Chapter 5: Journeys Home: Part II: Moonshine

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Rex was assigned temporary quarters in the ARCA Company Barracks again while he delivered his report to the Emperor. His transport with a returning company of the 212th back to the suburb district and Luke's apartment wasn't due to pick him up until the early hours of morning. Rex ambled around the sparsely populated compound after he presented his report. He told himself it was just to kill time but he was really looking for the Omega Squad Commandos, Niner more than Darman. He thought Niner might be able to shed some light on Fives' confused last words. Rex hadn't shared them with Coric yet, afraid the old medic might decide his frequent drug use was causing lasting damage.

Most of the Commando Squads were deployed around the Galaxy, leaving a lot of empty bunks. It was unlikely that he'd catch Omega during their infrequent downtime. So he was surprised to see Darman. Rex had followed the sound of footsteps behind one of the long barracks buildings against the security wall. Darman was pacing with his helmet in his hands, turning it over and over. His boots pounded the durracrete ground, obscuring his murmurings but not their agitated tone. Rex saw tension in his brother's shoulders, the deep frown lines on his face, the slight tremble in his hands and erratic darting gaze. It was like looking in a mirror. Darman was so distracted by his own thoughts he didn't notice Rex come around the corner behind a row of parked speeders.

In the blink of an eye, Darman snapped. He dropped threw his helmet on the ground and in one fluid movement of white plastoid punched the building. His gauntlet made a heavy painful sounding thud against the siding. Dar stared at his gauntleted fist for a moment then sighed, deflated by the act of sheer violence. He slumped, turning around to fall against the wall and slide down to sit at its base.

Rex remained half hidden where he was to give his brother a minute to collect himself. Darman didn't move in direct contrast to his previous restless behavior. Rex stepped out into full view and strode as casually as he could down the alley between the wall and the building.

"Gar'gala, ner vod?" Rex said. Let me buy you a drink, brother?

Darman looked up sharply, anger still simmering just behind his eyes.

"Rex." He acknowledged the Captain.

"Darman." Rex replied in the same neutral tone. Darman didn't show any signs of moving, so Rex held out his hand to help his brother up.

"Why?" Darman asked.

"Because you look like you could use it and someone once did the same for me," Rex replied and grabbed his brother's upper arm, dragging the commando up. His back protested the movement and he never would have been able to lift Darman if the commando hadn't stood up on his own.

"Come on. I know a place," Rex assured his brother. Darman just followed docilely.

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During his time in Jaina's guard Rex had followed rumors into the lower city, to a dingy building with warped walls that looked nearly crushed by the structures build overtop of it. A carved, wooden sign depicting a cyborg with a red light set in his mechanical eye swung over the dark doorway. Half-Man's Bar was a hole-in-the-wall smashed between two brightly lit strip clubs, often the backdrop to the waiting lines stretching from the garishly decorated establishments. But it was one of the few places two armored clones could get a drink without raising eyebrows or questions.

Rex and Darman pushed easily through the jostling crowd in front of the bar waiting to be admitted into the loud, strobing club down the street. As soon as the civilians saw the T-shaped visors at the other end of the arms pushing them, they got motivated to move very quickly. Trooper armor did come in handy once in a while.

Inside the Half-Man's Bar it was dark and dusty. Unidentified smoke hung in the air and shrouded the patrons. Rex walked straight to the bar and Darman followed with a wary glance around in his HUD. The place reminded him of Qibbu's Hut in all the wrong ways. Rex pulled off his helmet as he elbowed himself a place at the bar.

"Look after this, will you?" he said to the bartender, passing it over the counter. The bartender was clearly the "half-man" who owned the bar. Darman had to look twice at the scarred man before he saw his own face in the ruins of his brother's. The Half-Man's head was burned clean of hair from his scalp to his eyebrows. One eye was just a hollow covered by pitted scar tissue and the other was a swiveling, mechanical, red light. His right arm was a high-end prosthetic, maybe even supplied by the GAR, but when he walked there was the tell-tale thump of a peg-leg. In a way all clones were half-men as far as the law was concerned, no rights and no choices. Darman wondered if the man was good humored enough about his own situation to realize the double meaning of the name.

Rex knocked on Darman's chest-plate.

"Bucket," he said and pointed to the bartender. Reluctantly Darman handed over his helmet. Without the flitters he could smell the stale aroma of the bar. It was at least free of the distinctive smell of Hutt slime that permeated Qibbu's questionable establishment.

"Thought you'd kicked it," the Half-Man said to Rex as he took both helmets and stowed them under the bar.

"Not yet," Rex replied and accepted a dark, unlabeled bottle with two glasses stacked on the neck. The Captain led Darman to a small table that looked as dirty as the shadowed floor. He poured out two generous cups and slid one to the commando.

Darman just looked at the drink for a moment.

"Don't worry, Dul gives me the clean glasses," Rex said and drank down the hazy bluish spirits like man dying of thirst.

"How did he get here?" Darman asked.

"Not all clones get an all expenses paid vacation on Kamino when their usefulness runs out. Some find their own way in the galaxy."

Darman frowned, thinking of Fi. Without the help of Kal, Besany, Obrim and many others he never would have stood a chance. How did someone as broken as Dul even make it to the outside alone, much less survive? Darman was about to ask when he realized that he didn't really care. Dul was just one more brother who had given up and deserted his duty. Darman knew a lot of them by now.

"What are we drinking to?" He asked instead, sat down, and reached for his glass. He was expecting Rex to say 'brothers' or 'Oya Manda' or even 'the Empire.'

"The women we loved who died for stupid reasons."

Darman wasn't expecting that. Suddenly he was remembering Etain. He could see her as clearly in his mind as if she was standing right in front of him, her soft brown hair and green eyes shining with a smile and Kad in her arms, little chubby hands gripping her Jedi tunic.

Darman picked up the glass, not caring if it was clean or not, and downed it all. He nearly choked.

Rex chuckled and refilled the glass while Dar swallowed bile.

"That's nasty," Darman hissed.

"Yeah, but always free to brothers like us," Rex said as he refilled his own cup.

"So Niner told you."

"He wanted my perspective."

"What perspective is that?"

"We're not as different as you might think, ner vod," Rex said softly, his voice nearly lost in the din of the bar. Darman's brow furrowed as he realized Rex had said 'we': 'the women we loved…'

"Who was she?"

"You want to talk about your girl?" Rex shot back.

"Niner told you my story," Darman said with a hint of bitterness toward his commando brother in his voice.

"Sorry for you," Rex replied sarcastically. Darman knew it was just defensive anger, anger to hide pain. He was familiar with that.

Darman frowned and looked out onto the bar of shifting dark shadows. He saw at least three deals being made, he couldn't always tell on what. At least two of the patrons were hard-core drug dealers and another was packing a verpine rifle as nice as Kal's, a weapon good for only one unsavory business.

"You heard about DeepSec?" Rex asked suddenly.

"Yeah," Darman said after a moment of thought, confused by the rapid shift in topic.

"You wanted to know about her, that's what happened," Rex said simply.

"Oh," Darman said. Is being struck down quickly better than being burned alive in a pit? He wondered. It seemed better from where he was sitting. At least Etain hadn't suffered long. Still a morbid curiosity drove him to ask, "What did she do to end up in there?"

"Guilty by association," Rex explained cryptically.

"She was a Jedi?"

"Yeah, she was... a long time ago. She had nothing to do with the council's treason, but she died for it."

"Like Etain," Darman muttered, "She shouldn't have died. She was so close to leaving."

"Leaving Coruscant?"

"All of it: the Jedi, the army, the Republic-Empire, whatever it calls itself! She was going home with me to Kad. We were going to be a real family, like it always should have been."

"Kad?"

"My son." Darman's voice softened around the word.

"Shab. Niner didn't mention that," Rex shook his head, an unfamiliar pang of jealousy stabbed him. He wasn't sure if he was jealous of Darman's kid or the child's father.

"Niner doesn't understand," Darman growled, "about Kad and what I'm doing."

"Where is your son now?" Rex asked.

"Safe with some of my brothers and my Buir," Darman said his voice soft again, then it became rough and angry once more. "Or I thought he was. But they have kriffing Jedi there, with my son."

"What are they going to do to your son? They're as much fugitives from the Empire as deserters, more so even."

"It's more complicated than that! Kad is… special, like Etain."

"He's… Oh! And you think the Jedi will try to..." Rex trailed off. It wasn't just the Jedi who posed a threat to the force-sensitive, half-Jango child. He knew very well that the Empire would steal the child just as quickly.

"…take him away. That's what they do!" Darman finished Rex's sentence oblivious of where the Captain's thoughts were going.

"You don't trust your aliit to protect him?"

"It isn't about trusting them, it's about not trusting the Jedi."

"His mother was a Jedi and you married her." Rex pointed out and got a blood freezing glare from Darman.

"Etain was different."

"Lots of Jedi were different. I knew them. I fought with them! I trusted by back to those Jedi and they trusted me with theirs." And I betrayed them, Rex thought but didn't say.

"Trusted you, hah!" Darman's laugh cut Rex painfully, as if he was laughing in her face as realization of Rex's betrayal dawned in her bright blue eyes.

"Ner cyare ru'ruusaanii hukaat'kama ratiin!" My girl always trusted her back to me!

"Jedi don't trust and they don't have comrades. The Jedi were all corrupt and too arrogant to see it past their own inflated egos. They were child-stealing slavers who masqueraded as peacekeepers in a war. They looked down on anything that wasn't Force-sensitive as a lower life form and we were just expendable flesh-droids to them!"

"The council was full of no good hu'tuune, I agree. They had no business fighting the war in the first place. But lots of Jedi didn't have a choice! They did what the council told them. How is that any different from us? We follow orders too and we don't question them. If we did, a lot more of the Jedi would be alive right now."

"We're soldiers."

"And the Order turned itself into an army because the Republic needed to fight a war. We became executioners because the Empire needed to remove the threat of the Jedi! You go where you're told and you kill who they tell you to, no questions." Rex saw that the words didn't cut Darman nearly as hard as they cut him.

"I'm making the galaxy safer. We're better off without their kind! The Jedi are a disease. They have to be whipped out completely or what was any of it worth? What did our brother's die for if it we don't finish the job? That's why I'm still here."

What did my brothers die for? Rex wondered. He thought suddenly of Dogma and Slick. Slick just wanted a way out. Dogma wanted justice for his brothers. Neither of them died to eliminate the Jedi. "Still?" He asked Darman ruefully. "Like any of us have a choice."

"I do. I don't have to be here. I don't have to do this. I don't just follow orders because I'm given them. I'm here because this is where I do the most good for my family—for Kad. When the Jedi are dead and gone, I'll go home."

"You have a home and a son waiting for you and you're still here?" Rex asked incredulous.

"I have to protect him and the Empire lets me do that." Darman was looking away from Rex at something in the distance as he said the words. His assurance sounded artificial.

"How will killing off a few Force sensitive renegades protect Kad?" Rex demanded.

"I won't let them take my son away like they took my wife."

"The only person who took your wife away was the man who ordered her death!"

"The Jedi killed her when they betrayed the Republic. She never wanted to be a part of that and they made her a traitor anyway!"

"Blaming them just means you don't have to face the truth: The Empire killed your wife and you couldn't protect her."

"The Jedi killed her."

"Killing every Force-sensative you can get your hands on won't change that. It won't bring back your son's mother, it's just going to get his father killed for something equally jare'la!"

"I'm protecting my son! Protecting him from being turned into one of them! That's what a father does!"

"You aren't protecting him from becoming a Jedi, you don't even know what he's becoming. The only way to keep him from being something you hate is to teach him yourself. A father teaches his son! The only thing you're teaching your kid is that he's alone and his father is too scared to show his face, just an osi'yaim Hu'tuun!"

Darman snapped at the last word, the harshest word for coward a Mando knew. He hooked one hand on the neck of Rex's chest plate and yanked the Captain into his oncoming fist. Rex crumbled to the floor, dragging the bottle off the table, his glass rolling down to follow it, and his chair tumbling backwards with a loud clattering sound. Darman stood over the crumpled man on the floor.

"Say it again!" He growled.

"You're a no good, useless coward and you know it!" Rex said, words slurred and painful but his gaze was steady as he looked back up at his brother. Darman's face was contorted in blind rage, the kind of rage that made men stupid. Rex struggled to his feet, his labored breathing loud in the suddenly silent bar. "Hit me again, ner vod, but it won't make you feel any better. Won't change the truth." Rex spit blood on the floor. Darman was shaking with anger but he very deliberately turned away to leave.

Maybe Rex was jare'la too because he wasn't finished. The words were out of his mouth before he'd consciously decided to say them. As if he needed more pain in his life.

"You wouldn't even recognize your son if you saw him, would you?" Rex said in a quiet voice that seemed amplified by the crowded smoky room.

Darman turned with a wordless roar and grabbed Rex by his armor, throwing him bodily into the table. Rex felt wood cracking against his ribs. His back was one screaming mass of agony already. His head hit the solid floor painfully. A boot swung out and caught him in the stomach. The crunch of plastoid rang in the silence. Rex half expected a blaster bolt to cut across his vision. Maybe oblivion wouldn't be so bad, he thought through the pain and inebriated haze.

Heavy footsteps pounded past him then a door opened and closed a few moments afterward. Whispers erupted around Rex, but, dizzy and head spinning with pain, he couldn't make out any words. The distinctive clunk, shuffle, clunk, shuffle of Dul's footsteps approached Rex's head.

"I don't think my strongest spirits are gonna take the edge off of that one, vod." Dul said.

Rex choked when he tried to speak and coughed. The action felt like being stabbed in the back and his guts spilling out of his abdomen at the same time. Shakily Rex rolled over onto his knees. "Next time, you can take on the Commando and I'll crack jokes."

"Just a statement of fact."

"Thanks," Rex said and looked around at the mess he and Darman had made. "I'll pay you back for… this." He waved at the wreckage. The motion made his shoulder protest. I must have twisted it at some point or fallen on it wrong, he thought.

"Don't worry about it." Dul said, righting a chair and sitting down on it. Rex noticed his helmet in the bartender's hands, a subtle nod that he'd out stayed his welcome. Dul eased out his peg leg and leveled Rex with his red, one-eyed stare. "Always lookin' after your men, aren't you?"

"If this is what I get, I think I'll retire," Rex replied. "Start looking after myself."

"No you wont." Dul gave a short, harsh guffaw. "You were never a soldier, Rex. You're a protector."

His words sounded too much like hers: 'you were meant to protect people.'

'Protect people'; yeah—everyone but you, Rex thought. Slowly, painfully he got to his feet. Dul handed over his bucket.

"Take care of yourself, vod," Dul said.

"K'oyacyi," Rex gave the same parting in Mando'a. He limped out of the Half-Man's Bar and back into the dark gloomy under city. He wondered how he'd explain the bruises to Coric when he returned. Then he had to wonder if Coric would even ask. Rex sighed and started limping toward the barracks. He could at least catch a few hours of sleep before his transport arrived.

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Rex was strapping on his utility belt and missing the familiar weight of his kama when the door buzzed. He limped over, his bruises even more painful after a few hours laying on a hard bunk. He grumbled under his breath about worthless shinnies keeping him from his transport and palmed the door controls.

"Are you imperial trooper ai-tee seven five six seven?" A tall astromech droid asked him the moment the door opened. A human stood behind him with a data pad scrolling through the information. They didn't look official in any capacity.

"We have a delivery."

"What kind of a delivery?" Rex asked, eyes narrowed. Delivery in 501st lingo meant an unexpected explosive gift on the enemy's doorstep. He had every reason to be wary of two strangers, even in the ARCA barracks.

"From your Commando buddies," the man said. The droid extended one manipulator arm from a closed compartment and held out a normal looking comm link.

"What's this?" Rex asked. And why would Niner and Darman send it to me this way? He wondered. He hadn't been expecting to hear from either of them soon—if ever.

"It's secure, frequency is plugged in, but tell your buddies it was a rush job, only good for one call," the man said. He turned to walk away without looking up from his datapad. The droid dropped the device in Rex's hand and rolled along after its owner.

"One call to where?" Rex asked them.

"Some place called Keerimohroot," the man replied over his shoulder. They turned a corner and disappeared. Rex was left holding the comm link and decoding the Mando'a name.

Keer was probably kyr meaning end or final and mohroot was morut meaning haven or strong hold. Kyrimorut was a last haven or the final stronghold, a safe retreat, somewhere to go when things went bad… Rex looked down at the comm link in his hands. If Niner was giving him a way of contacting their safe haven outside of the Empire it must mean that he wouldn't be around Triple Zero to talk to Rex anymore. Darman and Niner had left Coruscant. He's going back to Kad.

The corners of Rex's lips turned up. He was glad to know at least a few brothers were finding lives outside of the army even if he couldn't. He'd given up his chances over and over. The first time had been with Cut. He'd told the farmer and father his family was elsewhere, with the army. That was still true, but now it was more than that. Rex had an obligation to more than just his brothers, he had an obligation to a child—just like Cut and Darman.

Rex pocketed the comm and headed for his transport back to the silent apartment, back to Nia's strange behavior, Corics tense silences, and Luke.

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Author's Note: Dul, the bartender's name, means half in Mando'a. Jare'la is a hard word to translate. It means recklessly, or oblivious of danger, or suicidal. I comes from jare which means death-wish or kamikaze. It's generally an insulting or derogatory description in Mando'a. (As opposed to the heroic or self-sacrificing connotation kamikaze sometimes has.) It kind of makes sense to me why they'd think that way. Someone reckless and oblivious to danger isn't going to last long so they won't be around to keep fighting. To a culture of warriors that doesn't make them very valuable and all Mandalorian insults seem to be about being useless in their culture (ie. messy, undisciplined, cowardly, etc.).

If you're interested in seeing more of Darman or the Kyrimorut crew just let me know with a review or something. I have pieces I can write for different characters there. -Em