IX: Fallout

The world was dark, a perpetual void of blackness which greeted Aliix.

As he looked out into the darkness he glimpsed a figure to emerge from the black smoke, it was the mandalorian barbarian, Crom the Dreadwolf, who was looking down at him. Soon he had company: many of Aliix's clansmen and clanwomen. His father, mother, cousins. All those he may as well have failed in the damnable Dusk Glen. All gazing at the mandalorian accusingly—their maskless faces practically saying to him how dare you draw breath.

Soon a woman emerged from among them, a bloodied woman, who approached to ask him "Why, Aliix?"


In a gasp, Aliix awoke, muttering "Wait…" Finding himself in the holding cell of a jailhouse, disarmed and disarmored. His whitened hair, grey eyes, and right brow scar exposed as was much of his visage and its abarded marking in the dimly lit room. Glancing around, attempting to gain some bearings, he saw on the other side of the bars one of the militiamen was toying with one of his grandmother's old WESTARs, admiring the Mythosaur skull symbol on the handles whilst another was writing on some flimsiplast.

"What's this, you suppose? Some kinda demon?"

"It's a mythosaur, di'kut." Aliix told them, still struggling to think clearly.

Keyes looked away from the blaster—which was placed on a makeshift pallet alongside his armor (which surprised him that it had yet to be given to one of the marshal's thugs)—and gazed toward the cell, as did Jun. "Well, well, well. Look who's finally up and about, Marshal." The duros seeming to be in a mite more vindictive mood than usual.

Aliix didn't really care much. He didn't care much for a number of things—the militiamen were a good example. He was still capable enough to think straight enough to know that.

"Very good." The Marshal joined the duros in standing before the cell. "Was worried we'd be trialng a sleepin' man."

"Meanin'?"

"You're to be on trial here soon. For the crime of aiding the Regulators." the Marshal informed him. "Unless of course you give us some help in finding them again."

Behind the bars, Aliix felt his face harden and become malicious. "I don't make deals with gutless cowards or murderers."

"Ain't that no different than the quacta calling a stifling slimy?" the Marshal japed, hardening Aliix's scowl further—the lawman's words furthering Aliix's already deep well of resentment. To be compared to him the crooked marshal was an insult to an already festering injury.

Aliix allowed himself to feel one thing at that moment: hate. Feeling a bubbling urge to treat them to Mandalorian justice.

If he could, the mando would've beat them to death with great laborousness as well as fluency.

"Are you truly unwilling to comply, hunter?"

Aliix retorted with hate-filled silence.


Cass reclined back against the cavern wall. Watching her men play Sabacc, some bickering over the situation.

"We shouldn't have left him behind." Wes barked.

Ashcroft was not fazed. "He's a bounty hunter. The man would have probably turned on us."

"He helped us escape." Wes pointed out. "Leaving him behind was gutless, and with him we could have done sum more damage to the militia."

Cass had enough. "Quiet down, you two." Though she was of a not so dissimilar mind with Wes. It was not as though she found the choice of countenance, because it felt wrong to leave behind a fellow Mandalorian. He was an adversary but he had attempted to do right by them in the end. It was a pity, however it was not as if she had many options at the moment.

The two seemed to settle down, but Vau could tell Wes was far from through with the subject.

Some time passed when she heard a speeder bike outside the cavern. In came another of her people. "Cass, Wes!"

It was Elra. Looking alarmed.

"What is it?"

"That mando who helped you escape, they didn't kill him." Elra blurted out. "They're putting him on trial."

"What!?"


Aliix was escorted into the courtroom, his hands cuffed together and Jun's blaster pistol pressed against his back. All with a "Move, you moronic barve."

Led in, enduring scorn from all the attendees—or those he briefly caught glimpses of, each face wordlessly calling him scum—then was forcibly seated in a chair behind a desk beside a quaking attorney. The proceedings were a farce. Most usually were in Aliiix's eyes—but this one was especially farcical as far as the mando was concerned.

They dragged it out through the day. They brought up what he was—a bounty hunter and a mandalorian—and how both of these were indictments of him as a character. Cantingly character assassinating him at every opportunity. The prosecutor made a show out of the entire ordeal. At one point proclaiming that this was a new—more enlightened—age in which Mandalorians and bounty hunters possessed no right to be a part of. Referring to both groups as savages with no redeemign qualities. Each comment giving the bounty hunter ample motivation—one on top of the other—to wish he could blast the mean againa nd again. But Aliix endured it with little resistance, there would be scarce point to say anything. This was not a trail. No, no, no. It was a show. The jury already had their minds made up. The magistrate already had his mind made up. Everyone had their minds made up about him. It was this the case for Aliix everywhere he traveled. Be it Madalore, or the various planets he had traveled in his hunts, he was always the outsider who was to blame. He really could not be bothered to care.

When the trial reached its conclusion, Aliix sighed with relief. Even if he was doomed, he at least could find some peace in knowing the show was over.

The jury came back with the verdict: guilty.

The magistrate was just as brutal in his conduct. "It is hereby decreed by this justice that the bounty hunter is to be blasted until he be dead, dead, dead."

The verdict came as little shock to Aliix. In that place he knew there was no such thing as a fair trial. And his so-called trial was little more than a farce. A show for the public. They wanted him dead, and the Force be damned because they would have the pound of flesh they so vehemently desired.

"Do you have anything to say before we return you to the jailhouse, bounty hunter?"

"Yes I do, your 'honor'." Aliix responded. Rising from the chair, maintaining his sardonic focus on the Magistrate, facing him with zero hesitation. All as the Marshal and the people looked on. "You can go to haran, haran, haran."

All unaware of the spy among them.


Elra finished her account. Cass was left annoyed. They knew what had to be done, and their leader was quick to give the order. "Good news, Wes: looks like we're going on a rescue mission."