CT-5539, nicknamed Hock, was bred for war
like the millions of other Clones on Kamino. But
unlike the rest of his clone brothers, he saw very little action of the Clone Wars,
as during one of its early battles he was abandoned when he
was shot out of a Republic gunship. Left for dead just like that by his Jedi General,
Hock came to hate the mystical warriors he originally looked up to. Unlike the legendary stories he had heard
of them prior to his first deployments, he came to realize how ineffective
the Jedi were as generals, countlessly making mistakes that cost the lives of troopers,
and even their own. They were not worthy to lead life-
time trained warriors like himself. Nearly having lost his own eye and greatly
injured, Hock was barely able to survive on his own
in the wilderness until he was finally rescued by a couple of farmers. Farming became his way
of life for the next 2 or so years, until Hock overheard some stories of a new dark
warrior that had arose in the galaxy since the Clone Wars. This dark warrior was Darth Vader, whose accomplishments
as the Empire’s enforcer reignited the fighting spirit within Hock, as he was
simply astonished of the possibility of serving a true
warrior for once in his life. With this new spark to fight, Hock left the
farming life and sought to rejoin his clone brothers,
who were now the newly reorganized Imperial Stormtroopers. While Hock made his way back into civilization,
he came across a city that was celebrating its
new Imperial Rulers, with the people being rewarded for their capture of a Jedi. The Jedi had
been beaten by the people and placed in a cage. Upon seeing the captured Jedi like this, Hock
came to realize just how truly weak they were in
the end, which only deepened his need to serve a true warrior like Darth Vader. Once he finally got to dawn the white armor
of the clones once more, Hock we brought under the Sith Lord’s command. Having realized how different a man he became
since he was originally abandoned, Hock came to engrave
the lessons he had learned of survival by painting
his helmet with a red mark to symbolize the scar he received during his abandonment. During his first battle in years, Hock gave
it his all, going beyond the call of duty and doing
everything he could to prove to Vader that he was worthy to be under his command. And as
expected, Vader did come to notice Hock’s performance, becoming impressed with the clone’s
ability to hold his own against near-impossible odds. Hock came to notice Vader’s supernatural
actions as well, being amazed to see them firsthand,
as the Sith Lord cut down numerous Jedi at once with ease and his ability to stoke fear
in the Empire’s enemies with just his presence
alone. Unlike the Jedi, who only spoke of peace and
order, Vader physically brought peace and order
through his actions, and that alone made Hock look up to him. Hock’s actions of going beyond the call
of duty earned him not only the Sith Lord’s respect, but
also the title of commander within Vader’s troopers. Soon he came to earn the cyborg’s trust
as well, which was a rarity few were able to
attain. Then came the battle of Ostor, which would
put Hock and Vader’s relationship to a test. Ostor
came to become a home of a separatist colony which sought to live outside of Imperial rule. The
Empire of course was not going to allow that to happen, as upon its discovery of the Separatist
colony, Darth Vader and his troops were sent. Now the entire operation that underwent involving
Ostor was the first time Hock came to criticize Vader. There were 3 main mistakes the Sith Lord made
in the Clone’s opinion. First was that
Vader himself did not participate in the battle on the ground himself, second was that he
ordered no reconnaissance prior to the battle, and
third was that he put General Rohn in charge, The only thing he did right in Hock’s opinion
was having the clone being placed in charge of the
first advance. But there was only so much the clone commander
could do against General Rohn’s command. First, the General became emotionally invested
into the battle upon seeing the enemy hold up a
banner that made fun of him personally. This caused the general to order a direct
attack on the enemy, which saw the movement of all the troopers
deep into the enemy’s territory without proper reinforcements. Although initially they were slaughtering
the enemy with ease, Hock came to realize how
suspicious everything seemed and requested for his men to fall back, sensing a trap from
the enemy to be sprung at them. The General dismissed Hock’s concerns, with
himself being more concerned about the fact that
the banner that insulted him still being up. Hock refused to obey the general’s command
and attempted to reorganize the troops himself on
the ground. But there was too much chaos happening for
him to accomplish anything, and in his opinion, because some of the armor was being
worn by non-clone Humans, that already had greatly weakened the discipline of the entire
battalion. Hock eventually made his way back to General
Rohn’s position back inside the AT-TE walker, demanding the general to change his mind and
call in for a tactical retreat, to the point of
throwing his own helmet at the walker’s window. Being shown such disrespect, the general ordered
Hock to be taken in as a traitor, but Hock refused to go down without a fight, eventually
shooting his way into the AT-TE walker and snapping General Rohn’s neck. But he was too late to change the outcome
of the battle, as while he was fighting his way to stop
General Rohn, all the other Imperial troopers were killed as they had fallen into the trap
Hock had predicted earlier. Soon after, Hock received a call from Darth
Vader who demanded answers as to what had happened. And answers were given, from the clone to
the Sith Lord. Understanding that this defeat was partially
Vader’s own fault for being too careless in the
beginning, both he and Hock came to an agreement to put the entire blame on General Rohn. And this level of trust was put to the greatest
test, as both Vader and Hock were to explain themselves to Emperor Palpatine himself, who
was accompanied by some other high-ranking Imperials. As they had planned earlier, they both placed
the blame on all the faults of the battle on General
Rohn. Never in his life had Hock expected to meet
the Emperor in person, let alone lie to him to
his face, but his trust in Vader had allowed him to carry on without flinching. As a result of them placing the blame on the
dead General, both clone and Sith Lord left the
meeting without punishment, with Palpatine only ordering Vader to always be directly
involved in battles from now on. Hock also came to realize how lucky he was
to not be terminated, later believing that Vader
himself prevented that from happening. As the two walked down the hallways following
their meeting with the Emperor, Vader came to
place his hand onto Hock’s shoulder in a comforting manner. The Sith Lord than asked if the
Clone was as bold behind the controls of a starfighter as he was on the battlefield,
or perhaps even more impressively, as he was in front
of the Emperor’s throne. Hock responded that he could definitely hold
his own, but Vader responded that he could find
countless pilots that could hold their own, for he wanted one he could trust. And Hock was the
only one he could count on in that regard. And as the Sith Lord left the clone following
those words, Hock came to view Vader as a friend
and was honored to hear the dark warrior put such great trust into him. But these feelings for Vader would soon come
crashing down, as Hock would come to see the true monster the Sith Lord actually was. Back on Ostor, it was round two for the Empire
and this time they were not playing around. Coming with attacks from both the air and
the ground, Hock joined Vader and helped lead the
starfighters against the Separatist’s shielded base. During their attack, the separatist colony
had yet another surprise attack up their sleeve,
as they too had starfighters to fight with, using
numerous ships from the former Republic. Although Hock was able to hold up his own
for quite some time, he was eventually shot down
and he blacked out right as he hit the ground. He later found himself waking up inside the
enemy’s medic bay. While there, he talked to a few of the other
injured patients until learning that there were no guards within the entire
base, as all those who were capable of fighting were
in the frontlines. With this new knowledge, Hock got himself
out of the medic bay and searched the base until he
discovered the command center which contained the 3 leaders of the Separatist colony. When he met them, Hock demanded they end their
crusade against the Empire and to surrender, but the separatist leaders refused. Instead, they attempted to persuade him, by
telling the clone exactly why they were fighting the Empire. Their goal was purely to do what
their people wanted, to fight for the fundamental principles of democracy and justice that the
Empire clearly did not believe in. And that their entire show of defiance that
day was done in a desire of lasting long enough to
inspire hope in others across the galaxy to do the same. Although still determined in stopping
their small rebellion, Hock was unable to commit himself to murdering them all there
with a pipe, as their devotion to such pure ideals had
him slightly shaken up. Plus, he saw no need to
murdering unarmed leaders who made it clear they would not fight back. Instead, Hock searched across the base until
he found its shield generator and was able to
disable it from protecting the entire colony. As the shields came down, the Imperial starfighters
began to bomb the buildings nearby. As Vader and his now landed troopers began
to march toward the enemy base, Hock decided to track down the enemy soldiers’ field
commander and take him out. But as Hock located this
rebel commander, he came to realize that he too was a clone. This once again shook the core
of Hock, as he never believed one of his own could betray the Empire. But this shock only lasted for a moment, as
Hock still followed through with attacking the rebel
commander. The two got into a brutal fist fight, with
them forming a large crowd around them as both the rebel soldiers watched from one side,
and Vader’s now approached troopers watching from the other. Vader had ordered them to stand down, as he
himself was curious to see the outcome of the clone fist fight. Although Hock was beaten down to the ground,
he did win by grabbing onto a giant rock and smashing it into the rebel clone commander,
killing him instantly. With a clear victor from the fight, Vader
ordered his troopers to fire upon the rebel soldiers that
stood across. While this was happening, Vader showed a rare
ounce of humanity by reaching a hand out to Hock, confirming to the clone
that the Sith Lord now viewed him as a true friend. With this boost in morale, Vader and Hock
together fought their way through the remaining rebel
soldiers. But as the rebel soldier numbers began to
dwindle, Vader’s wrath seemed to only increase. For he not only killed just the men, but the
women and children too. Hock seemed to be briefly caught up in this
revenge filled rage himself, but slowly snapped out
of it as he could barely recognize himself upon realizing the horrors he helped commit. As Hock was getting back to his senses, he
came to truly see the monster Darth Vader was at
his core. No one was spared from his killings, and the
horror Hock saw the Sith Lord commit was beyond inhuman to him, to the point where
he no longer viewed Vader as a human being, but as a mere demon. As the battle slowed down, Hock re-entered
the enemy base he had woken up in from earlier. As he entered the command room, he saw all
3 rebel leaders dead. It was clear they had not
put up a fight, but that did not matter to Vader. As he saw the Sith Lord make his way down
to the medic bay, Hock knew he needed to step in
and try to prevent anymore pointless deaths. As Vader entered the medic doorway, Hock
rushed in and demanded all the patients in that room to accept their defeat and kneel
before their new Imperial rulers, knowing that them
doing so was likely their only hope for being spared. What came next was perhaps the most shocking
thing both Hock and Vader saw. One of the
patients, who had all but one of their limbs blown off, made a slow but clear effort to
stand up on what little remained of his blown off legs. A stand up in defiance to ever kneeling to
the Empire was what he did. And his courage was then followed by everyone
else in the medic bay. Angered by this act of defiance, Vader proclaimed
their fates as the same of all those he had killed in the battle. And with that, the Sith Lord began to cut
down every single patient in that medic bay, all in front of Hock who watched
in horror. Not being able to take this nightmare any
longer, Hock started to shout “stop” at the Sith Lord. To his surprise, Vader did indeed stop and
stood still, perhaps in shock that the clone he had
trusted so much in had turned against him. Maybe bringing up memories of his other friends
who he believed had done the same in the past. Nonetheless, Hock was in such a shock that
he did not remember what he said after he had
gotten Vader’s attention. All he knew was that he had misplaced his
respect and came to realize what exactly the people were standing up against,
the pure evil that Vader and the Empire he served symbolized. For a brief moment, Hock reached out to Vader,
believing he could get to him to change his course in life. But then Hock realized something, that he
may have misinterpreted Vader’s stillness from earlier. It was all completely possible that the Sith
Lord had not heard or cared for Hock’s shouts to
stop. And that he only stood still as a means of
deciding on who to kill next. And with that
realization, Hock came to believe that Vader, the one he respected so much and desired being
friends with, was simply a monster he had to get away from. And the clone did just that, leaving the Empire
and becoming a farmer once more, with him later
starting a family of his own. Despite being away from Vader, Hock still
feared the dark monster, with him at times seeing the Sith Lord’s
helmet in the shadows of his wife. However, in the end,
Hock was able to live out the rest of his life in peace with his family, with Vader
becoming only an old memory to the Clone.
