Star Wars: The Old Republic: The Mandalorian Wars
Chapter 12

The air was still thick with smoke. Ground dry and cracked under Avner's boots as he walked through the wreckage of a city. Dust flew into the air by a light breeze which tugged at Avner's cloak.

He'd since separated himself from the others as they helped pull the injured or scared from the wreckage. It wasn't by much only enough that Avner could get some room to move and search for what he needed to sway the council. He stopped and scanned crumbling buildings around him. If only they'd been here sooner. His fingers dug into the palm of his hand.

The lives of those who'd called this city home were now wrecked. Avner knew that this was unavoidable in war, but it made him think all the more of those he'd left behind on Tarnith. So much had been lost already, how much more would fall before the Mandalore? How many more lives had to parish before the council thought this as much of a threat as Sith?

"You see the destruction they've wrought?" Arren came up to stand beside Avner. Her sightless eyes seeming to look out over the same destruction Avner was.

"Yes," Avner stated. "But we can do so little to aid those who've lost so much because of the battles raged here." Yet, neither the Republic nor the Mandalorians had managed to win the last three battles. How many more would rage across this land before the stalemate was broken or the groups just gave up and moved on?

"Even that little will make a difference to those who live here," Arren pointed out. She touched Avner's shoulder. "But will be pointless in the long run if Mandalore isn't stopped."

Avner looked at his former master, frowning. Then he sighed, "You've a point. Though, I doubt even that will stop the senseless bloodshed." He turned his gaze back on the wrecked city. "Master Kae," he started after a time, "can you help Darious with injured?"

"Of course," she said with a slight bow and a small, almost knowing smile. She moved off to where the others had spread out in a circle around the transport.

Avner could just sense Darious near the transport seeing to the injured others were bringing in. Despite the pain which seemed to roll off of the people around here, Avner didn't move to help just then. His eyes skimmed the landscape. It felt as if their group was being watched and it wasn't by someone who was friendly.

After several long moments of staring hard at nothing, Avner sighed. Perhaps he was just imagining things. He turned and moved to where he sensed someone trapped under a pile of wreckage. With the force for aid, he managed to dig the person out and helped them over to where Darious and Master Kae were.

The others were still close to the transport, moving in small groups the further out they went. It'd been Avner's suggestion to not leave anyone on their own, to search in groups of two to four in order to help watch one another's backs. Perhaps it was something left over from his childhood growing up on the streets and perhaps it was just the fact he had an uneasy feeling about this place.

Avner moved off once more, keeping one eye on the groups around him and his senses on high alert. It wasn't just for danger though; he was trying to pick up any life signs buried deep down in the rubble. He paused and looked around. There was no one in the range he was searching in. Though, nearby, one of the groups was digging a young girl from the wreckage.

"Hey!"

Avner didn't turn at the sound of Alek's voice.

"You really should take your own advice and travel in a group, Avner," Alek stated, for once calling Avner by name. In the past several years it'd driven Avner to no ends of frustration that even his best friend was referring to him as "master" now.

"You're right, I really should," Avner stated and turned to Alek. "Do you sense anything off?" he asked his friend after a short pause.

"Off how?" Alek asked as he started towards the next section of wreckage.

Avner followed him. "As if someone's watching us," he confessed.

"Not really." Alek shrugged. "Perhaps you're just being paranoid." Alek nudged Avner in the ribs with his elbow.

"Perhaps," there was no amusement in Avner's voice or his normal retort towards Alek's teasing. It was too serious of a matter right then for a joke.

Alek seemed to pick up on this. "You're dead serious on this." He stopped walking and closed his eyes. "I only sense a few people close by and most of them feel weak," he confessed after several long moments.

"It's more a feeling than anything else," Avner told him.

Shrugging, Alek stated, "Then we stay on alert for an attack. Come on, those people have waited long enough for aid." He strode over to where a woman had taken shelter with her children.

Avner hesitated and glanced around. Perhaps Alek was right and just keeping alert was for the best right then. Before Avner could follow his friend, his vision blurred as it had back on the transport several days ago.

Images raced over Avner's vision. A world appeared before him with a moon orbiting close to the planet. The moon was green and rich with jungle. It was the planet of Onderon and its closest moon, Dxun. Fires raged across the lush land. The flag of the Mandalorian clans rose from the ashes.

"Master?!"

Avner snapped back to himself and shook his head.

"What's wrong?" it was Alek. "You were just standing there, looking off into the distance."

"Sorry," Avner stated and moved to help his friend with people he'd been trying to help. Avner would tell Alek about what he'd just seen later. He needed time to think on it before then.

Onderon was an inner world of the Republic. What Avner knew about it was only a little. The current ruler was Queen Talia, a supporter of the Jedi council and a friend to Master Kavar. Beyond this, he knew that the planet had been attacked by the mandalorians during the Great Sith War that Exar Kun had led. The mandalorians had been unable to take the planet and were reported to have retreated from it soon after the attempt. This was all Avner knew of the world.

What if the mandalorians had never fully left the system and were still there, biding their time? If this was so, then it would pose a great threat to the Republic in the long run. If an inner system was being threatened now by the mandalorian forces, then it might also be the proof Avner and the rest of this group needed to get the council and the Order involved in the war. Even still, the thought of them being on a world so close to the core of the Republic sent a chill straight through Avner.

By the time Avner got a chance to speak with Arren again it was near midday and most of the group had stopped to take a break. He moved over to his old master, gesturing for Alek to come with him. She was seated in the shade of the transport, meditating.

"Master Kae," Avner started as he stopped before her. He sat down across from her while Alek shifted behind Avner. "I had—"

"A vision about Onderon?" she asked, opening her sightless eyes. "Yes, I thought as much. I had one as well. Tell me of the one you had?"

Avner would've gaped if he'd not known his old master as well as he did. Instead he told her of what he'd seen. "I don't normally like putting stock in visions, especially ones that I have," he confessed at the end of the description.

"And, yet, you gave Lucien a warning when you had a vision about the five padawans?" both of Arren's eyebrows rose in question. "So you must believe pieces of these visions."

Avner sighed. "As you used to say, the force rarely gives a vision without it having some meaning. But I'm not a seer and have never been trained to read into visions."

"The visions that are given by the force are more reliable than the ones seers force to come as it is," Master Kae told him. "I believe there is a very good reason both of us saw Onderon, though my vision was different compared to yours. Perhaps the answers you seek in the here and now can be found there."

"What of your vision, master?" Avner asked. Perhaps there were more clues in her vision than there had been in his. After all, Master Kae was a well renowned seer, though her other beliefs and teaching method had made it so most everyone in the Order avoided her and went to those Lucien's mother had taught instead.

"It showed Kavar on the planet so I doubt it has much to do with the now," Master Kae told him.

Well, so much for that one. Avner took a deep breath before he looked from Arren to Alek and back. "I know the Mandalore who was in the Great Sith War had tried to take Onderon back then but was unsuccessful," he told them. "There is a possibility that some, if not all, of the forces he'd sent there stayed near the planet."

"Why would they?" Alek asked as he joined them on the ground. "I'm not saying anything against your vision, Avner, but why would anyone stay near a planet they failed to take for over thirty years."

"I don't know… perhaps they were cut off once the war ended. And only now that Mandalore the Ultimate is on the move they're ready to strike again at his command. But this is just a thought."

Alek hesitated. "I'll admit it's worth investigating, but we only just got to Suurja. What are we going to tell the others? That we're packing up only after a few hours of what we came here to do?"

"No," Avner shook his head before he placed his hand on his chin. After several long moments, he continued, "I think that only I should travel to Onderon to investigate this. If all of us appear there it could cause unrest among the citizens and would make the mandalorians all the more difficult to find."

"True," Arren nodded and turned her sightless gaze on Alek. "Though, it could cause problems among this group as well. You're the leader after all."

Avner winced at her words. It was subtitle reminder that they'd not gotten the council to see the war as a real threat. "I know," Avner stated, "but Alek was established as my second long ago. They'd listen to him and someone has to investigate this matter."

"So you're saying you leave to make certain the mandalorians aren't going to attack the inner rim right away, while we stay here in order to help the Republic as much as we can," Alek stated. He grinned. "If anyone was to go it would be you. I've never been good at playing politics or slinking around."

"Keep in mind that if another battle does breakout, you're to keep the group out of it," Avner advised. "We can't risk getting on the Council's bad side… or further onto it, at this point in time."

"I know, I know," Alek stated and sighed. "If another battle does breakout we'll lend aid only through healing and getting soldiers out of a bind, as we'd agreed before."

"Good." Avner stood. "I'd best head out then." He held out his hand to his friend. "May the force be with you, Alek."

Alek laughed. "Sorry… Master, but you'll need the force with you far more than I will." Alek clasped Avner's hand in his. "Be careful and be certain not to get trapped behind enemy lines again."

"I'll watch my step."

xxx

Several days had passed since Alek had been left in charge of the small group. Before Avner had departed he'd announced to everyone where he was going and why he had to go alone. The others had listened and seemed to understand for the most part why Avner was doing this. Many of them, like Alek, believed this might just be the break they'd been looking for.

Alek was kneeling on one of the wrecked buildings, binoculars to his eyes. Ferroh was nearby on the ground moving through the streets away from a battalion of Mandalorian neo-crusaders. Their group had been on a consent retreat away from the encroaching mandalorian groups while trying not to fully reveal themselves to the Republic just yet.

Moving the binoculars away from Ferroh, Alek could just make out the Republic soldiers heading straight for the mandalorians. Neither group seemed to have noticed the Jedi who'd moved away from them, even a day ago when Alek had ordered the transport to be hidden among the wreckage of the city… it had been one of the ideas Avner had left behind.

Master Arren Kae and Darious were on the transport right then with a few of the younger members of their group. Alek was leading a scouting party through the wreckage of the last clash between mandalorian warriors and Republic soldiers. Or he had been leading it. He'd taken over the watch position over an hour ago. Ferroh was on the ground right then leading those who were down there as well towards the injured soldiers or civilians.

"There's a small group breaking off from the mandalorians," Alek warned Ferroh. "We're going to have to call it soon," he warned and grimaced. In front of the others he couldn't let it show that he disliked and frankly disagreed with Avner's orders to stay out of the fighting, but when alone like this he could all he wanted.

"Understood," Ferroh replied.

While Alek could completely understand his friend's reasoning, he really disliked slinking around battles. Since he'd been a youngling with Avner on Dantooine, Alek had always been the one out of the two of them to leap into battles in order to defend himself and his two friends. It had been Avner who'd consoled against the fighting and found ways around it. Alek used to tease him constantly about having a slick way with words.

With war on the horizon though, Avner would soon have to choose between trying to obey the Order and the masters or following through with going to war. Alek would be the first to admit he had reservations about what they were doing. In the same instance he, like Avner, knew that if the Jedi didn't act then this war could be all but lost.

The group of mandalorians were picking up the pace now, seeming to have caught sight of one of the Jedi. Alek could've cursed this turn. "Full retreat," he ordered over the comm. before he stood. He tucked the binoculars away. Leaping to the next building, Alek kept his senses on full alert. He raced across the rooftop before leaping to the next then the next. Before too long he was near the point the mandalorians were.

Alek leapt down and blasted them back before he turned and raced back into the wreckage. The force flowed strongly through him as he used it to increase his speed. Soon none but a fellow force user would've been able to keep pace with Alek. He skidded to a stop and leapt back up onto a building. He could barely make out the group of mandalorians halted and looking around.

"Head back to the ship now," Alek ordered, hand on his comm. link. "The mandalorians won't be following." With those words he tucked away his comm. before heading towards the ship as well.

Alek was the last of the scouting party to arrive. There were a small group of civilians and soldiers behind the shuttle and well hidden from any who might pass this area. He could sense Master Kae out among them, trying to heal the wounds to the best of her ability.

"The mandalorians saw someone," Alek told them, "apart from myself. We need to be more careful in the future." The words were something he felt Avner would've said.

"Sorry, Squint, it was me, I think," stated one of the younger members who'd been in the group. "Should I be on scouting duty next time then?" he asked.

"We'll see," Alek stated his eyes now on Darious who was racing towards them.

"Alek, there's a transmission from Onderon. It's master," he informed Alek quickly.

The others around them brightened at once. "Has master found anything?" asked the young Jedi who'd been spotted.

"I don't know," Darious told them. "He's probably just arrived and is checking in. He was asking for Alek."

Alek nodded and followed Darious towards the ship. Once out of earshot he muttered, "Thank you, I don't have a clue what I was going to tell that young man."

Darious laughed. "Thank Avner for his good timing then, not me."

Entering the ship behind Darious, Alek let out a low breath when he saw no one was in the transport right then. Darious led the way over to the communicator. There was a flickering hologram of Avner, hooded as always these days, there.

"Alek," Avner started in way of greeting, "I just got news another battle's broken out there."

"Yes," Alek confirmed, "but none of us are engaging the mandalorians unless it's to get away from them or self-defense," Alek informed him. Was this why Avner had called, to point out what Alek already knew? He seriously doubted it.

"You're really not liking that, are you?" Avner seemed to read straight through Alek as always.

"No," Alek confessed, "but I do understand why we have to run from the fights." His eyes narrowed in annoyance. "I just don't like watching soldiers being killed when I know we could do something to stop it."

"Disobeying the council fully will only cause more problems than rushing into battle would solve," Avner told them, "but I do understand your frustrations, Alek. If we get the evidence we need or support from the Republic military then we can act."

"Easier said than done," Alek stated.

"True," Avner sounded more than a little amused by this. "I'm calling also to inform you that I've arrived. Also, Alek, there does seem to be something odd going on here. I'm going to be silent for a time, undercover. A Jedi sticks out too much here."

"All right, I'll keep comm. silence then," Alek stated, liking that even less than not fighting. Avner was like his brother, closer than any blood brother ever could be in fact. "Before that, though, are you planning on acting even if Kavar and the rest of the council don't?" Alek asked the question which had been nagging at him for the past two years.

There was a long pause before Avner replied, "I will do what must be done for the Republic and its people. May the force be with you." With those words the transmission ended.

"I think that was a 'yes,' coming from him," Darious observed with a smile.

Alek nodded. "Or as much of one as we'll get."