Star Wars Republic Commando: Knight of Honor ✓

Chapter 28

Author's Note: Thanks to everyone for all the support! You've been great with inspiring me, and I am highly appreciative of your input. 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

Buy'ce (BOO-chay, BOO-shay): helmet; Colloquially: pint, bucket    

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 28

I needed to be free, to be able to live and explore. Bringing you into the galaxy was the greatest accomplishment I had done to date, but you didn't deserve a mother who would never be able to provide you with the attention a child requires. It would be unfair and cruel to stay with you, and we would only be miserable in our expected duties.

Excerpt from Queen Darian Psach's farewell letter to Princess Arlesse

Tochin Moon III, 786 Days ABG

As Jas returned his hand to the blaster, he felt Les'ika become less tense, her trust taking over and pushing aside her fear. He continued to instruct her gently, refusing to have her lose the opportunity to understand a moment in his world. "Remember to watch your target and don't close your eyes."

Raising her arms a fraction higher, Jas lined up the shot he had planned for her. His thumb clicked off the safety, and he felt her hands tremble slightly. "Fire."

Arlesse pulled her finger on the trigger, surprised at the minimal pressure it needed and recoiled gently into Jas, aware of how she curled slightly into his chest and arms. She realized that the weapon didn't draw enough power to push her against him, but she recoiled away from the tiny explosion that created a blue bolt releasing from the barrel. The azure bolt was deadly and entrancing, and she could never imagine having to fight through an endless sea of them, like Jas and so many of his soldier brothers were forced to do.

Forcing her thoughts back to the moment, Arlesse realized that the blaster bolt she had fired managed to land near the top of the large rock as a stain of black carbon scoring indicated the hit.

By now, Jas had set the safety back in place and began to loosen her fingers from the blaster. He clicked on the button inside his helmet once more and brought his arms from around her. "Test complete."

Again it was Mouse. "Confirmed."

"You've done that since you were a child?" Arlesse asked in awe, hoping for another moment to be wrapped in his arms again.

Jas nodded as he put the blaster back into the holster. "You either mastered it or you didn't return from the training exercises."

"Why were they so brutal to you, to all of you?" she asked, the thought of children being injured and killed sickening her.

"It was training," Jas explained. "We had to be the best. Someone in the Republic had paid for the best soldiers the Kaminoans could create. That's what the GAR became: cloned soldiers who survived training session after training session."

"I'll never understand it," she admitted. "It's cruel and inhumane."

"So is being kidnapped by a mercenary like Hazar," Jas countered.