The success of the mission to Kor Vosadii left Marin feeling warm with triumph. By the time her X-wing arrived over Da Soocha she'd succeeded in wrestling the blaster away from the unctuous Squib riding in her lap and refused to deliver the stolen droid until she got confirmation that Vitor was alive and unharmed. She got that confirmation, quicker than expected, through a short conversation with her cousin. Vitor had explained his new mission and firmly rebuffed her attempt to talk him out of it. All Marin could do was wish the Force be with him.

She was worried about Vitor but she knew it was outside her control. Once she set down on the moon Napdu she released both her passenger and her cargo to Azzim the Hutt. A holo-transmitter unit was provided for her to speak with Vedo, still gloating on Kor Vosadii, and then with her father, who'd summarized the frenzied events in the Hapes Cluster. Marin didn't understand everything from his description but the people she cared about had gotten out of there alive, so she counted that as a win too.

Her father said he was heading to Ossus and suggested Marin join. She agreed, but Azzim insisted on treating her to a reward for her labors. Since Volgma and Chance Calrissian were still on Napdu, the three of them shared a feast of mostly-edible delicacies and, once her stomach settled, she finally accepted the offer of a private session in one of Azzim's sulfur baths.

Marin Fel was not used to being pampered, but she decided she could get used to it. And Azzim was right; she did deserve a little extra reward after crawling through the sewers and slimy swamps of Kor Vosadii. More, this whole crazy plan to track arms shipments from Arquilla back to the source had been hers more than anyone's. Striking deals with multiple criminal overlords might not be ideal Jedi behavior but it had worked out for the greater good and might even bring the down last of the Restorationist fanatics, ending an eight-year war that had split her family apart.

So Marin enjoyed her sulfur bath with absolutely no regrets, and when she was done she dressed and went back to her X-wing to prep for flight tomorrow. That was when she noticed that someone had tried to hail her an hour earlier. They'd left no message but she could see it had come from her uncle Mekr's ship, the Bottom Line.

So she returned the call, and it all came crashing down.

She listened to Mekr's gruff voice explain everything: the act, the time and place, the victims, the killer. She listened to it all without saying a word, and when he was done the signal buzzed faintly for almost a minute before she asked, "Where is he now?"

"We're looking into that," said Mekr.

"And you sure it's him?"

"Multiple witnesses confirm it. He said he was Gevern Auchs' brother. There's only one of those left."

"What do you know about him?"

"Not much. He was the little brother. Never that close to Gevern from what I heard and didn't try to cling to his shadow like Jerkal. Heard he laid low after they died and took ti merc work with some aruetisse company."

She wanted to ask what he thought he'd gain by avenging Gevern's death now, after all this time, but only the Jedi part of her was confounded. The Mando part knew the shame every Auchs had fallen into after their Mand'alor had died mysteriously and unavenged. And she knew that while Jedi looked down on revenge as clear passage to the Dark Side, Mandalorians saw it as the most pure kind of justice. It didn't get much simpler than an eye for an eye, a life for a life.

"Why isn't my buir telling me this?" Marin asked.

"She's working on Kaynar's location now. We've already got a lead."

Marin knew that wouldn't be the only reason. Her mother knew the Jedi codes, knew what Marin was supposed to be and how she was supposed to deal with a situation like this.

For so long she had tried to be a different kind of Jedi, one who could balance the conflicting values from either half of her family. She'd tried and she'd even thought she'd succeeded but the choice facing her now was stark. Mekr might not have understood the fullness of it, but he knew the choice, and he wouldn't have called her if he wasn't expecting an answer.

The Jedi said revenge was a quick path to the dark, and they were probably correct, but right now all Marin could think about was Ninet. When she had been separated from Vitor it had felt like she'd lost not a cousin but her brother. That had left a hole in her heart that needing filling and Ninet, her cousin from the so-different Mando side, had come closest to stopping the gap. But thinking of Ninet only filled her with the aching for revenge. There was a better reason to help the Skiratas find Kaynar Auchs. It would be justice too; the amendment of a grave mistake. The killing of Gevern Auchs had been her doing and hers alone, and she'd skirted the consequences of that action for so long she'd come to believe there were no costs at all.

Ninet and Dorn had been forced to pay them in her stead. She could never make amends for what she'd done to them but standing aside, refusing to help her remaining family track their killer in a stand of Jedi stoicism, would be a conscious betrayal, compounding the harm she'd already done without intending. And that was already far too much.

"I'll leave right away," she told Mekr. "Are you still on Mandalore?"

"That's right."

"Comm me if anything changes. I'll meet you wherever you go."

"Understood. See you soon, Mar'ika."

She couldn't recall her gruff scarred uncle ever using that term of affection before. It jarred her, added to the trembling that ran through her body as she clambered out of her cockpit and down to the landing pad. She stepped away from the ship and tried to calm herself and figure out what had to be done. Shadows had swallowed this side of Napdu; stars spread out overhead, their light dulled by the ocean-blue marble of Da Soocha glowing bright in the east. She stared up at that cool cerulean light and drew in deep breaths of the invisible sulfur-reek rising from clear-water lakes.

She could go at any minute; everything she had was either in the ship or on her person. She'd leave soon, but she had to figure out what to tell her father first. He was expecting her on Ossus and he'd need an explanation. She couldn't tell him about Ninet and Dorn. She didn't think she could handle speaking to him directly, not now. And if she dropped him a short text-only message he'd comm her back with questions.

There was one more option; the circuitous, cowardly one. Marin hurried inside the spa complex until she found Vedo's shuffling silver protocol droid, who directed her to Chance Calrissian. She found Chance sitting on a plush sofa, enjoying his evening drink and talking with Volgma and Azzim as the two Hutts lounged on repulsor-sleds.

She hung in the doorway, stared right at him, and asked, "Can I talk to you, Chance?"

He put down his glass, excused himself with a smile, and followed her into the hall. He'd seen a lot just in her eyes. That smile turned to frown the second they were alone.

"What's going on, Marin?"

"Something's come up on Mandalore. I need to go right away." She hugged herself tight. "Tell my dad for me."

"Wait, what? Why can't you tell him yourself?"

"There's no time."

"What, you can't comm him when you're on the way? What's going on?"

She looked down at her boots. For some stupid reason she'd thought this would be easy. Chance was her father's best friend; he looked on her like a niece. "Just tell him I'll be a couple days late to Ossus. But I'll be there."

"Marin…"

"Just do it. Please."

Awkward silence stretched between them until he said, "Okay. Fine. Be careful, Marin."

"Don't worry about me," she said. She looked up, caught a glimpse of his doubting eyes, then hurried away, down the clean curving halls, into the cool starry night where her ship was ready to take her away.

-{}-

There was at least two dozen ways for five fully-equipped Mandalorians to storm a one-storey building. Because they'd spent the past three hours staking out Shalk Jeban's small home on the outskirts of Keldabe they knew all they faced inside was one seventy-year-old man, so they chose the most direct and simple method.

They waited until night fell and only a little dim lamp-glow was visible through the front window. Mekr and his son Jind went straight for the front door as his nephews circled round the back in case of an escape. As Jind slipped close to the door and planted twin directional charges at its seam Mekr hovered right over his shoulder, Tamar a little further back with one eye on the light in the window. She had one hand on her holstered blaster and as Jind and Mekr stepped back she pulled the weapon and gripped it firmly in two hands.

"Ready to go," Jind's voice whispered in her helmet's earpiece. "Three. Two. One. Go."

The charges burst: a flash of light, a little smoke, and less noise than a discharging blaster. It wasn't enough to break down Shalk Jeban's front door, but it succeeded in popping its seam a few centimeters back from the frame. Jind and Mekr rushed in as one, grabbed the door, and used their combined strength to slide it further open.

Jind went through first, then Mekr. Tamar was right behind him. She counted seven seconds between detonation and entrance, and a quick Mando could grab his gun and find cover in that time.

Not Shalk Jeban. Tamar hadn't seen him in decades and the years hadn't been kind. His hair had gone all white and face and body both looked bloated as he sat in his soft chair, looking up at them stupidly as the holo-drama he'd been watching continued to play.

Mekr bellowed at him through his fierce Mythosaur-stamped helmet. "Hands up, shabuir! Hands up!"

Jeban raised them slowly and didn't try to rise from his chair. He looked over their armored bodies as they stood in the dark before him and it was only when he noticed Tamar that he realized what was going on.

"You can still walk out of this alive, old man," she snarled. "Where's Kaynar Auchs?"

"How the shab would I know that?"

"We're not as di'kutla as you," said Mekr. "We know who Dorn and Ninet were meeting before they got killed. We talked to Vasur. He told us you set up the meeting!"

"Word was you had stolen merch to unload. I was just trying to do him a favor."

"And us a favor?" She jabbed the tip of her blaster at his face. "Don't play us."

"You expect me to know where Kaynar is now? I don't."

Even with the anger that had been smoldering inside her since Dorn and Ninet's death, Tamar could use the Force to get a sense of Jeban. She felt the old Mando's panic but also something else; obfuscation if not lies.

"You know more," she hissed. "And you're going to tell us."

"Or else what, dar'manda jeti?"

He tried to sound tough, but he was terrified. She decided to give him more reason to fear.

It wasn't hard to summon a little more of those skills she'd used in Jedi school. They'd tried to teach her to use all that power from a place of inner peace, but that wasn't an option today. Fine by her; all she needed was to reach out with an invisible hand and will that hand to close around Jeban's throat, squeezing the breath from his lungs.

His face started going red and thick wrinkled hands went for his neck, clawing for a noose that wasn't there. It was so damn tempting just to keep squeezing until his trachea snapped but reason and the little bit of Arlen inside her stayed that invisible hand.

When she let go Jeban gasped for breath. "You jeti trash, come in here and threaten me? You killed your Mand'alor! You're the traitor! I was getting justice done."

Mekr hit him hard, rifle-butt to forehead. Jeban keeled forward and for a second Tamar was afraid her cousin had killed him, but then the old man let out a low moan. Mekr grabbed him by the shirt, pulled him back upright, and waved the blaster's business-end in his face.

"Talk now you chakaar or you're going to have a crater instead of a face."

Blood was spilling from an already-swelled bruise above Jeban's left eye. The blow seemed to have taken the fight out of him. He groaned, "I don't shabla know where he is."

"You can guess," Tamar stated.

"I knew his family had a place… Gevern used it sometimes. Not on Mandalore. It was… Um…"

"Think really hard." Mekr held the blaster-tip right above his forehead wound.

"Loracan! I'm pretty sure he's on Loracan!"

"Why Loracan?"

"Geven had a hiding-hole there. Some place on the southern continent. Jerkal used it too."

Tamar knew the planet but hadn't been there. Most Mandos hadn't, even though it was on the edge of their space. The colony world was all salty oceans and dry continents. It didn't offer much but it made for a good hiding place. When she probed Jeban in the Force all she got was honest terror. He'd told what he knew. She hoped it would be enough.

"Thanks for your cooperation," Tamar told him. "Sorry about the door."

"Shab, dar'manda jeti," the old man sneered. "I wish he'd killed you instead."

Mekr and Jind tensed and she knew neither of them would blame her for blasting his face off right there. And a part of her wanted to, less for the insult and more because she still needed outlet for her grief-fueled anger. This time it was the Arlen part of her alone that made her lower her blaster and stuff it in its holster.

She left without a word. Her cousin gave Jeban a parting snipe, then followed her outside. As Jind called his cousins around from the back, Mekr trotted alongside her and said, "We'll take the Bottom Line to Loracan. Let's get back to Kyrimorut and load up."

"Agreed."

Tamar didn't have more to say, but once they were a block clear of Jeban's house, Mekr added, "Your daughter's on the way."

"What?" She stopped and stared at his white-stamped helmet.

"Well, you didn't tell her. Somebody had to."

"I was going to."

"When? After it was all said and done and she couldn't come and help?"

Tamar didn't know. She hadn't planned anything. She'd just been putting off the call out of a desperate delusion that if she delayed it might spare Marin the worst hurt. She and her daughter were the only ones left who knew Gevern Auchs' real killer. They alone knew who Ninet and Dorn had died for. That would wound Marin for the rest of her life, but Tamar at least wanted to spare her daughter the pain of having to chose between her duties as a Jedi and her desire to do right by her Mando family.

Maybe it wasn't her right to shield Marin like that. She didn't know and didn't much care. Rights and wrong were Jedi things, Arlen's things and they didn't matter now.

"You say she's one her way?"

"Didn't even have to be asked."

No, of course she wouldn't have. That, above all, was why Tamar hadn't told her.

"Come on," Mekr said, "No time to stand and mope. We've got work to do."

He was right. Nasty, dirty work. Mando work, not Jedi work, but it would be Marin's all the same, and it had been waiting for her from the moment she sliced off Gevern Auchs' head.

Mekr started walking, and Tamar followed close behind. There was no escape from the course ahead.

-{}-

The Mandalorians who'd initially stumbled on the third planet in the Loracan system had considered its breathable atmosphere as vast oceans as a sign it was ripe for colonization. When they actually landed they got the whole story: the seas were so thick with salt a fully-armored warrior could float, and most of the visible land masses were coated in layers of saline dust. There were some worthwhile minerals beneath the surface and various mining operations had lasted for decades, but the Imperial occupation a century ago had brought those to a halt. Today a few stubborn settlers tried to eke out lives there, but the planet hosted no cities worth the name.

A hundred years ago, Kaynar Auchs' great-grandfather had been one such stubborn man. Mandalorians needed laborers as much as warriors but the former never got any credit, and the Auchs name hadn't been worth much until Gevern wrestled his way to the top. Few people cared about Clan Auchs nowadays and few of those remembered they still had a family redoubt in an abandoned mining facility on Loracan's southern continent. The place was nestled inside a valley in the mountain chain that cut along the east coast, hundreds of kilometers from the nearest settlement.

Kaynar had taken himself and Yaga there immediately after the killings. He expected retribution; the Skiratas had as much right to it as the Auchs. The law on Mandalore had things to say about blood feuds but Mandos were not, as a rule, big on observing written law.

Kaynar expected them to act. He also expected that, after a little bloodshed on either side, the Skiratas would consider their honor satisfied and back away. Most importantly, he expected the other scattered remains of Clan Auchs to join him on Loracan now and defend their own honor.

Word that someone had finally avenged the last Mand'alor's death was rippling across Mando society and they'd have probable heard anyway, but Kaynar send a volley of messages anyway. He notified Jerkal's son and daughter, both working as free-range bounty hunters. He notified his cousin Ralnom, who worked at a beskar foundry on the homeworld. He sent out fourteen missives in all, each saying the same thing: Come to Loracan and stand together as family.

After that he and his son settled down inside the emptied mining facility and waited.

They waited a day, and no one responded. On the second day he got a short message, text-only, from Jerkal's daughter, saying she was glad someone had restored the family's honor but that she was doing a job in the Elrood Sector, far away.

It took until the third day for someone to finally speak to him in person. It was Ralnom, and Kaynar took his call from Ultimatum's cockpit as the ship sat beneath its sensor-jamming camo net. Even before his cousin spoke, Kaynar knew it would be nothing good.

"It was a brave thing you did, boy," Ralnom began. He was five years older than Gevern and he'd always talked to his youngest cousin like an uncle would. That had always rankled. "Your vode are resting easy now. You should be proud."

"This isn't over. The Skiratas will want retribution."

"If they come after you it's not just admitting their family killed the Mand'alor, it's defending the deed. No, you executed a couple criminals. Everyone agrees that."

"Do they really? What are people saying on Mandalore?"

"They're saying they're glad someone's finally taken care of it. Ekram Shal should have done it years about but the chakaar sat on his hands instead of getting justice done."

"That's all the more reason for us to make our stand here."

"You're more scared of the Skiratas than you should be." Ralnom picked at gray stubble spread over his square jaw. "They're not much of a clan, even now."

Neither are we, thought Kaynar. His cousin was making excuses. He wanted to call the man on it but that would just drive him further away. "The Skiratas have been especially active lately. Rumor has them working with Jedi."

"They encourage those rumors themselves to make them sound tougher than they are." Ralnom gave a dismissive snort. It sounded like someone choking a nerf.

"They were tough enough to kill Gevern," he said severely. "They took everything that mattered from us."

"And now you've got it back again. We're all grateful."

But not, clearly, in his debt. Bitterly he said, "I'm glad. I'll let you know if I need help."

"Of course." Ralnom's head bobbed. "You know how to find me."

Kaynar turned off the transmission and slumped dejected in his seat. When Gevern and Jerkal had been alive they'd been the ones invoking clan honor and most of the time he'd seen through their fancy words and found osik beneath. Those words had only taken lofty meaning once they were gone and everyone else stopped using them. Now he'd started using them instead and nobody was falling in line like they had for Gevern and Jerkal. He should have expected it from the start.

Anger came over him like a rushing tide. He didn't scream or shout, but he balled hands into fists and pounded the armrests, the consoles, the nearest bulkhead. It lasted less than a minute and when he was done both hands ached and he slumped dejected in his chair. A wash of shame came next; he was just glad Yaga wasn't there to see his child's tantrum.

He pushed himself out of the seat and went outside. Even so far inland, nestled in the mountains that broke through the salt plains like bones tearing through skin, the air still had a saline rank. Strangely enough he was starting to get used to it. So, apparently, had Yaga. When Kaynar looked through the levels of the old mining outpost they'd occupied his son was nowhere to be seen.

Kaynar had an idea where he'd gone. A dirt path wound from the outpost up a set of winding mountain trails until they reached an overlook. He trekked up the path, breathing salt air deep as the sun beat hot on his bare head, until he found the spot. Yaga was there, sitting on the cusp of a downward slope. More angular ridges of yellow rock, utterly devoid of vegetation, spread out before them, and over their peaks was the featureless white of the salt plains.

As he sat down beside his son, Yaga asked, "How long do we have to stay here?"

"We'll see."

"When are the others coming?"

"I'm not sure yet. We might not need them."

The boy didn't understand but he nodded anyway. At fourteen he was trying so hard to be an adult.

A wind drifted across the ridgetop. Even on the dry continent the air felt thick. Kaynar had sheltered here with his brothers a few times when he was very young and he'd never liked the planet. He didn't want to contemplate the irony of ending up here again.

After a little while Yaga said, "I'm glad we did what we did, buir. It was right."

He delivered the words with a firm certainty only an adolescent could manage. Kaynar felt the weight of his brooding anger lift a bit and said, very truthfully, "I'm glad to hear that, son."

"It wasn't right to let them get away with murder. It went on for too long."

"I know. And you know what else?"

"What?"

"You and me did that, together." He gave his son a tight-lipped smile. "That's something for to be proud of to the end of our days."

Yaga nodded, so young, so earnest, but it still pulled back his earlier anger. In liberating his son from the family's old shame he'd done something he could never regret. It gave him a pride he could hold until the end of his days, whenever that end came.

-{}-

Marin found Kyrimorut looking exactly as she'd left it, but the mood couldn't have been more different. When she climbed out of her X-wing there was no akk dog waiting for her, no Ninet. Her mother waited until she'd removed her flight suit to exchange a wordless hug. Marin buried her feelings in the Force, hid them. Her mother did the same. They walked side-by-side but distant into the settlement.

Her uncle Mekr had taken charge of preparations. Over a dozen Skiratas, some of whom Marin barely knew, had gathered to prepare their equipment. Spread out across the floor in the central hut was a staggering range of hand-held blasters, rifles, grenades, blades weapons, even shoulder-mounted warhead launchers.

"How much of this is from Lantilles?" Marin asked her mother. It was the first thing she'd spoken since arrival.

"About two-thirds," Mekr answered for her. "Never thought it would come in handy like this, but I won't complain that it has."

"Do you know where Auchs is?"

"Place called Loracan."

"Is that on Mandalore?"

"No, it's a planet on the shebs-end of Mando space. Not much there but we've done some asking around. Got a tip Auchs fled to the southern continent."

"Is that enough to find him?"

"It's enough. Having your jeti powers on our side ain't going to hurt."

She couldn't hide her wince. Mekr ignored it. She said, "He must be gathering allies, preparing for an attack. Do you know if anyone's joined him?"

"No, which is why we're bringing everyone we can to the party." Mekr spread his arms, taking in the gathered Mandos and their armory. "Besides, it's the least Dorn and Ninet deserve."

Marin scanned the assembled group and found face that surprised her. Old Jovar was seated on a bench at the far end of the circle, carefully examining the rifle resting on his knees. He looked like a man who intended to use it. For some reason Marin felt drawn to him, and she carefully made her way around the circle. Neither Mekr nor her mother followed.

She stood next to Jovar's bench but didn't sit down. "Hello," she said simply.

He glanced up. "Hello yourself. I didn't expect you to come."

"Why is that?"

"Didn't think it would be your kind of party."

"That's what Mekr called it. A party. There's nothing happy about this."

"No," Jovar agreed. "And he'd agree with you. But it has to be done."

She wanted to ask if he really thought this would be justice for Ninet and Dorn but held herself. He was all Mando; of course he believed it. "Are you coming? Personally?"

He looked back at his rifle. "I want to be part of the moment."

"I guess I do too." She'd never seen him in beskar. She wondered what his looked like. That drew her thoughts to something else. "What did you do with Ninet and Dorn's bodies?"

"Bodies aren't important to us. You know that."

"Their armor, then."

Jovar sighed and looked over his rifle. To himself he muttered, "Yeah, this one'll do."

"You gave them some kind of memorial, didn't you?"

The old man pushed himself off the bench and laid the rifle down in his place. "None of you touch this one," he called, "It's mine." Then he started shuffling for the exit and waved for her to follow.

Marin did. She'd landed a few hours after dawn hit Kyrimorut and the eastern light was still strong. Jovar stepped carefully through a patch of trees and took her to an overlook spot. Two posts had been pounded into the dirt and a Mandalorian helmet rested atop each: one green, one red. It was a blunt, simple, effective memorial. Marin wouldn't have changed a thing, but the sight still made her weak.

She stepped forward on shaky legs and crouched in front of Ninet's helmet. She reached out and touched it, feeling the minute dents and scratches in the red beskar dome. She remembered how, all those years ago, Ninet had ordered her to try cutting that armor with her lightsaber. She'd made a big point of showing herself as a tough Mando warrior then. Marin realized later it had been Ninet's way of asking for approval.

Now Ninet was gone, irrevocably, and so was her father. Over the years Marin had come to accept her killing of Gevern Auchs as a simple fact of her life, devoid of triumph or regret, always there but deserving of no more conscious thought than a sun at noon. And for all those years this result had been waiting for her. What had come for Dorn and Ninet and it was no one's fault with hers. Crouched there with her hand on the helmet she didn't know whether to sob or scream.

Then Jovar said behind her, "I have a question."

Marin trembled and, very slowly, rose to face him. "Go ahead."

"When we go find Kaynar Auchs, will you use your Jedi powers to fight him?"

It was such an important question, but she'd barely given it a thought. "I don't know."

"This is Mando business. You should fight like a Mando. No Force at all."

"Like you?" It came out harsh, sarcastic.

"Exactly. For the kind of work this is, the Force is no good. Not to you, not to anyone."

"And how do you know that? You don't even use it."

He lifted his head a little to watch the sky instead of her. "Not always."

She stared. "When?"

"A long, long time ago. When I was young. I knew what my buir was. I knew my ba'buir was a Jedi. He didn't hide that from us."

"He didn't teach you how to use the Force."

"No. But I knew I could sense things my vode didn't. Do things they couldn't, if I put my mind to it. And when I was young like you, I thought I could use that. I thought it would give me an edge. But that Force…." He sucked in breath, shook his head. "I don't like it. It uses you as much as you use it."

"The Jedi teach that you have to surrender to the will of the Force before you enact your own."

"Sounds like mystic hodgepodge to me. Do you believe it?"

"I do," she said, briefly hesitant.

Jovar heard the pause. "There's power in that thing. Too much. Whether it uses you or you use it, I'm not going to say. I don't know which is worse. I like to use power I can understand. Armor and weapons I made myself, my mind, my hands, my fists. That Force… I don't know how anyone can trust it. I can't trust the people who do."

"How long has it been since you last used the Force?"

He laughed lightly. "I stopped keeping track. Fifty years, about. It made my life much…. Simpler."

A soft breeze blew across the overlook. Marin looked back down at the helmets. She wondered if they'd just stay out here. She wondered how sunlight, rain, and time would treat that smooth beskar.

"I have another question," said Jovar. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to."

Marin looked back at him. "Okay."

"Who killed Gevern Auchs?"

She stiffened. He didn't look away. "Who do you think killed him?"

"Not fair, batting the question back." He shrugged and tilted his head toward the settlement. "We always figured it was either you or Ninet."

"Why?"

"If your buir killed Auchs she'd probably be a lot more happy about it. More important, we know how that battle went. She and Dorn were strapped down as prisoners. You and Ninet busted in to save them. And the way you all kept quiet about it, it was pretty clear your parents wanted to protect you. But as to which of you… I'd say we ended up split. A little over half thought Ninet did it. Tough Mando girl and all that."

"What did you think?"

"I know the Force," he said softly. "I know what you can do with it, even when you don't mean to."

"It was me," she whispered. She couldn't lie to that stare. "They shouldn't have died. That was meant for me."

Jovar nodded. "Just don't get any ideas."

"About what?"

"About following them. Jedi don't go to the manda'yaim. You've got your own thing. Besides, Ninet left you something. Shame not to waste it."

"What do you mean?"

"Come on. Let's ask your buir."

Jovar turned and started through the trees. Marin followed easily, and when they got back to the settlement Tamar was there, leaning against the entry to the main hut.

"Didn't keep you waiting, did we?" Jovar asked. Tamar shook her head. "Good. Let's show her."

Marin followed them both back toward Jovar's hut, not knowing what to expect. When she stepped inside she found the table the old man usually used to spread out his swords set out in the middle of the room. Pieces of red beskar armor were spread out across it, a complete set of everything barring the helmet.

Marin looked back and forth between them. "This is Ninet's. I thought… I thought Mandos like to hand out pieces of armor to their loves one when they die."

"Well," said Jovar, "Some people get the whole set."

Marin couldn't believe them. "Did she tell you this?"

"Not specifically," said Tamar. "But we think she would have liked this. She always said you looked good in her armor."

"I remember," Marin sniffed.

"We'll get a spare helmet for you," said Jovar. "But you're going to wear it all. When you come with us to Loracan you'll be doing Mandalorian business. So you'll be a Mando, understand?"

She understood what he meant in every way. All she could do was nod and stare at that armor, that parting gift. She'd worn beskar before and knew it was so different from Jedi clothes, more constricting and protective but physically so much heavier. This armor would feel heavy in too many ways, but she knew it was hers to wear.