Chapter 1
Sparrow lay out in his swim trunks on the beach. The legion had been on Nathea for over 6 months, and they had been busy, but also very happy.
They had arrived on the command ship with a few hundred volunteers and a genetically modified group who largely consisted of clones. In fact, Sparrow had the dubious honor of being the only non-clone of his race.
They had found the planet very welcoming. The mainland did have some large predators, but they didn't seek out people to attack, as long as they were given space they were willing to co-exist. The ruins scattered around the planet had been abandoned for much too long to be livable but the framework of most of the buildings remained usable so cleaning out the buildings and providing furnishings and power made them decent homes again.
Most of the people who had come out here had been freshly freed slaves, anywhere they were safe and allowed to live free was a serious upgrade. Luckily there had been both farmers and technicians onboard and they had slowly begun building their own civilization.
An extremely well built mirialan walked by, wearing about 5% of the fabric he was and he was reminded they had not all been farmers, some had had an older profession and for some reason did not seem to mind others being aware of it.
The group was forgiving, they had all been through hell and no one was going to harp on someones personal life as long as it didn't effect anyone else.
"She likes you." Deux said in his head. "That is the third time she has gone past and I swear she is moving slower and wearing less each time."
"I'm too busy to date Deux." His common response to his friends gentle persuasion.
"Busy doing what?"
"Thinking and tanning is hard work my metallic friend, you should come in person next time and try it."
"I'm not sure you are correct but I am certainly sure that tanning would not have its intended affect on me."
"That depends on the effect you are going for."
"I will take your word for it. We do have a meeting in 30 minutes with Miley though. You wanted me to remind you."
"Oh, I almost forgot, thank you."
"A legates work is never done." Sparrow thought with a chuckle.
He had done research and discovered that the legions had been military forces in antiquity. He had found the names of the ranks and had begun to organize his house accordingly.
As the overall commander he was the "Legate" of the legion The next rank down was the "tribune," he had assigned that rank to Akira.
Rook and Chess he named "Prefects" which was the next rank down.
Leaders of groups from multiple clans, which he mostly expected to be military, would hold the title of "tribune."
Centurions would lead individual clans, so technically Chess and Rook held that title as well.
And every member who passed the combat training and the Agoge, which was the legion equivalent of the verd'goten, or coming of age in mandalorian society could proudly be called legionaires.
The first group of new recruits was actually training now, they had had plenty of volunteers right after they joined up, but both CJ and Miley had recommended he wait and let them get healthy. He had agreed without reservation, not only had there been no threats detected since they got here they had actually raided a separatist stash the clones had long been aware of and stolen about a thousand B1 battle droids and a dozen or so tactical droids to manage them.
The droids weren't actually used for combat though. They provided the workforce to make the planet so livable and pleasant for the biologicals. They aided
the farmers and were almost the entire build force. The droid workers had already gotten the capital city rebuilt almost entirely. It had been Omni's idea to bring in the droids since the ship was designed to run them..
The best thing he had done since he agreed to take this job was to name Omni the Aquilifier of the legion. It was the administrative head of the organization by design but, functionally speaking it meant Omni ran the legion unless they were fighting.
As Sparrow boarded his interceptor and flew to the CIS ship he thought things could only be improved if the doctor had some good news.
Sparrow stopped by his quarters and put on his armor. He still wore it every day even though there wasn't a threat. He noticed that most of the other genets did as well. Genet was what they had come to be called. It was the mando'a word for grey and it referred to the color of their skin.
All of the genet had taken the training and spoken the creed, even the doctor. It made him feel good that they realized the importance.
The genet were also almost the last people still living on board. They had relaxed some of their caution when dealing with others but a spontaneous mutation or infection was constantly on Sparrow's mind.
He reached Miley's lab and headed inside. She was working on something so he looked around while he waited.
Alexis was also in the lab today. Sparrow had to admire her incredible figure just a bit on the sly as she moved around. She had been one of the scientists early success stories, the result of the clones request to induce some variation in their gene pool. She was a Fett clone, enhanced in every way the doctor had deemed ethical.
Miley had considered her a bit of a prototype, so to speak, so rather than take any risks copying personalities she had worked with the synths to dig up another saved one. It had worked out well since the saved personality was not only a geneticist as well she and Miley had previously been friends.
He came out of his mental wandering to find Alexis standing in front of him, hands on hips and a convincing look of anger on her face.
"See something interesting?" She demanded.
"Huh? What?" he was still caught in his thoughts and half confused.
"You were staring at me like you thought if you looked hard enough you could see through my clothes you perv!"
"I what?" He was completely derailed now.
She finally took pity on him and started laughing
"Just kidding Commander, but if you want a look.."
She reached for the zipper on her straining jumpsuit beneath the open lab coat and he caught himself staring. He broke up in a blush, again.
She and Miley got a hoot out of it, as usual.
"Still adorable!" They chorused.
"All right ladies, no one told me it was pick on Sparrow day. What's the status?"
Miley got serious. "I am sorry to say I still cannot get a working counter to the gene editor. I have no idea how that idiot made something so complicate but we both are stumped so far."
Sparrow hung his head, he had really been hoping for a breakthrough.
"In other news, our combat clone group has been thoroughly gone through by the synths. They check out fine with no apparent issues and the synths say it is ok to put them in training.
The "combat clones" were the 20 clones like they had fought on the ship when they first found it. They had given them a thorough education in the tubes and planned on letting them serve in the legion. If the program was a success they may add more later but it wasn't currently planned.
"How are your own clone creation efforts going?"
"Between what we got from our own DNA, the combat clones, and the various races we have present we have created what we consider to be an optimal mix." The scientist walked over to a console and displayed a holographic picture of a male and a female body. Both looked good to Sparrow but, since he knew nothing about any of this cloning stuff he figured that mattered little.
"I think we are at the stage where we create a few prototypes. We have worked out with the synths how to do a flash growth in the tanks while feeding them a full education at a comparable speed. That should greatly reduce side effects."
"Do you really think we need to be focusing on clone troops right now Sparrow? Things have been pretty quiet."
Sparrow frowned in thought. "We are still fairly weak here. If we were attacked our only real defensive force is the droids. They aren't enough, at least in my opinion. If our goal is to ensure our people are safe from anything short of the empire, or for that matter the republic, then we have to get stronger, and we have to get stronger fast."
"Tell them the rest of it Sparrow, they deserve to know." Deux told him firmly through their connection. The synth had picked up on his thought
back when he had originally had it and the two of them, and eventually the other synths, had been debating it non-stop ever since.
"There's another reason I have asked you for this new design." He said grimly.
"Finally going to fill us in? We have known for a while that you and the synths had something cooknig but we have given you time to discuss it in private."
"Its another ethical thing." He finally said slowly. "Since we geten are so obviously dangerous to those around us should we not create new, safe bodies and then transfer to them and destroy our current ones?"
Both doctors looked shocked and a bit horrified at that. They frowned in thought for a minute.
"Actually," said Miley, "the only one who would really lose out on that is you."
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"The rest of us all, for one reason or another, have lived our lives and are merely clones of who we once were, and already are completely physically different."
"You, on the other hand, that's the original you I am looking at, if you did this you would be murdering your original self, at least in a sense. Not sure how
that would feel."
"Me either, but if we can't fix the editor problem it's the safest course for the legion."
"And you wonder why everyone insists you stay in charge." Alexis said with a smile.
"It still doesn't make me happy about it." he grumpily stated.
"This sounds like something you should discuss with Akira, as the legion armorer she should definitely weigh in."
"In the meantime, give us another month." Miley offered. "I think if we haven't gotten at least some kind of traction on a cure for this by then we should consider a solution that radical."
"Sure thing." He said, "And I am going to see Akira and Kai next."
"By the way," Alexis threw in, "we got word that Buster has recovered 100% from his wounds."
"That's excellent news!" He smiled.
"We also have recorded 139 pregnancies so far among our people." Miley smiled.
"Really? That many? I wonder how that happened." He said.
"Well Sparrow, when a mommy and a daddy really like each other..." Alexis started, laughing.
"Yeah, yeah, you're a comedienne, talk to you two later." Sparrow said as he headed back out into the corrridor.
"you do, of course, realize that all the geten will be discussing this in an hour or two, right, no way they are keeping this under their hats." Deux said.
"Of course, this way I don't need to be the one to introduce the topic to everyone." Sparrow returned with a smirk.
"You're getting too good at these political games." Deux sarcastically commented.
"I know." Sparrow sadly returned.