Author's Note: 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

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

Ba'vodu (BAH-vod-oo): uncle (plural bavodu'e) or aunt (plural bavodu'e)

Ba'vodu Gan: Uncle Gan

Buir (boo-EER): father or mother

Ika (EE-kah): diminutive suffix written as 'ika - also added to a name as a very familiar or childhood form, e.g, Ord'ika - Little Ordo

Kal'buir (Kal-boo-EER): Father Kal

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

Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum (Nee soo-COO-yee, gar keer-AH-deesh, nee par-TIE-lee, gar dah-rah-SOOM): "I'm still alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal"—Daily remembrance of those passed on, followed by the names of those being remembered  

Ret'urcye mhi (ray-TOOR-shay-MEE): Goodbye - lit. *Maybe we'll meet again*

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Chapter 48

I think about you every day and hope that you are safe. I know that the war had ended some time ago and I was told it was at the cost of the entire Jedi Order. I haven't heard from you consistently for a few weeks now, and I can't help wondering if you and your brothers survived. My heart aches without knowing what has happened to you, and I worry every moment I receive no reply. I know in one of my previous messages I had told you that we had newcomers settle on Tochin who were assigned here by Emperor Palpatine. They undermine my father's authority and find ways to twist his words against him. Papa and Janelle have shared heated debates with the one who has taken the rank of moff. The new legion of stormtroopers that they provided is not personable either. I'm growing impatient for your response, even a single line of text will...aru'ela.

Princess Arlesse Psach's final comlink transmission to RC-1147 "Jas"

Mandalore, 63 Days After Order 66

Moving out the door, Jas exited the Skirata house and returned to the bench where he had started earlier in the morning. The sun had risen and was now about at the halfway point across the sky. Early afternoon was beginning to settle in, and it seemed like yet another day was wasted while he was stranded away from Les'ika. Jas knew that he needed to be getting into town to find a ship or even a pilot who would be willing to drop him off on Tochin. He'd figure out what to do after he got there, but for now, he just needed to get off Mandalore.

"Hey, I'm in," Dusty said.

Jas didn't realize that his brother had followed him, but he didn't interrupt Dusty as he continued talking.

"You belong with her, ner vod. They can remain here in their secluded little existence, hiding from the Empire if that's what they want, but Les'ika doesn't have that luxury. She's pinned down in that palace with only Tarj as her buffer. You and I could both see that, just by the way she was using him as a shield. You were insane enough to get attached to her and even more crazy to vow yourself as her knight. We both know that it's long overdue for you to take on that responsibility."

Jas smiled, nothing but a faint tug at the corners of his lips, but it was a smile nonetheless. Dusty never failed to support him, even when they had their tiffs with each other. "Thanks, ner vod."

"Look, we're going to get you some decent tech and a respectable amount of credits," Ordo offered as he appeared out of the doorway to the house and joined the two of them. "My Null brothers are working on revamping a freighter that we had recently...acquired. They're also in the process of giving it a new identity."

"You don't have to do this," Jas told him softly. "I shouldn't have expected much, and I don't want you in trouble for the likes of me. I'm pretty certain that if Les'ika was just a normal girl it would have made a difference. Your buir doesn't seem to like many people, and I don't think he's crazy about us rejects."

"Kal'buir's just jumpy," Ordo explained, trying to equally defend his father and appease his brothers' sense of rejection. "It's been hard trying to keep the pathway open for others while trying to weed out those who would threaten our quiet existence. It's getting harder to keep our location quiet, and there are too many secrets we have going through this place. With that said, I shouldn't have to tell you that you'll be solely on your own once you leave. I've been called to a mission to retrieve some others who have need of our sanctuary."

"You don't need to explain, ner vod," Jas replied to Ordo. "There's too many of us scattered out there trying to get somewhere safe. Me, I just know where my obligation lies, and it's to Les'ika. I chose this path as a free man, not as an enslaved soldier to the Emperor."

Ordo nodded quietly and then brought forth a small holo-chip. "There's one other thing we have for you. This is from Kal'buir. He said he was holding onto it for a while and that he was going to give it to you at the end of our meeting, but you stormed off so quickly, he didn't get a chance to give it to you. He said that you should both view it together, whenever you're ready."

Dusty raised his eyebrow in curiosity. "What is it?"

"I don't know," Ordo admitted with a shrug of his shoulders. "Kal'buir said it was a message for the two of you only."

Dusty took the small device from Ordo and watched him quietly return inside the house. Then, he looked down to the holo-recorder in his hand. There was nothing special about it, as it was standard issue from what they had seen on Kamino.

"Maybe the Kaminoans had one last complaint about us that they couldn't keep to themselves," Dusty said with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Turn it on," Jas insisted. "Neither of us ever liked suspense."

Dusty touched the small button and the projector came to life. An image of an older man appeared, his body seeming weak and frail. He was bedridden, eyes sunken and limbs so thin they looked like they would break just by moving them.

"Fierfek," Dusty breathed. "That's Ba'vodu Gan."

Silence fell over the two brothers as they watched this shadow of a man, and neither clone was able to believe that he was the same person who had trained them to become soldiers. Gan Pohin was far from the physically fit sergeant who had been assigned to the "reject" squad. His eyes blinked tiredly, and his smile was all that gave any indication he wasn't just a corpse. There was that familiar crooked smirk on the man's face, the smirk that exaggerated the scar on his cheek to make it seem deeper than it really was.

Laughing quickly for a moment to himself, Gan Pohin then began speaking. His voice was far from commanding now. It was as tired and weak sounding as the rest of his body looked. "Well then, if any of you delinquent boys are watching this then it means that at least one of you survived. Wasn't sure that the war would have kept any of you alive. It was nothing but methodical nonsense from my perspective..."

A heavy, wet cough wracked the old sergeant suddenly, and he wheezed for a moment, trying to compose himself and gain his breath back. After a moment, he continued on explaining about his illness and how it struck just as the war was beginning. He briefly described the last couple months of his life, how he was forced to take pain medicines just to get through the days as he tried in vain to find information on his former sister-in-law and the child she was once carrying.

Gan paused as though collecting his thoughts again and released another miserable-sounding cough. "I guess what I'm trying to say is: don't live with regrets. If you find a way to get yourselves free, you take it. If you meet a girl and things go well, don't hesitate. Your lives aren't long enough to have time for mistakes. You have to do it right the first time, and even though I don't agree with the unfairness of what you were given, I wish I had followed some of that advice for myself. That's really all I wanted to say. Things I should have said the day you left, but I...well, I was afraid that I wouldn't hold up right. I think I did pretty well for a bunch of rejects, and even with those who weren't so bad off like that kid Tarj, I just wasn't prepared to know you'd all be marching directly into crossfires. Anyway, I've become a crazy, babbling sick man. I wish I'd just hurry up and die already. Stubborn Mando body."

At that, Gan laughed with that wicked, broken wheeze, and he went into another coughing fit. When he was done, he simply said "Ret'urcye mhi." It was the equivalent to goodbye and that he hoped they would meet again one day.

The transmission shut down, and the two men just stared blankly at the place where the hologram had been.

After a very long, silent moment, Dusty looked to Jas and spoke quietly. "Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum, Ba'vodu Gan."

Jas blinked for a moment as Dusty's words absorbed into him, and the memories of Gan flashed in his mind. He thought about how quickly their training sergeant – their uncle – had just deteriorated and how the man who was full of spunk lived the last months of his life crippled and sick. Jas shook his head, more determined than ever to be with Les'ika. "I'm not going to live with regrets."

"Neither am I," Dusty replied as his thoughts suddenly switched over to Cerina Browlin. He had to fight that nagging curiosity about finding her for just a while longer, and right now he needed to concentrate his efforts on how to infiltrate the Imperial-ruled world of Tochin.

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