Dhagon Ghent.

Marai

"It looks as if it has been razed to the ground." The Handmaiden commented.

"Nah, he leaves it that way to avoid the scavengers." Manda'lor waved toward the people that were moving around, searching piles of refuse. "Ever since Vaklu started this entire dance, the poor have suffered even more. Those who had been barely able to make ends meet were suddenly thrown into the mess as well."

"So much pain. All for a political statement." The Handmaiden sighed.

"The problem with politics is that to some of those people in the ivory towers, the 'people' are the ones they deal with, not the people grubbing for food." I reached into my pocket, and pulled out all those credits the men had been carrying. Not Onderoni Dragons, but Hutt Slices or Republic Credits. The two most stable currencies anywhere in the galaxy. I wanted to fling the handful of coins over my shoulder toward them and turn away, but I would have caused a riot.

The inside didn't look any better, and I was about to comment on the expert disguise when I felt Manda'lor tense. The inside of the rooms might have been comfortable, but someone who loved their work had ransacked them. One man was going through it, gathering things together, then stood there was if he didn't know where to put them. He looked up, and saw us.

"Manda'lor ." He spoke like the survivor of a city where we had fought house to house. He dropped the things in his hands, and came over, giving the Mandalorian a clasp that spoke not of friend, but brothers in battle, a deeper relationship among the Mando'a.

"I see you have redecorated. Anyone I know?"

"Bekkel." He made the name a curse. "I was helping a family in the ghetto for the last two nights. Too poor to go to a good doctor, but too proud to beg."

"Dhagon is one hell of a doctor, don't let him fool you." Manda'lor said. "But he had a spice problem during the Mandalorian Wars, and they pulled his licenses." He motioned toward the mess. "This Bekkel dislikes you so much?"

"How many Beast Riders have you dealt with, Manda'lor?" Dhagon rasped.

"Quite a few."

"Bekkel is a Beast Rider by birth, but she took to the ways of the city bravo so well. Now she and those that follow her try to control the ghettos along the corridor, and she doesn't like the idea that I will not kowtow. This is her...rebuttal to the argument."

" Manda'lor told me that you have connections throughout the city." I said. "Even within the palace."

"Good luck trying without them." He commented. "There have been several attempts on the Queen's life. Security is so tight I don't know if I could reach in and contact anyone."

"Assassination attempts?"

"Five that I know of for sure, ten if you listen to street gossip. Anyone with two brain cells will tell you who is behind them, but there is no proof."

"I believe Kavar is inside there, and I must contact him immediately."

"The Jedi master?" He looked at me benignly. "Do you know I could buy a Hutt pleasure palace with the proceeds of the act if I told the Bounty Hunters that? But as Manda'lor will tell you, my word of honor is all I have left from the Mandalorians wars. Nothing will make me give it up." He looked at the mess. "I can see that it is urgent, but I am unable to help you."

"What?"

"Stay your anger. I did not say I would not help you, but that I could not. The one thing I would need to help you is a series of encrypted discs I kept in that cabinet." He waved idly toward a pile of shattered wooden fragments. "Without my own computer, and the codes kept here in my head, they are worthless. I can guarantee that no one will get the codes, so even my arrest will not give the information to someone who wants it. Since the war, it is the one thing I do well."

"Then we must find this woman." I said.

"Finding her is easy. But getting the discs back might be a problem."

"We will deal with it." I promised.

There was a cantina nearby, and Bekkel I was told, would be there. The more I saw of the squalor, the more anger I felt for Vaklu. How could he rationalize such suffering caused not by events, but by his own machinations?

One woman in what had once been fine clothes was digging through a pile. Her children worked silently beside them. She looked up at me, and for a moment, I saw a flash of pride. Then she turned away.

"From the look of your clothes, you don't belong here."

"It is where I am now." She snapped at me. "Have you come to gloat off worlder? Terylyn who once enjoyed moving among the elite digging through the garbage? Terylyn who once had homes and vehicles and ships digs in filth to find something to sell for food!" She looked away.

I took the piece she had been squeezing. It was a hollow child's ball. "Where do you sell such things?"

She looked at me, and I could still see the pride. She would not beg, even in her dire straits. I saw the children considering me. The boy was eleven or twelve. He had the wary look of someone's world shattered beyond hope. He was so close to becoming just another thug that one pain might take him over the edge. The girl was tired, hungry, and would have taken food from my hand warily like a feral kitten.

"Do you work for hire?"

She had her pride, but I saw the wounded look of a mother desperate to protect her children. "If I must."

Then come." I stood. Manda'lor looked at me confused as we turned away from the cantina, and went to the tram. I looked at the schedule.

"Now, Terylyn, there will be truth between us." She flinched back, her children behind her. "Terylyn who once enjoyed moving among the elite, you described yourself. Yet I do not know of you. What has caused you to be cast low?"

"My husband was Darien. He was a member of the Council. A staunch supporter of the crown, and her grace. When the troubles first began five years ago he supported first the king, then his daughter, the Queen. When the law began to become more oppressive, he led the fight to stop them from taking the rights of our people.

"Then it was announced five months ago that he had tried to convince General Vaklu to assassinate her grace, that in his attempt to flee, he was killed. Several member of the council were implicated, and three of them were arrested.

"On General Vaklu's orders we were thrown from our home, and all property except for one small courier was seized. But he boasted that I had a way off the planet, and access to my funds, if only I had a Star Port visa. He roared at the idea of seeing me and my children waste away while food, money and a way off this world waited just out of reach." She looked away. "He has such a baroque sense of humor."

I reached out, and handed her the fare to the spaceport. She looked at me confused. Then her eyes widened as I lay a Star Port visa on top of it. "You will need that."

I stood with them in the line, and when the visa had cleared, she looked at me.

"Take yourself away until things have settled down. You have money and a ship. Go somewhere safe."

She gaped wordlessly. I shoved her toward the tram.

"But you do not know me! Why should you even care?"

"It is not for you." I knelt, touching the girl's face. Then like a magician, I made a credit coin vanish, then plucked it from her ear, then handed it to her. "It is for you, little one." I stood up. "Go."

The girl was still watching me as the tram raced away.

We walked back to the cantina. "That was very generous." The Handmaiden said.

"No it was not." I snapped. "I would help everyone of these people in want but if I did we would be stranded here, and it would be the same for them tomorrow. Maybe contacting Master Kavar and the queen will fix this, but will it end their suffering this very minute?" I sighed. "It isn't finding people that need help, my dear sister. It is being able to help all that need it and no one is that rich in money goods or time."

The area outside the cantina was rife with the stink of brantarii. A dozen or more of them were squatting on the stone cobbles. Unused to such tight company, they were snapping at each other, and the scavengers left a wide berth.

Bekkel was a tall strong woman in Rider leathers, swilling beer in one of the private rooms. I tried to speak to her, but her men would not let us pass.

"We could shoot our way in." Manda'lor suggested hopefully.

"And what about the damage?" The Handmaiden said.

"There is that." I looked about. Considering the clientele, it might improve the gene pool enormously, but I was not doing social engineering.

I felt a wave of emotion, automatically suppressing it. Only then did I realize that it was not mine. I followed the thread, finding one of the larger Brantarii outside. He was frustrated. He wanted to soar, to find strike and eat prey, to get away from the chemical stink of the city, and the natural stink of too many Brantarii in one place.

I walked over to the door guard, waiting until he finally paid attention. "Tell Bekkel that I will be in the square, and if I do not see her in five minutes, she will be ground bound." Then I turned on my heel.

"Wait." Manda'lor followed. "Did you just threaten to kill their Brantarii?"

I shook my head. "In their legends, there is another way to become ground bound. It is when your Brantarii refuses you either in the taking or in the bonding process. It happens as well when you are considered no longer worthy of that bond.

"If it occurs, you are not Rider any more. You hold no station. Can give no orders. It would be like a trial among your kind stripping them of honor and status. For a leader, it means her people must abandon her, or execute her."

He looked at me a long time. "How are you at Dejarik?"

"Master class."

"I should have known."

I stopped in the square myself at one end, the door at the other, and every Brantarii between those points. I sent out a feeling of foreboding that the edges of the Zakal, the deadly lightning storms of the Onderoni plains were near.

It didn't take long. Me, an off worlder had thrown down a gauntlet Bekkel could not deny is she wished to remained in command. She did however make a production of facing it. She stepped out, a flagon of beer in one hand, and a leg of meat in the other. She looked toward me twenty meters away, flipping the leg toward the nearest Brantarii. I sent to its mind that the meat was tainted, and it backed away.

Bekkel 's calm slipped a bit. She grinned chugged the flagon dry then flung it over her shoulder. She started forward.

To the first two Brantarii I sent the feeling that one of the ground predators menaced their nests. They hissed almost in unison, and one, a female advanced. Bekkel backed, surprised and alarmed.

I stood silent. It wasn't because I wished to, but controlling more than one was a test of my control, a test I might lose.

She moved forward, and now both lunged at her. She backed and ran into one of her men. He looked at her oddly, and I knew his thoughts. The first sign of a leader's disfavor was what they were seeing now. If she only refused to move forward again...

She obliged me. She hooked her thumbs in her belt. "The Brantarii seem a bit spooked today. If you have the courage, you may come and speak to me."

I released the controls, and pictured a beautiful sky with clouds and thermals to ride, and no dangers. As a group, the Brantarii seemed to relax. Her face slipped as I walked forward, hands clasped before me. I made no threatening moves, had no weapon they could see.

I paced between the lines, and they ignored me. They had been trained to attack a human only if that one was un-bonded, a danger or approaching them. But they did not see me.

I paused between the same two that had challenged her passage. They ignored me, as they should have with her. The Beast Riders began to edge away from her.

"In the days when the Beast Riders first took their beasts, many considered them evil, and there were those that would have slain them. Gygar the Great did say 'The proof of a man's heart is what his beast thinks of him, and those of our people whom the beasts challenge must realize that it is the will of the Gods that has given some and not others the right to ride them.

" 'Do not judge those unworthy by this. For even those bound forever to the ground can have good hearts. They just do not have the god-given right to ride as we do. And those that stand with the evil ones deserve the same'." I reached out. The beast looked at me, and I saw in her mind a picture of her rider, one of the women now standing far from her leader. I impressed on her that the rider was there, hand outstretched with a treat. It made a querulous sound, and came forward, fanged mouth gently lipping my hand, trying to find the treat. I rubbed its head, hearing the shriek of betrayal from the woman. She spun, and her glare was on Bekkel, not me

"I am sorry, I owe you a treat." I whispered. The beast backed away, but allowed my touch. I pulled out a ration pack, and fed it to the animal gently.

Bekkel was watching me as a bird might watch a reptile. I looked at her and smiled gently.

"Baranthor Gygar's-blood, Great Grandson of Gygar said, 'Judge your leaders by how the beasts do speak unto them. For their hearts are pure of the evils of the City, and they will flock to those who speak with the voice of the pure heart, and shun those who deny it'."

I rubbed that head then moved to the center again. "And what can be said of your heart Bekkel? You and yours steal from the weak, not because they have what you want but because they cannot resist. You harm those that do good," I waved toward Dhagon's home. "Rather than allow them to walk without giving you obeisance you demand, but are not due." I felt along her link, finding one of the largest Brantarii there. I turned and walked back until I stood before him instead. "Who will your own mount accept, you who betray what the greats of your clans teach or I? Shall I test it?"

I reached out, calming the great beast. If I could touch his head, have him act as the lesser of them had, she was done. If lucky, they would only banish her. If not they would tear her apart and feed her to the mounts.

"Wait!" I could hear the panic in voice. Too many members of her clan stood there with cold eyes. I could kill her with a touch. I stayed my hand. "What would have you of me?" She asked softly.

"It is not me but your own blood that demands it." I replied. "Return what you have taken by force, for that is not the true way, it is of this city that has beguiled you. Return to the mountain fastness. Learn again what it is to be not only Beast Rider, but to be Leader among them. Come back only when you heed that call, and not the baser of your instincts.

"If you agree with this punishment from your own sires, there is hope for you yet." I moved aside from her mount. "Or give up what makes you Beast Rider and become something that slithers across the ground rather than seeing the world from the heights."

She looked at me then at one of those with her. "Sanait. Bring all that remains of what we have taken and pile it here. This one," She nodded toward me. "She shall assure that those to whom it belongs will gain it back. The hills and sky is all a Beast Rider needs."

The man bowed.

"That is not a proper response." I chided him. "If she is worthy as your leader, she is also worthy of your respect."

He fell to one knee. "I accept your command." He replied.

She nodded to me in respect as her people leaped to obey that command. The scavengers and poor stood there astonished at the loot, and many hungered for it. But they stood aside as the Beast Riders finished, then went to their mounts.

"You have ruined me." Bekkel hissed, though none of her people heard.

"It is not ruin to live to your heritage." I replied. "The sky and the winds will cleanse your spirit."

She glared at me, but nodded her head. She walked toward her beast, and I could feel her trepidation. He made a glad cry, and she leaped to wrap her arms around his neck. She looked back at me, tears of joy in her eyes. Then she leaped up, legs hanging beside the head.

"When you are needed, you will return." I told her.

She signaled, and they took off in a formation that would have made a snub fighter Squadron green with envy.

We took the discs from the pile then stood there while those that had been robbed came forward. A number of them glanced furtively at me, but none took anything that was not theirs. Eventually there was a pile from people who were dead or gone away. I allowed each of those that had not taken something to get some for themselves.

We carried the discs to Dhagon. He began scanning them quickly. "All right, I have it set." He turned back to us. "I am leaving here. It's all well and good to be this well connected, but if this meet falls through neither you nor I will be welcome on this world within our lifetimes."

I handed him one of the star port visas we had liberated. He nodded his thanks.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I hope I never see you again."

Walking into the trap

Kavar

"Is it possible this meeting is a trap?" Queen Talia asked. "You have spent

so much time keeping me alive, I do not think I can afford to lose you."

"Of course it could be a trap. Vaklu is no fool, or we would have put him away years ago. But if the message is true, that an old friend wishes to see me, I must try to speak with her."

"Is this not the one you worried about all those years ago?"

"Yes, but I can't see her joining with Vaklu even on our worst day."

"Then let me send someone else. Some one-"

"Expendable?" I asked softly. She flushed. "Your Majesty I could never send another into danger like that."

"Inside the Palace I can protect you. But beyond these walls are hundreds perhaps thousands that would kill you like swatting a fly."

"If I were that easy to kill I would have been ash decades ago, your grace." I looked down. "There is a disturbance in the Force. Something I did not believe I would ever feel again. I must find out if it is what I think it to be. For that I must go."

She sighed, sitting on her throne, chin set on her fist. "Will you at least be careful?"

"Aren't I always?" I turned to go.

As I reached the door I heard her plaintive reply. "Why does that not reassure me?"

Manda'lor

The cantina was lively. The world could end tomorrow, and that merely meant people were more willing to spend and gamble, because if they were dead who needed the credits?

I watched the door coming in. There was a back way, but if we used that I was going to kill everyone between it and me. For their sakes, I hoped it wouldn't come to that.

The girl had gone to the gambling den, then been escorted back to our table after about an hour. Qimtiq the owner complained because of the amount of money she had won. The girl had said she merely looked at the swoop racers as they came onto the field, and bet on which she thought would win. She had taken a single credit and run it up to ten thousand that way. Marai had a discussion with her about how not to use the Force, and the girl was still pondering it when he showed.

I recognized him immediately. We'd had intelligence reports on Kavar when we heard the Jedi were going to enter the war. The youngest master ever, he had been our pick for the leader of them. It had surprised us when he had been not the number two man but about number 3. Revan and Malak had been their naval commanders; the woman beside me had been one of those that led the ground troops into Dxun with Kavar in charge of the second landing zone and overall command of the Jedi on the ground. Then he had disappeared. We'd thought him dead, though Marai had later proven to be more than we could handle.

She stood, her head bent in respect. "Master Kavar."

"You must have gone through a lot to set this up, so we have no time for pleasantries. I might have been followed." He looked. "By the look of you, you are Canderous Ordo, the heir claimant to the title of Manda'lor."

"The honor given to me by Revan after her redemption."

He waved that off. Even after all she had done five years ago, too many of the Masters still seemed to hold a grudge. "Strange times mean stranger allies. My one time student should have considered that before she made this alliance, but it doesn't matter."

"When the council met, I thought you at least would understand." Marai said softly.

"It was a time of great uncertainty. One war had ended, but Revan was bringing a new one and none of us was sure which side of it you would have been on. But there was more to it than that. I felt at the time that we owed you an explanation of our concerns but-"

"Trouble." I whispered. Colonel Tobin had come in, with a dozen or so men, all heavily armed.

Kavar reached for his lightsaber, and froze in shock as Marai touched his hand. "If we draw our lightsabers, Vaklu will have his leaders for the dissidents. Those evil Jedi."

"Our?" He asked. Then he ignored his own question. "Then I am caught and the Queen defenseless."

"You have played team 'catch me' have you not?" I asked. Kavar merely looked at me, then her, confused. I began to chuckle. Marai chuckled with me.

To anyone else, 'catch me' would be called tag. A child chasing everyone else to touch them, so that one may now pursue another. But among the Mando'a everything is training for later life.

In 'catch me' you run from the others, and they must catch you. It teaches you how to fight alone, and if necessary, hide. But there is also the team sport and each of those teams tries to capture and subdue the other. I do not speak of merely touching. You must capture them and bind them. It takes teamwork to be able to win because there are few rules. No weapons pretty much says it all.

It is one of the only children's games in the universe where you have casualty lists afterward.

She explained, leaning forward as if they shared some deep secret. The girl merely smiled. I knew she had heard of it.

Tobin came sauntering over to us. "A nice pot of Jedi I have found. I must thank you, woman. This will give the General what he needs as proof of the Queen's treachery. Now I would like you all to come quietly. My men will shoot and there will be casualties, all caused by you in the final reports."

Marai stood as did the girl. They were in what we would call the box. Unable to move quickly. Marai turned toward her student, extended her hand as if to bid her goodbye and as they clasped softly said, 'Nynir."

At the command to strike, I leaped forward, catching Tobin around the waist, throwing him into the men behind him. Kavar was less than a second behind me when the girl suddenly flew past us. Marai had spun to throw her, and between them they had imparted a lot of energy into that combined leap and throw. She curled into a ball, and struck the men behind those first assailants like a cannon ball.

I hit one of them behind the ear. To my right Kavar had picked up another, and slammed him into a wall. To my left Marai landed, struck twice economically, and her man dropped.

The Handmaiden popped to her feet, and the last man went down gasping from her kick to his chest.

"There are more outside." Kavar said.

Marai opened her pouch, and grinned. Then she led the way to the door. A shower of coins sprayed into the air, and the poor saw them and leaped to gain them. With them as cover, we leaped down to the side, taking the two men that were there by surprise, incapacitating them as we ran toward the tram to the market square.

A squad had formed to stop us, but when we charged around the corner without even a hint of firing behind us, their sergeant was confused. He was about to give the order when the four of us hit them like a tidal wave.

"Be back here in two weeks!" Kavar shouted, running to a swoop bike. We dealt with the rest of the men then hurried to the checkpoint. The guard looked up at us with no sign of recognition.

"It is just Tobin and Vaklu's men." I told them as our tram rocketed away. "All we must do is get past them, and we are clear."

"And if the guard on the next checkpoint is one of Vaklu's?"

"Do you always look at the negative?" I asked.

The guard sergeant checked our visas, then heard a chirp from his com link, and lifted it. "Tram station."

"The turrets just went active at the space port entrance! Don't know why, and we're locked out!"

"Maybe-"

"Sergeant, we really have a ship to catch." Marai said smoothly. "I promise not to blame you if I get hurt." We ran before he could answer.

"I will." I growled.

"Ah but we won't be." She turned to her student. "Close your eyes, my dear. Feel with the Force ahead. What do you feel?"

"Energy, focused in nodes." She breathed in deeply. They seek targets, us."

"Now feel along those nodes. Are there places where they are weak?"

The girl's head cocked. "Yes."

"Then you and I am going to cause some damage, but hopefully no one will be harmed." Marai said. "Chose a series of nodes, and break them one by one. If they try to target others, strip them of power."

I stood and watched as they spent five minutes with their eyes closed, looking ahead of them. Then Marai opened her eyes, looking at her student. That one opened her eyes after a moment.

"Now let us see how well you learn." Marai said. Instead of running, we sauntered around the corner into the final entry corridor.

A guard ran toward us. "Look out! The turrets have gone active!" He screamed.

"They have?" Marai looked at him with that blank stare, then at the weapons. Every turret had slewed around at our approach, but now they were acting oddly. Some were cycling, solenoids trying to actuate, but no blaster bolts came down range. Others were targeting, then cycling onto another target as if the first had been hidden or destroyed. Others were slewing around as if the target was too large and it was trying to find a point of weakness. One focused, then smoke poured out of it. I felt a roar of laughter bubbling up in my chest, and bent forward.

"Maybe they are just malfunctioning." The guard said. Then he looked at me. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah." I gasped. "Indigestion."

Marai held out her pass, and we went on into the docking quad.

"I think we will avoid coming down here for a while. When news of this reaches Vaklu, all hell is going to be out for noon." I said.

We climbed in, did our preflight and got our authorization. We took off as alarm sirens went off across the city.

Vaklu

He looked at Tobin. The man was rumpled, but otherwise not to badly injured. "So they got away from you." He said. "At least we now have proof that Jedi are involved..." He stopped. Tobin look like a child that had been caught misbehaving. "Tell me we have proof, Colonel."

"None of them used weapons. They beat the two squads and me using just their hands. No sensor records of weapons except our own. They distracted the squads outside the cantina by throwing money into the street. It is a poor neighborhood, and our men had been told to avoid civilian casualties. With no one shooting at them, they held their fire.

"The remainder of the company that were stationed near the entrance to the tram station reported just three of them, not four. So we do not even know whom it was they met. But those three beat them all, again, with no weapons reported."

Vaklu turned back toward the map table. Tobin made to speak, but his hand shot up. "Just get out of my sight, you incompetent fool."

Manda'lor

We were above the atmosphere and in the traffic pattern before the first fighters came in. They knew it was a shuttle, but between sub orbital passenger shuttles and ones coming down from ships, we were invisible.

"What are you thinking." Marai asked. She was sitting up front. The girl had curled up and gone to sleep.

"The waste." I said. "If we had held just a little bit longer, all of this would have been ours."

"I think we might have had something to say about that." Marai commented dryly.

"The Republic thinks the Mando'a are no more. We have been beaten and scattered, but we have not yet lost. Revan knew that. She took our honor so that we would learn how precious it was. But she should have killed us all. Because as long as a single child can still claim Mandalorian blood, we will come back, and we will win."

"So the Mandalorian wars will be over when all of you are dead." She said. "All that does is keep the hate going."

"Most of your people never understood my kind. To us honor is not a punch line to a joke. Glory is not something you earn from prancing about on a stage. Our lives revolve around battle. From our earliest history it has been so, and it will never change."

"I found that all the glory in the world will not save those you care about." She sighed. "And honor is poor fare when you sit at the table and see the empty chairs of those you have led for it that died. To me, to all of the Jedi that fought, it was a necessary evil. It was surgery on a galactic scale with ship's cannon and lightsabers as scalpels. Too much good flesh was cut away in that, and we still suffer from it."

"That is why I have assisted you. The honored dead must be remembered. The Republic has not even built a monument to their own that have died. They merely turned away as if forgetting would end it.

"But I will reunite the clans, and we shall take our rightful place again."

"As what?" She snapped. "An enemy that will not admit defeat? You speak as if your entire race were a virus that comes back again the next season!"

"Then why did you fight?" I asked.

"What I thought then is not important."

"We had not faced the Jedi in full cry as enemies since ancient times. We were unprepared for it. None realized the threat you represented. You were a member of the order, what to those of us not of that fellowship, what you know as fact was merely story legend or myth to us. We only knew from the ancient records."

"But what of the war of Exar Kun?"

"By the time we had met him, he was Sith. You cannot judge the temper of a blade when it is rusted, or marred with blood that has not been cleaned. What we had to go on told us that you were nonviolent, devoted to taking care of those you watched over. We had met others of that stripe among the stars. They are easy to defeat because that noble compassion is a blade we can hold to their throats. We were wrong." I shrugged. That pretty much explained our entire battle plan against the Republic."

She sat there, looking at the stars, lost in her thoughts. "What did you personally think of us?"

"Your people ran the gamut from the Manda'lor that lived then down to Cassus Fett. From noble to ignoble. On the average, you people were cunning warriors, and sometimes brave to the point of insanity."

"That is how we viewed the troops of the Republic. Not the Jedi; we considered you the greatest challenge. I mean the men you led in the latter part of the war.

"They were brave even from the beginning, but even the best troops can be wasted if those that command are venal or stupid. We slaughtered enough of them to prove it. When the Jedi first pulled back, we thought they would buckle under the pressure. That we would walk over them as you preached nonviolence. We saw it like trying to stiffen gelatin with buckshot.

"We were wrong. They came back like warriors reborn, and when we faced them, they proved their valor. All because you took a demoralized defeated rabble, and made them men again. You brought the backbone the Republic command did not have. The leaders to command, the tactics and strategy that had us off balance almost from the beginning. While Fett's fleets were waiting on the front, you took Dxun, and not only took it, but beat him man to man. We thought that was stupid, but when the smoke cleared, we could no longer claim to the superior in all things. How many Jedi were there on the ground?"

"Eighty on the ground and ten pilots. All but ten of them died."

Now I was silent. She was lost in thought. Maybe thinking of those empty seats. "Have you ever considered that it might have been better if we won?" She gave me a look that suggested I had been drinking heavily. "The Sith would have been a border conflict to us back then, a way to teach and blood troops. If we had attacked them instead of you, there would be no Sith.

"But if we had won against you, nothing in the Galaxy would have been able to stand against us. We would have given the entire Republic that backbone, and with the strength of those factories and the ships and weapons they would have produced, we would have cleaned up the galaxy for once."

"What then?" She asked. I looked at her confused. "The galaxy is a finite space. Oh it is vast, and there are worlds yet to be discovered, but a nation built on nothing but war and expansion either is smashed, or wins. But what happens when they win?

"You would have conquered the last star, beaten the last enemy, and there would be nothing to fight from then on than your own kind. How soon would it be before the men of this planet decide to test themselves against the men of that? The first Manda'lor arose in such a confused situation. Clans warring and slaughtering not foreign enemies, but their own. It was he that aimed you outward before the Republic was even born. To learn the ways of the other peoples among the stars.

"Would that Manda'lor in the future you dream of have been as wise?"

"Look what your victory has wrought." I waved back toward the planet. "Do you honestly think it is better that you won?"

"I do not waste time on might have been. I live in the now that we both do."

"The Republic was a bloated beast unable to even feed itself without help. It has not improved since the war. They killed more of their citizens trying to stop us than we did, just not as quickly. If it were not for Revan's strength and will the Republic would already be dead even without our help."

"Compliments? For Revan?"

"Revan was the catalyst for the Jedi coming into the war. We had swept through the outer rim and to within three systems of Coruscant itself before she stopped us. She and those like you that she led were what beat us. Not that bloated monster you still worship. But we have little use for the Jedi."

"Why? You seem to think highly of her and those like me."

"The cream of a rancid milk. What, only a tithe of you had the stomach for the fight? The rest cowered in their temple and preached restraint."

"It was not fear of your people that held them back. They felt there was a greater danger they tried to prepare for." She said. "If the Council had agreed with Revan, it would have been over ten thousand of us. Consider what our smaller number did and see what carnage we could have visited upon you in full cry."

Dxun

Marai

Never mix violence and contemplation with someone who wants to reminisce about the wars we had fought. Trust me on that. We settled down, and rolled the shuttle into the hanger. "Until Zuka can reset the transponder, we're locked down."

"Sorry."

He grinned. "I wouldn't have missed it for the world. In fact, I was wondering. Do you have room aboard?"

"Why?"

"I want to go along. You can use the extra blaster, and I've been meaning to find some of the lost clans."

"That almost sounds altruistic."

"Not part of my make up. Thanks to the Jedi Civil War, the Sith are resurgent. They aren't the kind to leave well enough alone. If they don't control it, they smash it. If the Jedi are gone for good, we need to be gathered in and ready for the worst.

"Mandalorians served Exar Kun at the start of that war, his callous disregard is what caused us to become neutral, and finally ally against him."

I was going to answer when my com link buzzed. "Marai here."

"Well it's about time!" Atton quipped. "We've been ready to go for about five hours, but couldn't contact you."

"We'll be there in about three hours." I looked at Manda'lor then added, "With some company."