Ten years, first month, and twenty-third day after the Battle of Yavin…
Or the forty-fifth year, first month, and twenty-third day after the Great Resynchronization.
(Eight months and eighth day since the arrival).
Ever since the Devaronians, more than twenty-seven thousand years ago, invented their own type of hyperdrive and ventured into the galactic expanse, many peoples considered them the living embodiment of demons from their religious—and almost always delusional—legends.
Devaronian males, in whose thick blood the irrepressible spirit of adventurism and exploration of all things new still lingered despite millennia of evolution, were encountered in every corner of the galaxy, tirelessly drawn forward to the unknown.
A Devaronian.
For Lieutenant Martok, commander of a commando assault trooper squad, the campaign in the D'Astan sector was precisely such a place.
Hundreds of systems where countless battles raged, each one a site where he and his Devaronian brothers could demonstrate their own valor and immortalize their names in glory.
And the remnants of the D'Astan army fighting on the baroness's side could snatch their piece of glory too.
Of course, compared to Martok's battle-hardened fighters, it would be simpler and healthier for those little humans not to charge into attacks, but to sit in trenches and guard bases.
Martok licked his lips as the droid waiter set a full mug of lum ale before him.
Now that was an excellent start to the day.
The two-liter vessel, gripped by the Devaronian's mighty hand, began to approach his face…
A massive shadow fell across the table before him.
"Lieutenant Martok," he heard a new voice say.
Male, authoritative, commanding.
"Well, that's me," the Devaronian replied, shaking the glass to knock off the foam while eyeing the figure approaching his table from the left.
As it turned out—not just one.
"Oho," he grinned. "Mandalorians have finally shown up in our systems. You're a bit late to the party, lads. This cantina's rented out by me for celebrating our latest victory."
Lieutenant Martok.
In truth, he was certain that only one of the two beings standing before him was a Mandalorian.
The one clad in armor from head to toe, with an impressive heavy blaster in hand.
But the second one…
Of medium height, sturdy build, military bearing, piercing gaze…
Dressed in simple field camouflage, blaster pistol on his hip.
Nothing unusual in these parts, really.
"Imperial, are you?" he asked the unarmored human.
"You can call me General," the man said, pulling up the nearest chair and sitting down. "I've been sent here to lead the joint command of the baroness's allied forces."
"No kidding," Martok took a swig of ale. "Did she sign off on you bossing me around from the afterlife?"
Instead of a thousand words and explanations of varying usefulness, the General placed a portable holoprojector before the Devaronian.
A small holographic projection appeared above it.
Martok snorted ale from his mouth in surprise.
"Bastard," came from beneath the Mandalorian's armor, on whom most of the drink had landed.
Accidentally, of course.
"Lieutenant Martok, as I've come to understand, after the battle for the Savarin subsector, you remain the senior among the officers loyal to the legitimate authority in the sector," the hologram intoned. "In light of this, without in any way diminishing your merits or relieving you of command of your assault trooper unit, I'm sending our new allies to you. Mr. General will assume command of our combined force groupings and implement the overall plan for liberating territories in the D'Astan sector occupied by bandit groups. I ask that you assist them in every way…"
"Baroness?" Martok scratched his chin with clawed fingers. "Well, suppose I saw the message. Am I to take your word that this is a genuine recording? Offhand, I know a couple of hackers who could whip up something like this for a couple of mugs of ale. And you couldn't prove otherwise…"
"Lieutenant," the "recording" said unexpectedly. "I strongly advise against interrupting me and sharing your undoubtedly profound thoughts on the nature of communication methods."
"Oh, blast my horns off!" Martok's eyes widened. "Baroness! You're alive, after all?"
"And I'll return to Nez Peron in the near future," the aristocrat declared. "By then, I'd like you to help Mr. General and our new allies resolve the issue of liberating those planets where our forces currently can't dislodge the enemy's garrisons."
"Er… Well, yes, of course…" the Devaronian faltered. "I serve to live…"
"The opposite," the General said.
"Ah, right, exactly," the Devaronian chuckled. "I live to serve."
"I count on it," the baroness's hologram faded away.
"You should've warned me," Martok tossed toward his unexpected guests, nodding to the Mandalorian toward a nearby table. "Grab a chair. Time for a war council."
A couple of minutes later, the trio settled around a small table in the cantina, silently eyeing several mugs of lum ale, simple but undoubtedly tasty snacks of various sorts, and a small deck with a built-in holoprojector that Martok had placed before himself.
"We'll pass on the drinks and food," the General said, surveying the abundance of offerings.
"That's not for you anyway," the Devaronian snorted. "It's my snack. I hate talking business on an empty stomach."
"I want to know the situation of the baroness's armed forces," the General said.
"Whatever the intent behind that question, the answer's the same: bad," Martok replied. "We control forty percent of the sector, and that's only because the Cavil Corsairs' fighters dug in and are holding every planet to the death. We hold the capital—Nez Peron, Ord Cestus, which has become, as in Republican antiquity, our headquarters and military depot. The Nalroni on Selanon also support us, and only thanks to them are we not cut off from the Hydian Way. The traders are fine with the current situation, with minimal oversight on them. In fact, thanks to the baroness's tax breaks, the Nalroni continue providing us with all necessary funding. If we lose that planet, we'll be cut off from the rest of the galaxy. That's why most of the baroness's remaining fleet is concentrated there. The enemy has made repeated attempts to seize the system, but we've repelled them with heavy losses for the rebels."
"You can't trust Nalroni," the Mandalorian said firmly. "We've dealt with that folk. If you offer them better terms, they'll betray you."
"Like any traders in the galaxy," the General stated, studying the sector map. "You hold the southern territories and systems of the sector, the enemy the northern ones."
"Mostly, yes," Martok agreed. "We have over half a dozen planets where ground fighting between our forces and the enemy's mercenaries rages nonstop. Our last attempt to counterattack in the Savarin subsector ended in massive losses—we lost all our heavy cruisers but gained no ground. We lack ships, but we have enough fighters to counter their raids. Intelligence says they now have no fewer than a dozen Kaloth-class battlecruisers alone—they arrived a few days ago, after getting bloodied in the Samarin subsector. But we took at least as much, if not more. Now the rebels are probing our defenses in several systems, sending scouts, but we're maneuvering our available forces to create the impression we have more than a hundred battle-worn corvettes."
"Are the enemy's initiative centers known?" the Mandalorian asked.
"You bet," the Devaronian snorted. "At the head are aristocrats from Serenno. As far as we know, they've had their own internal squabbles. Those who backed the D'Asta family—wiped out or taken hostage. The rest are alarmists demanding independence for themselves. The enemy controls the entire Valahari subsector, and thus their engineering and design capacities, including the shipyard. Our raider groups manage strikes on convoys and disrupt fighter production, but if they attach even a couple of 'Kaloths' to those convoys, we're in trouble. Our corvettes can't match their battlecruisers. And it'd take a ton of starfighters to really maul them, let alone destroy them. The Cavil Corsairs' light cruisers are good, but not against their heavy kin."
"In other words—your forces are small and nearly spent," the "General" said succinctly.
"What did I say?" the Devaronian grinned. "We try not to despair," he pointed to the half-empty plates on the tabletop before him. "Gloom doesn't aid digestion."
"Feasting after losing your battle brothers? Isn't that a bit cynical?" the "General" clarified.
"It was a victory," the Devaronian belched contentedly. "Especially since after all the hassle, you brought good news."
"Which would those be?" the Mandalorian wondered.
"Genius is simple," Martok drained one of the mugs. "Now you'll command this whole mess."
*
It seemed this conference room was due for a rename to "Negotiating Chamber."
How many had already been held here, and how many more to come…
"Hello, Senior Geneticist Orun Va," I said, addressing the Kaminoan escorted in under guard. "I'm Grand Admiral Thrawn. I'm the ruler and Supreme Commander of the Dominion. Our conversation is necessary."
As a typical representative of his species, Orun Va was quite tall—over two meters.
But due to his slender, by human standards, build, his weight barely exceeded sixty kilograms.
With majestic detachment, the Kaminoan settled into the indicated seat, making no remark whatsoever about my being alive.
Honestly, those exclamations had grown tiresome, but in faking my death, I'd understood the far-reaching consequences.
However, in the case of Orun Va and the Zann Consortium's base on Smarck, it was unquestionable that they simply didn't know who I was.
Given the isolation we'd imposed—quite logical.
Even if the Kaminoan was surprised to see the non-human Grand Admiral of the Dominion before him, he wouldn't show it—this race had unlearned emotion through its natural and directed evolution.
In general, emphasis on the biology of these beings was key to understanding their psychology.
From the information gathered here and known to me from the past, a coherent picture emerged.
The Kaminoans had evolved from their ancestors—some aquatic beings that inhabited Kamino's vast oceans.
And that was the key factor shaping them.
The Kaminoans retained much from their forebears.
Elongated body forms, tough epidermis that galactic layfolk whispered had luminescent qualities, glowing in the dark.
Powerful muscular framework and developed joints enabling bipedalism at such height.
The Kaminoans' almond-shaped eyes could also perceive colors in the ultraviolet spectrum. Thus, what appeared as white dwellings to ordinary sentients were actually shaded in hues humans and many other species couldn't see.
As I recalled, Phase I clone trooper armor of the Grand Army of the Republic bore special markings visible only to Kaminoans, allowing them to unerringly identify the numerical "names" of their genetic "products."
The distant past of Kamino held the secret behind their fascination with genetic experimentation.
In ancient times, the planet had endured an ice age.
Possibly—aftermath of internecine war, possibly—climatic regularity.
Establishing the fact reliably through interrogations of other Kaminoans hadn't succeeded.
And in general, few knew anything beyond their duties and work-related info.
Primarily—the geneticist specialists.
Technicians and operators were mere executors, minions treated in Kamino's caste system only slightly better than the "products" they produced. In fact—sometimes worse.
Returning to the ice age, which led to massive flooding from melting ice and permafrost retreat, it was worth noting that only through mastery of selection, genetics, and cloning had the Kaminoans survived.
The calculating survival instincts of the remnants left an indelible mark on their emerging culture.
Kaminoans were minimalists in design; perfectionists bordering on intolerance.
That was why the conference room held only a table and a pair of chairs.
However, from Orun Va's glances, one could infer even the table struck him as an impermissible and offensive luxury.
But he remained silent.
Primarily because Mara Jade stood behind me, bound to him by a brief but memorable acquaintance.
"Speak," the Kaminoan broke his vow of silence, betraying no concern through motion or tone about sharing the room with the Hand.
Hm…
Intriguing.
The geneticist sat in a closed posture.
But not the typical human "arms crossed over chest, legs crossed," but traditional for his people.
In reviewing interrogation data, I'd noted such a posture was characteristic solely of higher castes—geneticists, not mere workers.
Which raised the supposition: did Kaminoan geneticists, on orders from their government, tamper with the genomes of lower castes, thereby creating generations of unquestioning servants for themselves?
On one hand—my observations, bolstered by one geneticist's tale of how, thousands of years ago, Kaminoans experimented on their own citizens to create beings suited for galactic exploration.
Yes, a special case, and no other captives cited similar examples.
On the contrary—and this from the other side of the question—geneticists insisted they conducted no experiments on their own race.
But then, given the lack of directed behavioral conditioning in castes, how did they produce such docile service Kaminoans who even behaved differently, eschewing the geneticists' gestures?
Kaminoans in principle engaged little beyond their cloning, and interacted minimally with offworlders.
They had a separate caste for client negotiations—rulers and aides.
I'm no ichthyologist and know little of fish school behaviors, nor suspect if such patterns exist among them, but the picture evoked a beehive to me.
Not perfectly, but in many ways precisely that behavior.
Rigid caste divisions, each tending solely to its duties.
"I'm offering you and your group to work for the Dominion."
"Who manufactured your cloning cylinders?" the Kaminoan asked without preamble.
"They were produced by Spaarti Creations during the Clone Wars," I answered.
"Are we speaking of the ones you captured, or do you have more?" Orun Va inquired.
"We have more," I confirmed. "And I require geneticists to handle clone production tasks for my armed forces."
"My group possesses the necessary knowledge to operate equipment like Spaarti cloning cylinders," Orun Va said. "We can assist you in clone production. If you meet us halfway."
From the corner of my eye, I saw Mara lean forward, exerting psychological pressure on my interlocutor.
By drawing attention to herself, she undoubtedly sought to remind him of their last encounter's circumstances.
Including the unambiguous hint at no bargaining for prisoners of war.
Curiously, she'd detailed the incident herself in her mission report on Smarck.
TNX-0333 had corroborated her words in his.
And the Kaminoans had recounted it verbatim under interrogation.
A certain causal element arose here.
Kaminoan psychology and economy centered on extracting profit and benefits for their race solely through genetic labor.
In the past, at the dawn of their gene experiments, Kaminoans conducted barter—providing services for imported goods.
They sought clients themselves; their number was limited but sufficient, the clientele wealthy enough that Kamino had all they requested from patrons.
In exchange, they received ideal clones tailored to needs and "specifications."
They produced any clone types: workers, miners, soldiers, assassins, prostitutes…
Kaminoans took great pride in their scientific discoveries but gave little thought to the ethics of their work or its consequences.
Their most infamous project was the design and development of the Grand Army of the Republic's clone troopers. Using Mandalorian bounty hunter Jango Fett as the template, the Kaminoans created and trained a vast clone soldier army on Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas's order. This work ultimately brought them to the brink of destruction again, as their world came under Separatist fire to halt clone trooper supplies. Kamino's defense forces, manned by specially trained clone troopers including ARC troopers, defeated the Separatist forces.
"As I recall, my Hand reminded you that prisoners of war don't bargain," I said.
"We are civilian specialists, hired workers."
"Who created clones used to undermine the Empire's foundations and destroy the Dominion," I cut in. "You're no better than those manufacturing weapons for our enemies."
"And who's to blame for that weapon being aimed at you?" Orun Va asked. "The producer or the one holding it?"
"Convenient and cynical logic," my comment had zero effect.
Well, no surprise there.
Genetics aside, I doubted even valuable specialists like Orun Va, assuming the Kamino government did experiment on charges, had their survival instinct "disabled."
"Your terms don't interest me, Orun Va," I clarified. "There are my terms. Whether you accept them as your group's leader, who they'll follow, or refuse as a potential prisoner, with the offer passing to the next geneticist in line—it matters little to me."
"My deputies lack my knowledge and qualifications," Orun Va said indifferently. "Imprisonment doesn't frighten me. Your soldiers and agent saw my clones in action. Loaded with only basic information in their heads, without training or preparation, they overpowered Smarck's garrison barehanded. I've demonstrated my competence in creating superior clones. My knowledge is in my head. Whether you lock me away or not, sooner or later you or your representatives will come to me and ask for such clones. I think it'll be when your Dominion teeters on collapse. But then my price will rise."
"By then you'll be dead," I explained. "We possess Spaarti cloning cylinders, as well as imprinting machines. Digitizing your knowledge won't be overly complex. We'll implant it in a clone. We've learned to build priority obedience and flawless order execution based on the GeNod program. As you see—my offer to let you live and pursue your beloved work is mere Dominion mercy."
What crossed Orun Va's face could be interpreted as a haughty smile.
"You're forgetting whom you're addressing, Grand Admiral," he said. "I've studied Spaarti cloning cylinder technology. They were created on Cartao solely for human clone production. They're incapable of anything else. You can't create a Kaminoan. Thus, my memories would be useless—I think in my ancestors' language, in images imperceptible to humans. Even if you try reproducing my memories—it'd look to you like no more than a set of beautiful wavy drawings."
Good, very good…
"Are you so certain?" I inquired.
Honestly, I even enjoyed debating and dialoguing with him.
Recruiting valuable cadres was like testing one's eloquence.
Different psychotypes.
Different races.
Different worldviews.
All that and more—a fine mental workout.
"I'm Kamino's premier geneticist since Ko Sai, creator of the Grand Army of the Clones, vanished," Orun Va said. "Every word of mine is precise and emphasized. You have no options but to agree to a deal with me…"
Of course.
I demonstratively focused on the deck.
I needed just one holofile from the Chimaera's supercargo databank.
An old file—several months old.
Some effort required.