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Kamino could be many places. The snowbanks of Mygeeto. Pasaana, dry as bone. An earthenworks maze like Mimban. Its simulated environment capabilities were most impressive.
But it would never be Coruscant and that was going to be a real blow to CC-4444.
“As you were,” Fox said, lounging against his temporary desk as he appraised the young guardsman in his dress greys.
Poor bastard. He’d be in that drab color for the rest of his accelerated life.
A new unit was being organized. Its mission? Defend, safeguard, and monitor the cloning facilities of Kamino.
The recent Separatist attack had illuminated the need for a standing force on-planet. Profit margins on clones were too thin for a planetary shield. If anyone got past the fleet at the now-unsecret hyperspace exit—a valuable training ground in its own right—someone needed to have their boots on around here. Umbaran Major Erie Melke, still on Kaminoan payroll, still as charming as an eel, was overseeing the project. It was mostly a copy-and-paste job from the shock, point-defense, and policing functions of the Guard.
And six months after leaving, Fox was back in Timira City to be briefed on this new sister unit to the CG. His staff would retain all datawork decisions and ultimate command; but for the first time in Guard history, OPCON would be handed to a Jedi. A General Shaak Ti. She’d inherited a personal detail of Alpha ARCs, who’d inherited most of the training supervision from the Prime. The Alphas had been wiped out. The only one left had requested a transfer and gotten it.
One less poor bastard.
Fox picked up a prepared datapad.
“Commander Cadet Charm,” he began, before reciting Charm’s record. Like all clones, Charm had been combat-ready since seven standard; just hadn’t grown into the armor yet. Two years later, he’d reached requisite dimensions and had performed to expected regimental command levels. Hadn’t come dead last—he was standing here—but these scores were landing places with Stone’s penal units nowadays.
“Passed ARF quals, got dumped from ARC, had your shock stripes to catch you, and you earned those with aplomb.” A pause for breath. “Survived the Opoko Tsunami of ‘76 and escorted the Prime Minister at—well, look at that, my passing-out parade. If memory serves, that was for saving a scientist?”
“Yes, sir.”
Lucky longneck. Fox set the ‘pad aside and crossed his arms. “Why do you think I asked you here, Charm?”
“I can’t begin to speculate, sir.”
Liar. But a humble one. Melke had cut a company from the upcoming command batch for a bonus exercise: opening Kamino’s locked doors and risk-assessing everything behind them. Charm had displayed the most initiative and had made the fewest derogatory comments when others forgot Umbarans could hear your breath before you breathed it.
“The Guard doesn’t have the casualties to merit the pipeline of talent coming out of Timira,” Fox said, sweetening the pill himself. There’d always be room for excellence on Corrie; Fox would make room by shifting wet squibs back here. “You’ve been tabbed for command of the new Kamino Security unit.”
Charm’s face had remained at attention. It suddenly drooped well into unease. His gaze slid to the window. Then it slid back again, damp like the view. “I … I’d do dock security on Corrie, sir.”
They pumped Timira’s urban ops facilities with a potpourri of pollution and an unholy soundtrack of life on metal. Even the gradated air pressure was adjusted per objective. The marriage of the physical and simulated was almost seamless. Almost. Eventually there was always a door or a drain cover that led to nowhere. A blaster bolt that dissipated in thin air, lost to a backstop that mocked a clear horizon.
And rain, rain, always rain on the other side.
“Major Melke thinks you’re made for something better than checking manifests. This is a brigade-level command,” Fox reminded him.
“It’s Kamino, sir.”
Charm’s tone was plaintive, not shirty. But this wasn’t a negotiation.
“That’s right it’s fucking Kamino. Cradle of the Grand Army. Does that mean nothing to you? You’re a guardsman.” If Fox had a religion, that was its byword.
“I understand you, sir,” said Charm, swallowing over a sigh that discipline prohibited him from taking. “It would be an honor.”
To Watch and Ward. The Guard’s official motto. Unofficially, it was observe everything, admire nothing. Fox had found fulfilling that one a bit difficult. Senator Chuchi’s existence begged his admiration, as sweetly as she demanded his dances.
Charm would have to be consoled by something else.
“And an honor is all it ever will be,” Fox began, sternly. “You will be commandant of the fun police. You’ll process troopers that’d rather be shitcanned to a penal than come back here for special processing—it happens, though my staff does their best to make sure it doesn’t. You’ll get guardsmen rotating in because they fucked up, and they’re gonna be happy as a wet bag of sick kittens about it. Brought a few platoons with me, in fact, for you to cut your perfect teeth on. The deadbeat SpecOps sergeants will try to pull all kinds of kark and you’ll have to tell them where their privilege ends. In terms of job satisfaction, I’d say commanding the KSB will be up there with rabid-nerf herding and wet-testing synthdroid cunt … and you’ll smell of tatsushi.”
Fox’s breath hadn’t been wasted. It’d blown the welling self-pity straight off Charm’s face. He just blinked and said drily, “Yes, sir.”
“So,” Fox said, willing his own blood pressure down, “on days like that, I’d see yourself over to the nearest nursery wing and pick up a little brother. One of the fresher ones. Round and dewy from the jar. And give him a hug. We don’t have any of them on Corrie.”
Fox held out his hand to the cadet. To another kid who was carrying a ticket in his chest that would never get validated. “Congratulations, Commander Charm.”