Bio for CT-1252 (Mesmia)
Surname: None
Given Name: CT-1252
Known Aliases: Mesmia
Occupation: General in the New Republic, Captain of the Searcher.
Gender: Male
Race: Human (Clone)
Age: 14 (although with the appearance of somebody who is 28, his growth is accelerated). Chronological age is 75, due to being frozen in stasis.
Place of Birth: Kamino
Place of Residence: The Searcher, a Mon-Calamari cruiser.
Former Place(s) of Residence: Kamino, Old Republic Task Force, Dantooine.
Affiliation: Galactic Republic.
Appearance
Height: 1.83 meters tall
Eyes: Dark Brown
Hair: Black, short.
Other Features: Looks identical to Jango Fett, Boba Fett, and the legions of Clone Troopers that existed in the time of the Old Republic, except for a scar running above his left eye.
Clothing: He either wears basic red clothing when not in combat (like he used to wear on Kamino), his Clone Trooper armour (the original version from the start of the Clone Wars, he wasnt around late enough for the upgraded version of the armour), or his new uniform. He is fascinated by the idea of wearing different clothing, but never has done himself, having been raised in the sterile world on Kamino.
Uniform: Standard Republic uniform.
Equipment: Anything the Republic issues him, as well as Old Republic era Clone Trooper rifle, his preferred weapon of choice; he has been training to use it since he was born, after all, and has plenty of combat experience with it.
Personal Possessions: Clones arent supposed to have personal possessions, but CT-1252 has kept a lightsaber of a fallen friend. He never uses it, and never will, refusing to dishonour her that way. He vowed to one day return it to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant (not the new one on Dantooine), and place it there to honour her among the greatest of the Jedi, even if the Order will never look on her in that way.
Other Information
Personality: A relic of the Clone Wars in every sense. A Clone Trooper emerging from cryogenic stasis after an injury and subsequent ship crash, he found the galaxy drastically changed. He is totally obedient to orders and an expert soldier; a true Clone Trooper. Having missed Order 66, he is completely loyal to the Republic. He is dependant upon orders and objectives, knowing that without them his life holds no purpose. Although, in his new position as a commander, he gives more orders than he takes, but he is still dependant upon being a cog in the machine, rather than working independently.
He has a deep hatred for droids after the Clone War, as well as a hatred for the Kamonians, having discovered their brainwashed state led to Order 66 being implemented, having researched the history he missed out on. He lives in fear that he could one day do a similar act of great evil, but vowed to remain loyal to the Republic.
He has a constant sense of wonder when not in combat, where he is strictly serious. Growing up on Kamino means that he has never seen much of the real world, and he doesnt understand a lot of customs. Real food is still a shock to him, having always lived on military rations, and free time is something he simply does not understand, he doesnt know what he should be doing without objectives to complete.
Since joining the Searcher, he has grown much closer to being like most individuals, yet still anything he enjoys is strictly military related, finding pleasure from recreational activities such as practicing his shooting over anything actually unrelated to the military, and he is still, after all this time, baffled by such things as food and clothing choices.
Known Relatives:
Clone Host: Jango Fett
History: CT-1252 was a Clone Trooper, and not an important one. He was a basic grunt, the lowest form of clone there could be. Risen on Kamino, it was his purpose to be a basic soldier and to fight and die for the Republic. He meant nothing. He was just another identical face in a sea of thousands.
Ten years passed since his birth, and war erupted. He may have only been ten years old, but had the appearance of a 20 year old due to the Kaminonians growth acceleration. He was sent to Geonosis along with the rest of his identical comrades to fight and die against the Separatists.
I remember leaving for the first time. It was strange. We had been trained for this, we were ready for this, yet you could sense the excitement buzzing under each of our helmets. We were going to see another planet! Real people! I didnt know what to expect. I mean, Id seen holovids. I was studying one as I thought this. Getting to know the combat area, analysing every type of rock formation, every chance for ambushes to be set up or encountered, the usual stuff. The stuff we had been trained for. But this was real. A real planet. A real battle. We had been programmed not to care about death, so I didnt, but they couldnt program away the sense of wonder we all felt.
Several Jedi were pinned down in a mighty arena, and it is there that CT-1252 had his first taste of battle. The Republic Gunships touched down in the middle of the arena, and the clones poured out, getting killed for the protection of the Jedi.
It didnt feel like I expected. Sand. It was softer, I mean. I dont know what I was expecting, but not that. The softness beneath my feet. A moment of shock. That moment cost 2321 next to me his life, but I was lucky. We opened fire, blasting the droids. The Jedi fell back. This was war, I was ready for this. My mind snapped into military mode and I ignored everything else. The sense of wonder was gone. I wasnt even distracted by the Jedi, seeing real humans with different faces. Id never seen that before, not in real life, anyway. The closest I had seen was Jango, and he was our host. But no, once battle had kicked off, our training took over, and all this was pushed to one side. We did our job as we were trained to do. Many of us died for the Jedi, just like we had been trained. Not that I cared, I was programmed not too, remember?
CT-1252 escaped the arena on a gunship along with the Jedi, and fought in the Battle of Geonosis, surviving. The wars spread across the galaxy, and CT-1252 fought like any other trooper, doing his job exactly as he had been trained. He was assigned to be a trooper in General Obi-Wan Kenobis fleet, but only ever saw the legendary Jedi Knight from a distance.
The Republic invaded Jabiim, a rain world that had broken away from the Republic after years of being ignored. The storms disabled fighters, and so the Republic used walkers to attack. The surface of Jabiim was thick shifting mud, constantly moving under the ever constant rain, and the walkers proved useless. Combat was a disaster. General Kenobi was thought to be killed. Entire platoons of troopers were lost. CT-1252s were among them.
During the fighting, CT-1252 and his platoon were ambushed, their walkers proving useless in the mud. It was on foot when CT-1252 saw it splash down beside them.
THERMAL DETONATOR! TAKE COVER!
It was too late. The detonator went off in the middle of his platoon, and everything turned to white.
Eternal blackness. Is this death? Did we win the battle at least? Or did I fail my purpose? I can still feel my body. Maybe Im not dead. No. This is mud on my visor.
CT-1252 awoke later, a heavy cut across his forehead, above his eye, but otherwise uninjured, buried beneath the shifting mud. He dug himself out, and found himself in a devastated wasteland. All the troopers were dead. He found his commander, and dug out his body, but his communicator was damaged. He had no way to get in contact with the fleet. He found a weapon and followed standard procedure; fall back to the main LZ.
When he got there, he found nothing. Downed ships. Destroyed walkers. He spotted a still functioning walker, but half submerged in the mud. He hoped its communication systems would still be working, and that he could receive orders on what to do next. Instead, he found something better, or so he at first thought. A Jedi! Alive.
A padawan, alive. And not wanting to be. She was huddled in the walker, shivering. Mesmia Takalitch. Her master was dead. Every trooper was dead. She at first ignited her lightsaber in fear, but sighed in relief as she saw CT-1252 was on her side. CT-1252 was glad to see her, and immediately asked for orders.
She was huddled up, crying. Not very Jedi-like behaviour, as Ive come to understand it, but she was a Jedi, my superior, so I asked her for orders.
I dont know! She sobbed in response. How am I meant to know? I didnt know what to say. We took orders from Jedi. Thats what we did. But she didnt have any. Neither did I. The walker had no communication systems. We couldnt get in contact. She eventually suggested that we wait, not wanting to face the harsh outside world again. I obeyed, just as I should.
She was just a padawan, and a broken one at that. Id researched the shock of war enough as part of my basic training. I could see that she couldnt handle it. Her Jedi training wasnt complete. She couldnt repress the emotions within.
I didnt want to be a soldier. She sobbed to me. I wanted to be a Jedi. I was so excited when my master picked me to train. I wanted to be one. To learn peace and serenity. Not fight. Not die. Not get lost out here. I didnt want to be a soldier. I didnt know what to say. Maybe it was easier when you were born and bred for a single purpose, like I was.
We were in that walker for days. I could see that Mesmia was ill. The cold had made her sick, and her ability to use the Force wasnt going to save her. She wasnt strong enough in it. At least, not yet. Im sure she would have become a powerful Jedi, had she been given the chance. Our lack of food wasnt helping. I helped keep her rationed. She had ordered me too. A Jedi losing their self control? She had to rely on me to make sure she didnt eat to much or to little. Strange. This is what the war had done to her.
We opened up to each other in that time. She told me how she had been taken from a rich family on Correlia when she was only four, to be become a Jedi. How excited she had been. Especially when she was picked to be a padawan to her master. How much he was like a father to her. Now he was dead and she was a soldier in a war, not a master of peace. She told me how she even hated her lightsaber, and didnt like to ignite it. She didnt like fighting at all. Her master had always told her she was the worse Jedi with a saber he had ever seen. She had always hoped he was joking.
In return I opened up. I found myself ranting about being built for a single purpose. Being a number. Being a clone built with no purpose but to fight. I surprised myself. I had never thought this bothered me until given the chance to talk about it. But I had been bred just to die in a war, taking as many droids with me. I was a clone built to fight and die and do nothing else. And it felt empty. So I told her about it. She told me that Id always be worth more than that to her. That I may be a clone, but that I had been there for her, kept her sane, she reckoned. She told me that I had found a purpose beyond killing there, showing that I could grow and change. She hugged me.
That was a strange experience. Id never seen or experienced physical contact unless I was fighting and trying to defeat an opponent, but here she clung to me tenderly. It was cold outside. Maybe she wanted to share body heat to keep warm.
She laughed when I asked her if that was the case. I never did find out why.
CT-1252 and Mesmia left the shelter of the walker eventually, realising that the Republic had been driven back and so couldnt make it to them. CT-1252 discovered a nearby Separatist base, stocked with ships. Their plan became to break in, and steal one. The ship could at least break orbit and return to the Republic cruisers in orbit.
The base wasnt heavily manned, and it was easy enough to break into, even for a broken Jedi padawan and a clone trooper. Clearing the hanger proved difficult however, as Destroyer Droids showed up. CT-1252 took a hit, and went down.
I felt the plasma rip through my shoulder. My eyes went wide, beneath my helmet. I felt the pain throb through me. I had been trained to take it, but it was too much. Another hit. My leg. My blaster had proven useless against the dammed droids shields. I went down. I blacked out.
CT-1252 didnt die, Mesmia managed to defeat the Destroyer Droids, finally being able to call upon the Force and restoring her Jedi calm. She got CT-1252 to a nearby medical shuttle. It was unarmed and slower than the others, but had cryogenic freezing chambers for transporting seriously injured Separatist leaders off planet to medical cruisers. She froze CT-1252 inside, vowing to get him safely to a Republic ship where he could recover.
The shuttle blasted into space, but took hits. It made it out of the atmosphere, but was severely damaged, the slower vessel being unable to dodge the blasts. The price Mesmia had paid to save CT-1252. The ship was pretty much destroyed, and floated into the inky blackness of space.
A salvage operation recovered it 68 years later. They found a long dead female Jedi on board, burnt and mangled from whatever had damaged the ship, and a frozen soldier. They unfroze him, and used their own bacta tanks to allow him to recover.
CT-1252 came into a world where everything he believed in had turned evil and nearly destroyed the galaxy. He was shocked, and lost. Something happened he hadnt expected. He was asked by the salvagers what he wanted to do. What he wanted? That had never happened. He needed orders. He asked to be dropped off at a Republic base with Mesmia.
He then learnt that she was dead.
It shouldnt have bothered him. He was trained not to be bothered by death. But it did. He couldnt stand the thought. She was dead. Gone forever. Killed when the ship was hit. The ship she had taken to save him.
The scavengers agreed to drop CT-1252 off at a nearby Republic base. He was still a soldier to the Republic, in his own eyes at least. He was told hed need a name. He took the only one that had ever meant anything to him: Mesmia. He didnt understand names much, they were just matters of designation, so never quite realised until later it was a females name. He also took her lightsaber, with a vow that he would return it to the Jedi Temple and make sure she was remembered among the Jedi heroes of the Old Republic.
He signed up to the Republic military once more, passing basic combat training with ease, considering his experience.
He was enlisted as a basic grunt in the army, and assigned to Dantooine, where he worked as a guard at a New Republic base. Although mostly uneventful, he did begin to fully explore the human world, and learn how different it was from the lifestyle of a clone. Eating in the mess halls with other soldiers, for examples, learning to choose his food instead of taking what was given, learning games and things to do with free time, an abstract concept to him, as well as learning much about the real galaxy outside the military lifestyle.
However, Mesmias dedication still was to the army completely, and he proved himself an impressively competent soldier, outperforming any other soldier on the planet. Most had been trained for combat.
Mesmia had been bred for it.
Soon, the machinations of another relic of the Clone Wars, the deadly General Vortan, an ex-Imperial (and Old Republic) officer who had kept himself alive through a technological suit, came to Dantooine to receive a transmitter part from a crashed freighter. Mesmia was part of the squad sent to investigate the crash, and it was him who recognised the equipment as not Imperial or Republic, but CIS.
Vortan was trying to reactivate the Droid Army.
Mesmia was assigned to the task force that tracked Vortan to Musfatar, where the evil General restored power to the last surviving droid factory. The droid factory from the world of Jabiim. The planet that changed Mesmias life.
Mesmia was unofficially promoted to military advisor for the operation, being the only remaining living soul with experience in battling the droid army. The Republic touched down on Jabiim and engaged Vortans forces; including hired mercs, still loyal (or paid well enough) Imperial soldiers, and the reactivated droids. Mesmia proved invaluable in the battle, not only gaining access to the droid factory for the Republic, but confronting Vortan himself.
Mesmia killed Vortan (although he never specified how in any of his reports; the events of the battle are unknown) while the Republic troops defeated the droids and deactivated the power planet, stopping Vortan and his surviving loyalists from resurrecting the Empire, using droids to conquer the Republic.
Mesmia was hailed as a hero and promoted to the rank of Sergeant, given his own squad of troops to command, and assigned to the Mon Calamari cruiser Searcher. The Searcher was both an exploration and enforcement ship assigned to the Outer Rim, but as time went on, got more and more caught up in battles with various criminal sects, abandoning any purpose as an exploration vessel and becoming strictly a combat oriented vessel, being forced into multiple battles with increasing numbers of hostile characters.
The rest of the galaxy had been enjoying relative peace (hence the Searcher ever being thought of as an exploration ship), and as such, the plight to enforce the law in the Outer Rim regions fell entirely on the Searcher, trying to quell the incredible raise in apparently unconnected crime.
Mesmia and his squad saw much action during this time, but Mesmia regressed to his mindset for war, with little to no regard for his troops, treating them as machines as a clone sergeant would have to him. He was too busy on the battle at hand and unable to understand the affect this was having on his troops until in one operation to liberate an occupied city from a criminal militia on Myrkr.
An already heavily criminally infested world, this last refuge for the innocents of the planet had now been set upon by the rest of the planets forces, and the city overrun. Furthermore, the native presence of Ysalamari meant that Jedi Knights could not be used in the liberation effort (not that the Searcher had any Jedi Knights on board anyway).
The Republic was obliged to assist, and engaged the militia in combat. However, the Searcher, now out of port for a long time, and damaged from over a year of service in the Outer Rim and trying to fight off these seemingly random crime waves, was not well equipped enough to take on an entire planets worth of criminal warriors.
On one mission to save the now fortified city, Mesmias gunship was shot down, and he and his squad became stranded. There, his harsh command style and disregard for fallen comrades (treating them as simply causalities of war), added to the fact that they were totally cut off from the Searcher and any other form of command, led to a mutiny by his squad, who stopped taking orders from Mesmia in a desperate bid to find their own way out of the situation they were in.
At first Mesmia was shocked and confused by this turn of events. It made no sense to him, or so it felt, why they wouldnt feel his lead was suitable. But, banished from the crash site, there was little he could do. That was, until he thought back to his time in the Clone War, and how he had felt about the real Mesmia, the Jedi Padawan. He would never treat her like he treated his squad mates. What if every life was that valuable?
A lesson learnt for Mesmia, and when the men who had shot down their gunship returned to finish the job, Mesmia returned to the squad to defend them, and despite yet another of the squad becoming badly injured, he refused to leave them behind, proving to the squad (and to himself) that he knew the value of human life. He had only forgotten.
Despite escaping to the Searcher, the battle at Myrkr was lost. Captain Rogers, commander of the Searcher, decided it was time to find out what was going on. It was obvious that these events occurring all over the Outer Rim were not coincidence, and when one prisoner from the operation on Myrkr let it slip that they were working for the Hutts, a disturbing pattern emerged.
It appeared the Outer Rim crime waves had been the machinations of the Hutts, and it became clear that in each situation, once specific Hutt saw to earn from each encounter: Ragna the Hutt. A ridiculously powerful crime lord operating out of Nal Hutta itself, Ragna was nigh untouchable. Even the Republic could not go to Nal Hutta and expect a warm welcome, and only the greatest clients, legends of bounty hunters and cleverest criminal geniuses ever even acquired an audience with Ragna. To make matters even more difficult, he employed complex DNA screening to prevent spies from infiltrating his ranks.
There was no way for the Republic to get to him.
However, it was clear, he had to be assassinated. His influence was too dangerous, too many people were dying because of him, and too many innocent people in the Outer Rim were under threat.
Thus a fairly reckless plan was conceived; Mesmia was to go undercover as the greatest bounty hunting legend of all time: Boba Fett.
Fett had been reported as being sited many times since the incident on Tatooine that led to his apparent death, and as such, it was a well accepted possibility that he was still alive. Since Mesmia shared the same DNA as Fett, he would easily pass Ragnas screening. Despite the fact that by now, Fett should be much older, his status as an enigma allowed this to be overlooked. A curious Ragna, upon learning of Fetts survival (Mesmia in replicated Mandorian armour) agreed a meeting, and the assassination attempt was on.
Being undercover was a new experience to Mesmia, being separated from all command and having to operate independently of orders, he learnt to adapt his mindset to work alone.
However, he knew his time was limited, and so, for the first time in his life, made a rash decision. He openly blasted Ragna in his own hall, unable to think of a stealthier way to do it. The result was carnage as the entire of Ragnas palace tried to destroy him. Luckily for him, with so many subjects all aiming at one target, and a replica of Fetts jetpack, escape became possible and Mesmia fled, stealing a ship and escaping the planet.
But the getaway was not clean. The wrath was great. The Hutts tracked the ship they identified as stolen by the impostor pretending to be Fett back to the Searcher (a reckless move on Mesmias part, but he was low on fuel and knew his time was limited). They launched hundreds of fighters and gunships to attack the Searcher before it could make it back safely to any other ships.
The Mon Calamari cruiser was nearly destroyed. There were massive casualties all over. However, just before the Searcher exploded, the cavalry arrived; squadrons of fighters and two other New Republic capital ships. The attacking ships were destroyed and the Searcher was saved.
In aftermath of the loss of a great deal of the Searchers crew, and his successful assassination of Ragna, basically ending the escalating situation in the Outer Rim, Mesmia was promoted to General, and took his place as commander of the Searcher.
Mesmia still has much to learn about life, but he is growing, and his skill as a soldier has earned him a respectable position in the New Republics military forces. He still works on board the Searcher, which, having undergone a refit docked at Dantooine, has now resumed its patrol of the Outer Rim, enforcing New Republic law, while attempting to return to its original purpose of exploring many of the undiscovered planets that exist in that part of the galaxy.
Mesmia had come to value human life, as well as grow as an individual to both understand and behave much less like his clone brethren did during the Clone War. However, he still carries Mesmias lightsaber, never having gone to Coruscant to return it. Yet the opportunity, since his promotion, has been there, and his decision not to take it has somewhat baffled him. So much had happened since his time as a clone soldier, he is almost worried he will lose that memory forever if he gives away his last physical object to remind him of her. Yet he still wishes to honour her memory, and as such, vowed that when he arrives on Coruscant, he will place it in the ruined Temple.
For now, Mesmias dedication is to his new responsibility as a general and commander of the Searcher.
Surname: None
Given Name: CT-1252
Known Aliases: Mesmia
Occupation: General in the New Republic, Captain of the Searcher.
Gender: Male
Race: Human (Clone)
Age: 14 (although with the appearance of somebody who is 28, his growth is accelerated). Chronological age is 75, due to being frozen in stasis.
Place of Birth: Kamino
Place of Residence: The Searcher, a Mon-Calamari cruiser.
Former Place(s) of Residence: Kamino, Old Republic Task Force, Dantooine.
Affiliation: Galactic Republic.
Appearance
Height: 1.83 meters tall
Eyes: Dark Brown
Hair: Black, short.
Other Features: Looks identical to Jango Fett, Boba Fett, and the legions of Clone Troopers that existed in the time of the Old Republic, except for a scar running above his left eye.
Clothing: He either wears basic red clothing when not in combat (like he used to wear on Kamino), his Clone Trooper armour (the original version from the start of the Clone Wars, he wasnt around late enough for the upgraded version of the armour), or his new uniform. He is fascinated by the idea of wearing different clothing, but never has done himself, having been raised in the sterile world on Kamino.
Uniform: Standard Republic uniform.
Equipment: Anything the Republic issues him, as well as Old Republic era Clone Trooper rifle, his preferred weapon of choice; he has been training to use it since he was born, after all, and has plenty of combat experience with it.
Personal Possessions: Clones arent supposed to have personal possessions, but CT-1252 has kept a lightsaber of a fallen friend. He never uses it, and never will, refusing to dishonour her that way. He vowed to one day return it to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant (not the new one on Dantooine), and place it there to honour her among the greatest of the Jedi, even if the Order will never look on her in that way.
Other Information
Personality: A relic of the Clone Wars in every sense. A Clone Trooper emerging from cryogenic stasis after an injury and subsequent ship crash, he found the galaxy drastically changed. He is totally obedient to orders and an expert soldier; a true Clone Trooper. Having missed Order 66, he is completely loyal to the Republic. He is dependant upon orders and objectives, knowing that without them his life holds no purpose. Although, in his new position as a commander, he gives more orders than he takes, but he is still dependant upon being a cog in the machine, rather than working independently.
He has a deep hatred for droids after the Clone War, as well as a hatred for the Kamonians, having discovered their brainwashed state led to Order 66 being implemented, having researched the history he missed out on. He lives in fear that he could one day do a similar act of great evil, but vowed to remain loyal to the Republic.
He has a constant sense of wonder when not in combat, where he is strictly serious. Growing up on Kamino means that he has never seen much of the real world, and he doesnt understand a lot of customs. Real food is still a shock to him, having always lived on military rations, and free time is something he simply does not understand, he doesnt know what he should be doing without objectives to complete.
Since joining the Searcher, he has grown much closer to being like most individuals, yet still anything he enjoys is strictly military related, finding pleasure from recreational activities such as practicing his shooting over anything actually unrelated to the military, and he is still, after all this time, baffled by such things as food and clothing choices.
Known Relatives:
Clone Host: Jango Fett
History: CT-1252 was a Clone Trooper, and not an important one. He was a basic grunt, the lowest form of clone there could be. Risen on Kamino, it was his purpose to be a basic soldier and to fight and die for the Republic. He meant nothing. He was just another identical face in a sea of thousands.
Ten years passed since his birth, and war erupted. He may have only been ten years old, but had the appearance of a 20 year old due to the Kaminonians growth acceleration. He was sent to Geonosis along with the rest of his identical comrades to fight and die against the Separatists.
I remember leaving for the first time. It was strange. We had been trained for this, we were ready for this, yet you could sense the excitement buzzing under each of our helmets. We were going to see another planet! Real people! I didnt know what to expect. I mean, Id seen holovids. I was studying one as I thought this. Getting to know the combat area, analysing every type of rock formation, every chance for ambushes to be set up or encountered, the usual stuff. The stuff we had been trained for. But this was real. A real planet. A real battle. We had been programmed not to care about death, so I didnt, but they couldnt program away the sense of wonder we all felt.
Several Jedi were pinned down in a mighty arena, and it is there that CT-1252 had his first taste of battle. The Republic Gunships touched down in the middle of the arena, and the clones poured out, getting killed for the protection of the Jedi.
It didnt feel like I expected. Sand. It was softer, I mean. I dont know what I was expecting, but not that. The softness beneath my feet. A moment of shock. That moment cost 2321 next to me his life, but I was lucky. We opened fire, blasting the droids. The Jedi fell back. This was war, I was ready for this. My mind snapped into military mode and I ignored everything else. The sense of wonder was gone. I wasnt even distracted by the Jedi, seeing real humans with different faces. Id never seen that before, not in real life, anyway. The closest I had seen was Jango, and he was our host. But no, once battle had kicked off, our training took over, and all this was pushed to one side. We did our job as we were trained to do. Many of us died for the Jedi, just like we had been trained. Not that I cared, I was programmed not too, remember?
CT-1252 escaped the arena on a gunship along with the Jedi, and fought in the Battle of Geonosis, surviving. The wars spread across the galaxy, and CT-1252 fought like any other trooper, doing his job exactly as he had been trained. He was assigned to be a trooper in General Obi-Wan Kenobis fleet, but only ever saw the legendary Jedi Knight from a distance.
The Republic invaded Jabiim, a rain world that had broken away from the Republic after years of being ignored. The storms disabled fighters, and so the Republic used walkers to attack. The surface of Jabiim was thick shifting mud, constantly moving under the ever constant rain, and the walkers proved useless. Combat was a disaster. General Kenobi was thought to be killed. Entire platoons of troopers were lost. CT-1252s were among them.
During the fighting, CT-1252 and his platoon were ambushed, their walkers proving useless in the mud. It was on foot when CT-1252 saw it splash down beside them.
THERMAL DETONATOR! TAKE COVER!
It was too late. The detonator went off in the middle of his platoon, and everything turned to white.
Eternal blackness. Is this death? Did we win the battle at least? Or did I fail my purpose? I can still feel my body. Maybe Im not dead. No. This is mud on my visor.
CT-1252 awoke later, a heavy cut across his forehead, above his eye, but otherwise uninjured, buried beneath the shifting mud. He dug himself out, and found himself in a devastated wasteland. All the troopers were dead. He found his commander, and dug out his body, but his communicator was damaged. He had no way to get in contact with the fleet. He found a weapon and followed standard procedure; fall back to the main LZ.
When he got there, he found nothing. Downed ships. Destroyed walkers. He spotted a still functioning walker, but half submerged in the mud. He hoped its communication systems would still be working, and that he could receive orders on what to do next. Instead, he found something better, or so he at first thought. A Jedi! Alive.
A padawan, alive. And not wanting to be. She was huddled in the walker, shivering. Mesmia Takalitch. Her master was dead. Every trooper was dead. She at first ignited her lightsaber in fear, but sighed in relief as she saw CT-1252 was on her side. CT-1252 was glad to see her, and immediately asked for orders.
She was huddled up, crying. Not very Jedi-like behaviour, as Ive come to understand it, but she was a Jedi, my superior, so I asked her for orders.
I dont know! She sobbed in response. How am I meant to know? I didnt know what to say. We took orders from Jedi. Thats what we did. But she didnt have any. Neither did I. The walker had no communication systems. We couldnt get in contact. She eventually suggested that we wait, not wanting to face the harsh outside world again. I obeyed, just as I should.
She was just a padawan, and a broken one at that. Id researched the shock of war enough as part of my basic training. I could see that she couldnt handle it. Her Jedi training wasnt complete. She couldnt repress the emotions within.
I didnt want to be a soldier. She sobbed to me. I wanted to be a Jedi. I was so excited when my master picked me to train. I wanted to be one. To learn peace and serenity. Not fight. Not die. Not get lost out here. I didnt want to be a soldier. I didnt know what to say. Maybe it was easier when you were born and bred for a single purpose, like I was.
We were in that walker for days. I could see that Mesmia was ill. The cold had made her sick, and her ability to use the Force wasnt going to save her. She wasnt strong enough in it. At least, not yet. Im sure she would have become a powerful Jedi, had she been given the chance. Our lack of food wasnt helping. I helped keep her rationed. She had ordered me too. A Jedi losing their self control? She had to rely on me to make sure she didnt eat to much or to little. Strange. This is what the war had done to her.
We opened up to each other in that time. She told me how she had been taken from a rich family on Correlia when she was only four, to be become a Jedi. How excited she had been. Especially when she was picked to be a padawan to her master. How much he was like a father to her. Now he was dead and she was a soldier in a war, not a master of peace. She told me how she even hated her lightsaber, and didnt like to ignite it. She didnt like fighting at all. Her master had always told her she was the worse Jedi with a saber he had ever seen. She had always hoped he was joking.
In return I opened up. I found myself ranting about being built for a single purpose. Being a number. Being a clone built with no purpose but to fight. I surprised myself. I had never thought this bothered me until given the chance to talk about it. But I had been bred just to die in a war, taking as many droids with me. I was a clone built to fight and die and do nothing else. And it felt empty. So I told her about it. She told me that Id always be worth more than that to her. That I may be a clone, but that I had been there for her, kept her sane, she reckoned. She told me that I had found a purpose beyond killing there, showing that I could grow and change. She hugged me.
That was a strange experience. Id never seen or experienced physical contact unless I was fighting and trying to defeat an opponent, but here she clung to me tenderly. It was cold outside. Maybe she wanted to share body heat to keep warm.
She laughed when I asked her if that was the case. I never did find out why.
CT-1252 and Mesmia left the shelter of the walker eventually, realising that the Republic had been driven back and so couldnt make it to them. CT-1252 discovered a nearby Separatist base, stocked with ships. Their plan became to break in, and steal one. The ship could at least break orbit and return to the Republic cruisers in orbit.
The base wasnt heavily manned, and it was easy enough to break into, even for a broken Jedi padawan and a clone trooper. Clearing the hanger proved difficult however, as Destroyer Droids showed up. CT-1252 took a hit, and went down.
I felt the plasma rip through my shoulder. My eyes went wide, beneath my helmet. I felt the pain throb through me. I had been trained to take it, but it was too much. Another hit. My leg. My blaster had proven useless against the dammed droids shields. I went down. I blacked out.
CT-1252 didnt die, Mesmia managed to defeat the Destroyer Droids, finally being able to call upon the Force and restoring her Jedi calm. She got CT-1252 to a nearby medical shuttle. It was unarmed and slower than the others, but had cryogenic freezing chambers for transporting seriously injured Separatist leaders off planet to medical cruisers. She froze CT-1252 inside, vowing to get him safely to a Republic ship where he could recover.
The shuttle blasted into space, but took hits. It made it out of the atmosphere, but was severely damaged, the slower vessel being unable to dodge the blasts. The price Mesmia had paid to save CT-1252. The ship was pretty much destroyed, and floated into the inky blackness of space.
A salvage operation recovered it 68 years later. They found a long dead female Jedi on board, burnt and mangled from whatever had damaged the ship, and a frozen soldier. They unfroze him, and used their own bacta tanks to allow him to recover.
CT-1252 came into a world where everything he believed in had turned evil and nearly destroyed the galaxy. He was shocked, and lost. Something happened he hadnt expected. He was asked by the salvagers what he wanted to do. What he wanted? That had never happened. He needed orders. He asked to be dropped off at a Republic base with Mesmia.
He then learnt that she was dead.
It shouldnt have bothered him. He was trained not to be bothered by death. But it did. He couldnt stand the thought. She was dead. Gone forever. Killed when the ship was hit. The ship she had taken to save him.
The scavengers agreed to drop CT-1252 off at a nearby Republic base. He was still a soldier to the Republic, in his own eyes at least. He was told hed need a name. He took the only one that had ever meant anything to him: Mesmia. He didnt understand names much, they were just matters of designation, so never quite realised until later it was a females name. He also took her lightsaber, with a vow that he would return it to the Jedi Temple and make sure she was remembered among the Jedi heroes of the Old Republic.
He signed up to the Republic military once more, passing basic combat training with ease, considering his experience.
He was enlisted as a basic grunt in the army, and assigned to Dantooine, where he worked as a guard at a New Republic base. Although mostly uneventful, he did begin to fully explore the human world, and learn how different it was from the lifestyle of a clone. Eating in the mess halls with other soldiers, for examples, learning to choose his food instead of taking what was given, learning games and things to do with free time, an abstract concept to him, as well as learning much about the real galaxy outside the military lifestyle.
However, Mesmias dedication still was to the army completely, and he proved himself an impressively competent soldier, outperforming any other soldier on the planet. Most had been trained for combat.
Mesmia had been bred for it.
Soon, the machinations of another relic of the Clone Wars, the deadly General Vortan, an ex-Imperial (and Old Republic) officer who had kept himself alive through a technological suit, came to Dantooine to receive a transmitter part from a crashed freighter. Mesmia was part of the squad sent to investigate the crash, and it was him who recognised the equipment as not Imperial or Republic, but CIS.
Vortan was trying to reactivate the Droid Army.
Mesmia was assigned to the task force that tracked Vortan to Musfatar, where the evil General restored power to the last surviving droid factory. The droid factory from the world of Jabiim. The planet that changed Mesmias life.
Mesmia was unofficially promoted to military advisor for the operation, being the only remaining living soul with experience in battling the droid army. The Republic touched down on Jabiim and engaged Vortans forces; including hired mercs, still loyal (or paid well enough) Imperial soldiers, and the reactivated droids. Mesmia proved invaluable in the battle, not only gaining access to the droid factory for the Republic, but confronting Vortan himself.
Mesmia killed Vortan (although he never specified how in any of his reports; the events of the battle are unknown) while the Republic troops defeated the droids and deactivated the power planet, stopping Vortan and his surviving loyalists from resurrecting the Empire, using droids to conquer the Republic.
Mesmia was hailed as a hero and promoted to the rank of Sergeant, given his own squad of troops to command, and assigned to the Mon Calamari cruiser Searcher. The Searcher was both an exploration and enforcement ship assigned to the Outer Rim, but as time went on, got more and more caught up in battles with various criminal sects, abandoning any purpose as an exploration vessel and becoming strictly a combat oriented vessel, being forced into multiple battles with increasing numbers of hostile characters.
The rest of the galaxy had been enjoying relative peace (hence the Searcher ever being thought of as an exploration ship), and as such, the plight to enforce the law in the Outer Rim regions fell entirely on the Searcher, trying to quell the incredible raise in apparently unconnected crime.
Mesmia and his squad saw much action during this time, but Mesmia regressed to his mindset for war, with little to no regard for his troops, treating them as machines as a clone sergeant would have to him. He was too busy on the battle at hand and unable to understand the affect this was having on his troops until in one operation to liberate an occupied city from a criminal militia on Myrkr.
An already heavily criminally infested world, this last refuge for the innocents of the planet had now been set upon by the rest of the planets forces, and the city overrun. Furthermore, the native presence of Ysalamari meant that Jedi Knights could not be used in the liberation effort (not that the Searcher had any Jedi Knights on board anyway).
The Republic was obliged to assist, and engaged the militia in combat. However, the Searcher, now out of port for a long time, and damaged from over a year of service in the Outer Rim and trying to fight off these seemingly random crime waves, was not well equipped enough to take on an entire planets worth of criminal warriors.
On one mission to save the now fortified city, Mesmias gunship was shot down, and he and his squad became stranded. There, his harsh command style and disregard for fallen comrades (treating them as simply causalities of war), added to the fact that they were totally cut off from the Searcher and any other form of command, led to a mutiny by his squad, who stopped taking orders from Mesmia in a desperate bid to find their own way out of the situation they were in.
At first Mesmia was shocked and confused by this turn of events. It made no sense to him, or so it felt, why they wouldnt feel his lead was suitable. But, banished from the crash site, there was little he could do. That was, until he thought back to his time in the Clone War, and how he had felt about the real Mesmia, the Jedi Padawan. He would never treat her like he treated his squad mates. What if every life was that valuable?
A lesson learnt for Mesmia, and when the men who had shot down their gunship returned to finish the job, Mesmia returned to the squad to defend them, and despite yet another of the squad becoming badly injured, he refused to leave them behind, proving to the squad (and to himself) that he knew the value of human life. He had only forgotten.
Despite escaping to the Searcher, the battle at Myrkr was lost. Captain Rogers, commander of the Searcher, decided it was time to find out what was going on. It was obvious that these events occurring all over the Outer Rim were not coincidence, and when one prisoner from the operation on Myrkr let it slip that they were working for the Hutts, a disturbing pattern emerged.
It appeared the Outer Rim crime waves had been the machinations of the Hutts, and it became clear that in each situation, once specific Hutt saw to earn from each encounter: Ragna the Hutt. A ridiculously powerful crime lord operating out of Nal Hutta itself, Ragna was nigh untouchable. Even the Republic could not go to Nal Hutta and expect a warm welcome, and only the greatest clients, legends of bounty hunters and cleverest criminal geniuses ever even acquired an audience with Ragna. To make matters even more difficult, he employed complex DNA screening to prevent spies from infiltrating his ranks.
There was no way for the Republic to get to him.
However, it was clear, he had to be assassinated. His influence was too dangerous, too many people were dying because of him, and too many innocent people in the Outer Rim were under threat.
Thus a fairly reckless plan was conceived; Mesmia was to go undercover as the greatest bounty hunting legend of all time: Boba Fett.
Fett had been reported as being sited many times since the incident on Tatooine that led to his apparent death, and as such, it was a well accepted possibility that he was still alive. Since Mesmia shared the same DNA as Fett, he would easily pass Ragnas screening. Despite the fact that by now, Fett should be much older, his status as an enigma allowed this to be overlooked. A curious Ragna, upon learning of Fetts survival (Mesmia in replicated Mandorian armour) agreed a meeting, and the assassination attempt was on.
Being undercover was a new experience to Mesmia, being separated from all command and having to operate independently of orders, he learnt to adapt his mindset to work alone.
However, he knew his time was limited, and so, for the first time in his life, made a rash decision. He openly blasted Ragna in his own hall, unable to think of a stealthier way to do it. The result was carnage as the entire of Ragnas palace tried to destroy him. Luckily for him, with so many subjects all aiming at one target, and a replica of Fetts jetpack, escape became possible and Mesmia fled, stealing a ship and escaping the planet.
But the getaway was not clean. The wrath was great. The Hutts tracked the ship they identified as stolen by the impostor pretending to be Fett back to the Searcher (a reckless move on Mesmias part, but he was low on fuel and knew his time was limited). They launched hundreds of fighters and gunships to attack the Searcher before it could make it back safely to any other ships.
The Mon Calamari cruiser was nearly destroyed. There were massive casualties all over. However, just before the Searcher exploded, the cavalry arrived; squadrons of fighters and two other New Republic capital ships. The attacking ships were destroyed and the Searcher was saved.
In aftermath of the loss of a great deal of the Searchers crew, and his successful assassination of Ragna, basically ending the escalating situation in the Outer Rim, Mesmia was promoted to General, and took his place as commander of the Searcher.
Mesmia still has much to learn about life, but he is growing, and his skill as a soldier has earned him a respectable position in the New Republics military forces. He still works on board the Searcher, which, having undergone a refit docked at Dantooine, has now resumed its patrol of the Outer Rim, enforcing New Republic law, while attempting to return to its original purpose of exploring many of the undiscovered planets that exist in that part of the galaxy.
Mesmia had come to value human life, as well as grow as an individual to both understand and behave much less like his clone brethren did during the Clone War. However, he still carries Mesmias lightsaber, never having gone to Coruscant to return it. Yet the opportunity, since his promotion, has been there, and his decision not to take it has somewhat baffled him. So much had happened since his time as a clone soldier, he is almost worried he will lose that memory forever if he gives away his last physical object to remind him of her. Yet he still wishes to honour her memory, and as such, vowed that when he arrives on Coruscant, he will place it in the ruined Temple.
For now, Mesmias dedication is to his new responsibility as a general and commander of the Searcher.
