Author's Notes: In Chapter 9 of Republic Commando: Knight of Honor, Dusty confesses to Jas about why his communications had failed on the night of their information retrieval mission on Denon, and Civilian Interlude is that missing back-story.

I apologize in advance if this tale is not in strict adherence to specific canons. I had done my research but decided to write the story with a certain degree of artistic license. As always, I gratefully accept constructive criticism as a means to help me develop my skills further as a writer.

Summary: RC-1168 (Dusty) of Crimson Squad is sent on a mission to retrieve vital information. (Companion piece to my story, "Republic Commando: Knight of Honor") Rated T to be safe.

Disclaimer: I make no money, and I only write about what I enjoy. Crimson Squad, Cerina Browlin, Reone, Gan Pohin, and the opening segment quotes are mine. Arlington Zey and Bardan Jusik belong to Karen Traviss. George Lucas owns everything else.

Republic Commando: Civilian Interlude

Prologue

I'll send Crimson Squad. If this does turn out to be a trap of some kind, Crimson is the best at bending and twisting their orders. If anyone can find their way out of a tough position and find convincing loopholes, they're the squad for the mission.
Jedi General Arlington Zey, Special Operations Brigade

The City of Sha'ye on the Planet Denon
687 Days ABG (After the Battle of Geonosis)

I take the small container of perfume and look at the ornate glass bottle for a moment remembering that it was his favorite scent. I spray the first of it on my wrists, and I think about how one could not truly say we were in love. We were more like stars crashing, our relationship an explosion of emotions and desires. I was a fantasy he hired for a night to help him forget about his stresses and his long-regretted decisions. However, I'll never forget how he was bewildered by my youthfulness, despite my insistence that I was of legal age to provide his necessities. That first night, he gave me the chance to prove my boasting, but it was I who was taken aback by his touch. I had prepared myself for an abrupt encounter with him and a quick evening because I knew I was not what he had in mind for the night's entertainment. Instead, I was attracted to the gentle command of his touch and was intoxicated by the honesty in his eyes. To liken it as magic would make an unfair cliché out of our experience.

After that night, though, he had decided to resume with my services, and he worked out a schedule to continue visiting the establishment, personally requesting me for each of his appointments. Over time, I found in our interludes that I had begun to need him as a way to fulfill my own desires and fantasies, and sometimes the line blurred between which of us was the client and which of us was the professional.

In the course of our time together, he grew to trust me and confide in me, despite his insistence that our encounters remain secret. He warned me that he had gained many enemies, and in order to ensure my safety, we could never be boastful of our consistent meetings. I abided by his wishes because as we continued to share our time together, it was becoming obvious that our encounters were less about our physical needs and more about the confessions of our pasts, the admittance of mistakes for which we needed absolution.

I had told him about why I ran away from a father who was drinking himself to death and a mother who was blind to the unhappiness of her marriage. He, in turn, told me of the childhood that had been stripped from him due to tragedy and murder. I summarized to him about my struggles to find work so I could at least eat, and he had described the lives he had taken and the dangers he had withstood to earn his keep in society. I explained how I came to be at the establishment and that they were willing to take me in and give me a home and consistent meals, provided I allowed them to take a percentage of my earnings in order for them to cover the debts I had incurred. He showed compassion to my plight and eventually gave me a better understanding about how to manage my financial burdens.

When he spoke of the clones that were created in his likeness and would know nothing but war, battle tactics, and be denied the experience of a long life, he had no remorse for their existence, citing that their creation was merely a business decision. I told him that I didn't understand how he could not feel anything for these millions of beings that were identical images of him. He had replied that the ones who would become soldiers were not his concern because his compassion lied within the scientific creation of a single son that he had demanded be included as part of that business arrangement. In that moment, I confessed to him how I had never considered a future, especially not with a child of any creation because it was just too outlandish in my line of work to envision. His pity for me seemed to be genuine at that concept, and he assured me that taking a child to protect and teach was a great responsibility that should not be taken lightly.

I will always remember how in the dark serenity of our interludes, he proudly spoke of the accomplishments his son was making and his regrets for leaving him for long periods at a time. I listened with heartfelt compassion, thinking that maybe one day the precious gift of a child to raise might be mine also, especially if such a man would be there to help guide my child-rearing decisions.

When he wasn't talking about his son, however, he would sometimes detail the gruesome tests and trials that these clones of him were expected to undergo on a daily basis, and he spoke approvingly of the ones that had done above expectations. The ones that did not survive, he shrugged off as the ones who required better training or were just the simple misfortunes in warfare games. What I had kept hidden from him in those moments was how my heart began to break for these genetic children of his and their unfair lives.

With every confession he entrusted to me, my fondness for him had grown because I saw a fallible and simple man, not the mercenary and bounty hunter who returned to my quarters for the release of his tensions. Eventually, my services to him were more about compassion than they were about passion. The explosions between us were always there, but they had only grown more intense with every conversation we shared.

I cannot say for certain when, because time grew so blurred, but eventually I had become something of a secretive and permanent part of his life. He took it upon himself to see that one day we would share more than scheduled interludes, but there was the matter of concluding his business with the Separatists first.

In the meantime, he had bought out my contract from the establishment where I had signed away my life until my debts would be paid in full. He then closed out the debts I had incurred in my foolish and inexperienced youth, sealing the pathway from me ever having to return to those forlorn days. He had a new identity created for me, a new life where I would be a respectable citizen. My new persona was provided with comfortable wealth, and he taught me how to manage those finances so that I would never want for anything again.

Most beings thought of Jango Fett as a mercenary, a hired thug, but he was my second chance. He saved me from myself, and I think at some point we did grow to love each other, even if being in love was too far-fetched for the likes of a former courtesan and a bounty hunter who kept to himself and his profession.

And now I want nothing more than the closure I need, a chance to say farewell to him. The news of his careless beheading in a Geonosian battle arena so many months ago had shattered me to my very soul. The plans he set in motion would never come to be now, and the son who he never had the opportunity to introduce to me had disappeared from existence. I tried for nearly a year to find that special cloned child of Jango, to tell him that he had an open door to safety and compassion. But, when there was no indication that he had survived, I decided to do what I could elsewhere.

I sought whatever information I could find on the other clones of Jango, the ones used to make the Grand Army of the Republic, and eventually I was offered the chance to stop a plot that was being devised against them on my own world. I had decided that if I could help them, then I would consider it my opportunity to finally say goodbye to Jango. I know he would not have wanted me involved in such business, but it would provide me the closure I needed to appreciate everything he had done to turn a lost soul like me into a woman of status.

Spraying the last of the perfume on the strategic sections of my skin, I set the bottle back on the dresser and give my attire a final once-over. I'm no longer the woman who spent her years in an establishment selling fantasies to paying clients. I now live under the identity of Cerina Browlin, the final gift that Jango was able to give me before he died, and I have a dual mission tonight. My first goal is to be sure I help stop Barl Nusset from finalizing his bio-weapon against the clones. My second goal is to say a final goodbye to Jango and make my peace with his permanent absence.