Mako fidgeted under the raised eyebrow of Crysta, who loomed large as a flickering blue hologram with her arms crossed.
"She does understand the Great Hunt has a race component to it, right?" Crysta asked, her annoyance at Shala's tardiness not outweighing her duties as the bounty hunter's Great Hunt handler.
Mako's brown eyes flicked to the stairway. Shala should have joined the briefing fifteen minutes ago. But ever since the delivery of a giant, unmarked crate that morning, the bounty hunter had sequestered herself in her private quarters on the ship and not answered any of Mako's many comm requests. Staring back at Crysta, Mako, for the fourth time, said, "She'll be here soon."—and this time, she added—"She's just, uh, getting prepped for our first hunt of the competition!"
"Sugar, at this rate her competitors are going to be standing victorious over their second bounties by the time she—"
"Arrives?" another voice asked.
Mako and Crysta both turned. Crysta's other eyebrow joined its twin, while Mako's jaw dropped. Where the hell did she get that much beskar?
Shala strode up to the holotable. Gone were the cobbled together bits of rusted armor she'd worn since Mako first met her on Nal Hutta a month ago. Now, a gray leather coat partially obscured a cuirass of red beskar steel; a matching circular pauldron sat on Shala's right shoulder while a more fin-like pauldron rested on the other; Shala's arms, hips, and legs sported similar red steel. But it was the helmet that drew the attention: a smooth dome that flowed into a long, opaque black visor shaped like a T.
Crysta gazed at Shala with amusement and mild concern. "Best not let any Mandalorians catch you wearing that beskar. They get a bit . . . touchy when someone not of their kin wears their armor."
"It won't be a problem," Shala said. The helmet's speaker gave her stoic voice an electronic scratchiness.
"Uh-huh. If you say so, sugar. Anyway, now that you're finally here, I can get to telling you about your first bounty!"
Crysta's drawling voice fell away as Mako continued staring incredulously at Shala. Won't be a problem? Of course it's going to be a problem! Frustration boiled in Mako's gut, the pressure building. What the hell was Shala thinking? The Great Hunt was hard enough as is to win. Wearing that damn armor was going to put a hutt's load of heat on them and make winning exponentially more difficult!
"Understood," Shala said, breaking Mako from her seething. "I'll report back once I have the bounty."
"Farewell, sugar. And good luck!" Crysta's hologram flickered out.
Shala marched towards the cockpit.
"What the hell?" Mako exclaimed, throwing her hands up.
Shala halted and turned back around. She moved with ease and precision, more so than usual in Mako's estimation, as if the bounty hunter was more comfortable encased inside the full suit of beskar than outside it.
"We already have one Mandalorian blasting for us," Mako continued. "That armor will have the entire enclave on Dromund Kaas hunting us."
"They won't," Shala said, clearly unbothered by Mako's irritation. "We're protected by the rules of the Great Hunt."
"Those rules didn't stop Tarro Blood from sabotaging our attempts to enter the Great Hunt. They sure as hell didn't stop that bastard when he murdered Braden and Jory!"
"Most Mandalorians possess more honor and a deeper respect for tradition than Tarro does."
"How the hell would you know? The hunt is our only path to Tarro. And you're jeopardizing it!"
"As I told Crysta, it won't be a problem." Shala turned to leave.
Mako slammed her fist on the holotable. "You selfish piece of poodoo! They were my family!"
Like a gundark honing in on a womp rat, Shala slowly turned back to face Mako.
Stomach-clenching fear intermixed with Mako's anger. She rarely lost her temper, let alone lashed out at a deadly bounty hunter that could kill her as easily as one would an insect. Mako inhaled a deep breath, quelling enough of her rage for her to center her thoughts.
"They were my family. Jory an asshole but well-meaning older brother; Braden, a tough but fair father. You knew them for a week. I knew them for years. I loved them. If we don't avenge them, if we don't kill Tarro, then their deaths were meaningless, and I will have lost my family for nothing. I won't let you ruin my chance for vengeance."
Shala remained silent and disconcertingly motionless. Over the last month, Mako had become proficient at reading Shala's facial expressions to determine her mood and gauge when the bounty hunter was going to start blasting. That newly acquired skill was now useless thanks to that damned Mandalorian helmet. Mako hated not knowing how close she was to being disintegrated.
She finally couldn't take the silence anymore. "Say something!"
"Follow me," Shala said. She strode past Mako towards the stairs that descended into the lower section of the ship.
"What? No! Not until you—"
"Mako." The gentleness and hint of pleading in the normally hard-edged bounty hunter's voice staggered Mako. Shala had paused at the top of the stairs. She glanced over her shoulder and whispered, "Please?" Without waiting for an answer, Shala descended the stairs.
Mako watched her go. She remained rooted to her spot next to the holotable feeling like a petulant child who refused to give the grownup the satisfaction of knowing they were in control. But Shala was in control. This was her ship. She was the hunter. Not Mako.
Mako growled as she marched after the older woman.
#
Mako found Shala standing side-face in the doorway to the bounty hunter's private quarters. She gestured for Mako to enter. Overhead lights automatically activated as soon as Mako stepped across the threshold, bathing the room in a soft yellow hue. She jolted to a halt, not from the light, but from what it glinted off of. For the second time that day, Mako's jaw dropped. That's . . . that's a lot of beskar.
Beskar armor, everything from full suits to a pair of greaves to a singular pauldron, decorated the perimeter of the room. The full and partial suits hung on stands while the rest adorned the walls. Much of the steel was dyed, a wide swath of the visible spectrum of light represented, but a few pieces were still virgin chrome. Each piece sported telltale signs of combat: carbon scoring from blasters, gouges from vibroblades, dents from shrapnel, and starburst patterns from lightsaber strikes.
That one room held enough beskar to make someone incredibly rich for multiple lifetimes. Mako, having lived hand-to-mouth for a good chunk of her life, normally salivated at the prospect of such a score. Instead, she was confused. As an up-and-coming bounty hunter, Shala had, as far as Mako knew, few credits to her name. Yet she owns a gallery room's worth of Mandalorian armor?
Mako turned to Shala and asked, "How? How do you have all this?"
Shala walked past Mako into the room, her footsteps light and measured, as if she were treading upon hallowed ground. She carefully approached the nearest stand of armor on the right. It contained a single pauldron and a traditional Mandalorian helmet. While reverently touching the helmet, Shala said. "Mallala." She glided over to the next grouping of armor—a pair of glossy, sky-blue greaves hanging on the wall. "Mykuppa." She gestured to a singular helmet. "His twin brother, Mukuppa." Shala continued on to each grouping of armor and said a name, her voice growing more somber with each name spoken. Twenty groupings; twenty names.
Then Shala stepped up to the twenty-first and final stand. It held a full suit of beskar dyed a deep green, giving the impression of something solid and permanent. This time, though, Shala didn't immediately voice a name. She instead bowed her head in silence, in . . . sorrow.
"Who?" Mako whispered.
Shala straightened her shoulders and raised her head. She picked up the helmet, cradling it with both hands and gazing deep into the visor. "Zurna. My mother."
"Mother?"
"Yes. Zurna of Clan Wren, formerly of House Kryze." Shala faced Mako. "And I am Azora of Clan Wren."
Mako barely kept her jaw from falling open a third time. "You're—you're Mandalorian?"
Shala—no, Azora, apparently!—nodded.
Everything began falling into place: Azora's martial prowess with blaster and blade; her comfort being the recipient of violence as well as its enactor; always covering her face when visiting the Mandalorian enclave on Dromund Kaas; her venom towards the un-Mandalorian actions of Tarro Blood; her fluidity of movement while encased in beskar.
No wonder she handily got into the Great Hunt. Like all Mandalorians, she has been trained for combat and conflict since birth. She—a horrifying realization struck Mako. She glared at Azora and said, "You didn't need Nemro's sponsorship to get into the Great Hunt. As a Mandalorian, you could have gotten in by just asking. And if you'd done that, Jory and Braden would still be—"
"No."
"What do you mean, no?"
"If I had told anyone my real identity, Braden and Jory would still be dead. As would I. And you."
"Why? If Tarro knew, he wouldn't have dared—"
"Yes, he would have. And it wouldn't have just been Tarro. Every Mandalorian in the sector would have relentlessly hunted us."
Mako shook her head, frustrated, and stepped closer to Azora. "I'm not following."
"To Mandalorians," Azora said, an edge creeping into her voice, "Clan Wren is synonymous with betrayal, cowardice, and dishonor."
Mako frowned. Azora was many things—proficient, frustrating, deadly, stubborn—but she was far from a coward. She didn't cut bait and run when things nearly fell apart on Nal Hutta. She stayed true to her path, kept Mako alongside her, and they walked said path together blaster-to-blaster.
"When Mandalore the Lesser rose to prominence," Azora continued, "my mother saw him for what he truly was: a puppet of the Sith Empire. She and Clan Wren refused to follow Lesser on his crusade against the Jedi and the Republic. The other Mandalorian clans branded us as traitors, as cowards. They systematically hunted and killed Clan Wren one-by-one."
Mako glanced at the beskar enshrined in the room. The ghosts of Azora's family surrounded them. For Azora to possess her family's beskar, she had to have slain a score of dangerous, battle-hardened warriors, mostly Mandalorians, to get it all back. The bounty hunter was more formidable than Mako ever realized.
Azora peered deeply into her mother's visor. Pride and sorrow wove together in her voice as she said, "Clan Xirkt found us, mother and me. They outnumbered us four to one. But amidst fire, metal, and blood, we slew them all."
Mako walked up to Azora and placed a gentle hand on Zurna's helmet. "Your mother didn't survive, did she?"
"No. Chugard, the clan patriarch and an unmatched artist with the vibroblade, sunk his family's ancient dagger into my mother's clavicle. With the last of her fading strength, she snapped Chugard's neck in retribution. Then she died in my arms." Azora slid her palm along the visor, as if closing the eyes of her fallen mother.
"I'm sorry."
"It was a warrior's death," Azora said, shaking her head. "All Mandalorians should be so fortunate."
"Is that why you wanted to join the Great Hunt? Not for riches or glory, but for a warrior's death?"
"No."
"Then why? Why come out of hiding? Why risk the retribution of your people for a bounty hunting competition?"
"For my family." Azora shifted her gaze from her mother's helmet to Mako. "Now that I am an official participant in the Great Hunt, no one, not even Mandalore himself, can remove or disqualify me for being a Wren. Winning the Great Hunt, a deed held sacred by my people, will cleanse my clan of its perceived dishonor. With the hunt won, I can reestablish Clan Wren on Mandalore; I can reforge it; I can guarantee it will have a future for generations to come; I can ensure their deaths"—she gestured at the beskar surrounding them—"were not in vain. The Great Hunt is how I achieve vengeance for my family."
Mako's simmering anger with Azora evaporated. Braden. Jory. Her found family. She didn't want their deaths at the hands of Tarro Blood to be meaningless. Winning the Great Hunt, a goal the three of them had set out to accomplish together, would venerate them. Killing Tarro would avenge them. Though neither deed would bring her family back, doing both would right two wrongs in the galaxy, make Jory and Braden proud, and, hopefully, give Mako a measure of peace.
"I understand," Mako whispered. "All of it."
"I know," Azora said. She held her mother's helmet out to Mako.
Mako frowned and looked at the Mandalorian, confused.
"Like you, Zurna Wren was a slight but fierce woman. She would approve of you inheriting her armor and using it to avenge your family."
Mako's eyes widened. "But I'm—I'm not Mandalorian."
"Many Mandalorians are born. But so too are many Mandalorians forged: in battle, in deed, in tragedy, in friendship, in death. Clan Wren is but a clan of one. For it to grow, it must next become a clan of two. Will you, Mako, found sister to Jory, adoptive of Braden, join Clan Wren as family?"
Mako gazed at her reflection in the visor of Zurna's helmet. She saw the face of a half-starved, scared orphan on Nar Shaddaa; the face of a cocky, know-it-all teen slicer who wanted nothing more than to make the man she thought of as a father proud; the face of an angry young woman who still mourned the passing of her only family.
Is this how I avenge them? Mako, while scrappy and capable with a blaster, didn't picture herself as a warrior. She certainly wasn't a Mandalorian. But maybe . . . maybe I could forge myself into one?
Mako grasped the helmet reverently with both hands. She turned it around, staring into the shadowed interior. With one last confirmation nod from Azora, Mako donned the helmet. It fit snuggly, as if the helmet had always been meant for her. She stared past the digital heads-up display back at Azora. The bounty hunter's visor reflected Zurna's—now Mako's—beskar helmet.
Azora grasped Mako by the shoulder with one hand while her other hand cupped Mako's head from behind. She gently brought their two helmets together at the foreheads. "I, Azora, head of Clan Wren, embrace you, Mako, as sister and invite you into my family. Do you accept?"
Mako, her throat clenching with emotion, croaked, "Yes."
"Then I welcome you, Mako of Clan Wren. As a clan, we will win the Great Hunt. As a family, we will slay Tarro Blood, avenging Jory and Braden. Or we will die warriors' deaths. This is the way."
And it truly was. Mako, for the first time since Jory's and Braden's deaths, saw a clear path towards her vengeance. And it was a path she would walk with her new family. Mako placed one hand on Azora's shoulder and another on the back of her sister's head. With a resolute voice, she responded, "This is the way."