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“Who the hell authorized him to train the CCs?”
Footsteps echoed like blaster fire as they approached the railing running the length of the observation deck. The lone figure standing there gave no indication that he noticed the man who had joined him, nor did he flinch under the harsh tone. It was said among cadets that Walon Vau was incapable of emotion, except for disappointment and anger. They weren’t far off the mark.
“I thought you had faith in your little pet project. He knows the consequences for failure. I, for one, am quite looking forward to monitoring his progress.”
Even accustomed to Walon’s smugness, Kal Skirata entertained the same fantasy of punching his crooked nose back into shape that many of the cadets surely did. Reeling in his frustration and rage toward his fellow Mandalorian was one of the hardest parts of the job, and one Kal didn’t always succeed at. He’d been the one to put that bump in Walon’s nose in the first place, after all.
“You just want a punching bag. You set him up to fail.”
“If he’s as good as they say, he’ll get them through the sims,” Walon said. His cool gaze swept across the squad of cadets on the training deck below them, appraising each and every pint-sized stack of armor. The boys were swimming in the pieces, far too young to be participating in the sims that had been set up for them. Walon had little sympathy for their plight.
“And if he doesn’t, I’ll ensure they properly learn the lesson.”
Lips pressed in a tight line, Kal stepped up to the window to watch his boys run the sims. It wasn’t his lack of faith in their trainer that had him worried, but his skepticism over what Walon had planned. He could only observe and hope Walon would be proved wrong.
***
The row of five straight-backed cadets stood motionless in front of their instructor as he paced, muttering words that weren’t quite audible to their ears. The tallest cadet, and the de-facto leader, followed their trainer’s movements with just his eyes; back and forth, and then back again. A cadet with a thin face and a shock of red hair whispered in his ear, voice low so as not to be heard. The leader gave a decisive nod, and then his hand shot straight up in the air.
“Alpha?”
“What is it, 2224?”
The impatient growl startled the boy, but it wasn’t enough to deter him. CC-2224, or Cody, as he liked to call himself, was the bravest of his squad. Alpha-17 may have been older, and stronger, and a model clone in every way, but he was also supposed to be doing more than wearing a hole in the floor with his grumbling. So far, his behavior was nothing like the focused and skilled warrior they had come to fear.
“When are we running the sims?”
“You’re ready when I say you’re ready.” Alpha scowled, glancing down at the datapad in his hand for the hundredth time. Cody couldn’t see what it said, but he didn’t think the information had changed since five seconds ago when Alpha had last looked at it.
“I have a question.”
Annoyance flashed across Alpha’s face, reminiscent of the way Instructor Vau often regarded the cadets. Though young, Alpha was a quick learner in all aspects of his training.
“What is it, 1004?”
“It’s Gree, sir.” The red-haired cadet shuffled awkwardly, hands clasped behind his back. “I thought we weren’t supposed to run sims until we’re Year Fives.”
Looking at the cadets, any instructor could see that they were too young and too small for this kind of training. At just three standard years, the armor dwarfed their bodies, helmets hanging off their heads. Their arms trembled under the weight of the training weapons. The cadets couldn’t even properly grip their rifles.
But impossibility wasn’t an excuse, and Alpha had been given a task: get these boys through their sims, or learn the lesson a different way. Instructor Vau’s gaze was burning a hole in the back of Alpha’s neck as he stood before his cadets. He couldn’t stall any longer.
“Alright, boys.” Alpha cleared his throat. He was barely more than a boy himself, having obtained the rank of Senior Cadet the week prior. “Listen up. We’re going to run the sim three times. Two practice runs, and then the real thing. Do it just like you saw in the learning modules and you’ll be fine. Got it?”
The cadets exchanged glances with one another, looking as nervous as Alpha felt. Drawing himself up, Alpha banished his doubt, mustering all the courage and confidence he could. If he could be strong for the boys, surely they could be strong in battle.
“Get on the platform. I’ll be right behind you.”
The cadets shuffled off, eyes on their feet so they wouldn’t trip as they walked. One cadet, the scrawniest of his squad, ran into his brother’s back when they abruptly stopped, nearly sending all of them in a domino-like tumble. Alpha closed his eyes briefly, hand over his face. If these boys could pass the sims, it would be the greatest miracle since the Kaminoans figured out how to replicate Prime’s DNA.
Stepping onto the platform with his trainees, Alpha pressed the button on his gauntlet to begin the simulation. The platform rose, bringing them onto the training floor. As they shuddered to a stop, there was a moment of silence, each cadet standing stock-still as they observed their new surroundings.
That was when the blaster fire started.
The first practice round was a massacre. Only one of the boys made it off the platform, largely due to the fact that he was knocked off by one of his brothers’ flailing rifles. Having watched them train, Alpha knew that CC-3636, Wolffe, was actually quite the shot for his age group. When the targets were static. And the blaster wasn’t so heavy he couldn’t raise it above waist-level.
None of the cadets had a chance to fire their rifles. Wolffe, the last man standing, was able to take two steps before he was felled by a training round. The boys lay in a heap on the floor, defeated. The blaster fire ceased, and Alpha reluctantly ended the simulation. His gauntlet flashed mockingly at him.
Training time: 00:00:32
Thirty-two seconds. That was how long his boys had lasted. Alpha could already feel the crushing force of Instructor Vau’s fists during the ‘reprogramming’ session that was sure to come.
“Get up, all of you! That was a pathetic performance. If that was a real scenario, all of you would be dead now!”
Cursing under his breath, Alpha hauled the boys onto their feet and shoved them back to their starting positions. Their rifles were scattered, and one of the cadets had a missing helmet, which had ended up halfway across the training floor. Alpha stuffed it back onto the owner’s head, ignoring the muffled ‘ow’ that followed.
“Who can tell me what went wrong?”
A small, gloved hand flew into the air. Alpha had to stop himself from rolling his eyes.
“1010. What?”
Fox, the smallest and skinniest of his batch, tilted his head back so he could look up at Alpha as he spoke. “We didn’t make it off the platform, sir.”
“I’d say that much is obvious,” Alpha said. “Why do you think that is?”
“We got shot,” CC-5052, Bly, supplied helpfully. Alpha sighed.
“Yes. You got shot.”
The boys hadn’t stood a chance. The moment they entered the simulation, they were doomed to fail. It was Alpha who hadn’t provided them with a strategy, assuming they would be able to think on their feet like most clones. But these boys weren’t most clones. They were fresh out of the crib room, without any experience under their belts. They were going to need more guidance than a helpful push in the right direction.
“Your failure is my failure,” Alpha said. “It was my fault that you didn’t know what to do. This time, we’re going to talk about it first.”
“We need to find cover,” Wolffe piped up. It seemed there were a few smart ones in the bunch.
“Exactly. You need cover so you don’t get cut down immediately.”
Alpha pointed across the training deck, to a low wall just a few yards from the platform. Other obstacles were scattered across the field, among enemies and the weapons turrets up high.
“When the next sim starts, I want you to go there. Make sure you have good cover first, and then you can shoot.”
Excited by their new plan, the cadets were eager to start the sim. Alpha stood ready as they got into position.
“You all understand what to do?”
Five bucket-heads nodded at him.
“Find cover, secure your position, and shoot,” Alpha repeated. “Sim starting now.”
The cadets had mere seconds to find their cover, but they were quick, even in the armor that weighed them down and made them clumsy. Blaster fire arched over their heads as they sat, backs against the wall, and rifles clutched in their too-small hands. Alpha took position just a few yards away, not coaching, just watching.
The first cadet to make a move was Cody. There was always one cadet in the batch that stood out, with more balls and brains than the rest. In Alpha’s experience, that cadet was usually the first to get hit in the sims, and the first to die in the field.
Cody’s training helmet peaked over the top of the barricade, surveying the training droids that were advancing on their position. He used the wall for support to aim his rifle.
Smart, Alpha thought.
Although more of Cody’s blaster fire singed the floor than hit the targets, his bravery inspired his brothers to join him. Wolffe was next, propping his weapon alongside Cody’s to take aim at the enemy. Beside him, Fox’s head popped up behind the barricade, his weapon ready.
Before Fox could fire a single shot, a blaster bolt dinged his helmet, snapping his head back with the force of it. He landed on his butt, hands cradling his head. His sniffles could be heard across the training floor.
That was when the sim began to fall apart.
Hearing their batchmate’s cries distracted the other cadets, drawing their attention away from the fight. Gree crawled over to Fox, intending to check on him, only to receive a blaster bolt in the back when he reached his fallen brother.
Wolffe was the next casualty. He was the only one of his batch that had actually landed a hit on one of the training droids, but when he turned his head to look for his brothers, a bolt seared his shoulder. Crying out, he dropped his weapon, and sat behind the barricade cradling his arm.
Bly and Cody fell in successive order. The squad of training droids were mere meters away, still steadily firing, and neither Bly nor Cody had landed a fatal hit. Bly went down only seconds after Wolffe, having taken a bolt to the chest. Seeing his brothers laid out on the ground, armor still smoking, lit a fire in Cody. He threw his useless training weapon at the droids, let out a frustrated cry, and began to haul his body over the barricade with surprising strength for a boy his size.
Cody was promptly shot down, three bolts to the head, chest and shoulder.
The training droids shuddered to a halt, and Alpha sprinted over to check on the boys. Fox had taken a hard hit, and Cody hadn’t moved since he’d been stunned. The moment Alpha reached him, he yanked off Cody’s bucket, noting the lack of tear tracks that most of the cadets sported.
“‘24? Kid? You alright?”
Cody’s eyelids fluttered, slowly opening. His gaze was blank and confused.
“Did we win?”
Alpha glanced down at his gauntlet. The reading blinked back up at him: 00:01:37 .
A minute improvement. It was something. But it wasn’t enough.
“No, you didn’t win.” Alpha tossed Cody’s bucket on the ground. The thwack sound it made echoed across the training deck. “You failed. Again. I’ve never seen such a display of incompetence by a group of cadets. Your attempt was disorderly, and sloppy, and completely unsatisfactory–”
Alpha paused, taking a moment to look into each of the cadets’ faces. Many of their eyes held unshed tears. Crying was beaten out of them if they didn’t grow out of it quickly. Wolffe was still cradling his arm, where the bolt had scorched his skin under the cracks in his armor. Fox was sporting the beginnings of a black eye. Gree was already limping.
“You boys were brave out there,” Alpha said, dropping his voice down from the strict tone he’d taken on. He sounded too much like the Cuy’val Dar. He sounded like Instructor Vau. “It was a good attempt for your group. But you don’t have any direction out there. You have to be able to think on your feet in battle. You have to work together.”
The CC training squad only had one more chance. Based on their performance in the last two sims, it was thousand-to-one odds that the boys would actually make it through the final one. Alpha’s boys were smart, and they were capable, but they were only Year Threes. And they were going to be cut to pieces if Alpha didn’t do something about it.
Alpha gestured for the cadets to put their buckets back on. Activating his gauntlet, he made a small change to the simulation parameters before turning to address his boys.
“Alright, men. We’re going to do something a little different this time. I’m going out there with you. You’re going to listen to my instructions and do exactly as I say. Got it?”
A chorus of ‘yes sir’s rose up from the group.
“Good. Now, there’s another thing you need to know,” Alpha said. “I changed the sim so the droids are going to be shooting at me too. Only I don’t have a weapon. So you’re going to have to protect me. I’m your leader, and you keep me safe at all costs. Do you understand?”
Five blank visors stared back up at Alpha. Slowly, each cadet nodded, and they took their ready positions.
Alpha’s hand hovered over his gauntlet. This was the stupidest idea he’d ever had.
He pressed the start button.
“Forward, men!” Alpha shouted, sprinting for cover. The cadets followed him, mirroring their previous sim. The difference was that now they had Alpha, and they knew exactly what to do.
“Like this. Do it just like me.”
Alpha took a quick look around the wall, ducking when blaster fire rained down around his head. The moment there was a lull in the barrage of bolts, he popped back up, mimicking how he would shoot the droids. The cadets watched with shrewd eyes, learning and adapting just as they were trained.
“You first, ‘36.” Alpha grabbed the cadet by his good arm, moving him into position. “Go, now!”
Each movement Wolffe made perfectly replicated Alpha’s instruction. When he popped up, he aimed at the droid closest, and made a hit to its central processor. The droid went down, out for the rest of the sim.
There was little time for celebration. Alpha signaled the cadets one by one, telling them when and where to fire. They caught on quickly. Not every shot was a fatal hit, but the boys were energized by Wolffe’s success. Three of the five droids fell before they reached the barricade. When the last two overran them, climbing over their cover, Alpha sent his boys after them.
“Blast them!”
The cadets peeled back from the wall and gave the droids all they had. Gree went down almost immediately, and then Bly. Wolffe stayed huddled next to Alpha, protecting him just as they had been directed. It was Cody that managed a direct hit to one of the droids, and Wolffe that took out the last one.
The moment the sim ended, the cadets erupted in raucous cheering. Alpha managed a small smile for them, though it was strained. Having been so engrossed by the sim, he hadn’t noticed the growing pain in his shoulder, right between the plates of his armor. Now that the adrenaline was starting to wear off, he could feel that a bolt had caught him at some point during his demonstration.
Placing a hand over the burning wound, Alpha hid his grimace and stumbled to his feet. He’d had worse before. No sooner had Alpha risen than the door at the opposite end of the training field slid open, and two figures started to make their way across the deck.
Alpha snapped to attention as best he could with his injured shoulder. His arm trembled with the effort to hold it at his side. The cadets copied him, albeit slower.
Even across the training floor, Alpha could tell who was coming to deliver his fate. Walon Vau’s black armor was as notorious as the man himself. Beside him, Kal Skirata stood out in his sand-colored plates. Although both men had a hand in the training of the Alphas, it was still a surprise to see Skirata walking alongside Vau. Rarely did the two ever get along, which usually wasn’t an issue, since Skirata could almost always be found playing favorites toward the Nulls and Omega Squad.
Vau was eerily silent as he approached the group. The moment he was within range, he pulled his first back, landing a blow to Alpha’s cheek that sent him sprawling on the floor. Alpha cried out when his bad shoulder connected with the deck. The white-hot throbbing behind his eyes blinded him, and he found himself unable to stand, even when Vau’s boot connected with his rib cage.
“You must think this is some kind of game.”
Alpha turned his head to find Vau crouching beside him. His expression stayed blank but for the fury in his eyes.
“I got them through the sim, sir.” Blood sprayed on the ground as Alpha talked. “They won, sir, if I hadn’t–”
“You ran the sim for them,” Vau cut in. “If that had been my intention, I would have made them watch you run the death sims until the others had to drag your body off the deck.”
Alpha lifted his pounding head from the training floor, moving to sit up. The durasteel was so cold against his skin. It would’ve felt nice if not for the blood pooling underneath.
“They would’ve failed, sir. You set them up to fail.”
Though he saw it coming, Alpha wasn’t any more prepared for the next blow than he had been for the first. His head bounced against the deck with a sickening crack. Ringing overtook his hearing, the world collapsing into a spiral of unending darkness and agony.
Shouting floated across Alpha’s sluggish awareness as he struggled to hold onto a thread of consciousness. He recognized the voices, but the words were nearly incomprehensible.
“--enough, Walon!”
“--too soft--learned his lesson–”
“--just a kid—too young—Alpha—”
There was scuffling, words exchanged in something that sounded like Mando’a, and then:
“Dismissed, cadets!”
The final order rang clear through Alpha’s hazy mind. One bruised eye opened to watch the cadets scurry off, trailing their rifles behind them. A single cadet, the tallest of his batch, stopped to look back at Alpha only once.
“—going to be alright?”
A gold-plated hand landed on the cadet’s shoulder.
“He’ll be fine. Go on, Kote. You were very brave today.”
Alpha’s aching body shifted on the ground, prompting an involuntary groan. The cadets were gone, and Vau wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Skirata knelt by Alpha’s head, a mirror of his Mandalorian counterpart, but he did not raise his hand with the intention of violence. Instead, Skirata cradled Alpha’s face with his gloved hand, using his thumb to wipe away blood that threatened to drip into Alpha’s eyes.
“You did well, ad’ika.”
Son. A word Alpha had only ever heard used affectionately towards the Nulls and Omegas, who in turn called Skirata ‘Kal’Buir’. Alpha closed his eyes, turning his face into the hand that held him.
“I failed.”
“Perhaps in Walon’s eyes. That was one of the most creative ways to run that sim that I’ve seen. It was built for the Fives, not for the Threes. And yet the CCs passed.”
Blood oozed from Alpha’s nose, pooling in Skirata’s palm, but he paid it no mind. Kal Skirata was no stranger to bloodshed.
“They’re smart,” Alpha wheezed. His lungs felt like they’d been crushed in his chest. At least he could still draw breath. “They’ll make good commanders.”
“And you?”
Skirata’s blurry face slowly came into focus. Alpha blinked, lethargic and confused.
“Me?”
“You are a great leader, Alpha,” Skirata said. “You don’t need these sims to prove it.”
Alpha’s head was gently laid to rest on the floor. Skirata spoke lowly into his gauntlet, and Alpha closed his eyes. A med team was on their way. That was good, considering Alpha’s limbs were heavy as durasteel, and he wasn’t sure he couldn’t walk.
Skirata’s voice picked up in Alpha’s ear. It was soothing, like listening to the rain against the hard shell of Kamino’s domed structures.
“You’ll be taken care of. Rest now.”
Alpha did.