Incoming Transmission:
Hello and welcome to the first broadcast of Radio Liberty, beaming the message of hope and defiance all across this fine galaxy of ours. My name's Jevia Cross and I'll be your host this fine, well, whatever time it is wherever you are.
Sadly, I gotta get into to some more depressing territory. Imperial forces have launched ambushes on rebel positions, and killed around 500 in the process. They successfully destroyed several captured AT-AT walkers that were being prepped for transport throughout the Outer Rim. We've got confirmation from Imperial after action reports that a total of 40 AT-ATs were destroyed with 11 in critical need of repair.
Thankfully though, they have made no attempt to actually hold any territory, and fled the moment serious enemy reinforcements showed up. The Empire must be desperate to be using guerilla tactics against us. We DID blow up their Death Star a few months ago, so I guess it makes sense.
Every day, more and more people are joining the fight against the Empire. And I'll do what I can to report on their efforts in bringing us closer to the day freedom comes back to the galaxy. I'm Jevia Cross, and this is Radio Liberty, signing off for the first time.
—
Sabine Wren woke from nightmare to nightmare. She's dreamt she was trapped in a burning building, with fire alarms and sirens screaming all around her. When her eyes opened, she thought for a dreadful moment that she was still dreaming, for sirens were wailing outside. Then reason returned along with consciousness, and the heiress to Clan Wren groaned. Those were air-raid sirens, which could only mean the war had started at last.
Or maybe it's a drill, Sabine thought, snatching desperately at hope, though a drill at—she looked at her alarm clock on the nightstand—four in the morning struck her as madness. Of course, a new round of war between the Mandalorians and the Galactic Empire had struck her as madness, too. In the half a year since the Imperials were kicked out of Mandalorian space, they had known relative peace, and she had hoped that the Rebel Alliance would be able to keep the Empire distracted, especially after the Battle Of Yavin.
Antispacecraft guns in the defense ring around Krowest began to pound. That sound banished the last vestiges of doubt. Guns inside the capital of Clan Wren opened up a moment later. Through the blasterfire and the sirens, she heard a deep, distant throbbing that rapidly grew louder. Those were Imperial Star Destoyers overhead.
She sprang out of bed and hastilly put her armor on.
A new sound joined the cacophony outside: the high-pitched sound of firing turboblasters.
Fear joined outrage. She could die here. So could her family. She ran to her fiance's bedroom and threw open the door. "Ezra! Get up!" she shouted. "We've got to get down to the bunker! The war is here!"
Only a snore answered her. At nineteen, Ezra could sleep through anything, and he'd proved it. Sirens? Antispacecraft guns? Droning Star Destroyers? Turboblasters? Probing searchlights? His fiance yelling? They were all one to him, and likewise all nothing to him.
"Get up!" Sabine shouted again. Still no response. She went over to him and shook him. "Wake up!"
That did the job. Ezra Bridger sat up and muttered for a moment. He didn't doubt what was going on around him the way his future wife had. "They actually went and did it!" he said.
"Yes, they really did," Sabine agreed grimly. Blaster bolts were bursting closer now, underscoring her words. "Come on. Get moving. Put on a shirt or something and get downstairs with me. We don't have time to dawdle."
Someone pounded on the door. "Get out! Get downstairs!" a hourse male voice yelled.
"We're coming!" Sabine shouted back. Ezra flew into a shirt and the two left his room.
Down the stairs they scurried, along with other members of Clan Wren who lived here. For a moment, everybody was equal: equal in fear and equal in fury. In the darkness of the stairwell, people said exactly what they thought of Sheev Palpatine, the New Order, and the Galactic Empire. Sabine heard some things she'd never heard before. No one caree if women were in earshot. Some of the most inflammatory things came from the mouths of women, as a matter of fact.
The bunker was dark too, dark and crowded and hot and stuffy. Someone lit a match to start a cigarette.
"Susulur ni, o force: keep ni bal ner aliit morut'yc," Sabine muttered, just in case.
More blaster bolts burst, some of them very close. The bunker shook as if hit by an earthquake. Plaster pattered down from the cealing. A woman screamed. A man groaned. Beside Sabine, Ezra whispered, "Wow!"
She wanted to hit him and kiss him at the same time. A massive crash came from outside and shook the entire ground. "We got one of the fuckers, anyway," a man said in tones of ferocious satisfaction.
A Star Destroyer. That was what it had to be. An Imperial Star Destroyer had smashed to earth somewhere not far away. How many young men and women had been aboard it? How many had managed to get clear and into escape pods before it went into its last fatal dive? And how many Mandalorians had they killed before they were shot down? If you were going to ask the other questions, you had to ask that one, too.
The raid lasted a little more than an hour. Little by little, blaster bolts came at longer intervals. The drone of engines overhead faded. The antispacecraft guns kept ravening away for several minutes after the Star Destoyers were gone. Some of them went on shooting even after the continuous all-clear note replaced the warbling rise and fall of the air-raid alarm.
"Well, that was fun," somebody behind Sabine said. Along with half a dozen other people, she laughed—propably louder than the joke deserved. But it cut the tension, and there hsd been enough tention in the air to need a lot of cutting.
"What do we do now, Countess?" Ezra asked
"We go back upstairs and see what damage occured to our home," Ursa answered. "Then we must travel to Sundari."
During the Clone Wars, Ursa had been a member of Death Watch, a terrorist organization that had set out to bring Mandalore to its former place as a conquering warrior people. Though she had since rejected the imperialistic, conquering aspect of that ideology, especially since she now knew what it felt like to be opressed, she still retained her warrior spirit. Back then, Mandalorians had fought and killed one another. Now, they were united against a common enemy.
As they left the bunker, morning twilight was brightening toward dawn. "That's why the Star Destroyers went home," Ezra said as they climbed the stairs. "They didn't want to hang around when our gunners and fighter pilots could get a good look at them."
"I didn't know my love was on the General Staff," Sabine said. Ezra snorted but looked immensely proud of himself.
When they went back into the complex, they found glass everywhere: on the floors, on the beds, some glittering shards driven deep into the plaster of the far wall. The windows were gone, every single one of them. Sabine eyed the shards with a fresh horror. What would those flying fragments of glass have done to people whose soft flesh happened to get in the way? Butchered them. That was the only word Sabine could think of.
Ezra and Sabine took a ship and made their way to the city, about 10 miles away. As they got out, Ezra stared around. His head slowly swung from left to right, taking it all in like a holonet camera. Sabine joined him. There were blaster craters half a block down the street. A little further away, a massive black, greasy pillar of smoke rose into the sky. Was that the Star Destroyer's pyre? She thought so.
More columns of smoke rose all over Krowest. Most of them came from the center of the planet, where the city and Wren compound were built. Most, but not all. The Imperials had fired blaster bolts all over the planet, starting massive forrest fires. Bad aim? Deliberate terror? Who could guess?
Fire ship sirens screeched as the sun came up over the horizon.
—
The Sundari Royal Palace had escaped damage, though firemen were fighting flames in the office building across the street and dragging bodies out of it. It seemed every city in Mandalorian space had been attacked. All of the leaders of tbe various Mandalorian clans had been summoned to the Palace to meet with their ruler.
The chamber was very crowded, but wasnt completely full, on account of the several Clan leaders who were missing, injured or dead. A joint session also meant the risk of a lucky blaster bolt taking out all Mandalorian governments. Sabine wished she hadnt thought of that.
"Brothers and sisters, the Mandalor has arrived!" someone boomed out. The wave of applaude that greeted Bo-Katan Kryze was fierce and savage.
Kryze herself looked like hell. People had called her the Happy Warrior, but she seemed anything but happy as she sat on her throne. She had aged years in the months since the Empire was kicked out of Mandalore. She was visibly shaking.
But her voice rang out strong and true. Her words echoed in the chamber. "I have to tell you now that this system is at war with the Galactic Empire." Another furious round of applause said that the clan leaders agreed with her decision.
She went on, "You can imagine what a bitter blow it is for me that my struggle these past few months to win peace has failed. Yet I cannot believe that there is anything more or anything different that I could have done and that would have been more successful. Up to the very last it would have been quite possible to have arranged a peaceful and honorable settlement between Mandalore and the Empire, but Palpatine would not have it. He had evidently made up his mind to attack us whatever happened, and although he may claim he put forward reasonable proposals which we rejected, that is not a true statement.
His action shows convinsingly that there is no chance of expecting that this man will ever give up his practice of using force to gain his will. He can only be stopped by force. We have a clear conscience. We have done all that any system could do to establish peace. But now that it has come to war, I know every Mandalorian will play his part with calmness and courage.
Now may the Force be with you. It will defend our cause. It is the evil things that we shall be fighting against—brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppresion, and persecution—and against them I am certain that the right will prevail."
Sabine applauded till her palms hurt. It was a good speech. The only way it could be better was if Bo-Katan Kryze hadn't had to give it at all.