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What would it be like, he wondered, to see faces other than your own? Every stage of his life, past and present, haunted the halls of Tipoca City. Occasionally they would see their creators, the Kaminoans, and the random contracted trainer. The older classes had seen Prime himself, though he was long gone by now, along with his ad’ika.
Sure, they were all unique. Right down to their identifying codes, the older classes of clones would joke, long numb to their situation. It used to bother him that they were considered identical by their creators. By now he could pick out the subtle differences in his brothers, the way they carried themselves, which of them lit up in excitement when served the green sludge instead of their regular brown, things that only other clones could truly distinguish. What would it have been like to be loudly unique? To be able to distinguish one from another with a passing glance rather than a study over meals. There was safety in the anonymity of being identical. He finds he much prefers to not be noticed, to not be an outlier. Being noticed on Kamino, even for overperforming, only ever led to more challenging training. Weeding out the outliers for a more uniform crop. What you cannot tell from a crowd is what each of his brothers have lived through. Their thoughts were their own, for the most part, and no two clones would have the exact same memories. They still shared the surreal experience of knowing how their own faces contorted in pain, narrowed in concentration, eased in sleep…
Bred, born, and raised for battle, he knew a soldier's fate was to die. Older clones, the ones that survived, would pass on stories about their travels. Warnings, too, of the strange and horrific events they had returned from. Tales of their brother’s untimely endings offered to the younger classes in warning of what’s to come. What a unique experience it must be, to know how you’ll look when you die, and how you’ll look as you watch yourself die. Seeing the light go out in your own eyes should be something no sentient had to endure. If the Kaminoans were to be believed, they weren’t sentient and therefore should not concern themselves with what sentients were concerned with. Livestock don’t worry themselves over their caretaker’s plans, after all, the walk to his abattoir simply another treat bestowed upon him.
The horrors lurking in the greater galaxy beyond felt distant, the rain of their home world shielding them from even truly seeing what was out there among the stars. If they could never see that far, the view constantly obscured by the storms, was any of it even real? Each cycle ticked by, bringing him one step closer to his inevitable deployment into the galaxy at war. He was safer here on Kamino, although there was death and pain here too. The pain of accelerated growth, his bones twisted and sprouted seemingly overnight. Cartilage hardened in his joints during the rougher weeks. Or even the teething process in year 3, when his adult teeth sliced through his still-sore gums just weeks after losing his tubie teeth. His class had been put on liquid diets during this phase. The deep ache of his body shifting and adjusting rapidly made sleep nearly impossible at times. His muscles tore in spars, tearing again that night as the ligaments that anchored them fought against the lengthening of the bone underneath because something had to give. Monthly refittings of uniforms, better sized to fit each stage of development as their bodies accommodated the processes of their unnatural growth.
The hormonal stages of their pre-teen bodies were used against them. Aggression and imbalance funneled into more intense training, likely to help control them, but he would never truly know. His shortened temper pitted against his own brother’s rage, to hone each other into the deadly weapons they were designed to be. Those were the weeks that the pain had fueled them, gave them something other than their reality to focus on and ground themselves to. Those were the weeks they leaned into the manipulation of their psyche if only for the comfortable blur of following orders.
He knew what it was like, the pain of watching other squads fail an exercise, knowing that they were now past the stages where failure was tolerated. Nobody had ever seen those squads return to the barracks. Their bunks lay cold and empty, his class growing ever smaller as their training progressed into years 7 and 8. Soon enough the survivors of this training cycle would move up into the advanced barracks, now only months away from deployment. The war raged on, and his brothers were deployed younger and younger each time. Final stages of training now exchanged for on-the-job experience. They died younger this way too.
Pain stabbed in his chest each time he was drafted to remove bodies of his younger brothers from the sparring pads. The specialists hired to pass on their trades paid little thought to killing students when there were so many being produced. Their skills were only worth passing on to those who could keep up, especially now the war was as demanding as it was on the supply of clones. Instructors made every effort to harden them into soldiers before their deployment with little regard to the methods they employed.
He remembered the first time they handed his class blasters. Nobody had expected them to be loaded. He had been spared from catching a stray bolt, but not all of them were as lucky. They all had a much larger respect for their weapons now that they understood why the floors in this room were stained and equipped with drains. Trial by fire, the weapons instructor had called it. He often wishes they had taken that more literally.
He was quite familiar with the nightmares they shared. None of them could put into words what it was that they all saw in their fitful sleep, but shared glances laced with pity and understanding bonded them. If not the horrors of their reality here on Kamino, then it was speculation on what would come to harm them once they were deployed alongside the first generations. Their older brothers returned home with dirt on their plating and paint contrasting proudly against the scuffed white armor. Designs and colors, marking them as unique from each other. Younger classes whispered at night, fantasizing what their own designs would look like once they were deployed. Older classes sobered at the impending reality of leaving the safety of their indistinguishable differences.
What differentiated them when they were dead? Stripped of their armor, what was left of them that was unique? Recycled for their genetic material, organs stored for further analysis to investigate the root of the performance issue. Each cadet class from years 4 through 8 rotated through the research labs. Some classes were there as subjects, others as assistants. His own class had served as assistants, receiving packages with each returned ship to sort through and label. When one of his classmates put together what they had spent weeks handling, he had excused himself to the ‘fresher to empty his stomach. Slowly, he watched as the realization dawned on the remaining cadet’s faces. They’d been handling the bits and pieces of their lost brothers. Sorting chunks of flesh, assigning them yet another number or discarding them for low quality. His class had been sifting through unidentifiable slabs of mangled limbs, damaged beyond recognition from the horrors of war. Waste not, want not, apparently.
Fire filled his more sour dreams. Reflecting off of the lifeless eyes of dead brothers and the droids manipulating their corpses onto the platforms. The flames would grow outside of their containment chamber, licking at the floor, filling the room with smoke that burned his eyes. The sting of the smoke was what he blamed the tears on when his classmates woke him. He knew the nightmares for what they were, knew they were the product of his mind. The Kaminoans would never waste entire bodies in the real world. Some nights though, it was his own body loaded onto the platforms, lifelessly limp, only capable of passive observation as the flames overtook him. On the rare nights when he could convince his brain that the nightmares were unrealistic, he would instead find himself lifeless on a dissection table. Strapped down and cut open, watching helplessly as the technicians methodically disassembled him. Maybe after those particular nightmares, his organs would be sorted and labeled by some other unsuspecting cadet class.
He wondered if things would change when the Jedi finally called upon him and his class. What happens in the galaxy they’re designed to protect? What levels of Sith hell would he endure as a soldier under his Jedi? He’d seen very few Jedi. The resident Jedi here on Kamino spent most of her time coordinating with the special programs. She had no time for the masses. What would his own Jedi general be like? Would they perform wild stunts and save the day? He had heard tales from other clones, those who returned for specialized training in the ARC programs. Their Jedi were fearless and determined. Others were detached and methodically approached conflict. He heard rumors too, of certain Jedi and their extreme casualty rates. Were those battalions led into more difficult conflicts, or were they drastically mismanaged? His stomach churned whenever he would worry over who he would be assigned to. The war had obviously not been kind to his brothers, with how many of them had returned in indistinguishable chunks. Would they too return to Kamino in body bags? Which of them would be cast out, deemed unsalvageable by another unknowing cadet class?
There had to be more to the galaxy than what the Kaminoans told them. None of their scientists or trainers had bothered to mention that they would be forced to face things other than blaster fire and hand-to-hand. They’d been told to simply prepare for the unexpected, but what were they supposed to expect if their predecessors returned home like this? Sure, they all dreamed of distant worlds, strange flora and fauna beyond what their flash training showed them. None of his class dreamed of any pleasant possibilities in the greater galaxy after their rotation in the labs. Too many bodies mutilated beyond recognition for them to imagine that there was anything nice waiting for them out there.
He figured that it must be safer for him and his brothers to stay on Kamino. They felt nearly invincible together. It’s the only life he’s ever known. He did not want to know what it was like to be separated from them. He had seen older clones return to their brothers on Kamino, shells of the men they were when they were deployed. Hollow eyes that looked through him as they escorted body bags off their returning ships. He wondered if it was simply the rain streaking down their soaked forms, or if their eyes had sprung a leak. Droplets trailed in the wake of their parade to the collection facilities.
Every clone had been created here, and every clone would return here, by foot or body bag. The horrors he had experienced in his short life were the only sense of normalcy he had. There was safety in the known. Repetitive routines, and the blur of training was home. On the cycles where he was more sure of himself, he considered what he would do if he had a choice. Would he leave Kamino for another planet and find somewhere to call home? Surely he would miss his brothers. Once the more pessimistic part of his brain caught up to the daydreaming, his mood would sour. What would a man built for war do without the war? He was made to be nothing but a tool to be used at the discretion of professionals. Without the war, what would he, or any of his brothers, do? Surely there had to be a resolution to the conflict at some point. What happened after? Would he be assigned to the highest bidder? Perhaps he would be recycled, not having made the cut for which of his brothers they would keep. What a waste it would be, to create such an army of soldiers and strategic minds, only to leave them in storage indefinitely.
Cruel too. Was there anything worse than training your finest racing Fathier, to leave them stalled come derby week? Close enough to the action to hear and smell what he’s been prepared for, but locked away from it. His own body often itched to join his brother’s fight. Soon enough his stall would open, and he’d be assigned his own race to run.