Mando'dini.

In Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire, Captain Palleaon and Grand Admiral Thrawn talk about how some of the clones from "early in the war" were mentally imbalanced from being grown too fast. The movie "Attack of the Clones" and the subsequent literature surrounding the Clone Wars seem to contradict this statement. This story is an attempt to reconcile it.


Mando'dini.

Lurd Shetai, some called it.

In Basic, mad clone disease. The usual story said the early clones went crazy, before the cloners got their growth acceleration parameters figured out. That's not exactly true.

The Kaminoans were experts at their craft. They knew how to balance rapid growth and emotional stability. Some of their clones were a bit imbalanced, but it wasn't because they were grown too fast. It was because their compliance parameters had been set too low. Some idiot convinced them to keep the Nulls anyway, and I never got around to asking who. But they were the only "mad clones" anyone ever saw.

As the War progressed, the Republic decided to augment the cloning program by using additional suppliers. That was a mistake. The Spaarti project was where the growth-rate rumors started, because those cloners were inexperienced and couldn't get the acceleration right. But none of the Spaarti clones ever left the facility.

I know this because I'm the one who terminated them.

I don't feel guilty about this. The clones were imbalanced, and therefore completely useless to the Republic. They were flawed product. A few of the supervisors at the Spaarti facility were concerned at first that I might have too much compassion on the failed clones, that I wouldn't be able to terminate them.

Because I'm a clone too.

I wasn't bred for compassion, I was bred for war. In many ways, ending those clones was an act of mercy for them, because they wouldn't have survived anyway. I explained all this to them, but they still weren't convinced. So I reminded them that I was a Kamino clone, and said I felt absolutely no kinship with these Spaarti clones. When some still doubted, I said I was born to kill. I was trained to kill efficiently. Then they finally let me have the job when I told them I don't have the capacity to shirk my duty, however unpleasant.

I didn't tell them that was a lie.

I did shirk my duty once, long before the Spaarti project was ever initiated. Actually, that was the reason why I volunteered for the position. I knew how it felt to be a failure, and I couldn't let any other clones go through what I did. So I failed every single clone. The reason I cited - mental instability due to overacceleration of the growth process - was valid. But in reality I just couldn't let a guaranteed failure live with that kind of misery.

Because we're not capable of suicide.

I couldn't end my own misery, so the least I could do was to prevent those Spaarti clones from experiencing it. From lying awake every single night, reliving the great moment when you enter your first battle, and wishing you have done it right.

A soldier's job is to take down the enemy. I had a direct order to do just that from Anakin Skywalker himself, and I failed. I should have done everything in my power to comply, even if my first option wasn't available. But instead of coming up with a Plan B, I made an excuse.

That excuse haunts my dreams every night.

"We're out of rockets, sir."