He smiles wryly. “Seems you figured it out before I had the chance to tell you.” His smile collapses into a somehow even more regretful frown. “I’m sorry I shot you. Really. I-, I’m not sure exactly why, but whenever I see Jedi, I just… It must’ve been your cloak. Wearing it, you looked so much like my former general. I don’t suppose her filthy name might ring any bells, but she was called Aayla Secura. A Twi'lek.”

Twi’lek… Those were the ones who had head-tails, right? I guess, in that sense, I must look a lot like one. Sort of. In a select few ways. Then, I guess it’s only to be expected he’d go into some sort of blind rage if he suddenly saw a creature that looked like a Twi-lek also wearing Jedi robes, right? Man, I really must have dredged up some traumatic memories for him, assuming the Empire has been truthful about the relationship between clones and Jedi.

So he’s a clone who used to work for a Jedi. Hm. I’d love to ask him a few questions about that all, but if it’s traumatic to the point where he’d go into a blind rage just seeing someone who somewhat looks like his former master then it’s probably best not to even ask.

I try to smile soothingly. “Hey, it’s-, it’s okay, I can heal from almost any wound. In fact, even if you were to completely destroy this body, I’d still be okay! But don’t do that. Don’t destroy this body.”

“No, it’s not okay,” he says, shaking his head. His hard eyes bore into me. What’s with soldiers and not accepting my words? “Had you not been as you are, my attack would have been a fatal one. You would have died by my blaster.”

“Well, yeah, but-,”

“Hence, I owe you. A life debt, if you so desire. I can’t kill myself or nothing, but I owe you a hefty favour.”

Looking at his face, he won’t accept anything less than something I actually desire. Then…

I look at the other three troopers. Although I trust them to an extent, it’s not to the point where I want them to know I harbour suspicions about the Empire, or that I’m super interested in what came before. The truth of it and all. No, what I want is something I can only ask from this guy. Assuming he’ll let me, that is. But we’ll get to that.

“Hmmm… Okay! I’ll tell you what I want later, so you’ll be sure to fulfil your end of the deal, right?”

He nods gravely. “Of course.”

But, first, there’s something I need to know. “Can I ask something though?” He pinches his brows together. I smile disarmingly. “What’s your name?”

His eyes widen. “My… name?”

I can see how Atte squirms a little beside me. “Well, yeah! If you’ve got one, that is. If you’re like Atte I’m sure you might not want to tell, but…”

“No, I do have one.” Is that a smile I see? “It’s Charge. It’s not a name given at birth, but one given to me by my brothers.” He speaks extremely warmly of what I assume to be his fellow clones. Charge. Yeah, seems about right.

I turn to the other two. “And you?”

They share a glance, suddenly the only two who seem even slightly unhappy with me. Realizing that they have no hope of escape, they share a sigh.

“I’m AT-1126,” one of them says.

“And I’m AT-1127,” the other says. Now that I look closely, the two look remarkably similar, almost like they’re brothers. “If you’re wondering, yes, we are brothers. Graduated at the same academy, sent to the same damn task force for the same fragging crime.”

“...Crime?” Am I looking at a pair of criminals?...

27 (name pending) grins slyly. “Peeped on the girls.”

26 (name pending) nods, his eyes glimmering. “Totally worth it.”

Is… is that so?

I’m pretty sure my expression of gentle revulsion is mirrored by both Atte and Chase. Still, one question lingers at the top of my head. The Empire employs girls? I mean, it should be a foregone conclusion, but it’s not like I’ve seen any so far. No troopers, no officers, no technicians… I sort of just assumed they were busy elsewhere. Maybe I should be happy there’s some slight form of gender equality in space, but at the same time, these two guys don’t make it much hospitable.

Space sexual harassment. Maybe I was being too naïve.

Atte coughs. “That aside, don’t you two have something to say to Mort?”

They stare at him blankly. The way the both of them act almost as one is a little scary. I’d like to say they’re twins but their eye colour is different so that can be it.

27s mouth drops open. “Oh. Yeah, sorry.”

26 scratches his head. “Um, thanks for saving us back there, by the way. Mighty nice of you. Also for not eating us.”

“Y-, you’re welcome,” I say half-heartedly.

Sighing exasperatedly, Atte turns to me and shrugs. Yup, nothing to do about it. Finally, he claps his hands.”Alright, boys. Let’s get to bed. If we stay up any longer the Lieutenant might set fire to the cabin.” The others agree and so do I. Somehow, setting fire to the cabin seems like a perfectly characteristic thing for the Lieutenant to do, so long as he actually believed it might kill me. Which it might. I mean, I haven’t had any real experiences with fire yet, but going by how I usually react to blasters and lightsabers, I don’t think I’d be alright.

Atte and I undress. I’m not wearing anything beneath my pants so I guess I’ll be sleeping in the nude. Then again, I have nothing to cover, so I likewise have nothing to be ashamed of. Ah, the joys of being a space squid. No human decency. Hehe.

I climb into bed and so do the others.

Considering that both the brothers and Charge all fell asleep within only ten minutes, I can assume that my presence hasn’t made them too scared to sleep or anything. I smile to myself. Hehe. It worked out okay. Everything worked out okay, didn’t it? Atte’s nice. Real nice. Even these guys seem nice. Mostly, that is. Peeping on girls is immoral. I’d never do that. No sir. Never in a million years.

...Of-, of course, that all depends on the circumstances, I mean, if I was threatened and they would kill Atte and Typhin unless I peeped on girls then I guess I’d have no choice, right? Right. Yes.

Still. People aren’t bad. Most people, if you let them, are nice people. Everybody wants to do the right thing, whether it’s for themselves or others or the world. Sure, in the pursuit of this, people can do plenty of evil things, but in the end, it usually works out alright. Usually.

...I wonder what drove the Jedi? There isn’t much about them in the archives. Or Force-users in general. Or the Force, for that matter. It’s all very muddled, but in the thick of it, I do think the Jedi must have had some reason to do what they did. Hm. The Sith, too, though I really don’t know anything about them. Jedi are just people, after all. Like Fern, or Atte. People trying to do their best. But, I guess, when you have a lot of power (such as space magic), it’s hard to remain neutral or not-extreme.

I’d like to say that if you have power you should use it for good. But if I said that, then I’d need to be more active. Cuz I have power. And I don’t really like that thought.

The thought that you must use the power that you have can lead to many places, most of them pretty dark. I guess it’s because power can only be used in certain ways? I mean, if you’re like me, it’s not like I can do a whole lot of constructive stuff. I could probably be used for construction, but I’m almost too big for that, right? I’m not good enough at splitting my concentration to have a million tiny tentacles each doing their own complex thing, so in the end, big sweeping or small monotonous things is all I can do.

Like destroying things. Right now, I’m over one and a half kilometres in diameter. The kind of destruction and death I could cause is no joke.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that if I put it to my mind that I had to “use my power for good,” then there’s a good chance that I’d end up destroying things. Sometimes destroying bad things is good, but oftentimes, destroying things is bad in itself.

For example, if you’re a totalitarian government trying to censor your people, then destroying books en masse would probably be a “good” thing.

But would that be right?

If I was a nazi or something, I’d say “yes,” because, well… It’s in line with their ideology. But I’m not a nazi. I’m not even political at all. Currently, I’m trying pretty hard to be apolitical, though it’s kinda difficult when I’ve already taken the side of the Empire… Well, until I’ve researched enough, that’s mostly just for show.

What it comes down to is what might happen if I ever decided to pick a side and really work for them. If I continue expanding like this I might one day be able to destroy entire planets. If the politicians of the ideology I believed in then told me that destroying this-or-that planet was the “good” and “right” thing to do, I might actually do it. If I close my eyes and just chew, I probably wouldn’t even notice how many I’d kill.

I grit my teeth.

Power for the sake of itself is dangerous. Power in the hands of the undecided is dangerous. Power in the hand of the resolute is even more so.

Euuuh.

W-, well, I guess I’ll just try not to think about it too much!

I’ll keep researching. If I’m (extremely) lucky, it might turn out that the Empire really is in the right and I’m just being paranoid for doubting them. And since the rebels seem like a semi-small threat, all I’ll need to do is protect the Empire while they end the rebellion and then it’ll all be okay! If I’m lucky, it’ll really be that black-and-white.

If I’m lucky.