#We know Niner immediately feels guilty about Ennen and berates himself for not having done enough

[stuffedeggplants]

Nobody uses shab in Hard Contact, but it becomes more prevalent as the series goes on. It appears in some form about 100 times in the final two books, and is a great gauge of how much stress the characters are under, especially for Niner because he doesn’t usually curse at all.

Niner almost always curses because he’s stressed. He drops a real fuck-you in with A’den in True Colors where he’s mentally/emotionally put on edge by the Sull situation, curses a lot (along with everyone else) when Omega is holding off the rebels on Haurgab, and repeatedly curses at Darman when he’s furiously urging the guy to leave him behind and go to Mandalore with his kid in the chaos of Order 66 and Darman won’t do it. Those are some notable instances.

But in 501st? Niner curses plenty. Shab pops up on a routine basis in his inner monologue, and he freely uses it and other Mando’a vulgarities when he’s with Darman much more often than he used to. The last time we got Niner’s POV was in the first book, and when we get it again, he’s cursing more than he ever really has before and in a seemingly more ‘casual’ way, only it’s not really casual at all. 

After Order 66, the governmental and societal transition to Empire hits the ground running, hard. Niner quickly picks up on the fact that men like he and Darman with deep, extraneous cultural loyalties (and an off-leash operational history too?) are no longer trusted. When Vader speaks to the commandos in 501st, he tells them that the government is fully aware of how loyal the commandos have been to some of the names on the Empire’s kill list. Niner, Darman, Bry, and Ennen immediately get their first job as Squad 40, and they’re literally briefed on who their target is and given their maps minutes before they board their transport. This means that the transport’s crew had their own brief and that everyone made sure the ship was ready to go--both mechanically speaking and that it was stuffed with the necessary equipment--before Squad 40 had been told any details about what their job was. To top it off, the guy briefing Squad 40 is a Force-sensitive spook all but said to be working in Palpatine’s direct interest, and he didn’t brief Niner and the others in some 2-3 hour before-flight format or even like 45 minutes ahead of time. It was more like 5 minutes, and it’s not an accident that Bry and Ennen speculate that this unusual last-minute timing is only because they’re being treated like potential security leaks. Niner’s like “weird but okay” about it and Darman doesn’t have a problem, saying it’s completely justified. And Darman isn’t wrong. The Empire’s kill list contains names of their friends-- being ordered to go after Camas is one thing, but what if they’d been sent to kill Ordo? (Though I think they intentionally were not sent to kill anyone they knew...)

But then it becomes a problem when the suspicion does not stop. It does not let up, and Niner becomes more and more aware that he lives in a surveillance state. He feels under siege even before he consciously realizes that he’s living “behind enemy lines,” and no longer finds a sense of comfort or belonging in the army. It becomes him and Darman against the world, so much so that he’s almost disturbed to realize that he can’t even bond with fellow RCs like Bry and Ennen anymore. Niner is stressed, and he knows it. He also won’t fully trust himself, won’t believe he isn’t just being paranoid and overly worried, until he finally gets proof of his surveillance suspicions when meeting Jaller Obrim. Then the fact that even Melusar has checked his office for bugs and is bringing Darman and Niner in on his own covert plans just underscores the extent to which nobody is trusted, everyone is being watched, and to which privacy no longer exists. 

Meanwhile Niner also has to very carefully support Darman who’s going through a hell of an awful time, coordinate desertion with the Nulls, and do right by Bry, Ennen, and then Rede (who went from single-celled to biologically 20 and ‘ready’ for war in the space of a year.) While this is all going on, Niner also consciously downplays his Mandalorian heritage/identity to reduce his radar signature as much as possible while the Empire constantly scans for anyone with unacceptable loyalties. Niner has to be focused, alert, and on guard for both himself and Darman. He has to appear to the world as though everything is normal, but it very much is not. He’s pulled taught, on edge, and cannot afford to relax, so Niner curses, and he does so in the two places he has privacy-- inside his own head, and in private conversation with Darman, the last two places he really has a home in where he doesn’t have to hide anything and there are no threats to watch for.

The only time Niner maybe uses Mando'a with Ennen (the dialogue tags are unclear and it may even be Darman's line) is when he's shouting for Ennen to open the bathroom stall door after that scene... Apart from Niner's other reasons not to use Mando'a, I think he doesn't want to use it with Bry and Ennen either because they'd just perceive it as slightly exclusionary or just a reminder of how different they are. Niner is worried it won't help everyone meld together, or that it could be isolating (especially at this time when Bry and Ennen just lost two of their brothers.) But when Niner and Darman hear the gunshot, Niner's usual concerns about Mando'a are eclipsed by a worry that just spikes out of him, and he uses Mando'a on instinct. (Actually the more I think about it, the line could definitely be Darman's, but this is a decent justification for it being Niner's?)