"He said stand by."

Corr snapped a fresh clip into his Deece. His POV icon showed that he was scanning the cliffs at high magnification, so he'd noted the open-ended nature of Maze's response, too.

Darman moved across to the north wall and set his HUD on maximum magnification; Hadde was wreathed in black smoke and now that his mind wasn't so firmly fixed on his own predicament, he could hear the whoomp-whoomp-whoomp of artillery fire. The 85th probably had their hands full. That was probably a detail that Maze didn't want to depress them with.

"So what's the problem with the comms?" Niner asked.

Maze's gravelly tones interrupted him. "Omega, air evac's coming from Neska instead. One standard hour subject to the storms. Hadde FOB's lost a comm relay in the shelling. You do pick your moments."

Maze didn't ask if they could hold out that long. If they couldn't, it was too bad. Neska was the closest base after Hadde, and nobody was riding to the rescue any faster.

"Thanks, HQ," Corr said. "Tell General Zey we have a confirmed kill on Jolluc, by the way."

"Not a wasted journey, then, Omega."

"You have a nice day, too, Captain ..." The link went dead and Maze was gone. "Maybe get your hair done. A bit of shopping."

"ARCs get cranky when they're cooped up on desk jobs," Darman said, feeling he had to make excuses for Maze. "They'd all rather be at the front."

"You really think any sane man wants to get his shebs shot off? It's not like he's got some need to be with his brothers like the Nulls."

"The Alphas have buddies, too," Darman said recalling Sull and his anger at the fate of a brother ARC executed for going AWOL. "They're no different from us."

Corr puffed contemptuously and didn't answer. Three brilliant bolts of hot white energy shaved the top of the wall and sent brick dust flying. Niner opened up with the repeater and blew a chunk out of the facing cliff, taking what looked like a couple of bodies with it, but all across the rock slopes Darman could detect movement-lots of it. The rebels were reinforcing. Yes, those tunnels needed some serious attention from a ton or two of five-hundred-grade thermal plastoid.

"Fifty-five standard minutes," said Atin, aiming through a gap in the wall. At least there was nothing to the rear now-just on all the other flanks. You had to look on the bright side. And a LAAT/i was on its way. "Counting down."

"Remember, eke it out, vode," Niner muttered. "Don't expend more than you absolutely have to, in case our ride's delayed."

Atin steered the remote. "Or if the chakaare turn into mountain nerfs ..."

The remote view showed that one party of Maujasi were preparing for a climb. They had grapples, lines, and what could have been launchers.

"How far down?" Darman asked. "Exactly?"

Atin's POV icon showed he had superimposed telemetry on the remote's view. "One hundred and fifty-eight meters forty centimeters." Atin paused. "To the datum line."

The rappel line built into commando armor was a hundred meters, tops. Darman visualized a last, last, last-resort escape that might not break his neck if he hit the right angle and rolled the last fifty-odd meters, but once he was on the ground with shab knows how many rebels converging on him, he'd be fresh out of ideas. And luck. But there was always the sandstorm. They could use it for cover.

It could also end up being the death of them.

"Jetpacks," he said wistfully. "Really should get jetpacks as standard. Mandos aren't daft."

The Maujasi climbing team fired a grapple and line. It bit into the cliff face with a chattering noise, and when the first climber was twenty meters up the slope, Corr put a blaster bolt through the top of his head.

"Maybe I should have waited for him to get higher ..."

Darman kept an eye on the remote view and tested his gauntlet vibroblade a few more times. Yes, he was getting scared larty inbound or no larty inbound; standing your ground was one thing, but being trapped like a staked feshu waiting to be eaten was another thing entirely. He began to wonder how many he could take with him if the worst came to the worst. "They've got some gett'se, seeing as they don't know what we can do to them once they reach us."

"Well, they definitely want us alive," Niner said. "Or else they haven't got enough heavy ordnance to cream us totally."

An hour was a surprisingly long time. Between monitoring the remote-which the rebels obviously hadn't detected, or else they'd have tried to disable it-and resisting the ingrained reflex to hose the source of incoming fire, Darman had time to watch the horizon to the north.

Hadde's canopy of black smoke was now invisible, swallowed up by a mass of rolling yellow cloud that looked as solid and implacable as a tidal wave. The wind was picking up strength; debris whipped and whirled around the fort. Darman did a rough calculation and worked out that the storm front would be upon them in minutes.

"Heads down, vode," he said. "Here it comes."

The sand couldn't penetrate their vacuum-resistant armor, and the Deeces had filters. Their HUDs enabled them to detect their surroundings in the thickest smoke; the screaming wind could be silenced by their helmets. But being caught in a storm like this was nerve-racking. Darman heard the first sprays of windborne sand rattle against his Katarn plates and huddled in a ball in the lee of a wall with the others.

"Oh, shab...," Corr whispered.

The whirling grains engulfed them, utterly silent as Darman cut his external audio so he could hear the rest of the squad on the helmet link. All they could do was sit it out. The rebels wouldn't be climbing now, that was for sure. He thought of Etain and hoped Maze had passed on the sitrep.

"Fierfek, this must be a big one ...," Niner said. The storm didn't seem to be abating; the sand cloud must have covered hundreds of square kilometers. "We won't get extracted until this passes. You wouldn't even get a TIV pilot out in this."

Sicko would have tried, Darman knew. But he was long gone, and for a brother they'd known only briefly, his death still cut way too deep.

Visibility was now zero. Darman opened his external audio cautiously so that the roaring storm was a whisper. He thought he heard another sound, but that was impossible. It had to be the buffeting of the storm.

Chakka-da-chakka-da-chakka . . .

No, he wasn't imagining it. It was getting louder.

Chakka-da-chakka-da-chakka-da-chakka...

It was a regular mechanical noise with another constant rising and falling note underneath, almost like a faint siren. No, not a siren; a drive struggling to cope.

Whatever it was, it wasn't a LAAT/i. That was a sound he'd know anywhere, sweetly familiar and comforting enough to make his chest feel hollow and heavy with emotion.

"Shab," he said. Darman measured the crisis level of any given day by the number of times they used the S word. Today was a hundred-shab day, getting close to shab saturation point. No other word offered such relief when you were tired, in pain, incredulous, or just facing imminent oblivion. "Shab, it's not one of ours-"

They looked up, even though they didn't need to. The remote could have shown them the worst if they'd switched it to infrared.

No, it wasn't a LAAT/i. The drives struggling against the abrasive, sand-laden wind sounded alien because they were. The vessel's undercarriage was visible through the swirling amber haze, brilliant turquoise with angular black designs half scoured down to bare metal by past sandstorms. It was old. Darman caught a glimpse of jutting hydraulic lines and piston-shaped servos.

"Shabuir," said Corr, groping for the anti-armor attachment and slapping it on his Deece. "Okay, if we don't go home, nobody goes home."

Darman aimed at what he hoped was the hydraulics reservoir. The wind nearly took him off his feet. Atin collided with him; Niner, repeater held in both hands by some astonishing feat of raw muscle, was yelling at them to get clear.

He fired. Darman fired. Maybe they all fired; but all Darman knew right then was that a fireball blinded him and laid him flat on his back as red-hot metal debris, rock, and oily fluid spattered his visor.

Keldabe, Mandalore Fi was adamant-or at least Parja was adamant, and therefore he obeyed. He would not help Fenn Shysa by playing a Fett.

"We're only here so you can see Keldabe, okay?" Parja had hold of his elbow as if she was a possessive wife rather than someone supporting a man with mobility problems. "A trip to the big city, that's all. You don't owe him anything."

Keldabe wasn't exactly big. Fi still found it overwhelming, but he remembered to consult his datapad to navigate. The Mandalorian capital was a cluster of stone, wood dura-steel, and plastoid buildings clinging like determined fungi to a granite outcrop. Beneath the granite cliff, the Kelita River was busy cutting a ravine. The place was somehow scruffy, majestic, defiant, and inviting at the same time. It was what the lower levels of Coruscant would have been if they'd been given some attitude, bundled into a city-shaped lump, and dumped in unspoiled countryside. Fi loved it immediately. The sun glinted off the tower of MandalMotors' engineering works, a landmark that pilots used for their approach to the landing strip.

And the air smelled of resin trees, a delicious woody sweetness that lingered at the back of his palate. "Lovely," Fi said. "Lovely."

"It's a slum," Parja steered him. "The shebs of the galaxy. But it's ours."

They walked across one of the bridges and into the heart of the city. Alleys threaded between buildings so unalike and eccentric that it was clear the phrase Mandalorian town planning didn't exist. It was everything that Coruscant wasn't.

"Does he have a palace?" Fi asked.

"Shysa's just a minor chieftain, if that. Not even Mandalores have a palace these days. I'm not sure if they ever did."

"Where are we going, then?" "The tapcaf." "Why a tapcaf?"

"Convenient." Parja paused to stare at a shopfront. It was full of tools and machine parts, and she gazed at it the way Fi had seen Coruscanti females stare at fashion shops. "Everyone knows the Oyu'baat. It's been here since Canderous Ordo was a glint in his mama's eye, and it never closes, ever. They say the pot of stew over the fire's been simmering for a thousand years, and that all the cooks do is throw in more meat and veg every day."

"Yuck," said Fi. "I hope they wash their hands."

Mandalorian informality fascinated Fi. He'd been raised on military precision, a place and a regulation for everything. Somehow, in this please-yourself, hierarchy-free chaos there was still a powerful sense of social purpose that could come together into a formidable army at a moment's notice. He took off his helmet to feel the breeze on his face, and a passerby paused to look at him.

"I'm gorgeous," he said. "See?"

Parja giggled. "Bardan's going to be pleased with your progress. Listen to yourself."

Yeah, but I used to be able to rappel off the Erelan HQ building, do two hundred press-ups before breakfast, and drop a moving target at a thousand meters. I was special. I was the best.

"He's meeting us here?"

"Why not? It'll take two minutes to tell Shysa where to ram his dumb idea, then we pick up some supplies and head back home so Bardan can do the healing thing."

Fi counted the days between Jusik's visits. Not only was he pleased to see a dear friend a precious connection to his previous life, but the healing sessions held out the prospect of more improvement. He felt the strength seeping back into him like a bellyful of hot food at the end of a freezing patrol. Jusik always seemed tired afterward though. It was as if he was draining himself. Fi wished he could understand how Jedi could harness the activity of cells like that.

"Found it!" Fi said triumphantly.

The Oyu'baat was a sprawling cantina with a motley collection of windows that didn't look as if the builder knew what a perpendicular line or level was. It seemed to be a collection of buildings that had grown together over the centuries. Fi drew himself up to his full height and walked through the doors into a scent of a wood fire, yeast, and rich food perfumes that was irresistible. Sitting near the crackling fire was Shysa, boots up on a chair, hands clasped behind his head, holding court with two men who had their backs to Fi, both in mid-green armor. When he spotted Fi, Shysa sat up straight and looked earnest.

"Ah, the prodigal son and his good lady," he said. "What are you drinking?"

"We're not staying," Parja said. "We're here to meet a friend."

The two men with Shysa turned around just as Fi got to the table, and he wondered why he hadn't recognized them the moment he walked through the doors. Even the backs of their heads-identical, the same close-trimmed black hair-should have clued him in.

They were clones, just like him. No, not exactly like him: they were ARCs. One was Sull, formerly A-30, the deserter Omega had tracked down on Gaftikar before Sergeant A'den had booted him off the planet. The other-Fi took a guess at Spar.

"I suppose I ought to thank you," Sull said. "Seeing as your brother whacked those two covert ops clones sent to kill me."

We buried them, showed them respect. They were just doing what they were ordered to do. It really upset Dar.

"Moz and Olun," Fi said. He was proud that he could remember their names. It was the kind of detail he thought he'd forgotten. "Like you care."

"What happened to you? You never stopped yapping on Gaftikar."

Parja very nearly snarled. She was magnificently scary. "He took an explosion full in the face, that's what happened, chakaar."

"Hey, sorry."

Shysa shoved Sull in the shoulder. "Come on, leave the man be. Spar, pull up some seats for my guests."

So it was Spar. He'd deserted long before the Grand Army even left Tipoca City. Fi wasn't sure what to make of him. He didn't look happy.

"We'll pass, thanks," Parja said.

"If you won't drink with me, then I'll put this to Fi straight," Shysa said. "Mandalore needs someone to stand up and say they're Fett's heir. You said no, Sull's said no, and Spar's said no. And you're the only three lads who I can ask right now. It's an easy job. All you have to do is play figurehead."

"Is there a pension plan?" Fi asked.

"It's just keeping up appearances for the aruetiise. We live in nervous times, and the job's been vacant for too long."

"I don't get why the clans don't just fill it the usual way," Spar muttered. "Either Mandalore needs a real leader or it doesn't. If you're going to put up a sham one, you might as well go the whole way and select a proper one."

"The Fett name puts the very fear of haran up the aruetiise." Shysa had an earnest manner that Fi found hard to dislike. The glib charm fell away fast, leaving a man who seemed genuinely worried for his world. "Whatever happened to Jango in the end he killed Jedi with his bare hands. Folks don't forget that. And if you leave the clans without a focus for too many years .

. . well, we don't want another Death Watch starting up. Right now, we don't have an obvious candidate for the job."

Fi didn't yet understand Mandalorian politics, but Parja seemed to. She didn't sit down; she leaned on the back of Fi's chair, one hand on his shoulder.

"Why don't you step in, Fenn?" she asked.

"Ah, me, I'm just an odd-job man," he said spreading his hands. It didn't look like false modesty. "A bit of this, a bit of that. A foot soldier. We need more than a pair of fists leading us these days."

"We need someone to keep the clans together, and I think you'd be pretty good at that."

Fi simply didn't understand a society where nobody made a grab for power when they got the chance. Perhaps there was nothing to be grabbed only whatever burden landed in the Mand'alor's lap. He concentrated hard on declining the offer himself rather than let Parja speak for him. She was right. It was crazy, even if he could see Shysa's point.

"So, Fi, will you do it?" Shysa asked.

Fi felt sweat beading on his top lip again. He could hear Skirata in his head, warning him to look after number one first. "I can't walk straight, I can't talk properly, and anyway, Fett has a real son somewhere. Sorry. Can't do it."

Shysa smiled sadly. "Okay. You can't blame a fella for tryin'. Concentrate on getting yourself fit, ner vod."

"Count me out, too," Sull said. "I'll fight if you want, if I get paid, but I'll stay in the background. My... previous employers weren't exactly thrilled by my sudden resignation."

They all looked at Spar, and he shrugged. "You can use me as public relations, Shysa, but it's going to wear thin pretty fast. And I don't owe Fett any kriffing thing."

"How about Mandalore? You don't think you owe your own?"

"How about it? I never bought Fett's tosh about serving the Republic, so I'm not the patriotic kind." He turned to Fi. "Like I told you, ner vod-Fett didn't give a mott's backside about anything other than himself. He got paid for helping churn out cannon fodder like you and me. And that's what Mandalore wants as a symbol of its power? Terrific."

So it was Spar who'd talked to Fi in the Enceri marketplace. Fi wondered if the ARC trooper felt guilty about deserting even before the war started. He didn't seem the guilt-ridden kind, but there was something about him that smacked of regret.

"So it's okay," said Shysa slowly, "for me to put about the story that you're one of Fett's sons, and that Mandalore is considering having you take his place."

Spar had that typical ARC expression of disdain now: one eyebrow raised, lips pressed together. They must have picked it up from Jango. "Okay, as long as you don't advertise that I'm a deserter, or I'll have a death squad after me, too."