what the hap is fuckening

|| Republic Commando: Triple Zero || 2006 || Book series || Military, Sci-fi || 18+ for violence and harrowing themes ||

What little we know about the Nulls, we know from their body language. That they are scared and they want to runaway, but they can't. They are like trapped animals with no escape. And nothing is more dangerous than a wild animal who can't escape. Because then the only escape is TO ATTACK.
This is a trauma reaction. Flight or fight. And the Nulls choose to fight when seeing the opportunity. It wasn't a fight they could won, but they won't go down without one.
This guy, this Skirata behaved so differently than the adults they have met before. Behaved differently than the Kaminoans, behaved so differently than Jango.

Kal Skirata was so emotional and so ANGRY FOR THEM. The guy was angry, because the Kaminoans wanted to hurt them. And I think the Nulls understood this. They knew that this guy won't hurt them, this is why they knew they can use him.

I think the biggest test came after this - nobody knew this was really a test. Maybe not even the Nulls themselves. But Kal passed. Because Kal's behavior was consistent. The Nulls misbehaved -- and Kal did not punish them. Kal didn't change his mind about them, saying: ok, fishpeople, you were right, these boys are nuts, send them to the incinerator.

Kal truly became a safe person:

The kid clicked the safety catch. He seemed to be checking it was off.

“It's okay, son,” Skirata said, as gently as he could. He didn't much care if the boy fried the Kaminoan, but he cared about the consequences for the kid. And he was instantly and totally proud of him—of all of them. “You don't need to shoot. I'm not going to let him touch any of you. Just give me back the blaster.”

The child didn't budge; the blaster didn't waver. He should have been more concerned about cuddly toys than a clean shot at this stage in his young life. Skirata squatted down slowly behind him, trying not to spook him into firing.

Kal wouldn't have mind if Orun Wa dies but he feared for the boy's life. Boys maybe dangerously smart but clearly couldn't think that far. Not yet. But Kal is already so proud of them. These little warriors playing him like a fool. These little survivors. Kal makes a promise: nobody can and will hurt them.

But if the boy had his back to him … then he trusted him, didn't he?

Maybe this implies that Ordo already gave his trust to Kal the moment he had the blaster in his hands. Or maybe when Kal furiously charged at the Kaminoan. That if Ordo kills the Kaminoan, then Kal won't punish him.

“You touch one of those kids, you gray freak, and I'll skin you alive and feed you to the aiwhas—”

“Come on … just put it down, there's a good lad. Now give me the blaster.” He kept his voice as soft and level as he could, when he was actually torn between cheering and doing the job himself. “You're safe, I promise you.”

I SO ADORE how Kal is also bloodthirsty but trying to be a responsible person here for the sake of the children. :D

The boy paused, eyes and aim still both fixed on Orun Wa. “Yes sir.” Then he lowered the weapon to his side. Skirata put his hand on the boy's shoulder and pulled him back carefully.

“Good lad.” Skirata took the blaster from his little fingers and scooped him up in his arms. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Nicely done, too.”

Kal giving him a loud praise for obeying. But secretly giving a praise for the little boy for deceiving him. This. This is everything to me. This is so fucking everything to in their relationship. Especially that Ordo being a great actor and deceiving Kal will return later in the books, holy shit... 

|| Republic Commando: Triple Zero || 2006 || Book series || Military, Sci-fi || 18+ for violence and harrowing themes ||

“I can train them,” he said. “What are their names?”

“These units are numbered. And I must emphasize that they're unresponsive to command.” Orun Wa persisted as if talking to a particularly stupid Weequay. “Our quality control designated them Null class and wishes to start—”

“Null? As in no di'kutla use?”

The sentence in English was weird for me, but in the Hungarian edition, they used the mando'a word di'kutla as in Kal asked whether the kids were mentally disabled. Just a trivia I find interesting.

Skirata could hear his pulse pounding in his head and all he could care about was ripping Orun Wa apart. Killing someone in combat was one thing, but there was no honor in destroying unarmed kids. He yanked his arm out of Jango's grip and stepped back in front of the children. They were utterly silent. He dared not look at them. He fixed on Orun Wa.

Okay, Murder-Mando No. 2. has no right to be this sexy right here. GET THEIR ASSESS OLD MAN!!!!
Just like Ghez Hokan didn't find glory in killing farmers in Hard Contact, I love that this Mandalorian mindset returns here too with Kal, that killing opponent who can't even fight back is not a worthy fight. That's not even a fight. That's just massacre.

|| Republic Commando: Triple Zero || 2006 || Book series || Military, Sci-fi || 18+ for violence and harrowing themes ||

There was a long silence in the bland, peaceful, white-walled room. Evil was supposed to be black, jet black; and it wasn't supposed to be soft-spoken.

You have a haunch when the Kaminoan took a look at Kal's disabled leg and remarked him DEFECTIVE.
But when you read this scene, it is now obvious. The Kaminoans not just use eugenics in their own society. They are using it while creating the clones too.

This is how the clone babies in the tubes are introduced:

The cavern—surgically clean, polished durasteel and permaglass—was filled with structures that seemed almost like fractals. At first glance they looked like giant toroids stacked on pillars; then, as he stared, the toroids resolved into smaller rings of permaglass containers, with containers within them, and inside those
No, this wasn't happening.
Inside the transparent tubes there was fluid, and within it there was movement.
It took him several minutes of staring and refocusing on one of the tubes to realize there was a body in there, and it was alive. In fact, there was a body in every tube: row upon row of tiny bodies, children's bodies. Babies.
--
“You said—”
“I said you'd be training special forces troops, and you will be. They just happen to be growing them.”
“What?”
“Clones.”

When Kal arrived here expected that he will train fully grown men to be soldiers. He didn't expect that soldiers will be harvested from these tubes. That he will find children here grown in a laboratory.

“Ko Sai said something wasn't quite right with the first test batch of clones,” said Jango, ushering Skirata ahead of him into another room. “They've tested them and they don't think these are going to make the grade. I told Orun Wa that we'd give him the benefit of our military experience and take a look.”

For the Kaminoans the clones are not children. They are products. Well cared products, but still not people. It means that however the first batch of clones ended up, they aren't meeting with their expectations. They are imperfect.

“I would still be happier if you confirmed that the first batch of units is below the acceptable standard.”

Orun Wa and Ko Sai already decided that this batch is faulty and should be terminated, but they didn't want to go behind Jango Fett's back with this decisions. They wanted Jango Fett's approval for it.

“These units are defective, and I admit that we perhaps made an error in attempting to enhance the genetic template,” Orun Wa said, utterly unmoved by their vulnerability.

Skirata had worked out fast that Kaminoans despised everything that didn't fit their intolerant, arrogant society's ideal of perfection. So … they thought Jango's genome wasn't the perfect model for a soldier without a little adjustment, then. Maybe it was his solitary nature; he'd make a rotten infantry soldier. Jango wasn't a team player.

The Kaminoans didn't find Jango Fett's genes perfect to make, so they tempered with his genes to create the "better version of himself". Ironically this made the whole experiment a disaster in their eyes. Which now they are apoligizing for.

“Chief Scientist Ko Sai apologizes, as do I,” said Orun Wa. “Six units did not survive incubation, but these developed normally and appeared to meet specifications, so they have undergone some flash-instruction and trials. Unfortunately, psychological testing indicates that they are simply too unreliable and fail to meet the personality profile required!”

They were 12 of these children. 6 of them didn't survive.
The other six were already tried for tests but it turned out, psychologically they are not adequate.

“Which is?” said Jango.
“That they can carry out orders:' Orun Wa blinked rapidly: he seemed embarrassed by error. “I can assure you that we will address these problems in the current Alpha production run. These units will be reconditioned, of course. Is there anything you wish to ask?”

This current batch is uncapable of carry out orders, but fixing is underway by developing the "Alpha Batch". Meaning, the Alpha Batch potentially will be more inclined to obey whatever is asked from them.

“Yeah,” said Skirata. “What do you mean by reconditioned?”
“In this case, terminated.”

The Kaminoans decided that these six children will die due to their psychological imperfections.

Evil was supposed to be black, jet black; and it wasn't supposed to be soft-spoken.

This quote will probably stay with me for a while.

|| Republic Commando: Triple Zero || 2006 || Book series || Military, Sci-fi || 18+ for violence and harrowing themes ||

The Kaminoans disappeared from sight. “What do those things want with an army anyway?”
“They don't. And you don't need to know all this right now.”
------------
“Gentlemen,” said Orun Wa in his soothing monotone. He welcomed them into his office with a graceful tilt of the head, and Skirata noted that he had a prominent bony fin running across the top of his skull from front to back. Maybe that meant Orun Wa was older, or dominant, or something: he didn't look like the other examples of aiwha-bait that Skirata had seen so far. “I always believe in being honest about setbacks in a program. We value the Jedi Council as a customer.”
“I have nothing to do with the Jedi,” said Jango. “I'm only a consultant on military matters.”

Oh, Skirata thought. Jedi. Great.

Kal knows from this moment that the owner of this army is the Jedi Order. He doesn't like the Jedi either. 

|| Republic Commando: Triple Zero || 2006 || Book series || Military, Sci-fi || 18+ for violence and harrowing themes ||

When I first read Triple Zero, this whole conversation with Kal and Jango hit me like a brick, and hit too close to home. It felt like the author straight-out used IRL inspiration from actual military families and their conflicts when writing about the domestic issues of Kal Skirata. When both of the parent works in the military, there is a mutual understanding usually. But in families where only just one of them is a soldier, being away for months-to-years in a foreign countries is often a source of serious conflicts in families, especially regarding raising children, leading the household, the tolerating the loneliness that comes with these missions. It is inevitable that needs won't be met.

Jango slowed down tactfully. “So, Ilippi threw you out?”  

“Yeah.” His wife wasn't Mandalorian. He'd hoped she would embrace the culture, but she didn't: she always hated seeing her old man go off to someone else's war. The fights began when he wanted to take their two sons into battle with him. They were eight years old, old enough to start learning their trade; but she refused, and soon Ilippi and the boys and his daughter were no longer waiting when he returned from the latest war. Ilippi divorced him the Mando way, same as they'd married, on a brief, solemn, private vow. A contract was a contract, written or not. “Just as well I've got another assignment to occupy me.

What I find intriguing in this section that Kal doesn't blame Ilippi. He thinks their cultural differences were at blame. It makes you think that maybe when Kal and Ilippi got together, maybe they didn't think this relationship through. They haven't talked about what will this entail. That being a Mandalorian is not a nationality or a race, it is a LIFECHOICE. Being a partner of a Mandalorian will require sacrifice and lots of devotion, just like IRL when you partner up with a soldier: you either accept that you will be alone a lot, or you will move a lot, you won't have a stable place to live most of the time. I have found an quote in Order 66 that elaborated more about this divorce and a little bit what made Kal attractive in Ilippi's eyes:

Ilippi thought the beskar’gam was dashing when she married Skirata, but his long absences on deployment started to wear on her with three small kids to care for, and then she hit the big cultural wall—Tor was coming up on eight years old, and Skirata wanted to do as all Mando fathers did, to take his son to train and fight alongside him for five years.

Of course this is where reality and fantasy parts. A Mandalorian child at age 8 starts to train with one of their parents and when they reach age 13, they do the Verd'goten which is the traditional rite of passage in order to become legally adult in their society. Basically when a normal child is already sitting in school, the Mandalorian child remains with their parent and learn their profession from them alongside with basic survival and fighting skills. I think Ilippi reluctantly but accepted the life that Kal is barely home. But taking away the children too was too much to bear.

“You should have married a Mando girl. Aruetiise don't understand a mercenary's life.” Jango paused as if waiting for argument, but Kal wasn't giving him one. “Don't your sons talk to you any longer?”

Kal is so interesting here. Jango blames Ilippi for not wanting to be a Mandalorian, like offering some kind of friendly gesture, a consolation for Kal that he shouldn't feel bad for a woman who didn't even try. But Kal doesn't accept this gesture. He doesn't argue with Jango that "NO NO ILIPPI WAS FINE HOW DARE YOU" but also doesn't agree with him openly.

“Don't your sons talk to you any longer?”
“Not often.” So I failed as a father. Don't rub it in. “Obviously they don't share the Mando outlook on life any more than their mother does.”
“Well, they won't be speaking to you at all now. Not here. Ever.”

From this section we can assume Kal feels it more shameful that his own kids rejects him than his ex-wife.

Nobody seemed to care if he had disappeared anyway. Yes, he was as good as dead.

I think we have the motivation why Kal accepted this very shady assignment even without the details: he had no reason not to.

I want to put here another quote from Order 66:

Tor was thirty-nine now. Maybe he even had grandchildren. That was possible, if he’d been Mandalorian and married very young as Mando’ade did; but his mother wouldn’t have allowed that.
(…)
It took thirty seconds, Mando-style—a short oath to wed, and a shorter one to part. Skirata handed her all his earnings and left for another war.  

Every credit. Every credit I didn’t absolutely need to survive, until the day I left for Kamino. Then I was dead and gone.

Doing a little math, Tor Skirata was in his late-twenties when Kal stopped sending them money, that's when he disappeared due to the Kamino mission. But that wasn't mean they were in real contact. Then probably Kal wouldn't have accepted this assignment. Kal had no one to stay for. I can imagine that when he finished, he would have send the Kamino money to back to his family too. But yeah… things happened. :D

“Just as well I've got another assignment to occupy me." ← I remember so many occassions in the books where Kal downplays his own misfortune in life, but damn, Kal, YOU HAD SO MANY ASSIGNMENTS SINCE THEN TO OCCUPY YOU. You are so not over this divorce. Or at least not over your kids.

|| Republic Commando: Triple Zero || 2006 || Book series || Military, Sci-fi || 18+ for violence and harrowing themes ||

Maybe it's easier to start the book with the statement that Kamino is an evil place. More precisely, the Republic Commando Universe's Kamino is unambiguously evil. You know it. You feel it. You see it through the protagonists - Kal Skirata, the Omega Squad's the (in)famous training sergeant is finally introduced in person and entered into the line of active protags -, and you feel it through him that this place consumes every last drops of humanity you possess, and challenge your values to the core.

I often see fan takes about how Skirata should have turned his back to this whole operation, say no to Kamino, and leave. Now this is not possible and here is why:

1. We won't have a story. Star Wars credit rolls.

2. Jango Fett wouldn't let Kal Skirata just leave.

Relevant quotes:

Kamino was damp. And damp didn't help his shattered ankle one little bit. No, it was more than damp: it was nothing but storm-whipped sea from pole to pole, and he wished that he'd worked that out before he responded to Jango Fetes offer of a lucrative long-term deployment in a location that his old comrade hadn't exactly specified.

“If you're thinking of leaving, Kal, you knew the deal,” said Jango, and leaned on the rail beside him.

The Kaminoans disappeared from sight. “What do those things want with an army anyway?”

“They don't. And you don't need to know all this right now.” Jango beckoned him to follow.

“Besides, you're already dead, remember?”

“Feels like it,” said Skirata. He was the Cuy'val Dar—literally, “those who no longer exist,” a hundred expert soldiers with a dozen specialties who'd answered Jango's secret summons in exchange for a lot of credits … as long as they were prepared to disappear from the galaxy completely.

Think about that Darth Sidious' whole plan against the Jedi Order stands or fall on this operation. Darth Tyranus went so far to delete everything that can be found about Kamino in the Archives, so you cannot access to information, not even by chance. Jango Fett gathered 100 trainer from all around the galaxy to train the elite of the elites and they will be paid, but with these conditions: they cannot leave the planet. They can't maintain connection with anyone from outside.

From these little morsels of information, I think it can be deducted that if Kal wanted to leave now (or later with the cadet Nulls, because sometimes this is also a discourse often in the fandom), Jango just wouldn't let him. Not just that. Jango Fett would have killed Kal Skirata.

Actually dear ithillia made a good point for me by mentioning how Zam Wessel ended up when Obi-Wan caught her. It is not below Jango Fett to kill his own associates if their presence is more of a liability than benefit.

EDIT: I have found a relevant quote in Hard Contact too

Once he signed up with the Kaminoans, he said, they never let him go home again.