Ninety Five


I squeezed that fekking trigger as if it weighed a tonne.

.

There was always a contingency when taken by the enemy.

It was something you were taught, but never in your wildest dreams would you consider following through.

Not to one of your own.

We had escaped an entire fekking war without ever implementing it.

But we were invincible then.

Young, fit, trained within an inch of our lives.

And that was always the problem.

Even now, we can't switch it off.

Just knowing what we know makes that impossible.

I had no other choice. I had gone over the Order in my mind a hundred times.

Niner could never be taken by the enemy. With drugs, and other means, he couldn't help but talk.

They knew it.

And we knew it too.

Silence was imperative.

Everyone at Kyrimorut's life depended on it.

All the time I kept watching him through the scope.

He was perfect, even when that black shabuir effortlessly lifted him up like a puppet, he continued his vital act.

It wasn't wasted on me.

I might have been executing a brother but Niner was still going on his own terms.

It's the only thing that justifies the end. Knowing that I am saving him from a fate worse than the one I was ordered to perform.

A sacrifice so great, giving the others precious time to get away.

My biggest fear, my biggest regret was playing out in front of me.

So I set my jaw tight and did what I knew had to be done.

This was my centre of gravity, a point upon which everything depends.

{exhales}

But I'm quick, so quick I release two pulses in succession.

There's no Golden Bridge for the other commando standing there.

Brothers be damned!

One for the best friend a man could ever have.

The other for the bastard that robbed me of him.

.

10 days earlier.

Niner looked into the lounge and saw him sitting there. A light knock on the door alerted the other man of his presence, "Atin, brother, can I have a word?"

Atin sat up and smiled, "you know," he said raising an eyebrow, "the last time you asked me that I had to lend you my data pad."

Niner chuckled and replied, "I wish this was that easy."

Atin stopped for a second, he knew then this wasn't going to be a light hearted conversation about the logistics of sex.

His face prickled. Everyone had seen Niner slow down and become breathless just walking from one room to another. His hair was now completely grey. What broke Atin's heart more was that because of his heart damage, Niner couldn't have the treatment to slow the aging. His heart was deteriorating faster due to his genetic coding.

It was cruel. But Niner never complained, not once.

"What's up Sarge?" To be honest, everyone was on tender hooks around Niner, everyone except Atin.

And that's the reason Niner had chosen him, to have this particular conversation with.

Atin moved aside and invited Niner to sit down, which he waved off and declined.

"Atin, brother, there's no sugar coating this. My heart's failing. Faster than Mij thought."

"Ner'ika!"

"I need you to promise me, that if anything happens, you'll take care of Gem and Tomas."

"Of course, but brother - "

"Gedet'ye ner vod, let me finish?"

Atin nodded.

"I'm not asking you to look after them forever, Gem wouldn't have that anyway, but just," and this was where he momentarily stopped. It had been a difficult day for the Omega sergeant. A visit to Mij with more chest pain and no promise of a tablet to make it better. In fact there was nothing, short of a transplant that could help him now. The irony being if he was still on Corrie he would have had access to one, but then again, had he still been on Coruscant, there would be no reason to have this discussion. It did his head in, like a dog chasing it's tail. Niner cleared his throat, "just get them away from here. Away from Kal. Get them to Oriis. It's safe and fortified."

"But isn't Rex?"

"Fek Rex," it just slipped out. "It's her house, and irrespective of who's living there, they will have to accommodate her and Tomas."

Atin was dumbstruck. He knew there was no love lost between Niner and Kal, but he never imagined it had gone this far. To leave Kyrimorut?

Niner could see Atin processing what he had just said.

"Promise me?" Niner urged.

"Yes," Atin stood and grabbed him in close, "I promise you Ner'ika."

Niner let Atin hold him for a few seconds more before he broke away and slapped him on the shoulder, "you're a good brother Atin." He then smiled, trying to ease his friends mind, "I don't intend on going anywhere soon by the way."

Atin returned his smile.

Niner had no intention of going anywhere, but his heart, it seemed, had a mind of its own.

.

They scramble, looking for me.

I know the drill, I see their defensive formation.

Fekking meat cans couldn't find a Digger Crawler in a sandstorm.

I'm out of their range and I'm out of that building, in amongst the crowd, walking quickly. I move towards a young family and pretend to be a part of their group.

It's all a façade, anything to stop me thinking about what I just did.

Within a minute I'm at my speeder and I turn on the ignition, and I'm off.

For a race of my life.

I'm high on something: adrenaline, fear.

Despair.

It's only when I hear the gear change hard that I am reminded of what I have just done.

A memory, a voice, his voice in my ear.

"Stop riding that fekking clutch Dar."

I find myself crying as I attempt to keep control of the speeder beneath me. I feel the uncomfortable warmth as I allow the tears to flow freely under the privacy of my helmet.

I shake my head, but nothing makes sense.

I have no regrets, 'it was the right thing to do, the only thing to do,' I remind myself.

Niner knew it.

Why don't I?

The others will understand, they know they unwritten rule. But two people didn't, and its them I find myself crying for.

Gem and Tomas, now with another loss to mourn.

The thought of facing them causes me to lose my seating and I bump and jostle, nearly falling off.

Its only then that I drop a gear and slow a little.

Take a breath.

But that in itself is dangerous.

The hardest part is to come.

Another contingency, another plan that has been ingrained in us since arriving.

We will be bugging out.

I have to be ready for the onslaught.

I have to stand by my decision.

Mine and Niners.

'The others will understand,' I remind myself.

They must.

But I know there will be repercussions.

And I know this feeling; the one where your heart is somewhere in your stomach, the pain ripping deep inside and you try to hold it back, keep it down, to simply just keep going. It's only then I pull over and lift my helmet off and vomit. With my stomach heaving I let out a noise that I am so unfamiliar with. Pain, torment, disappointment - everything I have held back since I arrived here without Etain. I've held it together for so long, it's only now that I know for the first time, I am truly out of my depth.

.

Yayax were already heading out with Rav as I pulled in. No one said anything, they knew their Orders and they knew what they had to do. We had always said, that once Mandalore was breeched, we would head to our designated transports and then to secure locations with complete radio silence. It would be broken only when Kal or Vau decided to make contact.

Yayax look strong, familiar and I yearn to be heading in their direction instead of the one I'm going.

I walk into a cacophony of calm, it's almost surreal. Everyone methodically packing, moving, readying themselves to leave.

Then he swings around the corner. A man with a stern a face now as when I first saw him. Right then, my blood ran cold as I came to a complete stop. But instead of feeling like a trainee who had failed to disarm a droideka in time, I felt somewhat vindicated in knowing the truth, the one I had denied myself for sheer convenience.

Finally, in that moment I had grown up.

I knew I was delivering Kal a blow as lethal as the one I witnessed on Shinacan Bridge.

"Where's Ner'ika?" He asks bluntly.

"Taab'echaaj'la," I replied in Mando'a.

His death deserved to be announced in the language of heroes.