Ambassador

Chapter 2: A Home or Not

"Come this way, Miss Rampart," Tawn We bade her, finally leading towards Alanja's quarters. Her apartments were far away from the hustle and commotion of the labs and the returning clones. Though a constant mechanical hum was pressing in on her from all sides, it was quiet here.

Once delivered into her rooms, she was to share with Rov like a prisoner that was expected not to realize that she was not being guarded for her own good; Tawn We politely excused herself.

The apartments were more of the same white and spotless. Every inch of the Kaminioan city was clinical as if all of it were a laboratory, even the rooms they reserved for guests. Alanja dreaded what experiment she had become a part of.

When Alanja gazed upon her disheveled appearance in the mirror over the sink in the privy, she wondered if the tour Tawn We had taken her on was to humiliate Alanja. Though Tawn We presented a facade of pure Kaminoan hubris in personally educating Alanja on the grandeur of the city and its undeniably breathtaking accomplishments, the lithe woman was surely beginning a test to see how much the Empire could be impressed and how much Alanja could be bent under a quiet and dutifully patient thumb. There was nothing about Tawn We that was not calculated and smooth, just like the Prime Minister, Lama Su.

Feeling like she had been made a fool by both Rov and Tawn We, Alanja stared deep into the reflection of her blue eyes. Rov she could forgive. After all, he had warned her to dress for the rain, and it was Alanja that didn't take him seriously. However, Tawn We was very different. The Kaminoan could have taken Alanja straight to the apartments to refresh herself, but instead, she embarrassed Alanja on purpose.

Kicking off her damp slippers, Alanja wiggled her water-wrinkled toes and unclasped her brother's cloak. She had spent hours on her appearance, working diligently to present herself to Admiral Tarkin and the Kaminoans. She would get Rov back for this, even if she should have listened to him. And as for Tawn We, Alanja would dig up every bit of defiance the Kaminoan had planned. Alanja was not truly bent on revenge, but Tawn We had stuck her hand into the hive to be stung by thinking Alanja was some weak, water-logged human girl that would be easily manipulated. And that was the secret of Alanja's skills: a sweet, innocent smile, the batting of smoky lashes, and a genuine kindness that allowed Alanja to plumb the depths of even the hardest soul if there was one to be found in this watery purgatory.

In the main room, the door hissed open, and robotic muffled voices broke the silent hum of the laboratory that was all of Tipoca City. She knew those voices, all the same. Clones.

She peeked out to see the white-armored troopers. Their helmets' black scowls and eyes immediately looked up at her. Forcing a smile on her pale face that immediately made the four clones drop their sight to their feet, her face heated when she realized how her once flowing gown now clung to her like some kind of Twi'lek hussy. She felt naked before them and wondered if she was the first human woman any of them had ever seen.

Suddenly overwhelmed, Alanja jabbed her finger towards the doors to the bedrooms. "In there! Put them in there," she ordered them to carry her luggage into the room she decided would be Rov's.

"Yes, ma'am," the four of them said in unison.

Ducking back into the privy, Alanja threw her brother's cloak over her shoulders and stepped back into the main room. The clones returned quickly and stood at attention by the door. Everything about their white armor was as pristine as Kamino.

She swallowed hard and approached them. The subtle shift in their helmets was the giveaway that they were nervous with her too. She tilted her head and pretended to be curious, trying desperately to think of something to engage them with.

The first words to come to mind were the ones that tumbled out. "Do you all look the same under there?" Such a stupid question, she silently berated herself. Of course, they did.

Clearly unsure what he should reply, one of them stammered out an awkward "Yes, Ma'am."

She gave a little chuckle. "I suppose no one has ever asked you that before."

There was that uncomfortable silence hanging in the air again.

Drawing them into her curiosity, she asked, "Can I see? Will you remove your helmets for me?"

"Yes, Ma'am," they replied and pulled off their helmets and tucked them under their left arms. Four men with the same dark hair and dark eyes stared straight ahead, none of them meeting her gaze. They were so young. If not having been clones, they would have seemed to be twenty or less.

She continued, thinking about how she had seen and heard the clones on Rov's ship refer to each other. They all had numbers to identify them, but they also gave themselves nicknames. "I have heard that clones name themselves. Is that true?"

"Yes, Ma'am," one of them replied, his brown eyes staring like lasers at the back wall.

The Kaminoans made them all the same and gave them all the same training, but Alanja had heard that no matter how much they started out the same, their life experiences brought out ever more unique personalities and traits. That was one of the interests of her brother Rov. Admiral Wilhuff Tarkin did not share in such curiosity. Alanja wondered if Tarkin was repulsed by the inhumanity of breeding soldiers with no free will just to throw their strewn bodies across battlefield after battlefield. At least soldiers who chose to fight had some remembrance or honor. With all the clones bearing a singular face, it diminished and exacerbated what almost seemed like meaningless sacrifices for the billions of natural peoples who would never care about them. Theirs was a sad state that she loathed to pity.

She let the Kaminoan hum envelop them and inspected them a little closer. The four were so much the same that no natural twinning could have produced something as unnervingly perfect as them. When she got too close to the clone that previously answered her question, he blurted out, "Is everything all right, ma'am?"

"All is well," she lied with another dainty tilt of her head. "You may don your helmets. You are dismissed."

As if they couldn't wait to hide from her, the clones quickly hid behind their harsh white helms. "Thank you, ma'am." And in unison, they marched out.

"Ma'am," she muttered when they were gone. The clones had a weakness. Beauty and kindness. Facing them head-on in a battle was what lost the war for the Separatists. With violence waning as the Empire secured more and more peace, true control over such warriors would have to be different.