literature

Friends in Strange Places

Deviation Actions

zang-zip's avatar
By
Published:
3.5K Views

Badge Awards

Literature Text

                                                                                     Part One
                            Tipoca City, Kamino, five years before the Battle of Geonosis


    Garrett Carr walked down the stark, white corridors to his domicile, favoring his good knee.  It had been the first time in months that he’d run drills in full armor, and his muscles hadn’t been quite up to the sudden switch.  Stang, I’m getting old.  When did that happen?

    Carr still hadn’t gotten used to how eerily quiet things were here at night in Tipoca City, not to mention just how white it was.  All in all, the past two and a half years had felt much more like a prison sentence in a hospital than a real deployment on an alien world.  That’s what it is though.  This is still a real merc contract, and the creds are most definitely still real.  He’d been telling himself that a lot lately.

    He was passing the last junction in the corridor before reaching his block of apartments when a noise caught his attention.  It had been a dull clang, like someone banging iron cookware together.  He paused and stood there, listening.  A moment later, it sounded again, accompanied by what sounded like raised voices.

    Without realizing it, Carr’s feet were carrying him down the junction, toward the noises.  Probably Skirata’s Null boys, causing trouble again.  It wasn’t any of his business, and Carr wouldn’t normally have cared.  But if it’s my boys disobeying orders and getting into trouble…  His pace quickened.

    Now he could hear the voices better, and they clearly belonged to adults and not ten year old kids.  Five year olds, Carr corrected himself; he hadn’t gotten used to the clones’ accelerated aging either.

    He was close to the infirmary by the time he could see to whom the voices belonged.  Two Mandalorians were chest to chest, yelling at each other, while a third stood back and watched.

    Mandalorians.  I should have known.

    Garrett Carr knew Jango Fett well enough to have received his offer to train soldiers on Kamino.  Aside from Fett, he’d also known a few other Mandolarian mercenaries over the years, but not well.  He’d even fought against them.  But no matter how familiar a sight their T-shaped helmets had become, they still seemed completely alien to him.

    Carr belonged to the minority group of twenty five non-Mandalorians among the one hundred commando training sergeants, and it was hard not to feel like an outsider.  Even the name of their unit—the Cuy’val Dar¬—was in the Mandalorian language.

    Fortunately, the two red-faced men arguing before him were speaking mostly in Basic and both had removed their helmets.  Carr didn’t recognize the one in red armor plates, but the man decked out in sand gold was a doctor named Mij Gilamar who ran the infirmary for commando cadets.

    “You’ve gone too far Priest,” Gilamar hissed.  “You’ve gone too shabla far!  Jango might have bought that osik about an accident, but I don’t.  You killed that boy!  The first day of live-fire exercises and one of your cadets gets shot.  The first day!”

    Fights happened here on Kamino.  Even among the geezers that made up the Dar, tempers flared and punches were thrown.  The Mandalorians in particular seemed prone to settling things with their fists.  Jango did a good job at keeping it from getting out of hand.  Fett had his share of faults, but leading soldiers wasn’t one of them.  That was his job, and Carr knew he should turn around and leave it to Jango on this occasion as well.  Unfortunately, walking away from things was something he’d never been good at.

    “Hey, hey, hey!” Carr yelled, trying for a lighter tone than the parade-ground voice that came out.  “That’s enough, fellas.  Break it up!”

    Three heads whipped towards him and Carr felt his pulse quicken.  Go easy now, Garrett.  No point getting in over your head.  Three against one was very bad odds.

    The man named Priest looked him over with a face that read: I’m unimpressed.  “Get lost, aruetii.  This doesn’t concern you.”

    Carr kept his voice calm.  “It kriffing well does concern me.  It concerns me if you barves kill each other and I get stuck with more cadets to train.  Now why don’t we all just go our separate ways and deal with this in the morning.”

    Priest and the third Mandalorian, a woman with dark hair pulled back into a severe ponytail in yellow armor, looked at Carr like they were considering the best way to kill him and dispose of the body, so he tried Gilamar.

    “Doctor, come on.  Let it rest.”

    Gilamar looked at Carr for a moment, then turned back to Priest.  “You heard him, Carr.  Get lost.  This isn’t your business.”

    One more time.  “Listen, I don’t want any of Fett’s flak when he finds out I was—”
The woman strode forward.  “Usenye, aruetti.  If you know what’s good for you.  Last warning.  Or I’ll cut your—”

    Gilamar interrupted, grunting through gritted teeth, “Shut your mouth, Reau.  Or I’ll do it for you.”

    She snapped around and lunged for Gilamar.  Carr was moving before he had time to think about it, charging headlong into the Mandalorian woman.  He wasn’t protected by the nearly impervious Mandalorian iron that his opponents wore, but he was bigger than any of them and his own suit of plastoid and advanced alloy armor added to his considerable bulk.  He shouldered her with enough force to send the much lighter woman sprawling and kept going right into Gilamar and Priest.  Wedging in between the two, he pushed out with both arms, trying to hold the men back from each other.

    What the hell am I doing?  Carr felt suddenly foolish and was reminded of the senseless, drunken brawls he’d gotten himself into as an eighteen year old kid on shore leave.  “Take it easy you two!  Stand down!”

    The Mandalorians slipped past his hold and went at it again.  Carr waded in once more and tried to pull them apart, which was a very stupid thing to do.  An armored elbow flew up and caught him in the nose.  He staggered back.  Blinded for a moment, he was shocked to realize it had been Gilamar, rather than Priest that had struck him.

    “Blast it Doc!”  Carr reached for Gilamar and grabbed his arm.  Priest was quick to seize the opportunity and darted in to hit the doctor under the chin.  Off balance, Gilamar went down—hard.  Carr could hear the loud crack of his head as it struck the polished floor.

    Carr was now standing alone across from Priest.  To make matters worse, his partner—Reau, Gilamar had called her—had picked herself up from the ground.  She wiped her gauntlet across a split lip, smearing blood across her mouth.  Then she smiled, white teeth glinting through the red blood.

    “Whattya say, Dred?  You wanna kill this nosey nerf or should I?”

    Priest compressed his thin, lopsided lips together into a tight line and stared at Carr.  “He’s mine, Issy.  You hear that, meat?  You’re mine.”

    Carr brought his fists up and squared off against the red-armored Mandalorian.  “Yeah, I heard you.  You gonna stay out of this, Crazy?”

    Reau was still smiling.  “He’s all yours, Dred.”

    Carr slipped slipped back twenty years to his brief stint as an amateur boxer in between merc contracts.  He moved forward on his toes, bouncing slightly as he approached his opponent.  As martial sports went, boxing wasn’t the most applicable to soldiering, but here, on a flat surface and facing an armored man that wasn’t wearing a helmet, he felt completely comfortable.

    Carr jabbed with his left, keeping a wary eye on Priest’s movements.  The Mandalorian blocked the punch and tried to grab his wrist, but Carr was ready for him, dancing back a few steps.  He had several centimeters of reach on Priest and he knew he could keep throwing jabs all night until he got an opening if he had to.

    He came in quick and sharp several more times, testing Priest’s guard.  The Mandalorian blocked, but never struck back.

    Bastard wants to take me to the ground, Carr decided.  That’s his game.  That was fine with Carr.  Boxing was all about patience and finding an opening.  Priest was good, he could tell.  The Mandalorian’s movements were balanced and Carr guessed he would be in real trouble if his opponent got his way and the fight went to the floor.

    Eventually, Priest began to show signs of irritation at shrugging off blows.  Carr decided it was time to take a risk and try something.

    He came in once more and jabbed with his left, then hooked quick with his right at Priest’s ribs, exposed in the gap between his chest and back plates.

    Priest was fast, alright.  In one blindingly quick move, he locked a hold on Carr’s right arm.  As Carr started to get pulled off balance he snapped out again with his left fist, striking the Mandalorian in the cheek.  Priest released his hold and brought up his guard, but slowly enough for Carr to uppercut with his right.  There was a sharp crack as Priest’s teeth clicked together.  Had he been fighting in padded gloves, Priest could have likely shrugged off the blows, but Carr’s armored gauntlets were deadly weapons.

    Priest went down, but before Carr could follow up his attack, a flash of yellow armor caught his attention.  Reau hadn’t wasted a second jumping in and he twisted toward the woman.  But before she was on him, he felt himself falling as his feet were swept out from below.  Suddenly there were two Mandalorians raining blows on him and Carr was fighting for his life.  Technique and training went out the window as animal panic took over.

    He lashed out with feet and fists, his armored extremities clanging dully against unyielding plates of Mandalrian iron.  One of his wild strikes connected with something soft and he heard the woman’s breath leave her in a pained grunt.  Carr seized the moment and dove onto Priest, using his extra bulk to force the man to force the man onto his back.

    Before he could pound his fists into the Priest’s unarmored head, he felt clawlike fingers hook into his left cheek and right eye socket.  Carr screamed as Reau pulled him off of her partner.  She grabbed his right arm and bent it up behind his back.  Even inside of the reinforced armor he could feel his muscles and tendons straining against her arm bar.  With her free hand she continued working her fingers into his eyes.

    She’s trying to kill me.  This crazy akk is going to kill me.  And she was laughing.  Carr suspected she would have killed him, then and there if the thundering noise of thudding boots, accompanied by a white and green blur hadn’t come crashing into her.  Carr fell to one side under the force of the colliding bodies and turned to see a fourth Mandalorian on the scene.

    That’s it.  I’m a dead man then, he thought, but the newcomer didn’t turn to him.  Instead, he grabbed Reau by the collar and brought his helmeted down into her forehead.  Priest had gotten himself up onto one knee and Carr scrambled to his feet and turned back to him, glad to be facing a single opponent again.  Before either could make a move, the white and green armored Mandalorian took several long strides forward and kicked Priest in the face.  Carr’s opponent fell back and the newcomer placed a boot on the other Mandalorian’s throat.

    “Enough!” an accented voice thundered from the helmet.  “This fight is over!”  He leaned down a little, pressing his boot even harder into Priest’s throat.  “I’d be doing Mandalore a favor by killing you right now, Priest.  You don’t deserve to wear that armor.  You and that woman of yours embody everything wrong with the Mandalorians.”

    To his credit, Priest somehow managed to smile.  “What do you know about being Mando, Kelborn?”  He choked out.  “You married some aruetii wench and ran out on us.  Heard you won’t even raise your kids as Mando’ade.”

    Carr saw the man—Kelborn apparently—reach for his blaster, then stop and simply clench his hand into a fist.  “Go.  This is the only favor I’ll ever do for you.  Pick that trash up on your way out,” he said, gesturing towards Reau’s inert form.  “If you’re smart, you’ll forget this ever happened and make it a habit to stay the haran out of my way.”  Abruptly, he took his foot off of Priest’s throat and stood back.

    Dred Priest slowly got to his feet, looking back and forth between Carr and Kelborn.  Without a word, he walked over to his partner, scooped her up in his arms and headed down the corridor that had led Carr into this mess.

    Kelborn turned his green T-visor to look at Carr before nodding briefly and walking over to where Mij Gilamar lay on the floor.  The Mandalorian doctor was moving his head from side to side and moaning.  Kelborn stooped down and slapped him lightly in the face.

    “Wake up, Mij.  It’s over.”  Gilamar kept moaning and Kelborn reached for his canteen.  He splashed water on the semi-conscious man’s face and slapped him a few more times.  “On your feet.”

    Gilamar spluttered and raised his head, eyes defocused.  “I’ll kill him.  Worthless chakaar.  I’ll kill him.  I’ll kill him…”

    Kelborn grabbed Gilamar’s hand and pulled him upright.  “No.  You won’t.  You’ll go to your bed, Doctor.”

    Gilamar was swaying on his feet slightly and grabbed Kelborn’s shoulder to steady himself.  “He killed that boy, Ambu.  I know he did.  He’ll kill others.  He needs to be put down.  Euthanized.”

    Kelborn turned Mij around and prodded him in the back toward the infirmary.  “Bed Mij.  I agree with you, and I’m even willing to forgive you for being a malpracticing thief because I do, but now’s not the time.  We’ll talk later.”

    Gilamar heaved a great, shuddering sigh and lurched toward the infirmary doors.  “Yeah.  Later.”

    The doctor closed the doors behind him and Carr was left standing with Kelborn, feeling completely awkward and out of place, like a casual guest in a feuding family’s home.  The Mandalorian turned back to him.  “Now.  Mind telling me why you’re here?”

    Carr shrugged, hoping to joke his way out of this and get home.  “Good question.  Wrong place, wrong time pretty much sums it up.  I did learn a valuable lesson though.”

    Kelborn cocked his head to the side.  “Yeah?  What lesson is that?”

    “Don’t try to break up a fight between Mandalorians without a fire hose,” Carr said through a forced smile.

    The Mandalorian shook his head, then reached up to pull his helmet off.  The man underneath had short, snow-white hair and a stubbly beard to match.  His face didn’t look as old as the hair would suggest though.  Carr guessed he was probably in his early fifties, maybe a half decade or so older than himself.  His lined face was very hard, and Carr was genuinely surprised to see that his lips were quirked into a small smile.

    “Hehe.  Yeah, that’s probably a good lesson.  I think you could stand to learn a few more.  What possessed you to go in one-on-three?”

    Carr reached up to gingerly finger a few of the rapidly swelling lumps on his face, then knocked twice on the rectangular metal plate that was bolted over his left brow, “Guess I just like collecting scars.  Thanks, by the way.”

    “Don’t mention it.  I’ve wanted to knock Gilamar out a few times myself.”

    “Well, that was an accident.  He really does want to kill Priest though, doesn’t’ he?  I heard what he said about the cadet, but it sounds like it’s more than that.  Got a history, those two?”

    Kelborn pursed his lips, “You could say that.  It’s a long story.”

    “I’ll bet.  Maybe you’ll tell me some time?”

    “Maybe I will.  What was your name again?  Fett’s first briefing was a long time ago.”

    Carr took a few steps forward and put out his hand for shaking.  “Garrett Carr.  I gathered that you’re Ambu Kelborn.”

    Kelborn took the proffered hand and shook.  “I am.  Pleasure to meet you.”

    Carr smiled.  “Likewise.  Hey, I’ve got a question for you.  Why do you think Priest and his girlfriend called me a traitor?  What did they mean by that?”

    Kelborn drew his brows together, “Traitor?  They said that?”

    “Aroo-a-tee.  Is that how you say it?  Tervho and Bralor told me it means traitor.”

    Kelborn smiled, “Ah.  It can mean traitor, but it can also mean a bunch of other things.  Mandalorians are big on getting as much mileage out of words as possible.  In this case, I think they meant outsider.”  His smile broadened, “So you were chatting up Vhonte and Rav, eh?  How’d that go for you?”

    Carr laughed, “About as well as you’d expect.  Fewer bruises than I got here, at least.”  He shrugged, “Can’t blame me for trying can you?  This place isn’t exactly crawling with women.  Too bad all of the female trainers are Mando.  Looks like my luck never changes.”

    Kelborn spread his arms and gestured to the room around them, “Luck?  You think I feel lucky here?”

    Carr shook his head.  “Yeah.  Point taken.  Thanks again for the hand back there.  I owe you one.”

    Kelborn’s face grew serious and he turned his head in the direction the other Mandalorians had gone.  “No.  You don’t owe me a thing.  Priest.  Reau.  They shouldn’t be here.  Even Gilamar…”  He trailed off and an uncomfortable silence grew.

    Carr decided it was time for bed.  He clapped his hand on Kelborn’s shoulder and started down the corridor.  “I’m turning in, pal.  I’ll see you around.”

    Carr was starting to think Kelborn was completely lost in thought and had nearly rounded the corner when the other man called out to him, “Play dejarik?”

    He turned around, “What was that?”

    Kelborn was smiling again.  “Do you play dejarik?  I’ve been looking for a partner.  You should come by after-hours some time for a drink and a match.”

    It was unexpected and Carr suddenly found the idea inexplicably appealing.  Somehow he was forming an automatic excuse anyway, “Stang, I haven’t played dejarik since I was a kid.  Old man never let me beat him, either.  I don’t think I’d make much of a partner.”

    Kelborn was still smiling.  “Ah nonsense.  Can’t be harder than training a hundred hyper-intelligent little boys how to kill, can it?  Besides, I need to stay sharp.  I started teaching my daughter before I took this job.”

    A daughter?  That had to be hard.  Fett’s rules on leaving the outside world behind were very clear too.  Cuy’val Dar meant those who no longer exist.  He was beginning to understand what Kelborn had meant about not feeling lucky here.  Starting a family was one of the few mistakes Garrett Carr was happy not to have made.

    Kelborn must feel even lonelier than I do.  “Well, why not?  I did hear the word drink too, didn’t I?”

    The Mandalorian laughed.  “You did.  No promises there, though.  Tihaar isn’t for everyone.”

    “Oh, I’m sure I’ve had worse.  Sounds like a plan.”  Carr headed for home again.  His body was aching and begging him for a rest.  He’d been tired before the fight, but now he felt like he’d been trampled by a herd of wild banthas.  Even so, he caught himself humming an old marching tune before he reached his door and he realized he was in a better mood than he’d been in a long time.
I'm taking a short break from my Clone Wars story, Containment, to collaborate on a few short fan fics that take place on Kamino.  This features some of the sergeants (the Cuy'val Dar) that trained the Republic Commandos during the years that take place between The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones.

Garrett Carr is a very minor character from the Tales comic, Nomad.  The other Mandalorians appear in Karen Traviss' Republic Commando novels, except for Ambu Kelborn, who is an OC from Ultrabountyhunter's :iconultrabountyhunter: ongoing fan fic series.  Go check those out!  A big thanks to him and DC-26 :icondc-26: for very helpful beta reading.

You can look forward to the next bit of fun with Carr and Kelborn by Ultra.  We'll be taking turns on these stories about crusty old dudes finding someone to commiserate with during the long and very strange job of training clone soldiers.

***Update!***

Part Two by Ultrabountyhunter is up now.  Go check it out!
© 2015 - 2024 zang-zip
Comments41
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Zara-Arletis's avatar
This was a great character introduction and an opener. Even if I wasn't familiar with the world, it would be easy to follow. I love the humor tossed in too - lightening up a pretty violent fight. You always do such an awesome job with your combat scenes. Carr really should know better than to get between angry Mandos though! That's right up there with let the wookie win . . .