Lappah of Clan Kelso was a young warrior. Sometimes, his elders playfully picked on him for his age ("leave me alone, di'kuit! I'm almost fifteen!") Like all born into a Mandalorian Clan, he'd been trained from birth to fight. He started off with basic plastoid armor, only earning Beskar when he passed his combat trials and became an adult at age thirteen.

He was hoping to earn a Basilisk one day too. Lappah took as many flying lessons as he could, when he had time outside of his duties and side-job. All Mandalorians were warriors first. Their professions were important to society, but always secondary to war. Hence, they called their professions eso'bora, side-jobs. Lappah's side-job was in the law, helping mediate disputes between fellow members. He apprenticed under a fair, yet firm Clan Elder who had died died when their frigate crashed into this snowball.

Overall, Lappah was well-recognized as a talented, albeit green warrior with potential to become something great with time. In his almost-fifteen years, he had dueled hundreds of people one-on-one. He participated in the Outer Rim Conquests, as his Clans built up their strength to fight the Republic. And he'd been in the front lines in the war against the Republic, the greatest enemy the Clans had yet faced.

In all his battles, Lappah was concerned and even shook up at times. But never in his life had he been terrorized like when he laid eyes on that Jedi. He could see it in her eyes. It was almost like she wasn't a person. She seemed more like a Ras'griz, a demon.

He was actually shaking, not even able to hold his gun straight. The Main Reactor had no windows and was pitch-black from cutting the power. All they could see was in the thin beams of their blaster- or helmet-mounted flashlights. The various pipes, wires, and other contraptions looked unfamiliar when sideways in the dark. Every creak or noise was the Jedi coming to kill them dead, dead, dead.

"Come on, Lappah. Death before dishonor. Defend Clan and Family. If you die here, so be it. There's nothing wrong with earning a warrior's death. There's nothing wrong with earning a warrior's death. There's nothing wrong with earning a warrior's death."

He told himself this over and over again, but he didn't want to die. Not like this, anyway. Death was supposed to be glorious, earned in a hard-fought battle with a challenging enemy. This didn't feel glorious, or honorous. It felt like murder.

Ries'la, his best friend, was behind him. He was a hulking, huge man, unlike Lappah with his small, toned frame. His heavy repeater looked small in his muscular arms. Ries'la laid a comforting hand on Lappah's shoulder. He wasn't alone. He was here with his clan, his friends, his family.

"IF she kills us. We can do this. I'll see the rest of my clan again. Buir and Buiri will be so proud their son survived against a Jedi." He steeled himself, trying at least to stop his hands from shaking.

Lappah had a bad feeling, as if someone was directly in front of them. Strangely, the eerie silence remained. The Main Reactor's entrance was very narrow, and the shape of the halls made it quite a drop to get to where they were. They holed up here by design; the entrance to the hallway was an absolute killzone. Anyone who tried to come in would be vaporized. Even someone with a stealth generator couldn't get to them without making a racket and being riddled with bolts.

Still, Lappah's gut told him otherwise. He gripped his blaster tight, taking deep breaths, trying to make his shakes go away. "I can do this. I'll make it back home. I'll learn to fly. I'll get a Basilisk. I just have to survive. I can do it."

Without warning, the narrow entrance was lit by the purple glow of a lightsaber.

"Fire at will!"

Everyone fired at the saber, some yelping with fear and surprise. The dark didn't serve them well and the saber easily deflected most shots. The remaining coursed into the wall behind the Jedi. Moments later, blasters started firing behind the lightsaber.

Lappah noticed something strange; the way the saber was moving, it was almost as if no one was holding it. And some of the shots that weren't deflected missed close enough to the saber that it definitely should've hit the Jedi. Yet they continued traveling behind.

"Come on, come on!"

Pidu'bal, a sharpshooter, decided to quit shooting the saber and fire at one of the soldiers blasting them. Lappah again noticed, his shot should have hit the soldier holding the blaster. But it just went through where the soldier should have been. As if there was no soldier.

"There's nothing attached to those weapons," Pidu'bal shouted.

"You're seeing things, it's a trick of the dark," an elder replied.

Another comrade, Sokkar, drew a vibrosword and charged at the saber, growling a war cry. It didn't parry any of his swings and moved unnaturally. It was clear now, to everyone in the reactor. The purple of the saber illuminated Sokkar just fine, but there was nobody on the other end. In seconds, it had bisected and beheaded Sokkar.

"Demon! Ras'griz!"

"Shut up and return fire! Aim for the - kck!" Before the elder could finish, Sokkar's vibrosword was flung directly into his throat.

In seconds, another comrade fell, blaster bolts hitting him in the T-visor. The saber buried itself into another Mandalorian's gut, exiting his side, causing his body to flop over like a tree that had been axed.

Next to Lappah, a clan elder grabbed at his throat, coughing and hacking, before being forcefully pinned against the wall, levitated so his feet weren't touching the ground. He dropped his weapon, flailing, struggling for breath, kicking, scratching at his neck. His body went into convulsions from the lack of oxygen to his brain.

"The grim reaper's come for us," Lappah thought.

Another brother was tripped, fell flat on his face, and was dragged away. He scratched at the durasteel walls, trying to stop his progress toward the demon.
"Help me! Someone please help! Help me!"

Lappah tried to run to his aid, but he was shoved with massive force, face-first into the unforgiving reactor's walls. He was able to shield his face with his arms in time, but he could hear and feel the cracking of his ribs from the blunt-force trauma. His chest was on fire, it even hurt to breathe. His nose bled from the impact, getting all on his mouth and chin, and pooling near the bottom of his helmet seals. All Lappah could do was watch his clan-brother get dragged closer and closer to the lightsaber. The clan-brother's vibroblade was unhooked from his belt, and levitated above him.

"Please, no! Please, no! Please-" He was cut off as the vibroblade slammed down, pinning him to the floor like a dart. His arms flailed trying to remove the sword from between his back-plates, but he wasn't flexible enough. The blade twisted, with no purpose other than to make him shriek in agony. The shriek devolved into wet gurgles as his blood pooled across the floor and dripped out of his helmet.

The Reactor was filled with the sounds of torture. The searing sound of blaster bolts burning flesh. The thwack of a disruptor bolt hitting Beskar armor. Gurgling, choking, hacking, and screams of sheer terror. Some of these hardened, lifelong warriors even cried for their mothers, "Buiri! Buiri!" Burning flesh from lightsaber and blaster wounds filled Lappah's nose, strong enough to even pass through his helmet's filters. The only light came from the flashlights, the lightsaber, and the fast-moving blaster bolts. Lappah had never thought too much about Hell, but he knew that, no matter how bad it was, it couldn't be as bad as this.

"Someone please make it stop! Oh Gods!"

Lappah fought through the pain to stand back up, aim his blaster rifle, and fire. He didn't even know what to shoot, just hoping a stray bolt would somehow find its way to the Ras'griz.

Further back, Ries'la had kept a cooler head. He decided to look around. There was no person attached to the lightsaber, or any of the blasters. But the Jedi had that magical Force power, and he remembered from earlier that they could control weapons. If he could find the Jedi, he could make all this hell stop. His clan and family were getting massacred. He had to protect them. Ries'la swept his gun-mounted flashlight back and forth behind their position. He could hear his best friend weeping as he blindly fired.

His flashlight caught the tiniest glint, almost like a predator's eyes at night. Before he could bring the flashlight back around and double check, his neck snapped, and his body went limp. He lost all feeling below the neck, and knew he had only a few more seconds of life left. He tried to think happy thoughts of clan and family, but strangely, he didn't feel in control. He felt like there was an unwelcome guest in his mind.

He knew who this was. The puppet master. Ras'griz. Those predator's eyes were inside him now. The sheer horror was feeding it, sustaining its considerable strength. Blood stained its teeth, dripping out of its mouth, but it craved more. He could hear its craving, just the same as he heard his brothers screaming in pain and horror. More blood. More blood. MORE!

Ries'la faded into death, not even given the mercy of peace in his own mind.

A flood of bolts started hitting Lappah's clan. Strangely, it came from behind. He turned around and saw his best friend firing nonstop at his clanmates. Lappah didn't notice Ries'la's head as hanging down, below his shoulders, like he was asleep.

"Ries'la, what are you doing!?" Lappah's tears mixed with the blood on his face.

"Return fire," another shouted before being hit in the shoulder.
Some Mandalorians turned and fired at Ries'la. He didn't make any attempt to dodge, and was hit with several bolts. He didn't even notice. It was like he was suddenly incapable of feeling pain.

"Ries'la, brother, please! Please stop this!" Lappah's begging fell on deaf ears. It was now that he noticed something was off. This wasn't the Ries'la he knew. He didn't stand, walk, or wield his blaster like Ries'la. As more blaster bolts coursed into him, he remained limp, but still fired. No, it wasn't his best friend. Ries'la was a puppet of the demon.

A vibro-spear pinned two clanmates against each other, before bending to entangle them. The two dying men were then flung into another female, knocking her over. The two entangled men levitated and slammed into her over and over, the blunt force turning her into meat.

"Please stop!"

Most of them were screaming or weeping, firing wildly, not aiming or even thinking. Others had frozen in fear, completely static, minds incapable of handling the shock. Rak, who was Lappah's age, had gone into a full panic attack. He'd shrunk into a wall, dropped his gun, and collapsed. He was shaking uncontrollably, hyperventilating, whimpering, and rocking back and forth. People continued dying, left and right, all around them. They had a frigate full of people when this started. Now they were less than ten, and quickly dwindling.

Lappah had to make this hell stop. All Mandalorians lived by the Resol'nare, the Six Actions, core tenets that guided all of Mandalorian society. #3 was to defend oneself and one's family. Perhaps defending Lappah's family, his clan, didn't mean fighting to the death. Perhaps it meant just making this hell stop. There was nothing else he could do, it was the only thing occupying his fear-frozen mind.

"We surrender! We surrender! Stop, we..." Lappah raised his hands over his head, gritting his teeth through the pain of his ribs. He dropped his blaster, and it clunk-clunked to the floor. "We surrender."

The hell stopped. Everything hung still for several long moments. His clan-brothers stopped fighting, unsure what to do. The Ras'griz was the first to act. Ries'la's corpse dropped to the floor, along with several blasters and vibroblades, and the entangled couple. The silence was eerie before a comm crackled and a female voice spoke.
"Lights on."

It was still pitch black, but Lappah could tell somehow, the voice was that of the Ras'griz. A few moments later, the lights came on. His helmet's auto-dimmers meant the sudden light wasn't blinding to him, and he was still able to see what was going on. Directly behind their position was that skinny, white-haired Jedi from earlier, on her knees, in a meditative position.

Somehow, she'd managed to sneak through a killzone, get completely behind a position well-fortified by dozens of warriors, and remain there without detection through an intense firefight. Any mere mortal would have been shredded in a millisecond. Hell, even a Basilisk would have. She was no mere mortal. Lappah realized, if all Jedi were like her, then his people stood no chance. She was the puppet master. The demon. His terror was joined by a respect for her abilities.

She stood up slowly, as if savoring the moment. She extended her arm, and her saber's long handle willed itself to her hand. Lappah saw only a handful of Republic troops, with more dropping down into their area. The vast majority of the blaster fire came from levitating guns controlled by her. It remained eerie, the silence only broken by Rak, still stricken by his panic attack.

"Men," she ordered, "search and detain."

"Copy," a huge Zabrak replied, taking off his facemask. As he approached, Lappah could see the sadness in his eyes. The Zabrak and several others patted down the remaining survivors, removing their weapons and cuffing them.

"Kneel." She didn't wait for the Mandalorians to comply, instead gesturing. Lappah felt something powerful grab his body and bring him to his knees. The Jedi sauntered over to an Elder, the ship's captain. He was promoted from First Mate when his superior died in the crash.

He was a Taung, the original species of Mandalorian. He had green skin, a head punctuated by fish-like fringes, and tentacles instead of hair. Taung were nearly wiped out in the Exar Kun war, and they were a rarity even in the Mandalorian Clans. The clans were majority-human nowadays.

"Captain. Name."

"Esio of Clan Kelso."

"You're going to tell us where the rest of your fleet went."

"Absolutely not, aruetii." Outsider.

She gestured with her hand, and Captain Esio was forced onto his back. The Jedi stepped on his throat. "I don't have time for this. You are evil scum. Talk or die slowly."

"And betray my clan? Pah! I'll take the second option." His voice was hoarse from the Jedi's boot.

"Is that so? Didn't seem too willing to die just a few moments ago." Esio reacted by shooting Lappah a contemptuous look. Lappah looked down in shame. Maybe they should have died here.

"Try me." He stared right into the Ras'griz's eyes, which had a slight hint of yellow in them. They locked eyes for minutes. Lappah knew he meant it. They may have surrendered, but they'd all gladly die in great pain before betraying their Clan.

The entire time, Rak whimpered and hyperventilated. The Republic soldiers spoke softly, "Relax, relax. It's over. C'mon bud, just lemme get you in these cuffs, okay? It's done."
Their words didn't work. Rak continued shaking and rocking, saying "no" and "devil" every so often.

The Jedi then removed her foot from Esio's neck, grinned, and squatted down. "Well I admire your strength of will. Really, I do. But we're gonna stop wasting my time." She held her hand in front of his head, and Captain Esio gritted his teeth.

"What... what are you doing?"

"Shhh, shhhhh," she whispered in a soothing, motherly tone. Somehow, this was even more terrifying. "Relax."

"Gah! Aaaaaagh! Get- get out of my head!"

"You're a brave one, Captain, but your thoughts betray you. Not so strong, are you, great warrior?"

"I said get out, landuur!" Weakling.

"Aaaaand..." she made a motion like she was catching something, "Thank you. That's all I need." The Jedi bent down, inches from the Captain's face, and smiled smugly. "All that showboating, for nothing. You can't hide your thoughts from me, insect."

Esio tried to headbutt her, but the Jedi held her hand and stopped him in mid-air. Filled with rage, he growled at her. "Face me and give me a warrior's death!"

"Oh, happily. But there's plenty more I'd like to talk about before then." She turned to her soldiers. "Now take them away, and relay the following coordinates to command. Also," she pointed at Rak, "shut him up."

Jimny awoke in a cold sweat. He had a nightmare. It was weird; he was in some sort of battle. He noticed Hammerheads fighting Interdictor cruisers in the skies. Strange, both were Republic designs, why would they fight each other? The Interdictors were different too; they were painted plain silver rather than the brick-red-over-white of the Republic.

On the ground, he was standing with his squad, facing the enemy. But they weren't Mandalorians, it looked like he was fighting a mirror image of his own squad. Well, mirror image was the wrong term. The copies had paler, gray skin. They wore shiny silver armor, and Meku had bright yellow eyes. Enemy-Meku smiled sadistically as she reached for her saber's long handle, between her shoulder blades.

He rubbed his head, hoping everything was alright.