Somewhere in the forest of Naboo, 33 BBY
The sixteen-years-old young boy liked to gaze at the stars. They seemed so peaceful, far away from mens and their foolish nature. But this planet, comprised of woods and lakes was peaceful too. Way more peaceful than the one of his ancestors he only knew through some holographic image or tales of a glorious past his parents told him before sleep.
Sometimes, he could see a small vessel emerging from hyperspace - not the ship itself, as small freighters weren't that big-, but they blacked out some stars when emerging. Naboo wasn't a very visited world and often it was just republican or consular ship doing round-trip to Coruscant. Even if Naboo hadn't any precious resources or influence due to former events of galactic history decades, or even centuries ago, it was said that its senator possessed some authority on the city-planet. Politics was not the concern of his parents of course, they weren't nabooan citizen and couldn't vote. And still, as his father would often say : what's the meaning of voting for a representative who is sieging at hundred of parsecs ? None. Such a response was logic, the culture from which they come wasn't republic lovers. It was quite the opposite.
But this time, the number and the size of the ships that appeared were way more above usual. They seemed to create new constellations with all the lights on them. What did it happen again ? Some bureaucrats who was angry ? Or just a pointless political plot for the people outside of the said plot. A bit puzzled by the sheer numbers of the arriving fleet, the young boy stand up of the old stump on which he was sitting, and walk toward the house. It was a simple house made of wood, build by his parents over the years. And it was in the central room that he met them, resting on chair while playing sabbak.
The father quickly noticed the astonishment of his son, and asked, as his boy was reluctant to explain why he come back sooner than usual :
" Hey, what's going on Xaleer ? Seen some ghost ?"
" No, just that the space traffic is a bit too much for a simple hyperspace jam. I truly wonders what is happening right now."
" Don't worry, son. Bureaucrats of the republic will deal with others bureaucrats, bride or corrupt some people, and they will go to somewhere else to do almost the same thing. Besides, this planet has no easily accessible resources, so there's no point in attacking it." His father, named Korma Feral replied.
" And if they do something that stupid, it won't be long. Nabooans are not a fighting people like ours. But if they mess with us we won't just wait for some republic or Jedis, we will fight !" His mother Sathene found the situation to be nothing to be worried about, pulling her mandoan blaster of her belt.
This was enough to calm the young mandoa. They had lived for almost two decade here, far away from mandalore quite peacefully. They were living in some kind of autharcy, away from the inhabitants of this planet. They weren't forced in this way, they just left mandalore when they saw all martial traditions slowly disappearing to be replace by some kind of republic which did not make any sense in mandalorian culture. And this republic wanted them to become workers or traders, pushing aside all they warrior heritage. They tried to show its flaws by revealing a slave traffic, but it didn't end well, as their very clan ended up rejecting them, as the said clan was making profit of this ring.
He thought life could be simple on this peaceful planet with thousand lakes. Yet he didn't know what kind of fate he could have. Bounty hunters were pretty much the only way for a mando'a to remain a known warrior, still this idea wasn't in phase with stories of past battles against Jedi that were filling the head of the young mando'a.
The next day would be rich in events. At first the day began like each day, with the sun rising up from the horizon. But his mother seemed to be concerned about something, as she was trying to heard some coms over an old modified radio. They caught something speaking of negotiations, and the outcome of those was simple: plain and utter failure. And just fifteen minutes after this, they could heard big buzzing sound, as landing ships which looked like giant metallic dragonflies were cruising through the sky. They all went out of the house to watch the direction toward which they were flying.
" They are flying toward the plains in the north, I think. There's no worries to have, I don't think they will try to land here." His father ensured them, watching them using the targeting system on his mandalorian helmet, equipped with some binoculars.
Yet it happened. A transport ship was gliding toward the clearing where their house was built. If it landed, the blast of wind created by the repulsors would utterly destroyed the wooden house.
" Xaleer, go get the rocket launcher. Time to fire some welcome fireworks for these droids." His mother sternly ordered, and he ran toward the armory of the house, a dual gate cabinet with a five centimeter durasteel plating. The single tube of the rocket launcher and the ionic warheads were pretty heavy, but the almost martial his parents submit him had give him enough energy to carry the tube and one warhead, however he wasn't running on his way back to the open, but walking.
" Great. I bet those stupid droids haven't planned three mandalorian firing at them." Xaleer said, as he handed the rocket launcher to his mother.
Carefully, she aimed at the droid transport ship. And five second later, the ionic warhead impacted below the ship. Its repulsor were shut down by the powerful electromagnetic pulse, and as gravity was catching up with him, the large metallic structure fell like a stone.
Yet they didn't foreseen such a sudden fall. His parents and himself thought the transport ship would glide into the forest and explode there, but due to the very poor aerodynamics - which usually were compensated by the repulsor- the fall was quicker. And the out of control ship slammed right into their wooden house. Like the charge of a rancor, it path was unstoppable. And what resulted of this was the utter destruction of their house. The only thing left was the armory. At least the stored ionic warheads didn't explode on impact, or they would have feel the pulse, even for organics.
And so began their long march toward Theed, the capital of Naboo. There, they planned to steal either a nabooan or a trade federation ship, and leave this damn system.
On their way to the capital, they had few skirmishes with trade federation and their clankers, who in small numbers were no match for three mandalorian armed with heavier blasters. Only one shot was needed to disable them.
Still, the martial training of Xaleer wasn't stop during this exile. Using a wooden staff hardened through fire and some modified electrodes they retrieve on the fallen droids, his father made him some kind of electrostaff. He taught Xaleer how to fight with this weapon when they were stationning at a place for the night. Their first sparring sessions were quite painful for Xaleer, as his father did not restrain his kicks of vibroblades, giving to his son a pretty nice collection of bruises.
His mother was more of a tech savvy and so she taught him how to slice through droids or how to reprogram fallen ones. It was pretty funny to see, droids firing on each other before being disintegrated by blaster fire.
During this forced exile, they avoid most cities or towns, as great number of droids forces were stationed there. Often his parents would complain of the lack of fighting will of nabooans, as most of these cities could have been at least fortified, or defended. They had the advantage of defending in urban terrain, yet none was willing to die against the trade federation forces. The three mandalorian didn't see any honor in fighting against machines without consciousness, and not much fighting for a bunch of coward.
Why cowards ? Because of the answer his father got from a nabooan citizen who saw them destroying a little unit of eleven droids along with a small repulsor tank, which Sathene destroyed using one ionic warhead as a remote land mine, when his father try to gave to this men a blaster from the destroyed droids. He sternly refused to take arms, saying nonsensical thought such as "only the royal guard are authorized to have blaster according to their law'' or "We should better wait for the help of Jedi than profit-driven bounty Hunters''.
"We are what they made us." His father replied, knowing the great defeat the Jedi inflicted to his people centuries ago. Yet it was other Jedis. Jedis which his people respected at some point. But at another point the Jedi ceased to be warriors to be just judicials for a now corrupted and blind senate.
It was the only time they spoke with nabooans. The only time they tried to offer help. If they didn't want their help and prefer to die waiting, it was their choice.
So they resumed their walk toward Theed, avoiding even more the populated area.
When they finally arrived after several weeks of walk, they were quite surprised. The city was in utter chaos, with royal guards firing at droids. Now their plan changed a bit: using the chaos to find some trade federation shuttle or fighter for organics. They quickly made their way through the street filled with dead corpses or disintegrated droids. A few repulsor lifted tank were burning on a central place.
At some point, as they had gone on the roofs to find their way into the streets of Theed, they saw a strange fighter, not looking like any trade federation droid fighter, uncloaked in mid-air before gliding toward a small hollow cylindrical building to land inside. On a hunch, they decide to run toward this building, which was very close to the royal Palace of Naboo, from where smoke was pouring, showing the surprising intensity of the fight for a pacific people. Opening the armored door was not long thanks to the plasma cutter they were carrying. Few droids were here, but they settled their score without too much difficulties. The ship had already landed, and it was difficult for them to analyse its origin, as the design was unknown to them : a long fine fuselage with four small curved wings on the back of the spaceship. The ramp was already deployed. With a sign of his blaster, his father intimate him the order to go check the ship. Xaleer walk three meter toward the unknown ship, before sighting a cloaked figure. Two hateful yellow eyes looked at him. He pick up his blaster reflexively, but it was taken out of his hand by an unknown reason, and tossed aside with a hand gesture of the unknown person.
And then shit hit the ionic turbofan to say the least. Xaleer was pushed back several feet like he weighs nothing, and landed painfully on his back. The only thing he could distingate then was his mother putting him behind some protective blast door near the entrance where he had landed before he heard a shot and the blast door was sealed. After this he slowly began to recover from his fall, hearing the familiar sound of vibroblades, along with some electric buzzing, similar to a plasma cutter but with the intensity timed by thousand. Only one weapon was emitting this sound, he mused.
" I wasn't prepared to see the Queen of Naboo hiring mandalorian assassins, let alone the Jedi with her." The voice of the cloaked person spoke, before revealing his face, the red face of a zabrak covered with tribal tattoos.
" We have nothing to do with them." Korma said firmly, twirling his vibro blade.
" We never allied with Jedis, nor with Siths. For mandalore." The voice of his mother replied, before he heard the blade clashing.
Both mando'a were not truly battle-hardened, but had good reflexes and a good coordination. However the red dual bladed lightsaber of their zabrak opponent was the perfect tool to fight in such circumstances. He could parry with one blade, then counter-attack with the other. He was not fighting. Just toying with them, with their futile hope of vanquishing a Sith warrior. Even the padawan he killed a few weeks ago had been a greater challenge.
There was a raison to his current superiority, and not only the Force : they had been walking for weeks, this leaving them exhausted. They couldn't match the sheer speed of a Sith in those circumstances.
At some point, they tried to block him in a corner, attacking him in the same time from high. But he dodged the attack with ease by a backflip, before bearing on the wall to strike at them. The shockwave his Force-enhanced attack made when he hit the ground make them stumble a bit, and as so when he stand up while whirling with his blade, he cut in the process the knee of Sathene. With her leg almost torn off, she was easily kick to the ground by a strong thrust of the zabrak, the fall hurting her with her own vibroblade.
" You are nothing compared to me. There's a reason why the mandalorian were submitted to the sith once." The zabrak said, as Korma took the vibroblade of his wife and tried to attack him, but was block anyway.
Both combattants separated themselves a few seconds after the violent parry of the sith. The sith twirled his weapon before getting in some kind of fighting stance, sideways to Xaleer's father, his dual-bladed lightsaber tilted diagonally
" For mandalore !" Xaleer heard his father screaming. But he could not see, still behind this blastdoor.
He did not see his father and the sith launching themselves on each other. He did not see his father deviating the first thrust, before counter attacking with both vibroblade on the dual bladed lightsaber, blocking the sith momentary. He could not see the spark of hope in his father's eyes as he saw his wife aiming at the Sith from behind.
But the Sith push him back violently before stopping the shots by a rotation of his lightsaber. Grabbing her blaster through the Force, he tossed it aside before dodging by a quick side-step a high kick from Korma. The zabrak retaliate by severing the right arm of the mandalorian, cutting through flesh and armor like in butter. However this left him in a precarious situation, as he ended up for a second with his dual lightsaber over his head, his chest wide open to attack.
Despite the great pain in his arm, the mando'a tried to strike. He thrust his vibroblade right at the shoulder of the zabrak, but he step down before blocking his remaining arm with the hilt of his lightsaber violently, crushing his bones. And then all he could see for the last second of his life was the lightsaber rotating around the left shoulder of his opponent. To behead him.
His wife didn't last long. She had try to kreep toward her blaster, but it's hard to keep going forward with the spine cut by a lightsaber.
The zabrak went for the blast door and began plunging his lightsaber in hit, melting it partially. This sent a shivering chill to Xaleer's spine, as he was getting up with his kind of electrostaff on -even if he knew he wouldn't last long against this kind of opponent-.
" Sir, I have a transmission incoming from the master." A droid interrupted him with his mechanical voice.
The Sith warrior ceased his doing, leaving a blast door halfway melt to kneel respectfully in front of the holo-projector. Another cloaked figure began to speak with a authoritar voice.
" I do not send you here to clear the weaks of this planet. But to kill two Jedis. The master among then must not reach our neimoidian friends. Or they could learn about us." His master warned.
" I will enact as you requested, master." The zabrak humbly replied.
" Good. Bring those two Jedis to the death and your next mission will finally turn you into a worthy apprentice." His dark master recalled the better motive he could have.
" I will act quickly then. The last of those mandalorian exiled is wounded, the trade federation forces should be able to kill a boy." He understand these three opponents have truly nothing linking them to the Queen of Naboo, yet they allow her to live by delaying him.
" Good then. We will talk again if you survive, apprentice." His master wished him indirectly to survive to see what the Sith truly were.
" I will." The apprentice ended the talk, extinguishing his lightsaber before concealing it into the dark depth of his dark tunique, before heading toward the palace with great determination.
" Blast this door!" The mechanic voice of a droid commander with a slight red armor plating.
" Uh, Sir, it's a blast door." A droid commented.
" Then cut it and kill the organic inside." The commandant said with anger.
Xaleer saw the door slowly resume its melting. Yet this time it was a circle of the door who was glowing. Their plasma cutter didn't allow them to go through metal like lightsaber did, but they would go through this door definitely. Despite being wounded from his fall, maybe with a sprained ankle which seemed to burn all his right feet every time he take a step, he stood up, holding his electrostaff.
And two minute later, a large metallic circle fall in the inside of the corridor where he was hiding. A droid came inside, only to be smashed by a kick from Xaleer's electrostaff. For a few seconds, they kept coming one by one. So he kept destroying one by one as soon as they entered. But when he had to kill two in a row, he ended up being in the open.
" Open fire!" The commander shouted, only to be shot by the weapon of a fallen droid Xaleer had picked up.
Yet the five remaining droid had heard the order, and opened fire on the mandalorian. His parents were unable to help him blacksmith an armor of beskar, the legendary alloy of mandalorian armor, due to the row material being solely on mandalore. So he had to wear some armor made of light ceramic plating. It absorb well the kinetic energy, but not all the thermic one - in other words he get at least ten first degree burn as he shot down those five droids.
He hadn't the possibility to bury the dead corpses of his parents. Yet burning them would be enough to honor them. He pick up the last ionic warhead his mother was carrying, and overload the detonator. This kind of weaponry usually produce just electromagnetic pulse aimed against electronic devices and droids, but overload them and they would blow up pretty violently, and also creating an intense heat wave, burning everything in a small radius. He would have fight minutes before the inside of this whole building would contain nothing but ashes.
He was now heading toward the ship. If any more of those droids arrive, he would be in trouble. He hoped this ship would contain a bit of kolto to heal his wounds, but it was something he did not expect from a spaceship belonging to a Sith. He was walking on the ramp when another patrol of droids came. He hurried inside despite his wounded leg, and closed the sas quickly. He did not get any more burn this time, and the ships hull seemed to be resilient to the light blaster the droid were carrying. At least for now.
Xaleer gave a quick look to the inside of the ship : it was built along a linear structure, with some kind of meditation room near the engine, an holo-projector at the middle of the ship and a small glass cockpit at the front. He rushed toward the cockpit, but was lost in the commands. Nothing was written in aurebesh. Only in this technical language they called high galactic. At least the shield indicator was in good state and still in the green : it could hold its own even against heavy blaster, Xaleer guessed.
But he didn't have to look very long for the take off mechanism. Somehow he must have triggered some automated sequence, as he could feel the aircraft taking flight, and heard the blaster ricochetting on the shield. Yet it wasn't the only thing that had been activated : an automated holo-projections was displayed on the central projector, giving only some incomprehensible informations for Xaleer's mandalorian point of view.
" If you come here alive, then I suppose you have taken the Jedi down. Your ship will automatically go to your next assignment, as this old planet is not featured on current hyperspace lanes. There you will find answer where this ship will land."
" Answer to what ? Or to who maybe ?" Xaleer rhetorically asked, knowing he wouldn't get any answer from the hologram.
As he was hearing those recordings, the ship was shaken a bit by a sudden shockwave. The ionic warhead just detonated, and now his parents were gone forever.
After recovering its stability, the ship was still ascending, and judging by some indicators on the cockpit, its cloaking device was already on. Xaleer sit on the only siege of the small cockpit, seeing the end of the atmosphere. He break his electrostaff in half and scratching some band of fabric from his tunique, made a temporar splint for his ankle. At least now it was less painful, as he wasn't walking anymore.
However, nothing could have readied him for the scene he witnessed just after leaving Naboo : a fierce dogfight was taking place between a few nabooan starfighter, which hade some kind of a y shape but with elegant curves and a bright golden paintjob on the top with a white belly painting. The overwhelming vulture droid on the other side where just a pod linked to four linear wing, painted in a dark grey. The organic were desperately fighting overwhelming forces, and their number was slowly decreasing. At one point one of them was hit on the side and spin toward the droid core ship, a great troncated ring with the spheric control ship at its center.
" This one is going to die soon." The mandalorian mused, as he saw the small fighter going into the ship through one of its hangar bays.
Yet fate decide to take a 180-degree turn to what he had foreseen. His space ship was now calculating the hyperspace jump, but for the few seconds before the jump he could see the final act of the space battle. He foresaw a trade federation victory, and now the huge core ship was exploding from the inside. As his ship jumped, he felt nothing but a bit of hope for the nabooan. Maybe they weren't just pacifist cowards after all if they had the guts to take down a droid control ship.
And now, as this unknown ship was taking him to a unknown planet, he was wondering what path he could choose. Of course, he would set for any path that could allow him to first get some healing for his wounded body and second revenge. However he was now hopeless, having lost everything he had and knew. His fighting spirit was as destroyed as the control ship above Naboo. He only felt an immense wave of regret for his past lives, a somewhat harsh and martial way of life, but at least he wasn't alone. Now he was alone and with nothing to guide him except the hologram he saw sooner but didn't understand. He had nothing and was nothing more than an exiled. And in the end, the path this Sith master had put this ship into was very likely to cause his death, as he was no force-sensitive. At least he would welcome death if it allows him to see his parents again, even if they told him many times there was nothing after death. Only emptiness was waiting for him now.
End of the prologue. I Hope this story will have some return and like. I publish it once on the app Wattpad (and in French). But this new version will have few on common with the Wattpad one. I know some mando'a were capable of fighting maul for a time, but the one who end up fighting him die anyway. But is death an end or a new beginning ?
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