Badlands

by Goethicite

Summary:

Kamino is a nightmare Din and Cara thought only the Imps could dream up. They aren't exactly off-base.

Chapter 1: Din

The doctor Jango had sent to Din and Cara’s newly assigned apartment was called Mij Gilamar.  He was a properly Mandalorian, resole’ad like Jango.  With the price on the kid’s head, Din hadn’t been willing to risk going to a clinic for a pediatric examination.  He hadn’t even risked going himself to treat his fractured skull and broken ribs after their run in with Gideon.  He’d healed in a backroom of Karga’s bar with an IV of bacta and more bacta gel smeared on the external damage while Cara stood guard.

Gilamar removed his golden helmet and gauntlets, setting them on the kitchenette counter.  He didn’t disarm which Din approved of.  “Fett said you had a kid who hasn’t seen a doctor in awhile,” he offered with a small, kind smile.  He was mostly human with prematurely silver-gray hair that was probably a genetic quirk of his non-human genetic ancestor.  His accent wasn’t one Din could place.

“Yeah,” Cara said for Din.  “This is the kid.”  She gestured at the child cradled protectively against Din’s chest.  “We don’t know their species.  They’re about fifty years old, probably.  And some… real bastards had them for some of it.  Experimented on them maybe.  We don’t know.”

“ Demagolkase ru’or’shupuur kaysh ,” Din said quietly.  “They can do magic like the jetiise .  The bastards wanted to rip it out of them.”

Gilamar nodded without any hint of shock or disgust.  “I understand.  When you’re ready, set them on the table.”

Din moved to set the kid on the pad of blankets in the center of the kitchenette table.  Cara pulled her blaster but left her hand hanging by her side.  Just in case.  The doctor had left his medical case on the counter as requested.  He’d have to go back and forth from the table to his case to get supplies and tools, but Cara could easily see what he was doing.

Gently, Din tugged off his womp rat’s long tunic leaving the kid bare except for their diaper in the warm room.  Boba had helpfully shown Din how to crank up the environmental controls so the kid wouldn’t catch a chill.  “So, are you riduure ?” Gilamar asked calmly as he showed Cara the scanner he was going to use.

“I don’t know that word,” Cara told Din.

“No.  She is ner’burc’ya .”  As Cara liked to say, there were three people in any bed she and Din might share.  Her, him, and their baggage.  Din had been taught there was only room for two in a proper Mandalorian marriage.  So he kept the words of riddurok curled securely beneath his tongue.  They could wait because Cara was already aliit .

Gilamar hummed naturally as he ran the scanner over the kid.  “But you both take care of them?”

“I’m their aunt,” Cara explained with cheerful defiance.  She still hadn’t fully comprehended that, to another Mandalorian, she was exactly the kind of warrior that would be a good co-parent.

“That’s good.  It really does take a clan.”  Gilamar examined the scanner readout with a slight frown.  “I don’t mean to be rude, ruyot’ad , but you do handle the child without your beskar'gam ?”

“I adopted them.  As my child, they have all of me.  This is the Way.”  Din was curious why it mattered to the doctor.  The beroya who’d raised him had respected Din’s wish not to be adopted.  He hadn’t ever seen the man without his helmet.

Gilamar murmured politely, “That is the Way.”  He adjusted something on the scanner.  “The readouts I’m getting are a bit odd but within the spectrum for a humanoid toddler with amphibious characteristics.  I need to take some blood to be sure, but I expect that their neurochemistry is similar enough to yours that they’ll require levels of parental engagement comparable to a human of equivalent age.  Have they had their standard suite of vaccines?”

The guilty silence was his answer.  Din stroked the kid’s ears gently.  “Right.  I’ll need a blood sample first.  Then we’ll give them the childhood standards.  Based on my scans, I’d put their age between three and six standard.  Though without actual species data that’s mostly a guess.”

“Wait, shouldn’t they be able to talk then?  I mean, Dameron’s brat was stringing words together when he was two.”  Cara’s question was sharp and high-pitched with nerves.  Din’s own heart was racing.  He automatically picked up the kid when they whined trying to soothe them.  He hadn’t ever thought to question why the kid couldn’t talk and still needed diapers.  They were a toddler.

“It sounds like they’ve been through a lot for a long time.  Even if they were a known species I wouldn’t expect them to be hitting standard developmental markers.  Regression isn’t an uncommon response by children to traumatic events.  Closer to the Core they encourage therapy and professional intervention for that kind of thing.  For you, I’d just recommend a great deal of patience.  They'll talk when they’re ready.”  Gilamar laid out a line of single use hyposprays and three of the small, needle-topped vials used for drawing blood on the counter.

Din swallowed and turned to lean his helmet against the child.  The kid was cooing softly in response to his distress.  “You can take as long as you need,” he promised them.  “I don’t mind.”

Gilamar chuckled as he brought the blood draw ampule to the table.  “I wouldn’t worry too much.  Once a kid starts to feel properly safe with their buir , they’ll surprise you with how quickly they bounce back.  The rest is what you already know, structure, routine, and love.”  He showed both Din and the kid the ampule.  “This is what I use to take a blood sample,” he informed the kid seriously.  “I’m going to use a wipe to numb a little bit of your arm.  Then I’ll push this against numb skin.  It won’t hurt but you will feel pressure.  Buir, why don’t we show them how it works?”

Din put the kid down so he could take off his glove and push up the sleeve of his kute.  Gilamar ripped open a sachet and used the pad inside to wipe down the skin of Din’s wrist.  It tingled for a few seconds then went numb.  Din didn’t feel it when Gilamar pressed the ampule to his skin until the small bulb was full of blood.  “Are you baseline human?” Gilamar asked absently as he broke off the needle off along the pre-weakened breakline and tossed the needle and his gloves into the box he was using for biohazardous waste.

“I think so.  I’m a foundling and my guardian didn’t have the money to have me sequenced.  But he was fairly sure I’m at least mostly human.”  Din tilted his head curiously when Gilamar plugged the bulb into the analyzer unit attached to his medkit.

“Huh.  Well, kiddo, Buir’s bloodwork is okay for a human.  Only a little scary.  He also has a midichlorian count high enough to be reportable in the Republic.”  Gilamar picked up the second ampule.  “Your turn, ba’vodu .  Let them see.”  Cara submitted her arm for quick wipe with a fresh pad followed by her blood being drawn.  The kid watched carefully, ears twitching but calm.

“I’m human standard,” she told Gilamar as he swapped the bulbs on his analyzer unit.  “What’s a midichlorian?  I’ve never heard a medic talk about them before.”

Gilamar frowned a little at Cara’s readout.  “Manda, woman, what spice have you been taking?

Cara grimaced.  “None since I started running with my partner and the kid full-time.  Before that…  I wasn’t picky and short on creds.”  She shifted back a little to indicate to Din her discomfort with the doctor ignoring her question.  Din shrugged.  They could always ask again at the end of the exam.

The doctor muttered to himself.  “Well there’s nothing to be done now.  In about five to ten years, you’re going to need a new liver and probably new kidneys.  Sooner if you’re not careful.”

“She is careful,” Din said quietly.  Cara didn’t really drink around the kid.  Even the nights she went out, she always came back to Din and the kid still able to walk a straight line and speak without slurring.  She’d stopped doing spice completely since they needed every cred for fuel, food, and diapers.  Booze was cheaper and broke down more quickly so she didn’t have to wait as long to come home and be around the kid.

“We’ve got spare bacta tanks in the infirmary.  At some point, I’d like to put both of you in for at least a day and flush your systems,” Gilamar said as he disposed of Cara’s sample.  Cara shot Din a look.  He lifted his shoulder in agreement.  Neither of them was going into a bacta tank in this strange facility.

Picking up the last ampule, Gilamar approached the kid.  “ Buir , why don’t you hold them?”

Din picked up the kid and smiled as the kid gravely extended their arm for the doctor mimicking Din and Cara.  “ Vor entye , ad’ika ,” Gilamar murmured, carefully wiping the pad across the crook of the kid’s elbow.  The kid’s ears fluttered nervously as the bulb filled with blood so dark it was nearly black.  Din stroked the kid’s other arm murmuring soft Mando’a to distract them.

“All done,” Gilamar said.

“Good job, ad’ika ,” Din said gently rubbing lower down on the arm the doctor had taken the sample from.  He vaguely remembered the beroya who’d raised him doing something similar to distract Din from the sting of a hypospray.

Gilamar hissed between his teeth when the analyzer gave the kid’s readouts.  “Well, their bloodwork looks okay.  I think.  Without a species I can’t be sure, but there’s nothing that looks dangerous.  Their midichlorian count is higher than my analyzer can measure.”

Din frowned at the second occurrence of the unknown medical term.  “Why does ‘midichlorian’ matter?”

“Midichlorians are kind of… symbiotic organisms.  They exist as organelles in the cells of Force-sensitive beings.”  Gilamar smiled crookedly when both Cara and Din stared at him blankly.  “Yeah, that’s the conversation I was putting off.  I wasn’t always Mandalorian.  My medical degree is from Chandrila Academy of Sciences and Medicine.  In Republic space, especially the Core, midichlorian counts are reported to the Jedi Temple if they’re over certain thresholds.  Buir , your count is eleven thousand.  Your ad’s is over twenty-thousand.  Both are reportable in the Republic.  Ba’vodu , you’re baseline.  Two thousand, within average range for what a sentient being is expected to have.”

“Oh shit,” Cara breathed, sharing a wide-eyed look with Din.  “If we were to get treatment in Republic space?”

Gilamar glanced between them as he disposed of the third set of gloves and cleaned his hands.  “Clinics do a full panel on new patients.  Most don’t bother to report the midichlorian counts of adults unless the patient’s issues are related to their abilities.  The kid is a different story.  I’d be careful on the Outer Rim too.  Shadier clinics sell information to slavers.”  He sighed at Din and Cara who were both silently panicking.  “Let’s finish up this exam.”

The kid seemed amused by Gilamar’s physical examination, cooing and squeaking as they were prodded.  The vaccines caused a little more drama, but Din stripped both gloves and let the kid play with his finger which was always a good distraction.  The little womp rat was endlessly fascinated by the fact Din had five instead of three.

“Healthy as a wookie,” Gilamar declared when he finished.  “Now, I know you had questions about their consumption of raw meat.  From their teeth, I suspect their species is primarily carnivorous.  That doesn’t mean letting them skip their veggie sticks.  However, they’ll need a diet high in animal protein or an equivalent.  Most species that evolved to eat raw meat only have a resistance to parasites and diseases from their planet of origin.  There is commercially available livestock intended for raw consumption, but at their age I recommend a cooked diet.  Traditional fare is fine.  The diarrhea you’ve been seeing is common in adopted children while their bodies adjust to change in spice level.  It’ll resolve itself over time.”

Gilamar pulled a datachip out of a pouch on his belt.  “I’ve loaded up some holobooks for you.  Tips on potty training, exercises to improve verbal cognition, a primer on the xenopsychology of childhood trauma, and a few EduCorp pamphlets on raising a Force-sensitive child.  Buir’s starter pack.”

Din accepted the datachip gratefully.  He could borrow Boba’s datapad when the boy was done with the tutor droid that supervised his homework.  “The midichlorian counts.  Are you sure? About me.”

“Yes.  It’s a good thing.  If you’ve made it this long without going crazy then you can help them do the same.”  Gilamar turned to pack up his kit and give Din and Cara a moment of privacy.

Din desperately wanted to sit with his child properly with no armor between them.  It had never occurred to him that he might be able to help the child with their magic.  He assumed he would muddle through it like he had with diapers and diet.  That was who he was.

“Hey, Doc,” Cara said brightly, “I need to stretch my legs.  You mind showing me around?”  There was just a hint of flirty.  Her fingers flashed four-five.  Forty five minutes at least of time alone in the apartment they’d been given.  Din tilted his shoulders in thanks.  She twitched the corner of her mouth in a quick smile as she helped the doctor pack and hustled him out of the apartment.

Din locked the door behind them.  If Cara needed to get in fast, she’d blow the door.  Din helped the kid back into their tunic then carried them to the small bedroom.  They squawked happily when he set them on his pillow.  “Yeah.  I don’t know what to think either,” Din admitted.  He started with vambraces and greaves.  The armor was piled on the chair set next to the bed for that purpose.  The last thing he took off was his helmet, setting it on top, within reaching distance.

Peeling down the top half of his kute, Din tied the arms around his waist leaving him in the old, sleeveless shirt he wore to prevent chafing.  The child was squealing with delight, arms raised in a demand to be cuddled.  Din settled on the bed and tugged them over.  He closed his eyes as claws tenderly patted his stubbled cheeks.  “I don’t think I’m like you, no matter what the doctor says,” he told his child seriously.  “I’ve never done anything remarkable.  But if it helps you then I’m glad.  We’ll read the pamphlets he gave us to start.  I don’t want to go to the Jedi.  Jango doesn’t trust them to understand the Way, and I think he’s right.  But we can go, if you want.  See the little, green man.”

Din waited for the kid to process.  It took a little bit longer with complicated subjects.  The kid’s ears flicked hesitantly.  Then they hugged Din’s face.  “Yeah, womp rat,” Din agreed in relief.  “Of course we can figure it out ourselves.  I’ll take care of you.”  He nuzzled the kid’s stomach playfully.  “You’re not big enough to run away yet.”  Din growled playfully pretending to bite the kid until the little womp rat squealed happily.

Notes:

Resol'ad - A Mandalorian who follows the Resol'nare
Ruyot'ad - An 'orthodox' Mandalorian like Din
Demagolkase ru’or’shupuur kaysh - The monsters tortured them.
Jetiise - Jedi (pl)
Riduure - Spouses
Ner’burc’ya - My friend
Beryoa - bounty hunter or similar (also used to refer to Journeymen Protectors in some contexts)
Aliit - clan or tribe
Beskar'gam - Mandalorian armor
Buir - parent
Ba'vodu - aunt/uncle
Ad - child
Vor entye, ad’ika - Thank you, kiddo

Chapter 2: Fenn Rau

Fenn Rau crept nervously into Fett’s office with his three bunkmates.  Kamino had been about routine for the last decade.  Anything that broke routine was bad in Fenn’s experience.  Last time he’d been called to a meeting in Fett’s office it was for a debrief on the faulty sublight engine which led to the crash of a training fighter.  Four of Fenn’s trainee pilots had been killed.  Fett had wanted to know how expensive replacing the fighter was going to be.

The room was crowded.  Almost thirty other trainers had already arrived.  Skirata, the bastard, was sitting near the front of the room with one of the feral wolves he pretended were his sons.  That was a little worrying actually.  The only clone Fett liked was little Boba.  He kept away from the others when he wasn’t training them.  Walon Vau was sitting next to Skirata, thankfully without his damn strill stinking up the place.  Normally Skirata and Vau stayed a healthy distance away from each other to reduce the probability of one of them ending up dead.

“Stars-damn, there’s people,” one of Fenn’s bunkmates breathed.  After ten years, the ninety-nine other faces of the Cuy’val Dar were familiar both in and out of armor.  A new face stood out, and there were two of them.

“Is that beskar?” Fenn demanded trying to keep his voice from squeaking.  Not even Fett’s armor was made of real, Mandalorian steel.

There was a clatter and some hissed insults as another trainer, annoyed at Fenn and his companions blocking the doorway, started shoving.  Fenn moved out of the way trying to find somewhere he could stand without drawing the attention of any former Haat Mando’ade .  While he wasn’t political himself, he was quietly pro-Republic coming from a clan that allied with the New Mandalorians.  Fett was willing to overlook his connections.  Not all of his old friends were as forgiving.

“Hey, kid, you look like someone’s trying to set your tail on fire.  Sit down.”  The woman Fenn didn’t recognize gestured to the seat near her and the commando, who still hadn’t removed his helmet.  She had a small, humanoid child in her lap.  The commando was painstakingly feeding the baby small bites of protein mash from a bowl sitting between him and the woman.  So he wasn’t keeping his helmet on as a threat.  Or it was the strangest threat Fenn had ever seen.

There was a bubble of space around the little family.  Fenn took advantage of it to sit down cautiously in the chair the woman had indicated.  The baby cooed at Fenn ignoring the spoon of mash in front of them in favor of trying to grab one of the hoses attached to the breather unit on the front of Fenn’s armor.

“No,” the commando said quietly but firmly pushing their hand away.  “Ask first, womp rat.”

The baby whined looking up at the woman.  “Don’t look at me, kid.  He’s your dad.”

Huffly the baby turned back to Fenn painstakingly flexing their six claws.  It took Fenn a moment to recognize the modified handsign.  “Sorry, kid,” Fenn apologized sincerely, “these tubes are what make sure I have breathable atmo when I’m piloting.  I don’t let anyone touch them.”

“I’ll show you how a breather unit works when we go back to the room,” the commando told the disappointed baby.  It seemed a bit advanced for the kid, but Fenn didn’t have children of his own to judge.  “Are you finished eating?”

The baby considered the spoon then let out a truly adorable squeak.  “That is ba’vodu’s breakfast then,” the woman said happily, exchanging the baby for the bowl and spoon.  “You want any?”

“Save me half for later,” the commando replied distracted by checking the baby’s clothes for food stains.

The woman already had a mounded spoonful in her mouth.  She nodded as she started chewing at the mash which was always strangely rubbery for something that was supposed to be gruel.

“You know there’s more food in the mess right?”  Fenn nearly toppled backwards, arms flailing, as the high-pitched voice came from under the table.  The commando caught him by the knee before Fenn could kick Fett’s brat in the face.  It was mostly unintentional.

The woman finished chewing.  “Don’t waste food if you can avoid it, kid.  Shit’s expensive.”

Boba stuck his head out from under the table far enough to give her a suspicious look.  “It’s protein mash.”

“Three weeks in a trench on Hoth eating half-rations because some moron shipped out the mess staff first and you’ll think it's pretty tasty too.”  The woman grinned at Boba’s skeptical expression.  “Don’t believe me?  Hey, partner.”

The commando leaned down when the woman held out a spoon of the mash to him.  He angled his head and she angled the utensil to somehow get it under his helmet without smearing mash everywhere.  She extracted the spoon, and he chewed obnoxiously loudly for a few seconds before humming.  “Could use some texture.  Corellian breadworms are always good for a little extra crunch.”  Fenn couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.  He really hoped the man was joking.

Boba’s nose wrinkled up in gleeful horror.  “Ew!”

“Eh.  I prefer maggots,” the woman said with laughter in her eyes.  “You can roast them first so they don’t wiggle so much when you bite down.”  She took another bite of mash and Fenn felt his own stomach hitch in protest.

“You know, Hutts considered roasted grain maggots a delicacy.  That was fine dining, Dune,” the commando teased.

Boba scrambled out from the under the table, now fully engaged in something other than causing trouble.  “Hutts eat maggots?” he demanded.  The woman pointed at the commando in a gesture that clearly meant ‘ask him’.

“You might want to ask your dad for details,” the commando said with more warmth than Fenn expected.  Even Jango’s closest allies treated Boba like a clone, though a favored one.  “He takes better paying contracts than I do.  I’ve only ever seen a hutt in person once.”  The commando handed the baby to Boba.  “You can go play now.  But bring them to me if they need changed or seem upset.”

The baby screeched happily and Boba gave the commando a wide, adorable grin which made it hard to believe he was a spirit of vengeance from the old empire.  Fenn firmly believed Fett’s brat got his manda directly from an ancient commando who thought modern Mandalorians were too soft and needed testing.  “I will,” the brat answered, already hurrying away to the corner where his datapad and a plate of snacks was waiting.

 

“You’re a beroya ?” Fenn asked the commando.

 

“Yes.”  The answer wasn’t hostile, just brief.  At Fenn’s skeptical look, the commando tilted his helmet towards the woman.  “She was a soldier.”

 

That was better.  They had always needed more proper soldiers.  Fett had done his best, but armies, trained and organized, hadn’t been common since the Old Republic.  Mercenaries tended to work in groups of less than a hundred beings.  Beroya , bounty hunters and journeyman protectors, tended to work alone.  Even the clan-born like Fenn only learned to work as a unit with the other members of his clan, less than twenty warriors overall.  Fett and the former Haat Mando’ade had the most true military experience followed by the former Death Watch commandos.

 

Fenn had been in tactical meetings where Fett had bitched about the lack of diverse experience since Death Watch and Haat Mando’ade were best suited to fight each other.  The clones would face another kind of enemy entirely.  Better late than never Fett had found someone.

 

Fett strolled into the room.  Fenn didn’t recognize him at first without the ferocious scowl and way his shoulders were never quite as straight as they should be.  He walked with a pop in his step Fenn had seen in clones who’d just been promoted.  “ Vode ,” he greeted them instead of his usual grunt.  At least the first thing he did was clock Boba playing in the corner.  Fenn would have been seriously concerned with the possibility of a shapeshifter otherwise.

 

The old Haat Mando’ade all straightened up.  Most didn’t bother to conceal the way they stared.  “Vau, seal the room,” Fett ordered as he made his way to his place next to the window.  He tapped the woman’s shoulder and the commando’s helmet when he passed them.

Vau stood and went through the ritual of locking the door, turning on all the jammers, and putting up the muffling shades on the window.  Fett hadn’t ordered a full lock-down in years and never with a clone in the room.  Skirata had a hand on the clone’s shoulder as Vau finished.

Fett gave a clipped nod of thanks.  “First, the new faces.  This is Cara Dune and her partner.  He’s ruyot’ad .  Any of you fuck with that I’m not going to be angry when he kills you.”

Fenn’s breath caught in his chest as he stared at the commando.  He’d never meet an Orthodox Mandalorian before.  His clan followed the bare bones of the Resol’nare .  Ruyot’ade were for stories about commandos who became their armor.  When they died there wasn’t a body inside the kute, just another layer of beskar on the plates.  They didn’t have names because all Mandalorians were one soul.

“Is that really beskar?” B’arin Apma demanded.

The ruyot’ad turned his helmet towards the question.  “Yes.”  And that wasn’t a friendly answer.

Apma said several words Boba shouldn’t know yet.  He ended with a strangled, “How?”

“He earned it,” Fett said, ending the discussion for the ruyot’ad .  “The ruyot’ad came looking for me because he has information about MandalMotors and didn’t think Kryze would be able to do anything about it.  I confirmed his information after a stop on Alderaan to run a records search.”

Fett turned on the holoprojector on his desk and slid a datachip into the slot on its side.  The seal of the Republic Committee on Securities, Exchange, and Business popped up.  “MandalMotors is a privately held company,” Fett began, “which meant, up until Kryze took over, they weren’t required to publish the details about the distribution or trade of their stocks.  Historically, MandalMotors stock was held primarily by various parts of Clan Vizla and their allies.  The profits from the company have been used to fund the activities of the Death Watch.”  That was common knowledge if not proven in court.  “We, that is the Haat Mando’ade , were never sure how the company continued to make money hand over fist despite the bans on weapons manufacture and exports put in place by the Republic.  We know they weren’t repurposing their factories because the unsellable inventory was ending up in Death Watch armories.  But somehow they still had money for bribes, lobbying the Republic Senate, and buying political positions for Vizla’s allies.”

“I thought they were making their real money with black market exports,” Llats Ward, the instructor for the advanced strategy and tactics classes, spoke up.  “Their tax situation was always unclear.  Since they were only privatized because Tor Vizla decided he wanted an empire.  Everyone knew they weren’t reporting accurate profits.”

“Assumed.  Didn’t know.”  Jango gave Ward a feral smile.  “One of the things Kyrze has done right is increasing bureaucratic transparency.  Even private companies have to disclose when over fifty percent of the company is owned by a non-Mandalorian entity.  So most aruela companies own a mess of shell companies within the Mandalore sector to avoid having their actual money-makers having to report they’re functionally foreign-owned.  That works well in Hutt Space.  But the Republic requires complete disclosure of subsidiary assets in detail to help prevent tax fraud.  There’s loopholes of course.  It’s not perfect.  But the documentation does have to be on file.”

Fenn was not expecting this from a meeting with Jango Fett.  He was barely following along, as were most of the others.  They were warriors not accountants.  Jango opened something on the holoproj.  It was some kind of tax document from the Trade Federation.  “Trying to figure out what a large conglomerate owns is impossible from the outside.  There’s just too much data for even a droid to sort through, and the Senate Archives limit access time and data transfer speeds.  If you don’t know what you’re looking for, you won’t find anything.  The ruyot’ad had information that the Trade Federation and the Banking Clans had majority ownership of MandalMotors.  Companies in the Mandalore sector who were majority owned by the two groups had to report it to Sundari.  On Alderaan, I was able to pursue the connection.  Those slimy fucks hid their connection to MandalMotors in their documentation.”

Data streamed past on the holoproj showing the connections Fett had made at high speed.  Then it stopped showing some kind of profit report.  But it was all written in Mando’a.  “Language barrier,” Jango said, pleased as a glutted nexu.  “This is archaic Mando’a.  No one outside a university uses it anymore, but Jaster made me learn it.  It’s the profit reports and assets for MandalMotors.  The Trade Federation, through a chain of subsidiaries in the Mandalore sector, owns fifty-three percent of a company the Republic thinks is just a previously family owned, custom heavy equipment manufacturer belonging to a break-even durasteel operation.  The Banking Clans, through their subsidiaries, own another thirty-nine percent of the stock.  MandalMotors is over ninety-percent held by the Trade Federation and Banking Clans.  And it’s being propped up by cash infusions from companies owned by the Federation and Clans under the guise of the reported losses being cheaper than shipping specialized mining equipment from somewhere else.  The Death Watch is being completely financially supported by the Trade Federation and the Banking Clans.  And the Banking Clan provided the loan which is paying for the clones and for our services.”

“How did you get access through Alderaan?” Wad’e Taay’hai, who trained their slicers, asked.  “You wouldn’t be able to get the full documentation through a public holonet terminal.”

Jango gestured at Dune.  “He didn’t,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.  “He got the information from an Alderaanian Royal Archives secure terminal.  I’m Alderaanian.”

Taay’hai frowned.  “Citizenship wouldn’t net you access to a secure terminal in the palace.”

“No, it wouldn’t.  I’m the product of a minor noble’s morganatic marriage.  I don’t inherit the position, title, or money.  However, as a descendant of a noble house, even though I’m not noble, my father can give me access to the secure terminal setup at the local public archive.  Since I had his passcodes already, I didn’t exactly have to ask in person.”  She bared her teeth in a smile that suggested it would be unwise for anyone to comment on her background

“With access to a secure terminal, I was able to slip the data request for the specific files into the massive data sweep Alderaan does every day in an attempt to mitigate the effect of the Senate Archive access restrictions.  Over half the data sweep is procedurally generated so if anyone did have alerts on the MandalMotors files, it’ll be impossible to distinguish custom requests from the computer generated ones,” Jango continued.  “According to Dune, I clean up nicely as an Alderaanian bodyguard for a minor noble’s daughter.  We took the usual precautions for facial recognition as well.  And I’m not exactly known for spending time peaceably on a Core World.  It’s unlikely the security footage from the public archive will be useful in identifying us.”

Fenn’s mouth was moving before his brain caught up.  “Who would care that much, Fett?  The Trade Federation owns half the galaxy.  They probably don’t even know what MandalMotors is doing.”

“That’s…  Not quite true.”  Skirata was squinting at the projected document like he could read some parts but not others.  “There’s been rumors for a very long time, all the way back to Tor Vizla himself, that foreign money was backing the Kyr’tsad .  Considering how xenophobic the Kyr’tsad is, most people assumed the rumors were just shit-slinging by the New Mandalorians.  My buir and his siblings believed that the Vizlas had made a deal with auretiise .  That’s why Clan Skirata told Tor Vizla to go fuck himself when he came asking for an alliance.”

“But why would a member of the Republic back some spice-crazed isolationist lunatics rather than the New Mandalorians?” Fenn demanded.  It just didn’t make sense.  The Death Watch couldn’t be trusted to do anything but disrupt the local economy and kill civilians.

“The Trade Federation isn't part of the Republic anymore.”  Rev Bralor, one of Skirata’s old combat buddies and a sworn commando of Clan Skirata, was also squinting at the text.  She was frowning.  “They’re Separatists.”

Fenn tried not to finch when he realized Fett was watching him.  The man didn’t have an expression but his gaze was intent.  “Easy, Bralor.  I want to hear what Concord Dawn’s little prince has to say.”

 

It took Fenn a moment to realize that Fett was referring to him.  After the Death Watch had taken Concordia, the New Mandalorians ruled what parts of Mandalore didn’t operate as independent fiefdoms under the Old Clans.  Concord Dawn hadn’t had a leader.  Fenn’s mother, Ruusan Rau, had stepped into the void taking on the mantle of Protector of Concord Dawn.  Clan Rau were only warriors in the sense they were Mandalorian.  Most of their power came from the wealth they’d amassed from the mining royalties of the claims they’d staked in the distant past.  They were Journeyman Protectors and convoy guards not commandos and generals.  

Fenn’s mother had spent his entire childhood fending off the Death Watch’s threats, balancing the Old Clan’s rights to their colony farms against Concord Dawn’s sovereignty, and appeasing the Duchess without forcing anyone to give up their armor.  She had a mythosaur skull tattooed on her shoulder, black and bold.  Fenn had traced it as a young boy, sitting on the couch behind her while she sat on the floor surrounded by datapads trying to make sure enough food went to the Old Clans they didn’t try to invade while keeping back enough no one on Concord Dawn would have to turn to auretii merchants to make up the difference.  Those equations had rarely balanced forcing her to turn to the Republic’s Aid Office to bridge the gap.

Ruusan Rau had suffered to protect their people.  While Fett wandered the galaxy playing beroya and only acknowledging his past when it suited him.  Fenn put his helmet down on the table and stood up.  “Easy,” the ruyot’ad said, keeping his voice soft enough it didn’t travel.

“If I’m Concord Dawn’s ‘prince’,” Fenn said trying to channel his mother’s icy rage when she was dealing with a Vizla, “then it’s because you’re a failure, Mand’alor .”

The ruyot’ad was on his feet.  For a moment, Fenn thought he was going to learn what beskar tasted like, but the ruyot’ad had his back to Fenn.  Fett had tackled Walon Vau onto the floor.  Fenn realized the ruyot’ad had been moving to protect Fenn if Fett was too slow.  Though Fenn was probably better off behind a beskar covered body anyways.

Of the thirty or so trainers who’d been invited to the meeting only five had actually sworn themselves to Jaster Mereel at some point.  The only Journeyman Protector, Cort Davin, looked torn, but he was from Concord Dawn and unlikely to turn on Ruusan Rau’s son.  Fenn’s bunkmates would back him up.  Everyone else in the room had some vein of loyalty to the old Haat Mando’ade ideas of traditionalism, but they weren’t Fett’s friends.

If Fenn died on Kamino, his mother wouldn’t give a damn about politics.  She’d carpet bomb Tipoca City into the sea and kill every single Cuy’val Dar she could get her hands on even if it took the rest of her life.  It didn’t matter that Fenn was a middle child who’s only useful talents were in the cockpit of a fighter or that Ruusan Rau was from Concord Dawn not the Old Clans.  She’d burn the galaxy for any one of her children.

Skirata was holding back the other Haat Mando’ade .  Everyone else mostly seemed interested in watching a fight break out.  Fett wrestled Vau into a headlock hissing in Mando’a which Fenn wasn’t fluent enough in to understand at speed.  When Fett let Vau up Fenn barely hid his flinch from the look on the older commando's face.  Fenn would be very careful about going anywhere on Tipoca City alone from now on.

“Well, you’re certainly your mother’s son,” Fett said dryly when everyone had calmed down enough it was unlikely blasters would be drawn.  At Fenn’s sharp look he sighed.  “She never had much time for me either.  So say your piece, Rau.”

“Mandalore is so busy fighting itself it can’t fight for anyone else.  It doesn’t matter who owns MandalMotors or if the Trade Federation is shooting themselves in the foot.  We barely have the people to feed ourselves.  Mandalore’s agricultural rehabilitation is decades behind schedule because of the Civil War.  The only reason we aren’t dealing with a famine is because of aid from the Republic.  The Death Watch keeps killing New Mandalorians who move out of the cities to try to set up farms, and the Old Clans don’t give a damn about anyone but themselves.  The duchess can’t be fucked to wipe out the Death Watch, and without the Death Watch Concordia wouldn’t have an economy.  They’d starve or go into debt with auretiise .”  Fenn exhaled getting his temper under control.  “I don’t care about your wounded honor, Fett.  Or things that happened before I could walk.  I care about keeping my people alive now and into the future.  So tell me why I give a damn about your little scavenger hunt.”

Fett pulled up a second document.  “You care, because there’s a rider on every contract I’ve ever signed.  The Death Watch espouses politics, but it's also a cover for organized crime.  Because of the circles I work in, I put a rider on all my contracts.  If the being or organization I’m working for actively supports the Kyr’tsad during the period of the contract that contract is void.  I originally put it in to avoid getting shot in the back by Kyr’tsad smugglers during a job.  However, that rider is in the Kamino contract.  The man who signed the contract with me is named Tyrannus, and I saw him on Geonosis commanding Trade Federation battle droids.  The Trade Federation is funding the Kyr’tsad .  Per the contract, in a case of a severe breach on the part of the employer the ownership of the clones defaults back to me.  And I don’t keep slaves.”

Fenn stepped forward all the way to the holoproj to skim the highlighted section himself.  It was true.  If the employer was in breach, such as not paying Fett or the long-necks, the ownership of all existing clones including those still in tubes defaulted to Fett.  But the section didn’t specify the nature of the breach.  Any breach severe enough to void the contract would trigger the clause.  “Would you like your pilots to meet your mother, Rau?” Fett asked with a smile that didn’t make it to his eyes.  “A hundred trained warriors with loyalty hardcoded into their bones, unafraid of hard labor or battle.  I’m sure she could find room in your clan for them.”

Fenn’s mother would accept his pilot’s into their clan so quickly she’d be asking them their names in the middle of the adoption vows.  Men who were already trained, prepared to go directly into whatever roles that needed to be filled.  Men who were absolutely loyal to her son.  Fenn would be the favorite child for the rest of eternity.

“Fine,” Fenn said, straightening up from his reading.  “But remember, Fett.  My pilots.”

B’arin Apma, who was as much a traditionalist as Skirata though he and his clan had never associated themselves with True Mandalorians, shook his head.  “I don’t like trying to wiggle out of a contract on a technicality, Jango.  If the Separatists are providing aid to the Death Watch, I’ll fight them.  But I’m not sure about declaring a breach of contract based on some financial records you found based on a tip from a stranger.  No offense, ruyot’ad . You obviously provided the information in good faith since you’re here.  But you got that information from someone else.  I just question the convenience of it all.”

“And if I say it's not just about the Kyr’tsad , Apma?  We trained these boys, gave them structure, gave them whatever scraps of our people the long-necks would allow.  Nala Se has told us over and over that the standards are built to be deficient.  Restricted emotional range, minimal ability to feel pain, fear, any complex emotion.  That the reactions we see are a product of their flash-training to make them less unnerving by giving them the appearance of a standard emotional range.  Under the contract, there was nothing we could do.  We had to agree with her since she was the expert.”  Jango gestures at Skirata’s clone.  “Tell me, Apma, are your boys meat-droids?  Or are they more like Ord’ika ?”

Apma’s hands clenched into fists.  “Did you know, Fett?”

Fett leaned on the table, rolling his head to stretch his neck.  “How do you prove something’s sentient?  The standards are modified even more than the alphas.  And my alphas weren’t anything like Boba or Skirata’s boys.  If I thought Nala Se was lying, what should I have done?”

 

“If the contract is void,” Cort Davin, the Journeyman Protector, spoke up abruptly, “then I can keep Bacara?”

“I already said I don’t keep slaves, Davin,” Jango replied bemused.

Davin nodded.  “You can’t change the past, Apma.  If the clones don’t have to go to the Republic, then they can be Mandalorian.”  For him that seemed to be the long and the short of it.  Fenn felt a little sorry for the often troubled-looking command stock clone that Davin was training to lead the Marine Corp.  Davin was a hard man, and his single trainee bore the brunt of his perfectionist streak.

Apma seemed less willing to be mollified by the promise of keeping his favorites out of the hands of the Republic and the Jedi.  “I’m not blaming you, Jango.  I don’t like the idea of handing the clones over to officers without training either.  But we agreed to the contract.  We can’t just break it because we decided we don’t like the terms.”

“Tyrannus read the contract before he signed it, Apma,” Skirata said coolly, watching Fett.  “He knew what would happen if Jango found out about MandalMotors.  He thought a mando was too stupid to figure out or he would have asked for a revision to the rider.”

Fenn appreciated where Apma was coming from.  It did feel unnatural to leave a contract unfulfilled without a direct reason, like the employer trying to kill them.  However, if the original contract for the clones had been signed with a man who was now a Separatist then Fenn didn’t want his pilots used as pawns in some kind of internal spy game.  They deserved better.

There was a lot of reluctance in the room, but Fett had chosen his audience well.  Calling the contract void on a technicality was close to the line but not quite over it.  Especially since taking Fett’s side meant the clones could be adopted into a clan.  Apma considered Fett but finally, reluctantly, nodded acceptance.  Where Apma went, the other non- Haat Mando’ade traditionalists tended to follow.  He was well respected.

Rev Bralor asked the question for Fenn.  “Why would someone working for the Trade Federation sign a contract to create an army for the Republic?”

“I don’t know,” Fett admitted.  “But I intend to find out.  Before we do anything else, though, we need to deal with the clones.  I know that there was some kind post-decanting modification to the standards that ensures their loyalty to a commanding officer and makes them less aggressive.  Does anyone have details on that?”  There was a general round of scowls, frowns, and head shakes negative.  “Then the first thing we need to do is to disable that osik to make sure the long-necks can’t use the clones as a weapon against us.”

Apma, still unsettled, turned his helmet in his hand.  “You can’t program Mandalorians.  And I don’t like the idea of trying.”

Fett nodded in agreement.  “That’s why I intend to completely disable the mechanism.  Not repurpose it.”  It was exactly the right thing to say to cement the traditionalists decision not to challenge him over voiding the contract.  Everyone was uncomfortable with the standard models’ subservience compared to the nulls or the alphas.  “I’m making some changes to the cadet training roster as well.The remaining alphas will be taking over the training cohorts.  The ruyot’ad will assist them.”

Fenn’s breath caught in his.  Ruyot’ade had rules about children under the age of thirteen standard.  In the stories, they were as ferocious as mythosaurs when it came to protecting both their adiike and those younglings who ended up in their care.  Fett was making a statement by giving the youngest clones to a ruyot’ad .  He considered them children who needed protection not tools to be honed or discarded.

The ruyot’ad shifted uncomfortably as everyone’s gazes shifted from staring at Fett to him.  “If the long-necks suspect anything,” Fett barked, drawing their attention back to him, “the cadets are an easy target.  Most of the older boys are protective of them which makes them potential hostages.”  It was a good reason to put a watchstrill on them which also didn’t assign any particular value to them.  Fenn’s gut twisted up in another black flash of hatred for Fett.

“Good idea, Jango.  Your alphas won’t let the kaminiise anywhere near their vod’ike if they have a choice.”  Bralor’s approval settled the remaining discontent since she had developed the standard cadet combat training program.  “You’ll need backup though.  There’s not enough to spare a squad of alphas to assist you with the investigation and keep an eye on the long-necks.”

Fenn resisted the urge to sneer.  He knew Fett knew too much.  He’d always assumed it was because the man had sliced into Tipoca City’s security systems.  It hadn’t been the cameras at all.  His damn ARCs had been his eyes and ears.  The standards were so close-mouthed one could be bleeding to death in his sleeping tube and they wouldn’t say anything until the corpse started to stink up the room.

“Alpha flagged a few of his trainees I can use.  It’s enough men for the job.”  Fett wasn’t surprised Bralor knew about his little clone spy network.  Which meant all the old Haat Mando’ade and their allies had known.  “If I need more help, then I’ll borrow some of the Skiratas.”

Skirata’s clone stirred.  “You mean you mean Kote , the one Jaing sliced up.  He’s crazy!”

“But good enough to put your brother down.”  The reprimand was almost gentle, more chide than bite like Fett might speak to Boba.  “Your buir will need you more than I will, Ord’ika .  If the long-necks can’t find me, they’ll go to him.  He’ll need your help distracting them.” The clone looked hesitantly at Skirata who ruffled the boy’s hair in silent agreement though he didn’t speak up.  It was strange to hear anyone speaking of Skirata’s pets as if they were clan kids like Fenn himself.

Jango leaned on the table again.  “If we do this, there’s no stopping halfway.  Tyrannus won’t hesitate to kill all of us and the clones.  I won’t move without support from all of you.  So let’s do this the old-fashioned way.”  He put his helmet on the table in front of him.  “ Buy’ce on the table if you’re willing.”

Fenn put his helmet on the table along with most of the others.  There were a few holdouts.  Apma was still turning his, and Vhonte Tervho, who usually backed Bralor and Skirata, was staring down at her visor.  Surprisingly, Skirata also kept his helmet in his lap looking not at his armor but the clone.  Fett didn’t say anything letting them consider their options.  Apma decided first, setting his helmet on the table.  That decided most of the others.  Tervho was next.  The others followed except for Skirata.

“Kal?” Fett finally asked when the other trainers started to look nervous.

“There’s more going on here than you're telling us,” Skirata said flatly.

Fett was impassive.  “I’ve already shown you everything I can prove.”

“That’s not an answer, Jan’ika .”  Fenn wasn’t the only one who winced to hear Skirata address Fett so informally.

“It’s the one I have.”  Fett didn’t offer Skirata anything else even as Skirata gave him a glare that could strip the paint off a starship hull.

Skirata put his helmet on the table but kept his hands on it.  “Once we deactivate whatever is controlling the standards, we’ll be renegotiating, Jango.”  Then he lifted his hands away when Fett didn’t protest.

Everyone’s helmet was on the table except for the ruyot’ad and his mercenary partner.  They had both put an armored gauntlet down in place of a helmet.  Fett didn’t show any sign of relief or even that he cared.  Instead he nodded like it was the conclusion of any other meeting.   “We’ll meet again in a week pending any new information.”

Notes:

Resol'ad - A Mandalorian who follows the Resol'nare
Ruyot'ad - An 'orthodox' Mandalorian like Din
Haat Mando'ad - True Mandalorian
Jetiise - Jedi (pl)
Riduure - Spouses
Beryoa - bounty hunter or similar (also used to refer to Journeymen Protectors in some contexts)
Aliit - clan or tribe
Beskar'gam - Mandalorian armor
Buir - parent
Ba'vodu - aunt/uncle
Ad - child
Auretii - Foreigner (also traitor)
Aurela - Foreign (also traitorous)

Chapter 3: Kote (Cody)

Notes:

Brief mention of fears of possible sexual assault on a clone.

(I forgot to post this chapter last night! Sorry for the random pop-up.)

Kote turned his head just enough Ret as breathing on his cheek instead of directly into his mouth.  The sleeping tubes were only designed for one clone with airflow in and out closely monitored, yet another metric to ensure they were up to spec.  Kote hadn’t gotten light-headed sharing oxygen meant for one with Ret since they were blueback cadets.

There was still no word on Alpha-17 though hospital transports were already arriving full of older brothers to be triaged into medbeds, bacta tanks, or the spare parts pile.  Trainees, even if they had their armor, weren’t allowed into the wing where the newly made veterans were being kept.  The trainers had all pulled trainees out of morning drills to help pack their things weeks ago though most were still on Tipoca City.  Kote couldn’t wait for them to go.  The ori’vod , mostly alpha class or first gen, could be assholes but they were lightyears better than the trainers.

Alpha-17 only hit his verd’ike in the sparring ring and made sure no else did either.  He’d broken three of Kote’s fingers the morning he left to go to war.  He said it was to remind Kote to watch his mouth.  Kote hadn’t asked to go to medbay and let them heal a little crooked.  Just in case Alpha-17 didn’t come back.

Ret stirred, pressing his face lower into Kote’s neck.  Another bad dream then.  Kote unwedged his arm from where it was jammed over his head and shimmied it down to rub his younger brother’s back.  Normally this would be the time Alpha-17 started banging on everyone’s sleeping tube to get them up for PT before morning drills.  It wasn’t a requirement that training squads do PT twice a day.  Alpha-17 claimed improved stamina meant improved scores.  Kote didn’t disagree, but he didn’t see any reason not to give his brothers an extra half-hour of sleep.  One less set of suicides didn’t hurt as long as Kote made up for it in the evening PT session.

Both Kote and Ret jumped when someone banged on the footplate of their sleeping tube.  Ret went to push the button to slide out the tube.  Kote stopped him.  Ret’s scores were near perfect across the board, just like Kote’s.  And, unlike Kote, the only black mark on his record was his blond hair.  The mutation meant he’d never make it past captain and in a position far away from any Jedi officer who might be offended by the flaw.  The rest of Ret’s batchmates hadn’t been more than average and decommissioned for it.  Limited promotion opportunity was preferable.

“They’re here for me, Kote,” Ret insisted, careful to keep quiet so whoever was outside wouldn’t hear.  “It’s okay.  When Alpha left, we knew he wouldn’t be able to stop them anymore.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Kote snapped.  “It’s probably one of the others who wants to know why we’re sleeping in again.”  Before he could think better of it, he hit the button that extended their sleeping tube.

Instructor Skirata crossed his arms over his chest scowling.  “What in haran are you two doing sharing a tube like a couple of cadets?”

Kote froze his fingers locking in the thin fabric of Ret’s uniform tunic.  The long-necks had sent a trainer to take Ret.  Kote’s aggression rating must have scared them too much to risk themselves.  Kote thought he could take Skirata.  Skirata was a decent fighter, but Kote was used to doing punishment spars with Alpha-17 or even Instructor Vau when even Alpha-17 had enough of Kote’s lip.

“Nayc,” Ret whispered in Kote’s ear.  He grabbed one of Kote’s ears to keep him from springing off their sleeping mat and doing something stupid.

Instructor Skirata was watching them with something that wasn’t disdain.  He also wasn’t reaching for Ret.  “I’m not here for your vod’ika, Twenty-two-twenty-four.  Fett wants to talk to both of you.”

“Fett?” Kote hesitantly loosened his grip on Ret’s tunic.  “Why?”

“Are you asking me a question, trooper?” Instructor Skirata said sharply.

There was only one right answer.  “No, sir.  May we put our boots on, sir?” Kote barked out.

“You may, troopers.”  Instructor Skirata stepped back to give Ret and Kote room to roll off their sleeping mat.

Ret scrambled to the lockers to get their boots while Kote banged on CC-3636’s sleep tube.  3636 slid out, still dazed and expecting to see Alpha-17, but he woke up fast when he noticed Instructor Skirata.  “Ret and I have been ordered to go see Fett,” Kote said quickly.  “You have command on the squad until Alpha gets back.”

3636 nodded raggedly.  He knew Ret and Kote would likely not be coming back.  “I’ll take care of them, vod.  Do you know how long Alpha’ll be?”

“No.  Just keep to the schedule until you get other orders.”  Kote squeezed 3636’s hand low, hidden between their bodies.  He didn’t dare linger any longer.   Instructor Skirata didn’t look impatient but that could change at any moment.

Ret handed Kote his boots.  While Kote pulled them on, Ret picked two fresh uniform tunics out of the dispenser.  It wouldn’t do to meet Fett in sleep rumpled clothes.  With collars straight and pleats sharp they were as ready as they would ever be.  Instructor Skirata led them away from their training unit, four squads of high grade troopers each led by two command stock clones under the command of an ori’vod .  It was what Kote thought of when he heard the word ‘home’.

Instructor Skirata made Kote and Ret walk in front of him, a heavy hand on their outside shoulders.  He didn’t guide them towards the turbolift for the medical bay.  Instead, they were pushed through a secure access door to a section of facility neither Kote nor Ret had ever been in before.  They wound their way up the wing nearly to the top where massive windows looked out over the dark, angry ocean outside.  The sound of rain striking the transparisteel was the only noise to muffle their footsteps.  The generators, and their warmth and hum, were far below near the barracks.

“Here,” Instructor Skirata warned, stopping them in front of a door marked with the elongated skull symbol that matched the one on Skirata’s and Vau’s left pauldron.  He pressed the button next to the door causing a chime to sound inside.

The door slid silently open.  The lights in the room had been dimmed until the main source of illumination was the weak glow from the stormy, Kaminoian morning outside.  Instructor Skirata held Kote in Ret in place to give their eyes time to adjust to the dark.  For a heartstopping moment, Kote thought it was Alpha-17.  He took several eager steps forward waiting for the exasperated sigh.  Except as the man leaning against the desk straightened it was clear he was nearly half a handspan shorter than standard, an unacceptable flaw.  A flash of lightning illuminated the room casting into relief the scars and lines no ori’vod was old enough to carry.

“These Alpha’s troublemakers?” a familiar voice asked.  It sounded like a scary story tubies would tell each other.  A brother who wasn’t a brother.  A voice that was familiar without a hint of familiarity.

“Seven-six-five-seven and Twenty-two-twenty-four,” Instructor Skirata confirmed.  “Brave kids, Jango.”

“Of course they are.  Alpha wouldn’t have argued for them if they didn’t have mandokar .”  Fett was less imposing than Kote had imagined even in the half-light.  The way he stood and walked said command but without implied pain of most of the trainers.  “Leave’em with me, Skirata.  Don’t let Vau get overeager with Priest and his ilk.  I might have a use for them.”

“I make no promises about that shabuir.”  Instructor Skirata gave Kote and Ret a small shove to indicate they should move further into the room.  Then he left them alone with a man who shared their face but who they only knew didn’t think them worth training himself.

Fett sighed heavily as Kote took a half-step forward while Ret leaned back, not quite hiding behind his brother.  “Alpha-Seventeen says hello and to watch your scope, Kot’ika .  Sit down.”  He didn’t point to the desk but at a small area off to the side where some very unkaminoan furniture made of heavy, dark wood padded with blue, worn fabric was set in a circle on a thick rug.

Ret tugged at Kote’s sleeve urgently.  Kote’s rifle scores were in the top ten of all trainees.  Only Alpha-17 yelled at him about keeping his eye on scope as a reminder not to break ranks to save a younger brother.  Cautiously, Kote made his way over to the rug.  Fett strode across the material without looking down so Kote felt confident enough to step on it with his own boots.  There was a chair big as two chairs combined together and heavily padded.  Kote sat on it carefully to perch on the edge with his spine straight and both feet on the floor.  Ret sat next to him with the same precise posture.

Fett threw himself back into one the chairs, sprawling in a way that Alpha-17 would have called ‘sloppy’.  “I need help with something, and Alpha told me you boys were the ones for the job.”  

If Alpha-17 had recommended them then it was either a chance to secure Ret’s officer commission and keep the long-necks’ spindly hands off him.  Or Fett had given Alpha-17 the choice between a troublemaker and his mutie shadow and the rest of the unit.  Either way there was no way to change the decision now.  “What do you need, sir?” Kote asked like it was just another training sim.

“I need names, kaminiise who work on your flash training and neural programming.  Pick two no one will notice are missing for a bit and who you don’t like.”

Fett didn’t say anything when Kote raised his hand and subtly began to sign to his younger brother.  Reluctantly, Ret signed back.  Kote nodded.  “Why do you think I’d know something like that?” he asked Fett.

Fett looked pointedly at Ret’s hair.  “I think you know the locations and routines of every long-neck and droid in your wing, Kot’ika .  You’ve got eyes.”

“Lim Helnoo and Ga Del,”  Kote bit his bottom lip grinding his teeth until it stung.  “If it has to be long-necks then them.”

“There’s someone else you’d prefer disappears?” Fett asked with an amused little twist to his mouth.  Kote looked down at the floor and didn’t answer.  “Okay, Kot’ika .  Tomorrow, I’m going to have you and Ret brought to me again.  If anyone asks we’re trying an experimental training module.  Taun We has already been informed.  If you help me complete the mission, you can tell me the name of your headache.  Depending on how well you perform I’ll see what I can do.  Deal?”

Kote looked over at Ret.  He knew what he wanted, but this was Ret’s decision.  “We’ll take that deal, sir,” Ret said clearly, lifting his chin just enough to prove he was Kote’s little brother.

Fett smiled, all teeth.  “Good.”  He stood grabbing his helmet.  “Come with me, boys.  I’m curious what Alpha’s been teaching you.”

***

3636 ran over when Kote and Ret stumbled into the bunkroom.  Instructor Skirata had given both of them a bacta drip and a hypospray of painkiller before escorting them back to the wing where the trainees were housed.  But Kote was elated despite the fact it was impossible to raise his arms past shoulder height.

Fett had run Kote and Ret through training sims alone and together, then with a pair of trainers, then against a squad of trainers.  Some of the sims had been impossible to win, a favorite trick of trainers who wanted an excuse to punish a squad, but Fett hadn’t punished them.  He’d told them they were meant to fail and that they’d still performed better than expected.  Then he’d fed them and made them do it all again.

After Instructor Skirata set Kote’s shoulder and straightened out Ret’s nose, Fett had played dejarik with them, Ret and Kote against him, while they waited for the bacta drips to work.  He’d even laughed when Kote’s flanking maneuver won the game.

“ Osi’kyr, ” 3636 breathed when he saw the sprawling bruise on Ret’s cheek where he’d blocked a trainer’s armored punch with his face.  “It looks like someone tried to decommission you with their fists.  What happened?”

“Experimental training module,” Kote rasped.  “It’s not as bad as it looks.  We got bacta drips. Full bag each.”

“And painkillers,” Ret added, still a little awed by the luxury.  “My face doesn’t hurt at all.”  It wasn’t what he’d said when Skirata had been pushing things back into place, but Skirata wasn’t like the long-necks.  He hadn’t threatened Ret with decommissioning just shushed him.

“Oh fuck.”  3636 gestured and Kote and Rex were descended on by the rest of their squad.  They were gently carried to a floor level sleeping tube and laid down on the padded mat.  “Get Coric from down the hall,” 3636 instructed one of the recently promoted bluebacks.

Coric was one of the oldest trainees.  He was supposed to be part of the first deployment but an injury from a drill had sent him back to his training squad until the next deployment.  He was also the only one with any medical flash-training on their floor.  Kote and Ret were held in place despite their protests that they were fine and just needed sleep.

“Did someone give them to Vau?” Coric demanded when he saw them.

3636 replied grimly, “They both got a bag each of bacta drip.  ‘Experimental Training Module’.”

Coric swore in a combination of Mando’a and Basic.  “Who treated you, ad’ika?” he demanded, starting to open Kote’s tunic.  “Was it medbay?”

“No.  Instructor Skirata,” Kote said, blinking at how the words slurred.  “Gave us the drips, fixed my arm and Ret’s face.  He let me hold Ret’s hand when he was setting Ret’s nose.”  Skirata hadn’t even looked upset when he’d seen Ret clutching Kote’s hand.

“It was fun,” Ret added, voice raspy.  “We got to eat in the trainers’ mess.  As much as we wanted.  Then we had to go do all the sims again, but we got uj’jili afterwards.”

“Uj’alayi,” Kote corrected.  “I wanted to sneak some back for everyone, but we were in blacks so there was nowhere to hide it.”

“Strip’em,” Coric ordered placing a calming hand on Kote’s head.  “Kote, Ret, I need to know if it was just spars and sims.  Besides eating in the trainers’ mess, did anything happen that… felt uncomfortable or weird?”

Kote shared a look with Ret.  The whole situation was bizarre.  If they told Coric that they’d played dejarek with Jango Fett, he’d have them in medbay for the rest of their lives.

Coric caught the shared expression.  “Kot’ika, Ret’ika, there’s nothing to be ashamed of.  If one of the trainers gave you orders to… hurt each other or let them hurt you.  It’s not your fault.”

Ret finally caught on to what Coric was implying.  “It’s okay Cor’ika .  It was just sims and spars, but they really pushed us.  We had to do sims with trainers making up the rest of our squad.  Then again except with a squad of trainers instead of training droids.”

“Okay.”  Coric stroked Ret’s hair gently.  “Okay, that’s good.  But if there’s anything else you can tell me.”

Both Kote and Ret were stripped to the skin so Coric could examine them.  It was nice when a brother did the exam because they didn’t pinch or poke too hard.  Coric was especially nice with soft hands that soothed after a hurt.  “Bacta’s working,” Coric confirmed after he’d finished.  “It looks like most of this is cosmetic by now.”  He had a hand on Ret’s head and the other on Kote’s back, petting slowly.  “They’ve been through the wringer, but Skirata did full treatment not a patch job.  Put them to bed in their skins.  I’ll have one of the droids adjust the temp with a medical override.  They don’t need uniforms irritating those scrapes.  Let them sleep in tomorrow.”

3636 nodded seriously.  “Trapper, you’re going to sleep up top tonight so we don’t have to move them.”  He was eyeing the sleeping mat like they might find space to wedge a third body.  When they were tubies still in the off-white jumpsuits, before their cadet blues, they could fit four to a sleeping tube.  At nine years old, Ret and Kote barely fit in a single tube together.  3636 settled for sitting on the edge of the sleeping mat so Kote flop halfway across his lap while Ret pressed up against his back.

Kote fell asleep with 3636’s fingers combing slowly through his hair and Ret holding his hand.

Notes:

Ori’vod - older sibling (training officer)
Verd’ika - little soldier (trainee)
Nayc - no (also Don't!)
Mandokar - The right stuff to make a good Mandalorian
Shabuir - Insult (approximately 'motherfucker')
Uj’alayi - Sweet cake

Chapter 4: Cara

Cara popped out from behind the corner shouting, “Gotcha!” The kid squealed waddling away as fast as they could manage.

“Run!” Boba called after them. “I’ll hold’em back.” He lunged for Cara with a respectable bolley kick that nearly connected.

Cara dodged then caught him up in her arms. She swung him around. “Tap out or I start tickling,” she warned, wiggling her fingers against his side.

Boba gave a put upon sigh and slapped her shoulder twice. Cara let him down. “You’re next womp rat,” she called down the hallway walking quickly after Din’s kid.

With Din busy trying to acclimatize to his new role as a kiddie drill instructor and Jango off doing stars-knew-what, Cara had been press ganged into babysitting. She didn’t mind. Babysitting gave her an excuse not to socialize with the other Mandalorians.

Cara had been part of the rebellion. She knew you couldn’t be precious about who your allies were in a war. If they were reliable enough not to stab you in the back and motivated to kill the same people as you, you kept your mouth shut about your opinions of their culture, lifestyle, and past choices. Still, she had no burning desire to spend more time with Skirata and Vau, Jango’s closest allies, than she absolutely had to. Din didn’t mind if she and the kid stayed in while he socialized, and Boba knew he wasn’t well-liked by his father’s friends so came to play with the kid instead of going to various meetings with his father.

There was a few hours until latemeal and Boba and the kid had been bouncing around the apartment driving Cara to homicide. So she’d suggested they go on a field trip with Boba showing the kid all his favorite places around Tipoca City. The field trip had turned into a modified game of hide and go seek with Cara pretending to hunt the kids up and down the slick, sterile hallways. Both Boba and the kid were well on their way to exhausting themselves.

The kid stopped in front of a door cooing intently. Cara snatched them up, blowing a raspberry into their belly. It didn’t draw the usual scream of laughter. “That’s not supposed to be unlocked,” Boba said. His uncertainty caught Cara’s attention..

“What do you mean?” she asked, examining the door. It looked similar to all the airlock style that demarcated the different sections of the facility. Most of them had small yellow lights at the top indicating that it could only be opened by authorized personnel. A few of the airlocks that led to maintenance areas were red for completely restricted access. The light on this door was green.

“This leads down to one of the desalination plants. It should be maintenance only,” Boba explained poking at the keypad next to the door. “It’s been sliced. This isn’t right. Dad didn’t do this.” He had a certain tone that reminded Cara of Din’s right before things went bad.

Cara tapped Boba’s shoulder, passing him the kid. “Comm your dad and Din. Let them know. I’m going to check it out.” She drew her blaster. “And stay in this hall, Boba. Don’t try to follow me. It could just be someone messing around.” From the kid’s scrunched up face and distressed little squeaks, Cara was fairly sure it was more than just someone looking for a place to nap out of view of their supervisor. “I’m serious, brat,” Cara added, allowing just a hint of Lieutenant Dune to suffuse her tone. “Stay here.” Then Cara hit the panel to open the door and stepped through.

The door opened to a narrow, dark corridor lined on both sides and above by layers of pipes. The only light came from the dim, sickly, green glow of lower power luma panels. Cara wished she’d brought her new Mandalorian armor. The helmet had the same fancy HUD package that Jango used and a suite of internal scanners. Those scanners, and the built in night vision functionality, would have been useful. Still, Cara had the light attached to her blaster scope if she got desperate.

Stepping lightly to minimize the noise of her hard-soled boots against the durasteel floor, Cara made her way down the narrow corridor. The good news was it seemed to be one, long winding path instead of an entrance to a maze of maintenance corridors. Din would be able to easily follow her. It did, however, remind her uncomfortably of the unlit path she and Din had followed back to the past. The white noise of water rushing through the pipes didn’t help the disorientation.

The corridor ended abruptly in a narrowed, grated staircase. Cara’s stomach flipped over as she eyed it. Just to be sure she flicked on her light which thankfully sprang to life illuminating the bare metal grating with harsh, white light. She flicked the light back off and breathed deeply. It was just a staircase.

She descended down the staircase for another level when it ended at another door. The light above the door was green. Cara slapped the panel standing off to the side so she wasn’t directly in front of the opening. The light on the other side was brighter with the industrial lightbars on the high ceiling cranked up to full power. The doorway opened to a catwalk which ran the perimeter of a massive room filled with tanks. At the center of the room, capped by a thick grid of durasteel beams and transparisteel tiles, was a massive pumping station. The water churned under the transparisteel so technicians could see all the pumps were functioning.

At least, that was what Cara was pretty sure the original intent had been. However, a bunch of mandos in different combinations of red, black, and blue armor seemed to be using it for something else. There were clones ranging from a few years older than Boba in appearance to almost the age of Skirata’s boys. The clones and the mandos were arranged in a large ring in the open area over the covered pumps. The rippling distortion in the air just beyond the ring told Cara she was looking at some kind of sound-muffling energy barrier, probably a jammer as well since the only she could hear was the whirr of the pumps.

There were two clones, both older teenagers, shirtless and beaten bloody, in the center of the ring. They were holding electro-staffs. Though from the purplish glow on the ends the power had been turned down significantly from the ones Cara had used in close combat. The two clones were fighting, and, despite the power on their weapons being turned down, some of the blows looked uncomfortably close to lethal.

Cara holstered her blaster. She didn’t want to walk up on twitchy mandos with a drawn weapon or they’d start shooting immediately. There didn’t seem to be an easy way to access the floor below. Cara looked around for a ladder, lift, or more stairs, but the catwalk seemed completely inaccessible from the floor below. As she made her way along the catwalk she found a gap in the catwalks’ railing. There had been a ladder attached there. Someone with a cutting torch had removed it. But was it to keep people on the catwalk from getting down? Or to prevent someone on the lower level from reaching the catwalk?

Cara rubbed her gauntleted fingers across the cut marks suspiciously. She glanced to see if anyone had noticed her presence and swore in Old Alderaanian. One of the clones had been disarmed. He was on the ground with his brother’s electro-staff held menacingly just beneath his chin. As Cara watched a handsome human man near the front of the group of mandos in a black flightsuit with red plates over it raised a careless hand making a sign she didn’t recognize.

The clone with the staff raised his weapon to let his brother up. Then, to Cara’s shock, he brought the end of the staff down on the downed clone’s head with enough force to fracture a skull. Cara swore again not hesitating. She hauled herself over the railing and launched herself off with a shrieking war cry.

There was slightly sticky, staticky resistance as she passed through the energy barrier. Luckily it ate a lot of her momentum. She hit the ground toe first and collapsed into a roll coming up between the two clones with her blaster pointed at the one with the staff. “Back the fuck off!” she ordered. The clone dropped his staff putting his hands in the air, a horrible relief in his pretty, brown eyes.

Cara figured the kid wasn’t going to try to cave her head in and turned to the downed clone. Her gauntlets were too thick to check for a pulse, but she could see the rise and fall of a lean chest that still had filling out to do. The poor bastard wasn’t dead yet.

There was yelling in Mando’a then a shriek of blasterfire. The kid who’d hit his brother shouted and clutched his arm as he was winged. Cara scooped up the dropped electro-staff turning towards the group of mandos who were now trying to get a bead on her. Rather than surrender or run for cover, Cara launched herself to her feet. The extra pounds of bio-engineered fast-twitch muscle that had been laced through her natural musculature made her superhumanly strong in short bursts. In her legs, it gave her an explosive sprint that no one expected from a being of her height.

Cara bull-rushed the group of mandos firing stun blasts in front of her to break up the cluster of armor. She was a rebel shocktrooper. Charging headfirst at groups of heavily armored hutt-fuckers was what she was trained to do.

Then she was in the middle of the group, too close for her blaster. She dropped the weapon, gripping the electro-staff in both hands as she jabbed one end into the throat of a woman about her own height. The woman dropped now focused on getting out the fight before she suffocated. Twirling the staff, Cara swept a man off his feet and kicked him the face while using staff to knock aside a blaster.

The mandos were trying to pull back and get enough space to hit Cara with a blaster without shooting their own people. Cara kept moving forward, always closing distance. If she fell behind she’d be dead from half a dozen blasterbolts. The clones had wisely gotten out of the line fire huddling in a large group near one of the tanks. Cara really hoped they stayed there. If they joined in, she’d be overwhelmed in a matter of seconds.

A tall humanoid with their helmet still on tried to grab the staff. They didn’t react quickly enough when Cara ripped it out of their grasp and punched the haft into the space between their breastplate and kidney belt. As they bent around the haft with a wheeze of agony, Cara used the staff to shove them off to the side.

A loud squeal of pain made her freeze. She looked up at the catwalk and bared her teeth. The handsome hutt-fucker in red and black had used his jetpack to make up onto the catwalk. Where Boba and the kid had been watching. Because baby Fett was a spoiled little shit and Cara, who had never approved of hitting kids, was going to spank him until he cried. The handsome hutt-fucker twisted the kid’s ear again until they whimpered. The barrel of his blaster was pressed against the back of Boba’s head.

Cara scowled, but she dropped the electro-staff and put her hands on her heads in response to the unspoken demand. “If you hurt them,” Cara said coldly, “it won’t matter what you do to me. Fett and my partner will cut you to pieces. Slowly.”

“We can handle one ruyot’ad, shabuir,” handsome hutt-fucker drawled. “And we can always replace Fett’s little pet. It’s just another clone after all. As busy as he is, he won’t notice.”

Cara bit her tongue. The man didn’t actually believe what he was saying. He just wanted to hurt Boba, and from the boys suddenly pale visage he’d scored a direct hit. “Well I sure as fuck can tell the difference,” Cara said trying to redirect the handsome hutt-fucker’s attention. “And I’ll kill all of you mudsucking cowards myself if I have to.” She tried to remember the word that Din always spat like it was poisoned. “Hu’tuun bastard.”

Handsome’s face got very ugly. “You dare call me a coward you auretii bitch?”

“I’ll call you whatever the fuck I want to, jawa-scrap. Unless you wanna come down here and shut me up yourself?” As Cara spoke she carefully twisted her fingers like she was nervous trying to sign to Boba and the kid. “You afraid of me, pretty boy? Real tough guy threatening a couple kids. You cry when someone hits back?”

Boba dropped and pulled the vibroblade out of his boot. He slashed across the space between the red vambrace and the armored gauntlet forcing the handsome huttfucker to release the kid’s ear. “Now!” Cara shouted knowing the kid would understand. Handsome hutt-fucker went flying off the catwalk propelled by an invisible force. “Go, go, go!” she yelled at the kids running forward to intercept him. Two blasterbolts drilled into her back penetrating the already battered material of her light armor. Cara didn’t stop. She didn’t dare.

Throwing herself in a roll, Cara scooped up her abandoned blaster and started firing at the handsome hutt-fucker. His armor was durasteel, not beskar, and she got a shot through the thinner jointed plates into his gut. Another blasterbolt hit her in the hip causing her leg to go out from under her. She rolled over and shot through directly through a visor.

Hauling herself to her feet, Cara grabbed at a mando in yellow armor trying to start their jetpack. She used the augments in her gauntlet to crumple something important looking on the side of the jetpack before shooting them point blank in their unarmored side. There was a groaning body on the ground which she tripped over. They punched her in the blaster wound on her hip. With a scream, Cara used her good leg to kick them in the head. She turned enough to fire several bolts directly into their helmet.

When Cara started to get up again, there was the belled muzzle of a heavy blaster directly in her face. The owner of the blaster was too angry to speak Basic, spitting out Mando’a she didn’t understand. “Din’s going to kill you,” Cara said with absolute certainty. She glared up at the hutt-fucker and waited for the shot which had been a long time coming. There was nothing to fear. Din would make sure Jango kept his promises about Alderaan.

“Drop your blaster or we drop you,” a voice roared, filling the room despite being distorted by a vocoder. Cara dropped her blaster and put her hands on her head for the second time grimacing in annoyance. With a curse her executioner dropped his weapon as well putting his hands on his helmet.

There was the hiss of multiple jetpacks while more armored bodies, including some in white armor, flooded in from around the tanks. Vau had both his blasters out flanked by the two women who usually sat by Skirata in the mess. They were all in full armor and the shorter of the two women was wielding a nasty looking plasma shotgun. Vau looked around slowly. Then in a voice that was more acid than words he said, “I see you and your boyfriend are still breaking your toys for kicks, Reau.”

The woman in the yellow made a noise of derision before letting out a whistling wheeze from the blasterbolt Cara had put into her chest cavity. “You can’t prove banthashit, Vau,” she said when she caught her breath. “The crazy aruetii bitch attacked us for no reason. It was self-defense.”

The woman with red braids peeking out of her helmet kicked over the body of the mando Cara had shot in the head. “And somehow two of your people are still dead,” she commented dryly. “And the rest are injured. If this is self-defense, I shudder to think what you consider adequate commando training.”

Vau pulled off his helmet. His smile was one of the most unpleasant things Cara had ever seen, and she’d seen Grand Moffs. “You can lie all you want, Reau. Bob’ika was kind enough to slice the feed you were streaming to the rec room and divert it to one of Skirata’s systems. We have a recording of Priest threatening children. Threatening Jango’s son. You can beat your clones until they lie backwards and forwards. Jango’s going to kill all of you Kyr’tsad mir’shebe for this.”

Since Vau seemed engaged in his pissing contest, Cara crawled over to where the injured boy from the fight was still laying on the floor. He hadn’t stirred through the whole ordeal. Cara clumsily tugged off her gauntlets. Her fingers were cold. Not a good sign. Still, she carefully prodded the boy’s throat to check his pulse. Since she could count three of the kid, she didn’t trust herself to see if he was breathing. His skin was still warm to the touch and after a few moments she felt a strong throb of blood. He was alive.

Cara rasped out a sigh of relief before looking down at herself. There was blood soaking through the layers of energy resistant fabric and shattered ceramic plates. She frowned at the weird looking hole in her front. “Oh you’re shitting me,” she said in horror as she realized one of those ‘blasterbolts’ to the back had been a godsdamned slug. No wonder her back hurt. Her light armor was meant to absorb and disperse energy. A solid projectile had shattered the ceramic tiles causing shrapnel damage. “Fucking Mandalorians!”

Her snarl caught Vau’s attention. The smug dropped off his face when he saw the puddle of blood around Cara. “Bralor, have Gilimar prep every spare tank he can find and get some gurneys down here.”

“The kid needs a backboard gurney,” Cara told Vau as she groped on her belt for her emergency bacta infusion. “He’s breathing, but I’m pretty sure he’s got a skull fracture. Possible spinal injury as well.”

There were suddenly hands taking the single-use hydrospray from Cara’s fumbling grip and quickly pulling off the safety cap. “He’s spare parts, Dune,” Vau snapped as he primed the infusion. “Don’t worry about it.”

Cara tipped her head to the side so he could hit the big vein in her neck. “I got my ass kicked trying to keep him alive. I’m not losing him now. Order the fucking backboard.” She hissed at the sting followed by a nauseating rush of cold.

“Dune, I can’t,” Vau said grimly from behind her. No doubt he was trying to figure out the best way to apply pressure to stop her from bleeding. “If we take him upstairs like this, the long-necks will just put him down. Might as well do it ourselves to make sure it’s clean.”

“Banthashit…” The curse trailed off into a scream as pad of bacta bandages was applied to the bleeding hole in her back hard enough to push the shards of ceramic deeper.

The woman with the shotgun was in front of Cara, shoving a second wad of bandages against the hole in her front. “Hold that,” she ordered Cara gruffly pulling out another roll of bandages.

Vau pressed harder on Cara’s back. “He’s command stock, Dune. I’d save the little bastard if I could. You need to focus on breathing.”

Cara gritted her teeth and pressed down as hard as she could on the bandages to stem the flow of blood from her front. “Get the kid, my kid. Get them!”

“You’re not that far gone,” the woman assured Cara, putting a hand on her shoulder.

That wasn’t quite true. Cara couldn’t feel her legs. “Not for me, moron. For the boy. Get my kid.” It was getting harder to find the air to speak.

Then Boba, bless his ornery little butt, was shoving his way through the forest of adult legs around him. The kid clung to his back chirping urgently. “Boba,” Cara rasped. She blinked when no sound came out. It took a wet gasp that expanded her chest painfully to say, “Boba, take them to the hurt boy.”

“They want you though!” Boba said dodging someone’s attempt to grab them.

“Boy, brats,” Cara ordered. She narrowed her eyes at the pair of adorable, stubborn glares she was being given. If Vau could get in her in a bacta tank within the next fifteen minutes or so, Cara would be fine. The kid was the injured clone’s only chance at survival. “Now,” she said though it was too breathy to have the impact she wanted. The fact she was having trouble focusing her eyes on them didn’t help.

The kid cooed sadly, ears drooping. But both they and Boba made their way over to the injured clone. Hopefully Boba would have the good sense to take care of the kid if they passed out. Cara wasn’t going to be awake long enough to help.

“She’s crashing!” someone shouted. The dark spots at the corner of Cara’s vision expanded until black was all she could see.

Notes:

aruetii - foreigner, traitor
hu'tuun - coward
Kyr'tsad mir'shebe - Death Watch shitheads

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 3 of And Everyone is to Blame