can shove your offer up your ass and stay out of my way. I'll find a gang where the recruiter has brains instead of bantha poodoo in his skull."
With that, he stood up, but immediately a heavy hand fell on his shoulder from one of the thugs.
"Stop." the Ithorian ordered. "I'm not finished."
That's it, there's no turning back.
"But I am finished." Sergius replied, executing a move.
Agreeing to become an infantryman meant being classified as "meat" that would die in the first battle.
And no amount of his skills would be enough to survive here.
The Zann Consortium's infantry in the past was constantly doped up on drugs that thoroughly dulled their sense of fear and self-preservation instinct.
That's not the case with pilots — otherwise they'd be shot down like bloodsuckers in the swamps.
It's unlikely that without changing their recruitment approach, the organization's leaders had deviated from their worldview regarding mercenaries.
At the very least, it's not pragmatic.
Such rabble is very cowardly and will scatter at the first sight of an AT-AT on the horizon.
The second thug watched as his intellectually equal comrade now lay face-down on the dirty floor.
And Sergius had twisted one of his limbs with one hand while disarming him with the other.
"If you shoot, you won't leave here." the Ithorian boomed with his double mouth, gesturing to stop the second thug. "The entire spaceport is under our control. If you leave alone, a hunt will begin for you."
"I'd rather take the risk." Sergius assured. "At least to tell my acquaintances that mercenaries aren't valued here, and you, specifically, aren't even capable of properly evaluating a candidate."
"But I am ca-pable." Bravo Eleven heard a hissing voice behind him.
Exactly where the blank wall had been when he entered.
The agent slowly turned so as not to leave his back exposed to a possible attack.
It seemed he had finally managed to interest someone bigger than the Ithorian...
"Boss!" the frightened Marg Sonat jumped up from the table and jogged over to a tall Trandoshan in a yellow pilot jumpsuit with a white load-bearing vest.
A powerful rifle hung over his shoulder, but the Trandoshan was calm, relaxed, and looked at Sergius with undisguised interest.
"I was negotiating and..."
A blow from a scaly paw knocked the Ithorian to the floor, where he whimpered deeply from pain and humiliation.
Which prompted the Trandoshan to "add" more with a kick.
"Shut up, So-nat." the Trandoshan's voice practically dripped with malice and irritation. "Don't test my patience."
"Yes-yes, b-boss..."
The Trandoshan smiled, as much as one could call it that regarding the predatory grin of an upright two-meter (or so) powerfully built reptile.
He walked over to the second thug, lightning-fast grabbed him by the neck, yanked him down, and kneed him in the face, sending him to the floor like the Ithorian.
"Use-less-ss." the Trandoshan said irritably, looking at his underlings with annoyance.
He turned his gaze to Sergius, the thug he was still holding, and grinned predatorily.
"Do me a fa-vor, human." he hissed. "Shoot this idiot."
Sergius didn't need to be asked twice.
The blaster put a hole in the first thug's head, and the agent released the limb of the fresh corpse.
"I like it." the Trandoshan approached the Dominion agent. "You're hired, pilot. Who did you serve under in the past?"
"Alderaan Guard." Sergius didn't see the need to hide another part of his fabricated past.
"Don't like the Imperials?" the Trandoshan asked with interest.
"Pay me and tell me which one to kill and how." Sergius snorted with emphasized smugness.
"And the Republicans?" asked the boss of the now-silent Marg Sonat.
"I shoot those losers with the same efficiency." Sergius yawned. "So, when do I start?"
"Already started." the Trandoshan assured, extending his right hand. "What's your name, human?"
"Ace." Sergius introduced himself.
"You'll serve on my ship, Ace-ss." the Trandoshan assured. "My name is Boss-ssk."
"As if I don't know who you are."
"Pleased to meet you, boss." Sergius replied carelessly, shaking the Trandoshan's scaly hand.
"I'll make a belt out of you, you miserable reptiloid," the Dominion agent decided on the fate of the Zann Consortium lieutenant.
Bossk.
* * *
.".. the Kaminoan scientists have been placed under reliable guard of guards at the facility." Colonel Astarion reported. "The new Spaarti cloning cylinders we obtained during the operation on Smarck have been installed and are in the process of testing and verification. According to reports from my operatives overseeing the Kaminoans' work, the units are ready to produce new clones and directly participated in the launch of the fifth batch of the current year."
Clone production in the Dominion follows a simple logic to simplify their accounting.
First — the year of manufacture.
Given the accelerated aging of Spaarti clones, this is a very important factor.
Second — the production batch.
That's a matter of specifics.
We managed to fine-tune the process so that in a standard year of three hundred and sixty-five days, we could produce twenty-four full batches of clones.
Fifteen days to produce one batch.
Thus, at the end of the second month of the tenth year after the Battle of Yavin, we had already received four full batches of clones, twenty thousand elite specialists each.
Starting with the fifth batch, we will produce twenty-seven thousand clones to replenish the personnel of the Dominion's Armed Forces.
Another two hundred cloning cylinders have been transferred to the laboratory under my direct control, which is engaged in producing Grodin Tierce clones to replenish the personnel of the Dominion Guard.
Given the rapid construction of secret facilities throughout the Dominion, the need for elite guards, to whom I can unconditionally entrust top-secret secrets, is higher than ever.
In total, by the end of the year we will produce five hundred and forty thousand new fleet, army, and other specialists.
Enough to crew up to thirty-six Imperial-III-class Star Destroyers.
And besides this category of ships, we have heavy, light, and patrol cruisers, other types of destroyers, escort carriers, gunboats, corvettes, frigates...
"How is the work progressing on studying the cloning cylinders obtained on Mustafar?" I asked.
"I've selected three Kaminoans — including two technicians and a geneticist — to work on this project," Astarion reported. "Preliminary conclusion: the equipment is unstable. Design flaws from using parts from different systems make these autoclaves dangerously volatile."
"That doesn't rule out their repairability," I noted. "The base technology is Arkanian, which — though not without difficulty — can be obtained on galactic markets."
"That's true, sir, but the Kaminoans warn that Arkanian technology has a very significant side effect," Astarion said. "Substantial metabolic acceleration, as well as accelerated aging — even more pronounced than in Kaminoan or Spaarti clones. In addition, there's more pronounced psychological instability, manifesting after a very short period of time. My people received something like a cloning manual from the Kaminoans; I'm ready to forward it to you."
"Awaiting it." An instant later, the indicator on the holographic projector blinked, signaling data packet reception. "Data received, Colonel. Is that all?"
"Regarding cloning stabilization — yes, sir," Astarion confirmed. "May I make a proposal, Grand Admiral? Concerning Arkanian cloning technology and its beneficial use for the Dominion's needs."
Now that was interesting.
"Go ahead, Colonel," I said, peering with interest at the hologram of the Dominion Security Bureau director.
"As I've already indicated, these technologies have quite dangerous side effects," Astarion reminded me. "You noted that repairs are possible, but I suspect this will cost the budget enormous resources. In the end, we'll get a relatively small output of fast-aging clones with a significant percentage of progressive psychiatric disorders. I won't presume to judge the viability of repairing such installations. However, given the plans to destroy the 'Zann Consortium' and seize its facilities, I'd suggest that ultimately we'll have far more Kaminoan cloning cylinders than the more expensive Arkanian ones."
"Get to the point, Colonel," I requested.
"Yes, sir. I'd propose using the Arkanian cloning cylinders to clone the criminals we send to Kessel."
What the…?
Wait a minute.
There was a certain logic to that.
We had technology that was expensive to repair and frankly not cost-effective.
Yet this X1 contraption still worked and produced insane clones — and not just humans.
We had a regular "demand" for "food" for the spice-spiders — and how would clones be worse than the originals?
But there was one nuance.
"Colonel," I addressed the Dominion's chief counter-intelligence officer in a calm tone, "amendments to criminal law prescribe the death penalty for certain categories of crimes. Spies, saboteurs, drug traffickers, influence agents, rapists, serial killers, murderers, deserters, traitors, collaborators, pirates, slavers… and a number of other criminals whose offenses are classified as exceptionally dangerous to society. Which of these categories do clones of beings fall under, who haven't committed anything except sharing the same face and the same memories as a criminal sentenced to death?"
Astarion's image flickered for a moment.
"None of them, sir."
Commendable.
So he still remembered my opinion on the "guilt" of clones for the deeds of their originals.
"Children" were not responsible for the deeds of their "fathers."
This principle was immutable and not subject to revision.
At least until such weighty grounds arose as would force me to reconsider it.
For now, I saw only the opposite — "children" were as effective as their genetics allowed.
"In that case, the stated thesis, while worthy of attention and consideration as an emergency option, will not be implemented at present," I declared.
"Understood, sir," Astarion replied. "May I continue working on the assigned tasks?"
"Permission granted."
The hologram faded, and after checking the received file, I transferred it to my workstation and began studying the data.
I never ceased to be amazed at how much useful information could be obtained from specialized experts, as well as from Imperial archives.
To begin with, Colonel Astarion's report contained data on the "Spaarti Creation."
The latter was a unique factory of its kind on the planet Cartao in the Prakla sector.
Holographic images of the complex existed, taken during the Clone Wars.
Both before and after the factory's destruction.
There was a thorough report from both the Republic and Imperial investigative commissions, unanimous in their conclusion:
"The factory is destroyed and cannot be restored."
"Equipment is ruined and cannot be restored."
"Acquiring new equipment is impossible due to its absence in the galaxy."
According to data from numerous Imperial agents, the Galactic Empire had been searching for parts to restore the "Spaarti Creation" right up until Palpatine decided to stop using clones as the basis for the Stormtrooper Corps.
This happened after the Kamino uprising, brutally suppressed by the 501st Legion.
Well… that didn't exclude the fact that Palpatine was aware of the cloning procedure itself.
He had his own stockpile of Spaarti cloning cylinders, and the official cessation of investigation and parts searching by no means indicated that the Emperor's Hand, his guards, the Shadow Guard, or other trusted individuals didn't continue working on restoring the "Spaarti Creation" after the official ban.
The technology and the factory itself were far too interesting.
It wasn't even about the "Spaarti Creation" being able to produce cloning cylinders capable of creating a fully grown clone in a year (without using ysalamiri).
The "Spaarti Creation" could retool its equipment overnight to manufacture an entirely new product.
But thirty-one years ago, the factory was completely destroyed by a Republic battle droid ship remotely piloted into its roof, causing a fire that simply melted the priceless technology.
Which seemingly implied the technology was lost.
As far as I knew, the ship crash — which Palpatine had orchestrated to discredit the Jedi — was survived only by those cloning cylinders that had been delivered inside Mount Tantiss and later discovered by me.
But then how to explain the fact that "Black Sun" or the "Zann Consortium" had acquired seventy-two hundred Spaarti cloning cylinders, similar to the twenty thousand I'd already had on hand since last year?
The answer to that question could have been provided by Makus Kaynif, who was currently in DSB custody being interrogated by Astarion's subordinates, but the man — crippled by Mara Jade — remained silent.
Despite the torture.
Scanning his memory was impossible — his brain contained implants that prevented the "centrifuge" from working.
The latter was the name for the apparatus that extracted "images" of human minds for subsequent replication and implantation into clones' brains, depending on their field of activity.
Currently, the feasibility of a surgical operation to remove the implants was being studied, but that required time and intensive preparation.
Even the Third admitted that simply extracting the implants from deep within the brain tissue wouldn't work — there was a high probability Kaynif would be left an idiot, with entire sections of his brain simply dying.
Which brought us back to psychologically and operationally breaking the fat man, who stubbornly refused to divulge the information we needed.
However, there was good news too.
Finally, thanks to the Kaminoan scientists, we had obtained more detailed, more thorough, and more complete information regarding what exactly we were dealing with in matters of cloning.
Spaarti cloning cylinders functioned as artificial wombs, filled with nutrient chemicals and organic catalysts, used for the accelerated growth of clones.
This was already known, of course.
Creating clones from Spaarti cylinders was the fastest form of cloning known to the Kaminoans.
Kaminoan technology required ten years to grow one "duplicate"; Spaarti took just a standard year.
Arkanian technology took several years.
But at the same time, the Kaminoans reported that, according to their data, the Arkanians had dealt with Spaarti technology during the Clone Wars.
Well, that raised another question for me — how, if Palpatine had ordered all surviving cylinders moved to Wayland, and no other Spaarti cloning cylinders were supposed to exist at all?
And one could also recall that there had been such an individual as Zeta Magnus, who worked with Arkanian technology and produced clones — including Jedi — in a matter of hours.
What installations did he use?
What became of them?
For now, let's add these thoughts to the rhetorical question pile, because finding an answer wasn't easy even with logic.
And I had absolutely no desire to speculate.
Nevertheless, Kaminoan cloning was far more effective, because ten years of continuous education and training had produced perfect warriors, despite the long wait.
Spaarti clones received no training whatsoever; instead, their personalities were formed through a process known as "flash imprinting," which involved placing a recording of another person's memories into the brain of a freshly-created clone.
At the same time, the Kaminoans knew absolutely nothing about the "GeNod" program, which only highlighted its exclusivity and provided grounds for yet another conspiracy theory.
Editing the original's memories for transfer to clones was a revelation for the Kaminoans, which they were studying intensively.
Perhaps adopting this interesting method of training new soldiers would allow us to make a certain leap in developing our own cloning capabilities.
Well, the Kaminoans indicated that by Kaynif's orders, they had also conducted experiments growing clones at an extremely fast rate without using ysalamiri.
The results were only madmen, more dangerous to those around them than to the enemy.
Well then.
Both we and the "Zann Consortium" had solved the problem of clone madness using ysalamiri.
Well, now for something we hadn't known, or that had only been mentioned in passing in Imperial documents.
To begin with, the Kaminoan geneticists proposed a hypothesis that there was a certain connection between Spaarti technology and the cloning used by a race called the Khommites.
It was possible that Spaarti cloning cylinders weren't actually an independent invention of the planet Cartao, but merely copies of other equipment.
Hmm…
An interesting thought.
Let's note it down.
I could even assign an investigation in this regard, as well as a survey of the "Spaarti Creation" ruins, to Shadow Guard operatives, but there was a catch.
The Khommites were humanoids from the planet Khomm.
Not much was known about them, only that about a thousand years ago they'd decided they'd reached the limit of their development and should therefore preserve their society.
And instead of reproducing sexually, switch to cloning.
Well, that was an interesting story.
Which not only demonstrated the fact that Spaarti cloning cylinder technology might not have been original at all, but also that the Kaminoans had knowledge of their "competitors."
And although the Khommites had never been known to create clones for anything other than replenishing their own population, possessing such valuable technology could be quite promising.
Perhaps the Khommites had already figured that out from personal experience.
Why did I assume this?
Because the planet Khomm, the homeworld of this race — the only place they lived — was located in quadrant L-12.
And that was the Deep Core.
In other words — territory controlled by Palpatine.
Well.
Now I had no questions left about why Palpatine had left Wayland and Mount Tantiss as a bone for those who wanted to fight the New Republic.
What were twenty thousand cloning cylinders when you had an entire race of clones at your doorstep, who might have been the ones who created Spaarti technology in ancient times?
How many cloning cylinders were on Khomm?
Five million?
Ten?
Twenty?
Apparently quite a few, if it sustained a race that had lived in isolation for a thousand years, yet rumors about them still circulated.
And that in turn meant Palpatine could have a very, very large number of cloning cylinders.
Consequently, if the Khommites could produce a fully-grown clone in at least a year or two, then at this point we might be talking about several million to several billion clones of the most diverse specializations.
Well, if so, then…
It was all quite simple.
That was why Palpatine was pulling as many starships as possible into the Deep Core.
He might not have been concerned about complete crews.
After all, he could almost certainly replenish any personnel losses with clones.
Not so with the ships themselves.
Given the scale of the slaughter within the galaxy, it was no wonder that losing the lion's share of his ships would cost him the delay of his ambitious, insane plans to regain control of the galaxy.
He wasn't summoning crews to himself.
He was pulling starships to Byss.
And his primary interest was in them.
Not the crews.
As experience showed — replenishing personnel, given the pro-Imperial population, was much easier than building ships with limited funds and resources.
And when previously nearly every shipyard in the galaxy had been building fleets, the collapse of the state had drastically reduced the number of shipyards loyal to the New Order.
Well…
The clouds were gathering.
Two known mass-cloning locations — and both were presumably captured by the enemy.
Kamino — by the "Zann Consortium."
Khomm — by Palpatine.
There might be other races involved in cloning; I simply didn't know about them.
Khomm…
Well, if I dug through my memory, that name was only familiar to me in the context of the adventures of young Jedi from Luke Skywalker's Praxeum.
Among his students was one clone from a planet where all development had stalled because the local government believed…
Well, I had to admit, even the Chiss supercomputer brain couldn't process all the information I'd ever known or read in my past life.
That required a targeted "brainstorming" session and an associative chain based on key points.
Well, now I knew a little more about my current physiology.
And the reasons why Mitth'raw'nuruodo had so often and for so long stayed alone in complete silence.
A prolonged period was necessary to properly assess the situation from the outside.
From every side.
I needed it.
I was sure that over the years of his life, Mitth'raw'nuruodo had already become adept at handling his natural abilities with great speed of evaluation and information comparison, as well as decision-making.
Well, something to strive for.
Now, back to studying the report.
Around the end of the Clone Wars, the Galactic Republic used Spaarti clones from the Arkanian company "Arkanian Microtechnologies," supplementing the Grand Army of Clones produced on Kamino, due to the speed of production using Spaarti technology.
At the same time, the existence of a secret cloning center on Coruscant's moon, Centax-2 — the very one where Admiral Gial Ackbar and his "Home One" had "parked" rather carelessly — remained a secret from most of Palpatine's inner circle.
Moreover, the clones produced on Centax-2 differed from Kaminoan clones not only in "manufacturing" time: one year versus ten.
The clone soldiers of the 14th Infantry Brigade were among the first generation of Fett's Spaarti clones. The rest were assimilated into the 501st Legion and the Coruscant Guard stormtroopers — a special unit of the Grand Army of the Republic, stationed on the capital planet and responsible for maintaining law and order there.
By the end of the Clone Wars, the number of Jango Fett's Spaarti clones numbered in the billions and, at certain periods, was practically comparable to the number of Kaminoan clones.
But they differed dramatically from each other.
Spaarti clones received only brief training in the basics of military science, like how to shoot a rifle.
A notable example was that during their first deployment, the 14th Infantry Brigade hadn't bothered to take cover from enemy fire, and their weapon accuracy was astonishingly poor.
This was noted by the soldiers — the clone commandos from Omega Squad, one of the elite units of the Grand Army of the Republic, who had covered themselves in glory during the Clone Wars just like Delta Squad or the Null-class Advanced Recon Commandos.
Spaarti clones were quickly identified by their Kaminoan "brothers."
Trained primarily by Mandalorian instructors, the Kaminoans, unlike the Spaarti clones, had knowledge of Mandalorian culture, customs, and language.
This fact indicated that Mandalorian culture had never been presented to the Spaarti clones during training.
So, it could be noted that without the use of ysalamiri, Spaarti clones typically demonstrated poor marksmanship and a lack of combat tactics.
Observers noted that their combat tactics mainly consisted of a frontal assault on the enemy until all targets were neutralized — regardless of clone casualties.
They were even known to refuse to carry out orders and fire on their own allies due to clone madness.
This problem became most acute during the time of the New Order, and the Clone Uprising on Kamino was the final straw that led Palpatine to eventually abandon this technology and continue the process of recruiting soldiers into the Stormtrooper Corps through more traditional means.
Well…
At least that was the official version.
But I knew that Palpatine hadn't stopped his cloning experiments — at least for his own dear self.
Given the scale of his intrigues, one shouldn't rule out the possibility that the use of various cloning systems was directly intended to perfect the technology for his own immortality.
I had already pondered this, and now I was only more convinced of it based on new evidence.
Now, to the question of clone training.
We had several options for training clones.
The first, which we were using, was "flash imprinting."
It was used to create Spaarti clones.
But no one in the past had ever used it together with the "GeNod" program, editing the clones' memories.
We, in effect, removed from the future clones' memories everything that wasn't related to military service or public life.
The essence of the technology was that a vast amount of knowledge and memories was loaded directly into the person's brain during the cloning process.
This was possible thanks to the Spaarti cloning cylinder's data-processing computer system, which connected directly to the developing clone's cerebral cortex.
According to the Kaminoan genetic scientists, this was precisely what caused the brain, unprotected by ysalamiri, to become "overloaded," leading to cases of "clone madness."
The percentage of brain utilization among humans in a galaxy far, far away wasn't significantly different from what it was on Earth, so one could imagine what the cloning subjects experienced when tons of information were dumped on them overnight.
Preliminarily, the Kaminoans indicated that editing the donor's memories allowed the removal of up to seventy percent of the donor's information-memories, which favorably affected the clones' psychology.
Our Spaarti clones' performance indicators were eighty-five to ninety percent consistent with donor indicators, and this percentage grew as the clone gained its own experience and "ironed out" what it had inherited from its progenitor.
In other words, training the clones after they left the autoclaves helped restore skills faster.
It was gratifying to know that by "trial and error" we had hit on the right course of events.
The Kaminoans, on the other hand, used a so-called "rapid learning" process on their clones.
It was a method of using holographic flashes to train young clones during their growth period. The process allowed the clone to accumulate knowledge, skills, and competencies at an accelerated pace.
In other words, the Kaminoans, growing clones to a biological age of ten, then moved them to a training area, alternating theoretical and practical exercises.
During the development phase of the Grand Army of the Republic, newly created clone soldiers first learned weapons handling and tactics, then moved on to simulations, training, and live-fire exercises.
Let's note that thought.
We travel to the events of the Clone Wars as depicted in the film "Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones."
The Kaminoans show Obi-Wan Kenobi complexes where numerous clones are occupied with work on computer programs.
"This group was created five years ago"…
Consequently, these were ten-year-old children, given the accelerated maturation method by a factor of two.
But the Kaminoans' "product delivery" only occurred when the clones reached adulthood.
That is, they were at least biologically twenty-year-old men.
Now let's look at this from a different angle.
A Spaarti clone was created in a year, and at the same time, all the donor's knowledge was loaded into its head.
Without training or drills — at least not long ones — it was sent to the front, where it demonstrated low combat effectiveness.
Now take the Kaminoan clones.
First, they were grown for five years, loading everything necessary for their future "career" into their heads.
Then they trained for five years on ranges and at computers, after which they were delivered to the client.
And yet — Spaarti clones were worse than Kaminoan ones.
Was I the only one who saw the double standards in this comparison?
Not only do Spaarti clones receive in one year, say, the same training that Kaminoan clones receive in five, but the former were thrown straight onto the front lines, while the latter spent five years training to apply their skills on the battlefield.
I still remember all that wailing.
"What can a conscript learn in a year, who saw an assault rifle only at the swearing‑in ceremony and twice at the firing range?"
In other words, Spaarti clones are conscripts who had the bare minimum crammed into their heads somehow in an accelerated course, without any thought that all this needed to be reinforced in practice.
And the Kaminoans, upon completion, deliver to the customer a clone who spent five years straight in training, absorbing knowledge like a sponge — because a child's brain responds exactly like that to information that interests it.
And what could be interesting to someone who was created for war and cannot conceive of anything else due to his programming?
It was precisely the fact that the Kaminoans provided more combat‑capable clones that allowed them to earn huge sums of money from first the Old Republic, and then the Galactic Empire.
Let's lock in that thought and consider that Lucas modeled the Republic directly on the United States of America (where even the Grand Army of the Republic exists).
And there, lobbying by a private military contractor, while certain "nuances" are hushed up, is a perfectly workable and legal scheme.
Unsurprisingly, after creating the clone army, the Kaminoans received a seat in the Old Republic Senate and advocated for increasing clone purchases every time the issue came up.
Which, however, does not negate the fact that the Kaminoans trained their clones excellently.
And the Spaarti clones simply weren't given a proper chance to prove themselves after the necessary training.
And the technology was, to put it mildly, underdeveloped.
Now we are getting excellent clones and no one complains about the quality.
At least unless it concerns the remaining clones produced under the "GeNod" program by Colonel Selid and currently in carbonite.
The second subgroup of Kaminoans is working on solving this problem.
Our human resources are not infinite, and we cannot replenish them instantly.
Destroying clones just because they've developed personality dementia is foolish.
At the very least, Kaminoans know how to wipe clones' memories — they did this with their "products" during the Clone Wars.
And currently, the working hypothesis is: an experiment should be conducted to remove the old personality in a clone and replace it with the personality of the clone's original donor.
In that case, theoretically, a "body‑mind conflict" should not occur, as it did with the clones of various donors into which Colonel Selid uploaded his memory matrix.
Too bad that even the colonel's body was severely damaged during the attack by the insane clone of Luke Skywalker, into whose head the equally insane C'baoth's matrix had been implanted.
A third group of Kaminoans is working on what has thawed the body and is conducting checks for DNA chain damage.
The fact that long‑term freezing in carbonite can affect the structure of the genome is, of course, troubling.
Precisely because carbonite is not intended by default for freezing living beings — only for food.
Prolonged presence of carbonite inside the wounds of Colonel Selid's body could lead to irreversible DNA damage.
As long as there is a possibility to restore his genotype and obtain clones like the deceased TNH‑0297 and the currently living TNH‑0333, this needs to be worked through to completion.
The end of the "Kaminoan section" of the report contained a veritable treasure trove of information for me, which put a lot of things in their place and plugged the "lore holes."
General Rahm Kota, as well as some other characters in the universe, categorically asserted that cloning a Jedi is impossible.
Practice, however, shows that this assertion is false.
Force‑sensitive clones can be created.
And much faster than in one year.