#force-sensitive clone

---

Getting out of the crashed ship was significantly easier after Hardcase discovered he could move objects with his mind. ...Or his hands? Or his soul? Honestly, the mechanics of it weren’t very clear to him, but the point was he could suddenly lift the durasteel flotsam and jetsam blocking his way.

Hardcase hopped down from the busted-out wall of the Separatist ship, his boots crunching on the rocky earth below him. He could hardly see anything, but at least he could breathe. The Separatist ship had been so eerily empty and quiet, a graveyard that had never housed living beings even before its catastrophic crash. 

The misty darkness swirled around him, with only a few distant bioluminescent plants visible in the distance. Hardcase had absolutely no idea where he was.

Luck had been on his side when he’d found his helmet lying in a pile of scrap metal not too far from his initial landing site, but luck had its limits. Hardcase shoved the helmet on his head, testing the comms once again just in case something about the innards of the melted ship had interfered with his signal, but still no luck. He was on his own.

He picked a direction at random and started walking, careful not to step on any carnivorous plants. As he made his way through the endless haze, every so often he would take a turn in a different direction. He couldn’t articulate any particular reason for it, but it felt right, and Hardcase had always trusted his gut. 

As he walked he practiced pushing and pulling things. He knew that Jedi had other powers besides just that, but it wasn’t really clear to him what they were. He did know he was Jedi, though. Only the Jedi could manipulate the Force, and Hardcase knew that was what he was doing. There was no other explanation.

The exploration of his newfound abilities absorbed nearly all of Hardcase’s attention, and he found himself losing track of time. It was fascinating, figuring out how to push versus pull, how to adjust the power behind his movements, and what his maximum range was. He couldn’t say exactly what he was doing was. He just sort of thought, and it happened. Or maybe willed was more accurate? He didn’t know, but after hours of undivided attention, he felt like he was getting the hang of it. His laser-focused attention span helped with that. Hardcase couldn’t always control what caught his attention, but once it was caught it stayed caught.

The distant boom of mortar fire jolted Hardcase from his near-trance, and he looked up. A tall, inorganic cliff of duracrete became visible through the fog. It was the airbase. Hardcase had no idea if he’d been walking hours or days, but he was relieved to see the base he hoped the GAR still held.

“Thank the Force I landed so close to the boys,” Hardcase said to no one in particular.

He started off in the direction of the airbase, watching for enemy combatants as he scrambled across a narrow outcrop towards the shining beacon of the airbase. Then, he stopped. His feet were pulling him in a different direction. Or maybe not his feet? Maybe his stomach. Regardless, something wouldn’t let him keep going along the outcrop, so he followed his instincts and climbed down the ridge, heading towards a narrow gorge off to the side.

The gorge opened up onto a clearing of sorts, and Hardcase instantly recognized the innocent-looking pods dotting the landscape. It was those creatures—those many-toothed plants that too many unwitting clones had stumbled onto to their doom.

He turned around to find another way, but the tugging at his feet became more insistent. This way, that something urged him. This way.

Narrowing his eyes, Hardcase turned back around and took a cautious step towards the field of man-eating plants, his arms held up daintily as if letting them swing might alert the creatures to his presence. He took another step. Then another. Then another. Soon, he was only a few meters away from the first creature. The mysterious urging stopped.

“Well…” Hardcase whispered into the ether. “I’m here. Now what?”

The pod closest to him burst open, its long tentacles flailing wildly and its sharp-toothed mouth opening and snapping shut. Hardcase dove away, rolling across the dusty earth to create as much distance between him and the murderous plant as possible. A tentacle grabbed onto his leg, but he reached out with the Force and threw the tentacle off of him. He scrambled further away, heart racing and head pounding with adrenaline, and then he was out of reach.

The tentacles reached blindly towards him in the dark, but they couldn’t quite close the distance. Hardcase caught his breath, pulling in huge gasps of breath for his greedy lungs. 

“What,” he said through gasps of air, “the kriff am I doing here?”

The plant only flailed in response, and Hardcase threw it a rude gesture for good measure. Then the plant’s tentacle retracted and it let out a hearty belch, throwing something small and shiny from its mouth before pulling back into its pod. The unidentified object sailed through the air, then landed at Hardcase’s feet.

Leaning forward on his knees, Hardcase picked it up. It was a lightsaber—or rather half of one. It looked like one of those double-sided lighsabers, but it had been ripped in half. Hardcase was pretty sure it was General Krell’s lightsaber. Hardcase looked around him, only now noticing the singes of blaster fire and the chipped bits of plastoid—telltale signs of a fight.

“What happened here…” he said, eyes falling back to the lightsaber.

One end of the hilt ended in a mess of exposed wires and torn metal, but something about the lightsaber felt right in his hand. With a sudden certainty, Hardcase knew it was the lightsaber that had called him here. He ignited the lightsaber and a blue beam of light extended from the hilt with a whoosh. It was beautiful. And it was right.

A slow smile crept up Hardcase’s face, he switched off the ‘saber and got to his feet, holding the it confidently off to the side. He turned his face back to the airbase, ready to go home.

---

“Hardcase! You’re alive!” Fives charged towards Hardcase, grinning like a fool.

“Yeah,” Hardcase said, barely managing to get the words out as Fives pulled him into a tight hug and squeezed the breath out of him. “I survived the crash landing.”

Jesse joined them, hot on Fives’ heals. “The Force is really on your side, brother. We thought we wouldn’t see you again.”

“Oh, you don’t even know the half of it,” Hardcase said with a smirk. He extricated himself from Fives’ arms and unhooked his newfound lightsaber from his belt, igniting it and letting its blue glow wash over his speechless brothers’ faces.

Fives was the first to pick his jaw up off the ground. “Hardcase… Where did you…?”

“That’s not even the good part. Look!”

Hardcase held a hand out in front of him and lifted Fives off the ground. Nothing too drastic—only a meter or two.

“Well karking hell,” Jesse whispered.

Fives’ smirk turned into a beaming smile. “Tell me about it.”

---

A ring of low, opulent chairs circled Hardcase, boxing him in like a squad of clankers coming in on both flanks. General Yoda stared at him from his rounded, plush seat, his clawed fingers clicking as he drummed them against the top of his staff.

“Trooper Hardcase. What brings you before the Jedi Council today?” General Yoda said.

“Well, General, err, Master Yoda,” Hardcase quickly corrected. “I’d like to join the Jedi Order.”

Master Yoda’s eyebrows rose and another member—Ki-Adi-Mundi, Hardcase thought—choked.

“Join the Jedi Order, say you?” Master Yoda said.

“Well, yes. I am a Jedi, after all.”

“Hardcase,” Master Windu said, leaning forward across his knees. “You understand that a person must be Force sensitive to become a Jedi, correct?”

“Yeah. I got that part,” Hardcase said, reaching a hand out and floating his helmet from where he held it at his hip to the center of the room, then pulling it back to him.

They’d all heard his claims before he’d arrived, and still every member of the Council, without exception, wore those stupid faces of shock at the sight. Hardcase almost laughed. Who’d have imagined the all-powerful Jedi could be caught off guard like that?

“Even so,” Master Windu said, the first to regain his composure, “Jedi are trained from infancy to join the Order. It’s not something you can just wake up one day and decide you want to do.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Master Windu. The lightsaber thought I was enough of a Jedi to call to me.”

The clicking of Yoda’s fingers against his staff stopped. “Call to you, it did?”

Hardcase unclipped the lightsaber from his hip and ignited it, a smile rising to his lips as its familiar glow illuminated his face. “Yeah. It spoke to me.”

“What did it say?” Master Windu said.

“I mean, it wasn’t exactly talking. It was more of a feeling. Like, ‘Hey, you! Come over here! Pick me!’”

“Huh.” Master Windu said, and Hardcase couldn’t help but be tickled to see the unflappable Jedi stymied.

“Master Windu, untrained Hardcase may be, but some skill he already has. Afford to let this opportunity go, we cannot. Wills it, the Force does.”

The other Council members murmured amongst themselves, and Hardcase caught a few nods of assent.

“Well who’s going to train him, then?”

Master Yoda smiled. “Master Windu, a Padawan, you have not.”

Master Windu’s face fell, and he looked to Hardcase with a raised eyebrow.

“It’d be an honor, sir,” Hardcase said.

---

Hardcase followed Master Windu as he strode purposefully into Chancellor Palpatine’s office. Windu hadn’t invited Hardcase along as such, but Hardcase was his Padawan. What else was he supposed to do?

Masters Fisto, Kolar, and Tiin were there, too, each of them wearing their serious, “Jedi business” faces. And this was serious business. It wasn’t every day you went to arrest the Chancellor of the Republic for potentially being a Sith lord.

They entered the office and the Chancellor’s chair twirled around, revealing the Chancellor’s too-mild face and too-soft smile.

“Master Windu! I take it General Grievous has been destroyed, then. I must say you’re here sooner than expected.”

Master Windu drew his lightsaber. “In the name of the Galactic Senate, you are under arrest, Chancellor.”

Hardcase and the others drew their lightsabers as well, the blue and green light reflecting off of the Chancellor’s massive window.

“Are you threatening me, Master-?”

Hardcase lunged for Palpatine, stabbing him right through the gut. The Chancellor gasped, his eyes going wide in shock, but not pain. Hardcase imagined he couldn’t really feel anything at that point. He knew from experience the funny way shock could mask agony.

“Wh-what?” the malicious old man croaked, his hand fumbling at his waist.

“Hardcase! What have you done?” Windu said.

Palpatine grabbed a lightsaber hidden under his robes, igniting its red beam and stabbing weakly in Hardcase’s direction. Hardcase easily deflected the blow.

“Your reign is over, Sith,” he spat.

Palpatine looked up at Hardcase with hate in his eyes, the irises turning yellow as his strength failed. “A dirty clone thinks he can best me?”

Hardcase grabbed the Chancellor’s lightsaber by the hilt and tossed it away. He crouched down and got right in Palpatine’s face, looking him hard in the eye. “Oh, I think I just did, sir.”

Palpatine gasped out one final breath, then slumped to the ground. Master Windu rushed to his side, checking his neck for a pulse with two fingers. 

“He’s dead,” he said, looking up at Hardcase with a furrowed brow. “Why did you do that? He was supposed to stand trial.”

Hardcase held his lightsaber up, the pulsing energy from the crystal hidden inside vibrating with reassurance. “He was going to kill us, Master. I could feel it.”

“We can’t just tell the Senate we killed the Chancellor on a hunch.”

Hardcase met his Master’s gaze, his jaw set with determination. “I’ll bear responsibility for my actions. But I knew I had to stop him. He had that feeling—the same one that Krell had. I think that’s why his lightsaber called to me. To make things right.”

Master Fisto walked to the far side of the room and picked up the Sith lightsaber. He ignited it and admired the sanguine blade with a morbid sort of fascination. “Well, he certainly was a Sith. That might make our case easier to make to the Senate.”

“Come,” Master Windu said, getting to his feet. “We need to inform the Council and the Senate.”

Hardcase followed after him without an ounce of doubt in his being. He knew he might be imprisoned or even executed for this, but it was right. Chancellor Palpatine had been playing the Republic and the Separatists against each other this entire time, and his brothers had paid the price. He would be proud to sacrifice himself to stop it. He closed his eyes. Live to fight another day.

---

In the end, Hardcase had Padme Amidala to thank for his freedom. He’s a clone, ordered and programmed to be unquestioningly loyal to the Jedi and the Republic, she’d argued. He deemed, correctly, that Chancellor Palpatine posed an existential threat to the Republic, and he acted per his training, she’d said. All the evidence collected after the fact of Palpatine’s double-dealing and manipulations hadn’t hurt, either. When the true depth of Palpatine’s machinations had been revealed, it had been clear that the man could weasel his way out of any situation if given half a minute to talk.

Senator Amidala’s compelling arguments had also forced the Senate to grapple with the questionable morals of the clones’ training and conscription, an outcome that made Hardcase even happier than his own acquittal. Things were moving much more slowly than he would like, but they were moving. One day, he wouldn’t be the only clone free to move about as he chose.

These thoughts buoyed Hardcase’s steps as he made his way into the Jedi Council chambers, his knees bouncing when he came to a halt in the ornate circle at the center of the room.

“Padawan Hardcase, proposed, it has been, that you be elevated to Knighthood in the Jedi Order,” Master Yoda said.

Master Windu got to his feet and ignited his purple lightsaber. “Kneel.”

Hardcase obediently bowed before Master Windu, closing his eyes and thinking of his brothers as he let the reality of his situation sink in.

“By the right of the Council, by the will of the Force. Hardcase. Rise, Jedi Knight.”

The whirr of Master Windu’s lightsabers sang across Hardcase’s ears, and his chest swelled with pride. Pride in himself, pride in the GAR, pride in his brothers. He got to his feet, head held high.

“Congratulations, Knight Hardcase.”

Hardcase beamed, shoving Master Windu affectionately in the arm. “Thank you! Er, thank you, Master.”

Master Windu rubbed his arm with that annoyed expression on his face, but he gave Hardcase a long-suffering smile.

“I’d like to go see my brothers to celebrate,” Hardcase said.

“Go,” Master Windu said, shooing him away. “Before you break anything.”

“Thank you, Master!”

He dashed off down the hall, so eager to rub his promotion in Jesse’s face that he missed the looks Master Yoda and Master Windu exchanged as he left.

---

“Wrong we were, I think,” Master Yoda said.

“About what? Unfortunately I’ve been wrong about a lot of things lately.”

“The Chosen One, Skywalker never was.”

Master Windu’s gaze followed his overeager apprentice as he clattered through the tranquil halls of the Jedi Temple. He thought of Ponds’ steady presence at his side for so many long campaigns. He thought of the courage in Ponds’ eyes in the face of death. He thought of the thousands of shiny troopers who’d marched into battle with only thoughts of the Republic and each other pushing them forward.