Author's Note: I am very grateful to everyone who is taking the time to read, especially comment and vote! If you have any tips 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

Ba'vodu Gan: Uncle Gan

Ner vod (nair-vohd): "my brother/sister"; colloquially also "my friend"

Buy'ce (BOO-chay, BOO-shay): helmet; Colloquially: pint, bucket

Vode an: meaning "Brothers All", was an ancient Mandalorian war chant sung in Mando'a. During his training of Clone Troopers the of the Galactic Republic, Jango Fett revised a number of chants, including Vode An, replacing traditional Mandalorian keywords with more appropriate Republic ones. In this instance, it is presumable that he replaced "Mandalore" with "Coruscant". The chant was sung by the clone troopers with the accompaniment of drums and horns

Di'kut (DEE-koot): idiot, useless individual, waste of space (lit. someone who forgets to put their pants on)

Manda (MAHN-dah): the collective soul or heaven - the state of being Mandalorian in mind, body and spirit - also supreme, overarching, guardian-like

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Chapter 11

It's a shame that Jango wasn't able to survive to see his legacy live on. The admirable barve always had trouble with women. Seems that someone has a twisted sense of humor be use his clone offspring are getting more female action than he ever did.

Walon Vau's thoughts on Clones having relationships with women

Tochin Moon III, 784 Days ABG

Daylight had finally broken over the horizon about forty-five minutes ago, and it made the land seem to take on a life of its own. The sun was obscured for the most part by the thickness of the forest, but it's beam found spaces between the shrubberies to shine through.

 The dew that had settled upon the foliage sparkled, creating prisms over the organic life that surrounded Crimson Squad and their mission objective, Princess Arlesse.

Studying the forest around him, Gath was reminded of a mission a couple of months ago in which he had caught a scene from a fantasy holofilm he had stumbled across while moving through a private residence. 

From what he could recall of the film, it was a silly little story about tiny, colorfully winged woodland humanoids and their plight to remain secret. 

The holofilm was yet another piece of multimedia drivel that was created solely for the purpose of entertaining younglings.

Still, as Gath thought about it, he realized there was enough color and movement in the film to catch his attention and allow him the privilege to look briefly into the world of civilian life. 

However, that moment in time had been very short lived as their target had been spotted again, and they had to remain on the move to get him. 

It was one of their earlier missions and one of their easier missions because they were ordered to take out the Separatist terrorist by any means necessary.

As the sun illuminates the forest, Gath pushed away the memories of his not-so-distant past and found himself surprised by the amount of color that actually filled the landscape around him. 

Last night, the colors had been muted with no sign of the vivid life that seemed to be overloading and exploding in the forest now. The trees and shrubbery alone ranged in all shades of green from a yellow-tinted green to a date green that was nearly black in its richness.

Floral plants thrived in the gaps between the trees, leaning toward the sunlight as though they were little aliens reaching upward for something in the sky. The petals were in a multitude of colors: bright red, pale blue, deep orange, and scores more that Gath couldn't bother trying to identify. 

Some of the shrubbery even had berries on them. He saw one plant was covered with dark violet - almost black - clustered berries, and another was full of tiny yellow-like fruit. He had already checked the plants against the data in his HUD and saw that their products were poisonous to humans. 

He decided to not trust any of the fruit they came across until they consulted their database first. He was not willing to make an amateurish mistake that could result in any of them become sick or dying due to laziness on his part for not properly cataloging the past,ant life early on in the mission.

Gath now glanced behind him at the escape pod that had landed relatively intact. There was virtually no damage to the craft, but it had served its purpose and had done its job well. 

Looking at the small ship in the daylight, Gath was actually surprised by the incredibly tiny size of it. It almost seemed impossible that they could fit five people in the small, barrel-like craft. When he went in it earlier to find more supplies, the tiny escape pod actually felt claustrophobic. 

He had been amazed by his the rush of adrenaline and wanting to survive the chaos amidst them had distorted his earlier perceptions.

Rubbing the nagging remnants of exhaustion, Gath regretted that he didn't take the extra half-hour of rest that Jas had offered to him earlier. He could have used it, for nothing else but to get the annoying itch of overtiredness out of his eyes. 

Unfortunately, he knew it was too late now to take that rest. He would just have to wait it out until the next opportunity came up for sleep. 

Gath doubted they were going to find any civilization any time soon. He figured at least a day or so worth of travel was ahead of them, and he hoped it wouldn't be more than that. 

Even though they had all survived the critical escape from Moon II, there was no guarantee that the journey lie ahead would be without incident.

A heavy, soft sigh broke Gath from his thoughts and he turned to the young princess. She was lying on the ground atop a dark, gray blanket with a pale-colored brown one over her to keep her warm in the cool spring morning. She was resting on her side, instinctively curling herself into a ball to conserve her body heat.

 Gath noted that her forehead was creased as though lost in some dream and her eyes moved beneath her closed eyelids. For a moment, Gath wondered if she was dreaming of home or of she was living through her timer again in the form of a nightmare. 

Either way, he felt pity for the poor girl for having to endure the cruel side of war. He doubted she would be able to her own in the frontlines, and he was grateful that they didn't have to take her through the brutalities of that kind of war zone.

 He did wonder, however, about the possibility that if she had been raised differently and wasn't so sheltered if she could have had the potential to be a formidable ally. Shaking his head silently, he pushed that thought away. That was an alternate future that was not to ever be known.

Thinking about the war, Gath felt his remorse surface once again for the distant brother who was also a prisoner of Hazar and who they would be able to officially identify.

 Hazar, being the di'kut that he was, should consider himself lucky to be dead. If not, Gath would have made it his personal vendetta to find him and slowly dissect him one limb at a time. 

Of course, from the emotional outburst that Crimson has exhibited earlier in the night after learning the trooper's fate, Gath knew that he would have not been alone in such a quest for vengeance.

"The weakened tranquilizer I slipped her earlier should be wearing off soon," Dusty commented as he returned after a short walk away to "study the plants and flowers closely," as he put it.

Watching Dusty settle onto the ground beside him, Gath opted to not get into the technicalities of what he meant since he had handled the same requirements earlier in the morning. Shaking his head in slight amazement, he looked to his brother. "That was sneaky and clever of you, ner vod, tricking her into taking that drink of water you offered her. You're lucky she didn't turn you down."

That made Dusty laugh, and he ran his fingers through the thickening mop of dark hair that covered his skull. He knew he should have gotten his hair cut before they deployed, but with their last two missions being so simple, he figured they were on a roll. 

He thought one easy recovery and extraction would earn him a day to take care of personal things like his hair. 

He hoped this mission wouldn't really last more than a couple of days, though. Any longer, and his buy'ce won't want to sit properly on top of his thick mop. Trying to ignore potential annoyance of his hair, Dusty felt his familiar smirk on his face as he continued his conversation with his brother.

"Well, if she didn't take the water from me, I would have recruited Jas next to offer it."

Gath rubbed his face at the thought, again trying to ignore his fatigue. He made it a point that he was going to over-extend his leadership duties and order his brothers to give him an extra hour or more of rest later tonight. 

Rubbing the back of his neck now, Gath thought about what Dusty said and how the princess seemed to respond a little more comfortably to Jas. 

He thought that maybe it was nothing and maybe it was everything, but Gath decided that as long as she was not panicking over her situation and was able to be calmed by at least one of them, it was not something to worry about right now.

"You said you only gave her a partial dose," Gath reiterated. "She's gotten a good three hours of sleep by now, and I doubt she would have taken a rest without the help. She was pretty emotionally broken."

Dusty felt his hands clench into fists. "I really wish I didn't just make a clean shot on Hazar. He deserved to be gutted alive."

Gath smiled now. "I was just thinking the same thing, but that's not where we need to be anymore. Our unnamed brother has joined the Manda, as Ba'vodu Gan would say, and as long we remember him in some way, he's never truly forgotten."

"Vode an, right?"

Nodding, Gath acknowledged, "Vode an."

Shifting gears, Dusty jerk a thumb toward Mouse and Jas . "What about those two?"

The brothers that Dusty indicated slept sitting up against a downed tree, buckets on, Deeces crossed over their chests, and fingers within instant access to the triggers. 

Dusty could suddenly remember about six training exercises they endured together that had required them to sleep in such positions, and he hated it.

 Dusty remembered complaining about how his personal comforts were ignored, and he hated how his brothers were unfazed by their predicament. As soon a Mouse dared to call him a pathetic little Ewok cub, Dusty had caught his jaw squarely with his fist.

 For their outburst, they had spent three days in special confinement for physically fighting and disturbing a training exercise.

Gan had nearly killed them himself when he found out about another of Crimson's disobediences. Instead of harming them, though, he sat down with them and made no attempt to hide his disappointment. His words had been sad and grief-stricken. 

He told Crimson that he never had the opportunity to find the right woman and have any family of his own. He finally admitted to them that he wanted them to be his nephews, the children he always imagined his sister-in-law would have one day. 

Then he told them how his sister-in-law, who was not of the Mandalorian blood, had abandoned the Mando culture after her husband, Gan's youngest brother, was killed trying to defend the homestead. 

She was six months pregnant at that time, and Gan never had the opportunity to find her or her child because he was recruited to Kamino before he could complete his search.

That conversation changed Crimson in a way no one ever thought was possible. Within the next few months their insults had become more playful and less brawl provoking.

 By the end of that year, they had harnessed their physical strengths and turned their fighting into proper displays of sparring. For only being eight years old chronologically, they had finally understood on a very deep level that they had disappointed the only being on Kamino who gave a damn about them. 

One thing, however, that not even Gan could resolve was their tendency towards finding ways to penalize them because they had proven their superiors wrong.

Gath leaned against the downed log he and Dusty were sharing and broke Dusty from his reminiscences by finally answering his question. "Once we get Jas and Mouse up, I want to send Jas on recon, check out what's ahead..."

Dusty opened his mouth to say something, but Gath cut him off. He didn't want to hear any wisecracks right now, and he was certain that Dusty had been gathering an arsenal of them with their predicament. "I don't want her to depend solely on Jas' involvement. He did well to get her trust. Now I need to assess her connection to the rest of us."

"You think she doesn't trust us?" Dusty asked.

Gath shook his head. "She knows we don't want to harm her..."

Dusty jumped in before Gath got much further and spoke factual rather than a question. "You think Jas got too close too quickly."

Shrugging his shoulders uncertainly, Gath thought about how the princess latched onto Jas during her retelling of the trooper's ordeal. "Jas did right because of her emotional trauma, but she needs to find her own way to cope until she gets home. I'm sure there's someone in her little world that will give her psychological guidance once she's back safe."

Dusty snorted briefly, a quick display of irony. "Leave it to us to return damaged goods. I love being Reject Squad"

"I really wish we could lose that insulting title."

Dusty laughed then. "Come on, ner vod. It's a badge of honor. How many other squads have a one-hundred percent success rate despite their handicaps?"

Gath felt a small smile crack on his face at that, and he pushed Dusty gently off the log. "Get our brothers up, but let her sleep for now."

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Quick Author's Note: First, I want to take a moment to wish everyone a Merry Christmas Eve. I would also like to say happy holidays to everyone. If you don't celebrate Christmas, which I know some people do not, I want to wish you and everyone who celebrates Christmas a Happy New Year!

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