But Fi wasn't grateful. Since he'd arrived on Mandalore, he'd come to understand how free men lived. Now he resented every moment he'd spent serving a society in which he had fewer rights than a droid.

"Who were you fighting for?" the man asked after a long, awkward pause. Mandalore had supplied the galaxy with mercenary troops for generations, and the topic of commercial soldiering counted as social small talk. "Did they pay well?"

"Grand Army of the Republic. What pay?"

Another pause. Mandalore wasn't Republic territory, not by a long chalk. And now the Mandalorian knew Fi was a clone, too, not even accorded the respect of being paid for his fighting prowess. But that didn't seem to be a stigma here.

"Deserter," the man said no hint of disapproval.

"Discharged dead." Fi groped for the words. He knew what he wanted to say, but getting his mouth to obey him was another matter. He could feel sweat beading on his top lip. "Like a regular medical discharge, only a bit more serious."

"It's okay, ner vod, you're among friends here," said the man. "Fett was a disgrace for letting the Kaminoans make clones for the Jedi out of him. It's not your fault."

"Don't feel sorry for me," Fi said defensively. He didn't want pity. The Kaminoans didn't care any more than Fett did if the clone army was happy and well treated just as long as it won wars, but he'd had Kal Skirata looking out for him. "Our sergeant took good care of us. He adopted me as his son. We did fine."

"So I heard."

"You've heard a lot."

"It's a small planet. A fair few Cuy'val Dar came back here when they'd finished training you."

So the guy did know. The Mandalorian training sergeants handpicked by Fett hadn't all been fond of him, but they respected his prowess. And they'd been griping about life in Tipoca City. Well, there were no more secrets left to keep. Everyone knew about the Grand Army of the Republic now.

It was dawning slowly on Fi that Fett, Mand'alor and bounty hunter, had been a good advert for Mandalorian grit, but his heroic status wasn't respected by some of his own people. The Alpha ARC clone troopers, hard men literally made in Fett's mold were scared of him, utterly loyal to his orders even after his death. But Fi realized that some Man-do'ade here thought he was a selfish chakaar.

Mandalore didn't have any leader at all now, and life still went on regardless. Fi could imagine the chaos on Coruscant if the Chancellor was killed and nobody was around to succeed him. Mandos just got on with life. It had happened before, they said and it would happen again, but no nation worth its salt fell apart just because there was nobody on the throne.

"You got any kids?" asked the man. Fi shrugged. "I'm working on it."

Sometimes Fi's old self surfaced unexpectedly. He'd been superbly fit, an elite commando, and-most painful of all-he'd had what Skirata called paklalat, the gift of gab. He'd had a way with words. But the explosion on Gaftikar had put an end to that, and now he was an invalid, dependent on the care of a nice woman called Parja Bralor who didn't seem to mind that he wasn't quite the prize he'd once been.

The man looked past Fi as if he'd recognized someone approaching in the bustle of armored figures lugging flexiwrap bags of preserved vegetables, machine parts, and an occasional five-liter container of tihaar, the local triple-distilled alcohol that could actually be used to degrease engine parts.

"Is that your missus?" he asked. "Heading this way, on your six."

Fi turned. Parja's dark chestnut braids swung beneath the chin level of her helmet, secured with red copper beads. With her deep scarlet armor, the overall effect in the gray drizzle was one of vivid autumn fruit. "Yeah. That's her."

"I'll leave you, then. You're in safe hands again."

Again. What did he mean?

By the time Fi turned around the man had melted back into the market-day crowd. Parja shouldered her way through the press of armored bodies with the focus of a laser cannon and caught Fi's arm, pulling him to her to tap the forehead of her helmet against his. It was the only way to give someone a kiss in full armor. That was probably why some aruetiise believed Mandalorians head-butted one another as a greeting. Aruetiise-foreigners, enemies, traitors, or anything in between-would believe any old tosh, Fi thought.

"You made it," Parja said, all approval. "Well done, cyar'ika. Making new friends, are you?"

"Don't know." Fi couldn't see the man now. He'd vanished. "He was worried about me."

Parja reached up and patted his helmet. She'd painted it with the Mandalorian letters m and s for mir'shupur-brain injury-just like a battlefield medic might do for triage purposes. On Mandalore, the symbol functioned as a blend of a general warning to give the wearer a break, and a medal for combat service. "He saw the sigil on your buy'ce. It told him you were disabled and why. Saves a lot of daft questions, you see, and folks know how to treat you."

Fi had never thought of himself as disabled. Injured, maybe, but not disabled. He told himself it was still early days, and that Bardan Jusik was putting him back together a cell at a time with his Jedi healing techniques.

"What are we doing now?" he asked.

"You've got to find your way to the cantina," Parja showed no trace of impatience even though he realized she'd probably told him a dozen times. "I'm not going to prompt you, either. Use the map. And what else have you got to do? Come on, tell me."

"Notes. Make notes as I go."

"Good. Make notes. Then all you have to remember to do is to keep looking at your datapad."

Enceri was a small pimple on the map compared with just one of Coruscant's teeming termite-hill neighborhoods, and the nearest settlement to Kyrimorut, Skirata's refuge for clone deserters deep in the northern forests. It was more a trading post than a town. But from Fi's perspective, it was as complex and confusing as a labyrinth. He took the stylus from his forearm plate and checked his datapad. Events a couple of years ago-even his artificially brief childhood-were vivid, but he couldn't retain the day-to-day memories that everyone else took for granted. He oriented himself the way he'd once been trained, getting his bearings from landmarks like the grain silo on the edge of town and the basic magnetic compass on his forearm, and then trudged off.

Once he learned to cope with that, he'd learn to use his helmet's head-up display again. One step at a time, Parja had said. She trailed after him. "You're doing okay. Really, cyar'ika, you're getting better every day. I'm proud of you."

How could Parja love him in this state? He felt crushed. But they'd met when he was already injured, and she never knew the Fi he'd been. She loved him for what he was now. Tilings could only get better. "I miss my brothers," he said. "I miss Ordo, too." There were messages, occasional comlink conversations with Omega Squad and the Null ARCs who were his only family in any sense of the word, but Fi had lived his whole short life among other men like him. He'd never really been this alone. He felt suddenly guilty that Parja wasn't his entire world; she'd nursed him in those awful days after he was rescued from Coruscant, fed and cleaned him like an infant, and her constant encouragement had made him walk again every bit as much as Jusik's Force healing skills. Once, Fi could imagine nothing he wanted more than a nice girl who cared about him. He never thought that she might end up caring for him.

"Ordo's bound to drop by soon," Parja said. "You know the Nulls don't exactly run to a timetable. Anyway, Bard'ika's due back in a few days for your next healing session."

Fi thought it was worth asking. "Can I go home?"

Parja blinked. "This is home, Fi. You don't mean Coruscant, do you?"

"Yeah."

"No, you're not going back there. They were going to kill you, remember? They wanted to switch off your life support because they didn't think you were worth keeping alive. They'll probably confiscate you at Customs as stolen Republic property. You don't need to go back to that stinking dar'yaim."

Parja was angry about it, but it was a very distant brutality for Fi, something that he knew was terrible but hadn't fell because he'd been mercifully unaware in a coma. As he paced the route to the cantina with mechanical care, checking the map at every alley and crossroad, he tried to imagine Besany and Captain Obrim desperately trying to save him from a callous system that put down permanently disabled clones like animals. Ordo said Besany had pulled a weapon on the medcenter staff and kidnapped him at blasterpoint. He seemed fiercely proud of her. Sheer guts like that had the same effect on a Mandalorian male that a pair of long legs did on aruetiise; female courage was irresistible.

"I can get past Customs," Fi said. "I'm a commando."

"Besany went to a lot of trouble to get you out."

"I know." Fi couldn't square Besany's daunting blond glamour with the rather lonely, methodical woman inside, let alone one who could start an armed siege. "Never said thanks."

"You want to thank her? Wait till she visits."

"But I could say hi to everyone," Fi persisted. He rounded a corner, and the cantina was exactly where the map said it was. It was a small triumph. He took off his helmet and let the rain wash over his face, hating himself for talking like a simple kid. "It's easier for me to go to them."

"Your brothers are deployed all over the galaxy."

"And I could see Etain's baby ..."

"That's a dangerous secret, Fi."

"It's not fair that Dar doesn't know he's a dad."

"The galaxy's an unfair place. It's safer that he doesn't know yet."

Fi finally blurted it out without thinking. "I don't belong here, Parj'ika. I should be fighting. It's all I know how to do. I thought I wanted out, but-I don't know what to do."

The cantina doors were beaded with rain as if they had just been painted, the only part of the building that seemed to have been maintained in years. Concentrating on their glossy blackness kept the frustration and anger at his own helplessness from overwhelming him. But part of his mind never stopped whispering that he was nothing now, that he had no purpose or pride. It was his indoctrination surfacing. Sergeant Kal said so. Kal'buir reminded Fi a couple of times a week by comm that he was a free man and he didn't have to have any purpose beyond living his life to the full.

It didn't feel that way right then. Fi couldn't shake the guilt that everyone was fighting the war except him, and that he was a burden on Parja. She slipped her helmet off and clipped it to her belt.

"You've had quite a battle to get where you are now," she said quietly, and nodded toward the doors. "And you can be a soldier again, if you want, but not yet. I know it's hard. Try to be patient."

"I don't have time"

Parja seemed to flinch every time he reminded her that time was running out twice as fast for him as it was for a normal man. They didn't talk about Kal'buir's plan to stop the accelerated aging now. The genetic engineering secrets needed to stop it seemed as far away as ever; he was still searching for the right geneticists to make sense of Ko Sai's research.

"You'll get time." Parja had a way of dropping her voice that got Fi's attention-and compliance-a lot better than yelling at him. Quiet menace summed her up. "Even the way things are now, time's still on your side."

"Yeah."

"Fi, look at me." She clamped her hands on either side of his face and made him meet her eyes. "You've got years ahead of you, either way. So live them. And I'm not putting you back together so that you can run off with some aruetyc hussy with a fancy Coruscant manicure when you're fit, so you better marry me. Okay? Mandos marry young. We're both past the age. It's not right."

Fi's first thought was that he needed permission from someone, probably Kal'buir. But he didn't; and that was scary. He could do whatever he wanted. All his life he'd had army rules and regs and procedures to follow, a structured existence, and now he was adrift on a sea of choices he never thought he'd have but without the capacity to make the most of them.

"I'm no use for anything," he said. "Why do you want to marry me?"

Parja's eyes narrowed. They were very blue. "I'll be the judge of what you're good for. You're Fi, for a start, and that's a good enough reason. Now get your shebs into that cantina and show me you remember how to order ne'tra gal and a meal."

Fi was sure it was all bluster. He was amazed by her patience: she never cared how many times he dropped things or couldn't recall the right word. Her aunt Rav Bralor, one of the Cuy'val Dar who'd trained them on Kamino, said the engineer in Parja hated leaving any broken machine unfixed. Fi was the kind of restoration project that she relished.

"Will you still want me when I'm better?" As he walked through the cantina doors, the bar seemed a more intimidating target than any beachhead. "I might be too ..." The word eluded his lips, although his brain had selected gorgeous. "... good to look at."

"Then I'll just have to wear a welding visor to shield my delicate sensibilities," Parja said. Several people in the cantina paused to look up. It was a small town on a small planet where everyone knew their neighbor's business, so they recognized Fi as a stranger. "Or you can keep your helmet on at all times."

"Okay, I'll marry you, then."

"Don't let me twist your arm ..."

"Maybe I can learn a trade."

"When your coordination improves, you can pull your weight in the workshop."

It was always when with Parja, never if. Failure never occurred to her. As Fi stepped up to the bar, heart pounding because he wasn't sure he'd be able to find the right words to order ale, he was aware of two men to his right taking extra interest in him. He could hear them muttering over their drinks. Their helmets were stacked on the floor beside their table. Whatever else was wrong with his brain, Fi could still filter a conversation out of a hubbub of noise if it was about him.

"That's not the guy, I tell you." "You can't tell."

"But he looks like him, I give you that." "Too much like him."

"Who's to say where Fett sowed his has neral, eh?"

They looked up as if they were suddenly aware that Fi was staring at them-he was, and with irritation-and changed the subject. Mandalorians had the tact of a drunken Weequay, so they must have thought he would have been pretty offended by their comparison. Fi tried to keep his mind on the task at hand and fumbled for a credit chip.

"Two ales," he said. And all Mandalorian cantinas could rustle up a couple of bowls of soup. "And two soups."

The barkeep, an older woman with the kind of thin, gaunt face that made her look as if she got her kicks by sucking the juice from sourcane, gave him a long and cautious stare.

"You're not from around here," she said in Basic. Everyone from Enceri spoke Mando'a, but Fi had enough trouble with Basic these days. She tilted her head slightly to one side to look at the helmet under his arm, and her expression softened. "Ah. Okay, verd'ika, is it gi dumpling soup, or red gourd?"

Verd'ika. It was an affectionate term for a soldier. That warning sigil worked just fine. "Gourd please."

Gi soup was too much for him. Fi couldn't face fish now, not after what happened to Ko Sai. The Kaminoan scientist was always referred to as gihaal-fish-meal-and now that she was dead and dismembered fish made Fi feel oddly queasy. He handed over his credits. Parja claimed a table in a dim corner and settled him in a seat.

"You're doing fine, cyar'ika."

"Who do I look like?" Fi knew he looked like every single one of his clone brothers, and-as far as he knew-like Jango Fett had at the same age. He indicated the two men still huddled over their ale with as discreet a nod of his head as he could manage. "Fett's dead, and he was a lot older than me."

"Not Fett," Parja whispered, taking a vise-like grip on his hand as if to shut him up. "One of your brothers. Spar."

Spar-ARC trooper Alpha-02-had deserted even before the Grand Army was first unleashed at Geonosis. As Skirata always said, the man might have been an Alpha plank but he wasn't a fool. "He's not my brother." "Well, they say Fenn Shysa wants him to pretend he's Fett's heir, just to keep up appearances. In case you hadn't noticed, we don't have a Mand'alor at the moment."

"Did you notice when you had one?"

Parja paused and looked as if she was going to smile. "The point is that not having one gives the aruetiise the idea that we're in decline. Let's face it, we never really recovered from losing our best fighters at Galidraan. We haven't had to-yet."

Fi hadn't noticed the place falling apart. Mando'ade didn't need much leading, although they did like to have a figurehead, if only to gripe about. A vivid memory sprang into his head and the language to express it. "Fett's already got a son. Boba. He must be about twelve now. Cocky little jerk. Ordo shoved his head down the 'fresher for bragging that his dad could wipe the floor with Kal'buir."

"We need more than a kid right now, Fi, even if anyone could find him. He's vanished."

"Takes after his father."

"Careful, or Shysa might ask you to play the fruit of Fett's loins ..."

"Test tube, more like." Fi recalled seeing Fett in Tipoca City from time to time, a solitary, distracted figure who seldom mixed socially with the Cuy'val Dar he'd recruited. Fi wondered if the Mand'alor got a kick out of seeing millions of copies of himself all over the place, or if it disturbed him. "Why doesn't Shysa take over? Or one of the chieftains?"

"The Fett name still makes the aruetiise tremble."

Aliit ori'shya taldin. Mandalorians always hit the nail on the head with their sayings; family definitely was a lot more than blood. Technically, Fi was as much Jango Fett's flesh and blood as Boba was. Fi thought it was interesting how he didn't feel the man was anything like a father.

"I'm Mando A-list, then," he said. "Pure Fett. But with better luck with women."

Parja submitted to the grin she'd been trying in vain to suppress. She rubbed his forearm with vigorous enthusiasm. "Kandosii! Jaing said you had a way with words. I do believe it's coming back."

Fi felt a little brighter. Yes, maybe he'd be as good as new one day, or near enough. He ate his soup with the unsteady hand of a child learning to feed himself, facing the wall so that nobody would see if he spilled it down his chin. He did. Parja reached out a discreet hand and wiped it for him before he could fumble for a cloth.

"Six months ago," she said, "you couldn't even walk upright without help. You're doing good cyar'ika."

She knew exactly when he needed reassurance. I'm lucky. My friends saved me. They put me back together again. He'd once thought the bond with his original squad the brothers he was born and raised with, was the strongest he would ever experience, and their deaths had devastated him; he couldn't imagine being that close to another living being again. Then he found an equally deep bond with Omega Squad. Now his bonds extended to a wider family, a ragbag of clones and nonclones, and even something that had once seemed unattainable-a woman who loved him.

"Okay," Fi said. "When I don't look so broken, we'll get married."

He wanted to be his old self for her. She looked at him with a slight frown, and it occurred to him that she might have thought he was fobbing her off. Maybe she just didn't understand what he was trying to say. Words often didn't come out as he planned these days.

"Better get fit fast, then," she said.

Kal'buir had trained his boys to set goals, no matter how small. The next ridge, the next morning, even the next footstep if things were going badly-you had to keep your eyes fixed on that, and use it for strength and focus.