You cannot step into the same river twice.
(Heraclitus).
***
Negotiations with the locals continued the next day, when the natives brought samples of goods and paints, and we prepared the items they had requested. We had to rush back and forth between the base and their main village with return visits. As a result, I lost several hundred repair droids, a number of B-2 batteries, fifty tons of scrap metal, and about three thousand E-5 blasters. In return, I received a modest sum of Republic credits—only ten thousand, though by local standards it was a huge amount of currency—several tons of paint, and a promise to deliver five tons of fruit and meat per day for six months.
I was almost certain I'd been "cheated," but since I was essentially trading someone else's property—trophies, after all, and it was still unclear how they'd be classified up there; they could be confiscated at any moment—and besides, they weren't particularly valuable. What are a couple hundred DUMs compared to thousands at the base? I wasn't especially worried. And as for being "ripped off," that was debatable. Where else would I find paint? And high-quality, as we'd say, "environmentally friendly" products are obviously not lying around on the road.
In the end, everyone seemed satisfied—the natives got a bunch of equipment at bargain prices, and my troops got a diet of natural, non-freeze-dried food. The clones, with their accelerated metabolism, were big eaters anyway. Even their high-calorie rations were impressive in size, and they required an order of magnitude more regular food. So no one complained about the addition to the menu. They certainly ate for three.
The next couple of days were more than peaceful. No one attacked us, and we didn't fight anyone. All was quiet. You just had to clear your head during sword training and meditation; otherwise, it would swell like sour milk in a paper bag from trying to grasp all the details of the organizational work.
Damn, when we were just being attacked by droids, everything was so much easier—just shoot and swing your lightsaber, occasionally slipping into light meditation to study the flows of the Force and warn the troopers about the dangers I saw through it. But now… after only a slightly deeper look into the structure of the units entrusted to me, I already felt like I was back on the night before my thesis defense. And that was only the beginning, because in addition to ground forces, I also had space forces, where the commander was required to know everything about his ships—from the brand and design of the hyperdrive to the regular rotation of cooks in the galley.
In short, the only way I could quiet the buzz in my head from information overload was to step away for half an hour and swing my sword with the training droids. Remember that funny little round droid Luke Skywalker trained with? Well, I had six of them. I started with one, of course, but now I'd worked up to three. In this way, I improved my foresight and practiced techniques from Soresu—the third form of lightsaber combat—while trying to combine them with my basic Shii-Cho.
Or I meditated, in the best traditions of the Star Seers (as the Order sometimes called the Balance Corps)—in other words, contemplating the universe through the Force and thinking about nothing. Regular, healthy sleep was included in this list only as a last resort, because there was simply no time for it. I got out of my armor maybe a couple of times at most. There was no other way—the lull couldn't last long, and I had to catch up on everything I could while it did.
The construction of the base was nearing completion: the walls were up, the towers finished, everything that needed painting was painted, and the paths were sprinkled with sand in the best traditions of the world's armies. A network of fortifications had been deployed around the main garrison area. The trenches, of all things, caused the most difficulty. As I mentioned, the clones didn't have any shovels. At all. They had to improvise and place an unusual order with the engineering service—for bayonet and shovel-type trench tools. Fortunately, there was a sea of scrap metal nearby, the forest was close, and only a complete humanities scholar wouldn't know what a sapper's shovel looked like back in my homeland.
All the droids were put to work. Several charging stations were set up on the base, and droid squads began patrolling. One J-1 was stationed at each end of the runway as a fixed, large-caliber anti-aircraft gun. Each was assigned a squad of droids as loaders, while the clones handled service and operation.
The main caliber of the space defense system was the SPHA installations, which suited the role perfectly. Four self-propelled heavy artillery provided a reliable "umbrella" over the base—at least against large ships. Small craft were to be shot down with improvised anti-aircraft guns: a wild mix of captured laser and blaster cannons, mounted on pedestals with shields, as well as twin and quadruple E-5 blasters.
Almost all of the AAT tanks had been restored, and those that couldn't be repaired were used for spare parts or as stationary firing points in the fortified perimeter around the fortress. I was somewhat surprised to discover that, in addition to various blaster cannons, they were also armed with six rocket launchers with mass accelerators located in the lower part of the hull. The ammunition load was small, but there were three types of rockets: armor-piercing, high-explosive, and incendiary. However, in the previous battle, the AATs had hardly fired any rockets, and in my sector they hadn't launched a single one—which puzzled me, since most vehicles still had their rocket ammunition intact. Racking my brain, I couldn't recall a single episode in the cartoon series where they'd used that weapon. Most likely, it was because droids always went in front of the tanks, blocking their line of fire, as I'd seen myself. Still, their behavior had always seemed fundamentally strange.
In any case, I discovered one rather unpleasant feature of their design, which partly explained that behavior: it was practically impossible to reload the missile launchers in the field. Or rather, it was possible—but extremely difficult. You had to disassemble almost half the hull! Should weapons be easy to use? No, apparently not.
Fortunately, there was no such madness with laser weaponry, although even there things were far from "convenient" or "optimal." But first of all—who ever cared about a droid's comfort? Certainly not the Neimodians. And secondly, there had been even more terrifying designs in the history of Mother Earth. The legendary T-34 comes to mind—I once read about how tankers regarded its first modifications. The struggle with control, shooting, communication between crew members, and just the convenience of accommodation that people often refused to get into it at all. Repairing it in the field was a heroic feat. Just think—accessing the engine required lifting a hatch weighing over six hundred kilograms! So let's not waste our breath complaining. In war, the main thing is to have a gun that shoots; the rest will follow.
Overall, I now had, by local standards, a solid armored force, though it didn't come close to the tank divisions of World War II in terms of numbers. Also, thanks to welded brackets, each tank could now carry up to eight droids or six clone troopers for cover, which was a significant advantage.
We also managed to modernize our AT-TE walkers—with shields and armored cabins, they became less vulnerable to enemy fire. No, of course, I understood—the army had been preparing in the strictest secrecy, and according to the paperwork, the equipment was either civilian or "dual-use." But honestly, did the designers of this equipment ever think with their heads? That this stuff would actually go into battle? That it would be shot at? Sure, the machines were reliable and quite advanced by local standards, given the lack of military progress—but still, there's a limit! On the one hand, the walker could move across almost any solid surface, even vertical walls (!), but that excavator-style cabin just killed me.
Reconnaissance units quickly claimed the working droid speeders. Ours were faster and more powerful, but the captured ones were more maneuverable, and their powerful repulsors let them leap to impressive heights—almost three hundred meters—or "jump" down safely from even greater ones. They were practically mini-fighters.
In the process, I remembered something amusing and ordered the construction of a sports complex and obstacle course. You know—horizontal bars, climbing walls, parallel bars. I don't know about the privates, but the sergeants loved the idea, since sooner or later the fortification work would end, and then the "chaos" would begin. What else could happen—soldiers with nothing to do are trouble. I could only hope this idea wouldn't be wasted and that we wouldn't be sent somewhere else before the guys even got to try the equipment.
By the way, after getting some paint from the locals, I started experimenting with the color of the clones' armor. In principle, camouflage doesn't play a big role in the GFFA. With the local development of surveillance and recognition systems, you could bury yourself underground and plant a flower on top, and they'd still find you. But a "life scanner" costs more than some combat droids, and cheaper gear—like thermal imagers—doesn't work on GAR clones. They're in sealed armor, even suitable for space, so what body heat are we talking about? Add to that the chronic stinginess of the Neimodians, and the logical conclusion follows: the vast majority of CIS droids aren't equipped with special detection systems at all, relying instead on primitive optical visors.
The natives provided several dozen paint samples. After some deliberation, I created something resembling gray steel—or the unforgettable feldgrau—with black airbrushed stripes. I painted a helmet as a test and was pleased with the result. Not too flashy, and it looked… more menacing, I suppose.
I called in the regimental commanders and outlined the task of repainting the clones' armor, showing them the sample. Infantry would get additional black and red stripes; vehicle crews would not. Naturally, we had to start with reconnaissance and sabotage units, and their equipment—particularly the speeders—had to be repainted as well.
They exchanged glances, saluted silently, and gradually the number of white armor suits began to decrease. It was supposed to be finished in a couple of days—after all, repainting fifteen thousand sets of armor was no small task.
The naming of the light cruiser and frigates under my command also went by quietly. The Consul was named Isaribi, and the two Peltas were christened Diana and Pallas, respectively.