Atin scanned from left to right, counting the line of numbers and inserting imaginary commas. “996,125. In a year.”
“Correct.”
“Not exactly smoking.” Atin checked that he wasn’t missing a row of numbers. “No, just six figures.”
“Every factory we hit is producing numbers like that. Judging by the raw material freight we monitor, there’re still a lot more factories out there, but I think we’re talking about a few hundred million droids.”
“That’s reassuring. Thanks. I’ll sleep well tonight.”
“And so you should, ner vod.” Prudii popped the seal on his collar, lifted off his helmet and wiped the palm of his gauntlet across his forehead; it came away shiny with sweat in the faint light leaking from the HUD. Somehow he looked older than Mereel and Ordo. “They say they’re making quadrillions of droids.” He paused. “A quadrillion has 15 zeroes. A thousand million millions, not a few hundred. Are we missing something here?”
Atin took no offence at the explanation. Anything more than three million was bad news in his book; that was how many clone troops were deployed or being raised on Kamino. “‘They’ say? Who’re ‘they’?”
“Now that’s a good question.”
“Anyway, it only takes one to kill you.”
“But where are they all? I’ve bimbled around 47 planets this last year.” Prudii made it sound like sightseeing. Atin had a sudden vision of him admiring the visitor attractions of Sep planets and then fragmenting them. The grip of the Verpine rifle slung across his back was well-worn. Atin had no real idea who Prudii hunted, and he was happier that way. “Seen a lot, counted a lot. But not quadrillions. They just don’t seem to be able to produce anywhere near those numbers.”
“But that’s why we’re fighting, isn’t it?” Atin tried not to worry about the HoloNet news and took the political debate as something that didn’t matter, because one droid or a septillion, he and his brothers were the ones who would still be in the front line. “Because the Seps are going to overrun us with droid armies if we don’t stop them. So why not just reassure the public that the threat isn’t that big?”
Prudii looked at him for a moment. Atin got the feeling that he felt sorry for him in some way, and he wasn’t sure why. “Because it’s only the likes of us that are finding this out every time we crack a Sep facility.”
“You report it?”
“Of course I report it. Every time. To General Zey. Mace Windu knows. They all know.”
“So why is the holonews news saying quadrillions? Where did the figure come from?”
“I heard it first from Republic Intelligence.”
“Well, then…” Intel was notoriously variable in quality. “They make it up as they go along.”
“Even they’re not that stupid.”
Prudii replaced his helmet and held his hand out to Atin for the wafer. He didn’t say much after that.
Millions or quadrillions. So what? Atin, a man who enjoyed numbers, looked at the 1.2 million clone troopers deployed at that moment, added the two million men still being raised and trained, and didn’t even need to place a decimal point to work out that he didn’t like the odds.
But he never did. And it never stopped him from defying them.
“Want me to relay this data to HQ?” he asked.
“No,” said Prudii. “Not until Kal’buir sees it. Never until he sees it.”
A good Mandalorian son always obeyed his father. The Null ARCs were no different: they looked to Sergeant Kal Skirata - Kal’buir, Papa Kal - for their orders, not to the Republic. A Mando father put his sons first, after all, and they trusted him.
Skirata would always outrank everyone - captain, general-and even Supreme Chancellor.
place and time: tipoca city. kamino -461 days after the battle of Geonosis
Ko Sai was a devious piece of work.
Mereel - ARC trooper N-7 - had always thought of Kaminoans as cold, arrogant, xenophobic, and even suitable for barbecuing, but he’d never seen them as scheming - not until he began hunting their missing chief scientist, anyway. She hadn’t died in the Battle of Kamino, as everyone thought. She’d defected.
Why? What motivates her? Wealth? Not politics, that’s for sure.
He knew she was still alive, because she was on the run from her Separatist paymasters, now. In the cantinas of Tatooine, he’d heard rumours of a bounty. And when you had only your rare skill in cloning to trade, in a galaxy where non-military cloning was now banned, your attempts to raise credits were hard to hide from those who knew where to look.