Star Wars Republic Commando: Knight of Honor ✓

Chapter 19

Author's Note: If you have any tips writing tips, please feel free to comment.

As always, I continue to hope that I am doing justice to the spirit of Star Wars as well the respective authors and characters from which I borrow. Again, I gratefully accept constructive criticism as a means to help me develop my skills further as a writer.

Mandalorian (Mando'a) words

Di'kut (DEE-koot): idiot, useless individual, waste of space (lit. someone who forgets to put their pants on)  

Ika (EE-kah): diminutive suffix written as 'ika - also added to a name as a very familiar or childhood form, e.g, Ord'ika - Little Ordo

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Chapter 19

The other squads had called us the Reject Squad practically from the moment the Kaminoans had released us from our incubation pods. They couldn't understand how we could argue and fight amongst ourselves so consistently. I guess when you're told you're a reject often enough, at some point you begin to believe it. I can't say when exactly it happened, but we realized that if we were going to be considered rejects, then we would be sure to use it to our advantage. It didn't take us long to learn how to bend the rules and show our superiors they were wrong. More importantly, we specialized in proving how our superiors were wrong.

RC-1168 "Dusty" reminiscing about his time in the GAR

Tochin Moon III, 784 Days ABG

Jas brought his eyes to hers, knowing that regardless of everything he told her earlier, she would carry that trooper's life with her forever. Their nameless brother would not be forgotten, and she would see to it that she never failed to remember the man who sacrificed himself for her safety. He wondered if she would remember the rest of them just as strongly when they finally got her home. 

Then, he closed down the thought and decided it wasn't worth it to speculate over someone that he knew would never cross paths with them again.

Arlesse rotated the skewer in the fire carefully, seeming to watch the fruit as it touched the flames. She kept it moving so it would not burn, but her actions gave the impression that she had done this process before. She let a small smile touch her lips, and her shyness about something became obvious.

"I'm sure that you'll see me as nothing but a pretty and silly girl, but I would like to share with you a moment of my past," she quietly offered.

"I love to hear civilian stories," Dusty smiled. "It makes me grateful that I'm not one of them."

Arlesse laughed gently and was glad that these soldiers wouldn't mind hearing about her privileged childhood. She looked quickly amongst them, trying to not be disheartened by Jas' seeming lack of interest. "When I was a child, I had a bad habit of sneaking sweets. Udi was the palace cook at the time of my youth, and she caught me one day when I was about nine years old trying to hide a small cake under my nightgown and sneak it out of the kitchen for a late night snack. I thought for certain that I was in trouble, and when my father would find out I would lose my nightly dessert for a week. Instead of telling my father, though, Udi sat me down before one of the fire ovens and handed me a skewered RubyFruit. She worked with me for an hour, teaching me exactly how to heat it just right."

Arlesse then pulled the fruit from the flame and removed the stick, putting it aside to cool. Picking up another one, she did the same, being very careful about how much heat the fruit received. "Udi and I made up a dozen or so of these treats that night. She told me that the trick was to heat them just enough and then set them aside for about ten minutes to cool."