"Morning!"

"Good morning, ad'ika!" Rav called brightly.

Jaig squeezed her hand when she patted his shoulder on the way past.

"Don't bother Sgt. Vau. We're not allowed to talk to him this morning."

"Fek yourself," Vau muttered. His attention was on his 'pad, his motions automatic as he ate.

Ad'ra leaned down between Jaig and Rav. "What's going on?"

"His new book came out this morning," Rav whispered in a giggle.

The little girl was charmed.

"A book you wrote or a book you're reading?"

"The next in a series I enjoy very much. And since your resident warlord is an uncultured swine who doesn't embrace literature as a pastime, I'm booked solid all day."

"I read," Fett objected.

Ad'ra watched the other man barely lift a single brow in response.

"I like to read," Ad'ra ventured.

Jaig pulled a face. "Ooo. I think these novels are a little beyond your current level," he warned. Vau chuckled.

"Because they have sex parts?" Ad'ra guessed. "I just skip over those mostly-"

Fett shook his head. Lifted a finger to Rav. "I told you she was too young for your novels."

"Nonsense," Rav objected. "I was her age. The parts you don't understand yet come back to you once you know what the references are."

Ad'ra rolled her eyes. It was a habit Fett deplored.

"I get the references. They just don't make me want to reach for another truffle and swallow a glass of wine."

The woman had been known to do just such a thing and Jaig laughed long and loud.

"We have better things to do today than read romances and adventures."

Walon's finger lifted in an articulate gesture before he lowered it to flip the page on the screen.

"For the record, I hate all of you," he muttered, his brows lifted. "What the kriff is everybody doing in here so early today?"

"Big day," Ad'ra told him sadly. "Long day, too. No snack breaks. We're all gonna starve to death and die."

He had to laugh at that one. She was utterly convinced that if she went more than a few hours without eating it was going to be the end of her.

"How did you survive on ops with your dad?" Fett asked, exasperated.

"He used to give me dried shatual to stick in my cheek. That way I could work a little loose and chew on it."

"Then do that."

"I don't have any. I thought about making some smoked genet gihaal, but then they say something stupid and I remember I don't like them. I sure don't want to eat them."

Dacha Culbine had just walked into the mess. At Ad'ra's words she gagged a little, turned around and walked out.

"You killed her appetite," H.G. chuckled.

Ad'ra shrugged. "She's kind of got a weak stomach—for a mercenary."

"Can't wait for that to end up on my desk," Fett muttered.

"The key to taking out any sentient quietly is the heart and lungs. Then brains. I cannot help it if she thought she knew so much."

"Where are you getting bodies to practice on?"

"I don't have them for real," Ad'ra said sadly. "That sure would be better—just a couple of each type. But I got shot down."

Rav's eyes went wide in horror.

"She wanted cadavers. Like from medical schools. Not live ones to practice on."

"Yeah. I mean, I can make a pretty good mock-up sim from books, but there's nothing like being able to peel back the layers and really let them get in there, see what makes people and beasts different."

"Is that how your da taught you?"

"Sometimes."

The way she'd said it—while systematically shredding apart the layers of a roll and smearing it with jellies and jams—it was a little disconcerting.

Then she started stacking the pieces back up.

"Seriously?" Vau asked, tucking his elbow a little tighter to his body. "Some of that does not go together."

"You're psycho. This is the world's most perfect sandwich."

"Her father did that to her," Fett told them.

She smiled. Licked a corner that threatened to drip near her thumb.

"Da said the sweet of the yellow and the heat in the ripe ones makes the two jellies go together. You can use whatever meat you like. Cheese was my idea."

There was some merit to the argument.

Jaig and H.G. both reached for new rolls. Vau dolloped the yellow spread onto a corner of his plate. Traded Jaig for the dark red. He broke just a corner off of a new roll and slopped it through before topping it with a sliver of the aged cheese wheel.

"I need all of you to finish your breakfasts and go away," he complained as he chewed.

There was laughter from the verd'ika.

"Because it's delicious and you're embarrassed to admit I'm right?" she guessed.

She was right. He would never admit it.

He chewed. Glared over the edge of his data'pad at her. Swallowed.

"Go. Away."

"Are you done eating?"

"I am."

He pushed his remaining portion of smoked, fried meats over to her. Watched her finish that, too.

"We should have thought it out better before we recruited Cuy'val Dar," she told Fett.

"We're not getting rid of Priest's idiot twins," he warned. "I'm tired of hearing about it."

"No. But there's a lot of food here that only some species consider edible. And a lot of stuff we eat that they can't. Medicines that won't work on them."

Her face lit up when Hashery Ghett slid a couple of the patties on his plate to her. They were veg-based, but spiced to perfection and extremely satisfying. He didn't mind sharing with the child.

"Which is fine, because Mij Gilamar is a human sawbones anyway," he denied.

"See? If somebody gets sick or hurt we'll have to download a study guide for the RCs to read real quick and hope they can figure it out. Like circuitry practice."

"No more real-world circuitry practice," Fett warned, wiping his mouth and rising. He lifted his finger. "I'm serious, Ad'ra. Stay out of the labs. It's the one place your father forbid you to go and you're pushing your luck breaking in there."

"I can honestly say I have not been in there in ages."

Fett didn't take the bait.

"Quit begging for food and make your manners."

"My pitiless warlord says it's time for me to go to work. Like a slave. With no food all day, probably," she simpered as she pushed in her chair. "I hope all of you have a fruitful and productive day. Thank you for sharing your meal with me. It was all delicious. Don't eat all my jam."

"Bye, little ad'ika," Rav called. "Stay out of trouble."

She leaned forward when Fett swept out.

"You could pull an alarm. I'm doing desk work all morning. Save me!"

"Get going, Adenn! Time to earn your biscuits and jelly!"

.

.

She hated the tasks ahead of her. Her father had been incredibly good at the organization end of things- - a major function of the Adenn, Marshal of Mand'Alor's troops. Any military campaign meant logistics. And raising an army of millions meant that there were a lot of things to requisition. From the brushes the vode foamed their teeth with morning and night to jet fuel for the pilot program. She'd learned a good bit about the panoply of outfitting and supporting a force based on how many bodies for what length of time. Now she just had to apply what she knew to the idea of a sliding scale of sizes. Otherwise there was a potential for millions of mid-sized clones to wake up one barefoot one morning because she'd screwed up how many socks would be outgrown at once.

"Just a minute… I'm not good at math in my head. I can remember things, but it takes some extrapolation to get the figures where I need them," Ad'ra complained.

"Then take your minute," Fett told her. "There's no shame in that."

"My vod could do it faster," she told him.

"The commandos are superior as well. But none of them is my second in command."

"Maze thinks he is."

"Maze is pretty impressive."

"Maze is a pompous ass."

"What are we this week?" She'd put an accent on pompous ass that reminded him of someone.

"We're studying Corellia."

"Do not fuck with Jonashe Kilo."

He'd have felt better if she hadn't just stared balefully at him for a long moment before replying of course not, in clipped, upper-crust tones.

"My vode want permission to read a couple of different books," Ad'ra told Fett.

"They're given access to plenty of reading material."

"These guys are interested in more mechanical stuff. And a few of them aren't challenged enough in the ordnance material available. They said they're dumbed-down."

He narrowed his eyes at her. These were his clones. He should know if something had been dumbed down. "What the fek more do they want?"

"The actual chemical compositions. Like, exact amounts and percentages."

"Abso-fekking-lutely not."

"Plus they want the clearance to do some digging through the holo-web. There's no sense sending them out there to disarm and dismantle and them not knowing how the other half lives, Jango. If there's even a chance of them doing any counter-insurgency work…"

"I hear ya."

"Plus it's good to be able to improvise. Unless you want to have flimsi-cards made with G.A.R. ASSINATION AND SABATOGE STEALTH RANGERS WERE HERE."

"I believe it is your job to teach them to do their job so as to avoid exactly that."

She held her hands out in front of her as though bound.

"You think you're hysterical, don't you?"

"It is universally accepted fact in the peerage that I am both charming and endearing. Cute, I believe is the most commonly voiced accolade."

"Kriffing adorable."

She stayed as she was, arms extended together.

He whipped out his huge hunting kal. Swept it between her wrists.

"Love. It. You won't be sorry."

"No, but you will if this backfires on me."

"OK. But let me ask you something: has anyone worked out which birthdays we're celebrating here?"

"You lost me."

"Our birthdays are different here. And, for anybody that gets born here- - like, I dunno, Boba- - will he be missing a third of the birthdays I get? Because he's Kaminoan?"

"He's Mandalorian, just like you and me."

"Only he'll just keep getting younger than me. Every four years I'll be an extra year older."

Fett sank to the chair beside her, the frown so fearsome to his enemies in place. This child bore no fear in her. Instead the creased brow merely made her want to smooth her thumb into the groove.

"Boba's not engineered to age up double-fast, Ad'ika. You don't have to worry about him-"

"I just want to know if we're going to continue using the ten-month system here. And the baby books say they should sleep ten hours a night at his age, and still take an hour-long afternoon nap. But that's based on humans on normal human worlds where the days aren't twenty-seven-fricking-hours long."

"Okay. I think he probably sleeps close to that. His naps are maybe a couple, three hours. But he's growing fine. Developing beautifully."

She beamed at him like she had single-handedly invented both daytime and nighttime and had personally crafted the boy to resemble a dark angel.

"I was just worried about his birthdays, really. And, honestly, really a lot more about mine. I don't want to stop aging just because we're stuck here. It's not fair to think that at home I'd be thirteen by now."

Jango pursed his lips. Nodded. "I see what you're saying."

Kamino's orbital revolution took around one hundred additional days. Their days- - with the extra hours in them.

"I don't have an answer for you. I can put Maze on it."

She narrowed her eyes at him. The ARCs that had been crafted of 100% Jango had been amongst the first decanted. They were older than the other RCs, who were two standard years ahead of her company. Apparently there'd been a few false starts since his training company was designated Alpha and hers was the 4th. She wondered what had happened to the two-hundred-plus-some clones in those two missing batches.

"Blimey, Jango," she clipped up at him. "You wound me, old man."

"I cannot wait for this little phase to be over," he complained. He tapped the side of her neck like he was going to chop off her head. "Can I request my Ad'ra back? The one with the Bothan-accented Mando'ad?"

"You can have her if you promise to let Boba have standard calendar birthdays instead of this soggy, dragged-out version of the calendar."

"Easy. Done," he agreed.

"Kandosii!"

"What do you want for yours?"

"Do you remember Da's timer?"

She watched Jango's face change. "You want his watch?"

He'd taken the piece to wear when Liam had been killed on the op. He'd bought it for him...ages ago; the tech should have been updated long before. It fit snug around the wrist like a bangle instead of having a single flat face. And you could program it as a homing beacon, program in as many coordinates as you wanted. Simply spin it to see the exact date and time of those locations.

Mandalore had been the first one the men had programmed in as they studied the manual. Then Liam's mother's homeworld of Bothawui. And, of course, Coruscant. It had been his habit to drop Liam a ping of his location whenever he was off-world. The disastrous mission that had led to his temporary enslavement had brought about that little convention. No good having a voice to rally your troops to you if nobody knew where the hell you were, Liam had told him.

Now his daughter's big eyes- - eyes he knew from Liam's own childhood- - regarded him carefully.

"I wouldn't ask for your watch back. He loved that they linked you. One day you can leave me his and Boba yours and we'll leave them for our children, too."

"What timer, then?"

"The big one that he bought for our house, Jango! Remember it? It had that pretty display…"

He laughed. "I do remember it. Vaguely. I don't know if I can lay hands on one here. It might have to be a belated birthday gift."

"I'm going to have another one next year," she reminded him. "It's not like there's any rush. I just thought it would be pretty against that plain wall in my room. He used to take it down and let me pretend it was an ancient hunting face mask. Or a shield."

"I remember." He reached out to tug on her ear. "You finish up here. Take your time and get it right. I'm going to go find someone else to harass."

"I'll pick Boba up and take him to the mess for lunch?" she asked.

Fett mugged a grimace. "I need those numbers, Ad'ra. And I need you ready to present them so that it is abundantly clear that you're not just a pretty face."

The response he got was a contortion of the one in front of him that no one would mistake as cute or adorable.

"Fine. Since you're my godfather, though. Not because you're my boss. If you were my boss I'd remind you that there are mandatory limits to how long a laborer can be forced to work without a meal break."

"Dissidents don't get expensive wall chronos," he argued. "And pouting teenagers can get locked in their rooms with the tech disconnected."

"My vode would break me out."

He snickered. But, as he walked out into vestibule to his office, he had to admit that she was probably right.

.

.

He'd barely gotten settled down to review her recommendations when his secretarium droid alerted that his next meeting was imminent and all the participants had arrived.

Jango Fett might not have actively sought female companionship, but he knew enough about that half of the world to recognize that when half the ones you employed requested a meeting it probably wasn't to extol his virtues as man and master.

"What can I do for you ladies?"

"We need to have a little chat. About biology."

"I understand the birds and the bees quite well, thank you."

"And does Ad'ra?"

He flushed. "Ad'ra is twelve. I think that can hold off for just a while."

Rav Braylor took over from Vhonte Thervo.

"Did you know that Ad'ra is wearing the same underthings as the lads?" she asked him with arched brows.

Fett had to wave his hands helplessly.

"Okay. I don't see where it's a problem, though."

"She needs underthings. Her own underthings."

"She's hardly shaped any differently. When she wants something she'll let me know."

Dacha Culbine crossed her arms. The others had taken seats. She was still standing. They were eyeball to eyeball.

He gulped.

"She told me that you said to requisition what she needed."

He nodded at the diminutive cuy'val dar.

"The undershirts she had when she got here are so thin they're rags and they're all stretched out," Rav told him more kindly. "And she shouldn't be wearing the lad's underpants."

"They're extremely comfortable. I'll have you know that most of us are wearing exactly the same thing, too."

"Well," Berrée Halston snickered. "I'll certainly carry that picture in my head. How charming that the only uniform thing about Mando men are their delicates."

"I'll order her some damned undershirts. Is that it?"

It was obviously a dismissal. None of them moved. Not an inch.

"What is it, exactly, that you want from me?"

"I'd like to take her shopping," Rav said. "There's a wide range of products and she should have her choices."

"No."

The other woman raised her brows.

"No. You're not taking her off-world."

His blood froze at the idea of letting Liam's daughter out of his sight.

"She needs panties, Jango," Dacha told him. "Real panties. Not men's shorts."

"And a bra," Ber added.

His face flushed. "She's not big enough for a bra yet. I'll get her some new camisoles ordered in. But we're not just galivanting off and around because you all decided you needed new dainties. You knew the contract when you joined. You took the cred, now you're stuck here."

"And undies?" Zam asked.

He rocked his head back and forth.

Ad'ra was the absolute worst to run from her rooms to his in just her sleep shirts and bare legs. He didn't hate that she was in the little boy-shorts.

"She doesn't seem to mind them. I'll talk to her."

"They have a dick-slit, Jang-y," the clawdite hissed at him.

He made a face. "She doesn't know what it's for and it doesn't seem to be bothering her."

Rav heaved a massive sigh. "Underwear for women is specially built for women. With inserts for hygiene. They're made to accommodate menstruation apparatus."

He froze and his cheeks burned.

"Shab. I… fek." He looked up at her. "She's awfully young for that, isn't she?"

Zam smiled at him. "I don't mind to talk to her."

"You're fertile once a year," Vhonte hissed. "What are you going to tell her?"

"I'll handle it!" Fett roared. "Out. Out. All of you. Fekking osik."

Dacha reached up and patted him on the elbow when he rose. Rav snickered.

"Son of a bitch."

He looked at the ceiling as the door closed.

"You owe me so big for this, you fekking bastard. You probably died just to avoid this next bit. I hate your cheating shebs and I hope whoever she ends up marrying watches meshgeroya instead of get'shuk."

.

.

Ad'ra was wearing a frown when she crashed into the main living room later that night.

"Did Rav Braylor come talk to you?" she demanded.

"Yes."

Her brows were furrowed. "Berrée and Zam brought me these. This one has Isabet's name on it."

"Yeah. They order things and I arrange a drop."

"I'm not wearing Isabet Reau's underwear."

He took the catalog she brandished. Wished there was a fireplace handy to incinerate it. Porn. It was practically porn.

"You can't have anything in there. I'll see what Rav wears."

"She and Vhonte wear the same kind. Like these. She likes stretchy ones and Vhonte likes-"

Oh forsaken gods. They weren't much better.

Ad'ra looked dismayed.

"They said when you're curvy that they don't wiggle around under the kute."

"Please kill me," he whispered.

"I like these, though," he told him, sticking her hip out. She was wearing leggings and one of the under-tunics the lads wore with their classroom presentation uniforms. He had to imagine that she was wearing the short-legged briefs underneath.

"Me, too," he confessed. "Most of us find them to be very comfortable."

She crawled up on his lap.

Buried her face in his chest.

"Can I keep my da's t-shirts to sleep in? Please? If I get new ones, may I-"

He hugged her hard. "Yeah. Let's get you some new camisoles to wear under your shirts. You sleep in whatever's comfy. I still have some of your da's stuff packed away, too. When you need it we'll get it out. All right?"

She turned in his lap. Opened one of the catalogs.

"Can I get some of these, too? Rav showed me how you have to measure your chest so it fits the shape of your breasts, but these come just in regular shirt sizes."

He blinked hard and swallowed down his own emotion. Tried to focus.

"Yes. Absolutely."

She wanted compression garments. The one she pointed to came in white, black, and beige, just a tube top with narrow straps. Like a training bra. Or sportswear.

"Can you still wear a camisole with these underneath?"

"You can wear whatever's comfortable. Either the undershirt of your fatigues or a body glove or whatever."

"Can I get one pack of the ones that come to your waist and one of the ones that stop at your ribs for now? Just to see?"

"I'll get you hooked up," he promised. "I think these are a great choice."

"Outstanding!" she cheered. Leapt up. Ran back over to hug him hard. Flew away again. "I know what kind of panties I want when I'm grown and have hips and breasts, too! I found some that come down more in the back than those but they come in all kinds of silky colors. They're like triangles and the waist is like a scrunchied up strip on both sides. Ber said they'd show a line under your clothes but under beskar'gam it wouldn't, would it?"

"I… um…" he swallowed. "Yeah. I don't see how anybody would see it. Even in fatigues. So long as you're wearing them under something thick or heavy."

"Yay!"

Away she ran.

"I hate you," he reminded the dead man who had shared his dreams and aspirations. "When I have to buy her whore panties? I'm using your cred, brother."

.

.

That kind of thing was something he'd have shucked to Liam anyway, if the man had lived. Procurement was not his AO. He was more into the nitty gritty of it.

Was wise enough, though, to recognize that he had no idea how to run what was basically a military academy. He leaned heavily on friends. Dealt with differing opinions in the way he remembered Jaster Mereel handling them: He sat the opposing parties down and heard them out, then sided with neither and told them both to toe the line.

His lips tucked in in distaste as he looked around the table.

Dred Priest, down at the foot, like he was holding court. Always in the same seat.

Beside him Walon Vau, the strill's scent conspicuous in the air. The creature had curled under the chair where the man sprawled with his arm across the chair next to him and his ankle up on his knee. Like he was deciding which gal would best accompany his warra nuts for the big game.

There were a couple empty seats between him and Jaig, who sat on his left opposite Ad'ra on his right. Then Skip Smar K'cen and Kal Skirata and Kei're Hosch Tiethe'.

"Gentlemen," Fett began. "We have numbers that prove there's more than one way to get this job done and done well."

"It's a matter of honor as well, Jango," Skip hissed.

"I agree, Chief. And I negotiated a contract, took some cred, and intend to do the job justice."

Ad'ra's eyes roved his face, absorbing.

"How can you go to the trouble of teaching them the Resol'nare, then countenance that these two brutes-"

Fett made a sound of interruption.

"Kal, their numbers are better than yours."

"I doubt that very highly. My lads are incomparable."

"I'm not including the Null ARCs in the comparison," Ad'ra said quietly. "It doesn't seem fair and with their prowess it makes your spread of high/lows look bad."

"And are you including zeroes when you average his scores?" Skirata gestured to the two men at the corner of the table.

"When have mine ever scored zip on anything?" Vau snarled.

"Can't shoot if you're healing in bacta," Skip agreed. "Can't run, can't climb, can't complete any coursework. So those clones' numbers should lower your overall standing."

He glared at Ad'ra.

"Run those numbers and see what kind of high/low spread you get."

"Easy," Jaig warned. "She's but a child."

"I can take it," Ad'ra argued before anyone could object that she didn't belong here.

Priest smirked. Looked at Vau and rolled his eyes heavenward. Fett wanted to pull the flesh off his skull.

"Disagree in private. The arguments and interruptions by other instructors needs to stop."

"I won't stand by while they brutalize their lads," Skip warned.

Jaig shook his head quietly. "I think it's too far, too," he murmured to Fett. "They're young. Too young for the kinds of corporal punishment being doled out. Reel it back in. They're smart lads and absorbent. Just train them and leave them to pick it up and run with it. I promise they will."

"You're the one who got me involved in this osik," Vau said as if he didn't care.

"You've never been quite this… brutal," he had to agreed. "Not anywhere else."

Dred looked over at the other man. They looked like they belonged together, the taller, patrician-looking man in matte black and the slightly shorter one with his broad shoulders and chest encased in red to relieve his shinier black. Fett was never sure if one side of Dred's mouth lifted or if one side drooped. The expression it created was of a hard man permanently unimpressed with life.

"You've been lying petals on pillowtops the rest of your career?" he snorted.

"Not hardly. But most of the time it's just a job, just the cred. It's different here than training a volunteer or straight merc work. I don't mind ending a man, but I'll be damned if I'm sending mine into hell unprepared. Not with their souls at stake, too."

"Just stuff that load of dung up your shebs," Kal shot across the space. "You don't give a rip about souls. Ni'duraa! Kyorla ori'jagyc!"

Vau unfolded his length, leaned across the table, and caressed Skirata's hands while gazing into his eyes with faux-worship.

"Oh, now, darling. You say the sweetest things to me."

Kal, of course, reacted with the calm and reason that one would expect from a lifelong fighting man in an environment he hated who felt he'd just been grievously insulted by a bully from whom he was protecting innocents.

He snatched his hands away, shot up, and pulled his knife.

Walon Vau? He laughed.

"Jare'la, shab'ikase."

"Gey!" Ad'ra Adenn's voice rang out. "Check yourselves!"

Fett and Jaig turned to look at her. So did the rest of the men at the table.

"Act as adults, not nek dogs. Sergeant Vau, it's rude to flirt with Sergeant Skirata in front of all of us. And, while I'm sure all of us entertain thoughts of pinning him down and having our way with him, try to control yourself, Sgt. Skirata. He'll still be just as pretty eight years from now when we're done with him."

Snarls turned her way.

She met them with a hard glare. "I won't have bloodshed at this table. Meet outside if you've the need to prove how much testosterone flows in your veins. Show some of the self-control you're supposed to be imbuing in the the vode."

Vau's jaw worked and he glanced at Fett. "Seriously? She speaks for you?"

"I don't think you're all that pretty, but there's no accounting for taste," the other man replied.

He didn't take the bait. For one thing, he was impressed as hell that Ad'ra had been the one to draw the line against violence. But then, many a Mando man claimed to fear nothing save his wife.

Tiethe' must have agreed. His laugh boomed out.

"Mandokarla, little Ad'ika!"

Jaig snickered, too. Vau saw Dred nodding his approval out of the corner of his eye.

Flicked his gaze over the short man who he privately thought resembled a member of the rodent or weasel family.

"You'll note she doesn't think you have the prettier face," he claimed in monotone as he sat back down. He gestured Mird to relax. Petted the animal as he wound close to his legs.

"Maybe it's his body women find irresistible. He did manage to breed on Illippi." He snorted. "Of course, I'm so hot I had to make millions of copies so that beings the galaxy-over could have a shot at me."

Ad'ra beamed at Fett like he was the cleverest man on the planet.

The rugged man agreed. Wrinkled his nose at her and blew her a kiss.

"Figure it out, gentlemen," he said. "I understand hardening them. They'll need to be tough. You know I agree with teaching them to be Mandokarla. To be honest, there's not enough difference in the results we're seeing to see which method works best. And I don't have time to do a prolonged case study. They're me. They're going to get it right. And you're going to stop taunting each other on the training grounds in front of each other. Do you understand me?"

He rose.

"Bitch at each other, gripe about each other, hell… take a swing. But you don't do it in front of the cadets and you don't disrupt my meetings with it. You hear?"

"I hear you," Dred agreed with a cold jerk of his chin.

"Walon?"

"My hearing's just fine."

"Skip?"

"Yeah. I got it."

He didn't have to call Skirata's name before the man spat out a terse reply.

Fett bowed.

Jaig smiled across the table at Ad'ra. She grinned back at him.

Vau stood up. Practically threw his data'pad across to her. His eyes were cold and his expression cutting. She tilted it to read what he'd tossed her way when it skidded to a stop in front of her.

"Read it," he snarled.

"Aloud?"

"No," he sighed impatiently. "But you need to read it. You're going to bite off more than you can chew and you'd do better here- - in all of your roles- - if you have a fekking clue."

She nodded. Her breath was coming a little faster and her eyes were wary when she looked up at him.

She couldn't say why she tapped the side to darken the screen before Skip and Skirata moved past her.

"Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times."

At nearly thirteen she didn't know the source of the quote he'd pulled up. Before that milestone arrived, though, she'd familiarized herself with "Those Who Remain" by the author G. Michael Hopf.