Chapter 45 - Old Friend

On the glass corridors of Tipoca City a clone with a shaved head was walking. His once clean white armor was now dusty and scarred. When he passed by other clones they would greet him, and on one occasion, when he passed by a group of teenager clone cadets they looked up impressed.

Dageer was immersed on his own thoughts as he walked to the canteen. Little more than a month had passed since he himself was a cadet walking on the same halls, but his mentality had changed a lot.

Due to him being so absorbed on his thoughts he didn't see a figure coming straight towards him. They crashed on each other, Dageer only slightly shaking, but the figure dropped to the ground. Dageer looked at him, surprised that he found a familiar face so soon.

"99! I am so sorry!"

"CT-4063? It is... cough, cough! It is good to see you! How are you doing?"

" My name is Dageer now, and I'm fine 99. I am even better now that we are home. Any big changes here on the last month?"

"Yes, yes. A lot actually. Cough! Ermm... one jedi, Shaak Ti came to here. She has taken over the clone production control, but she is not bad. Not bad at all. She treats the clones much better than those bounty hunters that train the cadets."

"Bounty hunters?"

"Yeah. Two of them, Bric and El-Les. They are good trainers, and they do a good job... cough, cough... a good job training the cadets. But I feel they are too strict to the young cadets."

"Well, maybe I will meet those bounty hunters later, and have a look at their training methods. It was good to see you again 99. We probably are staying here for quite some time, so I will see you again."

"Bye, bye. Send my greetings to our brothers on the 303rd."

Dageer watched the hunched back of 99. The poor clone was totally deformed, and completely inept to battle. However, he never gave up, and still fought his own way, giving many cadets - including Dageer - the support they needed to get through some of the most difficult moments of their training.

Dageer pitied 99, for he had more fighting spirit than any clone Dageer ever met, but couldn't use it on a real battle.

Remembering his initial intent of eating something, Dageer started walking once again, following the path he had treaded upon as a cadet, going to the canteen.

He passed by many more clones, the Kamino troopers patrolling, cadets of all ages just walking around and soldiers like him, who had just returning and were going to the mess. On his way he met a good number of 303rd clones, and when they arrived at the mess the group had grown by a considerable amount.

The doors slid up, showing a big building with dozens of long tables. Like most things on Kamino, the canteen was white, making he feel as if he had entered a white box.

When the clones of the 303rd Attack Legion entered the white canteen, their dirty armor immediately made them the focus of attention. Uncountable identical faces turned to them, and when they looked back the heads turned to their food once again.

Their dirty armours, and the sharpened eyes of men who passed by countless life-and-death situations intimidated most of the clones on the mess, brothers or not. Of course not all of them, as some of the soldiers alredy on the canteen were the same as them.

On one table, a group of clones looked up, and raised their forks to greet Dageer and the others. Those clones had the same scorched armour, and Dageer could tell they had also been to the war front. They were most probably the 182nd Legion, who was also stationed on Kamino.