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.

There are no Mandalorian (Mando'a) words in this chapter. 

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Chapter 66

You took an oath to be one of us, and outside distractions lead to sloppiness. If you wanted a normal life, you should have stayed a civilian. Here, we don't have the time or the luxury for courting. Your sole obligation is to the royal family, not finding a mate. If you find you changed your mind and want to live the home life, you tell me up front, and you'll receive an honorable discharge, but you'll forfeit ever being one of us again.

Davi Saun reiterating the relationship policy with newly sworn-in palace guardians

Tochin Moon III, 87 Days after Order 66

Semi-conscious and experiencing the sensation of burning while unable to move his body from artificial paralysis, Davi was more aware of his body being dragged than actually feeling it. He couldn't do much more than being a limp mass of bone and flesh, and if it wasn't for the fact that he got his eyes open quickly enough to recognize the stormtrooper armor, he would see little more than the ground before him.

Moments later, the ground outside gave way to the plasteel flooring of the novel shop, and Davi watched the shelves around him spin out of control until he was left staring up at the ceiling. 

He remained there unmoving for a few minutes longer while footsteps and voices continued to move about the shop as the Imperials sought out clues as to the whereabouts of the missing princess and her bodyguard.

Awareness slowly crept throughout his body, and Davi forced his head to begin moving. He started with moving his neck left, then right, and as the feeling came back to his neck muscles, he craned his head to try and find the blaster shot that hat struck him squarely in the chest. 

He knew that stun bolts didn't normally leave a mark, but it had been so many years—decades by now—since he went through training, he had forgotten just how miserable of experience the sensation of a stun-bolt was. He had gotten far too comfortable under Vollan's reign, and that comfort had left him entirely out of practice for physical combat.

Sensation gradually worked its way now down his arms and into his fingers, and Davi was aware of his full weight crushing his bound hands behind his back. Taking a deep breath, Davi tried rolling onto his side as best he could to hopefully alleviate the pressure on his limbs. He got partially to his side when he saw that he was not the only prisoner the stormtroopers had managed to capture.

There were only two younger men who were restrained like him, with their hands bound behind their backs and their awareness slowly coming back into reality. Davi couldn't find any of the other former guardians while his eyes did a search throughout the part of the shop he could see.

After focusing his gaze for a moment on the young men again, Davi realized that they would be sharing with him whatever fate Harkin had planned for those who betrayed the Empire. Davi felt regret for having to see these new recruits be forced the same hand as he would. Both of these young Tochinite men had just barely finished their training and earned the title of palace guardian. 

Within weeks of their commencement, Harkin had disbanded the guardians, and while Davi knew that they chose this path and any sacrifice it might entail, he felt regret that neither of them would ever have the chance to live in the comforts that Davi had taken for granted. They had taken their oath to service and would find that their time as guardians was taken from them before they could excel at their professions.

Anger taking over more than regret now, Davi needed to try and find some way to spare the lives of such green soldiers. Davi knew he had served his time and he wasted it in comfort, and it was time to remember the oath he had taken when he was their age when he was still full of courage and enthusiasm.

Shifting positions now, Davi surveyed the other side of the room. With the exception of the stormtroopers and Harkin, the shop was indeed empty. Now Davi was certain that the other guardians had morphed back into the crowds, becoming lost amongst the Tochinite people again.

Gillard Harkin had seen that the men his stormtroopers had imprisoned were coming to, and he wanted to start finding answers. He moved towards the three men, aware of his stormtrooper captain behind him. 

He was certain that the soldier who was playing bodyguard was planning to thwart any attempt the bound prisoners might make on him, and Gillard would have rather seen this kind of loyalty extended to Arlesse as well. Unfortunately, if they didn't find her soon, he feared that he would never have the opportunity to order TK-2857 to guard those he deemed worthy of such protection.

Feeling his eyes glare sharply at Davi Saun, Gillard recognized the former palace guardian and felt his fists clench as his instincts told him that this man had something to do with Arlesse's disappearance.

Before Gillard could address his prisoners, though, one of the stormtroopers under TK-2857's command came forth. His voice reported without emotion, "Sir, we could find no one else in the building or the vicinity outside."

The moff wanted to lower his head in regret and sadness, his newly growing emotions for Arlesse twisting and churning in his stomach with disappointment. Instead, Gillard knew that submitting to his grief would show a sign of weakness and that was not the way a man in his power should handle this kind of betrayal. His betrothed Arlesse had been swept away from him, her existence vanished like a wisp of smoke in the breeze.

Gillard wondered if he hadn't correctly read Tarj's actions earlier in the hovercar, and what he thought was just protection to Arlesse was actually his way of keeping her from revealing the plan he had conceived to take advantage of their freedom and spirit her off Tochin.

"Captain, sir," another stormtrooper called. "You might want to come see this."

Gillard momentarily pushed aside his anger and the need to interrogate the former palace guardians for the answers he sought. Instead of handling them, he turned towards the direction of the stormtrooper who called for his captain's attention and moved down the aisles. 

He realized that his curiosity was stronger right now for what was discovered rather than his want to deal with the Empire's betrayers. He feared that a good distraction was needed so that he doesn't simply take a blaster recklessly to the former palace guardians and destroy any chance he would have for a proper interrogation.

"What have you found?" Gillard asked as he approached the stormtrooper in the aisle of flimsi-novels.

"I think it's a message of some kind," the stormtrooper replied as he pointed to one of the shelves.

"This is why we couldn't contact Tarj," TK-2857 elaborated.

Gillard brought his eyes to the shelf with the helmet and the reference flimsi beside it. He studied the arrangement, the deliberate way the objects were laid out. The helmet had been carefully placed beside the illustration inside the flimsi pages.

 The passage was written in Basic, a language that Harkin and the rest of the galaxy knew well. He began reading through the text, studying the passage carefully and learning how the story related to the tapestry. After a long moment, Gillard's body stiffened as he clenched his fists in regretful disappointment.

"Sir?" TK-2857 asked, aware of the sudden change in the moff's demeanor.

"It is a message, Captain," Gillard responded quietly, suppressing the anger he wanted to release. He really wanted to take Tarj's helmet and throw it across the shop, and he resisted the urge to shred the flimsi pages with his fingers. Instead, the moff was forced to remain stoic and professional, playing the role of the aloof politician.

"Tarj has conspired with someone, and they're defying the Empire," he explained softly, his voice taking on an edge he had never used before. As he felt the anger continuing to consume him, Gillard thought back to just yesterday when he remembered how Arlesse had studied this particular tapestry in the castle. 

Her eyes had been filled with trust and hope, and it didn't take a Force-sensitive being to see that she was continuing to put her faith in her clone while she mentally lived memories of a time she had shared with him.

"He came back for her," Gillard muttered quietly as a sense of jealously grew within him like a sickness that wouldn't let go.

The stormtrooper captain cocked his head in curiosity. "Sir...?"

Spinning towards the stormtroopers that had been standing behind him, Gillard forced himself to remain under control, despite how he felt the fury grow for being made a fool. He had underestimated Arlesse's clone and her devotion to him. He thought to remove the palace guards and keeping close tabs on Tarj would have prevented this kind of blunder, and now Gillard had no one to blame but himself.

 He trusted Arlesse, and he trusted her guardian. Somehow, the clone that had earned her affections almost a year ago found his way back to her, and he managed to remove from Gillard's existence the one being who had started to give him hope for his own happiness.

"That clone the princess is in love with came back for her," Gillard explained further, unable to do more than seethe his words, "She's trying to escape, and Tarj is helping them."

The stormtrooper captain remained silent now, not certain what he could say. Moff Harkin had not actually given him or his men a direct order to do anything, and TK-2857 really had no interest in a civilian dilemma that he and his men had no business in dealing with or being concerned about.

Gillard turned back now to the display Tarj had left behind and pressed his fingers onto the equinine in the flimsy, understanding that defiance worked in different ways. Arlesse may be trying to defy her role as a princess and his companion, but Gillard could be defiant as well. He was not going to give up on the only woman whose unique sincerity had made him a more honest man.

"How do I get her back?" Gillard asked more to himself than to the soldiers around him.

"We could set up blockades at the hangars and docking bays and make every citizen undergo an identification check," TK-2857 offered. When he saw the moff raise his head from the reference manual to look at him, the captain then added, "We were trained to find the enemy's path of flight and block it from all sides. Sometimes chasing an enemy is the surest way to lose it, but getting ahead of that enemy often cuts off the escape."

Gillard understood his captain's logic, and he had decided that he would not let anyone off easy because the time had come to make an example of such tyranny. He tried to imagine if he would have the boldness to bring Arlesse to punishment when she was returned.

 However, the thought of bringing harm to her caused an ache in his chest, and he suddenly realized that he had truly grown to care about her. Gillard knew then that she'd have to suffer an alternate fate than what the cohorts of this tyrannical action would experience.

Gillard turned now to his stormtrooper, determined to see it through to the end and be certain that Arlesse was safe in the palace once again.

"Captain, do as you have suggested: set up blockades at the hangars and docking bays, and yes, have every citizen undergo an identification check. Bring the princess back to me unharmed—unconscious if necessary—but unharmed. Feel free to kill anyone who gets in your way, especially if they are former Republic clones."

"Yes sir," TK-2857 acknowledged, as he moved towards the shop door.

Leaving Tarj's set-up behind, Gillard moved back to the former palace guardians now and brought his eyes down to Davi Saun. He stared with cold hatred at one of the men he was certain was responsible for Arlesse's disappearance. 

Even though his voice was aimed at the stormtrooper captain to catch him before he left, Gillard made certain that Saun knew exactly why he was ordering it. "One last thing, Captain. I want these three taken back to the palace for proper questioning with the prison interrogation team, and kill any of their kind that you or your men encounter. We'll not have this manner of betrayal to the Empire again. These former guardians have taken advantage of my leniency, and I need to make an example to the Tochinite citizens that I cannot have this type of disloyalty ever happen again."

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