"I think I got 'em," she said. "Stang, that Jedi of yours is a human rangefinder. I reckon it's that shabuir Sull and his crazy buddy."

"Can you see them?"

"No, just the movement."

"Hold fire, then, cyar'ika." Fi tried to follow her aim. He'd been a top-grade sniper. He felt the reduction to ordinary skill levels keenly. "They're ARC troopers. They're not that incompetent."

Jusik had always had an odd reckless streak. For the most part he was a methodical man, good at engineering and fixing things. But then he'd go and do something crazy, almost as if he wanted to test himself. Fi recalled a terrifying highspeed speeder bike ride through Coruscant on Jusik's pillion. Now Jusik walked slowly across the open ground and out into the knee-high grasses, making himself a target. Parja shifted her weight slightly, down on one knee with her elbow supported on a strut of the Aggressor's airframe.

"All right, get it over with," Jusik called. He held his arms away from his sides. "Parja, Fi? You will not open fire. Hear? Not unless Sull or Spar starts it."

A few moments later, the grass parted, and two figures in green beskar'gam got to their feet.

"Osik," Parja said, adjusting her aim, "they were two meters to the right of where I thought they were."

"They're good at throwing you off." Fi had promised Sull he'd kill him if he messed with Jusik, and he was going to make good on that if the shabuir so much as twitched. "And they're too good at tracking us. We're getting sloppy."

Fi broke cover and went to back up Jusik, blaster still aimed. Parja covered him. Disappointingly, neither ARC had laid down his own weapon.

"If you've come to put a round through me, go ahead" Jusik said. Fi thought he was pulling some clever ruse, but then it dawned on him that he was serious; Bard'ika was standing there like a target, asking for some weird martyrdom. "If it gives you closure, do it."

Fi stepped into his path. "Bard'ika! Enough."

"Fi ... either I believe in what I'm doing, or I don't."

Spar pulled off his helmet. "You're really full of it, Jedi."

"I'm not a Jedi now, but I was, and so I have to bear some of the guilt."

Spar holstered his blaster, and Sull followed suit. Fi didn't move. Parja walked up and pulled him aside.

"What's your problem?" she demanded, scowling at the two deserters. "Go spray your testosterone elsewhere. You don't even know how to be Mando'ade. But if you want a lesson, I'll give you one. It's more than putting on the beskar'gam."

"How did you find us?" Jusik asked.

"You fly a fighter like that, you get attention," Sull said. "Try parking it under cover next time."

Jusik put out his hand to shut Fi up even before Fi had formed the words, which was just as well. "You make a good point, ner vod. I was careless. What do you want from us?"

"We hear that Skirata might be onto something."

"ARC gossip, eh?"

"Is it true? Can he stop us aging so fast?" "Not yet."

"So it's true that he's trying."

"If your gossip is that reliable, then you know the answer, and you know he'd help any deserter."

Sull looked at Spar. "Did he help you get off Kamino?"

Spar just raised an eyebrow. "He's okay, the old barve."

"We want in," Sull said. "How do we get to see him? Is he recruiting?"

"Room for eight in an Aggressor." Jusik gestured over his shoulder at the starfighter. "We're heading back to Coruscant. If you're up for some work, we've got plenty of jobs to keep a bored ARC trooper busy."

Jusik was insanely trusting. Fi wanted to grab his shoulders and shake him, and explain that he couldn't just dump two renegade Alpha planks on Kal'buir like that-or on Ordo-but whatever Jusik picked up from the Force usually seemed to work out.

Except for forgetting that we need to camouflage all vessels, right away. Even here, even on Mandalore.

"Okay," said Sull. "Let's go."

Jusik popped the hatches and ushered them into the small cargo area. Parja nudged Fi with her elbow, hands on hips, chin down. Now that Fi was on the brink of leaving, the reality of being parted from her hit him hard. He missed his brothers, he felt useless, and he needed to get something back in his life-but he'd craved a girlfriend for so long.

I'm ungrateful. I get what I want, and then I forget what it was like to he that lonely.

"Well, I said you were worth fixing up, and Jusik and me, we fixed you up, so . . ." She looked resigned. "Want me to pack some food for you?"

"Just... well, my backpack."

"You be careful."

Fi was a little disappointed that she didn't beg him to stay. Maybe that really was how Mandalorian women did things: they gritted their teeth and got on with it while the men were away, if they weren't off fighting themselves. They didn't fuss and make parting even harder.

"You know I love you," he said. Shah, he couldn't remember the words of the contract. He had to open his datapad. "Now marry me."

Parja was still wearing her workshop overalls, spattered with lubricant, pockets ratting with tools. She wiped her hands on her pants and held out her hand to him to grip it in the Mandalorian way, hand to wrist. Fi took it.

"You know the words, F'ika?"

"I can read them out."

"Okay," Parja said. "We read them together."

She looked into his face. He found that he could repeat her words with just a fraction's delay, and do a pretty good job of making the pledge together, without the need to look at the words on his 'pad.

"Mhi solus tome," she said and he joined in. "Mhi solus dar'tome, mhi me'dinui an, mhi ba'juri verde."

It was a very simple pledge, a contract, a business deal in its way: We are one when together, we are one when parted, we share all, we will raise warriors. There wasn't anything more that needed saying. "Is that it?" Fi asked. "Yeah, you're stuck with me now." "Okay. That's good." "Yeah, you'll do, too."

Jusik stuck his head out the hatch. "Fi, did I miss something?"

"We're married" Fi said. Did he feel different? Yes, he really did. "You can see Parja blew our savings on her wedding gown."

"You mir'sheb." She gave Fi a big, noisy kiss. "You're lucky you've got a missus who knows how to replace a manifold gasket. Now, Bard'ika, you bring him back in the same or better condition, or this galaxy won't be big enough to hide from me."

It was always best to leave fast once you decided to go. Long drawn-out good-byes were painful; Fi discovered that for the first time in his life, and although it hurt, it was nothing like the pain of thinking he'd live and die lonely. It was a pain he could savor, to remind himself what he now had and what was worth living and fighting for.

The Aggressor lifted clear. Parja was still visible for a few seconds, a tiny figure in brown, then a dot. The camouflaged bastion just looked like uneven ground from the air.

"Aren't you supposed to celebrate?" Jusik asked, engaging the autopilot. Sull and Spar were aft in the hold. "I think it's really sad to marry and then part."

"It's not forever. And we had the honeymoon already, I suppose."

"Even so . . . okay, we can do the drinking and carousing later."

That was a nice thought. Everyone could attend then. There was an end in sight-of sorts-to the war, and even if Skirata never found a way of slowing the aging process, Fi would live the years he had left to the fullest.

Coruscant stood between him and that happier time. But he was back in action again, and that made him feel whole. He gazed out the viewport at the starscape before the Aggressor jumped to hyperspace, and thought of Sicko, the TIV pilot killed helping Omega board a Separatist ship. Space was a big, lonely place to die.

"Bard'ika, I think Kal'buir is going to go nuts when you turn up with these two," he said, diverting himself from thoughts of Sicko. "They found us. The bastion's supposed to be off the chart. And how do they know about the aging cure? Why trust them enough to bring them along?"

Jusik gave Fi that look, as if he was wearing a sun visor and letting it slide down his nose so that he could look over the rim. "If they're secure in the hold they're not wandering around blabbing about how they found us, are they? And Spar's almost certainly still got contacts in the ARC ranks. I'd put my bets on Maze talking to his ARC chums about Ko Sai's head showing up in a box ..."

"That's disgusting."

"Yeah."

"Don't think that I feel sorry for her. She never saw us as anything that could feel pain. But when I look back at the things I've done that seemed normal at the time ..."

"That's war, Fi. You don't have to feel bad about it. You really didn't have a choice. She did."

"You can tell what I'm thinking, can't you?"

"Sometimes."

"You're a good brother, Bard'ika."

Fi calculated the time to Triple Zero; they'd be landing by nightfall in Galactic City. Now he was starting to get that tingle in his gut, like pre-battle anxiety, because Parja was right. He wasn't just returning to base. He was sneaking back as a man who didn't exist, and he couldn't afford to be caught.

It was like operating behind enemy lines. He'd had plenty of experience at that.

Coruscant, Triple Zero, was now enemy territory.

Laseema's apartment, Coruscant Etain watched the doors, mouth dry and stomach knotted. She could feel Darman coming closer, and Skirata, too.

She knew their impressions in the Force so well that she could pin them down pretty accurately. There were variations from day to day, but they always had the same cores: Skirata, a whirlpool of intense loves and hatreds, and Darman, generally at peace with the world. Today, though, she could feel the change in both of them, from Darman's anguish and uncertainty, and from Skirata's raw pain.

But she still wasn't ready for what she saw when the doors parted.

"Kal, what happened to you?"

Skirata looked terrible. He was slightly bent over, as if his chest or stomach hurt him, and his face was a mass of cuts and fresh bruises. Someone had given him a thrashing. Vau. She'd thought the two sergeants had settled their long-running feud, but it seemed to have erupted again.

"I got what was coming to me," he said his voice distorted by swollen lips. "Not the first time, either, and it won't be the last." He pushed Darman ahead of him with a careful hand. "Go on, son. You've got someone to meet."

"Kal-"

"Et'ika, just grab this time with Dar and Kad and I'll sort myself out. You don't know when you'll next get a chance. I'll be back in the morning, and Laseema's staying with Jailer's family for the night."

Kal's injuries had rescued her from an awkward moment. Darman hadn't spoken to her since he walked out of her cabin on Nerrif Station a few days ago, and she'd had no idea how to break that ice again. But that was suddenly forgotten now. Darman's embrace was desperate. He buried his head in her shoulder, hugging her so hard that it almost hurt. Etain looked past him to see what Skirata was doing, but he was already gone. She heard his footsteps fade outside.

"Kad's asleep," she said. "I'll wake him."

"Is that bad for him?"

Darman was already the anxious father. "Of course not," she said. "He sleeps when he's tired. But it's hard to get him into a routine because we don't have one." "Laseema looks after him?"

"Yes, she's wonderful. And Besany helps out, and Bardan and Kal. But... it's time he knew his dad."

"Okay." Darman swallowed. "I'm ready now. I really am."

"I don't know what else to say, Dar."

"Nothing you need to say. We can't change what happened so it makes sense to forget it and start again."

That was Darman all over; he never bore grudges, and was the most easygoing of men. If anyone thought clones were identical, all they had to do was look at Darman and his brothers to see that they were as diverse as any random group of human beings.

"Am I forgiven?" she asked.

"Yes." He stepped back and pinched his top lip, a little nervous gesture that she'd seen in Skirata from time to time. In ordinary civilian clothes-no fatigues or armor that marked him as a standardized product of Kamino-Darman looked like any other being Etain might see on the walkways of Coruscant, and that promised the same possibility for her. "It was me, Et'ika. I hit Kal'buir."

It was hard to take in. "What?"

"I really hurt him. He didn't even try to defend himself. He just let me go crazy, and kept saying he was sorry."

The thought of Darman even losing his temper seemed utterly alien, let alone doing that much harm to someone he loved-to anyone, in fact. It was a different kind of violence from the kind he was used to in combat.

Is it? Am I so steeped in Jedi belief that violence is acceptable if it's not done from hate or anger that I can't see something fundamental?

"What started it?" she asked.

"He told me everything he kept from us. Everything. Ko Sai's research, the new clone army ... so I called him a liar. I told him I couldn't trust him. And with him not telling me about Kad, I just... hated him for a moment. No, not even him. I just lost it completely, about everything, just like Scorch did."

It was the first time Etain had realized how broken some of the clone troops were. It was one thing haranguing other Jedi about the clones' inherent humanity; it was another to recognize that it had a negative side, too. Etain had come to see them as invulnerable because she recognized their superior qualities, and forgot that, in time, the intensity with which they fought would shatter them as surely as it would any other being. It just took much longer. "How can he forgive me, Et'ika?" Darman asked. "Because he loves you-you're his son." It wasn't the punches that would leave the scars on Skirata. She knew that. It was losing Darman's trust. "Have you forgiven him?"

Darman glanced at his own hands. The ferocity of his attack showed in the cuts and bruises on his knuckles. "Of course I have. I didn't mean any of it. I was just out of it for a few minutes."

People always claimed they didn't mean the things they said in the heat of the moment, but usually they simply didn't know they thought those things, or would dare say them aloud. "Do you think he's keeping any other secrets from you, Dar?"

"I don't know," he said. "But it doesn't matter now."

Love and trust weren't necessarily the same thing. Etain decided to change the subject. "Let's see if Kad's awake."

He wasn't; he was sleeping peacefully, and they stood watching him for a while, mesmerized until Etain picked him up and handed him to Darman. Kad woke and looked up at Darman with endearing wide-eyed surprise. Could he tell this wasn't Ordo or Mereel? Maybe he could. He grinned-he grinned at everyone, of course-but this seemed different somehow. Maybe she was imagining it. He'd reacted strongly to Darman when he held him before.

"That's Da-da," Etain said. "Say Da-da, sweetie."