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

Beskar'gam (BES-kar-GAM): armor

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

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

--- --- --- --- ---

Chapter 52

For centuries, the palace guards were responsible for the safety of the royal family. I wasn't too keen on the Republic Army stepping into our territory, but at least they knew their limits. The Empire took away the only employment I've ever had, and now that I've been removed from that honor, I find civilian life is much more complicated than I ever imagined.

Chora Wsau, former Tochin palace guard

Tochin Moon III, 82 Days after Order 66

Three days was all the Skirata Nulls needed to supply Jas and Dusty with a ship, tech, new identities, and credits. The two men who were once members of Crimson Squad knew that they had to go in covertly and unrecognizable onto Tochin. 

It was a known fact now that desertion from the military was a crime punishable by death, and Palpatine was not going to waste resources holding trials for clone deserters. It seemed that an unofficial policy of "shoot on sight" had been instilled for much of the galaxy, and Jas could only assume that Harkin had implemented that policy as well.

Jas and Dusty knew it would have been too suspicious for both of them to go throughout the galaxy and onto Tochin together in beskar'gam so Dusty opted instead to disguise his distinctive dark hair and dark eyed Jango Fett features. 

He dyed his hair and slipped a pair of contacts into his eyes. Rather than be the blue-eyed blonde he was on Denon for the mission with Cerina Browlin, he now changed his hair to be that orange tint humans referred to as red. Just to make it look even more convincing, he added a couple of gray highlights to the hair by his temples to provide him with what he thought of as an air of sophistication. 

Dusty had even changed the shade of his eyes with the contacts as his irises no longer reflected the deep brown that was so familiar on every clone, but instead, they reflected a much lighter hue that resembled caf with creamer in it. Those small changes alone had transformed Dusty into a man that was not recognizable as a deserted clone. 

To finalize the character, Ordo and his brothers created an identity for Dusty, where he got to portray a similar persona to the one he had on Denon: he was a real estate mogul, and his current interest was in a certain Tochinite equinine farm that had burned down a number of years ago.

Jas' involvement with this mission required that he be less visual, but it was imperative that he continued to be a part of it. They had decided that it would be best for him not to alter his appearance in the event that he had an opportunity to contact Les'ika. 

Jas had also brought up the additional concern that they had no idea what kind of mental and emotional state she would be in after the death of her family, and altering his appearance might make earning her trust even more difficult when the chance comes for him to make contact with her.

Skirata had even offered a peace branch to Jas by providing him with beskar'gam, explaining that the best way to hide in plain sight was to be hidden from plain sight and that the armor would give Jas the advantage of seeing while not being seen.

Jas risked a glance at the color scheme of the Mandalorian armor he was wearing and again marveled at the patchwork of silver and black that had stayed intact for who-knows how many years. He was also aware of the accent stripe of red along the shoulder caps, and the red looked like remnants from a long-ago design that signified a clan association. 

However, it was so badly scratched now, that it appeared more like claw marks than a stripe. Still, the armor fit him well, and Jas had briefly wondered who the previous owner was and what kinds of battles had been fought that had caused the cosmetic scarring on the outer shell.

Looking out the T-visor, Jas was reminded every bit of his old commando buy'ce. The helmet he had used in the war was similar to the one he was now provided. The HUD accessed every angle he could imagine, and a smaller HUD screen inside the helmet ran a constant status on whatever topic he chose to view. 

Right now, he was reading profiles on the small gathering of people that inhabited the nearly deserted pub, and he was currently amazed by the live data feed that the Nulls had been able to provide for him to access. He was even more astounded that the Nulls could gain so much information without so much as a glitch in their ingenious programming. 

He understood now why the Kaminoans had thought that the Nulls were too dangerous to keep around. Jas and his brothers in Crimson were troublemakers and occasionally rowdy, but the Nulls were just madly smart and unpredictable.

Further to the point of the Nulls' imaginative insanity, Dusty and Jas' arrival on Tochin had been without incident, and neither could believe that their arrival had brought no suspicions. Jas had thought that they would have been snagged for certain at one of the Imperial checkpoints well before breaking Tochin's atmosphere, but their cover stories and their identities were solid.

Although there were no Imperial entanglements during the trip to Tochin, both Jas and Dusty took the solitude of the excursion to work on the closure they hadn't fully received from both the deaths of their brothers and Gan. Losing Gath and Mouse over two months ago on Felucia had been a blow to Jas and Dusty that neither had wanted to face previously.

 It was still hard to think of themselves as a fractured unit now. Crimson was known for surviving, defying, and rejecting everything—including death—as Dusty had told Tarj back on Tochin. To be down two of their brothers had shaken the two of them, and if it wasn't for Gan's beyond-the-grave transmission that they needed to live without regrets, neither of them were certain that they would have found comfort or happiness without their brothers.

 However, Gan's untimely words of wisdom had sparked both Jas and Dusty to move on with their lives and take control of their futures now that they could. They had agreed that they would always mourn their deceased family, but if they didn't start looking ahead to a new life and a new family of their own, they'd be joining their departed family far too soon.

Forcing aside the grief that was always a nagging bite in the back of his mind, Jas shifted his attention away from the older man in the pub who was registered as a grain farmer that maintained a residence on the outskirts of town.

 Moving past the grain farmer, Jas now glanced at the structure of the pub. The building had certainly seen its usage over the years, and the structure alone had to be easily forty years old. The walls were decorated only with the holos of Tochin's town history, each holo depicting a different year with how the town had changed.

Shifting his eyes from the holos, Jas saw that one of the wooden beams near the center of the building had chips and nicks in it from what looked like a number of bad fights or even a metal blade throwing contest. The small, rounded tables were also made of wood with chairs that had seen better days. A darkened corner up on a five-step landing had a wooden rail to prevent patrons from falling onto the floor below. 

Studying the corner for a moment, Jas saw a young man and a young woman stand up from the table where they had been seated. The female was obscured in shadows, but she led the willing male to a curtain that hung as a doorway to a room or hallway, and Jas suddenly turned his attention away realizing that their reason for wanting the private corner was probably much more than an alcoholic buzz.

Bringing his attention before him again, Jas looked at the L-shaped bar as it extended from one of the walls across the length of the room and ended with a small pull-up door that gave the barkeep access to the pub from behind the serving counter.

There was no music playing, which Jas found a relief due to the fact that it would just resonate throughout the small size of the place. Even though he could use the buy'ce to filter out the noises, he wasn't certain how much information Dusty would gather if he could barely hear anyone he tried to contact.

A single holo-screen was turned on above the counter, and it was constantly showing the latest news feeds. Jas considered that the screen was probably used for watching whatever sporting events these Tochin people preferred, but with the lack of entertainment currently taking place while Palpatine finalizes his laws, news filled the holo-screen instead of the entertainment that most beings preferred to watch.

Glancing up, Jas saw that the male Twi'lek newscaster was reporting another upheaval that had been squelched by the help of the stormtroopers and the local law enforcement on the world of Corellia. The Twi'lek's lekku twitched in concern while the images of different species were shown being arrested and taken to Imperial prisons to await trial. 

In the image that played on the screen, there was an assortment of beings, ranging from Elomin and Duros to humans, who were being forcefully dragged from their protest into the imprisonment vehicles. The protestors were screaming and shouting profanities about Emperor Palpatine and the unfairness of the Empire's laws. Then, the camera cut off just as a stormtrooper aimed a blaster at one of the protestors.

Jas turned his head slightly toward Dusty trying not to dwell on Les'ika and the various nightmares that he imagined were happening to her behind the palace walls. He was certain that she would not encourage any trouble for her or Tarj, and he knew she would hide in the places that she told him she often did. However, there was always that underlying concern he had that something wasn't right, and he hated that he couldn't just run in with blasters firing and find her.

Watching Dusty take a long sip of the ale that he had ordered a few minutes ago, Jas wondered how his brother was truly handling the alcohol. Drinking wasn't something either of them had the chance to experiment within the GAR, but Jas really had no idea exactly what kinds of recreational activities Dusty had been experiencing during their stay on Mandalore. For all Jas knew, Dusty handled alcohol without incident, and he spent more time in the cantinas on Mandalore than in his girlfriends' bedrooms.

A bowl of small, crunchy baked dough balls had also been set before them, and Dusty decided that in their short time in the pub, he had better make it look like the two of them were seeking a chance to relax after a hard day of wandering Tochin's empty plots of land.

The tan-skinned, blonde-haired bartender returned to the two men and eyed both of them strangely for a moment. Her dull, blue eyes had been set wide on her face, and her body was not petite but bulky and strong. Dusty mused that she would have made a fine defenseman for one of the bolo-ball teams. 

Looking at her hands now, Dusty could see that the physical labor of running the town pub was evident in the wear of them. He estimated that she was probably only in her mid-forties, but the wrinkles of hard work on her face gave her the appearance of a much older woman.

The way she cocked an eyebrow at him now led Dusty to believe that she had heard a lot of stories from the locals and had even taken on her share of rowdy patrons. It gave Dusty the impression that she was just awaiting trouble from him and Jas and she seemed glad to put an end to whatever nonsense they might be scheming.

Taking the credit chip that was left on the counter before Dusty, the barkeep leaned forward and her low-hanging green blouse seemed to open a world to Dusty that he decided he had no interest in entering. 

He briefly remembered how Cerina had leaned forward very similarly a long time ago for him, but he fought against that memory. Thinking of her was not going to get Jas back to Les'ika, and right now the mission was all about reuniting the Tochin princess with her cloned knight.

--- --- --- --- ---

Quick Author's Note: Did you love that chapter!? I hope you did! Show your support for the author by simply clicking the little VOTE button to the bottom left or top right of your screen! Have a wonderful day!

Votes and Comments/Feedback most enthusiastically welcome!