Child of Whimsy - *Reviews chapter* *Realizes that he's changed the name at least twice* *Curses himself* On the plus side, at least its an insignificant detail now.

Mr. Insane - That would be a hilarious gag, the well-meaning Antarian Rangers show up to save the day...and get run over by a speeder :p. As for your questions - you'll have to wait for the answers!

Speechbubbleme - I mean you'd be well within your rights to not know about the Antarian Rangers. They were mentioned in Wraith Squadron which is a book that is...18 years old. I've always thought they were a cool concept. I think reviews ebb and flow - I'm amazed that I still have people who have been reading since book one...this is a really, really loooong fanfic at this point. I'm just bitter that I'm not a super famous author by this point :p. (Also, post more chapters :P)

LordDarthYoda - The Antarian Rangers as old cannon, but I feel like its fun to blend some old cannon material in here and there. As for Jakku, I just needed a planet that was a bit of a backwater and Jakku seemed to fit. And maybe they got the message out - but how fast would the Republic move to rescue a planet that's not a member (yet). I suspect it won't be quick rescue.

A/N - I've got nothing.

Anyways, all reviews, follows, and favourites are deeply appreciated as always.

Please enjoy the next chapter.

Chapter 37: On The Sidelines

"The trek back around the Napier Valley is a slow march towards victory. The Jedi have played all of their tricks, they've played me for a fool, but there is only so much room on this planet. I've reinforced our garrisons in the cities we do control to make sure we don't lose what we have taken. The remained of the army will march to Gamudo to complete our conquest."

-From the Journal of Pravin Ecalt, twenty days in to the Invasion of Ubrora

Nara Nalto prowled restlessly in the corner of her room in Lirri Boikana's house. She hated this. She hated not being able to take action, she hated leading briefings instead of leading battles. She was constantly battling with her frustration to the point that she had to take hours out of the day to meditate, lest her frustration consume her. By her Togruta heritage she was a predator, a hunter, much like her Master. She liked action, she liked being able to take action. That was the type of Jedi she wanted to be, the type that thrust themselves into danger so that others didn't have to.

Only now that option had been taken away from her. She was still hurt and recovering from the explosion that had destroyed the communications tower, and she was just getting to the point in her recovery where she could get up and walk around without random jolts of pain shocking through her at intermittent intervals. Truthfully, it felt like all her youthful energy had been sucked out of her and it might never come back. Yesterday, she and Sascha had tried to go through a simple lightsaber kata, just to find out how close they were to being able return to the fighting. It hadn't gone well. They were both ponderously slow, and although they managed to complete the kata, they had been so exhausted by the end that they had to take a nap afterward.

Nara hated being inactive, but she was still trying to be useful to the resistance by offering pointers and helping plan their missions. Only it was really hard to watch the Ubrorans fighting a losing battle for their city, for their planet. While the efforts of Arslan and others was keeping recruitment numbers up, the losses continued piling up after every engagement with the droids. The fortunate ones were just too hurt to continue fighting. The smarter ones got a taste of battle and then were never seen in resistance headquarters ever again. The unlucky ones…well…they wouldn't be seeing another sunrise on Ubrora.

In her mind she was doing the only sensible thing, the only rational thing, she was keeping the Ubroran resistance fighters at a distance, she didn't befriend any of them besides Lirri and Arslan. She remained cold, closed off. Thus, when the news inevitably filtered back that Zaro, Slateq, or Fioni hadn't made it back from their raid, she felt nothing, nothing but a little bit of disquiet that came when another life flickered from the Force.

Sascha, bless his compassionate heart, was doing the exact opposite. When he wasn't busy, he joked with the resistance fighters. When someone got hurt, he was the first to offer to heal them. And when someone died he was the first to offer to meet with the grieving families of the dead. It was perhaps what she should have been doing, but the problem was that it was killing him. Not physically of course, but mentally.

Deciding that she didn't want to be cooped up in her room all day, she exited her room, intending on finding her fellow Jedi. It wasn't that hard to find him. Every day, it seemed that her connection with Sascha grew stronger, and it seemed like she just knew where he was at all points of the day. So she wasn't surprised when he found him in one of the quieter rooms in Lirri's house, one that had been cordoned off and kept quiet, for this room housed the recovery ward of the resistance.

She stood at the entrance of the room quietly and observed her friend as he hunched over a wounded Ubroran. Her fellow Padawan's eyes were closed tightly in concentration, and she could almost feel him straining as he healed the young Ubroran soldier. Nara knew the Ubroran's name, Gartan. He had limped home from fighting a skirmish a few days ago, but he had shaken off anyone who had tried to take a look at his injury. Only after his wound had become infected had he finally relented and allowed someone to look at it. Unfortunately, the resistance was suffering from a shortage of doctors – the droid army had occupied the main hospital in Bontha a few days ago, now some doctors were volunteering their time with the resistance, but they were needed for those with more serious injuries. So that left Sascha, too brave or too stubborn to admit that he was too tired, too weak to be doing all this healing.

Sascha was an okay healer, it was a skill that he had worked hard on improving over the past few months, and something he took pride in, but it wasn't something, in her opinion, that he should be doing right now. Healing was a skill that sapped the strength of the healer, the best healers in the Jedi Temple used healing crystals, including the famed healing crystals of fire that were amongst the Jedi Order's most treasured possessions. Healing crystals amplified the healing powers of the user and thus allowed one to conserve energy. Without a healing crystal, healing was a taxing experience, even for experienced and powerful healers. She had no idea how Sascha was managing at the moment, because he was neither.

Nara watched as Sascha completed the healing session, she could tell even at a distance that Gartan's infection had just about been healed. Good old-fashioned antibiotics would likely do the rest. Sascha opened his eyes, and took two wobbling steps before she realized how weak he actually was, and she rushed to his side to prevent him from falling down. She swung an arm under his armpit to support him, and he just about collapsed into her. She was lucky that he wasn't very heavy, otherwise both of them would have taken a rather unglamorous tumble to the floor.

After a couple of seconds, he recovered a bit, enough to feebly protest that he was okay. "No, you're not. Come on, I'm taking you to my room." Sascha started offering a feeble excuse, but he stopped himself and hung his head in surrender. An underrated thing she enjoyed about Sascha was that he was so used to being ordered around by females like his Master, or Luminara that sometimes he just automatically listened to her despite the fact he was actually her senior. She usually didn't take advantage of it but he needed some sense beaten in to him, and she was in the position to import some 'wisdom.'

After awkwardly limping to her room, carrying much of Sascha's weight, she was able to lay him down on the floor. Once on the ground, he laid peacefully, his eyes closed as he tried to collect himself, using a Jedi breathing technique to help restore some of his energy. She shook her head, if anything, her friend looked even weaker than he did after they had awoken from their injuries that they had sustained a few days ago.

"You're going to yell at me, so you might as well start with the lecture," he said, as his soft, intelligent, brown eyes seemed to search out hers. Whatever could be said for his fairly bland physical appearance, Nara was always reminded that Sascha possessed amazingly expressive eyes.

She shook that wayward thought out of her head, "I'm not here to lecture you."

"But you are going to anyway," he said, the faintest of grins appearing on his face.

She sat at the small table in 'her' room and faced Sascha, "Yes. Sascha, you are pushing yourself too hard. We need to conserve our energy so that we can get back to fighting shape as quickly as possible."

"I disagree," he said softly, sitting up gingerly, "it makes sense for you to conserve your strength, just as it make sense for me to do what I'm doing…though I think I may have pushed myself too hard today."

"You'll have to explain this one to me, Sascha. To me, we are the best fighters the Ubrorans have, so the faster we get out there, the more damage we can do and the more lives we can save. Healing and making friends is useful…but not as useful as you can be."

"Nara, that's great in theory, but in practice it wouldn't work. If we both were as quiet as possible, interacted as little as possible, and spent all day meditating, the Ubrorans would think that we are abandoning them. They would think that we are these aloof Jedi that don't care about them. We need to be out there, be seen. Be seen as a part of this little band of rebels."

"That's all well and good, Sascha, but you are going way above and beyond just letting the Ubrorans know that we exist and that we are still helping. Sascha, you just about fainted after that healing session, you can't keep pushing yourself like this, your body can't take it, not as weak as it is."

"I can take it." Nara didn't need to be a Jedi to know that he was lying. She merely raised an eyebrow at him and waited for the truth to come out. Defeated, and knowing it, Sascha looked away, "Okay, I can't take it, but I don't know what else to do! I feel so helpless. At least this way I'm helping people. I don't know how to detach myself like you, I wish I had your emotional strength, Nara."

She barked a laugh, "Wish you had my strength? I wish I had your strength, Sascha. How you haven't turned into a blubbering mess is beyond me."

Her friend shook his head slowly, "I'm probably going to hit that point very soon, but I don't know what to do about it. I don't know if I can stop. I can't just sit and do nothing, it's not me."

Nara pondered for a moment, "I think," she said slowly, "that I should help you. That we should share the burden. You're right that we can't just sit and recover and be aloof, but I'm also right – we need to conserve our strength, and one way to do that is to share the burden of healing."

"You'd do that for me?" he asked, clearly surprised.

"I would, but I'm not doing it for you, Sascha. I'm doing it for Ubrora, for these brave people who are fighting against impossible odds."

Her best friend bowed his head, "Thanks, Nara."

She rested a gentle hand on his shoulder, "How are you doing Sascha?"

He sighed deeply, "Well, I'm exhausted, still recovering from what feels like a thousand different injuries and it's really damn hard to shut myself off from all the suffering that is happening around here. I miss…my Master too. It feels like months since I've seen her." He rubbed his eyes wearily, "I don't think I've ever been this tired, physically and emotionally."

"Then lean on me." Like the ever compliant Padawan he was, he leaned into her, not heavily like he had when he had been at the point of collapse earlier, but gently, as someone who was looking for a little comfort. She pulled him in, so that his head rested chastely on her shoulder and laughed, "I didn't mean physically lean on me, you doofus. I meant like emotionally."

"Oh. You have to be more specific these days, I'm not at my best," he said lightheartedly, but made no move to pull away from her.

She didn't intend on having the embrace last long though, so she lightly pushed him away, and he took the hint and sat back up, smiling genially. "You know it's been forever since we meditated together Sascha. This seems to be as good a time as any."

"Wow, are you actually recommending that we meditate? This from the Togruta who said, and I quote, 'meditation is a useless waste of time.'"

Nara grabbed a pillow off her bed with her left hand and flung it at Sascha, who raised a hand to catch it, but not before it collided lightly with his face. "Just shut up and meditate with me," she said. She began preparations for a mediation session, knowing full well that Sascha would join her, if just because he seemed to love sitting on his butt and meditating for hours on end, something that she found bizarre, but accepted that she was unlike most Jedi in that regard.

Her mind calm, it only took a few moments for her to feel the relaxation of a meditation session coming on. As a predator, as a Togruta, sitting and relaxing like she was some sort of stoic or tree was about the last thing that she wanted to do, but intellectually she knew that relaxation was good for her, and perhaps more importantly she might be able to make Sascha relax a little.

She tried to let her mind drift, but it always seemed to settle on scenes of violence, either fights she had experienced on Ubrora, but others she had endured in her career. And they were always the most harrowing ones, the ones where she ended up getting hurt. She steered her mind away from that unpleasant topic, and extended her senses towards Sascha.

Her friend was trying to meditate, but was ostensibly failing, and opening a cautious eye, she could see the frustration playing out across his face. She perhaps should have been surprised that he was having the same problems that she was, but she wasn't. Instead of dwelling on it, she reached out in the Force and drew his presence to hers. Obligingly, he accepted her touch and let her lead the meditation. She smiled internally, Sascha had so much faith in her that he would just follow her unwaveringly, and it always heartened her when he did.

She was about to lead the meditation deeper when she sensed the approach of a familiar presence. A gentle knock on the door interrupted the two Jedi. Ruefully, actually regretting that her meditation session had been broken up, she rose to answer the door, "Yes, Arslan?" It only took one glance to see that Arslan was agitated, his tail was half puffed out in distress.

"What's wrong?" Sascha asked from his seated position on the floor.

"I don't…know how to describe it, you better see it for yourself."

The obviously shaken Ubroran took out a datapad and handed it to her. On it, a video had been queued up. She waited for Sascha to move beside her so that he could look with her and then hit the 'play' button. When the video started it showed what looked like a personal broadcast of a resistance fighter, but the city didn't look like Bontha, the architecture was just slightly different, more open, more languid. "Where is this video from," she asked Arslan.

"Namya. It was just captured by the droids a few days ago. The video is from a resistance fighter."

She watched as the nameless Ubroran and a small squad of resistance fighters were carefully stalking a droid patrol, waiting for the correct time to attack. Nara approved of the tactics, though there were only five droids in the patrol, it made sense to control the engagement as much as possible, because you could never tell if there was another patrol of droids coming.

Then, at a signal that she couldn't make out, the squad of Ubrorans went on the attack, easily surprising and destroying the five droids in a matter of seconds. She watched as the Ubrorans took the rifles from the downed droids and started hustling back from whence they came.

Suddenly, a few of the Ubrorans pointed at an approaching figure. Shrouded in the nighttime darkness and the streetlights, the only thing that Nara, and apparently the Ubrorans could make out was that he was tall, far taller than the typical Ubroran.

One of the resistance fighters yelled out, "Halt! Do not come closer or we will fire!" The figure, clearly unconcerned at that threat walked along the street towards the Ubrorans at a leisurely pace, clearly not at all worried at approaching a group of armed rebels.

The figure stepped under a streetlight and came into focus, and she heard Sascha take in a shocked breath beside her. The…man, she supposed, was suited in full Mandalorian armor, coloured in black, reds and grays, the distinctive 'T' shaped visor on the helmet. The Mandalorian was tall and imposing, even as Mandalorians went, easily over two meters in height.

The Mandalorian, in his impressive armor, opened fire with a pair of pistols, showing perfect accuracy as he shot, one…two…three Ubrorans in short succession. The resistance fighters, caught in a moment of indecision, chose to stand and fight, opening up with their mismatched rifles, mostly pilfered from fallen battle droids. That…was the wrong decision. The Ubroran's fire was wild and it missed the suddenly fast moving Mando, as he used his jetpack to avoid the incoming fire and move into close range, where he opened up with his gauntlet mounted flamethrower, catching a pair of Ubrorans in the stream and…she turned away, not able to watch the result of that grisly weapon.

The Ubrorans then broke and ran, and the Ubroran whose camera they were watching went running, and Nara felt herself willing this nameless Ubroran to move faster, to get away from the encroaching death. The pounding feet on the ground echoed the pounding in her chest. Kriff, she hated feeling so useless! If she was there, she could have stood up to this Mandalorian. Sascha, sensing her frustration, patted her arm softly.

The running Ubroran suddenly tripped and fell. The camera panned down and it showed that the frantic Ubroran had been ensnared by a bolt cable line around his legs. The Ubroran clutched at it, but couldn't pull the cord off of his legs. The Mandalorian walked casually towards the fallen Ubroran, who was trying to crawl to where his blaster rifle had fallen. But before he could, the Mandalorian stomped on his arm. Nara was pretty certain she heard bones breaking through the anguished cry of the Ubroran.

The Ubroran looked directly at the imposing Mandalorian, and squealed a cry of "I surrender! I surrender!" The Mandalorian warrior paid no heed to that message and simply plucked the camera from the Ubroran's chest. A pitiful wail was the last sound that emerged from the video.

Nara closed her eyes, feeling a bit nauseous. The droid army was one thing, something that she didn't know that she could deal with, and now add in at least one Mandalorian warrior, and this was getting a whole lot worse. There was also something about that particular colour pattern on the armor of that Mando that seemed to spark something in her memory, but she wasn't sure why that was.

"What…or who was that," asked Arslan, drawing her attention back to the present.

"That was a Mandalorian," Sascha said quietly, "They are fierce warriors. They are often mercenaries, fighting in brush wars…" like this one, Sascha was clearly going to say, but had the grace not to.

"Do they use the Force like you Jedi?"

"No…they aren't special in that way."

Arslan looked hopeful, "that means you Jedi can beat them, right?"

She shared a quick glance with Sascha who nodded for her to answer, "I don't know if we can," she said honestly, "Our Masters…probably. We aren't at their level though."

Arslan resumed looking worried, "So these Mandalorians, are they a species or…"

"Most are human," she said, "but they can be any species. Being Mandalorian is like a religion…or like an ethos. Anyone can join. And let's just say that Mandalorians and Jedi…don't get along."

"So, what now?" Arslan asked.

Sascha spoke up, "If you can, Arslan, contact the other resistance groups. Warn them about the possibility of running into one of these warriors. Tell them if they come into contact with one…"

"To run," she said bluntly.

"I'll do my best," Arslan said uncertainly.

Seemingly out of nowhere, Lirri Boikana burst into the room, gesturing frantically to grab everyone's attention, "I have news!"

Arslan turned to her, "If it's about that mystery warrior in Namya, I just told the Jedi," said Arslan.

Lirri looked confused, "What mystery warrior?" She shook her furred head, "Never mind that, my father wants to meet with the head of the resistance, tonight."