79's was an escape when we did finally get allotted time off for the sake of our small Jedi's sanity.

Or maybe it was because he needed to report in after not going back to the Jedi Temple after a week. Apparently, being a Padawan came with some restrictions about where and when you could do things that a fully fledged Jedi did not.

I tried not to get too wrapped up in all of the Jedi side of things throughout the whole process considering just how absolutely mind-numbing it could get sometimes.

Still, we had precious little time off, and we did somewhat enjoy spending it crowded into a small booth and unwinding with copious amounts of alcohol while pointedly ignoring the comments we'd get from the other Clones. We knew that they didn't like us and it suited us just fine at the end of the day. We weren't bred to be likable. There was just a tiny part of it that stung as much as we tried to deny it. It's not as if we enjoyed throwing our brothers in jail for a night. I mean, some of us did, sure, because they were bloody psychopaths, but most of the time, had we not likely been hit with any serious paperwork, we wouldn't have even bothered to pick them up in the first place.

Still, that night had been rather average. We had all crowded into a booth and were trying to relax. Tor physically couldn't. He was seeing violations of every rule in the book and I swore he was about to explode, so Red was trying his best to keep him focused on other things. Grek was too busy knocking back drinks to really care much about anything. I, on the other hand, was attempting not to focus on work. It was nearly impossible. I was almost as bad as Tor - oh, who am I kidding?

No one is as bad as Tor.

I was eventually more focused on the looks we kept getting from passing Clones and it was making my palms itch. Being stared at was not something I enjoyed, but it wasn't anything I could feasibly ignore for a couple of hours if it meant relaxing for the first time in what felt like kriffing years.

"Captain Put-down?" I rolled my eyes at the voice I heard from up at the bar nearby, but I saw Red's eyes light up and he started waving furiously at someone. "He's over there with the rest of the Fun Police."

Tor looked like he was having a hernia. "How did he get in here? That's illegal!"

"Would you shut up?" Red snapped, and before long I understood why that over-sized Akk Dog of a Clone was acting like he was.

"Great! I found you!" I turned and found Talen, hood down now, grinning at me as Grek made an excited "Hey" beside me and Red shoved Tor farther into the booth to make room for Talen, who slid in beside him practically bouncing with excitement, "I have some good news-!"

"That couldn't wait until we finished our shore leave?" I raised an eyebrow and Talen grabbed at his braid quickly.

"No. Not really. We have a lead. Failed assassination attempt on Hosnian Prime. Same setup and everything."

Well, that was definitely a reason to show up at a Clone bar, I suppose.

"How," Tor leaned across Red, "did you get in here? There's an age limit and everything! You literally look like you're four!" Red put his hand on Tor's face and shoved him unceremoniously back into the booth with a roll of his eyes.

Talen just held up a hand and gave it a small wave, "The bouncer isn't a Clone."

Mind tricks. Of course.

It made Grek bark out a laugh, "I should get you a drink for that one, Tiny!"

"Absolutely not!" Tor looked ready to catch on fire as Red again pushed him back down into the booth as he started to get ready to climb across the table between us and strangle Grek.

"What do we know about the assassin?" I asked as Tor and Red began arguing beside Talen, who was watching and glancing back at me periodically and begging for help with his eyes.

"He's got a small squad that moves with him. Apparently he's being tailed by bounty hunters to make matters even more interesting," he leaned across the table and raised his voice so I could hear him.

"Also means he's likely leaving a trail."

"Precisely," Talen grinned at me across the table. "If there's a trail..."

"...we can find it," I nodded slowly and sat back in the booth. "That why they called you to the Temple?"

"Partly..." Talen grabbed at his braid again. "I can't talk about it much."

Typical Jedi secrecy.

Talen must have felt my annoyance because he shot me a sympathetic smile, "I'm sorry, Kando."

"Not your fault," I replied with a shrug as I saw Red narrow his eyes at a passing Clone who was smirking at us as he walked past.

"Seeing you shabs with a Jedi is almost comedic after all that bluster you four said!"

"Go be drunk somewhere else!" Red snapped.

I decided it was high time to leave. Nothing, I was finding out, made Red quicker to throw punches than our little Jedi. We stood up, Tor paid the tab, and we headed out, dodging drunken Clones and other patrons as we went. I hadn't really noticed until we had stepped outside that I had placed a hand on Talen's shoulder and I was guiding him out of the bar like you would a little kid in a crowded room.

I didn't take my hand off his shoulder until we were waiting by the curb for the cab we called to show up. It was actually the first time I noticed I was doing it until Red was shooting me a knowing smile that told me all too well that I was going to be catching guff about it later. I hastily took it off and passed a hand back over my neck. I'll be the first to admit that I forgot he was more than just a kid sometimes. I was always tersely reminded when he would whip out a lightsaber and disarm people with a flick of a wrist. Most of the time, though...

Part of me hated the Jedi for more than just what they did to us Clones. Part of me hated what they made kids do. I saw the Padawans on Christophsis. They were barely older than Talen. Kids shouldn't be made to see war, let alone participate in it, but there they were. It's cheap, I know, since I'm training Imperial cadets to do the same thing now, but it still sits with me the wrong way. They did the same thing to us on Kamino. It's not right then and it isn't right now. I hate it.

The cab finally arrived and we all piled in. Talen wound up between me and Red, and when the others got all caught up in their conversation, I cast a look at the kid and saw him struggling to keep his eyes open.

Talen was drifting off slowly but surely in the back of that cab, and before long I found that head of pale hair on my shoulder. His cheek was resting on my upper arm and he had leaned against my arm. What amazed me was that his hands had found the one on the arm that he was laying against like some small child, and I wondered how much of his childhood had ever felt someone so close.

It was odd to me to have someone who wasn't one of my brothers so... tactile. I mean, we Clones were. We were all bout the friendly punches, the playful smacks, the messing up of many a haircut, you know. That never extended to people beyond us, though. No one else ever got that close.

At least, not until Talen came along.

And I didn't have the heart to tell him to move.

*

Hosnian Prime was an interesting planet not all too different from Coruscant. It was a planet of big cities and bustling metropolises that seemed to stretch on for an eternity. It was cosmopolitan, and when we stepped off the shuttle for the first time, Talen's eyes got as big around as saucers. It occurred to me that he likely hadn't seen much outside of Chandrilla and Coruscant, even if he had been on Geonosis and who knows where else. It was places untouched by the war that he probably was in awe of, planets at peace and beautiful rather than the usual decrepit warzones he was used to looking at.

Admittedly, we all seemed to be in agreement that it was a profound step up from our usual haunts. It beat the lower levels of Coruscant and Nar Shaddaa.

"This place is so..." He seemed to fumble for a word for a minute, an uncommon occurrence for our usually eloquent little Jedi. "Alive," he settled on the word, letting it out slowly and with a childlike edge of awe in his voice. "There's... death, yes, but not like on Geonosis. Everything here is vibrant. It's almost a bit too... much."

"Need a minute?" Grek asked as he elbowed Talen's shoulder.

Talen shook his head with a grin as he pushed his hood off, "No, but it does feel amazing. Now, let's go find our assassin, shall we?"

Talen knew better than us where he was going and moved through the streets like he owned the place. His confidence was refreshing, and it did feel good to not have to be on guard constantly. Hosnian was a civil planet, at least.

We meandered through the city with Talen leading us, and when we finally arrived at the security station, the guards had been expecting us and we got the first half-decent welcome in our entire time on the investigation. Local authorities only wanted to talk with Talen, though, so we found ourselves sidelined for a while until our Jedi finally reemerged looking rather satisfied with the outcome.

The funniest part was how little time it took us to find the people we were looking for once we met with the security. We had headed to that rooftop and walked straight into the middle of a shootout. Talen had deflected a bolt that would have hit Tor square in the face, and we managed to jump behind the walls of stairwells and small roof entrances.

"This is fun!" Grek shouted as he charged up his Z-6.

It didn't take much to decipher who was who. There was a group of three or four armored men squaring off against what appeared to be bounty hunters, but not just any old bounty hunters. I had seen enough of them on Kamino to realize in a matter of seconds exactly what these were.

Mandalorians.

Whoever had hired them to track down our assassin was one rich client. Mandos weren't cheap on the bounty hunting market. They bragged about that much enough on Kamino for me to have known about it.

The problem was that they were also shooting at us at the same time. It didn't help, of course, that Red and Grek were shooting at them, too, because those di'kute lacked all manner of impulse control. Tor and I managed to set our blasters for stun and knocked one of the guys clean out before the others fell in a flurry of blaster fire that didn't seem too sure who it was directed towards.

We had hopped up to go help the others when the Mandalorians vaulted over the small wall they ahd been using as cover and actually started attacking Grek and Red. It was hand to hand combat, luckily, because if they had gotten shot I'm sure that the Mandos wouldn't have missed their mark. Poor Talen got his legs kicked out from under him after he force pushed one of the three away from Red long enough for him to retaliate. We all seemed to notice pretty quickly that we should have been fighting someone else when we realzied that the other group of people were completely gone by that point.

"Chakaare!" One of the three Mandalorians shouted as a speeder took off somewhere down below us. They were rather obviously unhappy, and one of them started towards us absolutely fuming, if his body language was anything to go by, "Typical Republic law enforcement! Always getting in the way! We almost had the shabuir until you five showed up! Why were you shooting at us?"

We were staring them in the face as we walked up to meet them, Talen at our head with the rest of us keeping hands on our weapons. They were quite the sight. Three beskar'gam helmets, all painted in three different ways, matching three sets of different armor.

They were definitely Mandalorians. It didn't take much for us to figure that out when one snapped a pistol up into Talen's face after he had snatched him up by the wrist and promptly disarmed him, "Step back, chakaare, or I'll aerate your skulls for you."

"Wanna try that?" I had forced myself between them, forcing the blaster flat against my breastplate.

"Wylan, vod, calm down," the other man of the three grabbed his wrist and lowered his arm before turning his helmeted face back to us. "They're just a bunch of Kaminii and some..." the helmet turned its attention to Talen, "...small child."

"He's a Jedi," I corrected tersely. Talen may have been a kid and, worse, a Jedi, but he was still my commander.

And I'd be damned if anyone was going to disrespect him when I was around.

"Aw, look," the one they called Wylan sneered from behind his helmet, "the hound knows how to snarl. Cute." He holstered his blaster and stepped right up to me. He was so close that our breastplates were almost touching as he reached up and pulled his helmet off. He was an older man with greying hair and a scar the cut clean across his face, "I'm not afraid of you, Kaminii, and I'm not afraid of your Jeti'ika, either."

I'm not easily intimidated, but that Mandalorian made me grateful that I had my helmet on until I collected myself. I finally reached up and took mine off once I had steadied myself and held it down by my side, "I'm not afraid of you either, besom. Now, show my commander some respect before I beat it into you."

There was a beat of silence so heavy you could have felt it on your shoulders before it was finally broken by the other Mandalorian. The other man barked out a laugh before he grabbed Wylan by the shoulders and dragged him back, "Enough, Wylan! This one has fire! I like him!" He reached up and took his helmet off as well, revealing an equally old man with a face streaked with scars, but more square on the whole than the other man.

They were both all whipcord muscles and sharp lines, both speaking with thick Concordian accents that bespoke them hailing from the moon full of exiles. They were true Mandalorians like the ones who trained the Commandos on Kamino. For their apparent age, they were remarkably well put together, and in those warrior types, it meant that they were beyond dangerous. The older a warrior, the more experience he had, and that was threatening.

"Ros, are you serious?"

"Wylan, listen to him. He speaks our language and he's got a shred of honor. Let's be reasonable," Ros turned to me with a grin. "Got a name, Kaminii?"

"CT-Seven-"

"No, I mean a name."

I hesitated a second before I replied with, "Kando."

"Worth, eh? I like it. Ros Beroya. This is Wylan Ordo, my tal'vod. This," he gestured to the woman beside him, who finally reached up and pulled off her helmet, "is my riduur, Kothe."

She was quite a number of years younger than him, not enough to be strange but enough to be noticeable when you saw them standing beside one another. She stood taller than him with auburn hair cut at her jaw and a scar going down her bottom lip. "You have guts," she began with a laugh. "Not many people stand up to Wylan like that."

"Fewer do and live," Wylan grumbled beside Ros, but he made no move to come at me again.

"Sorry about any shots we took at you. We've been hired to hunt down that bounty hunter. The rest of you have names, too?"

"This is Talen Jall, Red, Grek, and Tor." As I said their names, all of my squadmates removed their helmets. Judging from Kothe's expression, she hadn't been expecting us all to be perfectly identical. "We've been assigned to this case by the Senate."

Ros gave a low whistle as he looked between us, "You know, I always knew you were clones, but kriff, you all really do look like Jango."

"Funny," Wylan added, "that the Senate assigned you because a Senator hired us to kill them."

Talen stepped forward past me at the news, "Who?"

"We were paid for discretion, Jeti'ika," Kothe waved her hand at the question. "Your little investigation doesn't concern us. We're here to do a job."

Grek had moved up beside me with Red and Tor and crossed their arms across their chests, forming something of a defensive line between them and our Jedi. Ros looked between us all again with a half-cocked grin and folded his arms over his chest before he passed a glance to Wylan, "I will never not be impressed." Wylan gave a dramatic roll of his eyes before Ros coughed a bit and readjusted himself, "Hey, I'm practical. Listen, we're hunting them. Your job is to find them. We have shoot on-site orders, but hey, whoever said you couldn't rough'em up a bit first and get your information, eh? What do you say to teaming up?"

Wylan looked ready to explode, Grek and Red looked starstruck, Tor looked more than a little apprehensive, Kothe seemed nonplussed at the idea, and Talen was just sort of staring at them. I was more surprised than anything else, but instinctively I turned to Talen, "Up to you, sir."

"Ros," Wylan had spun to him, "you cannot be serious."

"Oh, but I am. As serious as tihaar. They've got that Concordian blood in them. No harm there."

"They may have Jango Fett's blood in their veins, but they are not us," Wylan snarled as he looked back at us with an expression on his face that matched the venom in his eyes. "They are not Mando'ade. They serve the Republic that allowed us to be exiled!"

"You're right," Ros slowly turned to him with a look that was absolutely frigid, "but they've shown that they have a shred of honor behind those helmets, so you will treat them with respect. Or have you forgotten your own honor in favor of your hatred?" Wylan's jaw clicked shut as he went to protest, and he crossed his arms over his chest with a snort of resignation. Whatever he picked up in Ros' steely reprimand went over my head at that point. "I'm not saying we adopt them, tal'vod," Ros continued after a moment of uneasy silence between them, his jovial tone returning. "Just that we..." he seemed to consider his words a moment before he nodded finally, "...cooperate."

"What do you want in exchange?" Talen asked. It was a prudent question, one I was going to ask about if he didn't.

"Just that we get our bounties at the end of the day. That's all," Ros gave a shrug of his shoulders and glanced at Kothe, who nodded in agreement to the simply said statement. "Nothing more, nothing less."

"That's it?" Talen asked and cocked his head to the side.

The groan from the downed man nearby made all of our heads turn to him and the Mandalorians all glanced at us. "You taking that one?" Ros asked, jerking his chin to the Quarren who was attempting to sit up.

Talen wasted no time in closing the distance and kneeling down before the Quarren. I saw his hand start going to work, "Who are you working for?" The Quarren stared at him for a minute, a strained look of confusion on his tentacled face. "Who are you working for?"

"Ah... I'm... I'm working... Get out of my head!"

Talen frowned and reached out, placing his fingers on the Quarren's forehead as I moved to stand beside him, "You will tell me who you work for," he repeated, his voice calm and almost steely as he spoke.

The Quarren's eyes snapped forward like he was in some fixated trance. "I... I-I w-work for S-Sota'ven."

"Where can we find him?"

"He... hee... he is g-going b-b-back to Ry-Ryloth-th."