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“Sit down, children, and listen well. You came looking for a story and so I shall tell one to you, so long as you promise that, when the time is right and the flowers bloom between the stars again, one day you will tell this story anew.”
The man in the armchair leaned forwards to peer at the huddle of small faces sat at his feet. They blinked away the dust being shaken loose from the rafters and peered back. The ex-cargo ship had been their safe haven and sanctuary when the sandstorms had rattled through in years gone by and so it was again now. But as blaster fire pierced the air like needles in the distance and the rumble of jets churned the air and kicked the sand into an unnatural storm, he couldn’t help but wonder how safe they really were as he cleared his throat with a cough and began.
“An age ago, when my knees were strong and my heart was light, I was a soldier. Was I like the ones which patrol for today’s Empire? Well, yes and no. And don’t interrupt. I was just like them in as much as I was a young man with a purpose. But unlike the stormtroopers, I had brothers. Not just brothers in arms, but true brothers. To the untrained eye you would not know where one of us ended and the next began- we were all so alike. To the eye, at least. Inside, however, we were as different as ear and eye for as much as we served the same greater purpose our souls were unique in the Force. We were, unoriginally if you ask me, known as the clone army”
“But what use is a body in which the brain cannot distinguish eye and ear? The same question can be asked of an army which doesn’t know how to call upon the skills of each soldier in turn. Naturally, we could all tell each other apart. Indeed, it was nearly instinctive- we were all so close. We required commanders who could do the same, even without looking at the patterns painted from our hearts onto our helmets, and the only ones in this whole wide universe who could do this were known as the Jedi.”
“Now don’t look at me like that or I’ll not continue. You don’t believe in Jedi, now, is that it? Mama said you shouldn’t talk about them after dark hmm? Well, seeing as we have no way of knowing if it’s dark beyond the sand swirls little one, I should like to continue. Hmph. And what did I say about interruptions?”
After a moment to permit shuffling and a few coughs, the man continued.
“You may think you know about the Clones - who we were, who we are - but I’d wager my left boot this is a fragment history has omitted. For many years after the first clones were created it remained undiscovered. Those were happier years. Much happier, as they happened before the first great victory of the droid army over the clones. A small grey planet in the depths of winter is no place for a man. Plenty of room for clankers though. Cut off by snow for two weeks, and provisions lowered by an orbital blockade, nearly twelve hundred of my brothers lost their lives in the three days it took to evacuate the last civilians.”
A soft silence fell on his face and across the room, until save for the wandering sadness in his eyes, it would have been easy to think he had simply fallen asleep. At least he rubbed his hand across his face and through his hair and forced a weary smile for his audience.
“Six months later, when the Confederacy had moved their forces along and the ice had thawed and the homesickness could be ignored no longer, the Jedi gave the order to return the civilians home. So we took them home, if it was still standing, and if it was not we built a new one as best we could and wished them well. And after so long in our hospitality and care, they asked if there was anything they could do in return, to thank us. Some of my brothers simply never wanted to see the planet ever again, while others wanted to build remote defences to make sure that could be a reality. We finally on simply asking that the area where our brothers had died would never be built on.”
“Naturally, the area’s leaders readily agreed and asked us to show them where this was. So we took them. I guess you could say what we saw sowed the seeds of the secret faith that bound the clone army.”
“The valley had filled with a flower the likes of which had never been seen in the planet before. They were identified by the Jedi who called them tulips, and taken by the people as a blessing- a bizarre and beautiful coincidence in the force.”
“The story trickled through the ranks, jumping from ship to ship as troops were shuffled and reshuffled in the constant game to try and maintain the better hand. Bloody and brutal as the war was, it was only a matter of time before more of my brothers died and were laid to rest on the strange planets where they fell. As the war wound on, like the ebb and flow of tides, we would leave planets and return to them again many months later. And time and time we found fields of tulips had swallowed the battlefields.”
“Before long, shrines had started to appear on ships. Some believed that tulips only grew on battlefields which were destined to never see battle again; some believed it was where the most good had been achieved at the highest price. It was a while longer before we truly understood- even then understanding came bit by bit and mostly by accident.”
“Most shrines quickly took the form of tiny gardens, although that would be a generous description. Old ammunition crates, which were all too quick to empty, would be filled with some earth from planets where the tulips grew in the hopes they might bloom on the ships. More often than not these would be outside infirmary wards, buried deep in the heart of the ship. There was very little space on board those ships, believe it or not, massive as they were, but there were benches there to wait to be seen to or to wait for visit a brother.”
“There is no such thing as an unsinkable ship- a fact that kept us fearful and fighting in equal measure all throughout the war. One day, after a long but close quarters campaign, a cruiser which soon adopted the name The Tulip was pierced right the way through with a powerful ion beam. One of my brothers was caught in its path, stood at the infirmary entrance, and was blasted into the barren shrine. Medics tried to save him but it was too late. He died where he lay. The ship was rebuilt and the dead were grieved for by clones and Jedi alike, but this time something new happened:”
“A single tulip bloomed, in an old ammo crate outside the infirmary.”
A chorus of gasps brought a small smile to the mans wrinkled face, revealing crows feet etched deep into the corners of his eyes.
“Now, I think that might be all the excitement you should have for one night- or else you’ll never sleep. Too much excitement and I won’t sleep either, come to think of it, so I think I shall tell you the rest tomorrow.”
The large beseeching eyes he was faced with upon saying this reminded him of lothcats with their wide grins. He was just about to insist when a little hand waved at him from the middle of the group.
“But sir,” the child began, “if we can’t sleep, and you also can’t sleep, surely it makes much more sense for you to continue your story. I think it would be…” she seemed to ponder her words carefully before continuing with tact beyond her years which made the clone’s heart ache. “Surely it would be mutually beneficial, if you continued the story. Please?”
‘What a way to melt an old man’s heart’ the storyteller thought as the little girl settled down again, tucking her lekku behind her.
“Ah, we have a negotiator in our midsts,” he said, “and who am I to argue with such a good point when made so well. You know, we had a ship called The Negotiator. She was beautiful. Her general was a Jedi as good with words as he was with a lightsaber. In fact it was General Kenobi who solved the next puzzle of the tulips.”
“Once it was widespread knowledge that tulips grew on any ground a clone died on, those who were about to die in an infirmary started to request that they be placed on soil before they passed so they may remain with the ship and their brothers. Now, General Kenobi was in command of the whole Negotiator but his particular battalion of clones was the 212th. As fierce as fire drakes they were, and had taken the same shade of bright orange as their battalion colours, with each man decorating his armour as he chose- like a raxshir choosing its stripes. It was a very personal thing how you decorated your armour, and somehow you would never find two quite the same.”
“One day, the 212th were deployed on what they had hoped would be an ordinary hostage extraction- dangerous enough to warrant care but not a backup battalion. Not that one would have done all that much good if the story is to be believed. The were ambushed, divided, and then ambushed again. A battalion had one general and one commander- split it too much as the droids knew no matter how hard the clones tried they would be on the back foot. And so it was. Communications and trackers were jammed and so as The Negotiator sat waiting in the sky just out of reach, dozens of the 212th were killed.”
“In fits and spurts for nearly a week afterwards, clones and hostages began to make it back to The Negotiator. During General Kenobi’s period of absence, his former padawan -a sort of half mentee, half ward- General Skywalker and his padawan Commander Tano, arrived to try to quell the chaos.”
“However, late one night Commander Cody, General Kenobi’s clone commander arrived back with what he described as the last of the survivors. None of us, not least the other Jedi, believed the General could have died until Cody brought forth a lightsaber. What is a lightsaber you ask? The jedi each had one as a weapon: a sword of pure light which they crafted themselves; it was as unique to them as a clones armour pattern. But jedi also shared a special link, especially within lineages, and so Skywalker decided to hold the Negotiator fast for another 24 hours in the hope that Kenobi would find his way back. And he did.”
“He arrived back battered and bruised and was immediately confined to the infirmary to recover. Upon waking up, his battalion was eager to hear how he had managed to escape. Kenobi told them that they had their brothers to thank, and that they had found a way back to a ship together, but the clones knew something their general did not. While they had been waiting, they had made record of the toll taken by their battalion, and so they knew what the general had said could not possibly be true. Every clone he had listed as aiding his return was dead.”
“For many days after learning this, General Kenobi took to private meditation- part prescribed, part self-imposed. The only ones he would see were Skywalker, Tano, and Cody. It was as he took supper with Cody that he solved the puzzle to what really happened to bring him back to the Negotiator.”
“Some context first, children, which you will forgive an old man for not mentioning sooner. A tulip is a sturdy flower, about the size of your first, which grows straight up from the ground on a single long stem. It is formed of six petals which form a rounded cup shape. Or as it is more typically described now, like an up turned helmet.”
“And it was upon seeing Cody’s upturned helmet placed on a shelf above them while they ate that the true events of his escape returned to the general.”
“You see, having lost his lightsaber, General Kenobi was forced to crawl on his stomach back in the direction he hoped he had come. The sad truth was that he was crawling along a route markered by fallen clones from his battalion- and the tulips which had grown where they fell. Tulips he was able to recognised by name because each one was marked in the same pattern as the helmet of the clone who had died there.”
“I know, I know- we were scarcely able to believe it was true at first either, but slowly and sadly as the war wore on we were able to put the theory to the test.”
“Once we knew for certain that each tulip was intimately linked to one of our brothers they became utterly sacrosanct. We will never know for sure exactly how the flowers knew what form to take, but the general belief was that the calling which pushed clones towards their armour pattern was written into their force signature- the jedi belief in one energy contained within and connecting all living things. If we ever could, we started to return these small parts of our brothers souls to Genonosis, where all clones start their lives, or to the ships. Shrines grew and grew into gardens of tulips which filled whole halls. Facilities were rearranged in order to house them, because slowly but surely they started to fill.”
“They were beautiful: a living reminder of what we lost, and a comfort that if we died we would be returned to be amongst our brothers again.”
“When the Empire rose to power, the clones they took into their ranks were no longer permitted to paint their helmets. Whether it was our closeness to the jedi, or each other, or something else entirely - it vanished, along with the tulip markings. I want you to remember that if you ever see a plain white tulip, little ones. That it was once a brother of mine, with a name, and a life and a soul and that it was all taken from him by the Empire, turning him into just a number, as if he were no more to them than a droid. Indistinguishable from the masses, even in death.”
“One day I shall become a tulip too. When that day comes, I hope with every part of me that it is not white, although I fear it may be. There shall also come a day when I hope you are all as old and wizened as I am now, and you shall come across a tulip and I hope you pull your dear ones close and tell them why it’s there and how it came to grow in, more likely than not, such an unlikely place. Do you all promise me you will?”
Like a spell suddenly broken, his rapt audience broke into furious nods. Between coughs and sniffs, soft snores could be heard coming from the other sections of the ships. After a few moments it dawned on the old clone what this meant.
“We have weathered tonight’s storm, children.” He said quietly, “So now -and no negotiating- it is time for us all to sleep. Perhaps though, if you are persuasive enough tomorrow, I can think of some more tales to tell. I suppose it couldn’t hurt. Now, come on, off with you all. Go on, go, go to bed.”
He shook his hands at them as they scattered, feigning irritation he couldn’t muster, and watched as each one crawled back onto their family’s mat. Parents and older siblings, aunts and uncles reflexively opened their arms to them, and they nuzzled close to be cocooned in their embrace. ‘One day’, he thought, ‘I will step into an embrace like that again one day’. He drifted off to sleep with a smile with the knowledge that he would not greet death’s embrace as that of an old friend, but as that of a brother.