Resol'nare: a Star Wars: White Snow mini-series
Chapter 1: Bajur
Vhetin stood alone in the hall, tapping one foot impatiently. His arms were folded across his armored chest as he slowly cycled through various HoloNet reports on his HUD. He narrowed his eyes as he read, thinking, Where the hell is she?
It seemed like an eternity before the woman he was waiting for strode into sight from around a corner. She spotted him and smiled, quickening her pace to meet him. Unlike him, she wasn't wearing armor. Instead, she had opted for a brown nerf-hide jacket and work pants.
"What took you so long?" he asked as he embraced her in greeting. "I was worried I'd have to do this all on my own."
"Come on, Cin," she replied, brushing a strand of black hair out of her eyes, "have I ever let you down?"
"On multiple occasions."
"But never when you actually needed my help. Only when you were acting like a nu'gettse wuss. Like that time you needed my advice on how to ask Brianna out on a date all those years ago? You needed to learn how to do that yourself, 'cause only brainless di'kute act like you were at the time."
"Better watch that mouth," Vhetin said quietly.
She laughed. "Or what? You gonna stop me, Stripes?"
"No," he replied, "but I don't think the man who picked us for this job would be very pleased at your choice of language, considering our audience."
She frowned. "Hmm... good point. I'll have to pull back a bit."
"You do that," he said with a slight smile.
As they set off down the hall together, they engaged in some small conversation. Vhetin asked her how her job at MandalMotors was working, how her boyfriend Verdo was doing. The woman, in turn, asked him how Brianna was and how his recent hunting contracts had played out. After a few minutes, they were standing outside the old, twisted wooden door with a rough sign that read ROOM 38.
"You ready?" she asked him. When he nodded, she reached out a hand and knocked three quick raps against the door.
There was silence for a moment before a muffled voice within said, "Who could that be? Do you think it's our guests?"
There was a quiet mumbling in response. A few moments later, the door opened and a man in dull yellow armor motioned them in with a smile.
"Say hello, class," he said as he turned to the room's occupants: children. Vhetin looked through them as he stepped into the room, noting that these were young students, human and otherwise, no older than five or six. They were gathered into a rough half-circle, sitting cross-legged on the stringy carpet floor.
"Hello," the children obediently said. They looked excited to have a break from the usual routine and to have newcomers in their midst.
"Class," the man in yellow armor said as he strode to the front of the class, "I want you to meet Janada Bralor and her younger brother, Cin Vhetin. They're here to teach you for the next couple hours."
Janada waved to the class with a smile while Vhetin, still wearing his full battle helmet, nodded in greeting. He wasn't the ringleader here. Janada was taking the lead on this lecture and he was just here to pitch in where he could.
She stepped forward and clapped her hands together. "So," she said, "I think I recognize this class. Especially you, ad'ika."
She pointed out one of her youngest brothers, who was attending the class, and smiled warmly. The child beamed at such attention.
"So," Janada said, "who knows why my vod'ika and I are here?"
A multitude of hands shot up. Janada called on one student at random and the child recited, "You're here to teach us about the Resol'nare."
"Right," she said, "and who here knows what the Resol'nare are?"
Another hand shot up and a kid said, "The Resol'nare are the Six Actions central to life as a Mando'ad."
"Good. And where did you hear that?"
The child blinked and said, "My buir taught me. At home."
"Really? Well, that paves the way right into the first tenent of the Resol'nare: education."
She looked through the assembled kids and called on a blue-skinned Twi'lek child. "You. Why do you think Mandalorians find educationg younglings so important?"
The young Twi'lek kid blinked his bright blue eyes and stammered, "I-is it because we learn to fight?"
Janada smiled encouragingly and said, "That's part of it. What else?"
"U-um... is it because we learn about our history?"
"Ah, but you don't learn just about Mando'ad history, do you? You also learn about aruetii history. So if we don't even focus solely on Mandalorian teachings, why is it so important?"
When no one answered, Vhetin stepped forward. "Education is important because you need to know more about your galaxy before you step out into it. When you grow up, some of you may decide to be bounty hunters like me-"
Excited whispers ran through the crowd and the children stared at Vhetin's angular black-gray battle armor in awe. Vhetin had left behind all his weapons before attending the class, since teaching six-year-olds wasn't exactly a task needing the use of a lightsaber, but he was stil an imposing figure.
"-or," he continued, "become loyal mercenaries with the Mandalorian Protectors like Janada. Even if you stay on Mandalore and become a simple farmer, you need to know about the galaxy."
He noded to the yellow-armored teacher, who pressed a button on the side of an antique-looking holoprojector. The projector sputtered before displaying a holographic map of the galaxy that stretched from one end of the room to the other. The kids gasped as one, staring in wonder as holographic stars floated lazily past their eyes.
"Our universe is huge," he said, stepping into the hologram and watching as stars floated through his field of vision. "Filled with wonders we can't begin to imagine. But there's also many things in our galaxy that aren't so benign, and the job of your childhood education is to teach you how to survive in such a world."
Janada took over again. "So... who here has parents or relatives who teach them outside of school?"
Almost all of the hands in the room shot up immediately. She nodded in approval. "That shows you how important we Mando'ade find the education of the next generation. Our future as a people depends on you ade, so you'd better know what you're doing."
"But why do we have to stay in school for so long?" one kid asked. "And why does it have to be so boring?"
"One day you may be out on the battlefield," Vhetin said, folding his arms across his chest, "fighting on a world you've never heard of except during your studies. Boring or not, any information you can learn is information that you can use in the future to gain the upper hand in a situation."
"There's an ancient Mandalorian saying," Janada said with a nod. "Me'dinuir kar'tayl, me'dinuir cuyanir. Can anyone tell me what that means?"
A human girl toward the front of the class frowned thoughtfully, then said, "That means shared knowledge, shared survival."
"Exactly," Janada said, kneeling in front of the girl. "It's a saying we like to use in the Protectors. Want to know why?"
The girl nodded with wide eyes.
"It's because when you don't know anything about what's going on, your chances of making it through the deployment are very slim. The more you know, the better your chances of survival."
She glanced at Vhetin, who nodded in agreement. She stood and said, "So that's education. What comes next?"
The children all looked between each other, then back to Vhetin and Janada with questioning gazes. Janada glanced at Vhetin with a grin, then said, "It happens to be a subject my vod and I find very important."
Vhetin strode forward and folded his gauntleted arms across his chest, serving as a living example for what they were going to teach next.
"Armor," he said.