Happy Christmas to those who celebrate it! I've spent many festive days having lots of fun with friends and family and am settling down now on Christmas evening to have some happy introverted time in my favourite galaxy. Sending long-distance love to you all.

Chapter 7: In the Shadows

The esteemed General Grievous, Qymaen jai Sheelal of the Kaleesh, feared from Belkadan to Kal'Shebbol and the commander of the largest army in galactic history, had won every war he had ever waged and knew that he would win his war against the Jedi. Never mind that the Emperor seemed to think him entirely unfit for the task. Never mind the Dark Lord's insatiable compulsion to replace him with an ever-expanding selection of Force-sensitive zoological freaks. Had Grievous not slain enough Jedi in his time? Had his droids, and later the Emperor's clones, not proven their worth?

It was true that the war against the Jedi was not over. The business of Mace Windu's escape from Utapau had been a great personal disappointment. But Grievous was well capable of making amends, if only the Emperor would permit him. He would surely be more potent than this squabbling collection of Sisters and Brothers. And while Grievous was by no means the sensitive type, all this torture of Jedi children seemed an arduous and inefficient recruitment process when there were droids to be manufactured and men willing to step inside a white suit of armour. The Emperor held the Jedi in higher esteem than they deserved; they were fallible, like any other soldier, and above all they were cowards, who exercised their famous compassion only when it was easy. They had chosen not to act when the Yam'rii invaded Kalee, and they would choose to hide and skulk like rats again in the glorious age of the Empire.

"Allow me to pursue Windu, my Lord," Grievous proposed. "He will not escape me twice."

The Emperor merely chuckled.

"Your enthusiasm is admirable, General. But your confidence is misplaced."

Grievous scowled.

"Your new Inquisitors, Emperor, still have much to learn."

The fact was surely undeniable; they had no respect for their Pau'an leader, were entirely incapable of cooperating to perform a coordinated assault, and the Second Sister, so determined in her ruthlessness and eager to please the Emperor, still vomited up most of her meals as an unfortunate side-effect of her torture.

"You are a competent swordsman and a proficient commander of troops," the Emperor informed Grievous. "But there are some wounds that can only be inflicted by one with knowledge of the Dark Side of the Force."

The Emperor fixed his general with a faintly perceptible smirk.

"You do not require a demonstration, General Grievous?"

Irritated, but soundly convinced, Grievous swept into a low bow.

"No, my Lord."

"Good. Then you will continue to command the consolidation of my power."

The Emperor fixed him with warning in his yellow gaze.

"This is no small task, Grievous. The obedience of the ordinary sentients of this galaxy to Imperial rule is upon your head."

"Yes, my Lord."

"And you shall entrust the pursuit of the remaining Jedi filth in this galaxy to the Inquisitorius," he decreed. "It is true that they still have much to learn. But so, dear General, do you."

Ursa Wren's second child was born in Krownest's perpetual winter twilight beneath the shadows of the mountain range. A son, bawling and flushed with life. The pride and joy of a Mando family. The fire burned brightly in the hearth but Ursa felt empty and cold.

Sabine had come into the world on a day darker even than today. A midwinter snowstorm three years ago. A lifetime ago. It was difficult to comprehend that the two had been born upon the same planet, of the same womb. For today the icy sheen of the lake held no beauty, even as it reflected the distant stars, and Ursa did not know her own body as it trembled beneath her. She had delivered her second child beneath the roof of the great fortress that she herself had been born within. And yet it felt a prison.

Alrich took the infant in his arms.

"Tristan."

Ursa nodded without feeling. Her son could be called anything; it was of no consequence. The name Wren meant nothing now. The Imperial soldiers at the nearby base – for her planet had only been spared so as to provide a surveillance point for the poisonous Empire, as they lurked to quash the resurgence of anyone calling themselves Mando – called her Countess Wren. It would have been less insulting to spit in her face. Ursa was the Countess of no one and nothing. The scattered population of survivors shared Ursa's ancestry and her shame. They could not look themselves, let alone their brothers and sisters, in the eye.

Sabine clamoured upon her toddler's legs to appraise the newborn. The ever-solemn child beheld her brother with a deep frown.

"Will he be alright?" she asked.

Ursa only half heard Alrich's reply. Some soothing remark upon the child's colour, or vigour, or cry.

"He's very small," Sabine observed.

"Not at all small, for a newborn. He is bigger than you were."

Sabine shook her head, lips pursed.

"I don't believe you."

A line she had perhaps learned from her mother. Ursa believed in little these days. She made her slow journey from the floor to her bed to rest a moment before she fed the infant. It had been harder, this time. The second birth was supposed to be easier. She refused to acknowledge those who were missing. The birth had been harder, she told herself, because the infant had been bigger. Her son, like his father, had a large head.

"Are you ready for him, Ursa?"

Settled against the cushions, Ursa said nothing but proffered her arms. It was a useless question. She had given everything for this family, surrendered everything for them. How could she say no now? She had abandoned the Peace Corps and fled Mandalore as the star destroyers filled the horizon. She who had sworn to fight every battle that called her name. The certain annihilation of Mandalore had loomed larger and more impossible than any shadow she had encountered before and she had, for perhaps the first time in her life, been truly afraid. She had chosen her riduur and her daughter and her dreamed-of son; she had chosen life. But instead she found her days of survival on Krownest to be somehow sapped of that which made life worth living. The Mando'ade of old had been right. Walking away from a battle tore something in one's soul. It was better to die.

Ursa had not decided to die, yet. She had gone through the motions each day and pushed away the thoughts of Mandalore as best she could. Again, it was for Sabine. For the child who needed her guidance, who could be taught to grow into the soldier her mother had failed to be. The child reminded Ursa of the sister she had betrayed, of the person she had loved the most and yet not well enough. The resemblance was piercing at times.

Bo-Katan.

Bo-Katan was surely dead and that was a kindness, for if Bo-Katan had lived she would have hated Ursa with every fibre of her beskar heart. Ursa deserved worse than death for her abandonment of Bo-Katan; she deserved the misery she lived in now, in this endless winter of her mind.

So Ursa went on living. With her son at her breast. Her daughter at her ankles. In the shadows beneath the mountains. Exiled. She might one day make amends, she thought, although in the fog of her sadness she could not yet see the way.

Ruma could no longer slip effortfully through the seething human mass that was the Taris City Marketplace on the planet Fest at dawn. As a teenager in the Death Watch she had been able to get anywhere, through anything, undetected. But today she ambled gently, one infant strapped to her back and the other at her front. The set-up hardly left any room with which to carry their groceries but she couldn't leave the babies behind just yet. Meri insisted she was old enough to care for them but at seven-standard and with a whole rabble of toddlers to care for, Ruma didn't like her young lieutenant's chances. Both of the little ones were crawling now and there was no end to the list of dangers they might encounter, or try to stuff into their tiny mouths.

Ruma still didn't quite understand why the babies so greatly coveted the inedible, nor why they cried sometimes when their tummies were full and their nappies were dry. And yet, despite the thousands of questions she could not answer, despite her countless inadequacies, despite the sheer terror that she felt, sometimes, at the weight of caring for them, seven tiny soldiers called themselves – or would learn, with the advent of language, to call themselves – her foundlings. It was a future she had never dared to hope for herself, in the Duchess's bed in the Palace of Sundari, bleeding onto folded towels. Bleeding out her first baby. Bo-Katan had told her that no matter what, that blood-slicked fragment of life would always be her first baby. Ruma had assumed it would also be her last.

But all sorts of strange things happened in the galaxy these days. Ruma took it day by day – second by second, sometimes, when three little ones were crying in the middle of the night – and tried not to think too hard about anything.

"One sack of the oats, please. And a few cups of the dried fruit mix. Thank you."

Ruma was fumbling for credits when she became aware of the pair of stormtroopers pressing in on either side of her.

"Thank you very much," Ruma repeated, eyes fixed on the market vendor. "Keep the change. Have a good day."

She turned to slip back into the anonymous crowd. But the troopers did not let her move.

"Excuse me, I'm just heading-"

"Where exactly?" the trooper to her left asked. "With that weapon?"

Ruma sighed. Tiny Arun was strapped to her back beside her beloved blaster-cannon, once confiscated by Bo-Katan Kryze in Peace Corps uniform, returned to her when they were forced to choose between pacifism and the extinction of their people.

"Home to feed my children," Ruma answered, with all the calm she could muster. "I don't mean to cause any trouble."

The troopers barked out cruel laughter.

"You think we don't know that's a Mandalorian weapon?"

"We'll need to see your ID, thanks."

Ruma gritted her teeth. The infant Raya, swaddled against Ruma's chest, perhaps sensed the racing of her heart and began to grumble. The waiting patrons of the market stall began to jostle and complain.

"I don't mean any harm," Ruma repeated. "I'm going home to feed my children."

"You couldn't be more Mando if you tried, could you?" the stormtrooper to her right taunted. "Obsessed with guns and kids."

"There's no room for your people in the Empire," the other warned.

"Or your precious children."

"We have orders to apprehend your kind."

"Stormtroopers," Ruma gritted out. "Obsessed with IDs and orders. Would it kill you to do something useful with those uniforms? This is a kriffing produce market. There's no trouble here."

One trooper grabbed her wrist, the other reached for her blaster cannon.

"Don't do this," Ruma warned.

She knew they wouldn't listen. The blaster cannon was unclipped from her back. Ruma groaned and steeled herself for the inevitable.

"Sorry," she muttered, to the gaping market vendor, whose stall would soon be a crime scene.

The trooper holding her wrist reached for the shackles. Ruma pivoted, kicked him solidly in his stupid helmet and whirled to face the other. She shot him with the blaster that she kept at her belt – hidden, conveniently, by the cloth harness holding Raya to her chest – in the chink in his armour at the neck. With a second shot, she did the same to his companion. A perfect two from two. Pre would have acknowledged this with a curt nod of his head and the shadow of a smile.

The stormtroopers were dead and they deserved it. Ruma had never believed in pacifism at the best of times and it was an impossible luxury now. She pushed her way through the stunned onlookers and did not look back. Where there were two stormtroopers, there would be more. She would have to move the children again. Kriff. They barely had the money for a rail pass, let alone a trip off-planet. It wasn't easy to hunt bounty or do security work with seven foundlings in one's care.

"Sister!"

Ruma heard the faintly familiar voice through the babble of the crowd – how quickly they returned, in this war-torn reality, to the task of purchasing their groceries – but ignored it. Whoever was interested in her services after the public display would have to find another provider. She needed to get out of Taris as quickly as possible.

"Vod'ika!"

Ruma's head whirled.

Pushing through the crowd behind her was Sewlen Jerac. The doctor who had run a makeshift emergency department in the Palace of Sundari after Maul's invasion, standing today in the weak morning sunlight on Fest, holding Ruma's abandoned groceries.

"You…"

Ruma could barely speak for the shock of it.

"You made it out."

"I did," the doctor affirmed, falling into step with Ruma as they hurried from the crowded marketplace. "I was as surprised as you are. Bo managed a miracle, during the Purge. Hijacked an Imperial fighter and got us both out."

Ruma's eyes widened.

"Bo-Katan?"

"The one and only. She's leading this whole operation, finding lost Mando'ade. We heard there was someone doing good quality bounty jobs around here so we came to check it out. More often than not, we don't find who we're looking for. But sometimes, we win."

Sewlen grinned at her warmly.

"Bo's going to be beyond happy to see you. The ship's just up here."

But Ruma veered their path away from the landing zone.

"Gotta pick up the other kids."

Sewlen raised her brows, impressed.

"You've got more?"

"Five more."

"Seven foundlings!"

They broke into a gentle jog, Ruma leading Sewlen into a laneway out of sight as an investigative patrol of stormtroopers made their way into the marketplace.

"Seven?" Sewlen repeated, her voice a whisper this time.

"Seven," Ruma confirmed. "And you can count on at least three of them to wake up during the night."

She found a grin.

"D'you reckon Bo's still going to be beyond happy to see me?"

Another little journey around the galaxy to visit some old friends! (And enemies). Writing Grievous was an unexpectedly enjoyable part of this story - you'll see more of him to come, as well as our intrepid Mando'ade. Let me know who you liked seeing, and who you'd like to hear more of.

Next chapter we return to beautiful Korkie, already growing up into a canny young refugee-smuggler.

xx - S.