This was my favorite chapter to write so far. I hope you enjoy.

Translation guide from Mando'a:

beskar'gam = "armor" (don't worry I won't use this every time)
burc'ya/e = "friend." "e" suffix indicates plural form.
Kom'rk = "Gauntlet"
Kyr'tsad = "Death Watch" (will only used when a character is speaking Mando'a)
Mand'alor = "sole ruler"
ori'vod = "big brother" or "special friend"
Ruug'verda = "Ancestors." Literally means "old warriors" but is more commonly used for the former
Taakuir'tsad = "Horned Watch" (will only used when a character is speaking Mando'a)
verd/e = "warrior." "e" suffix indicates plural form.

XXX

Festus Hark

XXX

The Contessa's arrow-head shape and remarkable size made it stand out from the rest of the craft that made up the rest of the 97th Task Force. Two Arquitens-class light cruisers hugged each of its flanks, practically dwarfed in comparison. The next largest ship after the Contessa, the rectangular Carrack-class light frigate Glorifier to the front of the formation, was much closer to the Arquitens-class in terms of size and firepower. Three IPV corvettes made up the rest of the fleet, so small as to hardly matter in the equation save for when enemy starfighters were about.

Which in this case, they were.

"Pirate activity in the Mandalorian sector has often been insignificant. Interesting that they chose to give us our payday now," Moore commented, peering almost idly out the viewport as another turbolaser salvo lanced out from the Contessa. The green blasts cut through the emptiness of space to smash against the failing deflector shields of the pirate cruiser, whose engines were at full power trying to escape.

Hark nodded. "They must have heard about the collapse of the shipbuilding deal Kryze had with MandalMotors. Trying to take advantage of it."

"Mhm. Helmsman, turn us 45 degrees portside. Starboard turbolasers, hold fire until my mark, training for these coordinates. Forward cannons, continue leisurely barrage."

"Acknowledged, Commodore."

Out of the corner of Hark's eye he saw the Contessa's Captain Psyona shift uncomfortably at the back of the bridge. He felt a twinge of sympathy for the thin woman: he had served with her faithfully in the few months before Moore had arrived, and she had been more than adequate as the ship's captain then. A look at her record had also revealed prominent roles in several victories of the Clone Wars, which was no doubt why the myth of a woman being unable to command over a ship as powerful as the Contessa was now only that, a myth.

But Moore was on the bridge now, and with a personality as domineering as a star's gravity, it left no room for another.

"Fire."

The heavy pirate cruiser abruptly twitched, the right side of its engines flaring while the left cut out. It swung hard right, heaving its mass out of line of the Contessa's forward-facing cannons—

And right into the incoming broadside. The deflector shields, already weakened by the long chase from the Victory-class Star Destroyer and its escorts, shorted out entirely. A brief plume of smoke and fire erupted where the pirate ship had once been, and then there was nothing at all except scraps of metal.

Hark winced, but not for the lives of the miscreants aboard. All that food… gone.

"Fine work. Captain Villim, report?"

"Just wrapping up, sir," came the smug voice of the Glorifier's captain. "We have two pirate fighters ionized and reeled in with tractor beams; ten more have been destroyed and the last is running with our V-wings in pursuit."

"Any damage?"

"One V-wing lost, two more damaged, and the sensor array of the corvette Perilous was ripped free by a colliding fighter."

Moore nodded. "Acceptable margins. Contessa will reel in your prisoners. Recall fighters and let's pull back to Mandalore for some speedy repairs."

"Understood. Glorifier out."

The commodore put a hand to his chin. "Captain Psyona, feel free to take command of your ship. Have the fighters put into an empty hangar bay then bring us home."

A quiet sigh from the back, of either relief for the return of command or frustration that it had to be returned at all; it was hard to tell. Moore ignored it either way. "Yes, Commodore Moore."

"Lieutenant, walk with me."

Hark followed in the wake of the other as they left the bridge, proceeding into the turbolift. Moore punched in the key that would take them to his office. "What did you make of the battle?"

"Short and sweet, sir," Hark replied. "You made an excellent call when the pirate's flagship tried to make a break for it."

"So, I did. Anything unusual stick out to you?"

He frowned. "Are you referring to that Vorpa'ya's last report of such activity was eight years ago?"

"You did your homework, good. But no, that's not what I'm speaking of." The turbolift came to a gentle halt and opened to them. The two men proceeded down the hall and entered the commodore's office. The tightness of the room forced the older man to go first so he could sit behind his desk; Hark sat in the lone chair before it.

"No Mandalorian ships were present. No Crusader gunships, no Kom'rk fighters. Just run of the mill pirates with leftover tech and ships they've lifted from the Confederacy."

Hark's frown deepened. "You were expecting the pirates to be Mandalorians?"

"The ID signature of the terrorist ship Tiber Saxon provided two days ago was indeed the Gauntlet, the craft of the former Death Watch leader Pre Vizsla," he said, producing a datapad for Hark to scan over. On it were schematics of the fighter, as well as a log with scratchy red notes made by the commodore. "That ship vanished off the records shortly after his death; it was publicly said his most loyal of terrorists had burnt it, which I find most unlikely even they would waste such a resource for tradition. Another floating rumor was it was converted into the Nightbrother, which became the fighter of the alien Maul. Yet that thread was never given official confirmation, despite how very legitimizing it would have been for Maul's brief regime."

Moore put a pondering finger to his brown lips. "No, his close followers did indeed take possession of it, but they merely hid it. Its presence confirms that we are dealing with an internal Mandalorian threat, not some foreign meddlers."

"But your observation is flawed—with due respect, sir," Hark added in hastily. He had long gotten used to being pulled aside by the commodore for almost casual conversations like these, which rubbed wrongly with the etiquette he had been trained in. Sometimes he wondered why the commodore had chosen him to have these talks with and not Psyona, Villim, or pretty much any other higher-ranking officer within the 97th Task Force.

Sometimes, he felt as if they had become friends. But friends or not, the man was still his commanding officer.

But Moore only chuckled, holding out a hand for the return of his datapad. "No offense taken, Lieutenant. What is my flaw?"

"Why would Mandalorians want to commit piracy against their fellow Mandalorians? Especially when Vorpa'ya is almost exclusively an agriworld; foodstuffs make some money, sure, but they're hardly lucrative products."

"Which is why pirates rarely ever target the planet." Moore pressed a key on his desk and brought up a small projection of the Mandalorian sector. "As you said earlier, word of Kryze's failed contract with MandalMotors will have certainly leaked out by now. But the contract publicly stated it was no longer going to be able to produce new ships; therefore, enterprising thieves could expect that her existing fleet would still be roaming around."

Some of the man's words ticked off a bell in Hark's head. "Publicly stated, sir?"

"Good," Moore praised again. "Yes, publicly. Privately, for reasons you will quickly understand, the contract also stipulated a complete refitting to the sector defense fleet's outdated computer systems, targeting sensors, and weapon pods, since the last time they had seen any use was the war before the Duchess Satine's policy of pacifism." The last word came out bitingly, as if it might scald his tongue to say it. "Bo-Katan Kryze of course holds no such thoughts and recognized the need to reintroduce the defense fleet, especially with Mandalore looking fragile after the Siege. But that foolish mishap her defense fleet had off of Krownest revealed the need to make an overhaul."

Hark knew the event. Two midsized Confederate warships, on the run from pursuing Imperial ships from Botajef, had miscalculated their hypserspace jump in their panic to evade destruction. The lone vessels had appeared near Mandalore's moon, damaged and with diminished squadrons, and worse still during a war drill of the fleet.

Both warships had escaped again, but not before outgunning Mandalore's defense fleet considerably and driving them into a humiliating retreat into Krownest's atmosphere. "That happened seven months ago. Right after, that the 97th was sent to Mandalore."

"Another fine connection. I did not lie to Tiber Saxon when I said we were here to ensure Mandalore keeps its trade routes open; while their ships underwent refitting, the 97th was to take over piracy containment. Which brings me to our problem."

Hark stiffened a little in the hard seat. "I hope you don't mean you don't enjoy rooting out pirates, sir."

"A chance to blast anything out of the sky is a chance I would never pass up," Moore assured him warmly. "Rather, we return to the issue of the privacy of the contract. Besides Verideon, whose loyalty is unshakeable, I was the only one of the 97th briefed on the contract's hidden details. Similarly, only Kryze's councilors were made aware it was happening at all."

Finally, the crux of the matter. Conversationalist he was, Moore enjoyed explaining things a little too much for Hark's patience. "Which means that part of the contract was leaked to the pirates."

"Precisely. But that's only one part of the problem; what do you think the other?"

Hark was already there. "Why target an agriworld like Vorpa'ya when several other planets in the sector have much more valuable exports and are equally vulnerable."

"Which have so far reported no activity, lending to the idea this information was carefully and purposefully leaked to one band of miscreants." Moore creased his hands before him, glowering at his fingers. His dark eyes showed a great intensity. "I hate politics…"

"That I can agree with you on, sir."

The other briefly smiled at him, then returned to his hardened stare. "The objective appears to be trying to interfere with the food imports to Mandalore. Since the planet has little to no grazing land left, it can only feed its people thanks to colony worlds like Vorpa'ya, so when shipments like that are cut off... yes, this has a sinister element to it, one I can almost respect in its cruelty."

"I don't know if I can agree on 'respect,' sir." He hesitated, but Moore hated when others held their tongue around him. "Commodore, the pirate cruiser…"

"Hmm?"

"They had already stolen the food shipment. Wouldn't it have been… more courteous to capture the cruiser to relieve them of it?"

To that, Moore gave an almost invisible smile. "Perhaps. But you see lieutenant, we want our Mandalorian conspirator's plan to succeed."

He felt his mouth drop a little bit. "We… do?"

"We do," the other affirmed. "Every success they make feeds their confidence that they, in the end, will succeed. As that confidence rises, so will their arrogance. Eventually, they will expose themselves. When that happens, all this careful planning of theirs will fall apart when they encounter the Contessa's firepower."

"But they're killing thousands with every strike; our duty to help these people should come first."

A spasm went across Moore's face, the same flicker when they had spoke of war after the trial of Gar Saxon. It went away soon after, but the lines on his forehead were now noticeably creased. "You have a good moral compass on you, lieutenant. Yes, our charge is also to help the Imperial citizens of Mandalore. I will formulate a way in which both of these things can be achieved."

"Such as not destroying the food next time?"

For a moment, Hark felt as if he had gone too far. But after a moment Moore's frigid demeanor shattered into laughter. "Perhaps. But even by blowing up the pirates we still took away the food the conspirator clearly wanted to go missing."

"Then why blow up the pirates all?" Hark said sourly. "Why not just let them escape with it? I'm sure this supposed traitor would've been happy to call on them again."

The laugh lines did not disappear, but the smile returned to its chilling temperature. "As I said before, lieutenant. A chance to blast anything out of the sky is a chance I would never pass up."

XXX

Gar Saxon

XXX

I did not train to be a warrior to work at a desk, Gar thought bitterly. But he did not stand to the internal challenge, and with a sigh he adjusted the lamp to better shine on the datapad.

Between the reports Tiber was quietly copying over to him and the plans for his own political campaign, Gar was finding little time for anything else. Even when he went for morning runs or used the meager equipment in the inn's gym to stay in shape, he found his thoughts always coming back to one or the other.

Or both. His head hurt and he leaned back from the datapad, looking up at the ceiling. He rubbed a hand over his chin, feeling the blonde stubble growing back coarse and rough after it had been burned clean off in the fires of the Hall of the Graced. Worse still, as he attempted to recline, the pain in his back flared up again. A curse brimmed behind his lips; forget the pain of it when he exercised, it sometimes just gave him pain for the hell of it.

We just had to be there, he thought with the same rancorous mood. Well, I had to be there. Tiber and his sick jokes—I ran the Taakuir'tsad! As if don't have any skill with politics and leadership.

There was a knock on his door, followed by the rural Basic accent of an Outer Rim human. "Room cleaning 'ere: got word of a bad smell coming from one of the rooms on this floor. That you, mate?"

"Who do you take me for?" Gar shot back. "No, it's not this room."

"Yeah, go kriff yourself too, mate." The footsteps shuffled off, followed by a distant knock and repetition of the question.

Gar sighed and shook his head. Damn him, where was I? He looked back down at his makeshift workspace: his personal datapad hooked into a larger viewscreen Tiber had been able to provide him. Its two opened tabs of content looked guiltily back at him: one with his amateurish agenda and self-promotion plan, the other still showing the dead end he'd hit on his investigation of the Gauntlet.

Fuming he stood up and turned off the lamp and datapad. He went to go stand by the small window of the bare room. It offered a glum view if you looked down, showing the unsightly streets of this poorer part of Sundari. But in the distance he could see the Royal Palace, tall and white against the arrival of night. That's where I deserve to be. Clan Saxon banners draping down the sides. My ass on that throne, giving out the commands. He smirked. Kryze hardly fills it even with her beskar'gam on, she's so damn skinny.

"Hey, no!" Gar was torn from his beautiful vision to the griminess below. He squinted, trying to see better through the glass.

Four people were in the alley between the inn and the next building over. He could see all four were impressively built specimens of man, but one of them was backing away from the others, his hands outstretched before him. "Do I look like I have any of the credits?" he tentatively said, his words hard to hear through the window. Gar tried to open it, but to his disgust he found it was locked shut: "Fresh air costs extra," the inn manager, a wily Devaronian, had said smartly.

The other three figures closed in a little more, and the fourth shrunk back. "Come on now, Arcadius. You couldn't have spent it all already. Give us the chit."

"No! I—I need this!"

A robbery. Gar's fists clenched on the windowsill. He was only on the second floor, he could hypothetically make the jump and get the surprise, but the assailants had now backed their quarry out from underneath his window. Not to mention the damned thing wouldn't even open…

"CARAYA'S SOUL, THIS REEKS!" The four figures in the alley looked up quizzically to a window a few rooms to the right of Gar; he also turned. "Of all the nasty—DANK FARRIK, THERE'S MORE!?"

The four resumed their quarrel in the street, but Gar was already racing to his door. He threw it open and shot a look down his right; sure enough, the little wheeled cart of the cleaner was there, the door ajar right beside it. He bolted down the hall, tuning out the oaths of the man. He stopped at the doorway and looked in.

A pair of Toydarians were off to the side, yelling at the cleaner in their native tongue. Flies were all over the room, though they were clustering at something near the bed. The cleaner was shouting back at them in Basic, venting his frustration without care for what was being said back to him. He turned to the side in dismissal and caught a look at Gar. "Oi, the hell are you—?"

Gar took a final breath of fresh air before bolting into the room—

"The kriff are you—!"

—and leaped straight out the open window. He had only a few moments to collect the situation, but it had not changed much from how it was before. Bracing for impact, he struck the side of the adjacent building, put some force into his feet and leaped down from it with some warrior's form—

The robbers were fast alright. His landing on top of one of them knocked them out cold, but the other two quickly recoiled onto either side of him. They didn't bother with any words but immediately attacked, the bulkier one on his left bringing out their left fist for his chest and the other trying to sweep out his legs with their right foot—

Gar twisted his body through both attacks, straightening up at the only way out of the alley with the two attackers now in front of him.

"I recognize those moves," he commented in curt Mando'a. "Former verde."

"You're the one who's washed up," the one on the right, a woman, retorted roughly. Her blue eyes squinted. "Stay out of it."

"He's one, too," Gar said, pointing between them to the would-be victim. "You'd betray the oath we all swore for a couple of extra credits?"

The other assailant growled, but the woman held a steadying hand. Her hair was low-cut and light shade of purple, making him reminisce of Rook Kast. She also definitely had Rook's aura of confidence, but her form only appeared to be a weaker copy.

She still spoke as bluntly as her, though. "Credits are credits," she said tersely. "That never changes, even when the leadership does. You gonna fault us for that?"

Gar nodded. "I am." He dashed forward and brought his fist up to crack against her companion's jaw. The man took it full-force, but he barely even seemed dazed. A meaty arm swung out for Gar's head, which he ducked—

To see the woman's knee coming for his head. He pulled his arms up into a cross, negating the impact. Before she could withdraw, he lunged forward to push her into the wall of the inn before turning back to the other—

Not fast enough. The man's big fist came down upon his upper back, close to where his cracked scapula was. It wasn't direct, but it still hurt like hell. He gasped and stumbled, reaching out a hand to steady on the other wall—

Only to see both robbers closing in. "I don't even care if you got credits on you," the woman said snidely. "I just want to beat the hell out of you for talking down to me."

"Funnily enough, I'm broke," Gar offered, catching his breath. His left hand was behind his back, hidden for the moment. He dug into the wall, scraping off some loose paint and plaster into his hand with his fingernails…

"Good, that'll make this all the more cathartic." She pulled her fist back—

The dust flew out from his fingers—

The woman's fist connected with her companion's face—

What?

The big warrior slumped to the ground, out cold. His conqueror shook her hand while she tried to rub the flecks of pink paint and plaster from her face and hair. "Good going," she said with mock outrage. "If this stains my hair I'll beat the hell out of you anyway, Saxon."

"Don't mention it," he said cautiously, relaxing from the combat crouch he'd fallen into. He could sense the danger had passed, but that in of itself explained nothing. "Any reason why you took down your ori'vod over here?"

"Yes, I—oh no you don't!" With lightning speed she whirled about, swinging her left fist all the way about to crack into the forehead of her original target, laying him out flat upon the concrete before his sudden escape attempt had gone more than four steps. Something gold and shiny slipped out from his fingertips—

To land squarely in her hand. "There we go," she said smartly, blowing it clean with a smile. She put it back into a pocket. "Now, you were asking why I did that?"

Gar's face broke out into a smile. No, the reminiscing hadn't been accidental. "Yes, but start with how the lieutenant of the Taakuir'tsad got reduced to picking credit chits off her fellow verde."

The last of the debris swept away, the woman readjusted her bangs back to artfully cover her forehead. With that, the image was complete. "You don't believe hard times can do that to a woman?" Rook Kast countered.

"Not one as good looking as you."

She smiled. "You never were a good flirt."

"You never were a good liar."

Her lip twisted. "Well, I didn't lie when I said you weren't my type."

"Ouch."

"Ouch," she agreed, pointing at his side. "Bad back at this young age? You poor thing."

"Try being hit by a rock the size of your head. No, on the second thought, yours is bigger. Probably more hollow, though."

The blue eyes narrowed. "And how did a rock get the drop on you?"

"By being too close to the Scilla Art Gallery," Gar bit out. "I shouldn't have even been there in the first place, but—what?"

The smile was gone, and she looked much more guarded. "You were there for Mira Vizsla's rally? How did you survive?"

"I was on the outside," he assured her, a little perplexed by her shift in emotion. "Hadn't managed to make it in yet. Like I said, I didn't really want to be there. Wasn't in any rush to see old Mira speak her nonsense."

Her lithe body relaxed some, but her face still stayed to a purposeful imitation of a statue. "Well, I'm glad you weren't killed. Would've been a needless waste of life if you got smooshed by a boulder and that was it for you."

"Not very gallant," he chortled. "But speaking of a wasted verd, what's the deal with him?" He jerked his head at the robbery victim.

"Him?" she scoffed. "Hardly one of our kind. Arcadius deserted Kyr'tsad after Pre Vizsla was killed to become an advertiser. Came back out of his little cubical to join up with the group I was in, then decided to steal this credit chit from us." She produced it again for Gar to see. "50,000 credits on this little thing, can you believe it?"

"I've seen more," he said, thinking back to the hordes of wealth Maul had accumulated via the Shadow Collective. "We've seen more," he corrected himself.

"True." The chit disappeared back into her pocket. "But credits aren't as liquid on Mandalore as they were back then. 50,000 credits are nothing to sniff at; he's lucky I don't put a blaster bolt into the back of his head here and now."

"An advertiser, you said?" Gar said thoughtfully. "No, I could use someone like him. He'll owe me, anyway."

"What, because you'll tell him you scared me off?" she asked, raising an eyebrow with a coltish smirk.

"You did say my looks are a little fierce."

"Come off it," she laughed. A drop of water splashed down between them, followed quickly by three more. "Blast, raining now of all times?" She leaned against the wall beside him, getting the little shelter it provided as the downpour increased. Gar eased himself as well into the shadow of the building.

For a moment they were in comfortable silence, the only sounds being of the drops. Built into the dome were advanced environmental controls to filter out the acidity and toxicity of when rain fell on the surface, however rarely it occurred. Some on a Core world might've complained that when rain fell it greyed and ruined the day, but outside of how wet it made one, most Mandalorian people had come to enjoy the rain as a reminder their Ruug'verda still nourished the planet with life when they could.

Rook shifted against the wall to slightly lean leaning against his shoulder. The sensation carried painfully to his scapula, but he very easily decided that the pain was worth it for this. "What use do you have for an advertiser, anyways?" she asked.

Gar puffed out his chest. "You're looking at the next Viceroy of Mandalore," he said with leisurely bravado. "Course, Tiber says I'm miserable with my words, so I suppose I could use all the help I can get from this—what, what now?"

The guarded look had returned as she straightened off him, but not only that: anxiety. "Gar, haven't you been paying attention? The candidates are dropping like flies out there. This is the worst possible time to get involved in politics."

"I have to," he said calmly. "I can't let Clan Saxon's reputation wilt because of me. My Father pins our decline on me; I must redeem us."

"You're the one who always complained that Aurelius' expectations weren't realistic," she insisted. "Now you want to pretend you have to suddenly meet them? You're not doing this for him. What, then? You want pride? Respect? Or do you just want to be in charge of people again?"

"Why all the questions? You trying to recruit me into your group?"

She detached herself entirely from the wall, letting the rain fall down on her head. "I shouldn't have said that. I should go."

"Wait!" he called out, genuinely. Much as she had just begun to annoy him, he also didn't want to see her leave. "I—I didn't even know you were still alive, after the Siege. I never saw anybody. No mess hall, no exercise room, nothing. Now you're just going to walk away and vanish again?"

"I really should."

"That's not fair. We were…" He hesitated. What had they been? Allies? Burc'ye? More?

Her bright blue eyes looked away from him. "We were comrades fighting the same cause. That's all."

"That's all," he echoed, keeping all the emotion save disgust out of his voice. "Fine. Go then. You got what you came for; soldiers should just follow orders after all, right?"

"That's a clone saying, not a Mandalorian one."

"I'm having a hard time seeing the difference right now."

"Grow up," she snapped suddenly, fiercely, jerking her head up at him so that droplets of water splashed into his face. "Just because you could only ever shoot what was in front of you doesn't mean the rest of couldn't see a bigger picture!"

"Meaning?"

Rook stood silhouetted in the downpour. "I can't say more; not here, not now," she murmured. The pale face looked conflicted, enough to make some of his anger evaporate.

But not all the way. "What is it?" he said with a hint of demand.

"I can't say more. Not unless you come with me."

"To the group you're with?"

"Yes."

He smirked at her. He knew damn well what group Rook must have fallen in; the incredible piloting skills of the Gauntlet at the Gallery suddenly had a connection with the shadow of guilt she'd shown when he'd brought up the attack. One piece of the puzzle had been inserted into place.

She must be high in the ranks to have been given the Gauntlet to command. The two of us have a history. This is my way into the insurgency, to get information directly from the source.

On the ground, Arcadius the former warrior and advertiser stirred.

The campaign. Damn it all…

His indecision made Rook shake her head. "Forget it. There's no room for second guesses with them. Besides, you clearly want a clean slate."

"You mean the one that got immediately ruined when they arrested me for the Keldabe bombings?"

She stooped to hoist up the limp body of the first man Gar had downed over a shoulder. With her other hand she grabbed the arm of the other. "I heard about that. I'm sorry, but at the same time I'm not." She paused. "You were rescuing people, weren't you?"

"I was."

Her eyes tracked down to Arcadius, and she smiled wistfully. "Just like you were trying to help him. It's a good thing you didn't take my offer, Gar. You wouldn't have liked it; many of us don't."

"It's not about liking something if you feel it's for the right cause. That's what we felt working for Maul, right?"

Her head dipped fractionally, the rain running violet rivulets down her face. "Right," she said quietly, gently.

Gar hesitated. "I won't see you again, will I?"

"I hope you don't. Because next time I won't go easy on you."

That got a smile from him, but try as he may he couldn't make it genuine. "I'll keep that in mind," he promised. "I guess… good luck with your mission."

"This is the Way." With a grunt, she dragged and carried her accomplices out of the alleyway. He watched until she was swallowed up by the torrent, then put a hand to his eyes and sighed.

A low whistle came from above his head. He shot a look upwards, saw the cleaner looking down at him, his hands cupping his face and elbows on the windowsill. "Mate, please don't tell me you just blew it snatchin' up that purple-haired fox?"

Gar shook his head dismally. "Sorry to disappoint you… and sorry for shouting back at you earlier."

"Ah, don't sweat it mate. Losing a woman like that would've made me jump from a window much higher."