Chapter 3 - RC-1136 "Darman"
Submitted August 14, 2006 Updated August 14, 2006 Status Incomplete | [Republic Commando, post Hard Contact] The clone commandos contemplates the simple things as Omega Squad prepares for their next mission onboard a luxury liner.
Category:
Movies » Star Wars » Episodes 1-3 (Prequel Trilogy) |
Chapter 3 - RC-1136 "Darman"
Chapter 3 - RC-1136 "Darman"
Simple Things
by Famira Damaris
Disclaimer: I don''t own Star Wars or any of the Republic Commando characters.
Author''s Note: Randomly decided to try continuing the short fics. Darman''s POV. Mando''a words from the nifty Mandolorian language created by Karen Traviss, cause she''s awesome like that. Glossary pretty much from RC: Triple Zero, so mostly reposted for those not familiar with some of the words reading this.
Summary: (Republic Commando, post Hard Contact) The clone commandos contemplates the simple things as Omega Squad prepares for their next mission.
--------------------
Simple Things
--------------------
(RC-1136 "Darman" )
Simple to Darman was wishing he was back with his brothers.
Right now that was all he could think about.
Being surrounded by so many civilians made him nervous, really nervous, and he found himself unconsciously keeping to the walls of the ballroom, wishing he had his good old Deece on hand to make him feel less…well, less vulnerable. All clones of course knew hand to hand combat, but it was usually under the assumption that the clone in question would be wearing his issued armor, with at least a vibroblade in hand. Darman was neither in his armor, nor armed with a vibroblade.
In fact, this was the first time in his brief life – that he could remember – where he was completely and utterly naked.
Darman didn’t like it.
He liked it less that not only was he unarmed, but he was also surrounded by a countless number of civvies, many of which were dressed in strange, bewilderingly expensive clothes capable of easily concealing a Verpine or hold-out blaster in those furred mantles and sweeping robes. Danger seemed to be everywhere. Darman fidgeted. The briefing had been simple, even the last minute orders from Omega’s CO regarding the plant (himself) in the main passenger tier, but sitting here, waiting for the luxury transport to make it to its destination, simple seemed pretty far away.
Actually, if there was a way to defy all he knew from flash instructions about physics and travel back in time, Darman wouldn’t mind being back on Qiilura. The civilian population had been considerably less dense, certainly not invading whatever sense of personal space he had, and he’d been with his brothers.
And Etain.
This was his first time seeing so many human females all in one place and he honestly didn’t know what to make of them. They appeared to be of all sorts of different shapes and sizes, more than he thought could even be possible. The Kaminoans hadn’t exactly included much in the way of humans and their social structures in the flash instruction curriculum and it showed – Darman couldn’t help feeling dazzled and disoriented by all the variety surrounding him. There were large human females, with rings and necklaces straining around their bulging necks, stick-thin ones he could probably snap in half who carried themselves as if they hadn’t a fear in the world, sweeping past with a tinkle of elaborate headdresses.
But none of them were Etain.
None seemed to exude that strange energy that she did, though many of them were probably a lot better looking. Not that he was any expert on human looks – all he knew was that they were all different, dizzyingly so. Something about them made him want to curl his lip in disgust, though he couldn’t quite place a finger on it. He doubted that these females, unlike Etain, would be willing to get down and dirty to do a job, be willing to sacrifice a lightsaber in order to use a conc cannon and do it without any complaints whatsoever.
In short, they were shadows, and as far as Darman was concerned, they were nuisances and distractions.
He managed, just barely, not to jump when one of the white-suited waiters suddenly materialized in front of him with a tray of glasses in his face.
“Cocktail, sir? We’ve got everything from Baaldish to Nubian,” the other man said. He flashed him a very white, very even smile. “It’s on the house for tonight – you look like you could use one,” he added, dropping his voice to what he thought was a whisper, “if you’re shy.”
Darman blinked. “Shy?” he asked intelligently.
“You know what I mean,” the waiter winked.
Darman didn’t know what he meant.
“Some of the other guests wouldn’t mind a word with you,” the waiter said. He flicked his eyes toward one of the thinner females, one of the ones dressed in the more opulent dresses and finery. She happened to look over and catch Darman’s eyes, her red lips curving up in a strange little smile that made him feel uncomfortable. “You stand out.”
That was the last thing Darman wanted to hear.
He glanced down at what he wore: some kind of black slacks with red lining the sides, a jacket with trim of the same color, and a belt slung across his hip. The belt didn’t even have a holster for a blaster, not even a small one, which struck him as utterly useless. It didn’t help that the pants were too tight to smuggle in a vibroblade underneath them; he’d most certainly tried, but the outline of the knife could be seen through the slacks and so he’d had to go without. Had he been spotted for what he was? Darman was supposed to be the only clone on the passenger tiers, so that shouldn’t have happened…
The waiter didn’t notice his hesitation. He lifted one of the finely wrought glasses from his tray, some kind of clear purple liquid swishing about inside, and gave it to Darman. He accepted it but didn’t taste it. Distracted or not, he wasn’t about to go trying out strange drinks in a place that made him feel this uncomfortable. He reminded himself to pour it out somewhere next change he got.
That chance looked like it was a long way from coming.
The woman from before, with the red-painted lips and the disconcerting smile, was now heading in his direction, her hips swaying this way and that in a fashion that bordered on hypnotic. Darman licked his lips. More than ever he wanted to turn around and jump right back into the cargo hold – this female wouldn’t even be approaching him if he’d been standing here in the comfort of his Katarn-class armor. Most likely she’d be running in the opposite direction, and, to be frank, he’d feel a lot better with that reaction.
“You don’t seem to be enjoying yourself,” the woman purred. Darman found it highly distracting. “What’s a nice, handsome boy like you doing sitting by yourself?”
Darman stiffened under her attentions. “This is my first time on a cruise,” he said truthfully. He neglected to mention the fact that he wouldn’t even be topside if he hadn’t been ordered to. “And I am enjoying myself.”
“Don’t look it. You look bored.”
“Not much going on.”
“There’s plenty – you just have to get out and…mingle. But where are my manners? My name’s Injirala. Injirala M’sal,” the female said. She held out her hand imperiously, rings glittering on her flawless fingers. “But ‘Injira’ works as well.”
Darman stared at the outstretched hand, baffled as to what he was supposed to do with it. He looked up from the hand to the woman’s – to Injira’s face – and found himself wishing that he’d switched clothes with Fi. Fi would’ve probably enjoyed all this fraternizing with civvies. The thought of five hours being surrounded by these laughing, chattering and altogether alien di’kute made Darman grind his teeth in frustration.
Realizing that while he didn’t know what to do with the hand, he was probably expected to introduce himself, Darman chose to ignore the hand and stood up a little straighter.
“I’m Mirsh''kyramud ti Mir''osik,” Darman said. He had to remember to smack Fi harder for being the one to pick his alias. Mirsh''kyramud ti Mir''osik was hardly complimentary in Mando’a, amounting to a rather insulting play on words. It essentially translated in Basic to a boring person with dung for brains…and that was the polite version.
Oh, he’d definitely give Fi a good slap for this one.
Injira smiled up at him, her earrings jingling together
“A good, long name. I might have to settle for Mirsh – I’m afraid I might mangle the rest of it if I even tried!” she giggled. “Walk with me?” She held out an elbow expectantly.
What was it with females and offering body parts at him? It took Darman a brief second to realize that maybe he was supposed to take the elbow. He reached out and gingerly held onto it like it was a thermal detonator about to go off in his face; apparently he’d done something right, for Injira’s smile widened and she led him further into the deck. They passed through a sea of dancing couples, of different species and heights, and Darman had to remind himself that he had a job to do. It didn’t involve gaping.
He was here for a job. Intel said that there were only two beings of interest on this ship – a Bakuran Senator suspected of Sep sympathies and allegedly another GAR plant, a non-clone. Just what the other plant was doing here apparently wasn’t something Darman needed to know (plausible deniability), but at least his part in this would be relatively uncomplicated. Well, uncomplicated in theory.
His briefing didn’t say anything about being dragged all over the passenger deck by a strange, overly dressed female with an alarming tendency to giggle and giggle a lot.
“Let’s go by the view deck, Mirsh,” Injira was saying. For some reason, all that giggling left her out of breath, and Darman found that his eyes kept getting drawn to her ample, heaving chest. He quickly looked away.
“Just for a little while.”
Injira fluttered her long eyelashes at him. “I’d like that.”
Fierfek, maybe the Kaminoans were right, in this case, not to educate clones on females. Judging from the last minute crash course he was getting right now, Darman wasn’t too sure he liked them. If it wasn’t for the fact that he was strung up on nerves and adrenaline out of fear and paranoia right now (lack of armor and weapons tended to do that, especially if you lived by them), this Injira could be a greater distraction than she already was. He made sure to slip his free hand into his pocket and check that the one weapon he had was still there: a coil of razor thin wire, for what Fi deemed suitable for a little case of extreme close quarters introductions.
Darman hoped he wouldn’t have occasion to use it. Not that he had any qualms about killing – he was bred to kill, after all – but trying to dispose of a body with so many civvies around was bound to cause panic. Inevitably he’d have a big mess on his hands, seeing as there were a decidedly limited number of places to stash a body without someone coming across it sooner or later. Said mess would probably alert the suspect Senator to his presence. And if it was Darman versus a blaster? There was no question to what that outcome was. Darman wasn’t used to actually having to be worried about conventional blasters, not when his Katarn class armor made them pretty much obsolete.
No clone could outrun a blaster shot, not even an ARC.
“Looks like we’re about to go into hyperspace,” Injira was now saying. She leaned forward, practically spilling out of that dress, and peered out the transparisteel window with interest. Darman could feel the faint shift through the floor panels of the sub-light drives faltering, the rumble as the hyperspace ones began to kick in. “Maybe I’m just eccentric, but I love hyperspace. The blue is so gorgeous.”
This woman was either extremely observant or she had a special interest in ships to be able to tell, without an announcement from the pilots, that they were about to make a jump. Both seemed to be out of character for a female that, as far as he was concerned, was downright flighty and only seemed capable of tittering.
Again he wished Etain was here, rather than this talkative civvie.
Then came the announcement:
“Ladies and gentlemen, guests of the First Horn, I would like to announce that we will be making the jump to hyperspace in approximately three minutes,” the intercom rang out, the pilot’s voice calm and assured. “We should reach our first stop in five standard hours. Feel free to enjoy the many refreshments and forms of entertainment we of the First Horn offer. Thank you.”
Darman happened to glance around during all this. Another female, this one with the tell-tale horns of a Zabrak ringed around her tatooed head like a crown, was sitting down on a bench up against the wall, nursing a tall glass of some kind of wine. She hadn’t been there before. Darman filed her sudden presence as something to be aware of, his hand fingering the length of wire in his pocket nervously, when Injira rounded on him.
“So what do you think of this whole…war?” Injira made a little face at the word war, as if it was something with a bad smell. “Silly, isn’t it?”
Darman turned his attention on her, keeping the Zabrak at the edge of his vision. “I don’t think it’s silly,” he said. Not when my brothers are out there dying. “Not when it effects my family.”
Injira zeroed in on this. “Your family?”
“My father’s in the CSF,” Darman said stiffly. “And my little brother was in the Battle of Geonosis.”
“Was?”
“He died.”
“Oh…” Injira’s face fell into an careful study of sadness. “I’m sorry.”
Somehow she didn’t sound sorry at all.
Darman decided there and then that he didn’t care much for this Injira. He slipped his elbow out from under hers and walked a few paces away. Was it his imagination, or did that female Zabrak wink at him? When he glanced back at her, the drunken Zabrak was nodding off into her half-empty wine glass. Feeling like things were slipping more and more out of his control with the appearance of all these – these females, Darman reminded himself that he’d complicated things further by unnecessarily mingling with them.
“I should get back…”
“Oh Mirsh, please don’t,” Injira stepped forward. She touched him on the arm. She was lucky Darman didn’t have his Deece – with his nerves running this high, it would’ve been pressed against her temple in a heartbeat. “I’m sorry. I really am.”
“The war’s not a game,” Darman grunted. He was starting to get a suspicion about this female, but decided that his best bet was to play it dumb. It was amazing what people would tell you when they thought they were mentally superior. Probably best to stick to his alias and act the part of clueless mir''osik civvie.
He hesitated, as if he was really thinking about something. This Injira didn’t match the Bakuran Senator’s profile, but for all he knew, she could be close to that little Sep circle – intel had said the Senator in question probably was traveling with a Seperatist-sympathetic entourage, although they would only be tailing the Senator. Darman had five hours to try filling in the gaps in intel, and anyway, she seemed awfully intent on getting to know who he was as soon as possible. Kal’buir said that a gut feeling usually tended to be the one that pointed you in the right direction.
Usually.
“I guess I’m just confused, that’s all,” Darman sighed. He surprised even himself with how sincere he sounded.
“Is that why you’re on this little cruise?”
“…Yeah. Figure I could get time and try to sort myself out.”
Injira licked her full lips. “I feel the same way.”
Darman thought he was shaping up to be a better liar than expected. “I used to be really close with my brother,” it wasn’t hard to look down at his hands and sound shaken – all he had to do was remember how he’d lost his pod-mates, the brothers he’d known for ten years vanishing that one hot, dusty day on Geonosis. “So once he died, I started wondering…”
“…you were wondering why he died?”
“Yeah.”
“It makes sense to feel that way, Mirsh”
“I don’t know how I should feel.”
"It''s nothing to be ashamed of."
"I...I don''t like this doubt."
Injira glanced out the viewport, at the blue tunnel of hyperspace beyond the transparisteel. A little smile crossed her lips, almost sad. “I used to think that way too,” she said slowly. “I used to think why are we fighting? We’ve been neighbors, friends, and now the galaxy is torn apart because of an inability to adapt to the times.”
Darman was silent. He fingered the strangle-wire in his pocket, turning it idly over in his hands.
“We’re torn apart,” Injira said. “And if we keep to the older ways, we’ll only get torn apart again and again.”
That definitely sounded like Sep talk to Darman.
Suddenly things fell into place. Things were mercifully simple again. Now the only thing Darman had to decide was how much he could get from this woman; how much would lead him to that Bakuran Senator and identify just how many of these chakaare Seps were onboard.
Although doing all this without arousing suspicion would be considerably more difficult. Darman cheerfully decided to aim low – with low standards, he figured he couldn’t be too disappointed. He thought that if he made it out of this alive, got back with his Omega brothers and eventually saw Etain, things would be good.
Things would be simple again.
-------
Mini-Glossary
Chakaare - thieves; graverobbers
CO - Commanding Officer
CSF - Coruscant Security Force
Di''kute - idiots; morons; general insult
Fierfek - expeletive; curse
GAR - Grand Army of the Republic
Kal’buir - Father Kal
by Famira Damaris
Disclaimer: I don''t own Star Wars or any of the Republic Commando characters.
Author''s Note: Randomly decided to try continuing the short fics. Darman''s POV. Mando''a words from the nifty Mandolorian language created by Karen Traviss, cause she''s awesome like that. Glossary pretty much from RC: Triple Zero, so mostly reposted for those not familiar with some of the words reading this.
Summary: (Republic Commando, post Hard Contact) The clone commandos contemplates the simple things as Omega Squad prepares for their next mission.
--------------------
Simple Things
--------------------
(RC-1136 "Darman" )
Simple to Darman was wishing he was back with his brothers.
Right now that was all he could think about.
Being surrounded by so many civilians made him nervous, really nervous, and he found himself unconsciously keeping to the walls of the ballroom, wishing he had his good old Deece on hand to make him feel less…well, less vulnerable. All clones of course knew hand to hand combat, but it was usually under the assumption that the clone in question would be wearing his issued armor, with at least a vibroblade in hand. Darman was neither in his armor, nor armed with a vibroblade.
In fact, this was the first time in his brief life – that he could remember – where he was completely and utterly naked.
Darman didn’t like it.
He liked it less that not only was he unarmed, but he was also surrounded by a countless number of civvies, many of which were dressed in strange, bewilderingly expensive clothes capable of easily concealing a Verpine or hold-out blaster in those furred mantles and sweeping robes. Danger seemed to be everywhere. Darman fidgeted. The briefing had been simple, even the last minute orders from Omega’s CO regarding the plant (himself) in the main passenger tier, but sitting here, waiting for the luxury transport to make it to its destination, simple seemed pretty far away.
Actually, if there was a way to defy all he knew from flash instructions about physics and travel back in time, Darman wouldn’t mind being back on Qiilura. The civilian population had been considerably less dense, certainly not invading whatever sense of personal space he had, and he’d been with his brothers.
And Etain.
This was his first time seeing so many human females all in one place and he honestly didn’t know what to make of them. They appeared to be of all sorts of different shapes and sizes, more than he thought could even be possible. The Kaminoans hadn’t exactly included much in the way of humans and their social structures in the flash instruction curriculum and it showed – Darman couldn’t help feeling dazzled and disoriented by all the variety surrounding him. There were large human females, with rings and necklaces straining around their bulging necks, stick-thin ones he could probably snap in half who carried themselves as if they hadn’t a fear in the world, sweeping past with a tinkle of elaborate headdresses.
But none of them were Etain.
None seemed to exude that strange energy that she did, though many of them were probably a lot better looking. Not that he was any expert on human looks – all he knew was that they were all different, dizzyingly so. Something about them made him want to curl his lip in disgust, though he couldn’t quite place a finger on it. He doubted that these females, unlike Etain, would be willing to get down and dirty to do a job, be willing to sacrifice a lightsaber in order to use a conc cannon and do it without any complaints whatsoever.
In short, they were shadows, and as far as Darman was concerned, they were nuisances and distractions.
He managed, just barely, not to jump when one of the white-suited waiters suddenly materialized in front of him with a tray of glasses in his face.
“Cocktail, sir? We’ve got everything from Baaldish to Nubian,” the other man said. He flashed him a very white, very even smile. “It’s on the house for tonight – you look like you could use one,” he added, dropping his voice to what he thought was a whisper, “if you’re shy.”
Darman blinked. “Shy?” he asked intelligently.
“You know what I mean,” the waiter winked.
Darman didn’t know what he meant.
“Some of the other guests wouldn’t mind a word with you,” the waiter said. He flicked his eyes toward one of the thinner females, one of the ones dressed in the more opulent dresses and finery. She happened to look over and catch Darman’s eyes, her red lips curving up in a strange little smile that made him feel uncomfortable. “You stand out.”
That was the last thing Darman wanted to hear.
He glanced down at what he wore: some kind of black slacks with red lining the sides, a jacket with trim of the same color, and a belt slung across his hip. The belt didn’t even have a holster for a blaster, not even a small one, which struck him as utterly useless. It didn’t help that the pants were too tight to smuggle in a vibroblade underneath them; he’d most certainly tried, but the outline of the knife could be seen through the slacks and so he’d had to go without. Had he been spotted for what he was? Darman was supposed to be the only clone on the passenger tiers, so that shouldn’t have happened…
The waiter didn’t notice his hesitation. He lifted one of the finely wrought glasses from his tray, some kind of clear purple liquid swishing about inside, and gave it to Darman. He accepted it but didn’t taste it. Distracted or not, he wasn’t about to go trying out strange drinks in a place that made him feel this uncomfortable. He reminded himself to pour it out somewhere next change he got.
That chance looked like it was a long way from coming.
The woman from before, with the red-painted lips and the disconcerting smile, was now heading in his direction, her hips swaying this way and that in a fashion that bordered on hypnotic. Darman licked his lips. More than ever he wanted to turn around and jump right back into the cargo hold – this female wouldn’t even be approaching him if he’d been standing here in the comfort of his Katarn-class armor. Most likely she’d be running in the opposite direction, and, to be frank, he’d feel a lot better with that reaction.
“You don’t seem to be enjoying yourself,” the woman purred. Darman found it highly distracting. “What’s a nice, handsome boy like you doing sitting by yourself?”
Darman stiffened under her attentions. “This is my first time on a cruise,” he said truthfully. He neglected to mention the fact that he wouldn’t even be topside if he hadn’t been ordered to. “And I am enjoying myself.”
“Don’t look it. You look bored.”
“Not much going on.”
“There’s plenty – you just have to get out and…mingle. But where are my manners? My name’s Injirala. Injirala M’sal,” the female said. She held out her hand imperiously, rings glittering on her flawless fingers. “But ‘Injira’ works as well.”
Darman stared at the outstretched hand, baffled as to what he was supposed to do with it. He looked up from the hand to the woman’s – to Injira’s face – and found himself wishing that he’d switched clothes with Fi. Fi would’ve probably enjoyed all this fraternizing with civvies. The thought of five hours being surrounded by these laughing, chattering and altogether alien di’kute made Darman grind his teeth in frustration.
Realizing that while he didn’t know what to do with the hand, he was probably expected to introduce himself, Darman chose to ignore the hand and stood up a little straighter.
“I’m Mirsh''kyramud ti Mir''osik,” Darman said. He had to remember to smack Fi harder for being the one to pick his alias. Mirsh''kyramud ti Mir''osik was hardly complimentary in Mando’a, amounting to a rather insulting play on words. It essentially translated in Basic to a boring person with dung for brains…and that was the polite version.
Oh, he’d definitely give Fi a good slap for this one.
Injira smiled up at him, her earrings jingling together
“A good, long name. I might have to settle for Mirsh – I’m afraid I might mangle the rest of it if I even tried!” she giggled. “Walk with me?” She held out an elbow expectantly.
What was it with females and offering body parts at him? It took Darman a brief second to realize that maybe he was supposed to take the elbow. He reached out and gingerly held onto it like it was a thermal detonator about to go off in his face; apparently he’d done something right, for Injira’s smile widened and she led him further into the deck. They passed through a sea of dancing couples, of different species and heights, and Darman had to remind himself that he had a job to do. It didn’t involve gaping.
He was here for a job. Intel said that there were only two beings of interest on this ship – a Bakuran Senator suspected of Sep sympathies and allegedly another GAR plant, a non-clone. Just what the other plant was doing here apparently wasn’t something Darman needed to know (plausible deniability), but at least his part in this would be relatively uncomplicated. Well, uncomplicated in theory.
His briefing didn’t say anything about being dragged all over the passenger deck by a strange, overly dressed female with an alarming tendency to giggle and giggle a lot.
“Let’s go by the view deck, Mirsh,” Injira was saying. For some reason, all that giggling left her out of breath, and Darman found that his eyes kept getting drawn to her ample, heaving chest. He quickly looked away.
“Just for a little while.”
Injira fluttered her long eyelashes at him. “I’d like that.”
Fierfek, maybe the Kaminoans were right, in this case, not to educate clones on females. Judging from the last minute crash course he was getting right now, Darman wasn’t too sure he liked them. If it wasn’t for the fact that he was strung up on nerves and adrenaline out of fear and paranoia right now (lack of armor and weapons tended to do that, especially if you lived by them), this Injira could be a greater distraction than she already was. He made sure to slip his free hand into his pocket and check that the one weapon he had was still there: a coil of razor thin wire, for what Fi deemed suitable for a little case of extreme close quarters introductions.
Darman hoped he wouldn’t have occasion to use it. Not that he had any qualms about killing – he was bred to kill, after all – but trying to dispose of a body with so many civvies around was bound to cause panic. Inevitably he’d have a big mess on his hands, seeing as there were a decidedly limited number of places to stash a body without someone coming across it sooner or later. Said mess would probably alert the suspect Senator to his presence. And if it was Darman versus a blaster? There was no question to what that outcome was. Darman wasn’t used to actually having to be worried about conventional blasters, not when his Katarn class armor made them pretty much obsolete.
No clone could outrun a blaster shot, not even an ARC.
“Looks like we’re about to go into hyperspace,” Injira was now saying. She leaned forward, practically spilling out of that dress, and peered out the transparisteel window with interest. Darman could feel the faint shift through the floor panels of the sub-light drives faltering, the rumble as the hyperspace ones began to kick in. “Maybe I’m just eccentric, but I love hyperspace. The blue is so gorgeous.”
This woman was either extremely observant or she had a special interest in ships to be able to tell, without an announcement from the pilots, that they were about to make a jump. Both seemed to be out of character for a female that, as far as he was concerned, was downright flighty and only seemed capable of tittering.
Again he wished Etain was here, rather than this talkative civvie.
Then came the announcement:
“Ladies and gentlemen, guests of the First Horn, I would like to announce that we will be making the jump to hyperspace in approximately three minutes,” the intercom rang out, the pilot’s voice calm and assured. “We should reach our first stop in five standard hours. Feel free to enjoy the many refreshments and forms of entertainment we of the First Horn offer. Thank you.”
Darman happened to glance around during all this. Another female, this one with the tell-tale horns of a Zabrak ringed around her tatooed head like a crown, was sitting down on a bench up against the wall, nursing a tall glass of some kind of wine. She hadn’t been there before. Darman filed her sudden presence as something to be aware of, his hand fingering the length of wire in his pocket nervously, when Injira rounded on him.
“So what do you think of this whole…war?” Injira made a little face at the word war, as if it was something with a bad smell. “Silly, isn’t it?”
Darman turned his attention on her, keeping the Zabrak at the edge of his vision. “I don’t think it’s silly,” he said. Not when my brothers are out there dying. “Not when it effects my family.”
Injira zeroed in on this. “Your family?”
“My father’s in the CSF,” Darman said stiffly. “And my little brother was in the Battle of Geonosis.”
“Was?”
“He died.”
“Oh…” Injira’s face fell into an careful study of sadness. “I’m sorry.”
Somehow she didn’t sound sorry at all.
Darman decided there and then that he didn’t care much for this Injira. He slipped his elbow out from under hers and walked a few paces away. Was it his imagination, or did that female Zabrak wink at him? When he glanced back at her, the drunken Zabrak was nodding off into her half-empty wine glass. Feeling like things were slipping more and more out of his control with the appearance of all these – these females, Darman reminded himself that he’d complicated things further by unnecessarily mingling with them.
“I should get back…”
“Oh Mirsh, please don’t,” Injira stepped forward. She touched him on the arm. She was lucky Darman didn’t have his Deece – with his nerves running this high, it would’ve been pressed against her temple in a heartbeat. “I’m sorry. I really am.”
“The war’s not a game,” Darman grunted. He was starting to get a suspicion about this female, but decided that his best bet was to play it dumb. It was amazing what people would tell you when they thought they were mentally superior. Probably best to stick to his alias and act the part of clueless mir''osik civvie.
He hesitated, as if he was really thinking about something. This Injira didn’t match the Bakuran Senator’s profile, but for all he knew, she could be close to that little Sep circle – intel had said the Senator in question probably was traveling with a Seperatist-sympathetic entourage, although they would only be tailing the Senator. Darman had five hours to try filling in the gaps in intel, and anyway, she seemed awfully intent on getting to know who he was as soon as possible. Kal’buir said that a gut feeling usually tended to be the one that pointed you in the right direction.
Usually.
“I guess I’m just confused, that’s all,” Darman sighed. He surprised even himself with how sincere he sounded.
“Is that why you’re on this little cruise?”
“…Yeah. Figure I could get time and try to sort myself out.”
Injira licked her full lips. “I feel the same way.”
Darman thought he was shaping up to be a better liar than expected. “I used to be really close with my brother,” it wasn’t hard to look down at his hands and sound shaken – all he had to do was remember how he’d lost his pod-mates, the brothers he’d known for ten years vanishing that one hot, dusty day on Geonosis. “So once he died, I started wondering…”
“…you were wondering why he died?”
“Yeah.”
“It makes sense to feel that way, Mirsh”
“I don’t know how I should feel.”
"It''s nothing to be ashamed of."
"I...I don''t like this doubt."
Injira glanced out the viewport, at the blue tunnel of hyperspace beyond the transparisteel. A little smile crossed her lips, almost sad. “I used to think that way too,” she said slowly. “I used to think why are we fighting? We’ve been neighbors, friends, and now the galaxy is torn apart because of an inability to adapt to the times.”
Darman was silent. He fingered the strangle-wire in his pocket, turning it idly over in his hands.
“We’re torn apart,” Injira said. “And if we keep to the older ways, we’ll only get torn apart again and again.”
That definitely sounded like Sep talk to Darman.
Suddenly things fell into place. Things were mercifully simple again. Now the only thing Darman had to decide was how much he could get from this woman; how much would lead him to that Bakuran Senator and identify just how many of these chakaare Seps were onboard.
Although doing all this without arousing suspicion would be considerably more difficult. Darman cheerfully decided to aim low – with low standards, he figured he couldn’t be too disappointed. He thought that if he made it out of this alive, got back with his Omega brothers and eventually saw Etain, things would be good.
Things would be simple again.
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Mini-Glossary
Chakaare - thieves; graverobbers
CO - Commanding Officer
CSF - Coruscant Security Force
Di''kute - idiots; morons; general insult
Fierfek - expeletive; curse
GAR - Grand Army of the Republic
Kal’buir - Father Kal
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