"What's this?" Fett asked, watching the two droid-operated repulsor carts precede Ad'ra down the hall.

"Well… my mark, it turns out, was a pirate. And when I collected payment I asked about salvage rights."

"This is what we got?"

"It's champagne. I haven't ever had champagne."

She smiled at him, pleased as punch with herself. She gestured behind her.

"There's an entire hold of it."

"I heard about the tow. The aiwha bait are having conniptions."

"You shouldn't call them that."

"You don't have to like the people you work for, you just have to do the job you're taking cred to do."

"Put that on a greeting card. Do you have an opener?"

"A what?"

"An opener? I couldn't find one… not on Slave 1 and not on the Explorer."

She gestured again to the bottles of bubbling wine.

Fett shook his head. "What's it sealed with?"

He used his knife to pry open a lid and dug through the sawdust and straw to get to the protected bottle.

Ad'ra's face was pleased. Easy.

She had a mark from something on her forehead, but that was it.

"You take my ship without asking again and I'll have the aiwhas blow it out of the sky on reentry."

"No you won't. Besides, if I'd asked you'd have said no. And I wanted this one."

"Why? Why does some low-level gambler and speculator catch your interest?"

She shrugged. Made a moue of consideration.

"I think it was more that I figured it would be easy enough to do solo. And it was somewhere close, somewhere I've never been."

He glanced behind them as the repulsor carts came back empty.

"Where are you putting that?"

"Right now? In the corridor by our bunks. I want to try some chilled. Agnor said it was better chilled."

"Agnor said?"

She nodded. "He said they don't drink it. I think that's really why he let me keep it."

Fett rolled his eyes. "What about your fee?"

"I got paid in gold. It's in there, too. Want it?"

She had no use for it. Hadn't grown up with poverty or paucity. Had never been exposed to it. Didn't know how to want more than what she had.

That night she took a couple of cases to split with her vode. She'd missed them.

Teenagers, just like her, they were excited to try the beverage. Thirsty for the experience of getting drunk on expensive wine. Willing to try anything.

She snagged a handful of bottles and left them to it, remanding them to their barracks.

She was all for figuring out if you liked being drunk. Didn't want any stupid antics.

Didn't consider it stupid to take her own share and head to the highest vantage point the training facility at Tipoca City offered.

Walon Vau nearly stepped on her when he came around the corner of the tiered balcony.

"What are you doing?"

She smiled up at him. "Drinking champagne."

The bottle was offered in salute.

"Did you get some?"

At a loss with the excess of it, she'd offered it to the cadre at large, just parking a few cases near their mess and ready room.

"I did," he chuckled.

He couldn't say what compelled him to stop, lean on the railing and watch her lift the bottle to her lips.

His snort was indelicate.

"You'll never be able to chug gal doing it that way," he told her. "You should stick with shig."

He extended his hand, gesturing for her to relinquish the bottle.

Ad'ra immediately handed it over.

"Don't seal your lips around the outside of the bottle," he told her. "Look… rest it just inside your lower lip, barely touching your top. And don't upend it. Leave room for the air to replace the liquid as you drink. And keep swallowing, not sucking."

She considered while he demonstrated. Laughed when he didn't stop.

"Walon Vau! You just downed an entire bottle of champagne! Without stopping!"

He belched and wiped his lips. Made a face and cleared his throat.

"I did. I may regret it."

"I've never seen you chug anything like that before. Even when you're hot and thirsty…"

He shrugged. Dropped beside her. "Usually I show more restraint."

"You're a big proponent of self-control."

"I am."

She sucked in a deep breath. Stared out.

"I killed a man today. Not me, personally. But I captured him, put him in the cold-hold of his ship, and delivered him to a crooked stims dealer. Who scared him so badly he messed himself."

"Not pretty."

She shook her head. "When people die they lose control, too. I've never seen it up close. My father… the marks we targeted… they were always distance shots."

"Probably wise, considering your tender age."

"Guri was the first person I watched die. I never knew, when I took out a target and they fell off a swoop or a building or something? I never knew what happened when they hit. What it sounded like."

He sighed. Reached out to clap her knee.

"Ad'ra…"

"It isn't pretty. It sucks."

"It sucks so bad. It's fine to acknowledge that. Then you get up and get the job done."

"Losing Olan broke my heart. I'll never get over it. Never."

"He was your friend, too?"

She nodded. Drank deeply.

"You'll trust me when I tell you that someday it won't hurt as much, then."

"You've lost friends?"

"I have."

"Were you friends with my father? Jango and Da really liked each other. But… were you and he friends…"

"I knew him a little. Just from meeting him here and there. We never really served together on long-haul jobs, but we got along. I liked him."

"What do you remember most about him?"

"His attitude. He was ruthless and dependable and always had good outlook on everything. I don't think anything ever got him down. He just plunged into it and figured out the next step. Took it. Smiling, usually."

She appreciated the perspective. "He did smile all the time. I remember his laugh. And playing cards, all of you, at that big round table."

"Not here, then, if you remember that. It would have been Jaig & Blue's place. He let you play with us before you could have possibly even known the symbols you were looking at. Let you cheat, dig through the stack for what you wanted. You weren't the least bit subtle about it."

She seemed pleased by that memory, too. He watched her stare into the distance. Watched the smile melt off her face.

"My father was an assassin. Not a bounty hunter. He didn't need to do anything after we took our shot."

Walon waited that one out.

"I like the booty. Don't like the bring-em-in-alive part."

"Maybe you should look at being a pirate instead. Liberate the good stuff and just restrain the crew until you get off."

"They took off his skin. He lived through it. I didn't know you could strip the hide off a being and them live through it. Then they put him in an airlock and sent him out. He just…"

She snapped her fingers then wiggled them through the air.

"Fekking hell, Adra. What kind of people is Fett hooking you up with."

She reached for the next bottle. "Generous ones? They didn't even make me leave his ship. Didn't care about anything he had. Just wanted to punish him. Is there honor in that?"

He thought about it. "Why? What did he do?"

She shook her head. Pried the wax seal off the next bottle and attacked the stopper.

"Give me that! There's an art to it! It's an elegant indulgence and you should use some finesse."

"I'm better with things with triggers," she told him.

"Ori-haat," he agreed. Handed her back the one she'd struggled with.

Approved when she lifted it to her lips, gulping down huge portions of it.

She handed it to him and cocked her head at what should have been the horizon, the moonrise with stars behind it.

She'd seen them. Last night she'd hovered, before she jumped to hyperspace, she'd just hovered there a long while to watch.

"People think space is dark."

"It's only dark when you're away from the stars that make suns."

She nodded. "I think it's better to kill someone to avenge their wrongdoing without taking all their worldly possessions, without doing it simply to acquire wealth. You know? Rather than if they'd emptied his pockets and murdered him. That seems crass somehow."

"You're too sweet to be a bounty hunter."

She made a face. "I hate to admit that I think you're right. I like straight assassin work. I wasn't good at the takedown without Jango there."

"How'd you pull it off?" He accepted the bottle she passed him.

"Flashed him my tits and stunned him."

Walon looked away. Scratched his head in dismay.

Tried to come up with anything to say.

Her cackle of delight precipitated her taking the bottle back.

"I didn't really. Well, I stunned him, but not the other."

"There is no one else in the entire galaxy like you," he told her.

"Is that good? Or bad?"

"Good."

"I didn't crack under pressure," she told him. "That's not why I'm drinking."

"I figure you're drinking because that's what teenagers do when someone gifts them an entire hold full of contraband bubbly."

"I locked my vode in and they're getting drunk, too. I may go check out what they're doing."

"I don't advise it. Leave them to their revelry. You're getting to be too old to play with them in your downtime, Ad'ra. They'll take something the wrong way someday and you'll have hurt feelings and resentment to contend with."

"I know it. I hate being a girl. Rav said we'll end up with crushes on each other. To watch that I don't accidentally encourage it. Then she turns around and tells me I need to have clothes fitted for me instead of square-cut like the vode. Being female sucks."

"You wear it so well, though."

She sighed. "I wonder where Vhonte and Isabet learned to be feminine. They're gorgeous and everyone respects them. Did someone teach them to be like that or do they just know?"

"You can ask them. But there's nothing wrong with you, Ad'ra. You're going to have to strike the balance and figure out who and what you want to be."

"I miss my da."

He rocked into her. "That sucks, too."

"I'm grateful for who he was. That he was what he was. I don't know where I'd have gone if Jango hadn't made a place for me here."

Vau had never considered that. Wondered what she'd done when her father had been killed, who had helped her with the body. How she'd gotten here.

He remembered the day Fett had presented her.

Not many of the clones had been decanted and ready to take on as tyros yet, so there'd just been maybe a dozen Cuy'val Dar in attendance. Jango Fett had introduced her, explained that she'd be taking her father's place with them. Coached her through the ceremony of it, the way the adenn presented their neck for the marking.

Kal Skirata had been there, his six-pack of miscreants in attendance with him. He'd raised a fuss.

Pissed him off hard to be ignored.

"What's funny about that?"

He shook his head. Accepted the bottle back.

"Not that, little one. I was remembering something else."

Her questioning glance was interrupted by the deep draught of wine she helped herself to.

He laughed again when she looked into its emptiness. Rolled his eyes when she sighted up on the communications array and launched it toward the tower.

"You had no hope in hell of reaching that."

"Fuck you."

"Where did you pick up such language?"

"Here and there," she told him. "Why do you make your men fight each other but object to Priest's rivalries?"

He sucked in a deep breath. Tipped the bottle up. Stood and weighed it in his hand before slinging his arm back. Sent it spinning sideways into the night. It whipped round and round and round—more like a disk than a missile—until the satisfying sound of it breaking on the structure opposite came to them.

"I'm making hard men, Ad'ra. They'll have to deal with worse."

"Not hand-to-hand stuff, not mostly. And when they do, they'll be in their armor."

"Their armor isn't as good as yours. As mine. It's not beskar. No Republic would be willing to part with enough cred to fully outfit them in beskar, even if enough of it could be mined and produced and Mandalore would consent to its mass export. And the katarn is still a pipe dream in the negotiation stages."

She flipped her hands over and shook her head, made a face. "You didn't answer my question."

"If they can live through this they'll be able to live through everything else that gets thrown at them. I don't want them to be an army of individual soldiers when I get done with them. I want them to be squad-minded and goal-oriented… and I want them to be savages, able to shut down the niceties that we've taught them and rip a being limb-from-limb. Honestly, it's why I'll always pick you to spar with. I need them desensitized to the female of the race. If you're some mysterious creature we only hold doors for they'll get swept up and killed by the wrong one. So when I beat the living osik out of you, when one of us takes you down, when we don't treat you like you're precious—that helps them in the long run."

"Not everyone agrees with you. They think that Harrod and Ven and Tee and One proved Jango wrong in letting women serve in Cuy'val Dar."

"I know it. I'm glad he took my council there. Hiring people like Rav Braylor and Vhonte Tervho was the smartest thing Jango Fett ever did."

"Are you and he friends? I can't get a read on you…"

She gave over when he reached to take the next bottle from her. She was struggling and knew it. He set it aside and picked up a fresh one.

"Watch. It's like this. There'll always be a starting point; that's where you peel the wax. You can't hack it off like it's somebody's head."

She considered. Picked up her own fresh bottle and repeated the motion. Watched carefully as he clunked the bottle onto the hard floorcovering before working the stopper looser with his thumbs.

"Twist the bottle now, don't just try to pull it out."

She was a quick study. He'd always appreciated that about her.

"I like the way the bubbles feel inside my cheeks, even after I swallow," she told him with a fairly drunken smile. He wondered how she could speak without slurring.

Ended up laughing at her more than once as he sat beside the girl-warrior and emptied the remaining bottles. Taught her to throw them the way he did—like skipping stones on the lake near his childhood home. Curbed her enthusiasm when she decided that the next better game would be for him to throw them so she could shoot them.

Even charming and bubbling with good humor she couldn't get him to budge.

.

The next morning she was less charming and effervescent.

He jerked her around when she entered their staff meeting.

"Did you instruct your Rangers to dismantle their bedstands?"

"I did."

"Why?"

"We're reconfiguring."

"Why?" he growled.

"They lost the privilege. They'll earn them back."

He was shaking his head. "Soldiers training for war deserve a rack to come back to," he argued. "And those bodies are growing at more than twice the rate of normal human teenagers. They need a good mattress under them during their rest periods."

"They'll not become deformed in the few days it takes for me to make my point."

Kal Skirata waded in. "You took away their mattresses?"

"I did. They'll think about this in future."

There'd been a squabble over something the night before. One of her guys was in bacta and one had a hairline fracture in his shabla skull.

"That can't be healthy," Skip threw in.

She rolled her eyes. "I'm not repeating sleep deprivation training. They're getting their bedrolls and adequate rack time. They'll be tired enough tonight that nothing will keep them from sleeping. My barracks isn't the place for hidden contraband and snide comments. They're soldiers, not dogs in some alley."

"That's exactly what they're turning into, and it's this kind of osik that's causing division between them," Vau told her. "You'll have an all-out brawl in there some night. A man needs a place to call his own."

"They're not men," she shouted at him.

Kal looked like he'd been slapped.

"They are men," he said quietly, dangerously. "They are, indeed, men. They might not have been bred and borne from a women's loins, but those are real men with self-awareness and the need for a cause in their lives… a cause worth dying for."

"And yours will die because you feel that way," she told him bluntly. "I don't want mine to blindly follow me over the hill because they see a flag waving. And, when this is over, I don't want mine to die. They'll live through this and they'll live through the next thing and then they'll go on living. I'm not giving them a dogma or creed or paradigm so they save the galaxy. Galactic peace? Pfft. I'm not after them having some grandiose ideas about the world. I just want them to be mean enough, self-reliant enough, that nothing touches them. I want them to be able to rise out of it, rise over it, whatever it turns out to be. They're going to be sent out there—alone—to do the things your men won't be able to achieve singularly. I need them to be hard enough to come back. Alive, not a handful of armor tallies in a pouch on my hip."

Vau reached out and jerked her out of Skirata's face.

"Too far, little one," he told her, shoving her down into the closest chair. "You cross a line."

Skip agreed. "You're too young and too freshly decanted yourself to lecture us. You've never been in a war. You can't fathom what makes a man tick. Or what it takes out of you to survive one. When you've served you'll understand that sometimes the camaraderie is the only thing that keeps soldiers going."

"Don't presume to lecture me! I'm not raising soldiers, Skip! That's not my task, it's yours. Your mission templates will be different than mine."

"They won't be your templates!" Vau told her. "You won't be deploying with them. You forget that… you think you're one of them at this point."

"What the kriff ever," she shot back.

Hege Lollo crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair.

Culbine sneered. "Fett made a mistake giving the Ranger company to you. It should have been given to an operative with more real-world experience. If your men are soft it's because they don't have a real leader. You're not even a parent. It's not your fault they're failing. It was never going to be a success."

"It would be kinder to recondition them now," Lollo intimated.

Ad'ra trembled under Vau's hand when he shoved her harder into the seat of the chair.

"The way you're running through them, Gamma Company won't have enough left to muster in four years," the black-armored man shot at the Mon Cal.

Skirata started to say something and Vau turned on him next.

"Stuff it. You've no right to criticize any of us after yesterday."

"What happened yesterday?" Lollo asked, looking askance at Skirata.

The man mumbled something. Walon crossed his arms.

"Didn't you hear? Sergeant Skirata managed to shoot one of his boys in the back of the head during live-fire practice drills."

"Oh! On the gods," Ad'ra hissed. Her face was stricken when she turned to face the man. "Oh, Kal…"

"That's not what happened and you know it," Skip defended his friend.

"Osik'la."

Fett's arrival brought them all to a disgruntled silence.

It served him just fine. He didn't mind them having particular favorites, didn't mind small bands of them gathering up. Figured the personality cults kept any of them from gaining enough support to pose any kind of threat.