Author's Note: First of all, sorry there was no update last week. I got a bit behind in writing this. I don't seem to be able to write short chapters for some reason… yeah. I know it's my own fault. (Writing is hard god d**** it!) But good news, it's getting close to the holidays which means no classes and less work, so more time to write! Hopefully we'll be well on our way through Part II by the end of the year and on to Part III, which I am super excited to write. For anyone who loves to throw unlikely characters into the same plot and watching the madness that ensue, you'll like what I have planned. (And for all you KT fans, there is lots of the Kyrimorut Crew in the coming chapters.)
Secondly, thank you to everyone who has read this far. This started as a few plot bunnies running around my head and plans for a series of one-shots. Now it's a 60k plus collection of stories. I swear plot bunnies breed exponentially. In a universe like Star Wars, there's lots for them to feed on of course. I'm glad you're enjoying the results.
A special BIG thank you to my wonderfully kind reviewers: Ahsoka1996, scottusa1, Wolfwarrioress, Lillie-wan Kenobi, CaptainRex12, and Iluvpeacocks11. Even if it's just a few words, I really appreciate them. They make my day.
Thirdly(?), Welcome to Part II! This is purely for referential reasons. There's a time skip here- thus it's a new part of the story. I anticipate three parts with maybe an epilogue/part four.
Fourth: Sorry, no Ahsoka this chapter, but an old "friend" comes into the story. Ny from Kyrimorut is going to play a bigger role for a little while and we'll have a few detours back to Mandalore. Meanwhile Rex and Fox have some issues to iron out; Ahhh, family drama. Enjoy. –November
.
Remnants
Part II
.
six months later
.
Chapter 10: Questions
.
The tall, thin—almost emaciated—woman had a piercing gleam in her pale eyes that unnerved Bedjiim, an unfamiliar feeling for the toydarian. He was used to dealing with hard people and being the intimidator–it came with the territory. In the little port town of Kumaai he controlled 40% of the money flow that supported the haven of illegal business. In this backwater at least, he was a bad person to displease. It helped that most of the residents and regulars didn't know a thing about toydarians. A creature you couldn't predict by their expression was scary to any being. They didn't know the involuntary flick of his wings was a sign of discomfort. This woman though smirked a little more every time the gauzy appendages gave him away. She was something different, even from the usual bounty hunters he contracted.
"You come well recommended," he said, watching for some reaction on her sharply featured face.
"For good reason." She replied evenly.
"Not a lot of work for someone with your skillset this far out."
"Except for you?" she shot back smoothly but a little too quickly.
So you don't want to be here, Bedjiim thought with a little satisfaction. That might prove useful information later.
"Well, this is a unique case," he told her. "I'm a businessman and I know the perils of mixing business and pleasure. But this particular creature has been a thorn in my side for too long. No more second changes. So, maybe this is a bit of both."
"I don't really care what your beef is. I'm here to do a job."
"Of course. I respect professionalism. His name is Djela Kur—an Ilothorian. He makes a decent amount of profit off the carbonite freezing business here. His particular skills are what has allowed him so much leniency in the past."
"Like I said."
"Yes, of course. My people tracked Djela to the Dara system a few days ago but he gave them the slip. I don't trust these goons any father than that—thus the necessity of the bounty."
"That's not much to go on."
"We did capture an associate of his. He claims to know nothing and I haven't been able to persuade him to change his story."
"He'll talk to me."
"I'm quite sure he knows nothing of value. I'm a very persuasive person."
"We will see. Show him to me."
Bedjiim frowned and scrutinized the utterly calm woman before him. Each of his seven guards had easily triple her weight and carried twice the fire power, even if the sleek, expensive blasters on her hips weren't her only weapons. But she looked utterly unconcerned by her dangerous situation. Her gaze never left Bedjiim's, even to watch the pacing mercenaries at every door like any other bounty hunter he'd ever interviewed.
"Bring the prisoner," he said over his shoulder and one of his men hurried down a dark hallway. He returned quickly, half-leading, half-dragging a dark skinned man with a shinny bald head who stumbled on an injured leg. His face was nearly indistinguishable through the molting of blue and black bruises. One of his pale grey eyes was swollen shut and the other swiveled around madly, wide with terror.
Bedjiim motioned vaguely to the tiled floor before his perch and the mercenary shoved the prisoner none too kindly before his employer.
"His name is Borin, He's a freighter…"
"No he isn't."
Bedjiim was shocked at being interrupted and stared openly at the bounty hunter before remembering to be insulted.
"You haven't seen this man for more than a minute!"
"And already I know more than you do. Whatever it is he's hiding from you, he's willing to die for it. As long as he knows something of value you'll keep him alive, at least until you force it out of him or find Djela Kur. But if you believe he knows nothing you'll kill him and anything he's hiding dies with him."
The man's wide eyes were focused now entirely on the bounty hunter. Bedjiim could tell that he feared this new tormentor in a completely different way than he feared Bedjiim. The prisioner feared the physical violence that he promised but the bounty hunter posed a threat to whatever was more important than his own suffering. This strange, alien woman already knew more after a few minutes about a captive he had interrogated for hours.
Bedjiim motioned openly toward his prisoner with a nod to the bounty hunter. She smiled thinly—a cold expression that sent another involuntary shiver through his wings. He was gladder than he wanted to admit that the bounty hunter had someone else to focus on.
"What is your name?" She asked evenly. The man opened his mouth and floundered a moment for words. Then he snapped his jaw closed and pressed his good eye and lips firmly shut.
"What is your name?" the bounty hunter asked again. The man shook his head.
"It's a simple question."
"Sayne!" The word forced itself from reticent lips. "My name is Sayne Heeran," he admitted, deflated and exhausted—panting as if he had been physically exerting himself.
The bounty hunter swaggered forward to the cowering prisoner and crouched down so they were at an even eye-height. Her voice, when she spoke was soft and the natural rasp of it deepened in some mockery of kindness.
"Sayn, I'm not the kind of person you lie to. Now I won't ask you more than once. I will find Djela Kur with or without your answer. Tell me anything other than the truth or leave anything out and I will make your end very painful—I'd even take pleasure in doing that. Either way, I win. You don't care for Djela anymore than this sleemo." Bedjiim straighter and gave an irritated growling buzz.
"So tell me," she went on, ignoring him, "where can I find Djela Kur?"
For a long moment the man looked back into the bounty hunter's pale hard eyes. Bedjiim watched the color draining from the man's warm brown skin so the fresh bruises stood out more starkly in contrast. He gulped painfully. The dry sound was loud in the dead silent room.
"Catharia," he answered in a trembling whisper.
"Thank you," the bounty hunter said with vicious satisfaction. She turned away and stood. The moment she broke eye contact, the man gasped, as if released from some paralysis. An expression of terrible realization came over his face and he gritted his teeth. He glared at the bounty hunter's back, his face twitching with anger and hatred.
Bedjiim hurried to hide his expression of shock.
"I see you are well equipped for the task," he said as evenly as he could manage.
"I'll bring you Kur."
"There's a bonus if he's alive."
"I'll see what I can do."
"Of course." Bedjiim said but she had already turned and started striding out of his compound, not waiting to be escorted out. He frowned at her back, almost as disturbed as the prisoner at his feet. With a harsh flutter of his wings he shook himself back into the present. He looked down at the man who had collapsed with his head in his hands.
"Get him out of my sight!" He hissed angrily at his guards and took comfort and satisfaction when they jumped at his orders. He could get rid of one troublesome prisoner, he'd soon have Djela Kur, and then the bounty hunter could become a long forgotten memory. That was something to look forward to.
.
Rex stumbled over the doorstep of Dul's bar. He grabbed the nearest chair to steady himself and shook his head. He didn't think he had taken that much of the painkillers he'd filched from the barracks storeroom. It had been a while since he replenished his illicit stash though. He had to take advantage of his time in the Core while he could. He'd be back out in another nameless backwater soon enough riding supply freighters back and forth through dead space. Not much access to meds there. He substituted as he could.
At least his back didn't hurt and his demons stayed buried, if only in shallow graves.
As he stumbled up to the bar the patrons took one look at his white armor and cleared his path—that was the best perk of being a stormtrooper. He pulled off his helmet and slid it over to the scarred bartender. Dul's face looked more drawn and creased than Rex remembered it.
"Haven't seen you in a while, vod," Dul said, taking the helmet and just leaning across the bar for a moment. "I hope you didn't think you were banned last time I kicked you out."
"I started a fight," Rex said shaking his head. "Fair's fair. I just got deployed off TripZip, that's all."
"You ever make peace with that buddy of yours? Dar was his name, right?"
"Darman… No. I haven't heard from him since." Rex looked down at his hand running across the edge of the bar, leaving a visible trail in the grease. Thinking of Darman reminded him of Etain. Etain reminded him of Walli. Thinking of Walli, he saw the splatters of blood on his brother's white armor all over again. He smelled burnt rotting flesh and his spinning head had nothing to do with the drugs.
"Alright, Re'ika," Dul said softly, barely audible over the buzz of conversation. "I can see you've had a hard time of it." He pushed a glass of honey colored liquid across the bar. Rex caught sight of the bottle's flashy florescent label as Dul shelved it under the table.
"You know I can't pay you for that," Rex said.
"You're gonna need it."
"Vore, ner vod," Rex said. He picked up the glass, but before it touched his lips he saw a familiar straight-backed figure in the far corner of the room looking right back at him.
"What the frack is he doing here?" Rex demanded in a harsh biting hiss.
Dul glanced backward over his shoulder, the stalk of his mechanical eye swiveling disturbingly in its artificial socket.
"Said he was here to see you actually," Dul said evenly. His single red eye swiveled back to pierce Rex questioningly. The bartender tilted his head a little and if he'd still had eyebrows one of them would have been raised. Instead the cratered scar tissue that covered the top half of his face just twitched over the empty eye-socket.
"That lying chakaar!" Rex growled. He downed the glass in his hand in one motion, slammed it on the bar and stalked off toward the corner table.
The clone sitting the the gloom was holding a glass of the cloudy, bluish moonshine Dul made in his basement. He had rigid posture even when he was relaxing and his hair was neatly combed in regulation style—nothing out of place.
"You're late," Fox said with a disdainful look at Rex. "If I really had been Gree, I'd be upset."
"But you aren't," Rex growled. He'd thought it odd that Gree asked to meet at Dul's bar. Now it made sense. He certainly wouldn't have come if Fox had asked him outright. There were few people in the galaxy that Rex wanted to see less that Fox. He was glad he'd taken the extra painkillers.
"I'm not even surprised," Fox said impassively. "I always said you didn't belong in Alpha's training squad, even if you did swallow his Mando propaganda like a thirsty bantha."
"Shabii'gar!"
"I want answers first."
"I don't have to tell you a karking thing," Rex snapped and turned around. He knew what Fox was going to ask and it set his heart pounding.
"It doesn't even bother you does it?" Fox's words were rough with anger he rarely let out of his rigid control.
Rex stopped. He wondered if Dul really would ban him when he punched Fox or skipped the pleasantries and just shot the lying soldier. Rex's hand twitched toward the blaster on his hip.
"All of the brothers you've gotten killed, men you were supposed to protect, that doesn't mean a thing to you."
"I could ask you the same thing," Rex said softly but no less vehemently.
"Is this about that rogue ARC or the Jedi?"
"Fives, his name was Fives." Rex snapped turning around, hand going to his weapon out of sheer habit. He could hardly see Fox or Dul's bar past the memories of holding his brother. A dead body felt nothing like a sleeping one. There was no small movement of breath or heartbeat and no tension or response in the muscles. Fives had just been still and limp in Rex's arms.
"I know what his name was; Nu'digu!"
Rex was momentarily shocked by the use of the foreign language. He often forgot that Fox knew mando'a as well as he did. Rex didn't think he'd ever heard him use it.
"I remember all of them," Fox went on, his identical eyes boring into Rex's. "Have you memorized all the names on that list of yours?" Rex flinched. He didn't know Fox had worked out what he kept on his personal datapad.
"How long is it by now? Did you put Coric's name on there? What about Walli? He died for you! Did you put Kaden and Su'ratin on it? And Ven! They were innocent and their deaths are on you!"
"Ne'johaa! Just shut up! You don't know the half of what happened!"
"So tell me! No place better." Fox held out his hand to indicate the smoky bar of criminals and under-city hustlers.
"There's just the problem that I don't trust you!" Rex said evenly.
"That makes two of us!" Fox replied, surprisingly casual and amiable. He slid an empty glass across the table and poured out a portion of the strong smelling alcohol. He sat back as much as his ram-rod posture allowed and looked expectantly at Rex.
Rex considered punching Fox right then. He hated having to justify himself to Fox but the false accusations stung almost as much as the founded ones. It was a combination of guilt and pride that moved Rex to take the seat across from Fox. He looked out at the bar when he finally found his voice again.
"For one, you must not know Mandalorians as well as you think if you believe Kaden and Su'ratin are dead. The Cuy'val Dar trained those boys to survive. They would have known it was time for a quiet getaway, ba'slan shev'la. The Empire just doesn't have anyone to send after them with any hope of success. They're spread thin as it is trying to hold this farce of a democracy together. But they won't admit any of that." Rex conceded most of that was wishful thinking—unless the stories about Walon Vau, the Mandalorian who had trained the two Commando's, were true.
"And Ven?" Fox asked.
"That one is on me," Rex sighed and forced himself to look Fox in the eyes. "I never wanted any of my men caught in the crossfire."
"But they weren't your men. They were mine!"
"Ni ceta, vod. He was your friend and his death was my fault." Rex couldn't keep his eyes from falling down to his drink.
"But you still don't regret what you did." Fox said it as a statement not a question. Rex considered lying for a moment.
"No," he said honestly, raising his gaze evenly to Fox's furious expression. It was disconcerting to see the mirror image of his own face twisted with so much hate it was almost unrecognizable.
"Was the money that good?" Fox spit out, losing the last shred of his ever-present composure. "Certainly explains how you keep up your expensive 'habits!'"
"Frack you!" The response was automatic. "I didn't make a cred off it! You really must have a low opinion of me to think I'd stoop to that."
"Then set me right. What really happened to Kahn and the child?"
The two men stared at each other across the table, each waiting for the other to blink first.
"Fine!" Fox looked away, scowling and bitter. "Keep your secrets."
Rex swallowed and his convictions wavered.
"Coric said the same thing to me when he joined the guard. Used to be there were no secrets between vode, there wasn't room for them. Now it seems we all have them."
"And Coric's?"
"They ate him up until he couldn't take it anymore—poor shabuir."
"I suppose that one's not your fault either?"
"I don't know," Rex shook his head. He couldn't count the number of times in the past months he'd replayed the days before Coric's death in his mind. But he wasn't Walli—his memory was imperfect and drug addled. "I really don't. I almost wish I knew what could have saved him."
"Was he part of it—whatever it is you're mixed up in?"
"No," Rex said firmly and Fox seemed to believe him. Brothers had a hard time lying to each other—even two as different as Fox and Rex.
"And Walli?"
"Walli did what he did for his own reasons and I don't understand them anymore than you. He wasn't part of it—I would never have dragged one of my brothers into my own treason!"
"Wouldn't be the first time," Fox said over the rim of his glass as he sipped at the murky liquid.
"What?" Rex demanded, his blood boiling.
"I know what happened on Umbara. You let someone else take the fall for that too."
The very mention of the planet had a sobering effect on Rex. He shut his eyes against the flashes of memory as dim and indistinct as the smoky bar.
"I should have been the one to shoot Krell, you're right. I learned my lesson."
"So if Walli wasn't part of it. Explain this:" Fox put down his drink and sat forward, lowering his voice and tone. "I did some digging. It wasn't easy to find but I pulled the reports on our debriefings after the kidnapping." Rex leaned in.
"What do you remember about it?" Fox asked.
So he has the same suspicions, Rex though. "Nothing after boarding the transport from Luke's apartment or before waking up in the barracks with you and Walli. You?"
"Same. My memory blacks out just after we reached the Tauu-Reish system. I don't even remember being taken into custody."
"It wasn't a standard debriefing," Rex said cautiously. "But what about that assignment was standard?"
"Nothing! But that isn't even the strange part. Your report and Walli's are banthadung! Anyone who knew either of you could tell that. There's more lies than truths in there." Fox shifted uncomfortably in a way that unsettled Rex. Anything that shook up "Commander Calm" couldn't be good. "Mine and Ven's are more truthful than they should be."
"What do you mean?"
"Like you said. We all have secrets now," Fox looked away for a second.
What are yours? Rex wondered but kept his mouth shut. Fox wasn't outright prying so he deserved that at least.
"I'm sure you knew brothers who were more than just close," Fox said hesitantly, gauging Rex's expression carefully.
Rex was surprised by the question, then defensive.
"We were fighting a bloody, hopeless war—struggling to survive everyday in a living hell. I wasn't about to take away any shred of joy my men found out there." It was truth. Sometimes Rex even envied those of his brothers that were more interested in 'their own kind' as one such trooper had put it than the females they saw in hollo vids. They had tenderness and affection that most of his men never knew.
"Things weren't exactly relaxing here either," Fox agreed with visible relief. "I looked the other way, but no one admitted to it—ever! So why would this debriefing be any different?"
"You…" For a moment Rex tried to imagine how he had missed that in the straight-laced former-Commander.
"Ven."
That makes a lot more sense, Rex thought.
"But I would never give him up," Fox insisted. "He was my brother, my oldest brother—one of my batch."
"What are you getting at? You gave him up in that debriefing?" Rex had often thought Fox was heartless and cruel but never un-loyal to his men. That kind of infraction got men 'decommissioned'. Ven was as close to Fox as Coric had been to Rex. It just didn't make sense.
"It was in the report. Ven admitted it himself." Fox was looking down at the table, his brow furrowed and deep in thought.
"You think that's why he died?"
"I told you. It wasn't the Mandalorians. I did the first-aid myself. I've seen men in worse shape than that pull through. He should have lived."
Rex felt a small part of his burden lift. Ven's death wasn't his fault, at least no entirely. Darman and his family hadn't tried to kill anyone on his word.
"I have my own secrets—ones I would die to protect," Fox said, pulling Rex back to the present.
"She have a name?" His alcohol loosened tongue asked before he could bite it.
"To quote you: Shabii'gar!" Fox glared across the table. Rex leaned back and held his hands up in surrender.
"I want to know why I spilled my greatest secrets and you lied through every benign question."
"I don't know. I told you—I don't remember anything!"
"Either you're still lying now… or someone doctored the reports."
"You think someone is protecting me."
"Wouldn't be the first time you got special treatment." Fox said. It was no secret that Rex had gotten reassigned after he was decommissioned instead of sent back to Kamino.
"I didn't ask for Skywalker to do what he did. I would have preferred he let me die on that sinking wreck."
"It certainly would have saved me a lot of pain," Fox agreed.
You wouldn't be the only one, Rex thought. Without him Coric could have had a Captain who saw his pain. Without him Kaden and Su'ratin wouldn't be on the run or dead. Without him Walli and Ven would never have been found out for their aberrance. Without him Ahsoka wouldn't have gotten away on Shili. Yeah, Rex thought, dying for my brothers would have been better. Ahsoka would have hated hearing that. For a moment that thought stung. Then he remembered that she was his enemy. The pain faded as quickly as it came.
"Why would someone protect me?" Rex asked, shaking off the morbid thoughts.
"More importantly, who." Fox said half under his breath. "That's what I really want to know. Whoever it was knows what was in the original reports."
Rex felt blood draining from his face. He hated to think what he might have said if Ven gave up secrets that got him killed. The implications went farther than his treason. Rex knew about Darman's son and the Commando's defection. He knew who Nia Kahn really was and Luke's parentage. He knew of Kyrimorut—even had contact with them. If he put the Empire on that trail it would lead to all of them. They were the closest thing Rex had to family.
"If I knew anything I would tell you," he told Fox honestly.
"I believe you," Fox said bitter and disappointed. "But I need answers. Who did it, why, and how?"
"What did the report say? It had to list an interrogator, a facility, something to go on."
Fox made a dismissive noise and pulled a datapadd out of his belt pouch for Rex to look at. It had Rex and Walli's interrogation reports. A quick glance down the summary proved Fox right; one in three lines had any scrap of truth.
"Whoever it is doesn't know me very well."
In the fields where the interrogator's name, the facility, and department should have been four letters were repeated: ORSA
"What is OhAreEsAey?" Rex asked.
"Have you ever heard of it?"
"No."
"Neither had I until I until I got reassigned." Fox glowered into his drink. "For the past six month's while you've been taking a tour of the outer rim I've been overseeing Prison Transport in the Militia District—mostly moving people from one detention facility to another. But sometimes we get special orders to deliver small numbers—sometimes individuals—to an unmarked civilian location outside of the district. There are patterns in those prisoners. I see people go in looking like POWs and come out as passive as a nuna. I've seen angry dissidents go in and upstanding citizens scheduled for release come out. Traitors go in and within a week resume their posts without trial."
Or a Jedi mother goes out and a caretaker for a stolen child comes out, Rex thought, remembering Etain's vivid eyes in her perssonel file hollo.
"All of their files have that designation," Fox said and pointed at the four letters stamped across Rex's interrogation report: ORSA.
"What does OhAreEsAey do?"
"I haven't been able to find any information about it."
"It's classified?"
"No. It doesn't exist. There are no records in the system at all. Whatever happens there is more protected than that child we were protecting. I understand why. Can you imagine the outrage if the civi's knew what was happening?"
"I guess they'd get pretty upset about being treated like droids." Or clones, Rex add wryly in his head. "Any theories on what they're doing?"
"Using the Force to interrogate suspects. Jedi could make people talk and alter their memories."
"No. That isn't it."
"How do you know?"
"Because I know what that feels like. Ventress tried it on me on Teth. It's not something you forget and it doesn't go away. I'd know if someone was rummaging around in my head again."
"I'll take your word for it. I didn't thing that explained it either. At first I thought drugs."
"Than it's no drug I've ever heard of—it's too reliable. None of us had side effects."
"Except memory loss."
"That was too precise. I'd bet every cred I've every seen that was intentional."
"That's what I thought. I don't have an explanation for what happened to us and I don't like it. The GAR was transparent—or so I thought. Now we have no privacy even in our own minds."
"We're clones, vod. Our lives have never belonged to us."
"We still had free will! We still had choice—even if it was just the choice between shooting out the enemy's brains or our own."
Rex flinched. We did always have that choice, right Coric? He thought. He drained his glass and refilled it. He emptied it again before he let his mind wander over the past again.
"You didn't know Coric very well did you?" Rex asked at length.
"He wasn't very social." Fox said frowning in confusion.
"He used to be." Rex poured himself another glass as he talked—fighting to stay detached. "He served under me since my first day sin the 501st. We were the last brothers who had survived Christophsis and Teth. Now I'm the only one left.
"Coric was no coward and he lived through the worst hell. I might carry the guilt for the men I lost but he held their hands as they died, arrived too late, and had to choose who could be saved and who couldn't every day of the damned war. He never broke. Not after three years on the front line. You'd think that life would drain the compassion out of a man—but not Coric. He would have left his blaster behind to carry more medical supplies if I'd let him. Anytime we were fighting wets I could see him hesitate. More than any of us he knew the pain he was inflicting—that's what tore him up. That's the brother I knew. And they sent that man to slaughter younglings—Jedi or not."
"So that's why he was assigned to guarding the kid—he couldn't do it?"
"No." Rex shook his head and finished his drink before he answered. "Coric followed his orders to the letter."
"You must not have known him as well as you think."
"Coric wouldn't kill innocent children anymore than you would rat our a brother—no more than I would shoot someone I cared for." Rex was surprised by his own words and shut his mouth with a snap too late to stop them.
Fox stared at him across the grimy table with dark, unreadable eyes. Rex felt transparent. Fox was seeing something past him that wasn't really there.
"You're saying we're being… controlled?" Fox spoke finally, soft and gave. "Not just in these interogations but… before?"
"You didn't listen to Fives did you?" Rex said, shaking his head with some kind of mock humor.
Fox answered with a defensive note in his voice Rex heard in his own talking about Walli and the commandos. "He was raving mad."
"He was right! He said there was a plot to destroy the Jedi, that the Chancellor was involved and so were we. Now the Jedi are gone, we became their executioners and the Chancellor turned out to be a Force wielding despot. Ever thought that it's a bit convenient that a war spreads the Jedi all across the galaxy and surrounds them with the very men who end up killing each and every one of them? Then the war inexplicably ends with one man in control of most of the galaxy."
"That's treasonous talk, Rex."
"And having a copy of these files isn't treason?" Rex asked, waving his hand at Fox's datapad between them. "Much less showing them to me."
Fox frowned.
"We're in the same boat now, ner vod," Rex said with dark satisfaction and tipped his glass to Fox, the moonshine sloshing close to the edge of the chipped glass.
"I assume you're in then."
"In what?" Rex asked, cup nearly to his lips.
"I'm going to find out what OhAreEsAey is and what happened to Ven. I have to—not just for him. There are other… things that I need to protect. Are you going to help me or go back to drowning your guilt in alcohol and anesthetics?"
What is worth dying for to you? Rex wondered. He was starting to see something more than the rule-bound Commander Fox pretended to be. Finding the interrogator would mean finding out what happened to Ven, Walli and Etain, maybe even Coric. Rex could find out what secrets he might have spilled in the unorthodox debriefing. Until he did Luke, Etain, Darman, Kad, Kom'rk and everyone at Kyrimorut could be in danger.
"How can I help?"
"It's easy enough even you can do it," Fox said ruefully. Rex nearly took back every kind thought he'd had toward Fox that evening. The Alcohol was definitely messing with his mind. For a moment he wondered what he'd just gotten involved in. Then he wondered how his life could get any worse and didn't have an answer.
.
It was the look on Ny's face when she answered her com that bothered Skirata. It was becoming easier to think that Ny didn't have a life outside of Kyrimorut and hauling basic supplies for the bastion. She'd left most of her legitimate business behind and spent the majority of her time on Madalore since the war ended. But every so often and without warning remnants of her past would drag themselves up. Every time they did Kal could see a difference in her, more than just grief rearing it's ugly head; He knew what that looked like from personal experience. At those times she was somewhere light-years away, even sitting in the karyai surrounded by the family that had all but officially adopted her.
Breakfast was underway and festive when she got the call. She, Besany, and Ordo, had just returned from a supply run and brought back a heaping package of fine pastries in every sweet and sugary flavor the galaxy could concoct. It put everyone in a jovial mood. The whole bastion was gathered around the long table, passing around plates of flaky treats. Darman and Scout sat at one end of table with Kad in his father's lap and Luke settled in the girl's arms. Kad was happily demanding his favorites while Laseema offered bits of new flavors to Luke. The quiet child responded with grimaces or happy fist pumping to each new treat.
Ruu was sitting next to Kal instead of what had become her usual seat next to her lover, Cov. She sat with her back to him and the other end of the table where he and the rest of Yayax squad. Cov was sandwiched between his bothers like they were holding him down. He glanced frequently up at Ruu's back then quickly away. Kal could guess why the change. It was hard not to know each other's lives intimately with so many people living packed in together. So there was a fair amount of feigned ignorance from all parties at Kyrimorut.
Ruu animatedly told Kal stories of her life before he rescued her from a Republic POW facility. Back then the change just to hold and talk to his daughter excited Kal. He drank up her stories gladly. But with time they gained a bittersweet edge. He still yearned desperately to know her better, but with that came the constant reminder of the time spent estranged. Worst were the stories of her rocky teenage years. Even if she made light of them for his sake, they stabbed the part of him that still felt guilty for how his first marriage ended. Even if she never mentioned it, his absence in those particular stories was inescapable. She kept telling them to reconcile the father she was coming to know with the one she barely remembered and he kept listening out of vital curiosity, taking the pain gladly.
The sound of Ny's comm going off barely carried over the noise around the crowded table. Kal gave her only a fleeting look as she stood and ducked into the quieter hallway.
"Hello, Ny speaking," Kal heard her answer in her usual manner. She leaned against the doorway, close enough to still be on the periphery of the happy meal.
Her contented expression fell instantly at the response only she could hear. She ducked her head when she responded, hiding her lips so he couldn't read them. Her hushed voice was lost in the din of the karyai. When she looked up though he could see the laugh lines around her mouth were etched deep in a mockery of joy. Her jaw was tight and her eyes flickered back and forth down the hallway like she didn't know where she was. This remnant wasn't bringing up introspection or nostalgia. This was fear.
Ruu's words faded away as Kal watched Ny's face crumple into grief and her head dropped, short grey bangs hiding her face and any response.
"Dad? What's wrong?" Ruu asked. Kal licked his lips and searched for a lie. He tried to tell himself that Ny's problems were her own, but he couldn't tear his eyes away from her slumped shoulders.
When she raised her head again, her face was resigned, and she spoke in the com softly one last time. He caught the words on her lips.
"Alright, I'll be there. Alone."
"Nothing," Kal answered Ruu softly, turning away from Ny just before she looked up. He could almost feel her gaze sweeping over him and the rest of the oblivious family. "What were you saying?" Kal asked his daughter, trying to feign interest. The face Ruu was giving him wasn't helping. She had her eyebrows raised and her mouth quirked in the same dubious expression he gave any pile of reeking osik put before him.
Ny slid into her seat across from the father and daughter with a preoccupied far away expression. Ruu turned away from Kal toward the woman, and Kal suppressed a groan. Ruu knew exactly what was bothering him.
"Bad news?" Ruu asked. Ny jumped when she realized she was being addressed.
"What?"
"Your call? Was it bad news?"
"No," Ny shook her head. "Just and old friend asking for a favor." The way she said friend had Kal fighting back a slew of prying questions.
"Are you going to do it?" He asked before he could stop himself, hoping she had been lying a moment ago.
"I…I haven't decided yet," Ny said, turning her pastry over on her plate absently.
"Well if you need and extra hand or blaster…" Kal was halfway through his offer when Ny cut him off.
"It's nothing like that, Kal."
'I just meant if you needed help, all you have to do is say."
"No." Ny said it a bit sharply, them more kindly added, "but thank you for the offer."
Kal just nodded gravely. He still had a sinking feeling about the whole thing. It took a surprising amount to shake the old pilot—her easy transition into the militaristic life on Mandalore was evidence enough of that. She had calmly harbored Jedi fugitives and spied on galactic governments for rogue soldiers before that.
This 'friend' had her shaken and that angered Kal more than it probably should. But he wasn't one to argue with his feelings.
It wasn't hard to keep an eye on Ny the rest of the day. When Parja mentioned Ny requesting her to give the Cornicopia's sub-light engines a rush tune-up he knew Ny had made up her mind.
"My offer still stands," Kal said from the dooray of the small room Ny occupied at Kyrimorut. In under an hour she had packed and the room looked bare and nondescript again. She was clipping up her flight suit with a serious expression.
"No, thanks Kal. It's just a small job for an old friend."
"Who?"
"Someone my husband used to know."
"Oh." Kal always shied away from the subject of Ny's late husband, but it raised warning flags.
A'den hadn't spoken much about the man, and Ny had said even less. But she'd come by her rough and ready attitude somewhere. Even though Kal burned with curiosity, he knew that no mater how long the man had been dead it would be a hard topic for Ny. She had spent three years searching for answers and prolonging her grief. When she found them it only made her loss an inescapable wound. Kal realized it was much of the reason she stayed at Kyrimorut at all. He understood. After Illipi left with his children he'd been the same. He took jobs because he needed comrades and feared being alone more than anything. He'd still been a mess fifteen years later when Jango recruited him.
"I'll be back in a few days, maybe a week at most," Ny said as she strapped her bag closed. "He just needs a lift across the Jutta Sector."
"Jutta? Iba'jareor! You're crazy!" Kal didn't mean to snap, but his words came out harsher than he'd intended. "That's wild-space! Where are you picking this 'friend' up from?"
"It's not like I've never been to shady places before, Kal. I've been doing this a long time." Ny frowned at him and yanked the straps a little tighter than necessary. Kal could see she was in a foul mood, and he suspected he knew why. It only made him more determined to talk sense into her.
"Take one of my boys with you, at least. They'll be able to handle…"
"I don't need them to handle anything," Ny replied tersely. "It's a simple job."
"So take A'den! He'll be bored out of his mind, fine. But if it's not…"
'No, Kal."
"Why is it such a big deal?" Why does your friend want you to come alone? he wanted to ask.
"Why do you get to make this decision for me. This is my job, my friend, and my problem. Butt out!" She pushed past him out into the hallway. Kal held back a growl.
You didn't make this decision! He wanted to say but he couldn't without giving away his eavesdropping.
"What kind of 'friend' is this anyway? How do you know you can trust him?"
"Kal, leave it alone! I'm just going…"
"Into lawless space, filled with pirates, mercenaries, and lowlifes of the worst kind. You think we're the worst of it? Even Death Watch looks civilized out there. I know those types of people better than you ever will!"
"You have no idea what I know, Kal." Ny shot back over her shoulder.
"If you know anything you'll take A'den and a few more armored boys with you."
"And put a big, beskar sign on my hull that I'm someone worth robbing?" She spun on her heels to glare up at him.
"Or you're too shabla scary to even think of robbing." Kal shot back.
"Only a mercenary would think that way! It's karking stupid! And none of your fracking business anyway."
"Haa'shak, it is if you're going on some jare'la jaunt into Jutta space without a single weapon on that flimsy crate of yours!"
"Are you grounding me now, Kal'buir?" She asked with acidic mockery. Kal crossed his arms and gripped them hard as his anger flared hot just under his skin.
"No," he forced himself to sound calm and leaned against he wall of the hallway. He grinned at Ny, just to rub it in further. "You won't make it two lightyears from Mandalore before my boys catch up to you. Then it won't make a difference. You either take them or you don't go at all."
Ny's hands shook and her face reddened at an alarming rate. She sputtered but only came up with a string of creative curses in response. Kal had won, and he knew it.
"Call me whatever you like," he said. "I'd rather be the krettle that saved your life than the man that let you die." And that was truth. As much as he wanted Ny to fit into his family, he'd rather she was alive to cuss at him.
"You're insufferable!"
"Then leave," he shrugged even as a pang of trepidation stabbed him, "but you'll be leaving with one of my boys."
"You're keeping me prisoner then?" she growled. "Adding kidnapping to that impressive rap-sheet of yours?"
"That's not a new one for me by a long shot," he responded evenly.
"Ugh!" She growled in mixed disgust and exasperation. She threw her hands up and turned away. Her shoulders slumped though and Kal knew she was ready to break.
"Fine," she said with a heavy sigh. She didn't turn around but dropped her bag on the hall floor. "I'll take A'den with me."
"Good," Kal said after a short pause, "He'll like that. He's been moping recently maybe you can figure out why."
"Sure," Ny muttered. "I'll go find him now." She stalked off without even a backward glance. Her heavy boots pounded against the stone floor.
Kal breathed a sigh of relief and smiled in victory. But it didn't last long. As the angry fire under his skin cooled, misgivings rose to take its place. The familiar feeling of eyes on his back made him turn. He found himself in front of the doorway to the karyai. Ruu was sitting on one of the long padded benches with a bowl of fruit she was de-seeding. She was frowning at Kal and he knew what she was thinking without needing to ask. It was easy as reading his own face sometimes. How could she not compare the argument she'd just overheard to his fights with Illipi? Kal felt a lump of dread form in his stomach.
Vau was the only other person in the Karyai and he wasn't watching even if he had heard everything. The old Mando was sitting by the roaring fire with Mird in his lap.
"You're gonna run her off too," Vau said frankly without turning to look. Kal felt his treacherous anger flare again. What right did Vau have to talk about his marriage? If Ruu had something to say, let her say it herself.
"You heard what she'd planning to-"
"Yeah, I did. Let the woman do what she wants. You don't own her."
"You'd sleep just fine with that on your conscience," Kal accused.
"Yes I would." Vau responded with pride. On the other side of the room Ruu was glancing between the two men worriedly. It had been a long time since the two came to blows in an argument but this one seemed headed in that direction.
Kal glanced at his daughter and held his tongue with effort. He swallowed a retort and took a few calming breaths.
"I'm sorry you had to see that," he said to Ruu and left before either could respond. Ruu just frowned and looked at Ny's bag sitting on the flagstones where it had fallen. She wondered if Ny would come back after this job. She frowned and dug a little too hard at the fruit in her hand. The sharp paring knife broke through and pricked her skin. She hissed in pain. She glared down at the small bubble of blood welling up on her sticky skin smeared with fruit juice.
She wasn't thinking about her parents as Kal thought she might be, but about her own lovers. She'd had a few since her foolish teenage years and none of them ended well. She could remember the men who had run at the first exchange of angry words and the pain of unresolved arguments that followed. After a few months at Kyrimorut, she was forced to accept that her aggressive streak was inherited from both sides of her family: emotional aggression from her mother and physical from her father. For her father's sake, she hoped that Ny was understanding enough to give Kal a second chance. She would hate to see him heartbroken. From the little she had heard of Kal's life after the divorce, he took it badly.
Part of her hoped Ny would come around, because it gave her hope she could mend things with Cov. The leader of Yayax squad had taken a shine to her soon after he arrived at the bastion. He wasn't like anyone she'd ever known before. Tough guys were a dime a dozen in her varied career choices. From the outside the clone soldiers were the same, all brawn and little thought. But something about the life they'd lived made them think harder about everything: their purpose in life, what they wanted, or how to productively spend every waking moment. Maybe it was because they couldn't take anything for granted. They had come from a life without choice and now every choice they had meant more.
Looking at them made Ruu reexamine her own life and the choices she'd made, failed to make, or let others make for her. Cov sometimes stared blankly at her when she tried to explain why choice was such an easy thing for her to give up. But the hardest part for him to grasp was her need for independence. That was what started their last argument, which was so similar to Kal and Ny's it was unsettling. Ruu hadn't spoken to Cov since.
"She'll come back," Vau said unexpectedly and Ruu looked up. She'd almost forgotten he was there.
"You think?"
"Ny's too smart of a woman to take Kal's bluster seriously."
"He sounded serious to me."
"Humf!" Vau made a dismissive noise and pushed Mird off his lap. The strill wined in complaint but jumped down and scuttled around Vau's feet as the man stood.
"I've known Kal a long time, and I know Ny's type," Vau said. "She'll be back." He ambled out of the room, completely at ease. Ruu frowned and wished she could believe him.
.
When Ruu had finished with the fruit and put it on the stove to cook down for Laseema to bake into sweet deserts that evening, she wandered the halls looking for the Null brothers. She heard the distinctive serious tenor of their voices and Mando accents. After three years she'd learned how to distinguish the different groups from each other. Mereel, Jaing and Prudii took pleasure in confusing her, swapping identities for a laugh. They'd never had anyone they could fool before. Their brothers could always tell them apart, Kal was almost as attuned to the small cues, and Jedi had a cheat; that was most of the beings they interacted with before leaving the army. It motivated her to learn the individual habits that gave them away.
Their voices were coming from the cracked door of Jaing's small workroom, the unofficial comm-center of the bastion. It was a strange place for a meeting of six broad-shouldered men. They must be squished in tight, Ruu thought with amusement at the image.
"Mij isn't hopeful," one of them said in a hushed tone.
"It's going to destroy Dar'ika."
"It is destroying Darman."
"What's the alternative? We don't have the facilities or the expertise to treat her."
"Then we should focus on finding a safe way to get her those things."
"If she even can be treated. Bardan tried and we all know how that ended. What could someone else do that a Jedi couldn't?"
Ruu hesitated at the door. It was impossible not to know what they were talking about. Etain, she thought with a pang of pity.
No wonder they're all sequestered away in there. Etain was unofficially a taboo subject at Kyrimorut. The woman herself spent most of her time sleeping now a days, but she was never far from anyone's mind.
"The alternative is letting her…"
"K'uur!" Someone she thought was probably Ordo hissed. They'd obviously realized she was there. The door swung open a second later and Ordo looked at her pointedly.
"Hey," Ruu said, forcing a casual tone. "A'den in there?"
Ordo stood back and she slipped in between him and Mereel. The room was crowded. They had cleared one of the long tables on one wall so three of them could sit on it. The wood strained under the weight of three men in beskar'gam.
"Me'bana, vod'ika?" A'den asked, with an easy smile as if they had been discussing nothing more serious than Kad's latest childish antics.
Ruu shrugged. "Have you talked to Dad about…"
"No," Ordo cut her off.
"He's stressed as it is," Kom'rk said. "We'll talk to him when we have a plan."
Runn nodded. That was just about what everyone had been saying since Etain arrived; wait and hope we think of a solution.
"Better to let him focus on keeping Ny happy," Mereel said with his insinuating grin.
"What part of 'late husband' does not get through your skull, vod?" Jaing asked wearily.
"They aren't really getting along right now anyway," Ruu said and heard more of her own disappointment in her voice than she'd intended.
"What do you mean?"
"They had a fight this morning about the job she's taking."
"Job?" A'den asked.
"Yeah, an old friend called her this morning," Ruu said. It wasn't often the Nulls missed something. They must really be distracted by Etain, Ruu realized. Etain's condition had been deteriorating recently. Mij had taken to sleeping across the hall so he could be closer if she needed him.
"Kal doesn't mind her doing jobs outside of Kyrimorut."
"He wanted her to take one of you, since the job is in the Jutta Sector." They all stiffened but A'den stood up straighter and even stepped forward.
"She did look upset after breakfast," Prudii said, like he'd just realized it. Maybe he had. The Nulls had eidetic memories. They could replay any moment of their lives and see it afresh.
"Her boots were gone when we came in," Mereel noted.
"I didn't see Cornicopia." Kom'rk said softly.
"Buir isn't going to like this." Ordo said angrily.
"Who did she say she was doing the job for?" A'den demanded of Ruu with almost scary intensity.
"A friend of her husbands, I think," Ruu said, feeling more uncomfortable by the second.
"Shab!" A'den cursed. "She said she was done with that osik." He pushed past Ruu out of the room. The other five exchanged glances, communicating silently in their private language of expressions. They filed out after their brother. Ruu trailed behind them until she came to the door of the karyai. She paused to stare down at the floor where Ny's bag had been. It was gone.
They're right, Ruu thought, Dad isn't going to like this.
.
Author's Note: I managed not to kill anyone this chapter! So that was the first chapter of part II. We're going to be having three-ish story lines for a while. Kind of like last time. Rex and Fox will be embarking into the exciting world of espionage. Kyrimorut is embroiled in drama as is inevitable with so many people all in one place. And Ahsoka crosses paths with an old friend from the War. Did you figure out who? More to come next week. Hope you enjoyed it. –Em.
P.S. Leave a review if you're so inclined. :)