AN: So friends, I have not been in a Star Wars mood lately, have a whole back log of Star Wars content, books, audiobooks, shows, etc. to catch up on. It's looking like that will be a next year's project. Nothing is abandoned, just hasn't been the best of years of new content for me. Hence why you might find more Hobbit content from me ;D
Chapter 24 - Surrender
Jango was expecting horrors, he was not, however, expecting it to be easy.
Yes, shots were fired as the first wave of commandos descended into the warehouse.
It seemed painfully ironic that Death Watch's integration camps were all in the shipping district of Sandari, the New Mandalorian capital.
How had the Watch gotten into the dome with weapons?
The tunnels.
Where, currently, Jaster had stationed more of their verde.
Jango had had a few harrowing weeks of withdrawals, but they had been able to afford the extra medical supplies and so he was well enough to help, even against his buir's wishes.
Jango had been ordered to remain with Mij and Silas had been assigned to Jango to be his shadow, as if Silas needed any encouragement.
They had a battle plan, of course they did, but ahead of the largest room of the building, it wasn't fighting they were greeted with.
No, instead, Jango saw Jaster hold up his hands in a sign of surrender, or peace, as children flocked to him.
So many kids, who conveniently wore the same grey uniforms or scrubs.
To better wash the blood out, his mind provided unhelpfully.
There were a few familiar faces, those ade were bold enough to capture Jaster in a growing hug, while the others clambered behind him, situating themselves within the protective ranks of the True Mand'ade.
A few more kids scurried onto the transports.
His helmet was buzzing with voices, "The ade are looking for the Mereel Crest! I repeat; they're looking for the Mereel Crest!"
"Well, they've got Mereel surrounded," someone said with a fair amount of dry humour.
"The man's completely helpless," another chortled.
"By the Watch!?" someone much less amused exclaimed.
"By the ade," Mij said dryly, glaring at the Watch members who were kneeling on the floor. Yes, kneeling, because this day couldn't get any weirder, which of course it did as the more proud among them bowed their heads, and clapped a fist over their hearts as they waited to be acknowledged by Jaster.
Other members had taken their helmets off, hands clasped behind their heads as they kneeled, while some of the most armed chose to take the precautious option of laying down on their stomachs, hands clasped behind their heads.
It was the strangest sight.
Jaster made quite the image, hands up, surrendering to the ade clinging to him and behind him, while the rest of Death Watch obased themselves before him.
Typically, Mand'ade kneeled only for ade and the dying, people they had failed or because an ade needed it for one reason or another.
Death Watch was a fearsome mass of people who would truly rather die than admit one ounce of fault to their actions.
Yet here they were.
There were downed Mandalorians, all of whom wore the same colours of beskar, likely they were Integration guards.
Ursa Wren raised her voice over the chaos, "Mand'alor Tor Vizsla has been defeated in fair combat, the victor named Jaster Mereel the rightful Mand'alor in Vizsla's place. House of Wren will swear the Resol'nar to Manda'lor Mereel and the True Mandalorian Codex."
The others called, "Ori'haat."
Jaster sighed audibly, lowering his arms to place his hands on some the ade holding him lightly.
"Whose honour would be breached by removing their helmets?" Jaster asked, his Mando'a incredibly formal so that he sounded more like Fay and Obi-Wan.
A few who had not already removed their helmets, did so.
"Strip down to your kute, weapons in a pile, explosives in helmets," Jaster instructed, with a gesture for their own people to keep track of them.
The traditionalists made no move to touch their beskar, but did begin to unclip more hidden weapons.
"I don't think that is necessary," Ursa said even as others began to undress around her.
Jaster's tone was uncompromising, "You, or at the very least, the group of you gave your allegiance to a warmongering tyrant, kidnapped children from their homes, from their aliit, from other Mand'ade. You imprisoned them, and submitted them to physical and mental torture. Thank the Ka'ra that my goal is to unite Mandalore, or I would have you all executed."
Ursa's tone was less than humbled, "How generous."
Jaster inclined his head, ignoring the disrespect, "Anyone who is found guilty of directly harming an ad in gross misconduct will be executed. Anyone guilty of personally committing a war crime, including killing a baar'ur or their apprentices, will also be executed. I know that there are those among you with honour, I know that some of you have been placed in the dishonourable position of keeping your oaths to your leader and living honourably. I will hear you out as individuals, but do not mistake my mercy as weakness, because I will not hesitate to end you if you give me cause."
Everyone complied with that, which, strangely, put Jango on edge.
Jaster spoke over their coms, "This is half their numbers, the zealots among the cult escaped. Be on your guard, I would not put it past the rest to turn to bomb us all for this perceived betrayal."
Jango nodded his understanding before he went with his squad to help clear the facility.
Mij bumped Jango's side, indicating toward a corridor.
"Where are we going?" Silas asked, her voice pitching as the emergency lights snapped on.
It was horrific as they went through the halls, seeing the bare bunks with too few blankets and the open latrines.
To keep ade as prisoners in slave like conditions was… there were no words.
"The medical wing," Mij answered.
Jango jogged after him, knowing that Mij's vod was one of the Watch's medics.
The medical ward was attached to a small docking bay where Mij found his vod's ship, he went in and after Jango, Silas, Myles, and Akku boarded closed the hatch behind them.
"Aren't we going to finish–" Jango began, only for Mij to cut him off.
"No, you're on my squad and as I'm the medic, your job is to protect me and my patients. Bevwen called the other baar'ure, all seventeen answered along with their apprentices, the ade are in good hands."
Jango was surprised the Watch had that many medics, but he supposed it made sense. Jaster was the better leader but the Watch had been around for a lot longer.
The engines were starting up before they reached the medical bay of the ship. It was a midsized vessel, small enough to fit into tight places but large enough to still be someone's home while treating a few patients.
"Who's driving the ship?" Mij asked as they entered the plastroid room, every surface a washable one.
Jango couldn't see in front of Akku and Mij but he presumed by his address, it was Bevwen who spoke.
"Some monks, Ori'vod."
"You let Jetiiese pilot your craft?" Mij asked in astonishment.
"No, I let Jedha vagabonds pilot the ship. Don't worry, only one of them is blind," Bevwen responded.
Silas exchanged a look with Jango.
"Truly," a feminine voice spoke. "He's being responsible, he didn't let both of the blind Ka'ra cursed ones drive."
Mij sighed, "Manda preserve us is this is going to be the future of Mandalorians and Force users working together."
"What the hell are you talking about? Are there more of them?" Bevwen asked.
"I'll tell you later," Mij answered. "How's your ad'ika?"
They finally got fully into the room so Jango could see his friend in person for the first time.
Obi-Wan looked terrible, his skin sallow beneath all the bandages. He was asleep with an IV connected to him. But he wasn't alone in the bed. A woman wearing scrubs was sitting with Obi-Wan sprawled over her lap as she stroked his hair like a mother might.
"He let himself get the shit beaten out of him so he could fool Tor into believing that standing in front against Tarre Vizsla's true son meant nothing," Pre karking Vizsla said from where he was curled up in the cot across from Obi-Wan.
Jango didn't raise his blaster but it was a near thing. "What are you doing here?"
Pre had been young when Jango had first met him, but he had been there when Jango's family had been hunted and slaughtered along with the majority of his village.
Pre's shoulders rounded, his sorrow and exhaustion clear in his voice, "Being grateful my buir's dead."
That…
That answer tugged on Jango's sympathies, a little bit.
No child should have to wish for their buire to be dead, and for Pre to say it of 'Mand'alor' Tor was damning.
"His father beat him when he failed to break Obi-Wan's bones and organs in a spare," Bevwen defended Pre. "I'm treating his wounds and likely shock. He's on too many painkillers to do you any harm without any weapons, Alor'ika. So you best get your hands away from yours."
Jango nodded and relaxed his posture. He didn't ask permission to approach Obi-Wan though.
The blind woman reached out to touch Jango's face, which he allowed in the hope she wouldn't chase him away from holding one of Obi-Wan's hands.
They were even more calloused than his own after working in a spice rig.
"I am Master Tahl," Obi-Wan's Jetii'buir said. "And in the Force, you currently feel more like my Padawan than my apprentice currently does."
Jango swallowed, "He gave me his Ka'ra."
Her lips twitched in an almost smile, "You are not naturally powerful in the Force, but it is a connection that can be built. You may choose how much or how little you open up to it. But you will never have to watch your emotions to the degree of our crechlings. The only time you must be truly careful is when you use Obi-Wan as your conduit of power. If you invoke the Dark Side from him it will do irreparable harm to you both."
Jango paled, "How do I stop that?"
She patted his cheek before letting her hand drop, "I will teach you. We have time now."
There was sorrow in her tone as her eyes fell towards Obi-Wan.
"You're staying with us?" Jango asked.
"The Jedi Order has been dissolved," Mij supplied.
"What!?" Bevwen exclaimed just as the ship lurched into hyperspace. "When?"
"Recently," Mij supplied. "Jaster has given them all sanctuary if they choose to come and Jaster is now the leader of Jetii'corps."
"Jetii have corps outside of their knights?" Bevwen asked.
"Apparently," Mij said. "They have little fractions of family clans scattered across the mid and outer rims. Jaster is ecstatic as the four corps; explorcorps, medicorps, agricorps, and educorps would make up for differences our people have faced for centuries."
Jango had taken a seat at this point, still holding Obi-Wan's hand.
"The Jetiiese left the Republic and freely gave everything they had to Mandalore?" Bevwen asked.
"Yes," Mij said. "Almost like the Mandalorian Sith Empire we had with Revan, only the Jetiiese aren't going to try and enslave us."
"You sure about that?" Bevwen asked.
Two strangers entered the room, one a blind teen around Obi-Wan's age and the other a man with black hair and beard with enough weapons to make a Goran blush.
"The Jedi aren't going to enslave anyone," the large man said. "They might be karking difficult to kill but they have been demilitarized while the Mandalorians have been in cycles of civil war for centuries. The Jedi can heal your people if you let them."
Jango was not fully endeared by that phrasing.
"This is my Master Baze Malbus and his acolyte Chirrut Îmwe," Tahl said.
"You don't seemed surprised, Jetii, that your Order has been disbanded when Bevwen didn't know?" Akku asked.
She had been pulled from home base when Jango's squad had been remade to include a medic. Akku was not entirely overjoyed about that.
Whereas Silas was pleased because it meant she could stay with both her buir and with Jango.
Akku had been a spy in her younger years in Hutt space, but after seeing enough horrors she had worked as a security slicer and mechanic.
Really, the squad was best suited to Silas who got to follow both her passions, slicing and baar'ur training. If Jango hadn't been captured, hadn't been enslaved and addicted to spice, he would never have been placed in a medic's squad.
But Mij had been helping him through his withdrawals, additionally, Jaster's concern in deploying him was ever-increasing, so this was the compromise. Not that Jango was ashamed, being on a medic's squad was a great honour.
It just meant he wouldn't be leading from the front at Jaster's side like he had grown up hoping he would.
Jango squeezed Obi-Wan's hands, wondering what expectations he had had for his future and if they would come true or not in this rapidly changing galaxy.
Tahl answered Akku's question, "I felt it in the Force. When once they were a point far away, they are not so bright nor so far. My only solace is that they have not returned to the Force, merely gone dark."
"The Jetiiese surrendered their ade to us and their Temple Guard swore the Resol'nar," Mij explained.
Tahl and Baze seemed surprised but it was Tahl who said, "The Temple Guard would make excellent Mandalorians, especially if they weren't separated from their charges."
"No one in the Mandalore systems knows how to keep ka'ra touched foundlings safe aside from the Goran, and there simply isn't enough of them for how many foundlings there were."
"So I population has increased," Bevwen surmised.
Mij huffed a laugh, "With the Corps, the Jetii civilians, our population has doubled. And where that would be a concern almost anywhere else, they are entirely self-sufficient aside from the Knight's foundlings. But even still, we are basically inheriting the backbone of the Republic's economy and emergency structures. Any Republic system that isn't self-regulated efficiently is going to suffer for the absence of the Jetiiese."
"A number of Middle Rim and the majority of the Outer Rim Republic planets may move to succeed," Tahl said. "The Mand'alor will have to be concerned with the inevitable expansion of the Hutt Empire in the vacuum the Order leaves behind."
"You realise that doesn't help your cause, correct?" Mij said.
Tahl shrugged, "What's done cannot be easily taken back. Even if you didn't take in the Jedi, the problem of an expanding criminal empires and syndicates will remain. I don't know if you understand the extent to which the Jedi were used as a threat to keep crime at bay. Inactive, that threat kept danger at bay for many, without it?" She shrugged again.
Mij sighed, "Well, now that we are in hyperspace, it's time for everyone he needs it to rest up."
Jango stiffened, not willing to be parted from Obi-Wan yet.
Tahl patted his head, "If you take off your armour, you can take my place. I need to speak with my Master anyway."
Jango looked to Mij for permission who nodded.
Bevwen turned to Pre, "In the interest of not alienating our new Mand'alor while his heir is on board, I'm going to sedate you. It will help you rest with ill-dreams."
Pre looked almost relieved and didn't fight the medic as he was closed into the alcove that had a pod feature.
Mij signed a thank you.
By the time Jango was down to his blacks, Tahl was standing and holding up the blanket for Jango.
Obi-Wan did not wake as Jango climbed in with him.
In a perfect galaxy, Jango would have been well enough to remain awake among his enemies with someone he felt he needed to protect curled into his arms.
But sleep came for him as soon as his head fully sunk into the pillow.
When they woke, he and Obi-Wan were clinging to one another as if they were to each other the last line while sinking into the deepest of oceans.
oOo
AN: Thoughts, kangaroos, or feedback, pretty please?