To an outside observer the two ships, coupled by dorsal airlocks, would have made a strange sight as they drifted through open space. They'd have vaguely resembled a double-saucer but the smoother, oval-shaped Mandalorian drop ship was almost twice the size of the disc-shaped Corellian freighter.

Because Gevern Auchs' ship had more room, the crew from the Corellian-made ship came onto their side. Marin was quickly overwhelmed by it all. Dorn and Ninet had been hard enough to get used to; now she was surrounded by a dozen more armored Mandalorians, all of them uncles and aunts and cousins through some labyrinthine clan logic she had no hope of mapping. There had been a flurry of introductions and names, only half of which she remembered. They were a big mix of age and gender and even appearance. She searched all their faces for traces of the old clone genes, sometimes obvious and sometimes not at all.

When her mother introduced her, everyone gave her the same searching, evaluative look. They'd all heard of her, of course, as her mother's wayward jeti daughter. Most looked surprised to see her at all. Her mother had given her family a basic sitrep when calling them out to this rendezvous but had, she promised, refrained from mentioning who had killed Gevern Auchs. That was another question in everyone's eyes, and a few times Marin could tell she was being evaluated. They were wondering, did she do it? and skepticism wasn't because of her age. Fourteen-year-olds were adults by Mando standards. They were wondering if a Skirata-raised-jeti had the fierceness in her to kill the Mand'alor.

The meet-and-greet, overwhelming as it was, didn't last long. Her mother called them to order and everyone gathered in the ship's cargo hold. Marin perched on the edge of a crate between her mother and Ninet. Tamar had donned all her black-and-blue beskar save the helmet, while Ninet was in a loose white jumpsuit and leaned against the plasteel crutch she'd hobbled into the room on.

On the opposite side of the warriors' circle was a big Mando, maybe ten years older than Tamar, with an unlikely combination of tan skin and cropped red hair. "All right, Tam'ika," Kragal Skirata said, "Now that you've impressed us all with your new ship, let's get the full story."

"You already know most of it," Marin's mother said. "We've been trying to find out who hired Auchs' people to stage a false-flag on the Chiss and draw them into the war against the raiders."

"Who put you up to this? Imps or the jeti?" asked a thinner, black-haired Mando with a scar across the bridge of his nose. Marin thought his name was Mekr.

"Bet it was the old cyar'ika," muttered a younger man, red-haired like Kragal. A few people chuckled.

"Is 'all of the above' a valid answer? The point is, Dorn and Ninet helped us. We thought we could rely on Salvoc to get us good intel but when we met him on Chorax it was a set-up. Auchs was there and they took me and Dorn." She put an arm over Marin's shoulder. "Thankfully we had good tough ad'ike to come and get us out."

The other Mandos looked Marin and Tamar over again, more approving. A boy- a young warrior not much older than them- asked, "Did you kill them all or did you take somebody alive?"

"I heard you got one, right?" asked Kragal.

It seemed they were intentionally avoiding the issue of who killed Auchs and she didn't understand why. Dorn, out of armor and with a bacta patch plainly visible over the spot where he'd been shot in the shoulder, said, "We took Galaset alive. Tam'ika and I had a really interesting conversation while you barves were on the way."

"That Kerestian?" said the scarred one, Mekr. "Bet he was a touch getts to break. He still alive?"

"We left him intact," Tamar said, voice hard. Marin hadn't been invited when her mother and Dorn had dragged Galaset into an isolation cell for his interrogation. She hadn't wanted to. Whatever had happened to get information from Auchs' lieutenant she was sure it was something the Jedi wouldn't have approved of, and she was uncomfortable being reminded of the brutality that came easily to her mother and all these other Mandos.

"A couple key points," said Dorn. "One: Salvoc set us up for that meeting on Chorax but he wasn't the original leak. Somebody else tipped Auchs that we were looking into his Chiss op. Galaset knew I was close with Salvoc so he strong-armed him into acting like bait."

"Who else knew?" asked the teenager.

"Not one of us," grunted the other red-haired one, Jind.

"Before Chorax we got a tip-off from a little blue piece on Broken Moon," Dorn said, and a couple Mandos nodded in recognition. "So we thought about that, but Galaset didn't know anything about her."

"You sure he wasn't feeding you osik?" asked Kragal.

"Very sure," Tamar said, still hard. "But he did give us a hint. After Auchs captured us at Chorax he dragged us off to his ship, got on the private comm, and sent one message. Then he came out and told Galaset they'd be taking us prisoners to a rendezvous at the edge of the Exodeen System four hours from now."

"His employer?" asked Jind.

"Sounds like a good guess to me," said Kragal. "You couldn't slice his comm logs, find out who he was talking to?"

"None of us could beat that kind of encryption," said Tamar. "Unless one of you barves is an extra-special slicer and I didn't know."

Another round of chuckles. Kragal said, "Sorry, Tam'ika. Wrong crowd for that."

"But you're the right crowd for busting heads, right?"

"Glad to see you're still on top of things," said Mekr.

"I was planning an ambush at Exodeen. Whoever they are they'll be expecting this ship, so we'll go as planned. Turns out Auchs' beskar'gam is a good fit for Dorn, so we were thinking of putting him in the suit and fiddling with his helmet speakers to drop the audio pitch a little, make him sound like a Mand'alor."

Jind gave Dorn an up-down appraisal. "You had much acting experience, Dorn'ika?"

"I won't need it. All we want is to get that ship to lower shields. Then you jump out with your ship, use that nice ion cannon you've got installed, and knock them out. We board together if we can and take whoever's onboard alive, if possible."

Kragal crossed thick arms over his chest. "That's a lot of assumptions piled up. We don't know who's gonna be coming or what kind of ship they'll bring. What if it's a big Imp star destroyer they drop on us?"

"Have you seen what's going on in Imp space?" asked the young Mando. "They're a little busy right now."

The others nodded agreement; Marin looked down, sullen at the reminder of what was happening on Bastion. Despite everything she'd been through and was about to undertake a big part of her was still worried about Vitor and Roan, Jaina and her father.

"Maybe not an Impstar, but something else big might drop on you." Kragal wouldn't let it go. "What happens then?"

"If we think we're outgunned we won't even try and bluff. We'll just turn and run," said Tamar.

Marin didn't normally thing of Mandos as turn-and-run types but these Skiratas seemed to know the value of discretion. Kragal, more accepting now, asked, "You want to split crews evenly?"

"That's be best," said Dorn. "No telling what the situation'll be like when we board."

"I'll stay on my ship," Kragal said, "But I think Mekr and his ad'ike might be good for yours. Even things out a little."

"Fine by me," the scarred one said, "But I wanna see this ship before we take it into action."

"Me too, actually," Kragal said. "I always wondered what kind of neat toys Auchs might've stockpiled."

"Like I said, we've got fours hours to prep," Tamar warned.

"I just want a whirlwind tour. You scoped the thing out yet?"

"We've found some nooks and crannies. Come on. Whirlwind tour."

Her mother and Dorn led Kragal, Mekr, and most of the other Mandos out of the hold. Marin stayed where she was, a little relieved to be free of so much attention. They were family but also strangers.

"I'm a little surprised," she sighed. "We don't even know who we'll be fighting, but they all got on board with this just because our parents asked."

"Ask is all they had to do," Ninet said. "That's what aliit is."

Marin had picked up that word. Family, clan, the unbreakable bonds that came with it. Before all these other Skiratas had shown up she'd overheard her mother and Dorn speaking softly, privately in the cockpit. They'd said Auchs had an aliit of his own who'd be none too happy with his death. Mandalorians, unsurprisingly, were not above vengeance-fueled blood feuds. Maybe that was why none of the Skiratas had asked who'd killed the Mand'alor. They hadn't wanted to know, because the more people who knew the greater danger to Marin and her entire clan.

"You good with that thing?" someone said. Marin blinked, jerked from dark thoughts, and sat the teenage Mando with the green armor. He gestured to the lightsaber on Marin's belt.

Maybe he was fishing about Auchs, but his voice sounded honest, curious, different from the rough ad jaded cynicism she was used to hearing all these Mandos, her mother included, speak with. She placed her hand on her lightsaber and said, irrationally defensive, "I'm pretty good. I haven't had it for long."

She was afraid he'd ask if she'd killed anyone with it but instead he looked at Ninet. "How are you holding up?"

"Better than I was fifteen hours ago," she said sourly, "But I don't think I'll be fighting fit, Nev'ika. Sorry."

"Sounds like you already did what you needed to." He looked back to Marin. "You going to be ready for this next op?"

"I'll be on this ship. I'll do what I have to." She didn't want to; she was terrified of getting into another battle, of having to choose between death and killing, but she couldn't stand back while all these other people- family in their strange way- were risking their lives in a situation that was at least partially her fault. That wasn't the Jedi way and she doubted it was a Mando way either.

She thought she'd kept her tone strong, certain, but the young man narrowed his eyes, like he'd seen through it all. A little more gently he said, "You did what you had to to save your buir. There's nothing to be ashamed of."

"I'm not ashamed. It's just…." Her grip tightened on her lightsaber. "I wasn't prepared for this."

"She'll do what she has to when it counts," Ninet said.

"I thought so." His smile was faint but encouraging. "I'll be honest, I've always wanted to see a real jeti in action."

She was about to tell him she wasn't a real Jedi, just an apprentice years away from knighthood, but someone called from the cockpit, "Nev'ika! Get over here!" and the young man excused himself. When he'd slipped away Marin felt a little tension drain out of her. She asked, "So who was that?"

"Nevec. He's one of Kragal's kids."

"I didn't see the resemblance."

"Genes are funny things. Perceptive though, wasn't he?"

"Kind of, yeah."

Ninet tilted her head, glanced at her cousin sideways. "I'm pretty sure he's got the Force."

"Because he's perceptive?"

"And more. He's got great timing, great reflexes, great aim. Like he knows stuff before it'll happen." Ninet sighed. "Some people have all the luck."

"So he's like me, then, descended from that Jedi who married a clone?"

"No. Kragal's ba'buir was an ex-Jedi."

She tried to do generational arithmetic. "His grandmother?"

"Grandfather. Bard'ika laid down his saber to be a Mando healer."

"Okay." She knew asking questions would just get her more confused.

"They've got no clone genes but they're still Skiratas. Aliit is more than blood. Do you understand?"

"A little."

After a pause, Ninet asked, "Do you plan on boarding that ship like that?"

"Like what?"

She looked Marin up and down, waved a hand. "Unprotected."

"I've got my lightsaber."

"You might need more than that."

"Well, I don't think Kragal bought spare beskar in my size."

"You don't need his. What about mine?" Marin blinked. Ninet stamped the heel of her crutch on the deck and said, "It's not like I'm going to be using it. I'll stay here, help helm the ship. But if you're going in there with your buir you'll need protection. Right?"

She tried to picture herself in Ninet's red Mandalorian armor and it just wouldn't come. She knew what she was: a Jedi, no matter what her mom's side of the family was. Beskar'gam seemed wrong somehow, but Ninet was right. It would be a whole lot safer if it came to a real fight.

"I'll give it back when we're done," she told Ninet.

The other girl grinned. "Come on, Mar'ika. Let's go try on some clothes."

-{}-

His double life as a Sith Lord and corporate execute often made Darth Kroan feel harried, but the pressure was getting worse lately. He'd left Kuat on his personal shuttle a full day ago because retrieving the package from Gevern Auchs was too important to leave to his agents. Also important was retrieving Corrien Veers' agent during the conference on Balmorra in two more day. Kuat, Exodeen, and Balmorra were not so far apart that this jumping around was impossible, but he wouldn't have much more than transit time to interrogate the Skirata woman and Veers' agent. Vermin minds were usually easy to break, but here he'd be dealing with a half-Jedi and an Imperial spy trained to resist torture and mental probes. Normally he'd relish the challenge, but time was short and the stakes were high.

Right before his ship dropped into the Exodeen System he'd caught the latest report from Bastion: Veers and Fel had agreed to a temporary cease-fire. Kroan didn't know where that could go but he didn't like it. He'd provided Veers with a super star destroyer and executive access controls to half the ships in the First Fleet. A Sith would have massacred Fel and every one of his soldiers, but then Veers was vermin, not a Sith; a politician who, for all his autocratic tendencies, still cared about saving face. For the first time he found himself wishing for a hands-on leader like Darth Xoran to take over the Empire. It would be so much easier. He'd heard nothing about the ten Sith Darth Wyyrlok had dispatched to Bastion to ensure the deaths of the Fel Jedi, which was not encouraging either.

But he could do nothing about that now. As his ship sliced through the empty space at the edge of the Exodeen System, toward the cold and barren rock of its terminal planet, he tried to calm himself and focus on the task ahead.

As the dark world became larger in the forward viewport the shuttle's pilot said, "Picking up a signal, sir. One ship."

"Type?"

"Mandalorian. Mantis-class drop ship."

Auchs' ship, then. It was still too far away to spot with the naked eye. He reached out with the Force. At this distance it was hard to be sure how many beings were on the ship ahead. He felt for the familiar presence of Gevern Auchs.

So many vermin felt alike in the Force: weak, petty, consumed with the pointless little worries of their pointless lives. The Mandalore had always been unmistakable. To hold his ragged mercenary band together for twenty years required an iron will and more than a streak of cruelty. Had he the Force, Auchs would have been a prime candidate to become Sith, but as it was, he was merely a valuable tool.

He knew Auchs, but he couldn't sense him now. Other minds, faint, unfamiliar, of undetermined number, but not Auchs.

He waited until they drew closer and still he didn't feel the Mandalore on that ship. A sense of dread ran through him as his pilot announced, "Sir, they're hailing."

"Pilot, stand by to raise his shields. Start warming forward cannons."

The pilot frowned but got to work. As his hands worked the console he asked, "Will we respond to their hail, sir?"

"Go ahead. Let's see what they have to say."

A holo-image appeared over the comm console. He knew the armor for Auchs' and the familiar voice, blurred slightly be comm-static, said, "We have your package for you, ready to exchange."

He reached out with the Force one last time. Auchs was not aboard that ship, he was certain, and if someone else was wearing his armor then the Mandalore was certainly dead.

With a flick of the Force he shut off the connection. "Pilot, raise shields. Lock and fire when ready."

The pilot hurried to comply. The moment their defensive screens went up the Mandalore's drop ship raised its own, a half-second too late. The first burst from Kroan's heavy laser cannons caught the drop ship's forward-port thruster and burst it. The ship jerked wildly as its pilot struggled for control. Kroan ordered the pilot to fire again and a second shot scraped black heat across the ship's dorsal side, tearing hull.

"Hold fire!" Kroan commanded. "Bring us in to-"

Suddenly his own shuttle rocked hard as something impacted their shields. The pilot wrestled with the controls and reported, "Another ship, sir! It came out of lightspeed on top of us!"

"Return fire! Kill it!"

Before he could respond the entire ship seemed to scream. The lights shuddered and went dark; sparks of blue lightning danced across the consoles and the pilot jumped back in his chair, hands singed.

"Ion cannon," Kroan muttered. "How long will it take to restart the ship?"

"I don't know, sir. I, ah-"

The ship rocked again, and he heard metal scrape heard against metal at the rear of his ship. They'd clamped onto his airlock and were trying to cut through. In a minute they'd be aboard.

"Hold here," he told the pilot. "Get this ship working again."

"But sir, the-"

"I'll take care of the boarding party," Kroan said, and stepped out of the cockpit. He tapped the doors closed on the way out, sealing the pilot in and everyone else out. Mandalorians, almost certainly. Maybe the Skirata woman had gotten the drop on the Mandalore somehow, though it seemed incredible that a warrior was experienced as Auchs could be beaten by someone who'd dropped out of Jedi school.

No matter. He could figure that out that later. Kroan stalked in the direction of the boarding hatch and listened to the sound of tearing metal. They were almost through. When he reached the airlock vestibule he stood before it and tried to sense how many Mandalorians were on the other side. Around ten, it felt like, probably all plated in beskar and armed with more weapons than they had hands. Normally a team like that would be more than enough to subdue a shuttle as modestly-sized as Kroan's.

He stepped out of the vestibule and to the side of the door. He was wearing the loose robes of a Kuati aristocrat but a few easy shrugs dropped them on the floor, revealing the black bodysuit underneath. He unhooked his lightsaber from his belt, rested his thumb on the trigger without pressing, and waited.

He didn't wait long. The sound of tearing metal stopped. He heard a few more heavy clanks as the Mandalorians forced the interior airlock door open. Then there was the sound of booted footsteps as the first warriors stalked through the vestibule, into the shuttle's main cabin.

Kroan felt them, knew exactly when they'd come. He switched on his lightsaber jumped out in front of them at the same moment. A fast horizontal swing caught the two lead warriors by surprise; they didn't even react as his red blade skimmed over their beskar shoulder-plates, under the rims of their helmets, and effortlessly severed two necks.

Heads fell, clanked, and rolled. Bodies dropped but Kroan slipped between them, fast, and came up on the next two Mandalorians. These ones had a little more time to defend. Kroan batted their laser blasts back at them; hot plasma panged harmlessly off beskar as they backstepped toward the airlock vestibule but when Kroan was close enough he sheared off the barrel of one blaster, then another. He used the Force to throw the right warrior into his partner, smashing both against the bulkhead, then hurled the two of them back toward the airlock. Three more Mandos were visible at the torn-open portal, all of them shooting, but when the bodies of their comrades were thrown at them they were slow to react. Armor crashed together. Kroan shot through the air, through the portal, into the hold of the Mandalorian ship. He slipped his saber between torso plates, spearing one mercenary through the stomach. He drew out to the side, tearing his guts open, and flicked his blade through the neck of another prone warrior.

Four down. The other ones were scrambling away, kicking themselves across the hold and shooting with pistols and rifles. Two last Mandalorians were standing on the far side of the room, a big one in red armor and a smaller one in green, both shooting madly. As he defended against the hail of laser-blasts he tried to sense more Mandos on this ship but found none.

Nine total, how lucky.

The hail of enemy fire was becoming hard to manage. He jumped high, somersaulted over one commando still shooting from his back, then came down behind him. He caught shots from the two Mandos by the door with his hand and severed the prone one's head from his back with a downward flick of his saber. He spun on one heel, moved on the next one still lying-

-and grunted in pain as a laser-shot winged his shoulder. He jumped back toward the airlock, not even certain where the shot had come from. As soon as he landed he realized his mistake: all four of the surviving warriors were on their feet, readying to come after him from all sides, and he was at least three long strides away from any of them. He would be easy to shoot; it would be hard to defend from all sides.

It was supreme humiliation for a Sith Lord to be killed by vermin, but it could happen.

There was another way. Kroan drew on the pain from his shoulder and used it to fuel his anger. He backed himself into the airlock threshold, cutting off their angles of attack, and batted back the first few rifle-shots, then picked used his mind to pick up sheared-off pieces of the airlock's exterior door. He hurled them, one at each Mandalorian. The two further ones, in red and green armor, managed to duck, but the closer ones were knocked off their feet by the flying metal. Kroan jumped out of the threshold and stabbed one warrior though the chest as he tried to rise. As he pulled his saber free another last blast winged him, nearly fatal. The side of his head throbbed in heat and pain and he drew even greater strength, calling on the dark side energies that could rend matter itself.

He threw his free hand outward and unleashed a blast of Force energy. Just calling on Force lightning gave him more physical pain but the pain fueled his anger and anger fueled more lightning. The closest Mandalorian, the one who'd shot him, writhed in pain as blue energy crackled effortlessly around his armor and scorched his insides. The other two Mandos didn't gawk; they raised their rifles and fired but Kroan batted their blasts back at them.

Then he shifted his lightning to the big red-armored mercenary. A cry of pain escaped his helmet as Kroan shocked him. The smaller one in green was too stunned, too frightened to respond. Kroan stopped the Force lightning- stopped the pain- and lunged forward to drive his saber hilt-deep into the smaller one's stomach. The warrior's body lurched into his, retched from the pain. Kroan pulled out just a little and fished his saber back and forth, cutting off everything above the hip. The body clattered in two pieces. Kroan let his saber fall to his side without turning it off. He was sweating from exertion, panting from the pain. He looked around the cabin at the bodies: some in pieces, some intact. One he'd shot with Force lightning was still twitching as it lay on its stomach. He stepped over to the body and stabbed down through its spine. He heard another sound and saw the big one in red armor on his back. He was trying to grasp his gun with trembling hands.

Kroan stepped back to that one and ended him with one slice through the neck. Then it was over.

He'd need bacta salves for his wounds. There was still the other ship, but it if had its own team of Mandalorians aboard he was in no shape to capture and interrogate them. Best to blow the thing out of the sky. Then he'd have to wipe his pilot's memory yet again. Then he'd have to try and get to the conference on Balmorra; it would be such an embarrassment for KDY if he suddenly canceled.

He sighed and flexed his wounded shoulder; the pain was still sharp. He shut off his lightsaber, hooked it to his belt, and staggered back to his own ship. First he'd blow up Gevern Auchs' shuttle. After that he'd start cleaning things up.

-{}-

When the visual feed from Kragal Skirata's helmet came went dead in a burst of static and Force lightning, the entire cockpit fell into horrified silence. To Marin it had all been surreal, a flurry of armored bodies too similar to tell apart, but the Skiratas in the cabin had been able to count as one family member after another died beneath the swirling blade and cracking lightning of a Sith.

Thirty long, horrified seconds after they lost contact, Tamar rasped, "Dorn, tell me we have canons."

Still wearing Auchs' armor, but with the helmet removed, Dorn began to scour the controls. Ninet, in the co-pilot's seat, said, "I think I've got them online. Targeting computer's fragged."

"Shoot that Sith chakaar," growled scarred Mekr. "Blow him atoms."

Ninet wrestled with half-familiar controls, then froze. "Shab. He just put shields up."

Marin looked back out the viewport. The lights on the Kuati shuttle had flickered back on. Kragal's Corellian freighter had been cut free and was slowly drifting away.

"What about our shields?" Marin asked. "Tell me we have shields."

"Shields are fragged too," Ninet growled.

"Lightspeed?" asked Tamar.

"Should work," said Dorn as he grabbed the ship's controls.

"Should?"

"His canons are hot!" Ninet announced.

Dorn wrenched their ship hard to port. The shuttle's first volley of laser blasts went far wide but it would get out another soon, and there was no way they could outfight it if they couldn't get their shields up. That Sith's ship was sure to have more nasty surprises than what they could see.

"Lightspeed?" Tamar repeated, tense.

"Where are we going?" Dorn grappled with the controls.

"Anyplace that's not here!" Tamar snapped. "Just jump!"

"Good enough," her cousin said, and pulled the throttle that flung them into hyperspace. Starlight stretched long and blurred into flashing blue and white, but less than ten seconds later

"We're clear," Dorn muttered without a bit of triumph.

Marin's relief faded fast. She mood in the cockpit was thick with grief, shock, anger. From her mother it was thickest of all, not only because of the Force bond she and her daughter shared. With everything else, amplifying everything else, was guilt. Her investigation into Auchs' actions, motivated in no small part by a long-simmer desire for revenge, had spiraled into something far greater, something that had just claimed the lives of nine of her own family. Kragal, the Jedi's grandson. His kid Nevec, who Marin had barely known and should have known better. Seven more she hadn't known at all.

The rest of them wouldn't blame Tamar for those deaths. Not aloud, not in their hearts. They were too Mando to do it, too thick with clan loyalty. Marin's mother would, because as hard as she tried, Tamar was never enough the Mando she wanted to be. Marin realized that, finally. She understood her mother and it broke her heart.

Stars filled the space outside. Silence filled the cockpit. Tamar, slumped against the bulkhead, said, "Please tell me comms are okay."

"Actually, yes." Ninet sank back in her seat.

"Then let me have a seat. I need to patch in a transmission."

"To who?" asked Marin.

"Who do you think?" she scowled. "Your dad needs to see what happened."