Author's Notes:Wow! It's been four years since I've updated! I wrote about 300 words of this chapter in 2009 and finished it over the past couple of weeks. I picked up my Mando/Republic Commando stuff on a whim and I just HAVE to finish this fic! I hope you enjoy it! Please drop me a review and let me know what you think, I'd really appreciate it! Thank you!
ISOLATION
Outside of Keldabe, Mandalore, 11 years before the Battle of Geonosis
Teroch Galaar was three inches taller than Jatne and arguably twice as wide. He liked throwing his weight around as much as he liked throwing the limmie ball. He had two chins and fat cheeks that made his dark eyes beady, and a vaguely z-shaped black tattoo over his right eye. The other kids told Jatne that Teroch was a Kiffar, or at least in part, and he had the special power of crushing a person's spleen with his mind. Jatne didn't know what a spleen was, but he was eighty percent positive he didn't want it crushed by Teroch.
Teroch was frightening as he stood over Jatne, who was trying to stand in a slippery mud puddle. Teroch grabbed Jatne by the back of the shirt and hauled him out of the mud.
"Way to get tackled, moron," Teroch growled.
A girl around their age ran over to them, out of breath, covered in mud up to her waist. "Shut up, Teroch! Jatne's a good receiver!"
"He's scrawny," Teroch retorted.
Jatne glared up at the larger boy and clenched his hands into fists.
"Besides," Teroch went on, "you can't throw worth crap, Nari!"
The girl's eyes went wide and Jatne couldn't tell if she was hurt or furious. Jatne had caught her pass from halfway down the field. He couldn't even throw that far.
"You get off the field so we can keep playing," Teroch said, pointing his fat finger in Jatne's face.
Jatne stared cross-eyed at his finger. In his peripheral vision, he detected the other limmie ball players gathering around the little mud puddle where he was standing ankle-deep and facing off with the biggest kid any of them had ever seen. Jatne looked at Nari and a dark-haired boy who was whispering in her ear and patting her on the shoulder. Jatne looked back at Teroch, and his small shoulders began to shake.
"You're a fat thug!" Jatne shouted, and he pushed Teroch as hard as he could. "I want to pay limmie, so I'm going to, even if you crush my spleen!" he added with another shove. This time Teroch slipped and fall on his rear end.
The dark-haired boy standing with Nari seemed ready to leap at Jatne to hold him back. The other players were tense too as Teroch slowly pushed himself up.
"Fine, twerp," Teroch said in a low voice. He held out a muddy hand to Jatne. "You're on my team from now on."
Jatne, stunned, grabbed on to Teroch's hand. Mud squished between their palms.
Verda called him home and only had words of praise when she heard what her nephew had done to the Galaar shopkeeper's son. "Aren't you just a ball of righteous anger, little man," she told him. Jatne's ears turned pink. Righteous anger. One of the few compliments he ever received from his Aunt Verda.
Imperial Hospital, Keldabe, Mandalore, Present
Goddamn, it's way too bright in here.
Jatne blinked. He kept blinking. His head hurt and the white lights weren't helping, but he had to figure out where he was. Sure as hell wasn't the Hayc'jag. Jatne squinted and touched his hand to his chest, and he felt the papery material of a gown.
"Shit," he muttered aloud. A hospital? Who took him there?
Jatne flinched and he heard someone beside him. He willed his aching head to turn to see who it was. A droid. "You're awake," the droid said.
"Yeah. Could you tell me where-" Jatne broke off as the droid rolled out of the room. "Okay, just leave. That's fine."
Jatne let his head sink backwards. He was sitting up in a bed and his eyes were adjusting. He was in a room by himself, and his noticed a loud hum coming from the ceiling. He tried to suck in a breath, but instead he met resistance in his lungs, and that triggered a fit of coughing that was hindered by fatigued muscles. By the time he controlled himself, he saw three figures in what looked like environment suits standing around his bed. He froze.
"Good morning, Mr Meshkad. I am Doctor Ukar, the attending physician here at Keldabe's Imperial hospital, and these are my residents, Pilos and Tama. How are you feeling?"
"Confused."
One of the masks turned to look at the other masks, then all of them seemed to hone in on him. Jatne tried to sink all the way into the bed so he could hide.
"You were in the intensive care unit for a little over a day, Jatne," one of the other suits—the resident—said. "You're very sick."
Jatne squinted and wished he could see through their crazy envirosuits. So this is what it was like dealing with a bunch of helmeted Mandalorians.
Dr. Ukar, the tallest of the suits, seemed to nod. "You are coming down with the viral infection that's going around Keldabe."
"What? I just got the vaccine."
"It can take up to a week to get full immunity, so you must have contracted the virus before you received the vaccine. Have you been around any livestock lately?"
"Uh, no," Jatne said. "No livestock."
The suits jotted down notes vigorously on their datapads.
"Your immune system is getting a hold of the infection," a resident informed him "but your body seems a lot weaker than the other cases we have seen here. What's strange is that we can't seem to get a hold of your immunization records."
Jatne folded in his lips and looked from the resident to the other two suits. He thought back to his childhood and remembered standing at the kitchen door while Verda mixed herself a drink, having just asked her what "shots" were.
"Pointless wastes of credits. If you get sick, we see a doctor. End of story."
And since then, Jatne had only seen a doctor for injuries sustained while training or working. He smiled nervously at the suits and said, "I don't think I've ever had one."
The suits stiffened. "Not a problem, then," said the nearest resident to him. Swallowing, Jatne could hear the "problem" in her voice. "We'll be back in a few minutes. Rest up until then."
Jatne cringed as doors opened and closed and air was suctioned and the room was sealed. His ears popped. And then he whimpered.
Imperial Clinic Waiting Room, Keldabe, Mandalore
Tracyn was sitting on the floor in front of a low table doodling on sheets of flimsi. Jaro sat behind her and watched over his shoulder with Amyr and Rem on either side of him. Verda, suited up in her armor, was pacing a small length of floor in front of a door leading to the patient rooms.
Jaro flinched every time an Imperial walked through the waiting room. Even the receptionist was an Imperial. Imperials were everywhere. He was glad to be behind a helmet, but he had this irrational fear that they could smell him. Jaro just wasn't used to being the enemy of living creatures.
"Jatne's not going to be mad at you, Aunt Verda," Tracyn remarked to break the silence.
"Of course he is!" Verda snapped. She stopped pacing and her posture slumped. She made an effort to calm her voice. "It's my fault."
"Jatne would put his head in a krayt dragon's mouth if he thought it would impress a girl," Tracyn said. "He's stupid for taking that vaccination."
"Tracyn," Amyr said warningly. "Jatne will be fine, Verd'ika. Why don't you sit down?"
Verda moved to a chair and plopped herself in it. Her hands moved to a side pouch and pulled out a flask. She untwisted the top and swirled it, but there was no sound inside. Jaro could see a sigh in her shoulders and she put it away.
Rem let out a long yawn and ran his hand over the stubble growing on his face. Jaro looked between Rem and Amyr because they were Jatne's parents. They would know how to act and feel. Jaro did not. He felt frozen inside. Apprehensive. A hospital—he had been in one once during the war, but a war hospital was nothing like this one. Calm and orderly. And an Imperial hospital at that. Hardly anyone wanted to utilize it, although from what they had gathered in the waiting room, all the local clinics were filling up with the sick, and some had to resort to the resources here as the Meshkads had. Jaro recalled the panic of the night before being turned away from the small clinic across the street from the Hayc'jag and he had not come down from it.
Amyr looked up as two humans in white coats approached them.
"May I speak with Jatne Meshkad's parents?" the male human asked.
The two white coats left with Amyr and Rem down a hallway and Jaro sat up in the chair, leaning forward and staring at the floor. No clear read on the doctor's face.
"Shab," Verda swore.
Tracyn picked up a piece of flimsi and handed it to Jaro. "I drew you."
The flimsi showed a sketch of an all-too-familiar face with deep creases in the brow and darkened eyes, unsmiling.
"Tracyn—this is-"
Her green eyes stared expectantly at him. Her body shifted so she was facing him.
"Really good. Kandosii."
She snatched it back from him. "It's not done yet."
Amyr and Rem returned after a few minutes, and Verda stood at rapt attention. Amyr looked at her younger sister before addressing all three of them. "Jatne's going to be just fine."
Verda peeled off her helmet and started walking past them, but Rem reached out and stopped her. "He's in isolation."
Pushing out from his grip, Verda tossed her helmet into an empty chair and folded her arms. "Well? When can we see him?"
"The doctors say tomorrow. They think they can subdue the virus by then. It's got him pretty bad right now and they're going to keep him over night. So since we can't see him I guess…" Rem trailed off, hesitant.
"I'm hungry," Tracyn said.
Jaro looked down the hall that must have lead to patient rooms, wondering what it must have looked like. Jatne in a room by himself. Jaro remembered the ramshackle hospitals with crowded beds and rushing medics and droids. White chest plates marked with X's. That was no place to die. But here, Jaro thought, even the Imperials would take care of him.
"They'll call if something goes wrong, won't they?" Jaro asked.
"Of course, ad'ika." Amyr's smile was one of assurance as it always was. "If not, then we will come and get Jatne."
That, Jaro was sure of. Family and army were one and the same here.
It was decided that Rem and Amyr would head back to the house. Verda made some vague reference to errands that she had to run, leaving Tracyn and Jaro to wander Keldabe until Verda was ready to leave.
"I want a knife," Tracyn was saying as they walked toward an open market.
"A knife?" Jaro asked. "What will you do with the knife?"
"This and that." Tracyn stopped at a booth and stared at the wares, which were not knives but handmade pieces of jewelry. Beads woven with dark twine in many colors. "Dad says you need to be reconditioned."
Jaro stiffened, kept his eyes on the beads. "You know what that means, Tracyn?"
"No. I guess I don't. What does it mean?"
"Training." Jaro had heard the word reconditioned before but he didn't believe the rumors. Clones on the brink of insanity getting pulled from the ranks and retrained. Not just drills, but tests of mind-bending proportions. A kind of brain restart. No one spoke of it. Jaro supposed that was why it was effective. "Lots of training."
Tracyn looked at him. She had her mother's kind eyes, not the fierce yellow-green of her aunt's. "That doesn't seem fair."
Jaro tilted his head at her.
"I need more training than you do. And besides, what's a bunch of training going to do? You need to relax."
When Jaro swallowed there was a lump in his throat. The swell in his chest came suddenly and he had to turn away from Tracyn. "Sergeant Meshkad knows what he's doing."
"He's Dad now, Jaro." Her hand took his. "Let's get something to eat."
The city of Keldabe was unlike any place Jaro had been to, and he had seen a lot of things, but never as a man in casual clothes. The world was a different place without a helmet heads-up display. The sky was much bigger when he viewed it without any filters, and the red earth of Mandalore was unimposing and soft beneath the old borrowed boots. The people of Keldabe did not look at him twice. He was able to exist just as he was-as Jaro Meshkad, he realized for the first time. And he had nothing to do today except follow the whims of a twelve year old girl.
Meshkad House, Mandalore
Late Afternoon
Verda drove back to the homestead. She was very quiet. Jaro had not known her for very long, and he found her to be an enigmatic sort of being. Sometimes she had much to say and other times she didn't. Jaro had caught on to her liking of Jatne and could imagine she was preoccupied with worry over him, so perhaps there was not much to talk about on the ride. Tracyn, he knew, could chatter quite a bit, and even she was quiet. Jaro could use the silence to watch the landscape.
Amyr and Rem had been busy preparing dinner and two guests had been in the sitting room while they worked in the kitchen. These guests were strange to be paired together even to Jaro, who hardly knew them: Teroch and Demus. But they were speaking animatedly.
"Then what did you do?" Teroch asked in a loud voice.
"Well my lightsaber had been discarded in the blast," Demus said.
That strill was out of the bag.
"But my clone commander had given me a grenade on a whim before we parted from the transport."
Teroch leaned forward in his seat, hardly noticing that three newcomers had just entered the front door. Demus noticed and stopped his story, however. "Ver'buir," he greeted Verda with a smile. "Welcome back," he added to the others.
The big Mandalorian was not in his armor as Jaro had seen him last time, but he was still just as intimidating. He got up from his seat and tipped his head at Verda, but his bright eyes were focused on Tracyn, who bounded over to him. She then punched him right in the stomach.
"Pow!" she said. "How's my left jab?"
Teroch doubled over with a groan of genuine pain.
"Well?" Tracyn demanded. "I thought your abdominal wall was too tough for me!"
Verda snorted and nudged Jaro with her elbow, glancing up at him with a smirk. It was one of the first times Jaro could recall Amyr's little sister really acknowledging him and he was so surprised he almost forgot to smirk back at her.
Rem poked his head out from the kitchen and arched a brow. "Dinner's still going to be about an hour. Tracyn, you want to take the guests outside for some shooting?"
"Yes!" she squeaked.
Tracyn told all of them to wait outside while she got a few rifles, remarking that Teroch and Demus weren't allowed to see where the Meshkads kept the arsenal locked up. Jaro smirked and Teroch shrugged his shoulders.
"So how'd you take out the droids?" Teroch asked Demus, still stuck on the story from before.
"Avalanche from a Force-guided throw with the grenade. It wasn't anything, really."
"Ah." Teroch's green eyes landed on the next most interesting thing, Jaro. "How's Jatne?"
"Stable." Jaro didn't want to undergo any interrogations from Teroch. He didn't know what Jatne's friend had been told—although if he had been entrusted with the information about Demus, then Jaro supposed his own association with the GAR could be taken relatively lightly.
Teroch snorted. "Well? Is he gonna live, or when are the funeral arrangements?"
"He's getting discharged tomorrow." Jaro didn't smile and neither did Demus. Teroch rolled his eyes and strolled a few paces away, taking his com out of his pocket.
That left Demus and Jaro staring at each other. Jaro caught the subtle hardening of the muscles on either side of the Mirialan's face. Demus averted his gaze but Jaro knew better than to think the Jedi wasn't sensing the turmoil in Jaro.
"Listen," Jaro said. Demus's eyes flashed in his direction but didn't stay there. "If this cold shoulder is about what happened on Coruscant, then I don't know what to say to you."
"Then don't say anything." Demus sighed. "I've spent the better part of my life getting ordered around, taken advantage of. My Master was the only one who took me seriously. He respected me. You can't blame me for being a little pissed about it."
"He was protecting you," Jaro heard himself saying. "We were defending ourselves."
Now they had attracted Teroch's attention again. He watched as if it was a game of limmie, back and forth.
"He wasn't going to kill you," Demus said through his teeth. "He was just buying us time."
Jaro shook his head. He stepped forward, mind flooded with protest. How could this kid know what it was like? That day on Coruscant, Jaro had been stationed with his commando squad in front of the Jedi Temple with orders to shoot to kill. And they had to follow orders. Had to.
Demus flinched and his hands raised, and before Jaro could react, a burst of energy threw him backwards. The wind was knocked out of him and he landed, skidding, on his back against the dirt.
"Wayii," Teroch said under his breath.
"Demus!" Tracyn shrieked from across the yard.
Jaro pushed himself to his feet with a practiced speed, catching the Jedi as he sprang at him. Jaro knew how gravity would have pulled Demus and adjusted to throw him in a new direction, but the Jedi started pulling the Force so that he bent in mid-air, and suddenly Jaro was the one being hauled to the ground. He kept his grip on Demus's shoulder and leg and twisted and the Mirialan let out a yell, and they were one big tangle on the ground. Jaro kept pulling, trying to cause the Jedi pain, anything to keep him from doing the same in turn.
"Be'chaaj!"
Sergeant Amyr Meshkad commanded Jaro to get away and he did, shoving Demus away and rolling on the dirt so that they were separated.
A sound like a low pop reached his ears and he felt it in his gut. A PEP laser—useful for commando work during the war. Amyr must have found it useful and picked one up herself. Then she shot Demus with it. Jaro pushed himself up and stared at her. She was wearing a purple wrap dress and she was standing barefoot with the blaster. Her green eyes wild with anger he'd seen only once directed at a Kaminoan that suggested she terminate her pregnancy with Tracyn. Jaro remembered that day even as a little boy because she came to training still shaken, still angry, and he'd never seen her that mad ever again.
Until now.
"Jaro!"
He went rigid at attention. Following commands from her was fluid, simple.
"Teroch! Help him up!"
The Mirialan had curled up into a ball on the ground in pain. A PEP laser could do that to a Nikto, but Jaro hadn't ever seen it used on a Jedi. Apparently any unsuspecting lifeform was susceptible. Jaro and Teroch grabbed Demus under the arms and pulled him to his feet.
Verda was sprinting from the house but Amyr turned the PEP on her. "Don't even think about it!" Amyr shouted at her as a warning. "Get him out of here!"
The blonde stopped in her tracks, boots skidding on red dust, staring down the barrel of the blaster. "Amyr."
"And don't bring him back."
Verda walked up to the Mirialan, passing her sister without looking at her. Teroch and Jaro dropped the Jedi on her.
"Get inside," Amyr said, waving at Jaro. When he looked from her to Tracyn, who was staring at the proceedings with a rifle in her hand, the rest of which she had fetched and discarded when the fight started.
Jaro started walking, his mind a blank slate, his chest filled still with a rolling boil. If his sense of belonging had been rocky before, it had certainly been shaken now.
Imperial Hospital, Keldabe, Mandalore
Late Evening
Jatne's datapad was two versions too old and it hadn't occurred to him until just then, when his text program wouldn't upgrade its software because the hardware was too out of date, that he could actually afford with his own funds to get a new one.
Aveena,
I know you made it clear you didn't want to leave Coruscant. But I want to see you. I don't care if
[DELETED]
Aveena,
[DELETED]
Senator Venadi,
It was great working with you on a professional level. Please let me know if any other opportunities arise for
Another suit came through the airlock. Jatne shut off the datapad and set it aside, mentally prepping himself for more prodding.
But the suit was holding a thermos that looked suspiciously like the one his father always put caf in. And then the suit plopped itself on the edge of his bed. "I brought soup, Jat'ika, because I know they're not feeding you right."
He took the thermos from his father and snapped open the top. Steam was coming out of it but he still took a sip, not caring that it burned the roof of his mouth. He hadn't realized he was hungry until his father brought up how they hadn't been feeding him right. Just plain food with regular portions at regular intervals with vitamins.
Rem placed his hand on Jatne's knee and rubbed. He was silent. There was a first time for everything.
"I'm not dying," Jatne said.
Rem squeezed. "You had two seizures while you were out. Did they tell you that?"
"Yeah."
"We had to watch them hold you down from behind glass. Then did they tell you your heart stopped?"
Jatne scoffed. "Yeah."
Rem reached over and smacked him in the ear. "Don't laugh."
Looking over his father's shoulder, there was a doctor frantically pulling on an envirosuit. They didn't like that their patient had just been smacked. In what little he had seen of Dr. Ukar, the Arkanian that was currently throwing on the suit, Jatne found that he liked him. For a doctor.
"You're causing trouble," Jatne mumbled.
Rem sniffed.
"Dad?"
"Drink your soup."
Rem's grip on Jatne's knee was so tight that Jatne thought the circulation had been compromised. Jatne's breath caught in his throat and he couldn't say a word. His dad, watching his son unconscious with a team of doctors resuscitating him behind glass. His heart had stopped. Verda told him in basic life support training that that meant he died.
Dad's scared.
"It's okay," Jatne whispered.
The airlock opened and Dr. Ukar strode in. "Mr. Meshkad, I'm going to have to ask you to—"
"I was just leaving." Rem's voice was stronger than Jatne bargained for, and he stood up. He was as tall as the Arkanian and a lot broader. If he wanted to stay, he could have.
Jatne didn't want him to leave. He gripped the thermos in his hand. "Dad?"
"Promise me you'll get him home tomorrow, Doctor."
"Of course. The soup will help."
Rem looked over his shoulder at Jatne. It was hard to make out his face behind the mask. Jatne could picture that look of reverence under a dark brow, a look that could hold him forever like a statue. Then he was gone.
