Chapter 42
Chapter 42
716 FNM (22 BBY)
Month 9
Gargon, Baarpir'balac Resort, Grand Amphitheater
Miri Chour
In the years I had been out there working various jobs, I had worn many disguises that tended to hide my armor rather than accentuate it. This is why I am somewhat used to having to wear a new costume almost every day. When I had taken this job a year ago, I had suspected that I would end up disliking it, or worse, my sisters would hate it.
However, my opinion slowly improved over time. Shomso always insisted that I am a bit over the top in my bounty hunting antics. She criticized my last hit as "theatrical." Now I didn't feel like I needed to resist that urge anymore, the drama is celebrated rather than a liability; no more frowns from the girls... okay mostly Shomso. Not only that, but the credits coming in are very good. There was no other way to say it. Instead of having to murder a person every other month, all I had to do was sing, dance, and act very flirtatious for the camera once every couple of weeks.
Of course, it took time to build up to the status we are at now. A few months ago, we were playing in a small lounge-like theater that could squeeze a few dozen people inside. Now, we have a major theater that we visit every couple of weeks to perform, and things are starting to get a little bit crowded in those theaters. There had even been a fight in front of the theater over someone scalping tickets, which Bo-Katan had told me not to worry about, but it kind of did worry me. Anyone could slip in and try to assassinate us if they were crazy enough. I am sure that sooner or later, someone who had a vengeance debt on us for killing their spouse or son would get word that I had taken up a career as an idol and try to get a little bit of revenge. That is one of the reasons I often walked on stage not with prop pistols, but real ones. It's set to stun, just in case I need to defend myself in an emergency.
It's a bit risky, I know, since some of our stage performances included some rather acrobatic fighting choreography, which we worked hard on. About half of our so-called 'play fights' on stage left us somewhat bruised, because we wanted it to look as real as possible. Which seemed to work well with our audience, they seemed to enjoy the action.
Thankfully though, we only did a play fight every two months or so. Tonight's performance, a rendition of Agol'skira, did not have a fighting sequence, but it would be the largest audience we'd ever played for. Our schedule revolved around getting ready for the next big thing, which kept us a little bit too busy. I was working with designers to get into a new dress ready for this current concert, but my standards are moderate for this piece, nothing too spectacular. I did notice the executives had rejected some of my color choices, though, it seems like they were trying to minimize the black and the color scheme I preferred. Maybe the white and silver colors were chosen instead so that White Silver could try to live vicariously through my performances. After all, I was fairly certain she's signing my paychecks through Mandal Hypernautics, so it made sense if she chose her preferred colors as well.
I'd caught a glimpse of White Silver before, and regularly saw her underlings. So I know that they are female, that wore silver and white as the main colors of their armor. I also ran into the fancy actress they had brought out to Gargon to film some kind of television series, which made me suspect White Silver was living it up a little. The Balac Resort only recently opened after all, it's an entirely brand-new Hotel and Casino resort complex that White Silver had built out in the middle of nowhere, her private kingdom on Gargon. But since it's her credits, she can spend it however she likes.
Anyway, today is going to be like any other. We have a concert in about half-hour and we are finishing our preparations. I am wearing the armor that had been modified and created for us. It bore some resemblance to the modern and sleek Super Commando armor set, although they had stripped out the under vest that the plates usually went on and arranged it more like a corset. As a result, the upper plates lined up on top of my breasts, accentuating them to some extent. Of course, that also left a rather open area in the center that showed a bit of cleavage, and in that area is a pendant of an iron heart that I was supposed to wear as armor. It's not functionally great, but as a secondary piece of armor for a costume, I didn't mind. To actually hit that small opening, you'd have to be a damn good shot.
My arms are left bare for the most part, except for vambraces that are specially designed to make particular noises when they hit each other. There are also a few buttons to trigger some pyrotechnics hidden on the armor in a few places. Over my shoulders, I wore a cape—not the one I usually wore when I wanted to combat, but a shorter one coming down to the small of my back. Like the front of my armor, it's somewhat revealing. Well, quite a bit of my back is exposed in this getup, but I wasn't as concerned with the small of my back. The cape, from what I understood, used anti-blaster fabric, so it's technically armored - not the best armor, but it's something.
As for my lower body, I am wearing a short but fluffy skirt with armored plates just visible underneath it on my thighs, and some heavy armored boots, with high heels. If I hadn't been practicing with heels for a long time, I might have had a problem, but I am familiar with this particular formation.
This is also where the pyrotechnics are hidden. The leg armor or boots had little rockets that would fire up and shoot into the sky when I moved over hidden activation plates on the stage. I activated the hidden plates with a button on my vambraces, so I could make quite the entrance or quite the exit, depending on what the performance needed.
Khovi and Shomso are wearing something a bit more conservative. They are wearing armor in their style colors, pink, green, and black, but whereas I'm wearing a sexy dress that showed a lot of skin, they wore dresses that are a lot more fluffy and traditional, and to be very frank, cute.
The Dressmakers that provided our costumes are doing a good job of trying to figure out ways to work armor into clothing, making it cute, sexy, and in a few cases, just good-looking. Granted, it was only for the female style, but guys tended to not notice style unless it was pointed out to them, or they were trained for a job. From what I've seen over the years, men wore the minimum that worked, so what they wore tended to be rather plain. So we let them wear plain clothing, and let our girls have fun.
Girls with a cuter aesthetic seemed to have a little bit more fun than my sexy style. All of us had to work out thoroughly whenever we got the chance to maintain a level of acrobatics and strength to perform at the top of our ability. While I mainly just walked on stage and sang, maybe getting into a fake fistfight with some crew member pretending to be a villain in the song, they got to do more exciting things. For example, Shomso had wheels in her shoes which allowed her to move around the stage quite quickly, especially considering there are also jets on the back of her shoes, allowing her to perform some rather acrobatic spins.
Khovi instead tended to carry a spear, one that she used to make rhythm on the ground. It was specially designed with electronics that allowed for different sounds to be produced, depending on what area of the spear she is holding.
To be honest, I thought our gear was already impressive enough. Khovi's spear can double as a synthesizer guitar with just a few tweaks, and Shomso is getting an upgrade that supposedly improved the musical aspects of her armor. As for me, I am supposed to check out a new item today that is meant to complete our image, whatever that means.
I shook my head as I looked at myself in the mirror, thinking I should probably touch up my makeup. I picked up the box containing the mysterious item and laid it out on the table in front of me. After popping the locks on the side, I opened it up and was pleasantly surprised.
Inside is a rapier-style sword, unlike any traditional swords from Mandalore such as a beskad. The blade edge is practically nonexistent as it is basically a long pole coming up in a straight line before branching out into a handguard. It's more like a fancy cane than a functional weapon and at the base of the handle is an unnoticeable microphone.
I could probably have a little fun, do a few mock fights with it; I swapped it around from hand to hand, to sing into the mic at the pommel. Of course, we already had in-ear mics, so I didn't really need it, but there might be some extra functionality hidden within. I turned the rapier about, inspecting it for anything else, and when I checked the base I found a symbol that seemed important. My vambrace chirped when I scanned it, displaying the user manual for the device. I quickly browsed through the manual and discovered a few other modes, such as adding echo to my voice or other digital effects to alter the sound. I'll have to play around with it more when we have time to produce a song, but for now, it would serve as a regular mic. It added a unique touch to the costume, and I wouldn't be surprised if hitting the mic against my armor produced some fancy sound effects.
My thoughts are interrupted by a knock on the door, and an attendant pops his head in to say, "Three minutes till curtains. The opener fired them up, and it looks like we've got a big crowd tonight. Have fun!"
Smiling, I nodded and said, "We will." He nodded and left the door open, leaving me with my sisters. I turned to them and said, "Alright, girls, let's go out there and meet our adoring fans. I'm sure they can't wait to see us again."
"Woo, let's do this!" Khovi exclaimed, pulling up her spear. Shomso nodded her head silently, smiling warmly back at us as she followed along.
As we ascended the steps, I am happy to see that we had a rather large cheering crowd today. The open-air theater is large enough that several thousand people could view the large screens near the top. It's located in the center of the sprawling Balac Casino complex, so anyone outside the theater's range would have to be on the next mountain over or have paid an entry fee at the gate down the mountain.
Approximately half of the audience are women, with half of them donning variations of uniforms we've worn during previous concerts, or clothing that proclaimed our colors: pink and black, green and black, and black and silver. While some may have created the outfits themselves, I could tell that a few nearer to the stage had purchased replicas from the stores on the property.
Furthermore, some attendees wore armor in our colors, which I hoped was purchased from an armor painter on the property, as they did an excellent job. In fact, I had them look over original Mandalorian armor, and spruce it up a bit; I must say, it turned out quite nicely.
Glow sticks are also present, in green, pink, and silver variants. Unfortunately, black wasn't available for the material used for the glow sticks, at least from what I've seen. Knowing the owner, they are probably on the lookout for a way to merchandise my preferred darker coloration.
And last week, they even auctioned a speeder with my face on it in my colors. I physically cringed when I found out, and the girls' teasing didn't help. I'm still not sure how they managed that or who was dumb enough to actually bid on it. I'm half-expecting to have to show up on stage holding the keys, and make an embarrassing exchange to some local who bid something astronomically high because of how terrible of an idea the whole auction was. Instead, it ended up going to some foreign off-worlder with a million credits to waste.
Putting that embarrassing sequence of events out of my mind, I focused on tonight. It's showtime. I walked across the grand expanse of the main stage, which is cluttered with different props that we will be using in tonight's performance, my heeled boots tapping as I led the girls to their positions on the left and right. We prepared a series of songs for tonight's performance. Taking a deep breath, I held the mic sword up to my face and clicked on the mic, saying, "Good evening, Gargon. I hope everyone enjoyed the opening song from the band. They're pretty good at what they do, if you ask me." The crowd answered with a loud cheer. It is an aspect of this new job that I don't think I could ever get used to, being on stage in front of a cheering crowd.
"This next song is based on the killing of the great monster Durge. My great-great-something or another from centuries ago was one of the contenders for the seat of Mand'alor and was involved in the destruction of a creature who had sworn the extinction of all Mandalorian culture. Obviously, he failed, just another example of how tough our people are." I grinned, happy to share an old family story that had been passed down through the generations. I wasn't even sure if Durge was real or not, but as my father had once said, it's always good to dance on a monster's grave.
The crowd seemed ready and pumped ready for the song, so I nodded to the droid musicians in the band, and they started to play the first few notes. In an instant, the high-octane series of notes got my blood pumping.
I actually couldn't wait to sing this song. I've been preparing it for some time, translating an old family story. After all, translation and editing of a recorded copy of an oral history is challenging. Much of my time was spent making sure it would come off right when sung; if the story made people sympathetic to the monster, well, you did it wrong. Yes, there were moments of the story that were a bit sympathetic, Durge in the tale had been close friends with the Mandalorians, but that detail is a distraction if I tried to explain it in full in the song. What was important to the story is the epic battle and aftermath, how he was buried under hundreds of feet of duracrete to die.
As I brought the mic to my face about to sing the first line, a Mandalorian in full blue armor rocketed up past me on stage, before stopping in midair and falling back down. Their jetpack halted their fall, turning it into a graceful landing, right next to me.
I turned, drawing my pistol on the intruder, as he pulled up a pistol of his own. Unfortunately, he was faster and landed his first hit on my blaster, damaging it to uselessness. The assassin moved his gun towards my torso, next saying, "In the name of Death Watch, die, dog of White Silver!" He pulled the trigger, and for a moment, I thought I was dead as I felt the impact on my gutt. Then I realized that instead of aiming for the literal open space that's my cleavage, he'd gone for center mass and fired at the protective beskar armor. He is already turning away from me, seeming to have assumed that I was dealt with, swinging the gun towards Khovi.
I am not exactly happy about all of this. I had just been shot, my sisters were in the line of fire, and he had assumed that this armor was just for show and didn't have any beskar in it. These are all very grave insults, ones I would not forgive.
I sprung into action, glad that the high heel on my boots was reinforced as I covered the three steps needed to get between me and the assassin. I smacked my sword mic upward to knock his pistol out of his hands and send it flying into the air. Funny enough, the impact was in sync with the musicians in the droid band. The lead droid of the band decided not to stop and was continuing to direct musicians. I ignored it and focused entirely on the fight in front of me.
The assassin, realizing that he'd made a mistake, started to turn back towards me. I saw him jump back and draw a knife from an arm sheath, but I wasn't finished with him yet.
The two of us engaged in a melee, each impact of our blades reverberated across the stage by the microphone in my blade transmitting the sound to the speakers. Eventually, it seemed he grew tired of being on the defensive as he closed in. I sent a swing to his head, but he blocked it with his knife before grabbing hold of my sword with his other hand. With my sword locked in his grasp, he wound up his knife arm to deliver an ice pick stab to my face. I let go of my sword so that I could duck under the blow. Noticing how overextended he is, I turned my back to him while reaching up to grab hold of his forearm. With his arm locked in place, I pulled it down over my shoulder at the same time I stood to my full height as an audible snap was heard.
A lot of "Ooh's" from the crowd were heard when I broke his elbow before it was drowned out by Death Watch wannabe as he screamed in pain and his knife was dropped from his limp fingers. To shut him up, I caught the dropped knife, pushed his head back to reveal his neck, before I plunged his own knife right into his jugular just as the music reached its peak and wound down.
The man stumbled back a foot as he clawed at his own neck before falling down onto his back. Without hesitation, I approached him and slammed the heel of my boot down onto his knife, pushing it deeper into his throat.
The man weekly grabbed onto my leg, trying to push me off, but I only added more weight, causing him to gag and choke on his own blood. As I looked down past my bust, I put more weight on until I heard a crack. As something important, most likely his vertebra, broke he finally stopped moving and let go of my leg.
Good riddance. That should teach everyone not to mess with my sisters.
Once I am sure that he is no longer a threat, I took a step away from the body and turned back to the cheering crowd as the band ended their song. I spotted the security guards, hired more for their muscle than their brains, already surreptitiously moving around the background of the stage. I nodded towards them. They ran over and dragged the body off-stage, dodging my sisters still dancing on the stage.
I wondered how they would take a literal live murder on holovision. It turned out that they were quite pleased with my actions, considering they were cheering for me. They started with a rigorous applause that quickly turned into outright cheering and clapping, followed by chanting our names. "Miri!" followed by equally loud "Khovi!" and "Sho!". I felt my face flush as I watched the glow sticks bob about in the darkness. It was something incredible, a spell-binding moment.
When I got my bearings again, Khovi gave me back my sword mic, I said to the mic, "Sorry about that, folks. Just a little bit of an overzealous detractor." I downplayed the danger, no need to alarm anyone now that the action was over.
The audience laughed, and I went with the flow. "Seems he thought I was White Silver's agent or something. A very strange line of thought. Must be a sign of how desperate the Death Watch, I think he called himself, are." The audience feedback mixed with the fading battle high is intoxicating, I felt much better after that fight when compared to any of my previous jobs. So I went on, eager to continue, "On the off chance that any other Death Watch people are watching this, I would like to affirm that terrorism is a terrible, terrible way to recruit Mandalorians to your cause. I thought you would have learned this during the last civil war, twenty years ago. Also, if any of you harm a hair on my sister's head, you'll end up like that Di'kutla back there."
I signaled the lead droid to start playing the music once more from the top. Khovi began to pound her spear on the stage, starting the rhythm with the music. Meanwhile, I swapped the mic sword back into position and said, "Now, back to your regularly scheduled performance before we were rudely interrupted. Hit it girls."
Concordia, Governor's Castle, Underground
Pre Vizsla
"Who. Ordered. That?" I demanded in a low growl as I pointed toward a recording of a Mandalorian news report on a "Death Watch" Assassin attempt to kill a performer. I cast my gaze around the room as I watch everyone's faces be confused at what is happening on the holoscreen before looking side to side. No one moved forward to break the silence or claim that they were responsible. Notably, Bo-Katan was absent from this emergency summons. She has been attending fewer and fewer meetings lately, but recently provided us with messages and dossiers detailing her recent activity as Mandal Hypernautics' Head of Security on Gargon, the contents of which I was still verifying.
Gar Saxon decided to speak up, "Perhaps there's a rogue element within the Death Watch. One who has broken with our plans and decided to take action for themselves."
"Merrik and Kryze are absent, could be them." Rook Kast unhelpfully noted, a gleeful smile playing across her dark lips. I frowned, of course, she would want to stir trouble.
"Merrik is back on Coruscant, where he is supposed to be." It was possible he was involved, but there is no obvious motive, as he would have nothing to gain from this. Merrik is dismissive of Gargon, he didn't even consider them Mandalorian enough to be worth his attention. "Bo-Katan is working on a secret project." I lied as naturally as I breathed. I'd cover for her because I knew Bo-Katan would never attack her own people for some plot. She is the type to prefer the direct approach every time.
At that last thought, I caught a glimpse of Rook Kast's face flickering to anger for a second before she calmed down and nodded silently. I'll remember that she could be a problem, but I have bigger Gi to fry.
"This rogue element has taken action for themselves and dragged our name into it." I am livid as it seemed that this was all over nothing, at least nothing that made sense to me. "Why would someone even want to assassinate a damn musician in a public concert in front of thousands of witnesses?"
"Maybe they believed those rumors that the Miri Chour is actually White Silver?" Freder Priest, head of Clan Priest, proposed with a shrug. "It's not that far-fetched. I dug into Chour's past a bit, and she has done a lot of jobs as a bounty hunter with her sisters." I glared back at that, he is taking this all a bit too calmly.
Gar Saxon glanced meaningfully at Freder Priest, before speaking up again. "My Mand'alor. As much as I think you are right in our efforts to try and minimize damage to the Mandalorian sector; the fact of the matter is that Gargon is barely Mandalorian. It could be seen as outside the sector, and if so, then it would not count as fighting within the Mandalore sector like you proposed."
"Ignoring the spirit of the rules and only following the letter, that makes us no better than the fools on Coruscant or Raxus!" I would not let this slide by, someone is undermining my authority and I must find out who and why. "Infighting in the Mandalorian sector, at a time like this, when the entire galaxy is on fire, will only push the people away from us. It might even cause a new crackdown on the Death Watch."
"Things are not in the right position yet where we can benefit from such a crackdown." Rook Kast noted, finally, someone seemed to catch up to my thoughts.
Freder Priest nodded, seeming to agree with Rook Kast, but said, "This may be true and maybe some of our people don't understand what exactly is the Mandalorian sector. We say sector, but this is terminology borrowed from the Republic. Sectors are mere lines on a map." I nodded in agreement and motion for Freder Priest to continue. "Mandalorians are spread out across three to four sectors within the Republic, and we have planets that are within the sector that we don't acknowledge as Mandalorian. It would be easy for a misunderstanding to occur like this, even among members of the Death Watch in good standing." He explained.
I nodded, as he had a good point. "Could be. I can understand any past confusion then, but I will not tolerate any would take advantage of confusion for personal exploit or to settle vendettas. I'll work up some documentation to clarify what exactly the Death Watch views as the rightful Mandalorian territory. However, while we don't know who is responsible, it could be some minor officer stepping out of line or we could have someone using our name to cause trouble. Governor Vrox would often use such tactics to keep Mandalore in check, let's not discount the possibility of someone learning from history. Let it be known we are searching for who orchestrated this, and when we do find them, we'll show them no mercy."
"Of course, my Mand'alor." Freder Priest said, and judging by the reaction of the others, they seemed to think the issue fully resolved for now. I needed to speak with Bo-Katan, perhaps she knew more. Perhaps she may have been the cause, although I strongly doubted it. Bo-Katan preferred an open duel to a blaster in the dark, she'd never do something underhanded like this intentionally. Freder Priest started speaking again, interrupting my line of thinking. "Also, I have been in contact with agents on Shogun. They have agreed to send aid to our cause."
I sat up at that, raising an eyebrow. "Shogun is sending aid? Last I heard, they were not interested in Mandalore. I know they hated White Silver's document, but they mentioned nothing about an alliance before."
Freder Priest shook his head, "There's a new rabble-rouser, calling for a return to Mandalore. Kahl Keldau from Clan Keldau has been lobbying hard for the aid of Shogun, part of why they are coming. A lot of younger Mandalorians there want to help Death Watch restore Mandalore's ancient ways. I don't know when they'll be arriving, but I do know they will double our numbers."
"We will welcome our brothers from Shogun then." I instructed Freder Priest. These young Mandalorians might be hot-blooded with conquest in their hearts, but frankly Shogun had never achieved much, nor impacted politics in any major way. Shogun is isolated, stuck out on the complete other side of the Galaxy, so we had few connections and ties back to them. However, Death Watch needed new blood, and these Shogun youths might be just the thing. Turning to Gar Saxon and the others, I added, "We will let them come, when they arrive, keep a firm eye on the new arrivals. They may not be familiar with the ways of Mandalore, so instruct them in the code. Take them as apprentices, if they are worthy. Instruct them in our ways and guide them. Otherwise, left to their own devices and plots, they may draw us further into the Civil War."
"Of course, my Mand'alor." Several voices at once agreed.
I was about to move to adjourn the meeting, and had stood up from the meeting table, when Gar Saxon spoke up, "My Mand'alor, I would like your opinion on a matter."
"Go on." I said, retaking my seat.
Gar Saxon looked quite pleased, and started stroking his chin, as if in thought, "The Duchess has declared Mandalore as neutral in this galactic war and so the Republic should not be sending any ships into our space, except through the neutral trade corridors for the Hydian Way. Yet, I have proof that the Republic is already violating that neutrality. Several agents are tracking ships currently in violation through Mandalorian space at this very moment." He paused meaningfully. It seemed forced, though, as if... "However, I would not wish to act in this matter until hearing your thoughts."
I am curious where Gar Saxon is going with this. The man usually had little experience or patience for politics, preferring a straightforward frontal assault. "What would you do with these vessels invading Mandalorian space, if given a free hand, Saxon?" I probed, interested in what his plot would be. Rook Kast smirked knowingly, but kept silent. I sharpened my gaze at that suspicious gesture before returning my attention to Gar.
He adopted a contemplative expression, as if he needed to take his time and collect his thoughts. Gar is an excellent tactician, but a poor leader, he never demonstrated any aptitude or care for understanding the intricacies of politics. This is entirely unlike him.
Was Gar put up to this by someone else? I tried to recall what news I had heard of Clan Saxon. Maybe this is related to his new wife? Vera Eldar, the former clan princess of the Eldar clan, had recently married Gar and entered into Clan Saxon. There were very few Clan Eldar members in Death Watch, as they were mostly Martial Traditionalists, among those angry with Tor and the treatment of the True Mandalorians. So if this was Clan Eldar making a move with Clan Saxon, that is something to keep an eye on with interest.
Finally, Gar Saxon seemed to have collected his thoughts and met my eyes. "My Mand'alor, I propose that we capture some of these vessels. Their security is quite poor. My agents already discovered the ships are expecting deliveries of cargo from a transport outfit in the sector. Mando Logistics is chartered to deliver their cargo. I believe a small team of skilled infiltrators could pose as these contractors and seize the ships... for the Death Watch."
Seizing the ships is more in line with Gar's typical proposals. However, simply seizing the ships was potentially throwing away an opportunity to rebuild the Death Watch name. How to handle this suggestion?
"A useful idea." I agreed out loud. "Prepare a list of candidates for at least three such strike teams. Start training them for such an operation in the near future. If this violation has happened multiple times and is still happening, we have time to prepare a perfect strike." Gar looked very pleased that I had accepted his proposal.
"However, while they prepare for such an operation, we will turn over this information to the Mandalorian government, and defer to their first move. By doing so, the Death Watch proves its commitment to defending Mandalore is genuine. It will go part of the way to repairing the damage done by Tor, as well as restore some of the harm caused by this false Death Watch attack. Mandalore must be united."
Gar Saxon frowned, "What if the Duchess handles these intruders herself? Will Death Watch be giving up the element of surprise?"
I shook my head in disagreement, "We can only hope for that outcome, it would be best if Mandalore is strong enough to deal with this. We will only step in with your plan if Mandalore does not act."
Gar Saxon grumbled, but nodded after a moment, "A political game and the possibility of gaining resources, I hadn't considered that."
"Two victories for the price of one. Either way, we acquire some new freighters for transporting gear or earn the favor of the Mandalorians as the protectors of the sector." I could tell he was not completely satisfied by this, but it would have to do. "Well done, Gar Saxon, for bringing this to my attention. Congratulations on your marriage as well." Gar Saxon spluttered at this, but I turned towards the rest of the faces.
"Monitor every foreign ship, Republic or CIS, entering Mandalorian space. As Freder suggested, I will be sending updated documentation on what encompasses the rightful territory of Mandalore. Any foreign ships inside of that, we need to know about. Understood?" I locked my gaze with each of the members in the meeting in turn.
"Yes, my Mand'alore." A number of voices spoke at once, and nodded their agreement.
I stood up and concluded the meeting. "All right, then I think we've officially concluded this meeting. Remember our objectives: find the enemy using Death Watch's name for their own agenda, and watch out for foreign interference in our territory. Dismissed."
The group of clan leaders nodded their understanding, and we all broke from the table. I walked out of the room and immediately turned left, heading towards my office. Today's meeting of Death Watch clan leaders is over, but I had further mysteries to solve today.
I shut my office door a bit too quickly, the hinges squeaking softly. I shouldn't focus on that; I needed to calm my nerves after that complex meeting. I would have to get another agent in the Clan Saxon to keep an eye on them. I sighed as I moved to massage my forehead with my fingers, and reached for the holocommunicator controls on the desk. I pressed a few buttons to activate the comm. I need more information on the assassin, and there is only one person that is in a position to answer that question.
"Good evening," I said with a nod as Bo-Katan Kryze's holographic upper torso appeared, hovering over the wooden desk. I am a bit surprised, she answered that comm request almost immediately. She is looking at me furiously too.
"Ori'buyce, kih'kovid! So is it war, then? Is that what this is about?" Bo-Katan's face is sharp as obsidian.
My eyebrows shot up. "Peace." I intoned slowly. I said it twice to emphasize the message. "War? Why would there be war?" What is she talking about? Is it because of the "Death Watch" assassin? "I wanted to check in on you, you know you can always rely on us. Death Watch can always provide relief or medical supplies should you need it."
"You're good, I almost believed that. I'm not buying this peaceful act, though, you aren't some unblooded New Mandalorian." Bo-Katan spat the words as if they were a gauntlet thrown down. "You sent dangerous, armed thugs to rob my employer's company headquarters in broad daylight. Some of my men are dead, thanks for that. Then you attacked White Silver's idols live in public." She shook her head in obvious disbelief. "I didn't think you'd sunk so low, Pre."
"I'm certain your judgment is premature. I did not authorize any Death Watch operation at Gargon after Gerr. As for the recent assassination attempt, I only knew what everyone else saw on the holonet." I paused, perhaps this could yet be salvaged. "However, I understand your point of view better now. I'd be willing to meet with you and White Silver in person at a suitable meeting site on Gargon to share information and resolve this dispute formally."
Bo-Katan looked frustrated, but didn't answer immediately, turning her head to the side. A few moments passed. "Fine. Against my better judgment. I'll have my secretary arrange the details." I held in a chuckle, I thought I would never see the day Bo-Katan learned to delegate. It's one of the weaknesses that held her back in Death Watch.
"Is there any way I could be of assistance then?" I asked with a tone of concern, checking again.
Bo simply shook her head, face still a silent mask of anger.
"Death Watch is looking to rent some more berths and construction docks, and we could be convinced to invest significantly in Gargon's spaceport. It would be counterproductive for us to instigate hostilities on a planet that we prefer to work with." I continued, the obvious olive branch even had the benefit of being mostly true. Of course, Death Watch could try to invade Gargon, but not only would it cost an enormous amount of manpower to accomplish, it would also reveal Death Watch to the Mandalore sector as a whole. Satine might even authorize a counter invasion, now that Gargon has agreed to be under New Mandalorian protection. In short, it is not worth the effort to start problems in Gargon, when the Mandalore sector as a whole is what I am aiming for.
If talks with White Silver broke down, we could sell back the slots for a profit in the future. Every fool could see Gargon is a sure investment thanks to the Civil War, with its prime position near the Hydian Way Hyperlane. Clans are clamoring to build businesses to cater to the Republic's sudden new military force. And White Silver has proven herself to be strong enough to defend her prize, judging by her opening display on Geonosis. Is that why White Silver interceded in Geonosis, I wondered with my refreshed perspective. I'd have to revisit that thought later.
"And it wasn't from someone else's order in Death Watch?" Bo-Katan pressed with serious concern in her eyes. Judging by that reaction, I am pretty sure I convinced her with the previous meeting offer.
I shook my head in the negative. "Senator Merrik is in Coruscant, obeying the Duchess's wishes. Gar Saxon is busy plotting to hijack some freighters violating the neutrality of the Mandalore sector by trespassing. Freder Priest is utterly loyal, to a fault, you as you know. And I highly doubt that you would order such an operation to those under your protection. So no, it wasn't Death Watch at the very least Death Watch that is loyal to me."
Bo-Katan's face is pure bewilderment. "Then who are they then?" She punched something out of frame. "You know, it's almost worse, if it's not Death Watch. Before, I thought I knew the enemy. Now..."
I shrugged. I knew less than she did, but I too am very interested in getting to the bottom of this, even more so now. "Did the assassin's chain code reveal any information?"
Bo-Katan merely shook her head. "Nothing, there's no info back from the Mandalorian chain code system and his armor is basic durasteel without any beskar. There is no info on their family or identity in them, he's a ghost. The ones who broke into MH are similarly unidentifiable, but they use red Plasteel armor."
That was odd, but not impossible, the chain code system had always been a rather useful but under-used system. Many Mandalorians did not trust the centralization such codes required and avoided them, but to have no family history in armor, that is not the norm as they would have to commission an entire set of armor and that is, this is a bit deeper of a mystery than I anticipated. Sighing, I asked, "Any suggestions on how I can mend fences with the White Silver before the meeting?" Earnestness and flattery being the central idea here.
"As you suggested: Docks. If you want to mend fences, rent, sponsor or invest in her shipbuilding. That will bring more jobs to the Mandalore sector and will raise the sector's defensive capabilities." That is unexpected. Just how much time did Bo-Katan spend on Gargon in order to learn how to talk like that? A question for another time, perhaps.
"And what about the sector's opinion? Someone claiming to be Death Watch just tried to kill a singer on live holo." Maybe she will have an answer to that as well?
"Idols." was the response, which caught me by surprise yet again.
"Pardon?" I asked, not following the sudden change in topic.
"White Silver's idols are a hopeful aspiration to what Mandalore could be. Under her influence, Mandalore would transform into a cultural hub, built on our military past. A cultural hub, but also of people and traditions, a way of life compatible with the possibility of fighting a war, but aspiring to cooperate. Tickets on Gargon are sold out for the idols. Stars, the shows on Mandalore are completely sold out as well."
I sat there, my jaw slightly lowered. I was pretty sure I had a bottle of strong whiskey hidden somewhere in this desk. I might have a need to find it, as I am wondering what universe I currently reside in. "Yes, well, I'm going to have to pay a bit more attention to these idols, aren't I?" I adopted a thoughtful expression. "Hmm. Who did you use to find your idols?"
Bo-Katan finally smiled, "I was the one in charge of the project, why?"
"How would you like to help Death Watch out from the shadows on this one?" I asked, amused at the chance to delegate this task right back to its sender. No amount of torture could reveal my secret leadership techniques.
Bo-Katan looked at me a bit unsure as she scratched her head, but after a moment, she nodded. "Alright, I guess I found one set of superstar idols. I could try and repeat my success."
Mandalore, Sundari Palace, Council Chambers
Duchess Satine
I covered my mouth reflexively in shock, reviewing the reason and cause of this emergency council meeting. Prime Minister Almec paused the holovideo playing the recording for the council.
"She... did she just kill a man on stage?" I asked, hesitating, alternating between looking at the council members, back towards the still frame of the scene, or putting my head in my palms at the amount of work I would need to fix this mess. The now-infamous lead idol Miri Chour is part of the Gargon Girls, the same idol group we had scheduled to appear at the cultural festival next month. The same festival that Bo and Tanya had hoped would demonstrate brighter Mandalorian ideals and encourage their fellow Mandalorians to embrace their better natures.
And now, this whole thing had gone completely sideways, and I was left carrying the bag. The silence stretched uncomfortably.
The Minister of Finance, Mrs. Droxun, is bold enough to be the first to answer my question, "Yes, a week ago, our official spokeswoman for the Mandalorian Self-Defense Force killed a man on a live holonet broadcast."
The Minister of the Interior, Mr. Armatan, spoke up after Mrs. Droxun finished, "Not exactly the best look. Perhaps we should try and pretend this never happened? We can still terminate the contract."
"I agree with that." Prime Minister Almec said with a nod of his head. He paused for a moment and shifted his purple gaze on me, "In fact, we should start pulling back on a lot of our ideas when it comes to the Self-Defense Force and the Silver Documents. I have a very bad feeling that this might be the start of a civil war between Death Watch and the Silver Mandalorians."
The Minister of the Mandalorian Self-Defense Force, Ikudtovu Ordo, is the newest councilwoman to join the council, went a bit pale as Almec droned on. She stood up, clearly itching to interject, but too polite to interrupt. Almec paid her no mind, but then he paused for a breath. "No! That would be a disaster!" She spoke towards the group, ignoring him. "We can't scale back now, there's never been so much focus or attention on the SDF. In fact, I would say this is probably the best thing to ever happen to our efforts to create a Mandalorian Self-Defense..."
"Are you mad?" Prime Minister Almec interrupted, looking at her with bewilderment. "She just murdered a man! Live on holonet broadcast! This will be all over the galaxy in no time, so all will know that Miri Chour is a bounty hunter and a cold-blooded killer. What will the rest of the galaxy see us as, if we celebrate such creatures?"
"Actually, that's not really an issue." chimed in the soft-spoken and junior councilman, Alrich Wren. Mr. Wren had been selected as Minister of Cultural Affairs two months prior. Mr. Wren was a professor at the Royal Academy, and Korkie's advisor for his academic merit project.
"The cultural festival has sold out three times over in the last nineteen hours. I've spent the last day lining up more venues to keep accommodating the demand. We're going to be making credits hand over fist on this." Mr. Wren paused to take a drink of water. I don't know him well enough to understand his character yet. Korkie had nothing but excellent stories about his time with the former professor, but it is interesting that when I had surveyed my council for a shortlist of names, Governor Vizsla had also independently submitted the man's name to my attention. Which is a strange coincidence but seeing as two independent sources that I trust vouched for him, he must be very capable. "The other cultural volunteers groups that will be demonstrating for live events throughout the Mandalore Sector, they've all not said a thing about this. They seem to have not cared or simply not cared enough to disprove it openly."
"Really?" The Minister of Finance, Mrs. Droxun said, raising an eyebrow before shaking her head in amusement.
The Minister of the Interior, Mr. Armatan, shifted uneasily, "We do have to contend with a budget shortfall this year. If no one else cares and it's actually going to make us a lot of credits..."
Prime Minister Almec looked shocked at his sudden betrayal. Before he could respond, though, Ms. Ordo spoke up again, "We don't have to worry about any criminal charges as Ms. Chour is in the clear, legally. This was a clear-cut case of self-defense. We do have a bit of a problem with the volunteer system because of this event, but not the way you would think."
Prime Minister Almec looked appalled, mouth moving with no words for a moment. Finally, he spluttered, "You're not saying volunteers are up... are you?"
Ms. Ordo did not hide her obvious military discipline or pride on her face as she answered Almec. "It's through the roof actually. The volunteer rate might as well be a vertical line upwards, especially when the ads dropped a day in advance of the story. Ms. Chour's self-defense legal defense triggered a second cascade of volunteers, even more than the initial wave. Right now we cannot even process a fraction of the applications. Some of the administrative regions have even begun to charge people for the right to volunteer."
Mr. Wren gave a polite cough into the sudden silence at the end of Ms. Ordo's last comment. The Minister of Cultural Affairs adjusted his glasses and muttered, "Well, the Self-Defense Force coordinated with the Cultural Affairs office." Ah, that explained things. However, Prime Minister Almec just gave him a confused look, so he continued. "What I mean to say is that there's a 25% discount if you're a government employee. This happens to include SDF soldiers, trainees, and enlistees."
I couldn't help myself, I chuckled behind my palm. He shot me a grieved look, but what could I do with this situation? It had gotten absolutely insane. Taking a breath, I finally said, "Alright, well, I think it is safe to say that we will not be breaking the contract with the Gargon Girls. We will get a few people upset with the fact that there's a connection between the Gargon Girls and the Self-Defense Force, even if it's just a little bit of mutual advertisement."
"People are upset about everything." Ms. Ordo said dismissively, waving away the concerns. "If this specific event had not happened, some other distraction would occupy our focus, and people would still be upset. At least we can gain some control of the narrative right now."
She shook her head, before adding, "Speaking of distractions, there was an interesting offer sent to us from the Mandalorian Patrol. They contacted the Palace's Royal Guard."
"Oh yes," I nodded, I had already been informed about this, and had planned to talk about it in the next council meeting, but then the craziness from Gargon had reared its head. "We should talk about the Mandalorian Patrol and their recent offer."
Prime Minister Almec looked at me in confusion yet again, "What offer?"
"To be clear, this is still being investigated, but from my understanding the Mandalorian Patrol is willing to sell some of their vessels that they've acquired over the years to the Self-Defense Force. We could use them to create a proper navy."
Prime Minister Almec shook his head, before saying, "How are we going to get the resources to purchase these ships, let alone maintain them? Sure, we have a manpower surplus right now, but we still don't have the credits for it."
Mrs. Droxun coughed, before speaking, "I might have an idea about that." Everyone focused on her as she said, "If the cultural festival is as successful as it is forecasted to be, perhaps we should send some screenings to off-system planets. We could sell the rights to holonet stations, syndicate shows that demonstrate Mandalorian culture and musical excellence."
"Make some extra cash off the cultural festival, buy the ships off the local mercenaries, and organize them into a proper Navy. That's not bad." Ms. Ordo said approvingly.
"As a one-off source of funding, it's good, but we can do even better. There's a week-long festival celebrated all across the Republic, the Festival of Life. It's about five months from now." Mr. Wren explained and nodded at Ms. Ordo. "We could make this cultural event a regular tradition and funding mechanism for the SDF." Part of me wondered why Mr. Wren cared so deeply about funding the SDF. Perhaps he wanted to turn his temporary ministry appointment into a permanent council position. "We should use the Republic's holiday week to start our own Mandalorian traditions and show off on Coruscant."
I gave Mr. Wren a slight nod, having more compatible sources of credits is always nice to have. "I'm interested, but not convinced. Create a more formal proposal and submit it for the next meeting."
Coruscant, Mandalore Tower
Tanya Kryze
My report back to Coruscant was less exciting than I had anticipated, with the Civil War on. I hurried back to Senator Merrick's office. His bodyguard let me in, and I nodded at the unfamiliar man approvingly. I strongly agreed with the wisdom of self-protection, especially after recent events.
Senator Merrick nodded at me from behind his desk, while his bodyguard took up a position near the door again. "Welcome back, Representative Tanya." He said slowly. "The Duchess has informed me that we need to improve our security. I'd suggest you stay away from the Senate."
"I met your new bodyguard. I also have some new staff; I think Ms. Morson will be ready to take the trials for the Royal Guards soon."
"I see, fine. However, I still suggest you stick clear of the Senate and your friends from Naboo. The Trade Federation Senators and agents are investigating you. Your recent actions are very interesting to them. Unless you like danger, I'd stick to areas where your diplomatic immunity actually protects you, like Mandalore Tower." At this particular moment, it was very hard to not act my age.
"Alright, I don't want to upset Aunt Satine." I bobbed my head.
"Very good." Senator Merrik nodded, and indicated I could depart.
After that conversation, I wasn't so foolish as to ignore Merrik's helpful warning about the Trade Federation. I should have expected that they would be interested in me, especially after their previous vendetta with Senator Amidala. So I am keeping clear of the usual Senate buildings and meeting areas.
Avoiding the Senate made me feel a little redundant, a backup singer to a world-class singer, but I appreciated Merrik looking out for things like that. Aunt Satine would be very annoyed if I was involved in another diplomatic incident so soon. However, it did give me time to run my businesses as White Silver, as well as keep an eye on how the war was progressing. My access to internal Senate documents and military documents is substantial, more than I was initially comfortable with, but apparently this is standard.
"X4, did we set up any substantial interests in Christophsis?" I queried. The documents I saw about troop movements were odd. While superweapons were the focus of public attention, the Confederacy are invading worlds all over the Galaxy. The planet Christophsis had been invaded, and it seemed that a large force in response from the Republic was being assembled to retake the planet. How important that planet was to the war effort is debatable since there are hundreds of mining worlds in the Outer Rim alone, but it did require some sort of response.
"No Mistress. Christophsis is directly on the Corellian Run. Mandal Logistics has been focusing on profitable trade routes that bypass major hyper-routes as those have less competition." I grunted, well, that was a good decision now, considering the Galactic Civil War is focused along those same primary hyperlane routes.
If the Republic did nothing to stop the Confederacy from invading worlds, well, that would make it rather apparent that the Republic treated some planets as more important than others. So the Republic is forced to respond to every invasion, or risk more planets joining the Confederacy in order to avoid being directly invaded.
The Senate had been terribly surprised by the invasion of Kamino as well, but the invasion hadn't surprised me in the slightest. If your enemy knows you have a supply network coming out of a single point of failure: one planet for all their clones, then of course they're going to attack it. There is no better way to cut off the supply of clones to the front line than to kill them before they've even been equipped. A battle prevented is a battle won, and it seems Count Dooku understood that as well.
Unlike Christophsis, where the conflict is still ongoing, the battle for Kamino had been won quickly. The Republic had no choice but to defend Kamino. I understand the planet had survived the assault and would be back in production, albeit at a slower rate for a bit. The new bottleneck in clone production had started a debate in the Senate about creating secondary clone laboratories elsewhere. However, I was still concerned about the use of clones at all for the Republic's infantry.
It's a lot easier to grab a man off the street and give them 2 months of basic training for a blaster than it was to grow a clone. Clone training is more complicated and expensive than arming a militia, no doubt due to clones being detached from society and lacking a proper childhood. The cost to train clones and send them out to fight is something like four times the price of arming existing citizens for a militia. The Senate is fixated on using clones, though, as it is obviously working, and they are hoping it will keep working until they win the war.
Shaking my head, I sat back in my seat and gazed out the window across Coruscant, staring at the endless ecumenopolis. There are a lot of worlds interested in improving their security and defenses now. The more well-known defense firms charged premium prices, they would probably cost them an arm and a leg. Alternatively, worlds could invest in security from Mandalore, as Mandal Hypernautics are producing their own local fighters for a relatively cheap rate. Not to mention, the Crusader-class freighters Mandalore produced had a moment in the spotlight since my rescue from Geonosis. The Peacekeeper had held its own against the droid fighters during its insertion and attracted outside interest.
"X4, did the Republic contact us regarding the Crusader-class freighters after Geonosis?" I might as well double and triple-check things in my downtime.
"Negative, my Mistress." X4 replied tersely.
Hmm, I turned my head slowly to move one of the bangs out of my eyes. "Who has been interested in them, then?" I asked.
"Would you like me to enumerate systems that have requested its technical specifications?" X4 replied.
"Just the ones that have placed orders or made an offer." I watched the traffic lanes of speeders and repulsor craft on the other side of the window, my eyes naturally seeking any pattern lurking in the chaos.
"Mistress, the following institutions have purchased at least one Crusader-class freighter: Corellian Security Forces, Arkania Defensive Navy, the Grand Protector of Rodia, the Taris Civil Authority, and of course, the Mandalorian Government. Additionally, many institutions have made offers, in particular the Telerath Banking Guild and Ryloth Clan Council have both asked for a license to produce the freighter themselves. Did you wish to respond to any of the licensing or other offers?" X4 asked.
"No... not right now. It would not be a good long-term investment for Mandalore. Maybe if we need credits in a hurry, but there's no reason to sell the rights right now. Even if they share improvements or technology for the Crusader-class back with us, we're much better off if it's Mandalorians making the discoveries and gaining the experience." I explained to X4, putting my back to the window again and facing the droid.
He made a confused beep in response, but followed that up with a chirp in the affirmative. "As you wish, Mistress."
I sighed and tried to explain it in terms X4 might understand. "Mandalore, and by extension, Mandal Hypernautics, has a lot of solid engineers, IT personnel, and ship-building experience. These human resources have been built up as a result of our investments in local companies. And yes, the licensing of the designs might draw in immediate credits or new technology, but it would waste all the credits we spent building up local companies for the same quality of work, as most will go out of business without our contracts. The more technology we built in-house, local to the sector, the higher-quality ships Mandalore will produce long-term."
X4 beeped in the affirmative again.
At least that's what I have hoped. The Ordo system and the Mandalorian Patrol in talks with Mandal Hypernautics, expressed interest in purchasing ships, and a few local worlds have expressed interest as well. I was also hoping they were willing to transfer their knowledge on shipbuilding for the plans on the Crusader-class freighter or other ship designs we had. The Civil War held the real possibility of transforming Gargon and Mandal Hypernautics into economic powerhouses.
A lot of my business operated out of Gargon; I need to consolidate my businesses on that planet to offer them all protection. Bo-Katan sent me a terse holocom about a group of thugs that broke into Mandal Hypernautics recently. It would be ideal if all my businesses could share the same security, same resources, etcetera. I believe that's why conglomerates and other megacorporations tended to form in the first place. I needed a Mandalorian supercorporation.
"X4, can you look into relocating the Armorer's Consortium, Vesti Engineering, and any other of my major firms not already on Gargon to the planet?" I definitely want the armor and weapons manufacturers included. "I would like to incorporate all my major companies into a single entity to offer them access to shared security and resources in the sector. Not to mention, it will make them easier to manage." Looking back at my datapad, showing the tangled web that is my personal finances, I longed for a proper corporate accounting structure.
"Vesti Engineering already has Phobium Power Cell facilities located on Gargon, Mistress." X4 corrected, "But of course, I will look into this. Is there anything else you need?"
Really, I needed to find something other than business to do with my life, otherwise I would become rather stagnant. Fine. I put my saucer down on the desk and turned back towards where X4 is working away, at several computers at once. Managing the companies as best as he could.
"Thanks X4, do you mind contacting Vai and asking her to perhaps prepare one of her expeditions to the city in the next week or so? I feel like I'm becoming stagnant in my position and need to let off some steam."
"Of course, my Mistress. Your schedule is clear for the next two weeks." He helpfully added. I am already painfully aware of my free schedule, however.
"Thank you, X4." I said, leaning back in my chair. I knew I probably am opening a can of chaos, but I could use something mundane and chaotic over the constant war updates I had to read about daily. Whatever Vai came up with would be entertaining, at least, of that I was certain. There is a reason that I kept her around, and it isn't because she's a good employee. If I'm pressed to admit it, perhaps I had grown fond of her chaos, as it complimented my order. As long as she is a controlled chaos under me, that is fine by me.
Msst System, Ancient Asteroid Base, Royal Aka'jor Shuttle
Korkie Kryze
What a difference four months can make. Four months ago, I was planning for an expedition to an asteroid to go looking for a lost relic ship, one that supposedly had unknown cultural relics. I was interested in what the Royal Museum of Mandalore could learn to get a better idea of the ancient past of Mandalore.
But by the time I was prepared to go exploring with my schoolmates and investigate this asteroid belt for the ancient ship, the galaxy had radically changed. The Republic is at war with the Confederacy of Independent Systems and Mandalore is in between the two of them
It was hard to truly grasp the reality of the situation. There was a dreadful aura of normality to the whole thing. The galaxy had gone mad, and everything just went on like normal. As if we were meant to simply accept this as the new status quo. People protested, condemned, justified, argued, but my classes resumed at the Royal Academy, and in Sundari life continued on as usual. Everyone still needed to get paid, everyone still needed to finish their education, and everyone still went home at the end of the day to warm food and a safe bed. I was no different in truth, as the days went on and the shock wore off, I became worried about how the state of the galaxy would affect my expedition.
The Prime Minister of Mandalore, Almec had strongly urged my Academy advisor against the expedition, and finally the Academy canceled the entire expedition a few weeks ago. However, my schoolmates and I protested his decision and with Aunt Satine's help we eventually overruled him on that matter.
I was happy about that, ecstatic. As people were displaced by war and bloodshed, I was happy that my little void archaeology expedition was given the green-light. I felt, honestly, I had no idea how I felt, but it was what I was meant to do. It's also a nice change of pace from those occasional diplomatic missions to the various planets inside the Mandalore system that Auntie Satine usually sent me on. So when it came to my life in this time of Galactic unrest, I simply did the same thing everyone else was doing. I kept calm and carried on. Which had resulted in a slow start and finally getting here to this asteroid in the middle of Msst system, the asteroid base that supposedly had a vault inside of it that carried a large ship full of relics.
Is the ship really there? It's hard to say. If the asteroid base is still operational, we could send a coded broadcast that would trigger the asteroid base to reveal itself. If we didn't find this code in the Kandosii, we would have to spend months looking for each asteroid large enough to fit a space dock manually since the dock's spatial coordinates would not have remained the same after several thousand years of drift. I am excited, though. Well, less excited about the fact that we are going to have to do a space walk across a small open area to the main doors.
Lagos, Soniee, Amis and I are wearing modified versions of the Academy hardsuits. The modifications ensured the suits were sealed and fully covered the body, allowing us to remain in the suit for an extended period without running out of air. Aunt Satine had our suits up-armored with some spare beskar from the Royal Armorer. I thought it was unnecessary, but she said that she will only allow our expedition if we wear armored suits in the event that trouble finds us, like the animal attack on Breshig.
Once we land we are going to have to do a bit of a walk across the sandy surface of the asteroid, before we could make it inside the dock. We can't land our shuttle inside because the docking bay is likely to be closed and can only be opened by someone inside. I doubt anyone is still alive after a thousand years.
Our objective is to search the abandoned base, find a way into the ship, and release it from whatever docking clamps held it inside the asteroid. However, there is always the possibility that the clamps had failed centuries ago, causing the ship to continually bump around inside the asteroid, trashing it completely and resulting in the loss of all relics. If that were the case, this mission would be a complete failure. But I held onto the hope that it would all work out.
Even if we confirmed the ship's destruction, there might be something left floating around inside. If we could confirm the ship's presence and the existence of relics, we could arrange for another expedition to explore the ship and see what had been left behind.
"I kriffing hate these things." muttered Crikey as she struggled to fit herself into a set of Mandalorian armor that resembled an earlier version of Super Commando armor.
"You shouldn't." said Tom, who was already decked out in his orange mechanical armor. He stood behind her, overseeing the task of making sure her gear is double-checked and fastened correctly to prevent oxygen loss.
The standard practice is to have someone else double-check your equipment before a spacewalk. So, everyone had paired up: Soniee and I are in one corner, Amis and Lagos are in another, Tom and Crikey in their own corner, and in the last corner are my squad of Royal Guards. Unfortunately, Captain Rau was no longer with us. He had been assigned to my guard duty ever since our visit to Breshig, but as soon as the Civil War started, he apparently took a leave of absence and began offering his services to the Republic as a fighter pilot trainer.
I wasn't a fan of the idea of one of our own training military forces inside the Republic, but I understood his motivations - Captain Rau felt it was the best way to protect Mandalore. After the incident with my younger sister and several other notable Mandalorians showing up in the midst of CIS deployments, it seemed apparent that Mandalore had made a poor first impression in the Civil War.
It was better to appear neutral and allow individuals to choose which side they supported than to appear to support one side or the other. At least that's what my sister's recent letters recommended regarding the situation.
Crikey's voice then crackled out of the ship intercom, interrupting my worrying with fresh concerns. "Hey! We are coming in for a landing. Unfortunately, the asteroid docking bay is already open! There are two ships already in the docking bay!"
A collective exclamation of "What!?!" went throughout the room, and I immediately moved towards a window to look out. Outside, I saw a strange vessel, one of a design I am unfamiliar with; it is long and had two wings that apparently rotated up. The ship reminded me a bit of the Aka'jor transport shuttle we are using, but sleeker and more combat-oriented.
The other ship is some sort of Corellian vessel, obvious from its discreet nature, and it looked fairly old.
My new Royal Guard Captain, whose name escaped me right now, moved to the window next to me. He also peered out the window as the ship came to a landing next to the two other vessels. When he turned back to face me, I caught a glimpse of his name lapel, Captain Briyuk. He said, "Well, what do we have here... Prince Korkie, I think we should call this off. We have an unknown force already inside the facility, this could be dangerous."
I just shook my head at his ignorance. "No way. We can't give up here. Those relics represent centuries of Mandalorian history, and they belong to the people of Mandalore... not these interlopers, whoever they are."
Captain Briyuk tilted his head in thought. "You think the Mask of Mandalore is there?" He jerked his thumb towards the ships, obviously joking by his expression.
"No idea." I wasn't here to find any specific relic, but those unknown ships indicated something was here. "Honestly, I hope not. But those others are here..." Both Lagos and Soniee were already heading over towards me, concern clear on their faces.
Amis had found one of the blasters, the same model I already had holstered at my side, and was examining it in his hands, seeming a bit too interested in it. His expression reminded me of my little sister. "I have a bad feeling about this." Lagos noted after one look at Amis.
Captain Briyuk immediately got serious, "Okay, if we are going to do this, we are going to do this my way. Staff Sergeant Obyrd and I will lead the way in. You and your friends will follow behind us and stick to the center of the group. The remaining guards will provide cover and rearguard. If any of your friends aren't prepared for a fight, they should stay aboard the ship. Got it, kids?" By the end of his instructions, a circle of us had formed around him.
Captain Briyuk moved through the group, and reached over to grab one of the extra staves stashed along the bulkhead of the ship. The guards had brought some kit from their armory for this mission. After grabbing one for himself, Briyuk tossed one to me.
"I know you're not one for weapons, but I doubt your little blaster you got there is going to be something you will feel comfortable with. So here, take this staff; shock anyone who gets too close. Don't get killed."
I chuckled politely, while he immediately started helping Obyrd prepare some additional firepower. I navigated around Lagos and grabbed my helmet and put it on. Soniee immediately started fussing with it, to ensure that the seal was secure. Eventually, we finished checking each other's equipment and once Briyuk was satisfied, we all headed toward the exit ramp. Crikey and Tom were there waiting for us by the ramp, and we started tracking across the sandy dirt of the asteroid to the facility.
As we passed the strange blue craft, my Royal Guards paused and examined the ship. One of them pointed, and then Obyrd's voice was audible in the suit speakers, "That's not good." I moved towards their position to get a better view, and then I saw the symbol on the external bulkhead. The symbol had three claw-like lines, connected by a central line.
A familiar symbol to me, but only because I had seen one on a manifesto recently while on Breshig. "Death Watch?" I said. Then I remembered I needed to use the suit radio. Pressing it, I asked, "The Death Watch symbol?"
Captain Briyuk nodded, "Yep. That's exactly what that symbol represents. We're going to have to be careful. If these guys are just jackasses pretending to be Death Watch, this could be a problem."
"And if they are Death Watch?" I asked.
"Well then, this is going to be the fight of our lives. Let's hope it's just pretenders."
I nodded and followed Captain Briyuk in. The rest of the Royal Guards spread out into their formation as we made our way to the ominously open docking bay entrance.
Once there, I saw that the situation was a bit different than I had suspected from a distance. The doors had been popped open, but not by a clever slicer, instead the doors were blasted open, with obvious damage showing from the aftermath of an explosion. Further inside, the destroyed doorway revealed a second set of doors that seemed to be firmly locked.
Carefully, we made our way past the debris of the outer doorway. Soniee made a beeline straight for the interior access panel. Half the squad of guards remained outside the exterior to guard, while Captain Briyuk and three others joined us inside the passageway.
"How's it looking, Soniee?" I called, a few moments of searching turned up nothing else interesting visible in the passageway.
Soniee replied, not bothering to look up from her personal datapad, "There's a basic atmosphere control still in effect. These doors are just here for backup, there's an active low level force field on the other side of that door. I should be able to open it whenever we want." She pointed to the indicated doors.
"Well, that's good, but not yet." Captain Briyuk, said before signaling his men to be ready to enter the facility. Once the squad was in formation and clustered around the door, he turned to us and said, "Stay back here, and if you see someone coming that's not us, either seal the door or start running. There's no reason to fight them if they are not Death Watch; lives are more important to Mandalore than any relics, so just get the hell out. Got it?"
I joined the group chorus of crackled, "Yes," and other forms of agreement from Lagos, Soniee, Amis, and the rest.
Captain Briyuk stepped forward from the group, and nodded towards Soniee. "Okay kid, after you open the door, move back against the passage bulkhead and stay clear. Ready?" There was a collective pause. "Open it!"
The door opened.
It was an instant standoff.
On one side of the room are seven Mandalorians wearing Super Commando armor of a modern make, all clad in a blue-black coloration, and wielding either dual pistols or carbine rifles. They each had the same three-clawed symbol on their shoulders, with a dash of red showing which side they were on.
On the other side of the room are two individuals. One is carrying a rifle of unknown make, wearing blue and red armor with yellow markings on their face mask. The other is a towering woman, carrying what could only be described as a rotary blaster cannon, as it had six barrels that were already warmed up, slowly and menacingly spinning. She's wearing blue and black armor that has a single solid plate over her chest, instead of the Supercommando pattern of several smaller plates.
As the door parted, both parties turned towards us. There are visible expressions of confusion on all parties present; neither one of them had expected more people to show up.
"Fucking traitors! You called the Royal Guard on us!?!" An angry voice yelled from the crowd of Death Watch minions. Some of them aimed weapons towards the Royal Guards. Immediately, all my guards raised their blasters towards the Death Watch soldiers.
"Why the fuck would we do that?" Called the taller woman, who swung her rotary blaster cannon back to face the Death Watch group.
"Oh! I don't know, maybe because you're a Manda-cursed bitch! A thief that wants to steal all these relics and fence them on the open market! I see how it is... If we can't have them, better to destroy them by handing them over to the damn pacifist. Do you know how much time it took to get the intel on this Manda-forsaken asteroid?"
"Probably got the intel from the same Hutt that sold you yours, you harpy!" taunted the voice of a shorter woman pointing her rifle at the original speaker.
"Ladies!" Captain Briyuk said, suit transmitting his voice over its loudspeakers, "All of you will lower your weapons now."
"Fuck you, pacifist!" shouted one of the male voices of the Death Watch members. One of them opened fire and one of his shots struck a Royal Guard in the face. He fell over, and I couldn't tell what state he was in, but I never had the chance to check as the room erupted into chaotic blaster fire as my Royal Guard charged the Death Watch members.
I grabbed Soniee's hand, since the doorway is open she is alone and vulnerable against the passageway bulkhead. So I pulled her along and took cover behind some crates.
Looking up, the shorter yellow-marked Mandalorian was standing on the boxes, and seemed to examine the fallen Royal Guard from a safe distance, before moving on. She moved at a rather incredible pace, returning fire at someone that shot at her.
"Well, I think she's on our side." I commented in a private comm channel, as Soniee nodded her head in agreement. A few more blasts missed us, aimed above our cover.
"Maybe we should move back towards the door and try to escape. I think the battle has diffused enough that we could sneak outside and not be noticed."
"Yeah, that's a good idea." I agreed, peeking around the corner to see what was going on.
As I peeked, I saw the tall Mandalorian, with her rotary blaster cannon discarded on the ground, caught up in a fist fight between one of the Death Watch members. From my position, it seemed she was doing a rather good job punching through the armor. I don't know what planet she was from, but apparently she was obviously superhumanly strong; far superior to baseline strength. Not even Mandalorian armor was able to stop her from breaking bones.
Another Death Watch minion snuck around behind her, and slowly raised her own blaster towards the fistfight, clearly aiming towards the taller Mandalorian. I was forced to act. I brought out my blaster, setting the staff on the ground, and aimed it at the hidden Death Watch minion. She immediately reacted to my motion, switching targets towards aiming at my position. My trigger was pulled and I felt the impact of a blaster shot at the same moment. My chest felt scorching hot and bruised from the blaster bolt, but the minion staggered as she fell onto his back, stunned. I am now really grateful for the beskar upgrade Aunt Satine insisted on adding.
The towering Mandalorian woman seemed to have heard the brief blaster exchange and abandoned her defeated opponent, scanning the area. Her opponent is completely still, either unconscious, or worse.
Turning to me, she gave me a thumbs up and said, "Thanks kid." She gave her opponent one final kick to the head, before moving on to complete some other objective out of sight. Then, I saw Soniee also peeking around the other side of the boxes. Soniee and I turned towards each other. We couldn't hear any more sounds of violence or yelling after a few more tense seconds of silent waiting. I wondered what side had won.
The answer came in the form of Captain Briyuk asking, "Clear, who's still alive? Sound off."
Popping my head up to look around, I answered, "Soniee and I are good." Surprisingly, the two individuals who weren't with the 'Death Watch' group from the previous standoff are standing next to the Captain.
Mr. Bresh and Ms. Crikey crawled out from behind a set of cargo containers, dragging an unconscious Death Watch minion. Ms. Crikey apparently had lost her helmet in the fight, but she looked like a victorious lion dragging her kill. I am pretty sure I recognized the knife that is sticking out of the Death Watch's body as hers. And Amis and Lagos came out from where they've been hiding. They'd somehow gotten their hands on Death Watch weapons by the looks of it.
"That could have gone better." Captain Briyuk remarked, examining the aftermath. He turned towards Soniee and asked, "Can you access their systems?" He swept his hand out, indicating the equipment from the fallen 'Death Watch'. "We still haven't found where the ship is hidden. We also don't know if that group is all of them, either; they might have backup nearby. I'd rather be on the way back to Mandalore before they show up."
Soniee moved over to a console and meanwhile, I asked, "Think these guys are Death Watch or just wannabes?"
Captain Briyuk shook his head, "I don't think they're the real deal. Their training wasn't up to snuff to the one we fought in the Civil War. I would like to think there'd be no reinforcements, but making an assumption like that is often just asking for trouble." Suddenly, Captain Briyuk's voice was only coming over my comm. "Prince Korkie. Those two interlopers assisted us back there, but they seem the skittish type. What are your orders?" The odd question almost caused me to miss that he had switched to my hardsuit private comm line.
I gave it some thought as I thumbed the discrete comm button on the suit vambrace before saying, "I think we can let them go, after we questioned them. They helped us out and it wouldn't be fair if we imprisoned them for helping. We still have to find the Relic Ship, and having to keep watch over prisoners will make it more difficult."
Captain Briyuk nodded his head, "As you wish, Prince Korkie."
I nodded in understanding as I scanned the room. A Royal Guard is bandaging our fallen guardsman, two Royal Guards are looking after Lagos and Amis who are standing next to Soniee on a console, and the others are examining the Death Watch group to make sure all of them are secured. The two unknown women kept themselves close together as they shifted around and eyed Captain Briyuk as he walked closer.
"The Prince has agreed to let you go after you answer a few questions. We won't pry into your identities, but we will need you to answer some of our questions."
The tall one replied, "And what if we don't answer them?"
"Then I will have to report you as members of Death Watch and have arrest warrants with your armor's description spread around the Mandalore sector. Trust me, It would be a lot easier for all parties involved if you cooperate." Captain Briyuk said with a nonchalant tone.
The short one placed her hand on the taller one and said. "What do you want to know?"
"First things first, how did you find this asteroid base? We had to find it in an underwater wreck." As Captain Briyuk asked his question, the taller woman walked to the side and started to pick up what looked like blaster components
The shorter one shrugged, "No idea, we were hired by them for our… uh, unique set of skills. So you'll have to ask them once they're awake about where they got that info."
Captain Briyuk nodded his head while keeping an eye on the taller one, "How did you get hired exactly? I am guessing through the bounty hunter's guild?"
The shorter woman nodded her head too, "Yeah, we were hired to salvage a shipwreck but we didn't know what exactly we would be salvaging. I would have preferred if this stuff went to a museum but we had to spend a week checking every asteroid in this area."
"Alright, last question, is the Corellian ship yours?"
The woman nodded her head, "That's right."
"Good, that means that we can impound that Death Watch ship and sweep it for evidence." Captain Briyuk said. "Alright I think that is all of the questions that I want answered. You're free to leave."
Soniee's voice suddenly boomed over the loudspeakers at an excessive volume. "I found the Seeker's Vigil!" She had clearly sliced her suit speakers up to eleven, again. I watched the two mercenaries leave back outside the base before I walked over to see what Soniee was looking at on the console display.
"It's two levels down, inside a vault. The facility is reporting the doors are sealed, but I can open them from here. The ship's fuel is showing empty. Either that or the tanks are ruptured." Soniee explained to the group, once the four of us joined up with the others.
I felt a slight vibration in the floor through the soles of my boots, it only lasted for a few seconds. Captain Briyuk started giving orders, "Baar'ur, how is he?" as he pointed to the Royal Guard that got shot in the head.
"He'll need an aspirin but he'll live." the medic replied.
Captain Briyuk then said, "Alright, half of you stay here to watch the prisoners, the rest will follow me with the Prince to the Seeker's Vigil." After the Royal Guards saluted, we headed deeper into the facility to get what we came for.
Mandalore, Sundari Palace, Council Chambers
Pre Vizsla
Someone is posing as Death Watch. Someone is trying to cause problems. Again. And someone is going to pay dearly for that.
News of the attack on Prince Korkie Kryze had traveled quickly back to Mandalore and currently the Duchess is probably the angriest he'd ever seen her. You could really tell that the Mandalorian blood in her is flowing right now as she paced back and forth, almost having the stomping of a march to it.
She took a seat in her throne; the backlight on the wall behind her lit up. She took in a deep breath, before saying, "So Death Watch has returned and in actuality; it's not just some rogue agent who happened to strike at Gargon. Now they've struck at the heart of the Mandalorian government."
"How did we miss their return? And what are we going to do about it?" I asked, guilelessly.
Death Watch never truly went away. Remnants have been under my command since, oh, quite a long time now. But my remnants, as far as I was aware, had not been involved in this operation.
Oh, I heard about the mission to find this lost Relic ship and I shrugged it off as it was not important in the grand scheme of things. What importance would come from capturing an ancient Relic ship when the end goal is control of the whole sector. Sure, it would gain us knowledge of our past, but does it grant the Death Watch movement legitimacy? Not really, unless the Mask of Mandalore is hidden there which I highly doubt.
Someone wanted to pose as Death Watch? I'll simply take a page out of White Silver's book. It had done wonders for her image when she destroyed an extremist splinter-faction; it might do wonders for my own faction as well.
Prime Minister Almec spoke after shaking his head, "It's impossible that these Death Watch have completely missed our notice. So I may have some theories on the matter on why we might have been blinded to their movements or their rise."
'Oh, this will be good.' I thought, as I leaned back in my chair.
Mandalore, Sundari Palace, Council Chambers
Almec
I stood up and addressed Satine, I glanced at Governor Vizsla, but I ignored his smirk, "Ever since White Silver made her debut a few years ago, I've been devoting resources to monitor their operations. So far, most of her operations are above board and legal. Which seems strange considering how they came onto the board in the first place - I suspect these legal businesses are merely a front to hide their true illegal operations. And perhaps these 'Death Watch' aren't truly the real Death Watch. Perhaps they are agents of White Silver, used to draw attention away from her operations so that she'll have free rein in the Mandalore sector."
Satine had an expression of complete astonishment; the only thing that could have made it better was... I turned to take in the rest of the council. The look on Governor Vizsla's face... it shared the same expression of complete shock. As usual, I am the only one paying attention to the serious threats circling Mandalore. The Duchess spoke first, "That… makes no sense. Why would she have used her own movement to attack the Gargon Girls?"
I nodded, "Yes, that's a good question. I believe that assassination attempt is a false-flag attack from White Silver, to make the Gargon Girl's a martyr. Right now we are assuming that because they attacked White Silver, they are enemies. All we have to show that they are enemies is the attack itself, which is circumstantial evidence at best. And the attack failed."
"It only failed because the Gargon girls actually wore beskar armor. Something White Silver herself endorses pretty heavily." Governor Vizsla pointed out.
"Yes, and very few people probably knew that before the attack." I countered.
Governor Vizsla shrugged his shoulders at that.
Satine still seemed puzzled, "That's a possibility, so let's prepare for the worst case and assume that this really is a faction of Death Watch reborn. How are we going to handle this situation?"
I was prepared for this possibility. "We reactivate the old apparatus for hunting down any Death Watch sympathizers, keep an eye out for their movements, and try to figure out what their overall strategy is." The previous efforts to root out the Death Watch had succeeded after all, the only problem was that we let our vigilance down. If Satine approves of this proposal, maybe I could transform the task force monitoring White Silver into a permanent department. I retook my seat, so the council could discuss the proposal further.
Satine nodded her head in agreement, obviously lost in thought, looking for any way to deal with the potential threat of another terrorist organization.
Governor Vizsla seemed less convinced by my proposal. He shook his head in disagreement. "This all seems premature. Have the attackers that targeted Prince Korkie been identified yet?"
Satine shook her head, "No, they have not been fully identified yet. The Royal Guard are transporting them and their ship back to Mandalore, in addition to the recovered relics and the ship. They should return in a week's time, why?"
Governor Vizsla stood up and explained, "Well, my Duchess. I'm concerned that the Prime Minister's plan, while well-meaning, could turn into a witch-hunt. Many Mandalorians have family ties to exiled or dead Death Watch members. And I have serious doubts if any of them are involved in the attacks. So I have an alternative proposal, allow me to investigate these Death Watch. We will pursue a thorough investigation as Concordia has the largest database of Mandalorian chain codes in the sector, a sad legacy of the last Civil War."
My first reaction to that proposal is annoyance. While Governor Vizsla is right in that Concordia had the largest collection of chain codes, since most of the warriors were exiled to the moon after they lost the Civil War. However, it is fairly obvious that he is empire-building. Always had been with Concordia, he had an endless amount of superiority about Concordia being an agricultural exporter. I merely tolerated it, as long as it didn't harm Mandalore.
Satine still seemed lost in thought as she considered her options. A few tense seconds of silence passed, before she nodded in Governor Vizsla's direction. "Once they arrive back to Mandalore, I'll let you know so that you can begin your investigation." Satine turned to face me, "Put together a task force for your investigation. We need to have a complete understanding of what's going on. Someone out there is trying to cause trouble for the Mandalorian Sector, and we need to know why in order to stop them."
I am glad to be put in charge of the task force, but interestingly, Governor Vizsla also seemed pleased with this outcome. Now I could repurpose my existing White Silver task force with this new investigation, and it would have more funding. "It will be done," I said to Satine. "I will have my top men look into this and we will find out who is responsible, you have my word, my Duchess."
Governor Vizsla nodded at my words and stroked his chin, "Concordia will offer any information we can as well. When your task force has custody of the bodies, we can run their chain codes on our database."
The other members of the council seemed happy we had come to a consensus, as they are not nearly as interested in security concerns.
I didn't want Concordia to steal all the credit though, so I added, "Perhaps we should also get some of the other governments involved in this task force. Gargon in particular has an interest in tracking down the Death Watch responsible for the latest attack. I'm sure many other Mandalorian systems would accept extra security measures to avoid an influx of 'Death Watch' terrorist attacks."
Governor Vizsla frowned, he did not look pleased by my assertion, but said, "Yes, we should try and work out a more legal framework to cooperate in criminal investigations between systems. Criminals can easily skirt around local law enforcement in the sector by simply leaving the system. We can put into place new legislation on information sharing to make it easier to track these criminals down."
And I would be able to gather as much information as possible on what they actually knew about White Silver and the Silver Mandalorians. I had my theories of how deep they went, but until I had proof, I could only speculate on what they are truly up to.
Coruscant, Goodvalor's Little Bivoli
Engiz Ordo
This is not how I expected things to go. But the way things had gone... is the opposite of terrible.
I am sitting at a fine table in my actual dress uniform, not my usual Royal Guard armor, across from Tanya in a rather expensive restaurant.
At Tabbi's suggestion I had made my move and asked Tanya to come out on a date with me. A date at a place that probably is going to cost half of my salary from last year.
But right now, it's completely worth it. The food is great and the conversation is about the history of the Mandalorian worlds, various ideas that had been tried throughout the long history of Mandalore, and how the government could be better run.
None of the other Royal Guards had much interest in these rather nerdy topics, but she's been smiling the entire time talking about them and so have I, so nothing wrong here.
Sure we just spent the last 20 minutes of our meal talking about the effect of the economy due to the war with how it could both be spurred on and stopped depending on how terrible the war is. But the conversation is academic, not something that would be detracting from our night, so it is enjoyable.
Unfortunately, all good nights have to come to an end and as conversations draw to a close, the bill arrives.
Sliding my credits onto the little tray, I said, "So Princess Kryze, how did you find tonight?" Yes, I know that that particular question showed just how on edge I really was, but I am hoping that she wouldn't notice that.
Tanya smiled at that and leaned back in her chair. "Tonight is good, I've been so busy with politics that it's nice to just have a theoretical conversation with someone again. One that doesn't require me to worry about how it's going to work or the right way to implement these changes."
…Oh, she's not complaining about me. Though, she hadn't actually said anything in favor of my invite. Ahh... baby steps this would take baby steps.
Hiding my inner turmoil with a smile, I said, "That's good. You always seem happier and more yourself when you're not stressed out, in my opinion."
"Thank you, Engiz." she said with a smile that I could feel.
The waiter came by and picked up the little plastic tray tearing off the credits and left the receipt, so I got up and moved around to help Tanya stand up. Unfortunately, Tanya is a bit faster as she got up herself.
Although, she did offer her arm, so we walked together out of the restaurant onto one of the upper level streets of the capital city of the Republic.
"Smells like the air cleaners around here aren't working right." Tanya noted. I nodded my head in agreement, there is a definite smell of burnt fuel. Coruscant is a rather complex system built up from its millenia long history, so it wouldn't be impossible for one of those systems to have broken down around here.
"We should probably get back to the speeder faster to avoid the stink then," I suggested. We moved towards a stairway leading down to the parking garage where we parked the speeder I rented for this evening.
I turned the corner and only my training allowed me to dodge a fist that's been flying in my direction. Tanya and I took a few steps back, just gawking at the scene.
Looking down the garage interior, it's déjà vu, as in front of me are two groups of men fighting. Both groups had cybernetics enhancements and are beating the hell out of each other.
"Die snake in the grass, CIS bootlicker!"
"Eat Republic cheese ass-kisser!"
Came the battle cries of both groups, as they beat the hell out of each other.
Then, one of them looked in our direction and tilted his head saying "Hey! Don't I know you two?"
"You must have confused us for someone else." Tanya said, holding on to my arm tightly as she backed up further.
"Nah, I swear I've seen you." The belligerent didn't get to finish that sentence, as one of the 'CIS bootlickers' smashed a metal panel into his face, causing him to collapse into the side of the building. The tragedy continued with him collapsing on the stairs and rolling down several steps, only stopping once his comrades grabbed him.
"I think we should not use underground parking from now on." I said, shaking my head as I backed off with her. "I can have the valet bring us the speeder."
"Yeah, I think that's probably for the best." Tanya eagerly agreed with my suggestion. We continued to back away, keeping our eyes locked on the ongoing conflict, hoping they would not pay us any more attention.
"Hey, wait a moment! That guy's wearing the colors of the CIS! Get them!"
I looked down at my dress uniform, realizing yes it is a rather grayish color and very similar to the color that the 'CIS bootlickers' are wearing.
"Oh boy." I muttered as a man came charging at me, ready to punch my head off. I moved faster than him and leaned to the side to dodge his swing. In retaliation, I grabbed his arm and pulled him closer so I could deliver a knee strike into his intestines. I finished by pushing him back down the stairs into another onrushing cyberthug.
I turned to Tanya to see if she's okay. She is laughing in pure joy as she kicks an incoming attacker between his legs, ripping her dress in the process. The maneuver is perfectly timed, causing him to stop right in front of her as he cradled his groin to ease the pain. This leaves him open for Tanya spartan kick to his face, pushing him down the stairs and taking out two more of the gangsters in an avalanche of bodies.
I took advantage of the lull in combat to escape as I grabbed Tanya by the hand and started running in the other direction. I activated my communicator in my vambrace and called Tabbi. He should be nearby, he said he was having a date with Vai tonight as well.
Writer's note: Political fight in street? That's not a good sign, at least those Mandos are having fun, and agents are moving in the background to unleash chaos. What will happen? Hard to say, but I'm sure everything will be fine~~~ also this chapter was pain to get right, mashing two 20k doc together was hard, and sometimes when we editing it, it felt like we have gone over the same part couple times and we're having "Left hand did not know what right hand was doing." I think it's because it's just too long. I might have to keep that in mind for the future.
Edited by: L4, Warmach1ne32, Afforess, D3ad0S
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716 FNM (22 BBY)
Month 9
Gargon, Baarpir'balac Resort, Grand Amphitheater
Miri Chour
In the years I had been out there working various jobs, I had worn many disguises that tended to hide my armor rather than accentuate it. This is why I am somewhat used to having to wear a new costume almost every day. When I had taken this job a year ago, I had suspected that I would end up disliking it, or worse, my sisters would hate it.
However, my opinion slowly improved over time. Shomso always insisted that I am a bit over the top in my bounty hunting antics. She criticized my last hit as "theatrical." Now I didn't feel like I needed to resist that urge anymore, the drama is celebrated rather than a liability; no more frowns from the girls... okay mostly Shomso. Not only that, but the credits coming in are very good. There was no other way to say it. Instead of having to murder a person every other month, all I had to do was sing, dance, and act very flirtatious for the camera once every couple of weeks.
Of course, it took time to build up to the status we are at now. A few months ago, we were playing in a small lounge-like theater that could squeeze a few dozen people inside. Now, we have a major theater that we visit every couple of weeks to perform, and things are starting to get a little bit crowded in those theaters. There had even been a fight in front of the theater over someone scalping tickets, which Bo-Katan had told me not to worry about, but it kind of did worry me. Anyone could slip in and try to assassinate us if they were crazy enough. I am sure that sooner or later, someone who had a vengeance debt on us for killing their spouse or son would get word that I had taken up a career as an idol and try to get a little bit of revenge. That is one of the reasons I often walked on stage not with prop pistols, but real ones. It's set to stun, just in case I need to defend myself in an emergency.
It's a bit risky, I know, since some of our stage performances included some rather acrobatic fighting choreography, which we worked hard on. About half of our so-called 'play fights' on stage left us somewhat bruised, because we wanted it to look as real as possible. Which seemed to work well with our audience, they seemed to enjoy the action.
Thankfully though, we only did a play fight every two months or so. Tonight's performance, a rendition of Agol'skira, did not have a fighting sequence, but it would be the largest audience we'd ever played for. Our schedule revolved around getting ready for the next big thing, which kept us a little bit too busy. I was working with designers to get into a new dress ready for this current concert, but my standards are moderate for this piece, nothing too spectacular. I did notice the executives had rejected some of my color choices, though, it seems like they were trying to minimize the black and the color scheme I preferred. Maybe the white and silver colors were chosen instead so that White Silver could try to live vicariously through my performances. After all, I was fairly certain she's signing my paychecks through Mandal Hypernautics, so it made sense if she chose her preferred colors as well.
I'd caught a glimpse of White Silver before, and regularly saw her underlings. So I know that they are female, that wore silver and white as the main colors of their armor. I also ran into the fancy actress they had brought out to Gargon to film some kind of television series, which made me suspect White Silver was living it up a little. The Balac Resort only recently opened after all, it's an entirely brand-new Hotel and Casino resort complex that White Silver had built out in the middle of nowhere, her private kingdom on Gargon. But since it's her credits, she can spend it however she likes.
Anyway, today is going to be like any other. We have a concert in about half-hour and we are finishing our preparations. I am wearing the armor that had been modified and created for us. It bore some resemblance to the modern and sleek Super Commando armor set, although they had stripped out the under vest that the plates usually went on and arranged it more like a corset. As a result, the upper plates lined up on top of my breasts, accentuating them to some extent. Of course, that also left a rather open area in the center that showed a bit of cleavage, and in that area is a pendant of an iron heart that I was supposed to wear as armor. It's not functionally great, but as a secondary piece of armor for a costume, I didn't mind. To actually hit that small opening, you'd have to be a damn good shot.
My arms are left bare for the most part, except for vambraces that are specially designed to make particular noises when they hit each other. There are also a few buttons to trigger some pyrotechnics hidden on the armor in a few places. Over my shoulders, I wore a cape—not the one I usually wore when I wanted to combat, but a shorter one coming down to the small of my back. Like the front of my armor, it's somewhat revealing. Well, quite a bit of my back is exposed in this getup, but I wasn't as concerned with the small of my back. The cape, from what I understood, used anti-blaster fabric, so it's technically armored - not the best armor, but it's something.
As for my lower body, I am wearing a short but fluffy skirt with armored plates just visible underneath it on my thighs, and some heavy armored boots, with high heels. If I hadn't been practicing with heels for a long time, I might have had a problem, but I am familiar with this particular formation.
This is also where the pyrotechnics are hidden. The leg armor or boots had little rockets that would fire up and shoot into the sky when I moved over hidden activation plates on the stage. I activated the hidden plates with a button on my vambraces, so I could make quite the entrance or quite the exit, depending on what the performance needed.
Khovi and Shomso are wearing something a bit more conservative. They are wearing armor in their style colors, pink, green, and black, but whereas I'm wearing a sexy dress that showed a lot of skin, they wore dresses that are a lot more fluffy and traditional, and to be very frank, cute.
The Dressmakers that provided our costumes are doing a good job of trying to figure out ways to work armor into clothing, making it cute, sexy, and in a few cases, just good-looking. Granted, it was only for the female style, but guys tended to not notice style unless it was pointed out to them, or they were trained for a job. From what I've seen over the years, men wore the minimum that worked, so what they wore tended to be rather plain. So we let them wear plain clothing, and let our girls have fun.
Girls with a cuter aesthetic seemed to have a little bit more fun than my sexy style. All of us had to work out thoroughly whenever we got the chance to maintain a level of acrobatics and strength to perform at the top of our ability. While I mainly just walked on stage and sang, maybe getting into a fake fistfight with some crew member pretending to be a villain in the song, they got to do more exciting things. For example, Shomso had wheels in her shoes which allowed her to move around the stage quite quickly, especially considering there are also jets on the back of her shoes, allowing her to perform some rather acrobatic spins.
Khovi instead tended to carry a spear, one that she used to make rhythm on the ground. It was specially designed with electronics that allowed for different sounds to be produced, depending on what area of the spear she is holding.
To be honest, I thought our gear was already impressive enough. Khovi's spear can double as a synthesizer guitar with just a few tweaks, and Shomso is getting an upgrade that supposedly improved the musical aspects of her armor. As for me, I am supposed to check out a new item today that is meant to complete our image, whatever that means.
I shook my head as I looked at myself in the mirror, thinking I should probably touch up my makeup. I picked up the box containing the mysterious item and laid it out on the table in front of me. After popping the locks on the side, I opened it up and was pleasantly surprised.
Inside is a rapier-style sword, unlike any traditional swords from Mandalore such as a beskad. The blade edge is practically nonexistent as it is basically a long pole coming up in a straight line before branching out into a handguard. It's more like a fancy cane than a functional weapon and at the base of the handle is an unnoticeable microphone.
I could probably have a little fun, do a few mock fights with it; I swapped it around from hand to hand, to sing into the mic at the pommel. Of course, we already had in-ear mics, so I didn't really need it, but there might be some extra functionality hidden within. I turned the rapier about, inspecting it for anything else, and when I checked the base I found a symbol that seemed important. My vambrace chirped when I scanned it, displaying the user manual for the device. I quickly browsed through the manual and discovered a few other modes, such as adding echo to my voice or other digital effects to alter the sound. I'll have to play around with it more when we have time to produce a song, but for now, it would serve as a regular mic. It added a unique touch to the costume, and I wouldn't be surprised if hitting the mic against my armor produced some fancy sound effects.
My thoughts are interrupted by a knock on the door, and an attendant pops his head in to say, "Three minutes till curtains. The opener fired them up, and it looks like we've got a big crowd tonight. Have fun!"
Smiling, I nodded and said, "We will." He nodded and left the door open, leaving me with my sisters. I turned to them and said, "Alright, girls, let's go out there and meet our adoring fans. I'm sure they can't wait to see us again."
"Woo, let's do this!" Khovi exclaimed, pulling up her spear. Shomso nodded her head silently, smiling warmly back at us as she followed along.
As we ascended the steps, I am happy to see that we had a rather large cheering crowd today. The open-air theater is large enough that several thousand people could view the large screens near the top. It's located in the center of the sprawling Balac Casino complex, so anyone outside the theater's range would have to be on the next mountain over or have paid an entry fee at the gate down the mountain.
Approximately half of the audience are women, with half of them donning variations of uniforms we've worn during previous concerts, or clothing that proclaimed our colors: pink and black, green and black, and black and silver. While some may have created the outfits themselves, I could tell that a few nearer to the stage had purchased replicas from the stores on the property.
Furthermore, some attendees wore armor in our colors, which I hoped was purchased from an armor painter on the property, as they did an excellent job. In fact, I had them look over original Mandalorian armor, and spruce it up a bit; I must say, it turned out quite nicely.
Glow sticks are also present, in green, pink, and silver variants. Unfortunately, black wasn't available for the material used for the glow sticks, at least from what I've seen. Knowing the owner, they are probably on the lookout for a way to merchandise my preferred darker coloration.
And last week, they even auctioned a speeder with my face on it in my colors. I physically cringed when I found out, and the girls' teasing didn't help. I'm still not sure how they managed that or who was dumb enough to actually bid on it. I'm half-expecting to have to show up on stage holding the keys, and make an embarrassing exchange to some local who bid something astronomically high because of how terrible of an idea the whole auction was. Instead, it ended up going to some foreign off-worlder with a million credits to waste.
Putting that embarrassing sequence of events out of my mind, I focused on tonight. It's showtime. I walked across the grand expanse of the main stage, which is cluttered with different props that we will be using in tonight's performance, my heeled boots tapping as I led the girls to their positions on the left and right. We prepared a series of songs for tonight's performance. Taking a deep breath, I held the mic sword up to my face and clicked on the mic, saying, "Good evening, Gargon. I hope everyone enjoyed the opening song from the band. They're pretty good at what they do, if you ask me." The crowd answered with a loud cheer. It is an aspect of this new job that I don't think I could ever get used to, being on stage in front of a cheering crowd.
"This next song is based on the killing of the great monster Durge. My great-great-something or another from centuries ago was one of the contenders for the seat of Mand'alor and was involved in the destruction of a creature who had sworn the extinction of all Mandalorian culture. Obviously, he failed, just another example of how tough our people are." I grinned, happy to share an old family story that had been passed down through the generations. I wasn't even sure if Durge was real or not, but as my father had once said, it's always good to dance on a monster's grave.
The crowd seemed ready and pumped ready for the song, so I nodded to the droid musicians in the band, and they started to play the first few notes. In an instant, the high-octane series of notes got my blood pumping.
I actually couldn't wait to sing this song. I've been preparing it for some time, translating an old family story. After all, translation and editing of a recorded copy of an oral history is challenging. Much of my time was spent making sure it would come off right when sung; if the story made people sympathetic to the monster, well, you did it wrong. Yes, there were moments of the story that were a bit sympathetic, Durge in the tale had been close friends with the Mandalorians, but that detail is a distraction if I tried to explain it in full in the song. What was important to the story is the epic battle and aftermath, how he was buried under hundreds of feet of duracrete to die.
As I brought the mic to my face about to sing the first line, a Mandalorian in full blue armor rocketed up past me on stage, before stopping in midair and falling back down. Their jetpack halted their fall, turning it into a graceful landing, right next to me.
I turned, drawing my pistol on the intruder, as he pulled up a pistol of his own. Unfortunately, he was faster and landed his first hit on my blaster, damaging it to uselessness. The assassin moved his gun towards my torso, next saying, "In the name of Death Watch, die, dog of White Silver!" He pulled the trigger, and for a moment, I thought I was dead as I felt the impact on my gutt. Then I realized that instead of aiming for the literal open space that's my cleavage, he'd gone for center mass and fired at the protective beskar armor. He is already turning away from me, seeming to have assumed that I was dealt with, swinging the gun towards Khovi.
I am not exactly happy about all of this. I had just been shot, my sisters were in the line of fire, and he had assumed that this armor was just for show and didn't have any beskar in it. These are all very grave insults, ones I would not forgive.
I sprung into action, glad that the high heel on my boots was reinforced as I covered the three steps needed to get between me and the assassin. I smacked my sword mic upward to knock his pistol out of his hands and send it flying into the air. Funny enough, the impact was in sync with the musicians in the droid band. The lead droid of the band decided not to stop and was continuing to direct musicians. I ignored it and focused entirely on the fight in front of me.
The assassin, realizing that he'd made a mistake, started to turn back towards me. I saw him jump back and draw a knife from an arm sheath, but I wasn't finished with him yet.
The two of us engaged in a melee, each impact of our blades reverberated across the stage by the microphone in my blade transmitting the sound to the speakers. Eventually, it seemed he grew tired of being on the defensive as he closed in. I sent a swing to his head, but he blocked it with his knife before grabbing hold of my sword with his other hand. With my sword locked in his grasp, he wound up his knife arm to deliver an ice pick stab to my face. I let go of my sword so that I could duck under the blow. Noticing how overextended he is, I turned my back to him while reaching up to grab hold of his forearm. With his arm locked in place, I pulled it down over my shoulder at the same time I stood to my full height as an audible snap was heard.
A lot of "Ooh's" from the crowd were heard when I broke his elbow before it was drowned out by Death Watch wannabe as he screamed in pain and his knife was dropped from his limp fingers. To shut him up, I caught the dropped knife, pushed his head back to reveal his neck, before I plunged his own knife right into his jugular just as the music reached its peak and wound down.
The man stumbled back a foot as he clawed at his own neck before falling down onto his back. Without hesitation, I approached him and slammed the heel of my boot down onto his knife, pushing it deeper into his throat.
The man weekly grabbed onto my leg, trying to push me off, but I only added more weight, causing him to gag and choke on his own blood. As I looked down past my bust, I put more weight on until I heard a crack. As something important, most likely his vertebra, broke he finally stopped moving and let go of my leg.
Good riddance. That should teach everyone not to mess with my sisters.
Once I am sure that he is no longer a threat, I took a step away from the body and turned back to the cheering crowd as the band ended their song. I spotted the security guards, hired more for their muscle than their brains, already surreptitiously moving around the background of the stage. I nodded towards them. They ran over and dragged the body off-stage, dodging my sisters still dancing on the stage.
I wondered how they would take a literal live murder on holovision. It turned out that they were quite pleased with my actions, considering they were cheering for me. They started with a rigorous applause that quickly turned into outright cheering and clapping, followed by chanting our names. "Miri!" followed by equally loud "Khovi!" and "Sho!". I felt my face flush as I watched the glow sticks bob about in the darkness. It was something incredible, a spell-binding moment.
When I got my bearings again, Khovi gave me back my sword mic, I said to the mic, "Sorry about that, folks. Just a little bit of an overzealous detractor." I downplayed the danger, no need to alarm anyone now that the action was over.
The audience laughed, and I went with the flow. "Seems he thought I was White Silver's agent or something. A very strange line of thought. Must be a sign of how desperate the Death Watch, I think he called himself, are." The audience feedback mixed with the fading battle high is intoxicating, I felt much better after that fight when compared to any of my previous jobs. So I went on, eager to continue, "On the off chance that any other Death Watch people are watching this, I would like to affirm that terrorism is a terrible, terrible way to recruit Mandalorians to your cause. I thought you would have learned this during the last civil war, twenty years ago. Also, if any of you harm a hair on my sister's head, you'll end up like that Di'kutla back there."
I signaled the lead droid to start playing the music once more from the top. Khovi began to pound her spear on the stage, starting the rhythm with the music. Meanwhile, I swapped the mic sword back into position and said, "Now, back to your regularly scheduled performance before we were rudely interrupted. Hit it girls."
Concordia, Governor's Castle, Underground
Pre Vizsla
"Who. Ordered. That?" I demanded in a low growl as I pointed toward a recording of a Mandalorian news report on a "Death Watch" Assassin attempt to kill a performer. I cast my gaze around the room as I watch everyone's faces be confused at what is happening on the holoscreen before looking side to side. No one moved forward to break the silence or claim that they were responsible. Notably, Bo-Katan was absent from this emergency summons. She has been attending fewer and fewer meetings lately, but recently provided us with messages and dossiers detailing her recent activity as Mandal Hypernautics' Head of Security on Gargon, the contents of which I was still verifying.
Gar Saxon decided to speak up, "Perhaps there's a rogue element within the Death Watch. One who has broken with our plans and decided to take action for themselves."
"Merrik and Kryze are absent, could be them." Rook Kast unhelpfully noted, a gleeful smile playing across her dark lips. I frowned, of course, she would want to stir trouble.
"Merrik is back on Coruscant, where he is supposed to be." It was possible he was involved, but there is no obvious motive, as he would have nothing to gain from this. Merrik is dismissive of Gargon, he didn't even consider them Mandalorian enough to be worth his attention. "Bo-Katan is working on a secret project." I lied as naturally as I breathed. I'd cover for her because I knew Bo-Katan would never attack her own people for some plot. She is the type to prefer the direct approach every time.
At that last thought, I caught a glimpse of Rook Kast's face flickering to anger for a second before she calmed down and nodded silently. I'll remember that she could be a problem, but I have bigger Gi to fry.
"This rogue element has taken action for themselves and dragged our name into it." I am livid as it seemed that this was all over nothing, at least nothing that made sense to me. "Why would someone even want to assassinate a damn musician in a public concert in front of thousands of witnesses?"
"Maybe they believed those rumors that the Miri Chour is actually White Silver?" Freder Priest, head of Clan Priest, proposed with a shrug. "It's not that far-fetched. I dug into Chour's past a bit, and she has done a lot of jobs as a bounty hunter with her sisters." I glared back at that, he is taking this all a bit too calmly.
Gar Saxon glanced meaningfully at Freder Priest, before speaking up again. "My Mand'alor. As much as I think you are right in our efforts to try and minimize damage to the Mandalorian sector; the fact of the matter is that Gargon is barely Mandalorian. It could be seen as outside the sector, and if so, then it would not count as fighting within the Mandalore sector like you proposed."
"Ignoring the spirit of the rules and only following the letter, that makes us no better than the fools on Coruscant or Raxus!" I would not let this slide by, someone is undermining my authority and I must find out who and why. "Infighting in the Mandalorian sector, at a time like this, when the entire galaxy is on fire, will only push the people away from us. It might even cause a new crackdown on the Death Watch."
"Things are not in the right position yet where we can benefit from such a crackdown." Rook Kast noted, finally, someone seemed to catch up to my thoughts.
Freder Priest nodded, seeming to agree with Rook Kast, but said, "This may be true and maybe some of our people don't understand what exactly is the Mandalorian sector. We say sector, but this is terminology borrowed from the Republic. Sectors are mere lines on a map." I nodded in agreement and motion for Freder Priest to continue. "Mandalorians are spread out across three to four sectors within the Republic, and we have planets that are within the sector that we don't acknowledge as Mandalorian. It would be easy for a misunderstanding to occur like this, even among members of the Death Watch in good standing." He explained.
I nodded, as he had a good point. "Could be. I can understand any past confusion then, but I will not tolerate any would take advantage of confusion for personal exploit or to settle vendettas. I'll work up some documentation to clarify what exactly the Death Watch views as the rightful Mandalorian territory. However, while we don't know who is responsible, it could be some minor officer stepping out of line or we could have someone using our name to cause trouble. Governor Vrox would often use such tactics to keep Mandalore in check, let's not discount the possibility of someone learning from history. Let it be known we are searching for who orchestrated this, and when we do find them, we'll show them no mercy."
"Of course, my Mand'alor." Freder Priest said, and judging by the reaction of the others, they seemed to think the issue fully resolved for now. I needed to speak with Bo-Katan, perhaps she knew more. Perhaps she may have been the cause, although I strongly doubted it. Bo-Katan preferred an open duel to a blaster in the dark, she'd never do something underhanded like this intentionally. Freder Priest started speaking again, interrupting my line of thinking. "Also, I have been in contact with agents on Shogun. They have agreed to send aid to our cause."
I sat up at that, raising an eyebrow. "Shogun is sending aid? Last I heard, they were not interested in Mandalore. I know they hated White Silver's document, but they mentioned nothing about an alliance before."
Freder Priest shook his head, "There's a new rabble-rouser, calling for a return to Mandalore. Kahl Keldau from Clan Keldau has been lobbying hard for the aid of Shogun, part of why they are coming. A lot of younger Mandalorians there want to help Death Watch restore Mandalore's ancient ways. I don't know when they'll be arriving, but I do know they will double our numbers."
"We will welcome our brothers from Shogun then." I instructed Freder Priest. These young Mandalorians might be hot-blooded with conquest in their hearts, but frankly Shogun had never achieved much, nor impacted politics in any major way. Shogun is isolated, stuck out on the complete other side of the Galaxy, so we had few connections and ties back to them. However, Death Watch needed new blood, and these Shogun youths might be just the thing. Turning to Gar Saxon and the others, I added, "We will let them come, when they arrive, keep a firm eye on the new arrivals. They may not be familiar with the ways of Mandalore, so instruct them in the code. Take them as apprentices, if they are worthy. Instruct them in our ways and guide them. Otherwise, left to their own devices and plots, they may draw us further into the Civil War."
"Of course, my Mand'alor." Several voices at once agreed.
I was about to move to adjourn the meeting, and had stood up from the meeting table, when Gar Saxon spoke up, "My Mand'alor, I would like your opinion on a matter."
"Go on." I said, retaking my seat.
Gar Saxon looked quite pleased, and started stroking his chin, as if in thought, "The Duchess has declared Mandalore as neutral in this galactic war and so the Republic should not be sending any ships into our space, except through the neutral trade corridors for the Hydian Way. Yet, I have proof that the Republic is already violating that neutrality. Several agents are tracking ships currently in violation through Mandalorian space at this very moment." He paused meaningfully. It seemed forced, though, as if... "However, I would not wish to act in this matter until hearing your thoughts."
I am curious where Gar Saxon is going with this. The man usually had little experience or patience for politics, preferring a straightforward frontal assault. "What would you do with these vessels invading Mandalorian space, if given a free hand, Saxon?" I probed, interested in what his plot would be. Rook Kast smirked knowingly, but kept silent. I sharpened my gaze at that suspicious gesture before returning my attention to Gar.
He adopted a contemplative expression, as if he needed to take his time and collect his thoughts. Gar is an excellent tactician, but a poor leader, he never demonstrated any aptitude or care for understanding the intricacies of politics. This is entirely unlike him.
Was Gar put up to this by someone else? I tried to recall what news I had heard of Clan Saxon. Maybe this is related to his new wife? Vera Eldar, the former clan princess of the Eldar clan, had recently married Gar and entered into Clan Saxon. There were very few Clan Eldar members in Death Watch, as they were mostly Martial Traditionalists, among those angry with Tor and the treatment of the True Mandalorians. So if this was Clan Eldar making a move with Clan Saxon, that is something to keep an eye on with interest.
Finally, Gar Saxon seemed to have collected his thoughts and met my eyes. "My Mand'alor, I propose that we capture some of these vessels. Their security is quite poor. My agents already discovered the ships are expecting deliveries of cargo from a transport outfit in the sector. Mando Logistics is chartered to deliver their cargo. I believe a small team of skilled infiltrators could pose as these contractors and seize the ships... for the Death Watch."
Seizing the ships is more in line with Gar's typical proposals. However, simply seizing the ships was potentially throwing away an opportunity to rebuild the Death Watch name. How to handle this suggestion?
"A useful idea." I agreed out loud. "Prepare a list of candidates for at least three such strike teams. Start training them for such an operation in the near future. If this violation has happened multiple times and is still happening, we have time to prepare a perfect strike." Gar looked very pleased that I had accepted his proposal.
"However, while they prepare for such an operation, we will turn over this information to the Mandalorian government, and defer to their first move. By doing so, the Death Watch proves its commitment to defending Mandalore is genuine. It will go part of the way to repairing the damage done by Tor, as well as restore some of the harm caused by this false Death Watch attack. Mandalore must be united."
Gar Saxon frowned, "What if the Duchess handles these intruders herself? Will Death Watch be giving up the element of surprise?"
I shook my head in disagreement, "We can only hope for that outcome, it would be best if Mandalore is strong enough to deal with this. We will only step in with your plan if Mandalore does not act."
Gar Saxon grumbled, but nodded after a moment, "A political game and the possibility of gaining resources, I hadn't considered that."
"Two victories for the price of one. Either way, we acquire some new freighters for transporting gear or earn the favor of the Mandalorians as the protectors of the sector." I could tell he was not completely satisfied by this, but it would have to do. "Well done, Gar Saxon, for bringing this to my attention. Congratulations on your marriage as well." Gar Saxon spluttered at this, but I turned towards the rest of the faces.
"Monitor every foreign ship, Republic or CIS, entering Mandalorian space. As Freder suggested, I will be sending updated documentation on what encompasses the rightful territory of Mandalore. Any foreign ships inside of that, we need to know about. Understood?" I locked my gaze with each of the members in the meeting in turn.
"Yes, my Mand'alore." A number of voices spoke at once, and nodded their agreement.
I stood up and concluded the meeting. "All right, then I think we've officially concluded this meeting. Remember our objectives: find the enemy using Death Watch's name for their own agenda, and watch out for foreign interference in our territory. Dismissed."
The group of clan leaders nodded their understanding, and we all broke from the table. I walked out of the room and immediately turned left, heading towards my office. Today's meeting of Death Watch clan leaders is over, but I had further mysteries to solve today.
I shut my office door a bit too quickly, the hinges squeaking softly. I shouldn't focus on that; I needed to calm my nerves after that complex meeting. I would have to get another agent in the Clan Saxon to keep an eye on them. I sighed as I moved to massage my forehead with my fingers, and reached for the holocommunicator controls on the desk. I pressed a few buttons to activate the comm. I need more information on the assassin, and there is only one person that is in a position to answer that question.
"Good evening," I said with a nod as Bo-Katan Kryze's holographic upper torso appeared, hovering over the wooden desk. I am a bit surprised, she answered that comm request almost immediately. She is looking at me furiously too.
"Ori'buyce, kih'kovid! So is it war, then? Is that what this is about?" Bo-Katan's face is sharp as obsidian.
My eyebrows shot up. "Peace." I intoned slowly. I said it twice to emphasize the message. "War? Why would there be war?" What is she talking about? Is it because of the "Death Watch" assassin? "I wanted to check in on you, you know you can always rely on us. Death Watch can always provide relief or medical supplies should you need it."
"You're good, I almost believed that. I'm not buying this peaceful act, though, you aren't some unblooded New Mandalorian." Bo-Katan spat the words as if they were a gauntlet thrown down. "You sent dangerous, armed thugs to rob my employer's company headquarters in broad daylight. Some of my men are dead, thanks for that. Then you attacked White Silver's idols live in public." She shook her head in obvious disbelief. "I didn't think you'd sunk so low, Pre."
"I'm certain your judgment is premature. I did not authorize any Death Watch operation at Gargon after Gerr. As for the recent assassination attempt, I only knew what everyone else saw on the holonet." I paused, perhaps this could yet be salvaged. "However, I understand your point of view better now. I'd be willing to meet with you and White Silver in person at a suitable meeting site on Gargon to share information and resolve this dispute formally."
Bo-Katan looked frustrated, but didn't answer immediately, turning her head to the side. A few moments passed. "Fine. Against my better judgment. I'll have my secretary arrange the details." I held in a chuckle, I thought I would never see the day Bo-Katan learned to delegate. It's one of the weaknesses that held her back in Death Watch.
"Is there any way I could be of assistance then?" I asked with a tone of concern, checking again.
Bo simply shook her head, face still a silent mask of anger.
"Death Watch is looking to rent some more berths and construction docks, and we could be convinced to invest significantly in Gargon's spaceport. It would be counterproductive for us to instigate hostilities on a planet that we prefer to work with." I continued, the obvious olive branch even had the benefit of being mostly true. Of course, Death Watch could try to invade Gargon, but not only would it cost an enormous amount of manpower to accomplish, it would also reveal Death Watch to the Mandalore sector as a whole. Satine might even authorize a counter invasion, now that Gargon has agreed to be under New Mandalorian protection. In short, it is not worth the effort to start problems in Gargon, when the Mandalore sector as a whole is what I am aiming for.
If talks with White Silver broke down, we could sell back the slots for a profit in the future. Every fool could see Gargon is a sure investment thanks to the Civil War, with its prime position near the Hydian Way Hyperlane. Clans are clamoring to build businesses to cater to the Republic's sudden new military force. And White Silver has proven herself to be strong enough to defend her prize, judging by her opening display on Geonosis. Is that why White Silver interceded in Geonosis, I wondered with my refreshed perspective. I'd have to revisit that thought later.
"And it wasn't from someone else's order in Death Watch?" Bo-Katan pressed with serious concern in her eyes. Judging by that reaction, I am pretty sure I convinced her with the previous meeting offer.
I shook my head in the negative. "Senator Merrik is in Coruscant, obeying the Duchess's wishes. Gar Saxon is busy plotting to hijack some freighters violating the neutrality of the Mandalore sector by trespassing. Freder Priest is utterly loyal, to a fault, you as you know. And I highly doubt that you would order such an operation to those under your protection. So no, it wasn't Death Watch at the very least Death Watch that is loyal to me."
Bo-Katan's face is pure bewilderment. "Then who are they then?" She punched something out of frame. "You know, it's almost worse, if it's not Death Watch. Before, I thought I knew the enemy. Now..."
I shrugged. I knew less than she did, but I too am very interested in getting to the bottom of this, even more so now. "Did the assassin's chain code reveal any information?"
Bo-Katan merely shook her head. "Nothing, there's no info back from the Mandalorian chain code system and his armor is basic durasteel without any beskar. There is no info on their family or identity in them, he's a ghost. The ones who broke into MH are similarly unidentifiable, but they use red Plasteel armor."
That was odd, but not impossible, the chain code system had always been a rather useful but under-used system. Many Mandalorians did not trust the centralization such codes required and avoided them, but to have no family history in armor, that is not the norm as they would have to commission an entire set of armor and that is, this is a bit deeper of a mystery than I anticipated. Sighing, I asked, "Any suggestions on how I can mend fences with the White Silver before the meeting?" Earnestness and flattery being the central idea here.
"As you suggested: Docks. If you want to mend fences, rent, sponsor or invest in her shipbuilding. That will bring more jobs to the Mandalore sector and will raise the sector's defensive capabilities." That is unexpected. Just how much time did Bo-Katan spend on Gargon in order to learn how to talk like that? A question for another time, perhaps.
"And what about the sector's opinion? Someone claiming to be Death Watch just tried to kill a singer on live holo." Maybe she will have an answer to that as well?
"Idols." was the response, which caught me by surprise yet again.
"Pardon?" I asked, not following the sudden change in topic.
"White Silver's idols are a hopeful aspiration to what Mandalore could be. Under her influence, Mandalore would transform into a cultural hub, built on our military past. A cultural hub, but also of people and traditions, a way of life compatible with the possibility of fighting a war, but aspiring to cooperate. Tickets on Gargon are sold out for the idols. Stars, the shows on Mandalore are completely sold out as well."
I sat there, my jaw slightly lowered. I was pretty sure I had a bottle of strong whiskey hidden somewhere in this desk. I might have a need to find it, as I am wondering what universe I currently reside in. "Yes, well, I'm going to have to pay a bit more attention to these idols, aren't I?" I adopted a thoughtful expression. "Hmm. Who did you use to find your idols?"
Bo-Katan finally smiled, "I was the one in charge of the project, why?"
"How would you like to help Death Watch out from the shadows on this one?" I asked, amused at the chance to delegate this task right back to its sender. No amount of torture could reveal my secret leadership techniques.
Bo-Katan looked at me a bit unsure as she scratched her head, but after a moment, she nodded. "Alright, I guess I found one set of superstar idols. I could try and repeat my success."
Mandalore, Sundari Palace, Council Chambers
Duchess Satine
I covered my mouth reflexively in shock, reviewing the reason and cause of this emergency council meeting. Prime Minister Almec paused the holovideo playing the recording for the council.
"She... did she just kill a man on stage?" I asked, hesitating, alternating between looking at the council members, back towards the still frame of the scene, or putting my head in my palms at the amount of work I would need to fix this mess. The now-infamous lead idol Miri Chour is part of the Gargon Girls, the same idol group we had scheduled to appear at the cultural festival next month. The same festival that Bo and Tanya had hoped would demonstrate brighter Mandalorian ideals and encourage their fellow Mandalorians to embrace their better natures.
And now, this whole thing had gone completely sideways, and I was left carrying the bag. The silence stretched uncomfortably.
The Minister of Finance, Mrs. Droxun, is bold enough to be the first to answer my question, "Yes, a week ago, our official spokeswoman for the Mandalorian Self-Defense Force killed a man on a live holonet broadcast."
The Minister of the Interior, Mr. Armatan, spoke up after Mrs. Droxun finished, "Not exactly the best look. Perhaps we should try and pretend this never happened? We can still terminate the contract."
"I agree with that." Prime Minister Almec said with a nod of his head. He paused for a moment and shifted his purple gaze on me, "In fact, we should start pulling back on a lot of our ideas when it comes to the Self-Defense Force and the Silver Documents. I have a very bad feeling that this might be the start of a civil war between Death Watch and the Silver Mandalorians."
The Minister of the Mandalorian Self-Defense Force, Ikudtovu Ordo, is the newest councilwoman to join the council, went a bit pale as Almec droned on. She stood up, clearly itching to interject, but too polite to interrupt. Almec paid her no mind, but then he paused for a breath. "No! That would be a disaster!" She spoke towards the group, ignoring him. "We can't scale back now, there's never been so much focus or attention on the SDF. In fact, I would say this is probably the best thing to ever happen to our efforts to create a Mandalorian Self-Defense..."
"Are you mad?" Prime Minister Almec interrupted, looking at her with bewilderment. "She just murdered a man! Live on holonet broadcast! This will be all over the galaxy in no time, so all will know that Miri Chour is a bounty hunter and a cold-blooded killer. What will the rest of the galaxy see us as, if we celebrate such creatures?"
"Actually, that's not really an issue." chimed in the soft-spoken and junior councilman, Alrich Wren. Mr. Wren had been selected as Minister of Cultural Affairs two months prior. Mr. Wren was a professor at the Royal Academy, and Korkie's advisor for his academic merit project.
"The cultural festival has sold out three times over in the last nineteen hours. I've spent the last day lining up more venues to keep accommodating the demand. We're going to be making credits hand over fist on this." Mr. Wren paused to take a drink of water. I don't know him well enough to understand his character yet. Korkie had nothing but excellent stories about his time with the former professor, but it is interesting that when I had surveyed my council for a shortlist of names, Governor Vizsla had also independently submitted the man's name to my attention. Which is a strange coincidence but seeing as two independent sources that I trust vouched for him, he must be very capable. "The other cultural volunteers groups that will be demonstrating for live events throughout the Mandalore Sector, they've all not said a thing about this. They seem to have not cared or simply not cared enough to disprove it openly."
"Really?" The Minister of Finance, Mrs. Droxun said, raising an eyebrow before shaking her head in amusement.
The Minister of the Interior, Mr. Armatan, shifted uneasily, "We do have to contend with a budget shortfall this year. If no one else cares and it's actually going to make us a lot of credits..."
Prime Minister Almec looked shocked at his sudden betrayal. Before he could respond, though, Ms. Ordo spoke up again, "We don't have to worry about any criminal charges as Ms. Chour is in the clear, legally. This was a clear-cut case of self-defense. We do have a bit of a problem with the volunteer system because of this event, but not the way you would think."
Prime Minister Almec looked appalled, mouth moving with no words for a moment. Finally, he spluttered, "You're not saying volunteers are up... are you?"
Ms. Ordo did not hide her obvious military discipline or pride on her face as she answered Almec. "It's through the roof actually. The volunteer rate might as well be a vertical line upwards, especially when the ads dropped a day in advance of the story. Ms. Chour's self-defense legal defense triggered a second cascade of volunteers, even more than the initial wave. Right now we cannot even process a fraction of the applications. Some of the administrative regions have even begun to charge people for the right to volunteer."
Mr. Wren gave a polite cough into the sudden silence at the end of Ms. Ordo's last comment. The Minister of Cultural Affairs adjusted his glasses and muttered, "Well, the Self-Defense Force coordinated with the Cultural Affairs office." Ah, that explained things. However, Prime Minister Almec just gave him a confused look, so he continued. "What I mean to say is that there's a 25% discount if you're a government employee. This happens to include SDF soldiers, trainees, and enlistees."
I couldn't help myself, I chuckled behind my palm. He shot me a grieved look, but what could I do with this situation? It had gotten absolutely insane. Taking a breath, I finally said, "Alright, well, I think it is safe to say that we will not be breaking the contract with the Gargon Girls. We will get a few people upset with the fact that there's a connection between the Gargon Girls and the Self-Defense Force, even if it's just a little bit of mutual advertisement."
"People are upset about everything." Ms. Ordo said dismissively, waving away the concerns. "If this specific event had not happened, some other distraction would occupy our focus, and people would still be upset. At least we can gain some control of the narrative right now."
She shook her head, before adding, "Speaking of distractions, there was an interesting offer sent to us from the Mandalorian Patrol. They contacted the Palace's Royal Guard."
"Oh yes," I nodded, I had already been informed about this, and had planned to talk about it in the next council meeting, but then the craziness from Gargon had reared its head. "We should talk about the Mandalorian Patrol and their recent offer."
Prime Minister Almec looked at me in confusion yet again, "What offer?"
"To be clear, this is still being investigated, but from my understanding the Mandalorian Patrol is willing to sell some of their vessels that they've acquired over the years to the Self-Defense Force. We could use them to create a proper navy."
Prime Minister Almec shook his head, before saying, "How are we going to get the resources to purchase these ships, let alone maintain them? Sure, we have a manpower surplus right now, but we still don't have the credits for it."
Mrs. Droxun coughed, before speaking, "I might have an idea about that." Everyone focused on her as she said, "If the cultural festival is as successful as it is forecasted to be, perhaps we should send some screenings to off-system planets. We could sell the rights to holonet stations, syndicate shows that demonstrate Mandalorian culture and musical excellence."
"Make some extra cash off the cultural festival, buy the ships off the local mercenaries, and organize them into a proper Navy. That's not bad." Ms. Ordo said approvingly.
"As a one-off source of funding, it's good, but we can do even better. There's a week-long festival celebrated all across the Republic, the Festival of Life. It's about five months from now." Mr. Wren explained and nodded at Ms. Ordo. "We could make this cultural event a regular tradition and funding mechanism for the SDF." Part of me wondered why Mr. Wren cared so deeply about funding the SDF. Perhaps he wanted to turn his temporary ministry appointment into a permanent council position. "We should use the Republic's holiday week to start our own Mandalorian traditions and show off on Coruscant."
I gave Mr. Wren a slight nod, having more compatible sources of credits is always nice to have. "I'm interested, but not convinced. Create a more formal proposal and submit it for the next meeting."
Coruscant, Mandalore Tower
Tanya Kryze
My report back to Coruscant was less exciting than I had anticipated, with the Civil War on. I hurried back to Senator Merrick's office. His bodyguard let me in, and I nodded at the unfamiliar man approvingly. I strongly agreed with the wisdom of self-protection, especially after recent events.
Senator Merrick nodded at me from behind his desk, while his bodyguard took up a position near the door again. "Welcome back, Representative Tanya." He said slowly. "The Duchess has informed me that we need to improve our security. I'd suggest you stay away from the Senate."
"I met your new bodyguard. I also have some new staff; I think Ms. Morson will be ready to take the trials for the Royal Guards soon."
"I see, fine. However, I still suggest you stick clear of the Senate and your friends from Naboo. The Trade Federation Senators and agents are investigating you. Your recent actions are very interesting to them. Unless you like danger, I'd stick to areas where your diplomatic immunity actually protects you, like Mandalore Tower." At this particular moment, it was very hard to not act my age.
"Alright, I don't want to upset Aunt Satine." I bobbed my head.
"Very good." Senator Merrik nodded, and indicated I could depart.
After that conversation, I wasn't so foolish as to ignore Merrik's helpful warning about the Trade Federation. I should have expected that they would be interested in me, especially after their previous vendetta with Senator Amidala. So I am keeping clear of the usual Senate buildings and meeting areas.
Avoiding the Senate made me feel a little redundant, a backup singer to a world-class singer, but I appreciated Merrik looking out for things like that. Aunt Satine would be very annoyed if I was involved in another diplomatic incident so soon. However, it did give me time to run my businesses as White Silver, as well as keep an eye on how the war was progressing. My access to internal Senate documents and military documents is substantial, more than I was initially comfortable with, but apparently this is standard.
"X4, did we set up any substantial interests in Christophsis?" I queried. The documents I saw about troop movements were odd. While superweapons were the focus of public attention, the Confederacy are invading worlds all over the Galaxy. The planet Christophsis had been invaded, and it seemed that a large force in response from the Republic was being assembled to retake the planet. How important that planet was to the war effort is debatable since there are hundreds of mining worlds in the Outer Rim alone, but it did require some sort of response.
"No Mistress. Christophsis is directly on the Corellian Run. Mandal Logistics has been focusing on profitable trade routes that bypass major hyper-routes as those have less competition." I grunted, well, that was a good decision now, considering the Galactic Civil War is focused along those same primary hyperlane routes.
If the Republic did nothing to stop the Confederacy from invading worlds, well, that would make it rather apparent that the Republic treated some planets as more important than others. So the Republic is forced to respond to every invasion, or risk more planets joining the Confederacy in order to avoid being directly invaded.
The Senate had been terribly surprised by the invasion of Kamino as well, but the invasion hadn't surprised me in the slightest. If your enemy knows you have a supply network coming out of a single point of failure: one planet for all their clones, then of course they're going to attack it. There is no better way to cut off the supply of clones to the front line than to kill them before they've even been equipped. A battle prevented is a battle won, and it seems Count Dooku understood that as well.
Unlike Christophsis, where the conflict is still ongoing, the battle for Kamino had been won quickly. The Republic had no choice but to defend Kamino. I understand the planet had survived the assault and would be back in production, albeit at a slower rate for a bit. The new bottleneck in clone production had started a debate in the Senate about creating secondary clone laboratories elsewhere. However, I was still concerned about the use of clones at all for the Republic's infantry.
It's a lot easier to grab a man off the street and give them 2 months of basic training for a blaster than it was to grow a clone. Clone training is more complicated and expensive than arming a militia, no doubt due to clones being detached from society and lacking a proper childhood. The cost to train clones and send them out to fight is something like four times the price of arming existing citizens for a militia. The Senate is fixated on using clones, though, as it is obviously working, and they are hoping it will keep working until they win the war.
Shaking my head, I sat back in my seat and gazed out the window across Coruscant, staring at the endless ecumenopolis. There are a lot of worlds interested in improving their security and defenses now. The more well-known defense firms charged premium prices, they would probably cost them an arm and a leg. Alternatively, worlds could invest in security from Mandalore, as Mandal Hypernautics are producing their own local fighters for a relatively cheap rate. Not to mention, the Crusader-class freighters Mandalore produced had a moment in the spotlight since my rescue from Geonosis. The Peacekeeper had held its own against the droid fighters during its insertion and attracted outside interest.
"X4, did the Republic contact us regarding the Crusader-class freighters after Geonosis?" I might as well double and triple-check things in my downtime.
"Negative, my Mistress." X4 replied tersely.
Hmm, I turned my head slowly to move one of the bangs out of my eyes. "Who has been interested in them, then?" I asked.
"Would you like me to enumerate systems that have requested its technical specifications?" X4 replied.
"Just the ones that have placed orders or made an offer." I watched the traffic lanes of speeders and repulsor craft on the other side of the window, my eyes naturally seeking any pattern lurking in the chaos.
"Mistress, the following institutions have purchased at least one Crusader-class freighter: Corellian Security Forces, Arkania Defensive Navy, the Grand Protector of Rodia, the Taris Civil Authority, and of course, the Mandalorian Government. Additionally, many institutions have made offers, in particular the Telerath Banking Guild and Ryloth Clan Council have both asked for a license to produce the freighter themselves. Did you wish to respond to any of the licensing or other offers?" X4 asked.
"No... not right now. It would not be a good long-term investment for Mandalore. Maybe if we need credits in a hurry, but there's no reason to sell the rights right now. Even if they share improvements or technology for the Crusader-class back with us, we're much better off if it's Mandalorians making the discoveries and gaining the experience." I explained to X4, putting my back to the window again and facing the droid.
He made a confused beep in response, but followed that up with a chirp in the affirmative. "As you wish, Mistress."
I sighed and tried to explain it in terms X4 might understand. "Mandalore, and by extension, Mandal Hypernautics, has a lot of solid engineers, IT personnel, and ship-building experience. These human resources have been built up as a result of our investments in local companies. And yes, the licensing of the designs might draw in immediate credits or new technology, but it would waste all the credits we spent building up local companies for the same quality of work, as most will go out of business without our contracts. The more technology we built in-house, local to the sector, the higher-quality ships Mandalore will produce long-term."
X4 beeped in the affirmative again.
At least that's what I have hoped. The Ordo system and the Mandalorian Patrol in talks with Mandal Hypernautics, expressed interest in purchasing ships, and a few local worlds have expressed interest as well. I was also hoping they were willing to transfer their knowledge on shipbuilding for the plans on the Crusader-class freighter or other ship designs we had. The Civil War held the real possibility of transforming Gargon and Mandal Hypernautics into economic powerhouses.
A lot of my business operated out of Gargon; I need to consolidate my businesses on that planet to offer them all protection. Bo-Katan sent me a terse holocom about a group of thugs that broke into Mandal Hypernautics recently. It would be ideal if all my businesses could share the same security, same resources, etcetera. I believe that's why conglomerates and other megacorporations tended to form in the first place. I needed a Mandalorian supercorporation.
"X4, can you look into relocating the Armorer's Consortium, Vesti Engineering, and any other of my major firms not already on Gargon to the planet?" I definitely want the armor and weapons manufacturers included. "I would like to incorporate all my major companies into a single entity to offer them access to shared security and resources in the sector. Not to mention, it will make them easier to manage." Looking back at my datapad, showing the tangled web that is my personal finances, I longed for a proper corporate accounting structure.
"Vesti Engineering already has Phobium Power Cell facilities located on Gargon, Mistress." X4 corrected, "But of course, I will look into this. Is there anything else you need?"
Really, I needed to find something other than business to do with my life, otherwise I would become rather stagnant. Fine. I put my saucer down on the desk and turned back towards where X4 is working away, at several computers at once. Managing the companies as best as he could.
"Thanks X4, do you mind contacting Vai and asking her to perhaps prepare one of her expeditions to the city in the next week or so? I feel like I'm becoming stagnant in my position and need to let off some steam."
"Of course, my Mistress. Your schedule is clear for the next two weeks." He helpfully added. I am already painfully aware of my free schedule, however.
"Thank you, X4." I said, leaning back in my chair. I knew I probably am opening a can of chaos, but I could use something mundane and chaotic over the constant war updates I had to read about daily. Whatever Vai came up with would be entertaining, at least, of that I was certain. There is a reason that I kept her around, and it isn't because she's a good employee. If I'm pressed to admit it, perhaps I had grown fond of her chaos, as it complimented my order. As long as she is a controlled chaos under me, that is fine by me.
Msst System, Ancient Asteroid Base, Royal Aka'jor Shuttle
Korkie Kryze
What a difference four months can make. Four months ago, I was planning for an expedition to an asteroid to go looking for a lost relic ship, one that supposedly had unknown cultural relics. I was interested in what the Royal Museum of Mandalore could learn to get a better idea of the ancient past of Mandalore.
But by the time I was prepared to go exploring with my schoolmates and investigate this asteroid belt for the ancient ship, the galaxy had radically changed. The Republic is at war with the Confederacy of Independent Systems and Mandalore is in between the two of them
It was hard to truly grasp the reality of the situation. There was a dreadful aura of normality to the whole thing. The galaxy had gone mad, and everything just went on like normal. As if we were meant to simply accept this as the new status quo. People protested, condemned, justified, argued, but my classes resumed at the Royal Academy, and in Sundari life continued on as usual. Everyone still needed to get paid, everyone still needed to finish their education, and everyone still went home at the end of the day to warm food and a safe bed. I was no different in truth, as the days went on and the shock wore off, I became worried about how the state of the galaxy would affect my expedition.
The Prime Minister of Mandalore, Almec had strongly urged my Academy advisor against the expedition, and finally the Academy canceled the entire expedition a few weeks ago. However, my schoolmates and I protested his decision and with Aunt Satine's help we eventually overruled him on that matter.
I was happy about that, ecstatic. As people were displaced by war and bloodshed, I was happy that my little void archaeology expedition was given the green-light. I felt, honestly, I had no idea how I felt, but it was what I was meant to do. It's also a nice change of pace from those occasional diplomatic missions to the various planets inside the Mandalore system that Auntie Satine usually sent me on. So when it came to my life in this time of Galactic unrest, I simply did the same thing everyone else was doing. I kept calm and carried on. Which had resulted in a slow start and finally getting here to this asteroid in the middle of Msst system, the asteroid base that supposedly had a vault inside of it that carried a large ship full of relics.
Is the ship really there? It's hard to say. If the asteroid base is still operational, we could send a coded broadcast that would trigger the asteroid base to reveal itself. If we didn't find this code in the Kandosii, we would have to spend months looking for each asteroid large enough to fit a space dock manually since the dock's spatial coordinates would not have remained the same after several thousand years of drift. I am excited, though. Well, less excited about the fact that we are going to have to do a space walk across a small open area to the main doors.
Lagos, Soniee, Amis and I are wearing modified versions of the Academy hardsuits. The modifications ensured the suits were sealed and fully covered the body, allowing us to remain in the suit for an extended period without running out of air. Aunt Satine had our suits up-armored with some spare beskar from the Royal Armorer. I thought it was unnecessary, but she said that she will only allow our expedition if we wear armored suits in the event that trouble finds us, like the animal attack on Breshig.
Once we land we are going to have to do a bit of a walk across the sandy surface of the asteroid, before we could make it inside the dock. We can't land our shuttle inside because the docking bay is likely to be closed and can only be opened by someone inside. I doubt anyone is still alive after a thousand years.
Our objective is to search the abandoned base, find a way into the ship, and release it from whatever docking clamps held it inside the asteroid. However, there is always the possibility that the clamps had failed centuries ago, causing the ship to continually bump around inside the asteroid, trashing it completely and resulting in the loss of all relics. If that were the case, this mission would be a complete failure. But I held onto the hope that it would all work out.
Even if we confirmed the ship's destruction, there might be something left floating around inside. If we could confirm the ship's presence and the existence of relics, we could arrange for another expedition to explore the ship and see what had been left behind.
"I kriffing hate these things." muttered Crikey as she struggled to fit herself into a set of Mandalorian armor that resembled an earlier version of Super Commando armor.
"You shouldn't." said Tom, who was already decked out in his orange mechanical armor. He stood behind her, overseeing the task of making sure her gear is double-checked and fastened correctly to prevent oxygen loss.
The standard practice is to have someone else double-check your equipment before a spacewalk. So, everyone had paired up: Soniee and I are in one corner, Amis and Lagos are in another, Tom and Crikey in their own corner, and in the last corner are my squad of Royal Guards. Unfortunately, Captain Rau was no longer with us. He had been assigned to my guard duty ever since our visit to Breshig, but as soon as the Civil War started, he apparently took a leave of absence and began offering his services to the Republic as a fighter pilot trainer.
I wasn't a fan of the idea of one of our own training military forces inside the Republic, but I understood his motivations - Captain Rau felt it was the best way to protect Mandalore. After the incident with my younger sister and several other notable Mandalorians showing up in the midst of CIS deployments, it seemed apparent that Mandalore had made a poor first impression in the Civil War.
It was better to appear neutral and allow individuals to choose which side they supported than to appear to support one side or the other. At least that's what my sister's recent letters recommended regarding the situation.
Crikey's voice then crackled out of the ship intercom, interrupting my worrying with fresh concerns. "Hey! We are coming in for a landing. Unfortunately, the asteroid docking bay is already open! There are two ships already in the docking bay!"
A collective exclamation of "What!?!" went throughout the room, and I immediately moved towards a window to look out. Outside, I saw a strange vessel, one of a design I am unfamiliar with; it is long and had two wings that apparently rotated up. The ship reminded me a bit of the Aka'jor transport shuttle we are using, but sleeker and more combat-oriented.
The other ship is some sort of Corellian vessel, obvious from its discreet nature, and it looked fairly old.
My new Royal Guard Captain, whose name escaped me right now, moved to the window next to me. He also peered out the window as the ship came to a landing next to the two other vessels. When he turned back to face me, I caught a glimpse of his name lapel, Captain Briyuk. He said, "Well, what do we have here... Prince Korkie, I think we should call this off. We have an unknown force already inside the facility, this could be dangerous."
I just shook my head at his ignorance. "No way. We can't give up here. Those relics represent centuries of Mandalorian history, and they belong to the people of Mandalore... not these interlopers, whoever they are."
Captain Briyuk tilted his head in thought. "You think the Mask of Mandalore is there?" He jerked his thumb towards the ships, obviously joking by his expression.
"No idea." I wasn't here to find any specific relic, but those unknown ships indicated something was here. "Honestly, I hope not. But those others are here..." Both Lagos and Soniee were already heading over towards me, concern clear on their faces.
Amis had found one of the blasters, the same model I already had holstered at my side, and was examining it in his hands, seeming a bit too interested in it. His expression reminded me of my little sister. "I have a bad feeling about this." Lagos noted after one look at Amis.
Captain Briyuk immediately got serious, "Okay, if we are going to do this, we are going to do this my way. Staff Sergeant Obyrd and I will lead the way in. You and your friends will follow behind us and stick to the center of the group. The remaining guards will provide cover and rearguard. If any of your friends aren't prepared for a fight, they should stay aboard the ship. Got it, kids?" By the end of his instructions, a circle of us had formed around him.
Captain Briyuk moved through the group, and reached over to grab one of the extra staves stashed along the bulkhead of the ship. The guards had brought some kit from their armory for this mission. After grabbing one for himself, Briyuk tossed one to me.
"I know you're not one for weapons, but I doubt your little blaster you got there is going to be something you will feel comfortable with. So here, take this staff; shock anyone who gets too close. Don't get killed."
I chuckled politely, while he immediately started helping Obyrd prepare some additional firepower. I navigated around Lagos and grabbed my helmet and put it on. Soniee immediately started fussing with it, to ensure that the seal was secure. Eventually, we finished checking each other's equipment and once Briyuk was satisfied, we all headed toward the exit ramp. Crikey and Tom were there waiting for us by the ramp, and we started tracking across the sandy dirt of the asteroid to the facility.
As we passed the strange blue craft, my Royal Guards paused and examined the ship. One of them pointed, and then Obyrd's voice was audible in the suit speakers, "That's not good." I moved towards their position to get a better view, and then I saw the symbol on the external bulkhead. The symbol had three claw-like lines, connected by a central line.
A familiar symbol to me, but only because I had seen one on a manifesto recently while on Breshig. "Death Watch?" I said. Then I remembered I needed to use the suit radio. Pressing it, I asked, "The Death Watch symbol?"
Captain Briyuk nodded, "Yep. That's exactly what that symbol represents. We're going to have to be careful. If these guys are just jackasses pretending to be Death Watch, this could be a problem."
"And if they are Death Watch?" I asked.
"Well then, this is going to be the fight of our lives. Let's hope it's just pretenders."
I nodded and followed Captain Briyuk in. The rest of the Royal Guards spread out into their formation as we made our way to the ominously open docking bay entrance.
Once there, I saw that the situation was a bit different than I had suspected from a distance. The doors had been popped open, but not by a clever slicer, instead the doors were blasted open, with obvious damage showing from the aftermath of an explosion. Further inside, the destroyed doorway revealed a second set of doors that seemed to be firmly locked.
Carefully, we made our way past the debris of the outer doorway. Soniee made a beeline straight for the interior access panel. Half the squad of guards remained outside the exterior to guard, while Captain Briyuk and three others joined us inside the passageway.
"How's it looking, Soniee?" I called, a few moments of searching turned up nothing else interesting visible in the passageway.
Soniee replied, not bothering to look up from her personal datapad, "There's a basic atmosphere control still in effect. These doors are just here for backup, there's an active low level force field on the other side of that door. I should be able to open it whenever we want." She pointed to the indicated doors.
"Well, that's good, but not yet." Captain Briyuk, said before signaling his men to be ready to enter the facility. Once the squad was in formation and clustered around the door, he turned to us and said, "Stay back here, and if you see someone coming that's not us, either seal the door or start running. There's no reason to fight them if they are not Death Watch; lives are more important to Mandalore than any relics, so just get the hell out. Got it?"
I joined the group chorus of crackled, "Yes," and other forms of agreement from Lagos, Soniee, Amis, and the rest.
Captain Briyuk stepped forward from the group, and nodded towards Soniee. "Okay kid, after you open the door, move back against the passage bulkhead and stay clear. Ready?" There was a collective pause. "Open it!"
The door opened.
It was an instant standoff.
On one side of the room are seven Mandalorians wearing Super Commando armor of a modern make, all clad in a blue-black coloration, and wielding either dual pistols or carbine rifles. They each had the same three-clawed symbol on their shoulders, with a dash of red showing which side they were on.
On the other side of the room are two individuals. One is carrying a rifle of unknown make, wearing blue and red armor with yellow markings on their face mask. The other is a towering woman, carrying what could only be described as a rotary blaster cannon, as it had six barrels that were already warmed up, slowly and menacingly spinning. She's wearing blue and black armor that has a single solid plate over her chest, instead of the Supercommando pattern of several smaller plates.
As the door parted, both parties turned towards us. There are visible expressions of confusion on all parties present; neither one of them had expected more people to show up.
"Fucking traitors! You called the Royal Guard on us!?!" An angry voice yelled from the crowd of Death Watch minions. Some of them aimed weapons towards the Royal Guards. Immediately, all my guards raised their blasters towards the Death Watch soldiers.
"Why the fuck would we do that?" Called the taller woman, who swung her rotary blaster cannon back to face the Death Watch group.
"Oh! I don't know, maybe because you're a Manda-cursed bitch! A thief that wants to steal all these relics and fence them on the open market! I see how it is... If we can't have them, better to destroy them by handing them over to the damn pacifist. Do you know how much time it took to get the intel on this Manda-forsaken asteroid?"
"Probably got the intel from the same Hutt that sold you yours, you harpy!" taunted the voice of a shorter woman pointing her rifle at the original speaker.
"Ladies!" Captain Briyuk said, suit transmitting his voice over its loudspeakers, "All of you will lower your weapons now."
"Fuck you, pacifist!" shouted one of the male voices of the Death Watch members. One of them opened fire and one of his shots struck a Royal Guard in the face. He fell over, and I couldn't tell what state he was in, but I never had the chance to check as the room erupted into chaotic blaster fire as my Royal Guard charged the Death Watch members.
I grabbed Soniee's hand, since the doorway is open she is alone and vulnerable against the passageway bulkhead. So I pulled her along and took cover behind some crates.
Looking up, the shorter yellow-marked Mandalorian was standing on the boxes, and seemed to examine the fallen Royal Guard from a safe distance, before moving on. She moved at a rather incredible pace, returning fire at someone that shot at her.
"Well, I think she's on our side." I commented in a private comm channel, as Soniee nodded her head in agreement. A few more blasts missed us, aimed above our cover.
"Maybe we should move back towards the door and try to escape. I think the battle has diffused enough that we could sneak outside and not be noticed."
"Yeah, that's a good idea." I agreed, peeking around the corner to see what was going on.
As I peeked, I saw the tall Mandalorian, with her rotary blaster cannon discarded on the ground, caught up in a fist fight between one of the Death Watch members. From my position, it seemed she was doing a rather good job punching through the armor. I don't know what planet she was from, but apparently she was obviously superhumanly strong; far superior to baseline strength. Not even Mandalorian armor was able to stop her from breaking bones.
Another Death Watch minion snuck around behind her, and slowly raised her own blaster towards the fistfight, clearly aiming towards the taller Mandalorian. I was forced to act. I brought out my blaster, setting the staff on the ground, and aimed it at the hidden Death Watch minion. She immediately reacted to my motion, switching targets towards aiming at my position. My trigger was pulled and I felt the impact of a blaster shot at the same moment. My chest felt scorching hot and bruised from the blaster bolt, but the minion staggered as she fell onto his back, stunned. I am now really grateful for the beskar upgrade Aunt Satine insisted on adding.
The towering Mandalorian woman seemed to have heard the brief blaster exchange and abandoned her defeated opponent, scanning the area. Her opponent is completely still, either unconscious, or worse.
Turning to me, she gave me a thumbs up and said, "Thanks kid." She gave her opponent one final kick to the head, before moving on to complete some other objective out of sight. Then, I saw Soniee also peeking around the other side of the boxes. Soniee and I turned towards each other. We couldn't hear any more sounds of violence or yelling after a few more tense seconds of silent waiting. I wondered what side had won.
The answer came in the form of Captain Briyuk asking, "Clear, who's still alive? Sound off."
Popping my head up to look around, I answered, "Soniee and I are good." Surprisingly, the two individuals who weren't with the 'Death Watch' group from the previous standoff are standing next to the Captain.
Mr. Bresh and Ms. Crikey crawled out from behind a set of cargo containers, dragging an unconscious Death Watch minion. Ms. Crikey apparently had lost her helmet in the fight, but she looked like a victorious lion dragging her kill. I am pretty sure I recognized the knife that is sticking out of the Death Watch's body as hers. And Amis and Lagos came out from where they've been hiding. They'd somehow gotten their hands on Death Watch weapons by the looks of it.
"That could have gone better." Captain Briyuk remarked, examining the aftermath. He turned towards Soniee and asked, "Can you access their systems?" He swept his hand out, indicating the equipment from the fallen 'Death Watch'. "We still haven't found where the ship is hidden. We also don't know if that group is all of them, either; they might have backup nearby. I'd rather be on the way back to Mandalore before they show up."
Soniee moved over to a console and meanwhile, I asked, "Think these guys are Death Watch or just wannabes?"
Captain Briyuk shook his head, "I don't think they're the real deal. Their training wasn't up to snuff to the one we fought in the Civil War. I would like to think there'd be no reinforcements, but making an assumption like that is often just asking for trouble." Suddenly, Captain Briyuk's voice was only coming over my comm. "Prince Korkie. Those two interlopers assisted us back there, but they seem the skittish type. What are your orders?" The odd question almost caused me to miss that he had switched to my hardsuit private comm line.
I gave it some thought as I thumbed the discrete comm button on the suit vambrace before saying, "I think we can let them go, after we questioned them. They helped us out and it wouldn't be fair if we imprisoned them for helping. We still have to find the Relic Ship, and having to keep watch over prisoners will make it more difficult."
Captain Briyuk nodded his head, "As you wish, Prince Korkie."
I nodded in understanding as I scanned the room. A Royal Guard is bandaging our fallen guardsman, two Royal Guards are looking after Lagos and Amis who are standing next to Soniee on a console, and the others are examining the Death Watch group to make sure all of them are secured. The two unknown women kept themselves close together as they shifted around and eyed Captain Briyuk as he walked closer.
"The Prince has agreed to let you go after you answer a few questions. We won't pry into your identities, but we will need you to answer some of our questions."
The tall one replied, "And what if we don't answer them?"
"Then I will have to report you as members of Death Watch and have arrest warrants with your armor's description spread around the Mandalore sector. Trust me, It would be a lot easier for all parties involved if you cooperate." Captain Briyuk said with a nonchalant tone.
The short one placed her hand on the taller one and said. "What do you want to know?"
"First things first, how did you find this asteroid base? We had to find it in an underwater wreck." As Captain Briyuk asked his question, the taller woman walked to the side and started to pick up what looked like blaster components
The shorter one shrugged, "No idea, we were hired by them for our… uh, unique set of skills. So you'll have to ask them once they're awake about where they got that info."
Captain Briyuk nodded his head while keeping an eye on the taller one, "How did you get hired exactly? I am guessing through the bounty hunter's guild?"
The shorter woman nodded her head too, "Yeah, we were hired to salvage a shipwreck but we didn't know what exactly we would be salvaging. I would have preferred if this stuff went to a museum but we had to spend a week checking every asteroid in this area."
"Alright, last question, is the Corellian ship yours?"
The woman nodded her head, "That's right."
"Good, that means that we can impound that Death Watch ship and sweep it for evidence." Captain Briyuk said. "Alright I think that is all of the questions that I want answered. You're free to leave."
Soniee's voice suddenly boomed over the loudspeakers at an excessive volume. "I found the Seeker's Vigil!" She had clearly sliced her suit speakers up to eleven, again. I watched the two mercenaries leave back outside the base before I walked over to see what Soniee was looking at on the console display.
"It's two levels down, inside a vault. The facility is reporting the doors are sealed, but I can open them from here. The ship's fuel is showing empty. Either that or the tanks are ruptured." Soniee explained to the group, once the four of us joined up with the others.
I felt a slight vibration in the floor through the soles of my boots, it only lasted for a few seconds. Captain Briyuk started giving orders, "Baar'ur, how is he?" as he pointed to the Royal Guard that got shot in the head.
"He'll need an aspirin but he'll live." the medic replied.
Captain Briyuk then said, "Alright, half of you stay here to watch the prisoners, the rest will follow me with the Prince to the Seeker's Vigil." After the Royal Guards saluted, we headed deeper into the facility to get what we came for.
Mandalore, Sundari Palace, Council Chambers
Pre Vizsla
Someone is posing as Death Watch. Someone is trying to cause problems. Again. And someone is going to pay dearly for that.
News of the attack on Prince Korkie Kryze had traveled quickly back to Mandalore and currently the Duchess is probably the angriest he'd ever seen her. You could really tell that the Mandalorian blood in her is flowing right now as she paced back and forth, almost having the stomping of a march to it.
She took a seat in her throne; the backlight on the wall behind her lit up. She took in a deep breath, before saying, "So Death Watch has returned and in actuality; it's not just some rogue agent who happened to strike at Gargon. Now they've struck at the heart of the Mandalorian government."
"How did we miss their return? And what are we going to do about it?" I asked, guilelessly.
Death Watch never truly went away. Remnants have been under my command since, oh, quite a long time now. But my remnants, as far as I was aware, had not been involved in this operation.
Oh, I heard about the mission to find this lost Relic ship and I shrugged it off as it was not important in the grand scheme of things. What importance would come from capturing an ancient Relic ship when the end goal is control of the whole sector. Sure, it would gain us knowledge of our past, but does it grant the Death Watch movement legitimacy? Not really, unless the Mask of Mandalore is hidden there which I highly doubt.
Someone wanted to pose as Death Watch? I'll simply take a page out of White Silver's book. It had done wonders for her image when she destroyed an extremist splinter-faction; it might do wonders for my own faction as well.
Prime Minister Almec spoke after shaking his head, "It's impossible that these Death Watch have completely missed our notice. So I may have some theories on the matter on why we might have been blinded to their movements or their rise."
'Oh, this will be good.' I thought, as I leaned back in my chair.
Mandalore, Sundari Palace, Council Chambers
Almec
I stood up and addressed Satine, I glanced at Governor Vizsla, but I ignored his smirk, "Ever since White Silver made her debut a few years ago, I've been devoting resources to monitor their operations. So far, most of her operations are above board and legal. Which seems strange considering how they came onto the board in the first place - I suspect these legal businesses are merely a front to hide their true illegal operations. And perhaps these 'Death Watch' aren't truly the real Death Watch. Perhaps they are agents of White Silver, used to draw attention away from her operations so that she'll have free rein in the Mandalore sector."
Satine had an expression of complete astonishment; the only thing that could have made it better was... I turned to take in the rest of the council. The look on Governor Vizsla's face... it shared the same expression of complete shock. As usual, I am the only one paying attention to the serious threats circling Mandalore. The Duchess spoke first, "That… makes no sense. Why would she have used her own movement to attack the Gargon Girls?"
I nodded, "Yes, that's a good question. I believe that assassination attempt is a false-flag attack from White Silver, to make the Gargon Girl's a martyr. Right now we are assuming that because they attacked White Silver, they are enemies. All we have to show that they are enemies is the attack itself, which is circumstantial evidence at best. And the attack failed."
"It only failed because the Gargon girls actually wore beskar armor. Something White Silver herself endorses pretty heavily." Governor Vizsla pointed out.
"Yes, and very few people probably knew that before the attack." I countered.
Governor Vizsla shrugged his shoulders at that.
Satine still seemed puzzled, "That's a possibility, so let's prepare for the worst case and assume that this really is a faction of Death Watch reborn. How are we going to handle this situation?"
I was prepared for this possibility. "We reactivate the old apparatus for hunting down any Death Watch sympathizers, keep an eye out for their movements, and try to figure out what their overall strategy is." The previous efforts to root out the Death Watch had succeeded after all, the only problem was that we let our vigilance down. If Satine approves of this proposal, maybe I could transform the task force monitoring White Silver into a permanent department. I retook my seat, so the council could discuss the proposal further.
Satine nodded her head in agreement, obviously lost in thought, looking for any way to deal with the potential threat of another terrorist organization.
Governor Vizsla seemed less convinced by my proposal. He shook his head in disagreement. "This all seems premature. Have the attackers that targeted Prince Korkie been identified yet?"
Satine shook her head, "No, they have not been fully identified yet. The Royal Guard are transporting them and their ship back to Mandalore, in addition to the recovered relics and the ship. They should return in a week's time, why?"
Governor Vizsla stood up and explained, "Well, my Duchess. I'm concerned that the Prime Minister's plan, while well-meaning, could turn into a witch-hunt. Many Mandalorians have family ties to exiled or dead Death Watch members. And I have serious doubts if any of them are involved in the attacks. So I have an alternative proposal, allow me to investigate these Death Watch. We will pursue a thorough investigation as Concordia has the largest database of Mandalorian chain codes in the sector, a sad legacy of the last Civil War."
My first reaction to that proposal is annoyance. While Governor Vizsla is right in that Concordia had the largest collection of chain codes, since most of the warriors were exiled to the moon after they lost the Civil War. However, it is fairly obvious that he is empire-building. Always had been with Concordia, he had an endless amount of superiority about Concordia being an agricultural exporter. I merely tolerated it, as long as it didn't harm Mandalore.
Satine still seemed lost in thought as she considered her options. A few tense seconds of silence passed, before she nodded in Governor Vizsla's direction. "Once they arrive back to Mandalore, I'll let you know so that you can begin your investigation." Satine turned to face me, "Put together a task force for your investigation. We need to have a complete understanding of what's going on. Someone out there is trying to cause trouble for the Mandalorian Sector, and we need to know why in order to stop them."
I am glad to be put in charge of the task force, but interestingly, Governor Vizsla also seemed pleased with this outcome. Now I could repurpose my existing White Silver task force with this new investigation, and it would have more funding. "It will be done," I said to Satine. "I will have my top men look into this and we will find out who is responsible, you have my word, my Duchess."
Governor Vizsla nodded at my words and stroked his chin, "Concordia will offer any information we can as well. When your task force has custody of the bodies, we can run their chain codes on our database."
The other members of the council seemed happy we had come to a consensus, as they are not nearly as interested in security concerns.
I didn't want Concordia to steal all the credit though, so I added, "Perhaps we should also get some of the other governments involved in this task force. Gargon in particular has an interest in tracking down the Death Watch responsible for the latest attack. I'm sure many other Mandalorian systems would accept extra security measures to avoid an influx of 'Death Watch' terrorist attacks."
Governor Vizsla frowned, he did not look pleased by my assertion, but said, "Yes, we should try and work out a more legal framework to cooperate in criminal investigations between systems. Criminals can easily skirt around local law enforcement in the sector by simply leaving the system. We can put into place new legislation on information sharing to make it easier to track these criminals down."
And I would be able to gather as much information as possible on what they actually knew about White Silver and the Silver Mandalorians. I had my theories of how deep they went, but until I had proof, I could only speculate on what they are truly up to.
Coruscant, Goodvalor's Little Bivoli
Engiz Ordo
This is not how I expected things to go. But the way things had gone... is the opposite of terrible.
I am sitting at a fine table in my actual dress uniform, not my usual Royal Guard armor, across from Tanya in a rather expensive restaurant.
At Tabbi's suggestion I had made my move and asked Tanya to come out on a date with me. A date at a place that probably is going to cost half of my salary from last year.
But right now, it's completely worth it. The food is great and the conversation is about the history of the Mandalorian worlds, various ideas that had been tried throughout the long history of Mandalore, and how the government could be better run.
None of the other Royal Guards had much interest in these rather nerdy topics, but she's been smiling the entire time talking about them and so have I, so nothing wrong here.
Sure we just spent the last 20 minutes of our meal talking about the effect of the economy due to the war with how it could both be spurred on and stopped depending on how terrible the war is. But the conversation is academic, not something that would be detracting from our night, so it is enjoyable.
Unfortunately, all good nights have to come to an end and as conversations draw to a close, the bill arrives.
Sliding my credits onto the little tray, I said, "So Princess Kryze, how did you find tonight?" Yes, I know that that particular question showed just how on edge I really was, but I am hoping that she wouldn't notice that.
Tanya smiled at that and leaned back in her chair. "Tonight is good, I've been so busy with politics that it's nice to just have a theoretical conversation with someone again. One that doesn't require me to worry about how it's going to work or the right way to implement these changes."
…Oh, she's not complaining about me. Though, she hadn't actually said anything in favor of my invite. Ahh... baby steps this would take baby steps.
Hiding my inner turmoil with a smile, I said, "That's good. You always seem happier and more yourself when you're not stressed out, in my opinion."
"Thank you, Engiz." she said with a smile that I could feel.
The waiter came by and picked up the little plastic tray tearing off the credits and left the receipt, so I got up and moved around to help Tanya stand up. Unfortunately, Tanya is a bit faster as she got up herself.
Although, she did offer her arm, so we walked together out of the restaurant onto one of the upper level streets of the capital city of the Republic.
"Smells like the air cleaners around here aren't working right." Tanya noted. I nodded my head in agreement, there is a definite smell of burnt fuel. Coruscant is a rather complex system built up from its millenia long history, so it wouldn't be impossible for one of those systems to have broken down around here.
"We should probably get back to the speeder faster to avoid the stink then," I suggested. We moved towards a stairway leading down to the parking garage where we parked the speeder I rented for this evening.
I turned the corner and only my training allowed me to dodge a fist that's been flying in my direction. Tanya and I took a few steps back, just gawking at the scene.
Looking down the garage interior, it's déjà vu, as in front of me are two groups of men fighting. Both groups had cybernetics enhancements and are beating the hell out of each other.
"Die snake in the grass, CIS bootlicker!"
"Eat Republic cheese ass-kisser!"
Came the battle cries of both groups, as they beat the hell out of each other.
Then, one of them looked in our direction and tilted his head saying "Hey! Don't I know you two?"
"You must have confused us for someone else." Tanya said, holding on to my arm tightly as she backed up further.
"Nah, I swear I've seen you." The belligerent didn't get to finish that sentence, as one of the 'CIS bootlickers' smashed a metal panel into his face, causing him to collapse into the side of the building. The tragedy continued with him collapsing on the stairs and rolling down several steps, only stopping once his comrades grabbed him.
"I think we should not use underground parking from now on." I said, shaking my head as I backed off with her. "I can have the valet bring us the speeder."
"Yeah, I think that's probably for the best." Tanya eagerly agreed with my suggestion. We continued to back away, keeping our eyes locked on the ongoing conflict, hoping they would not pay us any more attention.
"Hey, wait a moment! That guy's wearing the colors of the CIS! Get them!"
I looked down at my dress uniform, realizing yes it is a rather grayish color and very similar to the color that the 'CIS bootlickers' are wearing.
"Oh boy." I muttered as a man came charging at me, ready to punch my head off. I moved faster than him and leaned to the side to dodge his swing. In retaliation, I grabbed his arm and pulled him closer so I could deliver a knee strike into his intestines. I finished by pushing him back down the stairs into another onrushing cyberthug.
I turned to Tanya to see if she's okay. She is laughing in pure joy as she kicks an incoming attacker between his legs, ripping her dress in the process. The maneuver is perfectly timed, causing him to stop right in front of her as he cradled his groin to ease the pain. This leaves him open for Tanya spartan kick to his face, pushing him down the stairs and taking out two more of the gangsters in an avalanche of bodies.
I took advantage of the lull in combat to escape as I grabbed Tanya by the hand and started running in the other direction. I activated my communicator in my vambrace and called Tabbi. He should be nearby, he said he was having a date with Vai tonight as well.
Writer's note: Political fight in street? That's not a good sign, at least those Mandos are having fun, and agents are moving in the background to unleash chaos. What will happen? Hard to say, but I'm sure everything will be fine~~~ also this chapter was pain to get right, mashing two 20k doc together was hard, and sometimes when we editing it, it felt like we have gone over the same part couple times and we're having "Left hand did not know what right hand was doing." I think it's because it's just too long. I might have to keep that in mind for the future.
Edited by: L4, Warmach1ne32, Afforess, D3ad0S
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