A\N: The thanks for this chapter belong, in part, to The Fires of Hope and

Danni Lea.

1.

"When I think of working, fighting and living alongside the Jedi and consider what they tried to do... I can't take it, it makes me sick. How could they betray us like that?"

-CT-1904, a.k.a "Trap",

1,089 days after the Battle of Geonosis,

discussing Order 66 with several of his squad mates

"Where are they?" Kal Skirata, Darman's former training sergeant and adoptive father, paced the corridors of his ship, Aay'han, agitated. The rest of the family, including Atin and Kad, had already entered, and were relaxing in the main cabin, the sitting area. Etain and Darman were the only stragglers. The fact that he had agreed to pick them up notwithstanding, the condition to rescue his son and daughter-in-law was Dar's call. He kept some of his attention on his grandson, knowing that if something happened to either, Kad would know first. Etain's connection to the Force had been passed to him, so Kal knew the connection between Etain and her son was stronger than the typical parent and child. Kad stuck a stuffed toy in his mouth and was sucking on it: the indication of nothing yet going wrong. If Darman would just call, everything would be fine. Laseema walked up to Kal and put a hand on his arm. He temporarily stopped pacing to turn around and brought his head up sharply to warn her off of trying to comfort him.

Atin recognized the look, put Kad on the floor, and went over to Laseema. He would guide her out of the way, before she could get in too much trouble. Laseema lowered her arm and followed her husband toward the cockpit. She stopped to take Kad with them.

"Leave him, ad'ika. Kad's my Dar-and-Etain-ran-into-trouble warning system. Did any of the commandos teach you the basic start-up checklist for ships like Aay'han?"

"No. Atin's been too busy trying to teach me how to defend myself."

"And, judging by what happened to the last di'kut who flirted with you, he did a good job."

"Darman, for obvious reasons, was busy with Etain whenever he had leave unless she wasn't here. In those circumstances, he stayed at the barracks. I don't know what Niner, Corr, or Fi did, but they tended to make themselves scarce."

Turning to look directly at Niner, Kal asked him to set the start-up sequence, instead. Niner obliged; Laseema followed him toward the cockpit, turning for the cabins at the last minute.

Ordo, Mereel, Kal, Kad, and Bardan were left behind in the lounge area. Ordo was the first of Kal's former trainees to be adopted. Along with his squad mate, Mereel, they were the only Null Advanced Recon Commandos to be on Coruscant when Kal pulled the desertion short straw. The situation the Skiratas found themselves in forced them to cut their losses and fold the hand. Kad had tried to follow Laseema, but Bardan intercepted and scooped him up. The blonde haired, tough looking former Jedi Knight held onto his nephew determinedly. Kad's new fussiness focused Kal, who looked askance at his only non-clone male adoptee.

"I don't think they've run into any more trouble than when Omega left, Kal'buir. I think he's just tired. It's been a long day for everyone. I do think, though, that you're wearing a hole in the hull with that pacing you've been doing. That won't help anyone. Udesii, Kal'buir. They'll be here when they can."

"You mean if they can, don't you? The way my day's been, I don't think it's likely that they haven't run into another problem, Bard'ika."

You'd think it's "invite your troops to a party" night at the Temple the way they've been going on the patrol. The regularity of it is starting to make me dizzy. Come on. Can't they tell that the Jedi in this area are already all dead? Darman Skirata heard a moan off to his left and turned in that direction. When the first of the patrols had come by, he'd hauled an unconscious Etain back behind the bushes where he and his squad had hidden earlier in the evening.

As she had already began breathing on her own again by that point, he'd decided that other than keeping the patrols from spotting them until she came to, there wasn't anything else he could do. She was finally coming around.

"Dar?" Etain asked groggily. The nickname for his name was music to his ears. Not that there'd been too many beings in his life, except his creators, who'd called him anything else and most of those had been on the opposite end of his blaster when they'd said it.

"'Morning. cyar'ika." Even though it was obvious to anyone with the sence of sight that it was still night, Darman was so happy to hear her voice that the urge to say that was too strong to deny. "Sleep well?" He couldn't resist that, either.

"Since when did you start sounding like Fi, Dar'ika?" She was just a little disoriented, but she did have a point. While Darman was Omega's eternal optimist, Fi had always been the jokester of the squad. Clones all looked alike but their personalities were different. Sometimes very different.

"Since he was hit by the concussive blast of that bomb on Gaftikar. We were short a morale officer and Corr wasn't always up to the task."

"Where's Kad?" she asked after looking around and not seeing him.

"Atin took him back to Aay'han at my request. We're just waiting for the patrols to stop going past for more than ten minutes."

"In other words, waiting for them to get lazy. Shouldn't we move away from the Temple, Dar?"

"Under normal circumstances, I'd say that's a good idea, but the same patrols that present a problem in getting to the Aay'han have also pinned us behind these bushes. Unless you have some skill with a Force cloaking shield that you've never mentioned..."

"If a skill like that existed, don't you think some ultra-moral Jetii would have used that to desert their post?"

"There was a time when I wouldn't have hesitated to answer that question with a yes, Etain. That time, and the innocently naive view that there were many `ultra-moral' Jetiise is long in the past. We'll need a lot of luck, or the Force, or whatever, to get out of this mess in one piece."

A\N #2 Another chapter should be coming soon.