Chapter Four: Drunken Feast

Halfway through a bottle of whiskey seemed like an excellent way to start a feast Xarga didn't really feel like attending. The last rays of sunlight filtered through the jungle canopy just as the looming arc of Onderon appeared over the opposite horizon. As fuzzy as the edges seemed, Xarga's stride didn't waver as he made his way to his Clanbrother's bunker. Mandalore's bunker.

"You cleaned up yet?" he called through the open doorway.

A grunt came from the shadowed interior. Xarga stepped inside and surveyed the litter of a miniature battlefield strewn with toy corpses. Canderous stood at his workbench at the far wall, polishing rag in hand as he scrubbed a stubborn stain of zakkeg blood out of his left gauntlet. He was dressed except for that and Mandalore's helm, which sat on the cot set up beside the workbench. Xarga took another swallow of whiskey as his gaze trailed toward the closed door of the bedroom, behind which he knew was a ridiculously large bed. He'd helped move the damn thing in preparation of Revan's arrival in camp. Now it was probably nothing more than a nesting ground for the jungle lizards that infiltrated every unused space in the camp.

He nodded toward the open door to the other bedroom. "Where's Tar?"

"Clinic," Canderous replied. He dropped the rag onto the workbench and snapped his gauntlet into place.

"You want to check on him before the feast starts?"

Gray eyes turned on him in a narrowed glare. "Is that a question or an attempt at instruction?"

Xarga shrugged as he took another pull off the bottle. "That depends on what you were planning to do."

Without another word, Canderous settled the helm of Mandalore over his head. He shouldered past Xarga and walked out into the darkening camp. Haunches of the slain zakkeg roasted over a large bonfire, filling the camp with the smells of smoke and meat. Canderous wove through the gathering warriors and acknowledged their salutes with a nod. Raucous laughter echoed across the clearing, and unless Xarga missed his guess, he wasn't the only one who'd begun a preemptive celebration. With the alcohol stores turned out for the feast, maybe Quinn would get her higher birth rates after all. The thought did nothing to improve Xarga's souring mood and he mentally prepared a long-suffering grouse to unleash on the medic, but when they arrived at the clinic, they found only Tar and Quinn's boy playing on the floor while her girl watched them, leaning against an exam table and looking bored.

As they entered, Quinn's daughter straightened and her son jumped up from the floor. They both saluted their Mandalore, as he'd known they would. Even with all her troubles on Nar Shaddaa, Quinn had done her best to instill proper conduct in all the children under her watch. Xarga felt a surge of pride when Tar looked up, then hurried to his own feet, chubby fist pressed to his heart.

"Have you had supper, ad?" Canderous asked, his voice muffled by the helm.

"Yes, Man'alore," the boy replied.

"Good," Canderous grunted. He had already turned to leave when he added, "Get to bed."

Tar's face screwed up in dissatisfaction as he looked down at the elaborate set-up of toy weapons he and Quinn's son had arranged. His gaze went to Xarga, but before he could do more than shake his head at the boy, the word slipped from Tar's mouth. "But..."

Canderous turned, his armored bulk dwarfing the child. "Are you questioning an order from Mandalore?"

To the boy's credit, his dark eyes went wide at the implication of such a transgression. When he shook his head, black curls bobbed against his cheeks. "No, buir."

"Then go." Mandalore's helm turned toward Quinn's children. "Make sure he does."

"Yes, Mandalore." Quinn's daughter saluted again, while her brother seemed shocked nearly to stupor to be handed such an awesome responsibility from Mandalore himself.

Canderous stepped out of the clinic and paced off toward the bonfire. When Xarga looked down at Tar, the boy looked up at him with pleading eyes, and he sighed. He could only imagine the trouble those eyes had gotten Revan into as a girl.

"Ten minutes," he said gruffly. He jabbed a finger at all three children to communicate the severity of any lapse in his instruction. "Not a second more."

Tar's little face split in a grin that was its own brand of trouble, and he immediately got back to shooting pebbles at a teetering tower of blocks. Xarga shook his head as he wandered out into the evening, but a slight smile curled the edges of his lips.

Half an hour at the feast was all it took to destroy his good mood. Everywhere he turned he seemed to stumble across female warriors, each one younger than the last. He could remember with perfect clarity the tufted ponytails and skinned knees of the youngest Ordo warriors who had come to him for training back before the wars. The rest of his whiskey and half a bottle of ale had disappeared when he found himself in front of the bonfire, trying not to picture stray strands of silver hair and the fine lines that had surrounded the eyes of the mother of his sons.

Not that staring at the fire in a drunken stupor helped; the trails of sparks weaving toward the sky merged with the stars until he could have sworn they were moving. But that would mean he was back on a ship doing something worthwhile with his life instead of rotting away in some sodden jungle. He took another long swig of ale, then turned his back to the flames to glare at the skull of the hulking beast that had failed to kill him.

"Thanks for nothing, you worthless brute." He added a kick to the zakkeg's jaw for good measure but only ended up with a sore foot.

Cursing and limping, he made his way back to the feast tables, making sure to find one that still had plenty of full bottles on it.

Quinn's drawl came from over his shoulder. "I have to hand it to the men of Clan Ordo. When you sulk you don't do it half assed."

Dropping into a seat, Xarga scowled and drained the rest of his bottle. "You want to bitch at the one who's to blame? I'll get you a mirror."

Quinn scoffed as she fished out a cigarra from pocket of her lab coat. "You couldn't find your ass with both hands right now, let alone a mirror."

"As long as I can still find my dick, right?" He tossed the bottle over his shoulder. It hit the ground and shattered with a satisfying sound. You didn't often get that on Dxun. Too much mud.

She sighed around the cigarra in her mouth. "I am far too sober right now to put up with your pouty banthashit. Just tell me where Tar is and I'll let you get back to cursing my name and crying in your beer."

After snagging another bottle with one hand, Xarga popped the seal and took a shorter sip. "I'm thinking of making a general announcement to the camp." He spread his arms wide, and droplets of beer splashed across his forearm. "That to my knowledge I have never, in fact, slept with Revan."

Quinn's brows rose. "Is this some roundabout plan for pissing Mandalore off and getting yourself killed? Or a statement of drunken wit about how you're not responsible for the boy?"

Xarga shrugged. "I'm multitasking."

"Clever. And here I thought the most immature Ordo I'd see tonight would be the three-year-old."

"Don't bother flattering me." He used the half-full bottle of beer in his hand to push aside the bottles on the table in search of something stronger. "You've seen to it yourself that you'll be without my services after this feast."

Quinn sighed, looking disappointed at the lack of post-feast sex. "Yeah, I figured as much." She took one last drag and tossed her smoke to the side. "So how long are you going to be pissed off at me? Is this tantrum tonight going to work it out of your system, or do I get to look forward to this being a daily occurrence?"

"That depends," he grumbled. "How attractive are the women you think I should breed with?"

"None of them should send you running screaming in the other direction." She hesitated for a moment, looking over at the fire before she met his gaze and asked, "You're going to do it tonight then?"

"Why not? Might as well not waste a perfectly good case of drunk."

Quinn reached for one of the unsealed bottles on the table, surprising because he knew she never drank on feast nights. Hot-headed warriors and free-flowing ale made at least one patch-up job inevitable.
She brought it to her lips and took a liberal swallow. It didn't look like it improved her mood any. She opened her mouth like she was about to speak when her boy ran up to her, with a look of pure panic on his face.

Frowning, she put the bottle back on the table. "What is it, ad?"

The boy blurted the words out between gasped breaths. "We can't find Tar anywhere!"

"You see why I need to make an announcement?" Xarga muttered before taking another swallow of beer. "Did you try his bed?" he asked the boy. "'Cause that's where Mandalore told you to take him."

"He was in bed." The teenager turned back to his mother, voice cracking in panic. "But then Tar wanted the toy he left at your clinic, and I went to get it for him. By the time I got back he was gone."

"Have you checked all of the usual places?" Quinn asked. "Xarga's bunker? The clinic?"

To each one the boy nodded and by the time he finished speaking, his older sister had appeared. Being a newly blooded and marked warrior from the battle over Telos, she managed to keep her panic to clenched fists and a worried look on a face that more than resembled her mother's.

"I just checked the mess," Marta said. "I thought maybe he was with the cooks, but he's not there either."

With a muttered curse, Xarga pushed to unsteady feet. "This feast may be the worst I've ever been to." He tried to focus on Quinn's son, though he was looking a little fuzzy around the edges. "Let's make sure he's not in camp before we get worked up about this."

Quinn nodded to her kids. "Grab a few of your friends and do a sweep of the camp. Start at the west end and work your way east." As they left to follow her orders, she turned back to Xarga and asked, "Which bunker did you put the Jedi in?"

"And why the hell am I supposed to know where everyone in the camp is, huh?" Scowling, he gestured vaguely to the north end of the camp. "Over there somewhere."

"He's a Jedi. Revan could sense where her boy was. He should be able to do the same thing, if he isn't already as shitfaced as you are. So pull your head out of your ass and show me where."

"Since when do Fett medics give orders to Ordo's Clan Chief?" he grumbled, but he wandered off in the direction of the extra bunkers. He stopped in front of a group of three bunkers and scratched at his scalp. Finally he shrugged and gestured toward the one on the right. "That one."

Quinn squared her shoulders and jabbed the comm button. She blinked in surprise when the door slid open almost immediately. The Jedi must have surprised too because his leer slipped for a moment. "Well, you're not who I was expecting."

"I need your help."

The Exile's leer returned, twice as strong as before. "Yeah, well, you already had your chance. I'm about to get laid, so you'll have to come back later if you want a piece of this."

Quinn crossed her arms. "Mandalore's boy is missing from his bed. Can you tell us if he's still in camp?"

The Exile snorted. "He's Revan's brat. He's probably hiding from his babysitters to give them fits. She used to pull that shit all of the time on the Jedi when she was a kid. You don't need me to deal with this."

He turned to go back into his bunker, but she grabbed him by the arm and ignored the scowl when the Jedi turned and shook her off. "Tar's not that kind of kid. If he's wandered off into the jungle by himself at night, it could be very, very bad. So I'm not leaving until you help me."

The Exile muttered curses under his breath but must have realized she was serious because he closed his eyes, his features smoothing out into something almost serene. A few moments later he was frowning back at them. "I can't sense him in the camp."

The drunken haze vanished in an instant, though Xarga wished it hadn't. Turning on his heel, he headed back into the camp, weaving past drunken pairs laughing or staggering off together. At the main table, Canderous sat alone and stared into the bonfire with narrowed eyes.

Xarga stopped in front of him and saluted. "Tar is missing," he said.

Canderous's eyes snapped to him. "What?" The hard gaze shifted to where Quinn was coming up beside him. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Quinn saluted Canderous as well and then brought him up to speed. By the time Quinn finished, they'd been joined by the half-dressed Jedi and her empty-handed children. The boy stood at the edge of the firelight, making a valiant effort to put on brave face, but years as a Weaponmaster told Xarga that the boy had to be quaking in his boots.

Canderous pushed to his feet. The popping of the fire and distant laughter filled the space before he spoke.

"Organize search parties and head into the jungle," he said to Xarga. He started to turn away, then stopped. "Get each Clan Chief to take a full accounting of their clan before you start. See if anyone else is missing."

As he headed back toward the camp, Xarga exchanged a look with Quinn. "Where are you going?" he called after Canderous.

"I have a call to make," he called back.