Author's Note: If you have any writing tips, please feel free to comment.

As always, I continue to hope that I am doing justice to the spirit of Star Wars as well the respective authors and characters from which I borrow. Again, I gratefully accept constructive criticism as a means to help me develop my skills further as a writer.

Mandalorian (Mando'a) words

Aru'ela (AH-roo-AY-la): hostile, enemy (adj)

Buir (boo-EER): father or mother

Dadita (dah-DEE-tah): code used by Mandalorians, like Morse

Kal'buir (Kal-boo-EER): Father Kal

Haran (HAH-rahn): hell; Literally: destruction, cosmic annihilation

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Chapter 1

The clones of Jango Fett are perfect soldiers. They will remain obedient in their orders, and their loyalty unmatched. Their emotions, however, could only be suppressed for so much. It would not be considered a failure if they bonded with the female gender. After all, humans have a remarkable instinct to breed, and we were just unable to eliminate all primal needs for the clones. 

Private notes from Kaminoan Geneticist Ko Sai, regarding certain clones' reactions to women

Skirata homestead, Mandalore, Two Months after Order 66

Jas looked at the distant grave markers of the brothers he would never know, momentarily thinking about the diverse group who called themselves a Mandalorian Clan. They asked no questions when he and Dusty had arrived. 

The clan simply offered them sanctuary until they were ready to be on their own again. They just wanted Dusty and Jas to know that they were welcome amongst them and that they were fellow brothers to the ones who were once clones in the Grand Army of the Republic. 

Although Jas' previous interaction with his distant brothers was sparse, he would know them anywhere. It was their mannerisms and the way they held themselves. 

They were all soldiers trained on Kamino and all of them came from the same mold, but it was their ideals and their morals that made them different. It was those traits that they learned from their Mandalorian training sergeants.

Kal Skirata, known to the clan as Kal'buir, was the training sergeant to the former Omega Squad. He was also known for adopting the Null ARCs as his sons, and they were often described as being the man's personal army. 

If not for Kal, the Kaminoians would have executed the Nulls because, in the aihwa-bait's eyes, the Nulls were a failure. 

Kal'buir had also set into motion the plan to get the clones out of the army and provide them with a sanctuary of their cultural Mando roots. The old sergeant was still determined to get their accelerated aging to cease so that they could live out the remainder of their lives as normal humans.

Strangely enough, Dusty easily took to their new roles as regulars, average citizens. He only needed a few days to get himself set up on a nearby farm that one of the other clone soldiers had established. 

From what Jas could recall, a former clone commander named Levet owned the farm. In passing conversations Jas learned that Dusty was trying to earn the attention of a woman from a neighboring clan. 

Jas understood that Dusty had decided he didn't want to spend his abbreviated existence alone and have no one beside him. In their short time on Mandalore, Dusty grew fond of the camaraderie amongst the clans and how the bond of family was so strong. He felt the time had come to stop living in the past and think of his future, no matter how short it would be.

Jas then thought about the diversity of the Skirata Clan and how they were a family despite not all being of the same blood. 

It was easy to see how and why Dusty wanted to find his place amongst the Mandalorians and have a family of his own. It was the Mando way to develop and share their knowledge with those in the clan.  

Jas lifted his eyes to the sky above now, no longer thinking about Dusty and his newfound contentment. He only wished he was that lucky and satisfied. He knew that before Order 66, the idea of such a life was far out of reach. 

Sighing softly, Jas brought his thoughts back to the present, leaving the imaginary future he thought he would have had the chance to experience. Had things not gone to haran on Felucia, he was certain that the decisions he had made in his past would have brought him the satisfaction and contentment he so longed to know. 

As reality returned him to the cool night air, Jas remembered that he had walked out of the house to find a few moments of quiet in the early spring night. Kad had begun crying during the most undesirable hours, waking more than a few of the Skirata household. 

Laseemsa, the Twi'lek wife of the former commando Atin, said the child probably had experienced a nightmare or a bout of indigestion and she would tend to him. 

From what Jas could piece together. Kad was the offspring from one of the commandos who didn't make it back from the war, and the clan adopted him without question. 

Jas also observed that the clan was quite protective of the child, being very careful about anyone who was not from within the Skirata family interacting with him. 

Shifting his mental wanderings from Kad, Jas felt the images and the emotions wash over him again from the horrible nightmare that he had experienced just before Kad's sobbing had awoken him. Jas and his brothers were once again trying to flee Felucia in the disturbing dream. In the residual after-effects of the nightmare, Jas was reminded that Gath and Mouse didn't make it off Felucia. 

However, his dream had taken a different spin, this time including the woman he cared about. Jas remembered in the nightmare, how he desperately tried to reach down the ramp to grasp her small hand, but Dusty held him back, refusing to lose him too. 

The dream was so real that Jas could feel the warmth of her fingers through his gloves as his hands barely grazed her skin. Then, he felt more than heard her screams as her terrorized sobs tore through his chest, and the pain that consumed him left no physical wound. He watched helplessly as the army of clones, men who were not their brothers, drowned her as though she were in an endless sea of white and black armor.

Unable to fall back to sleep from those images, Jas had taken his personal communicator with him out into the quiet field. He sat on a wooden bench and tried once more to raise some kind of communication on the device. Again, dead static answered him. 

The last transmission that came through was encrypted with a couple lines of text. Then it abruptly ended with the word, "Aru'ela." It meant "hostile," and his heart had frozen at the sight of the Mando'a word. 

During the war, they communicated as regularly as possible, and he tried to teach her new Mandalorian words in every transmission. He made sure to teach her the most important ones first, as they would eventually become their code for when they wished to send messages of a more personal and confidential nature. 

Instinctively, Jas moved his hand to his chest, touching where his heart was located. Under the simple clothes he now wore, he kept a small cloth with a thin lock of her braided hair in a pouch. Shortly after she had given him the braid, he had sewn a pocket into his bodysuit, as he always made sure there was a place in whatever shirt he wore to store her hair. He would never put it anywhere but near his heart. she deserved to be placed nowhere else but where she mattered most to him. 

Besides his memories, the braid was all he had left of her. He had promised her that if he survived to the end of the war, he would find his way back and they would be together. Then, Order 66 happened, and it turned their hopes and dreams to shag. 

Two weeks ago he received her last message, and he knew that he had to keep himself safe and hidden for a while before he could even think of returning to her. 

If the newly formed Empire caught him roaming free throughout the galaxy, he would be assassinated for being a deserter and a traitor. 

His only hope was to seek sanctuary on Mandalore and disappear for a couple of weeks, allowing the Empire to believe he and Dusty had died while fleeing Felucia and that the wreckage of their transport floating in the Outer Rim would be proof enough. 

Shortly after Jas had gotten free of the military, he discovered that Order 66 was a coup, but it was not of the Jedi overtaking the Republic. It was coup of the Chancellor, eliminating all his enemies. 

It was a cleverly concealed scam, and now that Palpatine had declared himself Emperor, there was no safety within the Imperial Government for Jedi or deserter clones.

In the past few weeks, Palpatine had nullified the Republic and turned it into his own personal dictatorship. 

The last Jas had heard was that the clone armies were being indoctrinated under a new kind of brainwashing and then sent forth to help round up and eliminate the beings who were most heavily involved in the Confederacy of Independent Systems . 

The Imperial Army had become nothing more than executioners of entire races.

Jas had no guilt about leaving the military now, and he was glad to be free of the servitude. He knew that he would not want to undergo eliminating his memories and his emotions, and if there would have been any part of him left after the indoctrination, that small part of his humanity would never obediently follow the orders he would be given. 

Clone or not, some things were just too inhuman for even a created warrior to understand, especially since Jas had been touched by the kindness of another being.

"Can't sleep?" Ordo asked as he came from around the perimeter of the clan grounds. He stretched his arms above his head and suppressed a yawn as though he, too, had been awoken by the commotion from inside. 

Jas looked up from his comlink, recognising the former Null ARC as one of Kal's adopted sons, one of the six who were dubbed as "Skirata's Personal Army." Jas decided not to dwell on a past that wasn't his to know. 

If Skirata's Clan wanted to delve into their histories, he would gladly learn about them. Until then, he would put his efforts into finding a way to find out what happened to her and make every effort to return to her. 

"The young one was raising haran," Jas explained a his fingers blindly tried to work the keypad on the comlink. He didn't know if Ordo would think he was insane if he told him about the nightmare, so he kept that to himself. "Then, my thoughts didn't know how to go back to sleep."

Ordo stood before Jas, pointing to the comlink. He had seen the commando carrying the device around, often checking it for messages. "Do you ever part with that?"

Jas looked to the comlink in his hands and shook his head. He kept it with him always. when he wore his commando armor, he had it hidden under his thigh plate. when he was without the armor, it stayed attached to his belt. 

Now, he held it like a lifeline to a time and a place so far away, it might as well be a dream.

"Her name is Arlesse," Jas answered, needing to finally talk about her again. Just saying her name made his heart jump and then just as quickly sink. I miss you so much. "Her last communication came about two weeks ago. We had our own personal dadita, and even though it was nothing more than a select handful of Mando'a words and phrases, the meanings behind them were very clear to me."

Jas was just as fluent in Mando'a as were the clones from the Skirata Clan. He knew that Ordo would understand if he weaved between the Standard language and Mando'a. Jas' training sergeant, Gan Pohin, was no less of a Mandalorian than the other sergeants. 

Gan made sure his squad knew the language well. He insisted that it would allow them to communicate cryptically in their own personal code, should then need to speak around others who did not know their business. 

Ordo stretched his neck, allowing the kinks to pop free as he thought about the hours he and Mereel had spent trying to break the new Imperial communications system. "Palps changed all the communications on us, and we can't contact any of our own now. Mereel and I have been trying to figure it out for weeks, but we're growing increasingly frustrated."

"I believe she is alive," Jas said firmly, not wanting to think about how he may not be able to get another communication from Arlesse. "She's in danger, and I can't allow anything to happen to her."

"It's also dangerous out there for deserters," Ordo gently shot back.

"And, I promised her I would return," Jas breathed, caught between anger and helplessness. 

Watching Jas' reaction to his comment, Ordo considered for a moment how he would feel if Besany, his wife, was lost somewhere in the galaxy. He had at one time watched over her, secretly hiding her in the shadows to keep her safe. He even went so far as to kill a man in cold blood in front of Besany to protect her. 

He wondered now if he would have risked his chance at his comfortable existence to find her if she wasn't already part of the clan. Closing his eyes, Ordo saw her face and felt the comfort of her embrace. The light in her eyes when they were together always melted him in some way he never understood. She was one of the few people he would ever allow to see his vulnerabilities, and he was endeared to her by the compassion that was in her eyes. 

'Shab,' Ordo cursed silently. He knew without question he would walk into the fires of the Seven Hells if he had to for her. Looking again at Jas, Ordo could see so clearly in his newfound brother's eyes that Jas would jump off the edge of the galaxy to get his girl back. 

"Ever heard of Tochin?" Jas asked softly, almost apologetically.

Ordo had the strange feeling that he was about to be recruited into something, and he was ready to welcome the challenge if it came to that. "It's in the Celeste System and harbors three moons. Two of the moons are uninhabitable." 

Jas nodded. "Tochin, itself, is uninhabitable. It's mined for the tolium that gets used for blasters. Humans habit Moon Three, where the governmental body is a monarchy, ruled by a decent king... not like Palps. This old man treats his people right."

"You sound like you need to tell a story," Ordo said, offering an opportunity for his new brother to vent. 

Jas closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. When he opened them, he looked at Ordo and prepared himself for the verbal execution that he was sure would follow at the end of his tale. 

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