Worth: A Star Wars Story

8. The Padawan

"How old are you, ad'ika?" Kothe was sliding on her vambraces as we prepped to head out early that following morning. She looked over at Talen as she spoke.

"Fourteen."

That made me stop. I could have sworn that he was younger.

"Ah, I remember being that young," Ros sighed with a melancholic shake of his head. "Killed my first Reek at that age. It's a magical time."

"You also fell into a herd of nerfs and screamed for your father to pull you out."

"Wylan..." Ros slowly turned his head to the other Mando, and I caught the briefest flash of a smile on Wylan's face before he slid his helmet on and turned to me. 

"You. Alor'ad. You're with me. We're scouting out the compounds to the West."

"Orar. Kade. Take the jeti'ika and keep down the roads until me, the Kaminii, and your brothers get back. Kothe, sky." Ros nodded and turned to look at the other members of my squad and nodded, "You're with me, boys. Don't worry, Cap. I'll keep them in one piece."

"I'm holding you to that," I nodded as I headed off after Wylan, who was already going on ahead of me.

I found myself following along beside Wylan in relative silence, so I took some time to observe him a little bit. I remember seeing the Mandos on Kamino when I was little. We standard Clones got trained by regular bounty hunters, but Jango had apparently called in the big guns for the original ARCs and the Commandos. They were covered in beskar and had an energy about them that was dangerous. I remembered Omega and Delta, remembered how they seemed to adore Skirata and respect Vau, and how the Mandos all had that sense of pride when I saw them looking at their cadets. We never got that from our hunters, not the same way. Wylan reminded me more of the Mandos like Vau. While not as physically imposing as Ros, there was something about Wylan that radiated a lethal energy. It was that primal part of your brain that recognizes predators that triggered something almost instinctual when I looked at Wylan.

"You gonna say something, Kaminii, or are you going to walk along staring at me like I'm an albino nexu?" I saw Wylan adjust his blaster - a sniper file with some fancy custom attachments from the look of it - and turn just enough to look at me over his shoulder.

"Wasn't sure how to start," I replied as I closed the small gap between us so that we could actually talk. Being fair to me, Wylan never struck me much as the type of Mando who would just decide to have a chat with you.

He grunted quietly and rolled his shoulders as he walked. "Let's start with an easy one, then. The jeti'ika, what do you think of him?" He looked over at me. I couldn't read a thing behind his helmet. It reminded me of something we had heard while running a training mission with some commandos back on Kamino. They said that they could just... feel their eyes. They always knew when the Mandos were looking at them. "What? Not allowed to smack talk the Jedi?"

"I'll do a lot," I turned to meet his gaze for the first time, "but I won't smack talk the kid. "

"He one of the good ones?"

"I lost a lot of brothers to bad commanders on Geonosis. Talen is a good kid, and I can tell that someday, he'll be smart enough to listen to his Clones when the time comes. That, and he's a kid."

"And a Jedi."

I stopped and turned to face him, and he took a few more steps and turned to face me. "You don't know a karking thing about that kid."

"You're right!" Wylan stalked towards me, voice dripping with sarcasm. "I don't! Except, I know the one thing that matters: he's a Jedi. They're brainwashed, self-righteous chakarre who think they're better sinners than the rest of us - who always know what justice is. They got involved in Mandalorian politics because Adonai Kryze's ade ran screaming to them for help and now..." The bitterness was so clear in his voice that it genuinely surprised me if I was being honest. I hadn't taken Wylan for someone liable to get so emotional, but there he was, hand tightening around his blaster as he stalked his way over to me, "and now we're fugitives running from a world rightfully ours."