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February 22 - February 27, 2020
A Mandalorian man’s ideal was to be the firm but loving father, the respectful son learning from every hard experience, the warrior loyal to constant personal principles rather than ever-changing governments and flags. He also knew when to apologize.
Armor does not make a Mandalorian. The armor is simply a manifestation of an impenetrable, unassailable heart.
It was all very civilized: another coded conversation where the unspeakable had somehow been spoken.
“Time to break out the emergency Jedi, I think, son.”
“I’m only a simple trained killer,” Sev said, “but something tells me never to eat in a restaurant with a bad pun over the door.”
Skirata tightened the chain again. “Ke nu’jurkadir sha Mando’ade …” Don’t mess with Mandalorians. It wasn’t bad advice.
Scorch seemed impressed. “You really were a bit of a bad boy in your past, weren’t you, Sarge?” “What d’you mean, past?” Sev said.
When the enemy is a droid or a wet with a weapon, then killing them is easy. But in this game you’re operating among civvies, on your home ground. You could be working right next door to the enemy. They might even be people you know and like. But they’re still the enemy and you’ll have to slot them just the same. There’s no Mandalorian word for “hero,” and that’s just as well, because however many lives you save in black ops, you will never, ever be a hero. Deal with it. —Sergeant Kal Skirata, teaching counterterrorist tactics to Republic Commando companies Alpha through Epsilon, Kamino, three
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A Mandalorian’s identity and soul depended only on what lived within him. And he relied only on his brother warriors—or his sons.
Other instructors had their own favorites, according to their commando training batches, but Kal’s were clearly close-range, personal ones. What was it he used to say? You need to be able to fight if you’re cornered in just your underpants, son. Nature gave you teeth and fists.
The only selfless thing I have ever done that was not centered on my own need to be a good, passionless, detached Jedi was to care about these cloned men and ask what we’re doing to them.
Mandalorians are surprisingly unconcerned with biological lineage. Their definition of offspring or parent is more by relationship than birth: adoption is extremely common, and it’s not unusual for soldiers to take war orphans as their sons or daughters if they impress them with their aggression and tenacity. They also seem tolerant of marital infidelity during long separations, as long as any child resulting from it is raised by them. Mandalorians define themselves by culture and behavior alone. It is an affinity with key expressions of this culture—loyalty, strong self-identity, emphasis on
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Motive mattered. Motive gave you the capacity to think like the enemy, want what they wanted, and then snatch it from them.
Whatever errors the Kaminoans had made in their attempt to improve Jango Fett’s genome, the efforts had not been wasted.
They seemed to need to be busy fighting, especially Delta. Etain could taste their collective impatience. Maybe it was youth; but maybe it was that they didn’t enjoy having time to think.
Mhi solus tome Mhi solus dar’tome Mhi me’dinui an Mhi ba’juri verde We are one when together. We are one when parted. We will share all. We will raise warriors. —Traditional Mandalorian marriage contract and ceremony, in its entirety
Ordo wasn’t sure if he would ever trust a female, not after Chief Scientist Ko Sai first towered above him, gray and cold and unfeeling. He wondered if having a human mother would have made it easier.
So you want a knife, a nice sharp knife. You hone that blade to its limits. It even cuts through stone when you want it to. It saves your life. And then you’re outraged when it cuts you accidentally. You see, knives don’t switch off. And neither do people, not when you hone them to a fine edge. —Sergeant Kal Skirata to General Arligan Zey, on the nature of training
Some terrorism was the war of the dispossessed, and some was the handiwork of the rich who felt secondhand outrage. Either way, it was an expensive sport. He was a mercenary. He knew the price of everything.
All the Nulls could slice like top pros, but Jaing was an artist among data deceivers. My clever lad
And it was that simple. It never ceased to amaze Skirata how much simpler it was to buy and sell death than it was to pay taxes.
“But that’s the good thing about being Mando. If you don’t get the family you want, you can go and choose one yourself.”
In Mandalorian law, children can legally disown a parent who’s shamed them, but it’s rare.
“You can fight ice-cold or you can fight red-hot. Kal fights hot. It’s his weakness.”
“They don’t go out. They don’t get drunk. They don’t chase women. We drill them and medicate them and shunt them from battle to battle without a day off, no rest, no fun, and then we scrape them off the battlefield and send what’s left standing back to the front.”
Monsters get loved irrationally all the time.”
But Skirata wasn’t embarrassed about his emotions at all. He had the guts to wear his heart on his sleeve. It was probably what made him even more effective at killing: he could love as hard as he could punch.
A Mandalorian isn’t just a warrior, you see. He’s a father, and he’s a son, and your family matters. Those boys deserve a father. They deserve sons and daughters, too, but that isn’t going to happen. But they can be sons, and the two things you have a duty to teach your sons are self-reliance, and that you’d give your life for them.” Skirata leaned on folded arms and gazed down into the hazy abyss again. “And I would, Etain. I would. And I should have had that degree of conviction when I started this sorry mess back on Kamino.”
Buy’ce gal, buy’ce tal Vebor’ad ures alit Mhi draar baat’i meg’parjii’se Kote lo’shebs’ul narit A pint of ale, a pint of blood Buys men without a name We never care who wins the war So you can keep your fame —Popular drinking chant of Mandalorian mercenaries—approximate translation, edited for strong language
“In three …,” Ordo said. “What happened to in five?” “I just ran out of patience.”
When you can no longer know what your nation or your government stands for, or even where it is, you need a set of beliefs you can carry with you and cling to. You need a core in your heart that will never change. I think that’s why I feel more at home in the barracks than I do in the Jedi Temple. —General Bardan Jusik, Jedi Knight
All I had to do was have a life beside my own to care for. That is the true detachment we ought to seek, putting another person above ourselves—not denying our emotions. The attachment to self is the path to the dark side.
You save a man from being dar’manda by teaching him his heritage, not by making him into a wild animal.
Vau’s voice had softened. “You had to be Mando, Atin. If I didn’t make you Mando, you might as well have been dead, because you wouldn’t exist as a Mando’ad, not without your spirit and your guts.” He was almost apologetic. “You had to be able to cross that threshold and be ready to do absolutely anything to win. Fierfek, if stupid Jedi hadn’t used you as infantry on Geonosis, every single one of my commando batch would be alive today. I made you hard men because I cared.”
Is it true you don’t have a word for ‘hero’?” “Yes, but we’ve got a dozen for ‘stab.’ ”
Coruscant had indeed been the hardest battlefield of all, as Sergeant Kal had warned him. But that wasn’t because it was rife with the dangers of not knowing if the enemy was standing right next to you. It was because it showed him what he could never have.
“I’ve done a lot of thinking in the past year,” Fi said. “Yes, there’s plenty wrong. I know I deserve more than this. I want a nice girl and a life and I don’t want to die. And I know I’m being used, thanks. But I’m a soldier, and I’m also Mandalorian, and my strength is always going to be what I carry around inside me, my sense of who and what I am. Even if the rest of the galaxy sinks in its own filth, I’ll die without compromising my honor.” He drained his glass and started on the next one that was lined up on the bar. He wasn’t that fond of the taste, but he believed in being polite.
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“And you’d tell the Jedi Order. You hate me.” “No, I actually like you, ad’ika. I just despise Jedi. You Force-users never question your right to shape the galaxy. And ordinary people never realize they have the chance to.”
Skirata knew that Darman might never arrive home, throw his kit bag on the hall floor, and sob on his wife’s shoulder, relieved and grateful and swearing it would be his last tour of duty. But he’d make sure he brought him as close to that sweet normality as a cloned soldier could ever come.
