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>Talk to Fisher and Yegor. Maybe you can convince them to stick with Commander Fabian, or perhaps you can go with one of them to an assembly zone.
You decide you’ll go after your fellow commanders, Fisher and Yegor. While your relationship with them is purely professional, you know that both of them are close friends, apparently comrades from the same batch on Kamino. They’d fought together their entire careers. And now, if your suspicions were correct, they were arguing over something which was already tearing the Grand Army apart.
You head out of the command bunker. Friends who might find themselves on opposite sides of a new war. No, not friends, brothers. What has this galaxy come to?
You see them heading into the mess. You follow, taking a slow, relaxed pace. There’s no need to hurry. Forces far beyond your control are moving through The Republic, moving armies and men against each other across all of known space. An argument between friends is inconsequential, in the grand scheme of things. Or is it? If friends like that can fight against each other, willing to kill, even, then what does that mean for the rest of you? For The Republic?
Already it’s late afternoon, the sun slowly dipping beneath the red horizon, and soon it will be twilight. The shadows are lengthening. The cool air of Cato Neimoidia washes over you, soothing, and calm. It carries no sign of the fighting that’s surely ongoing across the planet. Not a hint of war. Like the faces of your men as some pass you. Their smiles as they salute you are clean and carefree. They seem so much younger.
The door to the mess opens, and you shake your head. You’re getting too old. Losing focus like this. The many long years of war have left you weary, yearning for peace, though you know that with this there won’t be any peace for a while. You’ll have to fight until it’s ended. Just like they trained you. Until the mission is done.
Inside, there’s several groups of clones sitting together, probably off duty. Dinner’s not for several hours. You can see that there’s no mixed groups from separate battalions, everyone’s sitting with their own. Keeping to themselves. There’s also an unusual amount of sentries, from Shade’s 323rd, stationed at every one of the exits. All with their helmets on. The two on either side of you turn and give a salute before returning to their watch.
