Star Wars: On the Aay'han: Remembering Mandalore

This story has the remnants of Clan Skirata leaving their home world of Mandalore in 41 ABY, just after the Imperial Remnant had unleashed the Fett nanovirus into the planet's atmosphere. The remaining members are Venku "Kad'ika" Skirata, Gotab (a.k.a. Bardan Jusik), Jaing Skirata, Kom'rk Skirata, and Lord Mirdalin. Rated K for all audiences.

Chapter 1

Kad'ika, real name Venku Skirata, stared out toward space as he sat in the pilot's seat of the Aay'han. He had been quiet and solemn for the past few minutes, as his adoptive father Gotab, real name Bardan Jusik, had noted from the copilot's seat. Gotab empathized with the younger man, as the world of Mandalore, the planet they were staring at in the Aay'han's cockpit, had been home to them for many years now.

Now it had become too dangerous for Kad'ika to go through its atmosphere ever again. That had been thanks to the works of the Imperial Remnant, led by the late tyrannical dictator of the Galactic Alliance, Darth Caedus. Caedus and the Imperial Moffs managed to concoct a nanovirus based on Mirta Gev's blood, and the nanovirus, which was then deployed all throughout Mandalore's atmosphere, would target anyone who had ever shared Gev's DNA, such as her father, Boba Fett.

Fett, of course, was among the last few clones created by the Kaminoans based on the long-dead Jango Fett's DNA. Kad'ika wasn't exactly one of Jango's clones, but his father was. And thus, he was as susceptible to this nanovirus as much as the Fett family were, and, as mentioned, every remaining Fett clone left in the galaxy.

"It's time to go now, Kad'ika," Gotab said gently to his adoptive son. "Oya."

Kad'ika finally managed to tear his eyes away from his beloved home planet and stare at Gotab. "Oya," he nodded. It was the Mandalorian saying for, Let's hunt, or, Let's roll. Obviously, it was time to go now. If Kad'ika didn't leave now, leave behind all the cherished memories of this planet, he would never go.

And that's not very becoming of a good Mando, Gotab thought. Mandalorians were a nomadic people, who traveled from place to place, like planets and/or habitable moons like Yavin 4–before those damned Yuuzhan Vong took it over and remade it to their twisted standards. Mandalorians weren't supposed to be attached to any one place for any great length of time; not even their own home world.

For a moment there, he thought back to his former life as Jedi Knight and General of the Clone Wars, Bardan Jusik. For so long, in the early years of his life, he had been raised and had grown under the tutelage and dogma of the previous Jedi Order, which taught of non-attachment; if you got too attached to something, or someone, you could lose yourself in the dark side of the Force.

Jusik had left and become an official Mandalorian because of this. He had left because he could no longer lead good men to their deaths in the midst of battle under the pretense of saving a corrupt and decadent government like the Old Republic. A lot good that did, Gotab thought, to all the other Jedi who fought in the Clone Wars who believed that sending enslaved men to certain doom had been morally sound and not unbecoming of a dark sider.

A fellow Knight of his, Etain Tur-Mukan, had become romantically involved and eventually married to a clone Commando named Darman just before she died. Ironically, Etain died not under the hand of a clone trooper by the time of Order 66, but by the lightsaber of a fellow Jedi.

To this day, Gotab had always wished that all of the Jedi in the galaxy perished in the Great Purge under Emperor Palpatine's rule because of what happened to Etain. It wasn't enough that they had been hunted nearly to extinction; considering that with just a few Jedi left, they had returned, and were now as powerful as ever. While Gotab did see it a more positive thing that the rule on non-attachment had been lifted under Luke Skywalker's rule, it still wasn't enough to him. It would never be enough.

Now as a Mandalorian, Jusik, renaming himself Gotab, lived by his society's standards with every breath of his being. He had accepted them without hesitation as not only a choice or lifestyle, but as a fact. And yet, even though the ideologies between the Jedi and the Mandalorians couldn't be anymore different, there was a note of non-attachment, Gotab realized. Just as the Jedi of old demanded non-attachment to people, Mandalorians have always ruled non-attachment to places.

Have I traded one non-attachment culture for another? Gotab thought. Yes, I have. Except this culture allows love for people, not a restrained respect.

And so Kad'ika took hold of the Aay'han's control stick and veered the ship away from Mandalore. He then input the coordinates for the Aay'han's jump into hyperspace, and in a few moments, the bright, distant pinpricks of life in the distance of space immediately lengthened into thick blue lights that surrounded the ship. In no time, the vessel was gone.

The Aay'han. What an appropriate name for this ship, Gotab thought. The late Kal Skirata, who had become his adoptive father after the Clone Wars ended, had named this ship after the Mando'a meaning for a bittersweet moment of mourning or joy. To Gotab, as he looked back upon the memories he had of Mandalore, never had there been a better moment for that definition right now than ever before.